Delayed

Chapter 10

The built-in bookshelves in my apartment were full of memories of Dave and me. The shelves had been one of reasons I chose this particular apartment. They ran floor to ceiling and required a ladder to reach the highest ones. The other unique thing about my apartment building was that we had a superintendent - something that has mostly been replaced by large management companies that contract out on-call repair services, but not here. Here we call the real estate company that rents the apartments, and they dispatch Gerald.

He's a lovely older gentleman who has stories for hours and, while not the most speedy at it, can fix nearly anything. I called him once about my garbage disposal and as such had learned all about his granddaughter who just moved to New York and the trip he and his (now deceased) wife had taken there on their honeymoon years ago. Gerald loved the theater, particularly Guys and Dolls. I also learned from Kate that Gerald was happy to loan out ladders, plungers, or other tools. The method for acquiring these was to leave a sticky note on the door to his apartment. I had done this Thursday evening and opened the door Saturday morning to find the ladder resting on the wall just outside my door.

I had taken the lower pictures down as soon as I had gotten back from lunch Thursday. Then I had written it down on the to-do list I started and scratched it off, before making the rest of the list. The pictures I had taken down were all stacked on a lower shelf until I could get the ladder to take down the others. I climbed up quickly and removed the pictures, then stood back to survey my work. The shelves had been nicely balanced with books and photos. They were full of holes now. I laid out all the frames I had taken down. Perhaps I was being a little too hardcore. True, Dave was in the pictures, but other people were in some of them, as well. Like the one of Kate, Ben, Dave, and I at Jack and Amy's wedding, which made me simultaneously happy and sad. I glanced over at Spike swimming languidly in his bowl and thought about Kate being in Seattle.

There was another one with Dave and me and my brother and his wife at the beach last summer. My brother lived in Chicago. I would have to remember to get a photo with just the two of them next time we got together, but for now it could stay. Maybe I could get a cheap plane ticket to Chicago for a visit, or I could just drive. It wasn't like I didn't have time. I had nothing but time. I'd have to add this to my to-do list.

I continued to work my way through the ten or so pictures in much the same way, thinking about the people in them, the last time I saw them, what they were doing today. In the end, I found five that I was okay leaving out.

This left five that were just Dave and me. One at the beach, one in D.C. with the Washington Monument in the background, one from my brother's wedding, one after the Richmond marathon last year, and a really old one from the conference we met at more than three years ago. A co-worker of mine had taken a bunch of pictures on the trip and e-mailed them to everyone in our office. I had printed and framed one for both Dave and myself the first Valentine's Day after we started dating.

We look really young in the picture. It was taken on the last night of the conference, when a bunch of us had gone out for drinks. When we got back to the hotel, Dave and I made our way to the bar and talked until it closed. I had been at my job for about a year, maybe a year and a half. It was one of the first corporate conferences I had been to and definitely one of the biggest.

I hadn't been prepared for the giant party it became and never lost sight of the fact that I was at work. I was drawn to Dave for his easy confidence, the way he was able to turn down drinks and be simultaneously fun and professional. I think it was the self-preservationist in me that initially drew me to him, knowing that aligning myself with him would keep me out of trouble and from being seen as antisocial. He had continued to be my touchstone about workplace etiquette over the years. It felt weird not to share this latest news about the loss of my job with him, to not bounce ideas for what was next off him. Would we, could we ever be friends?