On Monday after work, I pulled over and stopped at the junction of Highway 13 and Pike's Creek to admire the effects of spring run-off.  The ditches, running with melted glass, smelled like childhood and captured sunlight.  Heat poked at my neck and bare ankles.  The soil unearthed at the side of the road sprawled like women caught sun-bathing naked on the beach.  At the bottom of Salmo Hill, the creek was pooling, rising up and flooding the marshland so it looked like a swamp straight out of the Everglades.  I sympathized with the trees that were being choked by the water.  I wanted to wade in and wrap my arms around a stout oak, feel the swirl of water graze my legs as it rushed by, curious about the tangibility of what it felt like to be left behind.
    I kissed Tony.  On Saturday, after I left Harvey during dinner, I went over to Tony's house and practically threw myself at him as if he were a glove and I were a fastball.  He let me grope his body clumsily.  I suppose he knew that I would need to feel for myself the impossibility of us.  His muscles were carved and motionless, and kissing him was as futile as waiting for a stone bird to take off into the air. 

When I asked Harvey, part of me actually wanted him to say it was because of money.  Then his justification would be in concrete terms, which could easily be argued.  He would be making a lot of money--I heard him mention to some neighbors once that in four years his student loans would be taken care of.  I can't hope to taste the sweetness of leveled debt for several decades, at the rate I'm going.  He didn't directly blame finances, however, when I cornered him.  He laughed and whipped out something abstract: "I didn't really feel like I had a lot of options."   He sounded regretful, and I wondered why that surprised me.  I had never asked him to explain his decision before.  Maybe it was to protect him from having to defend himself against my accusing tongue.  How could I blame him when I hadn't been in his life at the time he'd enlisted?  It seemed beyond our control, as if fate had cast her spell and was piloting us around.  We were two kids on a playdate, dreading the moment when his parents would come and take him away. 
    We were eating spaghetti when I set down my fork and said, "I can't do this."
    Harvey looked up at me, his normally sanguine face turning grave. 
    "If you're really leaving," I said.  "Then I'm leaving first."  I walked to the door in a fury, and when I opened it, the birds scattered from their feeding spots as if they had been caught doing something bad.  There was no sound of movement behind me, and without looking back I got in my car and drove to Tony's.

It's spring and everywhere there's wetness.  To equip myself for a hike in the woods I find myself stripping down, preparing to swim.  The earth is soft and treacherous--a terrain rigged with spongey organs of humus ans slippery chutes down steep ravine banks.  Buds have appeared on the tips of branches, as sudden and overwhelming as my first acne attack.  Birches are shedding tubes of bark like pale ladies loosening their corsets.  Snow is shrinking away from the base of trees, as if the flora, remembering its eminent place in the woods, has reclaimed the land by manifest destiny:  "We were here first.  And here we will remain, long after you dissolve."
   
    I went for a walk, on this Saturday afternoon, to clear my head.  I'm trying to remind myself that there will be life after Harvey.  He is leaving, and there are no alternatives.  The thing is, though, that he reads to me.  When it's late and we're too excited about life to watch a movie, we crawl into bed and he removes the bookmark, which holds our place in the story while we are at work and dealing with the things that we purport to care about.  His voice caters to the characters while his hand combs my hair, and his cracked heels, peeping out from the holes in his socks, blink at me like a voyeur trying to find out what love is.

"Please draw me another caterpillar."
    Christopher jerked his head left and then right.  He is as stubborn and particular as a fragile car that refuses to start.  All he had to do was draw six caterpillars, but he was ostensibly getting more pleasure out of denying me what I was asking than he ever could from actually accomplishing the task.
    "Please," I said.  My day started off poor before I even got to the school and found out that I would be subbing in the special education room.  Harvey checked his email on his phone and found a message from his commanding officer, asking if he had the gumption to leave a few days early, on Friday, so he could be in Florida for a weekend of training and preparation, before the flight out of the States on Monday.  Friday was exactly one week away.
    "Please," I said again.  "We need five more caterpillars, and then we'll be done with the assignment.  Five more and you can pick out a puzzle."
    Christopher picked up his pencil and, pretending it was a plane, flipped it through the air with accompanying zoom zoom noises.  "I drew one already!  And he's sad.  He couldn't find any food."
    "Can you draw me a happy one that found food?" I asked.
    He turned to me and nodded.  Putting his pencil to the paper, he drew me a sloppy but beautiful caterpillar complete with a smile.  
    "Gorgeous.  How about another sad one?"
    He drew a sad caterpillar and then two more happy ones.
    "Can you draw me one last caterpillar?"  I asked, crossing my fingers behind my back, hoping the spell would not be broken.  "Don't tell me what he's feeling.  I'm going to close my eyes and when I open them I will guess what his emotion is."
    Christopher delighted at the game, and motioned me to come close so he could whisper in my ear.  When I was near enough, he cupped his little hand around his mouth and said, "It's going to be nervous.  And don't forget it."
  

The morning sun was laying chiaroscuro puzzle work on the remaining spring snow.  Folds of gray and black knocked against the shafts of brilliant yellow breaking light.  I was stretching, looking out the window.  It was early and I'd  checked my phone, wishing for a missed call from the school that would tell me there was work for me.  There was no call, and I was not needed.
    I looked over at Harvey, sleeping soundly in bed, his head cocked to the side, like a lifeless bird.  I smiled and went downstairs to boil water and heat the frying pan for some eggs.  The smell of aged butter being re-heated would waken Harvey and lead him to the kitchen. 
    Sure enough, as I was lifting the lid from the eggs, Harvey appeared.  He put his arms around my waist and sniffed the air emphatically.
    "Ready for breakfast?"  I asked.
    "Am I ready to eat?  That must be a rhetorical question.  But I have to pee first, since you wouldn't let me last night."  He laughed and, letting go, made his way to the bathroom.
    When we were eating the eggs and bacon, I asked what he had meant about me not letting him use the bathroom.
    "I sat up and tried leaving the bed and you grabbed me.  Your grip was vicelike.  You don't remember?  I thought you were going to snap my ribs into splinters."
   "I did not."
   "Yes.  And you said, 'If you leave you're not allowed back in bed.'"
    "You're making this up," I said, incredulous.
   He shook his head and smiled.  He looked very sincere.  "You did."
    "You feel pretty good about yourself, don't you?  Loved and needed.  I hope it boosted your already bloated ego."
   He laughed and shook his head, as if he were being wrongfully accused. 
   "Eat your eggs," I said.  I was embarrassed, but mostly hurt. 
    Harvey put his hand on my arm.  "It was cute," he said.
    "That makes it so much worse," I said.  What I meant was that there were times when it felt appropriate to yell at Harvey, to tell him that he was causing me pain, and that we needed to talk about things.  But instead, I found myself acting like some sort of helpless toy, trying to make myself appear impossible to forget and leave behind.
  

There was an hour left to the school day, and as anxious as I was to get home, part of me was aching for some bite of triumph, a wash of success that would make me feel as if I had accomplished something that day.  I was feeling defeated, trampeled over, as mangled as a body trodden on by a thousand hooves.  When Harvey is around, my need to feel productive disappears as quietly as a deep shadow being cleared by a pass of clouds.  The darkness of worry that pulls at me while I work in the school is pardoned and cast away immediately in his presence.  At the same time, I am thrilled by the feeling of stress; it is my motivation, my impetus for feeling like I matter in the world.  If I spent all my days in bed with Harvey, I fear that I would wake up one day and wonder if I was important.  Of course, Harvey thinks so.  But would I think so?  And is it vain to want to feel as if you make a difference, or is that desire an evolved trait which encourages us to help others?
    "I don't care," Lisa said.  She had her head down on the table and was staring off at the wall.  She looked as if she was about to go in for some kind of surgery--placid from an over secretion of nerves, helpless, and defenseless.  "It doesn't even matter.  Mr. S. doesn't care if I fail or not."
    I sighed.  We had been working on the same worksheet for over an hour.  And so far, we had only managed to solve two of the forty-six problems.  And the assignment was due the next day.
   "It does matter," I said.  "Math is important."
    She snorted.  "No, it's not."
    "Your education is important.  And we all want to see you succeed."
    "Yeah right.  Nobody cares."
    I picked up her worksheet and walked over to the scanner.  I made a copy and brought it over to the table.  Then I found another pencil and sharpened it.  I sat back down.  She was still facing the wall, with her head on the table, but her eyes had followed me around the room.  "You don't care,"  I said.  "But the rest of us do.  Most of all, me.  And since you have to do the homework, I'm going to do it too."
  She lifted her head from the table.  "Can we just do this tomorrow?"
  "It's due tomorrow.  And we're going to do it now.  I'm supposed to be leaving at four, in an hour, but if we make it through five more problems by then, I'm going to stay and work on this with you until we finish it.  Okay?"
   "Why?"
   "Because that's what I want to do." 
   She rolled her eyes.  I picked up my pencil and pointed at the problem we had stalled at.  "Read this for me."
   And Lo and Behold, she read it.  We got through seven problems in the hour, but even if we had only gotten through one I would have stayed.  I had made up my mind to stay late, and that's what I was going to do, even if she walked out and left me to work on the assignment without her.  I don't feel that kind of tenacity everyday, but at school I take advantage of it when I feel the obstinacy overwhelm me.  We only got through twenty-five problems of the forty, but it was more work than Lisa had done in the last month.  And when I got home and collapsed on the bed, I felt needed and pleased.

