The First Ninety Days Ch. 10

A note to readers: With this part, we enter the final third of the story, a third which has never been posted before. As such, please do not be surprised if the rapid updating pace of previous parts begins to slow down. I've written some 75,000 words over the last two months, and there's only so long one can sustain that level of output—especially with school and most of my major responsibilities kicking back in this month. You will get your story in the end... But it may take a little while to bring all of it out.

Day 37

"Ahh, Jon," said Dr. Polkiss. "What can I do for you. What's this you got here?"

"Uhh... My two weeks' notice," said Jon sheepishly.

"...Oh," said Dr. Polkiss.

"I, umm. Well, technically it's 13 days' notice, because Dr. Chandakar wants me to start Monday after next, but I wasn't able to get in touch with him until yesterday, so..." Jon shrugged. "I got it together as fast as I could. I've actually never written a two-weeks'-notice before, I hope it's okay."

Dr. Polkiss had the letter out and was glancing over it. "It doesn't really have to contain anything except a statement that you're getting out... There aren't actually any rules for it, besides the traditional ones for all business writing... Spelling and punctuation and all that. And you seem to have used those..."

"In what? Is he writing a novel?" Stephanie Leyton swept in, looking (like she always did) as though she'd just stepped in from a glamour magazine. She peered over Dr. Polkiss' shoulder. "...Oh." She sighed. "Well, I knew we were going to lose you eventually. You've got a lot to offer, you're wasting yourself here. Our loss, someone else's gain. Where're you going?"

Jon explained the job offer Brandon had suggested. "So I got in touch with the person he suggested—Dr. Aaron Chandakar—and he did in fact have the sort of opening which had been described. They're understaffed and ready to expand. There's a lot more chances for promotion—"

"And raises," Dr. Leyton said.

"—yeah, and raises," said Jon. "And, what with prices going up and Caitlyn to think about... She's doing the scholarship runaround, but... Well, suffice it to say that extra money would be really nice right now. And it's never too early to start saving. We've been talking about maybe having to get another car... We might have to move at some point... You know, a place of our own, instead of having to rent or lease..."

"There might be an addition to the family," Dr. Polkiss said.

"Oh God, don't talk about that," Jon exclaimed.

"Well, it's what marrying is for, right?" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Yeah, but... Christ. I'm not even twenty-five yet," said Jon. "And Caitlyn just turned 21 two days ago. And our bank accounts aren't nearly in the... If it happened..." He thought about Chamberses, to whom ithad happened. They were surviving, yes, but that was about the best that could be said for them.

"Better invest in birth control then," said Stephanie. "They say birth control is expensive, but you know what'smore expensive?Baby."

"True enough," said Jon.

"God, it's so crazy," Stephanie said. "Here you are, neither of you twenty-four, and you're already starting to think about kids and, and buying your own house, and... My God. I'm thirty-two andI'm not even to that point in my life."

"Well, if you wanted to get your own place," Jon started. "I mean, the housing market is a mess right now, so..."

"No, it's not that," said Stephanie. "I just... God, I dunno. I remember when Caitlyn could come in here, and I would look at the two of you together and think, 'What the hell is wrong with this mom? Doesn't she know real, honest, genuine love when she sees it? How could younot be happy that your kid had found that?'"

"Well, attempting to link 'sanity' with 'Caitlyn's mom' leads to a lot of frustration," said Jon.

"I know, but... I mean, you know? It's not easy to find someone who's gonna... Who will work towards that with you. I mean, I know for a fact that if Caitlyn said she wanted... I dunno, if she wanted to move to Chicago or something... You'd work with her towards that. I mean, maybe you'd try to talk her out of it first, but, assuming it was a smart move, then... You'd support her. You care about what she thinks, what she wants... You share her dreams."

"Why, Stephanie," said Dr. Polkiss. "I hadn't known you went in for the romantic stuff. Whatever happened to 'Single, independent and proud of it'?"

"I know, I know," said Stephanie, shaking her head. "And it's still so much easier to be single, to not have to... To not have someone constantly hounding you over when you're coming home, and why didn't you do the dishes, or have to kick his ass about leaving the toilet seat up, or... Or any of that. But at the same time... I mean, who do you fall back on? Who's going to look after you? When you're down, or when you're sick, or... Who's gonna put a smile back on your face?"

