The digital alarm clock beside the bed sounds at 5:00am but Paula Quindlen, lying flat on her back in the darkness, is already awake. She woke up maybe half-an-hour earlier and has been resting her eyes since, leaving the alarm on just in case she fell asleep again. Even so, she hits the snooze button, buying herself another ten minutes to stay in bed. Her problem is not that she’s tired. It’s that she wants to postpone facing the world just a little longer.
Come on, Paula, it’s a Saturday morning, she tells herself. You love Saturday mornings. Remember how, when you were a kid, on a Saturday morning the weekend seemed as if it would last forever?
A nice memory, but there’s a problem with that bit of encouragement: Paula is not a kid anymore. She’s thirty-eight years old. She lives alone. She’s lived alone for quite some time, and she fears this may become a permanent condition of her existence. So what, then, if the weekend looks as if it will last forever from the vantage point of a Saturday morning? What good does it do Paula to have an open weekend, if she has no one with whom to enjoy the time off?
Okay, now you’re just wallowing in self-pity. Face it: the guy’s not available to you. It’s disappointing, yes, but someone else will come along eventually. Don’t give up hope based on this one setback.
Here again, there’s a problem with optimistic thinking: it hasn’t been just one setback. It’s been several setbacks in recent years, and each new defeat seems to hurt more than the last. Paula wonders: is it the defeat itself, or the accumulation of defeats, that’s killing her spirit?
You need to get up. The longer you lie here, the more you’re going to torment yourself.
That much is true. Paula knows she is not doing herself any good by staying under the covers, bellyaching. She needs to stick with her plan for the morning.
-o-
Last night was a bad night for Paula Quindlen, but to understand why it was a bad night, one has to travel nearly eight months back in time. For it was in January of this year that she met him, after which the whole sorry affair was launched.
Paula has worked at the same company for five years now. She doesn’t like the job all that much, but it gave her an opportunity to leave her small hometown and move here—“to the big city”—as she long dreamed of doing but, for so many years, could never quite bring herself to do. She wanted to introduce an element of change into her life, and she thought a good first step would be to make a clean break with the past—the past that surrounded her and would continue to surround her so long as she stayed rooted in the little municipality of her birth. So she did some looking, found a job here in the city with requirements that reasonably matched her credentials and abilities, submitted a resume, and, to her delight, been asked for an interview. Presto! A few weeks later she packed her bags and left to start her new job. Her parents and siblings were sad to see her go, and indeed Paula had experienced second thoughts as she was driving up here in her U-Haul. But she believed she’d made the right decision. She wanted to do things, see things, and, yes, meet someone, though she kept that last part of her calculus a secret. She’d had no luck back home, where the pickings were slim anyway due to a low population. Here she’d expected to have a much bigger crop of guys from which to choose—and has since turned out to be right. Unfortunately, even with this larger group, she has not been having much luck.
Brad Halliwell, she thought at one time, was going to change that for her.
He was hired at the beginning of the year and sent to work in Logistical Support, Paula’s department. The head of the department had introduced their newest co-worker, and, while doing so, had stated his hope that the other employees would help Brad feel at home. After all, he said, this company was one big happy family, right? (Yeah, sure…)
Still, if there was a single member within the sound of the department head’s voice who took his words to heart, it was Paula.
Oh, yes, sir, she’d thought, taking a nice long look at this guy Brad Halliwell, I, for one, will be more than happy to make him feel right at home. You can count on me. You bet.
On first sight, she guessed Brad’s age at thirty-three. She later found out he was thirty-one. Regardless, he was tall and well-built, with sandy blond hair and the greenest eyes Paula had ever seen. Anytime Paula met a man she found attractive she looked for a wedding ring. Brad did not have one. She was heartened by its absence. She also liked the idea that he was new not only to the company, but to the city. Unless there was a girl back home, chances were good he was unattached.
He would be lonely, Paula imagined.
But she could fix that.
