Poked

by Naomi Niles

  The students were between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, and they all looked exhausted, like they had been forced to wake up before dawn and run for an hour in the pale daylight. A girl seated three or four seats from the front was quietly reading a novel. I decided to leave her alone, figuring at least she wasn’t plugging away on her phone.

  Carson and I stood together at the wooden podium.

  “Hey, listen up,” I said, and two dozen pairs of eyes looked sleepily up at me. “Today we’re gonna be talking about something that you’re gonna want to listen to. Because it’s about more than whether or not you pass an exam. This is your future. Everybody with me…?”

  Chapter Forty

  Kelli

  Two years later, and I was in graduate school studying world cinema with a concentration on early twentieth-century Expressionist films. Two nights a week, I taught a class on film theory over at Columbia. I was too busy to spend more than a couple days every week in the office, but Evan had graciously allowed me to retain my position as executive editor.

  Zack and I had moved into a studio apartment in Bushwick. He was still employed as a recruiter and finishing his book in his spare time, though mostly for therapeutic reasons. There had been no further outbursts like the one on the trail back in Texas; the worst fight we had ever had was over a movie. (He wanted to watch Attack the Block; I wanted to watch Garden State).

  Work and school kept me busy. Some nights, we barely saw each other because I had a mountain of papers to grade in addition to writing my master’s thesis on the use of intertextuality in the early films of Fritz Lang. In the last couple years, Zack had been made to watch more German films than he cared to remember. It was a testament to his devotion that he never complained about it.

  One evening in late September when I was up late hunched over my desk, he came into the room carrying a plate full of cookies and a glass of hot cocoa.

  “Thanks, sweetie.” I gave him a quick smooch on the lips. He was wearing a ridiculous-looking apron with bears on it, and the apron was covered in flour. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know where the flash drive is, would you?”

  “I haven’t seen it lately,” he replied, pulling up the other swivel chair. “How soon do you need it?”

  “I just need to transfer some files through Gmail, and it won’t let me load them because there are too many. Anyway, I’m sorry. This is boring. How are you?”

  Zack laughed lightly. “Girl, you don’t ever bore me,” he said. “You could sit there and read to me in German, and I’d listen. Wouldn’t understand a word of it, but I’d listen.”

  “That either means you’re a good person or you just really love me,” I said with a smile. Even though he was relentlessly encouraging, I never felt like I was being doted on. Everything he said felt right and sincere, even when I thought he was being too kind.

  “I know things have been hard lately, what with both of us working and you in school.” He took my hand and massaged it lightly. “But that just means we’re on our way in the world. Someday we’ll have reached the top and we’ll be able to relax a little.”

  “I can’t imagine ever relaxing.” I reached for my cocoa and held it in my hands, letting it warm me. “Like, what do you do? Do you sit on a beach? Do you go bowling?”

  Zack shrugged. “Beats me, but that’s the kind of woman I’m dating. You’re too hard-working and ambitious to let up even for a second. Anyway, what’ve you got going on tomorrow?”

  “Evan wanted me to come in early tomorrow,” I replied. “Says he’s got a story he wants me to cover.”

  “I thought you gave up reporting when you started school.”

  “So did I, but he says I’m really going to like this, and there’s no one else in the office he would trust with it.” I let out a sharp laugh. “Like I haven’t heard that before.”

  Zack grinned. “Maybe me and Carson need to go pay him a visit.”

  ***

  In the two years since I’d taken the editing position, the Bugle had left the basement and claimed about half of the first floor of the Frost Building. When I came into his office that morning, I found Evan seated at a large semi-circular desk playing the Killers on Pandora and scrolling through our main page. He glanced up excitedly when he saw me.

  “So here’s where we’re going; are you ready for this?” He lifted a fat binder and shoved it into a handbag. “One of the old trees in Central Park is slated to be torn down, and there’s an old woman who’s chained herself to it. She’s been there for three days with a water bottle and a bag full of sub sandwiches. You and I are gonna go over there and interview her. I’ll take pictures while you talk to her.”

  “Okay, but I don’t see why one of your other reporters couldn’t have done this,” I said as he ushered me through the door. “Dennis usually takes the ‘mad old lady’ beat.”

  Evan pondered this for a second as though trying to think of a good reason. Finally, he said, “You’ll understand when we get there. Come on, we don’t have all morning!”

  We caught the train through Forest Hills and Jackson Heights to Central Park. Once I had finished answering my emails, I put the phone away and sat marveling at the view through the windows: two- and three-story brick houses, residential streets lined with trees and tugboats gliding past on the water. It was one of those crisp fall mornings where the city and the world are beautiful beyond telling, where a quiet magic seems to radiate even from the gray asphalt.

  “Ready?” asked Evan as we disembarked onto the platform at Columbus Circle. He looked unusually chipper, and I thought what a relief it must be for him to escape the office for a few hours.

