Table of Contents

Table of Contents Blog Disclaimer Not Afraid of Death The Bookstore Placing the Blame The Big Bang Emergency Five Years Dreams and Realities The Box Blood Ties Pain Aftermath Fog The Couch Claus Bouncy Candy from Strangers Rebirth Starting Over As Time Goes By That's Amore Ashes to Ashes Set Me Free Washed Away Journal Looking Ahead The Old Man Hitting the Wall Altered Reality Silent Night Epilogue Author's Note

Author's Note

Many thanks to those of you who have decided to read and, even more surprisingly, comment on this hastily-written work. I do appreciate it.

If you have any constuctive criticism -- this chapter is terribly slow, that theme doesn't fit with the rest, etc. -- please let me know that as well.

If you want to be added to a mailing list in case I ever do something crazy, like writing another novel in 30 days or less, I'll let you know. Send me an e-mail at anonymousnovelist-at-yahoo-dot-com.

Epilogue

Spring cleaning is impossible when you have school and a nearly full-time job. That’s why I’m doing my spring cleaning now, in early August, in the break between summer session and fall semester. School has forced me to accumulate an amazing amount of junk. My Spartan bedroom now has whole areas overrun with books and papers, a monument to the trees that died for my education. I’ll never be able to look at a logged forest again without feeling a sense of guilt. I bought myself a filing cabinet and some folders and tried to make some sense of the mess; it seemed wasteful to throw all of it away, yet it presented a storage nightmare going forward. Hopefully there would be a need to refer to it again later, so I wouldn’t feel so silly about saving it.

It was in the process of cleaning out the nightstand drawer that I found the letter from Nick. I was supposed to read it nearly two months earlier, but I completely forgot about it. I held it in my hands for a long time before I decided whether or not I should open it. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know what it had to say, but in the end I opened it anyway. I unfolded the white lined paper and read his careful handwriting.

Dear Angela,

If all goes according to plan, it’s now June 22 and we haven’t seen each other for six months. I hope that you had a good Christmas and that the new year has brought good things to your life. I don’t know if you understood why I left. Believe me, it’s not what I wanted. For reasons I can’t explain, I wanted to spend as much time with you as possible, in spite of the fact that you are, to put it bluntly, a complete mess. I don’t think that anyone has ever treated you well, and I’m worried that my continued presence in your life will have you leaning on me like a crutch. That’s not what you need. What you need is to be strong, to figure out what makes Angela tick. You’re so much smarter than you’ll ever give yourself credit for. You need to find that inside you and embrace it. (I’m realizing how silly this all sounds, but I think you know me well enough to understand the meaning behind the words.)

Please answer the following questions with a yes or no answer:

1. I am smart.
2. I am funny.
3. I am beautiful.
4. I can do whatever I set my mind to.
5. I believe that I will have a good life.

If you answered at least three of those with a “yes”, please give me a call. Otherwise, wait another six months and take the test again. You’ll get there. I truly believe it.

Much love,
Nick

I looked at the questions. Yeah, I thought, I can agree with three of those. I smiled. Who would have guessed that I would have come this far?

I tucked the letter away in the drawer and finished cleaning. I’ll call him eventually, I thought to myself. But that first communication is always the hardest, and I never actually picked up the phone.

It was a week before Thanksgiving and I had a terrible craving for pizza. I headed over to Vinnie’s on Market with a girl from one of my classes, and we spread out our notes and had a study group session at the corner table with a large pepperoni and two Cokes, the greasy, sugary lunch of champions. The restaurant was nearly empty in the mid-afternoon, so we stayed and studied for our last round of tests before finals at the corner table. It was then that I heard a familiar voice. I turned towards the center of the restaurant and saw Nick being seated with another EMT and a cop, all in blue uniforms. I excused myself from the table and walked over.

“Nick?”

He looked up from his menu and his eyes lit up. “Angela!” He stood up so quickly that he jostled the table, knocking over a glass of water. We mopped it up with napkins grabbed from neighboring tables and stepped away from his friends to talk.

“You look exactly the same,” I said, smiling at him.

“You don’t,” he replied. “You look wonderful.” I had gained a few pounds as a result of access to real food, and I was closer to what you would consider to be normal weight. My hair had grown past my shoulders, and Missy had set me down the path of home-color highlights that she insisted brightened my eyes and framed my face. I looked very girlie.

“Guess what,” I said. “I’m working out at the gym on a regular basis, and I can honestly say that I have not been hurled from the back of a treadmill since that day last year. Plus, I ditched the bookstore and I’m working as a waitress now, so I’m more active than I think I’ve ever been in my life. I’m making better money, too. Which doesn’t say much, but it’s better than nothing.”

“How’s school?”

“Good. Well, the first semester was rough. I didn’t have the best GPA, but I did reasonably well in my summer classes. I think part of the spring semester was adjustment, and part of it was the fact that I didn’t really like some of my early core classes. Now it’s all about stuff that I’m actually interested in.”

“Have you picked a major?”

“Not officially, but I think I’m leaning towards something with counseling. I really loved Ed Psych, and I think I would be good at helping kids overcome their problems. After all, I’ve been there.” He nodded.

“Oh! I forgot to tell you!” I didn’t know how I’d managed to let this slip. “I’m still off all meds – unless you count caffeine, which I’ll admit to abusing heavily as I pull all-nighters. But it turns out that a lot of my problems were really side effects of the drugs more than problems inherent to me.”

“No more depression?” he asked.

“Well… I have my days. I think I tend towards the dark side more than most people. But I think I’ve found ways to cope with it on a daily basis. I seem to be able to pull myself out of the funk when it happens.”

“Good for you.” He touched my arm gently as he spoke. “How’s Missy?”

“She’s doing well. She and David are talking about long-term plans after she graduates in the spring.”

“No kidding? That’s wonderful. I didn’t know him well, but he seemed like a good guy.”

“He is. I’m happy for her.”

“And you?” He asked cautiously. “Are you seeing anyone?”

“No,” I replied. “I haven’t dated at all in the last year. I tell people that it’s because I don’t have time, with working and school, but the truth is that I haven’t wanted the distraction. I’ve got a lot to focus on.”

“Oh yeah, absolutely,” he said, a little too quickly.

“What about you?” I asked.

“There’s nobody special right now. I recently broke up with someone. It was one of those on-again, off-again things.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know those are hard.”

“The interesting thing is that this time, I’m not sorry that it’s over. I think this time it’s for good.”

“Hey Nick,” the cop called from the table. “Pizza’s here.”

“I guess I should get back over there,” he said.

“Definitely, go. Don’t let it get cold.” I took a step backwards, then approached again. “It was great seeing you. Really great.” I leaned forward and gave him a hug. He kissed me on the cheek.

I went back to the table and continued preparing for our next test. Nick and the guys finished and headed for the door. “Bye, Angela,” he called.

“Bye, Nick.”

He stepped out the door, bell rattling against the glass. He was back in a moment, standing over our table.

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I would like to take you out for dinner. Can I call you?”

I thought for a moment. I meant what I’d said about not wanting the distraction. “How about this: give me a call and we’ll talk. Let’s leave dinner as an option for later.”

“Fair enough,” he replied. “Same number?”

“Same number.”

He paused for a moment. “You don’t really need me anymore, do you?”

I thought about that. “No, I don’t need you. Not like before. Now I just want you.” My study partner chuckled.

He grinned. “I can accept that.” He kissed me on the cheek again and headed back out to the waiting ambulance.

“Nice work,” my study partner said sarcastically. “Very subtle.”

But I didn’t have to be subtle, not with Nick. His eyes were wide open, and it delighted me to think that he liked what he saw. The past is the only thing we know for sure. The present is the only thing we can change. The future remains to be seen.

Silent Night

December 23. It’s the most won-der-ful time of the year, or so says the song. In all truth, it’s the most crazed time of the year, with people nearly breaking into fistfights for the last copy of Al Franken’s “Lies” on the shelf. I could tell them that there are two more copies in a box in the back somewhere, but that takes away all the fun. Anticipation of chaos and bloodshed is what keeps us going in the final days before Christmas.

I was back to work a day earlier than the medic had advised. I had bills to pay. I wasn’t just going to remain in bed until Christmas Eve. So I went to work, pulled on a Santa hat to hide my flat hair, and wandered through the store directing traffic on the fly. Humor? Three aisles back on your left. Management? Those would be all the way at the end on the right. Travel guides for Sweden? Please don’t tell me you’re going in the winter… two aisles over to your right, near the latte stand.

A small girl came running up to me and gave me a hug, wrapped around my leg like a boa constrictor. “Whoa! What’s going on here?” I reached down and tried to unwrap her from my leg as her mother approached.

“She thinks you’re one of Santa’s helpers,” she said. “She thinks she can influence Santa with your help.”

I crouched down and whispered. “Are you looking for Santa?”

“Yes,” she whispered back.

“He’s not here right now,” I said. “He’s a busy guy. He’s got lots to do tomorrow night.”

“I know,” she whispered, “but I forgot to tell him something.”

“Do you want me to tell him?” She nodded. “Ok, what?”

“Tell him I love him. Tell him that I was a good girl. And tell him that we don’t have a real fireplace, so he’ll have to look for another way to get inside.”

I promised, and even did the cross-my-heart thing, the most solemn vow an elementary school child can make. I assured her that Santa was crafty about finding new and interesting ways to get inside and deliver presents. Lots of people didn’t have chimneys and real fireplaces, but he managed to come to their houses and deliver gifts for them anyway.

The day moved quickly in spite of the chaos, and before I knew it I was clocking out. “See you tomorrow?” asked my manager.

“Same time, same place,” I replied.

I rode home on the bus, but got off one stop early to visit a parking lot full of trees. I picked out one that wasn’t too big or too small, but looked like a cozy addition to the condo. I dragged the poor thing four blocks before arriving at the building and struggling to get it through the front door. The elevator was a piece of cake, and it was just a little more of a drag to get it to our door. I unlocked the door, threw it open and yelled “Honey! I’m home!” in a singsong voice. Missy was over by the windows keeping herself busy with decorating – you guessed it – the tree that she had bought earlier that afternoon.

