Everyone Lied

A Weary Soul Short Story

Friend,

Today is something a little different. Earlier this Spring, I decided to enter the Tulsa Library Adult Creative Writing Contest. I didn’t win the contest, but I did win the experience. I sincerely enjoyed trying something new, something creative, and something meaningful to me, and so I wanted to share it with you.

Here is: Everyone Lied

Everyone told Jim it would get better.

Everyone lied.

Jim was in his sixth month without a job, wife, or hope.

Hope is a terrible thing. You need it to survive each day, but after a month or two of hope’s empty promises, you begin to hate hope as much as you require it. And for Jim, he was tired of hoping.

But on March 19th, he managed to wake up, drink coffee, and look for a job. He managed to try again courageously. He looked at himself in the mirror and pretended to believe today would be a good day.

Most people aren’t good at being rejected, but Jim was getting better at it. His email was full of rejections from half the retail stores in Tulsa. Some were immediate; AI had apparently simply deemed him unworthy. Others were worse. He interviewed twice for a position at Walgreens. He walked out of the second interview feeling better than he had since that September day when his life fell apart, but only to learn three days later that they had gone with someone else. Someone who was a better fit, they said, as if they could tell how someone would fit 40 hours a week after 2 30-minute interviews. Rejected again.

He didn’t realize it, but all the rejections hurt because each one reminded him of September. Every rejection was confirmation that he was not enough.

In November, Jim got a job as a telemarketer selling windows. A few things you should know about trying to sell windows over the phone in November.

1. Nobody wants to buy a window in November, it’s cold.

2. Windows are not impulse buys; if people need a window, they go and find it themselves.

3. Calling people with “Spam Risk” as your name is a terrible start to a relationship.

Almost all of his calls went unanswered, and the ones that were answered were old and lonely or busy and angry. In his three weeks, he made one sale. Jim was fired. He was not good enough to even sell windows.

But on March 19th, he had woken up courageously, trying again. He had an appointment with Mary. Mary was his cousin’s co-worker’s wife. His cousin had insisted that he sit down with her back in October, and he finally relented and had a coffee to talk about “his future.” When your present has been so terrible for so long, you stop thinking about your future and only think about how to get the present pain to stop.

Jim put on his professional, yet casual clothes, started up his 2011 Honda Civic, and drove to the coffee shop that looked like an old barn to find Mary. As he awkwardly walked in, a lady with a tie-dye t-shirt and striking gray hair was smiling at him.

“Are you Jim?” she asked with significantly too much enthusiasm.

“That’s me. You must be Mary,” he replied, even more wary of the reality of Mary than his previous imagination. Truthfully, he didn’t want help even though he desperately needed help. And he certainly didn’t want anyone to tell him it would get better.

Mary asked him, “What’s your coffee order? I typically get a mocha with white chocolate, two shots of espresso, two pumps of caramel, a touch of cinnamon, and extra whipped cream.”

“Just black coffee for me,” Jim said, knowing that the barista would be thankful for his simplicity when confronted by Mary’s over-the-top order, while wondering if this lady needed any sugar.

They got their drinks, sat down at a table, and Jim still decided courageously to try. “So, Mary, my cousin Shawna said we had to meet, that you were always helpful to people, so what do you do?”

Mary, surprisingly, paused and said, “What I do is listen. Most people don’t know how to listen, so that’s my superpower. I listen. Where are you today?”

“I’m ok,” Jim said. He wanted to say more, but it had become automatic for him to say “ok.” Most people moved on when he said he was ok. That was all they wanted him to be doing, just well enough that they didn’t have to feel too bad that they didn’t have time to listen.

Mary just sat there, her blue eyes full of compassion, as she waited through the awkward pause before Jim restarted, “I’m not ok. I mean, I am functioning. I can get dressed. I can eat. I can pretend to have normal conversations, but nothing is normal, and if for one second I get used to being alone, being purposeless, being rejected every day, then I think that would be the worst. I can’t let myself get to this being normal, to this being my everyday, but the rejection is winning, the despair is winning, and hope is losing…”

Jim paused, shook his head, and asked, “Why am I telling you all this? We, literally, just met. I don’t know you.”

Mary chuckled, “I told you my superpower was listening, so you were saying hope is losing…”

Jim took a breath and said, “Everyone told me it was going to get better. Live one day at a time, but everyone lied. Everyone lied.” His voice cracked as he repeated the final phrase. “I’m just so tired of believing in good when the evidence is overwhelming that it’s not going to get better.”

