The Introvert Read online

  CHAPTER 7

  On Friday I managed to get out of work a few minutes early so I would have time to get home to take Molly out for a nice walk to make sure there wouldn’t be a surprise on the kitchen floor that night if Donna decided to come back with me, only I took too much time with Molly and by the time I’d showered and changed and gotten into my car it was already three minutes past seven.

  I drove as fast as I could to the new Italian restaurant but must have driven too fast because I was only halfway there when the red lights went up behind me. I pulled over to the right shoulder as I was taught to do in driver’s ed.

  The officer came up on my driver’s side door and motioned for me to lower my window, which I did. He asked me for my driver’s license and I provided him with my new driver’s license that I’d just received in the mail that week.

  “Do you know how fast you were traveling, sir?”

  “No,” I answered, though I figured I was probably going pretty fast.

  “Do you know what the posted speed limit is on this street?” he asked.

  Again I said no, and he didn’t ask me anything further. Instead he just told me to wait there and then returned to his cruiser. I saw that the time was now 7:10 and I knew that Donna would be wondering where I was. I figured I should tell him this, so I stepped out of my vehicle, but something about this seemed to upset the officer and he yelled at me to return to my seat, so I did.

  I waited there for more than five minutes and I was rather angry by the time he returned to my driver’s side window.

  “Sir, you were traveling well in excess of the legal limit.”

  “I’m late for dinner,” I said.

  “That’s no excuse for speeding,” said the officer.

  “It’s not an excuse,” I said, “but it’s the reason.”

  “It’s not a good reason,” said the officer.

  He wasn’t much of an officer. He was too fat for his uniform, he asked a lot of unnecessary questions, and I could see some sort of mustard stain on his shirt that he’d tried to wipe clean. I suppose it could have been something other than mustard, but I didn’t suppose it enough to really believe it.

  “Donna is waiting for me at the new Italian restaurant,” I said.

  The officer just stared at me when I said this and with every second that passed I could imagine Donna wondering where I was and becoming angry with me and felt that it was reducing the chance she might help me to achieve it that night and I could feel myself growing more and more angry. I watched the fat officer tapping my driver’s license against his leg like Mr. Peters had tapped my cubicle and something about the sound made my thoughts go wild and by the seventh tap I was gripping the steering wheel with both hands and I’d started to imagine the officer red and open. I thought of getting out of my seat and how he’d probably yell at me to sit back down just as he had before but then before he could react I’d punch him hard in the side of his fat face and knock him to the ground where I’d kick him and kick him and kick him until my foot split his skin and his ribs were all broken and shattered and he was begging and screaming throughout until he fell unconscious from the pain and the loss of blood and how bystanders would have to pull me from him to stop me from killing him if I hadn’t killed him already.

  “Sir?”

  I decided not to do it because I knew he didn’t deserve it and because I’d already started into my breathing exercises and was trying to imagine the consequences. That’s when I looked at my knuckles and saw how tight they were wrapped around the steering wheel and I wondered where the blood around my knuckles had gone and wondered if the same blood stayed close by the knuckles waiting to go back to where it came from or if it just ran off and mixed with the rest of my body only to be replaced by new blood and then finally the officer’s voice drew back my attention.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “Are you all right, sir?”

  “Yes,” I said. I’d considered telling him that I was angry, but then I figured he might ask more questions and that would make me even later than I already was.

  Finally he handed back my driver’s license and the ticket that he’d written that amounted to the commission I would receive on more than three vacuums and told me to “slow down,” which was a silly thing to say since I wasn’t even moving, but then I realized he must have meant when I started driving again and I was going to tell him “Okay,” but by then he’d already walked away.

  I drove the speed limit the remainder of the way to the restaurant and was quite late by the time I’d parked and walked into the front entrance.

  “Can I help you?”

  The greeter was a thin young girl of maybe eighteen. I told her that I was looking for Donna and she said that she didn’t know who that was so then I told her that I was supposed to meet a lady here at seven and she told me that it was seven-thirty and I told her that I knew that but before either of us could say anything more I could see Donna seated in the restaurant so I just walked over to where she was sitting and took a seat in the chair across from her.

  Donna had a look on her face not unlike the officer when he was tapping my driver’s license against his leg. She was cradling a glass of wine that was nearly empty.

  “Would you like some more wine?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer. I figured this meant that either she didn’t want to talk to me because I was late or else she didn’t have much to say.

  I was hoping it was that she didn’t have much to say but either way I figured it would be best not to press her, so I started looking through the menu, only there must have been something about this that changed her mind because then she started to talk.

  “Do you know how long I’ve been here?” she asked.

  “Probably thirty minutes,” I said.

  “Longer,” she said. “I got here early.”

  There were tears in her eyes so I put down the menu.

  “Do you even want to be here tonight?” she asked.

