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I’m at work—which I need to be
getting back to right now.”
    There was a pause, and Mom continued in a sad
voice guaranteed to reduce me to lower than dirt. “Your father is
feeling pretty weird about turning fifty-five. It’s kind of a big
deal. Don’t blow off this party, Jason.”
    Knowing my dad, I thought he’d probably
rather not make a big deal of it. The huge family-reunion event my
mom had planned was really more her thing. But all I said was, “I
won’t.”
    “All I want is our family to be close again.
Is that so much to ask?”
    “No.” I cleared my throat. “Sorry. I’ll try
harder.”
    I hung up thinking we were never that
close . But my mom believed the fantasy, and who was I to
deny it to her. She deserved a lot more than that from me after
what my accident had put her through.
    I put on my rubber gloves, grabbed the toilet
bowl cleaner, and headed into the john. Too bad dealing with family
wasn’t as simple as scrubbing urinals. It was easy to be Zen when I
was alone and performing simple jobs, easy to give Anna advice
about finding her calm center. But come the day of my dad’s
birthday celebration, I knew my nerves would be fried and it would
be all I could do to deal with the crowd of relatives. No amount of
deep breathing or counting sheep was going to fix that.
    ****
    “Seriously, what was that?” Cindy hammered me
again. “Tell me why the janitor was sitting in your chair.”
    “It squeaks. I wanted to see if he could fix
it.”
    “Bullshit. He wasn’t testing the chair for a
squeak. Looked like you guys were having a conversation and
that’s…weird.”
    I stabbed the cherry in my drink with a
toothpick over and over. “Why would it be so weird to have a
conversation with the guy?”
    “Oh my God, tell me you’re not into him. He’s
the janitor .”
    “So what?” I looked at her. “We live in a
classless society.”
    “Except we don’t. Not really. And anyway, the
guy’s got mental issues, doesn’t he? You can’t honestly be thinking
of tapping that.”
    “I’m not tapping anything. You’re the one
inventing fantasy romances just to make the office less boring. I
was having a simple conversation. That’s it.”
    But I wouldn’t be doing it again if Cindy was
going to spread rumors. She could never keep her mouth shut. She
was the one who’d outed Trent Park’s relationship with that lawyer
from a competing firm and nearly gotten him fired.
    “Tell me about your sister’s wedding.” I
changed the subject to something I knew would distract Cindy for a
while.
    “We have our fitting this weekend. Can I tell
you again how much I hate the dresses and how expensive they are?”
She showed me snaps on her phone of some particularly ugly
retro-seventies bridesmaid gowns, then started complaining about
her sister.
    I made a mental note not to go for drinks
with Cindy again unless I knew for sure more people from work would
be there. She’d made it sound like a group hang, but nobody else
showed up, so I was trapped.
    “Oh man.” I rubbed my stomach. “That drink is
not sitting right.”
    “You need something to eat. Want to order
here or go someplace else for dinner?”
    I shook my head. “I think I need to go
home.”
    “Oh.” Cindy seemed disappointed for all of a
second, then got on her phone and began texting, lining up another
victim to listen to her bridesmaid rant.
    “See you next week.” I slid off the stool and
headed out.
    When I reached my car, I sat in it for a
while, changing radio stations and figuring out what I wanted to do
with the rest of my evening. Not so long ago, it would’ve been a
no-brainer. For that reason alone, I missed Tim. Having an
automatic plus one for any event, a dinner or movie companion as
needed, even if Tim often bugged the crap out of me, was easier
than being alone. Probably that was why I’d stayed with him as long
as I had, trying to change my pattern of brief flings. Over the
past weeks, I’d had to relearn