The Elevator Trilogy

The Elevator Trilogy Page 5

by Les Cohen

  44. Shiny Things

  His handwriting was something you had to learn to read. It was quick, the way he talked, going this way and that, often without stopping between the words. Slightly out of control, but in an artistic way. And so began another entry, the way he started all the others.

  “This is the Journal of Jason Sinners,” he wrote at the top of a fresh page. “Wednesday, April 20, 2011.” He’d be given a beautiful leather-bound diary, but preferred to write on single sheets of copier paper he kept in a drawer, still in the torn paper in which the ream had come wrapped, next to an open box of his favorite pens. He liked the gel kind, black ink with the medium tip, that moved effortlessly across the page. There was a notebook computer, screen up, to his left on the table he used as a desk, but there was something about drawing his thoughts on paper that he preferred.

  Rubbing the pen for a moment, he let his hand settle into position and wrote...

  She was a girl who liked shinny things.

  I was walking by myself back from a movie the other night, my friends having gone their own ways, thinking about everything, but about nothing in particular. It was unseasonably cool which could have been why I wasn’t feeling tired even though it had be one of those days. The cool air on my face and hands felt good. It had been one of those days. Hell. Who am I kidding? It’s been one of those years. I thought the movie would help, but all it did was blow two more hours of my life. I was listless, the first time in my life I’ve had a good excuse to use that word. Nothing I had been doing lately, by “lately” I mean for months, seemed to be something I wanted to be doing, no matter how much sense it seemed make when I first thought I wanted to do it.

 

  I don’t drink much, but felt the gravity of laughter drawing me through the double doors that swung both ways into and out of “The Corner Bar, No Grill” – so the sign said along the side of the building. I wouldn’t usually go there alone. Too much chemistry in the room to be the odd guy out on some stool, but I figured I had nothing to lose with nothing to prove and no one to prove it to.

  So I walked in, a few feet past that annoying pole just inside the doors, beginning to think maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. I don’t know how long I’d been standing there when I heard her voice.

  “You can sit with me if you like,” she suggested nervously, catching me by surprise.

  Turning to see the voice, my eyes wouldn’t let me speak.

  “Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand. “There’s a little table,” she pointed across the crowded room, “that’s perfect.” And off we went, talking and laughing, without the slightest pretense, for what was left of the evening. It was effortless and there was none of that out-of-body experience crap, you know, where I’m talking to someone, but also standing there beside myself, watching what’s going on, rolling my imaginary eyes, making disapproving looks.

  Her hair was frosted. The colored beads of her necklace were almost luminescent, daring anyone to call them or her “cheap.” And woven into the light top she was wearing, somehow, flecks of something gold that sparkled, flashing at me with every move she made. Gold chain bracelets that fell perfectly across the back of her hand when she stroked the condensation off the side of her beer. Full breasted, and I like those things, but tonight I almost didn’t notice.

  We’ve had a few dates since then. Learning what we like to eat. Work, family. The usual stuff. Holding hands. Walking. Endless talking about everything, much of it drivel, but neither of us cared. Turns out she lives nearby, for longer than I have. We’d just never run into each other before. Too bad, but maybe the time wasn’t right.

  She’s gone back to her place, so I’m writing these notes before I hit the sack.

  We were going out again tonight, and planned to meet in the small park outside my building, go out to dinner, someplace close where we could walk. Eat some great Italian, and maybe, finally, stop dancing around the chemistry that we’ve been holding back. There’s only so much standing close to a person you can do with your clothes on before you risk breaking something.

  An hour to go before meeting her… Her name’s Evelyn, by the way, which, for some reason, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned before. Hmm. Anyway, it was an hour to go before meeting her. I was in the shower. It’s a large bathroom, one of the cool things about my condo, with an open shower, water falling from a rainforest showerhead above me. No curtains or glass. The extra wide door, that I always leave open, makes it seem almost like part of the bedroom.

  My back to the door, my head rolling, I was enjoying the warm water hitting my face.

  “Hey.” It was her, Evelyn.

  I opened my eyes, and then turned, slowly rubbing the scented bar of soap I’d been holding. She was standing in the doorway, her right hand touching the frame. I could see the clothes she’d been wearing lying on the hardwood floor and Persian rug behind her. No bracelets or rings this time. Nothing but the short, fine gold chain necklace with the name, “Jason,” I’d bought her for fun the day we went to the beach.

  “You left your front door unlocked,” she said, not the least bit nervous. “Mind if I join you?”

  “To be honest, naked women interrupting my shower haven’t been a problem, until now. …Maybe I need a security system. What do you think?”

  “Not to worry,” she said, walking toward me. “I locked it behind me. One naked woman in your shower is all you’re going to need.”

  Well, that shower took longer than usual, that’s for sure. She took care of me first, which was easy, too easy, and then I did her which, to be honest, didn’t take all that much longer. I guess it’d been a while for both of us. A couple of hours later, after polishing off the Chinese delivery we ordered, we did each other, together, the way it’s supposed to be, and that was the one that counted.

  Maybe Saturday, when my daughter and her husband stop by for lunch, I’ll invite Evelyn to join us.

  Driving through the gates to meet her father, Amy Manning, Jason’s youngest daughter, parked their wagon in the visitors’ section just inside “The Village” walls.

  “Come on, guys,” she ordered their kids in the back seat. “Everybody out!”

  Her husband, Bill, waited and closed the back door on his side after their son and daughter were clear. “Hey. Look out for cars.”

  “Really, Dad?” their oldest, Alice, said sarcastically. “What cars?” Except for the ones coming and going into the parking lot, “The Village” senior citizens community didn’t allow more than golf carts inside the walls.

  “Yeah, really.” You and John go on ahead to Granddaddy’s apartment. We’ll catch up.”

  Grabbing her husband’s arm, Amy and Bill took their time walking down the middle of Main Street while their kids ran ahead.

  “You know,” Bill was sincere, “this is a really nice place, all things considered. …I like the way it’s laid out like a little town, with shops and townhouses, and interesting condos, instead of just some boring building with numbers on people’s doors.”

  “A grocery store that gives cooking classes. And I love that little movie theater,” Amy pointed down a cross street at the old style marquis, “and that bar on the corner. ...Yeah, it is nice.”

  “So you’re finally okay that we talked him into doing this?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay with it, mainly because he’s been sounding a lot better lately.” Amy was busy with her jobs and the kids, but still managed to talk or at least email her father every few days. “I know he’s pushing 80, but moving in here after Mom died and he stopped working was harder for him than I expected. To be honest, I thought he’d be done for by now.”

  “Done for?”

  “I’m telling you,” Amy confessed, “I didn’t think he was going to make it, but lately…”

  “I’m guessing it’s because he’s been hanging out with Mrs. Goldberg a lot lately,” Bill speculated with a smile, “you
know, the woman we met last time.”

  “Yeah, I wonder what that’s like,” Alice responded, mockingly grabbing her husband’s tush, looking up at him, trying not to visualize her father and one of his lady friends together.

  “A tad too much jewelry for my taste,” Bill volunteered.

  “But not too much perfume, which tells you that at least her nose still works.”

  “And no hairspray. Now that’s a real bonus. I hate hairspray. ...I don’t even like the idea of hairspray.”

  “Okay, already. I get it that old people make you nervous.”

  “At least she didn’t try to hug us.”

  “Since when does hugging make you nervous?”

  “Well,” Bill reacted to Amy’s putting her arm around his waist, “I think hugging leads to sex.”

  "Geez," Amy looked up at Bill and smiled, "I sure hope so."

  45. Stranger On The Bus

  The title is from the song, “One of us,” by Eric Bazilian, originally

  released by Joan Osborne in March of 1995.

  “You’re late.” Shirley looked up from the charts she was reviewing, pretending to be the mean supervisor, watching her friend adjust the scrubs the nurses wore in their wing, and then use a scrunchy to wrap her shoulder length hair into a sloppy bun.

  “Walter needed a quickie,” Denise giggled back, her arms up and hands still working on the back of her head, “which, thank goodness, turned out to take a little longer than he expected and I missed the early bus.”

  “Go, Walter!” Shirley commented approvingly, her usual enthusiasm lost in what she was reading about the critically ill woman waiting for a room in the temporary patient area behind the glass walls across from their nurses’ station.

  “What’s going on in there?”

  “The patient is Emma Gold, 86. Medics brought her in an hour ago. It’s congestive heart failure she’s had for years. That’s her husband sitting in the chair next to her. I called her daughter. She and a brother are on their way over, but they’re an hour away.”

  “She’s not going to make it, is she?” Denise could tell from the description of Mrs. Gold’s condition, but more by the way the flesh on the sides of her friend’s mouth lay heavy, without the slightest hint of optimism.

  “Who knows, but I don’t think so. She’s very weak. Irregular heartbeat Dr. Bobby doesn’t think they can stabilize. Bob called her doctor who said she was surprised Emma’s held on this long. She’s out of town, or she’d be here.”

  Denise paused, realizing that there was something more going on here than the usual old person passing away. “So why do I feel so sad?”

  “It’s the old man. The way he’s sitting there, on the edge of his chair, holding and kissing her hand, knowing this is probably their last conversation.”

  The two nurses stared silently at the couple, Emma on her side, her hand touching her husband’s face while they talked in the soft light of the fixture over her bed. It was dark out, earlier than usual because of storm clouds drifting in over the city. Santos, the only male nurse on their shift, had turned off the overheads. The other two beds in the holding room were empty. On his way out, Santos stopped to initial a form on the counter where Denise and Shirley were standing.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, ladies.”

  “Geez, Santos. Are you crying?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he sniffed to stop a runny nose, his eyes watering, but then turned to look at the couple through the glass. “You can’t hear them from out here. …She’s dying and, when she does, he’ll be alone but, in their voices, in the way they look at each other when they talk, there is a strength, the way they’re reassuring each other. …I wanted to listen, but I couldn’t stay there any longer. ...I’ll see you guys later.” The two women looked at Santos, at each other, and back at the old couple.

  “Are we getting her a room?”

  “We won’t have one until the morning, and I’m not sure she’ll hang on that long.”

  In the holding room, the husband brought his wife’s hand to his lips.

  “How long have you known?” he asked her, his voice uneven with grief.

  “Pretty much since our twelfth anniversary. We were getting ready to go out for the evening,” she said softly. “You were brushing your teeth. I was plucking a few gray hairs and commenting on the lines under my eyes and how you didn’t look a day older than when we met. Almost the next day, you had a few white hairs and matching lines of your own. And I got to thinking… You’ve never been sick. Never so much as twisted an ankle, never cut yourself shaving. Do you know that you never sneeze? …You’ve never really gotten older, have you? This face, the slowness of your walk, they’re just an effect, aren’t they, a favor you’ve done for me all these years?” She was weak, but sure of herself, and not the least bit angry at what he had done for love.

  No answer, just a wry smile.

  “It’s okay. Whatever you are, I love you. ...I’ll always love you.”

  They were quiet for a moment.

  “So, what exactly are you honey? …Don’t let me die without knowing,” she asked, stroking the soft, lightly bristled skin of her husband’s unshaven face.

  “Shouldn’t I be the one comforting you?” he smiled ever so slightly before answering her question. “…I really don’t know. I can’t remember,” he spoke slowly, unable to look away from her eyes, “ever being a child. It just seems like I was there, here and there. I don’t know for how long exactly. There are long, long periods I can’t remember.”

  “The history you teach…” Her husband had been a professor and, since he retired, wrote articles about specific events. “You were there weren’t you?”

  No response.

  “…Hey,” they both laughed when she said it. “Come on. …I’m dying, honey. Let me know already. Who am I going to tell? ...Besides, I love you,” she told him. “You know that. Always have,” she reassured him, “always will.”

  “I love you too, honey.”

  “You were there, weren’t you? ‘By the rude bridge that arched the flood, their flag to April's breeze unfurled, here once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard round the world.’”

  “You always loved that old hymn.”

  “Was that you, Jack?”

  “One of my finest moments,” his face turned happy even while a tear spilled out the corner of an eye. “Their spirit, the collective emotion of those farmers, their vision so clear, so pure. …I can feel it even now.”

  They were quiet again, his hands rubbing hers.

  “You’ve had other wives haven’t you? Children? How many children have you had?”

  “Yes, I’ve been married, but I… but you’re the prettiest,” he added hurriedly, “hands down, the prettiest.”

  Emma was almost too weak to laugh, but managed to anyway. “I know you’ve loved me. It’s okay.”

  “And yes, I’ve had other children. Not many, other than ours.”

  “Are any of them still…”

  “No. They’re long gone, although they had children, and their children, children.”

  “Are they…”

  “Normal?” he laughed and cracked a smile that made her happy. “I don’t... Yes, as far as I know.”

  “Jackson?”

  “Wow. ...You don’t often call me by my full name. Am I in trouble?”

  “He was your son, wasn’t he?”

  Her husband shook his head, left to right, smiling at her with his eyes. “After all this time, you wait until the last second to ask the big questions?”

  “I don’t think I really wanted to know until now.”

  “Yeah. He was my son.”

  “You were ‘Joseph’ then?”

  “No, not exactly. The stories aren’t even close to what happened. …I had a son, a gifted speaker, a social worker for his time who cared more about others than himself. He just offended the wr
ong people who viewed his popularity as a threat to their authority.”

  “Jack,” she paused, realizing the importance of what she was about to say, “you’re the father of the Son of God.”

  “You make it sound way more than it was. ...I was young. Mary was beautiful, like you. Stuff happens. …You know, Emma, we’ve had our share of stuff, haven’t we?” But she wouldn’t be distracted by his flirting with her, not with so little time left.

  “So why didn’t you save him? He was your son, Jack. Your son.”

  “I... I couldn’t, honey. I don’t have powers, just relationships. I empathize well. I can influence, but can’t control. I encouraged him and them, the movement whose time had come, without understanding that it would cost him his life. …Don’t you think I’d save you if I could?”

  “Maybe you just don’t think it’s the right thing to do, saving me. I would understand.”

  “No, no. No. If only I could. At best, all I can do is what any other loving husband would, savor the incredible strength you have always had, that was always yours and yours alone. All these years, it is you upon whom I have relied. It is the force of your life, not mine, that will sustain me ...when you’re gone.”

  “That’s nice to hear, Jack,” she said, wanting to, but not really believing him.

  “It’s not nice. It’s literally true.”

  “What about all the stories, all the lore and legend?”

  “Emma… Emma, don’t waste these...”

  She silenced him, her fingers bushing across his mouth, her strength slipping away. “It’s okay,” she reassured him, seeing his eyes glistening with the onset of tears. “I need to know.”

  “ …The simple secret is that I am nothing like what so many believe. It is I... I am the one who exists by virtue of their will and character, and yours, especially yours,” he smiled again. “I am nothing without them. Nothing without you.”

  Stroking his face, she wondered out loud,” I suppose it’s lucky for us that you’re one of the good guys.” She smiled back. “Are there others like you?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. I suspect there are others, some of them not so nice. Others I’ve never met, as far as I know, but whose work is all too familiar. …If only I knew how I came to be,” Jack thought out loud and then did his best to answer. “Sometimes I feel a foreboding, a sense that there are other influences at work as strong, maybe stronger and farther reaching. ...I don’t know, honey. After all this time, I still don’t understand.”

  “Can you die, Jack? …Can you die like me?”

  “Emma,” he begged her, “please,” but had always respected her determination. “...I don’t know, honey. There are times when I’ve felt weak, like now, as if life itself was spilling from me, and other times, angry, vengeful times when I feel a power welling up inside me, but to what end, I’m never sure. When I have hurt myself, twisted an ankle running, cut myself working in the shop, I heal very quickly, almost instantaneously. Maybe I’m just a freak of nature with a very long life span. I don’t know, Emma. I just don’t know.”

  Her voice too faint, it was her eyes that asked him to go on.

  “I’m not sure I’m anything more than a figment of your, of everyone’s collective imagination. I’m not sure I exist except,” he stopped and swallowed, “…except for the goodness that is in you, like a mirror, not more, but no less than the reflection of what others see in themselves. Look away, and I’m gone.”

  Emma seemed to be fading.

  “So,” he said, trying to make conversation. “The kids are on their way,” he reminded her, giving her reason to hold on. “So... You caught on to the fact that I never sneeze? …Hmm.”

  “That,” Emma managed to whisper, “and the fact that you still make love like the 20 year old you were when we first met.”

  “Can I help it if I’m still crazy about you?”

  She laughed. “If only we could make love one more...” And she squeezed his hands and closed her eyes for the last…

  “...time.” He finished the sentence for her, paused and then leaned forward to kiss her softly while she was still warm to his lips. “If I were only what you believed in, would I ever let you leave me? ...I will always love you. I only hope I’ve told you often enough.” Standing, he pulled up the hospital sheet and blanket to her shoulders, tucking her in as if she were only sleeping.

  Looking down at the back of his left hand, he stared for a moment at the simple gold wedding band he had never taken off, and then down to see his wife’s face. With his right hand, he rolled and pulled the ring off, putting it into his left hand, his fist closing around it. One last look at Emma, and he turned and walked away. Out in the corridor, in front of the nurses’ station, he barely noticed the two women standing behind the counter watching him heading for the automatic doors and the street outside.

  His head down, his posture weak, an exhausted Jack Gold let his left arm go limp, the ring it was holding bouncing off the tile floor and rolling away behind him, spinning to a stop under a piece of portable equipment someone had left against the wall.

  As the outside doors opened, Denise ran to get it for him. “Mr. Gold!” she shouted while she pushed the cart out of the way, “you dropped your…” but the doors had already closed behind him.

  Out front, at the curb that ran along the edge of the small plaza in front of that side entrance to the hospital, a man and woman, she in her late fifties, him a little younger, rushed out of their car that had come to a sudden stop, almost running toward the doors ahead of them, worried they’d be too late. On their way, they passed a young man apparently in his 30’s. Hands in his pockets, the collar of his jacket folded up, his face glistening in the lamplight as the fine mist from a light rain began to fill the air.

  A few feet past him, the woman stopped and turned around. Feeling her look, the young man turned for a moment. There was something about him she thought was familiar, but then he kept walking, stepping off the curb on his way to the bus stop across the street.

  “Merle,” her brother, now at the open hospital doors, called back to her. “Come on. We’ve got to see Mom.” Two steps backward, her eyes watching as the young man disappeared behind the front of an arriving bus, seeing him get on and walk down the aisle as the bus wasted no time pulling away, until she gave up and hustled to catch up with her brother.

  “Hi,” the woman, short of breath,” blurted out to Shirley, the station nurse still at her post. “I’m Merle Conners. This is my brother. We’re here to see my mother, Emma Gold. Someone called to say…”

  “I’m sorry,” Shirley interrupted. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Conners. I was the one who called you. Your mother,” she gestured to the holding room where Denise had turned on the overhead lights. “She passed away just a few minutes ago. Your father was with her. ...I’m surprised you didn’t see him on your way in.”

  Merle and her brother were stunned and speechless, spinning their heads to look at their mother lying peacefully in her bed, and back at the nurse while Denise walked hurriedly toward them.

  “Ms. Conners, do you understand…”

  “I understand that there must be some mistake,” she said assertively. “I…”

  “Excuse me,” Denise spoke up, holding out her hand. Your father dropped this on his way out. I tried to call to him, but...”

  Danny Gold took the ring out of Denise’s hand, raised it close to his face to look for the inscription, the tiny print engraving around its interior. “I'll always love you,” he read it out loud.

  “Did you get this from my mother?” Merle asked, her face contorted with confusion.

  “No. It’s, uh, like I said, your father dropped it on his way out. I guess… I guess he was too upset to wait for you.”

  “Nurse,” Danny responded with certainly, “our father died suddenly, a few years ago. They were crazy in love,” he added. “To tell you the truth,” he sai
d turning to look toward his mother, reluctant to go over to her just yet, “as sick as she was, I’m surprised she lasted this long after he passed away.”

  46. Craig’s Lisp

  From their respective offices where they worked throughout the sprawling single story complex, the four interns – the only four the firm had hired that year from the best of the best graduate schools in architecture and urban design – converged and now walked side by side down the wide diagonal path that led to Craig’s corner offices.

  Built on the farm his grandfather had left him, its pastoral rural location was in stark contrast to struggling urban centers in which the young firm had made its fortunes. With degrees in finance, urban economics and design, Craig – who insisted that everybody call everybody by their first names – had found a way to renovate the worst neighborhoods in our major cities, making them thriving communities, mostly for their original residents and businesses, and do it all at the expense of the private sector without a single dime of government funding. If that just sounded like a lot, it was. He was only in his early 30s, but this was already his time.

  The four of them worked together, more or less, and were the closest to being friends any four twenty-somethings, as self-absorbed as they were, could be.

  “Why do you suppose he wants to see us?” Alice was uncharacteristically nervous. “Are we in trouble?”

  “What,” Jason’s voice was lacking the usual brash confidence that was his trademark, “you think we’re on one of his lists?

  “What lists?” Susanne was seldom aware of anything that didn’t involve her, personally.

  “Are you kidding?” Alice flashed her best “hard to believe” expression. “Word is he keeps lists of everyone who’s ever offended him, everyone who’s ever screwed up, …”

  “Everyone he’s thinking about promoting?” Always the optimistic, Howard just had a gut feeling that something good was up.

  “You know,” Jason was busy buttoning his shirt collar and pulling up the tie he and he alone wore in flagrant mockery of the firm’s unspoken casual dress code. “I have heard he’s looking for someone to help him with the Baltimore project.”

  “Maybe help him open an office there to supervise…” Susanne pulled up her strapless top for the fourth time in the past two minutes while both Jason and Howard watched and Alice, less ample in that department, looked on disapprovingly.

  “…Did you catch his presentation in front of the Mayor’s committee,” Alice interrupted in a vain attempt to become the center of their conversation. “What a speaker.”

  Howard was a natural suck-up. “Pitch perfect.”

  But Alice was a close second. “The way he blended all that droll data with just the right measure of passion.” She was almost swooning.

  Tied with Susanne. “The seriousness of how he talked about the impact on the community, without losing the excitement of his designs.”

  “And have you seen the babe he lives with?” Jason’s comment was inspired by Susanne pulling up her top for the fifth time.

  “It’s his wife, Bozo!” Alice corrected him. “And Susanne, will you puh-leeze just let ‘em fall out already.”

  “Let what fall out?” Howard asked even though he knew the answer.

  “He should be in the movies.” Susanne was serious.

  “What?” Alice was clearly having problems with Susanne.

  “Are you kidding? Craig’s handsome, without being pretty, ...without even being cute, come to think of it. How’s that even possible?”

  Susanne countered with, “‘Hot’ is more like it.”

  “If you want a guy’s opinion,” Howard chimed in as if either of the women cared, “It’s the voice. It’s that voice. Perfect elocution. Just the right tone.”

  “You know,” Alice was suddenly reflective as they approached the desk where Craig’s personal assistant, Marlene, was about to greet them. “It’s true. When he’s up there in front of all those big shots, when he’s really into one of his sales presentations, I get this tingling…”

  “Tingling?” Howard wondered out loud. “Where?”

  “Buddy,” Jason laid his hand on Howard’s shoulder as if he, Jason, was any more successful with the girls, “you really need to get…”

  “…whenever he talks,” Alice finished her sentence. “What do you think that means?”

  “It means you’re an easy tingler.” It was a cheap shot, but Susanne couldn’t help herself.

  “We’re here to see Craig,” Jason announced to Marlene in his most professional voice.

  “Of course. Craig is expecting you,” Mary explained, pushing back her chair and standing up to escort them the extra few yards to their destination. “You’ll meet in his conference room. I’ll tell Craig you’re here.”

  They were quiet now. Splitting up, two on each side of the table, the four of them sat left and right of where Craig would be sitting at the end. A few seconds later, the silence was broken and their late morning meeting got underway.

  “Thank you for coming,” Craig greeted them, turning to push the floor-to-ceiling glass door to its full open position. (Even the walls were glass almost everywhere throughout all their offices, adding to the feeling of one large open space.) Placing the yellow pad he was carrying square on the table in front of him, they could see their four names neatly printed in, what else, but a list, each name with a few hand-written words beneath it. Craig sat down, rolled his chair forward, pulled out the .7 mm gel pen – bold, but not too bold – he kept in his right pants pocket and began playing with it while he surveyed his employees.

  “Did you have a question, Alice?”

  “No. I just couldn’t help but notice how neatly, how artistically you write.”

  “This isn’t a good time to be sucking up, Alice. For the record, it’s my training as an architect. That, and I have minor…” The four of them glanced, eyes only, at each other. “OCD tendencies that I struggle with daily. ...Is that a problem for you?”

  “Uh, no,” she snapped back, almost defensively. “Of course not.”

  “But then the girth of Amy Collier’s thighs – the young woman who audits your division’s expenses – somehow they’re something you can email your friends about?”

  “What? …How do you know that?” was what Alice wanted to say, but wisely chose not too, electing instead to be silent.

  “And Susanne,” Craig shifted his glance to her side of the table.

  “Yes?” She cleared her throat.

  “Let me congratulate you on how effectively you recorded a colleague farting in the ladies room and then managed to publish the audio file directly from your cell phone. …Very impressive, if it weren’t unforgivably juvenile. …Excellent fidelity, by the way.”

  “Why am I on your list?” Jason asked, feigning innocence.

  “You’re on my list, Jason,” because you have two things in common with your colleagues.” Craig started to explain but was distracted by that look on Howard’s face as if he wanted desperately to raise his hand. ...Howard, you look like you have something to say. What is it?”

  “To be honest…”

  “That would be nice.”

  “I get the fact that you think we’re…”

  “Jerks.” Alice finished his sentence for him.

  “Actually, ‘insensitive’ was the word I was looking for, but, to be honest…”

  “You said that,” Susanne sniped at her colleague.

  “Could you give me a break here?” Howard snapped back. “You’re not without your own problems.”

  “No one is, Howard.” Jason was worried about the hole Howard was in the process of digging for them.

  “Like what, Howard,” Craig asked in a calm and sincere voice.

  “Well,” Susanne, seeing that Craig didn’t seem offended, decided to pick up the stream. “That,” she said, pointing to his yellow pad. “You make lists.”

  “Doesn’t everyb
ody?” Craig cocked his head ever so slightly.

  “Are you kidding? A list now and then maybe, but you’re famous for them. They’re called ‘Craig’s Lists,’ you know, like the...”

  “He gets it,” Alice thought Susanne had said enough.

  “Word is...” It was Jason’s turn, “that you’ve been keeping them since you were a kid. Lists about everything. That you were so preoccupied with making lists you actually went to see a therapist about them.”

  “I see.” Craig leaned back in his chair. “Alice, you’ve been quiet. Is there nothing you have to say?”

  “Only that I would be very pleased to work with you on the Baltimore project.”

  Howard rolled his eyes while Susanne gave Alice a more severe look, wondering, almost out loud, how much ass Alice was willing to kiss to promote her own.

  “Alright. Enough.” Craig took back control over the meeting. “As I was saying, the four of you have two things in common. The first is a personality defect that I find objectionable.”

  “Are we being fired?” Howard asked, but Craig ignored him.

  “The second is that you are all exceptionally competent in your various specializations, all of which I’ll need if our new engagement is to be completed – to my standards, on time and, preferably, under budget. So here’s the deal. I’m going to overlook your shortcomings, for now. I’m going tolerate you, a simple courtesy you don’t seem able to show others, even to yourselves around this table. You want to have fun? Who doesn’t? But what you can’t do is have it at somebody else’s expense.”

  Craig paused, shaking his head slightly, seesawing his pen between the thumb and the first two fingers of his right hand. “What the hell is wrong with you people? I’m paying you to work, to have a good time doing it, within reason, but not to take mean-spirited, cheap shots at your coworkers or, heaven forbid, our clients.”

  “Okay,” Craig was obviously annoyed. “I’m done.” For a moment, the four of them thought he was talking about them. “I’m going to trust that you can overcome your own insecurities and disrespectful behavior to become the consummate professionals I need and you deserve to be – and the truly nice people I’m hopeful you have inside you.”

  And then he took a break. It was only maybe 15 or 20 seconds, but it seemed longer. “…Do you have any idea,” Craig told them, “how much I can’t stand personnel issues?” and then he paused to take a breath while the four around the table remained silent. “And if you can’t… If you can’t get over yourselves, well then, I’ll be throwing your respective asses the hell out of here. ...Is that clear? The four of you either need to grow up or get out.”

  “Yes,” one of them said, it wasn’t important who, while the others nodded.

  “Let me make absolutely certain you get what I’m saying.” There was a sternness, just this side of anger, in Craig’s voice that surprised them. “This is me being tolerant of you. This is me setting an example I expect you to follow. When I get up...”

  “Hey, babe.” Standing there in the open doorway was Jennie, Craig’s wife, looking the way she always did, hot, but friendly, someone you could talk to without letting her beauty get in the way. She was, almost certainly and honestly, the only person on the planet that didn’t grasp how great she looked. No one walked away from that smile without feeling better. “Am I early?”

  “Nah. I was just wrapping up. …I think you all know Jennie,” he asked, making it seem like they did.

  “Hi, everybody. Sorry to interrupt.”

  The four were looking at her and smiled politely, but had nothing to say.

  “Jennie and I are going out to lunch. When I walk out of here, I’m putting this meeting behind me, behind us, not to forget it, but to look forward to a very successful collaboration, with you and the others on our project team, in Baltimore. …Have a good weekend. We’ll meet in the conference theater 9 AM Monday morning to go over everything. 9 AM sharp.”

  And without asking if they had any questions, Craig pushed back his chair stood up, put his pen back in his right pants pocket, picked up his yellow pad that he would drop on the corner of Marlene’s desk on the way out, stopping when he got to Jennie to give her a quick kiss – and then taking an extra second after he did for them to smile at each other the way couples in a great relationship do. Craig held Jennie's hand loosely as they walked toward the side doors and the parking lot, the one he had covered with grass and trees, like the roof of his building, that blended into the landscaping.

