Living Proof, стр. 10
When her breathing slowed, she realized that something was wrong; it took her a moment to realize that she had not heard Sam’s footsteps in the hallway. She spun around to face the door, and froze. Through the peephole, she saw the familiar slouched figure standing still, hands in the pocket of his slacks, staring at her door. She wondered if he had forgotten something, although at least a minute had passed since his departure, and he hadn’t brought anything except the bottle of wine. Keeping her eyes trained on the peephole, she grabbed the brass doorknob and turned the cool metal. As if he were a puppet controlled by its movement, Sam straightened, turned, and ran down the stairs with surprising agility. Arianna swung open the door, but the hall was empty. His footsteps echoed below.
She did not follow him. Instead, she thought of her late father, who, when she was a teenager, used to watch her from their second-floor window whenever she left their apartment at night. Rather than suffering adolescent embarrassment, she had always felt safe in his gaze, as if its protection alone were enough to fend off danger. Sam, she thought, must harbor a similar fatherly inclination. It made sense based both on their ages and the responsibility he carried regarding her life. A symbiotic pair they made—she, fatherless, and he, childless. Of course, he would deny tenderness toward anyone, so she wouldn’t humiliate him with her realization. That was one major difference between Sam and her father, who used to tell her he loved her with the regularity of the tides. But despite Sam’s misanthropic bent, she was glad to see he was still capable of fondness. With a little smile, she opened her shoe closet by the door and slipped on her dancing heels.
* * *
Trent wondered if he would ever meet a woman who was impressed by his job. Some of them blanched and bolted when he told them where he worked. That Saturday night, he bore the full shame of the stigma. The girl at the bar was stunning—her eyes were sea-glass green and her blond hair slid over her shoulders, skimming the tops of her breasts.
“So, what do you do?” she asked after a minute of flirty banter. “Let me guess, but if I get it right, you have to buy me a martini.”
“Okay.”
She tilted her head. “I bet it’s something brainy. I’d say you’re that cute teacher the students are totally obsessed with.”
He chuckled nervously. “Not quite.” An incongruous mix of pride and doubt laced through what felt like a confession. “I work for the DEP.”
“As in the Department of Embryo Preservation?”
“Yeah.” He tried to smile, despite sensing futility. “But I’ll buy you a drink anyway, since you never would have guessed that.”
“You’re right,” she sneered. “I never would have pegged you as a religious freak.”
“I’m not.” And that’s part of the problem, he thought.
But she slid off the barstool without giving him the consolation of a second glance.
He had expected his job to strengthen his faith—that had been his goal in taking it—rather than being humiliated by it. Thank God he wasn’t part of the DEFP, at least. Women in New York reviled that department even more than his own. It was a wonder that any single men there ever got dates.
The next morning, over brunch with his parents, he vented his frustration.
“Oh, Trent,” his mother sighed. “It’s so much easier to date someone with your values! Think of the women at church!”
“Right,” he muttered, thinking of the devout, humble women who prayed beside him on Sundays. “Wife material, maybe, but no good for a night out.”
Even though his parents had been married thirty-five years, they still held hands and even flirted. Trent saw them as the model for the relationship he wanted one day—though one day was turning into anytime now. He was thirty-six and single, his prospects as slim as the pickings, with a dull job that was supposed to be his life’s work. Yet his parents had been together since high school, and by age thirty, both had developed fulfilling careers.
“So what’s the secret?” Trent asked them as his father kissed a spot of whipped cream off his mother’s lips. “You make it look so easy.”
“What?” his mother asked.
“Life. Love. All of it.”
“Life—that’s one thing. But there’s no secret to love,” his father said, putting his arm around Trent’s mother. “It’s easy.”
She grinned. “Actually I think that is the secret,” she said. “Finding a person who makes it easier to be with than without.”
“Now you’re just rubbing it in,” Trent said. He said nothing about it for the rest of the meal, as he listened to them talk about their busy social life.
But as they finished eating, his mother tilted her head at him. “Hon, this isn’t like you. You hardly ate anything.”
He looked down at his plate, where scrambled eggs were pushed around, and felt a slight irritation at her prompting.
“Is something up?” his dad asked.
He hesitated a moment too long. He didn’t really want to talk, but at the same time, he wondered if it would be a relief to confide in the people who cared most about him. Then again, how could he explain a problem he didn’t understand?
“Now you have to tell us,” his mother prodded.
“Well,” he began, “I’ve been feeling kind of off lately.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just something in my life,