Category Archives: Writing

Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Printable version… Creative Running PDF

“Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.” It was the cadence of his breathing, more prominent, in his head at least, than even the sound of his Nike’s hitting the pavement. As for the pattern, it was the letter “U” in Morse Code. He’d looked it up once. Beyond that, he didn’t know why and didn’t care – just one more idiosyncrasy among many he’d long ago given up trying to understand.

“It was unseasonably cold that morning, not yet 5 AM, running in the dark slowly up the hill to Grey Rock. He’d remembered to take his baseball cap, but not his gloves, and now the occasional rubbing of his hands together was breaking his stri…”

“Heh, heh, whooo.”

“Jesus, I’ve even starting thinking like I’m writing. That’s got to be an early, maybe not so early sign of mental illness,” he thought to himself, which turned out to be the point of it all. He was a good twenty pounds overweight, but the shape he was in or out of had nothing to do with why he ran.

“It’s my time to think. Just me, daydreaming to the rhythm of my breathing and the sound of the street, enjoying the contrast between running by the occasional street light and then through the pitch black tunnels under the leaves of the trees between them. I like it. I can’t sleep more than four or five hours at a time, anyway. Why not run? I get some of my best ideas when I’m running, especially in the early morning. It’s the nice thing about living in the suburbs. No cars, no pedestrians, not this early. Just me and the noise of some insects I don’t ever want to see, doing whatever they do in the bushes and trees between the houses.”

“Speaking of running, there goes my nose. There,” he paused for a moment to breathe in through his nose, “I’ll just suck it up. …Gross. Thank goodness there’s no one else…”

“Good morning.”

“Hi. Hi, uh,” he stammered his response, surprised by the really attractive thirty-something blond who ran past him, not a foot away to his side, coming in the other direction out of the darkness ahead of him. “Crap. The one really good looking jogger in the entire neighborhood and she passes me when I’m snorting. Perfect. That’s what she’ll remember about me for the rest of her life. Every time anyone around her so much as sniffs, she’ll think about me, the guy with the runny nose and no Kleenex. Precisely the impression I’ve always wanted to make on hot women I meet. Who knows? Maybe she finds vulgar personal behavior strangely compelling. Not a bad trait for one of my characters, maybe a stunning, drop dead beautiful woman with no apparent interest in personal hygiene.”

“Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.”

“Hey!” A car turning off one of the side streets just missed him, cutting its turn too fast and too close to the curb as he approached the corner, somehow failing to see the light ban he wore on his right wrist. “Paperboy, my ass. Whatever happened to kids delivering the paper rolled up in the baskets on slow moving Schwinns, meandering down the streets, trying their best to lead their customers’ paths and front porches just perfectly, too cute for anyone to complain when they didn’t. …There, I’m doing it again. ‘Doctor, doctor, give me the news. I’ve got a bad case of…’”

“Bacon?! Wow, smell that bacon. Someone’s up early making breakfast,” he wondered, looking around for the source, as if he’d stop by for directions and maybe invite himself in. “God, I love the smell of bacon. I don’t see any lights. Must be a kitchen in the back of one of these houses with a vent running over the stove. Two eggs over easy. Four, maybe five hundred milligrams of cholesterol. Some chopped potatoes grilled in a fry pan. Just what I need.”

“Actually, what I need is to get back to work. Let’s see… ..Hey, what’s that? Hey! It’s uh.. yeah, it’s a naked woman running, running badly, more like flailing down the middle of the street! There!! Just ahead under the street lamps at the corner. She’s crying so much I can’t make out what she’s screaming. I’ve got to help her. I’ll speed up. Oh, man, she’s fallen down… ..No, no. Too sexual. Gratuitous nudity. Exciting, but no substitute for quality writing. On the other hand,” never wanting to forget a good gimmick, “the idea could come in handy one day.”

“Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.” Unexpectedly, our runner looks up toward the sound of deep throated exhaust coming fast down the middle of the street, the throbbing of its speakers confirming an SUV from somewhere else.

“Asshole!!” one of the young men from the SUV shouted out the window at him when it drove by, uncomfortably close to where he was running, just a couple of feet from the curb.”

Turning quickly for what he was certain would be an unheard act of defiance, “That’s ‘Mr. Asshole,’ you jerk!”

“Who gave them,” he muttered between breaths, feeling like they’d picked on him and gotten away with it, “the right to interrupt my personal time? …Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo. …Can’t they see I’m working?”

“Unfortunately, the next thing he heard was the squealing of tires doing a fast one eighty behind him. They were coming back, this time with two of them hanging out the driver’s side windows closest to where he was running, driving on the wrong side, his side of the street.”

“Looking over his shoulder, he had a choice: Show them he wasn’t afraid, which would have been faking it, or run off the street between the houses, maybe look for some people who might be up to pound on their door. Figuring this was no time to pretend to be cool, and without anyone around to impress, he picked up speed and headed for the curb, thinking he should turn off his wrist ban in case they stopped and chased after him.”

“Probably just some teenagers who’ve had a few too many beers,” he said to himself, doing his best to rationalize away the fear he wasn’t accustomed to feeling. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Hey!” he heard someone shout from the car, “Eat this, ‘Mr. Asshole.’!! ..POP. POP, POP!”

“It was the sound of something he’d never even written about, the sound of something he’d only heard in the movies and on TV, and not at all what he expected. For a second, he didn’t even understand why he was falling to the sidewalk, ricocheting off a tree at the curb, thinking he had tripped, not feeling any pain or other sensation that would have told him the awful truth, that that popping sound might be the last he’d ever.. ..hear.”

“Nahhh. Way too dramatic. Heh, heh, whooo. Heh, heh, whooo.”

-wf

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Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Friday, September 12, 2008
Printable version… Dialogue PDF

“God, I love Sunday mornings. …Richard?”

“What?”

“Could you at least not read the paper until we get there? You can’t walk and unfold the paper at the same time. You’re just smooshing it all up. You know I like it crisp, the way it was when we bought it.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll wait.”

“Com’on. What’s not to enjoy? …Watch it, that guy’s turning. Let’s wait for the light.”

“I’m waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For the light. You just asked me to wait for the light, didn’t you?”

“Could you get back on the curb?”

“But I like the idea of being married to a taller woman. ..Com’on. We have 24 seconds to cross the street.”

“It’s perfect. We sleep late, slop on some clothes, pick up the paper, and take as much time as we want reading it cover to cover over some fresh coffee and a toasted bagel with extra-saturated fat, mmmm, mmm declicious walnut cream cheese. …Life is good.”

“Hm.”

“Richard, you promised.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll put it away, but you’re getting breakfast.”

“Deal. Now hold my hand and pretend like we actually enjoy hanging out together. It’s the one day we both have off. …There, isn’t that better?”

“You just want to remind your friends that we’re the only marriage they know that isn’t on the rocks, and that’s just because, in four years, we’ve only spent one day a week together. What’s that, 108 days, roughly three months? No wonder we’re still happy.”

“208 days. Four times 52 is 208. Seven months.”

“Whatever. Technically, we’re still newlyweds. At this rate our marriage could last forever.”

“But we have great sex, don’t we?”

“Confirming my theory that it’s best if only one of us is awake at a time. …I need to write a paper on that.”

“Hey, any time you want to move to the suburbs, we can both stop working 12 hour days.”

“What, and not eat out every meal?”

“We could save some money. That would be… Brenda!”

“Jesus, stop waiving. She’ll want to join us.”

“Try smiling. She’s got a morning session with her trainer, and please don’t say anything. I already know what you’re thinking.”

“I am trying to smile. This is the best I can do.”

“Alright, kill the smile. You’re beginning to scare people.”