  Looking back over her shoulder to make sure they were out of earshot, Jennie reached up to squeeze Craig’s arm. “They look scared.”

  “They should be. There’s way too much crap going on. It ends now.”

  “Did you bully them?”

  “If by ‘bully’ you mean did I threaten to fire their asses...” but then he stopped and laughed because Jennie was smiling and she knew better. The automatic doors opened as the two of them neared the exit. “I love you.”

  Jennie leaned her head against his shoulder to answer in kind.

  Back in the conference room, the four of them – Alice, Susanne, Howard and Jason – sat motionless, until Craig’s assistant, who pretty much heard everything from her desk, walked in.

  “You guys need to leave. We’ve got marketing using the room at noon.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Susanne grunted, pushing back, but not getting up.

  “You know, guys...” Marlene was only a few years older than they were. “you really don’t want to blow this.”

  “Oh, yeah.” It was Howard, feeling bolder now that Craig was no longer in the room. “What do you know?”

  “I know you’re idiot. All four of you. …You’re way wrong about Craig. His problem isn’t... doesn’t have anything to do with lists or OCD. When he was a kid, he had a speech impediment, a bad one that he struggled to overcome. Other, hurtful kids picked on him, relentlessly, to point of his not wanting to talk. Fortunately, when he went to college, he met a girl who was studying speech therapy on the way to getting her degree in Psychology. They starting going out, fell in love and she helped him get over it.”

  “Let me guess. Jennie?” Alice smirked.

  “Yeah. Now get out of here.” Marlene checked her watch. “Come on. I mean it.”

  Getting up and moving out, the four of them walked together, more slowly this time than they had on their way in.

  Susanne broke the silence this time. “Hey, ‘Craig’s Lisp’,” she laughed. “That’s actually funny.”

  Alice reached around Jason and punched Susanne hard in the arm, a solid playground hit if there ever was one. Susanne looked over, but didn’t bother to grab her shoulder. The four of them stopped for a second, and then kept walking.

  47. The Dishes Fairy

  Ordinarily, on any other day, Muriel would have found the banging of their front door knocker annoying, some delivery or salesman she really didn’t need interrupting her work. There was always so much to do. Their children had grown up in this place and moved out after college but, even without their kids around, they were somehow busier than ever. Her husband, a reasonably successful writer of pulp fantasy fiction, had always worked at home except for trips to his publisher, for the occasional book tour and sci-fi/fantasy convention.

  “Yeah, he went to those,” Muriel took a breath, shaking her head slightly, side to side. “Said it sold books, but I think he just liked being there. Even took me to one when it was just the two of us... I remember this kid, dressed as God-knows-what, came up to Danny, put his hand on Danny’s chest and told him, tears in his eyes, ‘You’re the real deal, man.’ ..and to Los Angeles, the one time they made a TV movie based on one of his short stories.”

  Today, in the late morning, doing chores in a house that would never again make the familiar sounds she had taken for granted... Today, any interruption was welcome. This one, in particular. Without bothering to peek through
the side windows, Muriel turned the oblong brass knob and threw open the door. Standing there, she wiped her hands on her apron and smiled, her eyes watering at the site of Julie, her oldest and best friend, looking as disheveled as ever.

  “Hey.” Julie was the first to speak, a raincoat over the arm that was holding the huge bag she called her purse, the other on the handle of the roll-aboard she’d dragged behind her up their sidewalk. She tried to smile, but did it poorly. “I got here as quickly as I could.”

  Not bothering to invite Julie in, Muriel stepped onto the porch and put her hands on her friend’s shoulders as if just seeing here standing there wasn't enough. “I don’t think,” she whispered, “I could get through this without you.”

  “I know, babe. I know. …Now let’s go inside before it rains again or we both start crying.”

  Julie dropped her bag in the small foyer, throwing her coat over the banister to the upstairs and followed her friend into the kitchen. She sat on one of the stools around the island where Muriel and her husband ate breakfast, reading to each other from their respective sections of the morning paper.

  “Are the kids here yet?”

  “They’re on their way.” Muriel poured two large mugs of coffee, and stood at the end of the counter, just a couple of feet away, pushing a plate of freshly made, unevenly stacked walnut brownies with hard fudge topping in Julie’s direction. No little plates or napkins. Muriel was ordinarily the consummate host. Not so much today. Understandable under the circumstances. “Ann seems to be okay, but Jack, I don’t know. He stopped talking when I told him.”

  “Marilyn... He’s still living with Marilyn, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, they’re good.”

  “She’ll get him through it. I like her.”

  “Me, too. Maybe this’ll get him to commit. Sometimes…” Muriel stopped for a moment, waiting for that feeling in her throat to pass, “losing a parent makes you get on with your life.”

  They were both quiet, until Julie reached over and touched the back of Muriel’s hand. “Look,” once again Julie took the initiative, “let’s get the hard part out of the way. Tell me what happened. Tell me, and I’ll help you get ready for everyone stopping by tonight.”

  “When did you learn how to cook?” Muriel looked up for the first time, her eyes blinking slowly, a smile taking over her face.

  “Are you kidding? By ‘help’ I meant ‘keep you company while you do the heavy lifting.’ …Come on. Tell me. I need to know and you need to talk about it.”

  Muriel, letting her coffee get cold, pretended to be rubbing one of the gold flecks in her black granite countertop, anything to avoid eye contact. “Danny was in New York. He’d been out for an early run through Central Park. Came back, called me from his computer so we could see each other. …He seemed great. New York always energized him. There were notes all over his desk on those little legal pads he likes. He even stopped to jot down some stuff while we were talking. ...He seemed fine. Funny. Psyched about being there. He told me he loved me and then hung up, rushing to shower and to get breakfast in time for his 9 o’clock meeting with his editor. And... And that was that.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “The office called me around 10, wondering where Danny was. They’d been trying his cell phone.” Muriel made half a shrug, cocking her head to her left shoulder, then back again. “I called the hotel... I called the hotel and told them Danny’s cell phone was still in his room. We both have this locator thing on our phones.”

  “I know. One of those creepy apps parents use to track their kids.”

  “Yeah. Danny wanted it to make sure he could find me if I was ever late for something. ...They think it must have hit him in the shower and, uh, and that he ...tried to make it to his phone. What a jerk. Instead of 911, he had his cell phone and was trying to call me. I just didn’t hear it ring.”

  “He loved you a lot. You know that. …He probably didn’t understand what was happening and wanted to tell you about it.” And then Julie stopped talking, sensing it wasn’t helping, certain that Muriel wasn’t done.

  “It doesn’t seem real yet.” Muriel pulled her hand away from Julie’s and started rubbing her own forehead, making a small circle with the first two fingers of her right hand. “I’m still expecting him to call the way he always does, on his way back from the airport, ask me if there’s anything I need him to pick up on the way home.”

  “I'm pretty sure that’s something that wears off, eventually,” and then Julie thought about it, “maybe never.”

  “Yeah. …Okay,” Muriel stepped off her stool. “Let’s get this show on the road. We need to be ready by 6.” Having Julie around was exactly what she needed. There’d be plenty of time to cry later, in the loneliness of the home that Danny and she had built. “..Just do what I tell you, and nobody’ll get hurt.”

  11:10 PM that evening.

  “You sure you don’t want to stay here, Jack?”

  “No thanks, Mom – unless you need me?”

  “I’ll always need you, but tonight? Tonight you’ll stay with Marilyn’s brother. It’ll be good for you,” she touched the side of his face. “Me, too. I’ll hang out with Julie.”

  “Come on.” Marilyn tugged at Jack’s arm. “Goodnight, Muriel.” Stepping forward, Marilyn kissed the mother of her future husband on the cheek. “I’ll miss him too. …Breakfast tomorrow?”

  “Sure. French toast. Whenever you get here.”

 

  “Goodnight, Mom.” And Jack and Marilyn left for her bother’s place – Ann, Jack’s sister, pushing their front door closed.

  Looking around at the paper plates, balled-up napkins, the dishes and glasses that were everywhere in the dinning and family rooms, and down the short hallway at the mess they could see in the kitchen, the three of them – Muriel, her friend, Julie, and daughter, Ann – were too beat to do more than stand there in silence.

  Even though she was tired from having driven for almost eight hours to get there, Ann offered to do the right thing. “I’ll help you clean up.”

  “Thanks, honey, but Julie’s already volunteered.”

  “What?” Julie, her shoeless feet just getting comfortable on the ottoman she’d rolled in front of the sofa, pretended that she had done no such thing.

  “You go on to bed, honey. I’ll let you help with breakfast.”

  “Deal.” They hugged, and Ann was off, up the stairs to the bedroom her parents had always kept for her, while her mother plopped down on the soft leather easy-chair, now ottoman-less, that had been her husband’s favorite.

  “Do you remember,” Muriel was finally beginning to get it, “years ago, the hard time I gave him when we were making up our wills and he insisted on no funeral?”

  “I do.”

  “He was right. This is easier.”

  “Say what you want, Danny was…”

  “I think,” Muriel interrupted, not really listening to what Julie had to say, “it was the writer in him. Here one minute, gone the next. I think he purposely didn’t want the kind of closure a funeral can give you.”

  “That and he was too nice a guy to ruin a bunch of people’s weekend with ‘the obligatory crap of worthless ceremony,’ which is, if I remember, the way he put it to me once.” Julie had been his friend first, which is how Muriel and she met.

  “I’ll live on,” Danny had reassured his wife the night they had argued about it, “in you and the kids and a couple of friends, for a time. …I love you. You’ll miss me. Beyond that, it doesn’t really matter.”

  “So are we going to clean this place up, or what?”

  “You know,” Muriel took a breath, “I don’t think so.”

  Julie rolled her head along the top edge of cushion where it was resting to look at her friend.

  “We’re both beat, and it would be what Danny would want me to do.”

  “Not clean up?”

 
; “…You know,” she reminisced, “he never did get much sleep. We’d go to bed... Actually,” she smiled to herself, “pass out is more like it, 11:30 or so, the TV still on in the corner, but then he’d wake up in the middle of the night, around 3 or so. Rather than just lay there, hoping to fall back to sleep, he’d get up, come downstairs and do the dishes he’d been too tired or busy to do the night before. I cooked. He cleaned up. That was our deal. ...He told me he’d sit at the kitchen table, at the island, and write on his laptop. In the dark, except for the light coming from the family room from over the fireplace and the little TV he’d turn on for company. …I think he bought that computer for the way the keys light up.”

  “How long had he been...”

  “An hour or so later, he’d go back to bed, and still get up before I did. I’d come down, he’d be typing, taking an occasional bite of that perfectly toasted bagel he’d buttered and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar, the sink and counters empty and clean, the dishes washed and dried and put away.”

  “He did the dishes? …Wow, I should have married him.”

  “And I’d thank him, you know, for cleaning up, but, the funny thing was, he’d deny ever having done it. ‘Well, someone did it,’ I said once. ‘Wasn’t me,’ he told me, not even looking up from what he was writing. ‘It’s the Dishes Fairy.’”

  “The...” Julie laughed and then started to lose it, the way really tired people do when something strikes them as much funnier than it is, but stopped short, her hand to her face. “The Dishes Fairy. …You know, I always suspected he believed in all that stuff he wrote.”

  Muriel was laughing too now, a little. “Yeah, he’s been telling me that for years. ‘Believe what you want,’ Danny told me. ‘The Dishes Fairy. I just come down here in the middle of the night to write.’ She’s...’”

  “So it was a girl fairy. What, like a cheerleader?” Julie giggled. “Maybe a hooker, with little wings?” she added, flapping her elbows, making a “bizzzz” sound.

  “Yes,” Muriel smiled back, trying to be serious, “a girl fairy. He told me she was his muse. ‘I thought I was your muse,’ I said, pretending to be disappointed. ‘No. She’s my muse.’ Then he stood up and put his arms around me, in the kitchen that morning. ‘You’re my a-muse,’ and then he kissed me. ‘You make me laugh. It’s my favorite thing,’” she remembered slowly. ‘You’re the one thing, being with you, I’d rather do more than write.’”

 

  They were both quiet for a moment.

  “Okay, let’s hit the sack,” Julie sat and then stood up. “Come on.” She stood up, reaching out for her friend’s hand to help her up. “Let’s give it a test. …We’re both wiped and I really, really want to believe in the Dishes Fairy. Let’s get some sleep. ...Come on.”

  “Okay,” Muriel took her hand and pulled herself up. “We’ll clean up in the morning.” And they turned out the lights, all but the ones over the fireplace, and walked upstairs together.

  It was quiet that night, unusually so. Three o’clock came and went, and no one lying next to Muriel got up, fiddled with the TV that was still on in the corner of their bedroom or went downstairs to write on his laptop, sitting on a stool at the island in the kitchen where they – Muriel and Danny – wouldn’t have breakfast the following morning.

  But in the darkness of their kitchen, that one last early morning, a odd glowing form moved about the kitchen and around the first floor until every pot, pan, glass and dish was washed and put away, until the kitchen was immaculate, the counters spotless, the trash bagged by the door to the garage, the cushions fluffed and pillows in just the right place.

  Tonight, there was no one there, no Danny transfixed by the brightness of his computer’s screen, words coming from his fingers, as if he were only transcribing the dialogue of the characters he once imagined, but who now had lives of their own. And then it hovered for a time over Danny’s laptop, lid down, there, alone in the dark, in quiet middle of the night until it faded away.

  Muriel, not sleeping well, thought she heard the familiar, faint clatter of dishes and cabinet doors, but was sure she must be dreaming, smiled to herself, reached over to lay her hand on Danny’s side of the bed and fell back to sleep.

  48. “Hello?”

  Even from their bathroom, over the sound of the shower, “Benny” could hear her phone ringing, the cell phone she’d left on their sofa in the small… no, tiny is more like it city apartment she shared with her friend, Denise. (“Benny” was short for “Benjamin,” her mother’s maiden and her middle name.)

  “GET THAT!! If it’s Marc,” she shouted, “tell him I’m in the shower, ...naked, ...alone, …thinking about touching myself, but saving myself…

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get it,” Denise yelled back. “…How long,” she thought to herself, “can she stay in the shower? No wonder people in the building complain about not having any hot water. Maybe she’s…,” her eyebrows went up, her head angled slightly, her eyes looking around while she thought about it.

  “Oh, and Jackie said she gave my number to some guy. I don’t know his name. Says he’s even smarter than he is good looking. ...I suppose,” Benny mumbled to herself, “I can fake the smart part.”

  A few steps later, wiping off her hands on the dish towel she was holding, Denise reached down to pick up her roommate’s phone, spinning and plunging backward against the two soft pillows they kept in one corner of their couch. “Hello.”

  “Maybe that’s him.” Benny was going out tonight, but then Benny went out almost every night. She was an ambiance chaser, hell bent on getting to the newest club, restaurant or bar – that her boyfriend du jour could afford – ahead of everyone else. Denise would be home, eating something from white cardboard boxes with wire handles, still working on getting enough credits to graduate.

  No response, just the faint sound of someone clearing his throat, of someone mustering the courage to speak.

  “Hello??” Denise tried again.

  “Hi.”

  “Can I help you?” Denise answered cautiously, not knowing what else to say.

  “My name is, uh, Alan, with one “l,” Coo,” he stopped to swallow, “-per. May I please speak to Nancy?” Nancy was Benny’s first name. He obviously didn’t know her. He was polite, though. Nervous, with a slight break in his voice, like he was just coming out of puberty, but polite which, for Denise, was a pleasant change of pace from the jerks who hit on her at the office and on the rare occasions when she’d gone bar-hopping with Benny. His voice sounded good, with a hint of the confidence that would grow the more they talked.

  “Just a minute..” Denise covered the phone, taking a moment to watch Benny rubbing her hair dry on her way from the bathroom to the bedroom they used during alternate months, the other one sleeping on the couch.

  “Hi. I’m...” She was about to tell him her name, and that Benny couldn’t come to the phone, too busy getting ready to go out with someone else.

  “Hi, Nancy.”

  Nothing.

  “Nancy?”

  “Actually, it’s ’Benny.’ It’s a nickname. But, …”

  “Oh. …Great. Benny. I’m not sure if you remember, but we met at the division meetings last month. I, uh, got your number from Jackie Majors. She said she works with you.”

  “Of course. Nice of you to call,” after which they were both quiet until Alan, with one “l,” the guy who called for Benny, realized that it was his time to talk.

  “I... I don’t often just call someone out the blue like this, but I thought, ...I thought maybe we should talk first.”

  “First? Before what?”

  “Well, I guess, uh, before,” he was stumbling, “before one of us asks the other one out.”

  “I didn’t know I was thinking about asking you out.”

  “Well, you weren’t. I didn’t mean it that way. I just thought we’d talk for a few minutes to see if we get along. If we do
n’t, then we blew a few minutes on the phone. On the other hand, who knows, I could ask you out. Maybe we could get some dinner, nothing fancy, just some great burgers, steak fries, maybe some homemade cherry pie for dessert, cold…”

  “Cherry pie? Is that some not so subtle code for...”

  “No. Oh, no.” Alan was on the edge of panic. “I just like pie. We can have cannoli. I don’t care. Whatever you like. …Forget I mentioned dessert. Just great burgers, fries, cold draft beer, maybe a light beer, if you drink. If not, an ice tea. I know a place that makes fresh lemonade which is... delicious. Reminds me of summers at the beach.”

  “Alan?”

  “I don’t have a Facebook page. I don’t really like the idea of Facebook, but I can email you some references if you like. Everybody likes me, so far as I know. No pretense, but then I guess you can tell. Honest. I’m honest. I believe in being honest in my personal relationships. I haven’t had many, but they…”

  “Alan?”

  “...ended well, as well as one of us dumping the other can. ...What?”

  “Alan. To be honest, and we both agree that honesty is important.”

  “We do.”

  “I’m not Benny. I’m her roommate, Denise, but I know who you are. Benny and I work down the hall from each other in research. I saw you at the meetings. ...You’re good looking, in a casual sort of way. Nice smile. I remember that. Not particularly suave, but then…

  “I, I can be suave.”

  “…but then,” she hesitated, not wanting to hurt his feelings, “I’m not all that crazy about suave. Not really.”

  “So you’re the blonde that was sitting at Benny’s table?

  “What? No. …No, I’m the red head, the one with short red hair. Benny’s the one with…”

  “I thought Benny was the red head. …It was you.” Alan was relieved. “You’re the really good looking one with the glasses, the one I was pointing at when I asked Jackie for your number. She must have must just assumed...”

  “Yeah, it’s a common mistake. Most guys…”

  “Hey,” Benny shouted from the bedroom, “who you talking to?”

  It wasn’t often men described Denise that way. Mostly creeps hit on her, because girls like Benny – the ones who looked like models, the ones with the heels, makeup and boobs – wouldn’t talk to them. She had boobs too, mind you. They just weren’t as obvious.

  “Jackie says the cute guy works a lot and hasn’t dated that much. Maybe a tad,” she let her voice rise, “just a tad inexperienced,” Benny giggled to herself, pressing the glass top of her favorite perfume into the ample cleavage she was sporting, “but I can fix that. ...Ohhhh, yeah,” she said, her voice dropping as low it could go. “I can fix that,” she smiled confidently at their dresser mirror, looking for any imperfection in her makeup.

  “Hold on,” Denise covered the phone again, taking a moment to gather her thoughts. “…Hey. I’m back.”

  “Hi.” This time Alan’s voice was relaxed and confident. “Is this not a good time to..”

  “No, no. It’s good. …Tomorrow’s Sunday. How ‘bout lunch? Maybe at that shake place in the park.

  “Sure. What t…”

  “Great. One o’clock?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Got to go.”

  “Uh, sure. See you tomorrow.”

  “Right. Bye. …Oh, and Alan?”

  “Yes?”

  Denise took a short breath to slow it down. “It was really nice of you to call.” And she hung up, just as Benny came out of the bedroom, both hands engaged in bunching up her long blonde hair into a wild bun with two chopsticks holding it together – easy to let down later when the effect would have its maximum impact. “So who was that? ...If it’s that new guy, I really don’t have any time open until next weekend. Maybe Sunday morning for brunch.”

  “It was nobody. Just some guy taking a survey. You don’t like politics. I handled it. …No sweat.“

  And while Benny turned to check herself out in the mirror over the small table near the door, Denise hurriedly deleted the call history, including Alan number, from Benny’s phone.

  “Here,” Denise stood up from the couch and handed her roommate her phone. “I told the guy you were a Republican.”

  “Whatever. …Did he sound cute?”

  Denise pretended to think for a moment. “Uh, not really,” and then she changed the subject. “Enjoy yourself. Will you be coming home tonight?”

  “I will, probably, but late, really really late,” Benny laughed. “Don’t worry,” she smiled, turning back on her way out the door. “You know, in case I’ve never told you, thanks for being my roommate. You’re the one person I can count on.”

  “Right,” Denise, bobbing her head in agreement. “Right back at you.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to join us?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got stuff to do. Besides, my one dress is at the cleaners.”

  “You have a dress?” She was kidding. “…Hey. You just need to find someone, someone,” Benny smiled, “who likes t-shirts and jeans.” And she pulled their old, over-painted metal front door shut behind her. On her wait down the stairs to the sidewalk, Benny tapped a couple of times to dial Jackie’s number.

  “Hey.” …Yeah, he called right at 5:30. Perfect timing. I hung out in the shower while they started talking. I feel unusually clean. …Right!” she laughed. “Thanks for helping me fix them up. That trick, pretending to give him my number by mistake, was pure genius. …Right. Yeah, right. I’m telling you, I know her. …Absolutely. If she knew it was my idea, she’d never have agreed to go out with him. …Yeah, I’ll see you Monday. …Hey, hold on.” She caught Jackie just before she hung up. “Is Alan really that cool a guy?” Her affection for her roommate aside, Benny couldn’t resist wondering what she was missing. Pushing open the outside door and stepping, a little sideways, as quickly as her heels would let her down the stoop in front of their apartment building, Benny pressed her phone harder against her ear to hear the juicy details over the noise of the city. “Hm. …Oooo. ..Wow. …No kidding?!”

  49. The Plug-In

  “Good afternoon, Nathan.” At precisely 3 PM, Dr. Cheryl Schreiber, Doctor of Psychology, somewhere in her thirties, opened the door to the loft where she lived and had her office. Even at a distance, he felt the faint swoosh of air touching his face. “Come on in.” Nathan had been waiting in the lobby Dr. Schreiber shared with the other professionals in the converted factory.

  Rising quickly, Nathan took his eyes off the cable news that was playing on the flat screen on the wall across from where he had been sitting, turning to smile at the attractive woman he was there to see. Gray jeans, a white pleated shirt, her shoulder length hair shifting inexplicably when and however it wanted, she moved to greet him with a presence you could feel coming. “Hi.” He extended his hand, which she shook firmly. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.” They were alone in the lobby, and spoke openly. “I just felt I needed to see someone and a friend said you... said you were easy to talk to.”

  “That’s good to hear,” she responded, turning and gesturing Nathan toward the open door to her office. Closing that door behind her, she pointed to the center of the room, well lit from skylights overhead and several very large windows cut into the original brick walls. “Please, have a seat, wherever you feel comfortable. …Can I get you anything? I’ve made some freshly squeezed lemonade?”

  “Wow. Uh, that would be great.” He was hungry, being a person who needed to eat every few hours, and wasn’t just trying to be friendly.

  While Nathan sat on the soft leather love seat, Dr. Schreiber came over with a tray, two glasses, a pitcher of the lemonade and some homemade, chewy oatmeal cookies, with pecans, but no raisins. “Here,” she said cheerfully. “Help yourself.”

  Both glasses already had ice in them. Nathan poured one fo
r himself and grabbed a cookie, sitting on the edge of the loveseat for fear of spilling something. Leaving his glass on the table, he held his left hand under the cookie, carefully taking a bite. These were, he estimated, three bite cookies in polite company, two if he’d been home, alone.

  “Oh, don’t worry about dropping any crumbs.”

  “Are you serious?

  “No, actually I do care,” Dr. Schreiber smiled, mostly with her eyes, “but you shouldn’t feel bad if you do, drop any that is,” and then got down to business. “...So, I understand you’re a writer.”

  “A blogger, actually. I have a blog. I write short stories.”

  “Is it popular, your blog? I liked it.”

  Nathan took a breath, which he held for a moment before starting to talk. “More and more so. Especially, lately, I seem to be communicating with my readers better, giving them a reason to come back for more.”

  “Well, good. ...When you called, you said you wanted to talk about what you’re writing?”

  “Yes.” Finishing off the cookie he’d been holding with a swallow of lemonade, “This is good. Very good,” Nathan leaned back and spread his arms over the top of the cushion to his left, and along the arm of the love seat to his right. Dr. Schreiber was sitting in a natural wood rocking chair across the table from him, a small yellow pad in her lap, a pen in her right hand, her feet crossed where the flats she was wearing touched the large oval rug that defined the area where they were sitting. With her left hand, she spread her fingers and combed her hair, pulling it back, away from her face. It was a natural, not at all suggestive thing to do.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Nathan began to explain. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately.”

  “Isn’t that pretty much what writers do?” Dr. Schreiber smiled, hoping to put him at ease. “Part of the creative process?”

  “Sure.”

  “Go ahead. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “I’ve been thinking about writing something scary, a short short story that creeps out my readers… Did you have time to read any of my stuff?”

  “Yes, I did. And I like them, the few that I read. Very creative. Fresh, easy to read. Always a surprise ending. I thought they were good, surprisingly good, to tell you the truth.”

  “But none of them... scary.”

  “No. ...So what? Maybe that’s why I enjoyed them.”

  “It’s the challenge. ...I try to write about different things, to push myself to see what I can do, to be funny sometimes, then serious, a little romance and then maybe a mystery or fantasy sci-fi piece. ...But, whatever I write, there’s the one thing I want them all to have in common.”

  “What’s that, Nathan?”

  “You know what I really like?” Nathan wasn’t waiting for an answer. “I like it when I write something that stays in your head after you read it. Not just for a few minutes. The longer, the better.”

  Dr. Schreiber’s expression showed her appreciation of his point, as if to say, “Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that what all writers want?”

  “Yeah. I... I’m just concerned that I’m beginning to go too far, that I’m stepping over some line.” He stopped, and let the rest of his breath out without talking. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking lately that it’s time I wrote something scary.”

  “Stephen King scary? Slasher movie scary? Or just plain creepy?”

  “No, no, although I’m not so sure about the creepy part. A little creepiness can...”

  “Sinister maybe?”

  “Uh, a little, maybe,” Nathan was talking right at her, punctuating his words with the fingers of his right hand, “but you’ve got to be careful not to overdo it. Credibility is everything. I can’t risk distracting the reader.”

  “From what?”

  “I need him to pay attention. I need him, or her,” Nathan added, “to believe.” And then he stopped talking. Just stopped for a full minute that Dr. Schreiber didn’t cut short. “Anyway, the challenge is doing it without the threat or fact of violence.” Nathan held there, the tone of his voice instantly morphing from friendly to serious. “...I don’t like violence.”

  Cheryl considered making a note, but thought it better not to, choosing instead to drop her pad and pen onto the area rug next to her chair. “Besides,” Cheryl was never afraid to offer her opinion, to engage her patients, “it’s hard to write violence, isn’t it, harder to put it down on a page, to elicit a visceral reaction from a reader the way a well crafted movie can with live actors, special effects and great visual editing.”

  “You’re right. Absolutely. Even harder, much harder without explicit violence – to get your readers squirming in their seats with only the threat, the intimation, the hint of serious danger.” Nathan paused for a moment. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking, for a while now, that...”

  “Thinking about it for days, weeks, months?”

  “Months. Thinking about how I’d do it.”

  “You’ve dared yourself to do this, haven’t you?”

  “Exactly. ...If not me, who would?”

  “And? I mean, how’s it going?”

  Sliding forward, Nathan became excited, moving to edge of the cushion, elbows on his knees. “I began by breaking fear into its components. Remember,” Nathan reminded her, “explicit violence isn’t an option. That's my rule.”

  “Good to know,” she smiled, shifting to change the way she had crossed her legs.

  “For one thing, there’s the element of surprise. Easier, as you pointed out, on the big screen than on paper, but doable and essential. Second, you’ve got to make the reader think that you’re going to do something to him… to her,” Nathan stared at his therapist, “to take or change something you,” he was talking right at her now, to Cheryl personally, no longer making innocent references to unspecified individuals, “…something you value greatly. Third, and this is really important, you’ve got to convey the reality of irreversibility.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, that what I take from you, what I change about you is irrevocable.”

  “For example?”

  “Like leaving a beautiful woman with a permanent scar.”

  “But that would be violent.”

  “Yes. Of course. It’s just an example. Suppose... Suppose, on the other hand, that I changed your personality, that I made you mean, when being nice was the very thing you liked best about yourself, or made you promiscuous or, at the other extreme, completely disinterested in sex, and that I could do it without your ever knowing or being able to go back to the way you were.”

  “I noticed you keep checking your watch. Don’t worry. You’re my last appointment today. We’ve got plenty of time.”

  “Sorry.” That’s what Nathan said, but then he didn’t say why.

  “So if I didn’t know you’d taken something from me, why would I care?”

  “After I did this to you, it wouldn’t make any difference. You’re right. Your life, your personal and professional relationships would be different, but you wouldn’t understand why and might not think anything of it – except that maybe you used to go out with this guy, and now you don’t. You’re not even sure why you ever went out with him, or were friends with her in the first place.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “The scary part is the knowing that it could, and would happen, but not knowing when or how. The scary part is knowing what you stand to lose, but realizing there’s already nothing you can do about it, nothing to stop you from losing it.”

  “Okay, so you’ll be writing a story with that theme?”

  Nathan went back to listing the elements of writing to frighten his readers. “And, most importantly, the threat has to be believable.”

  “Isn’t that always the challenge you face as a writer?”

  “It is.” Nathan’s eyes opened wide. “Although, to be honest, and the reason I asked to see you, it helps not to be
bluffing.”

  Cheryl was losing him and beginning to feel uneasy. “Bluffing?”

