As Donald slumped against the dented SUV to catch his breath, he noticed two unusual items. First of all, someone had discarded a dog-eared magazine on the SUV's still-warm hood. It was a glossy Cosmopolitan. Donald flipped it away in disgust.
Secondly, a folded piece of paper was tucked under one of the SUV's windshield wipers. His name was written on it. He snatched it up.
Donald, it said in a woman's neat handwriting, I got tired of waiting. Sorry.
The page had been ripped out of a day planner. Sunday May the ninth. Tomorrow, if there was such a thing.
Donald crumpled up the note and dropped it onto the broken glass.
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Salesman
Philip Brewer
The blonde sipped her gin and tonic, looking at me appraisingly over the rim of her glass. “So, what do you do for a living?"
How to answer? It wasn't a hard question. It was just that I hardly ever bought attractive women drinks, and therefore had limited experience in making the related small talk. “I'm a kind of salesman, I guess,” I said.
She finished the drink. I immediately signaled the bartender for another for each of us and tossed back the rum and coke I'd been working on.
"What kind of salesman?” she asked.
I couldn't think of anyway to make my work sound interesting, so I just said, “I demonstrate nanoscale medical devices for Brooks-Holmes."
"Really?” she said. “What exactly do you demonstrate? But don't give away any secrets! I should warn you that I work for NivaPharm."
We both grinned at the notion that we were competitors.
Talking about my work wasn't what I'd had in mind when I introduced myself, but she seemed to be interested. “I work with people who have minor affect disorders,” I said. “For example, I get a lot of clients who feel that they aren't decisive enough. For that, Brooks-Holmes makes Nowaverin."
I paused, trying to think of a way to turn the conversation to her, but before I thought of anything, she said, “What does Nowaverin do?"
"It adjusts certain neurotransmitter levels. It's one of the safe ones that the government allows us to demo without a prescription."
I broke off, for just a moment. The NivaPharm people had been criticized recently for going even farther than Brooks-Holmes in pushing the limits of what could be done without a doctor's prescription. I was afraid that she might think I was making a pointed comment, but she didn't seem to take offense.
"It doesn't really have much effect on people who are already decisive,” I explained. “But people who are hesitant, never able to make up their minds, always second guessing themselves—for them it makes a big difference."
"I bet you're good at your job,” she said, gazing at me with big, blue eyes. Normally a line like that would make me figure that she was making fun of me, but she seemed sincere.
"Well, There is a knack to it."
She put her drink down and gave me her full attention.
I shrugged. “It's a matter of timing. I give them a dose of Nowaverin programmed to expire in just ten minutes. Then I ask them some questions that give them a chance to make choices.
"They're so pleased with themselves,” I continued, shaking my head. “Finally being able to make a decision and not instantly second-guess themselves! I'll make a comment or two, raise some of the doubts that they know they'd be raising, if it weren't for the Nowaverin. But they find that they're steadfast.
"Then,” I said, holding my finger and thumb an inch apart, “I put just a bit of pressure on them to invest in a permanent treatment. Of course, pressure is just the wrong tactic for people with some Nowaverin in their brain. If I've timed it right—and that's what I'm good at—they'll start to reject my pressure and then: Bam!” I slapped the bar for emphasis. “The Nowaverin expires."
"And then they're not so sure of themselves any more,” the blonde said.
"That's right,” I said. “Suddenly they don't have what it takes to make a decision and stick to it. But, they remember what it was like."
"I bet it's an easy sale after that."
"Yep."
She started to speak, then her PDA beeped.
It was just the opening I'd been waiting for. I pulled out my PDA and opened my mouth to ask her to beam me her home phone number.
But before I could get the words out, my throat closed on them. She'd never give me her phone number. She'd laugh in my face if I even raised the topic. She'd no doubt been laughing at me the whole time I was talking to her. She probably had friends watching, laughing at me make a fool of myself, buying drinks for a beautiful woman like this.
The blonde smiled again. “Did you like the feeling of confidant mastery you just experienced? If so, you'll want to buy NivaPharm's new Viraplus. With it, you can do things you never thought you could. I'll beam you my business card and a fact sheet."
I don't know what my expression was: Shock? Horror? Shame? Whatever it was, it prompted a hard-edged smile from the woman as she pushed aside what was left of her drink and stood up. “Don't look at me like that, big boy. You know you liked it."
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Legacy
F. Brett Cox
He brought her flowers every day. There was a patch halfway between his house and hers that belonged to no one he knew of, and there was always something there. Nice ones in the spring—daffodils and jonquils, magnolia blossoms from the lone tree near the edge of the road. But even in the cold months there were small blossoms to be had, and he always stopped and picked some of whatever was there. It was the least he could do. If things continued as they were, it was all he could do.
She met him at the door and took his gift for the thousandth time with the appearance of as much gratitude as she had the first time. He did not know after so long if appearance and reality were the same. He supposed it really didn't matter.
