Clara supposed that she could read the article, learn all about what a blazing success he’d become. But, at the moment, she had some pressing matters to attend to. Namely, a whole unopened folder of photos from Brad’s recent trip to St. Croix. There he’d done the world a true service by jet skiing shirtless.
She turned the magazine over. But then she made a horrible tactical error. In a moment that could only be described as sheer insanity, she reached up and placed the magazine back at the very top of the slush pile of mail teetering next to her on the table. Just waiting for something to change the balance, find its tipping point.
Mail Attack! An avalanche of envelopes! A hurricane of catalogues! Why did Restoration Hardware print a book the size of the Holy Bible to try to sell its furniture, and why did they send that book to Clara who’d never once bought a $1,500 lamp? Assaulted by magazines, pelted by packages, her glass got knocked over. Red wine splashed full over the keyboard of her laptop.
“Noooo!” she screamed, hunching her body over the computer as if protecting a baby. But the damage had been done. Was that a pop and a hiss she heard coming from down below? A small plume of smoke rose from the side.
“No! Please!” She grabbed the front of her sweatshirt and began frantically mopping up the wine.
Alarmed by the chaos, Jedi the cat first jumped on the couch, then up onto Clara’s shoulder. She winced and yelled in surprise at the sudden, furry attack. Jedi responded as any cat would worth his salt—more claw, more paw as he did his impression of a turban made out of cat around her head.
“Jedi!” Clara screeched and that was when the flash came. From the laptop, with an immediately recognizable camera-like ‘click’. One hand up struggling with the cat, the other holding the laptop up on its side in an attempt to drain it, the computer made yet another flash and a ‘click’.
Then on the screen: ‘Make this your profile photo?’ Clara looked in horror at the image now up on her computer. Like a cartoon of a crazy old cat lady, one eye closed and the other popped open in a struggle with the cat on top of her scraggly, frizzy hair. Mostly a headshot, the camera had still managed to capture enough grey sweatshirt such that the red wine stains were fully visible.
“No!” Clara yelled again and began helplessly smacking at keys. More messages appeared: Tweet this photo? Message to friends? Pin it? Share on Instagram?
Did she even have an Instagram account? Frantically shaking the laptop she then remembered the supremacy of her species: she could turn it off! Jamming her finger onto the on/off button, after what seemed like a few hours the screen with the image of the crazy lady with the angry cat wrapped around her head finally faded to black.
Clara sat on the couch, panting. Now, of course, Jedi was nowhere to be seen. And, insult to injury, she no longer even had a glass of wine next to her from which she could take a sip.
What exactly had happened? A mail attack followed by spilled wine on her keyboard that had triggered a cat attack followed by spontaneously launching the Photo Booth app that turned a camera on her and started snapping? And posting/messaging/tweeting/pinning/Instagramming the photos? That kind of thing happened all the time, right? No big deal.
She closed her eyes and brought a hand to her forehead. Surely that hadn’t all just happened. What had Dorothy said when she’d clicked her ruby slippers and wished it all away? There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.
Only Clara didn’t want to go home. She wanted a total re-do, like Cinderella finally got after all those years of mopping and sweeping and laundering her wicked step-family’s clothes. At her darkest hour she’d run out into the garden sobbing. In a shimmer of magic, her fairy godmother arrived!
Clara opened her eyes. No bibbidy-bobbedy boo. Just a fat lady on a couch surrounded by unopened mail and a broken, discarded laptop. Who was she kidding? If she were in a fairy tale, she’d be Ursula the Sea Witch, sacrificing poor urchins to color her lips and gruffly instructing the young and lovely Ariel to use her “body language.”
But what she wouldn’t give for just one wish. She didn’t need three like Aladdin, no flying carpet and rich, elaborate entourage. Just one.
She stared at her laptop, still somehow able to conjure up a vivid image of Brad. If she only had one wish, just one, she’d go back to college and set things right. She closed her eyes again, seeing nothing but Brad, almost convincing herself that if she cleared everything else from her mind, focused intently enough, maybe somehow she could be transported back in time. Back to college. Because this time, she’d do everything different. And this time, she knew she’d get it right.