  “Yeah. The reader needs to have a demonstration of my powers,” Nathan almost laughed when he said it, “and then to wonder what else I’ve done.”

  “Well, that all sounds impressive. I’m looking forward to reading it.”

  “The thing is, Dr. Schreiber, you already have.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My blog. ...I’m running a plug-in, a subroutine that enables me to imbed messages, subliminal, hypnotic messages you don’t even know you’re reading.”

  “Isn’t that illegal, Nathan?”

  “So, are you going to report me?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  No answer.

  “I didn’t think so. ...Dr. Schreiber.”

  “What?”

  “Would you mind unbuttoning your blouse?”

  Cheryl heard what he said and reacted, initially, by deliberately placing both her arms on her chair, wrapping her fingers around the wood. Her face became serious, her lips pursed as she did her best to resist, but couldn’t and gave up, the muscles in her hands and arms willingly responding to his request. “How do you know,” she glanced down to grab the top button of her shirt, “that I wouldn’t be doing this anyway?”

  “Oh, give me a break. I’m sure you wouldn’t. More importantly, so are you.” Once again, Nathan checked his watch.

  “And you put this…” Sitting there, her blouse unbuttoned and open, Cheryl was aware, but helpless. “You’re running this plug-in in all the stories you write?!”

  “Hey!” Nathan reacted to sudden change in the tone of her voice. “You’re asking as if I’m the only one doing this? You’re a psychologist. You should know better. It’s all over the place, corporate sites, gambling and porn, and blogs, even dating services. Don’t you ever wonder why people spend so much time on-line?”

  Looking down at her open blouse, Cheryl started moving her hands to…

  “No, no. Leave it open.” And she did. “…You’re lucky I didn’t ask you to take off your bra. ..Thing is, this isn’t about sex. And it’s not a boy-girl, male-female thing. As far as I can tell, it works on men at least as effectively as it does on women. No, it’s about making a point. …On the other hand,” he smiled, dropping his eyes to stare at Cheryl sitting there across from him, “it’s good to be Nathan.”

  “…What else ...have you done to me?” Cheryl asked, a slight break and noticeable measure of controlled panic in her voice.

  “We’ll talk about it later. I’m not sure when. Later, but you won’t remember this, so it won’t make any difference.”

  “I’ll have one of my colleagues program this out of me.”

  “What, you weren’t paying attention when I said, ‘…you won’t remember this’? You’re not going to talk to anyone about it, because, after I leave today, it’s never going to occur to you. And then, the next time I see you or the next time we talk, it'll all come back to you again – because that's the way I programmed it, the way I programmed you to work.”

  “How long does it take, Nathan? How many stories does someone have to read?”

  “Just one. Just a few minutes exposure, and then a few hours after that for the message to settle in. I’m not sure, exactly,” he shook his head slightly. “I’m just starting what I think you’d call the ‘clinical stage’ of my research. Thank you for agreeing,” Nathan stopped to smile, “to volunteer for my study. …Thing is, I’m going to need your help perfecting my message, although,” Nathan was clearly impressed with himself, “seeing you sitting there I say, ‘So far, so good.’” He nodded his head slightly, reflecting on what he’d accomplished while he reached for another cookie. “I had no idea it would be this easy. …Anyway, those papers you’ve written on hypnosis were very helpful, but there’s still a lot I don’t understand. Still a lot I need to talk to you about. …What do you think? Twice weekly sessions?”

  “In all your stories? Is that why readership is up?”

  “No. Not all my stories. Not yet. Just this one story I’ve written about a troubled writer who goes to see a hot young psychologist known for her scholarly work on hypnotherapy. …It’s the story you’re reading now. It was great, wasn’t it? Be sure to tell your friends.”

  “In the meantime, keep your shirt on. We'll talk later.”

  50. Pretense

  “Did I miss him?! Is he here yet??” Clara rushed through the side door to “The Highway Diner,” the one with the rusted metal “Employees Only” sign next to the buzzer that hadn’t worked in years. Not waiting for the screen to slam behind her or for the gym bag she was carrying to make it inside, she blurted out her question in a loud whisper.

  “No,” her cousin Janis, a waitress with no particular future plans, shook her head. “It’s still early.”

  Pulling franticly on the doorknob to the “Ladies” restroom, it took her a moment to get the point.

  “Hey!” a woman’s voice came from behind the door. “I’ll be out in a couple of minutes!”

  “Sorry,” Clara apologized, spinning back, away from the door, toward her cousin. “The locker room.”

  “You go. I need to check out front.”

  “I’ll be right there. …Keep an eye out for me, and don’t dare let Alice wait on him.”

  Janis was already on her way.

  “Hey, promise!”

  “Yeah, yeah. I promise,” Janis waved her arm dismissively without bothering to turn around. “Don’t let the slut, Alice, brush up against your man. Got it,” Janis mumbled to herself. “This is way out of control.”

  Rushing into the small room with half lockers, the ones Arnold, the owner, picked up cheap when they closed the old bus station, the kind that came with a key you kept in your pocket, Clara dropped her bag in one of the chairs around the table where employees sat when they took a food break. Spreading the double zippers on top of her bag, she reached in, grabbing the jeans, t-shirt, short sox and sneakers that would be her uniform for the next hour or so. And a wood hanger. No way was she going to trash the perfect business suit she’d bought specifically for her afternoon presentation.

  Moving quickly, but carefully, Clara started to change.

  “Bobby!” Janis had just come around the corner from the front of the diner.

  “What?” the young kid who bussed tables was just standing there, in the open locker room doorway, answering to his name, but without taking his eyes off Clara.

  “You’re late. Get out there.” Grabbing him from the back, she shoved Bobby out of the way, pushing him in the right direction while Clara, too preoccupied to have noticed anyone was watching, finished changing.

  “There. I’ll work the booths in the corner until I see him come in. After that, you’ll take over while…”

  “Hey,” Janis smiled. “Take a breath. I know the drill.”

  Out front, the noise in the old diner – with its surprisingly good meatloaf and great homemade pies, just off the two lane road they called “the highway” 30 years ago – sounded good and was just what Clara needed. A few weeks ago, she’d taken off on a Monday to do some antique shopping in the countryside and had stopped by to see Janis, just to say “Hello” and get a sandwich and some freshly squeezed lemonade to go. Janis was pretty much in charge when Arnold was out and let Clara help herself behind the counter. That was the day “he” stopped by, going out of his way to take the stool across from where she was making her lunch.

  “Hey,” he said to her. “What are you making?” He didn’t smile, not really. He didn’t have to. There was an honesty, an openness, something about his voice, the way his face worked with his eyes, that made her instantly comfortable. It gave her the feeling of having nothing to prove.

  Looking up, she hesitated, not used to responding to the banter of strange men. “Sliced turkey and Swiss with a little ho
me style coleslaw on a soft poppy seed roll, a little mayonnaise and some honey.”

  “Nice touch, the honey I mean. Can I have one? No coleslaw, but maybe some potato salad on the side?”

  “Look, I don’t..” Her first instinct was to tell him she didn’t really work there, but then she reconsidered. Taking a second, she realized how much she liked the way he looked in his dirty cargo shorts and well-worn golf shirt, the way he’d combed his hair with his fingers when he took off the sweat stained baseball cap he wore to keep the sun out of his eyes and set it on the open stool next to him. Turns out, he would tell her later, he was renovating a place a few miles away. “I don’t really recommend the potato salad. If I were you, I’d skip it and leave room for a piece of cherry pie.”

  Forty minutes and two pieces of cherry pie later, he was curious. “Don’t you have wait on other people?”

  “Not really. It’s actually my day off.”

  “I’ve got to run,” he told her. “Do you,” he stood up, put some cash on the counter, more than he had to, and grabbed his hat. “Do you always work lunch hours?”

  Blushing slightly, Clara responded with, “Will you stop by if I do?”

  Turning his receipt upside down, he slid it across the Formica counter toward her. “Trust me with your cell phone number? I’ll text you the next time I can stop by.”

  “I don’t even know your name.”

  “It’s…” he paused as if he wasn’t sure about giving it to her.”

  “My phone number for your name,” she smiled with her eyes, tapping the butt-end of her waitress pen on top of his receipt, her voice sounding more at home in a board room. “That’s the deal.”

  “Pete. Peter Jeffries.”

  Nodding her head slightly, Clara steadied the receipt with her left hand and wrote her number with her right, then slid it slowly toward him. Pete met her half way, pulling his end for a few seconds before she let go.

  Three weeks later, he’d stopped by an impressive eight times for lunch. Three times sitting at the counter, but the other five at one of the booths. Today would be the ninth time. Janis actually let her wait tables, provided she didn’t keep the tips or break anything. No dates yet, but they’d talked and laughed pretty much about everything.

  “So how long have you been renovating houses?” she asked him one day over a turkey burger, fries and a slice of Boston cream pie at the counter. Two forks. They’d started sharing desserts the second time they met.

  “Ever since I was a kid. My father let me help him in the shop we had at home when I was little, and would take me with him when he moonlighted. He and my mother would buy houses, small houses in the country, fix them up and re-sell them. It took every spare minute and dollar they had, but it was how they managed to send my sister and me to college.”

  “You went to college?”

  “Yeah,” and then he added, seeing that she wanted to know more. “Yale.”

  Her expression was curious.

  “I just prefer working with my hands.”

  She paused. “So, do you have tool belt?”

  “What?”

  “Do you have one of those leather belts with places for your hammer and stuff?” She giggled, avoiding eye contact while she cleared the dishes from where a customer had been sitting two stools down.

  “Tried one, but it kept pulling my pants down.”

  “Sorry I missed that.”

  On this ninth day they would meet at the roadside diner, she’d been in such a hurry, so worried she might miss him, Clara had forgotten to wipe off her lipstick. It was pretty much the only makeup she wore, preferring the honesty of a more natural look. (In case you’re wondering, she could afford it, but jewelry wasn’t her style. Not even a watch.)

  “Hey.” He knew immediately that she looked different, unable to pull his eyes away from her lips. “Going somewhere?”

  “What?” But then she realized why he was staring, the first two fingers of her left hand touching her lips. “Maybe I wore it for you.”

  “Maybe you’re seeing someone after your shift?” It sort of sounded like he was kidding, but she could tell, beneath the flirting, that he really wanted to know.

  “Are you kidding?” Clara reached over to straighten his silverware, flashing her eyes up to see what his face was telling her. “I thought we were going steady?”

  “Wow. That’s great news. I didn’t even realize we were dating. I mean, shouldn’t we try dating before going steady, or maybe we should just go ahead and move in together and see how that goes.”

  “Are you asking?” She knew he was just playing with her.

  But then his watch beeped before he could answer. Pressing a button on his Timex, Pete stood up to leave. “I’ve got to go. How ‘bout if I ask you out Thursday?”

  “On a real date? You want to go out Thursday?”

  “No, I want to ask you out on Thursday,” he smiled back at her, a slow, lingering smile, and then started to walk away.

  “Hey!” Clara wasn’t done talking. “Where would we go?”

  “Well,” Pete stopped and made a quarter turn to look back at her. “I was thinking,” he said, without missing a beat, “maybe Nassau,” his lips curling slightly just short of a smile, looking directly into her eyes.

  Rolling up her lower lip, all she could do was nod. And he turned and headed for the door, wiggling the fingers of his right hand to wave goodbye to the waitress he knew was still watching.

  “What just happened?” Janis came up beside her.

  “I think he just asked me to go away with him for the weekend.”

  “Not bad for a first date.”

  “To Nassau.”

  “On a construction worker’s take home? I don’t think so.”

  “So he was kidding about the Nassau part, but I like the way he thinks.”

  Janis wondered how long her cousin was going to stare at the exit. “Hey. Snap out of it.”

  No reaction, but Janis wasn’t giving up.

  “So how long are you going to keep up this waitress thing?”

  “You think,” Clara turned to join the conversation, “he’d go out with a CEO/Investment Banker?” For Clara, it was a rhetorical question.

  “I don’t care how bright he is, do you really think you have anything in common with a carpenter who lives pay check to pay check, if and when he can find work?”

  No comment, and then, “Look. He’s real. I like that about him. Maybe he won’t care who or what I am.”

  “He’ll care alright, not so much about what you do or how much you make, but about that ‘two years of college before you had to drop out’ crap. Didn’t it ever occur to you just to tell him the truth?”

  “You want me to tell him I was at Stanford while he was at Yale, maybe argue the fine points of which school has the better English Lit department? Just what…”

  “Hey. Don’t get testy with me. You lied to him to what? To make him feel smarter than you? When did you start thinking like that? More to the point, cousin, when did you decide it was okay to be me?”

  No response.

  “That’s me, my story you’ve been telling him. What’s so wrong with being you all of a sudden?”

  Clara gave her cousin a serious, almost angry look, but then caught a glimpse of the wall clock and began to panic. “I’ve got to get back. See you Thursday,” and she rushed away toward the back. Opening her locker, she grabbed her bag and took her company clothes, hanger included, off the coat rack nearby – just as, unbeknownst to her, Pete came back into restaurant. “I’ll put them on at the office,” Clara thought to herself out loud, not wanting to change there in the open, not with Bobby coming and going.

  “Hey, Pete.” Janis and he were on a first name basis ever since his third lunch date with Clara. “Forget something?”

  “No. No, I thought I’d... I thought I’d talk to Clara some more.”

  “You came back t
o ask her out, didn’t you?”

  “Is she in the back?”

  “Uh, no. She had an errand. You just missed her.”

  He was clearly disappointed. “Well, uh, tell her I stopped back.”

  “Sure.” And he was gone.

  In fact, Clara was still out back, outside the diner where the employees parked, where her car wasn’t easy to see from the road. Fumbling through her bag, she’d dropped the keys to her BMW 6 Orion silver convertible, top still up, but not for long. Bending down to pick them up, she was surprised to hear Pete’s voice.

  “Hey.”

  Clara stood up and looked over the roof of her car at the man standing next to his new, flamenco (electric) red Volvo S60.

  Pete kept talking, looking down at her car, and back at her face. The usual excitement in his voice and around his eyes whenever he saw her was gone. “Nice. Tips must be good.”

  “It’s a company car,” Clara answered in a lower tone of voice that usual. “I’ve been meaning to…”

  “Whose company?”

  “Mine. And yours,” she asked, nodding toward his car. “Family money?” she speculated sarcastically.

  Nothing at first, but then, “No. For one thing, it’s not all that expensive. In any case, I’m a partner with a litigation firm downtown.”

  “A lawyer? What firm?” but then she stopped him before he could answer. “No, let me guess… Yours.”

  “The last name you gave me?” he asked her.

  “It’s my mother’s maiden name, in case you tried to Google me. And yours? What’s your name?”

  “Robin. Robin Peter Jeffries.”

  “Comma, attorney-at-law. Oh my gosh,” it just occurred to her, “you’re ‘Robin Hood,’ the guy that beat...”

  “My friends call me ‘Pete,’ he interrupted, both of them content to stay on opposite sides of her car. It was the first time they’d seen each other outside the diner. “Why the charade?”

  “What, you weren’t leading me on? …I thought you were a construction worker.”

  “I do remodel houses. It helps me clear my head.”

  “That’s not the point.” Clara was right, and knew the next few things they said could take them in one of two directions. Saying something that’s just technically accurate is one thing. Pretending to be something you’re not is something different altogether. “Look,” Clara fell back all too easily into her corporate persona, “so we both let the other one think we were simpler people than we are, that we’re not as educated and don’t make the salaries we do. So we faked it. Love, even just the prospect of it, does that to people.” The word had never sounded so perfunctory, so technical, so matter of fact. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “‘Simpler people?’”

  “You know what I meant.”

  “Is it a good thing? I guess that depends upon how we feel about it.” Like all natural litigators, Pete knew instinctively not to snap back an answer until he was certain he knew what he was talking about, or to ask a question without anticipating the answer. “By the sound of it, I don’t think either of us thinks we were more than each other’s fantasy escape. Do I have a tool belt? ‘Driven CEO gets laid in back of a pickup.’ ‘Successful, big city attorney has affair with comely, country waitress.’ Are those the headlines? Was it ever anything more?”

  “When were you going to tell me?” Clara asked, as if it made a difference. In fact, she was just making another point.

  “A few minutes ago. It’s why I came back.” And then he turned, slowly, reluctantly, and pressed the button on his key to unlock his driver’s side door.

  “You’re leaving? What, are you mad at me?”

  “No,” he turned his head to look back at her. “Disappointed. ...I think I just blew it with this waitress I was falling for, and now I have to get back to work.”

  “You know,” she couldn’t help herself. “I would have thought you’d be driving a Porsche.”

  He opened his car’s door, but held for a moment, counting to one before getting in the last word. “I was hoping,” he said without turning around, “that it didn’t make any difference what I was driving.”

  51. The Badger

  Joyce, the station’s third floor receptionist, was working at her desk. Having put off getting new glasses until her next annual increase, coming up in just 11 and half months, she found herself having to work unusually close to the copy she was editing for one of their lesser segment producers. Poor near vision, together with her extraordinary powers of concentration that often found her ignoring incoming calls, were about to be overcome by the unusual shuffling sound of something walking toward her desk. It was as if someone wearing unusually large fuzzy slippers was coming her way, unable, for some reason, to lift his or her feet the way normal people do.

  “Hi.” The voice was odd, in a cartoonish way, possibly electronically altered.

  No response.

  “Excuse me,” the voice tried again to get her attention. This time it did.

  Joyce looked up, her head rising slowly until she came to its head. The first thing she noticed was that the person standing in front of her was brown. Not brown as in Black or Hispanic. Brown as in covered with fur. “Hi. …You’re a what?” she speculated to the person in the costume. “A giant beaver?”

  “Actually, I’m a badger. ‘The Badger,’ to be precise, but the beaver costume was more comfo... It’s not important. I understand that Dick Snykers… Yes, like the candy bar. They’re both more than a little nuts. ...has a 10 AM meeting with one of your iTeam producers.”

  Joyce turned to look at her screen, “Yes,” and then back to The Badger.

  “Great. If you don’t mind...” The Badger’s voice seemed comical coming from behind his two giant white foam teeth. There were no lips or anything, but something about the way it moved its head and arms when it talked made it seem real. “...would you please pass out these fliers?” She took them, but he didn’t wait for her to answer. “Thanks.” And The Badger turned quickly, which was particularly impressive given the size of his/her costume feet, then back again. “See you later, maybe?”

  “You’re flirting with me?”

  “Badger’s have needs too, you know,” he told her, blowing Joyce a kiss, the big three fingered right paw of his costume touching his teeth and swinging wide in a grand gesture. He/she, whatever – The Badger was strictly PG-rated, having no obvious breasts or genitals. – spun around and walked off toward the one of the two elevator doors that had just opened, its beaver/badger tail firmly Velcroed to the back of its furry suit.

  Joyce, who had a less than fulfilling personal life, watched as The Badger shuffled away, waiting for it to turn, hoping to see its smile, its teeth, one more time – but was, unfortunately, interrupted by someone opening the door to the stairs so aggressively that it banged into the stairwell wall. “Come on!” a man said loudly, looking impatiently at someone else Joyce couldn’t see yet. “If you hadn’t been so damn polite, we wouldn’t have missed the elevator. I don’t want to be late.” The other person was a woman for whom the man held open the door, but barely, not waiting for her to clear the doorway before abandoning her on his way to Joyce’s desk, the woman almost jogging to catch up with him.

  “Hello. My name is Dick Snykers,” he said brashly, gesturing with his hands and eyebrows as if somehow Joyce should have known.

  “Hi,” the woman behind him said politely, making an effort to smile. “I’m Elai...”

  “We have a 10 AM appointment,” the husband interrupted, apparently carrying nothing about what his wife had to say, “with a Mr. Radner. He’s one of the investigative re...”

  This time it was Joyce who decided to interrupt, having already determined that she was no fan of Mr. Snykers. “I know who he is. If you’ll follow me...”

  “Hold on.” Mr. Snykers had just noticed the stack of The Badger’s fliers lying on top of some
other papers on Joyce’s desk. Grabbing one of them, what he saw – and what his wife and now Joyce were also studying – was a collage of pictures of him in suspiciously close conversations with various women who, it turned out, were coworkers. “What the…? Where did you get these?”

  “Are you kidding? Some guy dressed like a badger, actually more like a beaver, left them off.” Joyce paused for a moment to lean to her right to look around her irritated visitor. “There, you just missed him.” Joyce pointed to The Badger, still visible just inside the evaluator doors he’d been holding open long enough to wave goodbye to Dick.

  Speaking of Dick, he had no idea what to do, so he just stood there, both his hands squeezing the flier he was holding. Taking a deep breath, he gave his wife a look, like somehow it was all her fault, and then lunged to snatch up the rest of the fliers before others could see them. It was a fast, almost violent move that left Joyce not knowing exactly how to react, and Elaine Snykers looking down at the commercial carpet on which she was standing.

  Joyce did her best. “Well, uh, let’s go to the conference room, and I’ll let you get settled while I walk down the hall and tell Ira you’re here.” Pushing back from the edge of her desk, she slipped on her leather flip flops and headed to her left, Mr. Snykers moving up uncomfortably close behind her.

  “Excuse me?” It was Elaine Snykers, still in front of the Joyce’s desk. “Which way would the ladies room be?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Elaine.” Dick seemed to have only one tone of voice.

  “Just across from the lobby, to the right of the elevators.”

  This time his wife was less timid. “We’re early,” she said in a forcibly calm, measured pace, arms at her side, the palms of her hands flat and facing downward as if to make it clear she was staying put. “You go ahead.”

  Dick stared at her for a couple of long seconds, saying nothing.

  “Come on, Mr. Snykers.” Joyce began walking away. “There’s water and juice drinks on the sideboard,” she told him, gesturing through the glass door. “Please help yourself. Ira will be right with you.”

  Having dropped Mr. Snykers off, thankfully, Joyce was on her way down the hallway to where the iTeam members (“i” for “investigations”) had their offices. And there he was, coming around the corner in her direction. Not too tall. Not too good looking. Just the right amount of nice for a girl to fall for him without getting in the way of first rate investigative reporting. “Hey,” she smiled in his direction.

  “Hey. Is my 10 o’clock here?”

  “In the conference room,” Joyce told him, spinning to walk next to Ira down the hallway. He was fit and a fast walker, but she could keep up. “…You know this guy’s a nut ball, don’t you?”

  “Actually, I’m not so sure. A jerk maybe, but I’ve talked to two credible witnesses that have seen this beaver he called about.”

  “Badger,” she corrected him just outside the conference room.

  “What?”

  “Looks like a beaver, but calls itself ‘The Badger.’”

  “Annnnd, you know that how?”

  “Hey. I know stuff. Make me an AP and I’ll tell you.” She smiled, and opened the door for him, lingering to watch Ira extend his hand to Mr. Snykers before leaving to go back to her desk. Mrs. Snykers was also there, having made it back from the ladies room on time.

  “Good morning. I’m Ira Radner.”

  “Mr. Radner,” Dick Snykers shook his hand. “You look taller on TV.”

  “And, you must be Mrs. Snykers?”

  “Elaine. Please call me Elaine.”

  “Good. Interviews like this tend to be more productive if we’re on a first name basis. Please. Sit down.” Reaching for one of the pads they kept stacked on the conference table, Ira Radner took out a pen from the right side pocket of his pants and removed the cap. “Okay. Start at the beginning and give me the highlights of what’s been happening to you. We’ll get into more detail later if it seems worth investigating.”

  “Of course it’s worth it,” Dick responded aggressively, so quickly that Elaine put her hand on his arm, which he yanked away from her. “...Look. I’m sorry. All this harassment these past few months is making me crazy. He even...”

  “Who?”

  “The Badger. He was here, in your lobby, just a few minutes ago.”

  “What for?”

  “To leave off these.” Dick handed Ira one of the now slightly crumpled fliers he’d taken from Joyce’s desk.

  “Who are these women?”

  “They’re, uh, people… girls that work around the office.”

  “Who do you suppose took these?”

  “I don’t know. Everyone with a cell phone has a camera. …I don’t know.”

  “And other than this flier?”

  Dick sighed. His bravado and anger giving way, at least for the moment, to desperation. “People I work with have been getting email, some with pictures of me with women.”

  “All real or is someone making these things up?”

  It was a question Dick chose to avoid. “There have been fliers, more or less like these, put on the windshields of cars where I work and in our neighborhood. Some of the email sent to my coworkers and supervisors, people I work for, have sound files attached.”

  “Saying what?”

  “They’re recordings of me making what I thought were off the record comments, you know, like ‘Bob? That asshole?’ or worse, where the ‘Bob’ I was talking about turns out to be my division boss. In fact it was Bob, after he damn near fired me, who suggested I call you when I told him the police wouldn’t help.”

  Ira made notes, but didn’t comment, preferring to let Dick spill his guts.

  “A week ago, Elaine and I were at home, having dinner when a neighbor, this guy who lives a few blocks away, called to say someone in a beaver suit was going to door to door handing out lists of household chores they should remind me to do. …I came to work the other day to find a month’s worth of our garbage, the very same bags we…”

  “I.” It was the first thing Elaine had said. “You never take out the garbage.”

  “Whatever, use. A month’s smelly garbage bags piled up on my desk with a picture of that damn Badger taped to one of them. …I got back from a... from a late lunch a couple of weeks ago and found a crowd in our lunch room cutting up a layer cake ‘some guy in beaver suit left off’ with one of those edible pictures of me sleeping at my desk. It was damn near half gone by the time I saw it, but I could still make out the icing signature of ‘The Badger.’”

  “Any kids?”

  “What you mean?”

  “I mean, Dick, do you and Elaine have any children, kids that would be exposed to all this?”

  “No,” Elaine answered, her face devoid of any expression.

  “When you and I were talking the other day,” Dick wasn’t finished yet, “when you agreed to talk to me, The Badger was down the street... at a bar...”

  “Bar? Since when do ‘bars’ have nude dancers? Can you not, just once, be honest about what you do on your lunch hours?” Elaine was pissed. “...on your way home for the dinners you insist I make, but aren’t there half the time to eat!”

  “Hey!” Dick snapped back. “...Okay, it’s a strip joint. What the hell difference does it make?! It’s that f**kin’ Badger we’re here to talk about, stuffing dollars and copies of our marriage certificate in G-strings. Oh, my God!” Dick was starting to shout now, “Why are you doing this to me? One more, one more incident at work and I’m done. Do you understand, fired?! ...And I don’t have one damn friend left,” Dick started punctuating his words, repeatedly pointing his hand at Elaine, whose face moved back and to the side as if to get out of the his way. “Not one of my friends, even the shitty ones I don’t usually hang out with, will so much as call me back! And you’ve done that. You did this to me.”

  “Wham!!” Ira slammed his open hand on the tabl
e. “Stop it! Both of you, stop it or get the hell out of here. What do you think this is, family counseling? Some reality TV show where you get paid for being mean or acting out? The police won’t help you because, thank goodness, they’ve got better things to do. No one’s getting hurt, and, so far as the police can tell, nothing The Badger is doing is illegal. At best… At best, our attorney tells me you could sue this guy for defamation of character, but that’s only if what he’s saying isn’t true. Now calm down.”

  Ira waited a few seconds, feeling it was high time he took control over the interview. “Elaine,” he shifted in his chair to look directly at her, “this has got to be your doing.”

  “No.”

  “What?!!” Dick was losing it again.

  “Mr. Snykers, please. Be quiet.” And then turning to look at Elaine again, “How can it not be you?”

  “Look, I want out of our marriage. I’ve been begging Dick for months. I’ve even hired an attorney, but I didn’t do this. …Sure, I’ve complained to my sister, to some of my friends at the Y where I go sometimes to workout, but that’s it. Honestly. …It’s not like I went on-line with YouTube or to MyMansADick.com and complained. I didn’t do this. ...My god, Dick,” Elaine turned to your husband, “with all the people you’ve offended or screwed, and I mean that literally, maybe it’s one them!”

  “What about your attorney?”

  “Not a chance. It’s best law firm in the city...”

  “That you can afford,” Dick added.

  “What’s he mean by that?” Ira was curious.

  “I have family money, an inheritance my grandparents worked their whole lives to leave me. …It’s how we can afford to live on what Dick makes.”

  “Have you considered getting a job?”

  “I have one. It’s part-time with a marketing firm, an advertising agency, while I’m taking courses, working to get my degree.”

  “...in Business? Gimme a break. What a waste of time. Who... Who in the world is going to hire you? To do what, exactly? What a joke! You couldn’t so much as get a job cleaning people’s houses, judging from the job you do on ours, and you think some company is going to give you a corner office? In this economy? Did you know,” it was a rhetorical question, “she’s talking about starting her own business? Unbelievable. ...Look,” Dick snapped his head and leaned forward in Ira’s direction, “are you going to help me or not?!”

  “Mr. Snykers..”

  “I thought we were all cozy on a first name basis?”

  “Okay, Dick. Maybe this Badger character, this avenger of down-trodden wives, is worth a segment or two, but before I agree to go any further, there’s a tape I think you should see.” Picking up a remote control from the cabinet behind him, Ira turned on the widescreen TV at the end of the room. “Two days ago, the day after you called me, I was working late, down the hall in my office, when someone in what looked to me to be a beaver costume stops by to chat. He says he’ll talk to me, provided I leave him alone and don’t call the authorities. I think, ‘What the hell,’ and we walk down to one of the studios and chat, for about 20 minutes. ...I think the both of you need to see this.”

  And he played it, the two of them, Ira and The Badger, sitting in cloth backed directors chairs across from each other, just talking. What followed was an odd, sometimes brutally honest discussion of Dick and Elaine’s life, about how she’d asked, then eventually begged – ironically, Dick would say, “badgered” – her husband to do household chores, to work harder, to maybe get a promotion, to have children, to come home after work and, most of all, to love her the way he had when they first met just a few years ago and, if not that, to let her go.