His sentence hung in the air for a few seconds as Jim took a drink of his coffee and Mary waited and listened. Jim jumped back in, “A year ago, I knew things were headed in the wrong direction, but I didn’t expect…”

Suddenly, the fire alarm in the coffee shop started blaring, and when Jim and Mary turned their heads towards the kitchen, they saw flames, smoke, and panic in the baristas’ eyes. Mary grabbed her purse, grabbed Jim’s arm, and pulled him to start moving. He was like a deer in the headlights, frozen in fear and shock.

There were two exits, and somehow they got separated in the chaos. Within ten minutes, there were three fire trucks, two police cars, and an ambulance. Jim looked around, hoping to find Mary, but with no luck. He got back in his Civic to drive back home. He checked his phone. No messages, no calendar items. Nothing. Empty. That’s fitting, Jim thought.

***

The next day began like most recent days, with nothing. Jim rolled out of bed, poured some cereal, and started looking for the newest crime documentary. He liked crime stories because they reminded him that there were people who had it worse than him.

His phone buzzed, but he didn’t look at it. Another rejection email, he figured. He chuckled to himself as he thought about how people are trained to look at their phone with every little notification because of the anticipated dopamine hit, but when most of your notifications are rejections, the notifications stop encouraging you to look, and instead, you look at your phone as your constant enemy.

Two hours, four murders, and three notifications later, he finally looked at his phone when he saw her name pop up: Ginny. Ginny hadn’t texted him in two months. How they went from texting and talking every day to communication-free for two months confounded Jim. And seeing her name today took his breath away. Her message was simple.

“I heard you met with Mary. How did it go?”

A thousand questions rushed through his head. How did she know I was supposed to meet with Mary? How does she know Mary? Who told her? Who’s talking to her? Why does she still care? What am I supposed to do about it?

Jim didn’t know what he wanted in this moment, other than the pain to go away. Ginny’s text brought with it a thousand unasked-for memories. The mind and heart are a terrible combination. When he reflected on the beautiful times, his heart longed for that time again. He couldn’t be happy with what was, because of the reality of what is. And when he thought about those terrible days, and especially that September day, he couldn’t take it. A friend told him that unprocessed pain only produces bitterness, and that friend was right.

He distracted himself with another crime documentary, another murder, and then he replied simply, “Short. There was a fire at the coffee shop, and we had to be evacuated, but everyone was ok, I think.”

A few minutes later, his phone buzzed again, “I’m glad you are ok.”

Jim couldn’t help but feel his least favorite feeling: hope.

***

Mary had texted him later that day, and they agreed to try again tomorrow at a different coffee shop. They figured their odds were low that two coffee shops would catch fire in the same week.

They sat down with their drinks, Mary’s full of flavor and Jim’s bland and bitter. Mary wore a smile that seemed a little too wide and a tie-dye shirt that seemed a little too much, and Jim sat with a weight that seemed a little too heavy.

“Let’s see,” Mary said, “Where were we? Ah yes, I think you were about to say something important about where you were a year ago…”

Jim took a deep breath. He had tried for a long time to pretend that he was strong, tough, manly, and resilient, but he was tired. Maybe it was the repeated rejections or the lack of action in his life, but he decided to try something new. He was going to share something he had never told anyone, but there was something about Mary that led him to say what he didn’t want to say.

“I think I’m broken, and I can’t be fixed. I’m not enough, I’m not good enough to have a job. I’m not good enough to have a wife, and I’m not even enough to have a dog.” Jim said with enough pent-up sadness that even someone without the superpower of listening would have noticed.

Mary took it in, reached across the table, and, like a female Mr. Rogers, said, “I think you are good enough. You may be broken, but you don’t need to be fixed; you need to be mended. But I have to ask, what happened with the dog?”

“About a year ago, Ginny and I decided to get a dog. Someone had told her that having a dog helps to prepare you for having a child. She wanted to have children, and I wanted her to have what she wanted, so I thought, let’s try this dog thing. We went down on a Saturday to the rescue place, chose the cutest mutt that she had ever seen, and we came home with it. Everything was good for the first month or two, but then the dog got sick, like really sick, like go to the vet, and get a bunch of tests sick. And then they told us that he had cancer.”

