Meet Me in Kathmandu

by

Marcie Roman

HALF AN HOUR. That’s how long Sammy had been seated in the waiting room of Dr. Schiller’s West Side office. Her chair puffed dust as she shifted her weight. The sign on the door reminded No cell phone use. Bored as she was, she didn’t dare touch the periodicals. She could only imagine what a microscope would display: the virulent layer of phlegm, the microbial spray of countless sneezes. Instead, she looked for shapes in the water stains and reread the alarmist signage on the walls. Is this a Heart Attack? Why Mammograms Matter. Quit Smoking Today.

Sammy wished she could smoke, the desire still intense although it had been years since her last cigarette. She tried to recall how many. To answer, she added up Jack’s four years plus her pregnancy plus two years of attempted conception at which time all bad habits, down to her morning cup of coffee, had been set aside for the greater good. 

Where was Jack?

She spotted him crouched near the wall, his turbulent energy channeled into an effort to capture something – Spider? Beetle? Please not cockroach – in a cup he’d taken from the sleeve of an empty water cooler.  

Sammy had never had to wait this long before. The appointments usually took five minutes. Ten minutes max. She’d say “Hi, Dr. Schiller,” and he’d make sure she didn’t look stoned, and she’d be out the door before the ink had dried on her prescription slips. The waiting room was half full and only one person had been brought back since she arrived. She pictured the doctor and his nurse, feet up, eyes closed, on an extended coffee break. As if to counter her accusation, the door banged open. 

“Latonya Rogers,” an invisible voice bellowed.  

A woman in a velour tracksuit rose and shuffled toward the door. Sammy got there first. The nurse, large of bosom and frown, guarded it like a bouncer.

“I was wondering if I had time to take my son outside for a few minutes? The name’s Hopkins.”  

The nurse scrolled the clipboard with extended slowness. She’s torturing me, Sammy thought, and wondered if it were possible, through some special intuition, the nurse knew the true reason for Sammy’s impatience. That she needed to get outside to meet a man. A man who was not her husband. 

“Okay, but if you miss your spot you’ll have to wait.” Her glance went over Sammy’s shoulder. “Hey, that’s not a jungle gym.”  

Sammy followed the nurse’s sightline to discover Jack scaling the pamphlet display, one foot on tippy-toe, the other perched on the lowest, partially-filled, plastic pocket. Sammy hauled him off, his screeched “NOOOO” trailing them out of the office like a bad smell. 

“It’s his wiring,” Jack’s pediatrician had said, when she told him about the tantrums. But Sammy couldn’t help but think that if Phillip didn’t travel so much of the year – and, even when home, he stayed glued to a screen – then maybe Jack would be more like other kids. Social. Regulated. She’d given up trying to befriend the mothers in the housing development who avoided her playdate requests as if Jack were a contagion who might infect their future lawyers, doctors, and bioengineers. 

“Sorry, Chase has a packed schedule,” her next-door neighbor, Katherine, said the last time Sammy suggested a meet up at the park. Sammy spotted Chase later through the plate-glass window, watching TV. 

Jack quieted when they entered the elevator and was smiling when they reached the revolving door, his narrow frame squeezed in front so that the glass smacked her shoulders. After the dry heat of the building, the Chicago air – crisp, smelling of fallen leaves – was a reward.

Sammy counted on rewards, those little motivators to help her push through the day. 

Jack stomped the leaves. “I’m crunching bones!” His superhero cape flapped from the bottom of his coat like a wagging tail.  

Her son’s good humor was a reward. Finding her misplaced keys. A glass of wine after Jack went to bed. A text exchange with an old friend. She was self-aware enough to understand that most rewards were just a form of relief, a better alternative, and did not actually make her happy. But the last one on that list – texting with Alex after ten years of no communication – that one woke up something inside her, a faint humming deep in her belly that could, possibly, feel like something more.

