Read Online My American Unhappiness by Dean Bakopoulos - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Dean Bakopoulos
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But I prefer to dictate."
"I love it. I love my job. I've been here eight years, haven't I?"
"You sound unconvincing."
"Do I?" she says, and she offers me a smile—a small one.
I retreat to my office and close the door. Although I consider myself a student of human relationships, I admit that Lara is someone I can't figure out: Was what we just had flirtatious and witty banter? Or was it a tense exchange rife with latent aggression? It's not out of the realm of possibility that Lara might be attracted to me. I am a fairly good-looking man and I know it helps me get through life. I am of medium height, broad-shouldered. I have the blue eyes from my mother's Irish side coupled with black hair and skin one would describe as olive-toned, thanks to my father's Greek genes. Three years ago, I even did a brief bit of modeling for a local ad agency—a serendipitous encounter at the natural foods co-op turned into a decent part-time job. For a few months, my face was on a billboard over the Beltline Highway, smiling deliriously over the great service I received at a bank. Outside Milwaukee, above the interstate, I stood with a beautiful family, and my smile assured commuters that All-state was on their side. I drove by that billboard only a handful of times, as it was sixty miles east of Madison, but each time, that picture of me, standing next to that blond, big-eyed wife, those two beaming children, filled me with woe. I still remember how my billboard wife—Ingrid was her real name—smelled, how her hair gave off the vague scent of dandelion stems.
More about Lara: Many days, I confess, I have an urge to kiss her, and once, five years ago, at the National Humanities Conference in Omaha, we almost did kiss in the arcade room of the hotel lobby. We were both fairly intoxicated, having spent most of the evening at the hotel bar with our comrades from the Deep South Humanities Project and the Big Sky Humanities Coalition, and we had retreated to the arcade, alone. We were playing Mortal Kombat II, and she shoved me once, in real life, after my ninja destroyed her buxom, knife-wielding avatar and I shoved her back, playfully, and then she grabbed my hand, and we were there, a few inches from each other, and almost, almost!
This afternoon, weary and restless, bolstered by my three Bloody Marys, I go back out to Lara's desk and I bring up that night in Omaha, and, admittedly, it is the sort of "Do you remember that time?" kind of question you hope rekindles a spark that seems so long gone and dormant.
"I don't remember it," she says. "I don't think that's what happened, Zeke."
"What do you think would have happened," I say, "if we'd kissed?"
"Regret," she says. She is straightening her desk, ending the workday. "Wearying, gut-wrenching regret."
"Really?" I say.
"We were different then," she says. "My husband was cheating on me, my marriage was failing. And you, well, you weren't so weird. You were more vulnerable then, a young widower, not the
bon vivant
you are today!"
It's true, she struck me as enormously sad on that trip, a woman whose life was falling apart, a woman saying farewell to a future she'd imagined, and had good reason to imagine, too. This is when a woman is at her most beautiful, I think, when she is at her saddest. Show me a sad woman, and I will fall in love.
Lara laughs then, turning what could become a poignant moment into a joke. "Anyway, we should never bring that up again. Okay?"
"Weird?" I say, but she is on her way to shut down the copier. "I have not gotten weird."
She turns back toward me and sighs.
"We both have, Zeke. We both have gotten weird and middle-aged."
"We are neither weird nor middle-aged, Lara!"
"Well, maybe you're not. But I am," Lara says. "Anyway, I've got to get home and you've got two girls waiting for you in the conference room."
"Oh, no! I forgot!" I say. "Have they been here long?"
"No. Your mother dropped them off about forty minutes ago. I wasn't sure if you were in
"I love it. I love my job. I've been here eight years, haven't I?"
"You sound unconvincing."
"Do I?" she says, and she offers me a smile—a small one.
I retreat to my office and close the door. Although I consider myself a student of human relationships, I admit that Lara is someone I can't figure out: Was what we just had flirtatious and witty banter? Or was it a tense exchange rife with latent aggression? It's not out of the realm of possibility that Lara might be attracted to me. I am a fairly good-looking man and I know it helps me get through life. I am of medium height, broad-shouldered. I have the blue eyes from my mother's Irish side coupled with black hair and skin one would describe as olive-toned, thanks to my father's Greek genes. Three years ago, I even did a brief bit of modeling for a local ad agency—a serendipitous encounter at the natural foods co-op turned into a decent part-time job. For a few months, my face was on a billboard over the Beltline Highway, smiling deliriously over the great service I received at a bank. Outside Milwaukee, above the interstate, I stood with a beautiful family, and my smile assured commuters that All-state was on their side. I drove by that billboard only a handful of times, as it was sixty miles east of Madison, but each time, that picture of me, standing next to that blond, big-eyed wife, those two beaming children, filled me with woe. I still remember how my billboard wife—Ingrid was her real name—smelled, how her hair gave off the vague scent of dandelion stems.
More about Lara: Many days, I confess, I have an urge to kiss her, and once, five years ago, at the National Humanities Conference in Omaha, we almost did kiss in the arcade room of the hotel lobby. We were both fairly intoxicated, having spent most of the evening at the hotel bar with our comrades from the Deep South Humanities Project and the Big Sky Humanities Coalition, and we had retreated to the arcade, alone. We were playing Mortal Kombat II, and she shoved me once, in real life, after my ninja destroyed her buxom, knife-wielding avatar and I shoved her back, playfully, and then she grabbed my hand, and we were there, a few inches from each other, and almost, almost!
This afternoon, weary and restless, bolstered by my three Bloody Marys, I go back out to Lara's desk and I bring up that night in Omaha, and, admittedly, it is the sort of "Do you remember that time?" kind of question you hope rekindles a spark that seems so long gone and dormant.
"I don't remember it," she says. "I don't think that's what happened, Zeke."
"What do you think would have happened," I say, "if we'd kissed?"
"Regret," she says. She is straightening her desk, ending the workday. "Wearying, gut-wrenching regret."
"Really?" I say.
"We were different then," she says. "My husband was cheating on me, my marriage was failing. And you, well, you weren't so weird. You were more vulnerable then, a young widower, not the
bon vivant
you are today!"
It's true, she struck me as enormously sad on that trip, a woman whose life was falling apart, a woman saying farewell to a future she'd imagined, and had good reason to imagine, too. This is when a woman is at her most beautiful, I think, when she is at her saddest. Show me a sad woman, and I will fall in love.
Lara laughs then, turning what could become a poignant moment into a joke. "Anyway, we should never bring that up again. Okay?"
"Weird?" I say, but she is on her way to shut down the copier. "I have not gotten weird."
She turns back toward me and sighs.
"We both have, Zeke. We both have gotten weird and middle-aged."
"We are neither weird nor middle-aged, Lara!"
"Well, maybe you're not. But I am," Lara says. "Anyway, I've got to get home and you've got two girls waiting for you in the conference room."
"Oh, no! I forgot!" I say. "Have they been here long?"
"No. Your mother dropped them off about forty minutes ago. I wasn't sure if you were in
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