Within two weeks my license for substitute teaching came in the mail.  I immediately notified the school district, and they put my name on the list of people to call.  It had been Harvey's idea that I try substitute teaching.  He took me up to the school to apply.  When we walked out of the building, the sun was out and little streams of melted snow were racing down the pavement.  At the bottom of the stairs was a deep puddle that I didn't see, and I stepped into it, soaking my tennis shoes and socks.  I laughed.  Harvey apologized for not alerting me to the obstacle.  I shook my head.  "It feels good," I said.  "Spring is wet.  Now I can literally feel that it's on its way."
    "Yeah, time goes by fast."  Harvey looked away.  We hadn't been talking about his leaving, although I did admit that I wasn't going to be heading out of the area any time soon. 
    I touched him on the arm and smiled.  "This temporary gig at the school is perfect for me.  I'm really grateful that you thought of it and helped me follow through."
   He smiled halfheartedly.  We got into his car and went back to my house.  We made dinner and turned on a Quentin Tarantino movie.  We held each other on the couch, paying about as much attention to Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece as a student absorbed in thoughts does to a teacher.

"You lied?  Again?"  Tony squinted at me, his eyebrows fighting for a position in the center of his forehead.  I looked away from him at the empty tables.  The coffee shop crowd was thinning.  Tony's exclamations had echoed loudly in the near vacant place, and the publicity of his accusations made me squirm.
    "I didn't exactly lie to Harvey.  I really did apply for teaching programs which would eventually get me certified and into education.  But I didn't qualify.  I have to take a bunch of tests, and they aren't going to be offered again until fall, after the programs have already started."
    "So you take the tests and apply next year.  There's nothing wrong with that."
    "Everything's wrong with that."  Hadn't he been listening to me?  "Harvey's leaving soon, and I have nowhere to go and no job.  I have nothing."
    Tony blinked, trying to think of something to say.  I ached for his sympathy.  I wanted him to nod and say that he was sorry for me.  Instead, I knew he was hoping that some positive side of the situation would come to his mind.  He was uncomfortable under the weight of my commiserating. I couldn't blame him; my mood was suffocating our talk like a candle snuffer.  He opened his mouth, and I could tell he was about to change the subject.
    "He's leaving me," I said.  "And I've left him so many times, there's nothing I can do."

Tony agreed to meet me at the coffee shop after work, but he was late.  While I waited for him, I began to grow nervous.  I'm not sure what for.  My book wasn't holding my attention; it was more like a placemat for my thoughts than anything.  I hadn't talked to Tony in weeks, and my nonexistent attempts at communication tugged at my guilt organ, causing my stomach to start cramping.
    When I saw Tony, however, and he was beaming, a rush of relief flooded my senses, and after standing up and giving him a big hug, I felt as if nothing had changed since we'd first begun our friendship.  "Hey, stranger!" he said.
    We were tipsy on caffeine by the time we started talking about things that mattered.  I marveled at how different my relationship with Tony was in comparison to my relationship with Harvey.  Harvey and I conversed about the future or politics.  Tony and I discussed the obscene color of the mustard on his sandwich and the implications that a condiment of that shade might have on his digestive track.  Often with Tony I wished that there were an easy segway into the matters that needed to be discussed, the issues that were lining everything we were saying with a thin but prickly coating that scraped at the insides of our mouths each time we chose to bring up another meaningless topic.
    At some point I couldn't take it any longer, and I blurted, "I'm sorry."
   "For what?"
   "For not calling or texting you or trying to get in touch with you.  We haven't talked in weeks, and I feel completely responsible."
    Tony reached up and started fingering his hair.  He looked away and then back at me.  It was hard for him to look at me for some reason.  "It is what it is."
    "I'm so sorry.  But you seem so good now!  You seem so, I don't know, happy."
    He smiled.  Then he nodded.  "I met someone."
    "I figured," I said.  I couldn't stop smiling.  "Me too.  Sort of."
    "I thought you said you were leaving.  Going into teaching."
    My eyes started stinging as suddenly as if mustard gas had been secreted into the air.  I swallowed.  "Tony, I don't know what to do."

The days leading up to Harvey's return were simultaneously empty and full.  I was floating along like thin cloud cover, refusing to emit the sun and also withholding rain.  My parents didn't know he was coming home, and on Friday my mom sat me down and admitted that she was worried about me.  "You've seemed really depressed lately."  I felt myself nodding, and I wanted to contradict her and set her right, but I realized that I did feel depressed. Within minutes, she was listening to me explain the text I'd received and my confusion, my worry that he might not actually come back.  The time and distance between wherever he was now, having the intention of returning, and the image of him at our front door was a world of difference.  And if he did come back, what then?  Could I, would I, should I jump into his arms like a cat begging to never be locked outside again?  Maybe his appearance would dissolve all of the ardent feelings I had since discovered.
    Mom sighed.  "That's a predicament," she said and came over onto the couch to massage my neck.
   
Sunday came and went without a word from Harvey.  I despaired.  My days following continued in bed.  My arms felt sticky because I was sweating a lot at night and not changing my clothes.  My sweatpants smelled like a basement.  My phone was never farther than an arm's reach from me, and  I was constantly opening Harvey's text message that said the date he was planning on being back in town.  I touched his words with my finger, drawing a figure-eight over them, for minutes at a time.

I was dreaming fitfully that I had flipped a kayak and was struggling to right it, while water crept into my lungs.  Up above me, at the lake's surface, someone was banging on the bottom of my boat.  "I'm not okay," I tried to say, but my mouth only swallowed more water.  The pounding continued, growing louder, until I realized it was the front door.  I woke up, throwing the covers off me, and flew down the stairs.
    Nobody was at the door.  I opened it and ran into the cold.  Harvey was walking away, down the driveway, back toward his house.  "Hey," I cried.  The wind was biting at me through my cotton pants, as I tore down the walk and threw myself at him.
    His arms were already crushing me, when he said, "Slow down, Little Lady, I'm not going anywhere." 
    I felt my heart collapse like a cardboard box being flattened, and I hesitated, searching for the right thing to say.   When nothing came out, I grabbed his hand and led him inside.
   
    "I'm going into teaching," I said, when we were on the couch and the cat was curled up safely between us like some sort of parenting proxy.  "I've applied to graduate school, and now I'm just waiting to hear back." 
    Harvey was grinning.  "Kids are going to fight to be in your classroom."
    "Thanks," I said.  "What about you: what have you been doing?   Why are you home?  Are you going back?"
    He looked down at the ground, and I could tell instantly that this was a bad sign.  "I've been nominated to be an officer.  I'll be home for a month, and then I'm going to Afghanistan."
   "Afghanistan?  Where in Afghanistan?  Will you be surrounded by bombs and gunfire?"
    He shrugged.  "I don't know."
    "Why did you even come home?"
    "I was given some leave after the promotion."
    "I don't think you should have come back."  I stood up, responding to a sudden urge that cried to be away from Harvey and his capacious features, his short hair, and his angled cheeks like the crook in a tree.  I didn't get anywhere, however, before I felt myself enveloped in this new found maturity.  As we fell onto the couch, the cat throwing herself out of the way, it felt as if my body, my shell, had remained standing, while the rest of me was being whisked away to some secret place.  I put my hand on his chest and drew away.  He froze instantly.  I touched his lip with my finger, the way you might touch a mushroom, curiously, to test its buoyancy. 
    "We love each other, don't we?" I said.
    His chest rose like a wave beneath me as he sighed, and I felt my lungs fill up with tears.  "What are we going to do?" he said.

