The Pages of Her Life

by James L. Rubart

  A wave of anxiety attacked Allison from inside. That’s what it was. A panic attack. Had to be. She’d always pooh-poohed others who claimed to have them. Buck up. Face the music and get on with life. Stress is part of living. Dealing with it is what strong people do. Fight it. But she took back all the thoughts in an instant. She’d been wrong. This wasn’t something she could fight. While her mind spoke with a detached calm, her body screamed for space, for air, as if she stood at thirty thousand feet.

  “I have to go,” she sputtered. “Please.”

  Derrek eyed her for a few seconds, then slid out of the booth and stood. Stared down at her with a bemused look on his face.

  “Please excuse Allison, you know how ladies can get sometimes.” Derrek opened his eyes wider and gave a mocking smile.

  The men chuckled as Allison slid out and staggered to her feet. She tried to drill Derrek with her gaze, but the most she could do was glance at him, swallow hard, and try to draw more air into her lungs than the room would allow. She stumbled through the front door of the restaurant and into the parking lot, her breath coming in stops and starts.

  Breathe!

  She shuffled between two cars parked too close together. Turned sideways to get through. Didn’t need to, did she? There was enough room. No, there wasn’t.

  In seconds she found an open spot in the parking lot and tilted her head back. Long. Slow. Breaths. She focused on the sky, a cloud, one that looked like Hawaii. Then took a slow walk from one end of the parking lot to the other. Then back. Repeat. After her third trip, the ocean of panic receded. Not much, but enough. A few more seconds and it was one of the Great Lakes. After three more minutes Lake Washington, then Green Lake, then a small pond. Calm surface. Yes. She would make it.

  She turned and headed back toward the restaurant. This was not his deal—it was hers. She had prospected for it, wooed them. She would close it. If she didn’t, Derrek would take it. Fifty feet from the door, she watched it open. Derrek and the two clients shook hands, laughed, and parted. They didn’t acknowledge her as she half jogged toward them, realizing there was nothing she could do.

  On the drive back to the office, Derrek asked her for the second time if she was okay.

  “Yes, I’ll be fine.”

  “Good to know.” He glanced at her, his expression indicating he doubted her. “What occurred during lunch?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before.”

  “Panic attacks are common, Allison.”

  “Why do you think it was a panic attack?”

  Derrek continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “There’s no shame in having one. Really. My younger sister used to have them. And one of the guys in my band has them from time to time. They can be extremely frightening. My thought is you should take the rest of the day off. Tomorrow as well. Collect yourself and recalibrate. Relax however best you can.”

  “I can’t. I have work to do.”

  Again, Derrek continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “Then, when you’ve had a rest and feel you’re yourself again, and only then, we can talk about going forward with the account we just signed.”

  “They signed?”

  Derrek gave a slow nod. “They were a bit concerned about your leaving, but I explained that you’d been dealing with some stress at home and you simply needed a breath of fresh air. I assured them they could have every confidence in your ability to handle their account.”

  The last lingering bits of the panic she’d felt faded. Derrek had stood up for her. She frowned and asked softly, “It’s still my account? I’m still the lead?”

  “Of course you are.”

  Allison slumped back in her seat and hope beckoned once again.

  thirty-four

  THREE DAYS LATER PARKER SIPPED on bitter, burnt coffee and stared at the ocean as their boat slipped through the late afternoon toward the next fishing zone. He needed the jolt to get through the night, as it was likely to be a long one. The sea was as calm as he’d yet seen it. The wind was only a flutter, and the sun warm. Logan stood at the bow of the boat, binoculars out, his head and shoulders swiveling back and forth. Dawson and Fredricks sat at the stern in T-shirts, on the railing, their legs hanging over the edge of the boat. Parker wandered over to the center of the boat.

  “You gonna join us, Puker?”

  “I’m good here.” He shifted his weight.

