Town Hall

Town Hall Chapters Seventeen and Eighteen

Chapter Seventeen

I kept waiting to get sniped by one Rathbone man or another at work. I felt a weird sense of expectancy for the next few days. Even being invited to dinner over at Elijah's with Char and Chuck, I waited for one of them to come popping out, haunted house style. I was daydreaming more often as well. Finding myself, chin on fist at my desk, listening to the rise and fall of his voice across the hall. If my door was shut, or his, I wouldn't be able to pick out words, but I knew his flow. I knew that vibrational hum of his clarification or continued questions. The smooth unwinding ribbon of placation. When he was doing something that didn't require much brain power, filing, cleaning up, deleting emails he'd hum. I knew he did it mindlessly because if I asked "What's the song?" inevitably he'd look confused, eyes up and searching, trying to figure it out himself.

I became a mite irritated, and slightly concerned when I'd realized that I'd been work-wived by everyone else too. Should he be out of the office, people, including Fred would ask me where he was. If he was running late, if someone had a personal question for him, they'd ask me. Which meant the closeness between us was noticed and taken for granted. I never caught wind of insinuation or tease which made it stranger. Worse still, if it was taken for granted, and Andy or Mikey decided to say something...

I knew it was bad when the Women of Lebanon group was closing out the meeting and Suellen asked me what Elijah's plans were for Labor Day. Like yes, of course she knows what his planner looks like, his next couple of weeks. I vacillated between anger at being placed as secretary, anxiety at being placed as romantic partner and something weak and buttery in me liked the idea of knowing precisely what his plans were because I was always a part of his plans... I instead shrugged, said I'd check in with him.

Chapter Eighteen

Roughly every other Friday Char and Chuck would come out to Elijah's. I was invited by default and I liked it. They were just as interesting as Elijah. Besides, they talked easily, requiring little to no input from me, giving me more details, clues, background information on him. I could sit for several minutes, just watching the tennis match of their conversations. I very occasionally felt kids'-table sidelined by them, but it didn't rankle. It was just noticed.

Chuck and I were cleaning up the kitchen one evening while Char and Elijah smoked on the porch. I was daydreaming about how I'd have to make him change the way he organized his kitchen as I put steak knives in one drawer, forks in an entirely different one. His kitchen made no sense. He'd have to just fall in line with mine. Mine made sense.

"She out there lecturing him," Chuck said, handing me another glass to dry, breaking my train.

"She smokes too," I replied. Chuck snorted.

"Naw, not the smoking, you."

I froze, my hands doing that usual rabbity cool down. I slowly put the glass into the cabinet, having to tiptoe to reach (also a change to be made).

"Something wrong?" I could feel myself winding up, getting ready for a fight. Maybe I had been waiting for his long-time friends to throw up a roadblock, of a different kind from our neighbors but a roadblock nevertheless.

"Mmm... not the way you're thinking," he said, draining the sink. I threw the towel over my shoulder though, squaring my shoulders, bracing for an argument. A quiet, hushed don't let them on the porch hear us kind of fight.

"He has been mooning over you since move-in day."

I blushed, dropped my face. He was quiet though. Chuck had this habit of staying silent until you finished some sentence you never meant to begin.