The text message came while I was washing dishes.  Assuming it was sent by my mother who was looking for distraction from work, I continued with my chore until all the utensils were put away and my hands were dry.  My hands must have been a little wet still when I tried picking up my phone, because the thing slipped from my hands and clattered on the floor.  The battery went in one direction and the plastic shell in another.  By the time I got the battery back into the phone and the whole device turned on, I forgot that I had an unread message. 
     I sat down with my book and accepted the lazy afternoon that the clouds were tempting me with.  When my mom got home she asked if I'd gotten her text.  I slapped a hand to my forehead and opened my phone to read the message that I had missed.  The mysteries of technology are wide and deep; the unread text was not from my mother.  It was from Harvey.  He was in the States and would be home in a week. 
    I closed my phone.  I opened it again.  I reread the message.
    Back when I had no idea what day Harvey might reappear, if ever, his return had always seemed imminent.  Suddenly, his presence seemed like a lifetime away.  And I wasn't sure I could wait that long.

Three weeks into the job at the rec center, I quit.  It took me less than three days to sort the papers and clean out the office.  I asked Mr. Rutger what I could do next, and he looked at me confused.  Shaking his head, he said, "Nothing.  Just watch the window and help people who walk in the door."  Unless it was a Saturday, people rarely walked in the door.  I watched the clock like it was a television.  It felt as if I were being asked to sit and watch my life expectancy drain, one grain of sand at a time, in an hourglass.  "Please give me something to do," I begged Mr. Rutger.  He frowned and asked how I could monitor the front desk and work on a project at the same time.  "I need your full attention on the patrons."
    I managed to strike up a landscaping deal with one of my dad's co-workers.  It required driving out to the property, twenty minutes away, and working for only an hour or so at a time, but each day I earned twelve dollars that I wouldn't have otherwise.  And I enjoyed the work.  The weeds were ripe and prevalent in his flower beds, and it was embarrasingly satsifying to rip out the ripe weeds, the ones that were so big they were a sovereign nation that slipped so easily from the loam where they had been born that they seemed pleased to be leaving the earth.  My body ached by the time I was finished, even if I was only sitting for an hour or so.  When I stood, I felt like a wooden table, and it took me hours and a hot shower to loosen up.
   On some days after the yard work I went into Greywood, which was a city not far from the property.  The city park was always alive with children, their nannies standing dutifully on guard by the benches.  Little balls of bright color bounced around on the equipment; the playground looked so vibrant and friendly I wanted to find a way to reach out and connect with it somehow, but I couldn't settle on a method that would make me seem wholly sane. 
   One day I found myself prey to an advertisement for an Irish Creme Frappe, which was being offered at The Bean for only $2.25.  The man at the counter was Midwest-stereotype friendly, and when I laid out my coins on the counter in preparation for the total with tax, he scooped up my change and, counting it, said, "Seventy-eight cents, little lady.  That's your total today."
    "Seriously?!"  I was already putting away my wallet, scared he would change his mind, when I added, "Does it say 'unemployed' across my face?"
   He gave me a serious look, then offered me a cookie with a Hershey Kiss on it.  "Have a cookie.  And get a job."
   "Thanks," I said, taking the donation.  "I'm actually going into teaching."
   He nodded.  "You'll be unemployed your whole life then."
   I should have been embarrassed by his comment and by my lie, but when I exited the doors and stepped into the street, I couldn't have felt more exulted.

Getting my paycheck was like seeing the sun appear after a six month hibernation.  The dollar sign looked as ornate as a blooming flower with swollen white petals.  I could smell fresh buds, somewhere, poking forth from the tips of branches.  This tree had fruit made of gold.  Multi-faceted raindrops hung suspended from the womb of the red berries.  I was floating in a land rich with possibility, where the air dripped with aromas of expensive culinary treats: espresso and pecans and lamb and curry. 
    After depositing the check, I went online and paid off a portion of my debt.  It was a small amount, but it was the first bite of chocolate cake.

Brimming with papers and bench warming (but occassionally needed!) supplies, like three-hole punches and blank C.D.s, the office at the rec center looked like it had been a victim of a vengeful tornado. There was a desk.  But there was no chair by the window where I was supposed to be greeting patrons. When asked if organizing is something useful that I could be doing during slow times, Mr. Rutger wondered out loud, "Why?"     
    Having ignored the statement I got from his raised and confused eyebrows, I was now spending most of my days at the rec center trying to clean up the office space.  I refused to sit on the tile in the pool area and hope that no families I couldn't see were coming through the front door.  It was mindless work, sorting papers.  But, somehow it felt perfectly appropriate and satisfying.  Tony and I didn't talk much while we were on the job.  Sometimes we ate lunch together.  For some reason it felt like he had clued in to the fact that I knew he was gay, and now everything was inexplicably awkward.  One day, I approached him while he was on his lifeguard ladder to ask if he wanted to come share some cookies with me, and he jerked forward, when he saw me, covering his bare chest with his knees.  "Let me put a shirt on," he said.  "I'll be right there."  He was a pretty small guy, and I noticed nothing that he should be embarrassed about.  I wasn't brash enough in the moment to acknowledge his odd reaction, and that day had now receded into the murky depths of history, a place where good friends can't go fishing for supporting evidence during accusations.  I told myself that, mostly, I just didn't care enough to call him out on his weird behavior.  Truthfully, my mind was elsewhere.  It felt good to have a job, even a menial one; I could feel my stress abating, while the hands-on labor picked up my thoughts and took them away for play time.

End: Part 1

Tony came charging up my front steps unannounced yesterday.  His lemon hair was flying back like a cape, and his grin was wider than the Grand Canyon.  "I found you a job."
   I let go of the door which I had been holding open for him, and it slammed in his face, stopping him in his tracks.
  "Where?" I said.  I dared not get too excited, but I could feel my eyes widening.
   He cocked his head, glaring at me through the screen door.  "The Pool.  We're looking for a receptionist.  I told Mr. Rutger to look no farther; I have the perfect candidate."
    "A desperate candidate."
    "A perfect one."
    I opened the door and yanked him inside.  We unearthed some Chardonnay and continued with the project until the bottle was empty.  Tony picked it up, bringing the glass to his eye to diagnose its opalescent color.  "Results say that it is empty."
    "It's empty, all right," I said.  "My blurred vision can atest to that."
     Tony smiled, and we sat there for a stiff moment.  "You know I owe you,"  I said, "for hooking me up.  I really appreciate it."  He rolled his eyes and batted the air with his hand.  I laughed.  "Cheers to working together."
    "Cheers," he said, smiling. And as we drained our glasses, I felt a rush of strings in my stomach coalescing into a central knot, resulting posibility from the idea of being stationed at a desk, greeting athletes, for forty hours each week, or, more probably, from the more opaque uncertainties that clouded my sudden fit of loneliness.

Job applications litter the floor.  The debris hardly draws my attention when I walk into my room these days.  I don't bother picking it up, because the half finished forms are an open testament to my life, the cast-off clothing of a furious love affair.  If I were to pick up one of the crumpled papers from the flotsam and sniff the drying ink, which gives off a hopeful scent like face powder, I might collapse onto my bed with an eruption of exasperation and useless emotion. 
    Every few days I get emails, slow responses to the editing jobs I had applied to while in Boston.  Each one apologizes for not getting back to me sooner.  Each one thanks me for applying.  Each one admits shock at the number of inquiring candidates they were faced with and encourages me to continue my interest in their company.  By the end of each email, I am left wondering at which point they told me that I wasn't getting hired.  I suppose it was implied with the obvious ommission of "Congratulations!"  Still, they seem so cowardly for not stating it overtly. 

