Free Mendocino and Other Stories by Ann Packer Page B

gone.
    THE WOMAN AHEAD of me in the movie line is pregnant. Six months, I would guess. She keeps turning around and scanning the sidewalk behind me. She is waiting for someone and she seems impatient. Every few minutes she glances at her watch. I wonder why she's so anxious; the movie doesn't start for nearly twenty minutes.
    I look away and catch sight of a billboard bearing a Fitch Brown Llewellen ad. It's for a fragrance. A woman with carefully disheveled hair stands on the beach at sunset. One strap of hersequined gown has fallen from her shoulder; her high-heeled sandals dangle carelessly from her hand. She looks into the distance. The copy line reads, “You can't forget his touch.…”
    I look back at the woman and find that she is looking at me. I start to smile at her; I can already feel the small, intimate smile we will exchange. But she looks away, and again ranges her vision over the sidewalk behind me. She is about to turn around when her expression changes to pleasure.
    A man comes up from behind me and bends to kiss her. “Sorry,” he says. He is tall and has curly brown hair and little wire-rim glasses. He is wearing faded Levi's that fit him wonderfully, a brown suede baseball jacket, and a blue and white striped dress shirt. From the shirt I deduce that he has a real job somewhere, but he's not so stuffy that he would wear his suit to the movies. When they're at home together, he's probably very sensitive to whether she feels like talking or whether she'd rather be left alone. He's sure enough of her, of them, that he's perfectly content to spend entire evenings in silence. But he's wonderful to talk to, when they do talk: he really knows her, and their conversations have a rich subtext of shared knowledge and experience. When he kisses her, it means something.
    It's somehow worse actually to see men like this, to know they exist. It's as if he has been sent to remind me that the only men I might consider marrying are those who are already husbands.
    He puts his hand on her rounded belly. “How's the baby?” he says.
    JENNIFER APPROVED MY new outline, her last act before starting her leave. She has been gone for a week now, and so far she has called in every day. I fill her in as quickly as possible, assuming she'll want to get back to hanging curtains in the nursery orwhatever, but she lingers on the phone, asking about this meeting or that report. When I mention Sam—she's due “any day now”—Jennifer sounds impatient. I think she resents Sam for working all the way through her ninth month. It is somewhat surprising that Jennifer started her leave so early. Sam thinks she was afraid her water would break at work, which would not look businesslike at all.
    It is seven o'clock at night, and the office is empty except for me and Max, my art director. He is working up storyboards, I am scripting. We sent out for Chinese.
    To my surprise, my original tag line made the final cut. The last image will be the guy in his running clothes throwing the stick for Sunny, then turning to wave at the semiglamorous woman as he heads out of the park. He stumbles, rights himself, looks sheepishly back at her, and she stands there, an amused smile on her face, and waves. Voice-over, tag line:
Kanine Krunch—food for the dogs that people like you love.
    I dip my chopsticks into a carton of Hot and Spicy Shrimp, pull out a water chestnut, and put it into my mouth. The phone buzzes and I pick it up, thinking it must be Max, who is sitting across the hall eating Beef with Broccoli.
    “Szechuan Kitchen,” I say. “What's your pleasure?”
    “Virginia?”
    “Oh, hi,” I say. It's Sam. “I thought you were Max. We ordered in Chinese.”
    “It's starting,” she says. “I've had four contractions.”
    “Oh, my God.”
    “Just wanted to keep you posted.”
    “Oh, my God,” I say. “Oh, my God.” I've got this huge smile on my face, I must look ridiculous.
    “Josh is making me get off the phone,” she says.