Fiction: Carried Away

By Alex McMillin

Someone high up in the agency had decreed that the copy department’s desks should be packed in even more tightly than they already were. They were hiring yet another team of account executives and managers.

There were endless days of confusion regarding the degree of displacement and the date by which it had to be accomplished. Ellie seemed like she was barely holding back an anxiety attack. It hurt Xander deeply to see her in such pain.

He involved himself in the plans both to see the matter concluded as quickly as possible and to ensure that he ended up sitting next to her. A confident word here, a hard look there and it was done.

Maybe now he could strike up a friendship with her, through physical proximity if nothing else. Even if their friendship didn’t take hold for six months or a year, the time spent would be well worth it. At least he would be a part of her life. 

Xander’s negligible social skills, however, made it difficult for him to walk the line between being overly solicitous and merely being polite. In times of hope, he strayed toward the former and in times of dejection he leaned toward the latter. He began mentally preparing himself to accept a bit part in her life. He would be the guy she sat next to at work. That seemed marginally better than being nothing.

This implicit rejection would have been easier for Xander to swallow had Ellie not become fast friends with the other guy she sat next to at work. She seemed enthralled by everything Jamal said and laughed at every joke he told.  Meanwhile, it made Xander’s week to get a smile out of her. He felt like a spurned high school kid. He was perfectly aware of how childish this all was and yet he couldn’t keep his feelings contained. Vicious bouts of murderous envy raged through him day after day.

Xander told himself that he should be grateful. At least now there was a little love in his life. However, any gratitude he could muster evaporated every time he saw her looking at Jamal. Xander didn’t think that there was anything sexual or romantic between them. There was only an affectionate friendship. Exactly what he despaired of.

No way Jamal’s race had anything to do with Xander’s envy. There didn’t appear to be any real chance of an affair. But was even this line of thinking racist?No. I am not a damn racist, Xander told himself. I am a lot of things, not all of them good, but I am not a damn racist. I don’t think.

And yet he wanted to throttle Jamal until his eyes popped out every time he made her laugh. 

Well, maybe this is a good thing, in a way, Xander thought. I can root out any latent racism that I might be harboring in those dark, hard-to-reach places.

After a few weeks, he started turning away when she and Jamal spoke. As long as he could still see her out of the corner of his eye. That was all he needed to still his psychic storm.

He thought often of a line from Anna Karenina. Vrosnky trying to avert his eyes from Anna, like she was the sun itself, but seeing her light nonetheless.

And always reproached himself for being so maudlin. Although all Xander knew of love came from books and movies, so.

Somewhere around this time Xander finally got together enough scratch to move out of his parent’s house and into a cheap one-bedroom just off the campus of his old community college.

The listing had mentioned using the place as a pied-a-terre. The fancy sounding French had been so incongruent with the pictures of the shabby building that Xander couldn’t help but google it.

The little apartment did seem like a good place for a tryst. It was quiet, out of the way, the sort of place where the neighbors didn’t bother to introduce themselves.

Since moving in, Xander’s dreams had come straight out of a moody European arthouse film (minus the drearily lit fucking). He saw Ellie hugging her knees and shivering on the cheap carpet at the foot of his bed. He saw himself holding her and whispering sweet platitudes into her ear. Xander took the platonic nature of these recurring dreams as irrefutable evidence that he really did love Ellie. He hadn’t even jerked off with her in mind, not once. Some of the other girls at work weren’t so lucky.

When he was really being honest with himself, Xander could admit that she wasn’t even particularly attractive. She had lovely blue-green eyes that were the color of the Gulf on a warm summer’s day, but she also had slightly jagged teeth and a near-nonexistent jawline. He certainly wanted her body, flat and wiry as it might be, but that wasn’t what he truly craved. He wanted her empathy most of all.

***

Xander swore that he’d started this job with the best of intentions. He’d planned to keep his head down and work hard, to follow managerial directives to the letter. To be a good company man.

That mindset had lasted for the first three months or so, which was how long it took for Xander to realize Ellie would never care about him. 

On the first day of month five, an unshaven Xander showed up half an hour late to work in a salsa-stained heavy metal t-shirt and torn gym shorts.

Brian extended his flabby arms with pale palms beseechingly upturned. “Dude.”

“Morning.”

“Dude, you can’t keep coming in a half-hour late.”

“Okay.”

