Despertar

gone, fishing

Oh, shut up already about how you don't write fiction in your journal. A journal is the perfect place, sometimes the only place, in which to make sense of your internal dialogue, and to capture the little half-formed thoughts and impressions that don't belong anywhere else. Unless everything you've ever written is a perfectly formed, self-contained masterpiece needing no measure of polishing whatsoever (in which case, congratulations, when do you hear back from Random House?), chances are your fiction often falls into the latter category, and more rightly belongs among the rest of your musings, where at least it has context and isn't just a convoluted piece of standalone trash.

This doesn't apply to everyone who opted out of the prompt, which, by the way, not everyone did, and those who didn't did a great job, actually. I enjoyed the stories. With regard to those who chose not to write fiction, all you had to do was not write fiction, or, if you absolutely had to issue a principle statement, "I don't write fiction in my journal" would have sufficed. No need to remind the interface-savvy community that static items are available should they feel the need to write something a little less redundant than another inarticulate diary entry.

Just shut up.

But also, ignore me. I'm mostly grumpy because I can tell, from the heinous behindness of most or all of the current Follow the Leader contestants, that I'm going to be swamped with two-paragraph, last-minute entries at the end. Either that, or I'm going to have to break one of my principles and award the wins to people who wouldn't otherwise deserve it, just because they finished and no one else did.

While I'm whining, I would also like to say I find invisible entries irksome. No dockage of points, but I do grumble about them.

*

there are colleen and colby, my roommates, both redheads, one naturally so. colleen is a physical trainer by profession, and a fitness freak in general. she logs her calories in a tiny leather notebook and does twenty laps around our building before her shower each morning. colby eats whatever she wants and has the curves of a goddess. they smell like fruit and vanilla, respectively.

colleen and i once did a tae bo video together and wound up kissing on her workout mat.

colby makes it a point to introduce me to all her boyfriends, but never asks what i think of them.

before they were roommates, they were friends, but they aren't anymore. they claim they can't be both, and hint that i am largely responsible, even though i was last to move in.

-

blue sends every text twice, "to make sure it went through." today she wants to meet for lunch at a cafe in dupont circle, "and/or" dinner at the most overpriced restaurant in chinatown. the messages come in a flood when my train emerges from a tunnel, each pair more frantic than the last, because i haven't answered. first she wants to know about lunch, then comes the and/or equivocation. next she takes it back, about chinatown, because she's just remembered how much i hate that place's shrunken wontons. seventh and eighth are an offer, would i like to pick the place instead, row of smiley faces, question mark.

ninth and tenth are random and affectionate, and arrive as i am stepping off of the union station underground platform, onto the escalator that will carry me up into a world where blue does not exist.

-

there's grace, who shared my mailbox at work for a while. fortuitous administrative mistake, double-booking us that way; i didn't complain, because of her breasts, her waist-length whitish hair. for two weeks i was religious about checking my mail three times a day, toolishly hoping to surprise her from behind, make her jump and giggle. she eventually complained, i think. in any case, human resources caught wind and banished me to the row of boxes furthest from grace's.

jennifer answers phones in the cubicle adjacent to mine. mid-thirties, divorced mom to a toddler she doesn't like very much. there are many faces to her moods, and you learn, through extended neighborly contact, when to be friendly, when to just steer clear. i ignore her completely on days when she wears her hair pulled back. if the morning has handled her so roughly she hasn't had the time to blow dry, no good will come of my asking her, again, for the network password.

margot is my boss. my primary duty under her charge is to disregard the stretchmarks that peep from her collar like clawmarks, battle scars from her ongoing fight with the tiger of age.

-

there are emails from blue, three of them unopened. a forward containing pictures of a newborn whose parents i should remember, but don't. a rundown of blue's "awful thursday night," which, even after multiple readings, does not sound especially awful. an "overdue" apology for a fight i'd forgotten we had, and which seems even more illogical now that the details have faded. she ends her correspondences clumsily, inserting "i love you" in place of each salutation. she says it and says it and says it.

i dash off a quick, all-encompassing response and leave my desk to peek in on jennifer. her black hair is sleek and flowing; her smile is genuine as she chatters into her headset. a good day. "coffee?" i mouth, miming the act of pouring her a cup.

she nods, still chattering, and begins gathering things into her purse. we are famous for taking midmorning breaks we haven't earned yet. we are well-known to the 8th street baristas, who never dime us out to margot when she comes in for her lunctime red eye.

-

elizabeth has been working here since my first visit, and hasn't gotten any better at making a latte. she seems to be dating the manager, but that doesn't stop her from winking when she offers me extra whipped cream.

elle and io are the new girls. hot and hotter. io has silver studs in her left nostril and along the lengths of both ears, and barely discernible ridges beneath her apron to suggest nipple rings. the icy pink gloss on her lips doesn't quite disguise their blackish tinge, just as her flowery body splash can't overpower the distinctive smell of green.

before elle and io, there were, in their places, a black girl named china and an asian girl named kenya. both were fired for blazing on the clock.

io cannot be long for this job, which makes me feel better about slipping her my card when i pay for the latte.

