Onze Labs

The Expense Report

    I am good at what I do. I am responsible for accounts payable in this company, so I review all the expense reports filed by any employee—including the vice president of this division. Regarding the paperwork in question, I was merely doing my job.

    I was hired for my accounting skills, because of my proven track record at keeping companies toeing the bottom line, if you know what I mean. I was brought on to put this office back on track, back in line with the rest of the company in terms of expenditures. I was hired to tighten the reins, enforce the rules. I wasn't hired to make exceptions.

    Every report, whether filed by the mail clerk or anyone on up the ladder, gets the same scrutiny. Take Mark Danielson, the division vice president—or his assistant, Gina Mosser—for example. One Wednesday in my expense report box—and while we're on the subject, let me just say that I find it astounding—astounding, I tell you—that some people have such trouble following simple instructions. I'm speaking about the sign on my desk that points—with an arrow even—to the box where I want the expense reports. Anyway, on that one Wednesday (I process expense reports on alternate Wednesdays, as they are due on alternate Fridays, because this gives me time to send them back with questions—and there are inevitably questions—and receive the corrections in time to make my filing date), that is to say, on that Wednesday I picked up a report dated three months prior. This, you understand, is so basic I shouldn't even have to say it: Expense reports are due at the end of each calendar month and absolutely must be filed by the end of each quarter. I cannot process an expense report from Q2 when we are two months into Q3. I have to send those to corporate. Why is that so difficult to understand? I've gone through this again and again in this office, because people here—I've never seen anything like it, frankly—cannot get their expense reports in on time. What's more, many of them have taken to bypassing me altogether and sending the reports to corporate, which is totally inefficient. When a report goes to corporate, those people are just going to sit on it until they feel like getting around to processing it, which, believe me, may well be never, because those clods wouldn't know how to keep to a schedule if it leapt out of their handheld electronic organizers and zapped them one on the forehead. They don't pay attention to detail. Not like I do, that's for sure.

    Excuse me. I was saying that Gina Mosser had left me an outdated expense report. By the way I found it on my desk it looked like she had tossed it from ten feet away and was satisfied that it landed on a horizontal plane, but if I know that girl, I'd say she strolled by, with that sashay of hers—shifting her hips left and right as if trying to loosen her torso from her pelvis—and just as she was about to set it in the box, Manuel Cruz probably hung up his phone or made some other indication of his being alive in the cubicle across from mine, and as she turned to face him, arching her brows to give him the full effect of her "blue" eyes (contacts—trust me), she just unclamped her red claws from it and let the paper drop, as if it was the last thing she cared about in this world. It makes me sick the way the girls fawn and moon over him. And he'll have none of them, I don't know why they can't see that. I've asked to have my seat moved so I don't have to watch them parading through here with their push-up bras and tight skirts, but my supervisor said there's no other place to put me. You see, the current predicament is just one example of the depravity going on around here, I've learned that much in six months.

    Now before you tell me to get to the point, just hold on. All this is important background information I think you should have to fully understand what I'm dealing with here. Now, on the surface it was a pretty straightforward piece of paperwork: five items, which she had allegedly purchased for a regional sales meeting. All the items appeared on the same receipt; she went to one of those superstore places that sell all kinds of things very cheap—at least she got that part right. So Gina picked up some markers, some vanilla-flavored non-dairy creamer—which I found frivolous and wasteful, but since it's not technically against corporate policy, I shrugged and ignored it. You see, while I agree that I am particular about enforcing the rules, I am not unreasonable; I know when the rules do and do not apply. She also bought two kinds of cookies and a bag of chips. How she keeps her figure tossing back all that junk, I will never know. One has to wonder what kind of eating disorders are running rampant in this office.  But back to the matter at hand.

    The problem was that the receipt and the expense report didn't match up. The numbers Gina wrote matched those on the receipt, but when I double-checked her addition, the total did not match the total on the receipt, which was the total Gina had copied to the expense report. When I asked her about it, she waved me off like a leper, she said, "Of course the total was off, because of tax." Which brings up another point: People think I'm incompetent. We use a spreadsheet program that does the calculations automatically, so this kind of mistake can't happen—unless the incorrect figures are entered in the form. Incidentally, we need to update that software. We're running an old, old version. This is something I plan to address in my review, which is next month. You can see what a valuable resource I am around here: I keep up with the latest trends. But as for Gina, I scoffed back at her and let her know that I am in the habit of calculating sales tax, because I know how to do my job, thank you very much. The figures were still off. The problem was that Gina had purchased one more item—an item that she didn't include on the expense report. She had bought a bottle of ibuprofen for herself and—rightly—did not charge it to the company, even though others might try to make the argument that it is still expensible because the headache occurred at work. The purchase was completely unnecessary, by the way, as there is a whole drugstore in the first aid kit in the employee lounge, but evidently she prefers the name-brand product. Anyway, that's why the expense report was off: she hadn't checked her math—but I did, because that's my job.

    I know what you're thinking, and yes, that sounds like a little mistake, but such "little" mistakes add up—a bottle of aspirin here, a box of tissues there—and before you know it, the company is in the hole. This is exactly my point, this is what I've been trying to tell you: I am here to make sure that these kinds of "little" mistakes don't get made—or if they do, that they don't go unnoted. That's my job. And I'll tell you what: This company is lucky to have someone like me keeping track of the brass tacks—if you know what I mean.
Now, with that in mind, I'll move to the matter of Susan Anderson. Let me say first that I like her as much as anybody in this company, and I would hope she knows that this is in no way personal; I am not, as some people have insinuated, "out to get her." On the contrary: I am looking out for everyone's best interests, keeping the collective as a whole on track, so we all can feel good about what we do and secure in our jobs—because after all, if the company's in the red, no one's in the pink—you know what I'm saying?

    Some people are saying I'm frustrated with my job and taking it out on her. Nonsense. Aside from the simple details I've just mentioned, I love my job. I don't expect everyone to get every digit and decimal right; that's why I'm here: to check and balance, to be a safeguard against normal human error. I'm not angry with Susan Anderson, and I hope she's not angry with me, but if she is, well, I just hope some day she will realize how misguided her feelings are. Maybe she's under a hormonal influence or something, I don't know, because I've never had children. Quite frankly, and I don't mean to get too personal, but the present state of things would lead me never to want to go in that direction. The short of it is, I didn't know at the time that Susan was pregnant—if she even is pregnant—one can't trust everything one hears around this place, please keep that in mind. But even if she was or is pregnant, I couldn't possibly have known by whom, though of course most people would rightly assume a woman to be pregnant by her husband. Or, nowadays, by her boyfriend or, significant other, I suppose I should say, but Susan and I didn't have those kinds of conversations, so I didn't even know she was married or whatever she is. She doesn't wear a ring.

    All right, back to the facts of the matter as I know them. As I've already told you, people leave expense reports in all states of improper completion in every inappropriate place possible. Not only do they not put them in the right box, some people don't even get them to my desk. I have found expense reports left in the coffee lounge, on the floor, and even abandoned in the restroom. I usually try to verify that the person meant to file the report, because one time I processed a report when the person had more items to add, and, thinking the report lost, ended up filing a second one, which—oh, I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say that the fiasco caused everyone concerned one big two-week headache.
But when I find paperwork on my desk, I assume it to have been placed there intentionally, if not correctly. Especially when the paperwork includes a receipt or receipts. As per usual, when I returned to work that Monday after a month caring for my terminally ill mother and seeing to the details of her wake (which, by the way, no one acknowledged or inquired about; yet another indication of the misdirected attentions in this office) I expected to find a mess on my desk. I expected the expense report box to be overflowing onto my desk and even spilling onto the floor, but it wasn't anything spectacular. Yes, there were reports to process, but not many more than my usual bi-weekly filing. Still, I thought I'd break with my established routine and work through them immediately, even though—as I've stated—I usually do all the reports on Wednesdays——alternate Wednesdays. Some of the reports had been sitting there since shortly after I left, so I wanted to make sure the people who filed them didn't have to wait any longer for their checks. You see: I do take other people's needs and concerns into consideration.

    As is to be expected—as I believe I have established—there were incomplete filings. One, in particular—the paperwork in question—was memorable. Which brings me to the most important fact about that party: I had as much—if not more—to do with the quarterly earnings as anyone else—I probably saved this company more money in the last two quarters than some of those sales lackeys have made all year—you see where I'm going with this—so I think it would have been considerate of them to wait until I got back from my leave of absence—especially considering my reasons for being gone—to have the party. But of course, the party wasn't really about quarterly earnings, was it? Furthermore, you can bet that if I had been around, I would have pointed out the office's no alcohol policy, which, if you're not following my logic here, let me spell it out: Had I been there, this mess never would have happened. Now all I can do is try the best I can to clean up after these people, like I've been doing since the day I arrived.

