Chapter Nine
After work, Danny drove home and changed his clothes. His first order of business was to shovel last night’s snow off his driveway and walk. A feint sliver of light remained in the southwestern sky, the wind had calmed, and the temperature had settled back down to zero from the day’s high of nine, registered several hours ago. It was particularly quiet, a phenomenon that tends to accompany the aftermath of a snowfall.
Snow crunched under Danny’s feet as he stepped out of the garage. He began shoveling in front of the overhead door where the powder had drifted into a foot-thick knoll. Shhook, shhook.
In a matter of moments the moisture in his nostrils froze and the air tickled him as he breathed in. He was laboring hard, having to throw the snow a distance of about seven or eight feet in order to get it completely off the drive. Then the work got easier as he cleared his way across the asphalt toward the yard. There were small piles from the earlier snowfall, now freshly whitened, outlining his work area.
Thus far, winter has been fickle — freezing and thawing with uncharacteristically frequent changes in wind direction and the flow of arctic air. In normal years the deep freeze would have settled in around the first of December, and by now it would be time to expect the annual rise in temperature Michiganders refer to as the “January thaw.”
When he was a kid, Danny and his buddies anticipated the thaw because it would allow the ice on the local pond to partially melt. By this time in January, they would have shoveled snow off their hockey rink several times, and still there would not be any smooth ice, just ruts and bumps and powdery areas where the puck would hang up, and where you couldn’t make a good pass or take a decent shot on goal. But after the thaw, when the ice re-froze, it would be smooth again, almost as if it had been resurfaced with a Zamboni.
They were quite a team back then, Danny and his school chums — good skaters and puck handlers. These qualities made them almost unbeatable. Although there was no organized league, they arranged to play against kids from rival schools, weather and ice conditions permitting. Usually the games were wild and unruly with lots of stick usage, generally played on Danny’s home pond because he and his friends had built regulation-size goals, nets and all. To contain the puck they set up some 2x4’s along both ends of the rink. This, they discovered, was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing to them because they were accustomed to the boards being there, but to visiting teams, well, aside from stopping an errant puck, if the kids were not paying attention, the boards could trip them up and drive them face-first into the snow-covered ice just outside the makeshift rink. But everywhere else Danny and his friends played, conditions were worse: shovels and snow boots marking the goals; nothing to stop the puck once you shot it by the goalie; even worse ice conditions; and lots of kids out just skating around, getting in your way. Danny’s rink was strictly for hockey; they did not put up with kids who wanted to learn to skate but who invariably only succeeded in hacking up the ice.
Danny was piling snow thigh-high now in some areas. It reminded him of when his son Daniel was about six years old and he wanted to help shovel. He tried lifting the snow up high enough to dump onto one of the piles, but it all just fell back onto the driveway before he could properly empty his shovel. He was not to be deterred, however, laboring in similar fashion for almost half an hour before he lost interest. Then he went inside to tell Julie how he had helped his daddy get the work done. “I shoveled too, mama. Just like daddy.”
Clarrie never took an interest in shoveling snow. Perhaps she saw such labor as “men’s work.” Just as likely, her mind was on other things in winter, like sledding and, eventually, skiing. They were different as night and day, Danny’s two children. But both have seemingly turned out just fine. Julie was right. As parents, they must have done something right to produce such splendid offspring.
He could at least be proud of how they turned out, and that his marriage stayed together long enough to get them through the child-rearing years — through all those phases that kids experience: the tiffs and scrapes and disappointments, through pimples and proms and driver-training, through summer camp and piano lessons and all those winters — and to deliver them safely and securely onto the threshold of their adult lives. Danny considered patting himself on the back, but he was bundled too heavily, and besides, he wasn’t as flexible as he used to be. But he relished the sense of being pleased with himself, nonetheless. At least where his kids were concerned, he had managed to do one or two things right over the past twenty-two years. Not every man could boast of that.