She was not without her doubts, of course. For one thing, his looks didn’t tell her anything about his personality; though he seemed friendly and respectful, she knew there was a possibility he might turn out to be not so nice in the long run, perhaps obnoxious or back-stabbing or flawed in some other, less obvious way. Also, the age difference between the two of them, while not enormous, was still significant. He was close to thirty while she was close, damn it, to forty. And finally, well, in Paula’s eyes her appearance left something to be desired. She did not see herself as unattractive, just plain—forgettable, even—with her mouse-brown hair, naturally stout build, and jawline that, in her opinion, was just a bit too masculine for a woman.
Plus, even if she did succeed in establishing a relationship with Brad, the company might not look kindly on this sort of fraternization among employees. Her job, not to mention his, could be placed in jeopardy.
And yet Paula felt she owed it to herself to try. But she had to try without looking as if she were trying. There were a few individuals in the department, she imagined, who would gossip about how much of a fuss that Paula Quindlen was making over the new guy; quite striking to behold, they would say, when the same Paula had shown only token interest in the welfare of new female co-workers, several of whom were still in the department and would likely be glad to contrast her treatment of them with Brad’s.
Given these concerns, she resolved to tread carefully—though, when all was said and done, it didn’t make a difference.
-o-
Back here in the present, with a muggy July morning beckoning outside, Paula pulls on a pair of black sweatpants and a plain gray T-shirt. She goes to her drawer and is dismayed to find only one pair of white socks left. She will have to wash some more, since she was planning to wear white socks to the grocery store this afternoon as well. She doesn’t want to wear these after getting them all sweaty and nasty.
Do laundry. Go to the grocery store. What else do I have to do today? Anything? Anything at all?
But Paula can think of nary a thing. She ponders, for a moment, the idea of cooking something special: a dish from one of the many cookbooks she keeps on a shelf in her pantry—cookbooks bursting with all the delicious meals she is going to cook for her someday-husband and someday-children, whenever they finally appear in her life. She has actually gone through and picked out a number of such meals already.
All she needs now is a family to feed.
-o-
The first conversation went so well. It was in the small kitchen area of their floor. Paula had been making coffee when Brad came in behind her to buy a Snickers bar from the vending machine. They greeted one another, reintroduced themselves, and then Paula, eager to prolong the conversation between them, asked, “What brought you out here, Brad?”
Translation: “Tell me what you dream about.”
He replied, “I wanted a change of scenery, I guess. And I thought there would be more opportunities here.”
“Yeah,” said Paula, “that’s sort of how I was too.”
Translation: “We’re so much alike, aren’t we?”
“So you’re not from here?” There was no way the young man could have known how much his question pleased Paula, for it indicated he could detect no trace of her small town upbringing; that he might see her as the street-smart, big city sophisticate she had worked so hard to become since her arrival years ago.
“No,” and she told him where she was from, originally.
“I don’t think I’ve heard of there.”
“Not many people have.”
“How many stoplights did you guys have?”
She laughed. “Five.”
“Five? That’s awesome. That’s four more than we had in my town. Wait, I take that back. We’ve got two stoplights now, from what I’ve been told. The place is really growing.”
Paula listened intently, though to the tone of his voice rather than to his words; likewise, she noted his body language. He was at ease with her, she believed. They were of similar backgrounds and that gave him an automatic level of comfort with her.
Their chat did not go much longer than this pleasant exchange, but Paula didn’t mind. It was a good beginning. That was all she could have asked for: a beginning.
-o-
Paula is now in her kitchen. She opens the refrigerator door, extracts a half full bottle of water. She unscrews the cap, takes a few sips. She doesn’t think she’s adequately hydrated. She normally drinks a lot of water the night before a jog, but only little just before one. She did not drink much at all last night—not water, anyway.
As Paula sips, she thinks of the closet in her bedroom.
She really needs to clean it out; there are too many things in it and not enough space for all of them, even though the closet is large. The trouble is that it is not sufficiently large to accommodate both the articles belonging to Paula and those belonging to Boyfriends of Ages Past.
Three men qualify for membership in the Boyfriends of Ages Past. She does not like to speak their names and instead refers to them as Boyfriend One, Boyfriend Two, and Boyfriend Three. She met them all, and lost them all, in the years since she moved out here in search of the happiness that continues to elude her. Strangely—even to her—she has retained items that remind of her each.