He carefully removed his hat as he crossed the threshold of her home. Rather than waiting for his hostess to take it, he hung it himself on the dark maple coat rack that stood by the door. She allowed him that familiarity. He followed her into the parlor and paused as she placed the flowers in a waiting vase on a table beneath a picture of her grandparents—not the ones who were the source of all the troubles, but her mother's parents. They stared rigidly from the wall, the man's forehead just to the edge of baldness beneath his white hair and above his crooked tie, the woman's mouth drooping at the corners, the left side of her head obscured by a diagonal white cloth. Two years after he first started calling on her, she had told him that the cloth was there to hide a tumor that her grandmother never had removed. God had placed that mark on her, her grandmother said, and no man was going to cut it away.
They're lovely, Franklin, she said. You shouldn't trouble yourself so.
It's my pleasure, Constance, he replied. Always.
They sat side by side on the divan and talked pleasantly, neutrally before going in to the supper she had prepared. Her students were undergoing their first encounter with a complete play of Shakespeare; one of the girls, her favorite of the term, had asked if Juliet wasn't going to get a beating from her father for being so disobedient. The demand for auto supplies was increasing so much Franklin had determined to double his orders for the month and set up a display in the store. There was talk of war in the papers, but President Wilson promised not to shed American blood over European complaints, and the state house in Montgomery seemed more concerned with how, or if, to pay for flood control along the Tombigbee river. Her hands rested comfortably in her lap and her skirt brushed the floor. Franklin had seen pictures in the catalogs that came into the store of newer fashions, skirts that hung only to the tops of the ladies’ high-button shoes, but Constance had not changed yet. He sometimes dreamed of her ankles.
After a decent interval, they went into the dining room, where he sat at one corner of the dining table. The table was absurdly long. Her parents ha
d been known for their dinner parties, but after their passing Constance had not kept up the tradition. She served the meal—green salad with fresh garden tomatoes, cream of spinach soup, pork chops with gravy, new potatoes and sweet corn, peach cobbler for dessert—and then sat across from him. She did not have a maid, although with what her parents had left her, she could easily have afforded one. She did not really need to earn a living teaching. But she preferred to do these things. They ate heartily. Constance was a wonderful cook.
You've outdone yourself, he said. A man couldn't ask for a better meal.
Thank you, she said. Here, have some more potatoes.
After dinner he helped her clear the table and stack the dishes in the kitchen sink. He always offered to wash them, and she always declined. She was so precise about some things, less so about others—in sharp contrast to his own mother, she had no objection to letting the dishes wait until bedtime, or even until the next day. It was one of many things he loved about her.
They returned to the parlor. He reclaimed his spot on the divan, and she sat at the piano and played for him. Some of the old songs—"Flow Gently, Sweet Afton,” with the perfect air of melancholy that had brought tears to the eyes of the old men and women at the Burns Society fundraiser last winter. Some of the new songs—she had just acquired the music for the latest from Mr. Berlin, and she played it with total, uncalculated delight. He tapped time gently with his foot and felt himself smiling. When the sun finally set, he turned up the lamps and she sat back down beside him. It was March and the days were getting longer.
At this point it was all right to take her hand, to hold it and relax into the divan and look into her eyes, so deeply blue in the day, turned slightly green in the lamplight. She laid her head carefully on his shoulder and stroked the top of his hand with her own.
I could stay like this forever, she said.
You can.
No, we have to work tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that.
You can stay with me forever. I can stay with you. I don't have to leave. If you'll just—
Franklin, she said. It was a self-contained statement, not a prelude to anything. In the early days of their courtship, five years gone, even a hint of the topic would cause her to stiffen and pull away. Now, after such a long time, she offered no resistance. And no acquiescence.
We could be married, he said. It was the first time he had uttered the word in months.
No. You know we can't.
Surely if nothing has happened by now—
Franklin. She sat up straight beside him, rose from the divan, walked over to the piano, and rested her hand near the picture on top. Her great-grandparents on her father's side. The source of all the troubles. An old man and woman, plainly dressed, surrounded by two younger couples and a young woman, Constance's grandmother Alice, centered in the frame, looking neutrally at something far beyond the photographer. She stared at the faded portrait in silence.
Franklin waited for her to speak, but knew there was nothing to say that had not already been said a thousand times before. Great-grandfather Henson's cheating of Peg Donovan in a slave transaction. The old woman's lawsuit, and what she thought an unsatisfactory settlement. The disturbances that followed: I am Peg Donovan's witch, and Ethan Henson shall know no peace. The inexplicable torment of the grandmother pins stuck in flesh, hair pulled out by the roots, obscene voices in the empty air. The family become a public spectacle for four years until the great-grandfather finally died and the grandmother's engagement to Franklin's grandfather was broken off. I am Peg Donovan's witch, and they shall never marry. Only then had the sticking and pulling and voices stopped. Years later. a New York paper said the grandmother was a liar, a ventriloquist, a fraud like those Fox girls up north. She had sued the paper for libel, and won. Sometimes Franklin thought that, more than anything, was what kept Constance convinced.
And we shall throw away our own happiness, Franklin said, the bitterness he thought was past creeping back into his voice. The sins of the grandparents shall be visited upon the grandchildren?
