Parts Per Million

by Julia Stoops

Nelson’s watch says quarter to four. All around is sweet summer green and sunlit pavement. A drop of sweat trickles from his armpit, but his shirt today is white, which doesn’t show so badly.

  He found one of Deirdre’s house keys on the path this morning. He should mention it to Jen and Fetzer, but she was so happy when they told her she could stay. No point jeopardizing it now. He rolls up his shirt sleeves and turns the corner.

  The bells on the diner door tinkle and he steps into the linoleum cool. Deirdre comes out from the back and her face jumps with happy surprise.

  The door hisses closed on its pneumatic buffer, and the sound of traffic on Division fades. A few people sit, absorbed in their food. The small stone is lodged back in his chest, back in the sore place. He shouldn’t have come. What’s he going to say? But when he steps across the sunlight spotting through the elms it calms him. The counter is pink Formica, worn down in patches to the brown underlayer where decades of customers have rested their arms. The rush of juice filling a glass makes him look up. That pointy smile tweaks Deirdre’s mouth and she drops in a red straw.

  The juice is pink. “Here,” she says. “It’s grapefruit. It’s really good.”

  “Thanks.” The straw is silly but he doesn’t want to seem rude so he leaves it in.

  Across the counter from him she fills napkin holders. “For the evening shift,” she says. Her face is soft and unhurried and he can’t think of a thing to say. They’re right. He’s into her, and he’s not handling it well. Thank god Mr. Nguyen comes out front. That big gray-toothed smile under his Bart Simpson baseball cap.

  “Hello, Mr. Nelson, nice to see you today.” His cap reads, Don’t have a cow, man.

  “Hi, Mr. Nguyen.”

  But Nelson can’t take Mr. Nguyen’s cheerful nodding, and he looks down at the counter. He’s a freak. He hasn’t been in a real relationship for years. He has no idea why this woman is so attractive to him.

  He says, “How’s business?”

  Mr. Nguyen mops toward the espresso machine, slight and sharp and quick. “Good. Since Miss Deirdre, more customer here.”

  Deirdre gives Nelson a sideways look. “Nooo,” she says, the way she does, drawing out the syllable in disbelief. “And which customers would they be?”

  Mr. Nguyen balances the mop handle in the crook of his elbow and counts on his fingers. “More real estate lady. More bike messenger. More college student.” He winks at Nelson. “Every day now she here.”

  Behind Nelson’s eyelids, the strings tighten. It hadn’t occurred to him she was meeting other people. Maybe it’s already happened. Maybe she’s about to mention that she’ll be home late tonight because she has a date.

  Mr. Nguyen mops around the drinks fridge. “Always leak.” His head ducks with the quick movements of the mop. “But Miss Deirdre, fate bring you. You good luck. I give you raise.”

  “Oh!” she says. “Thanks, Mr. Nguyen.”

  “No problemo,” he says, and steps through the doors into the kitchen.

  Deirdre giggles. She takes another napkin holder into those small hands and asks, “So, what brings you to the humble diner?”

  Nelson pulls the key from his pocket, slowly lays it down on the counter. Her eyes widen. Keeping his finger on the key, he slides it across the pink Formica toward her. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”

  Smiling, she snatches up the key and drops it in a pocket. Then she pushes a wad of napkins through the hole and tugs them straight from the other side. “That’s bleedin’ good of you,” she says to the napkins.

  “No problemo.”

  He drops his eyes and sips the juice. And it is good.

  A snicker comes from her, small and musical. “You’re sweet,” she says.

  He doesn’t dare look up. Sweet-tart juice darkens his red straw.

  “Oh look,” she says, and her gaze is on something past his shoulder. “It’s lovely when it does that.”

  Nelson swings his stool around. A breeze is shaking the elms outside and circles of dappled light shudder across the pink tables and the gray linoleum.

  Of course she’d notice that. She’s sensitive to beauty.

  There’s a simple shock in his chest. His head fills like a rising summer tide. He turns back to her, and the wonder in her face brings tears to his eyes.

  On their walk home, Deirdre stops at the weedy lot behind the diner. “I’d love to watch,” she says. “Got the day off tomorrow.”

