Times
Times
~1100 words, for
sheafrotherdon, who requested that Alex quit his job in NY and go back to Chicago (and to Claire) pretty damn quick.
1:02 am EST
Alex doesn't have to be here, but it's easier than being in the apartment, which seems emptiest in the still, early-morning hours. At least here there's the constant muffled 24-hour hum of other reporters typing or talking on the phone in their fabric-lined cubicles, chasing down leads and hoping for their own Pulitzers. This is everything he's worked for, everything he thought he wanted, and he hates it.
He's working on another slum lord piece, a big-ticket one—a whole block in Crown Heights, because everything has to be bigger in New York—and he's struggling with the words, shuffling and re-shuffling his notes, picking at the eraser on his pencil, staring at the computer screen, cursor blinking next to exposed wiring, and all he sees is Claire in the park: He can conjure up exactly the way the wind blew her hair against her cheek, the soft shush of her coat as she walked, the tickle of her collar, the salt-soap taste of her skin under his tongue, how distracted she was with whatever was churning in her big brain. He wishes he'd pasted ten tattoos on her, twenty, enough so that she'd be covered like a well-traveled suitcase, with a New York baggage claim ticket around her wrist.
He's— Okay, he's a little bleary, and probably not fit to be writing copy, and the world outside his cubicle feels impossibly out of reach, never mind Chicago—and, he realizes, snapping the eraser clean off the end of his pencil, that's exactly where he wants to be.
7:36 pm EST
Alex practices what he's going to say, talks to one of the blank walls in his apartment—it's not like there's anyone around to hear him, though, thanks to most of his possessions still being in boxes, there is quite an echo. He wants to tell her that she was right, that he did have to do this, if only to find out for himself that it wasn't what he wanted to be doing, after all. That he's glad he did, because he never, never wants to resent her. That he's scared as hell, because if he's fucked this up between them, then he'll really have nothing. (He probably won't say "fucked up" to her machine, but sitting here alone in his empty apartment, nursing a beer and thinking hard about his security deposit so that he won't send it smashing into the bare fucking wall, fucked is pretty much exactly how he feels.)
It's group night, Claire's lonely-hearts club (and if anyone needs to be sitting in on a session, jesus, it's him). So when he calls, he knows she's not going to be there.
Finally, after three rings and her message and a beep, he clears his throat and says, "Hey, Claire. It's Alex. I, um. I'm coming back."
2:21 pm EST
Alex fidgets in his seat on the plane, flips idly through the crumpled complimentary in-flight magazine for the third time, skips over the filled-in crossword, re-checks the inane articles about California wine country and "Snow Sports 101" for any redeeming value. They're already 40 minutes late getting out of La Guardia and they're still sitting on the tarmac, and any thoughts he'd had about a quick getaway gave up a while back, replaced by a hundred doubts and what-ifs and worst-case scenarios (Claire's seeing another guy; Claire's seeing a woman; Claire's not seeing anyone else, but she doesn't want to see him; Claire's gone on an extended vacation to Fiji (a delightful travel destination, the magazine assures him); Trevor's become her wacky roommate).
He takes a deep breath and then another one, eyes the air sickness bag in the seat pocket in front of him. What he knows is that he doesn't have a single regret about the apartment he never really settled into, about his desk at the Times that someone new has probably already inherited, along with his collection of decapitated pencils, about the museums and restaurants that, for all his globe-trotting, he just couldn't quite stomach exploring on his own.
4:56 pm CST
Turns out that his timing sucks, because Claire's not home yet when the cab drops him off, which means delaying the more immediate possible outcomes (at least Trevor didn't answer the door when he knocked). Alex skulks around for a few minutes before deciding that sitting on her front step makes him look less suspicious, if possibly more pathetic. He's staring at his shoes, scrubbing his thumb over a scuff mark when two pointy brown pumps come into his field of view.
Claire's peering down at him, and he almost wouldn't know she's flustered but for the way she tucks her hair behind an ear and almost drops the pile of manila folders in her arms in the process.
It's automatic, standing up so that he's looking down on her, reaching to take the folders from her, except that she has a death grip on them, and he's wondering whether they're going to have a tug of war right here when he realizes she's saying, "Alex. Alex!"
He gives up on the folders, shoves his hands in his pockets when what he really wants to do is reach for her, put his hands on her hair, her neck, tug her close to him, weeks and weeks' worth of wanting threatening to spill out.
They watch each other, and his stomach rumbles, and Claire, looking scared in a way he's never really seen her, says, "Alex. Just, come on, come inside."
5:19 pm CST
It takes Alex twenty minutes to undress her, because he feels like he's been running on empty for a while now, and touching her like this is filling him back up. There's a trail of coat and shoes and stockings and brown wool and ivory silk winding through the house, a trail of kisses along her collarbone, of fingerprints over her hips.
"I promise you we will talk about this—we'll get Chinese, okay? And I, uh, I figured a bunch of stuff out, a bunch of stuff I want to tell you. But right now . . . "
"Yes," she says, yes, yes, and it echoes back to him, reverberates in his chest, and he wants to say the same thing, over and over. Yes.
Later, much later, after a lot of talking and a lot of crispy scallion pancakes, Claire rouses, rubs the cold tip of her nose against his shoulder, mumbles, "Mmmmmmmmm, what time is it?" And he palms the back of her head, kisses her eyebrow, says, "Doesn't matter."