The arranged meeting spot, a small playground next to the office building, was empty. Alex picked the day – he was in and out of town, he’d said – but told her to pick the spot. This area surrounding Dr. Schiller’s, gritty but on the path to gentrification, seemed like a place he’d dig. Or at least the version of him she remembered.

She still couldn’t believe she’d texted him. So impulsive. So un-Sammy-like. But after Phillip announced his next project – yet another action film shooting abroad – she’d brought her phone to the bedroom, typed Hey, was just thinking of you. Hope you’re well, and hit send before the self-doubting side, the side that said, ‘Will he even remember you?’ chimed in. She expected an error message or, at best, a cordial note, but instead they’d texted back and forth for a few days before planning to meet.

Jack raced toward a climbing structure. 

“Be careful!” she yelled, and felt a familiar rush of anxiety, irrational but insuppressible. She’d been five days without Paxil, two weeks without a Xanax (her final Propranolol held in case of emergency). The wrought-iron fence seemed ornate compared to the rusted playground equipment. A swing dangled from a single suspension, its seat hanging in a reverse crescent, like a frown. 

“Catch me!” Jack yelled. He darted up a ladder and disappeared into a plastic tunnel. 

Who knew what lurked in that closed-off space? Dead rat. Living rat. Needles. Predator. On the side a warning to Duck was posted in thick block letters. Before it someone had etched Fuck a, and below it, You suck. She followed the middle command to get to the other side.

Sammy’s phone buzzed. She felt a flash of anticipation, but it was just Phillip texting that he’d landed in Bangkok where he’d be scouting locations. She grabbed the end of Jack’s cape, guided him into the open, then texted, Hope it goes well. Phillip’s absences always left her on edge. She’d get up in the middle of the night to check the door locks even though she’d checked them before bed. Then, as she struggled to fall back asleep, her imagination would take her over oceans and time zones to Phillip sharing drinks in some hotel bar with Tamara, the producer who brought him along on all her projects, their knees touching under the table while they reminisced about filming with snakes in Borneo, or in the crack house in LA. Sammy, meanwhile, could be counted on to maintain the home, care for the child, like the dutiful wife of a sailor off gallivanting at sea. But not this time. In her pocket was a letter that started with I’m sorry to do this, and ended It’s for the best. She just needed a mailbox. She just needed a reminder that there are other ways to exist.

“Samantha Jane!”

Alex’s voice boomed from behind. She turned and saw the tall figure on the other side of the fence. 

“No way,” he called. “You look just like you.”

She started toward him. “You too!”

Up close, she saw that his face hadn’t been spared the passage of time. His signature fisherman’s cap and leather jacket seemed to have gained an equal amount of creases. Gray flecks dotted a scruff of beard. But his eyes were unchanged, sky blue and fiercely bright, almost luminescent.

“How’ve you been?” she asked as they hugged awkwardly over the fence, hands on each other’s shoulders like kids at a middle-school dance. Patches of moisture formed under her arms, and she wondered if she’d forgotten deodorant. Her jeans, meant to be slimming, were too tight, and her belly spilled over the waistband. An effect of the meds, but she’d also been overeating. Food was an easy distraction, like the lollipops she stashed in her purse to bribe Jack when she needed him to calm down, or to soothe him when he couldn’t. Where was Jack? She whipped around and spotted him by the swing set. “Watch out,” she called, even though there was no observable threat.

“Let me get in there,” Alex said.  

She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d hurdled the fence, but he headed to the gate, long limbs propelling him in an equally familiar half-stride, half-strut. 