  The thought of having her as an audience is exciting, but he tries to sound blasé as he tells her they’ll probably put in an all-nighter to produce the show. It's a community radio station, and the equipment is old and breaks down a lot. “So ask Franky to give you a ride there. And if you get bored, there’s always volunteer work to do,” he says. “Stuffing envelopes and so on. That is, if you don’t mind.”

  She snaps off a stalk of dried grass. “I haven’t done anything useful in ages. It’ll be good.” Then she drops the grass and sighs. “I do like weeds.”

  “Me too,” he says, even though the biologist in him is supposed to despise invasive species on principle. “I love it when they reclaim unused urban areas like this. Reminds me how tenacious and resilient nature is.”

  She touches a shaft of dock. “And how quickly the remnants of our bolloxed-up civilization would be engulfed if we humans disappeared.”

  Apocalypse delivered with a touch of whimsy.

  “Let’s hope not,” says Nelson. Then, “That’s curly dock. Rumex crispus,” and there’s a question in her upturned face with its sudden smile. Guess Latin’s going a little overboard.

  She looks back at the dock and says, “Are they flowers?”

  “Apetalous. Just sepals and a calyx. The leaves are edible.” Further down is a small Rubus parviflorus. “Look,” he says. “This is a thimbleberry. Prefers to live under forest canopy. I don’t know how it’s surviving here.”

  “Funny name. Can you eat them?”

  The berries are still pale, and he says, “Couple of weeks they’ll turn red, and they’re delicious. Intense flavor.”

  The tip of her tongue licks her upper lip. “Mmm,” she says. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  He doesn’t mention that they’ll also be covered in vehicle pollution. Not enough to harm her, though, and he doesn’t want to spoil the good mood.

  She points along the sidewalk. “Are those poppies?” she says, and walks toward the glowing yellow flowers.

  “Yeah.” Eschscholzia californica.

  She folds down, sitting easily on her heels, and sets the bag of pastries on the sidewalk. Another excuse for Jen to complain. Fetzer will be happy, but he shouldn’t eat that stuff. He’s put on a lot of weight since 9/11, and on his short frame it really shows.

  Deirdre cradles a poppy flower in her fingers, and Nelson wants to stop this moment in the sun and keep it.

  “Can you smell them?” he asks, and squats next to her. He lifts one of the fire-colored cones and she leans forward, holds her hair back with a hand, and sniffs.

  “Spicy,” she says.

  He sees himself dropping poppy petals on her black hair, laying poppy petals on her smooth belly.

  She looks up from the poppy. Her shadow is dark and solid on the sidewalk, and her face is translucent with reflected poppy-glow. Obsidian hair, topaz eyes. And before he can kiss her pale mouth, here, crouching right here on the sidewalk on the corner of Division and Twelfth, with a brown bag of day-old pastries, and traffic going by, and crows calling in the haggard cherry tree across the road, here on the corner of Division and Twelfth, where he’s balancing on his heels with the sun hot through his shirt and one palm crunching on the sidewalk grit, before he can kiss her here, she stands up and stretches sideways. She goes, “Ooh,” and stretches the other way.

  Opportunity lost.

  Her pale mouth smiles from far away. “Still getting used to being on me feet all day.”

  He stands, brushes the grit off his palm. Small pink dents are left behind.<
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  She picks up the bag, the paper glassy with circles of grease. “Mind if we make a wee detour?” she asks.

  He follows her past the house. Down the block to where the road’s cut off by the chain-link fence and train tracks. Along the dirt path beside the gray warehouse. Blackberry vines catch at his jacket. Then they emerge onto Taggart. Just like she said, there they are, sitting in the shade under the overhang of an abandoned loading dock: the three homeless guys who push their carts down Novi sometimes. Older, harmless looking. Nelson was embarrassed to admit he didn’t know their names. Chuck, Eb, and Sinclair, apparently. The men watch him and Deirdre cross the street and enter the shadow of the overhang. One of them says, “Incoming.”

  Deirdre holds up the bag. “It’s a full one today.”

  The big white guy in a filthy camouflage jacket jumps down, takes the bag in his stained hands, and unrolls the top. His grin is sudden.

  “Thank you, hon.”

  She sends Nelson a glance. “Not organic, I’m afraid.”