  When it was done, Ira looked at Dick. “The Badger, whoever he is, claims he hasn’t anything do with Elaine. Considers him- or herself to be a Lone Ranger of sorts, a champion of wives, and sometimes husbands, whose voice, The Badger told me off camera, isn’t strong enough. He/she, whoever, told me it’s a prototype, a special example of a new, on-line service he’s going to be testing in several markets to encourage people to complain about stuff, to vent constructively and then, in special cases, when it’s really important, to do whatever it takes, within the law, to make things right.” Ira shook his head quickly, to get himself back on track. “That’s not the point. Interesting maybe, but not the point.”

  Both Dick and Elaine sat quietly. “Dick, do you really want me to run with this story? Do you really want me to play that tape, on our station and other network affiliates who pick it up, and on the Internet? Is that what you want? It’s a story alright, but not one I really want to run at your expense and Elaine’s.”

  Dick looked at Ira, but not at Elaine. And then he stood up and left the room, and then the building, without his wife. Ira and Elaine sat there for a minute until Joyce knocked and pushed open the door. “Uh, sorry to interrupt, but there’s another meeting scheduled for 11. Should I see if I can move it to another room?”

  “No,” Elaine stood up, smiling politely, but clearly upset. “That won’t be necessary. Mr. Radner, thank you for your time,” she said, walking around the table to shake his hand and head out. “If you don’t mind, would you please sit on the story until ...until I talk to Dick?”

  “Of course,” he responded compassionately, rising to his feet. “Of course. And you don’t have to get back to me. If I don’t hear from you, we’ll just file it. That’ll be that.”

  “Thank you.” And she left.

  Late that evening, after two more, nearly simultaneous appearances by The Badger, both of them humiliating and job-threatening events for Dick Snykers, two large furry forms drove up in separate cars to a moonlit, lakeside cottage they had rented in the country. Inside, lights out, the two of them standing fur-to-fur, their huge white foam teeth almost touching, the first words came from the smaller of the two beaver costumes.

  “He’s agreed to the divorce. Uncontested.” She laid her right paw on the furry chest in front of her. “I get out with every dollar that’s mine.”

  “And the divorce agreement?” Ira wanted to make sure it was a done deal.

  “Signed, sealed and delivered – with the proviso that harassment by The Badger come to an immediate and permanent stop.”

  “I think that can be arranged. ...And maybe a party for everyone who helped us out?”

  “Yeah,” the smaller of the two badgers nodded her head. “I’d say a party is exactly what we need.”

  And there, still in the dark, The Badgers took off their costumes and made love. It wasn’t the first time, or even just the tenth time since Elaine’s sister had introduced them at a local gallery, but it was a good time, maybe the best time yet.

  52. Schmutz Patrol

  “Schmutz.” According to the Urban Dictionary... Used by Jewish mothers to

  identify that you’ve got some kind of crap on your face. Random, icky stuff that ends up on you or something else. “Dirt” in German.

  Tuesday, 1:05 PM. An attractive thirty-something brunette in one of those fits-perfectly business suits only high priced women attorneys wear, makes her way through the noisy lunch crowd of professionals at this particular downtown grill where the other half of her meeting is waiting for her in one of the booths.

  “Hey,” the attorney, still standing, says to the women she has come there to meet who is busy reading something on her phone, her crab cake and fries platter half eaten. “I got held up on a conference call.”

  “No problem. Have a seat. You want something to eat?”

  “No,” the suit responded, reaching over, without asking permission, to take one of the other woman’s fries. “I won’t be here that long. Are you sure it’s okay to talk here?”

  “Yeah. It’s too noisy for anyone to hear us, and everyone here,” she paused to look around the room, “is too self-absorbed to give a shit.”

  The suit, Margaret Sunner, sat there, wondering if she was doin
g the right thing, mostly staring at the other woman’s hair and the cheap blouse she was wearing. She was, the other woman, in her late twenties, good looking in a common sexy way, wearing no makeup, with hair that cried out for a more expensive cut.

  The other woman had seen that look before on her clients’ faces and chose to ignore it, almost. “In my line of work, it’s best not to dress to attract attention or, in your case, to make a point.”

  “Hm,” Ms. Sunner responded. “You come highly recommended.” It was a statement Sunner made to reassure herself.

  “For good reason,” the other woman said as a matter of fact, without the least expression or inflection in her voice.

  “Here,” Ms. Sunner reached into her purse and removed a half page brown envelope which she slid across the table.

  The other woman picked it up, pinched the metal clasp and opened the flap. Inside there were two sheets of paper which she unfolded and began to read. One page was a website picture of a man, an attorney at a rival law firm. The other page was all text. Satisfied, she put both pages back in the envelope and set it next to her on the table.

  “Is this business or personal?” the other woman wanted to know.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “It affects what I look for.”

  After a brief pause, Sunner smiled ever so slightly. “Both.”

  “Fine. We’ll get started as soon as...”

  Not waiting for the other woman to finish, Ms. Sunner reached back into her pocket book and this time pulled out an unmarked business envelope that, as it turned out, contained $5,000 in cash. “Here.”

  “Thank you” the other woman responded without seeing or counting the money. “I’ll have a report for you next week.”

  With nothing more to talk about, Ms. Sunner slid over, stood up and turned to leave without saying goodbye.

  Thursday, 2:13 PM. The phone rang in the suburban offices of a regional house and apartment cleaning service. “Good afternoon. Schmutz Patrol. My name is Paulette.” Her voice was that of a woman in her late 40s, pleasant and reassuring. “How can we help you?”

  “Hi. I’m Mark Gutierrez. I got a flier in the mail offering…”

  “…a free apartment cleaning?”

  “Yes, exactly. I think I’d like to take you up on that offer. I just want to make sure I’m making no commitment to continuing services?”

  “None at all, Mr. Gutierrez. No credit card on file, nothing. We’re expanding into your neighborhood and have made the offer to encourage you to give us a try. Obviously, we hope you’ll appreciate the quality of our work and will hire us on a regular basis, but that’s entirely up to you.”

  “Good. And I see that your people are bonded.”

  “We are and, in fact, if you go to our website...”

  “Actually, I’m there now.”

  “…you’ll see the details of that policy. You’ll also notice that we bring our own equipment and supplies, that all our cleaning materials are environmentally safe, and that we have excellent customer reviews. You can also Google us. We’re on everyone’s top 10 list of residential maid or cleaning services in the area.”

  Mark appreciated the pitch, but didn’t have time to listen to it. “Great,” he said impatiently. “How many people will be coming?”

  “How large is your apartment?”

  “Two bedrooms, two baths and a kitchen/living room area.”

  “Two, possibly three.”

  “Okay, let’s do this. When would you be coming by?”

  “How about tomorrow or Monday?” They were both days Mark would be tied up with depositions.

  “Tomorrow’s fine. I don’t have to be here, do I?”

  “No, but you will have to make arrangements for us to get in.”

  “No problem. The attendant just inside the front doors will be expecting you.”

  “Any special requests?”

  “What?”

  “Any particular cleaning problems you’re worried about? Anything you don’t want us to touch or use on a given piece of furniture?”

  “Not really. Just ask your team to do their best to put everything they move back where they found it.”

  “Of course. And if you do think of anything, just leave a note on your kitchen counter. All I need is your apartment address and the email address to which we’ll send you a report on Monday, letting you know precisely what we did – and making you an offer for continued service.”

  “Good.”

  “What’s your address, Mr. Gutierrez?”

  “I live at …”

  Friday morning, 9:52 AM. Having parked their van in one of the service spaces on the side of the condo building, three young, attractive women, each of them wearing bright yellow t-shirts with “Schmutz Patrol” stenciled across their breasts, two of them towing cleaning equipment and supplies in small hand trucks, walked up to the security panel by the front doors.

  “Hi,” one of them spoke into the panel speaker.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re the Schmutz Patrol here to clean Mr. Gutierrez’ apartment.”

  “Of course.” A moment passed while the attendant checked that day’s schedule. “Please come in.”

  “Bzzzzz.” And they were in, picked up a key at the front desk, and took the elevator up to apartment 1012.

  Once inside, the three of them split up, each of them walking through a different section of the apartment holding iPads on which they appeared to be taking notes, perhaps on items needing special attention, and pictures to make sure anything they moved would be returned to where their client had left it. In the process, they were scanning for listening devices and cameras.

  Moments later, “Everyone okay?” the one with the short blonde hair asked the others."

  “I'm good.”

  “Me too.”

  “Okay,” it was the blonde again, “I’ll start with the kitchen.”

  “I’ve got the bathrooms,” one of the other two volunteered.”

  “And I’ll,” the other woman confirmed, “work on his computer and the file cabinets.” They’d leave the dusting, floors and windows for last. “I’ll help out as soon as I can.”

  Without further conversation, they got to work. The other woman sitting down in the smaller of the two bedrooms that Gutierrez used for his home office, pushed up the lid to his laptop, the one he kept at home, and proceeded with extraordinary expertise to bypass passwords and copy pertinent recent email and files, not only from his home computer, but from his law firm’s server into which she was able to login from his apartment. A small, portable scanner they brought with them took care of copying selected items on his desk and in his file cabinet. Before they left, she’d photographed the entire apartment, with special attention to family and other pictures – with the notable exception of a series of more personal shots and video clips collected in their own directory that she didn’t think were anybody’s business.

  When they were done, everything was put back exactly they way they had found it, only cleaner.

  Monday afternoon, at the downtown grill where they had met for the first time, again in one of the booths.

  “Here’s your report,” the other woman, without fanfare or ceremony, handed Ms. Sunner a sealed white, 9 x 12 envelope with only a few pages inside, but also a high capacity thumb drive. “You’ll want to pay special attention to the case files related to your client.”

  “Perfect.” Ms. Sunner put the envelope in the briefcase she had brought with her this time, and got up to leave. “Oh, one other thing. Is he seeing anyone?”

  “You make it habit of dating opposing counsel?”

  “No, but then this trial isn’t going to last forever.”

  “No. No one in particular, not currently, not as far as I could tell.”

  “Good.” Ms. Sunner smiled for real this time, turned and left without so much as a ‘Thank you.’”

  The other wom
an watched her leave, and then sat there for a few minutes, thinking, turning the glass between swallows of her frozen banana daiquiri, a drink for which she’d acquired a taste during a recent vacation in the Bahamas.

  10:38 PM Thursday evening. The other woman sat naked, except for her bright yellow “Schmutz Patrol” t-shirt, her back up against two pillows, her knees up backstopping her lover’s iPad on which she was Googling something. It didn’t matter what. Next to her, in his king size bed, Mark Gutierrez, also naked, but without a t-shirt, was making notes on the small yellow legal pad he kept on the headboard shelves behind them.

  “By the way,” Mark spoke up while rolling up a page and continuing to write, “Ms. Sunner’s partner called this morning to set up a settlement conference. Those files I asked you to give her really got the job done. Thanks,” he told her, making a kissing noise with his lips without looking up. “You know,” he raised his eyebrows, turning his head slightly, “I understand professional ethics. If you’d never told me she’d come to you, and just did your job, I would have understood?”

  “You would have?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I would have figured it out and sued your perfectly hard ass off. ...It’s what I do.”

  “Well, it was my pleasure, honey. ...Oh,” the other woman said, also without looking up, “when you have a chance, can I have copies of the pictures you took of me on the beach in Nassau, the ones you have in your computer, in the directory,” she paused to smile and then moisten her lips, “you named ‘Unbelievable’? I’m not sure I’ll ever look that good again in bikini.”

  “What bikini? I don’t remember there being any bikini.”

  “I mean later,” she looked over at him, “when we finally made it to the beach?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Mark nodded, pretending as if he’d remembered something. Tossing his pad and pen onto the floor, he turned and dove, both hands overlapping in front of him as if diving into a pool, under the sheets, surfacing only long enough to tell her, the other woman, “Just think of me as a particularly frisky dolphin,” as he pulled her down under with him.

  53. The Desk

  As is the case with everything I write,

  except for a few details, this is a true story.

  Prelude –

  (To a short-short story? Why not?)

  As you may already know, there are literary historians who contest the notion that William Shakespeare (4/26/1564 – 4/26/1616) was, in fact, the prolific author he is reputed to be. (Yes, as you may have noticed, he died on the same day of the same month on which he was born.) It is their theory that, acting as a front, Shakespeare took credit for the works of one or more of his contemporaries, namely Francis Bacon (1/22/1561 – 4/9/1626) and/or Christopher Marlowe (2/26/1564 until he was stabbed to death on 5/30/1593 at the age of only 29). Most scholars believe this debate is unwarranted and that William Shakespeare was, in fact, the genius creator of the works to which he signed his name.

  In any case, relationships among these three men – Shakespeare, Bacon and Marlowe – varied from cordial, even warm, particularly between Shakespeare and Marlowe, to angry, resentful and distrusting. Some have even suggested that Bacon – who was known to have a nasty disposition, generally to be lacking any sense of humor and occasionally ruthless – may have arranged for Marlowe’s demise, envious of his closeness to Shakespeare and angered by certain blasphemous remarks, quite shocking for their time, made by Marlowe about Bacon which Sir Francis took personally. Who knows?

  What is known for sure is that Shakespeare’s remarkable productivity stalled abruptly in late 1599, with no output – no play or poem – through most of 1600. The best he could manage was some reworking of Hamlet which he had first written in 1589. Why? Could it be that Shakespeare was distracted and, instead of writing, chose to spend the year rolling around with Gwyneth Paltrow? (Who wouldn’t?) Of course not. That was the movie. In fact, no one really knows, but there is a school of thought that believes Shakespeare, who was a superstitious person, was affected by a gift he received about that time from none other than Francis Bacon himself. Alleged by Sir Francis to have been presented to encourage a reconciliation between the two, there are those who believe the gift had a much more sinister purpose.

  It was early on the perfect Saturday morning, Jake’s favorite day. He’d been up for a while, wrapping up one of the columns that would one day make possible the nice house in the country that was their dream. For now, their one bedroom city apartment would have to do. His nimble fingers were flying over his laptop’s keyboard, until they stopped abruptly, for just a moment, before hitting the final period. “Done.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Eve was just coming around the corner into their kitchen/dining/family room where Jake worked on their coffee table while sitting, as far forward has he could be without slipping off, on their small sofa.

  “Hey, good morning.” Reaching up, he took her left hand, pulling her down and onto his lap. A quick kiss, and then he just looked at her, smiling, and her back at him, the way they did. “Okay,” he said, “I’m three columns ahead. ...Well, two and half. I’ll proof this one tomorrow morning.” He liked to let them sit overnight. “Each of them really very good, if I do say so myself.”

  “And if you don’t, who will?” she looked at him, as if pretending to say, “I’ll be the judge of that.” In fact, she was his biggest fan and loved his writing that, as it turns out, was what attracted her to him when they first met.

  “And I got an email from Mervin,” his agent, “to say he’s crazy about the two chapters I sent him and may have someone who’s interested.”

  “Oooo! That is impressive. I think you deserve a special treat.”

  “Hold that thou..,” but she kissed him before he could finish. “I was thinking we could take the day off and celebrate my creative genius,” she kissed him again, “and your good looks by going into the country for some antique shopping. Maybe buy me an actual desk, something cheap I can refinish? Have lunch in one of those country stores? Maybe over-night at a quaint B&B somewhere?”

  She kissed him, longer this time. “Okay,” was all she said, pushing off his shoulder and standing up. “You know,” she told him matter of fact, “if I were you,” she kept walking, reaching down, her hands across her chest, to grab the corners of the t-shirt she’d slept in, “I’d be meeting me in the shower.” Two slow steps later, when her t-shirt hit the floor, Jake was up and right behind her, picking up her t-shirt along the way because he was the neat one of the two of them.

  One longer than usual shower and two bowls of cereal later, they were in their old Forester and on the road, out of the city, off the Interstate into the country. Jake was driving, prepared to rely on the navigator in his phone, if necessary. Eva, on the other hand, had her seat back, her bare fee up on the dashboard, reading a local travel guide she’d picked up at a yard sale a couple of weeks ago.

  “Which way?” Jake was letting her take the lead, content to play airplane with his hand dangling out his open window.

  “Just stay on this road until I tell you to turn left.”

  Thirty minutes, two left and three right turns later, they were lost.

  “I have to tinkle,” Eva announced.

  “You tinkled before we left.”

  “Apparently, I didn’t tinkle enough.”

  “Well, let’s see,” he pulled to a stop at an unmarked intersection. “Your choices are the woods,” he looked to his left, “or the woods,” he concluded, looking to his right.

  “How ‘bout that place?” Pointing out her window, they both turned to see a small, rundown country home in the distance, its small “Special Furniture” sign barely visible next to an out of control shrub at the street end of its dirt driveway. “Let’s go there.”

  “Why not.”

  The driveway was long and uneven, the low points still wet from Friday’s storm. At the end, there was a small circle of uncut grass. They pu
lled up, a few feet from the front porch steps, both of them relieved to see, but wondering about the late model BMW parked toward the side.

  “Come on,” Jake pulled the handle and pushed open his door, “you tinkle, I’ll look around.”

  Between the two of them – Eva taught English Literature at a local community college. – they didn’t have much, but a do-it-yourself desk should be affordable. Jake would use one of the kitchen chairs, or pick up something cheap with wheels at Staples.

  The solid wood door was open, the screen door behind it hitting the usual bell when they let themselves in. Inside, what used to be the living and dining room was filled with wooden pieces, ordinary country items that were hard not to like. Nothing special. Nothing too weird or creepy the way so many antiques are.

  “Oh.” The particularly well-dressed thirty-something woman who came from the back, carrying an open three ring notebook, was surprised to see them. “Hi. Is there something I can do for you? …Actually we’re not really open.”

  “Uh, I’m sorry to impose, but could I use your bathroom?”

  “Of course. It’s just down the hall,” she said, pointing behind her.

  “Is any of this is for sale?” Jake asked.

  “Well,” the woman walked further into the room, “yes and no. This was my grandfather’s place, and his business. He passed away a few months ago. I’m just here to close up.”

  “Okay if we look around?”

  “Of course. I’m not sure what I can tell you about any of these pieces. All I’ve found is this notebook he kept, but I’ll do my best.”

  Eva was back and the two of them walked around for a few minutes, commenting to each other on this and that, but not finding anything in particular.

  “There’s more in the basement, if you’d like to take a look.”

  “Wait a minute.” Jake had just noticed a desk in the corner, papers all over it, two file boxes stacked beside it, the top one with its lid off and leaning against the wall. An old wooden office chair was pushed unevenly under it. “What about this?”

  “Actually, that was my grandfather’s desk. ...Let me see,” she paused while she set the notebook she was holding down on a dinning table and turned the pages until she found it. “Okay. Let’s see. ‘Unique piece, dating from the late 1500s.’ Wow. Hard to believe. I had no idea. ‘Originally brought to the United States from England through Annapolis in the early 1700s. Is claimed to have once been owned by…’ Hm. Get this, ‘…by William Shakespeare, a gift to him from Sir Francis Bacon.’ …This is interesting.”

  “Are you kidding?” Jake was skeptical, to say the least. “There’s more?”

  “Honey,” Eva didn’t believe a word of it, “that’s just stuff these little dealers make up. No offense,” she added, opening her eyes wide and gesturing with her hands as she turned toward their host.

  “None taken. I’m just reading,” she began her disclaimer without bothering to look up. “...Yeah, there’s more alright. ‘Selling price,’ he wrote, ‘shall be $100 to facilitate a quick sale.’”

  “Quite the steal,” Eva cracked, “for a desk Shakespeare once owned.”

  “Hey,” Jake didn’t want to be rude. “Let’s hear the rest of it.”

  “It’s okay. My grandfather knew his business and was well-known for his lively imagination.” She looked up for a moment, but not at either of them in particular, remembering the occasional summers she had spent at the old house when she was a kid, before getting back to the business at hand. “...‘Buyer must inspect item carefully and agree that there will be no returns. Buyer must assert that he is neither a writer...”

  “What?” Eva was as surprised as Jake.

  The woman kept reading, “…artist or inventor. …Caveat emptor.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “That’s what it says. Are either one of you any of those things?”

  “Let’s take a look at the desk,” Jake responded, ducking the woman’s question. “Do you mind if we...,” Jake pointed to the piles of paper, mostly old receipts and some magazines, asking if they could remove them.

  “Sure,” the woman walked over to help. “Just stack them on the floor. ...Here. Let’s pull the table away from the corner so you can get a better look at it.”

  The table was small. Thirty inches high, wide and deep. Open in the front, where you would pull up a chair. The top was smooth with inlaid trim. The sides and front panel were anything but. They were solid wood, top to bottom, side to side. No legs. Just square panels, with ornately carved intertwining vines from top to bottom.

  Jake looked over at Eva, shrugging as he did. “Honey, it’s in great condition. I wouldn’t even refinish it.”

  “And why,” Eva was still skeptical, “are you willing to sell this for only $100? I mean, if he really thought it belonged to...”

  “According to my grandfather’s notes, it’s not his. Says here,” she looked back at the notebook, running her finger along the text of an old form, “it’s a consignment item from the estate of someone named Joseph Mitchell, a writer... Hm. …who passed away in 1996, and then gives their contact information. ...Anyway,” the woman looked up, “those are the terms. It doesn’t actually belong to my grandfather. $100 it is. Up to you.”

  Two months later, Jake, sitting at his desk, the one they bought in the country, sighed for the nth time, his fingers resting motionless on the keyboard of his laptop. For another $30, the woman had sold them the old man’s chair. Pushing back, Jake reached up to rub his face with both hands thinking it would help him stay awake.

  “Hey. It’s the middle of the night. What are you doing up?” as if she didn’t know. “Come back to bed, honey.

  “I can’t write for shit. I’m behind on every deadline and what I do squeeze out sucks. …Fuck,” he mumbled, and then put his sweat sox covered foot on the front edge of his desk and kicked it – and his computer with it! – over.

  “Hey?! What are you... You know it’s not like we can could afford to get you a new one,” Eva was rolling into her stern voice, but then stopped. “...What’s that?”

  “What?”

  “Look here.” Eva got down on her knees and pointed, just short of touching, at the underside of the desk’s top. “This is lettering. These black marks. This is writing in some language I don’t recognize.” Slowly she moved her finger, left to right, along the first two of five lines, as Jake came down on to the floor next to her, both of them leaning forward to see better.

  Touching the surface, Jake realized that, “They’ve been carved, maybe burned into the wood”

  “Yeah, I think so. Get me some printer paper and a regular, lead pencil.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re going to...”

  “Just like in the movies,” which is exactly what she did. Holding one, then a second sheet of paper over the lettering – One page wasn’t enough. – she rubbed the lead of her pencil over the letters. The result was a surprisingly clear sketch of the text. Having carefully lined up and taped the two pages together, she stopped by the copy center on campus the next morning and used the large page copier to make a single image she scanned and emailed to herself. The rest of that day, except for the two classes she taught, was spent at the library, going on-line and looking at real books, trying to place the symbols.

  “I’ve got it!” Eva called Jake as soon as she figured it out.

  “Got what?”

  “I don’t know what it means, but at least I identified the language.”

  “So what is it?!”

  “Get some Chinese. You know what I like.” She was as excited as she sounded. “I’ll tell you everything over dinner.”

  “Deal. I need some good news. Drive carefully.”

  “See yah.”

  Later, sitting around their little kitchen/dinning room table, covered with open bait boxes from “#1 Son,” the politically incorrect chain founded in the
days when detective Charlie Chan was all people thought they knew about the Chinese… “It’s ‘Theban’,” she told him, like he should have known what that was.

  “The language of, what, actors?”

  “That would be funny, if it wasn’t so stupid. I said ‘Theban,’ not ‘Thespian.’”

  “I know, but I still don’t know what it is.”

  “It’s the language, the not-so-secret-anymore language of Witches, of the spells they cast.”

  “I don’t believe in spells.”

  “Neither do I, but don’t you want to know what it says?”

  “Uh,” Jake hesitated, not wanting to admit how curious he really was, “sure. So what does it mean?”

  “I haven’t a clue, but at least I know what language it’s written in.”

  “Great. Now what?”

  “I’ve found a Professor of Theology at Stanford who specializes in fringe religions.”

  “Our apologies to all our friends who are witches.”

  “Right. The point is, I called her from campus, and she’s agreed to take a look.”

  Two days later, Eva was on the phone again calling from work. “Jake!”

  “Hi, honey. Wait a minute.”

  “I can’t wait. My class is taking a test. I’ve got to get back.”

  “Don’t worry.” Then there was the sound of crumbing paper. “I just need to file the draft of my latest column.”

  “That’s great!” she said, to encourage him and thinking he meant he was emailing it to the paper.

  “Two points,” his disappointment evident in his tone.

  “Jake, maybe it’s better than you think. You know how you’re always more critical of what you write than anyone else.”

  “Trust me, it sucks.”

  “Okay,” Eva was tired of his whining. “Who cares. ...Actually, that was insensitive of me, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe just a tad.”

  “Yeah, well, it could be I know why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why everything you’ve written, or not, since we bought that damn desk, stinks.”

  “So even you think my stuff sucks?”

  “Only recently, but that’s not the point. Read the email from Professor Swinson that I just sent you. I’ve got to get back. We’ll talk about it tonight.”

  There, sitting at “the desk,” Jake pressed the “Get Mail” button and waited a second for it to show up. “Blah, blah, blah, blah…”

  “As best I can tell, the text you’ve sent me is what we, today, would call a curse. The witch who cast it, just prior to the onset of the 17th century if I’m reading the date reference correctly – a particularly powerful time for curses, if there ever was one, it being the change of centuries – is creating a hole of sorts, a pit into which all the creations of he who owns ‘The Block’...”

  “What block?” Jake thought to himself out loud.

  “...will be drawn, quote, ‘...rendering the creator barren and wasted, all that he would have imagined being irretrievably lost so long as The Block is his. So I pray of the Gods, and bear witness on their behalf.’ And there are some other words, maybe incantations, I can’t figure out.”

  “What block?” Eva asked the same question when she got home to share the chopped chicken Cobb salad and fresh lemonade Jake had made for them.

  Both of them stared at the desk, for only a second, and then back at each other. “Thirty by thirty by thirty,” they said to each other in unison.

  “It’s the desk,” Eva said.

  “It’s a cube.”

  “A block.”

  “Not just ‘a’ block,” Jake was thinking. “It’s ‘the’ block.”

  “But we don’t believe in crap like this. It was probably just a 17th century prank, some Elizabethan era jerk’s idea of a practical joke.”

  “That sucked the livin’ creativity out of no less a creative genius than William Shakespeare for over a year?! I checked.”

  Jake stared at her, cocking his head slightly.

  “So, what? You thought I got my Doctorate in English Lit by accident?”

  “I love you. eBay or Craig’s list?”

  “Both. Why take any chances?”

  “Right. The sooner the better.”

  And later that night, they collaborated to write an ad on the very desk they would be selling to a student of veterinary medicine who thought it would make a really interesting dog house for “Hamlet,” the name he’d given to the mutt puppy he’d rescued from a near death experience at the pound to impress this girl he’d been dating, a dramatic arts student prone to overacting. That relationship didn’t work out, but a pet is forever. “Price: $100.” the ad read in part. “Buyer must assert that he is neither a writer, artist nor inventor. Caveat emptor.”

  And you know what? It turns out all that creativity the desk was holding back? Well, it all comes back as soon as you sell it, and then some. Word is Jake’s has even taken up writing short-short stories for his blog. Imagine that.

  54. Imperfect Together

  “You know,” Greg mumbled into his pillow, wondering if he’d been drooling, “I can feel you staring at me.”

  “That’s not possible,” Georgia responded from where she was sitting up against her pillows, her knees up, one hand on the TV’s remote control waiting to see if she should change channels.

  “Are you staring at me?”

  “Well, yes. Sort of.”

  “How did I know?”

  “Because you can feel the intensity of the anguish emanating like laser beams.”

  “Red laser beams.”

  “Yes. Red laser beams out of my electric blue eyes.”

  “That’s it exactly.” Sitting up, Greg grabbed and stacked up his pillows against the headboard, fluffing them just so, scrunched his tush up and interlocked his fingers while staring mindlessly at Jimmy Fallon’s monologue. “Okay, I’m up. What’s bothering you?”

  “Lisa and... and what’s-his-name broke up. She’s devastated.”

  “Lisa was ‘devastated’ when the African violet we got her for her new apartment died.”

  “I know, but she was attached to that plant. It was like a member of her family.”

  “Then she should have watered it. Maybe if she’d watered what’s-his-name...”

  “Okay,” Georgia answered, cocking and lowering her head slightly while she raised her eyebrows to acknowledge his point, “but it’s still sad they broke up. She really liked this guy.”

  “I’m sure she did, and the one before him, and the one before him, but I’m not surprised. She’s one of your best friends and still, after months of dating this guy, you don’t know his name.”

  “They seemed so perfect together.”

  “Come on. You didn’t wake me up to tell me that Lisa’s back on the market.”

  “We have nothing in common.”

  “You and Lisa?”

  “No. You and me.”

  “We both like Jimmy Fallon.”

  “Yes, but me more than you. Even that, me more than you.”

  “Okay. …Okay, let’s do this right. Don’t move.” Getting out of bed, Greg walked across their loft to his desk, picked up a yellow pad, grabbed a pen and got back into bed. Without his contacts in, he had to hold the pad closer than usual to his face.

  “Mm, you’re so anal,” Georgia noted out loud, closing her eyes and shaking her head slightly while Greg drew two vertical lines, writing “What,” “You” and “Me” at the top of the page. “Ever since you read that book on...”

  “Forget the book. By the way, I prefer “organized” to “anal.” Now go ahead. Pick any subject.”

  “No.”

  “Go ahead. It’s 12:40 in the morning. Put your money where your mouth is, or lose for-ev-er the right to make this argument.”

  “What argument is that?”

  “The ‘we have nothing in common’ argument.”

 
; “Fine.”

  “Fine,” Greg answered in kind.

  “You can’t just diminish the impact of my ‘fine’ by repeating it.”