This morning was as shiny as a copper penny heads-up in the parking lot.  Encouraged by the premature summer sun, I went for a run.  Winter was melting, and rivulets of water flowed by me.  I stopped for a minute to watch liquefying lake-bound snow charge through piles of roadside sand.  The water was weak but determined, and, spurred on by gravity, I had no doubt that it could accomplish any task involving demolition.
      I met Tony at the coffee shop.  We brought our books and sat reading, enjoying the presence of each other.  His smell, like eucalyptus bark and lemon, infused the air with a balmy quality that always left me feeling drowsy and occassionally hypnotized.  I was probably falling asleep when Henry, my sociology professor, addressed me.
    "Ali?"
    "Henry?  Hi, Mr. Cunnington, how have you been?  How are classes this semester?"
    He replied politely, smoothing down his beard while he talked.  I hadn't forgotten that habit of his.  In turn, he asked me how I was and what I was up to.  Then he asked me what I was doing back in Wisconsin.  It was this last question that triggered some kind of spasm in my mental mechanism responsible for appropriate responses, and before I knew it, I was lying. I told him that during the process of scheduling dates for several interviews at New York publishing houses I suddenly realized I wanted to go into education and ditched the opportunities last minute, whereby I returned home and began applying to graduate programs with the hope of becoming an English teacher.
    "Why did you say that?" Tony asked, when Henry had sat down at a small table, out of earshot.
    I shook my head to indicate that I had no clue.  "I thought he wanted to hear it, maybe."
Tony furrowed his eyebrows and leaned forward as if he hadn't heard me correctly.  "But he wanted to hear the truth."
    I shrugged.  "Maybe it was the truth."

    On my way home I met the mailwoman at our mailbox.  She was trying to closed it, and her process of slamming it shut only to have it pop free from its latch and loll open reminded me of watching an exhausted adult fight with a manipulative child.  "I'll take it," I said, walking toward her after I parked the car in the driveway.  She retrieved the stack from inside the mailbox and handed it over.  Immediately, I recognized, tucked between advertisements, a follow-up bill--a reminder of the reminder that the bank had sent me two weeks ago. 
    "I heard that the Postal Service was going to quit offering service on Saturdays.  Do you think you could take these back and bring them to me on Monday, when I might have a job interview lined up?"  I held out the mail.  She scratched behind her ear and, after hesitating a moment, hopped back into her car.  I knew she knew what I was talking about.  She delivered bills everyday and she received them too.  "You're lucky to be in the public sector," I said.  "You know that?"
    She smiled.  "You could apply.  I didn't even have a degree when I signed up over twenty years ago."
    I nodded.  "Twenty years ago.  You would need a degree now to re-apply.  In fact I bet you wouldn't even qualify for your job.  You better hold on tightly to your position."
    She laughed and shifted uncomfortably in her seat, as if she did indeed feel perched precariously.  She lifted the car from its parking brake, and the vehicle started moving forward.  "You can't have my job," she called out the window.
    "I'll arm wrestle you for it.  We're probably equally eligible, if you consider merit-based requirements."
    She was gone, and I was left standing in mechanical flatulence.

After Tony left in the morning, I sat down at the table to write Harvey another letter. 
     "How's the Air Force?  I'm considering joining..."  I started.
      I tried again: "I can appreciate why you ditched society..."
     My final attempt began as follows: "I understand why you left, but I don't like it.  I miss your company and your frizzy hair.  I miss fighting with your tiny hands for the last piece of pizza.  I actually don't understand why you took to the military, when there are plenty of better ways to demonstrate dedication for your people, like supporting your community, a commitment which asks only that you stick around."
      Had the letter not been abandoned, when I realized that I could never envision his reply since I had never intended to send it, had it been sent and then read and reread and contemplated and reread, I have no doubt that my life would unfold very differently.

I didn't get the job after all.  The email bearing this news came minutes before Tony knocked on my door.
    "Just a sec," I called from the bathroom.
    "Are you okay?" he asked, when I let him in.
    I nodded and explained that I had been turned down for a job in the town next over. 
    "I can tell you've been crying."  He pantomimed following a tear down his cheek; he seemed proud of himself that he recognized the symptoms.
    "Nope."  I shook my head.  "Do you want something to drink?"
    Tony didn't drink beer, but he accepted some tonic water, a preference that I found interesting.  Admittedly, it was a little early for a drink.  Even though the dirty light that cues dusk was sneaking its way into the dining room, the clock insisted it wasn't even five o'clock.  Putting a muzzle on propriety, I used what was left of the tonic water to dilute some whiskey that I had uncoverd in the liquor cabinet.  I waited for Tony to make some remark about my proclivity for such strong liquor at such an early hour, but he glanced at my drink and said nothing. 
    Within a half hour, Tony was drinking whiskey too.  "The only thing I could see being appealing about bank telling--and not that I would have wished this upon you--is the possibility that I'd be a victim of a hold-up."  He was staring at ceiling of our kitchen, as if trying to envision it.  "You could be the hero who dials for the cops with his foot which he freed from his shoe when the bandit was preoccupied with blinding the cameras."
   "Yes, that would be very exciting," I said.
   "But the chances of that happening are pretty slim.  You know what I love about lifeguarding?"
   "Saving lives."
   "Telling the squirrely kids to slow the fuck down when they're going across the wet tile.  I get such a kick out of watching them slam on the brakes.  I can practically see the skid marks.  I love it."
   "You enjoy being in the power seat," I said, deductively.
   "Saving lives.  You had it right the first time.  I can see the future like a shaman, and if I weren't there telling them to keep their m.p.h. down, they would be minced meat.  They hate me, and for some reason it turns me on.  It's like, well, it's like some kind of game, like one of those relationships, where I'm the partner who gets all jazzed about being ignored and they're the partner who gets all stoked about being screeched at.  You know?"
   "No, I have no clue what you're talking about.  Can we just say that you like saving lives and leave it at that?"
    He rolled his eyes and flipped his hair back.  And in that moment, because it was one in which I had no feelings for him, I wanted to ask if he was gay.  He seemed too comfortable in my dining room, getting up and pouring himself more whiskey.  It occurred to me then that he had never been romantically interested in me, not even during our first interaction at the coffee shop.  He was just, like me, a lonely person, and his oddly-timed hair adjustments were not nervous ticks but, instead, just manifestations of an unconscious and perservering desire to look good.  As the evening waned, we chatted and the whiskey bottle emptied, until the fact that Tony could not drive home was acknowledged, at which point I made up a spot for him on our sofa.  He emitted a  satisfying snore as soon as his head hit the pillow.  Meanwhile, I pulled out my computer and started researching the Air Force.

The other candidate who made it past the preliminary round of the hiring process was the brunette who didn't have a college degree and had to "pass" when the recruiter asked her to give an example of a time in which she provided excellent customer service.  She confessed to me, while we waited for the interview to start, that her friend was a manager at the branch that had open positions.  It was this connection, she said, that was boosting her through the process.  I thought she seemed intelligent and bright and I couldn't see a reason why we shouldn't both be hired.  There were at least two openings.  During the interview, we performed equally admirably, answering questions similarly but according to our previous experience.  Again, however, my competition refused to answer a question after struggling for several minutes to come up with a response.  At the end of the questioning, the interviewers asked us to participate in a mock sales pitch which required us to market an item in the room. 
        When they returned, I had my item in front of me and my spiel ready.  "Only one hundred calories, loaded with B-vitamins, consisting mostly of water, Monster Drinks are a sure source of energy and only $1.50 per can."
       "I feel like those are full of sugar," one said.
       "They actually contain less sugar than your average granola bar or supposed health food bar which we tend to consume when we're low on energy."
      "You sold me," she said, which, I guess, means that I also sold her my ability to work as a bank teller, selling products and upgrades, which, I guess, means that I sold my soul, until I find it in me to forgive myself for putting my dreams on hold.

