Page 20 of Out on a Limb

“I’m glad you had fun.”

The statement dinged him just slightly. It was supposed to be fun, and only fun. He wasn’t supposed to be thinking about a drunken night this much. He didn’t wonder about the guys he had sex with after his divorce. He couldn’t even remember their names.

“No wonder you look so tired.” She let out a squeal of laughter. “He must’ve made you feel young again.”

“He made me feel alive.” Walker felt a pall come over their table, as if the further removed he was from his night with Cameron, the more his own light dimmed.

Five minutes later, he and Lucy went back to their workspaces, into the quiet of the office. A huge space of people saying nothing, all typing away at their computers. Walker crawled through his work for another hour. He figured that eventually he would forget about Cameron, and his life and work ethic would return to normal. There was something so profoundly sad about that, he thought.

After answering the last of Patricia’s questions, for now, he took an early lunch at 11:30, and beelined to the west building of The Complex.

He snapped out of his work daze the second he spotted Cameron behind the counter. He wasn’t used to seeing the Starbucks so empty. Cameron smiled at him, while wiping down the counter.

“Hey,” he said, unsure where to go from here. Nerves slingshotted across his body.

“Hey, Walker. What can I get for you?”

Walker hadn’t thought about getting a drink. He wasn’t thirsty, and his mouth was a cottonball at the same time. “My usual, I guess.”

Cameron wrote on his cup and passed it to another barista. “So what brings you down here for a midday coffee?”

“Oh, you know…caffeine addiction.”I wanted to see you.The words were right there. Cameron treating him like a customer was not making this easier. “Has it been busy?”

“The usual amount. Everybody needs their coffee.”

“Work’s been…well, I needed a break.”

The barista at the end called out Walker’s order. He picked it up and made his way back to Cameron’s register, feeling awkwardness sink in.

“Do you have a break coming up soon?” Walker realized as soon as he walked in here, he had no plan.

“I don’t. I only work until noon, then I have class.”

“I forgot. You’re a senior. No morning classes.”

“Exactly. And I don’t even want to go to this one. It’s this pass/fail sociology class, but since I failed the last test, I should probably attend the lecture.”

“That sounds interesting.” Walker never got to take a sociology class, or anything like it. He was a business major, at his parents’ insistence. That meant math and econ and marketing.

“I fell asleep in the first lecture. Honestly, I’m so checked out. Major senioritis. I’m ready to start a career.”

“Be careful what you wish for. I’d take a college lecture, especially one about sociology, over work any day of the week.”

“Okay.” Cameron nodded. “My class is at 12:30.”

Walker laughed, then realized Cameron wasn’t joking. “I have work.”

“Did you hear what you just said?”

“I have a lot of things to do, unfortunately.”

“Just say you’re taking a long lunch.”

“I have to get this report done and research our competitors’ past campaigns. We’re in review, so we have to…” And for the first time, Walker listened to himself. He heard himself clearly, heard every miserable word coming out of his mouth. “Let’s do it.”

Φ

Walker wanted to kick his younger self for every lecture he skipped, every time he snuck in a magazine to read. Class was one hundred times better than work. His mind reblossomed as he listened to the professor talk. It had been a long while since he learned anything. At work, he justdidthings, things he had done before. His body craved knowledge like a missing nutrient.