“There, the table on the end. The one by the ficus with the squirrel pooping in the pot.”

“How do you know it’s a ficus?”

“I don’t. It’s the only potted tree name I know. Besides, I like the way it sounds. ‘Ficus.’ If we ever have children, I want to name it ‘Ficus.’”

“It? …Would you mind if we took this chair? …Thanks.”

“Boy. Girl. Who cares? Ficus is one of those names, like ‘Dana,” that works either way. .Have you got money?”

“I do. It’s in my sock. …Don’t ask.”

“I won’t.”

“I’m too young for a fanny pack.”

“Did you notice, I didn’t ask. Just make sure my croissant is perfect. And make sure, actually tell him not to slice it. I like tearing my croissants apart.”

“I’m going.”

“I mean it! Don’t take it if he.. slices it. She can’t hear me. I’m just talking to myself.”

“Hey, Richard.”

“Oh, hey, Brenda. You don’t mind if I don’t get up, do you? Lisa insisted that we walk, and I’m exhausted.”

“Richard, you only live 8 minutes from here.”

“Well, it seemed like 10. Besides, if I stop reading, I’ll forget where I was and have to start over again.”

“Aren’t those the comics?”

“This one has more words than usual.”

“Your chair’s wobbling.”

“True, but it’s wobbling less than the other chairs. …Lisa’s inside getting food.”

“No, I’m right here. There was no one in line. Serge actually seemed glad to see me. Hi, honey.”

“I thought I was ‘honey’.”

“No, you’re ‘sweet cheeks’. I’ll make you name tag when I get back. Brenda and I need to chat for a second. I’ll be right back.”

“You really think my cheeks are sweet?”

“ Read the paper.”

“I thought we were going to read the.. paper together. Apparently not.”

“You were right.”

“That was quick. Right about what?”

“About Jeffrey. Hand me the ‘Arts & Leisure’ section.”

“Who’s ‘Jeffrey’? Here.”

“Her trainer. I think he’s 12, but Brenda says he has the maturity of a 15 year old. …Oh my God! I can’t believe you dog eared one of the pages. Have you learned nothing living with me??”

“Just read the review of Bob’s play. You can thank me later.”

“Richard, there’s a pigeon on the table.”

“None of my friends are pigeons. It must be one of yours.”

“Do I have poppy seeds in my teeth?’

“No.”

“Richard, put the paper down and tell me if I have poppy seeds in my teeth.”

“No, but your teeth seem unusually large today.”

“By the way, I meant to tell you…”

“Tell me what?”

“Hey, will you try not to dip the corner of the paper in my cream cheese the next time you turn the page. It has the perfect number of walnuts.”

“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”

“No. …I’m expecting.”

“Hm.”

“I said, ‘I’m expecting…”

“Expecting what?”

“…a ficus.”

“We’ll put it on the balcony. It’ll be fine. …Did you take the financial section?”

“Richard?”

“Hm.”

“Richard?!!”

“What?!”

“We don’t have a balcony.”

-wf

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Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Printable version… Precocious PDF

“My name is John Stansfield. I’m an agricultural microbiologist for a consulting firm. The name of the company isn’t important. They had nothing to do with what I’m about to describe. Besides, by now whatever personal records I kept at the office have removed or altered to fool any investigation. These people don’t erase any evidence of your existence. That’s way too hard, too suspicious. Better to leave you out there, stripped of your credibility. By now, my life has been tweaked, altered with finesse just enough to make anything I say here seem plausibly unbelievable, at most the ramblings of an over-active imagination. They have taken from me the fraction of my life that made me special. It was hardly anything, but everything that made me unique. It is the proverbial telltale partial fingerprint proving their involvement, that I have become extraordinarily ordinary, of no particular interest to anyone. The records I have, but they don’t know about, are quite probably the last surviving evidence that what I am about to tell you is true. I fear for my life. Even more, I fear that what I have done, however innocent and well meaning, will be left to prove in horrible retrospect that my story was authentic, and the danger all too real.”