They’d met twelve years ago, after she’d finally saved enough money to move from her father’s trailer to the studio in a crumbling apartment building with low water pressure and an issue with mold. Greetings in the hallway and exchanged household items (she had a dustbuster, he, an endless supply of matches) led to a drink. And another. Their friendship formed by way of accrual: through hours of conversation, packs of cigarettes, bottles of wine. Their communal wall was so thin that, lying in their separate beds, they could share jokes and late night ruminations; although, when he had overnight company, she’d turn up her music as a courtesy. They also shared childhood tragedies having both lost mothers in infancy (cancer, accident) and knew how it felt to go to school in shoes with duct-taped soles. Sammy had wondered, years later, if they’d shared something else. An unobserved spark that, if tended to, could have ignited. Back then it would have seemed absurd. He had a few – make that several – girlfriends. She’d just started dating Phillip, who she’d met at the real estate agency where she temped. Besides, flings with older, leather-jacket-clad next-door neighbors were for soap-opera characters. Or, at the very least, women who owned hair dryers and could apply mascara without it gooping in their lashes. 

“Cute kid. He looks like you,” Alex said as he came up beside her.

Sammy nodded although most people commented on how Jack took after his father, with his pale skin and dirty blond hair. Alex probably didn’t remember Phillip. They’d only seen each other occasionally, chance encounters in a dimly-lit hall. 

“You’re catching him at a good time,” she said, then berated herself for the implied negativity.  

“Yeah?” 

“He’s got some challenges. Impulsivity control, that kind of thing.”

“I guess I know something about that.” 

Alex swooped her into a bear hug; her face pressed against his coat, which smelled of cigarettes and something muskier. 

“Didn’t get a chance to properly greet you.”  

He plopped her down so quickly she had to steady herself.

She hadn’t needed a reminder about Alex’s impulsivity. At his urging, they’d scale the fire escape onto their building’s rooftop, past the Danger, No Trespassing sign, where they’d swill wine from a bottle and laugh at the people in surrounding buildings who were oblivious to their audience. Sometimes he’d make a motion to walk the narrow parapet like a balance beam, or even leap to the next building. “Absolutely not!” Sammy would call in alarm. And then there was the way he’d moved out. Short on cash, he abandoned his apartment in the night. She’d known he was thinking about ditching but expected more notice than a Golden Dragon take-out menu tucked under her door with Alex’s scribbled handwriting, Time to deliver myself elsewhere. That’s when she discovered loneliness had a sound. A sort of hollowed out echo. She missed the clomp of Alex’s boots on the wood floor, his early dawn trips to the john, the gurgle of pipes followed by a thump as he fell back onto his mattress. For two years, his presence had made her feel safe. Phillip was the opposite of impulsive, not to mention employed and a homeowner, so when he stuck a ring on her finger and promised to take care of her, she accepted it for what it was: a voice in the dark, a secure shelter, and safety in numbers, for better or for worse.

“So what have you been up to?” she asked.

“Been traveling. Living life before the cup runneth dry. You know.”

She nodded, although she didn’t really know. She couldn’t even remember what she’d done the night before in the void between Jack falling asleep and going to bed herself. Reading perhaps? Sticking to her side of the couch even though Phillip was long gone. She felt ungrounded, as if floating in time, incapable of placing herself in her own yesterday.

“What about you?” Alex asked, smiling at her as if he already knew he’d be pleased with her reply.  

She shrugged. “Guess you could say I’m a stay-at-home.” 

He nodded. “That’s a big job, being a mom and all. Taking care of your abode.”

Sammy thought of the pile of laundry on the folding table, the toys littering the playroom floor. She was just so tired all the time. Too tired to put things away. Too tired to care that they weren’t. And under it all, the constant hum of some invisible force: alert, alert, alert. Phillip didn’t get it. “Go for a run” was his advice when her anxiety spiked. “Take a bath.” It had gotten worse after Jack was born. She kept her pill bottles hidden in the back of her underwear drawer, like lingerie for a lover. It was a saving grace that Phillip never checked the credit card. Last month, after she’d had a rough day with Jack and an evening of Phillip ignoring her, she’d thought about what would happen if she took all the pills at once. The fact that her mind went there scared her enough to let the prescriptions run out. But then that became unbearable too.

“It’s not all that rosy, I – ” 

Jack’s shriek cut her off. A piercing, extended note of displeasure. She chased the sound to the monkey bars where she found him tear-streaked as he jumped, furious, arms outstretched, nowhere near his goal.