  The man climbs back onto the loading dock. “Least of my worries, lady, least of my worries.”

  “I’ve seen you around,” says Nelson. “You live here?”

  The rail-thin black guy says, “Cops leave us alone here.”

  The third man, small and trembling with disease, reaches for the bag, looks in. “God bless you, sweetheart,” he says.

  “Hah,” says Deirdre. “I need all the blessings I can get.”

  Camo-man ducks his head. “All of us do, lady, all of us do.”

  They set to eating. No more words. Deirdre and Nelson return to the heat and light, and walk the dirt path beside the gray warehouse. There’s a flattened glove on the path, and a used condom and a dead bird. It’s one of the finches, ruby feathers on its chest, triangle of wing. Must have been a sudden death for it to be out in the open like that.

  “You do this every day?” Nelson asks.

  “Yes.” She’s walking quickly, her hands in her pockets. They approach the house, and it’s all happening too fast. Then she stops and looks up at the broken porch and the two front doors. Neither of which ever get opened.

  “Anyone on the other side?”

  “Of the house? No, it’s empty. The landlord offered the whole duplex for a discount if we renovated, but we’re too busy. Besides, we don’t need that much space.”

  Then she’s moving again, and he follows her along the side path, then down the half-stairwell to the basement door. It’s a private space, not visible from any windows.

  “I had no idea,” he says. He wants to stall her. “Thank you.”

  She looks at him. “Pardon?”

  “You’ve solved three problems: Mr. Nguyen needs to know his old pastries aren’t going to waste. Those guys need food. And Fetzer needs to stay off the sugar.”

  She smiles that V-shaped smile, and before he can say anything else, she unlocks the door.

  “Hey, Nelson,” says Jen from the map wall.

  “Yeah?” he says.

  “Gotta start prepping for the station retreat.”

  Oh, for god’s sake.

  Nelson flings out, “Why?” He reaches for Deirdre, but she’s walking toward her sheeted cubicle and doesn’t notice. Opportunity truly lost.

  “Uhhh,” says Jen, enunciating as if to an idiot, “’cause we’ve only got a week after tomorrow’s show?” She turns back to the map of southern Washington and sticks in a pin.

  “I know,” says Nelson, wishing he didn’t sound grumpy. He likes the annual radio station retreats. “That it?” he asks when he’s closer. The pin is in the green patch of the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. One of his favorite places.

  Jen traces a spidery line through the green. “If I’m interpreting this forest road right.”

  “How about we take Deirdre, show her a real old-growth forest?” he says, but Jen flatly replies, “No room.”

  Damn you, Jen, and your equipment that takes up the whole back seat.

  14: JEN

  Theme music, up. Steady. And—we’re rolling. Good-fucking-bye to the worst night of production ever.

  Fetzer adjusts his headphones and looks over his notes. Nelson’s tie is gone and his shirtsleeves are rolled up. I fade the music down and Nelson brings his mouth to his mic.

  “It’s that time again, folks. Welcome to the June edition of All The World.”

  “Good Saturday morning to our listeners in Portland,” says Fetzer, “and hello to our listeners around the nation on our sister stations, and around the world streaming on the web. I’m your co-host, Irving Fetzer, and our show for you today is jam-packed with news and surprises.”

  So far so good, considering we’re running on zero sleep. Fetzer pulls away from his mic, Nelson leans into his. Dude better remember to credit me.

  “It certainly is. Hello, I’m your co-host John Nelson. And our engineer, the genius of all things technical, is Jen Owens.”

  Thank you. Now if only you’d remember to put the toilet seat down.

  “Today’s program will knock your socks off,” says Fetzer. “In the American segment, we have the Bush Administration’s plan to open up Alaskan Rainforest to logging, and the congressional debate on Yucca Mountain.”

  Nelson picks up with, “Our direct-action segment features an interview with tree-sitters trying to save a stand of the Willamette National Forest. We also have a report on the Earth Freedom Brigade’s recent firebombing of a wild horse facility in Northern California. I know we’ll get calls about that one.”

  Finally Nelson has his focus back, after the last few days mooning over Deirdre.