His work was nearly done. As he stopped to admire it, the wind suddenly sprung up, whipping some fine snowflakes around in eddy-like choreography. Seeing this, Danny wondered why things seemed to be working out so well for his kids and now apparently for Julie too, while his life seemed muddled, like a journey without a destination. He was going round and round in circles, in the same meaningless fashion, getting nowhere. Lately, he had to derive satisfaction out of menial accomplishments, like cleaning his driveway and walk, but in the overall scheme of life, how much did those things actually matter?
What he really needed to do was to get those engineers hired for the opportunity at Chrysler. Then, maybe Vic would ease up a little. Earlier, he spoke with Randy Stone, trying to communicate the gravity of the situation without confessing that Vic had blown up this one job order larger than life into some kind of monumental career milestone that could ultimately mean either the furtherance or the end of Danny’s job as manager of recruiting. Fortunately, Randy got the message, saying he’d bust his butt and come up with something.
Wanting to further mitigate risk, Danny also sent an urgent voice mail to his other recruiters asking them to make this order for Chrysler their first priority as well. “We absolutely must get two prospects lined up and hired by the end of next week. I want everybody working on this...”
Inside the house finally, Danny hung up his coat and removed his boots. He thought about preparing something special to eat but, as usual, he decided instead to microwave a frozen dinner. If it were not just him, he might find cooking worthwhile and rewarding, but it hardly ever seemed worth the effort to fix something for himself, alone. Besides, there was always the cleanup afterward — too much of a hassle.
He wondered if Julie still cooked now that she was living by herself. Surely, she didn’t prepare a meal every night like she used to when they were a family. Or did she? Admittedly, he missed her dinners.
She was not always a great cook. In fact, the first time she made a meal for Danny, everything went wrong. They’d been dating for about a month or so when she invited him to her parents’ house for dinner. She had promised him some Mexican food like she remembered from back in California. Unfortunately, the avocados were out-of-season so the guacamole tasted like soap, and she had the stove too hot for the frijoles refritos, so they burned. The taco shells were stale and rubbery and, by the time she got everything to the table, the meat was cold. Danny was gracious however. He really didn’t care about the food; his mind was on her. He could have sat there just staring into her eyes the whole evening and skipped the meal altogether, but, with her parents hanging around, he had to act like a proper well-mannered young man, one who didn’t ogle too much when the girl of the house bounced by in her apron carrying a tray of tacos looking like she belonged on the cover of Better Homes and Gardens or featured in a teenage cooking article in Seventeen.
Those were the days, he realized — no worries. She was finishing up her last year of high school in Rochester; Danny was a freshman at Oakland U., commuting to school from his parents’ home in Warren. They met one day at the local District Court. Danny was in attendance to settle a traffic violation; Julie, to observe the proceedings as a requirement for her government class. When his case was called, Danny got lucky. The arresting officer failed to make an appearance, so the judge dismissed the ticket. Immediately afterward, His Honor called a recess for lunch. As Danny was leaving he worked up the nerve to ask this young beauty if she knew a good place downtown where one could grab a sandwich. Seizing her fate out of the spring air, Julie suggested they walk together to the local diner.
Danny smiled to himself as he remembered those early days of their relationship. She had been giddy with love for him, the older and wiser college frosh. He had worshiped the ground she walked on, though all-the-time struggling to keep his composure, not wanting her to know the true depth of his feelings for her. All she had to do was smile at him, and the sparkle in her eyes tore him apart from the inside out. He knew he could not live his life without her. It seemed so ironic at the time because marriage had been the furthest thing from his mind before they met. And then suddenly, as if a spell had been cast over him, he began to think about how he might pop “the question.” Would he do it in the car, over dinner one night, with or without a ring, down on one knee, in the heat of a passionate moment? They had many such moments, lots of kissing and touching with one another, whenever and wherever possible. There had been more than enough passion then, he realized. Where did it all go? Had it all drained out on the road of life? Or perhaps, after they poured all their love into their offspring, their own feelings just shriveled up like blossoms left too long on the vine.
Then it dawned on him that Julie must still have some spark of excitement left within her. Her letter said as much.
