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Step 1: Realize You Remain Totally Alone and Probably Always Will Be.
Rosemary Pilkington thought that marriage would change things. That the ring on her finger and the man by her side would banish the fog hanging heavy over her life. But in the years since the wedding, her husband never stayed by her side – nor stayed faithful – for long, and the last time they talked, she threw her ring at him while she marched out the door.
Waiting now at the curb with nothing but a few bags, watching streetlamps flicker on, Rosemary briefly considers going back to their house and talking things out with James. His repeated infidelity is one thing, but his stubborn need to get his way is what convinces her not to bother. When she blinks back to awakeness, she’s already somehow boarded a cab and is watching their house – James's house, now – fading into the horizon. There was never anything keeping her there, was there? James never had time for kids. He had time for lovers, but never for his own wife; a baby was completely out of the question. With her love left in tatters and nothing else to convince her to stay, Rosemary just stares at their front porch until it disappears.
The walk into the train station is blurry. She vaguely recalls paying the driver, and pulling her bags out of the trunk, but the walk itself seems to evade her memory. The car ride begins to fade as well, joining the years of her marriage in some long-forgotten corner of her mind. Rosemary can’t quite recall where she was headed, but it comes back to her quickly enough, ingrained over years and years of an office life she’s since abandoned: Smitty’s place.
Step 2: Discover That You Still Have People On Your Side.
For all the fog and the holes in her memories, Rosemary remembers the train ride very clearly. It was nothing worth remembering, which is why it surprises her. The sunrise was beautiful, but so were her years with James. By most metrics the moments they shared were even more beautiful, at least at the start. But the fact is that those years flew by in a blur, while the picturesque sunrise will linger in her mind for weeks to come.
She does nod off eventually, and rouses two stops before her destination. Part of her wants to prepare something to say. The rest of her knows Smitty will understand no matter what. She always did, after all.
The clear and stunning wonder of the sunrise turns out to be the only thing she remembers from that morning. Rosemary wakes up in the guest room six hours later, and Smitty has to bring her back up to speed. It would be embarrassing, if it hadn’t happened so many times before. Her best and oldest friend reassures her, "Of course, you can stay here as long as you need. Take your time to get back on your feet." Smitty hesitates, then continues: "I do have a… gentleman friend coming over tonight. Just so you're not caught off guard." She gives some name that Rosemary doesn’t recognize. One of their former co-workers, perhaps? Rosemary is so caught up in trying to remember him that she convinces herself to overlook the twinge in her heart at Smitty’s words. She’s just happy to see her friend, that’s all.
Slowly, with the loving care of Smitty and her ‘gentleman friend’ (more like fiancé-to-be), Rosemary manages to get herself back together – which entails sweeping a few more emotions under the rug than she wants to admit. Neither Smitty nor her boyfriend ask her for details, beyond confirming Finch wasn't secretly abusing her, and Rosemary is more than happy to let sleeping dragons lie.
Step 2a: Push Away Everyone that Wants to Help You, Again.
The man’s name is Gerald, and he seems to be perfect for Smitty. Good; at least she's happy. Despite their insistence that she's welcome to stay, Rosemary gets out of their flat as soon as she lands a job. It's not quite what she's used to – an entry-level position in the mail room at Winston’s Window Watching Company – and the acronym feels like a cruel twist of fate, but Rosemary isn't exactly in a position to be picky. She can't help but wonder if her ex-husband knew any of her new coworkers. Then she stops thinking about him, because she can't afford a relapse. After all, tomorrow is her first day.
It's far from the perfect job. Mail is a busy department, and her co-workers keep pawning off their responsibilities to her. (To be fair, she keeps accepting them.) So when she gets a call from Smitty, and a voicemail asking if she wants to meet up for dinner and a chat, Rosemary justifies not calling her back by reminding herself of her own exhaustion. Smitty calls three more times that week, and twice more a few weeks later, but she eventually gives up. It's probably for the best, Rosemary thinks, trying to ignore the ache in her chest. With the upcoming engagement, Smitty should be focused on Gerald rather than on her twisted, troubled, oh-so-busy friend. It’s for the best.
Step 3: Reclaim Normalcy (For Better or For Worse).
No, it's not a perfect life, but it's a hell of a lot better than just sitting around and waiting for her husband to come or leave home all day. That is what Rosemary tells herself as she begins to sink into the drone of corporate life once more.
Each day is the same:
Rosemary arrives at work at 8:30 sharp. She greets the head janitor, Anton, and they make small talk for a few minutes as he puts away the mops. He’s a nice man. Happily married for 13 years, with two small children. Rosemary tries not to look at his wedding ring.