We sat the two trees on either side of the plasma TV and decorated them completely differently. Missy’s tree was filled with bows and colored lights and brightly hued metallic balls. Mine was white lights, hand-strung microwave popcorn garland (lightly buttered), and an assortment of ornamental goodies that I could find around the house. It was starting to feel like Christmas. Not the retail-manufactured, decorations-up-in-August kind of Christmas, but the hot chocolate and cookies kind.

Christmas Eve is a day that can make even veteran bookstore employees weep. When you’re in the middle of it, everything is crazed beyond belief. When it’s over, you are so insanely delighted to have a day off that you give no thought to the fact that in just two days, everyone will be back to return it all. “I got 13 copies of Howard Stern’s “Private Parts”. Can I return some of them? Lord, doesn’t it tell you something about yourself when 13 friends and family members get you a Howard Stern book for Christmas?

The store closed at 6:00, and after much frantic organizing, we ran for the exits like children on the last day of the school year. I met Missy at home and she encouraged me to come with her to the city cathedral for Christmas Eve services. I had only been to church a few times, so I wasn’t familiar or comfortable with it, but she insisted that it was an event of unparalleled poetry and beauty, so I went.

If you’ve never seen the inside of a big old church by candlelight, I highly recommend it. There’s a beauty and tranquility there that makes it easy to understand why people want to believe. The minister’s voice booms authoritatively from the altar; the candlelight casts magical shadows on the walls and the stained glass; and there is nothing more beautiful than the sound of human voices singing in unison. Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

Missy and I each held our candles as we sang, playing with the hot wax as it made puddles on the top of the candle and trailed down the sides like a hot waterfall. How old are we? Clearly not fully mature adults.

“For unto us, a child is born,” said the minister, with his deep, rumbling cadence. “Unto us, a son is given.” The Christmas tale is a lovely story, really, one of birth and life in the face of adversity. I was surprised to find myself filled with hope, letting go of the pain of recent years and looking ahead to the future. Tonight, in the glowing candlelight, I wasn’t afraid of what was ahead. Missy put her arm around me, once again playing the role of caretaker, and gave me a squeeze.

When the service ended, we walked down the front steps of the cathedral. I could see my breath in the light of the full moon as I wrapped my scarf around my neck and we headed for home.

Altered Reality

Sleep came easily tonight, and with the sleep came dreams that could have been memories.

Again I was a little girl, two or three years old. I had a small handmade doll that a friend of my parents had made for me, a gingham cat that I carried with me everywhere. One night, while asleep in my crib, my parents heard me crying softly. I was still mostly asleep when my mother came in to check on me. “What’s wrong?”

“The kitty cat scratched me,” I replied.

She assumed I was dreaming, tucked me in kissed me goodnight and went back to bed. She heard me crying again half an hour later. “Angela? What’s wrong, baby?”

Again I said, “The kitty cat scratched me.” This time she was puzzled. I shouldn’t still be having the same dream after this long. She turned on the light and when her eyes adjusted, she saw the red scratches on my neck and arm. Looking at the doll, she discovered that a small pin that had held it together during stitching had remained inside and now worked itself loose to scratch me. I never felt the same way about the doll again after that night.

That dream led into another. I was older now, maybe nine, before my mother came back to die. My neighbors invited me to go to the lake for the weekend, and in spite of the fact that I wasn’t exactly best friends with their kids, I went anyway. We rose along in the station wagon, and I sat sideways watching the power lines beside the two-lane highways. Wires droop down, swing upward… pole. Droop, rise… pole. The ebb and flow of the wires was like watching waves crash and recede. Eventually the rhythm put me to sleep.

I’m in the back of the car, and as dreams go, I’m now the only person in the car. I’m still in the very back of the station wagon, and when I realize there’s no one driving, I have to climb over the seats to reach the steering wheel. Except every time I climb over a seat, another one appears between me and the wheel. The car swerves and I jolt myself awake.

I can hear my breathing in the dark room, heavy and rapid. It’s 3:12AM, but there are still cars on the road. I can hear the cars stop and start at the traffic lights. I listen for a while, imagining where all these people are going at this hour. My eyelids grow heavy and I enter a faraway world.

I’m in my grandmother’s kitchen, except I’m all grown up and she hasn’t aged a bit. She’s baking pies today, and needs my help cutting apples. I sit at the kitchen table, peeling and cutting, and we talk.

“How are you, my angel?” she asks.

“I don’t know, grandma,” I say. “I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought I was going to make things right. But they’re no better. I’m just making a mess of things.”

“How?” she asks me. “Have you hurt someone?”

“No,” I replied. “Not unless you include me.”

“Do you believe you’re doing the right thing? Or are you just doing what you’re supposed to do?”

“Oh, what I’m doing is far from what I’m supposed to do,” I tell her. “Everyone’s advising me against it. But in spite of the fact that it made me sick, I think it’s the right thing to do.”

She patted me on the hand. “Good for you, dear. You’re a strong one. Your sister could learn a lot from you.”

“No,” I said. “That’s not true. She’s living the right life for herself.”

“But it’s a boring life,” grandma said. “She’s never taken a risk.”

I thought about that for a moment. She was right. Susan always walked the straight line, as though someone were looking over her shoulder, waiting for her to make a wrong move. It wasn’t right.

“Grandma, what if I tried to teach Susan to have some fun?”

She smiled and shook her head. “No, my angel. She needs to learn that on her own, just as you need to learn how to be strong and stand on your own two feet.” She rose from her chair, walked to the counter, and handed me a gingerbread cookie. “Here. Throw this against the wall.”

“What?”

“I’m the one that’s old and deaf. Why do you keep asking ‘what’”?

“I just don’t understand why I’m throwing cookies at the wall.”

“You’ll see.”

I wound up and pitched a sidearm, split-finger ginger man fastball at the kitchen wall. It hit with the sharp shattering sound of the glass that my parents broke while they were fighting on Christmas. I felt my heart skip a beat, then pound loudly in my ears.

“Here,” she said, handing me a dustpan and brush. “You’ll feel better once it’s cleaned up. It will give you closure. You have the control now, Angela. Don’t forget it.”

She left me alone in the kitchen, sweeping up broken ginger shards from the discolored linoleum with the dustpan and brush. By the time I had finished, it was late and she had vanished. I looked at her cookies sitting on the counter, and there were several of them lined up in a row marked, “Angela.” The first was me in a green velvet dress, like that Christmas. There was a cookie of me in a formal dress that looked remarkably like my dress for the homecoming dance in high school. There was me in khakis and a polo. There was a ginger version of myself at 24, broken into pieces. Looking ahead, I saw that the cookies reassembled themselves; there was a cookie with a smile, a cookie in a graduation gown with an honors stole, a cookie with a wedding dress, a cookie with a baby. It was amazing. Did she know things about me that I didn’t? How did she know so much?

I awoke to find myself alone again in my room, but swearing that I could smell the aroma of freshly baked goodies and apple shampoo.

Hitting the Wall

Writing is the sort of experience that can go one of two ways: it can drag you down into the darkness, or it can serve as a catharsis, freeing your mind from daily life. Tonight, I found catharsis.

I practically pushed my father out the door tonight, not to be mean, but because the urge to write was so strong that I felt like withholding the words would result in physical pain. I raced to the kitchen to grab the notebook I had used before, and started scribbling, I barely looked up from the paper when Missy and David left for dinner, and wrote long into the night when my pen ran dry and my hand twisted with a painful cramp.

When I finished, I practically threw the pen and paper onto the table, like I was tossing away a hot potato. I was drained. I dragged myself upstairs and fell into a deep sleep, fully clothed, without even bothering to crawl under the covers.

I dreamed of things that I couldn’t remember as memories, but seemed plausible enough as though they actually might have happened. I was 13, terrified of singing the solo in the holiday performance for our school choir. I was in a terrible velvet dress that my sister had borrowed from a friend. I began to sing, my voice stronger than I could have ever anticipated, and I wished my father could have been there to see me. But tonight, I saw him at the back doorway, peering in from the outside. Was it really him? Had he really been there? Maybe he had. Maybe Susan had told him how much it meant to me to have the moral support. But then again, maybe this was just a dream. Even so, I wanted to believe that he was there, that he cared enough to take an hour off from work and see me.

Fast-forward to high school, and a beautiful guy – absolutely gorgeous, with light eyes and dark hair – asked me to the homecoming dance. Did my sister talk him into it? He was the younger brother of a friend of hers. Regardless, for two weeks until he stood me up on the night of the dance, I was happy. I was as truly, joyously happy as any teenager could be. And maybe, rather than dwelling on the fact that he stood me up, maybe I should have been focusing on the fact that someone out there had been kind enough to try to bring that sort of happiness into my otherwise surly adolescent life.

I awoke at 6:00, daylight starting to creep in through the windows. I had only slept for four hours, but I felt invigorated and alive. I changed into something vaguely athletic and walked down to the gym in our building. It wasn’t much of a gym really, just a handful of treadmills and bikes, but it would serve my purpose without having to freeze in the morning air. I started the treadmill and began to walk at that awkward pace as the machine accelerated. Before long I had to break into a light jog, then a faster run, then a sprint. I was never much of a runner, but that moment held a lifetime of compressed energy. I ran and ran, one foot after another, strides lengthening. I felt like a racehorse, with graceful strides and a heaving chest as I gulped as much stale gym air as I could manage in each breath. I felt free and alive.

Someone opened the door, and as I turned, startled, to see who it was, I lost my pace, stumbled and fell right off the back of the treadmill, hitting my head on the cinderblock wall. She came running towards me. “Oh my god! Oh my god! Are you all right? Oh my god!” I can’t say that I was unconscious, really, but I was barely responsive. I could see her and hear her, but I couldn’t answer any of her questions. I heard her dialing her cell phone to call for an ambulance. Oh no, I thought, not again. I’ve had enough to do with ambulances for a while. But I couldn’t say that. All I could manage was a sound that most could have only been interpreted as “Wahhhnnggghh.” She was talking to the dispatcher. “I watched her shoot right off the end of the treadmill. She hit her head on the wall. Oh, it made the most horrible noise!”

