Fiction: Hal
By Candace Lyons
arttimesjournal January 19, 2020
"Great," Ginger fought against a surge of anger and the urge to crumple up the hottest theatre tickets in town.
"Think of it this way," Lowell said, conciliating, "your evening's guaranteed to be better than mine."
"Don't be so sure."
"Aw, Ginge, just call Lindsey. She'll be thrilled to go with you."
"Sure, fine."
"Talk to you first thing tomorrow," he promised.
"Yes," Ginger replied. She didn't add, "shit," until she'd gently replaced the receiver. Lowell was an obstetrician and this particular birth threatened to be difficult. If they fought now and Ginger learned later that anything had happened to mother, child or, God forbid, both, she'd never forgive herself. "SHIT!" she repeated to calm down then dialled Lindsey's number.
Lindsey was as aggravated as Ginger. She too had been dying to see the play yet that didn't mean she could cancel her own plans at the last minute like Lowell. Ginger kept dialling but Tess had the flu; Sally was no more than factory-recorded messages on both cell and regular phones; Greg could barely hobble on the ankle he'd twisted. Once out of spontaneous, single friends, Ginger debated trying acquaintances but there simply wasn't time so, mentally kicking and screaming, she grabbed one of the tickets then went to the theatre alone.
The play was wonderful -- ingenuously directed and flawlessly performed -- yet the spell broke almost as soon as the curtain came down since half the enjoyment of seeing any play was sharing impressions with someone afterwards. Ginger arrived home feeling gypped and sulky until she thought to consult her computer where a good dozen reviews presented themselves. Pleasantly surprised, she fetched a glass of wine to go along with this, in the end, satisfying discussion, finding one critic full of brilliant insights she'd missed, wondering if another had ever bothered to leave his house, arguing with a third whose opinion was diametrically opposed to her own and so on through the list. By the time she crawled into bed, her evening had been saved.
The same couldn't be said for her relationship with Lowell. Lying there in the dark, Ginger realised that, for her, it was over. The last shred of desire to become his wife, have his children, disintegrated as she saw herself between lightning flashes on a stormy night with two terrified toddlers clinging to her knees and an infant wailing in her arms while Lowell was off at the hospital bringing some other woman's baby into the world.
"I'm not cut out to marry a doctor," she summed up her vision to Lowell when he phoned the next day. "Or not an obstetrician at any rate. How about switching your specialty to dermatology." Lowell merely laughed. "I'm serious," Ginger told him.
"Because I missed one play?"
"Almost two. You had to leave midway through the first act of Paradise , remember? And I can't even count the dinners or movies -- not to mention your mother's birthday party which I attended for you though I'd met her exactly once at that point." Ginger paused to let Lowell defend himself but he couldn't so she concluded, "This is not what I want my life to be."
"It's the only one I've got to offer you," Lowell said sadly.
"I know," Ginger echoed his tone.
They both fell silent. After a long moment, she whispered hoarsely, "I'm hanging up now," then did to end their three year relationship and eight month engagement which she made official by hiring a messenger to hand-deliver the ring Lowell had given her, the ring she'd thought she'd never take off.
As soon as the time difference allowed, Ginger called Belinda, who'd become her best friend when chance made them roommates their freshman year at the University of Alaska where Belinda had stayed on accumulating degrees and now hoped to be tenured in the history department. Given the distance, they'd barely seen each other since graduation but the bond between them had never broken. They continued sharing their joys and disappointments thanks to e-mail or by phone at times like this that required a more personal contact.
"You sound sure, but are you really?" Belinda wanted to know once Ginger finished her account of the last twenty-four, no, only eighteen -- was that even possible? -- hours.
"It was such a strange night, Linny. Everyone let me down -- Lowell leading things off as usual. I figured out it's better to feel alone because that's what you actually are than to feel alone when, in theory, you've got someone else. If I marry Lowell, I'm condemning myself to the worst kind of loneliness forever. Yes, I'm sure."
The subject was closed and they went on to other things yet the conversation did nothing to improve Ginger's mood. After hanging up, she turned to her computer, having already noticed that, when she was troubled, getting lost in a Google search for some obscure bit of trivia could take her mind off whatever the trouble might be.
