When You're Expecting Something Else Read Free Page A

gulls flit and caw, occasionally diving for fish. One comes and begs for my bread, so I break off a corner to share, the gull my only friend in the world. I open up my map and circle San Jose as my next stop. I’m tired and I want to settle in to rest for a while at the next decent city I come to, which looks to be San Jose, and not too far from here. I’m tired and I want to make a home, a new place, where to rest my weary but increasingly hopeful head.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Rather than using artificial insemination, I think about strong arms that long to hold me. It doesn’t have to mean love. Wouldn’t casual sex be better than going to a cold, calculated clinic? It came to me in a dream, not an erotic dream, or an angry dream, or anything like that. Maybe it was a dream inspired by angels because it was my first peaceful dream since coming to San Jose. I’m staying at a Best Western on Steven’s Creek Boulevard, though I’m apartment hunting and looking for a job. It’s Saturday and my heart oddly feels almost free of pain.
     
    Thank God for Google and cell phones and coffee shops with Internet. I’m hooked up at a Starbucks not far from my motel, sipping black coffee and nibbling on an oatmeal cookie, surrounded by my animated peers. They all seem to be engaged in long, loud cell phone conversations, while the whirring froth machines provide background noise, all of it mixing together with the familiar coffee shop scents that permeate the air. Caffeine hits my brain and it amuses me that I find the incessant chatter both comforting and irritating at the same time, making me think about my sister and our recent communications. I’ve emailed her to let her know I’m okay and living in California now. I’ve talked to her on the phone once or twice, but the calls always seem the same.
     
    “Are you nuts?” she screams. “What are you thinking? Alex is beside himself with grief. He insists there is nothing going on between him and Sandy. You need to come home! He’ll give you another chance.” She just doesn’t get it. I saw them . So, for now it’s email, and thank God for caller ID.
     
    I fill out three online job applications for local hospitals, but my heart isn’t into working just yet. If my heart was in it, I’d be making appointments to meet nurse recruiters at the personnel offices in the hospital basements, planning to wear nice clothes rather than faded blue jeans and a wrinkled tee shirt, my uniform of the day. I’d visualize myself smiling and handing over my crisp, pristine resume -- minus references from Dr. Alex Masterson and co-worker Sandy Williams, of course. Online feelers are good enough for now. Besides, I remind myself, it’s Saturday and I have to find an apartment first. I have some appointments set up for later today, but I still have an hour to kill. So, on a whim, I explore an Internet dating site.
     
    “Hmm, not bad.” I register my handle and punch in my credit card number, and then I get another cup of coffee and settle in to browse through the eligible bachelors and think about writing my profile, the things I want to reveal about myself. I know better than to say, “Desperate Woman Seeks Sperm Donor for Last Chance Baby.”
     
    I take so long looking for arms that long to hold me that I’m almost late for my first appointment. Fortunately, it’s not far from Starbucks and I arrive at the gated lobby only five minutes late, which by California standards isn’t really late at all. I follow the instructions I’d written down from my phone conversation with the manager. I punch in the codes and walk through the entrance, then through the wrought iron gates, and then outside past three huge swimming pools, tennis courts, and tromp over fresh mown green grass still wet from sprinklers until I arrive at the building in the back where the manager is waiting for me.
     
    I love