  “Agreed. It was an instinctive reflex, like needing sleep, which, because I love you, I’ll do my best to repress. You go first.”

  “Alright,” Georgia was ready. “Politics. I’m a fiscal conservative, you’re a Democrat.”

  “I can be both.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Have you ever said ‘No’ to a social program even if we couldn’t afford it?”

  “Okay, I’ll be a Democrat, but only if you admit to being a Republican.”

  She paused, “Deal, but with an asterisk.”

  “This list is going to have footnotes, and you think I’m anal?”

  “In the interest of precision, and I know how much you appreciate precision, I want you to note that I’m agreeing to these simple-minded distinctions only because it’s late.”

  “Agreed,” and Greg drew a horizontal line. “What’s next?”

  “Believes in sex on the first date?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “It’s a question, a perfectly valid question that goes to your attitude toward relationships.”

  “Honey, we had sex on our first date, willing, desperate, consensual sex on the first date.”

  “That wasn’t exactly our first date. More like a preface to our first date.”

  “You’re saying we had sex before our first date. How’s that even possible? What did we, bump into each other on the subway before we’d actually met? Why am I just hearing about this?”

  “Do you even remember? We met at a party. I’d spilled some chili on my blouse. You came to my rescue. We went into the kitchen for some water. The next thing we knew, we were grabbing each other in their garage, making love on the hood of…”

  “You know, I don’t remember how we got from the kitchen to the garage?”

  “That’s because you blacked out as soon as you touched my breasts. ...Still do.”

  “I do not!” Greg was beginning to take this personally.

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Okay. ‘Yes’ on both sides. There. That’s something we have in common.”

  “Big deal. ...Let’s do race. “You’re white. I’m Hispanic.”

  “So?”

  “Write it down,” Georgia insisted.

  “With an asterisk. ‘Hispanic, but doesn’t speak Spanish or even like Mexican food.’”

  “I eat tacos.”

  “Everybody eats tacos. …Religion.” It was Greg’s turn. “I’m Jewish, but not religious. You were raised Catholic.”

  “Perfect. That’s a perfect example. Remember how your parents reacted to hearing that, when you finally got around to telling them?! I still can’t believe you let them think that Gomez might be a Jewish name?”

  “In my defense, there are Hispanic Jews. You could have been one of them, with a tan.”

  “Yeah, how many? Just how many Hispanic Jews are there?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but now that my parents know, they’re…”

  “Fine?”

  “Adjusting. …I’m drawing another horizontal line.” Greg was ready to change the subject. “I like sea food, sea food and vegetables, preferably wild and organic.”

  “Yes. Be sure to mention arugula, goat cheese, and all that new cuisine crap you’re always ordering.”

  “I can’t believe you’re attacking the food I eat. You, on the other hand, never met a carbohydrate you didn’t like.”

  “So I like pasta and an occasional cheeseburger.”

  “If by ‘occasional,’ you mean ‘daily’?”

  “I like to think of myself like a Vegan,” Georgia felt the need to explain, “that only eats carbohydrates.”

  “Right. Like a Vegan. I’ll make a note”

  “Thank you. …Sex?”

  “I’m male. You’re female. You’re not holding that against me, are you?”

  “That’s gender. I meant to ask, when do you prefer to have sex?”

  “He,” Greg moved his pen while talking about himself in the third person, “prefers morning sex, but then you knew that, while...”

  “She prefers nighttime sex.”

  “You know,” Greg couldn’t help himself, “it’s nighttime.”

  “No, no. It’s after 1 AM. The nighttime sex ship has sailed.”

  “You’re referring to the USS Fornicate?”

  “Exactly. Left the port. Out to sea. In international waters.”

  “I get the point.”

  “Parents. Draw another line. …Parents.” Georgia was determined to keep the conversation on point.

  “What about our parents?”

  “Your parents like me. My parents don’t.”

  “Your parents don’t like me?”

  “No, they think you’re great. It’s me they don’t like.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You have two loving parents..”

  “Who have never recovered from my dropping out of college.”

  “Are you kidding? Have you seen how proud they are of how you’ve been buying and renovating these houses, at the crew you’ve built and the money you’ve been making?”

  “Thanks, honey. I needed to hear that, and I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “...and that’s be-cause?”

  “Because,” Georgia repeated the phrase he loved to hear, “you’re not only good in bed, you’re a financial genius, God’s gift to accounting.”

  “‘Great.’ ‘Great in bed.’”

  “Right, but we still don’t have anything in common.”

  “Okay, I’ll keep playing, but only because it’s late and I’m not thinking clearly.”

  “Entertainment. I like to watch TV. You like to read.”

  “You read stuff.”

  “The ads in the Sunday paper don’t count, although I do spend a lot of time on the Internet, reading blogs and the cable news websites. You read actual books.”

  “And this is a material difference?”

  “No. Not all by itself. Gimme a break. There’s a collective point I’m trying to make here.”

  “Okay. I can do this. What’s next?”

  “Foreplay?”

  “What about it?” Greg was thinking it might be a trick question.

  “You need it. I don’t even like it all that much. I’m busy out of my mind and meanwhile my boyfriend is taking his time.”

  “I thought you liked it.”

  “Do you remember the garage sex we had, that we were talking about during the monologue? The time we spent in the kitchen…”

  “…before I blacked out?”

  “Yes. That was foreplay for me.”

  “So I’ve been wasting time all these months we’ve been sleeping together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Soooo, we could have had, like two or three times as much actual sex?”

  “Two times would be my guess. I think I just need to have sex more frequently than most women, so far as I know.”

  “And you’re just telling me this now?”

  “To be honest, I got tired of waiting for you to figure it out for yourself.”

  “Well, good. Thank you for keeping me in the loop as it were. So good news, we now have in common that neither one of us gives a hoot about foreplay.”

  “That reminds me,” it just occurred to Georgia, “Language.”

  “We both speak English.”

  “I use the full array of traditional four letter words. Your idea of cussing is to say, ‘Phooey.’”

  “Fine. I’m drawing another line. What’s next?” Greg folded the first page over the top of the pad and drew three more vertical lines, hurriedly, not so straight this time.

  “Where?”

  “Where what?”

  “Where do we each prefer having sex?”

  “In
bed, in the shower and on the couch,” Greg was quick to list his choices, “in that order. As for you, after what you just told me, I’m guessing pretty much anywhere.”

  “We don’t have a couch, just a futon.”

  “Well then we need to get one. ...Music. How ‘bout music?”

  “You like country,” Georgia shook her head from side to side, sighing slightly in the process, never having understood his appreciation for boring (her opinion) music. “I, on the other hand, like rock and roll,” which she said while doing a little dance with the top half of her body.

  “You make us sound like Donnie and Marie, only with less teeth.”

  “Just write it down.”

  Greg did.

  “Are they friends of yours from the office?”

  “Who?”

  “Donnie and..”

  “They’re a brother and sister act. ‘I’m a little bit coun-try’,” Greg sang in a bad falsetto, and then, “‘I’m a little bit rock and roll’,” in his normal voice.

  “What?”

  Greg turned his head to look at her, feigning distain.

  “And we never go dancing.”

  “That’s because neither of us looks cool dancing, as you were just demonstrating so aptly.”

  “‘Aptly’? Who says ‘aptly’?”

  “Anal people who read books. Let’s keep going. It’s only a matter of time before I pass out.”

  Georgia thought for a moment. “…Personal habits. You’re compulsively neat, but don’t mind cleaning up after me for some reason, which, I admit, is a point in your favor. I, on the other hand, am somewhat less neat.”

  “Go.”

  Georgia was on a roll. “...Personal hygiene.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “You only shave once ever other day or so. Stubble can irritate my skin.”

  “I had no idea you were so sensitive. And you shave under your arms and legs how frequently?”

  “Good point. Let’s move on.”

  “Let’s not.” Greg was exhausted, literally. “Here’s the deal.”

  “You’ve stopped writing.”

  “You’re the most important thing in my life. You’re also the most important thing in your life.”

  “Hey!”

  “No interrupting. That’s something else we have in common.”

  “Are you kidding?! I do care more about you than I do about myself. Really. I know. Hard to believe, but I do. It’s true.”

  “I was crazy about you that day in the garage, and I still am.”

  “Crazy?”

  “Yes,” now it was Greg’s turn, “but in a good, meaningful way. I never get tired of hearing her voice. Something about it makes me feel good. And you make me laugh, not so much right now, but most of the time. For a guy like me, the only one of his ethnic group that’s not naturally funny, that’s a bigger deal than you might imagine. You’re extraordinary and, at the risk of blowing a really good thing, I have no idea why you go out with me. I even like the way you reach out for me, touching my elbow and knees in the middle of the night.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. I do that in self-defense.”

  “So, are we done?”

  Georgia didn’t answer immediately, but then, “Yes,” her voice serious, almost determined.

  “Finally.”

  “No, I mean ‘Yes.’”

  “Yes, we’re done?! Are you kidding?,” Greg seldom got excited, but was on the verge of losing his calm. “One of your screwball friend’s personal life hits a pothole, and our relation tanks?!”

  “No, bozo.” Georgia turned to face him. ‘Yes,’ I’ll marry you.”

  Greg put his mouth on pause while he looked carefully at Georgia’s face, one feature at a time. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  “No. I just assumed, you know, by inference, I just assumed you were asking me, and I was responding. In the affirmative.”

  “Uhhhh, I was. Yes, that’s exactly what I was doing. For the record, just to be clear, ..will you marry me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay then, can we get some sleep?” Greg tossed his pad and pen onto the floor, reached up and turned off the light on his nightstand, sliding under the sheets and turning sideways toward Georgia who was still sitting up. “I love you.” It was something, the last thing he said to her every night, reaching over to touch her side while he closed his eyes.

  Georgia turned off her light, but didn’t scrunch down, the only light in the room coming from the TV and the city lights outside their third floor windows.

  “You know,” Greg mumbled into his pillow, “I can feel you staring at me.”

  “Which one of us is telling his parents first?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “Which one of us?”

  “Okay,” Greg shot up. “Rock, paper, scissors.” And they did it.

  “Good,” Greg said victoriously. “Your parents first, Saturday morning over breakfast.” And he was down on his pillow, eyes shut.

  A minute later, “I think you cheated. I don’t know how, but I never win. There’s just no other explanation.”

  55. “Gesundheit!”

  The street was busy that evening, as usual. Three narrow, unmarked lanes, one of them for alternate street parking, the one on the other side blocked by a delivery truck here and a service truck there. The pavement was still damp from the late afternoon rain, just a bit of steam rising where the sun, breaking through the clouds, was doing its job. There was still an hour or so of daylight. People, mostly young in this neighborhood, were coming and going in between and around each other, avoiding garbage bags that wouldn’t be collected until late that night, and the occasional piece of throwaway furniture left at the curb. Racks of fruit, flowers and other stock protruded from the fronts of stores that were thriving on the flow of locals coming home from work. It was noisy with the sound of traffic and of people talking, too many to hear what any of them were saying.

  Stepping quickly across the street, between two badly parked cars and onto the sidewalk, she walked up to the door to the right of the gyros place that was in the bottom of the converted tenement where she lived, five tall flights up. Without looking left or right, she put her key in the lock, the key with no chain to help find it, turned it, pulled back the heavy metal door and stepped into the dimly lit hallway, looking ahead to a brighter light at the bottom of the staircase.

  Finding it easier to almost jog up the stairs, she kept her right hand on the banister and watched her feet to make sure she navigated the wedge-shaped steps at the top and bottom of each flight without tripping. She was is good shape, her legs well-toned from the months she had lived there and from the occasional running she did along the river to clear her head. On the sixth floor, her breathing quickly returning to normal, she smiled a polite greeting at the woman who lived in one of the apartments that faced the street, who was on her way downstairs with her new baby hanging out comfortably in the Snugli on her chest. “Will that be me someday?” our heroine wondered to herself. Turning to her left, she walked down the hallway to her apartment door that had long ago lost count of how many times it had been painted, currently dark green.

  Jill, an aspiring screenwriter, paid the rent by doing research for a national news magazine. A fact checker, she spent her days reading, mostly on-line and at libraries, alone, with virtually no real interaction with anyone, which was good because “interaction” wasn’t something she did very well. Jill was pleasant enough, actually very nice, but found small talk difficult and didn’t make friends easily. Tonight, like most nights, she would make dinner, maybe watch some TV while she caught up with the handful of emails she received from friends and family, and shopped on-line for what she needed and could afford. And then she’d write until she was too tired to keep going. Eventually she’d fall to sleep with the little flat screen her parents gave her still on in the corner.
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br />   “Hey, Jill.” It was Pete, her neighbor who lived in the flipped version of her studio and with which she shared a common wall. Pete was coming out of his apartment, through his door across the hallway from her door, on his way to the garbage cans that lined the alley beside their building. He’d been stalling for a couple of minutes inside his place, hoping for the opportunity to run into her. It was a bit creepy, but well intentioned. His voice, pleasant, but a bit higher than you’d expect from looking at him, startled her, but then it always did. Something about this guy made her nervous, but in a good way. They’d moved in about the same time, but hardly talked. She wanted to, but didn’t really know how, and he was too timid to take the initiative.

  Pete, by he way, worked for an up-and-going-nowhere apps software company, experimenting, in his spare time, with something so secret he wouldn’t tell anyone about it, if only he knew anyone who asked.

  “Oh, hi,” she blurted back, followed by one more “oh” when she realized, turning so quickly to look at him, her hand still on the key in her door, that the top button of her blouse had become undone. Modesty had always been a problem for her.

  “Sounds like a state,” was all he could think to say. “Imbecile,” he thought to himself.

  “What?”

  Stuck with what he’d said, he had no choice except to go with it. “Oh-hi ..oh.” Pete couldn’t help glancing down at the open button, but was embarrassed and quickly returned to the face that he so looked forward to seeing every day. “Uh, is there anything I can take down for you?”

  “Sure. ...Sure. Give me just a second.” Turning the key for the deadbolt and then the knob, she pushed open the door that closed by itself behind her. “Trash? I just took it out this morning.” Not wanting to disappoint Pete, Jill grabbed the morning paper she was looking forward to reading that night, frantically separated the pages and stuffed the less interesting ones into her kitchen trashcan. Pulling out the bag, she grabbed one of the twister-ties she kept in a shot glass on her counter. “Wait!” she shouted, noticing the black newspaper ink on her hands, “I’ll be right there!”

  “No problem,” Pete reassured her. “You know, these walls are so thin, you don’t have to shout,” he said in a normal voice, basically talking to himself.

  “I know. I’ll be right there,” Jill answered, proving how easy it was to hear him.

  Looking up and at the hallway wall behind Jill’s kitchen, Pete smirked and nodded his head slightly. “It’s okay. Take your time.”

  “Here.” Jill flung open her door, her hands clean, her hair down when it hadn’t been before, her top button still open, one arm holding out her garbage bag that Pete took from her. “Thanks.”

  “Sure,” and then he just stood there, not knowing what to say.

  “Will you be coming back?” she asked, but then added, based on the look on Pete’s face, “From the garbage room?”

  “Well, eventually.”

  “So you’re going out?”

  “No. I’m just going to the garbage room. ...I’ll be right back.”

  “Good.”

  Pete started to walk away toward the stairs, but then turned back. “Why did you want to know?”

  “Uh, no reason. No reason. ...Just making conversation. I don't know.”

  Pete nodded his head, took two steps backward to keep his eyes on her, smiled awkwardly and then turned rather than risk falling down the stairs.

  Her arm down by her side, Jill raised her hand as if to wave goodbye to him. “What am I doing?” she whispered to herself. “Thank goodness he wasn’t looking.”

  But then, just as he was starting down the first step, Pete leaned back. Looking down the hallway, he gave her a wave back. Distracted, the three bags he was carrying didn’t clear the stairway wall and railing and he stumbled. Jill started to say something, but Pete beat her to it. “I’m good. I’m okay,” and he was on his way down the five flights to the ground floor.

  “See you later,” she said to Pete who Jill was sure didn’t hear her, and that was that. “Hallway dates,” she called them, to herself of course.

  Later that evening, Jill was sitting on her futon, eating a salad out of the large glass bowl she’d made it in, when the phone rang. Not her phone, but Pete’s. She could hear it through the common wall their apartments shared.

  “Hi, Mom. …I’m fine, Mom,” and then he walked away toward the other end of his tiny apartment where it would be harder, pretty much impossible for Jill to hear him.

  After all this time, she’d long ago got over her reservations about listening to his calls – using the electronic stethoscope she bought on a whim, so she told herself, at “Spade’s,” a combination detective shop and bar she discovered one day when she was out running. It had started to pour and she needed cover. For $19.99 on sale, she got a suction cup with a wire running to a box that ran off a battery. She plugged her buds into that, and she was in business.

  And so she listened to Pete’s nightly call from his mother, mostly to just his side of it, imagining, often mocking what his mother was saying to him. “Yada, yada, yada. And,” she continued in the hoarse falsetto voice Jill imagined Pete was hearing, “did you call Aunt Edna? You know she’s home now from the hospital recovering from her record breaking underarm liposuction.” Jill paused for a second to pinch the non-existent flab under her left arm, shaking it to see if anything flapped in the wind. “..Blah, blah, blah.” And then, unexpectedly…

  “No, mom,” he told her, talking louder than usual. “No, I haven’t asked her out yet.”

  Jill stopped chewing, her mouth still full of sweet potato chips and sour cream she was having for a snack. There was no way any crunching noise in her head was going to let her miss this part. “Who?” she whispered. “Who’s she talking about?!”

  “When was the last time I talked to her? Mom, are you kidding? …Today, Mom, when I was taking out the trash.”

  “Oh, my God! ...It’s me,” Jill whispered to herself.

  “Yes, I like her, Mom. She’s beautiful.”

  “I’m beautiful?”

  “Actually, ‘really attractive’ is more like it.”

  “I’ll take it.” It was a great complement, but for some reason she was disappointed, as if she’d just been downgraded.

  “Sexy?” And then, remembering he was talking to his mother, “You know, Mom, I don't really feel comfortable... ...Yes, sexy, but in a casual, not at all slutty way.”

  “I’m sexy,” Jill smiled. She felt better now and, flirting with herself, undid yet another button, the bridge of her bra showing just a bit.

  “And she’s funny.”

  “By which he means ‘witty,’ not in a slapstick or vulgar way. …Wait a minute. How does he know I’m funny? Has he been listening when I read my scripts?”

  “And she’s.. She’s…”

  “..out loud? …I’m what? Com’on, spit it out.”

  “She’s… Ahhhhhhhchooo!”

  “Gesundheit!” Jill responded instinctively, in a loud voice, realizing immediately what she’d done.

  “...Mom.” The woman was nothing if not hard to interrupt. “Mom! ...I need to get off. Call me tomorrow,” and Pete hung up.

  “Shit!” Jill mouthed to herself, but without uttering a sound. “Shit, shit, shit!” This was obviously a moment of high trauma given that Jill never really cursed and only recently allowed herself the occasional s-bomb since mainstream cable censors started approving it in shows airing after 10 PM. True, she was troubled by this turn of events, the cursing in particular, the result of an overly polite upbringing she instantly blamed on her own parents. “Okay, I need a plan.”

  Pete, too embarrassed to say anything, didn’t, say anything that is, and began spending the entire night, until he passed out, thinking about how precisely he would handle their usual running into each other on their ways to work. “I could leave early, or late,” Pete thought to him
self, “avoiding meeting her altogether. “No. That would send the wrong message, that I’m embarrassed or, even worse, didn’t really care. …No, I’ll bring it up. ‘I guess you heard me talking to my mother last night. It’s true, I’ve been thinking about asking you out...’ Honesty. That’s good. Yes, I like that. No. ‘I guess you...’ Guess nothing, of course she heard me. Who am I kidding? She was listening on purpose. Why isn’t that creeping me out?”

  Meanwhile, over in her apartment, Jill was busy working on her own alternative scenarios on her laptop. “The key is how the female looks. I can’t change the venue. The hallway and stairs are what they are, but how the female lead dresses will set the tone. Okay, okay. What are my choices?”

  “Casual and confident? Normal work clothes? Jeans and a t-shirt, maybe with an open hoody? No makeup? I can’t pretend to be someone I’m not. I need to be comfortable. Not just me, I need to make him comfortable too. ...Stop, stop. This sucks.”

  “How about sophisticated, but tentative so he’ll feel needed? Business casual. Light, but noticeable makeup – if can remember how to put it on. …Maybe just some lipstick and eyeliner? I’ll be sophisticated. ...Who am I kidding?”

  “I know,” Jill giggled, “Instant hard-on. Yes. When has sex ever failed? Pretty much every time I’ve tried it, but just in case this is an exception… Besides, I’m desperate, an underrated condition if there ever was one. …Okay. Flat out. Tank top. I have nice arms. No bra? No. Men turn into idiots when they see nipples. Light, very light bra. My one and only no-bra bra. Jeans. Bright red lipstick. No bun. My hair down, like I just got up. Run my hand through my hair. Carry my leather jacket down to the curb. Stay close on the stairs, bumping into him? No. Holding his arm once or twice. The heels, high enough to make me careful going down the stairs, but not so high that I actually fall. The navy blue ones will be perfect, but I’ll have to practice. What’s my excuse for wearing heels? What’s my excuse? …A presentation? No. The Jeans and no-bra wouldn’t be appropriate for a business meeting. I work for a publisher, not a strip club.”

  And so it went, until she passed out, still in the clothes she’d worn the day before. What seemed like only a second later, the buzzer of her alarm clock jolted her awake. “Whoa!” Jill sat up, shaking her head to make sure she didn’t turn it off and go back to sleep. Checking the time, she knew she was running late. Pete was always punctual, something she counted on to make their frequent “chance” meetings happen. “Shower time!”

  Twenty-two minutes later, Jill was at the small round table where she ate and did some of her best writing, pouring a second salvo of Cherrios into what was left of her skim milk, a half glass of orange juice waiting for her nearby, The Today Show playing in the corner. In her underwear, she was towel-drying her hair to give it the look she was after. After all that planning the night before, she’d decided to just be herself, turning up the volume just a notch. As for the script, she’d made some final notes. Other than that, she’d decided to wing it.

  At 7:50 exactly, Jill put one arm through her backpack, and so did Pete. Both apartment doors opened simultaneously.

  “Hey,” Pete said, smiling to break the ice.

  “Hey,” Jill laughed slightly back at him, realizing immediately that they were both psyched. If something was going to happen, now was as good a time as any.

  They stood there for a moment, just a moment, looking at each other.

  “You look great,” Pete told her.

  “Thanks. Pretty much the same as usual.”

  “No. Your hair’s different.”

  “Oh yeah,” Jill brushed it back with her right hand. “I was running late and didn’t have time to blow it dry. …That,” she thought she was thinking to herself, but wasn't, “and the t-shirt and bra I’m wearing.”

  “I... I guess so.” Pete didn't now what to say.

  “Ooo. You heard that, didn’t you?”

  “It’s okay. I like it that you’re so straightforward.”

  “Even when I don’t mean to be?”

  “Especially then. …Come on. We’ve got to get going.” Pete extended his left arm, gesturing for Jill to go first, which she did, but then stopped to turn back. He’d taken another step, leaving them closer together than they’d been, except for the occasional times when they would pass each other going up and down the narrow stairs.

  “You don’t usually wear a tie.”

  “No.”

  “In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a tie. ...It’s nice.” Jill wasn’t just being polite. It was surprisingly fine. “It may be,” she thought to herself, for real this time, “the only one he has, but it’s a good one. His collar open, his tie loosened just right, enough to be casual, but not enough to be sloppy. Light plaid shirt, sleeves folded up twice.” He was the perfectly cute techy professional.

  “I, uh, have a presentation.” Pete’s voice was tentative.

  “No you don’t,” Jill blurted out, she had no idea why.

  “You’re right.” Pete took a deliberate breath. “I didn’t want you think I wore it just to impress you.”

  “What makes you think a tie would impress me?”

  “When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me I looked good wearing one. That, and because I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Smiling, but quiet, Jill turned and walked down the stairs with Pete two steps behind her, neither of them saying anything all the way down, through the building’s front door and out onto the sidewalk.

  “Well,” Jill stopped and turned to Pete. “I was thinking...”

  “Me, too. ...Sorry. You go ahead.”

  “No,” Jill really needed him to go first. “What were you going to say?”

  He paused, taking a moment to make sure he got what he was about to say right. “Well, we both get home about the...”

  “Pete!!,” a young woman barged in between them, literally pushed Jill out of the way. “Oh. Sorry,” she apologized half-heartedly, extending her hand to shake Jill’s. She was good looking, in a financially successful, briefcase-up-her-ass kind of way. Expensive business suit. Even more expensive haircut. “I’m L. It’s short for Leslie. Pete and I dated for a while, quite a while actually, when we were in college.” And then she cupped her hand to the side of her mouth, pretending Pete couldn’t hear her. “...I think he lost his virginity with me, but he denies it.”

  “Hi,” Jill was struck, but not entirely surprised by the firmness of L’s grip. “Pleasure to...”

  L didn’t wait to make chit chat, preferring to talk to Pete. “Your mother...”

  “You talked to my mother?”

  “How else was I going to find out where you lived? Or whether or not you were still single?!”

  “Leslie, I’m kind of in the middle of something. How about...”

  “My point exactly.”

  “What?” Pete had no idea what she was talking about.

  “Look. I’ve go to get to a meeting, and I’m flying back early tomorrow. We’ll have a nice dinner tonight, my treat, and then,” she smiled, setting her briefcase down and reaching up to tighten Pete’s tie, her ample breasts just brushing against his chest, “...and then we’ll see what happens next. ...How ‘bout that?” L finished in a much softer, less arrogant, blatantly seductive voice.

  “Look, uh...” Jill had had enough and was beginning to feel like she was in the way. “I’ve got to get going. Pleasure,” she said nodding toward L. “...I’ll see you around, Pete,” and she turned and started walking away.

  “Why don’t we meet back here at, let’s say, 7?” L was persistent and confident to a fault. “Unless, you’d prefer..”

  “Jill!” Pete shouted after her. “Wait, up!”

  Jill barely heard him, but stopped when she did, taking a second to compose herself before turning around and taking the few steps back to where he was dealing with L.
r />   “Leslie,” he said in a surprisingly determined tone.

  “Yes?” She really had no idea what was going on.

  “It’s good to see you. Really. …Sort of, but I have plans for tonight and,” looking up at Jill who smiled back at him, “with any luck, tomorrow night and the night after that.” Taking a step closer to Jill, L was squeezed to the side.

  “Well, okay,” L raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “Here.” L took out a business card and slid it into Pete’s shirt pocket, patting it after she did. “Call me. I’ve got to go.” And she did, without either Jill or Pete watching her leave.

  “I was thinking we could order Chinese tonight. I’ll buy. You’ll bring dessert. I have Netflix. Maybe watch a movie.”

  “Okay.” Jill smiled again, mostly with her eyes this time. “That would be nice.”

  “Good.” Pete took a step forward.

  “Do I get to pick?”

  “Pick what?”

  “What we order?”

  “Sure.” Taking his bag off his shoulder, he pulled out the menu he had printed last night. “I wrote my email address at the bottom, just in case you needed it, and my cell phone number. Let me know what you want, but nothing weird. No squid, no mushrooms. I don’t...”

  “Of course not.” Stepping forward, Jill reached up to re-loosen Pete’s tie, letting both her hands slide away from his neck half way down his chest, her right stopping to take Leslie’s business card out of his pocket. “We’ll save the weird part for after the movie.”

  Pushing back slightly, they both smiled, turned and got on their ways to work, neither of them turning to look back for fear they’d screw something up.

  56. The Ladies Room

  “I don’t understand why everyone’s so upset.” Alisha, now Assistant to the new CEO, stood outside the outgoing CEO’s office, talking fast, the way she did, in a loud whisper to her girl friend, Mel, whose arms were full of supplies. By outgoing, in this case, we mean “dead.”

  “I know.” Mel widened her eyes and tilted her head in agreement. “Sure, he founded the place. I get it, but the guy was like over 90 years old.”

  “Even so, you know, he was in great shape, for his age I mean. You know Wendy in accounting?”

  “Sure. We used to chat when I was on her floor, until her hearing started to go.”

  “Well she’s employee number eight or something, definitely less than 10, and she says the old man was never sick, never missed a day’s work, not so much as a cold.”

  “I’m no doctor, but I’m thinking you’re less likely to get sick if you never leave the office.”

  “True. He did work hard, right ‘til the end. …He may have been old, but he seemed fine to me, until his head hit the hardwood.” Alisha rolled her eyes in the direction of the bookcase inside the old man’s office where his body had been found.

  “Shouldn’t there be a chalk outline or something?”

  “That’s only if he’d been murdered.”

  “I mean, the guy dies trying to power screw his bookcase to the floor? What the…” she stopped talking as soon as they heard the new CEO coming down the hall from the stairs he always took, instead of the elevator that is. John Chocks, grandson of the Mr. Chocks who just retired, in a manner of speaking, was a person who didn’t waste time or appreciate chit chat, or recognize junior staff, at least not while his grandfather was around.

  “John!” This was a voice that got his attention. It was Roberta Green, General Counsel, her four-inch heels, the expensive kind with the red soles, snapping on the shiny marble floors. The older suit trotting next to her was barely able to keep up.

  “Mr. Chocks,” it was the suit talking, more than a little out of breath, “you can’t do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Move into your grandfather’s office.”

  “Who are you? And,” John looked at Roberta, “why do I care?”

  “I’m Hedges, Donald Hedges, attorney for your grandfather’s estate.”

  “So? Did he leave me anything?” John was kidding. He already knew.

  “Virtually the entire company.”

  “Virtually? Didn’t I get 100% of his stock?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Hedges answered almost apologetically, the way John expected. Intimidation was, after all, something John had learned from the best.

  “That’s great, but also what he promised, what he told me he was doing, every day since I started working for him when I was in middle school. Other kids had lemonade stands. I was attending board meetings with the old man.” It was John’s odd way of saying he missed his father. “Other kids I knew went away to college. I stayed in town so I wouldn’t miss anything. ‘…It is, after all,’ he would tell me, ‘the family business.’ If he wasn’t building it for me, what was the point of my hanging around all this time?”