  I said that I did and then explained that I’d walked Molly too long and then had to speed and how I was stopped by the fat police officer with the mustard-stained shirt. I didn’t mention how angry I’d gotten or some of the other things I’d been thinking because my parents had taught me that stuff didn’t make for good conversation with most people except for them and my counselors.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” I said, and it was true. I’d been looking forward to coming to this restaurant and by then I was very hungry. This seemed to calm her, and she smiled for the first time that night.

  We had some wine and before long we’d ordered our meals. I selected something cheaper than what I’d really wanted because I couldn’t help thinking about the speeding ticket that equaled more than three vacuums worth of commission.

  “So what do you like to do,” she asked, “when you’re not working or walking your dog or watching TV?”

  I thought about it, but there really wasn’t much beyond those things so I asked her about what she liked to do.

  “Well, you’re going to think this is silly but I play the viola,” she said.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “It’s basically a violin but smaller.”

  “I guess that makes sense.”

  “I’ve played it since I was little. I’m pretty good at it.”

  “I bet you are,” I said.

  She sipped her wine and smiled as the glass was at her mouth.

  “You think I’m ridiculous,” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  “Then what are you thinking?”

  “Now?”

  “Right now,” she said.

  What I was actually thinking about were her breasts, which were half peeking out above her blouse, but I figured I shouldn’t mention it, so I lied and told her I was thinking about my dog.

  “You like animals, don’t you?”

  “Very much,” I said. “My family had animals, and I spent a lot of time with them when I was young.”
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  “What kinds of animals?”

  “Dogs, rabbits. We had some hamsters, too.”

  “No cats?”

  “Cats are strange creatures,” I said. “I don’t trust them altogether.”

  She laughed.

  “Well, even without cats, that’s still a lot of animals,” she said.

  I said she was right because it probably was a lot of animals. My parents always seemed to keep animals around ever since one of my counselors suggested it was good for me. When I moved away from home, it was hard not to have their company, so I bought two hamsters, but they didn’t live very long and then I didn’t have another animal until Molly.

  “Have you always had one? A dog, I mean?”

  “Not always. I went away to college and they don’t like dogs on campus,” I said, and this was true. “Then I started to work and lived alone and didn’t know if I could take care of an animal and work.”

  “So then how’d you end up with Molly?” she asked.

  Like my angry thoughts about the fat officer and my thoughts about her breasts, I figured I shouldn’t really talk about it, so I made up something else and it must have sounded good because she laughed and then our food arrived not long after.

  “Have you always liked animals?”

  “Yes,” I said, and that was true, too, but it wasn’t really the whole truth. My parents liked me to have animals around. They told me that it made me calm when they were around and maybe they were right. I’d attacked a boy at school for throwing rocks at a bird, and the teacher said that what I’d done to him they hadn’t seen before because I’d poked him right in the eye with a stick and I heard he needed surgeries for the eye and I never saw him back at my school again.

  “So what makes you such an animal lover?”

  I wanted to tell her that it calmed me and about what happened at school when I was young, but instead I just said because they were furry and warm, and she laughed at that and then sipped her wine again to make her glass empty.

  My food was really good and I was glad that I hadn’t ordered the more expensive item that I probably would have ordered if the fat police officer with the mustard stain hadn’t given me the ticket that I surely deserved because I couldn’t imagine enjoying it any more than what I was eating now, so there would really have been no point in spending the extra money. I asked Donna how her food was and she said it was perfect. I hadn’t had a chance to see how much her meal would cost before they took the menus away but from the looks of things and the smile on her face I figured it would probably cost at least the commission of one and a half vacuums.

  “You really don’t talk all that much do you?” she asked.

  “Not so much,” I said. I started to think that maybe she was slow because she asked a lot of questions that had obvious answers, then I felt bad for thinking she was slow and before I realized it, I’d said sorry.

  “What are you apologizing for?”

  “For being late,” I said, and she seemed to accept this.

  “I think some of the guys at work like you,” I said.

  “Mm-hmm? Which ones?”

  “Jeff for sure,” I said.

  “He’s a creep,” she said, and I agreed.

  “Who else?”

  “Gary, I think.”

  “Too old,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “And too married,” she added, then laughed and reached out to put her hand around mine. “Anyway, is someone getting a little jealous?”

  She wriggled her face up into a smile and started to rub my arm. I told her I wasn’t jealous at all, but she must have figured I was joking or playing coy because she started to laugh, and then I decided to laugh along with her.

  It was getting late by the time she ordered dessert. I had a coffee because I was starting to get tired, but I was still hoping to stay up later and see if she’d help me to achieve it. When we finally left the restaurant it was almost eleven o’clock. I hadn’t had too much to drink and suggested that I could drive us home.

  I drove her to my apartment and before long her blouse was on my bedroom floor and she’d helped me to achieve it. Again she didn’t seem to mind that it finished so quickly because she curled up by my side and I could see a contented look on her face even though her eyes were closed.