CHAPTER 2
GOT A LIGHT?
The next day, Clara trudged up the stairs of the 1960’s-era concrete government agency as she did each morning, reporting for duty. Not a fairy godmother in sight. Someone had told her that the building was an award-winning example of Brutalist Architecture, known for its exceptional fortress-like and blockish qualities. She wondered if first prize went for least use of windows.
Lining up to pass through the metal detector, she flashed her ID badge at the armed guard. Same as she had for the past five years. And, same as always, no recognition. The guard looked like he might be approaching retirement; Clara bet he had hash marks carved into his desk counting down the days. Too bad he never made eye contact, she’d wanted to crack a joke with him for going on a year now. Something along the lines of “why do we need an ID badge when our souls get sucked right out at the door?” The concept might be too subtle, though. She couldn’t quite work out how to tell it right, but she could picture it clearly. He could keep it in a Ziploc baggie while she worked.
Serving as an example of every fitness magazine’s “don’t”, Clara waited for the elevator. CAHWCFC, the County Administration for the Health and Well-Being of Children, Families and Care-Givers, took up three floors.
Up on 3rd, the elevator opened to a large abstract collage entitled “Helping Hands.” It looked like someone had vomited up newspaper clippings. The placard underneath explained that it was the artist’s rendition of the many helpers required to raise healthy children. Sighing as she passed it, Clara honestly felt that she wouldn’t mind the concrete, the cubicles, even the miniscule paycheck if she actually felt like she was helping people. But she couldn’t remember the last time she’d spoken with a child, or even an adult member of a needy family.
She could still remember her rationale five years ago when she’d taken the county agency job. Plunging into the heart of the bureaucracy would scale her impact! Working deep inside the system would enable her to make broad-reaching improvements that could improve hundreds if not thousands of lives! But apparently the problem with diving into the belly of the beast was that sometimes the beast swallowed you up.
A nip around a corner, down into a corridor like every other, and home sweet cube. Clara dropped her bag to the floor with a clomp and slid into her chair. She pulled the chain on her desk lamp. The lightbulb flickered a moment or two, then lit her own personal partitioned square. The fluorescent lighting overhead was broken. It had been for eight months. Clara had filed a work order with maintenance, but apparently they were backlogged. Or hated her. Or both.
In a moment, she’d head into the break room for what passed as coffee, hoping her favorite “World’s Best Boss” mug (not hers) was available. But first, she’d check emails.
Click. There it was. A message from Facebook notifying her of 13 comments on her new profile photo. Delete! That took care of that. Ostriches really knew how to deal with things; no problem that a head in the sand couldn’t solve.
Next up: an email from her mom. That should be safe; her mom had neither the skills nor the interest to navigate social media. She’d only just mastered watching movies On Demand. The dazzling array of classics available for free had finally won out over her technophobia. When she’d discovered that Singing in the Rain could start playing with the click of a button in her home, Mrs. Taylor had finally g
otten with the program.
Clara wondered if her mom had something on just then as she drank her morning coffee, now that she’d retired from teaching third grade and had the time to sit and drink her morning coffee. Brigadoon? Oklahoma? Having been raised on a steady diet of movie musicals, Clara could still remember her surprise at her first middle school dance. It hadn’t gone down at all like the barn dance in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Not one guy had done acrobatic flips on a wooden sawhorse.
Clicking on her mom’s email, Clara read through the day’s news. Her dad, also newly-retired, was off on a hike. No surprise there; she could vividly picture him in his hiking trousers as he called them, pulled up far past a normal waist, plus his walking stick, fanny pack, and a wide-brimmed hat.
Apparently Mom had spent yesterday with Clara’s younger sister, Shelly, and the baby. No surprise there, either. Shelly lived one town over and since she’d had a baby last year she and their mother had become inseparable.
Clara skimmed most of the rest of it, able to read between the lines and pick up her mother’s dearest wish: “If only you’d get married and have babies and move in next door then my life would be complete!” Surely if her mother were tech savvy enough she’d create a personalized signature icon she could attach to every email she sent to Clara: a jpg of a ticking biological clock in final count down mode. With a sigh, Clara clicked reply and wrote, “Love you!”
