Within two weeks my license for substitute teaching came in the mail.  I immediately notified the school district, and they put my name on the list of people to call.  It had been Harvey's idea that I try substitute teaching.  He took me up to the school to apply.  When we walked out of the building, the sun was out and little streams of melted snow were racing down the pavement.  At the bottom of the stairs was a deep puddle that I didn't see, and I stepped into it, soaking my tennis shoes and socks.  I laughed.  Harvey apologized for not alerting me to the obstacle.  I shook my head.  "It feels good," I said.  "Spring is wet.  Now I can literally feel that it's on its way."
    "Yeah, time goes by fast."  Harvey looked away.  We hadn't been talking about his leaving, although I did admit that I wasn't going to be heading out of the area any time soon. 
    I touched him on the arm and smiled.  "This temporary gig at the school is perfect for me.  I'm really grateful that you thought of it and helped me follow through."
   He smiled halfheartedly.  We got into his car and went back to my house.  We made dinner and turned on a Quentin Tarantino movie.  We held each other on the couch, paying about as much attention to Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece as a student absorbed in thoughts does to a teacher.

"You lied?  Again?"  Tony squinted at me, his eyebrows fighting for a position in the center of his forehead.  I looked away from him at the empty tables.  The coffee shop crowd was thinning.  Tony's exclamations had echoed loudly in the near vacant place, and the publicity of his accusations made me squirm.
    "I didn't exactly lie to Harvey.  I really did apply for teaching programs which would eventually get me certified and into education.  But I didn't qualify.  I have to take a bunch of tests, and they aren't going to be offered again until fall, after the programs have already started."
    "So you take the tests and apply next year.  There's nothing wrong with that."
    "Everything's wrong with that."  Hadn't he been listening to me?  "Harvey's leaving soon, and I have nowhere to go and no job.  I have nothing."
    Tony blinked, trying to think of something to say.  I ached for his sympathy.  I wanted him to nod and say that he was sorry for me.  Instead, I knew he was hoping that some positive side of the situation would come to his mind.  He was uncomfortable under the weight of my commiserating. I couldn't blame him; my mood was suffocating our talk like a candle snuffer.  He opened his mouth, and I could tell he was about to change the subject.
    "He's leaving me," I said.  "And I've left him so many times, there's nothing I can do."

Tony agreed to meet me at the coffee shop after work, but he was late.  While I waited for him, I began to grow nervous.  I'm not sure what for.  My book wasn't holding my attention; it was more like a placemat for my thoughts than anything.  I hadn't talked to Tony in weeks, and my nonexistent attempts at communication tugged at my guilt organ, causing my stomach to start cramping.
    When I saw Tony, however, and he was beaming, a rush of relief flooded my senses, and after standing up and giving him a big hug, I felt as if nothing had changed since we'd first begun our friendship.  "Hey, stranger!" he said.
    We were tipsy on caffeine by the time we started talking about things that mattered.  I marveled at how different my relationship with Tony was in comparison to my relationship with Harvey.  Harvey and I conversed about the future or politics.  Tony and I discussed the obscene color of the mustard on his sandwich and the implications that a condiment of that shade might have on his digestive track.  Often with Tony I wished that there were an easy segway into the matters that needed to be discussed, the issues that were lining everything we were saying with a thin but prickly coating that scraped at the insides of our mouths each time we chose to bring up another meaningless topic.
    At some point I couldn't take it any longer, and I blurted, "I'm sorry."
   "For what?"
   "For not calling or texting you or trying to get in touch with you.  We haven't talked in weeks, and I feel completely responsible."
    Tony reached up and started fingering his hair.  He looked away and then back at me.  It was hard for him to look at me for some reason.  "It is what it is."
    "I'm so sorry.  But you seem so good now!  You seem so, I don't know, happy."
    He smiled.  Then he nodded.  "I met someone."
    "I figured," I said.  I couldn't stop smiling.  "Me too.  Sort of."
    "I thought you said you were leaving.  Going into teaching."
    My eyes started stinging as suddenly as if mustard gas had been secreted into the air.  I swallowed.  "Tony, I don't know what to do."

The days leading up to Harvey's return were simultaneously empty and full.  I was floating along like thin cloud cover, refusing to emit the sun and also withholding rain.  My parents didn't know he was coming home, and on Friday my mom sat me down and admitted that she was worried about me.  "You've seemed really depressed lately."  I felt myself nodding, and I wanted to contradict her and set her right, but I realized that I did feel depressed. Within minutes, she was listening to me explain the text I'd received and my confusion, my worry that he might not actually come back.  The time and distance between wherever he was now, having the intention of returning, and the image of him at our front door was a world of difference.  And if he did come back, what then?  Could I, would I, should I jump into his arms like a cat begging to never be locked outside again?  Maybe his appearance would dissolve all of the ardent feelings I had since discovered.
    Mom sighed.  "That's a predicament," she said and came over onto the couch to massage my neck.
   
Sunday came and went without a word from Harvey.  I despaired.  My days following continued in bed.  My arms felt sticky because I was sweating a lot at night and not changing my clothes.  My sweatpants smelled like a basement.  My phone was never farther than an arm's reach from me, and  I was constantly opening Harvey's text message that said the date he was planning on being back in town.  I touched his words with my finger, drawing a figure-eight over them, for minutes at a time.

I was dreaming fitfully that I had flipped a kayak and was struggling to right it, while water crept into my lungs.  Up above me, at the lake's surface, someone was banging on the bottom of my boat.  "I'm not okay," I tried to say, but my mouth only swallowed more water.  The pounding continued, growing louder, until I realized it was the front door.  I woke up, throwing the covers off me, and flew down the stairs.
    Nobody was at the door.  I opened it and ran into the cold.  Harvey was walking away, down the driveway, back toward his house.  "Hey," I cried.  The wind was biting at me through my cotton pants, as I tore down the walk and threw myself at him.
    His arms were already crushing me, when he said, "Slow down, Little Lady, I'm not going anywhere." 
    I felt my heart collapse like a cardboard box being flattened, and I hesitated, searching for the right thing to say.   When nothing came out, I grabbed his hand and led him inside.
   