She sighed, her shoulders slumping.

"Well, Stephanie..." said Dr. Polkiss. " 'Single, independent and proud of it' doesn't have to be apermanent decision. You still have time to change your stripes."

"I know, but... Where's theguy, you know?" Stephanie said. "All I get is just... You know, one-night stands. And then people who're... I mean, you ask them where they're going tonight, and they get all defensive, like, 'What business is it of yours, why doyou care where I'm going?' And I'm thinking, 'Well, if I didn't care before, I sure donow.' You know, people who... People who don't..."

"Who don't want to be tied down," said Dr. Polkiss.

"Kinda like you?" said Jon, smiling at her.

"Well..." said Dr. Leyton. "I mean, yes, there are things I don't want to be bothered about. But there are others that... I mean, it's not all-or-nothing, you know? There are things I want to be able to do where my husband says, 'Okay, that's fine, don't worry—' "

" 'Husband'??" said Dr. Polkiss.

"Well, yeah, that's where it's going, isn't it?" said Stephanie.

"Perhaps, but you've never expressed any such desire before," said Dr. Polkiss.

"Doesn't mean it isn't there," said Stephanie. "And besides, like I'veever met a guy who was evenvaguely right for it."

"Fair enough," said Dr. Polkiss, who had been grumbling (quietly) about Stephanie's tastes in men for as long as Jon had known them. "Go on."

"Well, I want... God, I dunno. I mean, how come you can't find a guy that isn't co-dependentand isn't commitment-phobic? Isn't there someone in between? Either they're all over your business or they don't want to be bothered."

"Those guys do exist," said Dr. Polkiss. "Jon, for instance."

"Yeah, well, no offense, Jon, but I don't think you and I would work out," said Stephanie. "You're still too far on the 'co-dependent' side for me."

"Fair enough," said Jon, grinning. "Stephanie, it sounds like you just have to find the right guy. Youcan't be the only person out there who wants part-freedom, part-independence. You just gotta find the others who are like that."

"Oh, right," said Stephanie, whose tone of voice made clear her opinions of success for such an endeavour. "Where?"

"Well, not bars, for one," said Dr. Polkiss. "Not clubs. Well, maybe clubs, but in general those places are filled with people from your former lifestyle—which you just said isn't right for you anymore."

"Where?" Stephanie said, sounding desperate.

"The gym maybe?" Jon said. "At least, people there are likely to be a little more serious."

"Yeah, but, they're all married," Stephanie protested. "They all come in with their wives or their girlfriends."

"All?" said Dr. Polkiss. "You can't find a single one who isn't tied down somehow?"

"Well, maybe notall..." Stephanie said.

"Then there's hope," said Dr. Polkiss simply.

"But... God, I'm so old! And compared to you guys... I mean, here's Jonathan, getting married at..."

"Well, Jonathan's a special case," said Dr. Polkiss. "Peggy got married when she was twenty-nine.I got married when I was thirty-three, and even back then that was a pretty normal age for it. You've still got a year to go, even by old-fogey standards like ours." He grinned. "Just because it hasn't happened yet, doesn't mean it never will."

Stephanie shook hair back from her face, sighed and nodded.

When he had a spare moment, Jon sent Caitlyn an e-mail:I need to remember, every day, to be thankful that I found you. He knew it would make her smile to read it, and that made it worth doing.

Nothing much happened at work—the same parade of people, the same procession of cavities and bad flossing and halitosis—but as Jon packed up, he remembered that today was Tuesday, and that they were supposed to head off to this week's installment of the Larson college group. He wasn't sure he was looking forward to it. The first week's meeting and discussion had been very good, of course, but was that going to be a fluke? No matter how much exposure he had to Caitlyn's idea of a good church (and, to be fair, it was quite a good one in his experience), he could never be entirely trustful of an organized religion or its governing members. He had heard too many preachers say too many stupid things in the name of their faith.