  I followed along behind him for about a quarter of a mile. It was one of those blustery, cloudy mornings that are so common in New York in early fall, and I could tell just by the feel of the wind on my skin that rain was imminent.

  We walked until we came to a waist-high classical column standing in the middle of an open area with latticework all around us. I scanned the trees in the distance looking for any sign of the old woman Evan had warned me about, but there was none: no woman, no chains, no sandwich bag.

  An ominous quiet fell as we stood there, motionless.

  “Evan?” I said quietly. “This isn’t the place.”

  “Just wait,” said Evan. He was removing his camera from its carrying case with a look of supreme unconcern.

  I waited, still peering into the distance wondering what we were looking for. Finally, a tall, sculpted figure emerged from the bushes and came striding into view. In almost the same instant, I realized what this was.

  “Hey, darlin’,” said Zack when he was close enough to speak without having to yell. “So, I realize this is kind of an ambush, but we couldn’t think of any other way to do it. You’re so clever you were bound to see through whatever we tried to pull.”

  “We?” I motioned to Evan, who was circling around us at a distance snapping pictures. “Did you and he plan this whole thing out?”

  He shook his head. “No, it was me and your sister. The two of us spent days together in the coffee shop while you were at school trying to come up with something, and well, here we are.”

  My stomach gave a nervous lurch as I waited, in silence, for what I knew must surely be coming.

  “My buddies and I used to joke that I would never be able to settle down,” Zack went on. “That when I found a woman the relationship would be over in a couple weeks because I’d get bored and move onto the next person. In the platoon when we started dating, they laid odds on how long we’d be together. Some said a month, some said a week.

  “But I don’t know what happened when I met you. It’s not like I don’t notice other women but none of them are you. And when we broke up the first time, I was pretty excited at first about being back on the market, but the longer it went on, the more I realized I didn’t want anyone but you. That was the hardest withdrawal I’d ever gone through; giving up drinking was easier. I felt like an addict wh
o would never be satisfied unless you were with me always. I knew then that we belonged together, and that if you wouldn’t have me I’d be single for the rest of my life.”

  We had never talked about those fraught, painful weeks after the first breakup, but it was like he was speaking my own experience back to me. This was the thing I loved about Zack: that I had never felt so enjoyed and understood by another human being.

  By now, we were standing close together, so close that his voice was barely a whisper. “So I just have one question, and you can say nom but I have to ask because I need closure on this, and I need you.” He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and produced a thin silver band. I’d been expecting something like it, but even so, my eyes teared up at the sight of it. “Kelli, will you marry me?”

  I didn’t hesitate even for a moment. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, of course.”

  He placed the ring on my finger. We held onto one another in silence for a moment as the clouds broke, and a light rain began falling. “You know there were several guys in your unit who asked me out?”

  Zack smiled down at me. “And why’d you pick me over all those other guys?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I wanted our babies to be half-Texan.”

  He laughed and tousled my hair. I took his hand, and we began walking back toward the grove of trees to the east, where we were joined a second later by a beaming Evan. I’d been so busy getting engaged that I’d almost forgotten he was there.

  “You ready to head back now?” I asked him. “Now that we’re all sorted?”

  “Not until we find that woman,” he replied, and he went tramping off to find her. I turned to Zack, feeling puzzled.

  “Did you tell him about this?”

  Zack shook his head, looking as flummoxed as I felt. “I was wondering why you brought him, to be honest.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe Renee told him. You want to head back to the house?”

  “What about your assignment?”

  I watched Evan disappearing into the grove, his shoulders hunched in determination like a hunter of wild game. “He’ll be fine. Let’s go.” And we turned and raced back to Zack’s car while the rain fell in torrents around us.

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  REVVED

  By Naomi Niles

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 Naomi Niles

  Chapter One

  Darren

  On Monday morning, I awoke to a couple new text messages. One was from my friend Dickie wanting to know when I would be coming into work. The other was from my girlfriend.

  Would you mind taking the day off? I need you here this morning.

  To which I wrote back:

  Carlotta, you know I have to work. We’ve been through this before. If you wanted to hang out you should’ve texted me this weekend.

  In a face-to-face conversation, this would have been the point where Robin shrieked and started throwing things, which is why I probably would never have said those things to her face. Lately, I had been texting her more and more and seeing her less and less.

  If you don’t wanna hang out with me, she replied, then you can just say so.

  It’s not that I don’t want to hang out with you. I’ve just got a lot on my plate right now. The only reason I even got this job was because you insisted on it.

  To which she responded:

  If I had known it was going to take you away from me I would never have done it. Some days I just need you here to hold my hand. But lately you’re too busy even to do that.

  And I responded:

  Fine. The next time we’re together, I promise I’ll hold your hand.

  And Carlotta said, Sweetie, that’s not the *point*.

  What *is* your point?

  I just want you. I thought you wanted me but I guess I was mistaken.

  Babe, I do want you but I also gotta work. You wouldn’t respect me if I quit my job to hang out with you all the time. That would be like Han Solo quitting the rebellion to go hang out with Leia.

