Community of Magic Pens

by Community of Magic Pens (epub)

  She left in a whirlwind of perfume and diamonds. Annemarie whispered, “Do you think Mommy likes her new boyfriend? Can you write about it in your magic book?”

  Where had it gone wrong?

  The quiet of the Brooklyn loft and thoughts of his college reunion brought the uncomfortable question forward, drawing it out as painfully as his differential equation proofs.

  In the alumni magazine, he had nothing to fear: a married father, a risk manager with a growing New York hedge fund.

  In the depths of his heart, the lies were thick and tangled, an ad populum fallacy.

  He glanced at the journal on his desk; his fingers caressed the pen.

  Could I have made it better if I had just figured her magic out?

  Michelle, the bringer of dimples and magic.

  You couldn’t miss her—bangles, large earrings, a patterned scarf tied around her riotous curls. Convincing anyone walking through campus to sign this petition, to attend that rally, to fight for the rights of the disenfranchised.

  He’d arrived for the first debate team practice and found her on the other side of the room. She’d winked at him and said, “Did you think I was just another pretty face?” And she soundly trounced him that first round.

  Michelle had a wide range of knowledge, and that drew him to her flame. And she was eccentric, with her fashion sense and her flaming-heart liberalism, and then she’d get started on what she called “mystical woo”: crystals, tarot, all strange to his logic-driven brain. Against his thoughts, he kept her at arm’s length, friendly but not friends, attractive but not his style.

  Senior year she thrust a black journal and a polished wooden pen at him.

  “Okay,” she began, “the journal I bought, the pen I had made, and it’s entirely tuned to you. It’s mystical woo, but it’s good. Write your desires down in this journal, and they’ll come true within a day.”

  He blinked.

  “It’s true.” She sighed, frustrated. “Now you can create your own destiny. I can because I have nothing to lose. But you’ve got the weight of yourself on you. This gives you a fighting chance.”

  Had she really been able to see that within him?

  Mike thanked her, took the pen and journal, and packed them in a box. Graduation morning he felt her hug, saw the last flash of her dimples, and heard, “Don’t forget to create your destiny, and don’t forget me.”

  He forgot.

  Until the pen and the journal reappeared in his first apartment. Hungry, weary, and ready to escape his Bronx closet and his dead-end internship, he wrote: I will get a job in day trading.

  Two days later, TradingScreen had found his resume.

  The journal rested in his hands daily, the pen wore grooves into his hands. I will live in Brooklyn, I will close this deal with Enron, I will get the promotion to Risk Management.

  Yes, yes, yes, the journal agreed. Mystical woo—and the thought of Michelle’s dimples—was beautiful. He considered emailing her to thank her, but there was never enough time.

  One of the Enron execs had been treating his team horribly for over a month. Running on alcohol, adrenalin, and two hours of sleep, his anger curled into the page: I want them brought to justice.

  He watched as the news leaked out and the stock plummeted. Then, as everyone tried to cope with the upheaval and loss of September 11th, their gold-plated corruption was brought to light. The Enron loss was devastating to his firm, even as he felt the exhilaration of justice. Jobless and tired, he shoved the journal and pen into a box at the back of his closet.

  New York healed, and so did he. Richer, but overworked and lonely, he made a few desperate scrawls using the journal and pen. I will find someone to create a financially strong and independent family with.

  He met Aleja at a work conference the next week. She was a gorgeous, smart, driven junior coder for a startup firm. The conference fell during a summer lull, and he didn’t see the “hope you’re doing well” email from Michelle until a month later—just a month before he sent the news to the alumni magazine. Married: Michael S. Caviness ‘97 to Alejandra Davila, July 27, 2004.

  Within five months Aleja was pregnant. Mike wrote: I want our child to be the light of my life. Born to: Michael S. Caviness ‘97 and spouse Alejandra: Annemarie Catalina, May 18, 2005. Annemarie’s hazel eyes held a mischievous twinkle from the moment she was born.