  “And that’s not all,” Fetzer says. “In international news we have an exclusive interview with Annie Ekine, spokeswoman for Niger Delta Justice, on their ongoing conflict with oil companies. Plus a report on the debate over GE organisms in the European Union, and an update on indigenous groups’ efforts to protect ecosystems in Brazil. Stay tuned for more after the news headlines. But first, a word from our sponsors.”

  Fetzer pulls away from the microphone and scratches his nose. The background music runs along. Nelson stares into space. Pay attention, dude, we’ve got three hours to go.

  “That’s right,” says Nelson, “we don’t have any sponsors. Omnia Mundi operates independently of any organization—”

  “—governmental or otherwise,” Fetzer growls.

  “Our mission is to collect, archive, and disseminate information from all positions within the environmental and ecological movements. All means all. Visit us on the web at Omnia Mundi dot org.”

  “And now,” says Fetzer, “environmental headlines from around the planet.”

  Track 082, and—it works! Thank you, Jesus.

  Fetzer stretches. Nelson yawns, then he jumps up so fast his chair almost tips over. Huh. Deirdre’s here. Grinning through the porthole. He lets her in, and I turn the studio mic on to hear. She’s brought a cardboard tray of espressos and a bag of something from The Bread Line on Burnside. Nguyen’s a good guy, but his coffee sucks. It’s bagels and cream cheese. Bet she didn’t bring any vegan spread.

  Nelson points me out to her and she waves.

  “Hi,” I say into my mic.

  Nelson says, “We’re live again in a minute, but you can hang out in there.” He points through the big window to Studio 2. “Wanna help stuff envelopes? Talk to that woman with gray cornrows, she’s Isobel, the station coordinator.”

  “Sure.” Deirdre’s checking out the chili sauce stain on his shirt. The half-eaten muffins. The empty coffee cups. Fetzer’s already got cream cheese on his chin and he’s licking it off his fingers. Doesn’t take much to win over the bald dude, just some food. He’s like a dog.

  “Ten seconds,” I say. Nelson’s closing Deirdre out into the hall. Okay, she’s found her way to Studio 2. Isobel’s doing her usual over-the-top warm welcome, and good old purple-haired Beverly is sitting her down. There’s a Rasta guy there I don’t know, with super long dreads.

>   Now is anyone going to bring me one of those espressos?

  Oh joy. She’s sitting across from me. Sure, there’s twenty feet and two panes of plate glass between us, but way to make me feel self-conscious, Deirdre.

  Two hours down, one to go. Top of the hour—station identification—and—“You’re on.”

  Fetzer leans in to his mic. “Welcome back to All the World . . .”

  Ugh. How hard would it be to find a different segue?

  “. . . In this month’s BullyWatch we examine the military academic complex . . .”

  Nelson’s staring at Deirdre through the glass. Deirdre’s stuffing envelopes and nodding at something Beverly’s saying. Two of the phone lines are blinking. “Nelse,” I say, and he jumps, looks guilty. “You’ve got two already.” He gives me a thumbs-up.

  “. . . brings to mind West Point, the Coast Guard Academy and a few others. But what about civilian institutions . . .”

  Someone must have cracked a joke ’cause everyone in Studio 2 is laughing. Kinda wish I wasn’t stuck here in the engineer’s booth on my own.

  “. . . it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that with that kind of cash flying around, the Pentagon is going to exert some pressure . . .”

  Now they’re listening. Deirdre catches Nelson’s stalker stare—hah!

  “. . . Pentagon threatened to pull all 300 million of Harvard’s federal funding if its law school denied access to military recruiters. Well, Harvard caved, and . . .”

  Aww, look at that. His little hidden finger-wave. But I can see you, Nerdiculous.

  “. . . Omnia Mundi has learned that recent local recipients of Pentagon millions to develop military technologies include Northern Oregon University, the Cascade Graduate Institute, and Willamette College of Technology . . .”

  Fetzer’s sagging with each sentence, but Nelse is sitting up straighter. Something about a good show just pumps energy into the guy. Uh-oh, Fetzer’s flubbing. It’s thermal imaging, dude, not thermal visioning. Oh, come on, no. Not landing equipment. Jeez, the military’s figured out how to land the fucking things by now. Approach systems. For bad weather.