    So, there were four pieces of paper on my desk. One—the one on top—was a note to Shiree in Human Resources. I am ashamed to admit that I read the note, despite the obvious fact that it was misplaced on my desk. I suppose at first I thought it was a copy, that someone had wanted me to have a copy of this office correspondence. I acknowledge and admit I was wrong to do it, but I did it, and I can't change that fact—what's done is done. You know, I know people think I'm not very smart. I've overheard them saying as much. The men, they say, "You can't get anything past that old bag." Then they laugh, don't think I don't know they do. But I don't let it get to me. I even take a certain pride in it. Whether they admit it or not, they know deep down that I'm only doing what needs to be done, and I'm doing it well. The women though, they can be nasty—not that I take what they say to heart, either. I've walked into the restroom and heard voices echoing around, and high-pitched cackles.

    "Oh, gawd! What she needs is a good lay."

    "We all need her to get a good lay."

    "Well, we'd have to pay for that one—we should take up a collection."

    "I'll contribute to that fund—as long as I don't have to watch!"

    I know they're just frustrated because I've got something on them—something more valuable and rare than a nice little body—and they have to play by my rules—which are just the company rules, which should be their rules, too. With me, they can't have it their own way. They can't bat their eyelashes or lean over my desk, give me a little peek-a-boo to speed paperwork along or let a mistake slide. But I've got more than a few lines on them, these idiots, these clowns strutting around, telling their tales. Ha! You bet I do.

    Now, back to the note. The note said—but don't quote me on this; I didn't memorize it—it said, basically, that Susan was going to be out of the office for three days and when she returned, they would have the party for the "quarterly earnings report." He said that Shiree should talk to Mark Danielson about it if she had any questions. OK, maybe I shouldn't have kept reading the note at that point, but I kept reading because it was a short note. I was done with it before I realized I shouldn't have read it. And, honestly, at the time, it didn't strike me as anything private, anything out of the ordinary, taking time off, nothing to keep a secret about. A week later, though, after I'd heard some things around the office, when Susan left me an expense report, a request for an immediate payout—in the box, this time—something wasn't computing.

    Now, if I'm not going to believe gossip that I hear whispered about me, I can't very well trust what these flap-mouths say about one another. These girls, they're smiley to one another and sweet face-to-face, but turn around and one will stamp and claw all over the next to go after what she wants. Oh, how they punch and stab for a glance from Manuel or any of the other men in this office. But Susan, she was married—not that that stops some of the other ones—and she always struck me as a nice girl. From what I could see, she was quiet, came in on time, left at five (worked the occasional late night, especially these last two months), did her work and minded her business and no one else's. And if her expense reports were any indication, I would say Susan Anderson was an exemplary employee, followed the rules to the letter.  She dotted her I's and crossed her T's, that one, minded her P's and Q's, if you know what I mean. If she said ten words to me, they were ten nice words, I'm sure of that. So I am as concerned as the next person to discover all this sad business about her.

    But back to the party—the party where there shouldn't have been any alcohol in the first place. It made perfect sense to me that she'd need some time away. Bear in mind: I'd just lost my mother, so I understand grief. I don't begrudge her any time off, but still, there are limits to what one can ask. Namely, it's not right to ask people to break the rules. When I went off to care for my mother, did I ask the company to pay for it? No. A card would have been nice, flowers at the funeral or a charitable donation would have been appropriate, not to mention appreciated, but I didn't ask for these things—and certainly not for anything … extra.

    I'm not judging her. Didn't I just say I thought she was above most of the other girls in this office? But facts are facts: She went too far. As I said before, people are human, they make mistakes; I'm here to correct those mistakes. So, when I saw that the expenses listed on the report were not for the party itself—which, as I've already said, occurred under questionable circumstances—when I saw that the expenses were incurred during the time I knew Susan to be out of the office, I realized there must have been some mistake. It is my job to correct mistakes. And, as should be painfully clear to you by now, I take my job very seriously. Now, while I do not give a second thought to the gossip contaminating the air in this place, the stories that linked Susan and Mark, that the baby was—I can't even believe such filth is coming from my own mouth, that I would even validate the smut by repeating it. Please excuse me. You see? A person gets dragged down in this depravity. My point being only that I did suspect something was wrong. Because, as I've said, Susan Anderson knows how to fill out an expense report. She knows how to follow the rules. So I tried to track her down so she could fix the paperwork, so she could get her money—over a thousand dollars she had coming to her—before the weekend. It's what I would have wanted someone in my position to do for me. I didn't know why she needed the money, but if she had it coming, she should get it. Understand this: I never questioned that she deserved the payout, I merely questioned the paperwork—which is my job to do. I simply wanted to get the facts right on paper, so her check would not be delayed. You see? I was looking out for her. That point would be obvious to most people. But I understand, she's under a lot of stress and emotional strain—for a variety of reasons—and probably more than most people—so I feel for her, I really do.

    I have to tell you that this is where things start to get foggy. This is where I had a really hard time putting the pieces together, because people, usually uncooperative, simply refused to talk to me at all—wouldn't even look at me. Which, of course, convinced me that something was very much awry.

    I couldn't find Susan that day. So I put the expense report aside. Then I couldn't find her the next day, either, or the day after that. This was a Thursday, I believe, and I was really pushing my deadline. I wanted to help her out. So, I went to Mark Danielson. From the note, I figured he must know what was up.

    Mark was cordial, at first, and when I explained the situation, he told me Susan was going to be out of the office for a while, so I should just submit the report as it was, not worry about the discrepancy. Don't worry about it—that's exactly what he said. So I explained that the paperwork had to be accurate, correct, because I could not submit paperwork I knew to be false. He got angry with me. "Just this once," he said, staring at me in a very condescending way, "Look, it doesn't matter that the dates are off. The expenses are approved. It's basically a payroll advance, but I sent it through you because I thought it would get done sooner. Please, just send the goddamn paperwork through."

    Well. Not only do I not like cursing, I don't like that kind of cursing, right to my face, as if he's condemning me. Maybe to him it doesn't matter that the dates are off, but it matters to me. It's my job to account for these details. And I don't know who he thinks he is, trying to sugarcoat his flimflammery with flattery. If he had wanted me to process a payroll advance—even though that's not usually my job—I would have done it. Like I keep saying, I am not unreasonable. But let me tell you, when people get so wound up over a simple request for clarification, I have to wonder why. Like my mother—may she rest in peace—used to say, Where there's smoke, there's fire.

    What I'm working up to here is that the invoice was trumped up. I don't know who these people think they're working with here, but I wasn't born yesterday. I called the number on the receipt to see about those dates and … it was bogus. Now this I really didn't expect. I was flabbergasted. I didn't know what to think—as I told you, I always thought Susan was a nice girl, but then we all have our weak moments; we all make mistakes. Of course extortion is one of the more serious mistakes a person can make, in my book—I'm not judging, mind you, I'm just making an observation. You can call it jumping to conclusions if you want, but we'll just see, when all is said and done, whose story rings truer.

    At this point, I started thinking that maybe those girls in the restroom were on to something after all. So I made a big show of going out to lunch and slipped into the third floor restroom on my way out. It happened that no one was in there, lucky for me. I reached in my bag for the "Out of Order" sign I'd made on my computer—not as snazzy as that fake invoice, but much more believable—and I taped it on the door of the handicapped stall. The commode, you see, is situated so that I could put the lid down and sit on it and not be seen unless someone bent over and really made an effort to look—which I know none of these girls has the brains to do. Besides, they'd teeter off those ridiculous clodhopper heels they wear. I pulled out a book and waited. It was lunchtime, remember, when traffic through the lavatory is heaviest. I didn't have to wait long.

    First I heard one person come in, then when she was exiting the stall, another entered.

    "Whew! Did you see Mark this morning? He was peeved."

    "No! What's up?"

    "Well, evidently Susan miscarried, and—as you can imagine—she's absolutely devastated. Her husband, you remember, was laid off the day after the shower, so it's great that he can be home with her, but she's practically incapacitated. I don't know all the details, but evidently they needed a little cash, so Mark OK'ed an advance for her, to help out."

    "You know, I overheard him talking to Miss Stick-Up-Her-Ass about an expense report. It was some stupidity with the dates not matching or something. I wonder if that was connected."

    "I wouldn't be surprised. That old witch! Of all the times to insist on procedure. What a pathetic fool. Well, if it is connected, she's in trouble. I mean, come on! She lost her baby, her husband lost his job, she needs a little help—and hello? Even if she did just start a few months ago, she's doing a great job."

    "And she's the sweetest person, too."

    I'd been sitting cross-legged so my feet wouldn't show, and I'd been there long enough to start to lose some circulation in my feet. I tried to slide slowly to the edge of the seat, but the book slid off my lap and fell to the floor. I knew I had to do something, so I flushed the toilet and walked out like nothing was unusual. The two of them were at the sink. Marjorie and Camella, from sales.

    I don't know what made me do it, what made me think I could set those wicked gossips straight. I should have known they wouldn't take my side, but I never would expect my remark to come flying back in my face, especially considering I was just laying out the facts when I said, "If it was a payroll advance, someone should have just filed for a payroll advance. Would have been a lot easier than trumping up the paperwork."

