Rocked by Him

  Rocked By Him

  Lucy Lambert

  The red LED number on the elevator stopped at 4 and the door opened. I got out and went over to my apartment. It was unit 404, the first one to the left on the right-hand side of the hall.

  The building wasn’t much on the outside, or in these halls. Pretty basic, really. An old carpet, apparently once red, now faded to orange, under my feet. The doors an unassuming cream color with plain black numbers set in each just over the glass lens of the peephole.

  Right then, it smelled of a half dozen different lunches. Soups, burgers, pizza. It made my stomach growl and saliva squirt into my mouth.

  I fished my keys out of my small, black clutch. I pushed it into the lock and turned, only to find my door unlocked.

  That was weird. Jerry was out at work. When we got up this morning, he told me he’d probably be out late, too. I’d been gone maybe an hour and a half, just out exploring Manhattan.

  I gripped the key in the palm of my hand, warming the metal even as its little teeth bit at my flesh.

  Were we being robbed? I imagined throwing the door open to find some masked thief emptying the contents of my jewelry box into a bag.

  Wait… I didn’t have a jewelry box. Who said your imagination has to make sense?

  I looked up and down my hall at all those closed doors. Should I knock on one, ask for help?

  My cell phone, an iPhone 5 (hey, my parents wanted to give me a nice graduation present) was nestled in its little pocket in my clutch. I could call the cops.

  Then a phone rang in my apartment. Even with it muffled through the door, I could make out the tone. It was Stayin’ Alive, or at least the chorus of it, over and over. An annoying song, to say the least.

  And also Jerry’s ringtone. He hated the song, too. He’d chosen it, saying it would make him answer the phone faster.

  What the hell was he doing home? And why didn’t he text or call to tell me?

  I straightened out my navy jacket, and settled my matching skirt back over one knee. Confident I looked okay, I pushed the door open.

  Our apartment had an entrance hall, the walls painted mother of pearl. To the right was the bathroom, the left the kitchen, and dead ahead the bedroom. Normally, I kicked my shoes off on the black mat to the right of the door. Today, I just walked in not caring about the polished floor.

  “Yeah, I’ll be down in just a minute. There are a few more things I need to grab,” Jerry said from our bedroom.

  I heard him pull a drawer open, then softer sounds as he apparently rifled through it, throwing most of the contents to the floor.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong. A queasy feeling welled up from my stomach, trying to crawl up my throat as I walked over to our bedroom door.

  The bedroom door was mostly shut. I paused as I reached out to shove it open. Did I really want to do this? I already knew something bad was going on. If I didn’t open it, would it just go away?

  That was childish thinking, though. I tried scolding myself. Just because you ignore something doesn’t mean it isn’t happening, or will stop.

  No, I was an adult now. I started my new job in a little over an hour! A job that paid me enough to rent an apartment in Manhattan! I wasn’t a kid anymore.

  “I’ll pay the parking ticket. Just wait a few more minutes…” Jerry said.

  Taking a breath, my heart in my throat, I pushed the door open.

  The first things i saw were the two big suitcases lying open on our bed. They had all of Jerry’s clothes in them, as well as the clock radio and, for some reason, the Kitchenaid blender his mom gave us last Christmas.

  The bed was unmade. Neither of us really liked to make it first thing. It made everything look so messy at that moment, all tangled and confused.

  The next thing I saw was Jerry, or, more specifically, his face. He had a long face with a well-defined chin, with a sprinkling of freckles. Today, he had his black hair parted to the side.

  One hand still had his cell pressed against his ear. The other hand was in the top drawer of the dresser, where he kept his socks and underwear.

  His mouth opened, his eyes widening so that I could see the whites.

  “Jennifer?” he said.

  Of course. Who else would be here? He knew it was me; he just didn’t know why I was there. But I remembered that neither of us was supposed to be there at that moment.

  “What’s going on?” I said, motioning at the suitcases.