She asked me for my name, but I couldn’t talk. She asked what unit was mine, and even though I couldn’t get the words out, I could move my fingers. “Three?” she asked. “One?” Eight? No, seven? Three-one-seven? Are you in 317?” Something in my eyes must have said yes, because she said she would be right back, and ran off to wake Missy. I slumped sideways, trying to get more comfortable. My head was throbbing. I had a hard time thinking about anything but the pain, but every once in a while there was a glimmer of humor and irony. “Feeling good, are you?” I thought. “Why not go to the gym and do something good for yourself?” Boy, was I kicking myself now.

Missy, dressed in a satiny robe, and David, in boxers and a t-shirt, appeared in the doorway with the gym lady. Missy crouched down beside me. The gym lady ran for the front door to direct the medics to the right area. I leaned my head on Missy’s shoulder. “The look in your eyes is really scaring me,” she whispered. “But I have a feeling that someday we’re going to look back on this, and it’s going to be funny. Falling off the treadmill like a catapult.” The corners of my mouth turned into a grin just before I slumped forward, unconscious.

I awoke to find a tall blonde guy in a blue EMT uniform peering into my eyes with a penlight. “Hey!” I said, pulling away. “Don’t touch my eyes.”

He stepped back, startled. “Excuse me?”

“Eyes. Off limits.” I’d had a fear of people messing with my eyes since childhood.

“I’m just checking to see if you have a concussion,” he said. “As hard as it is to imagine, you don’t seem to.”

I thought for a moment, wheels still turning slowly inside my brain. “That’s good, right?”

“You bet.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“6:54.”

“So what time can I go to work?”

“Thursday.”

“No, the time. Not the day.” I paused. “Wait a minute. Thursday? No, can’t do it. It has to be today.”

He shook his head emphatically no. “No way. You’re liable to get dizzy and black out at a moment’s notice.”

“No!” I whined. “I can’t miss any more time at work!”

“No choice,” he said. “Sorry.”

I started to cry and Missy came running. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re going to fire me. I just missed two days with less than a week until Christmas. At some stores, that’s grounds for public crucifixion.”

“So? You’ll find another job.”

“What if I don’t? How will I pay the rent?” I have to feed the cat!”

Missy hugged me and pushed my hair out of my face. “It’s ok,” she said reassuringly. “It’s going to be ok.”

“No it’s not!”

“Angela, now’s not the time to worry about this. You have a screaming headache and you’ve been scared half to death this morning. Just relax, let go, and everything will be fine.”

I sniffled loudly. “Everyone always has to take care of me. I can never take care of myself.”

“No, that’s not true,” she said. “Everyone has phases where they give help, and phases where they need help. The tables will turn soon. You’ll be the one in control.”

She signed some paperwork on my behalf and sent the medics on their way. She and David helped me upstairs, back into my room and into bed. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll go to work for you. No issue with finding subs.”

“Don’t you have plans today?”

“Not really,” she said. “I turned in my final paper yesterday and all that’s left to do is send David to the airport at 8:00. I can easily make it in to the store by 8:30.”

I hugged her and whispered my thanks. She eased me back onto the pillows and tucked me in. “Rest,” she said. “I’ll be back by 6:00.”

I heard her downstairs calling Nick while David showered. They were out of the house five minutes early. I drifted away and had dreams of ringing phones. As it turned out, they weren’t dreams.

Nick let himself in at noon, and came upstairs to check on me. “Hey,” he said, gazing at me from a distance. “I’ve been trying to call.”

“Oh. That was really the phone?”

“Yes.” He came closer and, unable to stop himself, flashed a light into my eyes. “No concussion.”

“That’s what Ken told me.”

“Ken?”

“Yeah, the guy who looks like a Ken doll.”

He laughed. “That’s Hans. No kidding. His parents escaped from East Germany when he was two.”

“Really?” I thought about that for a moment. “Most people have trouble getting their two-year-old out to the store. How did they manage to escape a whole country with a toddler?”

“I’m not sure. I’ve never really talked to him about it. But it is interesting, isn’t it?”

His face grew serious. “Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Yeah? What?”

He paused for a moment, and then began to deliver a speech that he had clearly practiced many times before. “I just don’t think that this is the right time for you. Or for us. I think you have a lot of stuff going on in your life right now, and I’m just a distraction. I’m keeping you from the real work at hand, which is getting your shit together and figuring out your life. I think you have real potential, but as long as you have someone to cling to, you’re never going to fully realize it. Does that make sense to you?”

I nodded. “Odd that you should say that, “ I said. “As it turns out, I was going to have a talk with you about how I needed to find myself and figure out what’s going to happen going forward. The only difference between my speech and yours is that I thought I could do it with you by my side. But if that’s not what you want…” My voice trailed off. We sat in silence.

“Look,” he said, “I didn’t want you to think…”

“Nope, don’t worry about it.”

“I wrote you a note.”

“In case you couldn’t bring yourself to say things to me directly?”

“No, it’s not that at all.” He handed me an envelope marked June 22. “That’s for six months from today. When that day comes, I want you to open the envelope, read what I’ve written and decide if you want to call me or not.”

“Ok, sure.” I opened the drawer of the nightstand and stuffed the envelope inside. “Ok, then. Well, have a nice Christmas. I’ll see you around.”

He looked uncomfortable. “This isn’t goodbye forever,” he said. “That’s not the intention.”

“Of course not. I completely understand.” I didn’t, not really, but he didn’t need to know that.

He leaned over and kissed me on the forehead. I patted him on the hand. “Can I have the key back, please?”

“Oh, sure.” He slid it off his keychain and sat there looking at the collection, now one key smaller. I tossed the loose key into the drawer with the envelope.

“I’m really tired,” I said. “It’s been a rough day. Do you mind?” I pointed towards the door, indicating that he should leave. He stood, took a few steps, turned back, said nothing, then walked out, closing the bedroom door behind him.

He’s not the key to my happiness, I told myself. I am the key. And I’m going to figure out how to make my life better if it kills me.

I rolled over, turned on the radio to a classical station, and drifted off to the sounds of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.

The Old Man

If you had asked me to pick the three people least likely to show up at my door, I probably would have picked, in no particular order, Vladimir Putin, Brad Pitt and my father. Putin and Pitt didn’t show up tonight. I’ll give you one guess to figure out who did.

I stared out the peephole for ages. I recognized him instantly, even though I hadn’t seen him since I left home six years earlier. He looked different. Older. I couldn’t get over how much gray I saw in his beard. I was still staring when he rang the doorbell again, and I was yanked back to reality; I suppose I had to answer the door rather than just staring at him through a small hole.

I pulled the door open slowly, giving him time to run away. He didn’t. I didn’t say anything. We stood face-to-face for what felt like an eternity until David came down the hallway and broke my trance.

“Hey Angela,” he called from down the hall.

“Hey David.” He had reached the doorway now, and stood awkwardly in the hallway wondering if he should step past us and into the condo. I looked him in the eye. “David, this is my father, Pete. Dad, this is my roommate’s friend.”

They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries before it occurred to me to invite them in. The three of us seated ourselves awkwardly in the living room. Missy called down from upstairs. “David? Is that you?”

David leaped at the chance to leave this tense scene. “Yes, it’s me. Can I come up?”

She poked her head out and gave me a strange look from behind my father’s head. “Sure,” she said. “Come on up. I’m just doing my hair.” She mouthed, “Are you ok?” and I nodded. David was sure to fill her in when he got upstairs.

My father and I were left alone in the living room with nothing but our silence to share. “So,” I said, and then stopped. I could hear a clock ticking. “So how did you find me?”

My father coughed and cleared his throat. “Your old landlady gave me your forwarding address.” Ah, that explains it, I thought. Helen never could keep a secret. I should have known better than to give her my forwarding information, but she was a friendly woman and I thought I might want to keep in touch with her. I never thought that she might be giving my information away.

“So what brings you here?” I didn’t feel like wasting time with pleasantries. It was all too bizarre not to want to get down to details right away.

He cleared his throat again. “I had some things I wanted to talk about with you.”

“Are you dying?” I asked the question a little too abruptly and callously.

“No!” He paused, as if wondering what might be going on in my head. “I wanted to tell you that I was getting married.”

“Oh.” I suspected that I should feel something, anything, but I was empty inside. I barely knew this man who supplied half of my genetic material. Was I supposed to be happy for him? Sad? I didn’t know what to feel, so I felt nothing.

“Is she nice?”

“Oh yeah,” he said, a little too emphatically. “She’s the best.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Let’s see.” He began to count backwards. “Four months.”

“And you know her well enough to marry her?”

“Yep.”

“Huh. I’ve never known anyone that well. What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?” he asked.

“Knowing someone like that.”

“I don’t know.” He thought for a moment. “I don’t know. It just takes its shape. It is what it is.”

His attitude seemed so resigned, so laid back. I wondered what had happen with the uptight basket case that had been my only parent for most of my life.

“Are you still working two jobs?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, just the factory. Day shift.”

I nodded. “Good. Because with that two job system, you don’t have any time to find a wife. Or a kid, for that matter. I was lost in that house for years.”

He shook his head sadly. “I did a terrible job with you and your sister. I just hope that I’m better with Carol’s babies.”

“Wait a minute. Is Carol the girlfriend? Is she pregrnant?”

“Yes, she’s my friend. And no, she’s not pregnant yet.”

“Yet? Oh for god’s sake….” I tried to put my selfish feelings out of the way and present something rational. “Do you know how old you are?”

“54.”

“And she’s how old?”

“36.”

Great. Just lovely. An 18-year difference and the possibility that she might still be fertile. Great. Susan must be having a coronary.

“So what are you looking for from me? My blessing? Fine, you’re got it. It’s all about your happiness now. Mom’s been gone for 14 years.”

“What I want is for you to come to the wedding,” he said.

“Hmmm… I really don’t know about that. I’ve never been a big fan about watching others make lifelong promises and exchange metal bands.” In truth, weddings were, in my opinion, an excuse to make a really extensive Christmas list of cool toys and goodies, and ask other people to buy them for you. Great scam, but hardly worth the big party associated with it.

“It’s very important to me,” he said.

“Why? I barely know you. I don’t know her at all. And I’m not on speaking terms with my sister. So what incentive do I have to join this little soiree? Because it seems to me that it’s just an unnecessary trip to the suburbs.”

“I’m still your father,” he said gruffly.

