Dressing for work the day after her fifty-third birthday, W— struggled to get into her favorite sweater. Supple and soft, roomy but flattering, this sweater, but today it felt as if the sweater were fighting her, trying to deny her access. After she finally managed to shove her arms through the sleeves, W— found that the sweater was too tight. She looked in the mirror. The sweater was not, in fact, too tight. Still, it didn’t feel right. Fighting her way out of the sweater, she wrestled with several blouses, on and off, on and off. Pants, skirts, jackets, nothing felt right. Even bras and underwear, everything the proper size, but somehow nothing fit. Was it the menopause? Had her body changed shape? It hurt, sure—neck, shoulders, back, hips, knees—but what was new about that? Her body always hurt. But her clothes not fitting? Well, that was an unexpected development in the adventure that was middle age.
W— again tried the sweater, which felt strangely heavy against her skin. Heavy? No, not heavy. She tugged at the cuffs, the collar, with a strangled sort of unease. Hostile. That’s how the sweater felt. That’s how all her clothes felt. Hostile. She struggled out of the sweater and turned, naked, to the other side of the closet, where her husband H—’s clothes still hung, minus the ones he’d walked out in. To start a new life, he’d informed her, with a new girlfriend and, apparently, a new wardrobe, since he’d never returned to collect any of his things, the divorce papers now sitting on the kitchen table for her to sign.
She slipped into one of H—’s white dress shirts. Next, a pair of gray slacks and a pricey belt she’d given him last Father’s Day. A black blazer. Everything a bit loose, and vaguely shapeless, but the clothes fit her well enough, her husband more or less her size. That’s why she’d married him; they’d matched. The clothes decidedly not flattering, however. But not hostile either. Neutral, H—’s clothing, like the Switzerland of the closet. Much like H— himself, who never argued, never took sides. Not until he left, that is, at which point there was no argument to be had, he was leaving, no matter what anyone said, for or against, and then he was gone.
Perhaps he’d left his clothing on purpose, W— mused. Not because he no longer needed it, but because he’d sensed W— would. As this sort of backass thoughtfulness was typical of H—, W— decided to believe it. She slid on a pair of his socks, only slightly baggy. His shoes, though not terribly long, were much too wide, H—’s feet rather like a pair of bricks with toes. Contemplating the messy clump of shoes on her side of the closet, the smart, shapely heels, the toes, pointed or squared, the easily-stained fabrics, the easily-worn-down soles, she backed away in alarm, much as she did when encountering a rowdy group of inebriated young people at happy hour. She marched down the hall to her teenage son S—’s room. S— was sitting on the edge of his bed, furiously thumbing his phone, his clothes for the day in a pile on the floor.
“I’ll be needing your trainers,” W— said, grabbing them from the pile.
“Is this a joke?” S— asked without looking up from his phone.
“Maybe,” W— said, slipping a foot into a trainer. It fit well enough. She laced up the other one.
S— tore himself away from his phone, giving W— a quick glance. “Are those Dad’s clothes?”
“Your dad’s been gone a year,” W— said, realizing for the first time that this was true.
“Wow, so stylish,” he said, with the ironic skepticism that was his conversational specialty.
“They’re up for grabs. Take your pick.”
S— snorted. “They look better on you,” he said.
Tunneling through highway traffic, W— let the morning news wash over her without troubling to understand the words. She felt as though the car were driving her, rather than the other way around, and she patted the steering wheel, to thank the car for taking charge. The car pulled into her company’s sprawling campus, early as always, and into her new parking spot, which she had recently earned, along with a promotion and salary increase. Sunlight glinted off the soaring glass monolith of corporate headquarters. As W— approached the entryway, another executive in gray slacks, a white dress shirt and black blazer was exiting the building. W— raised a hand to wave, only to realize that she was greeting herself, reflected in the glass. She also realized that in the confusion over the hostile clothing she had neglected her hair and makeup. The lobby receptionist, who usually greeted her by name, instead regarded her with the barely polite disinterest of a cinema ticket taker.
W— rode the elevator up, glancing over the surrounding suits with a heightened vigilance, as if she were in disguise, conducting a covert operation, and might be exposed by the authorities at any moment. Inside the clothing that had formerly belonged to H—, her body felt wooly, and rather formless, like the stuffing inside a suit-shaped cushion, and she steered this awkward contrivance off the elevator and down the hallway. Just outside W—’s new office, W—’s new assistant sat at her desk, phone pressed between ear and shoulder, a crochet needle cajoling an enormous ball of yarn into a growing medallion. She gave W— a quizzical nod and said, “Tell your dad today’s his day,” into the phone, the crochet needle keeping up its rhythmic jabbings unabated.
Office door safely shut behind her, W— sat at her own desk, a faux wood edifice so massive she could probably have rented it out nights to a lodger. The assistant, the office and the massive desk had also come with the promotion. To upper-level management, after all these years with the company, a regional grocery chain, with stores constellating the southeastern part of the country. Behind W—’s desk was a large window. Why, she wondered, did executives always sit with their backs to the window? She swiveled around and again encountered, on the surface of the glass, that executive in the gray slacks, white dress shirt and black blazer, hair awry, face wiped clean, like a chalk board at the end of a school day.