  A tinny voice said something unintelligible, emanating from his phone. Who was he talking to?

  “No. She’s here. Look, I’ll call you back in a few minutes, K?” Jerry said, locking his phone and shoving it into the front pocket of his navy Levis.

  “Who were you talking to?”

  “Nobody.”

  He started shifting the contents of the drawer into an open suitcase, glancing at me every few moments as though I might attack him.

  “Are… are you leaving? Are you breaking up with me?” I said, hearing my voice crack.

  I didn’t need this. Not today. I was starting my new job so soon! And I’d been looking forward to coming home at the end and talking with him about it. It wasn’t like I had anyone else to speak with at the moment; we’d only just moved to Manhattan two weeks ago.

  But that’s what happens in life: you get a job offer and take it, even if it means moving between states and leaving behind everyone you ever knew but your college boyfriend.

  Jerry stopped, one hand resting on a pair of folded white boxers. He rubbed at his eyes and then ran his fingers up through his hair, a classic Jerry tell for frustration. But what was he frustrated about? Me? Everything seemed to be going so well.

  He screwed up the courage to look me in the eye. As soon as we locked stares, I knew. He was breaking up with me.

  Hot and cold flooded my chest and stomach at the same time. No one had ever broken up with me before. What was I supposed to do? Was now my cue to start crying and screaming?

  “Yeah, it’s over,” he said. He held my stare for another few seconds, trying to impress the words on my brain, before dropping it and moving to the closet. The hangers all made a whisking noise against the steel bar as he swept all of his shirts and pants to one side, picked them up in his arms, and dumped them onto a suitcase.

  “But… why?” I said.

  Do something! I kept screaming at myself. Stop him! Don’t let him get away with this!

  I couldn’t though. The soles of my nice new black canvas flats felt superglued to the floor. My fingers kept clenching into fists, digging my newly-manicured nails into my palms.

  His phone rang, Stayin’ Alive muffled by his pocket. We both jerked at the noise. He didn’t answer.

  That was his tell-tale heart. The thing he’d been hiding. That tinny voice I’d heard earlier, that was a woman’s voice. I knew it. I could feel it.

  “You’re seeing someone else, aren’t you?”

  He paused in his efforts to fold all those shirts and pants into one stuffed suitcase. His eyes flicked over to me for a moment. Was that guilt?

  “Yeah,” he said when the ringing finally stopped.

  I hated that song even more, now.

  My system couldn’t handle it. I knew I should be screaming, throwing things, all that girly stuff you see in the movies when a guy pisses you off or does something unbelievably awful and stupid. But I just stood there, the proverbial deer in the headlights.

  Jerry climbed awkwardly onto the bed, using his knee to try to hold the suitcase closed so he could zip it shut. The springs of our mattress groaned and popped beneath him.

  When he had both suitcases done up, he took them in his hands and moved to get out of there.

  But there was a problem: I stood in the doorway
. It seemed my inability to do anything actually helped me.

  If only my throat didn’t feel like someone was squeezing it shut. He kept looking me up and down, sizing me up. For what? Did he wonder if he could shoulder me out of the way? Did he wonder if I wanted to scratch his stupid, cheating eyeballs out if he tried to get past me?

  I swallowed heavily, momentarily giving me back the gift of speech.

  “Why?” I said, my voice hoarse and weak.

  Jerry sighed. It was a deep, long-suffering sigh that spoke of pent-up frustrations and disappointments. Where had I gone wrong? What did I do that upset him so much?

  He dropped the suitcases and paced back and forth, me unable to do anything but follow him with my eyes.

  “I haven’t wanted to be with you for a while,” he said finally, both hands clasped behind his head.

  I didn’t respond. Not by choice. I wanted so much to scream at him, but I couldn’t manage more than a quiver of my lips. He took this as a sign to continue.