“No. You’re really not. You’re my genetic donor, but you have never really been a father. There’s nothing fatherly about you.”

“I worked two jobs so you and your sister could have good lives and go to good schools. I did everything for you.”

“You were never home. I was alone. Mom was gone because of me, and you were never there.”

“Angela, listen to me. It wasn’t your fault. She was dying. Cancer is unstoppable if it’s got someplace to go.”

I knew that he really believed it, but to me, the most important thing, the one thing I never got, was a hug. All I wanted at age six was to be loved. Instead, the guilt that accompanied my mother’s first departure came from all angles, especially from my father. Your mother leaves you and your father rarely comes home: what’s a kid to think? I was certain that I had done something terribly wrong to make the adults stay away. Eventually, the other kids stayed away, too. I grew increasingly convinced that I was broken, some sort of bad luck charm that made people leave. This feeling was reinforced by my second-grade best friend; she moved away and never wrote again, in spite of swearing that we would be friends forever. I was never the same after that. I didn’t trust anyone.

“Angela? Angela, don’t you know that I’ve always loved you and tried to do the best for you? It broke my heart when you left home.”

I said nothing, but wheels inside my head where turning at breakneck speed. All I could hear was one phrase repeated over and over, as though by some deranged parrot: It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault.

“Dad?” I said, quietly. “Dad, I’m scared.”

“About what?” he asked.

“Everything. Everything is changing. The world is always different. And it seems like the only thing that doesn’t change is me.”

“You change. You’ve changed lots of times since you moved out. They may be small, incremental changes, but that’s not the point.”

“I don’t know that I do,” I said, fearing the status quo as much as anything. “I feel like I’m exactly the same as I was at 18, 20, 28….”

“That’s not how you gauge change. You measure it when you learn something new or have fun with friends. It’s less scientific than some methods, but interesting nonetheless.”

I didn’t want to listen to his philosophies on life, but then something occurred to me: I had never listened to them before. I wondered if he had ever talked to Susan and not me. Somehow I doubted it. She wasn’t the type to listen to life philosophy. She was a creature of experience, pure and simple. Listening to someone else’s ideas was not her strength, nor was it mine.

“So, professor, how do I change my life?”

“Start small,” he advised. “Maybe it’s just as simple as trying something new. Like attending a family wedding.”

“Nice try,” I said.

“I’m serious. Angela, this isn’t easy for me. I know I wasn’t the best father. I know that. But I want you to be the best person you can be, and hopefully, at the very least, you can be friends with me.”

I looked him in the eye. “You really mean that, don’t you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why do you want to be friends with me?”

“Because I’ll never be able to go back and be the father that you needed and wanted. Nothing can change that. But I can try to be the friend that you want going forward.”

“Why now?”

“Because I realized that life can’t be lived in the past or in anticipation of the future. It has to be lived in the present.”

I went pale. “Where did you hear that?”

“I don’t know.” He paused. “Actually, I do know. I had a dream last week where a wise old man told me those words. Life can’t be lived in the past or in anticipation of the future.”

I started to shake. “What’s wrong?” He looked deeply concerned.

“A few nights ago…” I stopped to collect myself. “A few nights ago, I wasn’t well. I was sick. Hallucinating. And I had a dream where a wise old man told me the exact same thing.”

He looked at me with disbelief. “No, that can’t be.”

“I’m serious!”

“So who’s trying to tell us something?” he asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, shaking. “It’s a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“You tell me,” I said. “You’re the one who drove more than an hour to get here, tracking me down at two apartments. What’s it a sign of?”

He thought about it for a moment. “Life’s too short to waste it with work and petty arguments. That’s why I’m here.”

“Always look on the bright side of life, as the Pythons would say?” My teeth were chattering. I was really rattled by this conversation.

“Maybe that’s the essence of it all,” he said. “You’ll get what you look for. Look for bad, you’ll see the bad. Look for good and you’ll see the good.”

I thought of my childhood, sitting on the banks of the creek. It was a polluted mess, filled with old tires, shopping carts and miscellaneous garbage. But when the sun was at just the right angle in the late afternoon, you could look into the water and see the reflection of the trees and sky. At those moments it was the most beautiful body of water, a peaceful mirror reflecting the beautiful parts of the world.

“Don’t look in the creek. Look at the reflection,” I mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” What if I had withdrawal symptoms because I expected to have them? What if my job sucked because I expected it to suck? What if my relationships didn’t last because I expected them to fail?

Tonight I would start something new. Like Moses bringing down the tablets from the mountain, I had my own principles of living that I needed to try out. I couldn’t wait for my father to leave so I could be home alone with my thoughts. All I needed was a piece of paper and a pen.

Looking Ahead

Four shopping days left until Christmas. Every lunatic shopper on the planet is battling for a spot in our parking lot. I was nearly run over by two minivans and a sedan on my way from the bus to the store. The weather had turned downright blustery, and the combination of my shivering and dizziness left me feeling a little dazed.

With my cast gone, I had moved back to cash wrap, leaving the info desk behind for some poor, unfortunate sucker. The drawback was that I didn’t have a seat behind the register, so after all my time in bed, I had to return to work and stand under my own power for eight hours in a row. It’s harder than it sounds, believe me.

I had made it through most of the morning, with only one wave of barely-controllable nausea. That’s never a good moment, when you’re standing in front of a customer, wondering if you’re going to vomit in front of them. But I managed to excuse myself and crouch behind the counter, pretending I was looking for more holiday shopping bags. One of the other cashiers looked at me strangely, but with a series of deep breaths I was able to compose myself and pop back up with a festive shopping bag and a smile.

I spent my lunch break at the market, buying Christmas goodies for the two people in my life, Missy and Nick. For Missy, I got a bag of Kona coffee – I don’t understand how coffee could possibly be so expensive, but they told me it was good – and a box of hazelnut biscotti. Nick was harder to shop for. Was he going to give me a gift at all? How did I balance between the look of “Oh no, I should have gotten her a gift,” and “this is all she gave me?” I ultimately bought some fancy semi-sweet chocolate and some long fondue forks, hoping for a night of sharing. I stood in the checkout line, pleased with myself for being the only person in the world who could do all of her Christmas shopping at a market.

The afternoon was nonstop chaos, with long lines and people trying to combine membership cards with coupons and discount codes to swing some sort of miracle deal – one guy was convinced that with all of his coupons he could get the da Vinci Code for $3. What he didn’t realize was that his $15 off coupon was for purchases of $150 or more. Live and learn.

Other than the usual kiddie books and humor (Dilbert and Dave Barry always do well this time of year), the most popular item was one I wouldn’t have expected: leather-bound journals. Are there that many people who like to write? In this era of computers and Palm Pilots, does anyone really put pen to paper anymore? Maybe the answer was no. Maybe the gift-givers just ran out of ideas and liked the rich look of the leather. There was no way to know for sure.

By the time the day had ended, I was completely exhausted. I went back to the break room to clock out, and decided to just sit down for a few moments. Those few moments led to a twenty-minute nap on the break room table. I felt a little foolish when I realized that someone had seen me sleeping, but they all knew I had been out with “the flu” for the last few days, and they weren’t going to criticize, especially since I had managed to complete my shift.

When I finally stood up to head home, my body felt like lead. I wrapped myself in my cardigan and scarf, grabbed my market bag and shuffled through the lot. Stalkers watched and waited, signals flashing, to see which car I would get into. I usually liked to weave from one aisle to another to screw with their heads, but I was too tired tonight. I walked in a direct line and rested on the bus stop bench, winded. I pulled my scarf up around my ears and tried to keep the wind from blowing down into my sweater, but there was no mistaking the chill in the air tonight. It was feeling more like Christmas than any night yet this year. The white lights twinkled on tree trunks lining the street of our little retail district, giving it a festive and inviting atmosphere that they only seemed to care about once a year.

The bus was late, stuck in the rush hour traffic. Two others at the bus stop were complaining, but I didn’t mind. The three steps up into the bus seemed hopelessly daunting when you considered my level of energy, or lack thereof. But by the time my bus arrived, I had managed enough strength to climb the steps and lurch towards a seat in the middle. I quickly drifted off again, and woke to feel my head jerking upright, like I had just dozed off in the back of high school history class. I saw a man in the sideways handicapped seats looking at me strangely. I rang the bell to signal for the next stop, and stood in the shadow of the bus exhaust for a few moments before walking home. By the time I arrived on the 3rd floor, I practically had to crawl to 317. In one motion, I opened the door and made a beeline path for the couch. I couldn’t move from fatigue, but I wasn’t at all sleepy. I would occasionally doze off for what probably amounted to thirty-second intervals but, like the two previous nights, I was unable to fall asleep and stay asleep.

I remained flat on the couch for several hours, staring out the window, too tired to turn on the television. When Missy finally came home, she was astonished to find me there.

“Are you exhausted?” she asked.

“Yes, desperately.”

“Why not go up to bed?”

“Because I can’t sleep.”

“Wow,” she said. “What a mean combination of side effects.

I grunted with agreement and disgust. Why did I feel like this? I thought I could handle detox, but this was awful. “Not only do I feel bad,” I told her, “but I also feel terrible emotionally.”

“Isn’t that normal?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “It’s been a long time since I battled the depression head-on, and at least then I had the advantage of not being dizzy and nauseous.”

“Do you think it was a mistake to stop the medication?” she asked.

I sighed. “Long term? No. This was the right thing to do. But it’s making for a really shitty short term existence.”

She asked if she could get me anything, and I declined. “Can you do me a favor? Can you answer the door if David gets here while I’m changing? Are you strong enough to get up?”

“Yeah, I think I can do it. Big date tonight?”

She shook her head. “Little date. I don’t really want a big date right now.”

“Why not? He’s hot.”

She grinned uncontrollably. “True enough, but still… I want to take things slowly. Nothing like being burned by a control freak to make you question if you want that level of involvement in your life.”

“He knows this?”

“Yep, we talked about it.” She paused for a moment. “It would be so much easier to just sleep with him.”

I laughed. “Get it out of the way and move on with the practical aspects of the relationship?”

