Marta Novak surveyed the tiny restaurant’s warm interior. She held the outside door wide open far too long, ignoring the dirty looks from shivering nearby diners. The freezing Washington, DC air reminded her of her son, of his run-down house trailer located in shouting distance of the Canadian border. Prolonging the sensation of unconscionable cold felt important.
Years before, he’d fled medical school and gone to ground where he thought she wouldn’t find him. Fat chance.
Marta often told herself she’d made peace with his choices and hers. She had let him go. Moved on.
Scanning the restaurant, Marta acknowledged a few friendly smiles from some of the regulars among a half-dozen foreign service officers. As usual, their presence touched off a wave of regret that she had waited to take an overseas posting with them until getting her son settled into medical school. She had never really connected with any of them.
At last, a raised hand from a table tucked into a precarious spot by the swinging double doors to the kitchen caught her eye. Charlene Posey. Typical. Sometimes Charlene could isolate herself in the most public of places.
No cigarette between her fingers. A good sign. Maybe Baker—their boss—hadn’t stressed Charlene out so much that morning. Charlene’s reputation as unflappable was well earned, but Marta had a gift for reading people and hadn’t been fooled. Sliding into a chair across from Charlene, Marta noted the crumpled cigarette pack on the table and changed her mind about Charlene’s stress level. “I see you had your meeting with Baker.” The smashed cigarette pack was out of character for someone who presented tall and tight, wore her elegance like armor.
Brusque and scrappy, Marta seemed to have little in common with her colleague other than that they both reported to Baker. Marta had been with him through a long series of upwardly mobile embassy assignments. Charlene had come on board after he’d been promoted stateside.
Although comfortable relationships had always seemed beyond Marta’s reach, she had surprised herself by confiding to Charlene the entire episode when she discovered her son had dropped out of Johns Hopkins with only one year to go. The memory of it depressed and humiliated her. As a single parent, she had always cared for him and encouraged him. He had excelled at whatever he tried, especially in the sciences. When he announced he wanted to attend medical school, it had come as no surprise.
After three years of study and with the near certainty of a highly competitive research fellowship, he had disappeared. Incontrovertible evidence of her failure as a parent, she was sure. Most humiliating of all was what he had decided to settle for. She had found him living in that rusted-out beat-down double wide a stone’s throw from Canada.
Marta struggled to resist pulling out one of Charlene’s crushed cigarettes. Knew she needed to quit. “What happened with Baker this morning?”
“He briefed me for over an hour.” Charlene’s lifted hand resulted in the immediate presence of a waiter. “Cobb salad and coffee.” She looked across at Marta with raised eyebrow.
“Cobb salad. Just water.” Marta watched the waiter disappear through the double doors. “What’s up?”
Charlene grimaced. “We’re off to Bahrain on Wednesday. How he manages to give out so many essential details without looking at any briefing material is amazing.”
“It’s a skill.” Having been with Baker longer, Marta saw Charlene as half-way along the learning curve. He could be demanding, but Marta had stayed, had the feeling Charlene would, too. “He’s briefing me this afternoon.”
“Do you think you’ll be going with us?”
“Probably not. Maybe. I don’t know.” Marta heard her own ennui. She had begun edging toward retirement while she was still young enough for a second career.
“Hm.” Charlene’s hardened face told Marta the utterance would have come out as an obscenity in anyone else. Charlene never swore. She’d just do whatever it was she thought needed doing, all business, nothing personal got in the way.
Marta admired that about her. “Baker’s okay. He’s full of himself, totally shallow. But he’s got your back.”
When their food appeared, Charlene lifted a chunk of blue cheese. Stared at it. “Are you taking early retirement so you can track down your son?”
Caught off guard, Marta shook her head. “No, I … I’m going back to school. But I’ll be available if he wants to, you know, reach out.”
In that moment, a blast of freezing air blew through the room from the suddenly opened door. The icy cold forced upon her the unforgivable specter of her son’s house trailer. Reminded her of how alone she felt.
Marta looked around the familiar room, finally returned to Charlene, who was now watching her with an intensity that said she’d seen the distress in Marta’s face. Marta had been more open with Charlene than with anyone else in her adult life. Why? Marta stared at the crumpled cigarette pack, affirmation of hidden vulnerability. Considered Charlene’s preferred location, tucked in a corner far removed from colleagues laughing and grousing together elsewhere in the room.
Perhaps comforted by having seen through Charlene’s façade, having found it not wholly different from her own, Marta began. “He’s living in a grungy old house trailer. Almost in Canada.” Her head dropped into her hands. “I can’t stand it,” she confessed.
