Stepping Through

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally decided to walk through the door. She had read two chapters too many, two more than she had allowed herself when she started reading, and now she was pressed for time. Still she lingered, putting on her trench coat slowly, deliberately, and patting her coat pockets to make sure her keys and purse and cell phone were in them. Having run out of contrivances for delay, she turned the knob and pulled the door open. Framed by the door were a rectangular patch of the powder blue wall across from her apartment in the hallway, the unlit sconce light on the wall, a slice of her neighbor’s door. Ordinarily invisible from long familiarity, they were vivid today, alive – and they seemed to implore her to stay on her side of the threshold, where it was safe.

She closed her eyes and tried to soften them, to ease their quivering. She took a deep breath. And from the swirl in her mind a calm thought threw itself clear. It said: If you go through this door, your life will change. Not a warning; not an objection; a simple statement of fact.

She opened her eyes and contemplated the thought for a long, still moment. The wall, the sconce, the slice of door held their peace, waiting. So be it, her mind said quietly, and she stepped through.

***

She was four minutes late to the coffee shop, but he was even later, so she was able to catch her breath from having run three blocks from the train station while she waited in line to order. She got an herbal tea and took it to a table by the window. She was just settling into her chair when Jack walked in through the door, scanned the room, spotted her, and flashed a grin. She stood up to receive his kiss on her cheek, then sat back down as he pulled out his chair and sat down himself.

“I hope you weren’t waiting long,” he said. “Client kept me on the phone.”

“Not at all. Do you want to get a coffee first?” she said. She marveled that her voice did not crack.

He shook his head. “I’m amply caffeinated.” He smiled again. “I’m glad you called. I wanted to thank you again for taking a look at my McConnell presentation. I appreciated your comments.”

“Oh, sure. I was glad to do it.”

He leaned back and placed both hands on the table. “So. What’s up? You said you needed to talk to me about something.”

Her heart started thudding against her chest. Here it was.

“Jack, I’m…” A final fearful pause. Then, through the door: “Jack, I’m in love with you.”

His eyes, which had been looking at her with curiosity and anticipation, widened. His face changed.

(March 2012)

Canciónes de Amor

Though you held me long and tight,

You never let me stay the night.

Now you’re gone, and missing you is doing me no good.

Still, I think about you more than I should.

Miguel strummed the song’s sad final notes. His hand floated away slowly from the guitar strings. He looked up to see his friends smiling at him warmly, indulgently. He said, eyebrow cocked, “Gonna be a big hit.”

Everyone laughed. Anise held his hand and said, “It’s not half bad, sweetie. The melody’s beautiful, anyway. Keep at it.”

Katie said, “Keep playing, won’t you, Miguel? Another slow one?” She and Evan had been slow dancing just inside the circle of light cast by the bonfire. Her head still rested on Evan’s chest.

Miguel smiled. Anise let his hand go and he began plucking a delicate canción de amor. Indifferent he may have been as a lyricist, his fingers were magic on the guitar, a bequeathment from his Cuban uncles. The melancholy strain rose into the night, rendering them all momentarily still.

Katie held Evan even more tightly around the waist. They resumed shuffling from side to side.

They were eight friends on the beach on the last night of their camping trip, staying close to the fire to keep away the briny chill from the ocean.

Matt took a swig from his bottle, stood up, and extended his hand to Anise. “May I?”

She looked up at him with suspicion. “You’re not going to try anything funny, are you?”

Matt said, thickening his Southern drawl, “No, ma’am. You learned me my lesson good and proper last time.” He took her hand, got her to her feet, and drew her to him – but not too close. He led her in a stiff, exaggerated box step: forward, to the right, backward, to the left. She laughed and softened in his arms.

Katie said, “I am so tired, I could sleep for days. My thighs really ache.”

Hoots and laughter erupted from the group. Gina called out from where she lay on Maggie’s lap, “That’s what happens when you two keep ducking in the bushes.”

Evan blushed. Katie wrinkled her nose at her mockers. “From the hike, you evil people.”