    "I'm going into teaching," I said, when we were on the couch and the cat was curled up safely between us like some sort of parenting proxy.  "I've applied to graduate school, and now I'm just waiting to hear back." 
    Harvey was grinning.  "Kids are going to fight to be in your classroom."
    "Thanks," I said.  "What about you: what have you been doing?   Why are you home?  Are you going back?"
    He looked down at the ground, and I could tell instantly that this was a bad sign.  "I've been nominated to be an officer.  I'll be home for a month, and then I'm going to Afghanistan."
   "Afghanistan?  Where in Afghanistan?  Will you be surrounded by bombs and gunfire?"
    He shrugged.  "I don't know."
    "Why did you even come home?"
    "I was given some leave after the promotion."
    "I don't think you should have come back."  I stood up, responding to a sudden urge that cried to be away from Harvey and his capacious features, his short hair, and his angled cheeks like the crook in a tree.  I didn't get anywhere, however, before I felt myself enveloped in this new found maturity.  As we fell onto the couch, the cat throwing herself out of the way, it felt as if my body, my shell, had remained standing, while the rest of me was being whisked away to some secret place.  I put my hand on his chest and drew away.  He froze instantly.  I touched his lip with my finger, the way you might touch a mushroom, curiously, to test its buoyancy. 
    "We love each other, don't we?" I said.
    His chest rose like a wave beneath me as he sighed, and I felt my lungs fill up with tears.  "What are we going to do?" he said.

The text message came while I was washing dishes.  Assuming it was sent by my mother who was looking for distraction from work, I continued with my chore until all the utensils were put away and my hands were dry.  My hands must have been a little wet still when I tried picking up my phone, because the thing slipped from my hands and clattered on the floor.  The battery went in one direction and the plastic shell in another.  By the time I got the battery back into the phone and the whole device turned on, I forgot that I had an unread message. 
     I sat down with my book and accepted the lazy afternoon that the clouds were tempting me with.  When my mom got home she asked if I'd gotten her text.  I slapped a hand to my forehead and opened my phone to read the message that I had missed.  The mysteries of technology are wide and deep; the unread text was not from my mother.  It was from Harvey.  He was in the States and would be home in a week. 
    I closed my phone.  I opened it again.  I reread the message.
    Back when I had no idea what day Harvey might reappear, if ever, his return had always seemed imminent.  Suddenly, his presence seemed like a lifetime away.  And I wasn't sure I could wait that long.

Three weeks into the job at the rec center, I quit.  It took me less than three days to sort the papers and clean out the office.  I asked Mr. Rutger what I could do next, and he looked at me confused.  Shaking his head, he said, "Nothing.  Just watch the window and help people who walk in the door."  Unless it was a Saturday, people rarely walked in the door.  I watched the clock like it was a television.  It felt as if I were being asked to sit and watch my life expectancy drain, one grain of sand at a time, in an hourglass.  "Please give me something to do," I begged Mr. Rutger.  He frowned and asked how I could monitor the front desk and work on a project at the same time.  "I need your full attention on the patrons."
    I managed to strike up a landscaping deal with one of my dad's co-workers.  It required driving out to the property, twenty minutes away, and working for only an hour or so at a time, but each day I earned twelve dollars that I wouldn't have otherwise.  And I enjoyed the work.  The weeds were ripe and prevalent in his flower beds, and it was embarrasingly satsifying to rip out the ripe weeds, the ones that were so big they were a sovereign nation that slipped so easily from the loam where they had been born that they seemed pleased to be leaving the earth.  My body ached by the time I was finished, even if I was only sitting for an hour or so.  When I stood, I felt like a wooden table, and it took me hours and a hot shower to loosen up.
   On some days after the yard work I went into Greywood, which was a city not far from the property.  The city park was always alive with children, their nannies standing dutifully on guard by the benches.  Little balls of bright color bounced around on the equipment; the playground looked so vibrant and friendly I wanted to find a way to reach out and connect with it somehow, but I couldn't settle on a method that would make me seem wholly sane. 
   One day I found myself prey to an advertisement for an Irish Creme Frappe, which was being offered at The Bean for only $2.25.  The man at the counter was Midwest-stereotype friendly, and when I laid out my coins on the counter in preparation for the total with tax, he scooped up my change and, counting it, said, "Seventy-eight cents, little lady.  That's your total today."
    "Seriously?!"  I was already putting away my wallet, scared he would change his mind, when I added, "Does it say 'unemployed' across my face?"
   He gave me a serious look, then offered me a cookie with a Hershey Kiss on it.  "Have a cookie.  And get a job."
   "Thanks," I said, taking the donation.  "I'm actually going into teaching."
   He nodded.  "You'll be unemployed your whole life then."
   I should have been embarrassed by his comment and by my lie, but when I exited the doors and stepped into the street, I couldn't have felt more exulted.

Getting my paycheck was like seeing the sun appear after a six month hibernation.  The dollar sign looked as ornate as a blooming flower with swollen white petals.  I could smell fresh buds, somewhere, poking forth from the tips of branches.  This tree had fruit made of gold.  Multi-faceted raindrops hung suspended from the womb of the red berries.  I was floating in a land rich with possibility, where the air dripped with aromas of expensive culinary treats: espresso and pecans and lamb and curry. 
    After depositing the check, I went online and paid off a portion of my debt.  It was a small amount, but it was the first bite of chocolate cake.