Page-Turner

by Nick Rossi

  ***

  Her friend was in the hallway throwing garbage down the chute and had her back to Darcy as the elevator doors opened. Lucy ran up to her Sonya and started kissing and panting and doing the usual adorable dog thing she was known to do, and Sonya immediately got down on her knees and gave the dog the attention she so seldom asked for. Making that high-pitched, non-sensical baby-ish talk that people use to communicate to pets of all kinds, Sonya heard herself in the echoes of the hallways and stopped, looking up at Darcy.

  “God, Darcy – you went outside looking like that?” Sonya said, the disgust and disapproval literally dropping off of her face. “You look like a homeless person.”

  “Thanks, Son” Darcy retorted, following her friend into her apartment. “It’s my attempt at a new style change. Do you approve?”

  Sonya turned back and smiled. “As much as I like your willingness to try new things, I’d have to say this new selection needs to be kaiboshed immediately. Like I’m going to dress you in my own clothes RIGHT NOW."

  All three girls walked down the long hallway and then escaped into the apartment, the common hallway just as empty as the streets had been. There really did seem to be something sinister in the air, Darcy thought to herself as she closed Sonya’s apartment door shut behind them, happy to be blocking out the outside world.

  ***

  “She offered you what?” Sonya asked incredulously. She and Darcy both found themselves reclining on the large burgundy sofa that they nearly had to nearly take apart in order to fit it up the narrow stairwell of the apartment building when Sonya had first moved in.

  They were laying head to toe on the couch so that they were able to see each other when speaking to one another. Lucy had settled onto a cozy little corner on the armchair that sat beside the sofa. The little dog was asleep within seconds of getting to the apartment. The little dog struggled to keep up with Darcy’s quick pace on the walk over, and upon being given the chance to be stationary for a quick moment, she immediately seized it to get some much needed shut-eye. Darcy was known to use the same excuse to catch a few zzz’s herself.

  “I know, I know. It sounds totally crazy and I’m just as crazy for telling you about it,” Darcy answered.

  She hadn’t meant to tell Sonya what Marina had offered her just the night before but it sort of just rolled out of her mouth when the two friends started talking and catching up on the relative non-event events of the week. They had been gabbing about what their Friday nights had been like (Sonya’s at a local bar for a work function and Darcy contemplating entering a fantasy world) and out it came.

  Sonya’s expression had been classic. There was no denying that Sonya was a ravishing, beautiful woman. Darcy knew this as soon as they met on that first day of school eons ago. When Darcy had come into class that late summer morning, all sweaty and in a brocade patterned dress that did not look good on anyone, she saw Sonya seated, poised, perfectly put together, with a perpetual swimming aura of positivity and confidence. Sonya was still like that to this day, for which she Darcy still in awe over. She didn’t know how her friend always seemed to have her life in order, but she always did. Paired with her effervescently positive attitude, she was truly a force to be reckoned with.

  Now, atop her sofa, Sonya’s beautifully shaped mouth was agape, her tiny forehead wrinkled with shock/surprise/wonder. Even though she had told her Darcy that she had just gotten out of bed, Sonya looked put-together and gorgeous, ready to go out on a date or stroll on a catwalk in Paris.

  “I don’t even know why I’m thinking about it…I mean, it’s totally impossible,” Darcy stammered, blushing with embarrassment. It was a knee-jerk reaction. She wasn’t shy or embarrassed to tell Sonya anything - they had been friends long enough that awkwardness or dirty little secrets never made an impact because they simply didn’t exist.

  “It just seemed so genuine, coming from Marina. It’s not like she’s known to be a crazy person or anything. She’s been so nice to me all of these years…”

  “Darcy, be reasonable – she offered you a chance to enter the world of a teen novel!” Sonya interrupted, her voice rising. “That is not genuine. It’s psychotic.”

  Darcy sat up quickly, her feelings hurt even though she couldn’t really explain why. Her little dog looked up to see her owner, sensing the shift in mood, but then quickly went back to sleep, her fur camouflaged with the rest of the chair.

