2023 Short Story & Essay Contest: Honorable Mention, Adult Short Story Contest
The message popped across the screen of Robert’s television. “Goddamnit,” he groaned, “yes, Netflix, OK? I’m still here.” He reached for the controller lying on the ground in front of him, hitting the “X” button to bypass the message. The 60 second sketch that appeared prior to The Office followed. He lay on his stomach against his hard mattress, a blanket on top of him to fight the chill of his apartment in which the heating had stopped working over a week ago. He thought he heard a faint vibration through the theme music, so he reached for his phone that sat on the end table and flipped it over.
The notification tray was empty. His messages were old. Email, too. The last few names of the people he had corresponded with sat there staring back at him. Joanna Alino, now Joanna Alino-Briggs, was somewhere in Europe, spending money on lavish biscuits or baguettes or whatever they ate in whatever country she was in. Their last text, a blue iMessage so as to not get charged for international texting, had said, “Au revoir!” and Robert figured that was French. Maybe they’re eating croissants, he thought, or snails.
Considering it was noon on a Friday, Joshua Gard was probably—no—definitely at work. He wondered if Joshua would even notice his third consecutive absence, seeing as they sat in cubicles diagonal from each other. Elijah Leopold was busy changing the world. He was on the other side of the country right now, with his last text saying, “I’ll be back next week. Coffee?” but meaning, to Robert at least, “Don’t talk to me for a week.”
Kathryn Carson, a woman he had met a handful of times who worked in finance—same as him—had texted him attempting to confirm plans for later in the week. “Gone until next weekend. Sorry!” she wrote. “Travel for the job. Would love to get drinks when I’m back. ;)”
He had received the message last night at around midnight. She had long days, he imagined, and didn’t want to bother her so early in the morning. So he, Robert Randall, sat on his bed in his one-bedroom apartment in some New York City building as The Office droned on from episode to episode, and Netflix asked if he was still watching a show he had watched a dozen times. Perhaps even Netflix was asking the questions his coworkers weren’t—Are you still alive?
He closed the messages app on his phone with a click of his thumb, then hit the large blue-and-white icon that signified Facebook. Joanna again appeared first—wedding photos that had been edited day-of—and Robert smiled in the pictures alongside her, untagged and unnotified of the pictures’ posting.
Scrolling down, he saw the posts of people he no longer talked to, people he no longer cared for (and in turn, people who no longer cared for him), the occasional advertisement, pregnancies, and marriages, new lives beginning, old lives ending, even stupid things about how to make the best margarita for the upcoming Cinco de Mayo festival, or what the worst song to play at a funeral would be that his Facebook friends shared. Robert shut his phone and then stared at the TV again. Minutes ticked by.
He glanced at the alarm clock on his night table and squinted to make out the numbers: 12:01. Lunch time. He sat up, grabbing his phone as it vibrated. The first message to come in since the day had started. A simple text that read, “Hey man, just checking in. Hope you’re feeling better. Bars this weekend?” It was from Joshua.
He had promised Joshua he’d go out with him this weekend, unable to do so the weekend before because of Joanna’s wedding. Today, however, he didn’t even feel like leaving his place. He imagined what a night out would be like, unable to decide if it would be good for him.
Joshua would want to go to Picasso’s Drink, some bar he had been obsessed with for months now. Robert had gone once or twice. It was an uptown dive, a basement bar that sat underneath a pizzeria with two full bars on either side and a dance floor in the center. It was a neat place, but he was no fan of basements. Or dancing. Or bars, for that matter. Robert would sip on his whiskey throughout the night while Joshua would gorge himself on beer and the mini-pizzas the place served. (The pizzas were good, Robert admitted, but out of theme with the rest of the place). Then, Joshua, being the drunk he was, would get kicked out. Or grow bored and want to head someplace else. Robert would follow, not wanting his cubicle-mate-slash-best-friend to drunkenly walk around Manhattan at 2 in the morning. They’d hit a few more bars, Joshua would attempt to flirt with a few women, and Robert would apologize for his drunk friend. Joshua would laugh and crack jokes and eventually break down in the Uber home. There, Joshua would confess that he was in love with Maria, his ex that worked in marketing. He’d say he was only doing these “hookups” because he didn’t want to be rejected by Maria again—who, in Joshua’s words, was “the greatest woman to ever grace the office”— (it wasn’t “ever to grace this Earth,” though). Robert would make sure Joshua got to his own apartment, hoping he was smart enough to drink water and take Advil before he passed out. Robert would make it home and soberly continue his binge of The Office at around 3 in the morning. He’d go to bed around 4.