Her computer time drastically increased because time, the spare kind, was something Ginger began to have a lot of. If she'd made the right decision about Lowell, this didn't prevent a case of the post-breakup blues which, when added to a lingering resentment over the way her single friends had disappointed her too, made her very poor company and led to a kind of mutual avoidance.
Ginger no longer saw the couples she and Lowell had frequented either for it was one thing if she showed up without him because he was in the delivery room and quite another if she showed up without him, period. At least this is what Ginger surmised since -- almost as soon as these couples learned of the broken engagement -- they were suddenly always too busy to get together.
That left her trusty computer waiting each evening to provide the companionship she'd have sorely missed otherwise. Ginger started calling her unit Hal after the computer in Kubrick's Space Odyssey. He was ever ready and willing to watch a movie, lead her to amusing sites that made her laugh with delight, inform her about the latest books and, being a laptop, accompany her to a new restaurant or coffee shop he'd indicated.
She found herself confiding in Hal by means of a pass worded journal -- the only document she'd ever bothered to protect. The password was "uandi" which, typed out, looked like the name of an exotic country undiscovered until now. Once there, she and Hal talked-- or that's what Ginger imagined in any case, giving him the movie Hal's voice, so compassionate, so comforting.
At work, she began to rush through her projects too anxious to get back to Hal and his gift for diverting her. The only diversions she stopped seeking from him were e-mail and chatting. Those were other people. Ginger no longer wanted other people. She wanted Hal.
Their idyll was still in full bloom when, one night, the phone rang, making Ginger jump at the forgotten sound. Praying it was merely a stranger who'd dialled a wrong number, she picked up the receiver but Belinda demanded curtly,
"Don't you check your e-mail anymore?"
"Uh, no, not lately."
"Can I ask why?"
"Well," Ginger began then hesitated. Over the years, she'd occasionally stretched the truth or simply omitted it, but she'd never out and out lied to Belinda. Taking a deep breath, she now told a whopper, "I've met someone."
"Really!" Belinda's irritation vanished. "Who, when and what's he like?"
"Did you ever see Paul Newman in Hud?"
"Oooh, yes," Belinda replied, vaguely aroused.
That was all Ginger needed to go on about Hal with an ease that astonished her until Belinda put a damper on her lyricism by saying,
"I can't wait to meet him."
"Hmmm. I'm not sure we can get to Anchora...
"That's right!" Belinda interrupted, "you haven't read my messages which means you don't even know I got tenure."
"You did! Oh, Belinda, I'm so happy for you!"
"Me too, and better yet ... well, no, not better, but I'm also attending a Civil War conference in town -- yours, not mine – which is why I resorted to the phone. I'll be at the Hyatt as of Tuesday. Isn't that great! And what timing."
Ginger truly regretted having ignored her e-mail. Trying to share Belinda's enthusiasm over the tell-tale phone lines put a severe strain on her limited acting skills. The way the call ended would be something Ginger could never quite remember. As soon as it did, however, she entered u a n d i and threw herself into the arms of her journal:
"Oh, Hal," her fingers flew, "What have I done? If I hadn't been caught off guard, I would have told Belinda you were a travelling salesman -- or maybe a long-distance trucker. But that's the whole thing. The idea of a writer who worked at home was irresistible because it's what I would have liked Lowell to be. Still, as long as I was lying, I should've said you were some really famous writer and then you could be off on a last-minute book tour instead of here when she arrives. What have I done? I feel so stupid. How are we going to get out of this mess?"
Ginger stared deeply into Hal's screen and caressed his casing, wishing he could do the same for her. Yet his only response was to produce an indifferent series of zzzzz's which scrolled uncontrollably for long, disturbing seconds. Then the screen went blank. Ginger sat back as if she'd received an electric shock, unable to believe he'd abandoned her at such a crucial moment. A wave of dismay swept over her but quickly receded for at least she had her answer. He couldn't be relied on either. She and Hal were through.
(Candace Lyons lives in Paris, France.)