He knew he was being reluctant, of course. If part of being a Christian was to be open to new experiences, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. That didn't generally stop him from trying other things in life—Brandon's job suggestions, the GEA fiasco, new things in bed with Caitlyn (especially those)—but when it came to the church, he was curiously conservative, and he knew himself too well to be able to lie about it.For some reason, I'm just not comfortable there. And I don't know why.

When he got home, he found Caitlyn curled up on the couch, working her way through a textbook. This was sight enough to drive all other thoughts from his head. She was dressed in dark canvas pants and a sleek woolen sweater, warm but still molded to her curves. Her dark hair curled around one ear, making commas against her pale skin. She was beautiful to his eyes, more beautiful than anything else he had ever seen, and it was a scary and exciting thing to know that this girl, this woman, was entrusted now to his care.

I need to remember, every day, to be thankful that I found you.

Something in his gaze must have tickled her. She looked up. "What?"

The moment was gone. Jon shook his head. "Nothing. Nothing important."

"Long day?"

"Too long."Any day away from you is too long.

"Well, there's leftovers in the fridge, so if you wanna take a nap or something before we go—"

"I love you," he said, unable to hold the words in any longer.

Caitlyn blinked, and then gave him a wry smile. "Well, good thing, because if not, it'd be rather inconvenient to be married."

"I love you, Caitlyn."

"I love you too, Jon," said Caitlyn, still with that wry smile, "but I'm starting to wonder if you got enough sleep last night."

Jon wasn't sure what he had been trying to accomplish, but he was quite sure this wasn't it. He wobbled back and forth for a minute, trying to decide whether to push any further, and then gave up and went to check his e-mail. Presently Caitlyn put aside her text and broke out the leftovers; dinner happened, and they talked as normal, and Jon didn't give any more thought to it. It wasn't until much later that he realized in his brain what his heart had already known: that he had been looking for some sign of love or affection; some indication that, if he asked, she would put the book down and come say hello. And that, for the first time in their marriage, she hadn't.

Nonetheless, from some instinctive understanding of the situation, Jon didn't push her, and the conversation was light but meaningless until they got to the Larsons' house and the meeting started.

Though he had only been there once before, Jon felt a strange sense of homecoming. Part of it was that the home was so inviting—the home, and the people who lived there. Alice Larson greeted them both—greeted him—like a long-lost friend, and her husband was scarcely less welcoming. And many of the "kids" greeted them the even more warmly—Max Lapinski, Missy Sloane, Alisa Bergen. Jon wasn't entirely sure what he'd done to befriend them to such a level. Or was this just how they greeted everyone? Jon, who had grown up primarily in the company of his sister's cats, was still acclimating to the kind of people who preferred dogs.

Caitlyn's family keeps a dog. And yet Caitlyn... Look at her. She hasn't taken to all this hugging and air-kissing and stuff either. Heck, I think I'm more comfortable with it than she is. Of course, they don't do the air-kissing thing onme. Jon had never understood that gesture in the first place.

It was a warm but frantic five minutes, of course, as everyone got back in touch with everyone and caught up on recent events. Everyone wanted to know how he was doing, what had happened since the last meeting, as if it had been months and not seven days.Long-lost friends is right. I wonder how this came about? He'd never met any group or organization that greeted in quite this particular manner. Certainly Max and Alisa and Missy and Pastor Larson and Alice Larson all felt that nothing special had happened tothem this week. Jon wasn't sure that anything special had happened to him either—at least, not anything really worth saying. The weird little... incident... earlier today, for instance: how could he broach it, when he wasn't really sure what had happened—or, for that matter, that anything had happened at all?Even so, at the rate Caitlyn and my lives have been going recently, maybe we'll be glad of this attitude next week.

The one person he wasn't really glad to see was Harold Cheng. Something about this man just rubbed him the wrong way. Maybe it was the way he seemed to be visible out of the corner of one's eye for one moment, and the next have gone away again. Was he lurking, stooping—trying to find some moment in which to swoop in?

And sure enough: a moment came in which Caitlyn was deep in conversation with Missy, and Jon looked away for a second to see who else was there. And he caught eyes squarely with Harold, who looked astonished to be noticed.

Jon made a split-second decision to give it a shot. "Hi, Harold. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm fine," said Harold. "I've just been, you know. Working."