  “What? You have a problem with the ocean? Scared of it?” Dawson grinned. “I’ve noticed you avoid getting too close when you can.”

  “Not scared of it. Respectful.”

  “Heard it before a thousand times, Rook,” Dawson said. “That’s rookie-speak for ‘I can’t swim.’”

  “Not true. I can swim.” Parker didn’t add barely. Yeah, he could get across a pool okay if he had to, and he didn’t mind lakes . . . as long as the water was clear and he was standing on a dock. But him and the ocean? Not friends. Ever since that day ages back when he almost died.

  He’d been on the beach with his family and his aunt and uncle and their three sons.

  Parker poked at a small sand castle he’d built as he listened to Joel and his cousins talk about exploring the tide pools.

  “You guys ready?” Joel asked their three cousins.

  “Just a sec. Let me finish my sandwich,” one of them said.

  Parker scooted up next to his mom. “I want to go with them, Mom. Can I?”

  “I dunno, Mom.” Joel squinted down the beach in the direction of a mound of rocky crags sticking out into the ocean. “It’s kind of treacherous, and I think Parker might be a little young to—”

  “I won’t go anywhere except the safe spots. Promise!”

  Parker’s dad rapped his beer can on the arm of his beach chair. “Let the kid go, both of you. It’ll give us a few moments of quiet here. And Joel will take care of him.”

  Parker’s cousins scowled. Especially Tommy. A mean kid. Always had been.

  “Do we have—”

  “Yes, you do,” Tommy’s dad said. “So shut up and go.”

  A few minutes later the five of them started down the beach. When the adults were out of earshot, Tommy stopped and jabbed his finger at Parker. “Speaking of shutting up, that’s what you’re going to do the whole time, you hear me?”

  Joel stepped up beside Parker. “Lighten up, Tommy.”

  “Yeah? That’s what you want me to do?”

  “Yeah,” Joel said. He got in Tommy’s face even though their cousin outweighed Joel by thirty pounds. “That’s what I want you to do.”

  “Fine, let’s just go.”

  When they reached the tide pools they spread out, and for the first ten or fifteen minutes Parker had a blast finding starfish. But then Tommy motioned them over to something he’d found. “Come check this out, guys.”

  It was a pool about five feet deep with a sandy bottom. Only a few mussels and sea anemones clung to the rocks.

  “A hot tub!”

  Tommy and his two younger brothers jumped in. Parker was about to join them when Tommy held up his hand. “No, squirt, only for us.”

  “Come on!”

  Parker glanced around, searching for Joel. His brother was at least 150 yards away, poking around a set of rocks to the south.

  “No. Go find a clam to stick up your nose.”

  “I’m coming in,” Parker said. “You can’t stop me.”

  “Yeah, we can.” Tommy glared at him.

  Parker just grinned and leaped into the water. The water was warmer than Parker expected, and he could tell the cannonball he’d done was a good one. Had to be a big splash. His tailbone thumped into the sand at the bottom of the tide pool. He pushed off the sand for the surface, but his head slammed into something. A hand. Holding him under.

  Parker reached up and grabbed the hand, but it was too strong. He kicked at Tommy—it had to be Tommy—but even on the surface it wouldn’t have done any good. He opened his eyes and saw Tommy’s big sto
mach and tried to punch it, but again the water stopped his blows from having any effect.

  He flailed, his hands breaking the surface of the water, and his lungs screamed for air. He dug his fingernails into Tommy’s arm, and Tommy shoved his head deeper into the water. Panic buried Parker, and with the last of his strength he yanked on Tommy’s arm, but it did nothing. Laughter filtered down through the water as his hands slipped from Tommy’s arm. Parker sucked in water and darkness started to seep in.

  Then a muffled voice. “Hey! What are you doing!”

  Joel.

  An instant later Tommy’s hand was gone and a different hand grabbed hard on his forearm and yanked him up. He broke the surface and hacked out a mouthful of water, then another as he was lifted out of the tide pool and laid on the craggy surface of the rocks surrounding the water.