“It’s late. If you care, I’m working in the dark, except for the glow of my screen, in the upstairs bedroom of one the kids of an acquaintance who’s on vacation. I overheard him leaving his house key with his secretary to take care of his plants, and made a copy while she went out for lunch. He doesn’t know I’m here, and I borrowed a friend’s car in case they were tracking mine. No one followed me. I should be okay for the next few hours – time enough to write this, get some sleep, and be up and out of here early, before any of the neighbors notice. I’m afraid to use my cell phone, and these people don’t have a land line. It sounds corny, I know, but I’ll give you instructions later for how you can reach me by running a personals add on-line. …I’m talking too much. I’m so tired, but I’ve got to get this out.”

“My particular specialty is protecting agricultural products from exposure to environmental and biological elements which, when those agricultural products are consumed, would cause harm to the public.”

“I’m not much of a writer, but I’ll do my best to explain what’s happened, and then I’m going to go. This will be an e-mail addressed to the Editors-in-Chief of the major television news networks and most prominent newspapers. Hopefully, one of you will take me seriously, investigate on the odd chance that I’m not a crackpot, and do something about it. I can’t, and don’t think I’ll live long enough even if I could. At best, you’ll staff it out, if it even makes it to your desk. At most, you might do your duty and forward it to the local office of the FBI who will give it casual study until it’s too late. At worst, these notes will be one more inconspicuous item for the nice Hispanic lady who empties your trash after you’ve gone home for the day. With luck, you’ll never realize how many lives you could have saved had you only paid attention.”

“Some months ago, I was approached by someone who identified herself – verbally and with written credentials which I verified with her agency – as Rebecca Kloonz, a senior analyst with Homeland Security, an almost too attractive blonde, as stunning as she was friendly, the consummate professional you couldn’t get out of your head no matter how hard you tried. What I did, to be honest, I did for my country, but pleasing her was certainly part of it.”

“When I first met her, she was accompanied by a suit claiming to be a lawyer with the same agency. I’ll attach copies of the business cards they gave me. Although I now know they are imposters, both of them checked out when we first met. I called Homeland Security, and there used to be a handful of citations on Google, and a My Space page, but they’re gone now. Kloontz, the analyst, was to be my contact. The lawyer – the suit that came with her after I agreed to cooperate – was supposedly there to explain a handful of forms and agreements I had to sign related to federal secrecy statutes.”

“The gist of what they wanted was to hire me, outside of our company, to participate in what amounted to a game in the war against terrorism. My job was to devise and precisely document three to five means by which terrorists could infect the food supply so as to produce the most widespread, most frightening harm to our people, with devastating effects on the economy. One simple example that she gave me, far less sophisticated and effective than what she knew I could propose, was to introduce Mad Cow’s Disease in multiple herds around the country, destroying the American beef industry and all the various related companies whose products derive from that core ingredient. But MCD was too obvious. What they wanted from me were techniques that would kill as many people as possible, quickly, before the root cause could be determined, and for which there would be no obvious or convenient solution.”

“Other experts, as unknown to me as I would be to them, would then be tasked to devise means of protecting against these threats that I had devised, and recovering from such an attack. In later games, our roles would be reversed. It was the patriotic thing for me to do. It’s unbelievable, but I even met with Ms. Kloonz at her offices in the Homeland Security building in Washington. Why wouldn’t I believe her? While I was there, some senior gentlemen stopped by to thank me for agreeing to work with them on behalf of the American people would never appreciate the value of my efforts and that of other scientists like me. Who knows what he thought I was there to do? Was he in on it, or not? God forgive me, but who wouldn’t have thought this was real?”

“Attached to this e-mail are copies of the three suggestions I made, including detailed formulas, instructions for manufacturing, and plans for distribution. Their insidious effectiveness never disgusted me. Their cleverness made me proud of what I could do for my country, but then they counted on that, didn’t they, that I would be so highly motivated to do the right thing.”