“Exactly. You spend your early years trying to fight the boys off and preserve your virginity, then you realize that it’s just easier to get the sex thing out of the way and then figure out whether or not the guy’s interested in sticking around. Or, in my case, interested in watching your every move. But when the lure of first sex is hanging over their heads, you never get a clear view of what things will be like. Unfortunately, I just don’t know that I’m ready to get that involved right now.”

I pondered that for a moment. “Interesting observation. So I wasn’t a slut in my past lives, I was just being practical?”

“It all depends on your perspective,” she said. “And my perspective passes no judgment on you.”

“I knew there was a reason why you were my roommate,” I said. “Because you’re the only one that would even begin to take that perspective.”

She sat beside me and put her hand on my leg. “Do you have regrets?”

“God, yes,” I said.

“Why?”

“I’ve made some big mistakes in my life.”

“But you learned from them, right? You learned lessons that have shaped who you are. And that’s a valuable thing.”

I shrugged. I wasn’t so sure that there was value in my mistakes. She continued. “Look, the past is the past. You can’t change it. Your job now is to live life in the present, and try to look forward to the future, based on the lessons learned from your past.”

Her perspective touched me. “But that requires some amount of hope,” I told her, trying to sound sarcastic, but failing miserably as my voice cracked.

She leaned forward. “Don’t you see? You do have hope. You’re looking forward. You wouldn’t have stopped the medication if you didn’t have hopes and plans for the future.”

She looked at her watch and realized she was running late. “I have to go get ready. Will you stay here in case David arrives while I’m upstairs?” I nodded.

The doorbell rang, and I slowly walked to the door, opening it without checking the peephole. It was at that moment that I stood face to face with my catalyst for change.

Journal

On Monday morning, after a long night of insomnia and boredom spent staring at the moon through the skylight in my bedroom, I finally managed to walk downstairs to the kitchen under my own power. My legs were shaky, but it felt good to use them again. It had only been a few days, and I was so weak. I couldn’t imagine how horrible it must be for people who are bedridden for any length of time.

Nick had been staying at the condo, sleeping on the couch in the living room, just in case I needed him. I had heard him leave before dawn, heading home to change and go to work. But he didn’t leave before being sure to leave his cell phone number and various instructions stuck in various places around the house on Missy’s bright pink sticky notes. I discovered them, one after another, as I wandered to the kitchen. “Don’t drink caffeinated beverages,” said one. “I’d stick with toast today,” said another. “Drink something with a bit of sugar,” said a third. I poured myself a glass of juice and shuffled to the couch to watch TV.

Nick’s backpack was sitting beside the coffee table, unzipped, along with his pillow and carefully folded blanket. I reached into the open bag, pulled out the shirt and held it close to me. It smelled like him, clean and soapy, and made me feel at ease.

I’ve never been the kind to look through other people’s things. I’ve house-sat for people, and never even looked into their medicine cabinets over the course of an entire weekend, so you can imagine my surprise when I felt an uncontrollable urge to rummage through his bag. I was even more shocked when I came upon his journal. I didn’t even know he kept a journal, but I guess there was a lot that I didn’t know about him. I opened it without hesitation and began to search for interesting tidbits. I read the last entry, slowly, having trouble focusing on the handwritten page with my dizziness. It was written the night before.

Sunday

I spent the whole day here at Angela’s place. She’s been in really bad shape, but she’s turned a corner and I think she’ll be ok in the long run, assuming that she’s strong enough to fight off the demons that she went on the meds for in the first place. Missy was scared to death, but I’ve seen this sort of thing enough times to know that while she was going to be miserable for a while, she was ultimately going to be ok.

I’ve spent a lot of time here with her this weekend, not that Angela’s aware of it. As I sat beside her bed, watching her sweat and shake as the medication left her body, I wondered what I was thinking. Why was I here? Don’t I know better than to get myself involved in this sort of thing? The answer, of course, is yes. So why did I hold her hand as she slept and hallucinated? Why did I sleep on this awful couch last night, and probably will do so again tonight? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was permanently wrecking my back to be here.

I don’t really have an answer for why I stay. I ran away once, that day in the ER, but when we crossed paths again at the bookstore I had this weird feeling that this was some sort of destiny, which I absolutely didn’t believe in until that moment. I watched her trying to take care of the stoner guy, trying to make him comfortable in spite of his burns. Here she was, this girl with more than her own share of problems, and she cared for and held this guy like he was the only person in the world. You rarely find that kind of caring, and never accompanied with a smile and a laugh that makes the world seem light. It’s amazing that her laugh seems so free and happy when I know that her reality is anything but.

She’s fighting really hard to change her life. She’s had a tough one, I’ll grant her that. And to still have a sense of humor after all that… well, it tells you something about a person.

Ok, I’ll admit that it’s not just her sense of humor and her caring. Yes, she has nice tits (and they look even better when she’s naked), but that’s not the reason why I’m here. I’m here because I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be. I don’t know how she feels about me. She might not even be interested, I don’t know. But I do know that, at the very least, I want to be friends with her. And when you want friendship even more than sex, that’s saying something. Not that I’d turn down a chance at sex, but that’s another story.

I helped her undress and take a bath today. It was all I could do not to crawl into the tub with her. She looked so innocent in there, arms floating in the water, hair drifting around her, and I just sat back and admired the view. If she felt any shame at being naked, she didn’t show it. On the other hand, she was probably too exhausted to truly care. She fell asleep in the tub, just for a few minutes, but long enough to be completely serene in the water. I wondered if she was dreaming. When she opened her eyes, she looked at me as though she fully expected me to be there, watching her in the bath water. She smiled dreamily and rested her head on the edge of the tub, enjoying that split second before the dizziness returned. It came back in a flash, and she asked me why I insisted on spinning her tub around. I thought she was hallucinating again, but she gave me a sly wink, and I knew she was kidding.

So back to the question at hand, the question I keep asking myself, the question that friends and family will all ask eventually: why am I here? The fact of the matter is that I really don’t know why I’m here. I just know that for now, this is where I feel like I should be.

I stopped reading and carefully placed the journal back in his backpack. I was glad to see that he was conflicted about being with me. Too little conflict, and he wouldn’t really be facing the reality of what he was going to have to deal with. Too much conflict and he would have run away by now.

I sighed and sunk into the couch, watching The Price is Right, the ultimate sick day television show. It’s just not the same without Rod Roddy and his frighteningly loud jackets, though.

Missy came home at noon. “What are you doing out of bed?” she asked in a voice that was intended to be stern. Oh, how cute. I didn’t know Missy could even do stern.

I looked around like I was watching for the keepers. “Shhh! They think I have a day pass!” She laughed. “How was your weekend?” I asked.

“You mean the part I didn’t spend holding a bedside vigil for you?”

“Yeah, the other part.”

“I spent some time with David last night. I figured it was ok since Nick was staying with you.”

“Good idea. How are things going with you two?”

“In all honesty…” she paused. “They’re really great. Too-good-to-be-true great. I keep wondering if I’m missing something obvious. Like the fact that he’s a serial killer or something?”

I thought for a minute. “Is he local, or is he going home for the holidays?”

“Sort of local,” she said. “He has his own apartment here, but his family isn’t here. He’s flying back for the weekend.”

“Ah, the true spirit of Christmas: fight the crowds, fly home and pick fights with family members who will be the source of all melancholy for the following days.”

“You’ve got it,” she said, laughing. She poured herself a glass of juice.

“You’re not supposed to drink that,” I said. “Too many calories, remember?”

She looked at the glass, then took a drink. “Calories be damned,” she said. Then she went back to the fridge to check out the nutrition info on the label. “Oh god,” she said, dumbfounded. “Do you know that this has 180 calories per serving? Damned evil juice people.”

“Oh my god,” I yelled, practically shooting myself off the couch. “The cat! Where’s the cat?”

“No, don’t worry. I’ve got her. She’s still hanging out in my room. The activity and trauma was too much for her to take.”

“You let the hairy beast into your room?” It seemed ridiculous to battle over a cat, especially one like this. “You do know that everything you own will be covered in long, white cat hair.”

“Yep, I know, but she was too upset to leave her in your room. I think she thought you had some really bad hairballs.” She paused for a moment. “What are you doing today?”

I pointed to the Punch Game on Price is Right. “This is everything on a sick day.”

“Uh-huh. Looks boring to me. Ok. Well, I need to go out and do some Christmas shopping. Do you need anything?” I said no; after all, who did I have to buy gifts for, other than her? She grabbed her purse and keys, gave me a kiss on my forehead and bounced out of the room.

I was alone again with Bob Barker. I felt like calling someone, but there was no one to call other than Nick, and I wasn’t going to call him while he’s on duty if it wasn’t an emergency. I thought about calling my sister, but I didn’t have her number at the office. She was careful to give me only selected access into her life. The last thing she wanted was for me to call and be disruptive.

I decided that I wanted to swim, but the condo pool was too far away, and I wasn’t sure if it was heated or not. I slowly climbed the spiral staircase, marveling at the vertigo I felt when walking on circular stairs and filled up the tub with warm water and a packet of fizzy bath crystals. I undressed, and examined my naked body while leaning against the sink for support. Nick was right. I do have nice breasts.

I eased myself into the water, turned on the whirlpool jets, and decided that this was better than any afternoon at the pool, regardless of the weather. All I really needed was a good book, but reading is never easy when you’re dizzy.

I don’t know how long I had been in there, but the water had gotten cold and I was drying myself off when I heard Nick come in. “Hello?” he called from downstairs.

“Up here!” I called back.

He wandered into my room and stood in the bathroom doorway. I wrapped myself in the towel. “Hungry?” he asked. “I brought pizza for dinner.”

I felt my stomach rumble. I wasn’t sure about food, but I was definitely hungry. “It wouldn’t happen to be from Vinnie’s, would it?”

“Of course it is,” he said. “Nothing but the best for you.”

“Give me a minute, I’ll be right down.”

I came downstairs, slowly, wearing a long, silky robe that Missy had left for me. My wet hair was combed back out of my face. I took my place on the couch and shivered from a chill.

“Come here,” Nick said, warpping his arms around me. “Feel better?”

I nodded. It always felt better when he was near.

He turned on the TV and found a silly movie starring Doris Day and Rock Hudson. He covered us both in his blanket, feet meeting in the middle. I realized that I must be easy to please, because pizza and a movie seemed like an ideal evening.