Next email: from her college roommate Cat. Quick and to the point as always: ‘Psyched for dinner tonight!’ And then, three devastating words: ‘sweet profile pic.’
With a deep, heartfelt groan, Clara propped her elbows on her desk and sank her face into her hands. It had happened. She had sent out a photo last night which, essentially, issued a wide and public broadcast of the message: “I can sink no lower.”
And tonight she’d have to talk about it with Cat, her best friend from college who was jetting into San Francisco for the weekend. With the bod of a Bond Girl and the brains of a corporate titan, Cat crisscrossed the continents as a highly-paid consultant to Fortune 500 companies. She specialized in dating international men of mystery and great wealth. In college, they’d been partners in crime. Now, Cat would be walking into the crime scene that had become Clara’s life.
A large figure appeared at the entrance to Clara’s cube. Like a cross between Eeyore and a foghorn, Clara’s boss Marjorie bleated out, “Morning.” She sank into Clara’s extra chair.
“Morning, Marjorie.” Clara echoed her depressed tones. There they sat, saying nothing. At least Marjorie wasn’t all hooked up on social media. Then again, as a cat lover herself, she might have enjoyed Clara’s new photo.
“Chilly today,” Marjorie finally remarked.
“Yeah.”
“Supposed to be worse tomorrow.” Marjorie wore her hair in the style popularized by Farah Fawcett in the 1970’s. But even at the start of the day, her curls had a sad droop.
“They still haven’t fixed your lights.” Marjorie observed the dark ceiling.
“Nope.”
Marjorie sighed. More time passed. “Well, guess I’d better get to it.” She rose slowly from the chair. “I have that report to file.”
“Me too.”
Trying to summon the strength to get coffee, Clara remained at her desk. It struck her as one of life’s cruel ironies: the strength, focus and clarity of purpose required to get a cup of coffee could only truly be rendered by a cup of coffee.
She stared at the grey partition of her cube. Wouldn’t it be awesome if Brad showed up? She could see it. Her gaze shifted into soft focus as she cued up her own Walter Mitty-style fantasy. Bursting into the cube in full song, Brad would serenade her in a rich baritone. “It’s you! It’s always been you!” Suave in a tux—or, better yet, bottom half tuxedo, top half glistening and bronzed in shirtless glory—he’d dance a little soft shoe. Ooh, and maybe he’d sound like Michael Bublé with that old school slow sexiness.
Spotlight suddenly on Clara, she’d jump up onto her desk and rip off her shapeless sack of an outer layer—maybe popping it off with hidden snaps so the image would be less Hulk and more Disco Barbie—and there, she’d emerge in something entrancing and tiny and sparkly! Suddenly she’d have on heels, and even more impressive would be how she could dance in them! Jumping down into his arms, they’d mambo off together down the CAHWCFC corridor.
POP! Alarmingly loud, Clara’s desk lamp up and quit. For the second time in 24 hours, a crackle, a hiss and a plume of smoke rose from an electronic in her possession. Cautiously, Clara peered closer at the switch. Was that exposed wiring in there? Best not to touch.
Clara sat in the dark. How long could she stay there without anyone noticing? She bet it could happen, a whole day could pass during which she sat in the dark at her desk. Should she? Tempting thought. Especially when she realized that getting a new lamp that day would require an actual trip down to maintenance. She’d only been down into the basement a couple of times. The guys down there did not like to be disturbed. A written request was bad enough. A phone call took things way too far. Some uppity lady making her way down there to point her finger and give them orders? Really not good.
With an exasperated groan, Clara rose from her desk and headed to the elevator. Had the agency not blocked Facebook and every other social networking site she would have happily whiled away the hours undisturbed. But sitting alone in the dark doing absolutely nothing? She guessed she wasn’t quite there. Still a bit ‘o life in the old girl yet.
With a ping, the elevator doors opened to the basement. Clara stepped out into the dark, hidden caverns of the building. Taking a cautious step forward she called out, “Hello?” It couldn’t possibly, but her voice seemed to echo.
