Memoir (Revised)

Memoir

By Matt Carroll

 

It says take one daily, as needed.

            I stepped off the train with my briefcase in hand. It’s funny how such an item fits perfectly in my hand and conceals all my secrets, but it was a beautiful day and that’s something I wouldn’t forget. Even when I accidently bumped into a stranger holding a newspaper he apologized to me first, and we both went on our way with smiles, and that was worth recalling in this city. I continue my walk, my long coat swaying in the bitter cold morning fog, and I miss my wife. I haven’t seen her in—I couldn’t tell you how long—because she was away on business in Baltimore, or maybe it was Boston? 

            The sights and sounds of the city are worth remembering. The buses drive so closely to the sidewalk that when they pass my coat ruffles and I have to readjust it. I have to pull down one of the corners of my collar on my coat and while doing so I drop my briefcase. Luckily the latch keeps it shut. Maybe it’s my age, but I feel clumsier as the days pass. I pick up my briefcase and note all the faces of people as I go by. Some held journals they were going to read at work, a cup of coffee, and others have briefcases like mine, but no one has a case that was as sleek as my leather cover and shining handle.

            The double doors to my building are opened by a man wearing a tall hat.

            “Good morning Mr. Walsh.”

            “Good morning.” I always feel horrible when I forget names. He’s only been opening the door for me for the past ten years.

I’m privileged enough to walk right by security and to the executive elevator. I’m enclosed in glass and I look down at all the people below me. That’s worth remembering.

It’s quiet in the elevator until the doors open and the sound of chaos meets me. People say hello to me as I walk, I don’t remember all of their names, and I grab a cup of coffee heading toward my corner office. Brittany is working. She’s my secretary. Tall, brunette, fresh out of college, eyes like the ocean depths at the far end of the dock I remember as a boy, and I’m having an affair with her. Immediately I can feel my cheeks start to warm. It’s something I would like to forget.

“Good morning Mr. Walsh.” Her smile is a subtle secret. I smile back and nervously sip my coffee while gripping my briefcase until my knuckles went white. I’m thinking about her in a manner I don’t want my wife to know. She smiles and sits behind the fortification of piles of papers on her desk. She understood my dilemma at times, and other times I felt like she forgot about my feelings.

The office begins to settle down because everyone sees me, the boss, and that makes me wonder if they would get anything done if I took a few days off. No matter how sick I was, or how much I needed a personal day, I always came into the office. Always.

“Dinner at my place?” I’m the only person that can hear her voice. I begin to feel warm and dizzy. I clutch my briefcase harder as if it had all the answers to my problems.

“Okay, I’ll meet you after work.” I try to swallow, but my mouth is full of cotton. I step to the side and hit my knee against her desk sending my briefcase to the floor where the impact opened the latch, and all my paperwork spilled over the office floor.

Brittany came from behind her desk. I tried shoveling all the papers into my case, but a few were scattered too far away from where I knelt. Brittany handed me a large yellow envelope and to my dismay she reached for an orange prescription bottle that read: Lethologica: take one daily, as needed.

“What’s this?” She put me on the spot. I felt the sweat beads forming on the corner of my forehead.

“It’s, um, it’s a prescription. It’s for—stress.” I took the bottle of pills and threw it inside with the paperwork. I wiped the sweat from my forehead. I had to take deep breaths. Usually I don’t care what others think of me. I was the richest man in the building and their jobs depended on my opinion of their work. I usually wasn’t embarrassed by anything once I stepped inside here.

I reached my office and felt better as soon as I was alone and the door closed behind me. I sat down and pulled a pitcher of water from the corner of my desk, pouring myself a glass, and tried to fight off the dryness with one gulp of water after another. It smelled horrible inside my office. I set my briefcase on my desk, papers stacked high and without method, and two things disturbed me. I was normally neat and tidy. That’s why I made it all the way to the top because of my attention to detail. My desk was never this messy. The second thing that bothered me was the old sandwich I forgot on my desk. I opened the lid of my garbage can and threw it away. The abyss of papers need organized and I forgot what they were for as I scanned through them.

I kept organizing my desk. I tried to occupy my mind until lunch.