Sammy glanced up, cursed her weak back and limited height. “Sweetie, I can’t lift you that high.” 

“Let me.”

Before she could object, Alex swung Jack upwards. Jack’s mittened hands grabbed one rung and then the next; his legs dangled like denim-clad twigs.

“I’m Spiderman!” Jack shouted. The smile returned, tears dried by the November air.

She could hear Phillip’s chastisement. Now, Jack, Spiderman doesn’t wear a cape. Don’t you mean Superman?

“Way to go, Spidey,” Alex responded. 

“Jack, this is Alex. Alex is an old friend.” Sammy wondered if the future might hold a different label. Partner. Lover. Real life superhero rescuing a damsel in distress.  

Alex moved Jack to the next rung. “What are you, Spiderman – three?”

“FOUR!” Jack grappled with the slippery bar. Clenched jaw, furrowed brow. That was Phillip’s expression. 

“My son’s a little younger.”

Sammy’s gut tightened – so that was that – but she made her tone extra-bright. “I didn’t know. I would’ve congratulated you. What’s his name?”

“Daniel. He lives with his mom in San Jose.” 

Her gut settled. “Do you see him much?”

“Twice a year I get out there. She sends pictures. He likes to draw.”

“Honey, let’s give Alex a break. Back to earth, Spiderman, okay?”  

As Alex set him down, she could see the decision teetering in Jack’s mind: one verdict would bring calm, the other torrential tears. His hair flopped in agreement. 

Alex blew into his hands. “Wanna grab coffee?” 

Sammy thought of her appointment. If she had any hopes of getting the pills that made her life manageable, she should go back now. But the drugs wouldn’t change her situation, only mute the sensations: the painful struggle to get out of bed, the sucked-down impatience to make it to the end of each day. What if they were also keeping her in a holding pattern, encouraging her to accept the status quo?

Jack jumped up and down, grabbed at her leg. The universal bathroom dance.

“Do you have to go potty, honey?”

He nodded. 

“Well, okay then.” She looked at Alex. “I know a place.”

As they walked, Alex shared stories of his travels: Joshua Tree and Anchorage, a freight barge to the Gulf. She loped beside him, two steps for every one of his, while Jack, as if understanding the pattern, trotted along in fours. When they jostled, she wondered if Alex walked that close on purpose, a subconscious pull that veered his steps into her path. 

He removed a cigarette pack from his pocket. “Want one?”

She shook her head. “I quit.” 

He flicked his lighter, inhaled. Smoke wafted and she inhaled too, remembering how good a cigarette tasted first thing in the morning. Or the last cigarette before bed, a punctuation mark on a night that had extended into the early hours of day.

Jack stepped on the curb and she pulled him back as a car swooped past. There were so many dangers for a child without an adult nearby. Although, true, she often questioned her adult status, feeling the same way she had as a child: the world a big scary place, but one that deserved exploration if only she could find the nerve. Why couldn’t she be like Alex with his devil-may-care attitude? Or Phillip, who’d staked his claim: the house, the kid, the wife. Is that what came from growing up in a trailer park? The insecurity of never knowing if your home would withstand a storm. Or how, at any given moment, it could be hoisted onto a truck and relocated to foreign soil. Although that idea used to excite her too. As a kid she’d lie in her sleeping bag and fantasize about waking up in a magical wonderland, with chocolate rivers and diamond-strewn lawns. But every morning it was the same view of hard dirt, highway dust, and Mrs. Hernandez’s broken lawn chair. Last year, Sammy made the mistake of suggesting to Phillip that she and Jack join him on a shoot. She thought Jack might do better on the move with a flow of new sights and sounds. Phillip had smirked, as if he could see the tether of fear that kept her rooted. “Oh sure, you can just meet me in Kathmandu.”   

“Cool spot,” Alex said, as they arrived at the coffee shop.

