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Chuck leaned on the reception desk. “How are you doing today?”
“Great,” Julie said, gesturing in the direction of the window. “We’re watching our custodian cut the lawn. That’s how we pass our day around here.”
“He’s fun to watch,” Emily chimed in.
Chuck gazed out the window and watched as Ian made another pass with the mower. He chuckled.
“Well, don’t get too excited, girls,” he said, adding in a stage whisper, “he bats for the other team.”
“Really? Are you sure?” Julie asked.
“From personal experience,” Chuck said, raising his eyebrows.
Paul took a deep breath. He wanted to punch the satisfied smirk off the mailman’s face. In fact, he wasn’t that kindly disposed to the entire postal service at the moment. To avoid glaring at the mailman, he glared at the mail in his hand. He hoped this might pass for intense concentration on his personal correspondence. He should have gone back into his office right then, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave—he didn’t want to hear another word and he didn’t want to miss a thing. Both Emily and Julie were now focused completely on Chuck, their eyes wide.
“You mean…,” Emily said.
“He’s pretty,” Chuck said, more to himself than to Emily or Julie, “but he’s kind of a train wreck.”
Paul bit the inside of his cheek. A train wreck? How dare he? Paul comforted himself with a daydream of stabbing the mailman through the neck with a letter opener.
“He’s not now,” Julie said. “He’s not drinking now. I think he’s really turned things around. He’s really nice.”
“That’s good,” Chuck said, still gazing out the window. “I hope he has. Well, neither rain nor sleet nor dark of night, or whatever it is.” Then he gave a little wave and continued on his route.
“Wow.” Julie turned to Paul, delighted with this bit of juicy gossip. “Did you know he was gay?”
“No,” he said, and he retreated into his office still holding everybody’s mail. He could hear the muffled voices and giggles of the two women through the closed door. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the pitch and tone suggested the topic had not changed. He slumped into his chair and rested his forehead on his palms. His emotions came at him in a confusing jumble. Why had he lied? Why didn’t he say of course he’d known Ian was gay, like it was no big deal? He felt guilty. He was afraid. The gossip had started. How long could it be before it involved him too? They would be giggling behind his back soon, and that would only be the beginning.
The expression “train wreck” played over and over in his head. A train wreck? What was the mailman alluding to? How well did he know Ian? Had Chuck been burned in a terrible romance, or had it been a one-night stand? Neither option made him feel any better.
Paul couldn’t get any work done for the rest of the day. He was too busy torturing himself with thoughts of late-night drunken arguments that hinted at emotional intimacy and ridiculous images of Ian stripping off Chuck’s postal uniform and performing all manner of sexual acts on him. It made his stomach turn, but he could not keep himself from picking at the mental wound.
At the end of the day, Ian got into Paul’s car for the ride home with a big smile as though nothing had happened. After all, nothing had. Ian tried to chat, but Paul could not focus on anything he had to say.
“What’s wrong?” Ian finally asked.
“Nothing.”
“Something’s wrong.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Is it about me?”
“I told you, it’s nothing.”
For about a mile, Paul didn’t speak. Ian glanced at him, then at his feet, then back at Paul. Finally he could take no more. “What? What did I do?”
Paul shook his head. He knew better, but he couldn’t restrain himself. “Tell me about Chuck.”
“Chuck who?”
“Chuck the mailman.”
“Chuck the mailman? What are you talking about?”
“He delivers the mail to the church. You haven’t seen him there?”
