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I liked my coworkers. We went out for drinks and had barbecues and they came to visit me in the hospital, in shifts and with cards, gifts, and baked goods. Less often once it became clear that I wouldn’t be their coworker anymore, but they keep in touch. Or they try to at least. I’ve never considered how alienating it would feel to be so lonely at a place I spend so much of my time.
“And you think that if you do this then...what?” I know I sound skeptical, but I’m still processing the effervescent, self-assured Lulu that talked about the past for an hour and a half and asked me to come inside her house with this woman, who felt compelled to sign up for a friendship study. How can she see this group of lonely people and think,I’ll fit here?
She takes a deep breath, surveying the room like she’ll find inspiration there. I follow her gaze, my own stopping on George where he stands in the doorway watching us. “I just need to figure out what’s... I need to figure out if it’s me. I can’t—I don’twant—to live like this anymore.”
“Live like what?” I ask, gruff. I’m prying but I can’t seem to stop myself. If I were her, I’d stop me. With a quiet look, a frown. Grump Face or whatever she called it that night.
Lulu faces me head-on like she did on our date, sitting sideways in her chair rather than just turning her head. She gives her attention like she talks about early modern witches, with her whole chest. “Feeling like I don’t matter. Feeling alone. Lonely.”
“Who makes you feel like you don’t matter?” I ask and she blinks at the edge in my tone. “I just mean...” I gesture at her. “I mean, look at you.”
Her eyebrow twitches, her nostril flares. “What does my appearance have to do with anything?”
“Shit. No. I’m sorry.” I knead my thigh, trying to give myself time to organize exactly what I’m trying to say. “You are successful. And you’re quite...pretty.” I wince for some reason, despite it being very true. “You’ve lived in a foreign country and...”
She lives with her parents, at least next door to them. She has friends; George is her friend. Although, George is my friend, too. And here I am.
“I guess I just had it different in my head,” I explain. “That people who are lonely, alone, look different—are different—from someone like you.”
“You don’t look like you’d be lonely either, Jesse,” she says quietly.
I nod. She has a point.
“Jesse,” George calls. “You’re next.”
She smiles tightly, her lips pressed together. “Good luck.”
I stand slowly, still feeling off-balance in a way that has nothing to do with my leg or cane. “I wasn’t going to stay,” I say. “In the study, I mean.”
“Jesse,” George calls again, impatient this time.
My whole life I thought I was going to be a hero like my grandfather. And now I’m...not. But that doesn’t mean I can’t still be brave, that I can’t still do things that scare me. Lulu seems to do them all the time.
“Maybe I should?” I ask with a smile. My face feels green and unpracticed at the movement.
Her answering smile is wide. “You should. I’ll be here when you’re done.”
I swipe my cane and follow George to the intake interview. For the first time in a long time, I find myself looking forward to something.
When I come out of my intake interview, my throat is raw from talking more than I have in a long time. My skin is tight. And I am tired, fucking exhausted. Sometimes when the firehouse got too loud, too full of people—which was always—I’d sit in a truck for a few hours. I’d find something that needed cleaning and take my sweet-ass time. If I could find a quiet place to recalibrate right now, I would, but Lulu stands a few feet down the hall, shifting from foot to foot. Some of the other study participants wait for an elevator farther down the hall.
“There’s a bar on campus,” she says. “It’s called Pete’s. I don’t even know who Pete is.” She winces. “Anyway. Some people from the study were going...”
When I said I wanted to get out of my rut, I’m not sure I meantright now.
Someone clears their throat behind me, and I turn to see George standing inside the room. He shuffles some papers, pointedly ignoring me, but his eyebrows are up in his hairline and he’s obviously eavesdropping.
“Yeah,” I say, turning back to her. “Sure. Let’s do it.” I can decompress later, I guess.
We follow at the back of the group of study participants, taking the path between the engineering building that’s like a maze and a multistory square building that might be a library. Pete’s is located down a quiet hallway in the bustling University Center. It’s small and dark and smells a little bit like old dishrags. The decor is decades old and a sign above the bar states that the bar has been “proudly grad student owned” since 1967. Despite the dinginess, the place is packed. I’ve never seen more academics in one place. Perhaps if I’d actually attended university, this wouldn’t be the case.
And they are all, very obviously, academics.
There’s a man who looks like Santa Claus except without the red suit. He holds court over a table of skinny white guys with neck beards who hang on every word he says.
“Philosophy postgrads,” Lulu says, shrugging in their direction and rolling her eyes like I’m supposed to understand what that means.
“Hmmmm,” I say.