I hadn't realized that I had been waiting desperately for a text from Tony until I fell asleep one night and dreamed that I lost my phone.  In the dream, my phone was vibrating in a far dark corner of a locker at the rec center.  It was crying out like a lost and forgotten child.  I woke up sweating.  After minutes of blind probing, I uncovered my phone in the dark.  It lit up the room like a spaceship when I checked it.  There were no unread messages.
    Days past.  I had stubbornly refused to initiate anything. When we finally met up again, I was starting to wonder if he wasn't interested in me.
    "Who are you dressed up for, the president?" He already had a half empty cup of coffee in front of an open book.  I wondered if he had been waiting a while.
    "What are you reading?" I asked, squeezing into the seat across from him.
    "You know this isn't an interview, right?"  He was laughing to himself. 
    "Laundry day: all my scrubby clothes are dirty."
    "Barth."  He flipped the cover of the book so I could see it.  "Do you read?"
    "Like it's my job,"  I said.  "And I hate John Barth."
     His body froze, and for a second I was worried he was going to lunge at me.  Then he ran his fingers through his hair and pulled himself back into his chair.  "How dare you," he said, smiling.

You didn't want to go to college, but you did.  And you're grateful. You graduated Magna Cum Laude.  You were recognized for several awards and even tutored students in English.  A national magazine asked you to intern in their fiction department and, when the stint expired, they offered to keep you on the team indefinitely, unpaid of course.  After commencement, your professors sent you on your way with a stack of glowing recommendations.  They promised to be persistent cheerleaders, if future employers were to call and check your references. 
    You move to Boston, because your sister is teaching out there.  She has an apartment and a bed, and sisters are accustomed to sharing.  You don't apply for a teaching license, because you figure education is the career you'll hold off on until after you've seen things and done things and made some money.  You want to have adventures after all, so you can tell your students about the mile long tides in the Bay of Fundy and the world's best insulated houses, which are made out of pumice stone mined from the salt flats in northern Chile.  So you apply to editing jobs.  Lots of editing jobs.  Thirty plus editing jobs.  You hear back from three; they are looking for someone with a little more experience. 
     You move back home where your parents buy the groceries.  You score an interview with a company called Green Box.  It's a start-up business that claims environmental awareness; their mission is to greenwash the planet and get everyone to sign up for a monthly box filled with a variety of natural products.  You have another interview the following Monday.  This time you find yourself at a group interview.  You are one of four candidates pleading for a bank teller position.  The recruiter explains that she already knows you would all make great bank tellers; you are at the interview to see if you want to be a great bank teller. "Your job at WellsFargo is to make the one percent richer," she says.  "You can walk out at anytime." There is a pause, and you wish you could walk out, but you have college loans to pay off.  You go home confused.  There were supposed to be opportunities for bright young graduates, options between being a government employee and being a pawn for the greedy.  You don't want to be one of Scar's hyenas, but you aren't ready to commit to a life of servitude.  You think back to the big choices you made.  Volunteering.  Check.  College Graduation.  Check.  Internship.  Check.  You did everything right.  Why are you so anxious for your Friday interview at Cloud City Ice Cream Parlor?

My dad didn't know about the decrepit hut in our woods.  He gave me the name of the previous owners of our property and suggested that I ask them about it.  The last name of the family looked familiar--Povaser.  It was my mother who reminded me that Tony Povaser was the lifeguard at the pool.  Tony was my age, but none of the Povaser kids had gone to public school, and nobody knew them all that well. 
      I had no plans for the weekend, and after mailing a letter at the post office, I went down to the community rec center.  Tony wasn't there, but I left a message along with my number.  Within hours I received a text asking if I wanted to have coffee Sunday morning.  I noted that he must not be religious; it surprised me for some reason.
     Tony had long hair which he touched absentmindedly every so often, as if it might abruptly run off when he wasn't paying attention.  He also talked about it at odd moments, not necessarily in an affectionate or boastful way, but in a manner that led me to assume his blonde locks were always on his mind.  Would it be too much to say that his hair was like his child?  It was this characteristic of Tony's that I noticed immediately.  Also impossible to miss was his limited capacity for following social cues.  Knowing that he had been homeschooled solidified my conclusion that he was, inarguably, conversationally inept.
    "Well, you definitely dress like you're unemployed," he said when I disclosed my predicament.  "I'm just joking.  I'm sorry.  That was really rude.  What I mean is I would hire you on the spot if you weren't wearing those sweatpants."  He made a move as if ducking his head under the table to examine my inadequate attire, and I felt myself start to sweat.  My coffee mug was already empty, but I gripped it like a weapon, hoping he wouldn't notice that I was drinking nothing, when I tipped it nervously to my lips.
      "So you don't think anyone in your family ever built a shack or any sort of outbuilding?  It would be by the creek, about a mile or so from the house."
      He was grinning uncomfortably, unable to move forward with the shift in conversation.  I sat back patiently, until he said, "Gosh, I don't think so.  But I was pretty little when we lived there."
      I exaggerated my nods, trying to hide my disappointment.  "That's okay."  I found myself glancing at the door.  Tony's eyes watched mine, as I prepared to go.  Maybe he wasn't so clueless after all.  "So how come you didn't go to public school?"
      He cocked his head to the side, amused, and checked in with his hair by bringing a clutch of it to his cheek.  "I used to be mormon."    
      Suddenly I found myself exuding sympathy, as if he had told me he were raised in an orphanage.  "Tell me everything," I said.
      While we talked, the setting sun dove through the windows behind me and clung to my back, warm and heavy, like nursing progeny.  The hour I had told my mom that I would be home was long past, by the time I told Tony that I really should be going.  I think neither of us was aware how starved we had been for conversation.

My mother offered to pay off my credit debt, when I confessed my dilemma to her after dinner one night.  I told her I would think about it.  The real issue, I explained, was the deeper and insoluble problem of my joblessness. She seemed heartened that we were talking about me, and I think the fact that I had addressed my worries and laid them out on the table for her was exciting for both of us.  She nodded while I rattled off the names of companies I'd applied to.  "Have you considered looking for internships?" she asked.  "We can support you, if you need to move out to a city to start your career."  She was challenging my argument that I couldn't just up and go live in New York City without first lining up a situation that paid. 
      "I can't afford to work for free," I said.  "Not now, while my finances are running on thin blood."
      "Dad and I could help you.  You would find a job eventually."
      "What if I didn't?  And the company didn't hire me after the internship?  I would be like the weakened chick that never got food getting thrown out of the nest to make space for the others."
       She gave me a look. 
       I lowered my head.  "I'm not sure I could live somewhere I didn't know anybody."
       She came over and rubbed my back.  Her touch was soft but sincere, and I felt my shoulders go flaccid like clothes on the line being released by an angry wind.  "Have you heard from Harvey?"
        I wished she didn't asked me things like that, because it always reminded me just how well she knew me.  I hated knowing that she could pick through my thoughts as if they were as tangible as my dresser drawers.  "I should write to him," I said.  "I keep meaning to."  Phrased this way, I hoped my comment made it seem like I was in command of the lack of communication between Harvey and me. 
       She nodded.  "I bet he would like that."

This afternoon, a letter came for me in the mail.  It came for me the way the Grim Reaper comes for lives.  A brief moment passed, when I saw my name on the address, in which I thought it might be from Harvey, but inside the envelope was a notification for an outstanding bill.  The news itself was far from outstanding.  It was a reminder of bad choices made, a knock from the past, like a divorce settlement that needs a signature at the tab along with several grand to pay off the lawyer.
      Back in Boston, I had owned a credit card and used it, after my interview for the hostess position, to fuel a prodigal shopping spree.  Aldo's comment about my deficient wardrobe made me panic, and when I left the meeting I headed straight for the boutiques on Newbury Street.  I had signed up for the credit card account a week prior, upon my dad's request.  He said it was necessary for emergencies.  Well, he was right about it being useful.  I needed a black dress for my first day as hostess, and I didn't have the money for it.  On a rack at Loft, I found the perfect one, but its short hem made me realize that the only shoes I owned which weren't made of mesh were tall boots--too trendy for a fine dining environment.  So, the credit card bought me a pair of flats to go along with the dress.  Then, since all of my socks were white ankle tops, I added two pairs of tights to my bill.  And what would I do about my outfit the day after tomorrow?  Aldo had high hopes that I wouldn't exhaust him with the same dress everyday; I had no choice but to pick out more clothes--some skirt and blouse combos.  After clothes shopping, I went to the Verizon store and bought an iPhone.  The GPS and streaming transportation updates would prove invaluable, since this new job required a timely commute.  Of course, I assumed that by the time the purchases needed to be paid off, my savings account would be growing like a feeding newborn.
       Now here I am with debt the size of a hole to China.  And the longer I wait, the more I will have to pay.  Even money for food proves increasingly difficult to muster up.  The condiments in the fridge are looking pretty lonely.

