08.21.08
Orphan fighter, pt. 8
Still fuming over the inexplicable lifestyle choices of my former friend Ferdinando, I went back to Dale’s office building. There was nothing I wanted more than to prove Ferdinando wrong. Getting out of the life? Why would anyone want to do something like that? We had it all. We were free from responsibilities and monotony. Why anyone would want to chain himself to a life of routine was a mystery. I pushed my way through the door and stopped at the front desk. The receptionist looked up, and, recognising me from earlier, she told me politely that Dale had already left for the day. I could have lost it then — my last resort had failed, and I didn’t have a plan anymore. I took a closer look at the lady at the desk. She looked all right. Maybe she’d take my mind off of things.
“What about you?” I asked her. “Are you getting off soon?”
She looked at me like I was insane in the membrane. She laughed uneasily.
“That was random.”
“Come on now, pretend I’m being serious.” I was starting to have some fun.
She looked at the clock. “I get off in… 4 minutes.”
“You wanna go across the street for coffee?”
“Oh… why not?”
“Sweet, I’ll wait for you out front?”
“OK, I’ll see you then.”
I went outside and took a seat on the curb. It gave me some time to think it over. I just needed someone to talk to, I reasoned. Yeah, that was it. I didn’t want to get all involved with some stranger, but she just happened to be there at the right time.
“Hey, how’s the weather?”
I looked up and saw a face towering over me. That’s the thing about receptionists; while they’re sitting down you can’t tell how tall they are. The fact that I was sitting on the ground notwithstanding, she was tall as hell. When I stood up and brushed off the seat of my pants, I took a good look. I’d say she was a good 6 feet, easy.
“Down here, you mean?”
She laughed. “Nah, you just seemed to be enjoying yourself. Couldn’t really think of anything good to say.”
“It’s cool.”
“So what’s your name?”
“The name my mama gave me is John McMillan, but, to the rest of the world, it’s just Jack.”
“I’m Doris, Doris Baker.”
I extended a hand to her as a gesture of formality. Didn’t want her to get the wrong idea or nothing. We started walking down the street to the crossing, so we talked a bit to round out the introductions. She was just your run-of-the-mill receptionist. Didn’t have much to do with the orphanage operations, it seemed.
When we got to the coffee shop, we ordered our brews and settled in. She started up the discussion.
“When you came in the other day, you seemed to be pretty close with Dale. Are you a friend of his?”
“That guy? Not at all. I just met him last week, and he offered me a job.”
“I see. Well, if you’re going to be working at Dale’s, maybe I’ll be seeing you around.”
“Yeah, I hope so.”
“Haha, sure.”
I guess I wasn’t playing it so straight after all.
“Nah, I just need a friend or two. I don’t really know what I’m getting into there.”
“Oh, don’t worry. The people at Dale’s are pretty nice. And you get to work with kids, too.”
Maybe she didn’t really understand my concerns. Maybe she didn’t know anything about the other side of the business. There was something reassuring in that, actually.
“Sounds great,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.”
“So what kind of work do you do?”
“Oh, I, you know, work with kids.”
It was white lies like that characterised the rest of that particular conversation. I would have been more honest, but I got the feeling that it would be more prudent to hide the truth. It wasn’t so bad, but I wasn’t completely myself either.
An hour or so later, we left the coffee shop and said our good byes. I wasn’t in love or anything, but I was happy to have met her. It wasn’t until I’d gotten home and took a trip to the john that I remembered that my life was starting to look like a pile of shit.