  “Damn it, Jennifer! This was never supposed to go on for this long! But no, you just couldn’t take all my damn hints. Why did you come back, anyway? You said you were going to explore and then head off to work! You’re not supposed to be here!”

  Little white flecks of spittle dotted his lips as his face flushed a deep, cherry red. His lips pulled back, revealing his teeth in an animalistic, instinctual snarl.

  “What… What did I do?” I said.

  Sharp pain shot up through my palms, my nails biting into my flesh. I tried to relax my fists a little.

  “I feel like I’m wasted on you, Jennifer. You’re not the person for me. I feel like there’s someone… someone…” he finally looked down at the floor, apparently some part of him feeling too guilty to finish.

  Even though I knew I shouldn’t, I had to know.

  “Someone what?” I said through my teeth.

  He swallowed, looking me in the eye for a moment and then dropping his gaze.

  “Someone better,” he finished, almost under his breath.

  I leaned against the doorframe, covering my eyes with my hands as my eyelids scrunched shut, trying to blot out the hurt along with the rest of the world. He might as well have buried his fist in my stomach.

  It took me a second to realize those rustling noises were him picking up his suitcases and stepping past me. The apartment door opened and shut.

  He’s leaving! I thought. Some impulse spurred me to action, breaking me free of that shocked paralysis. I ran, trying to catch him. Some part of me felt that if I could just get to him before he left the building, I could fix this. I could make everything all right.

  A stupid belief, but I was too panicked, too out of it to really question myself.

  I wrenched the apartment door open and practically sprinted the few steps to the closing elevator door, jamming my arm in at the last moment. For a second, I thought that the old door might just close on me. But just as the pressure got painful, it backed off and opened up.

  “Jennifer…” Jerry said, shaking his head at me.

  The door closed behind me as I slipped in, the elevator beginning its descent. Great, a real sinking feeling to go with the one in my stomach, I thought.

  “Don’t go, please,” I said.

  The elevator stopped at the next floor. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw two figures enter. Something in my brain registered a handsome guy, and a pretty girl all done up like they were going out to the club this Monday afternoon.

  Jerry glanced at them, then to me, as though to say, “Stop, this is embarrassing.”

  Well, I didn’t care. I could take a little embarrassment if it meant saving my relationship.

  “We can work it out. Whatever it is. Please, Jerry, don’t go. Whatever I did, I’m sorry, okay?”

  I almost couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. I mean, he was the one cheating, wasn’t he? He was the one who’d tried to leave without even saying anything to me. Why was I the one groveling, the one apologizing?

  Because I was the weaker one. The needy one. We both knew that. Was that why he was going?

  Jerry rolled his eyes and shook his head.

  “It’s over, okay? There’s nothing you can do about it! So stop making an idiot of yourself and just leave me alone.

  “Please…” I said, feeling the tears begin pushing at the back of my eyes. I couldn’t cry. It would ruin my makeup, and I’d spent so long on it this morning, getting it just right.

  “Stop it. Just stop.”

  “Jerry, please…”

  I reached out for him just as the elevator dinged for the ground floor. The door opened up. Jerry picked up his suitcases and left, along with that guy and the girl he was with.

  She must have thought she was out of earshot or something, because I heard her say, “Jerry, please…” then laugh, shooting a look back at me.

  The guy looked back over his shoulder at me. He wore a fancy leather jacket, a skull or some such stitched into the back. His black hair fell down past his ears.

  I expected that handsome, sharply outlined face of his to share in his girlfriend’s mockery, but instead I saw pity, and a bit of sympathy. Then the elevator door closed.

  I leaned against the wall, staring blankly at the bank of buttons with numbers beside them. My whole world seemed to collapse to the size of that little metal box, its walls pressing in on me.

  My heart slammed in my chest, and I felt short of breath. My legs didn’t really want to hold me up. All I wanted to do was climb into bed, pull the covers up, and force myself to sleep and forget about this.