"Oh? I thought you were in school."

"No, I'm like you," said Harold. "Older. I work at a software company in Belham Falls."

"They have software companies here?" said Jon. "This isn't the Silicon Valley."

"Not many, but they're here," Harold said. "I mean, have youseen the housing prices? Not everyone canafford to be based there."

"Fair enough," said Jon, who was well aware of how far his luxuriant receptionist's salary would actually take them in a monetary crisis.

"I had to do this piece of coding today," Harold said. "I'm not sure who was in charge of it earlier, but the logic was... I mean, he had contradictions everywhere. I think he rewrote half of his functions differently in different places. This one time I..."

And Jon listened in mounting horror, realizing that when he had asked him, 'How are you,' Harold had taken it seriously.

Do people do that? Does everyone do that? No, of course not. The others—most people—had said a few words about their own lives, and Jon (taking the hint) had said a few words about his; and then they had picked up something interesting from whatever had just been said, and run with that. Asking 'How are you?' was a way of allowing each person to establish a potential topic of conversation. You weren't supposed to take it seriously.

But isn't that misleading? Why should we ask how the other person is doing if we don't actually care—or, rather, if that isn't the answer we want them to give?

But no one else does it. They allknow it's misleading. They know that 'How are you?' is a code, a way of saying something that isn't the words themselves. They understand the, what, the social context? The clues? They aren't fumbling over it. They aren't making social faux pas. They aren't... Awkward.

Pastor Larson was standing in the middle of the room, attempting to gather everyone to order. "If we could all sit down... Excuse me, everyone, if we could please all..."

"Thanks, Jon," said Harold, with a smile, "you're a really good listener," and sat down on the other side of Caitlyn.

Jon, numb, sat down too. Caitlyn took one look at him, leaned in and said, "What?" Jon shook his head. The thought that Harold was now going to treat him as a friend had rendered him temporarily mute.

"Hello, everyone," said Pastor Larson. "Thank you all for coming. This is the second meeting of our college group, hopefully the second of many. I see we have some new faces today; why don't we start by going around the circle and introducing ourselves."

The new people were, by and large, folks who either hadn't heard about the college group or hadn't been able to make it last week. There were quite a few of them, but the group did not seem to have increased appreciably in size. Jon wondered who had decided not to come again. He wondered if, had he not been married to Caitlyn, he would've been one of those drop-outs.

"The Scripture we've chosen to discuss today is one of the most famous in all the Bible: Matthew, chapter 25, verses 31-45." The coordinates meant nothing to Jon, but there was enough response from many of the group members—Caitlyn included—that he realized it must be something famous. And once the Bibles were passed out and cracked open, he saw why. "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these..."

"A profound statement," said Pastor Larson, "with profound consequences. Every follower of Jesus, from the Apostles on down, has known that Jesus was calling us to do something very different with our lives, to live in a very different way than we had lived before. 'Love your neighbor,' yes, but... What else? What do you think Jesus means by this passage? Who do you think he was referring to; who do you think he was describing as 'the least'?"

They split into groups, as they had the week before. Jon was pleased that Harold was on the seam: he was divided into one group, Caitlyn into the next. Of the other two in their four-person group, one was Max Lapinski; the other, Lauren Schachter, was one of the new people. She was heavy, but not unpleasantly so, with a big smile.

"So," she said. "Scripture."

"Yep, the Bible," said Max Lapinski. "The good ol' Holy Book. The Word of God."

"Good advice to all the world, at the very least," said Jon.

"Amen," said Max.

"But strange advice, too, at times," said Caitlyn. "Imagine what the disciples must've thought when they heard this. 'We're supposed to do what-now??' "

"Christ had a habit of that," Max said. "Remember the parable of the prodigal son? Kid comes back, having wasted half of his father's fortune, and we're just supposed to welcome him back in? It took me a long time to understand that story."

"God works in mysterious ways, they say," Lauren said. "To which my answer is, 'Duh!—don't you read the Bible?' "

"So anyway, the least," said Caitlyn. "They whom we are supposed to serve. Who are they?"

"Well, what does the Biblesay?" Lauren said. "I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was naked and you clothed me; I was homeless and you took me in."