“Eddy told me to tell you. Apparently, Brandon noticed.”“Oh,” Xander said. He booted up the old company-issue laptop. Brian exhaled angrily through flared nostrils.

“Okay,” Xander said. “I’ll try to make it on-time from now on.”

“It’s not that hard,” Jamal interjected with a self-righteous little smile. “I’m here at eight every morning.”

“Good for you,” Xander said. Ellie had, for once, taken notice of him. Jamal turned back to his computer, still wearing that infuriating smirk. She kept looking at Xander for a beat longer. He couldn’t decide whether her expression signified concern or pity. Xander turned away, afraid of what he might find in her eyes.

He put his headphones in and started typing furiously, determined not to stop until he took his lunch break at 12 PM sharp.

After an hour or so, he found himself watching Brian, Jamal and Ellie as they engaged in animated conversation. Xander felt like he was watching them from the wrong side of a perfectly clear one-way window. Like if he reached out he’d feel cold glass against his palms

He longed for a cigarette. He didn’t miss the nicotine as much as he missed the excuse to hop off the hamster wheel and take a break from the world for a few minutes. To hit the reset button. He decided to settle for a cup of terrible but free corporate coffee. He could take it out to his car and kill fifteen minutes reading the Wikipedia bios of great poets on his phone. 

Some blessed soul had just made a fresh pot of coffee. Xander preferred to drink it when it was too hot to really taste. A slight tongue-scalding was preferable to the bitter metallic tang the coffee had when it was palatable. The only alternative was to dump in three or four packets of creamer, but Xander’s own personal cult of masculinity limited him to black coffee only.

He poured himself a foam thimble of coffee and took it outside. Stepping out into the Southwest Florida summer was like getting hit in the face with a towel someone had discarded in a sauna.

Home sweet home, Xander thought as he crossed the cramped little lot to his Kia. The shade tree that the smokers favored bestowed its shadow upon empty ground. Their cravings still sated by a cigarette during the morning commute, no doubt. Nor were the pair of obese women from some Accounts sub-department doing their usual morning laps around the lot. The weather was just too disgusting.

Xander had parked his little hatchback in a shady corner of the rear lot. The density of parked cars was such that his Kia was pretty much invisible from the office’s service entrance, which most of the employees used for both ingress and egress. His choice of parking spot was very much by design.

Solitude was the whole point of these frequent breaks in his sweltering car. This sort of intermittent solitude (as solitude tends to do, at least for unhappy people) kicked off much rumination on various depressing metaphysical issues. Lately, Xander had been pondering the notion that he actually felt less alone when he was by himself than he did when surrounded by uncaring people.

Also that loving provided richer nourishment to the human soul than being loved. Xander regarded this as his most promising hypothesis, metaphysics-wise. It felt like maybe he’d discovered one of those hidden universal truths that lay deep in the heart of the human condition. Or maybe this was so obvious that nobody bothered to speak it aloud.

Xander sat in his broiling car and chewed on this for a while. The temperature in the car, which must have been near 130°, eased him gradually into a near-catatonic state. He wondered idly if he’d die in the (increasingly likely) event that he fell asleep.

Ah well, he thought. I should probably get back inside. Any longer and people might notice.

He leaned on the door to steady himself as he climbed out of the car. He tried a bracing sip of the coffee, which he’d stuffed in a central cupholder. It was still steaming hot, but a slight metallic tang came through nonetheless.

A briny Gulf breeze blessed the parking lot for a vanishing moment.

“That’s more like it,” he said aloud. He steeled himself with a deep breath or two and walked across the hellacious lot, not letting himself pause for more than an instant until he pulled the heavy steel fire door open and stepped into conditioned air.

None of his co-workers so much as raised an eyebrow when he reappeared. All were now engrossed in working or pretending to work—their headphones in, their eyes glued to their computer screens. Xander inserted his headphones, affected that same blank stare, and started typing.

At some length a stray thought bubbled through and froze his fingers mid-sentence.

She’s not wearing her wedding ring.

It took Xander a second to process the thought and realize who it referred to.

Whipping around in his chair and staring intently at Ellie’s hands would be weird, he decided.

He took a moment to compose himself. He decided to walk slowly past her desk like he was on his way to the men’s room around the corner. This would give him ample opportunity to look at her hands and ascertain the presence or absence of a wedding ring.

His heart felt like it might burst through his ribcage. His fists were balled up so tightly that his knuckles ached. Points of sweat were breaking out along his hairline.

Well, no time like the present.

