I don’t know what to do with this lax male body. His hair is twisted into a knot, held with a grim rubber band, and it’s depressing how much I wish it was loose, washing over me like a tsunami.
From this side of the desk, all I can see is the big rounded slopes of his shoulders cling-wrapped in cotton. The vulnerable shells of his ears. I can only see the side of the rose tattoo inked on the back of his arm, but I know it is pretty enough to be printed on wallpaper. All of him is.
“Daisy.” I tap my finger on one of many flowers inked on the inside of his wrist. “Ah, I see.”
Every time he was bored, he added another daisy for his sister. The girl in me wants to sigh that’s so sweet. The woman in me wants to know exactly how many other females are indelibly marked all over him. If he has a big heart somewhere with a name in it, I’m going to be pissed off. How did that big surge of hot air fill my lungs? “How many sisters do you have?”
Despite his deadness he replies, “Four. They all think I’m useless.”
“I’m sure they don’t.”
“It’s true, I am. They tell me a lot.”
“You know what my mother always says? You’ve got two hands and a heartbeat. You’re not useless. I really should go check the rec center door. I was careless last night.” I laughed in the bath and I walked around in the dark with my head full of him. It’s frustrating how handsome men scramble up the people around them.
His hands are curled over the edge of my side of the desk. Right there, inches from me. GIVE and TAKE. They’re really beautiful hands, and I’ve seen what they can create.
“I need you to help me get through this.” His eyelashes are dark on his cheek. “Do you hear me? I need you.”
On the back of his right hand is that temporary number 50 and I’m glad it’s there to remind me. A few lettuce leaves, a rest, and Teddy will be swimming off without a backward glance.
I am too honest in my response. “And what happens to me, when I get you through this? Ever think that maybe I need help too?” I hear him inhale in a way that makes me want to rewind time.
“I’m back,” Melanie singsongs, dumping her bag on her desk and giving me something to focus on besides my increasing pulse rate and mixing emotions. I’m sure the guy facedown on my desk is relieved he doesn’t have to answer me.
She grins. “Uh-oh. Is the Teddy-Bot broken?”
“I think so. I was just going to try to prize open his control panel. I think I’d have to cut his hair off to get to it, though.” I pick up a pen and lift his hand. It drops back, loose.
Melanie is explaining about traffic and tapping on her phone, and Teddy’s dead, so I can do this next thing. I use the tip of my pen lid to trace the G on his first knuckle. I keep my breathing steady, because he’s close enough to hear it.
Under Mel’s chatter, I tell his corpse, “Sometimes, at night, I feel like the last person on Earth.” He doesn’t flicker an eyelash. Next, I draw over the letter I. “Sometimes, I work through the whole weekend. Twenty-four, seven is a long time. I’m getting tired.”
Melanie booms, “And then I realized they were porno magazines. Can you believe that?”
I laugh dutifully at her and when I drag my pen on the sexy down-up lines of the letter V, his hand flexes and he shivers all over. I toss the pen across the room and pretend I never, ever did that.
Melanie is at the end of her stories. “Is he still dead?”
“Yes, sadly. Vale Teddy. Let’s put him where all the other Parloni boys are. Concrete blocks around his ankles, then into the lake.”
“The turtles need to eat something,” she agrees, walking around. “You take his arms, I’ll take his legs.”
“I’m alive,” Teddy decides and sits back upright. Anyone who doubts the presence of a spirit or soul hasn’t seen his hazel eyes spark back to life. There’s the faint outline of calculator buttons on his cheekbone. He’s so lovely, I couldn’t speak now if I tried.
Something’s changed now. My words and my touch have put something new in the way he regards me. He says to me, fingers flexing: “Could you do that again?”
“Do what?” Melanie’s eyes are flat and suspicious.
He regards me for a moment, reads the DO NOT in my expression and lolls back in his chair, rubbing his knuckles. “What’s going on, Mel?”
“Living my best life. I just went and bought magazines for an old lady. She made me stay for a cup of tea. It tasted like orange peel, but I drank the whole thing.”
No more hiding in the bathroom from our residents? “Mel, I’m so proud of you.”
“Don’t be too proud.” She’s pink-cheeked and smiling as she begins unfolding a receipt and change, stepping in behind my desk to get the file. She then seems to remember something and looks down at me with fear in her eyes. “I have to confess. I kind of spaced and got Mrs. Petersham a magazine that said Fifteen Ways to Make Him Scream on the cover.”
“Never too late to learn,” I say, and they both laugh like I’m actually funny.
“Teddy, you are a good influence on our Ms. Midona, she’s loosening up nicely. Maybe I should have saved that article for you.” Melanie pats my shoulder. “I could incorporate it into my Sasaki Method.”
“I keep hearing about this method,” Teddy grumbles. “I hate being left out.”
“I don’t think making anyone scream is in my near future.” I can’t believe I said that out loud, in an office. Neither can they; they’re both open-mouth-delighted. I look at the Post-it on his chest and ask Melanie, “Did you unlock the rec center this morning?”
“Why are you so obsessed with it?” Teddy is so bored with it he yawns. I’ve seen every arctic-white tooth in his head by now.
Melanie says, “It was already unlocked. I thought you did it.”
Under the background of Mel’s relentless chatting as she begins filling out the petty cash record, Teddy asks me, “Ruthie, what’s going on?”
“I screwed up.” All I can do is regulate my breathing. I’ve never been so grateful for a Melanie interruption.
“Magazines are so pricey these days. I’ve got a new renovation project that would impress even PDC. Want to guess what it is?”
Teddy’s unwilling to take the interruption, eyes still on my face. “You’re okay, you didn’t screw up,” he promises me fiercely. And my body believes him. Each breath is easier, until I’m back in my body.
Melanie says with a flourish, “Ruthie Midona is my project. I’m fixing her right up.”
Teddy seems offended for me. “My old motorbike in storage needs fixing up. Ruthie doesn’t.”
“She needs to rev her engine all right,” Melanie parries back smartly.
I interject. “Ruthie has not agreed to this plan yet.”
(Ruthie is also privately amazed to be talking to people of her own age like they are her friends. Maybe Ruthie should lean into this?)
Melanie continues, “I am creating a dating program designed to get her out of her turtle shell. Fun and dates and meeting new people and romance. We need to do something important from the movies.” She likes leaving dramatic pauses, and this one is a doozy. “… Makeover.”