    "What do you mean?"

    "The receipt I have is from a company that doesn't exist. I happen to have all the paperwork right here."

    Camella grabbed the report and the attached receipt out of my hand—I did not give her those papers.  She gave Marjorie a smile that made me sick to my stomach. And while I'm thinking about it, let it be known that I didn't start all those nasty rumors, those loose-lipped, swivel-hipped girls did. Why can't anybody see that? I was just trying to do my job, I was just trying to make everything add up, to see that everything was in its place. I didn't mean any harm—on the contrary, I was trying to help. How was I to know all that was going on, if people don't tell me and if they don't document it? How can I help if I don't know what's going on? Why are people blaming me? Why is her misfortune my fault? Did I blame you when my mother died? If she had just told me in the first place, if somebody had told me what was going on, we could have worked out a solution—in keeping with company policy. I don't know, she could have stayed with me, she could have borrowed money from me, and—once again—all this trouble would have been avoided all together. But nobody told me what was going on. Nobody asked for my input.

    For the last time: Regarding the paperwork in question, I was just doing my job. I review all the expense reports in this company—even those filed by the division president. I am responsible for accounts payable. I am good at what I do.

Soloing - unfinished draft

Meredith is sitting in the usual booth, trying to make her cocktail last through the first set. She wants to be drunk when Charlie sings, even as she knows she shouldn't. Want to or be drunk. One drink relaxes her face so her smile looks more natural. Two drinks and she's perky, attentive. After that, it gets risky. She can become sleepy, cheeky, or cranky and worse: lose all ability to feign interest. This is her second drink, and she must make it last another forty-five minutes. Unless she switches to straight tonic, and that's just no fun.
    Charlie is in the men's room, warming up. He's doing his la-la-la's and mi-mi-mi's and all the other ridiculous exercises that wouldn't be ridiculous if he had talent, but he doesn't, so they are. Meredith can't actually hear him because he's two rooms and a jumbo TV screen away, on the other side of the dining room, past the pool tables. He's either in the men's room or on a little terrace overlooking the alley, belting his lungs out into the settling darkness. Charlie and his goddamn voice.
    The cabaret where the singers do their thing is an intimate room within a huge bar. It's large enough for a grand piano, which two sofas face at an angle, and five booths, three on one wall, two on another. The booths are round, not rectangular, and each one seats five to seven people and they all are reserved for parties of at least three. Meredith sits alone. She's spread Charlie's sheet music around the table to make the space appear to be more fully occupied and she has ordered an appetizer for herself and a soda for Charlie, in addition to her two cocktails, the second one of which is becoming warm. As long as she orders something every time the cheery little Debby comes by, and as long as no one is left standing without a seat, she can sit here guilt-free. Charlie badgers her to order a lot and to tip well. The first thing he asks when he returns to the table, if it's not "How do I look?" is, "Did you order something?" If she gets too drunk too soon, she'll say something wrong or do something wrong and embarrass Charlie or piss him off—or both—and then it's all just much worse.
    The person singing now is a tall, string-bean of a woman with soft-looking honey-colored skin and close-cropped dark hair that glints in the soft light. She has a small space between her front teeth and perfect pitch. Even Meredith can hear that. After her, everyone will suck, period. She hopes Charlie isn't next. The woman barely moves while she sings. Once in a while, a wave passes down the length of her arm, starting at the bare shoulder and finally bumping her hand off the microphone stand. The movement of that long, supple appendage looks to Meredith like a noodle a fork is pulling from a plate. She looks around for the waiter; she should order something more to eat.
    The fine fingers of that hand brush away the lyrics: told me love was too plebian/told me you were through with me and/now you say you love me… Meredith turns back to look at her. This is not another pathetic attempt at Sinatra or Holiday or whoever. This is not a nobody acting big. This is not a middle-aged man trying to be young. This is a singer. This is someone with respect for music. This is someone she could listen to all night. The song was worn thin long before Charlie ever tried to sing it, but this gal revives it.  She is not emulating or imitating anyone, she is singing this song; the familiar notes ripple through the room, alive. After one time through she returns to the beginning and scats through a verse, transports Meredith out of the room, into the song, so that Meredith completely forgets that she is here only because she's married to a guy who fancies himself a jazz singer. She forgets her drink, ignores the cheese plate that is delivered while the room applauds as the woman lays out the second verse before coming back in on the bridge.

The Stories That Became 'Stories for Airports'

The following stories appeared here before being published with two other pieces in Stories for Airports.

Best Laid Plans
Chakras Read
Clang Clang Clang (book version includes an extra section)
Contents May Have Shifted During Flight
Downtime
Food of the Gods
Hill Like a Sleeping Lady
House, Ex-Wife
Icarus of Market Street
International Arrivals - a finalist for a Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction Award, 2004
Leftovers
Nara-Nara Land (title changed to "Nothing Ever Happens")
Reasons
Riff
Right as Rain
Take It or Leave It

