Mountain
View, California
September
26th
I got into work at my usual 9ish, got a cup of coffee, sat down at my desk, and gave Gwen a call. I was admittedly a little peeved because I hadn't been able to see her at all over the weekend, but this was one of the things that I had just learned to accept over the months that I had known her; she was very spur of the moment, didn't think ahead, and any plans with her were tentative at best. To some extent I seemed drawn to the type of woman that was ethereal, almost sylvan; maybe it compensated for what I perceived to be my stable, stolid, and conventional personality.
Gwen called me back at about one in the afternoon, right after I had just come back from lunch with three co-workers.
"This is Peter," I answered.
"Hi, Peter, it's Gwen," she said.
"Great. How are you doing?" I asked.
I could hear Gwen yawn over the phone. "I'm okay. Tired, though. How is your day going?"
"It's pretty slow. Half the group is on vacation, so there's not much going on here – I just got back from a long lunch. How did it go last night? Did you your friend catch a flight?"
"My friend?" Gwen asked. "Yes, my friend was taken care of."
What an odd way to phrase that, I thought. "That's good. Which friend was it? Was it Sarah?"
"No, it wasn't. Don't you remember, I told you that Sarah was in Japan for two weeks? She's touring the country with a friend of hers."
"Oh, that sounds like fun. But –"
Gwen had just paused briefly, was still continuing her story. "Yes, she just sent me a postcard the other day. She's apparently hitting all of the temples and everything in Kyoto. She says that it's the most beautiful place that she's ever seen."
"That sounds neat. I've always wanted to go to Japan sometime, maybe we should plan a trip," I mentioned.
Her voice was muffled. "No, that won't do. Have Phillips make the copy tighter, and then have someone from engineering look at it to see if it's technically correct." Her voice became clearer. "Sorry about that. Look, Peter, we need to get together. Are you available tonight?"
"Sure, I don't have anything planned for tonight. It would be good to see you."
"Right," she said. "How about if I come by your office at about six?"
"That sounds good," I said. "I'll see you then."
It's traditional that most of the group takes vacation in the first couple of weeks after shipping a product; it's a dead time for development. Manufacturing is printing documentation and creating manuals, the product is being shipped out and installed with the customers, and there hasn't been enough time for any problems to be reported from the customers. In part, it's also compensation for the long hours and overtime that everyone had to work in order to get the product shipped.
There is this nominal notion of "compensation time," which is time off rewarded in proportion to the overtime that was worked to ship a product, but in fact, most compensation time was an agreed-upon fiction between manager and employee. If a company kept track of it, then it showed up on the books as a liability, and in these tight times that could make a big difference to a company. So instead there was just kind of a fuzzy notion of the time that was owed – for example, I had been working at Coordination Engineering for over three years and had accumulated probably a month of vacation that I could use, although there just never seemed to be time to take it.
It was perhaps unfortunate that there was not much to do at work, because it just gave me plenty of time to start to think about the rest of my life. The more that I thought about it, the more I had decided that my little interlude with "Monitor" had been an elaborate and very realistic dream. People reach out to fantastic explanations to make their own particular lives more interesting; but in fact I had a neat job, a girlfriend that I loved, and a satisfying life. I didn't need more excitement in my life.
Which made it all the more odd, of course, because I was sure that I enjoyed my life, so why did I have that particular dream? What was the message?
She came by at about 6:00pm, looking for some reason particularly attractive, with that kind of fresh-scrubbed glowing look, and she was wearing a light tan skirt and blouse that perfectly set off her blue eyes and blond straight hair. I went down to kiss her and she turned her cheek at the last minute, so I kissed her cheek instead, which was pretty odd but Gwen was always uncomfortable with any sort of physical affection at work.
I got my coat and put it on, and as we walked out to my car I asked, "What are you hungry for?"
"Oh, I don't know. Anything. I'm not that hungry, really."
"Sushi, then?"
"Sushi is fine."
We walked out to my BMW and drove to a nearby sushi place that I favored. It wasn't very crowded on Monday nights, so the tiny and smiling Japanese hostess seated us immediately. We ordered our typical and looked at each other.
Gwen started immediately. "Peter, I've been thinking."
It was after that sentence that I began to get a sick feeling in my stomach. Perhaps I had been ignoring the signs, but seeing the expression on her face... I tried to make a joke about it. "Oh, that can't be good."
She looked away, from me, then. "I think that we should see other people."
I wasn't sure I understood her, for a second, and then I was afraid that I had. The world narrowed down to just her and me and, for whatever bizarre reason, the sound of the dishes clinking in the kitchen. This conversation wasn't what I had been expecting today. "Why? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong, Peter. I just think we rushed into this entire thing, and we should take our time."
"Interesting. I didn't think that we were rushing it."