Robert wasn’t interested.
“Still not feeling too hot. Think the flu got me. Maybe next weekend for drinks?” he tapped back. It was a lie, but what did Joshua care? He had plenty of other friends.
Robert stood up from his bed, sliding his phone into his pocket as he did, and walked to his bedroom door. His apartment was small. A living room, which split halfway into a kitchen, held nothing more than a couch, a coffee table and a television. A few spare books and magazines usually sat neatly on the table. However, when he looked at it, they had been sprawled out; the latest edition (though more than three months old) of The Economist sat open. And now that he had abandoned the warmth of his bedroom, he felt that the chill had become worse. The window to his fire escape was open, and, as Robert noticed after a moment, a woman stood in his kitchen.
Veronica Walsh was sifting through his cupboards, a 23-year-old woman who lived in the semi-furnished apartment right above Robert’s (which he had been in on a few drunken occasions). He knew more than enough about her—a writer from the city with an eye for the dramatic. She was blond, brown-eyed, a few inches shorter than him, and in that moment, wearing a purplesilk robe that barely covered her body. He tried not to stare, but she had yet to notice him, and her outfit was more than presumptuous. When he walked toward her, she glanced at him, then turned back to the cupboards.
Robert shook his head. “May I ask, what you’re doing in my house?”
“First of all, it’s an apartment, not a house,” she said. She still searched the shelves. “Second of all, I needed sugar. I’m baking.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You’re baking?”
She shrugged. “I needed a distraction. I hit a snag. What are you doing here anyway? It’s noon on a Friday. You should be at work.”
Robert walked into his kitchen, ignoring the implication that Veronica knew his schedule. He stopped next to her and began to make a fresh pot of coffee. “Since when do you care where I should and should not be? Besides, it’s my apartment.” He pulled the coffee from his top cabinet, along with the sugar, and placed it on the counter, next to Veronica. She rested her hands on her hips. Robert glanced her way. “I thought you were stuck inside, writing through the night and day.”
“Contrary to popular, romanticized belief, writing isn’t that easy.” Veronica pulled a pack of cigarettes from her robe. “You don’t mind, do you, Robbie? Of course, you don’t, the place reeks.”
He ignored the comment.
She leaned herself on the half-wall that split the kitchen from the living room and lit the cigarette. She blew the smoke out of her nose, lips pursed. “Boss getting on your nerves?”
“Work is work.” He glanced back to his bedroom, where a stack of papers lay on his desk collecting dust, back when he used to care enough about his work to bring it home. “Our clients,” he said, turning back to finish making the coffee, “aren’t the best type of people.”
“Well, I’m telling you, no one will compare to the new jock in 5E.”
“Someone moved in?”
Veronica nodded. “It has been three months since Sabine passed. The new guy moved in while you were away.”
Robert half-smiled. “I miss her croissants.” He thought about Joanna and her expensive honeymoon. “Probably as good as France and I never had to leave my apartment.”
“Well, if you packed more than Stouffers or Pillsbury in your fridge, you could’ve made it yourself.” She tilted her head. “I know she kept offering to teach you.”
“Come on, I can cook as well as you can bake.”
“I’ll have you know I’m an excellent baker, courtesy of Sabine.” She sighed. “I still can’t believe Dixon got all of her stuff.”
“You didn’t expect more than a thank you and some diningware, did you?” He pressed the button to start the coffee machine. “Besides, your place needed some plates.”
“I was more of a granddaughter to Sabine than she ever was.” She exhaled a long cloud of smoke and shrugged. “How was the wedding?”
Robert’s face turned sour. The wedding was simply that, a wedding. Yet, in order to speak at it and help usher in a new life for the happy couple, he had put on a smile and a show all at once.
“Didn’t you have fun?”
“Define fun.” He smelled the cigarette and ached for the smoky taste.
“Enjoyment, amusement, light-hearted pleasure,” she said with a flash of her teeth.
“You like toying with me?”
“I find it to be one of my light-hearted pleasures.” She walked around the side of the half-wall. She paced for a brief moment, before turning, snapping her fingers. “By the way, I couldn’t find your pack in the usual spot.”
“Do you need more?”