Sammy was pleased that he approved. She’d discovered it at the last appointment, after promising Jack a treat if he behaved. Walls papered with bumper stickers. Sustainable coffee served by a dreadlocked barista. A homey smell of ground beans and melted butter. The neighborhood had seen an insurgence of hipster parents and there was a play area with Legos, a beanbag chair, and a stack of dog-eared children’s books.

Sammy took Jack to the bathroom, but it was too late. She tugged his wet pants to his ankles. “You’re too old for this, Jack!” 

From her purse, she dug out the spare underpants she brought along just in case, helped him slip them on, then rinsed his jeans in the sink. After three cycles under the hand dryer they were barely damp. 

“Didn’t mean to,” Jack said, his voice barely discernible over the whir of the fan.

Sammy straightened his cape. “Just try for more notice next time, okay?” 

At the counter, Jack picked a treat from the display – a chocolate chip muffin bigger than his hand – and she added her coffee to the order. Alex was already at a table, hands wrapped around a ceramic mug. After settling Jack by the Legos, she plopped down at the table and let out a whoosh of air. “Nice to sit.”

Alex smiled, skin crinkling around his eyes. Those eyes. They used to function like X-rays, spotting areas in her that craved guidance. He’d been so good at pushing her whenever she was slow to make a choice, whether over a menu item or a job change. Don’t think twice, Sammy; It’s all right. He’d been into Dylan.

Alex took a flask from his coat pocket and splashed the contents into his mug. He motioned the flask toward her. “Seems like you could use some, too.” 

The shop was otherwise empty, the barista plugged into his phone. She pushed her cup over. “Just a drop.” The smell of whiskey rose in the steam. 

Alex put the flask back, removed his hat, and ran a hand over skin that made a reflective runway down his scalp. Tufts of hair jutted to the sides. He saw her expression and grinned. “Guess the years are catching up with me.”

“Sounds like you’ve had a lot going on. The travel of course, and a kid; that’s huge.” She sipped her coffee, worried he’d read on her face all the questions she wasn’t asking. 

Alex let out a long exhalation. “Yeah. Desi and me, we talked about marriage. She wanted a kid, and I was like that’s cool. But then the kid happened and the marriage didn’t. She decided I wasn’t her soul mate.” He took a sip, grimaced. “She thinks the perfect guy is wandering out there somewhere, but all she gets are douchebags. Makes me worry about Daniel. I’m glad you’ve got Phillip. He seemed like a straight-up guy.”

She watched Jack stack a tower of Legos and tried to filter her thoughts before they got birthed into speech. “I think I might disappoint him. Remember how scatterbrained I could be? Always losing things. Forgetting appointments. It drives Phillip crazy. He never does anything like that.” 

“Sammy, you’ve got to get your shit together.” That’s what he said a few weeks ago, when she’d called in a panic because she’d forgotten where she’d parked at the mall. There was such a contrast between how she felt around Phillip – defensive and petulant – and how she was feeling in Alex’s presence – like she had five extra inches and was wrapped in a cloak of immunity. She and Phillip probably didn’t even like each other anymore. Her throat tightened and she gulped coffee. She’d forgotten about the whiskey and sloshed the drink while she coughed into her fist.  

“You really are a klutz.” Alex grinned and handed her a napkin. Sammy returned the smile. “Hey, my tooth did the same thing.” Alex reached over and swiped the tip of his finger over her misaligned front tooth, then pointed to his own. 

Sammy focused on the cleanup, the ghost of Alex’s finger in her mouth. A Lego whizzed across the table followed by Jack’s scream. Sammy jumped to attention. Had he seen Alex touch her? Did he think she was in danger? But no, the tower he’d been working on had collapsed. He demolished the rest with kicks. Red-faced. Tired. The sugary muffin had been a mistake. But Sammy needed more time.

“Hey honey, do you want to play some games?” She handed Jack her phone, the most reliable of distractions, and he unstiffened.

Alex rose from the table and started toward the door. 

