The Merging Room

The merger party was killing me. Slowly. One small talk sentence at a time.

I'm Debra, I'm twenty-eight, and I sell commercial real estate for a firm that just decided to merge with another firm. Which meant two hundred people in fleece vests standing around a lodge in rural Finland saying things like "synergy" and "cultural alignment" while I held a vodka I never asked for.

I'd taken two sips of it anyway, which was my whole intake. Bad habit. Worse in February.

"So the Helsinki market, when you look at the Helsinki market, the fundamentals are..."

I nodded. I nodded so much my neck hurt. Somewhere behind me somebody laughed too loud at something that wasn't a joke, and I made my decision.

"Sorry, I need to... one second," I said, and just walked.

The main lodge had a back door. Past the back door there was a path, and at the end of the path there was a smaller building with smoke curling out of its chimney. A sauna house. Separate. Quiet. Somebody had left the door unlocked and I have never been more grateful to a stranger.

I pushed it open and the heat hit me like a wall. Wood-fired stove, orange glow, frost on the one small window. And sitting on the lower bench, fully dressed, rubbing his temples like his head owed him money, was a man I recognized instantly.

Oh no, I thought. Oh no, I know him.

"Desmond?"

He looked up. His face did three things in a row. Confusion, recognition, panic.

"Debra? Debra from... you're here?"

"I'm here. Merger thing. I escaped." I closed the door behind me. "Wait. You're here? You're a city planner, what are you doing in Finland?"

"I could ask you the same thing. Well, not the city planner part, since you apparently know that already, which is honestly a little flattering..."

"I remember people. It's a realtor thing. Also it's been six years and you were memorable." I held up my glass. "Vodka?"

"No. No vodka. Vodka is how this got worse." He put his head back in his hands. "Debra, I have a situation."

"I can see that."

"My band. I play drums. Told you that? Doesn't matter. My bandmates dared me."

"Dared you to what?"

"To pull my drum kit out of the lake."

I looked at him. I looked at the little frosted window. I looked back at him.

"The lake. The frozen one. Outside."

"The frozen one outside, yes!"

"Why is your drum kit in the frozen lake, Desmond?"

"Okay. So. Long story short, and I want it noted that I lost the dare, we were drinking last night, and someone said the kit from my old apartment, the one in storage here because my cousin has a boathouse, someone said I should do a video where I play it on the ice. Like, standing on the frozen lake. Content, they said. It'll be great content."

"And?"

"And the ice is thicker than it looks, that part went fine, I drilled a hole next to it for dramatic reasons, and then the rope slipped and now the kit is nose-down in a hole in the lake and sinking. Slowly. It's been sinking for an hour."

I sat down on the bench across from him. I genuinely could not do anything else.

"Your drums are in the lake."

"Half of my drums are in the lake. The other half is currently in the lake's future."

"And your plan was what, sitting in a sauna?"

"My plan was to think. The sauna is where I think. Also it's warm and out there my fingers are dying." He rubbed his temples again. "There's a boat hook. There's rope. What there isn't is a second person, because my bandmates think this is hilarious and are filming from the lodge window."

I laughed. I couldn't help it, and it came out the nervous way, too loud in the little room.

"I'm sorry. It's not funny."

"It's a little funny."

"It's a little funny," he agreed. "You're the first person to say so. Everyone else has just sent me the crying laughing emoji."

"Show me?"

"Show you what?"

"The hole. The sinking drums. I need to see this with my own eyes."

"Not yet. It's minus fifteen out and my plan isn't done cooking." He leaned forward, elbows on knees. "Also, honestly? I can't think when I'm panicking and you're the first calm thing I've seen all day."

"That's a nice line."

"It's not a line, it's a status report."

We looked at each other. Six years fell away pretty fast, is the thing I'll say about that. Last time was a college art opening, I was twenty-two, he was twenty-three, and he made some terrible joke about my shoes. Red things with buckles. I laughed so hard I knocked over a plastic cup of wine. Then we both got pulled away by different friends and that should have been the end of it, except apparently neither of us forgot it.

"You still have weird shoes?" he asked.

"Wow!"

"I say that with love. I've thought about those shoes. That's weird, isn't it. Forget I said it."

"You've thought about my shoes for six years?"

"I've thought about the person wearing them. The shoes were the entrance music."

I kicked off one boot. Then, because the heat was finally getting to me and because I apparently have no impulse control, the other one. Wool socks. I peeled those off too, tucked my feet up under me on the bench, bare toes against the warm wood.

Desmond stopped talking mid-sentence.

"What?" I said.

"Nothing. Nothing. Your feet are just..."

"My feet are just what?"

"Bare. On my bench. In my sauna. While my drums drown." He pressed his palms flat on his knees. "This is a lot of input, Debra."

"Sorry. Should I put the socks back on?"

"No. God, no. Sorry, that came out fast." He cleared his throat. "Could I... okay, this is going to sound insane, but could I look at them? Closer. It might help me think. It genuinely might, there's something about..."

"You want to look at my feet to help you save your drums."

"When you say it in that voice it sounds insane."

"It is insane."

"I know."

I looked at him. He looked at my feet. The stove crackled. Somewhere out there his bass drum was filling with a lake.

"You're serious," I said.

"I'm completely serious. And if it's weird, tell me it's weird, and I'll go back to temple-rubbing like a normal disaster."

It was weird. It was also, I noticed with some alarm, not unappealing. Six years of a soft little crush and now this man was asking permission, politely, red-eared