Of the three proposals I made to Kloonz, the one in which she seemed to be most interested wa… Hold on. I think there’s a car pulling up in the driveway. Jesus, it’s after 1 AM and Jack isn’t due home until next week. Hold on… It’s just one man. F**k, he’s working the front door. He’s coming in. I’m going to e-mail this now and send you the attachments later, as soon as I…”

“Hi, honey.” His mother gave her smiling husband a quick kiss on the lips, and turned to shout upstairs to her favorite (and only) son. “Nelson! Com’on. Daddy’s home. I’ve got dinner ready to go. Get your sister and come on down. We’ve still go to pack so we can get an early start tomorrow morning.”

“Nuts,” Nelson thought to himself, interrupting his typing to press on the center of his frames, pushing his glasses up this nose which, sadly, would eventually be large enough to no longer need his assistance.

“He’s not packed yet?” his father asked, putting down his briefcase on top of their cat he hadn’t noticed was sitting in his favorite family room chair.” You’d have thought Jack, the cat, would have screamed, but then he was used to it, and looked forward to their leaving him home for a week of peace and quiet. “What’s he been doing all day?”

“Writing. I don’t know. I haven’t packed either.” And then she laughed, not wanting to make fun of their son, but unable to help herself. “He’s been grumbling that he has less than three weeks to come up with a really cool nickname.”

“It’s summertime. Why isn’t he busy with his dorky friends inventing something?”

“Hey, they’re not that dorky,” his older sister, Samantha, always protective of her younger brother, had just come around the corner into the kitchen. “He’s just a kid – a really, really smart kid with an overly active imagination. He’ll be okay as soon as he starts Middle School after we get back.”

“Nelson!!!” His mother couldn’t stand not serving dinner when it was ready.

The cringe was a reflex he couldn’t suppress. Still upstairs, standing up from his desk, Nelson moved the arrow “Send/Receive” and pressed the left key below his synapse pad. “Maybe it’ll make the news,” he said out loud. “That would be cool.”

“NELSON.” This time it was his father calling him. “Sam, please go get your brother.”

“Nelson Metcalf Rogerson. Jesus, what were they thinking?” he muttered under his breath, closing the lid of his laptop on his way to the door. “I’m never going to get a girl to go out with me. Never, ever.”

-wf

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Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
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Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Saturday, April 12, 2008

“Hey.”  Robert Brent, EVP for Media Operations, looked up from his desk at the man standing in the doorway to his office.  Gesturing quickly with his the pen in his right hand, “Come on in.  …Just give me a second to finish this,” he went back to writing unintelligible notes on the single sheet of white paper in the only clear space he had left on his desk.

Finished, for now, he looked up.  Sitting on the edge of one of the two guest chairs was the rumpled Management Associate he used for everything.  Not yet 30, Will would never make the pages of GQ.  Other than not looking good in a suit, there wasn’t much he couldn’t do.  He was a natural, a person executives like Brent used, but also respected, a rare combination given the intense in-company competition that was the world of their business.  More to the point, Will was good, really good, but without the experience to be a threat to his mentor.  Some day probably, but not yet.

“Here’s the transcript I told you about.”  Will sat up slightly, leaning forward to hand a copy across the desk.  “It’s less than 20 minutes old.”

Charles:           “I thought you weren’t working late tonight.”

 Will sat there, already familiar with the text, while Robert read it for himself, out loud.  Charles was brash, sometimes hard to take, but the most effective media buyer they had.

Adriana:          “ I’m working on tomorrow’s presentation.  Leave me alone.”

Charles:           “You could always delete my e-mail address.”

Adriana:          “I didn’t think I had any choice.”

Charles:           “You don’t, not if you want to keep your precious reputation intact.”

Adriana:          “Stop it.  I don’t want to have this conversation on-line.”