And as I sat there, I wondered if he was trying to take another look at my breasts. I hoped so.

Washed Away

I felt fine at work on Wednesday, although every thought and every twinge made me question if it was the early stages of withdrawal. By the end of the workday, I was starting to think that maybe I was ok after all. Maybe I would be one of those people who had an easy withdrawal period. It seemed possible to me. The evening was uneventful. I called and left a message for Nick, and went to bed early to read a magazine. I felt my eyelids getting heavy as I read, and eventually put the magazine aside and crawled under the covers.

Thursday was a repeat of Wednesday. I usually had the day off, but I switched shifts with one of the other regulars so she could go see her grandson’s school play. Again, I waited for hell to begin, but nothing had happened. I came home, watched some television, and after dozing off on the couch a few times, I opted for bed.

I awakened at 4am, soaked with sweat. I felt mildly nauseous, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I tried to fall asleep again, but the sleep was intermittent at best. By the time daylight crept through the window, I felt worse. But since it was my day off, I had the opportunity to stay in bed as long as I wanted. I tried to convince myself that it was just a coincidence, and I actually happened to catch the flu on the same week I stopped the meds.

I heard Missy’s door close as she went downstairs for breakfast. It was a fairly quiet week for her, with most of her finals finished and nothing but a paper left to write before the end of the semester. She went to the kitchen, and then came back upstairs. She must have noticed that I didn’t start the coffee yet. There was a quiet knock at the door. “Angela? Are you ok?”

I swallowed hard. “Yeah,” I yelled weakly. “I’m ok.”

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah.” She entered and approached my bed.

“Wow, what’s wrong?”

“Just trying to kick the meds,” I said, shaking under the blankets. “Really, I’m ok.”

She mumbled something that sounded like, “Uhhhnnnggh,” and reached out to take my temperature. “Wow, do you know how cold and sweaty you are?”

“I can guess,” I said.

“Give me your wrist?” She held out her hand and I handed my wrist to her. She looked at her watch and counted my pulse. She looked a little uptight. “Do you have Nick’s number around here anywhere?”

I nodded. “I tried to call him last night. His number is downstairs by the kitchen phone.”

She headed for the bedroom door. “Can I get you anything?” I shook my head and crawled down under the blankets again.

I heard her downstairs on the phone. “Nick? Hey, it’s Angela’s roommate, Missy? She’s in some bad shape?” There was a pause. “Yeah, she said that?” Another pause. “So what do I do for her?” Long pause. She mumbled something I couldn’t understand. Pause. “Ok, I’ll stick around, then? I heard the phone go back into its base, and could hear her pacing on the tile floor.

I decided that I should really go brush my teeth to get rid of the hideous metallic taste that had been taking over my mouth. I got about three steps from the bathroom door when I went down in a heap. I heard Missy running through the condo. She was standing over me in a heartbeat. “Where are you going?” she asked.

I tried to tell her about my teeth, but instead I started to cry. Since I had started on the meds, I had cried at most of the appropriate times, but often it was a shallow cry, tears streaming down my cheeks without the underlying emotion. This was a sobbing that came from deep inside me, tears that had been unlocked from the darkest recesses of my psyche. I couldn’t stop; I couldn’t breathe. I thought that my organs were being wrung dry. Missy tried to pick me up and drag me back to my bed, but I was dead weight, and she succeeded in doing little more than shifting my position.

I could feel my chest heaving with the effort of the tears. Missy, visibly scared, rubbed my back and tried to comfort me. “Shhh… it’s ok… shhh… don’t worry, it’s all right….” Her hands felt so small and distant through the sweat-soaked t-shirt that I had been sleeping in.

It seemed like hours before the tears tapered off. Missy stayed beside me through it all. I felt so drained that I could barely help her lift me back into bed. She went to the bathroom and got a cool washcloth for my forehead. I still quivered with an occasional sob, but I had no tears left; I was probably completely dehydrated. I lay motionless in bed, weak and dizzy.

“Do you feel better?” she asked. I couldn’t answer. I was shaking, and too tired to say anything. “Do you think you can sleep?” I nodded. She adjusted the washcloth on my forehead and told me she’d be back to check on me in a little bit. She left the bedroom door partially open and went downstairs. I heard her call Nick again, but this time she got his voicemail.

“Nick, it’s Missy. It’s been a bit of a scary morning. Her pulse is racing, she’s dizzy, and if there were awards for hysterical crying jags, she’d be an Olympian. I’m a little worried. What happens if she blacks out from hyperventilating?”

I noticed that she wasn’t up-talking anymore. I wondered if I’d scared her so badly that her entire speech pattern had changed.

I remember looking at the clock and seeing that it was just past 9:30. I closed my eyes and when I woke up again it was shortly after 10:00. What I didn’t immediately realize was that it was more than 12 hours later. I had slept through the entire day. I woke with a pounding headache, muscles that ached worse than any flu I had ever had, and the sense that something beneath my skin was crawling and trying to escape. I tried to sit up and reach for the light, but I was too dizzy and slumped limply onto the nightstand, knocking the lamp to the floor. Missy came running to the door.

“You’re awake!”

I couldn’t say anything. I just tried to pull myself off the nightstand. She came over and helped me back into bed.

“Are you thirsty?”

I thought about it for a moment, and nodded. I wasn’t sure that I could sit up to drink, or that I could keep anything down, but I did feel like I was completely dry. She ran downstairs and returned with a water bottle with a built-in straw. I sipped slowly, and the water felt startlingly wet on my tongue. I tried to swallow, but my throat was so dry that I actually choked. The ensuing coughing fit forced me to sit up, which only aggravated my dizziness and nausea. I started to gag, and Missy ran to grab a trash can in case I got sick. She sat on the bed with me and rubbed my back, telling me that everything was going to be all right. I wasn’t sure I believed her. Even her touch on my back hurt, but I let her do it because I needed the comforting. I took another sip of water, then another. My throat felt better, and I tried to speak in a hoarse whisper: “Why did I do this to myself?”

She whispered back. “Because you want to be better. You want to be strong and healthy.”

I laughed weakly. “This is the path to health? Feels like the path to hell.”

She smiled. “Nick says that the worst will be over by Sunday? But you’ll have lingering dizziness and nausea for a few weeks.”

I looked her in the eye. “Am I hallucinating, or are you not doing that up-talking thing anymore?”

She thought for a moment. “I guess not. I started doing it to piss off my parents. Somehow it automatically goes away when I have to be an adult.”

I closed my eyes and started to drift away. “I like you better as a grownup.”

“Me too,” she replied softly.

I slept through the night and straight through until noon on Saturday. When I woke, I found Nick sitting in a chair near my bed. I thought I was dreaming.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m on guard duty this afternoon while Missy works.”

I nodded. “Water,” I whispered, reaching my arm out from beneath the blankets. He handed me the bottle and I drank several gulps.

“I feel awful.”

“I warned you.” He pulled the chair close to my bed, and pushed my matted hair from my face. “It’s the hardest way to do it.”

“What day is it?”

“Saturday, around lunchtime. Missy called you in sick.”

“Hmm, she didn’t think I could work like this? Wonder why?” The room was swirling. “So when does the dizziness go away? And if you don’t have an answer, ask the guy next to you.”

“Yeah, you’re doing just about as well as could be expected. Hard part’s over, though. Symptoms will linger, but your skin won’t burn and crawl past today.”

“How did you know my skin was burning?”

He leaned in and winked. “I’m a professional.”

I stared at the ceiling for a moment, watching the world spin. “I have a killer headache. Can I have some Advil?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

I groaned. “When?”

“Next Tuesday.”

“Oh my god, no!”

“Ok, that was a bad joke. Sorry. But you really shouldn’t put anything else into your body right now. Except food.”

The thought of anything more than water made me sick. “No food yet. Please.”

“Ok, but you have to eat dinner tonight. No arguments.”

I closed my eyes and imagined myself on a boat, rocking with the current. When I was very young, I went fishing in the bay with a friend’s father and uncle. It was hot and the current was fairly strong, so the boat never really settled down. I remembered being afraid that the boat would tip over, leaving me alone in the water, far from shore. But of course, everything was fine, and we came back to shore with three big fish and four bad sunburns. My boat rocked and rocked in the summer heat, and I could hear the sounds of other motorboats in the distance.

I opened my eyes to see daylight streaming through the curtains. I had slept through the night. I felt slightly less dizzy and nauseous than I had before, and I managed to sit upright under my own power. Missy entered my room with a gentle knock. “Look at you! You’re not horizontal!”

“It’s the little things that mean a lot,” I said.

She handed me my sports bottle. “I made you a smoothie.”

“The powerboat,” I said, putting it all together.

She looked confused. “No, it’s a sports bottle. Are you still hallucinating?”

I laughed. “No! I was having a dream. There were powerboats. I think it was the blender.”

She looked relieved to know that I wasn’t confusing everyday items with boats. I held the bottle, comforted by it’s coolness. “Drink it,” she said.

I put the straw to my lips and tasted the most wonderful combination of fruits. “This is amazing,” I told her.

“It’s just frozen fruit. Nothing fancy.”

“Trust me, when you haven’t eaten, it’s something pretty close to heaven.”

“You look so much better,” she told me.

“I still feel weird, but compared to yesterday, this is easy.”

She fluffed my pillows and helped prop me up comfortably. “I have to leave for work in about 15 minutes. Nick’s on his way over here right now. You should have seen how he took care of you yesterday.” She smiled. “He’s a keeper if you want him.”

“We’ll see if he wants me after seeing me like this,” I said.

“He does.” She smiled knowingly, and skipped over to the bathroom to grab my hairbrush. “Here, use this. You want to look as good as you can after two days in bed.”

I pulled the brush through my hair, wincing as I did. My hair follicles hurt. I’d never felt anything like this before.

The doorbell rang, and she bounded down the stairs. “She’s awake,” I heard her say. “And drinking a smoothie.”

His head appeared in my doorway. “Knock-knock.”

“Come on in,” I said, suddenly very excited to see him. “Did you bring your friend?”

He looked at me strangely, then remembered my double-vision of the day before. “No, I’m hoping he stays away.”

“Me too,” I said. He sat on the bed and smiled at me. I felt like everything was going to be ok.