Call If You Need Anything

Ted pops across the checkerboard of cars on Interstate 80 and smiles at the irony: his driving style was one of the things Lane hated about him. Well, maybe she didn't hate it, but she did find it…distasteful. He settles on this word not because it was one Lane used herself but because it describes the look on her face when she would tell him to slow down, to stop trying to prove something by passing every other car on the road. Like so many of his habits—videogames, paintball, drinking—she found it distasteful, undignified, immature, and eventually left him for someone less like him. Someone, it happened, she hadn't met yet, but was sure she would. No, she'd told him, they could not be friends. They had been a couple despite these things she didn't like about him, she had  loved him despite these things she didn't like about him but ultimately realized—after knowing him for a year, dating him for the last six months—that his identification with these traits she had overlooked had kept him from appreciating her, his personality kept him from overlooking what he didn't like about her and, most importantly, loving her in the way she wanted to be loved.
    One thing he'll give her: He doesn't need the horn, not in this car. The gas pedal and steering wheel are all he needs, a mirror now and then, and his knowing, practiced hands. He zips in and out of the empty squares as if he is a red checker being picked up by an invisible hand, jumping over the other pieces, advancing down the board, on his way to being kinged. 
                                                                   ~
    They had looked good on paper.
    The online service that connected them served only graduates of top schools, people who had entered the professions: law, medicine, finance, enterprise. Lane had stood out for him from the others. She was not much smarter than he, not much more ambitious, and not quite as attractive. She called him, as a term of endearment (he'd thought) her metrosexual jock nerd. She teased him for his bi-weekly manicures and his religious use of hand lotion, but she'd also appreciated his soft touch, had called it more than once an unexpected thrill she could get used to. She found his job—designing marketing plans for a sports clothing and equipment company—pedestrian but she liked the dinners it bought her, along with the monthly weekend jaunts to wine country cottages and coastal hamlet cabins and ski resorts.
    But ultimately she had been turned off and pushed away by the very qualities that had attracted her, that would attract any woman, though which had not yet attracted another to him yet, six months after they'd split. The dating service was giving him bum leads—women who were interested on the first date, sometimes on the second, but never let him take them on a third. Not that he'd been deeply into any of them, either. But still. Would three dates, one hookup kill anybody? For god's sake, he has hands of silk, patient and practiced as a surgeon.
    There was one other thing, the thing that really did him in. OK, two things. Two things he hasn't thought much about until now, because until now there hasn't been a parting in the clouds that might bode well for him.
    Lane had hated his cellphone. More specifically, she had hated the fact—and fairly enough—that he didn't seem to hear it at the most important times: namely, when she was calling him. Ted had to admit, even to her, even then, that this was uncanny. He was late to pick her up from work one time and somehow he had missed four calls from her. Finally, when he was a block away he heard the phone and picked up on the first ring, not even noticing she'd made the call from a friend's phone. He totally got why Lane took that personally, how that looked very suspicious—his being so late, ignoring her calls but picking up a call from an unknown number. His silence in the face of her tirade had not helped him. He offered, weakly, that the radio was probably too loud or something, or he was distracted by the sports talk, which was, after all, part of his job to listen to, and he knew Lane didn't like to listen when she was in the car, so he was absorbing what he could before picking her up—she sat with her arms crossed in front of her chest and he couldn't really blame her. But he wasn't cheating on her, god.
    Unfortunately, earlier that day Lane had learned that he hadn't deactivated his profile from the dating site. One of her friends had been emailed his picture as a potential match and had forwarded it to Lane. Now what are the chances of that–especially since this chick had gone to a second-tier school and shouldn't be using this particular service anyway.
    Of course, this didn't come up until he'd spent the 30-minute ride across town, dancing through traffic, all the while trying to make up for being a late, phone-ignoring dick, telling her how excited he was to take her to this new place for dinner, rushing her to the restaurant where he'd made reservations on the way to pick her up—and come to think of it, at least one of her calls probably came through when he was on the phone with the restaurant and he always avoided incoming rings when he was on a business call—Lane crawled through dinner, tight-faced, had let him dance and contort himself to try to make up for something she wasn't even mad about anymore.
    She'd waited until they were in the car again, had spared him the indignity of a public spat. Little matter, Ted thought, as everyone in the restaurant could see that he was the only one talking, that Lane hardly touched her meal, that their chairs, though side-by-side, were far enough apart from each other that halfway through the meal, when clearing their appetizer dishes, the waiter had stood between them to ask if they needed anything, as if playing unofficial referee, ready to throw a flag on the play at any moment. This is what Ted had thought about as she told him how humiliating it was for her to have a friend forward his picture and short bio to her, to joke with her, ask her what she thought of this guy.
    In all honesty, Ted had told her, I just forgot. After we started dating exclusively—he'd repeated that word and pointed out that he was the one who'd offered his monogamy first—I didn't go back to that site anymore, so I forgot. But you still got referral emails, Lane had said. Like most people, most sane people, Ted had replied, I use a special email address just for those sites until I know a woman isn't psycho. Yes, I've probably gotten more referrals, but I haven't seen them. I don't want to see them, but I'll unsubscribe from the site as soon as we get home.
    Well, as for monogamy, Lane had whispered, it was already a done deal with me anyway, automatic from the first time. The way Lane had sniffled, he knew it didn't matter what he said or did. They would make up but she wouldn't get over it. She'd be watching him and every time he spaced and didn't hear what she'd said, every call he missed, every sidelong glace at a pretty woman that lasted too long would be another hatch mark in the con column and eventually he'd be back to that site, or probably this time, another one.
    Despite the bullshit—and Ted still thinks Lane's reasons for breaking it off with him, which included and were precipitated by the phone and undeleted profile episode, are bullshit—Ted holds a few endearing memories of Lane and hopes that today's phone call means she also holds some endearing memories of him, so that they can at least have a friendship, if not get back together. Of course for Ted, a friendship would mean the possibility of getting back together, but that's a distant thought at this point.
    One thing Ted had always liked about Lane was the way she told people, with earnest sincerity, Call if you need anything. She said it when someone left on a trip or when an out-of-town visitor went home. He found that charming. He'd remarked to her once, half teasing, that she never said it to him when he went away on business trips. And she'd said to him, but Sweetie, I know you will. I'm the first person you'd call. He'd pulled her into him and kissed her forehead, which reached to his chin level and he'd joked, Yeah, and you'd actually hear the phone ring. He can't recall if they made love after that, but he remembers it as a romantic exchange, a warm moment of understanding in which they stepped closer together, he had anyway, moved closer to Lane than he'd stepped toward anyone before.
                                                                   ~
    So Ted is glad that he is the one Lane had thought to call when she fell sick at work, when she needed someone. Actually someone else had called, but he was the one who she'd asked for. He'd been in a meeting, was expecting a call from a client, so he'd left the room to answer the phone. Someone from Lane's office said she'd fallen terribly ill with a migraine and needed someone to take her home. Ted hadn't thought twice about it, had gone back in the conference room to collect his portfolio and nod to a colleague while patting his breast pocket to indicate that this was the call he'd been awaiting so he had to run.
    He pulls into the parking lot, pushes the 10 mph speed limit, rolls into the white loading zone right in front of the door. He nods to the female security guard as he enters the doorway, and strides to the receptionist, whose head is all that is visible over the circular white Formica desk. When Ted indicates he's there to pick up Lane, the receptionist flusters, a bony hand flutters in front of his mouth, his eyes blink furiously behind his frameless glasses, and the hand flits up to his temple. He does not look at Ted's face as he speaks; he musters the energy only to lift his head high enough for his eyes to meet Ted's chest as he explains that he was mistaken. Someone had asked him to phone Lane's boyfriend, so he had called human resources to find out who was listed as her emergency contact in her file. In the meantime, Lane had given the number to someone else to call, a different number, it happened, from the one in her file. The young man had phoned Ted back to let him know it wasn't necessary to come after all, but Ted missed his call. The receptionist turns away, letting the fact sit there between them and feeling as awkward, Ted is sure, as he feels, if not more, only because his capacity for awkwardness exceeds Ted's own. Though Ted feels that might be changing. 
    Ted knocks the desktop twice with his knuckles and nods as he turns away. His walk looks as smooth as it ever has, and the woman security guard watches him all the way to his car, watches him make no show about clicking the alarm, inhales sharply as he disappears from her view, sliding behind the wheel. She has no idea, as she watches Ted pull out of the parking lot, following the direction of his right turn signal, that for the first time in his adult life he is driving a fast machine with conscious care, and slowly.

This Experiment

Dear Reader:

And I do mean "dear." I appreciate all of you ( i.e., all three of you) who have sent me encouraging words. I imagine there are a silent few more of you reading, too.

Anyway, this experiment has been a fascinating experience. And it is at that point that all writing experiences reach--that is, the frustrating point. This is also an exciting point, because it means things are breaking open, the way is becoming clear. However, as concerns you, it is not so exciting, because as I get into the writing of this thing I call The Toy Box, I don't have much energy, mental or otherwise, to package it all in a way that makes it interesting to read.

I have learned that I like posting fiction online, but that the kind of work writing a long story (i.e., a novel) requires (of this writer at least) does not lend itself to regular posts that build upon one another. I edit as I go and I don't really look back. So again, how to make this interesting to a reader, I don't know.

Here is what is interesting: I'm also working on some other short fiction pieces, and as those reach readable draft phase, I will post them.

Here's something else: I've started an email list, the better to update you when something mildly entertaining occurs in these parts. If you'd like to be notified about such excitement, please sign up.

Again, thank you for your interest in my writing.

The Accidental Buddhist - full draft

Comments welcome on this first full draft of the story.  -jb.

