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Hands
She is jolted out of daydream when a hand comes to rest on the counter in front of her.
“Already a good day, huh?” Jim smiles down at her, still in his coat and with his bag slung across his body. He’s almost two hours late.
“Oh yeah. Michael came in wearing a giant hat made of fruit and gave us a lecture on the importance of fiber.” She grimaces. “He said he was inspired by Carmen Electra.”
“And to think, I missed out on such important information.” He gives an exaggerated sigh. “Well, at least your day didn’t start out with a towel-clad appeal to your landlord to turn the water back on. To be fair, it was partly my fault for not checking to make sure everything was in working order before using the shampoo.”
She has only been there for a few weeks, but already she has found comfort in the rapport she shares with the lanky salesman. His humor suits her. She likes the way he says her name, the fact that he says her name at all; it reminds her that she is here, not fading away, like she sometimes feels.
He picks out a green jellybean from the dispenser on her counter, rolling it between his fingers a little. “Good choice on the cheap stuff, by the way. I always thought the gourmet ones tasted…”
“Not fake enough?” She watches the candy roll back and forth.
“Exactly.” He grins widely before popping it into his mouth, and for just a second, she feels a little lightheaded. She gets a few jellybeans for herself to increase her blood sugar and quickly turns back to her computer screen, opening up a nearly finished game of Freecell.
* * * * *
She doesn’t paint very often, because Roy thinks she shouldn’t. He grinds his teeth thinking about it. He knows what beautiful images those hands could create if only she would allow herself to do so. When he places a package, unseen, on her desk one morning, he is rewarded a few minutes later by a small “Oh!” as she opens it. She tries to give it back, but relents without much persuasion, and shyly beams her gratitude at him. It is more than enough to repay the fifty dollars he spent putting the acrylics and brushes together.
A few days later, he looks up from his desk and catches a glimpse of orange flecked on her pinkie, and higher, a spot of red just above her wrist. He wonders where she’d gone in her mind as she’d painted, if a ruddy colored sun was setting there. If he visited her house tonight, would he find that canvas, propped up against the wall, half complete? He imagines showing her a real sunset sometime, watching the sun sink below the waves. The beach is a place for secrets at dusk.
* * * * *
His hand looks like it’s glowing at times. It’s just the lights in the office, she knows, a fluorescent glare off hair and skin. But then he looks over at her, mischief alight in his eyes, and she thinks, just this once, he could be glowing after all.
* * * * *
They hold hands sometimes.
That first day, when she was the new receptionist and her name did not yet come to his lips like second nature, they had gone out to lunch together, to a deli around the corner that served pickles in barrels. And on the way back, she had stumbled on something, or maybe nothing at all, and nearly splashed through a puddle, so he took her hand to steady her. They made their way back to the office that way, she focused on avoiding the puddles, he guiding her around them, all the while stealing glances from the side.
They only get caught once. Jim can’t believe his luck, Dwight is really going to bleach his hair!, and he goes to her immediately to share the news. He takes her hand while watching the glee dance in her eyes. To be honest, he doesn’t even realize he’s done it. But Roy does, shouting anger and threats, and he’s careful after that.
But she seeks his hand too, sometimes. After a fight with Roy, in the breakroom, she laughs off her problems through a stray tear. And she squeezes his hand briefly before standing in front of the vending machine, taking longer than usual to pick a flavor of chips so the urge to cry will fade.
Some days, her grip is weaker than others.
* * * * *
She twists the telephone cord around her finger as she waits for him to speak. She’d been getting ready to leave for the day, had only stayed behind to give Michael some paperwork, when the phone rang. She’d almost ignored it. It was after hours. No one else was around. And, if she allowed herself to think about it, the act of answering a call only to transfer it to someone else depressed her.
It hurts to hear his voice. But then he speaks again, and for a while the phone-line connects them, erases the past few months. She hears a tapping on his end, imagines the pencil sitting loosely in his hand as he raps it on his desk. If she’d been braver back in May, she could be seeing him right now, tapping his pencil on the desk across from hers and smiling at her with that look that, she knows now, is just for her.
But then he thinks she is leaving, and the awkwardness is back, and there are hasty goodbyes before he is hundreds of miles away from her again. Her hand shakes a little as she sets the phone back in its cradle.
* * * * *
Her hands are a little callused. Barely noticeable, really, just a little bit where the paintbrushes and pencils rub against the skin of her middle finger above the nail. He notices it at the restaurant during dinner, as she lifts her salad fork to her mouth, and again as he takes her hand in the car on the way back to her apartment. He marvels a little that such a small part of her can be rough while the rest of her is so soft. But then her hands are on his face, pulling him toward her, and the thought gets lost in the sudden jumble of noises in his head.
* * * * *
She can hear his heartbeat. She likes to lie like this, with her head on his chest as they speak low and drift to sleep. The sheet has almost slipped off the bed, and she shivers in the darkness. He runs his fingers over her goosebumps, reading the Braille of her body.
* * * * *
He enjoys the feel of her pressing closer to him, seeking warmth, for a minute longer before he reaches down and pulls the blanket over her. She’s idly running her fingers through the hair on his chest. She was sketching in charcoal earlier, and the pigment has worked its way under her nails, so she leaves faint gray streaks behind on his skin. He grabs her hand and chuckles under his breath, loving the way she’s left her mark on him, before he raises her fingers to his lips.
Hands by shortlatte
shortlatte is the author of 2 other stories.
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