The world is hurtling forward, while we sit like a wheelbarrow in the middle of the sidewalk, a project that was interrupted and now waits, disregarded by the guilty party, shamed by the passersby.

A bluebird was in the yard today.  I don't know what she was thinking.  Lately, the February sun shines with promise and the temperatures are up, but it's not nearly time for spring migration.  Whether she's a loitering left-behind from fall or an early bird, jumping the gun on getting south fast, I can only guess.  And whatever the reason for her presence is, I am grateful.  Her coat was drab and mothy, as if she were too harried to care much about her looks.  Still, the sky blue hem on her wings was unmistakeable against the wash of brown branches now free of snow.  She sat for a while on a small arm of our cherry tree.  Having become so accustomed to the twitchy flitting and restless antics of the juncos and chick-a-dees, I felt pleasantly refreshed and relaxed as I watched the bluebird.  It was a kind of meditation for me.  There she was, a blue dot in the tree, a living dot, a warm dot, surviving, without ostensible anxiety or worry.  Maybe there was no food nearby, but she would find some not far away.  Or she wouldn't maybe.  The conclusion would come to her.  And not the other way around. 
     Birds are an inspiration.

Back in second grade, Harvey and I made a list of the places we loved best.  At the top of mine was the library.  I couldn't imagine a better life than one that offered story time at all hours of the day.  His favorite spot was my dinner table.  He wasn't used to sit-down meals, and he said he liked that we always had edectible appetizers.  That's how it was written on the paper: "edectible," which was a hybrid of "edible" and "delectable" I think.  My mom kept the list when she found it in my backpack that night, and we still have it.  Fortunately, she doesn't know that eight years later, Harvey tried kissing me in the library.  Our teenage angst had dominated a rather uneventful Friday night and driven us through the lower level windows, cracking a pane of glass when the latch slipped and the window fell.  It made us nervous, and we regretted our rash decision, but I laughed and pressed into the gloom of the vacated basement.  Harvey followed me.  We ate cookies from the refrigerator and crawled into the children's nook.  I took off my shoes, and Harvey said the blue of my toenail polish matched my eyes.  The insinuation of his comment made me uncomfortable, so I turned away and stared at the wall.  He threw a pillow at my head and when I pulled it off he was inches from me.  I jumped up.  "Harvey."
"I thought you said nothing could go wrong in the library."
"What?" I said.
"You used to say that the library was a magic place that allowed only good things to happen."
"Harvey."
"You said it."  His eyes looked like full clouds just before a good rain.
"Have a cookie," I said, offering him the sleeve of Oreos.
That made him mad.  He got up and clambered back out the window.  I didn't want to follow him, so I waited and waited until I fell asleep on the cushions.  It was after midnight when Mom called.  In the car, she asked where Harvey was.  "At home, probably," I said. 
"Weren't you with him?"  She seemed amused.  "Don't get that boy into any more trouble.  He's got a tough enough life as it is."  What she meant was that he wasn't popular. 
"Everyone at school thinks he's hot," I said.  "You should see him without a shirt on."
"Ali."  She grimaced, and we didn't talk about it again.

When I decided to stay in Boston and search for jobs, I began the hunt with my crosshairs locked on big bloated publishing houses.  After a few quiet days, I broadened the scope to include smaller publishing houses.  It didn't take long before I was sleeplessly stalking every company, American or otherwise, that had hired an editor in the past two centuries, begging them to let me in for an interview and a bowl of soup.  Eventually, I surrendered and sent my application to a restaurant named Vlora that was looking for a hostess.  During the interview I could have guessed that the situation wouldn't work out.  Pop music rocketed out of the loud speakers, and blue lights rose up from the floor like beacons beckoning from Dante's icy canto.  "Do you have lots of clothes?" Aldo, the owner, asked me.  I nodded, but truthfully I was living out of a carry-on suitcase.  "You need to dress nice.  No blue jeans."  He frowned at my jeans.
        I returned the following day for training.  "Nice outfit," Aldo said, nodding approvingly.  I didn't tell him that I had bought the dress, tights, and flats after our interview the day before.  My training included directions on how to properly wipe menu covers and how to stand appropriately by the door.  (Standing etiquette discourages pocketed hands.)
        As soon as I was home, I sent Aldo an email that said I appreciated the generous offer to work at his prominent restaurant, but I didn't think it was a good fit for me.  "There are more important things than money," I told Hannah.
        "Obviously," she said.  "You had a job and you quit."

Blocking the door, stood a large man.  His stature was so huge that only tiny slivers of outside light could slip into the hut.  When he shuffled forward, I noticed that he wore a long trenchcoat which rippled against his sides like eel's flanks.  He made his way to a carved table, one that seemed to have materialized, and set down a sack.  Looking over his shoulder at me, he grinned.  "Everyone should be here soon.  Punctuality was never our strong suit."  He returned to his task of emptying the bag, but not before I caught a glimpse of his teeth.  They looked so rancid, I could almost smell them. 
        "Who?" I said.  "I'm sorry I barged in on your home.  I live nearby.  My parents, they live nearby.  I'm their daughter.  I didn't mean to barge in on your home.  I'm not supposed to be here.  I was just out for a walk."
      The man said nothing, only continued with his task.  I watched as odd tools emerged one by one--a hammer, a handsaw, a length of rope, a candlestick, a golf club, a tourniquet. 
     "What are those for?" I asked.  He looked at me and grinned again.  This time I could see all the way back into his mouth where a gold cap twinkled like a chalice tucked away in a hidden chamber.  He picked up the instruments and hung each of them on a separate peg along the wall by the door. 
       "First rate, aren't they?  Don't get too attached to one."  He was talking to me now.  "You'll have last pick."
        At that moment, noises of footsteps drifted in from outside.  Within the lifespan of a breath, the sounds were followed by their sources, and in walked a haggard crowd of cloaked figures.  They were chatting but softly.  As they filed past the display of hanging weapons, each plucked one of his/her choosing and carried it to a seat at the table.
         "All right," shouted the man who had appeared first.  He banged the butt of a machete on the tabletop.  "Order.  Order.  Committee Of The Unemployed, hear me.  We are in session.  Do not speak until you have spilled your own blood.  Ah yes, Thompson."  Everyone turned to look at Thompson who was raising his right hand.  His palm oozed a tail of blood which wriggled as it stretched down his wrist.  He held a knife in his left hand, and his teeth were clenched. 
          "What's the blonde doing here?" he asked, pointing a bloody finger in my direction.  All eyes turned on me.

          I woke up then and looked down at my legs.  They weren't bound or chained.  I ran all the way home and made it back for dinner.

With the intention of returning home before dark, I had left a note for my parents, relieving them of their obligation to cook me a wholesome and taxing meal.  I had with me a block of cheese, two bottles of home brew, bread slices, deli turkey, mustard, oranges, and sunflower seeds.  The snow would provide refrigeration for the beer and dairy.  Again, I didn’t plan on being gone longer than a few hours.  It was too cold to brave the night in a perforated shack. 
         At first, I was afraid that I wouldn’t find the place.  However, after heeling with the running creek for barely ten minutes, I stumbled across the hut.  It sat in the snow like a brown package that had fallen off a delivery truck.  The ceiling was lower than I remembered, and the whole structure looked too meager to be anything more useful than a stepping stone for some greater dwelling.  The walls were no better than cardboard.  I did, however, trust them to not collapse unexpectedly.  Inside, there was a cheerfully small amount of snow covering the dirt-hardened floor.  And maybe it was just my optimism, but the interior felt warm.
        The hut was without tables or chairs.  I cleared snow out of a corner until there was mostly hard ground visible and sat down.  I ate an orange.  I tossed the peelings outside.  The clouds had thickened and snow was coming down lightly. 
        When I awoke, I couldn’t move my legs.  They felt glued to the floor.  My first thought was that I was frost bitten.  I was oddly toasty, even though the sun was nowhere to be seen and the open doorway had allowed entrance to some wayfaring snow drifts.   It worried me that I felt warm, because I had been told that illusory heat was a sign of hypothermia.  I tried to reach my hand out to feel my legs, but my arms too were frozen stiff.  There was pain behind my knees and around my ankles.  Something was constricting my veins.  I looked down, squinting in the gloom.  My legs were tied.
          A voice snapped my attention to the doorway.  “Welcome.”

