LITMIR.BIZ

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did bring along my résumé,” I said, pulling it out of my daypack.

      “Oh good. That will be helpful,” said Charles, receiving it from me— a slight frown at the dog-eared corner. Tsk. Tsk. “I will still need you to complete the application, even if the information is already included in your résumé.” Charles knew that little boxes on forms were not created without a purpose. Bureaucracy, taking its cue from nature, abhors a vacuum. As he said this, he skimmed the résumé, his eyes stopping on something of interest: Australia. Victorian AIDS Council. Founding member. Developed and coordinated care teams. Designed HIV prevention campaign. Master’s degree and background in mental health.

      “I see you already have experience,” he said, continuing to read. “Australia. You lived there for ten years?”

      “Yes.”

      “I’ve always wanted to travel there. Did you like it?”

      “Yes.” Was this part of the interview?

      “How did you come to live in Australia?” His interest was piqued, almost in spite of himself. I wondered if he was concerned about professional boundaries.

      I paused. “It’s a long story.” Translation: I don’t want to talk about it. But Charles kept looking at me, so I added, “I fell in love with an Australian.” He seemed, what, surprised? I shrugged. “It happens.”

      “Ah. So, what brought you back?”

      “He died.”

      “Of?”

      “Yes.”

      “Oh, I am sorry.”

      I looked away. “Me, too.”

      He now studied me in a new light. I knew what he thought he saw, and he offered delicately, “Perhaps you’d like to sign up for our client services. I mean, while you’re here and all.”

      I turned back to him. “Thanks, but I don’t have AIDS.” I just look like shit. It seemed I was having to explain this to everyone since I’d returned. To Mom and Dad. To Sis and homophobic hubby. To old friends. To volunteer coordinators. Not that I cared what people thought. I had gotten over that long ago with Gray. Everyone just assumed I, too, was positive. Let them think what they will. I’m not dying. I’m already dead.

      “We happen to have a position open for a mental health specialist.”

      “Thanks, but I’m not looking for a job here. I just came to volunteer some hours.”

      “You already have a job?”

      “No.”

      “You’ve got the right credentials and experience. We’ve been trying to fill this position for over three months.”

      “I really don’t think I’m— ”

      “Let me call our client services manager.” He was so insistent I wondered if he was getting a commission. “Would you be willing at least to meet her?”

      Now, sitting in this hospital waiting room a year later, I realize I should have said, No. No, thank you. Really, no. But then, I would never have met Sandy. Or Steve, or Cal, or Lukas, or . . .

      I was directed to the client services manager’s office where I found a hefty woman with short hair, dressed in jeans, banded-collar shirt, and vest, holding a thick file. As a program manager, she had moved up the food chain from a cubicle. Her office was a shambles, resembling a paper-recycling center. Folders strewn about. File drawers gaping open. Stacks of papers everywhere, all suggesting creative chaos— or maybe just chaos. An autographed poster of k.d. lang was tacked on one wall, on another a poster of planet Earth (“We all live downstream”). After Charles’s cubicle, this immediately put me at ease.

      As I came to her door, she shouted, “Three weeks!” I looked behind me to see who she was shouting at, and found that it was me. “Three weeks I worked to find this guy a place to stay. I pulled strings. I bribed the housing authority. I nearly prostituted myself with the HUD case manager to get this guy off the streets. And now I learn he’s taken off to LA!” She threw the file on the desk, placing her fists on her hips, shaking her head. “I just want to kill him before AIDS does.”

      Then she held out her hand, smiling. “Hi. I’m Sandy. Don’t mind me. I’m just venting. It’s Monday.” She had a strong, masculine grip, making me glad I wasn’t her client, wherever he was. I introduced myself and handed her the photocopy Charles had made of my résumé so he could keep the original, which I was certain he had by now filed away. We sat down and she quickly ran through it. “Charles says you just came back from Australia. You look like shit. Rough flight?”

      “I’ve been back a month now.”

      “Oh.” I knew what I looked like: dark circles under my eyes, pale skin, gaunt and skinny. No wonder Charles thought I was a client.

      “How come Australia?”

      “My partner . . . was Australian.”

      She nodded once— “Sorry”— and returned to studying my résumé. I’d found this lack of sentimentality before among those working on the front lines of the epidemic. Perhaps it was a shield, a carapace over our hearts, protecting us from feeling too much, too deeply. I suspect it’s the same during wartime: There are casualties. It’s a given. So, quickly bury the dead and move on to the next battle. Keep moving. Don’t think too much about what you’ve lost. We’ll grieve when it’s over. We promise to grieve when it’s over.

      “We could really use you,” she said. “You have both the mental health background and the HIV experience we need.”

      I smiled through my fatigue. “I’m not exactly a poster boy for mental health right now.”

      She shrugged. “Who is? Especially in this work.”

      It was then I met Steve. He poked his head in the door. Charles must have told him about me. “Hi!” He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, about my age, with the outgoing, bright-eyed manner of an Eagle Scout. Sandy introduced him as the HIV prevention program manager. He was friendly, immediately likable, and, as I would find in months to come, habitually excited. Right now, he was excited about the mental health specialist position.

      “This is the third time we’ve advertised for it. None of the people we’ve interviewed had what we’re looking for.”

      “You should consider it,” said Sandy. “It’s easier to become an employee here than a volunteer. Fewer forms to fill out.”

      “We’re working with Charles on that,” said Steve. “We lose people all the time.”

      Then they talked about how they needed someone with my background and experience for both their programs.

      “I could use your help with the care teams,” said Sandy. “Father Paul is in charge of them. A wonderful human being, a prince of a guy, our own in-house saint, but not the most organized person in the world. He needs help coordinating the program and training the volunteers.”

      “And I need someone who can help my team design prevention programs,” said Steve. “Someone who understands human behavior and behavior change.”

      Do I understand human behavior? I once thought I did. Now humanity seems increasingly alien, or perhaps it’s my own humanity that’s become so alien. Steve continued speaking excitedly about the position. Clean, wholesome, decent were words that came to mind as I studied him. And enthusiastic. He exuded enthusiasm. One of those guys you know was on the cheerleading team in high school. This was “a wonderful opportunity,” he said. I would be playing “a really significant role” in this epidemic. It was critical they have a mental health specialist at the agency.

      “Really,” agreed Sandy. “You should see all the dysfunctional people and personality disorders we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis— and then, of course, some of the

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