The window overlooked the campus’s famously photographable reflecting pool, on whose glasslike waters the glass-fronted building shimmered like a mirage. On the desk behind her, W—’s phone rang. Someone knocked. A lone cloud wafted over the horizon like a stray thought the sky was having. W— watched the cloud’s slow progress reflected on the sheer surface of the pool. The office was silent, still. W— could hear the door opening and someone padding across the carpet.
“Today’s schedule’s on your desk,” said her assistant. “Don’t forget the team lunch meeting. I ordered sandwiches.” An expectant pause.
The executive in the window touched her hair. Too long, W— thought. H— had always loved her hair. Which was why W— kept it long, though it was so unruly, so impossible to manage, hot on her neck, even in winter.
“And a cookie platter,” W—’s assistant drily added, “since nobody liked the fruit.”
The cloud reached the edge of the reflecting pool and vanished. W—’s phone rang, again.
“Let me know if you need anything else.” The voice of her assistant receded, the door closed, and stillness again settled over the room.
W— swiveled around to face the desk, where she encountered a steaming cup of coffee, a thick manilla folder labeled “Team Meeting,” an elastic band, a hairbrush, a lipstick and a circular hand mirror. Taking a sip of coffee, W— thought, How strange, that someone could know my needs before I do and tend to them. Her phone rang again. Like a mother, she thought, but better. W—’s own mother so deficient in this regard, W—’s needs at best an annoyance, at worst a threat, how nervy of W— to have needs at all, as her mother’s needs were always so urgent and needed the both of them, W— and her mother, to tend to them, since W—’s father had left before W— was born.
W— checked her messages. One from her salon, reminding her of an appointment with her colorist. One from her superior, wishing her luck with her ten o’clock. The last from her husband, urging her to sign the divorce papers at her earliest convenience, preferably right away. W— lay her forehead on “Team Meeting,” her hair falling around her face like a curtain lowered at the end of a play. Her phone rang, again, again. Her hair just then felt so heavy, unbearably heavy, like stone hair. Heavy and, yes, hostile, and she tried to lift her head, her neck muscles straining, her shoulders, her back, no wonder she was in pain, with all that hair. W— rummaged through her drawers, finding power cords, charging cords, wall chargers, adapters, hubs, ports, a power strip, a back-up hard drive and a fistful of pineapple-shaped thumb drives stamped with the company’s logo.
She dragged herself to the door, hair in tow, and “Scissors!” she said to her assistant. “I need scissors.”
Of course, her assistant had scissors, three pairs, and W— chose the largest. “Newspaper! I need newspaper,” W— said to her unflappable assistant, brandishing the scissors for emphasis.
“Newspaper?” W—’s assistant pronounced the word tentatively, as if it were in a foreign language. “You mean the newspaper made out of paper?”
“Never mind,” W— said. She took off down the hall, scissors angled toward the floor like a divining rod.
“What about your ten o’clock?” W—’s assistant asked, trotting after her with the crochet needle and ball of yarn.
“If it’s my ten o’clock,” said W—, boarding the elevator, “I can do what I want with it, can’t I?”
“Well, I mean, it’s not technically yours,” W—’s assistant said as the elevator doors closed.
Had any time ever been hers? W— wondered as the elevator worked its way down. She’d spent most of her life on the company’s time, starting in high school at the store near her mom’s apartment, working evenings and weekends as a Front Service Clerk to make money for her college fund. When W— was a senior, her mother borrowed W—’s college fund, as venture capital for a small start-up doing tarot readings for birthdays, Bar Mitzvahs and high school reunions. “The business underperformed,” was her mother’s only comment before she switched careers, to receptionist at a large dental practice.
W— stayed at the store, working her way up. Up from Front Service Clerk to Cashier to Assistant Store Manager to Store Manager, up from Store Manager to Merchandiser to Buyer, up from Buyer to Manager Health and Beauty Care to Business Development Director Health and Beauty Care & General Merchandise to Business Development Director Dry Grocery to Business Development Director Grocery Retail Support and Space to this new position, Vice President Replenishment & Purchasing Support. Along the way up, the company had funded college and even a Masters in Food Science from an Ivy League institution.
Waving at the lobby receptionist with the scissors, W— exited through the back door. She wandered along a landscaped path, stopping at the edge of the reflecting pool. There, on the water, was the executive with the gray slacks, white shirt and black blazer. And that heavy, unruly hair. She was holding a pair of scissors. W— watched her for a long while, thinking of the papers on her kitchen table. “Someone call security,” said a voice behind her. How thoughtful, W— said to herself. I could use some security. The executive lifted the scissors to her ear. W— thought to stop her, but as soon as she moved, the executive dissolved. Water, bracingly cool, seeped into H—’s pants. On the surface of the pool a thick strand of hair shimmered and swayed like an eel. The scissors floated, just for a moment, then sank to the bottom.