“Are you still dizzy?”

I nodded. “But I think I can stand up. I need a shower.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” he said forcefully.

“Why?”

“You haven’t stood up since Thursday. The combination of your weakness and the hot water could cause you to pass out.”

“Can I take a bath?”

“Only with supervision.”

I shot him a look of mock horror. “Nick! Are you trying to make a pass at a patient?”

“Not at all,” he said sarcastically. “However, since I have had dinner with you, the parameters have changed slightly.”

He filled the tub, came back to help me out of bed and walked me to the bathroom. I stood still while he gently undressed me, and helped me ease into the warm water. He sat on the edge of the tub and gazed at me admiringly while I let the water surround me, healing my pain and washing away my sins.

Dizzy, nauseous, weak, and with three days’ worth of bed head, I managed to land myself a guy.

Set Me Free

Nick came over Tuesday night after I got home from work. He brought a bag filled with all kinds of cutting tools, large and small to remove my cast from my left arm. We spent a few minutes in the bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub, hacking through the plaster and setting my arm free. When he took the cast off, I was horrified by how pale and withered my arm looked – imagine the wrinkly white skin that occurs beneath a Band-Aid, and then multiply that effect to cover your entire arm below your elbow. It was pretty foul. I immediately took my wrinkled arm to the sink and gave it a good washing for the first time in weeks. The warm water felt good on the freshly-released skin.

My wrist had become incredibly stiff from being held in one place, and it hurt to move it. Nick pulled a flexible elastic brace from his bag and told me to wear that for additional support if it was too uncomfortable. I stuck the brace into my pocket and spent the rest of the night with my arm on a heating pad like an old arthritic woman, wriggling my wrist in circles, trying to overcome the stiffness and regain motion.

As was the plan for the evening, we decided to make use of the extraordinary television and surround sound setup to watch a movie. Missy was out for dinner with David, her graduate student teaching assistant that she had hooked up with at the party a few nights before, so we weren’t interfering with her plans by being in the living room. I still wasn’t comfortable calling the place my own, especially when she was around. I still felt like I was just a visitor in her home, and I rarely came out of my room without an invitation.

I had told Nick that I wanted to watch something funny and silly, and he brought “This is Spinal Tap” with him for our viewing pleasure. “There’s such a fine line between clever and stupid.” You can’t help but laugh at them, especially when they’re taking themselves so seriously.

When the movie ended, I slipped the DVD back into its case. I had been debating all night, and I finally decided to tell Nick about my plans.

“Can I talk to you about something?” I asked.

“Anything. Of course you can.” He leaned forward with such a look of sincerity. I wanted to just hug him and make him swear that he would stand by me through all the rough spots in life.

“I’ve made some decisions,” I said. “They’re decisions about my medications.”

He looked a bit concerned, and understandably so. “What kinds of decisions?”

“I don’t want to take them anymore.”

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He rattled off a handful of meds that I took. “And also Luvox,” I said. “Don’t forget the Luvox.”

“Do you understand the significance of what you’re doing?”

“Yes.”

”Do you realize that you could be sick as a dog for up to…” he did some math. “You could be sick as a dog for up to three weeks, and still not be fully normal for a month after that. And once you’re ‘normal’, how do you know that the depression won’t get you? It’s a huge risk.”

“I don’t know for sure,” I said. “I won’t know for sure. But I do know that I hate medicating myself. I want to get away from that. I want to feel again. I want to laugh and feel it deep inside me. I want to cry.”

“And I can appreciate that. I can. But I have some serious worries about what can happen when you come off even one of those medications, but all of them…” his voice trailed away. “All of them at once?”

“Yes,” I said. “I want my body to know what it feels like to be clean. Why go through six different phases of withdrawal? It’s like getting rid of your wisdom teeth: you can do them one at a time, or four at once. I prefer four so I don’t ever have to do it again.”

“As your friend, I understand. As a medical professional, I really have to advise against it.”

I was crushed. I wanted him to say he was proud of me for trying to be strong. I wanted him to say he would stand beside me and support me through this. There were a lot of things I wanted to hear. “I advise against it” was not one of them.

I curled into a tiny ball on the couch, pillow clutched to my belly, crushed by his lack of sympathy. I wanted him to leave. “If you’re not with me, you’re against me,” I said bitterly, meaning every word.

“That’s not true. I’m with you.”

“No, you’re not. I thought for a moment, and then stood. “I think it’s time for you to go home now.” He stood slowly and casually strolled through the condo for the front door.

“Listen to me,” he said. “I’m always there for you. You know that. He kissed me on the cheek and left his cell phone number on the table. “I think you’ll need it. Call me.” He started to walk away, and stopped. “Please tell Missy. She needs to know, in case something bad happens.”

I closed and locked the door behind him, and went straight to my room. I slept fitfully that night, constantly awakening to street noises or the sound of my cat purring like a motorcycle in my ear.

The next morning, before work, I lined them up very carefully on the counter, one pill after another, until they formed a line of tiny pharmaceutical soldiers. They seemed so inert when they sat there, which seemed like a startling contrast to the power they secretly held inside. Reaching forward with my right hand, I began to flick them, one by one, in the direction of the toilet. Ping! Ping! Sploosh! Ping! Ping! There were far more misses than hits, and I knelt on the floor, reaching behind the toilet for one that had bounced wildly, feeling the cold porcelain against my bare shoulder. I counted the remaining pills in her hand, one by one. Sixteen. I thought about lining them up again, but I’d grown bored with that game. I opted for dropping them into the toilet, one by one, just to watch them dissolve. I wondered how long it would take for each to break down in plain water, knowing that the process would be infinitely faster in the acidic environment of the stomach.

I watched the various colors release and melt in the toilet, colored patches on a white porcelain base. With a flush, they were gone, just a memory that may or may not have ever existed in reality. And what, exactly, is reality, especially when you’re that medicated? With a flick of the handle, the water swirled in and the pills were gone.

Now all that was left was the fear of the withdrawal. There was nothing that could be done but watch and wait. I left a note for Missy – “Stopped taking meds. Nick fears withdrawal symptoms. If I get sick, you’ll know why” – and went to work.

Ashes to Ashes

Missy was out at class and I was home alone. I was reading the newspaper and listening to a new radio station that advertised itself as “a classic mix of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and today”. Why not just say, “we couldn’t settle on a format, so we’ll play whatever we can get our hands on”? Elvis led to the White Stripes, which led awkwardly to Luther Vandross, and then to The Doors.

The opening chords of “Riders on the Storm” caught my attention, with the synthesized raindrops in the background. I always loved Jim Morrison. All my life I felt like his lyrics were so powerful, as though they spoke to me through time and disatance. It probably had something to do with our shared depression and tendency towards self-medication with alcohol and street drugs. He was only 27 when he died in Paris. I always wondered if I would make it that long. Looking back now, I felt so happy to know that I had kicked those bad habits. Ok, I had transferred my addictions and need for medication from street drugs to prescriptions, which were only slightly safer, but at least I knew what to expect from them. I could probably go on like this forever. The question was whether I wanted to. I lacked highs and lows. Even when I laughed I felt like I only experienced the laughter superficially, not deep in my soul like I once did. I wanted to overcome that. I didn’t want to be the morose, brooding poet type. I made a decision to fight that tendency as much as possible.

The next song was Erasure, “Oh l’Amour”. I hopped up off the couch and tried to dance around in some 80s-inspired reverie, but it just didn’t work. There were dead Palestinians staring at me from the newspaper, fears of terrorist plots, international crises about AIDS and other incurable diseases. It just didn’t feel right to be dancing and enjoying myself when there were so many problems in the world. I slumped back to the couch. I hated this feeling.

I went to the kitchen where Missy had set up a small desk with paper, pens, pencils, markers… anything that you might need to be creative at a moment’s notice. I started to write.

I was never the kind to keep a journal, but the psychologist, who I don’t trust at all, suggested that this might be a good idea to help me face and get in touch with my thoughts. She said it nearly two years ago, so I don’t know why on earth I’m even considering trying it now. Yet here I am, willing to give it a try.

I’m feeling dark today. I should be in a fabulous mood because I had a great date with Nick last night, but I’m not. I came home singing, and Missy thought that I was so happy. I guess I sounded like it. It’s strange. It’s like my body still struggles to be happy even when my soul doesn’t want to cooperate and feel the joy. Do other people feel this way?

I’ve stopped cutting my fingertips with the knife. Mostly it’s because I live here now, and I’m deathly afraid of getting blood on the white carpets. Whatever it takes, I suppose. But the knife has been in the drawer since I moved in. I've stopped wearing bandages on nearly every fingertip.

I think I was 14 when I first thought about killing myself. I wonder if everyone thinks about that at 14, about what the world would be like without them. Would I be missed? Would anyone even notice if I was gone? I spent amazing amounts of time plotting how I would do it, when and where. What was better, carbon monoxide or slitting my wrists? Should I poison myself with arsenic or take a bottle of pills? Do I get a gun, or walk in front of a bus? I think that I was saved in the end by the dizzying array of choices and my inability to make a decision. That’s the irony of a good severe depression. You lack the energy to follow through on any of your disturbing, morbid thoughts. Or maybe, deep beneath it all, I just wanted to see what would happen next, like an overstimulated child who's crying on the outside, but hates the thought of falling asleep and missing something.

I stopped the street drugs, all but alcohol, when my shrink put me on the cocktail of meds. Prozac, Luvox, Lithium… I’m not entirely sure that half of my problems today aren’t caused by interactions of the meds. Each is scary in its own right. Put them together, and you have to wonder if you’re really the person you think you are. I feel like some kind of a robot controlled by pharmaceutical companies; my brain is not my own. I want to be free, but I’m more afraid than you could imagine. Cutting myself off could cause more problems than I’m prepared to deal with. I would need to have a strong support system to pull this off, and with the half-lives of these drugs, it could take as much as two weeks to be clean enough to not have to fear withdrawal symptoms. Damn. I’m really afraid of this.

