Chapter Text
Each weekday morning for eleven years, Oliver Gelding has marched from the metro station to his highrise office tenaciously ignoring the same man. Most weekends, too, if he’s honest.
Tattered, grime-smudged clothing. Oliver has never seen a baby - only a filthy stroller heavy-laden with a tent, stacks of blankets and sundry unidentifiable items. The two men might share the same birthday, but the other has aged far less gracefully since his dark-skin has been exposed to summer’s cruelest heat and winter’s harshest winds. Undeterred, the hobo remains committed to his daily renditions of Baptist spirituals faithfully blasted on a trombone. Saint Peter on crack.
As the owner and CEO of his business, (SecuQore Inc.) Gelding might dress however he pleases. Today, he chose a pale-blue button-down shirt (starched rigid), a navy blazer and khaki slacks. Guests to his office are a rarity, but a man is only as smart as his attire.
Before the vagabond, stands his trusty, white five-gallon paint bucket. It’s intended as for donations, but might double as a toilet. Oliver is as likely to toss in his money as to drop his trousers and perch on it. The gestures would be equally humiliating and misguided. Charity is always, only a mistake. You don’t give a man fish, and this individual looks ill-suited to administrative work.
Across the street, pigeons feasting on yesterday's fries. Flying rats. Oliver doesn't give them handouts, either.
In a few weeks, the hornman will start abusing passersby with O Holy Night and Jingle Bells.
Oliver will consider coming to work earlier, or by some circuitous, music-free route. He’ll Google the cost of renting a helicopter. Ultimately, he’ll suffer, because the train is best, even though he’s traveling from the apartment rather than the house now.
This September morning’s breeze carries This Little Light of Mine. If only the bastard would let it shine elsewhere.
Morning traffic agonizes by, desperate drivers leaning on their own horns. Oliver flows with the tide of commuters and their insulated mugs of liquid vitality. He stuffs in his earbuds, tucks his chin to his chest, manipulates his phone to deliver direct transmission of the morning’s trade report. His shoulders hunch, further protection from the booming melody.
Usually, Oliver passes his nemesis without flicking an eye at the man’s can or his instrument. In his haste, he knocks into a hefty woman who jostles him back. Oliver stumbles and kicks over the makeshift cash register, sending donations clinking and a few lonely dollars flitting down the street. He jogs away, head bowed, heart fluttering arrhythmically.
He enters the building studying his screen rather than echoing the “Good morning” cast at him by the person who stayed the door for him.
She shifts her sensible heels awaiting his gratitude. People who perform meaningless social gestures should not expect constant praise.
He settles behind his U-shaped mahogany desk with his back to the window. Before him, only an iMac and a bottle of hand sanitizer. He begins each morning’s work with ritual cleansing, rubbing the cold, slime between eager fingers, inhaling the comforting sharp antiseptic.
Fifty feet away, to his left is Grace’s desk with her phone and mess. The rest of the space is for storing his product. Technically, against zoning, but Oliver is timely with his lease payment and no one has ever cracked down.
He works for a couple of hours before the door clicks open and Grace enters. A stout woman of approximately 65. Thirteen minutes late.
But the scowl this morning is not for the tardiness. It’s because this could be her last day. An advanced cancer diagnosis.
Half a year ago, when Grace first delivered the news along with two-weeks notice, Oliver had still been living with Anne. His wife had insisted he release the woman immediately, but Anne is no businesswoman. She’s a former barmaid. The only contract she’s ever signed was their marriage license. Since then, she has gleefully accepted Oliver’s support. When the paperwork is done, she’ll merrily take his alimony.
Which is bullshit. A woman spends 12 years on her ass at home. She destroyed the marriage that sustained her and the schmuck husband is forced to continue to pay her way? Where is the logic or the sense?
Don’t get Oliver started on the injustices of child support.
Repeatedly, he has begged, cajoled and given raises to compel Grace to stay on. Two weeks ago, though, she’d given her soft-soled impression of putting her foot down: a doctor’s letter.
“Morning, boss.” She flashes her dentures (courtesy of overpriced dental insurance)
Oliver nods across the office. Extraneous talk is time wasted.
Grace’s name was always an irony, but since her diagnosis, she has dwindled to a dainty size 18. She drops her considerable bulk into the desk chair, huffs a loud sigh and fires up her computer. Two years ago, after much complaint about her back, Oliver paid (far too much) for that chair. It’s far too cushy for a new employee.
He frowns across the shared 70’x70’ workspace and tries to imagine someone else at Grace’s desk. A new voice asking ridiculous questions about the simplest procedures. A new moron struggling to grasp the significance of the product. If Oliver could dock Grace’s pay for the impropriety of leaving, he’d do it.