It doesn’t seem fair that Harvey is gone.  The disappearing act was claimed and patented by me.  I’m the known itinerant, passing through town like a curious and inevitably uninterested wind.  He stole my move.  At the very least he could have waited for me to leave first.  Without Harvey around, this time there won’t be anyone to watch me go.

            This morning I walked around the house in my underwear and moccasins.  It was cold, but for some reason the chill felt relieving like a long anticipated punishment finally arrived.  The snow outside the window glared brightly under the sun.  My eyes ached, even when they were closed.  Once I had my tea in front of me, I considered looking for jobs on Craigslist, but the Internet was fritzing and no matter what I tried, the problem couldn’t be circumvented.  I let my head slump onto the table.  Mousy thoughts nibbled at my mind, preventing me from falling asleep, until I awoke suddenly to a truckload of snow sliding off our corrugated roof.  Whoomp.  The noise shocked me like a mother's slap, and I jumped up, feeling as if I had been injected with motivation.  Within an hour I was on my way out the door, backpack bursting, heading toward the little hut in the woods.

“Are you home?” Harvey asked over the phone last night.  I had breathlessly called him to recount my unsettling travails in the woods, expecting him to emit a more emphatic response than weird.  “I need to come over,” he said.
      He was in the doorway a half hour later, sporting a stiff camouflage getup complete with oversized boots.  “Nice,” I said.  “Is that your dad’s?” 
       His face was stern and earnest in a way that echoed very rare occasions.  “Ali, I’m leaving.”
       I raised my eyebrows.  “Where you going?”
      “Florida.”
      “Nice.  With whom?”
      “The Air Force.”
      “What?”  I dropped the plate I was washing and watched it drown beneath the suds.  Meanwhile, Harvey stood uncertainly by the door, his hands clasped behind his back, as if he were acting as the beaux in a World War I film.  The performance was so rich, I suddenly hated him.  His scrappy little face looked mouse-like, and I wanted to feed it the fastest poison.  “No, you’re not,” I said.
       “I joined the Air Force.”
       “If you really had joined, you wouldn’t have told me this way.”
       “What do you mean?”
        I sighed.  “You’re making some big show out of it, like it’s a big deal.  You should have told me when you signed up.  Did you just enlist this morning?”
        “Well, no.”
        “Well.”  I looked down.  My hands suddenly felt cold, so I slipped them in the warm dishwater.  “Congratulations.”
        “Congratulations?”
        “Didn’t you have to pass a test or something?”
        “Hey, Al, I just came over to say good-bye.  We’re headed out tonight.”
        “Tonight?  What if I hadn’t called you?  You were just going to disappear quietly like a fish that slipped the hook?”
        “Well, you did call.  And I would have stopped by.”
         “Sure.”  I wiped my wet hands on my jeans, and stood facing him.  It was important that he understand how little I was bothered by his ridiculous decision.  We stared at each other like children daring the other one to start poking. An involuntary swallow betrayed him.  A short moment later, we were hugging and I was shooing him out into the cold.

The strangest thing happened to me today.  The weather was perfect for a walk in the woods, and I wanted to see Pike’s Creek adorned with its cold weather regalia.  In winter, the banks of the creek billow with untouched snow, waiting for some thirsty animal to tear through the white powder like a detonator.  The creek itself, the color of New Age silver, powers forth like the 21^st Century too determined to be held still.  In its corners it harbors ice.  These slow movers are shrugged off to the side of the current like society’s thinkers who question the rapidity of the route and whether the end is something worth rushing toward.  Somehow, the river seems as if it doesn’t acknowledge the ice as part of itself.

                This morning I set off toward the creek's dam.  I’m not sure what the purpose of the concrete slab is, but water cascades like silk over it into a still pond.  If you follow the top of the ravine on the western edge of our property, you will run into the creek somewhere upriver from the dam.  Walking the valley of the ravine will take you right to the dam.  For some reason I decided to leave our house and beeline for the creek which would put me just east of the dam.  When I left the house it was midmorning, and the sun was out.  An epidermal crust had formed on the snow, allowing me a relatively brisk pace.  Aside from my crunchy footsteps, the woods were quiet and hollow.  All the birds were at our house, crowding the feeder.  The bear were hibernating.  The deer, being nocturnal creatures, were sleeping.

Not long into the hike, I changed my course slightly so I was heading a few degrees west.  My thinking was that I would come out of the woods on, or very near, the dam.  But my calculations were off or affected by some higher influence.  It didn’t take me long to reach the creek, but I wasn't where I thought I would be.  In the bright noontime sun, the water flashed like a blade.  There were no recognizable landmarks to be seen, so I walked west, assuming that I was downriver from the dam.  After a half mile hike through the stubble that lined the creek, I came to a wall of ashy cliffs.  The steep clay face exposed a smoky red color, as if its snowy skin had been scraped away.  The geography surprised me because I knew that the only cliffs on Pike’s Creek stood far west of the dam. Apparently, I should have walked downriver. Frustrated but determined, I decided to backtrack until I saw the dam and then I would head home.  I was already exhausted from struggling through the deeper snow, and ice was forming at the rim of my boot so it ground against my calf with each step.

                Forty minutes later I still hadn’t found the dam.  I was standing under the bridge that led Highway 13 over the creek, listening to the thrum of cars going by.  My body was warm from the movement, but my fingers were stiff.  Half of my mind said I should accept defeat and step out onto the smooth pavement.  The highway would take me back to Ski Hill Road and eventually to my house, a roundabout but faster path than navigating uphill in the snow.  My obstinacy overwhelmed me, however, and without a second thought I set my feet to my tracks and walked back along the creek.

                I never came across the dam.  My search spanned a good distance along the river, from the highway to the tall clay cliffs three miles west.  It was as if the dam had vanished.  I did stumble across a small wooden hut I had never seen before.  It was large enough to house an impoverished family, and by looking through a window, I could see basic utensils like pots and leather harnesses hanging from pegs inside.  Someone had lived there.  And judging by the good condition of the untreated wood, the inhabitant must have abandoned ship not long ago, which means they were trespassing.  I made a mental note to ask Dad about it.

The sky is patchy, and the sun is trying, but winter seems bent on clouding us over.  "Shush," it says, as it draws the veil over our cage.  "Go to sleep."  Winter induces an odd skirmish of feelings inside me.  On one hand, I want to give in to my deepest, most powerful sin--sloth.  Sleeping, the vice.  On the other hand, winter means school which means productivity and accomplishments.  All of my best writing has been done in the winer, all of my achievements, unless you count sampling every flavor of ice cream at The Candy Shoppe.  But how do I keep up my production rate when I have no forewoman egging me on with a whip in her belt?

       Harvey came over last night.  He likes my mother all too well.  It bothers me because she's not so fond of him.  She thinks he's sweet and all, but she worries that I'm going to start liking him one day and want to marry him.  "Do you think he'll finish college?" I don't even acknowledge her queries with a response.  I do let my eyes roll, but then she's off chastising me for being disrespectful.  At my parent's house, I forget that I'm twenty-two.  When Harvey got here last night I made us popcorn.  He said he was full, so I was left stuffing face alone. 
"When are you leaving?" he asked.
"Leaving?"
"Here.  From Wisconsin."
"Oh," I said.  Harvey and I weren't very good at talking about the little things.  "Not sure."
"But you will be leaving."
"I guess.  At some point."
"Okay well, just, when you do let me know.  Say good-bye.  Okay?"
"I always--I will say good-bye to you, Harvey."
"Thanks," he said.  "Is there any popcorn left?" He looked in the bowl.  It was empty.

Not long after landing in Boston, I managed to double my wardrobe.  While Hannah worked, I shopped.  Who knew that boots could transform me into someone respected and revered?  Only Urban Outfitters.  Did I consider whether a black top is worth a tango with bankruptcy?  Well. Confidence is invaluable.