Brittany and I went to a secluded spot in the park across the street. No one usually left the building for lunch and I was sure no one would find us where we fed the crust of our sandwiches to the pigeons. I felt a rush, like I was in high school playing hooky, and I felt guilty. The feeling Brittany gave me was invigorating, but I felt like I was missing something and my hands were clammy.

“You know, I’m not some stupid secretary. I’m smarter than most of the men you hire in the office.” Why was a girl ten years younger than me interested in me? I had a full head of hair with some graying, I was handsome and rich, but she was young and gorgeous with the type of beauty that made heads turn on the train. “Are you going to stay the night?” She asked me.

“I can’t, just in case my wife comes home.” Brittany frowned and tossed another piece of the crust. We watched the pigeons eat it.

“You know she’s not coming back.” I could hear the anger seep through her tone.

“So, are we having dinner at your place?” I asked trying to change the subject from my wife. My mouth was dry again and my palms sweaty.

“I already told you. My place tonight.”

She was young and she couldn’t comprehend what we were doing, but I liked having her around. She filled a void my wife no longer could. It wasn’t the fact that she was beautiful, she had curves in all the right places and a smile that made my heart skip a beat, but instead it was the fact that she liked poetry and turned her paperwork in on time—for a businessman that was something I appreciated.

Work ended and we took separate taxis so people wouldn’t suspect anything.

I had trouble finding the apartment, but I was a creature of habit and I eventually found it. Once inside we shared a bottle of white wine. I felt free at the beginning of the night. We smiled and she made me laugh. I watched as she sat on the other end of the couch with the wine glass in her hand and hair dancing on her shoulders. She came closer to me. I felt the pit of my stomach open and my heart scream at my consciousness when I thought about my wife, but I really wanted to forget her tonight and I kissed Brittany. One thing lead to another until we were tangled next to each other in the early hours of the morning.

We had work tomorrow. My eyes squinted and I strained to keep them open. My wife could come home at any moment.

“Brittany, I have to go.” I whispered into her ear. She rolled over to face me. Her shoulder is gentle and tender, and that’s something worth remembering as the city lights dimly fell across her body.

“I wish, for one night, you would stay.” She said with a groggy whisper. She smiled at me. She was too smart to be a secretary and I looked at her Ivy League degree hanging on her wall.

“I know, but my wife.” I kissed her forehead and left her apartment for the street corner to call a taxi.

On the drive home there were plenty of nice things to remember. I watched as the headlights of the taxi tore through the fog that wrapped itself around the tall pines like a vine around an ancient fountain in Rome. The moon seemed dull tonight as it shined through the cracks in the canvas of branches.

Her car wasn’t in the driveway. The lights were off in the entire house.

I opened the door to the taxi, grabbed my briefcase, paid the cabby, and watched the car drive away until the taillights disappeared in the mist. I was disturbed at how long the grass was to my usually manicured lawn. The grass was long and curling like long locks of hair. For the second time today, and without good reason, I dropped my briefcase and sent the contents over my untended grass.

A cold sweat came over me. My mouth dry. I felt my heart beat grow faster and faster as I clawed at my paperwork. I reached for a large yellow envelope and the papers fell out. My eyes scanned the letters faster and faster, my heart fluttering faster and faster, I was sweating in this damn cold! They were divorce papers over two months old. My breath was short and rapid. The statement claimed there was “No-Fault.”

I saw the pills sitting on the lawn. The divorce papers triggered a million thoughts. The sandwich I forgot to eat. Forgetfulness and loss of appetite were two of the side effects created by the pills. Brittany constantly prying when I was going to sign the papers. The clumsiness. She wasn’t in Baltimore, or Boston, I didn’t know where she was. I only knew where her lawyer’s office was.

Lethologica: a pill meant for targeting and eliminating bad memories you hope to forget. Take one daily, as needed.

I woke up the next morning in my own bed.

I wondered when my wife would arrive home from Baltimore, or Boston. I can’t remember because she was away on business. I took the train to work clasping my leather briefcase in hand as I smiled at the people reading newspapers and drinking their coffee. The wind created by the buses swept by. I noted all the things worth remembering. I had to find a way to keep the affair I’ve been having for the past three weeks a secret before my wife came home.