    Liza does everything too fast. Right now she is careering down a tangled stretch of California's Pacific Coast Highway two miles north of Bodega Bay. She is skirting the rim of the continent in a blue 1962 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce that she bought on impulse online with a credit card that had a zero balance once. The top is down and the heat is on high because despite the brilliant sun the air along this ledge, 200 feet above the ocean, is almost always cool, especially at 45-plus mph in a topless car.
    Liza is headed to San Francisco to explain to a couple who has commissioned her to create a trompe l'oeil installation in the living area of their South of Market loft why the painting won't be finished in time for the unveiling party. She is still working on her story. The truth—she just hasn't felt like painting—can't be told. The right approach, though, will buy her time, something to the effect of, "I want to mix an orange vermillion as close to the International Orange used on the real bridge, and once I figure out the right color, I need to have enough of the right elements on hand to make enough to paint it in one try. It won't work to paint it in stages. The colors will be off." As long as they vaguely understand what she's talking about, she'll be fine. Especially if they think that the holdup is an egregious attention to detail. 
    Authenticity is very important to SoMa types and so is adherence to the finer points. They insist on it. One Silicon Valley CEO flew her to Vietnam to see the village where his mother grew up so she could recreate not only the look of the Marble Mountains of Da Nang, but also the feeling of living with them—in the foyer of his company's headquarters. A 30-year-old Microsoft retiree commissioned her to convert his den into a 3-D Tetris game environment. He found a composer who also played the game create music for it. The guy slept in the room with nothing but a computer, a monitor, and an electronic piano keyboard for four and a half months. Alexey Pajitnov came to the room warming party. Liza enjoyed both projects, particularly the last one, because it wasn't as literal as painting a fake window with a fake view of the Golden Gate Bridge and Telegraph Hill for someone who thinks it's the first time it's ever been done.
    Those tech projects paid. She could still be living on what she made on those two gigs alone, if she had invested it and paid her day-to-day with what she made painting kilim rugs on Marin County floors. The only modest part of her indulgence in the boom was that she fell into it just 18 months before the money, good and bad, began to evaporate.
    People warned her. The Marble Mountains magnate gave her the numbers of several people in San Francisco who could help her manage her money so she'd be set. But having struggled for so long, Liza preferred to taste what she had seen others enjoy. She returned to Vietnam with the security guard who worked most of the nights she had painted the mountains. She bought her car and a shitload of art supplies: not just paints and canvases, but a computer, scanner, color printer, and some art, too. She went out to dinner, flew to Europe on a whim, compiled a 2,000 CD music library and had a state of the art sound system installed in her apartment with speakers wired in the studio. Who knows what she did with the money—she enjoyed it while she had it, and unfortunately after she'd spent it, too. She had grown so accustomed to the weekly massages available at the Net startups she painted that after those gigs ended she paid for massages herself. That's something she hasn't done for a few months. She hasn't been painting, either. Liza wriggles in her seat, pushes her shoulders back, tocks her head side to side to stretch her neck.
    It is 10:30 in the morning on the last day of October. No one else is on the road and Liza sees nothing but her own distress. The Holsteins calmly munching grass, here and there a suckling calf, the hand-painted sign advertising eggs for sale on a front porch, a man in mid-stride, wearing a farm hat, silhouetted against the cerulean sky on the crest of an emerald hill—all invisible.
    Today this is what Liza sees: three months of taking cash advances on her credit cards in order to make the minimum payments on debt that has crept up to become more than half her gross annual income, more than the amount of money she needs to live on for a year; a crazy couple barking at her to finish their project; a profound disgust for these clients and the project, a disgust that is at odds with her deep need for the money waiting for her if she'd just fucking do it; an eviction notice from her current landlord, another client, a Zen Buddhist on retreat in Japan, whose home she's been living in for the past six months—and in the living room of which she's supposedly been painting a Japanese garden. Another story she's going to have to devise, but at least she has a few more weeks for that one. Still, Liza has about three month’s worth of work before her, with two weeks to finish it. And two other projects waiting to be started.
    Liza is in trouble. She needs to find a new place to live, one that won’t require a security deposit or credit check. She might be able to ask Max and Lonnie Morgan to stay with them, tell them she wants to power through and finish their Golden Gate living room, but that could be tricky. Lonnie is a jealous motherfucker, and manipulative, too, so if she senses that Liza is desperate—actually, though, that could work. If Liza plays it like she’s covering up for wanting to be close to Max, Lonnie might agree, just so she can catch them.
      And she can work Max, who is a sexist motherfucker who would never turn down an option in into her pants. She’d be able to put him off by being super focused and slipping lines that let him know she needs the money so she really wants to finish the job. Then, asshole that he is, he will slip her cash early, to keep her going. She just has to keep it tight this time, and finish the work and move on, not use the advance to cover her ass to slack even more—see, this is exactly how she got here. This is the shimmy she’s been doing for three years, and it has spun her out of control.
     Who is she kidding—two projects due by the end of the month, one that will pay, the other that, done or not, will leave her out of a home. Another project on the burner, but not even started, so at least three months from seeing anything beyond the deposit she's already spent—and not on paint. There is really no excuse for this. Any of this. And seemingly no way out of it, either. If only she could buy something, that would make her feel better.
     Liza enjoys the immediate fulfillment of a purchase, a transaction that occurs in minutes, rather than over months. She likes the simplicity of casing a store, letting something catch her fancy, and taking it with her. She pays, she owns the object, like that. Simple. Quick. With a pleasure that is rather long lasting. Not the drawn-out labor of sketching, then painting something, the patron drifting in from time to time to ask questions or make insipid remarks about the process or the progress of the work or about Liza herself. "It's so fascinating how you work."  "I could never do what you do." "You're an amazing artist." Spending so much time in those homes, those offices, Liza acquired a sense of entitlement to a lifestyle she feels she deserves more than those who were born to it, if only because she's better at expressing it. She doesn't have to hire anyone to create it for her. 
     Speeding is one luxury Liza has always been able to afford and it provides a similar rush to what she feels when she buys herself something nice. The faster she drives, the more she has to concentrate on where she's going, what she's doing, so the less she focuses on how dire her situation is. When she takes a curve, downshifts to pull out some power, she feels strong, skillful, in control. She leaves everything behind her and focuses on the road and the fast little car she eats it up in. But today reality is keeping pace. She is unable to ignore the fact that she's been fooling herself. Her insistent lifestyle is catching up with her, overtaking her, and just when Highway 1 wends its way inland behind the Bodega Bay peninsula and there is no wind but for the one she creates by pushing the car to 60, then 70, then 80, her thoughts begin to overcome her; the faster she goes, the larger reality looms. Liza has attained that velocity at which everything is moving so rapidly it appears to stand still. She is staring at a freeze-frame of her life and the vision scares her shitless.
Now, as she emerges through the trees onto the proscenium of land raised over the Pacific, Liza recognizes her high-speed chase as a flight. A familiar pang stabs her in the chest, and she finally realizes what that sensation is: fear. Already going too fast for these parabolic curves, she presses the gas pedal further toward the floor.
    In the time it takes to downshift to second gear to muster power for the climb up the next winding incline, Liza glimpses her only exit from this cold, dismal snapshot of her life, which continues to loom ever larger and all the more dreadful the faster she drives to evade it: she must leap out of the frame.
    Liza knows these hairpin switchbacks intimately and she takes it as a sign that just about half a mile away is a vista point that will serve as a perfect launch pad for her flight into the next world. She feels encouraged; she feels this is the wisest decision she has ever made. The sharp pain of dread in her chest is replaced by a warm wave of calm that radiates through her like the flush triggered by a really good kiss. She is surprised to hear herself yelp with glee. As she rounds the next lobe of land she looks across the ravine between it and the following outcrop, where the lookout point is. The dirt lot is empty of cars, and the ribbon of road is vacant as far as she can see—another indication that she is doing the right thing. She doesn’t even think to take a final inventory before checking out, to say mental goodbyes—she is done with it all. All she sees is the road and the blue beyond: her destination, the line where ocean meets sky.
    Liza has been accused of being passive-melodramatic. She acknowledges there may be something to that.
    When Liza paints, when she is in the zone, she is both painter and painting. She is a channel through which a vision makes its way to the wall. When she’s working on a lifelike mural she will enter the world she is painting, walk down the path she has laid out, sniff the trees she has sketched. She paints without regard for time and often does not eat or drink for hours or sleep for days. This deprivation induces trances she has to paint herself out of: Finish this tree and you may have a sandwich. Lay every brick in the path and you may go pee. You're not sleeping until that sky looks so real the sun seems to have fallen behind the baseboard. The only thing Liza won't paint is people. She creates environments for people to project themselves into, not portraits staring at a room. She loses herself in her best ones—like the Marble Mountains—views the finished scene with wonder and awe, surprised, looking back, that she created it; sad to leave but pleased to have had her time with the scene, the place, to have visited awhile. She knows an installation is done when she wakes from it, as from a good dream. Then she proceeds to the next one. Or, she used to, when her projects came just one at a time, with respites in between. This is what Liza feels right now: as if she is just waking. She knows nothing but that this is the right trajectory to follow, to splay this last arc across the canvas.
    Now she crosses the shoulder to the gravel-covered ochre dirt. Something tells her to close her eyes. Seeing just the white heat of the sun through her eyelids, she smiles, feels giddiness rise in her again, and pushes the pedal down. She anticipates the weightlessness of the freefall, is anxious for it. When she is half way to the edge of the cliff, she hears a voice bellow "NOOOOOO!" and instinctively honors the signal by slamming her foot on the brake, which causes the car to spin left and send dust billowing all around her. At the same moment she is questioning the conflicting messages fate is sending her today, she hears a thump on the passenger's side of the car, followed by the sound of air being knocked from a person's lungs, then a dead weight falling to the ground.