Instead, he works through lunch, holding his well-tamed bladder. Every so often, he refuels on encapsulated caffeine.
At ten minutes to 6 PM, his phone buzzes with a text message. Usually, he mutes it. Right now, he pauses his design tweak to picks up the device and turn it off. He sees the message from Anne unintentionally.
- Remember Grace’s gift!
What gift? Oliver hadn’t…
But Anne had.
The memory slaps him hard enough to elicit a groan.
Six months ago, as he’d packed his shit (Anne’s words) to move out of the house on Baker, his not-soon-enough-to-be ex had calmly reminded him to expect a package - a retirement gift for Grace. Standing here now, it takes another five seconds to remember where he’d stowed it in hopes Grace would never follow through on the threat.
The old sow slings her massive purse over her shoulder. Oliver stands and uses his voice for the first time today.
“Wait.”
The word sounds more like a honk. He clears his throat, repeats the command and his soldier halts, one final time.
He recovers a slender blue box from his top right-hand drawer. Grace grins, holds out both palms like a beggar child and sings, “You shouldn’t have, boss.”
She’s damn right. And Anne shouldn’t have either, but it’s done and likely far too late to return whatever it is.
Oliver watches with curiosity as Grace slides down the silver bow and unveils a stunning diamond bracelet. She gasps, sucking most of the oxygen from the room.
“Oh, boss.”
Oliver holds his breath.
Anne is obviously, clinically insane. Or else this was a final barb on the canine rod she’s been shoving up his asshole for months.
What on God’s gray earth does a 65-year-old retired woman need with jewelry like that?
That thing cost triple digits, at least. Oliver does a poor job hiding his anguish, but Grace never sees because she’s too entranced with sliding her dazzling finery over her mottled claw onto her flabby wrist.
Oliver frowns and nods. He clasps his hands behind his back to subdue the errant thought.
There’s no acceptable way to reclaim the present. All he can do is accept it as another public ball-shriveling defeat, administered by his not-soon-enough-to-be ex-wife.
“Oh,” Grace giggles like a girl a tenth of her age. “I almost forgot.”
From her fridge-sized purse, she plucks the almost forgotten and entirely unforgettable plain white envelope. 3x5. Inside, a greeting card with a hand-drawn and unforgivably trite beach scene. Inside, the words:
You Only Live Once
“You’re really too kind, Mr Gelding,” she says.
Oliver grunts and allows himself to be folded into a gut-curdling hug. Something about the thin-fat feel of her body. Still husky under all that loose skin.
Who knows the last time someone touched him? He hadn’t missed it and this embrace does not rekindle longing. Nodding stupidly, Oliver pulls away and folds his arms.
Since they’re being sentimental, he says, “You know, you’re killing me, right?”
“Sir.”
“I mean, plain and simply, you just are,” Oliver says without altering his posture.
He’s not attacking. He’s being forthright. Honest. It’s one of his strengths. Grace, however, winces and lowers her head. Good. This is good, subordinate behavior.
“How am I supposed to land this federal contract without you?”
“Sir, you flatter me.”
“No, I need you, in this office, doing the part I can’t do.”
“Mr. Gelding.” She finally looks up and sighs. “I am exhausted.”
As she says it, Oliver sees it, for the first time. The dull grey of her eyes, the thinning hair, the perpetual stoop to her shoulders. She wouldn’t be much use to him in this state for long anyway.
“If I could, I would, sir,” Grace says. “Truly.”
She should leave before this becomes more uncomfortable. Oliver shakes his head and steps back, declining to meet her apologetic gaze.
Moments like these shouldn’t be drawn out. He hadn’t bothered with Goodbye before he’d left the house on Baker. He packed his shit (Anne’s words) and left. Anne has since apologized for many, if not all of her evil words and deeds. She has begged Oliver to return and talk.
But he’s happy - or at least his understanding of that term - alone in the apartment.
It’s a few miles further from the office. It had required him to break the lease and pay the renter a penalty, but it was the best thing he’d done in over a decade. Now, he can work all day and half the night without a single whimper from anyone.
There’s no one to whom he answers. Not god. And as soon as this divorce is complete, not a lawyer.
The state will set up an account and siphon off half his money each month. Who cares? Take one of his balls. In fact, take two. Oliver won’t be using them again. He’d rather blow the back off his own skull than date again.
Fuck, maybe.
Sure. Okay.