“All right,” Matt said, releasing Anise and making a small bow to her. He took the guitar from Miguel. “Mike, ol’ buddy, ain’t no one can make a guitar weep like you, but it’s time to SHAKE IT UP. With a little song called ‘One Bourbon, One Scotch, One BEER.’”

Matt slapped the strings, then launched into the hard-driving rhythm of the song’s intro. Everyone began whooping and laughing. Anise pulled Gina up from Maggie. Miguel got up and raised his eyebrows to Maggie, who smiled and shook her head. He nodded and joined the dancers kicking up the sand.

Maggie looked at Sam, the only other person still sitting. She went to him, wine cooler in hand. “I don’t suppose you want to dance, Sammy?”

Sam smiled. “No.”

She sat beside him. “You okay?”

“Oh, yeah.” He paused. “It was a really good day.”

She smiled. “Yeah, it was. A wonderful weekend.”

He watched the others swaying and jumping to Matt’s off-key croaking. He felt such love for them all at that moment that his heart edged towards breaking.

“What’s wrong, Sam?” she asked.

He glanced at her, wincing, embarrassed. He nodded at the others; she followed his gaze. He said, “Look at them dancing. Isn’t it a shame we have to die?”

She peered at his face glowing in the firelight. She took his hand. “Yeah. It is.”

(March 2012)

Round 8

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and, finally, decided to walk through the door. The book had other notions, though, and transferred its matrix to the door. The door glowed just as she came to it, and the page she had been reading appeared on its surface.

“You said you’d read two chapters today,” the book reminded her.

She sighed.

“Hmmm,” he thought to himself, leaning back on his chair. “Maybe. Sci-Fi doesn’t seem to go over well at Three-Minute Fiction, though. And once you begin with a twist like that, you’re almost left with having to come up with even bigger twists. Nope, too gimmicky.” He started over.

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door. She needed some air. The forest of flower arrangements, the earnest sympathies offered to the family, and, most of all, the loving stories of Hal that people had written in the memory book were just too much. She only knew him a short time long ago, but she was certain he couldn’t have changed enough to deserve all these signs of sorrow and post-mortem affection.

“Aack! Death again? I think we played that out in Round 7.” He highlighted the paragraph and deleted it. He drummed on his armrest with four fingers as he stared at the screen. After an interminable pause, he started tapping on the keyboard.

She closed the book, placed it on the table, and – finally – decided to walk through the door. She was loath to leave. The chill, clean, rain-freshened breeze washing through the high, open awning windows mingled with the musk from the old books, making the air in the cavernous building the sweetest to breathe. The cool scent reached behind her thoughts to educe – not the memories – but the sense of libraries past where she had spent a good portion of her contented life. She had always felt, turning Borges’s phrase around, that a library was very like heaven…

He frowned as he re-read the words. “A little too static. I might be able to paint a pretty little portrait of a blissed-out literary spinster nerd, but a picture isn’t a story.” He cleared the screen again.

Sighing, he turned to look around the room, staring at various objects in turn, willing them to offer, talisman-like, a story full-blown and complete. But they were all silent and told no tales.

He turned back to his laptop, getting more and more frustrated.

“The basic problem is that the final phrase in that mandatory first line is halting. The first two actions are commonplace, but firm. Then, after a beat and a build up, all she does is decide to walk through the door? She couldn’t just do it? It slows the rhythm down right there. Who is this hesitant, indecisive bitch anyway?” The more he thought about it, the more exasperated he became. His anger grew and turned from the amorphous fictional character to the pitiless judge who had issued this round’s impossible challenge, then to the folks at All Things Considered who just had to come up with this stupid, addictive time suck of a contest in the first place.

His irascibility was a ruse, of course; a blind for the deep-hidden fear that he was a poser, a fake, and no writer at all.

He got up. “The hell with it. I’ve gotta get out of here. Anyway, I’ve still got ten days to the deadline.”

He closed his Notebook (it was already on the table), and walked through the door.

(March 2012)