    She stopped so quickly she didn't think to stamp on the clutch, and the car shutters and stalls out. She can't see anything through the dust but hears the roar of the surf below. The heater is still running and she bats it off. The ocean crescendos. The engine emits arrhythmic ticks. The sunlight slices planes through the dust cloud around her. Liza sits there, the grainy powder stinging her nostrils, the cool air raising gooseflesh on her bare arms and legs, and contemplates what just happened. A moment ago she was sure she had to die, and now she feels fantastically alive. She is firmly in the present—no longer running from past mistakes, uncompelled to hurry toward a new distraction from them. She is just right here. She is hyper aware of her own body, of the chill on her skin, the dirt on her face and in her throat, the heat of the sun on her head. She feels her heartbeat in her heaving chest and hears it thumping in her ears. Her breath surprises her: she is panting as if she just ran that last half-mile. She feels a cough rising in her throat but hears one first, coming from the vicinity of her right front wheel. She unfastens the lap belt and grabs the windshield to pull herself up from the driver's seat.
    "Hello? Is someone there?"
    A scraping of gravel and the muffled sputterings of a person choking on tears or anger or both emanate through the dust, then follow the distinct, decisive cursings of a person in pain.
"'Is anybody there?' you fucking moron. No, there's nobody here. Back up and try it again, shithead. Sorry to have foiled your suicide attempt, you stupid, sorry motherfucker. God! I would have let you kill yourself if it wouldn't have killed me, too."
    "Hey!" Liza scrambles out of the car and scutters around to where the voice is originating, her perfectly manicured milk-pale feet slipping half out of her mules, the slick soles sliding across the pebbles and grit.
    "Did you set the fucking brake, Kamikaze?" Liza leans over the passenger's side and yanks on the lever, then looks down at the crumpled dusty heap at her feet.
    "I am so, so, so, so sorry. Are you OK? I mean, you seem to be pretty OK—OK enough to be angry, which is a good sign, I think. Aren't you? OK, I mean?"
    Liza isn't really listening for an answer, and there isn't one to hear, anyway. She bends down to examine her interlocutor and sees that he is wearing the sienna robe of a Buddhist monk. She is struck by the roundness of his hairless head and catches a glimpse of his light brown face before he turns it away from her: it is streaked with the grime made of dust mixed with hastily wiped tears. She puts a hand on his shoulder and lets him roll his body away from her. "Look, I'm really sorry. I didn't—I didn't even see you. I looked—I was looking for cars, but I didn't see you—"
    "You didn't see me, because you had your fucking eyes closed, Kamikaze. And excuse me, but I think you knew exactly what you were doing, except for the part where you hit me. You were checking out, bitch—"
    "All right, OK, now that's enough. You're mad, fine, I can take that, I deserve it, but please stop it with the 'bitch' and the 'Kamikaze.' You don't even know me. I am not a bitch. And I am not suicidal."
    "It sure looked like you were trying to kill one of us."
Liza coughs madly, and stands up, reaches into the car for a bottle of water. She gulps down a few mouthfuls and offers it to the monk, who refuses it at first, until she insists he take a swig. While he is drinking her phone rings and once again she folds herself over the side of the car to retrieve it from her purse, which has toppled open end first and disgorged its contents onto the floor. She walks around to the far side of the car to take the call. It is Max, the man of the couple she was supposed to meet. She tells him she's not able to make the meeting—she's had an accident, she's hit someone, she needs take care of things, then go home and rest; she will call him when she's feeling up to it. As she claps the phone shut, she realizes what this means: she is off the hook. With both her projects. Nobody's going to ask to see a hospital report, and they won't come up here to check on her. She is free.
    "Was that Bachelor No. 1, or No. 2? Your main dude—or the married guy?" In answer to her incredulous gaze, the monk continues, "Come on, chick like you, ride like this, you know you've got more than one dude. Am I right?" He huffs a single, sneery "Ha!" and looks away, not expecting a reply.
    "All right, listen: I don't care how much pain you're in, knock it off. I am not a 'bitch' or a 'chick.' "
    "I'm right about the dudes, though, aren't I?" His eyes are steely but his cheeks still wear his tears and Liza realizes he was crying before she hit him. Or nearly hit him—she's not sure what actually happened. His lips are hard. "Come on. Admit it."
    She looks away from him, then glares at his face. "Enough about me. What were you doing, standing on a highway berm? Someone drop you here?" The monk flinches, just barely, but Liza sees it and she smirks and she goes on, mocking his snide tone: "Maybe you're the kamikaze—maybe I saved you from jumping." Maybe Liza imagines it, but the monk looks to her like he's going to cry, so she lets him off. "What are you, a monk?"
    He turns away from her, sets his backside on the edge of the hood of the car, digs into his robe and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. Without looking at her he says, "You born that clever, or is that what you learn in business school?"
    "Business school? Business school? You think I'm a business person?" She turns away, crosses her arms over her chest, and matches his sitting posture on the trunk of the car. "You're definitely not an intuitive monk, that's for sure." They stay there, the passenger's side door between them, not talking, facing the ocean. The monk's cigarette crackles and whistles when he inhales and a soft gust blows the smoke toward Liza and the scent both arouses her and makes her sad and she starts to fidget. She uncrosses her arms, rests her hands at her sides on the car; sticks her legs out straight and crosses them at the ankles; brings one hand to her face, brushes her lips with her fingertips. The monk walks toward her, slowly, holding out the cigarette pack.
    "I can intuit a smoker's itch."
    "Wrong again, Icarus." She pushes off the car and walks around the back to the driver's side and gets in. He turns his back to her, sits on the open window well and finishes his cigarette.
    Liza grips the steering wheel. Stares ahead, off into the blue, speaks to the sky.
    "Well, what do they say: 'Before enlightenment, act like an asshole; after enlightenment, act like an asshole.'"
       "I think you mean, 'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.'"
    "Same difference." Her joy has dissipated. This crabby holy man has knocked the wind out of her. And yet she doesn't want to leave him.
    "So, you want a ride somewhere? I may as well drive you wherever you're going."
    "I got here, didn't I? I can get back."
    "Yeah. Next time you'll actually get hit." She slides the key into the ignition. "But hey, if that's what you want..."
    The monk takes one last drag and flicks the butt over the cliff. He gets into the car with an ease that would make a person think he's used to riding in this vehicle. Liza does not put the car in gear. She is still staring over the edge, looking slightly toward the monk. He doesn't look at her.
    "Icarus, huh?" He chuckles. "You were the one headed for the sun."
    "Look. I—whatever I did just now, I'm sorry you got caught up in it. I didn't mean to scare you. Please just let me give you a ride. I owe you that much—come on, don't you believe in karma? That things happen for a reason?  Let's just ride this thing all the way out. We can't leave it here on this cliff, with me driving on and you standing here. Well, maybe you can, but I can't. Don't make me do that."
    He shrugs. Still doesn't look at her.
    "I'm Liza, by the way."
    The monk makes a slight bow toward the dashboard, but doesn't say anything. Liza leans back into her seat and huffs a sigh. Without looking at the monk, she asks him his name.
    "Why are you so obsessed with who I am, what I am? My name is immaterial. For the purposes of this trip, let's just say I'm another person made to suffer the consequences of your actions, a disaster you will twist around to your advantage, to serve you."
    The sun flares on a patch of water and Liza is momentarily blind. She squeezes her eyes shut and grips the wheel so tightly her fingernails dig into her palms. She considers telling the monk to get out of her car, but something tells her not to be a baby, not to give him the satisfaction of thinking he's right.
    "Look, I heard you on the phone with that guy. You are going to use this as an excuse to break up with him."
    "Ha! Wrong yet again! I was not breaking up with him, I was breaking an appointment with him."
    "Breaking an appointment today, perhaps, but you're definitely breaking it off. I see it in your clothes, I hear it in your voice, it is so obvious: You're a quitter."
    The car is still parked and Liza is still staring out into the water, her hands on the wheel. She bobs up and down in her seat.
    "I am definitely NOT a quitter. You don't even know me. If you did you'd know that when life gives me lemons I make—"
    "You make clichés. You are a cliché. You probably paint clichés. This is exactly what I'm talking about."
    "You know what I mean."
    "And, more importantly, you know what I mean. That's why you keep changing the subject. Now, first of all, you said 'I have to call someone,' not 'I have to call my husband' or 'my boyfriend. But it's OK, because I'm sure you're not married."
    "For your information, that guy is a client, and I am not involved with him, and I most definitely do not want to be involved with him, and for your further information, I am not involved with anyone at this particular moment, and that is as much by choice as by circumstance, thank you very much. Where do you come up with all this? And why would you assume I'm not married?"
    "Because women like you wear wedding rings."
    "What do you mean, 'women like me?'"
    "Women who drive sports cars because of how they look. I should say, not how the car looks—or not only how the car looks—but how you look in the car. You don't even know how to drive this car. You simply drive it fast—and not because you enjoy driving fast. You're trying to get somewhere you'll never reach because you're going to fast to be aware of where you're going. Speed is a byproduct, not a goal for you. You never would have hit me if you enjoyed driving this car, if you really savored the feeling of driving it. No, you use this car just like you use people. You had your eyes closed. If you loved this car and loved driving this car and loved driving these roads in this car, you would not have driven it over a cliff with your eyes closed. You would have had the courage to stare your fate in the face. You're a coward. That car is the fiercest thing about you."
    Liza heaves a quick, hard exhale through pursed lips. "Were you born this mean or is that what they teach you in Zen school?"
     "Start where you are, baby, that's what they teach you. And you know what? When someone tries to run my ass off a cliff, angry is where I am. You're the one who begged to give me a ride, didn't want me to just walk away."
     "Don't they also say, 'Leap and the net will appear'?"
     For that the monk has no retort.
     Liza begins to think about all the leaping she's done in the last three years, all the nets that have appeared—and not—to catch her. This monk talks like Steven, her monk friend in Japan, though with a crassness Liza's never heard Steven express. It's like Max Morgan's mouth with Steven's body and mind. Steven would not berate her. Will not. But she's got to tell him the truth about where his tea garden is. She's got to show him more than a few rocks and a stone lantern.
     She hears him say, "Just stop. Stop struggling. It only takes one to struggle. Just give up. Don't fight the water; find a wave and let it take you to shore."
     His words resonate, though not in the way he meant them. Liza realizes what the Morgan mural is missing: waves. Movement. The bay is in the background, Alcatraz, the Marin Headlands, and that's what it all looks like: a backdrop. Lifeless. Liza sees that the mural is not that far from done, not at all. The bridge is painted, and quite realistic; that wasn't the problem with the painting. She just hates it. She has the right colors. She has the whole thing. She just needs to add some life to it. She just needs to care. A little.   
     And the house she's living in, its Japanese garden: moss, a koi pond, a plum tree in bloom. Not that difficult, really. She's painted it in miniature several times, has the sketches on the wall, she has the paint, she has the picture—just like the other one, she has it in her. She needed inspiration, impetus. The monk has helped her with that.
     Start where you are.
     Here she is then on the bluff, at a dead stop. The green-gray sea and azure sky slowly materialize as the ochre clouds dissipate. She looks up when she hears the door slam, but no one is there. The chimera dissolves. Liza shivers when a light breeze swirls around her. She turns her face back forward to the ocean, shimmering in what she'd have to call a mystical sun, and watches Icarus vanish under the curl of a wave.