  “I told you I know it sounds crazy, Son. But there’s something about the whole thing that seems like it's real, like I could actually do it!” she countered, sitting up and facing her friend. “I know it’s bizarre and nuts, but I feel something pulling me towards it.”

  Sonya followed suit and sat up as well, facing her. She smiled at her friend upon seeing that she was truly being honest, and slowly sat back upon the soft cushions that adorned the sofa.

  “Darcy – if there’s anyone in the world that knows how much you would give to enter a fictional world where teens prevail and the only worries you have are finding a suitable prom dress or deciding which boy to date, it’d be me,” Sonya went on, her voice no longer loud but taking on a rather soft quality. “But you have to admit that what’s she’s claiming she can offer is pretty effing cray cray. It’s actually kind of mean, when you think about it.”

  “Mean? How is it mean?” Darcy asked. Her voice got a little too high, almost defensive, and she mentally noted to take it down a notch. Or two.

  “Well, you’ve been going to the bookshop for a long time now. You buy all of those novels, read them over and over again, and talk to Magda about them.”

  “Marina,” she cut in. “Her name’s Marina.”

  “Marina, sorry,” Sonya continued. “Marina knows that your head is wrapped up in these books and for her to make you a totally unrealistic offer is mean because it's like offering you something you’ll never have. It’s like offering a heroin addict a football field worth of drugs to go through for a weekend – it just can’t happen.”

  Darcy audibly sighed and lay back on the sofa. She knew Sonya was trying to be supportive, and she knew that what Marina was offering her would never happen, but it was such a fascinating and intriguing concept to think about. It would literally be like a dream come true. She could escape the humdrum existence she lived day in and day out, and be that teen again but in an ideal world and in a perfect body.

  “I know, Son – I know. I just wanted to tell you about it, is all,” she replied, closing her eyes. “It makes for an exciting story.”

  Sonya got up and disappeared into the kitchen for a few minutes. When she returned, she was holding two cups of Jasmine tea and a tray of cookies. Both girls smiled.

  “Now this is reality,” Sonya said, and both girls started laughing. There was nothing like spending a cool fall afternoon with a friend eating cookies and being all cozy on a sofa. So why was the only thing she was thinking about was Marina’s offer?

  ***

  She hadn’t meant to stay longer than an hour but ended up staying until midnight that Saturday night. The reasoning for the lengthy stay was the perfect combination of random instances, mostly governed by the Breaking Bad marathon on AMC (it just repeated so well, Darcy said to herself to validate the 9 hour viewing session) and overactive mind she was experiencing. The latter wasn’t exactly a new behavior she had to learn how to deal with. In fact, she had convinced herself that she had a ‘restless mind’ in the same way some people suffered from ‘restless leg’ syndrome. She didn’t intend for her mind to keep bouncing from idea to idea, from analysis to analysis, just like those poor few who didn’t mean to have their legs randomly spasm out and move while trying to fall asleep for the night.

  She walked home with from Sonya’s and quickly changed back into her pajamas. Fortunately, her pajamas also doubled as ‘taking the dog to pee’ clothes which saved her the hassle of changing her outfit every time she had to take Lucy out for a bio break.

  With her sweats in a mammoth pile on th
e wooden floor and her goal to throw out her stained sweatpants still intact, she jumped right back into her massive, king-sized bed and reached over to her nightstand to continue reading her 'Bright Nightfall' novel when her cell phone began to vibrate.

  She immediately yelped in fright not only from the sudden sound which soon filled her apartment, but from the shock that someone would be calling her. She used her Smartphone mostly for playing games and listening to music. Receiving calls was the least activity that the phone received.

  After seeing the words “Blocked Number” appear on the gadget’s display, she surmised that it was probably a telemarketer calling. But would a telemarketer really be calling in the middle of the night? She supposed stranger things did happen.