There was indeed an empty band of pale flesh around her ring finger.

Xander found that he’d actually walked all the way to the stalls in the empty men’s room.

Oh, fuck, he thought. Or maybe he said it out loud. He couldn’t be sure.

It was clear that he needed a moment to collect himself. He’d only returned from his car two minutes ago, so going back outside wasn’t really an option. He decided to take a breather in the handicapped stall.

He latched the stall door shut and turned on the cold tap. He felt a little better until he made the mistake of looking at himself in the dirty little mirror above the sink. The guy staring back at him was bleary-eyed, unkempt, and heavily stubbled.

I look like a late-stage alcoholic, he thought. I’m really only maybe an early-stage alcoholic at worst.

Xander splashed the now-freezing water on his face.

Maybe she’s just getting it resized or cleaned or something, he thought. Although it’s not like I would know if she really did leave her husband.

She could have just lost the ring. People do that, I’ve heard. It happens.

He sighed heavily and pressed his still-dripping forehead against the filthy mirror.

Even if she did leave her husband, what could I really do? She won’t give me so much as the time of day.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

First things first. I need to find out whether or not she’s actually split up with her husband. I don’t know how I’m going to do that discreetly, but I’ll have to find a way. It’s not like I can just go up to her and ask if she’s divorcing her husband.

Xander pushed himself away from the mirror and nodded vigorously.

Okay. Yeah. That’s what I’ll do. I just have to keep my ears peeled and my eyes open. Or the other way around, even.

He slipped out of the stall and walked calmly through the bathroom and down the hallway toward his desk. Toward her.

She was playing with her phone, her fingers bare with nails painted a peeling sky-blue.

This time Xander didn’t put his headphones in. He threw himself into his work for the next two hours in an attempt to crowd out the fantastical day dreams waiting just below the surface of his mind.

He was determined to approach the situation as rationally as possible. First, he had to patiently gather evidence. When he had a better idea of what was going on, he would assess the situation and determine the right course of action. He’d only get one shot at this, if that. He couldn’t afford to fuck it up.

The exceptionally taxing combination of hard work and personal intrigue left Xander mentally exhausted by the time noon finally came around.

He always ordered a take-out chicken bowl from Chipotle on Mondays. He was nothing if not a creature of compulsive habit. Unless the heat was truly at a stroke-inducing level, Xander ate lunch in his car while browsing ESPN and Wikipedia on his phone. After considerable deliberation on the way to and from Chipotle, he decided to stay in his car with the driver’s side window down to catch any breeze that might come through. Only the passenger side of his car would be visible from the office’s service entrance if he backed into his usual spot. The Kia, which he’d bought used, had come with darkly tinted windows that prevented prying eyes from seeing into the interior.

He parked like so and commenced shoveling piping hot Tex-Mex into his mouth, not even bothering to take off his seatbelt. It had occurred to him recently that he might have addictive tendencies vis a vis food. The rigid meal schedule and rapid intake certainly seemed pathological.

He was totally overwhelmed by the act of eating for the five minutes or so it took him to ingest ~16 ounces of chicken, rice, beans, cheese, and peppers. Thoughts of Ellie only began to creep back in as he approached the nearby dumpster with plastic fork and bowl in hand.

A quick glance at his battered old Timex showed a good forty-five minutes until his lunch break was up. Plenty of time for him to work himself into shivers and heart palpitations. He needed something that would take up more mental real estate than an article ranking the pre-game fashion choices of NBA stars.

He ended up back at his desk watching soccer highlight videos and blasting heavy metal through his headphones. Everyone else in the copy department had left for lunch, presumably together.

After a while Ellie appeared, clutching a Panera bag in her ringless left hand and her phone in the other. She set the bag down on her desk and disappeared. Xander immediately got up and walked over to her desk to see what she’d ordered for lunch, a reflexive act that only struck him as potentially creepy well after the fact.

She’d put the order under some other name, presumably her maiden name.

Xander staggered back to his desk and half-collapsed into his chair.

Systems overload, he thought. I am experiencing technical difficulties.

...

Oh, fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Whew. Oh my God.

Okay.

Alright.

I’ve got to get ahold of myself.

Ellie reappeared at her desk and pulled a salad out of her bag, which she discarded unceremoniously in the wastebasket beside her desk.

I might actually be in with a chance.

Xander closed his eyes and took slow, measured breaths for as long as he could stand. He could hear Ellie eating her salad directly behind him. After maybe thirty seconds, he shook his head and left the office as quickly as he could without drawing her attention.

