More Tender Than That
by P. H. Madore © 2006
The door slammed on my words. “I'm getting the hell out of here,” I
told her before she said something I didn't hear and I left my job, the
status quo.
In the parking lot, lighting a cigarette, digging for my car keys, I
half-expected her to come after me. She didn't. Maybe there was no crush
after all. I'd always thought there had been some secret crush on her
end. Perhaps me quitting, permanently this time, was only to Andrea the
subtraction of another unit of competition. Even though she attracted
me, it was unusual; usually women I'm attracted to are more tender than
that.
Andrea always had a cold streak. I should have seen it in the way she
dressed: plain although other women wore bright colors. In her pale skin
and short, black hair. In the cold, dark brown of her eyes, which often
became slits when someone said something she didn't approve of.
When the news came that our office was to be downsized, that most of
our jobs were to be shipped overseas, I made a decision. When it was
further stated, in not so many words, that those kept would have
slightly higher pay, a far higher workload, and half the vacation time
and benefits, I decided I wouldn't stay on for the descent.
Andrea wanted to talk after the meeting. She came over to my little
office space, where I was getting ready to leave, and leaned against the
corner of my interior partition. She said, “It's not so bad, you know. I
heard some of the upper office bimbos saying the cuts would start at the
bottom, which means we're,” she put an odd, pausing emphasis on our rung
in the corporate ladder, “pretty much safe for the time being. Really,
there isn't much to worry about for us.”
I was a bit annoyed at hearing this newfound optimism in such a
monotone. “Until next year, when the upper office bimbos and their
bosses and everyone below them are let go,” I said, mocking the monotone
she generally spoke in.
She repositioned herself and asked, “What are you doing, anyway?”
On the drive home, after which I found myself staring down a new world,
her last words came to me. “You can't just do that,” she had said with a
semblance of emotion, more conviction than I'd ever heard her speak with.
Perhaps it was then, when maybe her pulse was pounding a little and it
wasn't hard for her to know she was alive, then I should have kissed her
boldly and out of the blue.
Perhaps it was then I could have changed everything. But wouldn't the
world have to be more tender for that?The End
P. H. Madore has never sung in a rock band. He's been published a few
times in print, many times online, and he is one of the better writers
to come out of the lampshadian scene. To put it simply, he ain't scared.
Bother him at http://phmadore.net