Boyfriend One was a graphic designer during the week and a paintball commando on the weekend. In her closet, sitting in its own special carrying case, is a Scarab Arms TGR2 paintball gun with two full magazines.
Boyfriend Two was a loan officer at a local bank who had played baseball all the way through college. Next to the paintball gun, propped in the corner, is a Louisville Slugger M9 Maple Wood baseball bat.
Boyfriend Three, outwardly a rather staid personality who worked as a statistician for the local branch office of a government agency, left behind the most scandalous object of all. Not long into their relationship, after he and Paula became intimate, he began dropping such phrases as “pushing boundaries” and “breaking rules” and “seeking out new horizons.” What he really meant was experimenting with sadomasochism, an idea that Paula found repulsive and even a bit scary at first, but after reading some literature he gave to her on the subject—to “demystify it,” he claimed, and “clear up some frankly ridiculous misconceptions”—she decided to give a little roleplaying the old college try. And that was all she gave it: a try. She felt uneasy and ridiculous, and more than a little miffed that he insisted on being the dominant figure under all circumstances, with no role switching allowed. There was nothing Paula had enjoyed about the experience, and yet, so far anyway, even with the relationship long ended, she has been unable to dispose of the cat o’nine tails lying coiled under several shoeboxes. According to Boyfriend Three, it was a lighter model intended for amateurs.
Three men, three relationships, all vanished now; three men who spent a few months with Paula and then decided to move on. So far as Paula can recall, none of them used the phrase “It’s not you, it’s me” when he informed her he was calling it quits. But they all employed variations of the same, some of which were even worse, like “I need to find myself,” courtesy of Boyfriend Two; in fact, according to a mutual friend, he had found himself with a new woman several weeks before ditching Paula. Three men, three relationships, and here was Paula, alone now for the last couple of years, unmarried, childless, and facing middle age.
How has this happened? It would be one thing if she had chosen not to marry, decided that she did not want to have children. Plenty of women and men select these options and go on to live happy, fulfilled lives. But Paula feels as if they have been chosen for her.
Some days, especially lately, she becomes very sad.
Some days she does not leave her bed except to eat, or for showers and constitutionals, or maybe to go outside and check the mailbox, to taste a bit of sunlight on her flesh, before hustling back indoors; generally these days fall on weekends, because of work.
Today, she is starting to think, may be such a day.
No! Don’t let it be that. Don’t.
Paula must run. She must get her blood flowing. She must imagine herself as a shark: if she does not move, she dies.
-o-
In the days leading up to last night, both at work and at home, Paula had wracked her brain for the perfect pickup line. Boyfriend One, Boyfriend Two, and Boyfriend Three had all approached her first; in fact, the several guys she had dated before moving to the city had approached her as well. She could afford to be much pickier when she was in high school, college, and shortly thereafter, and had actually been the one to end those early relationships. Now she found herself wishing she could have a couple of do-overs. Maybe some of those guys wouldn’t have been so bad after all…
But, no, that was that the past and this was the present. She felt good about this Brad fellow. She found him interesting and suspected that he found her interesting as well; why else would he talk to her so often and so warmly, as he had ever since their first conversation in the break room? Yes, there was a bit of an age difference, but this was the twenty-first century, wasn’t it? Age didn’t matter.
Her work productivity suffered a bit, thanks to her constant brainstorming over how to approach her handsome co-worker, but no one noticed, or at least no one said anything.
What would be a good line?
Maybe: So, Brad, I was wondering: would you like to meet up sometime for a cup of coffee? You know, just to hang out…? Oh, you would? Great!
Or maybe: So, Brad, do you want maybe go to lunch sometime? Oh, you do? Great!
Or what about: Hey, Brad, let’s get laid!
Probably the last one was a little too forward.