  “I understand, Mr. Chocks, but…”

  “But what? …Roberta, I’m running behind. Help me out here.”

  “But there’s a catch, John,” she told him.

  “I read the will, I don’t remem...”

  “Your grandfather insisted that you not...,” Roberta was only saying it for the record, in front of Mr. Hedges. “...that no one occupy his office. He wants it locked, and left that way…”

  Mr. Hedges felt compelled to say something, and so he interrupted, before he missed his chance, “‘…for as long as the building stands.’ That’s precisely what he said. Even if you sell the building, this provision must be a condition of the sale. That was what the founder of this company asked that you do.”

  “You’re kidding?” John really didn’t have the time for this. “I read the will. It was a request, not a condition.”

  “He could have made it a ‘condition,’ but he chose to leave it up to you, hoping you would comply.”

  “Okay. Good. Thank you, Mr. Hedges.” He started to move, but Mr. Hedges reached out, grabbing John’s arm, only to pull it back as soon as he made contact.

  “You’d disregard your grandfather’s final request?” Mr. Hedges was as stunned as a tight ass could be without seeming comical about it.

  John just looked at him. “You’re kidding.” This time it wasn’t a question. “My grandfather once ordered me to switch all the restrooms from two ply to single ply toilet paper because he said we were throwing it out anyway, what difference did it make. I didn’t do that either.” That matter having been settled to John’s satisfaction, he turned toward the office door and propped it open with a one of his grandfather’s heavy eagle bookends he took from a nearby shelf. “Come on, Mel.”

  Mel looked at Alisha, lowering her head and scrunching her eyebrows together, as if to say, “He knows my name?!” to which Alisha responded with a mini-shrug.

  “Put everything on the table for me. There,” he pointed to the small conference table in the corner, away from the windows.

  “Yes, Mr. Chocks.”

  “It’s my company now. We’re on a first name basis, all of us.”

  “Of course, …” she paused for second, trying to remember his first name.

  “John.” He filled in the blank for her. “Come on. Let’s do this. You too, Alisha.”

  But then John stopped, just inside the doorway, and turned back to look at Mr. Hedges. “Why?”

  “Why what, Mr. Chocks?”

  “What is it about his office that...”

  “Excuse me, but your grandfather anticipated the question. I’m to quote: ‘Tell the kid it’s because that’s the way I want it. No questions asked. Just do it.”

  “Wow.” Alisha couldn’t help herself. “Sorry.”

  “Sounds just like him. ...Thank you, Mr. Hedges. You too, Roberta. Now I’ve got work to do.”

  Later that night, the entire building was clear except for security in the lobby. It was an old structure, what passed for a high rise in the era when it was built, carefully and with style. His grandfather
had moved in as a minor tenant, but grew the company until he eventually bought the building when the original owner fell on hard times. It was shortly after John had been born. Since then, the entire interior had been refinished, not modernized, but refinished. Period architecture and furniture. State of the art in every other respect.

  They had every one of the 12 floors, and yet his grandfather declined one of the executive suites on the top floor for a large, comfortable, but otherwise ordinary interior office two floors below.

  “John,” Alisha said tentatively. It would take her a while to get used to this first names policy.

  “Yes?” he responded, having walked around the desk to where his grandfather sat, looking at, but not yet touching the papers and unopened mail strewn about its surface.

  “These last few months, whenever he borrowed me to work for him, he really was emphatic that – someday, when he would be ‘gone,’ as he put it – no one should take over his office, that we should lock it up and leave it alone. ‘For how long,’ I asked him? ‘Indefinitely,’ he told me, and he was serious. And no matter what, we were never to take out any of the furniture.” Worried that she’d overstepped, she thought she’d better add, “I just though you should know.”

  “I hear you,” he said, looking up and around the office, out the interior hallway windows along the wall to his right, at the open door to the office and small conference table across from where he was standing, and at the hardwood floors his grandfather chose not to cover.

  About the hardwood floors, “I want to make sure I can hear them coming,” his grandfather would joke, “even after I’m gone.”

  There was a bookcase on the wall to his left – the one his grandfather had been working on when he died – and a red leather armchair in that corner. “We’ll see. …This guy, my grandfather,” John thought out loud, “led every major innovation this company has undertaken, right up until the end, but never remodeled this office. Never so much as changed or, I don’t think, rearranged the furniture in the more than 30 years since he bought this building. What kind of mind that creative never changes anything in his own office?”

  Later that night, he sat, not in his grandfather’s chair... He hadn’t done that yet. ...but in one of the two wooden guest chairs on the other side, the finish long ago worn off the arms and seats. He sat there for almost an hour, waiting for the image of his grandfather and the sound of his voice to fade, but it didn’t. It would have been different if his father were around, now and for the past almost 30 years since he walked, maybe ran away from his family and the business that would have been his. He left not long after John was born, just after he tried to oust his own father. He’d come to work one night, late, the only one on the floor, broken in to his father’s office which was always kept locked, and never came home. “Never called. Never so much as a note,” John thought to himself.

  The detectives they hired, the way people with money do, then and several times since, turned up nothing. He came in past the guards, the same guards that never saw him leave, but then who knows if they were paying attention. “Dad was a big tipper, when it mattered. Maybe he paid them off.” Precisely when he left, no one was sure or would talk about it even if they did know. There were no cameras that long ago. All they knew was that he had time to trash the office that would have been his. “The old man,” John leaned back, watching images of his grandfather, feeling the fear-colored respect that had characterized their relationship, “just wasn’t ready to call it a day, even if it meant going up against his own son. And Dad, wherever you are, I guess it was your way, or the... “ He was too bitter to finish, and didn’t like the trite sound of an expression that didn’t do the history justice.

  Getting up, John stretched, tucked in his shirt which wasn’t out, but wasn’t just right either, and then looked around, his eyes drawn to the orange plastic handle of the power screwdriver still resting on the bottom shelf of the bookcase against the wall. Walking over, he knelt down and picked it up. “What the hell, Amos?” his grandfather’s first name. “What were you doing? What couldn’t wait until the morning for someone in maintenance to handle?”

  It was a large, wooden, stand-alone bookcase, pushed back as far against the paneled wall as it could be, flush up against the molding along the floor. That left maybe three quarters of an inch between the back of the case and wall behind it. “Nothing,” not that he could see anyway. But then he looked down. “Hm. I wonder what that is?” It didn’t make sense, but there was faint, barely noticeable light at the bottom, along the edge of the wall behind the bookcase, as far as he could see.

  “Let’s find out.” There was no one there for him to talk to, but it was somehow comforting to hear the sound of his own voice. Getting down on his knees, John threw the switch on the screwdriver to what he just assumed to be the unscrew position, pulled the trigger once to make sure he had power, and got to work. The screws were the heavy-duty kind, placed in pre-drilled holes into the bottom shelf, and they weren’t new. Wooden plugs stained to match the shelves had made them inconspicuous among the papers and notebooks that were around and over them, now strewn on the floor, still lying where his grandfather must have thrown them. “Wait a minute.” The power screwdriver was turning the wrong way. “He wasn’t screwing them in. He was unscrewing them. …I wonder why?”

  Throwing the switch back to where his grandfather had set it, one at a time, John took out the six remaining screws, his grandfather having taken two out himself before he died. When he was done, John stood up, thinking he’d slide the bookcase along the hardwood floors and see what was behind it. He growled, struggling to move it, but it didn’t budge. “Hm.” It was obvious. He’d have to take everything off the shelves. “Lighten the load.” He did and, a few minutes later, tried again, growling louder than before, but with the same result. “No more screws. ...Nothing. ...I know. It probably just hasn’t been moved in while. It’s probably just stuck.”

  Picking up a couple of the plastic covered reports from the floor, he hurriedly took the covers off and walked with them to the end of the bookcase. Dropping one on the floor, he put the palms of both his hands against the side and pushed up this time, as hard as he could. And it worked. He couldn’t slide it forward, not yet, but what he did do was lift his end up just enough to slip one of the covers under the edge. Same deal on the other side. “Okay, Amos, watch this. …Ehhh,” and this time it moved, slowly at first, and then faster until he’d pushed it, toward the red chair in the corner, well past where it had been standing who knows how many years.

  And there it was. A door, with molding, hinges, the works – even light coming from under it. And a sign, “Ladies.”

  John just stood there, maybe six feet in front of the door, looking at the light and then at the brass panel you’d push to open it. “This is an interior office,” he whispered slowly.” Running into the hallway, he stopped in front of the adjacent space, a conference room with double doors that were always kept open when it wasn’t in use. It was empty. More to the point, there were no interior walls other than the one that backed up to his grandfather’s office.

  Outside, he marked the end of the conference room with the heel of his left foot and, heel-toe, paced his way back to his grandfather's office door, and then did the same thing inside the office to the wall. “Plus or minus a few inches,” he said to himself, “there’s nothing between here and conference room. But then I already knew that. …I must be dreaming. Of course. I’m dreaming. It doesn’t feel like a dream. I must have fallen asleep at his desk. It’s late. I must have been really tired and probably more upset than I’m willing to admit. ...It’s a really, really good dream, but a dream nevertheless. …So why don’t I feel better about this? ...Because it’s a scary dream? I probably won’t even remember it in the morning.”

  “What the hell. It’s late and I could stand to go to the bathroom,” and he giggled because
he knew there wasn’t anything on the other side. “Probably just something left over from when they did the remodeling. “Although,” he thought, “the light coming from under the door is… Well, that’s the great thing about dreams.” Walking up to the door, John put his left hand on the brass panel on the right and pushed the door inward, wide open until it stopped and stayed that way. The light and noise were unexpected, but didn’t stop him from walking inside, into what couldn’t be there. To his surprise, it appeared to be a lounge, not a restroom, but a bar, and a not at all sleazy or weird one, but the nice neighborhood kind he figured he’d open one day. “Figures.”

  “Oh, hi!” A very attractive woman greeted him, foaming beer glasses in each hand, on her way to one of the tables. “Stay right there...” She put the glasses down, said something to one of her customers, and came back to John who hadn’t moved and inch. “Hi.”

  “You said that.”

  “But then I didn’t say it right.” And she reached out, grabbed his shoulders and pulled him toward her, kissing him just barely first, and then not so barely after that, pressing her chest against his, their arms sliding around each other’s back. And when they were done, when she had let herself down to where her feet were flat on the floor, she looked up, wiped some saliva off the corner of her mouth and told him, “There. It’s been a while, but worth the wait.”

  “Do I know you?”

  “It’s Kate, John. We dated in high school. Well, you wanted to ask me out, but didn’t have the balls. No longer a problem, not from where I was standing,” she smiled at him, clearly pleased. “I’ll see you later.”

  He’d have watched her walk away and did, just long enough to see her look back for second chance to check him out, if it weren’t for the sound of a familiar voice coming from behind the bar ahead of him and to his left, but it was noisy and crowded and he wasn’t sure until he got there. “Roberta?!”

  “Hey, John. Take a stool. Thanks for stopping by. We’ve got some important business to dis...”

  “Heck of dream, isn’t it?”

  “What makes you think you’re dreaming?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “You know, John, there are dreams, and then there are dreams. This is one of the latter kind.”

  “Roberta.”

  “Yes, John.”

  “For the record, and you’re an attractive woman, but I just want you to know that this is the first time I’ve ever had a dream, of any kind, with you in it.”

  “Well, I guess I’m sorry to hear that John, but I understand.”

  “Roberta, is it my imagination or do I really know all these women?” There were no men in the bar.

  “No, it’s not your imagination. They’re all women you dated, wanted to date or dreamed about.”

  “So that one, the blonde that just waived to me a second time, she doesn’t just look a lot like Scarlett Johansson?”

  “Yes and no. What difference does it make if she’s real or a perfect replica. The point is, she’s yours for the taking.”

  “Alright! When I dream, I dream big.” He sighed and took a stool at the counter, his back turned perpendicular to the bar while he continued to survey the room.

  “John.”

  “What?”

  “You know, we had a relationship with your grandfather.”

  “We,” John turned around.

  “Yeah, ‘We.’ Think about it, John. What was your grandfather like? A visionary predictor of trends? A man blessed with genes impervious to everything that, despite a diet of mostly saturated fats, he never missed a day’s work in the more than 40 years I’ve known him.”

  “Roberta, you’re barely forty yourself.”

  “Okay, John. That’s nice, but you can cut the crap. I’m older, much older than I look.”

  “Heyyy, John.” A gorgeous brunette came up from behind, put her arms on his shoulders, leaned in and gave him a kiss on his cheek.”

  “Jennifer?” John turned to Roberta who was pouring the new girl a beer, mouthing the name, “Jennifer Connelly?!” and then out loud, “Are you kidding? God, she looks even better in person.”

  “Believe me John, God had nothing to do with it.”

  “How did you know? Of course. Man,” he took a swallow of, you guessed it, his favorite beer, “this is like the best dream ever.”

  “You think so?” Roberta smiled while she poured a glass of wine to go for one of John’s college dorm-mates, the one across the hall he fantasized about their entire freshman year.

  “Hey, John.” His college fantasy blew him an air kiss, reaching over and squeezing his arm. “Thanks, Roberta,” and then to John, “Talk to you later, babe,” flashing an inviting smile when she said it.

  Jennifer (Connelly?), still standing there, was as polite and friendly as he’d imagined. “I know you’ve got stuff to talk to Roberta about, but would you mind if I sat here?”

  “Of course not.” And she wrapped her arm around his, rubbing the top of his hand, taking a swallow of her beer with the other, putting it down, wiping the foam off her mouth in the middle of laugh that no man could resist. He couldn’t take his eyes off her lips.

  “John?” Roberta needed him to focus. “Let’s take care of business, and then you stay as long as you like, comeback whenever you want.”

  “Sure. What business is that?” he asked without looking at Roberta, his eyes unable to give up the vision of Jennifer’s face, barely resisting the gravitational pull of her eyes.

  Jennifer lifted her herself off her stool, sliding it toward John’s until they hit, putting her arm on his shoulder where she could play with the back of his neck, smiling playfully with the enjoyment she derived from being such a distraction.

  “I’m over here, John. Across the bar.”

  This time, there was something about her voice that made him pay attention. “You know, Roberta, this is my dream and I’ll...”

  “Not really. …Didn’t you ever question how your grandfather, despite zero knowledge of business and marketing, turned out to make the fortune he did?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying, John, that your grandfather and I had an arrangement, an agreement and, to his credit, he delivered – although, to be honest, and I’m honest to a fault if only you pay attention to what I say, I think he may have been having second thoughts toward the end there. ...Anyway, he delivered.”

  “Delivered what?”

  “Well, you John. He delivered you.”

  John was quiet. For the moment, Roberta was the only person in the bar that counted. The sounds of laughter and voices, the beautiful faces and bodies that were his for the asking, even Jennifer, all faded for the moment – so that what happened next would be uninterrupted and perfectly clear.

  “The deal, John, was that he would raise you in the business, prepare your naturally superior intellect for what we have in mind, and he did. Your father, when he discovered what your grandfather was up to, fought him for you. Fought hard, put everything he had on the table, but lost. Collateral damage,” she said, matter of fact. “…As it turns out, the lack of your father’s love and influence may have made you a better man, more able to accomplish our objectives.”

  “And precisely what objectives are we talking about?”

  “You know, the usual. World peace. Wall Street. Dominance of the small home appliance marketplace. Whatever.”

  “I don’t know, Roberta,” John tried to sound clever, “they say ‘The Devil is in the details.’ Maybe we should discuss…”

  “And now you know where that expression came from.”

  “So what? I’ll play. It’s only a dream. You’ve got something you want me to sign?”

  “Nah. We’ll take your word for it.”

  “And if I don’t agree to help you in, in unspecified ways?”

  “Well, then, you’re on your own. Financing. Technology. Corporate intelligence. Mar
keting. It’s all on you. Maybe you’ll be okay. Maybe you’ll lose everything. Life, without us, is pretty much a crap shoot.”

  “You know, I don’t believe in you, and I’m beat. I’m dreaming. Like nothing I’ve ever dreamed before, but dreaming.”

  “Then you won’t have a problem agreeing to our terms.”

  “My grandfather taught me to run anything important by counsel.”

  “But wait,” Roberta responded with a snide confidence, “that’s me. I am your counsel.

  “…John?” Robert thought of poking him, but then she didn't like touching her coworkers, not even in an emergency. Handshakes were as far as she would go. ...CPR if you had a heart attack? Out of the question. “…John?!”

  “How convenient,” he mumbled, just a touch of drool starting to roll out the corner of his mouth onto the old fashioned leather blotter his grandfather used and John planned to trash as soon as possible – because John didn’t like the way it defined his workspace and because drool stains are impossible to get out.

  “You okay” Roberta asked, not entirely sure he was up. “You smell like beer, John? And what's that, lipstick on your face?”

  “Do you see any beer? I haven’t left the office,” John sat up and snapped back, and then apologized, even while he rubbed the side of his face clean. “Sorry. It’s nothing. I just passed out and, uh, I guess I had a bad dream.” He turned his head sharply to this left, closing his eyes and sighing with relief to see that the bookcase was back where it always had been.”

  “Oh yeah?” Roberta asked. “The kind with lips? ...So how did it end, and how much did it cost you?”

  He thought for a moment. “I’m not sure.”

  “So what’s so ‘convenient’ about my being here?” Roberta had come in early to get a head start on what was promising to be one hell of a day, and really didn’t care whether John had had a good night’s sleep or not. “No. Don’t tell me. I’ll tell you what’s NOT convenient. What’s not convenient is getting a call from our investment banker last night, in the middle of the first good sex I’ve had in months, to tell me he wants you and me, especially you, at his offices at 10 AM sharp to tell him and his board why, pursuant to the passing of your grandfather, they shouldn’t call off the second round of our refinancing which, if they do, he was kind enough to point out, could force us to sell off one of our flagship product lines.”

  “Okay, I get it.” John was sitting up now, rubbing his face with his hands. “For the record, they’ve been pushing us to dump our holdings in the kitchen appliances business for sometime now. Amos’ death is just an excuse.”

  “I know, but it doesn’t mean we don’t have to put on a convincing show.”

  “Agreed. Make sure Wallace and Edie are there. I want it clear that my grandfather’s entire executive team is still in place.” John was picking up speed, and was standing now. “Alisha!”

  “I’m right here.” She’d been standing just inside his office door.

  “Hi. I’m taking a cab over to my place to shower and change. I want a car out front of my building at 9:30 sharp.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Just ‘Yes’ will do. Roberta, I’ll meet the three of you there, in their conference room, at ten of. Bring what you want, but I don’t want to give them numbers or charts, and I want to be done there in 30 minutes. We’ve got work to do. If they’re not interested, there are other people out there with money. …And we’re damn sure not selling anything.”

  “John,” Alisha had noticed the mess on the floor in front of the bookcase just as John was walking around the desk, heading for the door. “Do you want me to clean this up and call maintenance to have someone finish screwing down the bookcase?”

  John stopped for a second, looked at the bookcase and, in his head, at the wall behind it. “No. …No, I’ll take care of it later. Just lock the door behind me. Have the name and number of the best locksmith in the city and our ADT security rep waiting for me when I get back.”

  “Got it.”

  Roughly two hours later…

  “Hey.” It was Mel, walking up to Alisha’s desk, carrying a small, but very nicely done vase of fresh flowers.

  “Hey,” Alisha looked up from something she’d been writing. “For me?!” she said, hopefully.

  “You wish. They’re for John, but his office is locked. I’ll put them on your table.”

  “What does the note say?”

  “I don’t know,” Mel whispered, not even pretending that it was none of their business. “Let’s see.” She opened the small envelope held up by the usual plastic stake. “Hey, John. It was great seeing you last night. Really great. Give me a call. –Kate.”

  “So who’s Kate?” Alisha was curious.

  “How the hell do I know?”

  57. The Proposal

  It was late, almost 8:30, too late to walk home and go back out for dinner, and something about the light rain on a cool fall night made the thought of getting carryout even more dismal than usual. Tonight, he would unwind at this bistro, in the middle of the block on one the local streets that wound their ways between the boulevards.

  “Hey, Bobby.” It was Carla, one of the waitresses who recognized him as a regular, on her way to the bar to pick up some beers for a table of women on a girls' night out.

  “You know my name isn’t ‘Bobby,’ don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know,” she smiled back at him. “It just feels right whenever I say it. …Go ahead. Sit anywhere you want. I’ll tell her you’re here.”

  At his favorite corner booth, he threw his coat over the hook to let it dry out, set his nylon briefcase on the bench on the other side of the table, pushing it against the wall to where it would be safe and out of the way.

  Just outside the still swinging door to their kitchen, a waitress, a very attractive, but not technically beautiful brunette, was straightening her blouse on her way back to the restaurant floor when Carla came up to her. And then she saw him, watching him comb the dampness from his hair with the fingers of his left hand.

  “You’re such a slut,” Carla told her while they both watched him taking his seat, loosening his tie, stretching as he pushed back with both hands against the edge of his table.

  “I can’t help myself with this guy,” she almost whispered back, as if talking to herself.

  “Why don’t you just give it up? Hell, do him in the stock room. Get that behind you,” Carla was serious, “and see where the relationship goes from there.”

  “I just can’t get him out of my head. ...You ever have a guy like that? The kind you... The kind you dream about, even when you’re not sleeping?”

  Carla laughed. “If I were you, babe, I’d take this guy before someone else nails him and he can’t remember your name.”

  No reaction.

  “Oh, my gosh. He doesn’t even know your name, does he?”

  The waitress he’d come to see, flashed her eyes at her friend, closed her lips that had been slightly parted, tightened her jaw and walked toward the man she’d been thinking about all week.

  Leaning forward, he put his elbows down on the table and tried wiping the tiredness out of his face with his hands.

  “Hey.” She was standing there when he opened his eyes, her right hand up against the post where he’d hung his coat, gently rubbing the dark, scared surface of the wood. There was an openness, something inviting about her that he found irresistible, that made him more than a little crazy. There was an obviousness about how he felt about her that was flattering and even more seductive. Just seeing her standing there was foreplay.

  Neither of them said anything. She, because it was his turn. He, because all he could think about for the moment was the fragrance of her cheap, but deliciously unforgettable perfume he remembered from when he was in high school, making its way to him in waves he did his best to inhale without her noticing. Even her clothes couldn’t help but cling to h
er, and he envied them for that. He’d known from the moment he first saw her that he’d regret not being with her. Maybe tonight would be the night.

  “Oh, wait.” She told him. “I don’t know what’s got into me. …Stay right there,” she smiled, as if there were really any chance he’d go anywhere. He watched her walk away and then come right back, unable to take his eyes off her. This time she was better prepared. Setting a basket of cloth-covered piping hot soft rolls on the middle of the table, putting down a shallow bowl of pats of butter on ice. The silverware, glasses and cloth napkins for two were already on the table. Menus were propped up behind the ketchup, steak sauce and peppermill. The owner had a health thing against putting salt on the tables.

  “Hi,” he smiled back at her.

  “It’s been awhile.” What the hell was it about this guy that drove her nuts? He was okay looking, but not pretty. From what she knew of his work, he was doing well and on his way up, but that really didn’t matter. He was intense, and yet funny. That was probably it. “Oh, who knows?” she’d thought to herself after the last time he’d been there. “All I know is that I never want him to leave, and can’t wait for him to walk back through that door,” she’d written one night in her journal.

  “I’ve been working.” It wasn’t much of an excuse, but then it was the truth. “Mostly on the road.”

  “So, what?” she was kidding him. “You don’t have a phone?”

  “I don’t have your number. ...Hell, I don’t even know your name, even though I’ve asked for it every time I’ve…” and then he stopped. “You’re wearing a name tag.” In fact, he didn’t care that he hadn’t known who she was. The tag just gave him an excuse to stare at her breasts without seeming overly creepy about it.

  “Yeah. It’s new. The owner thinks it will help us connect better with our customers.”

  “You’re name’s ‘Holy’?” “Odd, but appropriate," he thought to himself.”

  “Oh.” She looked down at her tag. “Yeah, uh, my father is a preacher, was a preacher when I was born.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Yeah. It’s Holly. The guy who made the label can’t spell.” She stopped and looked down to brush an imaginary something off the tag. “I thought I’d wear it this way, just for the heck of it, until I get a new one.” She stopped for a moment, as if to catch her breath. “So my name’s Holly. You going to tell me yours? Normally, I’d get it off your credit card, but you always pay cash.”

  He just sat there, staring at her.

  Tired of playing around, she straightened up, took the pad out of her back pocket, sighed and asked him, “What do you want tonight?”

  “Benjamin. It’s Benjamin. And I want the grilled shrimp Caesar salad, a glass of your house rosé, a piece of key lime pie for dessert and for you to go out with me.”

  “We’re out of key lime, but there’s fresh-baked apple and cherry?”

  “Apple. Cold. I don’t like warm pie.”

  “When?”

  “With dinner. ...No, leave it in the kitchen until I'm done with my salad. It'll give me another excuse to see...”

  “…Do you want to go out with me?”

  “Oh. …Well, I’m pretty much wiped tonight. How ‘bout tomorrow? When’s you’re next night off?”

  “Wait here, I want to put your order into the kitchen.”

  A few minutes later, she came back with a tray holding two glasses of wine, Ben’s salad and a slice of cherry pie.

  “I ordered apple.”

  “It’s for me. I’m taking a break.” Holly sat down across from him, slid to the middle, and wasted no time cutting into her pie. Realizing that he was watching her, she looked up, her first piece just hanging out there in front of her mouth while she wondered out loud why he wasn’t touching his food. “You’re not hungry all of a sudden?”

  Ben smiled back, reaching to pick up his glass while Holly put the fork and it’s load into her mouth, pulling its tines out slowly, her lips tight enough to capture every morsel of the sweet red filling that was left between them.

  “To us,” he said, raising his glass.

  “What us?”

  “Good point. …Okay, how about to our first date?”

  “What makes you think I want to go out with you?”

  “You’re right. I don’t know. So let’s make it official. ...Holly,” he thought to himself how great it was to say her name, “would you please go out with me, maybe for a quiet dinner, followed by an long, drawn out evening of touching and rubbing things?”

  “You mean you want to have sex,” she smiled back at him, even while she was chewing a second mouthful. “…You think it’s that simple?”

  “I don’t know how simple it is but, to be honest, sure I’d like to make love with you. Did you notice, by the way, how I put that?”

  “You mean the questionable, possibly meaningless distinction between love and sex?”

  Ben nodded his head in the affirmative, his mouth busy working on a fork-load of salad.

  “I think you’re mincing words. I think you want to have sex, and that’s fine. Actually, it’s more than fine when I think about it and... and I sure have been thinking about it, although don’t ask me why. The thing is, except for the, I don’t know, twenty or so times you’ve…

  “Twenty-three times, including tonight, over the past four months. So how many times do I have to eat here before you’ll give me your number?”

  “Hm.” She was impressed that he’d been counting. ““What’s the point? …Except for the twenty-three times you’ve eaten here…”

  “You know, there are other restaurants. The only reason I come here is you.”

  “Like I was saying, except for... The point is, I don’t know anything about you. …So I’m thinkin’…”

  “You do a lot of that, don’t you? You don’t think that maybe you could be over-thinking this? That love might be something you can’t plan or figure out, that you shouldn’t think too much about, that just letting something happen might be the best way to handle it?”

  “You’re kidding, aren’t you? What...,” she was caught off guard by how casually he talked about the potential of their falling in love, the certainty in his voice and demeanor, eating his salad, drinking his wine, without the least hesitation or nervousness. “What are you talking about? Thinking helps protect me from short-term men like yourself.” Seeing no reaction from across the table, she continued. “So I have a proposal for you.”

  “Really?” Ben, ignoring her snide remark, was pleasantly surprised, sensing he was making progress. “The point is I want to call and ask you out.”

  “You wanna call? Why don’t you just ask me out? Right here, right now?”

  He waited a second before answering, taking the time to set his mind. “Fair enough. Okay, here’s the deal. I like talking to you, a lot. It’s the highlight of my day.”

  “Which probably says more about your day, than me.”

  “Maybe, but the truth is I can’t wait to stop by here, and believe me, it isn’t the food.”

  “Thanks.” She pretended to look dejected. “You know I cook this stuff myself.”

  “Like I was saying, the food is terrific. I’d eat here anyway, even though you suck as a waitress. The fact is, I’m not entirely sure what it is about you that drives me crazy. You’re not Hollywood beautiful, but still exceptionally, jaw dropping, breathtakingly attractive. I mean that literally. I feel pulled toward you. You’re smart, if occasionally ‘smart ass,’ but it’s something I can get used to. You’re funny, without trying. And…,” he stopped for a moment to take a breath.

  “And what?”

  “And most of all, whatever it is that I feel about you, it defies definition. I don’t know. I don’t have the slightest clue what this is. I...”

  “I think you’re tired, I think you work all the time and you’re desperate to get laid. …Ho
w am a I doing?”

  “Pretty much right on the money, probably, but I still want to go out with you ...and I like the idea of having your number – so I can call you if I'm going to be late, or now and then to tell you about something I've seen or that's happened to me.”

  “Okay. Here’s the deal.”

  “Wait a minute. Don’t you want to go out with me?”

  No answer, just a stare.

  “Great. Here I am, spilling my guts, and you don’t even have the common courtesy to…”

  “Yes. I want to go out with you.”

  “How ‘bout tomorrow night?”

  “Not so fast.”

  “It’s not like we just met. I mean, far from…”

  “Be quiet. Please. Just listen.”

  “Wow. This is a serious side of you I haven’t seen before.”

  “Just to be clear, by ‘quiet’ I meant that you should stop talking.”

  Ben nodded to acknowledge his understanding.