Stories for Airports Lands in SoMa

Stories for Airports Lands in SoMa
A book release party and reading in conjunction with

Departure
An art show curated by Stories for Airports cover designer     Kai Haley

Urbis Artium
140 Second Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco

Thursday, july 14, 2005
Art opening/book signing: 6-9 p.m.
judy b. reads: 7 p.m.

Stories for Airports by judy b. (Onze/11) is not about airports. It is an album of brief encounters with the types of people you watch from afar in waiting rooms, on public transportation, or at the mall:

• A bad mother
• A dude looking for love online
• A guy trying to outrun a downpour
  
• A young woman with a rash on her face that looks like the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe

These are people in the midst of discovering that entire worlds exist beneath the surface of the most inconsequential moments. 

Departure

With the body in motion the mind is free to wander. Departure, a  collection of painting, sculpture, and photography  from San Francisco-based emerging artists explores concepts of  distance and proximity, the foreign and the familiar. We depart, we  arrive, rarely do we consider how this is accomplished or the effect  moving our bodies across time, ocean, land has on us. Addressing both  the physical and technical aspects of travel, these works look at the emotional experience and how it changes our concept of home.

Participating Artists

Book Release Party: july 14, 2005

Stories for Airports Lands in SoMa
A book release party and reading in conjunction with

Departure
An art show curated by Stories for Airports cover designer      Kai Haley

                    Urbis Artium
                    140 Second Street, 6th Floor
                    San Francisco

                    Thursday, july 14, 2005
                    Art opening/book signing: 6-9 p.m.
                    judy b. reads: 7 p.m.

Stories for Airports by judy b. (Onze/11) is not about airports. It is an album of brief encounters with the types of people you watch from afar in waiting rooms, on public transportation, or at the mall:

• A bad mother
• A dude looking for love online
• A guy trying to outrun a downpour
  
• A young woman with a rash on her face that looks like the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe

These are people in the midst of discovering that entire worlds exist beneath the surface of the most inconsequential moments. 

Departure

With the body in motion the mind is free to wander. Departure, a  collection of painting, sculpture, and photography  from San  Francisco-based emerging artists explores concepts of  distance and proximity, the foreign and the familiar. We depart, we  arrive, rarely do we consider how this is accomplished or the effect  moving our bodies across time, ocean, land has on us. Addressing both  the physical and technical aspects of travel, these works look at the  emotional experience and how it changes our concept of home.

Participating Artists

Dilly Dalí

Raymond is haunted by shapes. He sees them everywhere: in clouds, in food, in the steam on the bathroom mirror, in his cat's fur, and most recently in the grime on the stove and in the dust sediments that have been building on every bare plane in his apartment for six months. Until this moment, the apparitions have taken benign forms: animals, clownish mugs, celebrity faces (though as of yet no Jesus), and objects both natural and human-made, but just now as he watches, reclined on his studio couch on Alamo Square, an enormous flea is hovering over Pacific Heights, poised to dive-bomb an unsuspecting dog at Alta Plaza Park. Raymond is paralyzed.

    A bag of potato chips tumbles to the floor, spilling half its contents, pollinating the tacky shag carpet with motes of maltodextrin, monosodium glutamate, and other elements of the BBQ flavoring. His pint of cola, diluted with a fistful of ice cubes that have melted down to coin-sized discs, emits a spontaneous fizz. He doesn't hear it over his own breathing, a string of rhythmic wheezes and involuntary sighs, his body's struggle against the mildewed air of his domicile and its own girth, a trophy to Raymond's poor eating habits. The flea is not moving.

    Its crooked legs could spring it all the way to North Beach if he were to startle it. The flea is fat, perhaps having just had its fill in the park below. Its backend is blurry, as if a huge eraser had begun to erase it, but there is nothing else in the sky. Raymond wills a gigantic vacuum cleaner filled with mothballs to appear in the west and mow this parasite down. As if by the force of his own lethargy, a wind stirs the insect and it begins to dissolve into a legless shrimp, then a hotdog, then a blue-white smear in a Salvador Dalí sky. Raymond's chest heaves up and down. He hoists himself up, reaches for his soda, which he passes to his other hand so he can frisk the floor for the bag of chips, or what is left of them.

Chakras Read

It was, quite literally, a sign from above: a cardboard placard that lofted down three stories and then, again literally, hit me on the head. It said:

                                                         Chakras Read
                                                                     ~
                                                           Buzz No. 14

    One sees these signs in North Beach, but they are usually at street level and wooden, or if three stories above, they are neon and unlikely to slip out of an open window. I had just exited a little restaurant on Stockton called China Beach, a nod to its place in the nexus of Chinatown and North Beach. The place served neither Italian nor Chinese but rather California cuisine and attracted a broader mix of clientele—economically, geographically, and ethnically speaking—than was usually seen on that side of town.

    I was a graduate student, but already feeling like an established sophisticate. I was established—my grandmother lived several blocks away, on the eastern face of Russian Hill—but it's arguable how sophisticated I was, having been raised and gone to college in the city and pursuing my doctorate in the humanities just across the bay in Berkeley. But I had just played the gentleman, double-checking that all was in order with the reservations I'd made for that evening. I'd confirmed my sweetheart and I would be seated at the table in the back nook where we had dined for the first time a year before and where, on that night, I had foreseen this one. We'd not been back since that night; after six months of dinners and then breakfasts and then shared door keys we tacitly agreed to save our second visit for our first anniversary. I had an hour to wait.

    Twilight in San Francisco is a moody affair, the day's last licks of sun filtered through clouds, conjuring a particular blend of lugubriousness and romanticism. It may well be the fog that both connects all the disparate parts and peoples of the city and obscures and sometimes eclipses their most marked differences such that they can somehow coexist, to a degree, anyway. Such it was perhaps that I, an otherwise skeptical (if not downright cynical), urbane history-professor-in-the-making, was not devoid of a whimsical side.

    My maternal grandmother had a canister of Chinese fortune sticks that my sister and I would play with—building houses with them, though, rather than architecting our future—and we grew up hearing folk tales of all the ancient peoples whose diasporas reached San Francisco, a pastime that led me to my profession. But it was an abundance of kindness and a spontaneous outpouring of youthful effervescence that inspired me to ring Number 14 rather than slip the sign under the grate as I might normally have done. The single word that replied moments after I released the call button was a "yes" so lethargically spoken I thought the person might fall asleep before I could convey my message. But scarcely had I said "Your sign—" when the grate buzzed, indicating I should enter. I stepped up to the marble stoop and peered through the main door into the foyer, unsure whether the person—who sounded to be female—would descend to meet me or expected me to bring the sign to her. I didn't hear footsteps on the staircase, nor was the elevator called, and I had energy to burn, so I trotted up the stairs. I paused at each floor, peered left and right, looking for an open door, but saw no clue of where to deliver the placard until I reached the third.

    The door at the top of the stairs was open a crack and as soon as I raised my hand to knock on it the occupant swooped it wide to let me in. The door left her hand and toppled some item behind it, which clattered when it hit the parquetry. She ignored it and so, so did I. We faced each other and drew our conclusions. She was much younger than I had expected, as young, perhaps as I was, but dressed decades older in a caftan with a Middle Eastern pattern done in blues and purples, accented with golden threads. She was barefoot. More than her age, her mien surprised me: she was not an ethnic Gypsy; she appeared to be of stock originating no further east than Berlin, more likely the United Kingdom, and by way of Ohio or Indiana, to my California-calibrated eyes. I had two thoughts in quick succession: She was either an abject fraud, not appearing to have at least inherited the profession, or she was suckered twice: first to believe that fortunes could be told, and then that she could tell them herself. An image appeared to me: having reached the same conclusion, she'd tossed that sign out the window. I held it out to her.

    "Your sign." She didn't appear to hear me, so I repeated the words and told her the sign had hit me on the head. "I'm glad it wasn't tin. I might have required stitches." I smiled at her, to convey the levity I intended in the remark, but she continued to stare at me as if she'd heard none of it.

    "What do you make of it—my sign hitting you in the head?"

    It was my turn to stare. I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it, fearing that the comment on my tongue, "I make of it that you should use stronger tape," would come across as snide, rather than just flip.

    "Come in." She leaned over and grabbed my cuff, pulled me across the threshold. "Come in. Sit down. I have much to tell you."

    Her quasi immigrant syntax irritated me, reinforced my earlier negative impressions, and yet the whole package began to seduce me. I found myself enticed by an obscene fascination for this badly styled soothsayer, felt the repulsive pull of a messy train wreck and so I offered no more than an "I…" in protest. I'd cut myself off from telling her that I was on my way to a dinner date, not wanting to reveal anything to her that might aid her in "reading" my chakras.

    "No charge," she retorted. "Your reward for carrying the sign up the stairs."