"We definitely rushed it."
I shook my head. "I don't understand, I thought things were going well."
"Things are going fine, Peter. You're a very nice guy. I just need a little space."
From the start with Gwen, I had believed that she was the one, and now this wasn't going well at all. How could this happen, with neither warning nor premonition nor signal?
"Look, what's going on here? I thought that everything was going great. For god's sakes, Gwen, just last month you were asking me what I thought about moving back with you to New Hampshire to be closer to your parents."
She winced at that, a little bit, or maybe I was just imagining that. "Well... I was just talking, Peter. You know how it is. I was thinking out loud, or something."
"We talked about it for days!"
"Look, Peter, what do you want me to tell you? I have some issues that need to be worked out, okay?"
Our order came, brightly colored and immaculate kappamaki, unagi and California roll adorned with the ginger and pasty whitish-green wasabi sauce. I poured soy sauce for Gwen and myself, and mixed in a good portion of wasabi with the end of my chopsticks. I took a piece of kappamaki, dipped it in the soy sauce, and ate it quickly, and even though I had used way too much wasabi, I didn't feel anything as it we down. I realized that for some reason I was not hungry at all, and the sushi sat in my stomach like a rock.
While Gwen picked at her sushi, I was thinking over the events of the past month. I kept wondering if there was something that I had said, something that I had done, but even to my paranoid imaginings I couldn't see it, couldn't find some rational explanation as to why we were having this conversation now.
She looked up at me, and I started talking quickly, and it sounded even to my ears like I was babbling, but I couldn't stop it, I was just trying to find the magical combination of words that would stop this nightmare from happening. "Look, is this because I didn't ask you to marry me? I was going to, you know, I honestly was, I just wanted it to be the right time and everything, it had to be perfect and romantic and you didn't seem ready..."
She seemed shocked. "Oh, god, no, Peter, that's not it. Please don't worry about that. That's not it at all."
"Well, then, what is it?"
"Look, just leave it alone, okay? I changed my mind about things. I'm allowed to do that."
I thought back, then, to my last conversations with her, to how she always seemed to be distracted with something. "Is there someone else? There's someone else, isn't there? You can tell me."
She still wouldn't look at me. Her eyes were looking at everything in the room except me. "Stop staring at me. This is between you and me, Peter. That's it, that's all there is to it, no one else is involved."
I backed off then, just thinking, and between me and her pretending to
eat, we talked about the inconsequentials of our life: what was going on at
work, the latest political occurrences, catching up on mutual friends, and all
the while I was thinking: what
happened, what did I do, how can I fix this? I paid for dinner and I drove her back to her car.
“Look, Gwen, wait a minute. Where does this leave us?”
“We’re friends, Peter. We’re taking a break for a while.”
I made one last plead. “Look, was it anything that I did? If so, I apologize –“
"It wasn’t anything that you did, Peter. We can still be friends. But I'm just looking for something more, right now."
With the she got out of the car, without a touch or a kiss, and went back to her. She didn’t look at me as she started up and drove off, and I was left there thinking: Oh my god, what am I going to do now?
Mountain View, California
September 27th
I went into work today, although it was pointless. I avoided Gwen, tried to not even think about her, but I accidentally ran into her in the hallway as she was laughing and smiling with some of her co-workers. She waved at me, I smiled back and I pretended I had to urgently go up the stairs to take care of something but how can she be so nonchalant about the entire thing?
I tried calling Gwen that night, twice, on her cell phone, but there was no answer.
Mountain View, California
September 28th
Min came into the office to ask me a question.
“Hey, Peter, I have a question for you.”
I raised my eyes from my e-mail program. I had been reading the current message for about five minutes, and I still couldn’t tell you what it said.
“Go ahead, Min.”
“Take a look at bug 1582, and tell me who you think I should give it to.”
I started the bug database up and took a look at the bug that she was talking about. “Umm… that’s a numerical formatting problem, Vindu handled all of that stuff.”
“Okay,” she said. “But could it be Anders, instead? The last formatting problem that I had like this turned out to be in the report manager.”
As she was talking, I was getting angrier and angrier. What was she saying, that I didn’t know what I was talking about? I started yelling, “Min, look – if you are just going to second guess me, don’t ask me in the first place, okay?”
She instantly went cold. “Fine, if that’s the way it is.”
I was still pissed. “That’s the way that it is.”
She left, and I heard her stop in the hallway; five seconds later, she came back into my door. “Look, Peter, we’re friends. So if you’re going to be a dick, will you give me fair warning?”
I looked at her, astonished that she would say something like that, and was going to yell something horribly abusive back, but then I started thinking about how I had just yelled at her for nothing. I counted to ten and put my head down on the desk. “Oh, god, Min, I’m sorry. Gwen ended it with me, I have no idea why, and I’m going through hell, and I’m taking it out on you.”