  “What are you thinking about?” she said after a minute or two.

  The fact was that I was thinking about how the commission from the five vacuums would have been all used up because of the speeding ticket and the dinner, but instead I told her that I was thinking about her and that seemed to be a good answer because she hugged me closer and went to sleep, and it let me go back to my thinking.

  CHAPTER 8

  Donna called Sunday night and didn’t seem happy, and she asked me why I hadn’t called her since she left my apartment on Saturday morning. I told her that I didn’t like talking on the telephone, and she told me I needed to “Get with the times,” but at least then she stopped being mad at me, and we talked for a bit before I took Molly for a walk and watched some television.

  I was at work early on Monday when Mr. Peters called me into his office. He was the only one of us who had a real office with walls and a ceiling and a door that could close. He had me sit in a chair opposite his desk and once we were both seated he looked at me in a curious way but didn’t say anything. Finally, he asked me if I was involved with Donna, and though he didn’t actually use the words “intercourse” or “sex,” I was fairly certain that was what he was talking about.

  It made me think about how Donna had helped me to achieve it several times, but I didn’t want to answer his question so I didn’t. Instead, I thought about how Mr. Peters would have come to know about it in the first place and figured maybe Jeff or Gary had told him because they were jealous, but then I realized Jeff and Gary wouldn’t know for sure what was going on in my bedroom and maybe they hadn’t said anything at all and so I immediately felt bad for disparaging them in my mind.

  “Well?” he said.

  “I’ve spent some time with her,” I said. “We went to that new Italian restaurant.” I told him what I’d ordered, but he didn’t seem very interested in that.

  He sort of sat up in his seat and changed his expression. Maybe a bit more friendly, though I wouldn’t have said it was all the way friendly.

  “Let me ask you a question,” he said. “Have you ever heard the saying that you shouldn’t dip your pen in company ink?”

  “No,” I said.

  He shifted again in his seat.

  “Well, let’s put it another way. Work relationships can complicate things.”

  “I suppose,” I said.

  “Don’t get me wrong. Ms. Wintergrass is a lovely young woman.”

  When he first said “Ms. Wintergrass,” I didn’t know who he was talking about but then a second later I realized that he was talking about Donna. I really only considered her “Donna” and had never considered her last name. I then wondered if this made me inconsiderate, but then I figured that even if it had been inconsiderate that I was no longer so because I’d now considered it.

  “Yes,” is all I said.

  “She’s a little younger than you, of course. Not that that means too much these days. But you probably know that our company frowns on fraternizing within the ranks.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly in the rule book,” said Mr. Peters. “But Ms. Wintergrass isn’t a salesperson. She takes phone calls and processes orders and what would stop her from sending a few sales in your direction if she liked you in a special way?”

  I hadn’t really thought about that.

  “I suppose that might not be fair,” I said.

  “No, you see now, don’t you?”

  “But I’ve always sold well,” I said, “even before we went to the new Italian restaurant.”

  He smiled at this.

  “Yes, you have. You’re consistently one of my top salesmen. It’s
pretty incredible. I’ve listened to some of your sales pitches. You have a very different style, don’t you? Very simple and straightforward. Very direct.”

  There was something in his voice that sounded as if he was surprised that I was able to sell so many vacuums.

  “‘Assault them with honesty,’” I said.

  He leaned back in his chair and smiled when I said it. “Assault Them with Honesty” was the sixth rule of The Company Culture Handbook.

  “Well, whatever you’re doing, keep it up--at least as far as the vacuum sales go.”

  “I will,” I said.

  “You get what I’m saying, right?”

  “Yes,” I said and left his office to start my work.

  Donna soon arrived at her cubicle, but not before stopping beside me and touching me on my shoulder. I tried to ignore her since I’d just had the discussion with Mr. Peters, but it was hard to ignore her, given the way she was acting and the blouse she was wearing, which was one of the two blouses that had been left on my bedroom floor while she helped me to achieve it.

  “We should talk,” I said.

  Her body language changed drastically when I said this and she said we should talk right now but I told her I couldn’t because I had to call back Mrs. Ranger about her order, but then Donna said “Fuck Mrs. Ranger” and though I didn’t feel that her response was entirely called for, I did hold off making the phone call.

  “I had a meeting with Mr. Peters this morning,” I said.

  She seemed to be waiting for me to say more so I continued.

  “He heard we were spending time together and told me that the company frowns on fraternizing within the ranks.”

  “Fraternizing within the ranks,” she repeated rather coldly.

  “I think it means--”

  “I know what it means,” she said.

  I then thought maybe I could call Mrs. Ranger, but when I picked up the receiver Donna kept talking.

  “So what did he say, exactly? Did he tell you to stop seeing me?”

  “No,” I said. “He didn’t say that exactly.”