And He was Albert Robarge

Albert Robarge, briefly pronounced "Al-bear Ro-barrr-je" in an attempt to impress Sheena Ryan in junior high, lived alone in the same small apartment across the street from a park he had never set foot in. In his thirties, he'd followed the same routine for years, suffering from self-induced anxiety attacks if things did not go as planned. He'd eat his bowl of cereal with a measured cup of 2% milk, followed by a brisk walk to catch the number 78 bus, which let him off approximately 4 blocks, or 8 minutes from his building. Inside he would start his insignificant job promptly at 8:00am and wait for the others to filter in, recalling their drunken evenings with co-workers or tales of sickly children and no sleep.

Albert ate a ham and cheese sandwich with chips and carrots everyday around noon, but no later than 10 minutes after 12. He was so prompt that the women in the office had a daily pool going over what time he would actually sit down and take the first bite. Albert had known of this stupid game, but there was nothing he could do about it. The anxiety.

Taking the same number 78 bus home Monday through Wednesday and Fridays (Thursdays he went to his mothers) Albert stopped by the local grocery store for some sort of dinner and retired to his living room to read whatever was next on the book club list that he secretly belonged to. One day he had stumbled across a website ran by this woman a few desks down from him, where other women of his building would get together and read books, and post their mindless dribble about romance and love. Although Albert thought some of these women to be social harpies who would take the first chance they could at shredding the reputation of their friends, a handful of them seemed decent and polite and Albert had this notion that in reading the same books as they, he might have a chance to date a few, or one. In reality, week after week, Albert would follow along with their lists but never once had mentioned to any of them what his opinion on the book had been.

The closest he'd come was an escalated conversation at the coffee stand outside their office, in which Albert had followed the cackling group of catty women outside, in hopes of talking to Megan, an incredibly tall, unattached blond woman, who always smiled at Albert when she made her way past his desk at various times of the day. The group of them had started this intense conversation about how romantic so and so was and how they would be so heartbroken if they'd been in blah-blah-blah's shoes. Albert had read that book too but didn't see things the same way as them, which he chalked up to it being because he was a man and thought more pessimistically about things. In his opinion, they never read anything that could make a difference in their lives; it was all fluff. Real people didn't do heroic things for the ones they loved and real people didn't hunt down the killer that had kidnapped their child. Albert had told them this that day while waiting in the coffee line. Elizabeth, Albert had known as being a thirty-something mother of two and Martha Stewart idolizer, stared back at him in complete amazement. At the time, Albert could not tell if her speechless-ness had been created by his words or if she was shocked that he had even spoke to her in the first place. She replied with the question, "Have you ever even been in love?" to which Albert did not expect, and had no direct answer for.

He thought she could already know the answer by looking at him, at nearly six feet tall, his mousy brown hair had been slowly escaping his forehead since high school. He wore the same outfits each week, and only went shopping when the armpits of his button up shirts had yellowed or his pants had holes. He blended in the best he could with the rest of the cities most undesirable men, and Albert had accepted that as his place in society long ago. There had never been lust over Albert Robarge.

He wanted to tell her 'yes, many times,' and that they hadn't loved him back and that he was sure it was his own fault. Instead he just looked up, into her eyes, which were hard and almost black. He didn't realize she's take his words so personally, as if she was responsible for all the love ever written about in the world. The eyes told him that she wasn't going to back down and her question still was unanswered and Albert didn't know what to say. The other women in the group all eyed him quizzically but with less anger and malice than the eyes of Elizabeth. He surrendered, shaking his head no, and turned around to order his coffee. He could feel her victory smiled burning a hole in the back of his head as she giggled and remarked, "can you believe that?" Drink in hand, Albert had just walked passed the women, defeated, in the direction of their building. He so desperately wanted to shout at her that her husband had been cheating on her with her prettier little friend to her right and that even he, the man who had obviously never been in love, knew and and that it was the reason why he never put himself out there in the first place. But he didn't and instead he burnt his tongue on his bitter, hot coffee and silently walked back inside to his bitter, hot job.

The other thing about Albert was that he was hopelessly in love with his brother's pregnant, 24 year old girlfriend Naveen, something he knew Elizabeth would have a field day of ammo with. She was brilliantly smart, but more in the sense of a life lived than book smart like Albert was. She had glowing olive skin that Albert was convinced was not just because she was pregnant. Her dark, black, almost blue, hair cascaded down to the small of her back and swayed with the movement of her hips. She was five months pregnant, she had said, and of all the women Albert had ever know, pregnancy had never looked so beautiful then on Naveen. She was touchy, which made Albert nervous each time she hugged him or touched his shoulder. She giggled about almost everything but she managed to make it sound so sincere, and no matter what the problem was, Naveen was an eternal optimist and always saw the good in people, which to Albert, explained her getting pregnant by his completely contrasting brother.

The first time Albert had see his brother in the last 10 years, and the first time he'd met Naveen, was when his brother had breezed into town after the death of their mother. Naveen wasn't visibly pregnant.