-o-
It’s 5:23am, according to Paula’s watch. She descends the front steps of her small bungalow, which is virtually indistinguishable from the other houses in the neighborhood, and walks several paces into a world that is dark, cool, and welcoming. When she first came to the city, Paula wanted an apartment right in the middle of it. She maintained such an apartment for a year but quickly tired of the noise and decided to move out here to the suburbs instead. It is the one of the few decisions she has made in her recent life that she never regrets or feels compelled to at least revisit. The neighborhood in which she lives is far enough out of the city that there is still abundant wooded land in the immediate area; though the trees and terrain here are different from what she knew growing up, a comforting similarity remains. That’s nice. That’s worth something to her. Very little is, these days.
Standing in her driveway, Paula begins to stretch.
-o-
The irony was that Paula had planned to make her move this coming Monday. It just worked out that, last night, three of her co-workers—Fran, Louisa, and Mable—had suggested a Girls Night Out at a bar just down the street from their workplace, and had invited Paula to come along. She liked these women well enough, though it was not accurate to call them her friends. They included her occasionally on their jaunts to the bar after work, but not regularly, and often just because she was within earshot when they were making their plans. Paula’s lack of women friends was another painful subject for her, but she could not see herself regularly hanging out with, let alone trusting, these ladies. One annoyance was the way they constantly gossiped about co-workers, but what really got under Paula’s skin was when they all talked about their families at home, particularly when they complained about the minor offenses of husbands and children. Paula had long since made up her mind that, if she ever had a husband or child, she would never complain about them to others. Never.
Still, for the most part, she enjoyed the banter of these women and strived to contribute to their colorful discussions. It pleased her when something she said got a laugh out of them; made her feel as though she were one of the girls, that her presence was appreciated. Maybe it was, in fact. Besides, anything was better than going straight home after work, the way she did on too many nights.
As the four women were laughing at Fran’s impression of a rather difficult female co-worker who was currently on maternity leave, a familiar voice rose up behind them.
“Hello, ladies,” it said.
In unison Paula, Fran, Louisa, and Mable turned around in their seats.
There he stood, in his white dress shirt—the top three buttons unbuttoned, which Paula found incredibly hot—with a drink in his hand: Mr. Brad Halliwell.
“Hi, Brad,” Fran belted out. “I guess you had the same idea we had.”
The young man grinned at her. “I’m afraid to ask what all of you were giggling about over here.”
“We were giggling about you,” said Louisa, pointing an unsteady finger at him. The ladies had done a round of melon ball shooters in addition to their first batch of mixed drinks, and Louisa held her liquor worse than anybody Paula knew. She tended to become flirtatious when intoxicated.
Brad arched an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”
“She’s kidding,” Mable assured him.
“Sure she is,” Brad said in mocking disbelief. Then he looked at Paula and gave her the most radiant smile, totally different from the one he had given the other ladies.
I’m so glad to see you, his new smile told her. You’re the one I really came over to talk to you.
“Hey, Paula,” he said.
A new tone of voice, as well, reflecting the kindness of his smile.
“Hi, Brad,” Paula responded. “It’s nice to see—”
That was when the girl came up behind him, placing her hands on both of his hips. He reached back and put his arm around her shoulders.
“—you,” Paula finished. Merciful that there was only one word left in her sentence. She could not have uttered any more.
The young woman was damnably beautiful: long, straight blond hair; peach-colored skin; a slender, well-proportioned figure that, for Paula anyway, was likely not even achievable. She was perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four.
Suddenly Paula was sober.
“Everyone, this is my girlfriend, Madison,” Brad announced.
“Hey,” Madison said shyly, although she elongated the word to the point that it came out more like, “Heeeyyy.”
“This is Fran, and Louisa, and Mable,” he went on, pointing each one out, “and this is Paula. She’s the one who keeps me out of trouble at work.”
“Heeeyyy,” Madison said again.
Your girlfriend is very articulate, Paula wanted to say. What other words does she know?
“Well,” Brad began, “I just wanted to come over and say hello to you guys.”
“We guys really appreciate it,” Fran said.
“See you all on Monday,” he said, leading Madison off by the hand.
“Bye,” Madison called back to them, or, more precisely, “Byyyeee.”
“Excuse me,” Paula said, getting up from her seat. She had no idea how much longer she could hold herself together.
“Where are you going?” asked Mable.
“I need to go to the ladies room.”