After brewing a fresh batch of coffee, Rosemary pours herself two cups and greets the other early arrivals as they come. At 9:30 she goes outside to get the bags of letters from the mailman, and then she plays errand girl for the rest of the mail room until 1 o’clock. She does everything short of refilling their coffee cups, but at least they’re polite about it, with their pleases and thank yous. She could probably ask them to stop, but why bother?
At exactly 1 o’clock, Rosemary goes out to have lunch. She tried smoking once, but it seemed like too much effort after a while. The relief it never brought wasn’t worth the taste and smell. No massive loss there, though she sometimes misses the temporary emotional dampening.
2 o’clock to 5 o’clock is more of the same, then Rosemary gets to go home. She walks back to her flat with a man named Mack, who lives in the same building. They were both hired at roughly the same time, though he works in shipping. They don’t talk much, except for a few trite comments about the weather or their boss’s mood.
Rosemary goes home and makes dinner and goes to bed. And then it’s more of the same tomorrow, and tomorrow, until the days drag into one, long, eternal day that doesn’t stop for anyone. It doesn’t stop for her.
With her friend discouraged, and having long signed the divorce papers that came in the mail, Rosemary has nothing left to ground her. She went on a date a few months ago, but when he leaned in to kiss her at the end of the night she recoiled, and that was the end of that. No, she looks ahead to a lonely lifetime of sorting mail. At least it’s steady work.
Step 4: Ignore Step 3.
Some many months later, at 9:35, Rosemary is sitting outside for the mail truck to come. He usually arrives at 9:30 sharp, but when the truck finally pulls in, Rosemary understands the issue. The normal man must be sick today.
There’s a new woman in the driver's seat that she doesn’t recognize. In the blur of people that fade into the background noise of Rosemary’s life, there is someone new, someone noticeable. She exists, she’s tangible, which is something so rare in a place like this. She smiles at her. Her name is Elizabeth. Rosemary stares at the receding van, and knows she will never see this woman again.
But for once, Rosemary is wrong. Elizabeth is there the next day, and the day after that. It turns out the old mailman was in line for a promotion, and Elizabeth happened to apply to the job at just the right time.
They don’t talk a lot in the mornings, just a few sentences back and forth as Rosemary helps her unload the van. Still, she always returns to the mailroom with a smile on her face. Some of her more nosy co-workers ask if she’s in love with the mailman, but she shoots those rumors down immediately. "And after all, she's a woman!" No, there’s no risk of that, she assures them.
It is armed with this confidence that Rosemary asks Elizabeth one morning if she’d like to have dinner together. “There’s this new restaurant nearby,” she explains, “And I was wondering if you’d…” The mailwoman agrees instantly, with a barely restrained eagerness that seems to come out of nowhere.
“Why not tonight?” Elizabeth asks, and so the date is set. Rosemary does not walk home with Mack that night. She does not miss his company.
Step 5: Come Out of Your Shell.
For once, her mealtime does not fade into invisibility. Elizabeth’s presence seems to bring it back into focus, back into the foreground. She walks home with a smile on her face, and is so excited to see her friend the next day that she is almost disappointed when she remembers that it’s a Friday.
That weekend, Rosemary has a problem she is distinctly unfamiliar with: Time won’t pass fast enough. She isn’t half-aware of her surroundings anymore; she spends her waking moments truly awake, thinking about the wonderful dinner with Elizabeth. Ever since James, and then that disastrous first date with Josh, she’d promised never to let herself get too close with anyone. She’s a friend, Rosemary reminds herself. I’ve had friends before. It’s worked out fine. So she ignores her apprehension, and silently hopes it won’t end up like the last time. She’s just a friend.
Rosemary arrives at work that Monday at 8 o’clock, half an hour earlier than normal. Anton isn’t where she normally finds him, and she laments not getting to talk with him, but filled with energy as she is, she doesn’t stick around. She starts a pot of coffee, then thinks better of it and puts a second one on as well. Rosemary may not need the energy this morning, but that doesn’t mean she can’t want it. After her third cup of the morning, Rosemary decides that maybe she’s had enough, then pours herself one last cup as she goes to get the office ready for the day. The jitters from the caffeine and the butterflies in her heart are similar enough that she can nearly convince herself they’re one and the same.
As people start trickling in, Rosemary greets them one by one, but her heart isn’t in it. She’s still fully present for once, but simply distracted. She leaves too early to get the mail, and sits on the bench outside until 9:30. When it’s time to go receive the day’s mail, she gets up without a word to anyone else, too focused on Elizabeth. They make small talk – “Wasn’t that dinner last week nice?” “How was your weekend?” “Anything exciting?” – and then Rosemary takes a deep breath and offers to go out with her again, at the same time this week. “I’d love to,” Elizabeth says. “It’s a date.”
Step 6: Threaten to Relapse.