And though at present, he could only imagine how she might look (the Julie of today had undoubtedly lost some of her youthful beauty), he nonetheless longed for her. With merely twelve days until his departure for the coast, he felt as though he would not last the week. And now, again at his weakest, he decided to write her back, determined this time to choose his words more carefully.
By the end of the workday, Julie was feeling her age. Not so long ago, learning new skills would have been no big deal for her. And so it had seemed earlier today. Working with Allison Kraft, getting oriented to the job in marketing, drawing from that inner strength which has always been there for her, she felt no lack; she had seemingly lost nothing over the years. Until five o’clock came anyway, when suddenly she was near the point of collapse.
By the time she got home, her energy was completely spent. It was as though she had been out all day on her dad’s boat on rough seas under a blazing sun, fighting the wind and waves.
She needed a nap. But instead, she made a pot of coffee.
There was her paper to finish for sociology, a thirty-page chapter to read for business ethics, and she was hungry. She decided to take a cool shower, straightaway. That would revive her.
A second after shutting off the shower water, she heard the phone. Dripping wet, she hurtled the tub wall, grabbed her towel, and hurried to her bedroom hoping she wasn’t too late.
“Hello?”
“Julie, it’s Trace. How ya doin?”
“Okay. Just a little wet and cold. You caught me getting out of the shower.”
“Whoops, sorry. I’ll make it short then. How about meeting me at Denny’s tomorrow before class? We can have salads together.”
Julie thought for a moment. “Sure, I can do that. Maybe around quarter to six?”
“Perfect. I’ll look forward to it. Better let you go and get dried off. We can talk tomorrow. See you then.”
“Bye, Trace. Thanks for the invitation.”
“No problem. What are friends for?”
That was good of her, Julie thought. And she immediately wished she had more friends like Tracy.
Trace had her shortcomings, of course, but keeping in touch was not one of them. She worked hard at their friendship, and Julie felt a little bit guilty for not always reciprocating. It drives home the point, Julie thought, that in order to have and keep friends, you really have to be one yourself! And at that instant she resolved to do more in this area of her life, to stop being so self-centered, to cultivate more friendships like the one she had with Tracy, and to hold up her part of the deal as never before. After all, there were only a few people she could really call her friends, most of whom were back in Michigan and no longer a part of her life.
Then there was Danny. She had only yesterday committed to herself that she would be his friend, suggesting as much in her e-mail to him. And he, with his letter, seemed to indicate that he was also ready for such a relationship. It occurred to her that the best way to get started on her new resolution might be with someone she already knew, though it remained to be seen if an ex-husband living over two thousand miles away could be classified as a friend. Well, time will tell, she thought.
After dinner and two cups of coffee, she spent about an hour putting the finishing touches on her paper for sociology class. She was pleased with the way it turned out but depressed for the second time over her realization that quality of life in modern societies gets measured primarily in material terms. It further disturbed her that, in the rush toward technological utopia, we have managed to loosen the bonds between parents, partners, and siblings to the degree that families have been practically rendered useless, their value diffused almost to the vanishing point. She, herself, was a perfect example of this grim reality.
Yet, upon further deliberation, she remained resolutely content with the person she had become, and especially with her present life. Things could be worse, she reasoned.
In fact, they have been worse. And in spite of her twinge of concern for all other Americans, no one individual could begin to reverse the headlong charge of modern society, the steady march toward dehumanization that has been occurring for over a hundred years. Loving and caring parents have barely managed to slow this inevitable deterioration of relationships and values, in spite of their earnest efforts and the good examples they set. Truth is, most people seem to choose success and money over happy family units regardless of what they say they want out of life. Such choices are plainly evident all across this vast nation, as is the conspicuous absence of family cohesion. Where in America, for example, can a person go today to find even one archetypal, pre-modern family? Maybe within the Amish communities or those of other similar religious sects. But then, who wants that kind of confining, ascetic life? It comes with too much baggage. We have enough weighing us down already, namely the good and bad remnants of history along with everything the former generations have stood for and fought to either preserve or change. We have beliefs, principles, and patterns of living, passed on to us by our forebears — though they were mostly unaware of what was being wrought by their lives as they crept along in the manner of all humankind, not really seeing the big picture. And so it is today as we cross the threshold of the twenty-first century, AD. We have little more than a single indeterminate clue as to how or why, with each tick of the clock, society is slowly crumbling in our wake.