“What’s the matter?” Fran pressed her. “Do you need to puke?”
Fran took a lot of pride in her ability to drink. She took an equal amount of joy in comparing the drinking abilities of others unfavorably to her own.
“I’ll be right back,” Paula assured her.
She didn’t need to puke, of course. She needed to cry. So she went into a stall at the end of the bathroom and there, as quietly as she could, Paula cried. With some effort she got the better of her emotions after a minute or two and stepped back out of the stall again. She checked her makeup, touched up her face as necessary, and returned to the bar.
“Your eyes are red,” Mable observed as Paula sat back down.
“Well,” Paula began, “I have a confession to make.”
“I know what it is!” Fran cried. “You puked!”
She nodded sheepishly. Fran had believed exactly what Paula had wanted her to believe—though she wondered if she had fooled the other women as well.
“I knew it,” Fran said. “Well, hey, no big deal. You’re still learning. You just need more practice. Bartender! Another round of melon balls, s'il vous plait.”
-o-
And that was that. Paula returned home last night, took a shower, and fell into bed. Now, on the morning of the following day, she runs. She runs hard. She knows she ought not to; that it would be better to conserve her energy, so that she can complete the two miles she has set as a goal this morning. But she plunges ahead anyway.
Yeah, it sucks.
At this hour there are hints that daylight is coming soon. The lower eastern horizon is lightening. From the blackness of the trees come occasional notes of birdsong. And while stars still shimmer overhead they do it with less gusto than hours before, as if they know their time is almost up.
But think about it.
Okay, now Paula is slowing down. Her body is telling her she is overdoing it: her lungs are stretched; her ankles are protesting; her left knee is beginning to pop. She complies. She begins to take it easier. Relax now. Relax…
Even if he didn’t have a girlfriend—a young, beautiful girlfriend—what makes you think he would have been available to you?
Exiting her neighborhood, she is on the bike path that tracks alongside the pleasant stretch of two-lane highway that, each day, takes her into the city where she likes to think her future still lies. She is running at a comfortable pace now. One foot in front of the other, left, right, left, right, left, right…that’s the way to do it.
How can you guarantee he wouldn’t have turned you down anyway?
Several neighborhoods are located off this same highway, each with abundant street lighting, around their respective entrances. Paula would not be able to navigate in this darkness without such lighting. As usual, there are few cars on the road at this hour of the day, and on a Saturday in particularly. She expects she will see no more than five or six during her entire run. She has yet to see one at all this morning. It wouldn’t be the first time she saw none at all—which is always fine with Paula. She doesn’t want people to see her huffing and puffing along the side of the road.
You can’t guarantee it. That’s the answer, sweetheart.
Left, right, left, right, left, right…
So why worry?
That’s the way to do it.
You need to keep your focus on becoming successful.
Left, right, left, right…her breathing is good; her heartbeat regular; her lungs sigh in perfect rhythm to her step. She can feel the calories burning off. That, of course, is the whole reason she took up running in the first place: to burn off calories, or, more precisely, to lose weight.
You need to figure out the things you want to do in however much time you have left and get them done while you still can.
And it’s worked. She’s not heavy. She has a nice figure, not in the same league as Miss “Heeeyyy” or anything, but quite respectable—
It may be that some of those things you want aren’t going to happen anytime soon.
—for a woman her age.
It may be that some of those things just aren’t in the cards, period.
That hurts, to think of herself that way; to think that she looks good “for her age.” What is that supposed to mean? Paula demands of her subconscious. What is thirty-eight, here in the twenty-first century? What is forty-eight or fifty-eight or even sixty-eight nowadays, when people are healthier, living longer, more vital than they’ve ever been before?
But you can still be happy.
Paula is coming up on a stretch of her normal jogging route she calls Dark Bend. It’s not an especially creative name. It refers to a long, gradual bend in the road, around the duration of which she finds it difficult to see, whether running on the bike path, as she is now, or behind the wheel of her vehicle, as she is five days a week on her way to and from work. It is so named because the land here has not yet been developed, ergo it is still woods, ergo there is no artificial lighting, ergo before sunrise it is completely dark. Anyone Paula knows who cares the least bit about her—whoever these mystery individuals may be, outside of her immediate family—would likely say she ought not to run through here until dawn or after dawn. Someone could hide in the thick woods, jumped out of the underbrush and grab her. Or, because she cannot see her feet, she might trip and fall, crack open her skull.