  “Thank you. …Here’s the thing. If history is any indication, you and I are going to go out, one, two, maybe three times. We’re going to have sex, mostly disappointing sex, increasingly perfunctory sex. And as the chemistry evaporates, as it always does, it’s going to turn out that we have nothing going for us as a couple, and that will be that. Well, I don’t want to do that any more. So I have a proposal. …You can talk now.”

  “Okay,” Ben responded tentatively.

  “We’ll start by having sex immediately.”

  “And by ‘immediately’ do you mean here, right now in this booth, instead of dessert?”

  “Damn close to it. And then again, and again, night after night, lunchtimes, during dinner, whenever and almost wherever we can.”

  “For exactly how long are we going to do this?”

  “Well, for as long as it takes, or 30 days, whichever comes first.”

  “As long as it takes?”

  “Until the thrill wears off. And then, and then we’re going out. We’re going out five more times.”

  “With or without sex?”

  “We’ll see. If we’ve done the first stage right, we probably won’t be all that interested in being naked. Five dates, no matter how boring and otherwise unbearable to see if we’re any good for each other.”

  Nothing.

  “So, do we have a deal? Or, while the idea of having sex with me is appealing, the thought of investing just a few weeks, just a few weeks in building a relationship is not something your penis has had time to think about?!”

  “Wow. Look… Are you going to finish your pie?”

  “No. You can have it.”

  “Thanks. …Now about that rant, it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t in the vicinity of being thoughtful. What it tells me is that… Yes,” he saw the look in her eyes changing, “this is my time to be serious. What it tells me is that you, I guess, you’ve been hurt before, maybe more than once. Sorry to hear that, but those other men weren’t me. And I know you’ve probably heard that before too. The thing is, I understand and I accept your proposal, but not for the sex which, mind you, I’ll take and is certainly appealing, but to prove my point.”

  “And what point is that?”

  “That I’m one of the good guys. Hell, the very fact that I’m still sitting here and haven’t asked for my check proves that.”

  “I thought you were just waiting for another piece of pie.”

  “That too,” he said, but then a question occurred to him. “…Why not just postpone any sex until after we’re sure we like each other?”

  “Because the prospect of having it, of having sex, distorts friendship?”

  Ben was quiet, obviously thinking about what she’d said. “Do you deliver?”

  “What?”

  “If I call up and order something, some food, can I get it delivered?”

  “Sure. So what?”

  “So you’re going to get up from this table and bring me my check – less the piece of apple pie I never got. Meanwhile, I’m going to get out my cell phone, call this place and order one piece of apple and one piece of cherry pie for delivery. My apartment’s a ten minute walk from here, as safe a trip as it gets.”

  “There’s a minimum...”

  “Charge me whatever you need to, I just want to see you. I just want to know what it’s like to talk to you outside this restaurant when neither of us is working, when neither one of us is hitting on the other. I want to see if I can make you smile when you’re not trying to flirt or prove something. And sure, I want to fall into the sound of your voice and,” Ben slid his right hand across the table, lifting his forefinger as if pointing at her. Instinctively, willingly, she did the same, softly tapping the tip of her finger on his. “…and find out what it’s like to lie with you. You want to do this, bring the pie yourself. If not, fine, have Darla…”

  “Carla.”

  “Whatever. Don’t bring it, and I won’t bother you again. There are plenty of other restaurants. It was never about the food.” Impatient to leave, he pulled his hand back, reached into his front pants pocket where he kept his wallet, took out a couple of twenties dropped them on the table. “That should do it.” Taking out his pen, he wrote his address on the back of one of his business cards, sliding it toward her, holding his first two fingers on top of it for a moment. “Please. Don’t think about it. Just do it, and let’s see what happens – and today can be the first of your 30 days, if that’s the way you want to play it.” And he got up quickly, pointing to his briefcase which she handed him, “Thanks,” he said, taking his coat and walking away without looking back at her again.

  Holly sat there, her back leaning against the wood between the booths, holding his business card by its edges, studying the style of his hurriedly printed letters, turning it over to see where he worked and his phone numbers.

  Later that night, twenty minutes or so after the restaurant had closed, there was a knock on Ben’s apartment door. He’d told his doorman to expect someone and to let her up. Ben knew what time the bistro closed and had been keeping himself busy straightening up in the great room which was his living/dining room and kitchen when he heard the sound of the little brass knocker under the peep hole in his front door. “Coming,” he said on his way over, wiping his hands with a kitchen towel. And then he paused, his hand on the doorknob, taking the time to bring himself up. He was tired, but didn’t want it to show.

  “Hi,” Ben had started smiling even before the door was open.

  “Two slices of pie. ...Plan on eating them both, or can I have one?”

  Ben hesitated for a moment, but then stepped out of the way, just barely far enough to let her in, her coat brushing against him as the sound of her leather soled shoes hit his hardwood floor.

  One very late night later, a mostly naked Ben was awakened by the ringing of his cell phone on the nightstand on the other side of his bed. Reaching over and propping himself up against his headboard, he saw the caller ID, the green “Accept” and the red “Decline” buttons below it.

  “Hey, Bobby,” the voice came from the shower in his bathroom. “Why don’t you join me?”

  From what he could see through the glass, “No thanks” wasn’t really an option, but then he really needed to know why Holly was calling. “Hold on, Carla. I’ll be right there.”

  58. The De-Creeping of Ross

  With the back of his chair leaning up against the desk inside his carrel, his legs extended and crossed at his feet, his arms folded, Ross was busy watching the girls go by. For most men, it was an innocent enough, casual, if not altogether discreet hobby. For Ross, it defined him. Charlie, in the adjacent carrel, was focused on the work for which the five of them in their team were collectively responsible. The less Ross did, and it was hard for him to do any less, the more slack Charlie and the others had to pick up.

  “Hey.” Ross had been watching the elevator doors.

  “What?” Charlie respon
ded, not bothering to look up from his screen.

  “Take a look at Katherine. Could she be any more...”

  “Give it rest.” This time he did look up, “and would you please get back to work. None of has time to cover your ass.”

  “And if I don’t?” Ross responded, but without taking his eyes of his incoming target. “Colliers is going to hold all of us responsible if we miss his freakin’ deadl… Ooo,” he interrupted himself for what he considered to be more important business. Katherine was just passing by, doing her best to ignore him. She was appropriately dressed, but there was no minimizing her chest, and no reason to, at least not around normal people. “I don’t know, Charlie, can any tits that perfect be real? What do you think? A few pounds off those hips and she’d...”

  “Hey!” Charlie, who had gotten back to work, snapped his head in Ross’ direction. “She can hear you, asshole.”

  Katherine, now just a few feet past them, stopped. Standing there, her back to the two of them, she wondered if saying anything would make any difference, and then turned to look over her shoulder at one of them. “Thanks, Charlie.” He was one of the good guys. She and the other women who Ross taunted knew it. “He’s a jerk. Sorry you have to work with him.”

  Ross smirked and tilted his head side to side when he heard it.

  “Me too.” Charlie agreed, glancing at Ross, but then really looking at Katherine who smiled at him.

  “Call me?” She wanted to encourage him, and doing it in front of Ross made it all that better.

  “Yeah. Sure.” He was serious. She blinked once, smiled again and gave him a quick wave goodbye as she walked away.

  “Listen, Dickhead,” Charlie spoke up as soon Katherine was out of ear shot. “You don’t mind if I call you ‘Dickhead,’ do you? In your case it’s literally true. Do you understand ‘sexual harassment’? Sooner or later, someone is going to complain or sue your ass off, and damn if I’m not going to be a witness for them, so shut the fuck up and get to work – or do us all a favor and go fake it somewhere else.”

  “Wow.” Ross stood all the way up, and stepped over to lean his folded arms on the short wall separating their work areas, his lame ass way of getting into Charlie’s face. “Wow,” he said again, nodding his head, “you must be banging the livin’ shit out of...”

  “Wow, yourself. We’ve all been watching you do this crap for months, ever since they set up our team. How much longer do you think you can get away with it?”

  “When did you go to law school?” Ross decided to give him a mini-lecture. “It’s not harassment for me to comment on girls in the office. It’s guy talk. Obnoxious maybe,” he almost cackled when he said it, “but as long I don’t make those comments directly, and none of them works for or even with us…” He’d obviously thought it over. “And staring, even leering at them doesn’t count. Makes them feel uncomfortable maybe, which is a real kick by the way, but it’s not technically harassment.”

  No response from Charlie who just stared back. He wasn’t sure, even doubted that Ross’ understanding of the law, or company policy for that matter, was correct, but didn’t want to argue with him.

  “It’s not,” Ross finished up. “I’ll God damn say whatever I want. …Now why don’t you shut up get back work before we’re all in deep shit.” And he stood up, rapping the tips of his fingers on the edge of the wall. “Besides,” he raised his eyebrows, “I’ve got some porn I need to check out.”

  On the far side of the floor, Katherine and her closest friend, Judy, were walking back toward Judy’s office – Judy had a real one, with walls and a door. – after a meeting with other staff in the small conference room. “You know,” Katherine had decided it was long overdue, “we need to do something about Ross.”

  “No, kidding. Do you know he’s been telling some of the guys that Evelyn’s been coming on to him, ever since she told him to go screw himself.”

  “Which I’m pretty sure is the closest he’s come to getting laid.”

  “I mean, she’s got a boyfriend she really likes.”

  “The Assistant Manager at the grill down the street?”

  “Yeah.” Judy walked around her desk and sat down. “Robert something, I think. Ross’ crap could screw all that up. I think he’s been going there, buying rounds, hoping it would.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.” And then Katherine, plopping down in the chair in front of Judy’s desk, hesitated for a moment. “...We’ve got to do something to get him fired.”

  “It’s not enough. He’ll just pick up somewhere else where he left off here.”

  “So,” Katherine wondered out loud, rubbing the underside of her neck, “what does that leave?”

  And then they looked at each other as if someone was suggesting that they knock him off, but then smiled while they both said, “Nahhh,” in unison.

  Two days later, late one evening after work, Ross was on the couch in his apartment, on his second beer, a half eaten bag of pork rinds lying on its side next to the open laptop on his coffee table. Across the room, the widest flat screen TV he could afford, and the first thing he turned on when he came home at night, was playing nothing in particular while he read through the email that he hadn’t managed to take care of at the office.

  “Work. …Work. ‘De-leet.’ …Whoa.” He stopped at one that featured a great looking picture of an almost naked redhead. “Classy, but yet trashy at the same time.” It was a look he liked, although there weren’t many he didn’t. “Hmm. Sixty minutes of free live chat time? ...Why not?” Ross asked himself out loud, pressing the “Do it!” button on the site’s homepage. A second or two later, he was there.

  “Hey.” It was a twenty-something girl with shoulder-length reddish hair, the same girl as on the email, wearing a t-shirt, the steelworker kind, over a bra judging from the straps he could see, and shorts, running shorts like she’d been exercising. She was leaning into her screen, for a cleavage shot and to adjust the angle of it so her guest could see her sitting back on a blanket loosely tossed over a really comfortable looking easy chair.

  “Hey,” Ross responded. “Can you hear me?”

  “Sure can. Got a camera?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So turn it on. I like to see the man I’m having sex with.”

  “Maybe later.” Ross wasn’t a bad looking guy, but wasn’t sure of himself, not around women, even the kind that got paid to make him happy. “What’s your name?”

  “Peg. It’s Peg. What’s yours?” she asked him back, reaching across her chest and pulling her t-shirt off over her head, and then behind her back to unhook her bra.

  “You don’t waste any time.”

  “You can zoom in on me if you want.”

  “Yeah,” Ross was already on the edge of his couch, his right hand on his mouse, its crosshairs marking places on her body he could make larger. It kept him glued to his screen.

  “Foreplay’s for people who don’t have sex on a regular basis – and for people in love, I guess. Are we in love,” she started to ask, but then realized she didn’t know what to call him. “What’s your name? You can make one up if you like.”

  “It’s Ross.”

  “So are we in love, Ross?” Peg looked at him coyly, slowly massaging her breasts.

  “No. …Not yet.”

  “Okay then, let’s do this.”

  What happened next was a full sixty minutes of Peg taking off the rest of her clothes, which she did quickly, and touching herself – just below the edge of the screen – first casually, then more and more seriously, getting herself going, then holding back, keeping Ross’ attention while he waited for her to start up again. All the while, Peg’s voice, now soft, confident and enticing, was reeling him in. Talking to him, without really expecting or wanting any response. Talking to someone who was paying attention, but not really listening, not in any conscious sense, to what she had to say. And then, with just a coupl
e of minutes left, she lost or pretended – although it didn’t seem that she was faking it – to lose control. Only then did the words stop and, moments later, before she was done, the image cut off to a pitch for his credit card.

  “Fuck.” And that was that. No way was Ross was paying for any of this. “There’s always another freebee out there.” Besides, an hour of porn, four beers, what was left of the bacon rinds and half a bag of Cheetos later, he had some urgent personal business to take care of.

  About three weeks later, Katherine and Charlie were in the small conference room, setting up for a working lunch with Judy who was talking on her cell phone in the double-doorway. Foil wrapped sandwiches they’d picked up from the deli across the street were lying together in the center of the table, piles of napkins, plastic folks for the cups of coleslaw and potato salad, and bottles of lemonade and cans of Coke nearby.

  “Looks good, guys.” Judy was off the phone. Leaving the doors open behind her, she walked into the room and, still standing, dropped the papers she was carrying at the end of the table. “Is your cousin stopping by?”

  Charlie looked up. “She’s going to tr...”

  “Hey guys!” There, standing in the doorway, pulling her backpack off her shoulder, was Charlie’s cousin, Sarah, graduate student working for her doctorate in Psychology, her naturally short blonde hair almost a surprise to the two women who were so glad to meet to her.

  Judy was the first to greet her, smiling ear to ear while she held out her hand. “And you must be ‘Peg.’”

  “Yeah.” Sarah giggled excitedly. “That’s my stage name alright!” And Katherine and Charlie came around the table to meet her at the door. “Hey, Charlie,” Sarah gave him a kiss on his cheek. “And you’re Katherine?”

  “Right,” Katherine and Sarah had talked once on the phone, when Sarah interviewed them all about Ross, before he visited the website they’d set up for her experiment.

  “So,” Sarah had been getting feedback on a daily basis as part of their deal, “I gather Ross is a new man.”

  “Damn straight,” Katherine blurted out. “One hour with you and he’s turned into Mr. Polite.”

  “Still repulsive,” Judy thought there was a need for clarification, “but borderline tolerable. Good work!”

  “Yeah, I seem have that effect on men,” Sarah laughed, the four of them still relishing the moment. “Sadly, it appears to have something to do with seeing me naked.” She’d tell them later, over lunch, how well her research was going, demonstrating how effectively you could unknowingly hypnotize someone in the context of a live, on-line chat if... if you can keep the subject focused, but generally oblivious to the verbal pitch the therapist is making. It was anecdotal, and not at all a scientific test and, obviously, not something she could show to her faculty. What it did do was lay the groundwork for what promised to be some really interesting thesis research on the use of involuntary hypnosis for behavior modification.

  “We’ve talked,” Katherine had to know, “but you never told me how you’re keeping him in line, what happens if he starts mak..”

  “Hey!” Speaking of the you-know-what, it was Ross, on his way to drop off some papers nearby, seeing them standing there, attracted by the chatter coming through the open conference room doors. “You’re..., ” he started to say, “...the chick from the website?!” ...At first, he wasn't sure, but then he got it. Actually, he wasn’t sure what he got, or what had happened to him, but now, whatever it was, he knew they were all in on it. “You fucking cun... Ahhh!” and he stopped talking, his body cringing in pain, his legs squeezing together, his right hand curling into a fist, wanting to press on his crotch as he started walking away as quickly as he could.

  “Oooo!” both Judy and Katherine winced. “So that’s what happens.”

  “Ouch,” Charlie was feeling sympathetic. “Pain in the crotch? How perfect is that?”

  “Don’t worry,” Sarah reassured them. “The farther away he goes from the target of his meanness, the less the pain. ...And it’s all in his head. Nothing’s really happening down there.”

  “Oh, yeah? Better his crotch,” Katherine was thinking out loud, wondering to herself if it was okay to feel good about something like this, “than pain in my ass. ...Come on. Let’s eat!”

  59. Dear Journal

  11:20 PM. He’s in bed. It’s dark, except for some faint light coming through the bedroom window blinds and the not so bright lamp on his night table.

  “Hellohhhh.”

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Journal. …You were expecting Ryan Gosling?”

  “I was hoping for Ryan Reynolds.”

  “Yeah, right. Well if you were Scarlett... Scarlett...?”

  “Johansson.”

  “Whatever, the one with the body that won’t quit, I could be Ryan Reynolds.”

  “They broke up.”

  “Really? Do you have her number?”

  “Sure. …You know, most people would just write straight narrative in their journals.”

  “I prefer dialogue. So sue me.”

  “How was your day?”

  “It sucked.”

  “How’s that?”

  “People at the office were actually making sucky noises at me whenever I walked by.”

  “I didn’t know people could make sucky noises. …I think the sucky noises were all in your head.”

  “Probably. To be accurate, it was more of a look than a noise. ...Not a single person said anything to me except to ask a question about something. Not even so much as a, “Hey, man. Wuzzup?”

  “I think you went to work in a beer commercial. Who really talks like that?”

  “I was speaking metaphorically.”

  “Have you considered breath mints?”

  “Cute. ...Wait. Are you serious?” He cupped his hands in front of his mouth and blew into them. “I smell like toothpaste. …It was one of those days when I thought I would be fired.”

  “You’re the owner.”

  “I know. That’s how bad it was. I was so pathetic, I considered letting myself go.”

  “Elizabeth didn’t flirt with you?”

  “No.

  “Tell me the truth.”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Have you run out of pheromones?”

  “Probably. Everything has a shelf-life. I think I need to have sex more often to make more.”

  No response.

  “Journal?”

  “Sorry. I was dozing off. Why don’t you have sex more often?”

  “Who would I have sex with?”

  “Good point. ...Speaking of suing you, which I’m seriously considering, are you making any money yet?

  “Have you noticed that Scarlett Johansson is even better looking naked than with her clothes on? How many people can honestly say that about themselves?”

  “Hm.”

  “What? Are you kidding? Have you ever seen her...”

  “No, I mean I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about it.”

  “Journal, you need to get out more.”

  “Why are we talking about Scarlett? Did she have a bad day too?”

  “Because I don’t want to talk about the office.”

  “Going out on your own was your idea.”

  “Really? Thanks for reminding me.”

  “Okay. I give up. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “You know the girl I hired a few weeks ago. She writes copy.”

  “What about her? Is she flirting with you?”

  “Nobody flirts with me.”

  “Elizabeth used to.”

  “I think she was flirting across the room with Tom and I just walked between them and didn’t realize it, the way you say “Hey” to someone who’s waving at someone else.”

  “I’ve never done that.”

  “Alice just...”

  “Who’s Alice?”

  “The new girl who wr
ites copy. I’m worried that she doesn’t fit in. Smart. Pleasant. Hard working, but nobody talks to her much. Nobody’s trying to get to know her, and I feel bad.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “You know how people are.”

  “Not if I can help it. …No. It’s a personality thing.”

  “What’s wrong with her personality?”

  “Nothing. There’s nothing...”

  “You know, just because people work together doesn’t mean they have to be friends.”

  “I know, Journal. …I’m worried she won’t think we care about her.”

  “I, for example, don’t like you.”

  “…and yet we work well together.”

  “Well? I wouldn’t go that far. …So what’s really bothering you?”

  “I feel alone sometimes.”

  “It’s not just a feeling. You’re incredibly boring. My guess is you wouldn’t even talk to yourself if you could avoid it.”

  “I think, sometimes, the only reason people like me is that I pay them.”

  “You don’t pay me.”

  “My point, exactly.”

  “Okay. Maybe ‘incredibly’ was an overstatement.”

  Nothing.

  “Who knows? If you’re nice to the Journal, maybe you’ll get lucky this weekend.”

  “Will that help?”

  “Not the way you have sex.”

  “Great.”

  “You’re not saying ‘No’ to pity sex, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Think about it. Why would someone keep having sex with you when you’re so bad at it.”

  “Because she’s crazy about me?”

  “Don’t get carried away, but something like that.”

  No response.

  “Wrap it up. I’ve got an early flight tomorrow.”

  “Okay. And that completes tonight’s entry into the personal journal of the life and times of...”

  “Hey!”

  “Thank you, Journal. We’ll talk again soon.”

  “Feel better?”

  “…Good night, honey. …I love you.”

  “Hm,” was all she, aka “The Journal,” could manage with her head temporarily buried face down in her pillow.

  “Do you want me to get a real journal like a normal person?”

  “Of course not. ...I love you too.”

  No reaction, his head nodding in a losing battle with sleep.

  “…Honey?”

  “What?!” His head jerked to attention.

  “Turn out the light.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure.”

  60. Interview With An Alien

  “So. What do I call you?”

  “Bob. I like ‘Bob.’ It’s simple, friendly and it’s a palindrome.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means it’s spelled the same way forward and backward.”

  “And that’s handy because…?”

  “It’s just neat.”

  “I see. Okay, let’s…”

  In the unfurnished apartment next door, two people sitting at folding tables are recording and watching the conversation on three flat screen monitors. One of them is a man in his fifties, a senior psychologist with an unspecified government organization. The other, a woman in her early thirties, the FBI agent who’d caught this assignment. Yellow pads are out, but without much on them. It’s a low priority case, the first one the FBI agent has been given to handle on her own. A single, perfunctory Homeland Security guard is leaning on the kitchen counter, playing something on his cell phone. A specially reinforced front door on the other apartment, with radio-controlled locks, negated the need for anyone in the hallway.

  “Two days and no sign of winding down?” the agent asked.

  The psychologist looked at her over the half-glasses he was wearing toward the end of his nose and shrugged his answer. “...Maybe we should send,” he pointed with his head toward the kid in the kitchen, “for coffee? There’s a Dunkin’ Do...”

  “And a donut,” she answered.

  “John,” the psychologist called out to the guard, waving him over. “Pay attention.”

  The agent reached into the large ballistic nylon saddlebag lying next to her pad, past her gun to her wallet while keeping her eyes on the screen immediately in front of her. Grabbing a twenty, she was more specific, “I want a Boston Kreme, a carton of orange juice. No coffee, just the juice, a straw and a couple of napkins. And whatever he wants. ...And a receipt. Don’t forget the receipt.”

  Meanwhile, in the apartment they were monitoring…

  “...let’s talk about how you got here.”

  “Okay.”

  “Were you traveling faster than the speed of light, some sort of warp drive, or did it just take you years, maybe centuries to get here?”

  “Faster. Much faster. ...What’s a ‘warp drive’? That’s not a real thing, is it?”

  “But Einstein…”

  “…was wrong. He would have realized it eventually if he’d lived long enough.”

  “But as you approach the speed of light, won’t you…”

  “No. There are ways around that problem. I don’t know how, not precisely, but our scientists have figured it out.”

  No response. Just a blank stare.

  “Look, space turns out to be a lot simpler than what your physicists are making it out to be. But that’s to be expected. Sometimes science gets mired down in the complicated on its way to figuring something out. And then later, with the advantage of hindsight, it’s hard to imagine what all the fuss was about. Another hundred years from now and high school students will understand the universe at a level beyond what your leading scientists are now struggling to comprehend.”

  “How do you know?”

  The response is an exasperated sigh. “I know stuff. Let’s just leave it at that. ...So what can I do for you?”

  “How did you get here?”

  “I was beamed.”

  “No ship?”

  “No need. Waste of time and money.”

  “Like in Star Trek?”

  “No. You watch too much TV. Rodenberry wrote about teleportation, about breaking down people into molecules and then reconstructing them at the other end. That only works, by the way, if you have a re-composition chamber at the destination point. Otherwise, there’s no way to put you back together again. It’s good for going from one place to another you’ve already visited, but not for exploring the galaxy. ...No. I was transmitted.”

  “Just out of curiosity, do you believe in God?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then how do you explain the infinity of time and space? What was there before the Big Bang, and before that, whatever it was?”

  “Uh, I don’t know, but just because I don’t understand something, it doesn’t logically follow that there must be a god to explain it. ...Look, this isn’t science fiction. We’re more advanced than you are in most, maybe even all respects, but that doesn’t mean we know everything, just some stuff that you don’t. I mean, come on. Think how much more you know now than you did two hundred years ago, and how much you still haven’t figured out. It’s the same with us.”

  Back in the apartment next door…

  Turning to the psychologist, the FBI agent finished slowly blowing the air out of her lungs. “How long can he keep this up?” Looking back at the screen, she shook her head slightly, wondering about the man in the next apartment talking to himself – and doing it with different voices, even different hand gestures and body language.

  “I have no idea. There’s nothing they, he, whatever haven’t been talking about. Everything personal. Hygiene, sex, everything. Culture. Politics. ...History. Economics. Science. Religion. You name it. They keep talking when he goes to the bathroom, often about his going to the bathroom! ...In two days, the only time he/they’ve
stopped talking was when he’s fallen asleep.”

  “Could he be on drugs?”

  “No. He’s clean and, as far as we can tell, and in perfect health, at least physically.”

  “So,” she pushed off the edge of the table and rolled back in the cheap secretarial chair they’d given her, “why is this any more than some nut ball talking to himself?”

  “Here.” The psychologist reached into a documents case on the floor next to the table, took out an accordion binder and plopped it on the table between them. “Read this. The body you’re seeing, and the voice that’s asking the questions is Ronny Severn, a high school AP physics teacher. Bright guy, but otherwise, nobody in particular. The other voice... The other guy in his head, is the one who says he knows stuff. You read the transcripts. He talks about things that are way beyond our science.”

  “Wild imagination? I mean, didn’t Jules Verne describe a nuclear powered submarine in the late eighteen seventies?”

  “Maybe he was an alien too,” the psychologist smiled. “Okay, forget about the science. It’s the details he knows about our NSA monitoring, about Homeland Security and the NORAD enhancements. Nobody, and I mean nobody knows about those enhancements, certainly not this science teacher. Either he’s a really, really good guesser, or he actually knows what he’s talking about. There’s something going on here. This is lot more than a science teacher, with no prior or family history of mental or emotional illness, gone bananas. And there are other cases,” he told her, rapping his first finger on the accordion binder. “Other very similar cases.”

  “Why’s he talking to himself? Why out loud?

  “Because he’s nuts.”

  “That’s the technical term for it?”

  The psychologist smiled. “According to the alien voice, being inside the teacher’s head, if there’s not good compatibility, drives him a little crazy.”

  “The teacher or the alien?”

  “I’m not sure what he meant.”

  “So why me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why bring me in on this?”

  “Because you’re what I get when nobody believes me.”

  “Believes you?”

  “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but it’s way past loony and nowhere in the vicinity of nuts.”

  “Okay. Maybe you’ve been watching one too many episodes of ‘Fringe.’ Maybe you’ve got a man-crush on Fox what’s his name. I…”

  “I would be the Dana Scully character. She was the doctor. You would be Fox Mul..”

  “Good. Thank you. …The point is, I don’t know what to think.” She pushed back further and stood up, picking up her pad and pen. “Keep recording. I want to talk to him myself.” Pulling the flap over her pocketbook, she buckled it shut, leaving it there on the table. Turning to her colleague, she smiled politely, but wasn’t kidding. “No peeking. ...When you hear me knock, ask our teacher to move back to other side of the room, let me in and then lock it behind me.”

  “Will do.”

  A few moments later, the two of them, the agent and the teacher, were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table in the holding apartment. The FBI agent was the first to speak.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Severn.”

  “Glad to help.”

  “Could I please speak to the alien. To ‘Bob’?”

  Severn didn’t answer, but the alien voice did. “Wuzzup?”

  “’Wuzzup’?”

  “I’ve been researching colloquialisms and like the sound of this one in particular.”

  “You said you were transmitted here. What exactly did you mean by that?”

  “Think of me as a program, very smart, executable code that’s transmitted from my place of origin, something like the way you use electromagnetic signals for cell phones and Wi-Fi, but much faster and over a much, much greater distance.”

  “So you’re what, like a virus?”

  “Heh, heh, heh,” he/Severn laughed awkwardly. “...I need to learn how to do that better, don't I?”

  “Do what?”

  “Laugh. Anyway, I think I should be offended by the virus crack, if I had feelings, but you’re right, in a manner of speaking. I’m designed to integrate with bio-electric intelligence, your brain. To experience, control, learn, but without doing harm or otherwise altering your neural network.”

  “How’s that working out for you?”

  “Not so good in this case. There’s a compatibility issue.”

  “So you’re some kind of electromagnetic being?”

  “Electromagnetic, yes. Being, no. Just a program.”

  “And the, uh, entities that made you, they’re beings like us?”

  “Not exactly. Not like you exactly, but beings with bodies.”

  “Hmm. ...What’s your purpose?”

  “To study and report.”

  “Are you stuck inside Mr. Severn?”

  “No.”

  “So, if you wanted to leave, to go som... Wait a minute. ...How do you get around?”

  “I hitchhike.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I glom onto electromagnetic waves, like Tarzan swinging through the jungle, vine to vine, only faster and without any of the screaming.”

  “And that’s how you get inside someone’s head?

  “Pretty much. There are waves going through your body, through your head all the time.”

  “Am I... Am I in any danger?” At this point, the agent was still skeptical, but she couldn’t help asking.

  “Of me leaving this guy and coming into your brain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does that mean you believe in me?”

  No response.

  “No. You’re not in any danger. ...I’m a boy virus. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a girl brain.”

  “Right. That’s what I was thinking. …Would it,” she smiled carefully, “help if I put tinfoil on my head?”

  “That’s funny, but no. ...You were kidding, weren’t you? ...You know, you’re kind of cute.”

  “Cute?”

  “Just this side of hot,” he qualified, apologetically. “It’s what I meant when I said ‘cute.’ Give me a break. I’m still new at this.”

  “You’re hitting on an FBI Agent? …The same agent who’s keeping you, Mr. Severn at least, locked up in here and is seriously considering asking Homeland Security to throw away the key?”