“After this one, maybe. I was just curious.”
“Didn’t I buy you a carton a month ago? I smoked the last of mine,” he said.
“Let’s say I’ve been hitting more snags than usual. Wedding beat you up that bad?” She walked to the half-wall again, facing Robert over the barrier. “How’d your speech go?”
“Oh, they loved it. You would’ve been proud, I’m sure. Maybe I should start writing for a living.”
“You wouldn’t last.” Veronica leaned over the wall. She took a deep inhale of the cigarette, cautious to blow the smoke into the air above them, rather than toward Robert. Although he noticed the cigarette was held loosely between her fingers, on the verge of falling into the coffee machine. “How’d things go with her?”
Robert turned to pour himself a cup of coffee, the pot still churning a fresh 10 cups. Veronica always did like drama. “You know,” he said with his back to Veronica, “I was only his best man because I knew them the longest. Not the best, obviously, but god—what—like 12 years? Her maid of honor knew her for half that. Half that.” He poured a full cup into one of his mugs, gestured to Veronica, who shook her head and he placed the pot back on the hot plate. It continued brewing. He rested his hands on the counter. “What a joke.”
She didn’t laugh. “Guess that’s what happens when you follow each other to college.”
He turned to her, lifted the coffee mug and took a sip. “We didn’t follow each other.”
“As you know, I have a pretty good memory. I know that story.” She smirked at him and blew smoke through her nose between drags. “It’s a hard burn, what you went through.”
He nodded, took a sip of his coffee, and in an attempt to move the conversation away from the wedding said, “How was your weekend?”
“Wrapped up a few pivotal scenes, met with an old friend–has an in with a publisher.”
“I thought you wanted to make it based on merit, not by playing politics. What’s he want?”
“She,” Veronica tilted her head, smiled, and said, “wants a date.”
Robert’s eyes glanced at her as he sipped.
She laughed. “What?”
He smirked. “Nothing, didn’t know you swung both ways.”
Veronica smiled. “Just one date. It won’t hurt. I’ve done worse for less.” She blew smoke at him.
“We should double-date then.”
She looked at him. “You have a date?”
“Joanna set it up.” Veronica let the cigarette hang from her lips as she stared at him. She said nothing.
“What?”
“So, the woman you’re in love with—”
“I’m not in love with—”
“—who is ‘just married,’ for which you know because you were the best man at her wedding, set you up on a date.”
Robert took a breath, then nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“With who? Her maid of honor?” She chuckled.
Robert sipped his coffee. She stopped chuckling. “You’re kidding me.”
“It’s not like I asked for it, you know. She’s nice. Sweet.”
“Nice and sweet are the qualities that describe a cake. Not a person.”
“Not everyone has your vocabulary.” He sighed. “I have to move on eventually.”
“Yeah, but with her maid of honor?”
“It’s not even like we’ve gone out yet. We’re talking. I’m just testing the waters, OK?” He took a deep breath, and in a moment of weakness, reached out his hand.
She handed him a fresh cigarette.
“I just—I don’t know.” He placed it between his lips and Veronica lit it with her lighter. He took a long, deep inhale, then exhaled heavily. “I hate myself for it,” he said. “There’s so many moments I wish I could go back and fix.”
“With Joanna?”
“With everything.” He worked on his cigarette, inhaling large portions of it as he spoke. “I thought this weekend would help me, push me over the edge and bring something more out of me.” He shrugged, flinching the hand he held the cigarette in. “I guess it did.”
They stood in silence. The Office blared in the background. They exhaled smoke, breathed in more, and exhaled it again. The coffee steamed next to Robert. The sugar sat next to Veronica.
“You expected something to come from nothing.”
“A wedding isn’t nothing.”
“Call me cynical, but it is to the people who aren’t getting married,” she said. Her cigarette dwindled to a stub and Veronica flicked it into Robert’s sink. She sighed. “You can’t change the past, Robbie.”
“I know.”
“You blew your chance.”
“Guess I did.” He shook his head, then said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“This,” he said, “you just wanted sugar. Not to hear me rant.”
“What are friends for?”
Unsure of what to say next, Robert remained silent.
She pulled another cigarette from her box and cradled it between her fingers. She stared at him. He stared back. “You need a drink,” she said.
“It’s noon.”
“Half-past.”
“There’s beer in the fridge.”
“I have whiskey upstairs.” She grabbed the sugar.