When Xander really, really, desperately needed to get away, he’d take a walk along the access road that split the office grounds from the sprawling campus of what had to be the biggest V.A. hospital in Southwest Florida. Traffic west of these depressing healthcare facilities was sparse where the road ran past a quiet little pond and through a few acres of yet-undeveloped pine scrub.

He stumbled through the back door and crossed the parking lot to the sidewalk’s eastern terminus. A few cars that he didn’t recognize came and went. Nobody who would miss him. Xander had been working at the agency for nearly four months now, and still hadn’t spoken a word to 85% or more of his colleagues. It seemed to him that this particular failing was mutual. 

A battered white pickup truck carrying six stone-faced Latino workers in its bed approached from the west at a highly illegal speed. Xander had to fight off a sudden impulse to jump in front of the truck and on into oblivion. 

One of the men seemed to look right into him as the truck passed. Xander quickly wrote this off as a figment of his raging imagination. He took a deep breath and started walking westbound past the immaculately groomed and morbidly empty hospital grounds. 

I can’t do that now, he thought. I just might have a reason to live. 

For reasons that he couldn’t quite fathom, there was a sad little playground between the hospital and the pond.

Xander took the opportunity to stop and contemplate what nature had done with a half-acre of wastewater runoff that was contaminated with whatever sort of toxic fertilizer the hospital used and who knew what else. It wasn’t exactly Walden Pond, but Xander could see at least five catfish sunning themselves just below the murky surface and three electric-blue herons spearfishing the shallows. He reminded himself that he should really get around to reading Thoreau at some point. 

It took two or three minutes for the God-forsaken humidity to make standing still unbearable. The air on the worst summer days here was so thick with humidity that it was actually heavy. It had a real sense of weight to it that made the simple act of drawing breath a physically draining task. This was especially true when one was standing in front of a steaming and faintly toxic-smelling pond.

And but so back to Ellie. The way Xander saw it, he had no choice but to ask her out if she really was truly single. Only after keeping a respectful distance while she recovered from the dissolution of her marriage, of course. Maybe the inevitable cooling off period would give him the opportunity to methodically work his way into her good graces. Xander reminded himself that this wasn’t about chasing pussy. He was willing to play the long game if he had even the barest hint of a chance to be with her. 

He sighed in relief, a satisfied smile playing at the corners of his badly chapped lips. He felt clear-minded amid the sharp fragrance of the pines and cheery twittering of their resident songbirds. He liked to think of himself as a pretty bright guy. As long as he approached the Ellie situation thoughtfully, he thought that he could actually charm her little by little until she was ecstatic at the prospect of dating him. All he needed was time.

***

Xander came into work that next day with a sense of confident determination. He had a calculated and subtle plan for managing the social minutiae of each workday until the sum of these small acts drew Ellie to him. He knew that he wasn’t the kind of guy who could change a woman’s perception of himself with a single dramatic gesture. Accepting his limitations did not mean that he’d have to accept defeat.

He set himself a goal of one personal interface with Ellie per day. You gotta start somewhere, he told himself, grateful for the sort of numb relief that platitudes gave him from his anxiety.

She was standing by her desk with Starbucks cup in hand, chattering brightly with one of the indistinguishable blonde girls from accounts. Ellie’s wedding and engagement rings sparkled in what Xander chose not to see as a cosmic taunt. She was saying something about going to a Pixies concert with her husband in June.

Okay, okay. I get the point, Xander thought. 

He lowered himself carefully into his creaky swivel chair, resisting a sudden temptation to shove Ellie’s chair into her desk. The flat blackness of his computer’s screen presented Xander with an easy self-pitying metaphor.

Well, that’s what I get for hoping, he thought. Man am I a fucking idiot or what? I can’t believe that I let myself get that carried away. Although I guess the fantasy was nice while it lasted.

He booted up his computer and prepared for another round of self-bombardment.

“Good morning,” Ellie said with a sort of lilting cheer. Xander had to turn around to see that she was, indeed, speaking to him.

“Good morning,” Xander said with a mirthless little chuckle. He blinked hard and turned back to his computer, leaving Ellie making small, offended noises behind him.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing.”

She spun and strode away primly. Xander watched her go in the reflection from his monitor.

Alex McMillin is an American fiction writer from Florida. Follow him on Twitter: @McMillin_Writer