  “You’re okay, you’re okay.”

  Joel’s voice.

  Parker continued to hack up water and gasp for air. The fire in his lungs was like nothing he’d ever known, and for a time he was convinced he would die. Tommy was punished severely, and Parker recovered physically by the end of the day, but emotionally he was still crippled and always would be.

  “Rook? Hey, Rook, you listening to me?”

  Parker shook himself from the memory and blinked at Dawson. “What?”

  “I said, if you’re a swimmer, we’ll have to take a dip sometime before the season ends.”

  “That’d be refreshing.”

  “Yeah, sure would be. It’ll get up to at least fifty-four degrees this summer.” Dawson laughed. “You’d last a good twenty minutes or so before your muscles would start to freeze up and you take a slow, one-way trip to the bottom.” He laughed again.

  Parker wandered back to Abraham, sat, and tried to choke down more of the ship’s coffee. “This isn’t coffee. It’s tar.”

  “Seattle coffee snob, huh?”

  Parker stared into his cup. “Nah, not me. But a friend of mine is. Grinds his coffee every morning, times how long the coffee stays in the water, the whole thing. I’ve had a few of his cups. Spoiled me, I suppose. I never knew coffee was a fruit till he told me. The way he makes his coffee you can taste it.”

  Abraham gave Parker a light elbow. “You’re doing good. I don’t think Logan will sling you overboard. At least not today.”

  “Wow. So nice to know that.”

  Abraham grinned. I’m going to check in with Dawson in the wheelhouse.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “You are?” Abraham stared at him like he’d just suggested breaking into Fort Knox.

  “Yeah, is there a problem with that?”

  “Your choice, Parker.”

  Yeah, it was his choice. He liked Abraham, wanted to hang out with him a little longer. Plus, it was a chance to push a few of Logan’s buttons. See if his whole stay-out-of-the-wheelhouse thing was only for show.

  thirty-five

  FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS life almost worked, but on Thursday evening when she got home, it blew up. Allison found her mom at the computer in the den, a strained look on her face.

  “You okay, Mom?”

  “Yes. I mean . . .” She pointed at the computer screen. “I’m having a little problem here.”

  “With what?”

  “An online business.”

  “What online business?”

  “Um . . . mine.”

  Allison’s hands went cold. “You don’t have an online business.”

  “I do now.” Her mom gave a weak smile. “But I can’t find it today.”

  “No, Mom, you didn’t.” Allison stumbled toward her laptop.

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Sign up for—” Allison stopped as she stared at the screen. “You didn’t give these people any money, did you?”

  Her mom pressed her lips together.

  “Mom?”

  “I wanted to help. They promised I could make up to $1,000 a week . . . and that would help us a lot, you know? So I gave them . . .”

  She trailed off, and Allison asked the question she already knew the answer to. “You gave them your bank info.”

  Her mom stared at her hands, her voice a whisper. “I wanted to get started right away.”

  “Not the checking account. Please tell me it’s not from there.”

  “No.”

  “Which account?”

  “My savings account.”

  “That’s our grocery money and living expenses, Mom. For the next six months.”

  “I know, but the business was only $750. So there’s still plenty left.”

  “When? When did you give them the information?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Allison grabbed the laptop, sat on the couch, and logged in to her mom’s bank account. Then stared at the balance as if her gaze could change the amount that was left.

  The silence in the room stretched from thirty seconds into a minute.

  “Is it all gone?”

  “Yes, Mom,” Allison said, her voice dead, her eyes staring out the window at nothing. “All the money is gone.”

  The next afternoon Derrek poked his head into Allison’s office and said, “Are you okay?”

  She peered at him and blinked four or five times before turning her gaze out the window.

  “Allison?”

  “No. I’m not.” Her body felt numb. “Not okay.”

  Derrek slid into her office. “What’s going on?”

