Finding Abby

I’m an overweight girl.

But wait. I think I must clarify so that you don’t get the wrong idea here. This is not a tale of “woe is me, I’m fat, life sucks”. But I do believe you should know right off the bat what my one weakness in life is, what the one thing is that holds me back from conquering the world.

Now, there is one of two things you’re thinking right now: a) Why would you let anything hold you back if you truly want to conquer the world? Or b) why don’t you do something about it if that’s what you think is stopping you?

Both are extremely clever questions that if I ever find the answer to, you’ll be the first to know. It’s just that...an addiction doesn’t exactly equate to such simple statements. If it were that easy, then 60% of America wouldn’t have a weight issue. Or a smoking problem. There would not be a need for Alcoholics Anonymous or Gamblers Anonymous. The world would be nicotine, scotch and slot machine free.

Now that’s a scary thought.

Getting back to my point though. This tail is not one about weight or addictions.

It’s about a boy.

A tall, blonde-headed, blue eyed, 29-year-old boy who is more intelligent than funny. More serious than playful. More genuine than anyone I’ve ever met. He says the first thought that comes into his head although every once in awhile he gets struck with an odd batch of shyness. I’ve sat in the cubical right next to his for more than 4 years of my life. I guess you would call him my reason for getting up and going to work. Other than feeling subtle comfort in hearing him tap away on his keyboard all day long, there is not much else I enjoy about my job as a computer consultant.

Like many people trapped in the blissful world of corporate America, I, Abby Conrad, spend my life in an 8x8 box that is padded with a carpet-like material that supposedly allows for easy hanging of important items. In my opinion the carpeted walls are one step away from padding for a reason. One day someone, and it might be me, will begin to gingerly tap their head against their gray, push pin infested, fabric wall. It will progress from a tap to a knock to a literal bash – one where all the cubicles that are attached via one central wall will begin to rock. No one will leap up in concern though. Everyone will just nod their head to themselves, fully aware that it has finally happened. There will be a supervisor-type person who pushes a little red button located underneath their desk. Men, in discreet black uniforms with Marine type haircuts will appear from out of nowhere to quietly grasp the arms of the person and remove them from their Berber wall and escort them to a safe place.

I get the feeling that there is a stark white room somewhere in the basement of the building where the people who have already been escorted away by the men in black are wandering aimlessly. Not speaking, not crying out, and not questioning anything anymore. Just meandering from wall to wall, touching various marks in the padding that aren’t really there.

The shriek of the fire alarm brings me back to my computer screen which has now transformed to black, something that only happens after 30 minutes of non-usage. We never get up for the fire alarm. Once again everyone keeps tap, tap, tapping away at their keyboards oblivious to the fact that our 8 story building might actually be burning down. It never feels natural to me, ignoring the fire alarm. It would be different if someone with an official voice came over the PA and alerted us to the testing of the alarm, but that never happens so I always wonder. I guess we would be remembered for our dedication should anything ever actually happen. But honestly, I don’t think I’m that dedicated to PH&H Consulting, “Atlanta’s Finest Consulting Firm!”

I should really get up and run out.

Right now.

Even if it is just a test, I should test my ability to get out of the building in lightning speed, right?

Right.

Yet I’m still staring at the black computer screen.

“Abby!”

“Jesus, Arlyn, you scared the shit out of me!” I said.

“Sorry. I just had to see if you heard,” Arlyn whispered, looking back over her shoulder before scooting her way onto the one unclaimed patch of my desk. This meant she would be staying for awhile. I always loved Arlyn’s little visits. No sarcasm intended.

“Heard what?” I asked, shaking the mouse to bring my computer back to life.

“About…” she started, motioning with her eyes in the direction of my neighbor, the aforementioned blue-eyed boy.

“No, what?” I whispered, swiveling my ergonomic chair, my full attention now on her. Surely Arlyn doesn’t know something about my neighbor that I don’t know. He and I talked every day. I would know if something were going on with him. I would. I’d know. He would have told me. Yes. Absolutely.