Jim’s story picked up the pace as he continued. “Cancer! Can you believe that? You do everything right and rescue a dog, and you choose the dog that has cancer, and now you’ve spent thousands of dollars, and it doesn’t matter. I hate cancer. It’s ruined my life once, and now it’s ruining my life again. We had a choice. Spend another $5000 on Muttin, that’s what we called her, for a chance for her to maybe live another year, or put her down. So, we put her down. It was the worst day of Ginny’s life. She cried so much.”

Mary had tears in her eyes as Jim was sharing. “What about you? Did you cry?”

“Nope. I didn’t cry then. I didn’t cry in September. I haven’t cried since…” Those words hung in the air for ten seconds before the tears started. Jim tried to stop it, but eventually grief always wins. The dam was broken, and the water came rushing out. Jim tried to speak with words, but he could only speak with tears, which became loud sobs.

An embarrassed Jim rushed out of the coffee shop, jumped in his Honda Civic, and drove a few blocks to an empty parking lot where he spent the next 45 minutes weeping alone.

***

A funny thing happened to Jim once the dam of tears was breached. He found himself crying at the strangest times. A song would play and remind him of the good days, and he would cry. A random movie on Netflix triggered something, and he cried. Well, maybe it wasn’t random. He didn’t realize that the B-plot of the movie was about a boy whose mom had died from cancer, and he lost it. Instantly, he was back to being seven years old at a graveside with a dad who apparently had taught him not to cry. He knew he needed to text Mary.

“Sorry about running out last week. I think we should talk again.” He pressed send.

A few minutes later, the reply came, “Sure, I’m at the Gathering Place, want to meet for a walk?”

Jim got in his Civic and made his way to the Lodge. Mary was sitting, reading a book, looking out of the big glass windows to the park below. A few people were mingling at the tables and seating areas, but when Jim looked out the windows to the park and pond below, he felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time: peace.

Mary, still in her ridiculous tie-dye shirt, jumped up, hugged him, and said, “Let’s go!”

Jim paused for a second, and she saw the look in his eyes, and he said, “That’s the first time I’ve been hugged since Christmas.”

“Your soul gets lonely and tries to escape if no one tries to hold it in for you every once in a while with a hug,” Mary said, so matter-of-factly that Jim just accepted it.

They started walking around in silence, before Mary started by saying, “Thank you for sharing with me, Jim, and honoring me with your tears. I know you were embarrassed, but I’ve learned that tears are signs of trust. So thank you for trusting me. Now, where are you today?”

“I’m here, and I hurt. Everyone said it’s going to get better, but it hasn’t. I miss my wife. I feel so helpless and worthless. I’m tired of not being good enough, and now, because of you, I find myself crying all the time. When does better arrive?”

“Maybe better is arriving. I like to say to heal it, you have to feel it, and you are feeling this beautiful, terrible thing called grief. Grief is not just tears. Grief is evidence of beauty, love, and goodness. You had something beautiful that’s been lost, and that’s worth remembering and holding onto, but we all have to learn how to hold on to grief with one hand and hope with the other.”

Jim looked over at her, and she had tears in her eyes that matched his. He knew there was a story there in her heart, but he couldn’t ask her about it because his mind went back to that September day.

***

He had pretended to go to work for the third straight day. How do you tell the person that you are supposed to provide for, that you have nothing to provide? His company was downsizing, and he was let go. After five years, three months, and twenty-seven days of working for that company, all he received was a month’s severance and a generic reference letter. Right after lunch, Ginny called, but he didn’t answer. He wanted her to think that he was busy, important, and worthy, when in fact he was sitting in a parking lot playing solitaire on his phone. Ginny texted him, “Where are you? I’m here at the office to come say hi, and they said you don’t work here… what’s going on?”

Ever since Mutton died, Jim hadn’t been ok, but he had to pretend that he was. He had a lot of practice pretending. Losing a dog to cancer is one thing, but losing a mom to cancer is another. Jim’s dad did the best he could, but when he looked into Jim’s eyes, all he could see was her eyes. So tragically, the best he could do was go to work, make dinner, watch sports, and drink beer. Jim didn’t think he could be sad because his dad couldn’t handle any more tears. So Jim decided, when he turned eight, that he would never make anyone care for him again.

Each month after Mutton died, Jim had been pulling further away from feeling. Ginny tried to get him to open up, but each time she got closer, he pushed her further away. It’s the last thing he wanted to do, but seemingly the only thing that he could do. No matter how much you love someone, you can only handle being pushed away before you let someone walk away. Ginny had talked to their cousin’s friend once, and she said sometimes people have to walk away to be ready to run home. Ginny cried even more that night. Jim thought she was still crying about Mutton, and he felt even more helpless.