Charles:           “They watch our e-mail.  IM is live.  We’re okay.”

Robert looked up.  “I thought he was right.  How’d you get this?”

“It’s the new kid in IT.  The one we picked up on work release from “juvi.”  There’s nothing he can’t do.”

“Hm.  That’s scary.  Can we trust him?”

“Are you kidding?  We don’t even understand him.  Our only hope is that he likes us.”

“Great,” and Robert looked down again at the transcript, mumbling almost to himself, “Find out what he wants and make sure he gets some.”

Adriana:         (No response.)

She’d been there almost a year.  Just three years since her MBA.  Very competitive.  Attractive, but not so much as to be distracting.  Hard working, and obviously smart, there was something Robert didn’t trust about her, an insincerity he felt, but couldn’t confirm.  She’d have to get past Charles to make any real progress, but didn’t have the contacts in the media, and was relegated to handling buys in the smaller markets.

Charles:           “I’ve got another friend I’d like you to meet.”

Adriana:          “Screw you, and I hope they are listening.”

Charles:          “You did great.  We’d never have gotten that pricing without you.”

Adriana:          “That just happened, you jerk.   I actually liked the guy.  So it helped the company.  Good, but it’s not something I’m doing on a regular basis.”

Charles:          “You’ll do whatever I tell you to do.”

Adriana:           (Pause.)  “What makes you think I won’t print and drop this on Brent’s desk in the morning?”

Charles:          “Because we’ll both be fired.  Because by the time Will gets done spreading the word, you’ll be lucky to find work waiting tables in Sioux Falls.”

Adriana:         “Up yours.  I’m going home.  Stay away from me, or I’m calling a lawyer, whatever it costs me.”

“Is that all there was?”  Robert was hoping for more.

“That was it.”

“Are we sure it’s real?”

“They were both in their offices, on their computers when I walked by a few minutes ago.  Besides, neither of them would know how to fake their IP addresses, or have a reason to write this if they knew we were listening.”

Robert wasn’t so sure.  You could tell the way he looked away from Will, turning and then tilting his head slightly from side to side, and did that small thing with his lips.

“ …So what do you want to do?  We’ll lose clients, not to mention Board support for your expansion strategy if we’re slapped with an harassment suit and it makes the paper.”

“I’ll call San Francisco.  There’s an opening there.  It’ll be a promotion for her, and Hastings owes me one.  As for Charles, I don’t want him to know we have this.  Let’s see what he does next.”

“Good night, guys.”  It was Adriana, coat over her arm, the weight of her heavy leather briefcase forcing the one shoulder higher than the other.  “See you tomorrow.”

Will, turning in his chair, raised his eyebrows, his way of saying, “Hi.”

Brent went out of his way to be pleasant.  “Thanks for staying.  Good luck with the presentation.”  And was that.

Fourteen minutes and a short taxi ride later, she kicked the door to her apartment closed with the heel of her shoe.  “Hey, how’d it go?”  Dropping her coat and briefcase onto the hardwood, she wasted no time unbuttoning her blouse, kicking off the comfortable business heels she’d been wearing that day without breaking her stride.

The kid on work release, his red floppy hair in disarray, looked up from the copy of Maxim he’d picked up from the newsstand on the corner.  “I’m guessing they’ll be recommending you for the opening in San Francisco as soon as they open in the morning.”

“And Charles?”

“He hasn’t a clue.”

-wf

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Copyright as of the title date or earlier, by me.
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Short Fiction for Guests of the WordFeeder
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Printable version… Birmingham Airport PDF

“Excuse me,” I said apologetically to the young man standing behind me.  “I try not to run people over with my briefcase, but sometimes…”

“It’s okay,” he said, glancing down and then back up again at a similar model he had next to him.  “I hope you have insurance?”  He was kidding of course, and went back to checking his Blackberry.  In his early 30s, tie still tight around his collar, the sleeves of his stylish, mostly blue striped shirt still rolled down to his wrists, his suit jacket neatly folded over one of his arms, he had to be new at this.