You can still have a life—a good life.
Paula has thought of these possibilities herself. Increasingly, though, she doesn’t care. If she’s honest with herself, she’ll admit that’s the reason. Every day she cares less and less about what happens to her. She wishes it were otherwise. But it isn’t.
There are plenty of people who walk this Earth who have it far worse than you do. To them, your life would be a dream come true. Think about those people when you have your dark times, Paula: the times when you wish you could just disappear; when you wish you could fade away so completely that it would be like you never existed.
No, she’s going to face Dark Bend today the same way she faces it the other one or two days each week she goes for a morning run. She’s going to dive right into it. Nothing will happen. Of this she is quite certain. She’ll run through Dark Bend, come back the same way, and at the end of her run she’ll be panting and she’ll be sweaty and she’ll still be lonely, unloved, home-every-night Paula Quindlen. That’s right. She’ll be fine.
Don’t breathe sadness. Breathe joy instead. Breathe life.
Then Paula notices shafts of light shining into the trees across the street. A car must be heading up the road. She thinks she hears an engine.
She keeps going, around the bend, around, around…
Suddenly she sees it. Yes, indeed, it’s a car. Its lights are on. Its engine is running. But the car is not moving. It has swerved off the road, embedded itself in the low muddy area next to the shoulder. Paula slows her pace, sees that the driver’s side door is open—wide open.
Whoa.
Paula ceases running, starts walking.
This doesn’t look good.
Then she halts completely, studies the sight before her.
Car on the side of the road, lights still blazing, door open…okay.
She takes a few steps forward, peers through the gloom.
No sign of driver.
The vehicle is a Lexus, top of the line model if memory serves her correctly.
A possibility forms in Paula’s mind.
The driver fell asleep at the wheel, veered off the road, and was awakened again upon running off the shoulder. Now he’s stuck. He gets out, cursing and kicking the tires, and goes off to try to find a telephone so he can call a tow truck.
Paula takes a deep breath.
Wait a minute, honey. You’re showing your age. That scenario might have worked if this was 1982. But it’s the twenty-first century. You’re always reminding yourself of that, remember? It’s the twenty-first century and people have cell phones. Even you have a cell phone, dingbat. If this guy can afford a Lexus, he can probably afford a cell phone, don’t you think? And there’s probably some kind of special road assistance program for a luxury car like that. Why would he leave the vehicle?
She takes another deep breath.
Listen to you, Paula, assuming it’s a man. Figures that’s what you would think. You see a car in distress and you automatically assume it belongs to a successful, handsome, unmarried man who’s going to fall in love with the first female passerby who offers to help him—in other words, you. Let’s not be so pathetic, okay?
Paula nods.
Now, then, it could be whoever was in that vehicle is still in it. He or she may be hurt. He or she may have opened the door but not been able to exit, and is now lying half-in, half-out, of the car with his or her intestines hanging out of his or her mouth in glistening, bloody loops.
A chill rises in Paula’s stomach.
Naturally, you don’t have your own cell phone. You never carry it when you run. You’re afraid you might drop it and break it or, worse, drop it, have someone else find it, and see that the only text messages you ever get are from your sisters—and even those are sporadic. So what does that mean? It means you can’t call 9-1-1 and have them take care of this for you. But you’re going to do the decent thing anyway, Paula. You’re going to go over to that vehicle and see if anyone’s hurt. No matter how gruesome the scene may be, you owe it to whoever’s in that car to make sure that he—or she—is okay. So snap to it.
First timidly, then with purpose, Paula heads toward the downed, still idling car. For a moment she passes within the beams of the headlamps, stunning her vision, but she gets it back again. The cabin light is on. Moving closer, she is pleased to see no intestines drooping from the interior of the vehicle.
That’s a good sign.
“Hello…?” she calls, nearing the vehicle. “Hello…is anyone in there?”