  There was no need for magic anymore. Life was good. Mystical woo was what you made it. He tucked the pen and the journal into an old briefcase, thought that he should reach out to Michelle to tell her that he finally understood and to wish her well.

  Then it started.

  Aleja, with a colicky baby, grew exhausted and irritated. Spending too many nights at the office, too many post-work drinks. A world on edge, with growing uncertainties in the market and fears of a never-ending war.

  Annemarie turned three. They celebrated with a trip to FAO Schwartz, a screaming match over his need to escape to the office (secretly the bar), and a shocking announcement: Aleja had been cheating on him for the past two months and had no intention of stopping. The Great Recession hit their investments the next week, leaving them as little more than roommates who couldn’t divorce.

  The investments had stabilized. Annemarie had adjusted to their new lifestyle. At least Aleja was still present. He’d just broken things off with Sarah and wasn’t interested in diving back into the dating pool . . .

  The journal fell open in front of him, its pages still carrying the faintest smell of 9/11 ash and dust.

  Create your destiny.

  What did he want?

  He wrote: I want to be happy.

  The sparkling in his stomach rose, made his hand shake just a bit. On impulse, he added: I hope to see Michelle at the 15th in Chicago.

  “How’d your math test go, Peanut?” Mike swooped Annemarie up for a hug.

  “You were right, Daddy! I’m pretty good at math once I think about it!” He could already imagine it: the test with a bright red A on the top. “Can we get my leopard coat?”

  “Let’s wait. Nana sent you a package.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. I thought you might want to open it first.”

  It did not surprise him to see the coat, with a note from his mother: Alright, I caved! Is this the one? But won’t Annemarie look just darling in this? I wish you’d come to Washington for Christmas this year.

  “Daddy, your magical book did it! Can I write something in there, too?”

  Mike had said not yet, but he opened it on the plane and saw her block print. I want my daddy to be happy too. Love, Annemarie.

  He heard panels on UChicago’s role in changing the world, networked and schmoozed at the luncheons, and felt a flutter of attraction at the handsome woman giving the fundraising pitch. Michelle’s riotous curls were nowhere in sight. He’d heard the names of deceased classmates during the memorial service that night, felt his breath catch as they began the Cs. They passed her name.

  Emboldened, he wrote again. I hope to see—really see—Michelle Collins at the gala dinner on October 12.

  The banquet room glowed with dimmed lights and brilliant candelabras, crystal flutes sparkling with champagne, a rainbow of shimmering evening gowns offset by black tuxedos. Mike adjusted his cufflinks and looked for curls in vain.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

  The fundraiser from yesterday stood before him.

  “No.” He gave her a brilliant day-trader smile. “But I did donate stock toward the class gift already.”

  “All those years debating, and you forgot zany Michelle?” She smiled, dimples on display.

  The throb of the journal struck him.

  “Don’t feel bad.” She pulled out an empty chair. “No one knows me anymore. You have to play the part if you want to beat the system from within. How have you been? I heard you got married and had a baby. Are they here?”

  A trap at every conversational turn. “I thought I’d make my first t
ime back personal. How are you? I was . . . hoping I’d see you.”

  She let his nervousness pass.

  After a few years of “finding herself,” she had stumbled into fundraising at UChicago before leading an individual giving program at one of the Smithsonian museums. She was always happy to know someone who knew people with money, so she pulled a business card from her purse along with a wooden pen. “I’ll add my cell number.”

  The pen resembled his, down to the “Michelle” stenciled in the cap.

  “Hey, that looks kind of familiar,” he teased.

  She frowned. “So embarrassing. You don’t still have yours, do you?”

  “Of course,” he said, surprised. “You told me to create my destiny. Sometimes I do.”

  Her expression held a mixture of surprise and sadness.

  “You mean yours worked?”

  He threw his hands up. “You’re sitting here, aren’t you?”