  … boy, you know I hate those movies.

  I don’t care.

  I waited a few minutes to see if she’d respond, but she never did. I was only just climbing out of bed and preparing to jump in the shower when Dickie called.

  “Hey, where are you?”

  “Yeah, sorry I’m late. I just got into a tiff with my girlfriend.”

  “What, again? That’s the second one this week.”

  I shook my head even thought I knew he couldn’t see me and said, “I know; things have been a bit rough lately. I’ll make it up to you by working late tonight.”

  Dickie laughed. “It doesn’t matter to me when you come in as long as we get this car fixed before the race on Saturday. Right now, that’s our first priority. But hey, I was wondering if you would run by the kolache store and grab a box of donuts on your way here.”

  “Sure thing. Any particular kind?”

  “I’m really craving some of the powdered ones with the little sprinkles. And you can get whatever you want for yourself.”

  “Alright, man. See you in a bit.” He hung up.

  Outside the house, it was one of those early spring mornings that restores your faith in the goodness of the world. Daisies and dandelions clustered in circles at the edge of the yard, stirred by a cold breeze. In the rows and rows of evergreens that lined the road leading out of the suburb, I could hear the incessant chitter of cardinals and robins. I lived on the north edge of Dallas, just far enough away from the city that it wasn’t unusual to see a fox digging through your trash or a couple raccoons peeking out at you from behind an azalea shrub.

  Despite my insistence to Carlotta that I had to work that day, I almost wished I could take the day off and visit my parents’ home to see the calves calving and the mares foaling. They lived on a farm in a small town about thirty miles outside of Dallas, and ever since I moved out, I went over to see them about once a week. Mama had been pushing me to move out on my own for a while, but when I finally did, she was so upset she named one of the foals after me.

  When I finally reached the rundown old shop where I worked five days out of the week, I found Dickie lying on his back on the concrete underneath a red Mustang. The air smelled of gasoline and exhaust, and my heart warmed to the persistent clank of metal against metal.

  I set the box of donuts down on the ground at his side. “We about ready for the race this weekend?”

  “Just about; we’re only missing a spark plug. I may have to run by the store later and get it.” He wore a blue uniform covered in oil, and his hair and beard had a black tint as though they had been doused in kerosene and never washed. “Is Carlotta coming?”

  “Shoot, I don’t know. We’ve had so many fights lately, it’s hard to say where we’ll be by the end of the week. She’s moody and unpredictable and—what’s the word?—volatile.”

  Dickie shook his head. “I hear that.”

  “Last night she threw a whole plate of tacos at me. Ten minutes later, she wanted to cuddle. I can never figure her out.”

  “Have you thought about putting her on medication? It sounds like she might benefit from modern medicine.”

  “She would, but I know she would never go for it. The one time I brought it up, she stormed out of the room as if I had insulted her. She hates being told she isn’t perfect just the way she is, which makes it hard for her to change.”

  “That’s the most frustrating kind of person to be around,” said Dickie, “because they get angry if you’re not constantly affirming them.”

  “She doesn’t need to be told how great she i
s. She needs to have been spanked ten years ago.”

  Dickie opened the box and rummaged through until he found one of the powdered donuts. “I guess that’s one thing you and I can be proud of. We’re not great people; we both know that. But we’re willing to be corrected, and we’re willing to change. You’d be surprised how rare that is.”

  “I don’t see how you can get anywhere in this world without it. My parents raised me to listen and to know when I was in the wrong. They’d be furious if I never learned how to accept advice when I needed it. Carlotta’s dad just coddled her.”

  “I’m sure it doesn’t help that she grew up without a mom.”

  “No, I sometimes try to imagine how different Carlotta would have been if her mom hadn’t walked out on her. Shit, she probably wouldn’t be dating me.”

  “But she’d be a better person, maybe,” said Dickie.

  Just then, I heard the squeal of tires on gravel and the slam of a car door. Peeking around behind the Mustang, I saw, to my horror, that Carlotta had pulled into the drive.

  She was wearing a pair of dark designer sunglasses, a low-cut orange blouse tied in a knot at the top, and form-hugging capri pants that accentuated her voluptuous figure. Having been born in Venezuela, she had a natural tan and a thick head of straight black hair that had more than once gotten her mistaken for a Kardashian. Boys were constantly hitting on her, and it put me in the odd position of feeling fiercely protective of her even on the nights when I wished we had never met.

  She paused in front of the Mustang and threw her purse down. “So is this what you do all day? Just talk?”

  Dickie made a face that only I could see and slowly wheeled himself back under the car.

  “Hey, what’s up?” I placed a hand over my face to shield it from the bright sunlight. “You could’ve at least texted me to let me know you were coming over.”

  “Why, so you would know to look busy? I’ve got better things to do with my time than to text you all day.”

  “Like coming over here and harassing me at work?”