  “Hello?” she responded tentatively, her voice vaguely annoyed and hostile, two things she generally was not. It was just that she hated, hated the concept of telemarketing, let alone bothering some unsuspecting person in their home on a Saturday night. Darcy found it distasteful.

  “Hello Darcy,” the woman’s voice said, small and succinct.

  “Marina?” she replied, completely surprised.

  “It is I. I am sorry to bother you,” Marina continued, her accent barely noticeable. “But I wanted to make sure you were ok after last night. You stormed out of here rather abruptly. Griffin and I were worried sick.”

  Worried sick? Darcy thought. Why? Because I left a store hours after it was supposed to close for the day? And how just did Marina get my telephone number?

  “I’m fine,” she replied, her voice calmer and strong. “There is nothing to worry about.”

  “But there is,” Marina quickly countered, at once her accent distinct. “I made you an offer and you ran away.”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s an offer,” she said. “An offer implies a choice to select something that will feasibly occur, often soon.”

  There was a silence on the other end of the phone that went on for a few uncomfortable seconds before she heard the woman clear her throat.

  “I know it is hard to believe but this is a real offer, Darcy. It could happen. You just need to come to me and tell me that you want to do it, to make your fantasies come true.”

  At that point, she couldn’t help but chuckle. Was Marina really that crazy? How could she not have seen it after spending some much time with the older woman? She couldn’t shake her gut feeling though that Marina was indeed being genuine, that she was really making her an offer that she would deliver upon.

  Sensing her trepidation, Marina continued. “Please think about it some more. Suspend your disbeliefs and tell me your decision. You know where to find me.”

  And with that the conversation was over. She kept the phone to hear ear until she heard the signal reminding her the call was indeed done. At once, her mind was again a jumble of thoughts. As a defiant act of escapism, she ran into the living room and tried to find something to watch on television that could let her mind be distracted for a bit, and before she knew it, it was 3 am and she found herself pseudo-daydreaming about what it would be like to be a crystal meth maker with a heart of gold, or something like that.

  Chapter 6

  Sitting at her desk on that agitated Monday morning, she sensed trepidation in the air. There was something intangible lingering there which attributed to the omniscient feeling of dread. She felt a tiny, tiny knot begin to grow in the pit of her stomach at some point between midnight and 4 am the night before. The tiny knot of nerves had seemed to awaken her just as she had fallen asleep from a busy day of housecleaning and reading.

  She had finished 'Bright Nightfall' and was going to get started on a new book but found herself rather sleepy after taking her dog out for the night pee. Typically, she would jump right into a new fictional world after having just finished the previous one, but that night she was feeling slightly unusual, askew even. In retrospect, she realized that that was when the tiny seeds of anxiety were starting to grow in the deep recesses of her stomach, nearly reaching the size of a fully grown tree by the time Monday morning rolled around.

  That Monday had started like any other (late for the bus, breakfast in the form of a granola bar, a coffee nearly the size of her forearm). Upon arriving at the office, she had thought she was being paranoid about something bad that was going to happen, some impending doom that she often brought upon herself. She was never surprised when nothing came of these feelings of dread.

  Sylvia came fluttering into the office in an outfit barely appropriate for work and sat down briefly beside Darcy, her voice high and excited. Darcy felt the seeds rumble in her belly.

  “Did you hear? Did you?” Sylvia practically yelled. She tried to remain calm and disinterested even though she knew that on some level that Sylvia had a juicy piece of office gossip that she really wanted to hear.

  “Hear what?” Darcy asked nonchalantly, slowly turning on her computer and then taking a sip of her gargantuan coffee.

  Sylvia looked like she was going to positively burst out of her shirt, not just because of her barely contained breasts but because there was news she so badly wanted to share and clearly couldn’t keep hidden any longer. She estimated that Sylvia probably just found out about ‘this news’ just minutes before, given the flurry of fresh excitement.

  “Oh my god, I can’t believe you didn’t hear. Absolutely everyone is talking about it in the mail room!” Sylvia replied, her voice high-pitched enough that Darcy thought the windows would come crashing down towards them.