It’s extreme to think he’ll never get laid again, but not with any prospect of it leading to a “relationship” of any kind. Single night hurrahs from here on out.
And with whom will those trysts be?
He’s never swiped, left nor right.
The mere thought of nameless skanks in public bathroom stalls make him long for a purgative squirt from the Purell.
He looks down and puffs out a long sigh at the likely life of celibacy that lays ahead. Grace is lingering, awaiting the end of his reverie. The woman knows him.
“You do remember your appointment tomorrow morning?” She asks. “9 AM, with my nephew?”
“Why?”
In all these years, he’s never met a member of her family. She might have mentioned children or grandchildren, but he’d paid similar attention to such ramblings as to her belching habit - which had grown especially foul with this most recent round of experimental treatment.
“Because,” Grace says. “He understands the field. He’s not an engineer, but he has technical experience and a young person’s ambition and aptitude. He’ll be perfect for you.”
If Oliver could automate Grace’s job, he’d have done it by now.
This woman knows, better than anyone, what her job requires. She knows this nephew. Oliver lumbers around his desk, scribbles 9 AM on a Post-it which he then sticks to the upper left corner of his screen.
He nods once more. Grace mirrors the gesture and vanishes.
It’ll suck tomorrow, but for now, there’s sweet silence again. He works in contented Flow until a few minutes after 11.
Even then, he only stops because the phone rings.
Grace’s phone.
There isn’t a phone on his desk, because how can anyone get anything done when people are bombarding you with questions and requests. It’s a wonder he ever reached a proper flow state with that woman in the room chirping away on the phone. But choosing this shared space had saved on rent. He’d invested those savings on yearly improvements on his product - a wise choice that pays off in repeat customers and word of mouth.
The merciless ring from the phone bounces off the glass behind him, shattering the flawless silence.
Groan.
Oliver could go his entire day without talking. That’s what Grace is for.
He stares at the cursed thing as if daring it to leap from the receiver and crab-scuttle across the floor.
Finally, the caller gives up, or their call goes to voice mail. Whatever happens when the phone silences.
Then, it begins again. On the third attempt, he swears and stands. On the 17th ring, he snatches the phone from the cradle and shouts, “What?”
The biggest curmudgeon in sales knows that’s no way to answer a customer call. It’s not like Oliver has the spectrum to blame for his behavior. At least, he hasn’t been screened. Anne has suggested he might be a touch autistic, but she’s constantly spewing hateful crap like that. Anti-social overachiever doesn’t automatically equal Asperger’s, or whatever the latest diagnostic craze might be.
Oliver squeezes his eyes shut. Before he can launch an apology, Anne chatters back:
“Why aren’t you answering your phone? I knew you’d still be at work. Are you getting any sleep at all, Oliver? You can’t live like this forever, you know? Did you give Grace the present? Liv was waiting to hear from you.”
The litany would have continued if he hadn’t wedged in his word.
“You can tell Liv I already said, no.”
“You need to tell her yourself. Maybe she’ll understand it better from you.”
“Fine. Put her on the phone.”
“Oh, come on, Ollie? Why, no? It’s really not fair.”
"You asked. I answered. Is there something else you want?"
"Oliver." She was quiet for a moment, collecting thoughts he didn't want to hear. "Even if we don’t… I understand why you don't forgive me… All I’m saying, Oliver, is that you don’t have to live like a refugee."
As aggressively as he avoids music, even Oliver knows that’s a fricking Tom Petty song. “I don’t have time for this.”
There used to be a rewarding click and the action of putting down the received when you hung up on someone. Now, touch a button and conversation is over.
Like mother, like brat. All they ever want from him was his money. If Anne’s daughter so desperately wants to go to art camp, she can waste her mother’s alimony - as soon as they tap the IV to Oliver's account.
And for the record, child support isn’t granted on merit or necessity. There’s no reasonable calculation involved. It’s deducted directly from a man’s paycheck, based on his earnings. So, when the proceedings are over, his ex-wife and darling little girl will pocket more of his income than he does.
They have the nerve to call him, at work, to ask for an advance? He huffs like a caged tiger, because caged he is. There’s no way out of it. He could slam down the phone in indignation. He could call Anne the B-word again. The look on her face had been cathartic.
“She just wants to talk to you, Oliver.”
“I’m sure.” She wants to talk about how much her ridiculous camp costs. “I’m working, Anne. Tell her to send an email. I don’t have time for this.”
It’s not a slam, but he puts it down. Firmly. Then, returning to his desk, he purifies his hands, taps his screen and punches in his password, gearing up for a marathon design-tweak session.
Tomorrow’s going to hurt.