  After a moment of visible shock, Michelle dimpled again.

  “I bought those things as a set. The shaman from the botanica on the North Side told me they were guaranteed to work. Mystical woo, right?”

  Her voice shook. He reached for her hand and the pen across the table. “Yeah. Mystical woo.”

  “I wrote pages about how I could get this, buy that, find that job. And about how you’d finally see me as more than zany, flaming-heart liberal, debate partner Michelle. But you never did.”

  She’d liked him the whole time?

  Michelle shrugged. “I got everything else. Maybe I wrote the parts about you badly. But that was a really wild time. So I let that go and focused on work. Becoming my best me. And I feel good.”

  She gently removed her hand, handed him her card.

  “Glad it worked for you, Mikey. Look me up if you come to Washington.” She rose to leave.

  He reached for her hand but caught air instead. “Wait.”

  He felt the sparkling deep in his core, just as the swing band tuned up.

  “Dance with me,” he begged.

  She laughed as her eyes sparkled. “Why not? It’s a reunion, after all.”

  The fierce desire rising up in him as she moved, strong and confident and lithe, in his arms while dancing. The clink of their glasses, and the champagne bubbles that tickled their noses over the third. The sly smile she gave him, and his painful need to touch her, to place his hand at the small of her back.

  They tipsily leaned upon each other while she babbled. “I have a room here. And I know what I wrote but you’re married. This all must be a dream, but—”

  “My marriage isn’t real. You can say ‘yes’ with no issue,” he whispered, and waited.

  “Yes,” she finally answered, and lifted her lips for his kiss.

  He snapped awake at 3:33.

  Michelle slept the sleep of the loved next to him, her tawny body curled into the sheets and into his arms.

  Should he have? Not that it mattered to his marriage, but was this disrespectful to Michelle?

  The answering throb coursing throughout his body said he was following the path of destiny he’d plotted, despite whatever the pen had done.

  A feeling itched. He shifted to see the bed’s side table. A black leather journal, similar to his, lay there, quietly radiating power and love and truth.

  He managed to leave the warmth of her embrace. It felt personal to pick up the book and read the words she’d only meant for herself, but she’d left it here, facing him. He felt sure she wanted him to see it. He snapped on the lamp.

  June 1, 1997. Commencement Day. I’m so excited to start speaking truth to power! . . . But I will miss Mike and I hope he understands just what his pen can do. I want to see him today and hug him just once.

  August 27, 1998. Rick said Mike’s about to move to New York. I hope he does well.

  April 10, 1999. Rick laughs when I ask how Mike’s doing. He hates his job. I hope he finds whatever he needs in that finance stuff . . .

  September 11, 2001. I don’t know how to start the peace and healing from all of this . . . Is it selfish of me to hope that Michael’s okay? It doesn’t matter. I want him to be safe and sound and alive.

  June 15, 2002. I should reach out to Mike but I’m afraid.

  He flipped ahead a few pages, keeping up with his own chronology.

  May 12, 2004. Legal aid is okay, but I’ve been thinking that my volunteer fundraising for UC is making a bigger difference for students. I should apply there.

  Someone who could help create a financially strong and independent family . . . He kept reading.

  June 2, 2004: I finally emailed him! I know he’s busy. May he respond to me when he can.

  September 1, 2004: Mike got married. He didn’t contact me and I guess I know why. I hope he and his wife are happy.

  December 25, 2004: I know I should make him write to me, but I won’t! I can’t!

  July 1, 2005: He has a daughter now. Guess he doesn’t need my good wishes anymore.

  May 15, 2008, a few days before Annemarie’s 3rd birthday: Okay, self, listen up! It’s been over 10 years now. It’s not going to happen. Stop carrying a torch for Michael Caviness and start carrying one for yourself.

  November 2, 2009: Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States, and I will be in Washington by the time of his inauguration! If we all use the woo, it will happen!