~1100 words, for
sheafrotherdon, who requested that Alex quit his job in NY and go back to Chicago (and to Claire) pretty damn quick.1:02 am EST
Alex doesn't have to be here, but it's easier than being in the apartment, which seems emptiest in the still, early-morning hours. At least here there's the constant muffled 24-hour hum of other reporters typing or talking on the phone in their fabric-lined cubicles, chasing down leads and hoping for their own Pulitzers. This is everything he's worked for, everything he thought he wanted, and he hates it.
He's working on another slum lord piece, a big-ticket one—a whole block in Crown Heights, because everything has to be bigger in New York—and he's struggling with the words, shuffling and re-shuffling his notes, picking at the eraser on his pencil, staring at the computer screen, cursor blinking next to exposed wiring, and all he sees is Claire in the park: He can conjure up exactly the way the wind blew her hair against her cheek, the soft shush of her coat as she walked, the tickle of her collar, the salt-soap taste of her skin under his tongue, how distracted she was with whatever was churning in her big brain. He wishes he'd pasted ten tattoos on her, twenty, enough so that she'd be covered like a well-traveled suitcase, with a New York baggage claim ticket around her wrist.
He's— Okay, he's a little bleary, and probably not fit to be writing copy, and the world outside his cubicle feels impossibly out of reach, never mind Chicago—and, he realizes, snapping the eraser clean off the end of his pencil, that's exactly where he wants to be.
7:36 pm EST
Alex practices what he's going to say, talks to one of the blank walls in his apartment—it's not like there's anyone around to hear him, though, thanks to most of his possessions still being in boxes, there is quite an echo. He wants to tell her that she was right, that he did have to do this, if only to find out for himself that it wasn't what he wanted to be doing, after all. That he's glad he did, because he never, never wants to resent her. That he's scared as hell, because if he's fucked this up between them, then he'll really have nothing. (He probably won't say "fucked up" to her machine, but sitting here alone in his empty apartment, nursing a beer and thinking hard about his security deposit so that he won't send it smashing into the bare fucking wall, fucked is pretty much exactly how he feels.)
It's group night, Claire's lonely-hearts club (and if anyone needs to be sitting in on a session, jesus, it's him). So when he calls, he knows she's not going to be there.
Finally, after three rings and her message and a beep, he clears his throat and says, "Hey, Claire. It's Alex. I, um. I'm coming back."
2:21 pm EST
Alex fidgets in his seat on the plane, flips idly through the crumpled complimentary in-flight magazine for the third time, skips over the filled-in crossword, re-checks the inane articles about California wine country and "Snow Sports 101" for any redeeming value. They're already 40 minutes late getting out of La Guardia and they're still sitting on the tarmac, and any thoughts he'd had about a quick getaway gave up a while back, replaced by a hundred doubts and what-ifs and worst-case scenarios (Claire's seeing another guy; Claire's seeing a woman; Claire's not seeing anyone else, but she doesn't want to see him; Claire's gone on an extended vacation to Fiji (a delightful travel destination, the magazine assures him); Trevor's become her wacky roommate).
He takes a deep breath and then another one, eyes the air sickness bag in the seat pocket in front of him. What he knows is that he doesn't have a single regret about the apartment he never really settled into, about his desk at the Times that someone new has probably already inherited, along with his collection of decapitated pencils, about the museums and restaurants that, for all his globe-trotting, he just couldn't quite stomach exploring on his own.
4:56 pm CST
Turns out that his timing sucks, because Claire's not home yet when the cab drops him off, which means delaying the more immediate possible outcomes (at least Trevor didn't answer the door when he knocked). Alex skulks around for a few minutes before deciding that sitting on her front step makes him look less suspicious, if possibly more pathetic. He's staring at his shoes, scrubbing his thumb over a scuff mark when two pointy brown pumps come into his field of view.
Claire's peering down at him, and he almost wouldn't know she's flustered but for the way she tucks her hair behind an ear and almost drops the pile of manila folders in her arms in the process.
It's automatic, standing up so that he's looking down on her, reaching to take the folders from her, except that she has a death grip on them, and he's wondering whether they're going to have a tug of war right here when he realizes she's saying, "Alex. Alex!"
He gives up on the folders, shoves his hands in his pockets when what he really wants to do is reach for her, put his hands on her hair, her neck, tug her close to him, weeks and weeks' worth of wanting threatening to spill out.
They watch each other, and his stomach rumbles, and Claire, looking scared in a way he's never really seen her, says, "Alex. Just, come on, come inside."
5:19 pm CST
It takes Alex twenty minutes to undress her, because he feels like he's been running on empty for a while now, and touching her like this is filling him back up. There's a trail of coat and shoes and stockings and brown wool and ivory silk winding through the house, a trail of kisses along her collarbone, of fingerprints over her hips.
"I promise you we will talk about this—we'll get Chinese, okay? And I, uh, I figured a bunch of stuff out, a bunch of stuff I want to tell you. But right now . . . "
"Yes," she says, yes, yes, and it echoes back to him, reverberates in his chest, and he wants to say the same thing, over and over. Yes.
Later, much later, after a lot of talking and a lot of crispy scallion pancakes, Claire rouses, rubs the cold tip of her nose against his shoulder, mumbles, "Mmmmmmmmm, what time is it?" And he palms the back of her head, kisses her eyebrow, says, "Doesn't matter."