“Anyone here?” Clara ventured hesitantly toward the maintenance office in back.
A guy in a dark blue jumpsuit sat behind a plexiglass window in a small, concrete office.
Clara gulped nervously. Her greeting came out high-pitched and overly bright. “Hi! Can you help me? I need a lamp.” He looked up slowly. “My desk lamp burned out!” She found herself making a loud “POP!” sound and motioning with her hands as if to demonstrate an explosion.
“Waddyawant,” he grunted.
“Um, a lamp? A replacement lamp? For my desk?”
With another grunt, he jerked his thumb to the right. In all caps, a sign on a door read: STORAGE.
Clara exclaimed, surprised at the prospect of her needs being met. “You mean there are lamps right in there?”
The man emerged from his box office with a slam of the door. He rummaged through his giant key ring and fit one into the storage room lock.
“Thank you,” she said, then watched as he walked back to his booth. “Oh, you’re not—?”
“Workman’s comp,” he growled, placing a hand onto his lower back. Clara didn’t understand the full meaning of his statement, but she got enough to realize that he was not going to get the lamp for her. Peering into the cavernous gloom, she murmured hesitantly, “So I should just…?”
Stepping into the room she flicked on a light switch. The walls were lined with metal shelving and filled to the brim with junk. Taking tentative steps, Clara skirted around what appeared to be ancient printers lying discarded on the floor. Rows of broken computer monitors stared at her blankly through dusty screens. Bins of miscellaneous wires seemed to reach out trying to tangle their cords in her hair. It would take a step ladder to make it up to the top shelves. And was that a lawn mower or a dragon crouching down below?
Peering into the darkness ahead, she realized she couldn’t actually see the end of the room. Maybe she’d find the lost Ark of the Covenant in an unmarked wooden storage crate? Or rats? With a shudder, she clasped her arms across her chest and realized that maybe she should have told Marjorie she’d gone down into the basement. Chances seemed 50/50 that she was about to disappear, never to be heard from again.
Placing her hands on her hips in the universal sign of meanin
g business, Clara stared down the gloom. What was that down the row a bit? Underneath the bare bulb of an exposed ceiling light, did she see a metallic glimmer? Perhaps a classic banker’s lamp circa 1929, though she guessed that would predate the building. Still, the storage room had the musty, dark ambiance of The Land that Time Forgot.
There, on a shelf right at eye-level. Next to a chipped plastic coffee maker, she saw burnished gold. Obviously not real gold, Clara knew, but still she felt almost reverent as she reached out to touch it and pull it closer. A lamp! About a foot high, Clara couldn’t tell if it was the intended lacquer finish or age and filth that gave it a marbled, tarnished look. She couldn’t quite make it out, but it looked as if the lamp had some engravings on it.
Picking it up to examine it more closely, Clara had to laugh. It was just so random, like something you’d find in your great-grandmother’s attic. And not an aristocratic, wealthy great-grandmother, a batty junk-collecting one. But, yes, an electrical cord with a switch ran out of the bottom. At the top, a black metal column rose up into a socket for a light bulb.
It could work, Clara supposed, rather enjoying the idea of the ornate burnished gold lamp sitting on top of her utilitarian gray metal desk. There was no way she’d find a lamp shade, though, she guessed as she squinted into the dark shelving. But as if on command, a perfectly in-tact, beige shade presented itself.
“Mission accomplished!” she declared, picking her way back out of storage with decidedly more spring in her step.
Back up on the 3rd floor, Clara returned to her cube. Plug in the wall socket, replacement bulb screwed in tight, she brought her finger to the switch on the cord for the moment of truth. Let there be light! It worked!
Illuminated now, she could see that, indeed, there were figures dancing across the base of the lamp. Some played pipes, some wore flower garlands in their hair. A youth beneath some trees reached out to catch a maiden laughing just out of grasp.
Grabbing a tissue, Clara wanted to get a clearer view of it all. The lamp had grime and dust all over it. Cupping the base with one hand, she gave the lamp a rub.
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