I don’t know if anything will come of this thing with Nick. I like him. God knows I like him a lot. Clinically speaking, he knows what he’s getting into more than any guy I’ve ever met. He knows what to expect. He knows that I’m unstable. He knows about the baby. He knows that I have a crappy minimum-wage job and no college degree. But he also knows that I want more out of life, and that has to count for something, right? Besides, I’m still 24. I’m entitled to still be sort of fucked up about stuff. If I was 30 and still a mess, that would be different.

God, what if I’m still like this at 30? I need to really start thinking about the future. The baby taught me that much, and for that I am forever grateful. I want to be a good mother someday. Before that, though, I need to kick the meds and learn to stand on my own two feet. And it would also help to know the father. God, that’s embarrassing. I can’t believe that I got pregnant from a nameless one-night-stand. If there was ever a situation that gave you a shot in the ass to get your life on track, this would have to be a pretty dramatic example of it.

I wanted to cry for that baby, a baby that wasn’t conceived in love and didn’t find a suitable host to carry it to term. How much worse of a situation can you envision? Someday I will do better, and I will do it to honor the memory of the child that I lost. Yes, I know that I would have aborted it if I hadn’t miscarried, but I had already lost it to the prescription drugs. I believe that’s why it didn’t make it; the toxins in my body were too much for it to handle.

I have to accept that this is my life. It’s not a dress rehearsal for opening night’s performance. I’m not a teenager anymore, and it’s time that I came to accept the fact that I can’t spend my life waiting for something to happen. This is it. Think about that for a second. I have to start living in the moment, looking for the good things, and trying to make something of myself. It’s not going to be easy; nothing worthwhile ever is. But it’s worth fighting for. It's the most important thing I've never done.

I’ve always hesitated to get involved with people. Friends, lovers, family… they’ve all been kept at arm’s length while I tried to live my life on my own. My relationships have always been so poor, and I never wanted to admit to myself that it mattered. I never wanted to face the fact that I was with the wrong person. It’s easier to be alone by choice than to be lonely in the arms of a lover.

It’s 3:15pm. It’s time. It’s time to take my life into my own hands. It’s time to be strong, to be my own empowered woman, to be myself. What does that mean? I have no idea, but I’m going to do my best to figure it out. It’s a little early for a new year’s resolution, but I’m going to give it a shot. Make a plan and stick to it. School starts on January 24. I have a little more than a month to pull myself together. Breathe deeply. Think about what you want. You’re standing at the cliff. You can either walk back down the way you came, or you can take a flying leap into the unknown. What’s it going to be?

I looked at the pages of scribbled notes, half-illegible with my terrible handwriting. I ripped them from the legal pad, folded them in half, and thought for a moment. I needed a symbol of change. What could I do to make this real?

I went to the kitchen to put the notebook and pencil away, and found my idea. I took a candle from the kitchen table and placed it in the sink. Then, as though I were in a Catholic church, I made a wish and lit the candle. I took the five pages of yellow legal paper, covered in my scrawled writing, and set the corner on fire. I watched the flames engulf the words. I dropped the last piece into the sink just before it singed my hand. The embers glowed brightly around the edges, still alive with fire and heat. I watched until the last one stopped glowing. I extinguished the candle, moved it back to its place on the kitchen table and whispered “ashes to ashes”. My words had been sent to the universe in wispy curls of smoke. I was committed to making a change. I would take two days to plan my attack. My new life would commence on Wednesday.

Breathe deeply. Feel the air. Stars exploded, the universe expanded and through some miracle, here we all were today. I felt a glimmer of hope deep inside me, as though the stardust was trying to break through to the surface.

That's Amore

The restaurant was decorated in a combination of Christmas and Italian kitsch. White lights and garland hung from the ceiling. The tablecloths were red and white checkerboard. The walls were adorned with posters of Lamborghinis and maps of Sicily. The tables were accented with chianti bottles and plastic grapes. The employees all had heavy accents and yelled at each other in Italian in the kitchen while Dean Martin sang “That’s Amore” to set the mood. I loved it.

We ordered a large cheese and pepperoni, and an order of garlic bread to start. I was pleased to hear him order a Coke instead of wine or beer. I didn’t want to feel pressured to drink tonight. I ordered the same.

He told me that working on the ambulance, he knew of every exceptional hole-in-the-wall eatery in the city. If you ever needed to know of a good, cheap place to eat, ask an EMT or a cop. They knew all the best places. In addition to this place, he told me about a taco stand on the south side of the city that was so popular, cops would come in from other precincts to eat there; a burger joint about three blocks over that served them smothered in fried onions; and a deli that made sandwiches so large, you could easily take home half or more for lunch the next day. I wondered how I had managed to live in the city for so long without discovering any of these places. Then I remembered that I was too poor to eat out, although my cash position was slowly improving with my new lower rent. It didn’t seem possible that I could live someplace that was so dramatically nicer, yet be paying less per month. I was waiting for it all to come crashing down. It had to. Things couldn’t possibly be this good.

The pizza came and it was to die for, the perfect blend of sauce, cheese and meat on a thin crust. I made a mental note that I would be coming back here someday.

We talked as we ate, and he seemed very interested in my return to school.

“What do you think you’ll be majoring in?” he asked.

I had to chew before answering. “Honestly, I don’t know yet,” I said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been in an academic environment, and I think I want to try several things before deciding on any one.”

“Like what?” He slid another slice of pizza onto my plate before serving himself.

“Well, I liked to write when I was in school. I don’t know if I’m any good, though.”

“You won’t know until you try,” he said, signaling the waitress for a refill on our Cokes.

“True, but of course writing is so deeply personal that it’s hard to build up the courage to expose yourself to that sort of criticism. Because it’s not the work they’re criticizing. It’s you. It’s the way you view and experience the world.”

“But you can’t take it so personally.”

“I know I shouldn’t, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a writer who isn’t fundamentally insecure about what they write. What will people think, they wonder? It controls every word that comes from their mind. They're putting their soul on the page.”

He thought for a moment. “That’s really interesting,” he said. “I wouldn’t have seen it that way.”

“Maybe it’s just me,” I said. “But I don’t think so. Even though math or physics might be more intellectually demanding, writing is the most emotionally challenging major.”

He stopped me. “Not necessarily. Medicine, nursing… these are professions that are emotionally challenging.”

“True,” I said. “You’re dealing with very emotional situations every day. But those are externally emotional, dealing with other people's health and feelings. It's about stepping outside yourself and connecting with others. Writing is about dealing with your inner emotions – your demons, your insecurities, your hopes and fears – every day of the week, and putting them on display for others to see and judge.”

“Interesting. So you think you want to be a writer?”

“No,” I laughed. “The more I talk about it, the more I think I want to be something where emotion doesn’t come into play at all. Like an accountant.”

“Please don’t take offense,” he said, “but you would make a lousy accountant.”

“Why?”

“You’re too creative. The numbers would be too rigid for you.”

The waitress came to clear our plates. The momentary break led us down a new conversational path.

“Tell me about your family,” I said.

He thought for a moment. “I don’t know what to tell you, really. My parents are still together, married for 32 years. I have a sister who’s two years older, and she’s married with a son.”

“The boy you were buying the book for?”

“Yep, that’s the one. Joshua. Josh. He’s a great kid. I learn a lot from him.”

“Does your sister live nearby?”

“On the north side of town, near the park. It’s good, because I get to see Josh a lot. I’m his favorite uncle.” He paused. “Of course, I’m his only uncle. But he hasn't realized that yet."

“And he’s your favorite only nephew, of course.”

"Of course. We're a match made in heaven."

He talked at length about growing up not far from here in a neighborhood that was later leveled for an urban redevelopment project. The new houses are beautiful, with none of the problems that the old neighborhood faced, but they lack a certain charm that the old places had. His parents met graduation night. She was a friend of a friend who attended a nearby school and had come to the graduation party. They talked for hours on the patio and were married less than three months later on Labor Day weekend. His sister made her grand entrance into this world the following Christmas Eve, and he was born two and a half years later in the summer of 1976, just shortly before the big Bicentennial celebration. I did some quick math to realize that he was four years older than I was. Not a bad age difference.

He went to community college right out of high school, got his LPN degree, and while he loved medicine and helping people, he hated being confined indoors with sick people all day long. He decided to parlay his medical knowledge into a career that got him out of hospitals and out into the fresh air. He had been working on the ambulance for almost five years now, and was perfectly happy to continue doing it for as long as his back held out. It was usually a bad back that forced you to find a different line of work. He was one of the more senior members of the crew, so he got to pick some of the better shifts and avoid the overnights where you dealt primarily with DUI accidents, bar fights and late-night domestic violence.

I liked to listen to him talk. He was a good storyteller, and by the end of his memoir, I felt as though I had known his friends, family and coworkers for years.

He looked at his watch. “It’s nearly midnight. What do you say to me taking you home? I hate to cut the night short, but regardless of whether I got here late or not, I still have to start work at 6am.”

“Hurry up, then! Let’s get moving! The last thing I want is to have a fatigued medical professional out on the roads in the morning. Come on!” I grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him out the door towards the car. He laughed, took my hand and pulled me closer to him. He put his left hand on my face and gave me a quick, gentle kiss. I felt my legs turn rubbery.

We drove back to my place in silence. He pulled up outside the building and I thanked him for a lovely, albeit short evening. I leaned in to give him a peck on the cheek, still not sure what to make of the kiss outside Vinnie’s. He turned his head so my lips met his. I was secretly pleased. When I pulled away, he asked if he could see me again. I suggested that perhaps he should have my phone number for next time, and I gave it to him.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ve already got a plan for next time.”

“Oh yeah? What?”

“How about I give you an early Christmas present?” He paused for effect. “Why don’t I cut your cast off for you?”

“How did you know I wasn’t planning on going back to the doctor?” I laughed.

“I could just tell. It’s been seven weeks; you could have had it removed at six. And I didn’t want you to be stuck with that thing on until you were old and gray.”

“Yeah, but it’s handy in the city,” I said, trying to sound serious. “It can be a very good weapon.”

“You’re just going to have to carry a gun like all the rest of the ladies,” he said, jokingly.

"Hmm, me with a gun. Does that frighten you as much as it frightens me?"

"You're probably right," he laughed.

I caught a glimpse of the dashboard clock. “It’s getting later and later. You have to go!” I kissed him quickly and hopped out of the car. I rode up in the elevator singing to myself. “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore….”