Over the past three days, Jim had played out talking to Ginny about this 257 different ways, but this was not one of them. She hardly ever came by his work in the middle of the day. He didn’t know that she knew he was off. He didn’t know that she knew he was hiding something. He didn’t know that she knew he was not himself. All he thought he knew was that he was broken, and it was up to him to fix it.

Sometimes, as an adult, the seven-year-old comes out. And that’s what happened to Jim. Like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, Jim was too stunned to do anything but lie. “What do you mean? They are joking with you. I’m coming back from a meeting.” The shame rose in Jim as he tried to plan the next few fateful minutes that unknowingly would end up planning the next few months of his life. He wanted to tell the truth, but he just couldn’t do it. Shame won. Lies won.

And Jim lost.

He drove up to Ginny with his best smile and pretended that it was just a joke. He had thought it out: this was a normal joke in the company to pretend that a person didn’t work there. He had even texted a friend at the company to come out and lie for him, just to buy a couple more days, but the friend never texted back. Seeing her face destroyed him. The pain, the confusion, the hurt, and so he tried to fix it with a cascade of lies.

As Jim weaved an unbelievable tale, she finally stopped him and said, “Let’s go in there together, and they’ll tell us the truth, you can stop lying and tell me the truth, or you can go home and pack your things, and that’ll tell me the truth.” Jim wanted to tell her the truth, but frozen in fear and shame, defiantly said, “I’m telling you the truth, but we’re not going in there.”

Ginny, with tears streaming down her face, got in her car, locked the door, and wept. She had tried to break that hard shell of a wounded soul, but every gentle tap apparently only pushed him away, and so she did what she never thought she could do. She drove away.

Five minutes later, Jim drove away full of remorse, and yet with a staggering inability to say he was wrong, to say he was sorry, to say anything. He drove home, packed a bag, went to a hotel, and watched bowling on ESPN2; the sound of pins crashing and falling felt appropriate for the day.

***

Jim relayed the story to Mary as she opened her tissues as tears ran down both their cheeks. He broke down some more when she asked what happened next.

“Nothing,” Jim eventually said. “I couldn’t bring myself to the truth, so I ignored Ginny’s calls and texts. I blamed the company. I blamed her. I blamed this crazy world, because when you are living alone, you can’t hate the guy in the mirror too much. I tried to fix it. I tried to solve it. I thought if I got a good job, then I could prove I was enough. I thought it would get better. Everyone said it would get better, and I thought everyone was lying, but now I know. I was the one who was lying. I was lying to Ginny. I was lying to myself. This is all my fault.”

“So what’s the truth, then, Jim?” Mary asked.

“The truth is I’m a failure who’s ruined everything: my life, my marriage, my future.”

“Stop,” Mary said in a tone he hadn’t heard before. It was still tender, but with a firmness and strength that caused Jim to believe what she said next, “You are not a failure, and everything is not ruined. You are a human whose life became unmanageable, and you made it worse by trying to fix everything by yourself. And not just for the last six months, but for the last twenty years. Your pain and shame were so loud that you couldn’t hear the beautiful truth being whispered, “It’s going to get better, because you are going to get better. But the only way to do it is to let people in. I have to ask you, do you want to get better?”

Jim thought about that question for thirty long seconds. The answer seemed obvious, but he also knew a painful road was ahead. He had to face himself, face Ginny, face his failures, face his faults, and face receiving help from this crazy lady in a tie-dyed shirt. Finally, he said, “Yes.”

Mary’s smile crept across her face, “I’m so glad to hear that. It takes a lot of courage to ask for help, and today you are my hero. You have a road of pain ahead, and it won’t be easy, but this road of healing pain is way better than the road of harm you were on. I have a gift for you, but you can’t open it till tomorrow morning.” They walked out to her car, and she handed him a ridiculous tie-dyed gift bag.

The tears welled up in Jim’s eyes as she was talking. He knew it was possible, and this time, when he felt that strange feeling of hope, he allowed himself to hold onto it.

***

The next morning, Jim opened up the gift that Mary had given him. He pulled out a tie-dyed shirt that said, “It’s Going to Get Better.” He started laughing and laughing like a little kid until he had tears in his eyes, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that. He felt free. He put on the ridiculous tie-dyed shirt, took a selfie, and sent it to Mary with the message: I actually feel better.