  “My mom did something unwise last night and . . .” She stared at her phone. “And I just got off a call.”

  “With?”

  How could she tell him she’d just lost the Kalimera Resorts account? He’d given it to her only three weeks ago. Derrek had placed his confidence in her, his belief that she could handle the account as well as he could. And now she had to tell him she’d blown it.

  “Would you like to tell me who the call was with?” Derrek settled into a chair in the corner of Allison’s office.

  “No, I wouldn’t.” Allison bit her lip. “It was with Kalimera Resorts. They’re going to go with another firm for their next three projects. I lost the account. I’m so sorry, Derrek.”

  Derrek cleared his throat and clasped his hands together.

  “Did you and Kayla ever lose accounts?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about before that, when you were with Mckenzie? Did you ever lose an account when you were with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what happened with Kalimera is perfectly normal. A common characteristic of doing business, which you have experienced in both your previous architectural incarnations. You didn’t blow it. You did nothing wrong on the account—and I’ve been keeping abreast these past three weeks—and there is likely nothing you could have done differently to keep the account.”

  She looked at him, her mouth open a sliver. Not what she expected.

  “It appears you need to provide yourself with an adequate amount of grace.”

  “Yes.” She nodded. “I probably do.”

  “Let it go, Allison.” Derrek stood. “Anything else?”

  “No, just . . . thanks for . . . Thanks.”

  “You’re quite welcome.” Derrek patted her doorframe and smiled. “Anytime and always.”

  Friday, June 21st

  I should feel good, I really should. I lose the account, and when I tell Derrek he’s not upset. But he had to be, didn’t he? Whether he was or he wasn’t, the point is he gave me understanding and grace, and I should be thrilled with that, but I’m not because he’s yanking me all over the place. One moment he’s taking my money, the next he’s forgiving me for losing a major account. I screamed so loud on the way home I’m surprised I didn’t break my windshield.

  I feel like I’m on a ship that’s in calm seas one moment and listing forty-five degrees in a storm the next.

  And in the midst of all of it, one fact remains. I do not have a signed partnership agreement. The reality is, Derrek’s grace is probab
ly supposed to placate me. But it doesn’t. Not for a second.

  And I sent in this month’s payment. Which feels like I’ve just let go of a tree branch hanging over a cliff, because now all our money is gone.

  She closed the journal. Didn’t feel like writing anything more. Allison made to get up, but the ping of a text message stopped her. She glanced at her phone. Richard.

  Hello, Allison. Thinking of you and the dry bones. Available for conversation whenever you need to chat. Richard

  Dry bones? Allison frowned at the text. What in the world was he talking about? She texted back.

  Did i miss something? What do you mean, ‘dry bones’?

  She waited two, then three minutes. No response.

  Richard?

  Her phone pinged a few seconds later.

  Sorry, had to attend to another matter for a moment. You need to speak to yours.

  Again, Allison stared at the words, not comprehending their meaning.

  Is it possible for you to be a little more cryptic? Your meaning is awfully obvious.

  Richard texted back a laughing icon and, Let’s meet tomorrow if you can. I’ll explain then.

  The next morning Allison checked the journal and let out a soft sigh. No change. Only the words she’d written the night before staring back at her. Wonderful. Just when she really needed a bit of supernatural wisdom, the journal went silent. She didn’t think it was a vending machine, where she could write and the journal would automatically write back, but still. Would have been nice. At least she had Richard.

  They met at noon at Bellevue Downtown Park, just south of Bellevue Square. The sun shone like it was mid-July, but it still felt cold to Allison.

  “Thanks for meeting me, Allison.”

  “Uh, I think that sentiment should go the other way.”

  “Okay.” Richard gazed at the stepped canal that cascaded into the park’s reflecting pond. “How are you?”

  “Frustrated and stressed and tired of life. So . . . not so good.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I wrote in the journal last night and checked it this morning. No change.”