“Lunch, 12:30” she said, hopping off my desk.

She walked away without waiting for my answer. Of course she knew my answer.

Two hours later the waiter at Cheesecake Factory walked away to retrieve our drinks, and I was past the point of dying a gasping, gossip needy death.

“So tell me, Arlyn. What did you hear?” I tried not to sound anxious as I shredded the paper napkin under the table.

“Well…” she said, throwing her blonde hair back off of her shoulder and taking a lengthy look around the restaurant. “From what Cindy in Lou Mansteen’s office told me, they are sending Adam.”

“Sending Adam where?” I caught my voice becoming louder than necessary. The shreds of napkin were experiencing a second round of ripping.

She drew an extensive drag from her cigarette as the waiter set down our drinks, her Diet Coke, my Sweet Tea. I slurped my drink trying to soothe the parched dryness that was overtaking my throat.

“Apparently, they are sending him to South Carolina to do some client schmoozing,” she said, her face indifferent although her dark eyes gave away her keen interest. After all, she was fulfilling her role as the barer of good work gossip superbly. “They want him to do some onsite training and stay there to stroke their egos for a few months.”

“A few months?” The alarm in my voice was more and more difficult to hide. “What do few months translate to?”

She shrugged again managing to bounce her hair around as though auditioning for a Pantene ad. “If I had to guess, I’d say at least 6. But that’s just the way I interpreted what Cindy said.”

I leaned into the back of my chair, napkin bits fluttering to the ground around my feet. How could they be doing this? Why hadn’t we heard anything official about the company even considering this? I mean, we were all on the same team after all. I should be upset that I wasn’t considered for this, but sadly, that’s not the first thing that comes to mind.

Back at the office, take out box in hand, I feel sick at I sit in front of my computer. For once it is not because I ate too much at lunch. I’ll just jump into work. Get some productivity swirling to take my mind off everything transpiring around me. Opening my e-mail inbox, I see 4 new issue tickets have appeared while I was at lunch. Nothing like job security.

A killer migraine was overtaking my head with the abruptness of an exploding fireworks display. Eyes closed, I massaged my temples in an effort to ward it off before it became fully ingrained in my brain. It occurred to me that people always rubbed their temples in immediate reaction to a headache, but does it actually every help anything? Probably not.

“What’s wrong, Ab? Headache?” Adam asked.

I kept my eyes closed for a second at hearing his voice. Inching them open, I saw him leaning against the outer wall of my cube in his usual fashion. So many times I couldn’t see his 6’2” body but merely a floating head above the cubical wall.
“Hey Adam. Yeah, just a little one.”

“Oh, hey, did you go to the Factory without me? That’s crazy wrong,” he said, moving from his normal post to come into my cube and inspecting the leftovers within my takeout box. He stepped too close. Instinctively I pulled my ruffled blouse down and positioned my arms across my midsection as though they could hide my extras from him. “Nice. You had the chicken tenders. That’s always a good choice. You didn’t eat much though, did you?” he asked, a look of concern darkening his light features as he closed the box.

“I didn’t have much of an appetite today for some reason.” If you only knew, dear Adam, if you only knew.

“You might be getting sick. You should take something,” he said, gathering the papers that he dumped to investigate the leftover food. “Oh and I’ve got issue 3 from lunch time covered.”

“Great Adam, that’s the easy one,” I yelled after him.

Why me?

That night I rehashed the gory details about Adam’s assignment to my best friend Carly over takeout in the living room floor of my one bedroom Five Points apartment. Where in South Carolina would they be sending him? For what client?
Would it really be six months?

“So Abby, this means you have to put a plan together. You have to do something before he leaves,” she said as she drew an invisible line between her fried rice and pepper steak. She had already separated the peppers and onions into their own little piles. All four items must remain on the plate without touching one another.