It’s a date. That phrase rings in Rosemary’s head for the rest of the day. It’s a date. She hadn’t thought it was, but doesn’t it qualify? A nice, enjoyable meal, shared by two people who care about each other deeply. We’re just friends, Rosemary reminds herself. We’re both women. For some reason, her well-worn defense comes slightly less readily now. She shrugs it off and downs another cup of coffee, then another.
It’s a date. She doesn’t talk to Mack on the way home, and offers Anton only a curt greeting the next morning. When she picks up the mail, she flashes Elizabeth a smile, but that’s all. No exchange of pleasantries, no discussions. Pure business. It’s not a date. Is it? It couldn’t be. It shouldn’t be. It was just a joke.
Her conviction fades faster than she would have liked. It’s a date. Those three words rattle around her head for the next few days, never managing to be completely dislodged, sloshing around with the coffee she’s been drinking like water. And when she shows up to work on Friday dressed to the nines, and Elizabeth comes to pick her up in the most beautiful blouse and skirt she’s ever seen, it becomes increasingly hard to deny – but not impossible. It’s not a date. And then they’re talking, and laughing, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. She’s so caught up in the discussion that she has no time for doubts or insecurities, instead just focusing on her delightful dinner partner and friend. Friend. What a vague and imprecise word. You don't go on dates with friends. Rosemary doesn't know whether that means it's not a date, or they're not friends. She doesn't know which she’d prefer.
When the night finally ends – rather, when the restaurant closes up for the night – the two women stand in the pool of a streetlamp, looking at each other. Rosemary breaks eye contact first. “See you Monday,” she says. As she turns to walk away, she glimpses what could very easily be a blush on Elizabeth’s face, then resolutely ignores it. The restaurant was warm, she lies to herself. That’s all. We’re just friends, she doesn’t have a crush on me, and it was not a date. Still, that image of Elizabeth in that blouse, just watching her leave with flushed cheeks and a faint smile sticks with her all throughout the weekend, side by side with that sunset from all those months ago. No more giddy energy for her – Rosemary is dreading Monday, and with it, being forced to confront things she thought she could keep buried.
Step 7: Avoid Confronting Your Suspicions.
As luck would have it, Rosemary doesn’t get the mail on Monday. Instead, she is called to see the head of personnel, Jeremy Stone. A nice enough middle-aged man, but with a nasty penchant for gambling. "Good news," he says: "The former head of the mail room, Leon, has been moved up to some position in the advertising department." Normally, they wouldn’t give his position to someone so new, but thanks to her diligence and hard work, Leon insisted she be his successor. "The fastest someone’s become a department head in the history of this company," Jeremy tells her. "Congratulations; Leon will show you the ropes for the rest of the day." Rosemary nods, half in shock, but can’t help cracking a grin at his comment on her rapid promotion. She wonders how James is doing now, and for the first time in a long time, doesn’t shy away from the thought anymore. She just examines it, then moves on.
While Rosemary's new promotion does mean that she has a whole roster of new duties, it only ends up being a little more than her workload before. She had already been doing most of what a mail room head was expected to do, but now the difference is that she can delegate it to others. She mentions it to Mack on the walk home, but he doesn’t find it that funny. He seems sullen the whole way back, and refuses all her attempts to cheer him up. Whatever; he's not her problem.
Among all the work added to her plate, Rosemary still insists on getting the mail herself. "I like the fresh air," she says, and almost manages to believe it herself.
Step 8: Realize You Don’t Need to Be Alone Any More.
Tuesday. The moment she’s been waiting for, again. The looming meeting with Elizabeth feels so much more tangible now, for some reason. Rosemary is so focused on what to say that she forgets to make coffee, so when she goes out to get the bags, everyone is crowded around the coffee pot, waiting for it to boil. Probably for the best that nobody sees how nervous she is, anyways.
Elizabeth is late today, which is the first sign that something’s odd. Ever since that first week, she’s been right on time every single day. When that familiar van pulls in, though, Rosemary understands the reason why: Elizabeth comes out to greet her as usual, but with a bouquet of flowers in one hand. Slowly, subdued, without a trace of her usual confidence about her, Elizabeth sticks the bouquet out for Rosemary to grab. “I… heard about your promotion yesterday. I guess you won’t have time to see me in the mornings anymore?” Despite the sadness in her tone, Rosemary laughs, all the tension diffused.
“I wouldn’t give these chats up for the world.” At that, Elizabeth looks up, and their eyes meet. They remain there for what must have been an eternity, although Rosemary knows logically that fifteen seconds is fifteen seconds, whether or not she’s locked gazes with the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. All Rosemary knows is that she takes the first step forward, and that Elizabeth takes the second. They ask each other a silent question, then their lips meet in the middle. And as she lets herself fall into the embrace of her lover, Rosemary reflects that maybe, just maybe, things will turn out just fine.