  A few days ago: I saw Mike’s name on the reunion attendee list: now that’s someone I haven’t thought of in a while. Wouldn’t it be nice if I saw him?

  Two nights ago: In vino veritas! I will see Michael Caviness during the reunion, and he will really see me, and find the new me attractive, and ask himself, what if!

  He retrieved his own pen from his tuxedo pocket.

  I like both Michelles, the free spirit from school and the elegant woman who feels so good against me tonight. Sorry it took me so long to understand.

  Criterion: Michael Caviness wants to see where this mystical woo with Michelle Collins is going. He will do everything he can to keep it alive.

  He left the journal on the table before climbing back into bed with her.

  Layers of implications, he thought, as she blew him a kiss on the way to her departure terminal. He controlled his own destiny, sure—but would his happiness always depend on her since she had the other pen? Or was their power their own? Could they really change the world?

  He pushed the risk management questions away. Mystical woo is what you make it, as he’d told her. “I like that,” Michelle had said, dimples on display. “Let’s start by using it for good, one day at a time.”

  She had written in his journal—I want you to be happy too! Return to me soon, and don’t forget me this time.

  Staring at the pen, he laughed. He scribbled during the flight home. How Aleja deserved to have Gavin’s love, and how Annemarie loved her too. How Annemarie would grow up happy, healthy, strong, and loved. How he would work smarter instead of harder, and love more. How Michelle would enjoy seeing them later this year.

  Feeling the sparkling in his stomach as he took a cab into the city, he knew that his mother would love having Annemarie, Michelle, and him in Washington during the holiday.

  Victoria E. Hollis (she/her) was born and currently resides in North Carolina. While she has finally figured out how to put her English degree to good use for marketing and fundraising in the performing arts, this is her first published work of fiction—thirty-six years after she first caught the writing bug in kindergarten. She hopes to publish more fantasy, romance, and New Adult works in the future. Victoria also loves classical music, college basketball, and conversation, all things she’d love to share with you on Twitter @vikehollisrites.

  Charcoals from an Unidentified Chicago Artist

  Dawn Vogel

  1871.

  The city was aflame.

  The sky glowed red and eerie, even at a distance. Sometimes roiling smoke blotted out the glow, but it lurked within the clouds, baleful and destructiv
e.

  She sketched the view from her rooftop. But more than that, she imagined the buildings downtown and drew them as they might look gutted by fire.

  When the fires burned out and the city cooled enough for people to return, she went to see the destruction, like so many others. Her imagination had served her well. The newspaper men gladly paid for even the sketches.

  After the fire, after the city began to rebuild, her drawings took on a certain style. She had worked so long in charcoals, all her work had cross-hatched lines and smudges. But the brand-new cerulean blue oil paint turning to ash on the canvas sealed her decision.

  She stopped making art.

  1893.

  The World Columbian Exposition was magnificent. The buildings were architectural marvels, decorated and lit in the most inventive ways. But it was also underlain with a pervasive frenetic sadness, the last desperate attempt of a city reborn from the ashes to prove itself to the world.

  It was what the world wanted of her—the triumphant return of a lost artist, when she wanted to move beyond that life. But the beauty seeped into her soul.

  She drew.

  No one knew what to make of the wisps of smoke that found their way into her drawings. Some decided they must be artistic clouds, added to give the otherwise featureless background some depth.

  But when the cold storage building burned two months later, they wondered, as did she. Was she prescient? Had she been touched by the Great Fire?

  After she completed her sketches from the cold storage building fire, she returned home and put her drawing supplies away, tucking the box beneath her bed, into the farthest corner, and filling the space around it with boxes of books and drawings. She’d shut away that part of her life once. Perhaps she should do so again.

  1894.

  Half a year passed before she began the arduous task of retrieving her tools. Another artist might have gone out and purchased new supplies, on credit if need be, to begin work faster. She could not. Teaching everything except art paid her bills, but little else.