I was second, he was third in the crowded line at the miscellaneous foods stand that served the cul de sac of gates at the end of the “C” terminal.  Pizza on one end, plastic wrapped sandwiches and bottled drinks in the middle, frozen yogurt behind the cash register on the right.  The other side was a bar for suits who had given up on doing any more business for the rest of the day.  I couldn’t blame them.

My flight was running a few minutes late.  I figured a frozen yogurt would be my only shot at something to eat before I’d be home after 10.  How bad could it be?  I took out five ones which should have been enough.  I was ready, not wanting to waste any time when it was my turn.

“Hi.  I’d like a cup of…” which is all I said before looking down from the menu to the face of the clerk behind the counter.  If there was a smile that could arrest speech, and make really bad food taste good, it was hers.

“Hey,” she answered my interrupted order without the least evidence she understood the power of that face.  She was black, late 20s maybe, with the perfect color skin and electric eyes I couldn’t escape.

I tried again.  “I’d like a small cup of vanilla.  Do you have anything to put on it?”  It’d been a rough day.  I thought I splurge, do myself a favor.

“Sure.  We have, uh, chocolate sauce and M&Ms,” she said tentatively.

“I’ll have the chocolate.”  I heard myself talking, but wasn’t sure I’d said it out loud.

She smiled back at me, this time almost giggling.  “Sorry, but we’re out of chocolate.”

“Hey,” I thought to myself.  “She had a fifty-fifty shot of my never knowing, and went for it.”

“Wait,” seeing the feigned disappointment on my face, the not so subtle roll of my eyes.  “Let me see what I can do,” at which she turned, actually spun is more like it, squished out my yogurt from the vanilla side of the machine, and attacked the hot fudge dispenser, pumping furiously.  “Here.  How’s that?” she asked me, holding out the cup to me, her arm fully extended with pride.

“That’s…”  There were a few unsightly globs of thick brown something on top of the yogurt which, incidentally, I just noticed was an odd color gold.  “…perfect.”

“$3.78.”

I gave her the first four ones, which she accepted and counted by spreading them with her left hand while her right moved to the register, but then stopped, pulling out the third bill and waving it at me.

It was a ten I had stuck in my wallet out of place.  “Ooo,” a not so clever response, but all I could come up with at the time.  So I took back the ten and handed her the other one, and she gave me some change, which I was purposely slow to take.  “Thanks,” I told her, “for everything,” which is what I wanted to say, but didn’t.

Not so as to hold up the line, I just rolled and stuffed the money in my pocket with the receipt, figuring I would get organized on the plane when the guy sitting in front of me leaned his seat so far back I couldn’t open my computer.  (My office can’t stand it when I give them wrinkled receipts, but what do they know?)  “Excuse me,” I said again to the man in line behind me, who had started to move forward just a second before I left.  Yogurt in one hand, the handle to my briefcase in the other, a walked and rolled it away to the counter where they had napkins and the plastic spoons used only at the finest snack bars.

Fortunately in some respects, unfortunately in others, it would be an hour and a half later, at 37,000 feet that I would realize I’d lost my wallet, and taste for frozen yogurt.

About the same time, in a hotel room near the airport where the young woman had just arrived, she tossed the light jacket she was wearing onto the first of the two double beds even before the door had closed behind her.  “Hey.  Sorry I’m late.”  She bent over to kiss the man who had been in line behind me before waiting for him to answer.

“Pretty good,” he told her, grabbing her cotton shirt to pull her toward him, rolling back onto the other bed where he had been sitting, the two of them just missing the wallets he had dumped from his briefcase, mine included.

“Hey,” she said, pushing herself off his chest, flashing that familiar smile.  “Let’s get out of here and buy stuff before all these guys start landing.  We can do this later.”

-wf

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