-

blue is late, like always. ironically, she always insists traveling half an hour from the burbs to meet me is "no problem."

i nurse a mimosa and wait. i can see my office from the window by my table. i vow to leave if blue doesn't show or call in five minutes. i renew this deadline twice. fourteen minutes in, she calls.

-

paris, geneva, sydney, cheyenne. i met them in bars, and bars remain the anchor of our affiliation. whenever i am asked to "call up some girls," i call paris, who shepherds the others. they are amazing dancers, horrific poker players. with the exception of cheyenne, not one has ever been to her namesake city. geneva and sydney were unaware they were named for cities at all, till i told them so.

paris has the name of every person she's ever fucked tattooed onto some part of her body. michael on the nape of her neck. khalid on her lower back. ariana in a half circle to one side of her navel. et cetera. she claims this ritual causes her to think twice before choosing a new partner. my name is on her inner thigh, in black.

geneva is stupid beyond reason or excuse, which is alternately endearing and annoying. she saves every emptied liquor bottle, and lines them up, like trophies, along the bookshelves in her apartment. her eyes are as translucent and blue as a skyy vodka bottle, and every sip from such reminds her to ask me, again, why i'm still dating the same girl.

sydney and cheyenne cannot manage two beers without dissolving into tears about, usually, men.

-

the second half of the workday sucks, as always. i have lost another account, which screws my bonus. i have lost the network password, which will cost me points with jennifer. i have lost paris's phone number, which puts a damper on my post-dinner plans.

blue calls to thank me for lunch, and her voice is very, very sweet, but she paid for lunch, to make up for her lateness, and there is an inherent ridiculousness in her thanking me for eating a free sandwich.

as she is murmuring, i realize that if i can't find paris's number in time, i might invite colleen and colby out tonight, instead. balancing my phone against my shoulder, i draft an email disclosing the name and address of the bar.

blue drops a less-than-subtle reminder about dinner in chinatown.

i ask for a raincheck.

-

melanie called rainchecks do-overs, as in, i'm still at work and i don't know if i can get to the restaurant by seven, can we have a do-over? or, i know we were supposed to go to the movies tonight, but i have friends in town, do-over? the answer was yes, of course, always yes, because to say no, to begrudge her those intrusions on our time together, could mean another week or maybe two of phone contact only. she was unerringly punctual, never late anywhere, but she always left early, always expected someplace else.

she had male roommates, a pair of brothers, both of them shy. we tried, unsuccessfully, to set them up with my roommates, our half-joking joint attempt at coming to terms with each other's cohabitation scenarios. i trusted melanie, she trusted me, but it was hardly ideal, her living with a pair of opposite-sex singles, and i figured she felt the same way. she had no reason to worry. i hardly noticed colleen or colby existed till after melanie was gone.

she was so beautiful it killed me, her dusky skin, that vivid hair. walking down sunbright streets, i would always note the way the scenery around her bled into vague watercolor versions of itself, negligible blurs of trees and women that may as well have been painted onto the buildings behind them.

she smelled like honey. the one time she ever called me at work, we fought so loudly over something so stupid, margot invented an off-site errand for me, just to grant me an afternoon off. walking toward union station, i called melanie to ask for a do-over in the truest sense of the word.

no dice.

-

blue is sitting cross-legged in the hallway by my apartment, visibly waiting for my arrival. "i know! i know," she says, jumping to her feet, anticipating my surprise. "i know you don't have time to get dinner, i know."

i receive her kiss and the embrace that follows, a squeeze so tight you'd think it had been months, not hours. she's washed her hair since lunchtime; it looks staticky and smells like vitamins. "what are you doing here, then?" i ask, i hope not insensitively. i hesitate with the key, knowing if i go inside, she'll follow, and not leave, and that my plans for the night will be shot all to hell.

"i was kind of in the neighborhood," she says, glancing expectantly down at the doorknob. "since we're not getting dinner, i'm eating at paul's."

"paul's? nice." paul is the harry to blue's sally, the card she plays whenever she suspects i am taking her for granted. paul is chubby and sexless and not a threat. "tell paul i said hey."

"i will," she says. she looks down at the key again. "okay," she says. "okay. well, i--okay. i'll be home probably around eleven. you'll call, right?"

"i'll try," i promise.

she flinches. "i love you," she says, rising onto her toes to peck my cheek.

"yep," i reply. "you too."

she smiles. "okay. call me."

my jaw twitches. "i will," i say, and grab at the nearest scrap of humor. "and maybe you'll answer, if you're not too busy with paul."

she laughs out loud and squeezes me around the middle. "shut up!" she squeals delightedly. "you know better, about paul." she pulls back and holds me at arm's length. "it's all you, you're all i think about. you're the only guy i even notice. just like you, you know."

"right," i finish for her. "like i only think about you." i disentangle myself and plunge the key into the hole, but don't turn it.

"okay," she says, giggling still. "i'm going. but--"

"yes," i say, watching her walk backward toward the elevator. "yes, blue. i'll call."

*

It's not about fishing, but it's fiction, which sounds like fishing.