But, then again, Julie wondered how any one person could actually be blamed for the sad state Americans presently occupy? Is there anyone actually at fault or are we all victims, suspended at the mercy of some grander scheme, for a measure of time far greater than anyone can fathom, the purpose of which is to teach us all that none of us is as wise or powerful as we think ourselves to be. And, if that is the case, it becomes obvious why everyone is living for today, getting all they can for themselves and trying to find the meaning of life by searching introspectively, guided predominantly by their own selfish desires.
It was there that she left her existential musings, however, turning her attention to the assigned reading for Business Ethics, only to meet up with another perplexing topic: Sexual harassment in the workplace.
She read the entire chapter then closed the book and thought a moment, staring blindly out her picture window into the cloud-ridden night sky. It bothered her that, as she read the assignment, she couldn’t stop thinking in reference to her own workplace, and specifically to Mike Tattersall. She tried rationalizing these troubling thoughts away by imagining that she was simply attempting to relate to the topic by using familiar signposts, overlaying the new material onto the map of her experience. But she feared that there was another, more accurate reason. Her intuition was telling her something she had already sensed several times before — that Mike was a potential harasser, and she, his likely victim.
She remembered her conversation with Allison Kraft from earlier. Allison related how Mike flirted with her frequently though he had never really stepped over the line, at least in Allison’s opinion. She claimed he was harmless — just a guy who believes he is God’s gift to women — and perhaps he was. It had never really crossed Julie’s mind to be concerned until recently. Sure, Mike has always been generous with his comments about how she and the other women at SunBurst look, how they dress and the like. And occasionally, there would be some innuendo in his remarks, although he always used it tastefully — and humorously. But Julie had never felt threatened by him — until last week, that is. She told Allison as much too, naturally leaving off the details about her “date” with Mike and how he kissed her on the cheek in the restaurant parking lot. Then Allison offered her own commentary, basically suggesting that Julie was paranoid, that she was just being overly sensitive because Mike gave her the new job and all, and that such feelings were most likely a result of Julie’s own imagination.
“He never laid a hand on me,” she stated flatly.
“But you’re married,” Julie protested.
“Guys who harass women don’t care if you’re married or not,” Allison said. “Besides, Mike has worked with me nearly every day for over three years. If he were the kind of person you’re describing, he would have tried something by now, don’t you think?”
She may be right, Julie thought. Allison, after all, was both younger and prettier, and she possessed a more alluring and provocative wardrobe.
But, Allison’s opinions aside, what really bothered Julie was that she could not read Mike’s thoughts. And she was torn. One part of her actually desired to be pursued by Mike Tattersall, especially if she didn’t work for him — which of course was not the case. But, hypothetically speaking, she might not mind being his mistress. He could lavish her with things. She would be a “kept” woman, something she had always aspired to, where a man would put her on a pedestal and take care of her completely, especially a man as attractive as Mike, and with a similar net worth. If she could only see the future and know that he would not be merely using her — treating her like a princess only until his conquest was finally made, then dumping her out of the window of his BMW like fifty kilos of forty-year-old garbage onto the diamond lane of the freeway to hell, and leaving her to crawl the rest of the way to woe-begotten damnation in the hot California sun.
Then again, maybe he was her long-awaited reward for giving up her youth so early and becoming the best wife and mother she could be. She had, after all, raised two kids almost single-handedly while at the beck and call of a rather insensitive, self-absorbed husband for twenty long years. If that didn’t qualify her for some kind of reward, what did? So, perhaps Mike had been reserved just for her and, now that she was finally ready, their lives could be knit together as one — happy and sweet!