Apparently so, she said, still staring at the picture. You know what our families have been through since then.
All families have misfortunes, he said. Everyone dies sooner or later. It's not preordained. It's not a curse.
We can't take that chance, Constance said, and then, more softly, I can't.
He wanted to say, It didn't want your grandfather to marry my grandmother, and what has that to do with us? He wanted to say, It said it would come back, but it said it was an Indian, then a Spanish monk, then the ghost of another of Henson's dupes. Why should we believe it now? He wanted to say, Peg Donovan was said to be in league with the devil, but Peg Donovan is dead. He wanted to say, You will be thirty this year.
But all he said was, again, We could be married.
No.
It's the twentieth century. We are free adults who can read and write. I can speak into that box hanging in the hallway and be heard a hundred miles away. In a few years, you'll probably even be able to vote. We have no room for witches and spells and curses.
There is still plenty of room for death and suffering, Constance said. Look at Europe. Read the newspaper.
And you are more afraid of a supposed curse than modern warfare? Our witch is more powerful than artillery shells and mustard gas?
A slave trade, she said, as if he had said nothing. Crooked business. All this because of crooked business.
Constance—
I wish we had left Africa alone, she said. I wish we had never heard of Africa.
He looked down at his empty hands. There was no use continuing. All right, Constance. All right. Come and sit back down with me.
She did, and they talked of other things. The lights shone through the scrolled globes of the lamps and cast familiar patterns on the wall. When they heard the grandfather clock in the living room strike nine, he stood automatically and she walked him to the door.
He kissed her in the open doorway before she turned on the porch light. She tasted of peach cobbler and her own skin. He looked at her until he was satisfied she was not angry or upset with him, and then he went home.
As he walked the half mile back to his own house, New Orleans came to him unbidden, as it sometimes did. Once, before his courtship of Constance had begun, when he was first taking the reins of his business, he went to New Orleans on a buying trip. He was a good man and had tried to be what his father had always called a True Gentleman. His father had warned him about the sins of the flesh, warned him how such activity was not only disreputable but debilitating, draining a man of much-needed vital energy. After Franklin had attained his majority, his father had even confided that he had marital relations with Franklin's mother no more than once a month for that very reason.
But New Orleans—its deep exotic layers, its sights and smells and very texture—was like nothing Franklin had ever experienced. One night at dinner in the French Quarter with some other young businessmen, he let himself get drunk, which hardly ever happened, and the others swore they could go over to Storyville and get whatever women they wanted, and it was perfectly legal. His mind told him it was wrong; his body and spirit followed the others over to Basin Street and a large house with a red lamp by the door.
He found himself in a cluttered but clean room with a woman whose auburn hair fell to her waist. She sat patiently in an overstuffed chair and crossed her black-stockinged legs so that her robe fell back from them. There were small signs on the wall with odd phrases: Oh! Dearie, I give U much pleasure; Dearie, U ask for Marguerite. An embroidered pillow balanced on the back of the chair announced, Daisies won't tell. From beneath the floor came the muffled clatter of a piano playing a song he had never heard before. He stood swaying in front of the woman as she opened her robe. She wore nothing underneath. He fell on top of her; she pushed him off, made him take off his pants, and guided him to the bed. She lay on her back and stroked her own nipples and said things he bare
ly understood. He fell on top of her again. It was over too quickly and he wanted to stay, but he didn't have enough money. On his way out he noticed for the first time the pictures on the wall of men and women doing what he had just finished doing, and on the vanity by the overstuffed chair, a lone photograph of a little girl feeding ducks by a pond.
In the corridor he passed by one of the other young businessmen, who clapped him on the shoulder, gave him a wink, and walked on.
He burned with shame at such thoughts, especially after spending the evening with Constance. And he was not always so preoccupied after his visits. But he sometimes was. Of late, more often than not. He had to remind himself of what he truly loved in Constance, what the Storyville whore could not possibly have. The whore could not cook. The whore could not play the piano. The whore could not recite Shakespeare from memory. The sun did not rise and set in the whore's blue eyes.
By the time he reached his bedroom he was filled to bursting with his love for Constance and his memories of Basin Street. He took care of the matter, bathed, and went to sleep. He dreamed of marrying Constance and taking her to New Orleans for their honeymoon.
He did not see Constance for several nights after that. There was nothing unusual about it; as close as they were, it would have been an imposition to spend every evening with her. He did go by her house and leave her flowers everyday. His father, who approved of both Constance and her family's money, had learned not to question him too closely. Instead, when the new and larger order of auto parts came in, he complimented Franklin on the resulting storefront display.
And then one day she called him at the store and asked him to come over that night. There was something wrong in her voice, but she refused to elaborate. He said of course he would.
She met him at the door but immediately turned and went into the parlor and sat down, ignoring the flowers in his hand. She had never done that before; he had no points of reference for such behavior. After a moment, he hung his hat and laid the flowers carefully on the table by the vase which still held yesterday's assortment. She sat on the divan with her hands clenched tightly together. He stood mute, uncertain what to do.
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