One day on my way to the bus, I stopped by a modest cafe for coffee.  I had three bags from nearby boutiques in tow which made it impossible to fish change out of my purse. 
"Have you got a card that's more accessible?  We do take plastic."  The server was impatient.  He had russet-colored hair that was sticking straight up, reminding me of fallen leaves before they've relaxed into the ground. 
"My card's under probation.  I'm unemployed."
"Right," he said with a glance at my shopping bags.  He was smiling.

I didn't show Hannah my purchases, just tucked them under her bed with all of her disregarded things.  She mentioned once, during a game of cribbage, that she would kick me out if I offered to pay her rent, which I figured meant that my free loading was a topic on her mind.  It wouldn't help anyone if she found out where her potential extra income was going.

The following weekend I asked Hannah if she wanted to go to Newbury Street, since I remembered her saying on Tuesday that she needed a new sweater for work.  Within the two hours that her parking meter afforded us, we had loaded up her car with bags.  On our way home we stopped at the coffee shop, and I recognized the server who had criticized my lifestyle.  I was glad to be wearing my newest favorite shirt.  It was muslin and soft and whispered when I walked like skis sliding over fresh snow.  "Hey," I said, when it was our turn at the counter. 
"Hey," he said.  "How's the job hunting going?"
I smiled.  He remembered me.  "Not good.  Anything open here?"
"You can't have my job.  Who's this?"
"This is my sister.  Hannah."
"Hannah, what do you do?"
"I'm a teacher," she said.
By the time we left, he had her phone number, and they'd arranged a date, volunteering at the animal shelter.
When we got back in her car, she turned up the radio too loud and started singing along to a song she didn't know.  "I think I'm going to stay for a while," I yelled over the noise.  "In Boston, where I can crash with my gracious sis for free."
"Cool," she said.  "I love having you around."

Standing on the porch at my parents' house, I'm surrounded by trees and snow as far as I can see.  Nature envelopes me as completely as if I were a lost little boat on the ocean.  It's so near at hand, I can't resist reaching out and dipping my naked fingers into the cold snow.  I suppose there's no better place to be, if you're unemployed--far away from people, the colony that has deemed you useless.  You've even offered to do an internship and work for free, but they think you would be a better help if you just got out of the way.

Trees are a rare sight in Boston.  Most vegetation that finds its way into the urban center is food for the working bodies.  There are a few parks.  The most popular one is called Boston Commons.  Its landscape is contrived, but sometimes I would lie on the grass and look up through the oak leaves and pretend that I was in a clearing maintained by forest fairies.  Sun draws out chlorophyll the same in the East as it does back home.  And the sparrows in Boston chirp just like our sparrows do.  Supposedly birds have accents, but I couldn't hear the difference.  I was happy to see that my avian friends can weather the city and prove they are as versatile as humans.  They're more adaptable than I am.  If Boston was a drink, my stomach couldn't take the population concentrate very well.  I spent my mornings walking up and down the boardwalk at the beach, trying to soak up the flash of nature that the harbor provided.

"I need new boots," my sister declared, and my first Saturday in Boston she plopped me in her car and drove to Newbury Street.  Shopping came easily to me.  Reckless purchasing is a genetic skill that I had long diagnosed as one of my mother's core problems.  The realization that I didn't escape it frightens and disgusts me.  I'm unemployed.  I can't be buying myself clothes.  "What else is there to do?" my sister said on Sunday, when I tried to protest a second trip to the stores.  I looked around at the gray buildings and shrugged.

The summer I was seventeen, my grandpa announced that he had lung cancer and was going to die.  My sister wanted to know how he could get lung cancer when he had never smoked a day in his life.  Mom said that he had been a lifelong smoker but a tobacco-free grandpa.  "He wasn't allowed to smoke in front of you girls," she said, when Hannah and I looked at her in confusion.  Seven months later, Grandpa returned from the hopsital with a hole in his throat.  On Christmas Eve, he slept on the couch while we unwrapped gifts, his breath like wind roaring out of a deep cavern.  After gifts, Grandma decided he wouldn't want to be woken up and told me to lay a blanket over him.  I took my time tucking it around his tiny body, and the hole stared at me like the opening to a cave of secrets.   Before I could stop myself, I was reaching into it with my finger. Air rushed at the tip and I instantly staggered back.  I remember that the hole was surprisingly warm.  Last fall, he died.  Vestiges of the cancer staged an impressive revolt against the treatment and took hold before the doctors noticed that anything was wrong.  My grandpa left me his red truck in the will.  Hannah got his library.  I had never had a car before, and I took to the freedom with passion and abandon.  I drove hard and far.  I drove across the state, tearing through counties the way a marathon trainer whizzes by mile markers.  Sometimes I didn't get home until after midnight.  To save money, I was living with my parents.  They said I was abusing the privilege of owning my own transportation.  I said that I had a bachelor's degree and had earned the privilege to abuse my privileges.  "Still," Mom said.  "Less than .0001 percent of humans today have the ability to get up and take off on a whim, and you should appreciate it."  Within three weeks, I had quit my job at the music store and was gone.  My mind was set on venturing west, but on the road I realized that I didn't know anyone in that direction.   I was halfway to my sister's Boston apartment when the truck broke down.  It wasn't clear to me whether Grandpa knew he was passing me a senior so near her end.  When I called her from a payphone, Mom just laughed.  "He probably didn't think you would be trying to make a racehorse out of a carthorse."  I took a plane in Cleveland, and two hours later Hannah was picking me up at Logan Airport.  "I ruined the element of surprise," I said.  She hugged me and said, "You're always trying to suprise me.  You could never surprise me."  And that was the beginning of my unemployment.

Sixteen hours' worth of traveling later, I made it home.  My dad, who braved a midwestern blizzard to retrieve me, woke me up as we pulled into the driveway at midnight.  Even at that dark hour, I could see the whiteness of the snow, glowing in the night like nature's sleepless eye. And this morning I awoke to a wonderland.  Winter's dangerous element is subtle and quiet and eerily soporific. When I look out the window now, in evening, I feel like I'm being carried away in a soft burlap sack that surreptitiously enveloped me while I was falling asleep, and rather than feeling alarmed, I'm lulled by it. 

Harvey showed up around midafternoon.  I was showering and heard a noise that I would have guessed to be an uncertain knock at the door if we didn't live way out in the boonies.  I ignored it and finished my shower.  As I was pulling on my clothes, my phone rang.  "Hello?"  I said.  "Ali, it's me.  I'm outside.  I think you're inside.  I heard you singing."  I ran down the stairs and threw open the door.  And there he was.  Shivering in jersey shorts, an oversized down jacket covering his cadaverous frame.  I threw my arms around him and pulled him out of the cold.  We watched Love&Basketball, fast forwarding the parts about love.  We talked only a little.  We hadn't seen each other in over five months, but I wasn't sure if he would be interested in the adventures I had had out in Boston.  We used to have that problem when we reunited after each semester of being away at separate colleges.  He wouldn't want to hear about my drunken fiascos, and Harvey, the straight-edge, wouldn't tell me what he did on the weekends because he said he thought it would put me to sleep and make me never call him again.  "I never call you anyways,"  I said.  "You just come over."  He grinned and shrugged.  It was kind of cute, and it made me feel bad for having said what I said.

Made it to the airport.  I'm looking out the window at my plane right now.  The sun is out, lighting up its white flanks.  Underneath its belly, the snow is dyed in puce from all the chemicals needed to make it air-worthy.  In a way, it looks as if the beast soiled itself, but I'm so relieved to be here, staring at my ticket home, that the plane still glows like a heroic beauty to me.  I called nearly twenty taxi services before finding an overpriced airport shuttle that said it was no problem and they were on their way.  I told the dispatcher to not let the driver attempt accessing our street.  I would meet him on Dorchester Avenue.  The intersection, however, was also impassable, thanks to a taxi driver who had tried a side street and found himself in need of Triple A.  The shuttle driver called me and said to meet him at the end of the block, where he was waiting with a white van.  That white van was the glow of heaven, my light at the end of the tunnel.  I called him my saint.  He nodded and said it was no problem.  But there were problems, I wanted to say, and he rescued me.  On the way to the airport he asked what I was doing in Boston.  "It's a great city," he said.  "Lots of jobs.  A good place to be if you are looking for a job."  I smiled and closed my eyes.  He couldn't have understood, had I allowed myself to laugh.