    I decided to give her five minutes, half of what I could spare without throwing off my evening plans. I was startled to hear her say at that very moment, turning her head only slightly toward her shoulder to speak to me:

    "I can read you in less than five minutes. Explaining it, however, may take a little longer."

    I glanced at my watch, marked the time.

    We crossed the small vestibule and she pulled aside a red velvet drape that separated the entryway from her inner sanctum, a shrine to clutter. The room was crammed with furnishings and paraphernalia: bookcases that stretched three quarters the height of the walls disgorged their charges onto end tables and ottomans; curios were loaded with knickknacks, cheap figurines, statuettes, crystals, and two geodes in which spiders must have lurked; twisted towers of newspapers and magazines, one of which was serving as an end table, holding a forgotten glass of what appeared to be iced tea, threatened to topple. The place smelled of cat. The only flat surfaces left unencumbered were two unmatched Victorian parlor chairs and a period velvet serpentine-back settee, all looking like they would give up ghosts of dust when sat upon. Again, curiosity overpowered revulsion: She didn't seem to have lived long enough to have accumulated such detritus and filth. The whole package mortified me and yet I could not walk away. I was impelled to ascertain what sort of fortune this medium would concoct and project onto me.    

    She plopped herself into the green barrel chair and motioned me to the settee. As soon as my thighs were parallel to the floor a calico cat leapt upon them. I took great pleasure and nearly commented my delight that the feline was not regulation black. It began to purr as soon as my hand touched its head. I wondered aloud what its name might be.

    "Flip Wilson likes you. That's good. It's difficult for me to give readings for people she doesn't like."

    Again, I was torn between being offended on behalf of the visionary comedian who popularized the phrases "What you see is what you get" and "The devil made me do it" for the association with a so-called clairvoyant and being admiring the unique name. I inquired about provenance.

    "I found her on a playground, cowering between a deflated Wilson football and a trash can. I thought she was a boy so I called her Wilson. When the vet told me she was a girl, I kind of flipped, because I'm a big believer that the first impression is the right one. But then I realized, 'Oh: Flip Wilson.' It fits. Believe it or not, she also answers to 'Geraldine.'" 

    I would have been ashamed to admit it then, but I was at that point so caught up in my guilty fascination with the chakra reader charm that I had nearly forgotten my date—until she stood suddenly and asked if I wanted a cup of tea. I looked obtrusively at my watch and told her I had a dinner engagement to make and instantly regretted revealing my plans, for I had not wanted to give her any material beyond what she saw to work into the equation she was going to calculate for me. I was anxious to see how she would assemble the evidence she had, season it with her own assumptions, biases, and proclivities before speaking it all back to me. Here is what she had so far: a 24-year-old, five-foot-nine, trim, clean-shaven, well-groomed man with American manners and certain Asian features; someone on his way to meet someone for dinner and wanting to make it there on time; a curious, thoughtful person, willing if not eager to do a kind deed and who liked or at least did not mind cats.

    "OK. I'll read your romance. Everybody wants to know about romance." I remained impassive. I willed myself to radiate nonchalance. She studied my eyes as if my thoughts were written on my retinas.

    "You're meeting a woman."

    I decided I would not respond to any of her remarks, neither encourage nor discourage her, fully aware that she would assume herself to be accurate if I did not correct her.

    "She's younger than you are."

    I am sure my lips flickered, nearly formed a smile. She was reading a menu.

    "You're Asian."

    Here, under any other circumstance I would have interrupted, gently or firmly, depending on my interlocutor, the context and my mood, to say that I am not only third-generation American but also third-generation San Franciscan, on both my Anglo and Sino-Anglo sides, my maternal grandmother being first-generation Chinese American and the only American-born of her family's three children. But I made no stray move, did not break the rhythmic stroke that began between Flip Wilson's ears, followed the curve of her head to her neck, and down her spine to the end of her tail, which she flipped out of my hand each time, appropriately enough.

    "She's not."

    Here again my lips twitched despite my best effort to betray nothing.

    "And she's not the only one."

    I bowed my head to hide a smirk which I am sure the woman saw. I looked at my watch again, noting that two minutes had passed, and asked her what all that had to do with my chakras.

    The chakra reader narrowed her eyes and stared at me again, but this time she appeared to be looking into my chest. She inhaled deeply through the nose and exhaled through her teeth, making a hiss that Flip Wilson answered in kind before leaping from my lap, leaving me so suddenly cold so that I shivered involuntarily.

    "Two chakras are particularly remarkable right now: the heart and throat vortices, which govern love and communication, respectively. An interesting combination. The heart chakra is normally green and the throat chakra turquoise blue, but right now they are nearly the same blue-green shade. Either your heart wants to speak and your throat is stopping the words, or your throat is trying to communicate a message that is reaching it muddled. I see a lack of understanding, a failure to communicate—not a defeat, but a breakdown. Maybe you fear disapproval? Rejection?"

    I offered no assistance.

    "You must pick one of these women. You must pick one or risk losing them both."

    I suppose that in allowing the medium to practice her craft on me I was entertaining a romantic caprice, wishing, that is, however fancifully that she might serve up a bon mot or quaint vision I could savor on the way to dinner, a nugget that would become a kind of verbal trinket we could keep in our pockets over the years to bring out now and again to remind us of this night. I don't believe, however, that I sought any affirmation of my own premonitions. The thought had never occurred to me that the chakra reader might plant doubts within me about myself or the bond my love and I were feting that night, nor did I need her to assure me I was following the right star. Not only because I didn't take her talent seriously, but more because I knew that night with the certainty only youth can afford and the courage only innocence can amass, that this was to be the first of many anniversary celebrations, and I'm not tipping my cards too far toward you to say that I was correct in that. I had expected her to miss the mark; I had only wanted to see by how much she would fall short. And I had hoped to be entertained. Thus, I was finding this jaunt into the esoteric thoroughly banal.

    I stood. "Is that all?"

    She remained seated. I counted to five waiting for her to answer, then shifted my weight from one foot to the other, prepared to shuffle around the coffee table that separated me from the path to the door. She inhaled deeply, then sighed. She appeared to be struggling with her words.

    The chakra reader stood abruptly and took my arm, led me as decisively back through the drapes we'd passed through but five minutes earlier. The coat rack she'd toppled was still prone, one jacket and several scarves strewn around it. I noticed an open door I hadn't seen on the way in and suspended in the lower darkness of it were two yellow-green dots. I nodded toward them. I opened the door to the hallway and turned to shake her hand. She bowed to me. Neither one of us spoke; I did not thank her for her visions, she made no remark about my bringing the sign. I gave a little wave, and when the door slicked shut I ran down the stairs.

    Here I must concede the limits of my retrospection, allow that exactly what happened next is not so clear as all I've just recounted. I could describe the feeling of the ocean air on my face, the dim cast in the sky that yet filled me with a hopeful longing; I can tick off the cafes and bistros I passed on Columbus Avenue on my way to Green, where I made a detour to Russian Hill, but those might well be memories of other nights. I was a young man in love, with another errand between my dear one and me.

    I can't remember if on that brisk walk I replayed the psychic's words, if I bristled at her poor characterization or laughed off the textbook generalities (not to mention inaccuracies) of her yarn—even while noting that somewhere betwixt and amongst her all but rote lines lay some kind of truth, if not my own.

    For years after and even still, when I recall the rest of that night, this is what I see: a young man walking to his grandmother's house to share a bit of soup before helping her to bed; his listening as she sang songs and told tales in her own mother's tongue, which she reverted to inexplicably and spoke exclusively the last year of her life, a language she obstinately refused to teach her own daughter, who therefore could not teach it to the grandson, who then on this night could only smile and nod in response, as the immigrant parents must have done with their granddaughter, his mother, who could not communicate directly with them.

    I see this young man's attention drifting. As I smile and nod along I am conjuring the image of the man I have loved, ten years my senior and now three years gone, ever in my sight while my grandmother sings to me: I see him making his way to that table in the back where it felt safe to touch a hand to a knee or to brush lips to an ear when leaning in to speak over the jazz trio.

    But now I revisit my memories not only to relive them but even more so to mine them for details I've missed, the small points that were eclipsed by the large, the subtleties obscured by the transparant certitudes, so when my attention returns to the chakra reader, I don't fault her for her faulty insight. I see that the misfortune she told me was quite probably her own. I don't presume the kind of clairvoyance she affected, and I was certainly too preoccupied with my own visions to pay attention to what I could have seen, so I won't speculate as to which party of the trio she ascribed to me she represented, but I have known an equal measure of sorrow to the joy I felt that night, so I recognize a soul in pain. And I have learned that it is not joy but suffering that makes us wise, so I can forgive her whatever artifice she engaged me in that night. For despite her myopia, I do believe she was sensitive to the simple ecstasies of a young man's heart and aware of how they can become tangled and mired and most of all amplified in the fog of anticipation. When I'm feeling particularly generous or wistful I squint as I recall her doing and I allow that it's not that she couldn't read chakras but rather that in the telling the stories simply became scrambled in her throat.