She came into my office, closed the door. “I’m so sorry, Peter. Sometimes these things don’t work out.”
“But I don’t understand why,” I asked. “How am I supposed to learn anything if I don’t know why?”
She looked at my whiteboard, apparently thinking. “I’m not sure the role I’m supposed to play here. Do you want compassionate friend or actual advice?”
I thought seriously about it. “I want actual advice, but not too harsh, and then compassionate friend afterwards to salve the wound.”
She smiled slightly. “Okay, fair enough. Sometimes these things don’t work out, and the reason isn’t always clear, and sometimes the reason is just that the person you were with is immature and a jerk. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying to figure out exactly why something happened – knowing you, anyway, you’ll just try to blame yourself. Just get over it and go on.”
“Ouch, ouch, ouch,” I said.
“And… if you want to go to lunch, just give me a call, and I always thought that Gwen wasn’t good enough for you. She’s selfish and self-centered and you’re able to do much better.”
“Thanks, Min.”
“You’re welcome, Peter.”
“Now can you leave so that I can throw up in the garbage can?”
“Absolutely, Peter. You have my cell.”
Cupertino, California
September 29th
No point in going to work. No point in eating. Monitor keeps trying to contact me, and I keep ignoring it. If I’m going crazy at least I won’t play-act out my role.
I sit around all day, running in a tight little circle of trying to decide if I wanted to eat, and going to get up to go out, and not being able to decide where to go, and then sitting down again until my stomach rumbles, and then repeating the entire cycle.
I log onto the web for a while, but all I end up doing is hitting the
“reload” button for CNN. I try turning
on the TV and watching it, but whenever there is any scene of a happy couple, I
just get a sick feeling and have to turn the TV off again.
Cupertino,
California
November
1st
Monitor started knocking at my mind, and I opened up.
"What!?"
You should be practicing with the Overnet.
"Fuck off."
Crucial events are fast approaching. You will need to be as adept as possible.
"Fuck you, you're just a delusion." And I kicked Monitor back out.
Cupertino,
California
November
3rd
I’ve lost 8 pounds in the past week. I’m lying in bed, and for the past five minutes I’ve been hitting a button to dial Gwen, and then hanging up even before it rings. Finally, one time I neglect to hang up in time, and it starts ringing, and I put the phone to my ear.
“Yes?” she says.
“Gwen, it’s Peter.”
“What’s up?”
“Look, I just want to talk about us.”
“We’ve had this talk!”
“I know, but I’m not satisfied with it. I need to talk about it.”
"You're always pushing it, Peter! Stop it. We're friends, that's all we are."
"But Gwen, I'm in pain. Please, I need an explanation. God, we've been together almost a year, why can't you tell me what is going on?"
"Everything has already been said. We already talked about this. You have personality traits, okay? That's all I'm going to say."
"But what are they? That's what I want to know."
"Look, I'm not going to go into it. That's not fair to you. We all have our issues. I probably have things that bug you, too."
"What the hell does that mean? I don't understand what you're saying."
"Look, just drop it, okay? I don't want to talk about it.."
"Look, just tell me that it’s over, okay? That would be easier for me."
"I can't tell you yes, I can't tell you no. Just leave it be. We're friends."
"Why won't you tell me anything?"
"Stop it, Peter. Maybe I just like assholes, or something." With that she hung up.
Tried eating, later that day, but I threw it up ten minutes later.
Cupertino,
California
November
4th
I was in bed all day. Monitor
tried reaching me five or six or ten times, and I just ignored it. I should get out of bed, do something around
the house, pay some bills. But I just
don't care.
Cupertino,
California
November 5th
I am in the bathtub, relaxing, hot water pouring into the tub. I tend to approach everything in a very right-brained and rational way, so in a macabre intellectual exercise, I had been trying to think about the perfect way of killing myself. I had even gone so far as to enumerate the requirements: I didn't want it to be painful. I didn't want to leave too large a mess for someone else to clean up. It had to be quick. And everything in every other part of my life had to be neat and tidy, so it meant that my will had to be complete and the provisions for my estate to be clear.
Of course, I wasn't going to kill myself. But my depression was nonetheless a good excuse for doing things that I should have done before, so I decided to take advantage of it. I had gone to a lawyer and had my will drafted up and registered, so that in the event that anything happened, I would be taken care of. I had written letters to my friends which disclosed my feelings and last thoughts about them and left those letters with the lawyer in case I needed final closure.
All of this was strictly academic. I had much too much to live for, and there would be other girls in the future that would be better for me than Gwen, and I still had my health and a job that I liked most of the time, and good friends and a supportive family. The potential in my life was still endless.
So, really, why was there a knife in my hand?