  But I had to start work soon. I couldn’t be late. Not on my first day. This was my first real job. My first real step into that so-called “real” world. I couldn’t stumble into it. Even if it did feel like Jerry had just reached into my chest and cracked my heart in half.

  My vision started blurring as my eyes watered. I fought against it, resisting the tears. I didn’t have the time to fix my makeup. So I reached forward and stabbed at the “4” button with one finger.

  “Shh… Shh…” I said to myself.

  I had to force it all down, sitting on it like Jerry had needed to sit on his suitcase to get it closed. I needed to close these feelings behind some door or in some box until I had time to deal with them after work.

  The elevator took only a few moments to travel up to my floor. I stepped out. A minute earlier, I’d been sprinting. Now, I just shambled forward to my door. It was unlocked, I knew. A stupid decision. I was in Manhattan! I had to keep my door locked.

  I went back into my apartment. It felt quiet, empty, lifeless, even with most of my stuff still in there.

  Work would be better than this, I knew. I hoped. It had to be better than this. At least, I hoped it would make me forget, at least for a few hours.

  ***

  The taxi ride down to Madison Ave. should have been exciting. I’d heard all my life about New York cabbies and just how crazy they could be. When I’d climbed in I glanced through the protective window between us and saw his name was “Faroukh S.” though he spoke with a British accent.

  The cab smelled of pine air freshener, and with the windows up the growls and screeches of the traffic outside were muted to a dull, constant roar of city life.

  He continued to talk even as he sped around traffic, performed an illegal u-turn, and cut through the park. I looked out the window at the rolling fields of grass, at the joggers and the cyclists and the dog walkers and envied them.

  They all seemed so happy. I knew that not all of them were, of course. But it felt like that when I watched them.

  There was a little TV screen built into the back of the front seat of the cab playing the trailer for some new romcom. I wished I could turn it off, but didn’t know how.

  “Ah, yes. I love this city!” Faroukh said as he angled the big yellow Crown Victoria around an open manhole surrounded by orange pylons. This move earned him a chorus of honks, but he didn’t seem
to mind.

  I shook my head. I think I’d passed the initial shocked phase to one of anger. It burned inside me. I knew I should be enjoying this ride. My first one to work. I planned on getting a subway pass, since taking the cab every day would be expensive, but this was supposed to be a treat!

  I felt the urge to go back home and check my laptop to see if I could log into his Gmail account. Maybe that fatwhorebitch he was talking with on the phone sent him emails. Then I could track her down and…

  I rested the side of my head against the window as we passed beneath a bridge.

  And what? I’d heard what Jerry said. He didn’t want to be with me anymore. Even if I did convince the home wrecker whore he’d taken up with to dump him, what chance was there he’d come crawling back to me?

  “What?” I said.

  Faroukh looked at me in the mirror, a slice of his dark face visible in the reflection.

  “I said it’s such a nice day, is it not, miss?”

  I frowned up at the sky. It was like a light blue sheet set up there above the skyscrapers. Not a cloud in it. In fact, the weather was quite nice. That felt wrong. I felt bad, so shouldn’t the weather be terrible to reflect that?

  “Greatest city in the world, right, miss?”

  “Yeah…” I said.

  I focused my attention back on that little screen, which was playing what appeared to be a promo for Ellen. She was dancing, as usual.

  Maybe I should become a lesbian, I thought. No more having to deal with men. But then I remembered that club bitch from the elevator. I remembered her laugh, and the fake voice she put on to mock me. Women were just as bad as men. Worse, even.

  Maybe just becoming asexual was the answer.

  But then we got over to Madison Ave. All those big buildings had me in awe, and I forgot about Jerry for a few moments as I thought of all the history here, real and fictional.

  One reason I kept to myself for wanting to work here was feeling like I was on the set of Mad Men or Sex and the City. The movies and TV shows said New York was where everything that was at all important happened, so New York was where I had to be.

  Though, New York was also one of the only places I could find a job for my degree in marketing.