  The office mailroom was housed in a long, rectangular room in which all staff had to walk through in order to get to their desks each morning. It was an old building, circa the 60’s or 70’s if she had to guess, and clearly not designed for an office but rather for a bank. Thus, the walk through the mailroom was strange but expected in a retrofitted location such as the building they found themselves in.

  On her own walk through the mailroom earlier that morning, she had sensed an invisible chatter moving around her. Though no one approached her to share any tidbit of news or gossip, there certainly was a perpetual feeling of apprehension and excitement. She instantly credited it to a manifestation of those seeds of worry that had begun to sprout in her stomach just hours before, thus causing her to ignore the notion there actually could be some sort of momentous event or news that was to be shared.

  “I didn’t hear anything on my walk through this morning,” she answered, watching her computer monitor light up and her email box showing 50 emails with the words “Did you hear?” bolded in the subject lines. She turned to face Sylvia, wanting to hear the news in person than through the obvious broken telephone method that populated her in-box.

  “Well, you’re going to hear all about it now!” Sylvia giggled, moving closer to her. She caught a whiff of Sylvia's trademark overly floral-scented perfume that always itched her nose, forcing her to hold back a sneeze. “Arin is going to make a big announcement this morning at 11 am in the boardroom. Apparently the CEO is here, too. What do you think he’s going to tell us?”

  She felt her heart sink for no particular reason. She was not worried that she was going to get into trouble for her lack of job performance. Actually, she knew that she was one of the top producers and one of the most accountable in the entire division. But she felt those seeds multiply in her stomach, feeling a forest now beginning to flourish in her inner compartments of flesh and gases.

  “I really don’t know, Syl. They’re always talking about ‘restructuring’ aren’t they? Maybe it’s something to do with that?”

  Sylvia stayed quiet momentarily as though she hadn’t even contemplated that that was the cause of the meeting. She probably thought that they were chosen to participate in some twisted reality show, Darcy thought. Poor woman.

  “You’re always so sensible and always so right,” Sylvia replied, sitting up from the desk top and straightening her barely-there skirt. “I guess I’ll see you at 11!”

  With that, Sylvia moved to a nearby staff at a
neighboring cubicle and continued her gossip tirade. Darcy saw in her inbox that there was indeed an email requesting her presence in the boardroom that morning at 11 am, sent from none other than slimy Arin Ray. She felt instantaneously alarmed and annoyed at having to go to such a meeting, partly because she didn’t really like to consort with her colleagues if she didn’t have to, and partly because of the sense of dread that she begun to feel the night before.

  Glancing at her alarm clock that sat atop her desk (a gift from Chip), she felt that the minutes were taking unusually long to pass. She tried to burrow herself into her assigned work, purposely not looking at the time that constantly prevailed on her computer screen or flashing on the alarm clock to her right, but every time she did steal a glance at either of the times, she felt like 11 am couldn’t come fast enough.

  ***

  The day had turned somewhat dark, and not just because of the impending doom that she had been sensing. The skies seemed to become full of clouds that blocked any rays of sunshine that could have potentially lifted her moods. In fact, it almost looked like it was just a matter of time before a torrential downpour was set to happen. She even thought she heard thunder, but then later realized it was her stomach growling. The granola bar she had had for breakfast that morning was clearly not cutting it.

  If she thought there was a buzz of excitement in the office earlier that morning, then there now was a proverbial symphony made of energy and auras that flooded her fields of vision. It had seemed as though everyone had had just one too many cups of coffee. She tried to appear non-enthused by the general state of insanity in the usual humdrum office.

  Once she noticed that 10 am came and went, she forced herself to use the ladies room. She didn’t know how long the meeting would go on for, and regrettably she recalled the last meeting the office had held. It was regarding the merger of two law firms, hers being one of them, and it had taken nearly 3 hours to describe the anticipated changes that would impact each and every employee. She had just scarfed down a hot dog and a big gulp (she was post-break up and feeling particularly down on that spring day) and booked it into the meeting.