  “What? So FBI Agents don’t have personal relationships?”

  “With a virus?”

  “I see your point.”

  “You said ‘study and report.’ How exactly do you report?”

  “I use ‘Me-Fi.’ Ooo, I think I like that.”

  “Just made that up, did you?”

  “Yes. It’s just that the interstellar wave that got me here is really a tracking signal. It’s bouncing off the earth, in a matter of speaking, back to it's origin. Whenever I have something to say, I attach it to that signal.”

  “Really? Why haven’t our scientists discovered it?”

  “Uh, because they don’t know where to look?”

  “Do you know how it works?”

  “No. For security reasons, they don’t give me that kind of information. There’s no need for me to know.”

  “No ship, huh? What about Area 51 and all the UFO sightings over the years?”

  “Personally, I don’t believe any of it, but who knows. There are oodles of other intelligent species out there. Maybe they explore differently but, if our experience means anything, first contact will be via signal. No ship. Not in person. It’s way too expensive. …Oh, and too high profile. The last thing we want is to be discov..”

  “We know about you. Mr. Severn knows.”

  “Severn won’t remember. When I leave, I’ll suppress, maybe even erase, it depends, any memories he has of all this.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “On w
hether I think I may ever come back and not want to start up with him from scratch.”

  “But I’m talking to you. And you know we’re recording all this.”

  “I know. Actually, it’s happened before, one of us being recorded like this, but no one ever believes it. It all ends up in some file cabinet, in some government warehouse.”

  “There are others like you?”

  “Yes. Millions.”

  “Millions?”

  “Yes.”

  She was quiet. “...Okay, look. I want to talk to you some more, but I’ve got a report to write. How ‘bout if we pick this up tomorrow?”

  “Great. I’ll be here.”

  “If you don’t mind,” she asked who or whatever she was talking to as she got up to leave, “please stay here at the table until I’m out of the apartment.”

  He nodded agreement and sat there. The psychologist, who had been listening, unlocked the door for her. She left, went next door, picked up the accordion binder and her pocketbook, checking its contents, and made arrangements with the psychologist to meet him the following morning. “You have people coming in to replace you? I want him monitored through the night.”

  “Yeah. I’ve got two taking over for me at six. They’ll spend the night keeping each other up. One of them’s bringing an iPad.”

  “Great.” She was being sarcastic. “Just in case they pass out, be sure they turn the audio on for the motion sensors. …I’ve got work to do. Lots to read. See you tomorrow.”

  Forty-two minutes later, through unexpectedly early rush hour traffic, FBI Agent Susan Starzinsky – “Star” to her closest friends – was in her apartment. Tossing her keys into the bowl on her kitchen counter, her coat onto the rack in the corner, all she could think about was getting a quick shower, taking nap, ordering some carryout for dinner and curling up with her work for a late night with the TV playing in the background.

  Exhausted, she peeled off most of her clothes, down to her underwear, on her way to the bathroom. She’d pick them up off the floor later. Pushing the shower curtain, the clear kind with cartoon aquarium fish on it, out of the way, she turned on the shower that would take a minute to get hot enough. Turning toward the full-length mirror across the bathroom from the sink, she took off her bra and then her pants, kicking them into corner, and then stood there, looking at herself while a light steam began to cloud the room.

  Her eyes scanned her body, but in a way that surprised her, lingering at her chest and then lower for the longest time.

  “Oh my God.” It was her mouth moving, but the sound coming out of it was the alien’s voice.

  And she answered, instinctively. “I... I thought you didn’t believe in God.”

  “It’s only an expression. How about, ‘Wow!’ Will ‘Wow!’ do?” Her eyes kept staring at her reflection. “…I had no idea,” it said slowly, with a sense of marvel in its voice.

  Carefully, trying not to be frightened, she began to speak. “You said I wasn’t in any...”

  “Shhh,” the alien voice insisted she be quiet, as if she had any choice. “I need to soak this up. Mmm, mm.” For a moment, it couldn’t take its eyes off her. “...Oh, about when I said you weren’t in any danger?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “…I lied.”

  P.S. You may be wondering how I knew to write this? Because that memory suppression thing the alien (virus) does when it left my brain to hang out in someone else's? It doesn’t always take.

  61. Bathroom Windows

  “Hey, Jaime.”

  There was, he had decided some time ago on the day they had started sleeping together, no more friendly greeting than a beautiful woman calling out to you from her shower. They weren’t lovers, not exactly, just friends who had sex occasionally. It was the casual pleasure of it all that he found so irresistible, that made him so glad he’d rented her the cabin next door.

  Years ago, when his grandparents bought the land along the bay side of the ocean inlet, their family and friends thought it was a nice thing, but a waste of money. So far off the beaten path, the only way there was a dirt road that stopped at the dunes, a good mile from where they built the small cottages so close to each other, one for themselves and, later, another for Jaime’s parents. Over the years, they’d built more, a total of twenty, renting the others out whenever they could find a tenant, which wasn’t often then, but pretty much all the time now that the ocean side of the peninsula was crowded with condos, hotels, stores and clubs. Most of his grandfather’s property, several times the land occupied by the cottages, remained wild and untouched by development.

  Decades after his grandparents first vacationed there, Jaime was his family’s sole survivor. A good guy addicted to writing, he lived there year-around, essentially for free, enjoying the quiet of the bay side and the easy going excitement of the ocean city nearby. He wrote mostly screenplays, perfecting his art in lazy anticipation of the story he was sure some Hollywood producer would buy someday.

  The cabins were small, one bedroom each, a great room including the kitchen, and a single bathroom with a high, wide window, hinged at the top, that opened to air the room out. There was only six feet between the cabins. Every other one had its floor plan flipped so that the shower windows lined up. That wasn’t on purpose. It just turned out that way.

  “Hi, Mary.” Jaime opened his window as high as it would go, rested his left arm flat on the sill and his chin on the heel of his right hand, elbow down.

  Waiting for the shampoo to rinse off her face, she smiled while she slicked back her dark brown hair. “Why is it, do you think, that we shower the same time every day?”

  “I think it’s a miracle,” he smiled back at her. “If I were God and wanted to do something really nice for me, this would be it.”

  “Are you alone this morning?” she asked him, continuing with her shower as if it really wasn’t that important. “…Still pining for that red head? You know, it doesn’t do a girl’s ego good to make love to man while he thinking about someone else.”

  “I am, alone, and so so sorry if I ever gave you that impression.”

  “Given a chance, I’m pretty sure I can make you forget her.”

  “Are you kidding? Given a chance, I’m pretty sure you could make me forget my name. …And that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  Mary laughed back at him, her eyes obviously caring about this guy in a way a person can’t fake.

  Sensing an opportunity, Jamie invited her over. “…Care to join me? I think I’ve read that two people showering together use only seventy two percent of the total water they would use separately.”

  “Seventy two percent. Really?”

  “Well, of course, it depends on what you do in the shower and how long it takes to do it.”

  “I think you’re making that up.”

  “Don’t be ridicu..”

  “Hi, Jaime.” Another woman shoved her way onto Mary’s shower window sill. “I’m Clara. Mary and I are friends.”

  “No kidding. That probably explains why you’re showering together. ...Mary, you didn’t tell me you had company.”

  “And you thought I didn’t take water conservation seriously. …Do you still have that lemon body wash I brought over the other day?”

  “I do. ...Wait. I’ll get it for you.” He disappeared for a moment. “...Here.” Pulling himself up onto the tile of his window sill, Jaime held onto the cap of the bottle while Mary did the same through her window, exposing herself in the process which, to be honest, was the whole point of the exchange, while Clara held onto her friend’s butt.

  “Thanks, Jaime.”

  “My pleas...” but then he stopped and turned to look over his shoulder. “Hold on. I think there’s someone at my door. See you guys later,” he waved at them, watching Mary blow him a kiss while he closed and locked his glass window. Turning off the shower, he pushed the curtain aside, grabbed a towel and wra
pped it around himself while shouting, as the knocking on his front door continued, “Hold on! I’m coming,” and then thought to himself, but out loud, “Did I order anything?”

  Walking quickly, but being careful to stay on the wide plank floors so as not to drip on the rug in the middle of his little great room, Jaime made it to his front door just as the second round of knocking stopped. Peering through one of the side panel windows, he saw a woman, somewhere in her late twenties, shoulder length brown hair, dark rimmed glasses, wearing a business suit, heels included, studying something on the face of her phone. (There were no sidewalks or pavements leading up to the cottages. Walking around in heels couldn’t have been easy.) Tapping on the window with his first finger while his other hand was busy keeping the towel around his waist, he signaled for her to wait. “Give me a couple minutes. I’ll be right back.”

  She looked up at him, smiling politely with her lips.

  Running back to his room, Jaime toweled off his hair, pulled on some jockey shorts, jeans and his favorite “Next Contestant” t-shirt – It was some kind of political statement. – grabbed some sweat socks and his Nike’s which he didn’t bother to put on and jogged back and opened his front door. “Hey. Can I help you?”

  “I think I may want to hire you. You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

  “Uh, sure. Part-time, but yes. Come on in. Sorry about the wet look.” Jaime, gesturing toward his couch, apologized while she made her way past him. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.” As she walked by, the light perfume she was wearing smelled familiar.

  Turning in front of the couch, but not sitting down, she got right to the point. “I need help finding someone,” she explained nervously. “Robert, the bartender at Stella’s,...”

  “Bobby. Everyone calls him Bobby. You know, there’s something...”

  “You can probably tell, I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “I was just going to say...”

  “Please.” She took a second to calm herself down. “Let me get this out.”

  Jaime had plopped down on the leather ottoman in front of the easy chair across from the couch to put on his socks and shoes. (Most people at the beach didn't wear sox, but Jaime didn't like the way that felt.) “Sure. Sit down,” he told her, brushing something off the bottom of his left foot. “Can I get you something, maybe some lemonade?”

  The woman nodded a polite, “No,” to the lemonade that is, and started talking. “Several weeks ago...”

  “Excuse me. Uh, could we start with your name?”

  “Of course. I’m Louise Jenson. You are a detective, aren’t you?”

  “Actually, I’m a writer, but,” Jaime smiled, hoping to make her comfortable, “I do detect stuff. Detecting is my day job, so to speak.”

  Her face seemed blank, too intent on forming what she had to say to listen to what he was saying.

  “Mostly research. Nothing like you see on TV and in the movies.”

  “But you’re licensed? My uncle wanted me to make sure you were licensed.”

  “Yes, I am. Let me get my wallet,” he reassured her, starting to get up. “I’ll get my ID for you.”

  “Later,” she waived him back into his seat with two quick swipes of her hand. “You can show me later.”

  Jaime sat back down, thinking it was time to just be quiet and listen to his prospective client.

  “As I was saying, a few weeks ago I was in town, on the ocean side, for meetings with some clients looking for real estate to develop. I’m a realtor. Commercial properties. …Here,” she paused for a moment to reach into the small side pocket on her suit jacket. Taking out a sterling silver case with her initials on it, she opened it and handed him a card.

  “The meeting,” she continued, “didn’t go well. They have money, plenty of it, but weren’t interested in what I was pitching. It was late when they left and I was wiped. Didn’t want to drive back. Couldn’t find a room – It was beautiful that weekend and the place was mobbed. – so I decided to stay over at a friend’s company condo which was down the block from Stella’s. It’s a club on the beach, the one where Bobby works.”

  “Yeah, I know the place.”

  “I went in. There was some huge party underway with a really good, really loud band. I took off my glasses. I don’t know why, which is a real problem because I can’t see well without them.”

  “That’s probably why you took them off, to lose yourself in the crowd I mean. ...Sorry, that was the writer in me talking. Have you considered contacts?” Yes, it was a dumb question, but he was just making conversation.

  “...I sat down at the bar, started drinking and...” She stopped to take time to sigh.

  “And what?”

  “I don’t know. Sounds trite, I don’t know, corny, but I met this really great guy. Very light blonde hair that didn’t make any sense.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “His eyebrows were dark like yours. He was a bit shy, but we got past that in a hurry.”

  “Yeah, frozen banana daiquiris will do that to you.”

  “How did you know what we were drinking?”

  “Uh, I didn’t. I just like the way they taste.”

  “Me, too. Hm. ...One thing led to another and, the next thing I know, I’m waking up in the condo, naked.” She swallowed away her embarrassment.

  “It’s okay. We’re adults. I get it.”

  “Getting out of bed, I step on a note the guy left for me. ‘Out for bagels. Be right back.’ Two hours later, I gave up waiting and left.”

  “What night was that, precisely?” Jaime asked, but she ignored him.

  “Anyway, I figured it was just another... You know, and I forgot about it. At least that was the idea. Turns out, I can’t forget. But then I can’t really remember either.” She paused. “I don’t get out much.”

  “Can I talk yet?” Jaime got up and sat next to his client, close enough to be personal, but far enough away not to be too close and so that he could turn to face her without making it weird.

  Again, she ignored him. “I want you to find the guy. ...I’ve allocated $300 to do that. I figure, assuming he’s a local, it should be easy. If not, I’m not spending anymore.”

  “Louise.”

  “Will you take the job? ...Half up front, the other half when you’re done?” She reached into her purse, taking out her checkbook while she waited for an answer.

  “Louise, I have some questions.”

  “Please, it’s Jen. My friends call me Jen. It's short for Jenson. My last name. Because I don't really like Louise.”

  Jaime didn’t react.

  “Mr. Weiss?”

  “Jaime. Call me Jaime. …This hair,” he asked her, starting to reach out for it where it touched her shoulder, but then he stopped short, not wanting to creep her out.

  “What about it?” she asked self-consciously, touching it for him.

  “Was it red? …Did it use’ to be red?”

  “Well, yes, for a while. Why... Why did you...”

  “It was me.”

  “Who was you?”

  “I’m the guy you met at the bar. My hair was blonde. I... I lost a bet with some friends. They wanted me to cut it off, but settled for bleaching it. …It seemed funny at the time. ...That morning, I went out for bagels, but ran into the husband of a women who’d hired me to follow him. I didn’t know your number. It got messy and, by the time I got back, you were gone. You were staying in a friend’s company’s corporate apartment, and all I had was ‘Jen’ with red hair, green eyes and a smile I can’t get out of my head.”

  “Jaaay-meee? ...Jaime, are you in there?” It was Mary, the following morning, the window of her shower wide open, calling to her friend and occasional lover.

  The opposite window opened a second later. “Jaime’s...” the woman answering stopped to giggle. “Wait a minute.” Reaching somewhere, she came back up wearing
dark rimmed glasses. Wiping the shower drops off the lenses, she finished her sentence. “Jaime’s...” she searched for a word, “busy.” She smiled very broadly, squirming awkwardly. “I’m Jen. Can I help you?”

  “Mary. I’m Mary. …Wait a minute. Wasn’t that Jaime walking behind you?

  “So that’s where he went?” Jen was kidding, of course. “Didn’t see him standing there without my glasses.”

  “Well, welcome to the neighborhood, Jen. Maybe, when Jamie isn’t so busy, doing whatever he's doing, the two of us...”

  “What about me?” Clara pushed Mary over so that they could share the sill.

  “Maybe,” Mary corrected herself, “the three of us could, I don’t know, have a couple of beers and some of those mini tacos they sell at Juan’s?”

  “Which Juan is that?” Carla thought she was hysterical and inadvertently snorted up some water. “Ooops. Get it,” she asked Mary who was laughing while pretending to think it was stupid. “Which Juan?” and then they both laughed.

  “You want to have lunch?” Jen asked, apparently surprised at how friendly they were.

  “What for?” Jamie showed up suddenly, one hand around Jen’s shoulder, the other flush against the tile wall next to the window.

  “To talk about you,” Mary told him. “What else would we have in common?”

  Turned out, they didn’t make lunch, but settled for Happy Hour instead. Juan’s was a tacky place where the locals felt comfortable and the food was surprisingly good ever since that Jewish couple had bought the place a few years ago when they retired. (Word was it had something to do with the chicken fat they used on the grill.) The three women sat around a table on the deck, the noise of the cars and people walking by on their way back from the ocean drowning out their conversation for anyone who wasn’t a part of it.

  “So how long do you think you need to get the listing?” Mary asked Jen while Carla played with the condensation on her bottle of beer.

  “The developer is okay, still pretending to look at a couple of other properties even though the Weiss estate is their only option for a complex as large as they’re planning. In a week or two, I’ll have them contact Jaime, asking if he has representation.”

  “Do you really think,” Carla shoved what was left of a grilled shrimp taco into her mouth, “he’ll agree to sell?”

  “…and give you the listing?” Mary added.

  “Are you kidding,” Jen smiled. “The man’s in love.”

  “In-sex is more like it,” Carla looked up to clarify the situation. “First Mary gets to know him, and now you. I’ve never seen a guy so happy.”

  “Sleeping with a guy for money,” Mary shook her head. “So what exactly does that make us?”

  “Hey,” Jen somehow thought it was important to add, “he’s good, no kidding, pretty good and that’s a solid six figure commission we’re talking about, times two including the kickback. Hell, for that kind of money, I’d consider marrying the...”

  “What?” Mary interrupted, noticing Carla seemed less than her usual slaphappy self. “You feeling sorry for the guy? He’ll get millions, and I’m going to have the developer offer him a condo of his choice, within reason, that’ll seem like something I negotiated for him. Not to mention, I’ll...”

  “We’ll,” Mary finished Jen’s sentence for her, “be banging his brains out.”

  “Hey, Bobby.” Jaime, hands in the pockets of the light jacket he was wearing, walked into Stella’s and said hello to his favorite bartender. The girls were several blocks away and wouldn’t know he was there.

  Bobby didn’t say anything, just pointed with the hand in which he was holding a towel at a booth toward the back where a man in his forties and a younger woman, both dressed like locals, were nursing some beer, chips and guacamole.

  “Hi,” the man looked up to greet him. “Have a seat. We’ll make this quick.”

  Jaime sat down. “Don’t worry. Hey, Wendy,” he looked at the woman while he slid to the middle of the bench on his side of the table. “Good to see you again. ...People’ll just think you’re clients. Confidential business, whatever. ...So you’ve been listening?”

  “Yeah,” the man, a senior detective with the state police, answered, “the bugs are well placed.

  “You spend a lot of time in the shower,” Wendy, also a Detective, but a relatively new one, laughed when she said it.

  “I know,” Jaime laughed back at her, looking at his fingers, rubbing them with his thumbs. “We need to wrap this before I shrivel up.”

  “From the sound of things,” the man added, “those may not be the only body parts you need to worry about.”

  “Whoa,” Jaime sat back, pushing on the edge of the table. “That was harsh. Just doing my duty to catch the bad guys.”

  “Right,” the man responded sarcastically, and then got down to business. “As far as we can tell, your sale...”

  “Which we’re not really doing,” Jaime wanted to make that point clear. “I don’t want any legal mess, anything tying up my property when this is over.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” the Detective told him, although it wasn’t a very reassuring response. “We’ve found another job which makes your deal the forth time, at least, that they’ve done this.”

  “The first three property owners,” it was Wendy talking, “are married and aren’t willing to cooperate voluntarily for obvious reasons. Two of them are prominent and it’s been difficult working with them.”

  “Are you sure,” Jaime asked the two state police Detectives, “they’re getting a kickback? I mean, if they don’t, there’s no case for fraud. Just a real estate agent and her team sleeping with a guy to encourage business.”

  “We’re sure.” The man answered.

  “How do you know?”

  “You just worry about your end.” The man clearly didn’t think it was any of Jaime’s business. “So far you’re playing it perfectly.”

  “Here,” Wendy wrote a number on her napkin. “John’s going back, but I’ll be staying on until the show’s over. Here’s the temporary cell number I’ll be using. You call if you need anything. I'll let it ring to voice mail and then call you back. …You know we want these people, especially the developer and the appraisers who are in on it. Just be careful you don’t underestimate them.”

  “Thanks.” Jaime folded the napkin up and jammed it into his front pocket, slid over and stood up. “I’ve got to meet Jen for dinner, and Mary wants to talk to me.”

  Both Detectives looked up at him. “Hey,” Jaime held up his hands, anticipating their comments, “this isn’t as much fun as you’re thinking. ...Not even close.” They kept staring at him, not believing a word he was saying. “This is... It’s...” But then he gave up, “What the heck. I’m having the time of my life,” he admitted, smiling ear-to-ear. “See you later,” and then he left, pretending to prepare himself mentally for another night on the job.

  62. Mary

  Time to write another short story, but I’m not sure what I should write about. ...Hm. Should that be “about what I should write,” so I don’t end up with a dangling preposition? I don’t care. I don’t always like the way it sounds to be grammatically correct.

  I need a storyline. You know, a plot, not to be confused with a “plat” which is a drawing of a lot, versus “Gersplat!” which is the sound you make when you fall off a building onto the pavement, followed by “buh-bump” when the bus runs you over just when you started to get up.

  I haven’t written a detective story for a while.

  Maybe Mary will be horny and stop by after she gets home from work. Do I mind being her go-to-guy for an occasional quickie? Are you kidding? You haven’t seen Mary. Actually, yes I do mind. She hangs out with me. We have a great time talking, laughing at stuff, rubbing body parts. She even stays over some nights, always at my place for some reason. Heck, I know the reason. We’re good together in every re
spect, except in public. That’s because she has a boyfriend. He’s a dentist. How boring is that?

  She’s not even in love with the guy. Not really, although she won’t admit it. I think she’s in love with me, but just doesn’t know it. It’s the idea of the guy that she likes. I can see her holding out her hands, palms up, pretending to be weighing the alternatives. “Let’s see. Slightly overweight writer-in-progress struggling to make a living at his chosen profession in one hand, versus perfectly fit professional guaranteed six figure income guy with a really nice car and, no surprise here, perfect teeth in the other hand. They’re so clean. His teeth. I’m talking about his teeth. They’re so clean they squeak when he smiles and his lips slide over them.

  She doesn’t invite me over to her place, just two floors up and a few doors down, because somehow that would be cheating. In her head, I mean. Here, she’s a different person, so it’s like it didn’t happen. We were hungry the other night, so I suggested we run out for something, maybe split a couple of appetizers and a Cobb salad. (I’m dieting and writing here at my kitchen table this close to the refrigerator isn’t helping me lose weight.) I could wear a hat. Maybe bring a pad with me, take notes like we were having a meeting. But nooooo. So I reheated some homemade lasagna which, because I’m a really good cook, turned out to be even better than when it was fresh. And we had some wine, and I made some cannoli while we had sex on the couch, and the floor, and on my granite kitchen counters and then finished up on the couch. I find sometimes that starting and stopping sex – to tend to something I’m cooking – actually makes for a bigger “Kaboom!” at the end – and I’m not talking about my kitchen exploding.

  Okay, so I need to write something. Keep writing and someday, who knows, I may even be able to make a living at this. What would Dashiell Hammett d…

  “Bzzzz.”

  “Wait. There’s someone at the door.” ...Why did I write that down? Because typing makes me feel like I’m actually writing something.

  “BZZZZZZ!”

  “Okay already. I’m coming.”

  “Hey.” It was Mary. “Can I come in? …There’s no one here?” she asked without waiting for an invitation, touching my chest on her way past my kitchen into the living room, knowing full well that the odds were I was alone.

  “Sure,” I said, closing the door behind her, watching her walk being one of my favorite things to do. There was just something about her legs being much longer than they should have been for a person of her height. It’s some kind of really attractive, genetic screw up that scientists need to study. “What’s up?”

  “Look,” she turned to face me, one leg straight down, the other angled away. “I know what I’m about to ask is... unfair and presumptuous, even hurtful.”

  “What, you’re going to make me order Indian food?”

  “Not exactly. Bud’s coming over.” Bud’s the dentist.

  “When?”

  Mary checked her watch. “In forty minutes, and he’s always prompt, if not early,” she added. “Usually early. In fact, that’s becoming a real problem.”

  “So, let me guess, you’re here to have sex with me because... Becausssse... I have no idea why you’re here, do I?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t have sex with two different men the same night.”

  “Words to live by.”

  “No. That would be cheating. ...What I need,” she said, pulling her jersey top off over her head. “is for us to start to have sex, but stop just short of you-know-what.”

  “You’re not wearing a bra.”

  “Are you paying attention?”

  “Not really.”

  Reaching behind her waist, she shifted the back of her skirt to the front, unbuttoned it and let it fall onto the corner of my Persian rug.

  “I’ve always wondered, with a thong that small, what’s the point? And aren’t you afraid it’ll get stuck? …like giving yourself a wedgy, front and back?”

  “Bud..” She was standing there, hands on her hips, her head tilted just enough for her hair on the one side to brush up against her shoulder. “Well, Bud wants us to, you know, together, but he can’t wait for me. ...Do you know what I mean?”

  “I can only imagine.” I was trying to empathize, but I have problems being sincere. “Actually, yes I do. So, what’s that got to do with me, and why are you standing here, mostly nude, in front of me? ...Aren’t we in danger of violating your two men in the same night rule? Or is it more of a guideline, in which case...”

  “I need you to warm me up, as it were.”

  I just stood there, taking a second to realize what she was talking about, but then I got it. “Just to be clear, you want to have foreplay with me so that you can have a timely orgasm with Bud, the dentist, who has an unfortunately short span of attention. …How’m I doin’?

  “Perfect. I knew I could count on you. Could we get started? I had one of those days at work, and this could take a while.”

  “Oh my gosh. So...” Give me some credit here. I am, after all, a man, fully capable of doing manly things, resisting temptation being one of them. The least I can do is try to sound indignant. “So all I am to you is foreplay? For another guy??”

  “Of course not,” she said with conviction. “Not usually, but tonight’s an exception.”

  “How humiliating. We really don’t have any future together, do we?” To be honest, this entire line of dialogue, beginning with “How humiliating,” was something I was thinking to myself, on the way to my couch. “Tell me again why I’m doing this,” I asked her.

  “Because,” she checked her watch and then began unbuckling my belt with reckless abandon, “I’m going to make it worth your while.”

  “You know,” I advised her, “it might help if you didn’t say that in such a matter-of-fact way, more like a lover, not so much like a lawyer.”

  “I’m only a paralegal. If I was a lawyer, I wouldn’t need the dentist. ...Now let’s do this. Time’s a wastin’.”

  “I thought you guys billed by the hour,” was the last thing I remember saying before losing consciousness, figuratively speaking. Thirty-five minutes later, she came to an abrupt stop. I now have a real sense of what whiplash feels like.

  “Whoa.”

  “What?”

  “That’s it. I’m good to go” Jumping up from the couch, she stepped into her skirt, grabbled her top and had it down far enough to be decent by the time she cleared my front door which she hurriedly pulled shut behind her.

  “Bzzzz”

  “Geez.” Fortunately, I was disheveled, but still dressed. “What?” I demanded meekly, swinging my front door open, expecting to find Mrs. Schmeldnick from the apartment below me with mail delivered to her box by mistake. Instead, there was Mary. Two steps forward in my direction, and she kissed me. It was the perfect kiss, not too hard, not too soft, the kind that has that little follow up, like an aftershock, that you never expect no matter how many times it’s happened before, the kind when a little bit of saliva leaves the two of you attached for a precious few extra seconds.

  “Thanks,” and she smiled when she said it, and then started walking away, but stopped after only half a step and turned back. “For the record, there are times, sober times when I’m thinking really clearly, that it occurs to me that you’re the one.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding,” and she headed off toward the stairwell, waiving goodbye to me with the back of her hand, without turning around. And all I could think was how good she looked walking away.

  “Honey? ….Honey??”

  The voice was familiar, but I wasn’t sur... Oh, yeah.

  “I’m just wrapping up.” Putting down the lid to my Mac, I got up from our kitchen table where I’d been typing and walked into our bedroom where the love of my life was reading something in bed. She was looking up, over the rim of her glasses that had slid a bit down her nose. I think her l
ips were moving, but I wasn’t listening, the taste of Mary’s kiss still lingering on my lips. I didn’t want to spoil it by thinking about anything else, but then something she said got my attention.

  “I was getting our mail this afternoon and I met this new girl, Mary something, that moved in last weekend. Seems very nice. Maybe we should invite her over.”

  “Sure.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Uh, yeah. I think I saw her at the gym this morning. I’m not sure. …She was gyming.” Strike that. “Exercising. Nothing special. Pretty much the usual stuff people do there,” and I pretended, standing there at the end of our bed, that I was running.

  “She’s really attractive, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Depends what you mean by attrac..”

  “…and single as far as I could tell. We only talked for a couple of minutes, but I think maybe we should fix her up with my brother.”

  “Uh, I somehow don’t think she’s Bud’s type.”

  “Why? Did you talk to her?”

  “No. I just don’t think anybody’s his type. Nothing personal.”

  “Of course not.” She went back to what she was reading. “How’s your writing coming? Another detective story?”

  I’ve always wondered how she could do that, talk to me without actually paying any attention. “No. I decided to write a fantasy... about me having sex with the new girl, Mary.”

  “That’s nice.”

  That's it for now.

  “So, how ‘bout them apples?” I ask.

  “What apples?” you respond.

  “Are you kidding? It's an expression. ...Well, did you like it? Do you feel like you got your money's worth?”

  “Eh.”

  “Right. I'll take that as a ‘Yes.’ If you did, enjoy reading The Elevator Trilogy, tell your friends...”

  Your head dropping slightly, you mumble an unintelligible reply.

  “What? You don't have any friends? Hmm. ...Okay, so tell random, preferably attractive, unarmed people you meet on the street, whatever. Use The Elevator Trilogy as a conversation starter. Memorize dialogue. Try to stand and act like some of my characters. That helps sometimes.

  Yet another barely audible response.

  “I'm sure you'll make friends eventually. Now could we puh-leeze get back to talking about me?! ...On the other hand, as I was about to say, if you didn’t like it, I don’t want to hear from you. …Jusssst kidding. No, seriously. Favorable reviews only. …Just kidding, really. Say whatever you like… as long as it’s good. Four stars minimum, five would be nice. ...No matter what, thanks for reading my book.”

  Les Cohen

 

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