“Carly, you do know that those will all mix together when they get into your stomach anyway?” I threw my head back to swallow an oversized bite of General Tso chicken and rice for added effect.

“Yes, but I do not have to see that process while it is happening. While I’m eating them, they remain separate but equal. Quit changing the subject. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. Find another job I guess. This is the sign. The planets falling into line to tell me it’s time.”

“Time to find another job? Abby, I meant what are you going to do about telling him?”

My head jerked up to look at her freckled face. Was she crazy? “I can’t tell him Carly. It just doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not? Why can’t you tell him? He’s just a guy.”

Standing up to refill my drink, I tried to envision the way to express to her, to make her understand that this wasn’t that easy. Sometimes she took for granted being 5’6” and 125 pounds. As much as I loved her, she had never lived in this body. Yes, I had the sparkling personality, but that doesn’t get you more than friendship with most guys. Most guys that are worth it anyway. At 27, I had come to understand two certainties in life. One, that everything truly did come in 3’s, and two, that human nature was about sexual attraction, first and foremost. Especially when it came to men.

Sipping my refilled Coke, I switched the radio off and slid Jimi onto the turntable. Cranking the handle, the soothing sounds of “Wind Cries Mary” began to fill the room. I started to relax as I took my place on the couch again.

A loud sigh escaped from Carly as she put her plate down. “I just don’t get it, Abby. You’ve never been afraid of going after anything. How could you let this guy you’ve been obsessed with for the better part of 5 years, just leave? Just like that. Never a chance that he could possibly have ever thought the same things that you are thinking?”

I considered her point for a minute, twirling an auburn curl around my finger and sinking back into the overstuffed feather pillows lining my couch. “Honestly, I don’t get it either. The old me, the 110 pound me, would’ve made my play the second
week I knew him. But now…things… Well, they’re just different.”

She stepped on the black peddle that popped the top to the trash can and tossed in her empty cartons. “What you actually mean is, your self confidence left when those pounds arrived? Because I’ve known you for 10 years, and you’ve always been the same person to me,” she says, taking her place beside me on the couch.

I turned to look at her, demanding myself to not spill a tear about what I was and how I had changed, not tonight. “I guess part of me is just different. Regardless of how different I may look, you know that I’ve been through quite a bit in the relationship department. One very large, very public rejection in case you’ve forgotten.”

Carly’s gaze fell downward. “No, I know. I was there, remember?”

I plunged my words forward, in my head legitimizing my point. “I’ve done well dealing with that. I know it’s been a long time. I know that 5 years is long enough to get over something like that. But it was just so…humiliating. Every time I think about putting myself out there for a man again…it’s just nearly impossible to wrap my head around.”

“I understand. I know how painful the whole thing was,” she said, getting up to pace in front of my salt water aquarium coffee table. This was what she did when the hastily disrupted wedding that was supposed to be my dream day manages to surface during conversation. She stopped her steady march and looked at me, pushing her glasses back up the bridge of her nose. “It’s just that I want to see you happy again. You know…like you were before the wedding.”

“Oh dear Carly, I know how you worry that I’ll forever be alone, but you have to know that not everyone will have what you and Jason have. You two are perfect. Your college relationship was perfect. Your wedding was perfect. Your working, adult relationship is perfect. And your children will be just about perfect. Trust me when I say that if it wasn’t for you two I would have given up even believing. Just cut me some slack in the actions department. That’s going to take me some time.”

As her gaze followed me, I moved to where she stood and hugged her. My dear sweet, caring Carly, my best friend since 10th grade when I jumped into her car in our high school parking lot and demanded she give me a ride to the other end of the school building when she had know clue who I was. After scaring the hell out of her, I made her get to know me. And here we were.

That should be my plan with Adam. Demand he get to know me. The real me. The outside of work me. Somehow I didn’t think I could vault myself into his car and have it work the same way it did with Carly though.