“Wait,” she called. He paused. Had he heard her tremor of desperation? Then she saw the cigarette pack. Jack’s head tipped down, fingers sliding over the screen. She walked over. “I think I’ll take one after all.”

Outside, Alex put a cigarette between his lips to light it, then passed it to her. She looked at the white paper against her reddened fingers. Such a familiar feeling, both weightless and grounding. She took a drag. Her lungs accepted the smoke without objection. It had the same taste as her first cigarette back in eighth grade, a half-smoked butt stolen from her friend Shelly’s mother, her lips matched to the red smudge of lipstick.

“Sorry about that, with Jack. It’s past his nap time.”  

“Daniel gets crabby too.” 

The smoke trailed downwind, toward buildings lit up against the darkening sky. Sammy still didn’t know what it was she wanted to say. Save me? Love me? 

She took another drag, but the cigarette had gone out. Alex flicked the lighter, while his other hand cupped hers to block the wind. His fingernails were yellowed but neatly clipped, and his skin, where it brushed against hers, was smooth, like the places on Jack’s body that remained babyish: the crux of his elbow, the outer arch of his foot.  

The lighter dropped as Alex tried to shove it into his pocket. When he bent to retrieve it, his jacket rode up. Sammy imagined running her nail along the pink line of flesh at his waistband. He straightened. She waved her cigarette to distract from her flushed cheeks.

“That thing your ex-girlfriend said about finding a soul mate – well, I think it’s a fallacy. I mean the whole concept of one true love, the magical kiss. That’s an illusion, right? Some unachievable ideal that poets use to tease us. Like those ads with airbrushed photos of models.” She paused to take a drag; Alex was silent so she charged onward. “Maybe it just comes down to finding someone you connect with, like a puzzle piece. Phillip is reliable and all, but I don’t think we fit together, and I certainly wouldn’t call him my destiny.”

Alex gave her a sideways glance. He kicked the base of a planter freeing a clod of mud and leaves. Sammy’s pulse raced although she wasn’t sure if it was nerves, caffeine, or nicotine. For the second time that day she forced a light tone. “So what was the deal with us anyway?”

Alex shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

“Still, don’t you think it was weird? That nothing happened after we spent so much time together. I mean – .” 

She stopped mid-sentence. Alex had leaned away, ever so slightly. 

“I don’t know, Sammy. I guess some people are just meant to be friends, right?” His tone sounded regretful, like a parent relaying disappointing news to a child. He gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Things sure worked out better than if you’d gotten mixed up with a bum like me.” He dropped the cigarette stub into the planter. It burned for a few seconds, then went out.

Sammy waited for a feeling. She expected sadness – He doesn’t love me – or anger – He led me on – or disappointment – I’m never good enough – and froze her facial muscles to counter the effects, to spare them both the embarrassment. Yet what she felt was a calm detachment, as if her cells had released an emergency reserve of medication. Alex pulled the door open and held it for her to enter. But there would be no damsel rescued. No emotional catharsis. He appeared different now, as if he’d changed out of costume: paunchy, balding, the years of hard living taking their toll. Had she miscast him as a leading man? Or maybe the whole problem was thinking she needed one.

Sammy retrieved Jack from the play area, wrestled the phone from his grip, and gave him an extra tight hug until he squirmed away, then the three of them headed south: toward her car and Alex’s el stop. As they waited to cross an intersection, Sammy fished the letter out of her pocket and wedged it into a trash can between the bottles and fast food containers. Tomorrow, she’d call for a new appointment. She had a few weeks before Phillip returned, time enough to plan her next move. To rehearse the role of the lady who leads herself. 

Cars drove by, headlights on. Sammy wondered if the drivers were eager to get home, yearning for the people waiting for them. Or did they resent the trek back to tension and arguments, already missing their workday freedom? Or maybe they wished they had someone to go home to and were staring out their windshield at the three figures waiting for the light to change, thinking, What a nice family.