Better judgment suggested however that, with such smarmy meditation, she was confusing infatuation with love, and fantasy with good sense, but it couldn’t be helped. With each day that passed, she was getting older, and besides, keeping herself up was so damn much hard work. Plus, she couldn’t bear the thought that she was doing it all in vain, that it was all for herself alone, and nobody else cared. She might never in this lifetime realize her dream of achieving true happiness and satisfaction in love, not to mention in sexual ways. Nonetheless, she was certain that, eventually, she would discover Mike’s true motives and thereby determine whether she should risk her heart even in the smallest sort of way. For, if he turned out to be the one, she hoped she would not be too dense to recognize him as such. And though she wouldn’t exactly throw herself at him, she did not want to play games like hard-to-get either. At some point, when conditions were ripe, she might even be prepared to jettison her rule. But she was jumping way ahead of herself, and she knew it.
It was getting late, nine-thirty on her VCR clock. But with coffee still coursing through her system, she couldn’t imagine going to bed anytime soon. She decided to check her e-mail on the off chance that there might be a letter there from Clarrie, or perhaps Danny, though the latter struck her as unlikely. She had only written him last evening.
She propped the notebook on her lap and went through the log-on procedure. To her amazement, there in her in-box was an entry followed by Danny’s, now familiar, Internet address. It was captioned: “Notes from Siberia.” She opened it and read:
Dear Julie,
I was very happy to get your letter and pleased to know that you are willing to put the past behind us. You always were quick to forgive and forget, never stubborn like me. So, thanks for being you; I know this time it must have been especially difficult.
Sounds like things are going great for you out there. I only wonder how you find time for everything. But I’m sure the climate helps — there’s energy in the sunshine. I, on the other hand, am stuck here in Siberia and in need of a vacation. There’s precious little sunshine here this time of year, as I’m sure you remember. In fact, I just finished shoveling last night’s snow off the drive. We got another half a foot of powder, good for skiing. Clarrie will be happy at least.
Speaking of Clarrie, when I last talked to her she said I should invite you to go with me to the Caribbean for a holiday of sun and fun. She said your boss is working you too hard and not paying you enough so you just might consider the offer. Maybe she thinks there’s a future for the two of us, one that begins on an island paradise. Imagine that, just you and me, alone. Sort of like old times, huh? — before the kids, when we were nuts about each other. Remember that? I guess Clarrie’s always been a romantic. I wonder which of us she got that from. Anyway, I told her that there was probably no way you’d go anywhere with me, let alone to a remote island for a week. I, on the other hand, have given some thought to the possibility. Who knows? If this friendship thing works out between us, the sky’s the limit, I suppose.
Speaking of friendship, I don’t have a problem with that sort of relationship except that I don’t know how we can truly be friends if we don’t see each other from time to time. Perhaps if you lived close by I could just drop in on you like friends sometimes do. Then we could have a drink together, just the two of us. Or go for a walk. We could get a conversation going, get caught up on everything, laugh a little and then promise to do it again someday. I know this sounds kind of ridiculous, especially coming from me, but I do miss you, Julie. All those years when I was taking you for granted, I didn’t realize that you had become my best friend. You were the one person I could rely on and be myself with. Now it seems like I have to pretend to be something different with every person I’m around — something I’m not and really don’t wish to be, like a kid who’s main interest is playing hockey, or a business manager climbing the corporate ladder, or a guy who wants to start all over again and make a relationship work with someone who maybe wants another child, or wants one for the first time, or who already has one, and that kid likes things just the way they are — yeeow!
With you I could just be myself. And you might be surprised to see what that is these days — at least I hope you would. Well, that’s what I’d do if you lived a little closer. And that’s how I’d like to see our friendship go. Oh, one other thing: I’d probably be able to warn you about all those other guys out there, what they might be up to and all. Not that I’d want to run your life or anything, but I wouldn’t want to see you taken advantage of either. You had enough of that with me, or the me I used to be for twenty years, that is.
Well, it’s getting late so I’m going to close and say good-bye for now. Best wishes to my old and new best friend. Sweet dreams...
Love, Danny