Paths

by David DeSimone

  “She said she had a vision,” Shawna said firmly.

  “I didn’t say that,” Ana countered.

  “Okay, then you had a premonition.”

  “Shawna,” Ana sighed. “Please stop.”

  “So you didn’t see anything but you felt something.”

  Exasperated, Ana only shook her head.

  “What do you think it was trying to tell you?” Liz asked.

  Ana pondered the question. She saw doubt on Rufus’s face. “You’re still looking at me like I’m crazy.”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy. Maybe a little stressed but not crazy.”

  “Maybe you’re right, Rufus. Maybe its just stress.”

  “No,” Shawna protested. “Don’t let Rufus get to you. I believe you, Ana.”

  Shawna threw him a cold look.

  “I didn’t say anything!” Rufus pled.

  “No, but your eyes are saying it’s all bullshit.”

  A grin creased his lips.

  “Go ahead, laugh!”

  He did, then immediately apologized. He got up to leave. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” he said. “If you want to take the rest of the day off, go ahead.” To Shawna, he said, “And I thought I told you to go back to work.”

  Back to Ana, he said, “Just let me know before you leave. As for you two ladies, I’ll give you fifteen minutes, then it’s back to work. Okay?”

  They nodded.

  As Rufus turned away, Ana thought she saw traces of a grin on his face.

  “Forget him,” Shawna said with a dismissive wave.

  “Well, it was nice of him to let her take the rest of the day off,” commented Liz.

  “Rufus is okay,” Ana said.

  “Yeah, but if it’s not staring at him right in the face, he won’t believe it. The man’s got no imagination.”

  “So you think I imagined it?”

  “No!”

  “No way!” Liz seconded.

  Liz said, “I thought you were choking on something.”

  “Or having a heart attack.”

  “Maybe it was like Rufus said,” Ana admitted, “just a panic attack.”

  “Ana.”

  She turned to Liz.

  “We believe you. We just don’t know what happened.”

  “I don’t know what happened.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question, Ana,” Liz said.

  “I’m sorry, I forgot.”

  “About what your vision - or whatever - was trying to tell you.”

  Liz and Shawna waited.

  “I don’t know what it was trying to say,” she said finally. “It just felt like maybe something is going to happen. You guys please don’t laugh at what I’m about to tell you. Please.”

  “We won’t,” said Shawna.

  “Yeah,” Liz agreed.

  “I saw explosions and stuff I can’t remember now. And I think I heard babies crying.”

  “Babies?” Shawna asked.

  The hairs on the tops of Elizabeth’s forearms prickled. “That’s messed up, girl,” she said. “What do you think it means?”

  Ana shook her head.

  “Could mean your babies are trying to communicate with you?” Shawna speculated.

  Ana shot her a look. “What do you mean?”

  She shrugged, “Since they can’t talk, they show you sounds and images.”

  “You mean telepathically?”

  “Maybe. I believe in that kind of stuff. My kids sense my presence when I’m watching them, when I’m gonna say something to them, and the opposite is true too. I can tell when they’re okay and not okay just by sensing it.”

  The thought that the images were coming from her babies did not sit well with Ana. She couldn’t understand how Shawna could be so cavalier about the idea. It terrified her.

  “Ana?”

  She looked up. Liz and Shawna stared at her with worried expressions.

  “Are you okay?” Liz said. “You looked like you dropped out again.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m okay. I just feel a little light-headed.”

  “Can I get you a glass of water?” Shawna offered.

  Ana nodded.

  Shawna left to get her a cup of water from the cooler.

  “I think I’m going to take Rufus up on his offer,” Ana said. Liz helped her to her feet.

  “I think you should take a cab home.”

  Shaking her head, “No, I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll treat you.”

  “Thanks Liz, but I just need to go home, get some sleep.”

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  As they headed out through the glass doors, Shawna caught up to them. Standing in the elevator lobby, Shawna handed Ana a plastic cup of water, then gave her a peck on the cheek. “Feel better,” she said and headed back to her desk.

  Ana took a long pull from the cup. Water never tasted so good.

  7

  WEDNESDAY

  Only two days left before maternity leave.

  Could I last? Ana asked herself as she sat and listened to the rhythmic clacking metal wheels of the subway car. Her little sparring partners had been quiet for two days and she basked in the reprieve. Last night she had slept a full eight hours. It had been months since she was able to do that and this morning she felt good, refreshed. Not even the noise and overcrowded train could sap the positive energy she felt. It was only after recalling what Shawna said that threatened to darken her mood. The idea of having a telepathic link with her children had stayed on her mind. Whatever messages they tried to send apparently weren’t good ones.

  Questions arose and disappeared before they could be answered like roman candles spitting balls of light into the sky and twinkling out as the next one arrived.

  How is telepathy possible?

  How could unborn children have any knowledge of a world they had never seen?

  Was something working through them like a radio station sending information across airwaves?

  How could any of this be possible?

  The absurdity inherent in these questions actually worked to allay her fears, making it easy to forget the whole thing happened. Two days passed and no weirdness to speak of. She prayed hoping for another eventless day to pass, although praying wasn’t her thing. But when you faced the irrational, the best weapon against it was the irrational.

  “Ana,” a voice called out. Ana looked up from her tea and turkey avocado on whole-wheat. She decided on lunching alone away from the office and the Lang-girls.

  “How you feeling?” Cheryl asked, holding a cup of coffee.

  “Cheryl!” Ana said, surprised.

  “May I sit down?”

  “Sure.”

  They were in a Starbucks. The din of the afternoon crowd droned on.

  Cheryl slid into the seat across from Ana, her back facing a wall-sized window looking north on East 41st Street. She paused, noticing how the clear light coming in threw a golden cast on Ana, giving her face and large round eyes the soft contours of a Renoir portrait. The sun had transformed her from a pretty young woman to an ethereal beauty.

  “What?” Ana said.

  Cheryl shook her head. “Nothing. You look healthy is all, especially compared to how you were a few days ago.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Well, I saw some of it. Rufus told me the rest.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “That you believe you had some kind of vision.”

  Ana groaned. “I never said I had a vision. That was Shawna.”

  Cheryl rolled her eyes with disdain. She sipped coffee from her cup.

  “Did he laugh?” asked Ana. “I’ll bet he laughed.”

  “A little.”

  Ana sighed.

  “But he is also worried about you, and so am I.”

  She gave Cheryl a look of mild surprise. “You?”

  “Yes, me. Just because I don’t see eye-to-eye with Shawna doesn’t mean I don’t like you, Ana. On the c
ontrary, I happen to think you’re a wonderful person.”

  Hearing this left Ana momentarily speechless.

  “Thank you, Cheryl.”

  “And Liz isn’t so bad either.”

  “Well, maybe you should come out with us.”

  Cheryl shook her head.

  “Why not?”

  “You know why.”

  “Don’t worry about Shawna. She’s all bark. You just need to get to know each other better.”

  “I don’t think it’s that easy. That girl has it out for me and it’ll take more than a few nights out over drinks to resolve it.”

  Ana stared at her blankly.

  “I’ll bet she tells you I’m fucking Rufus. Right?”

  Ana said nothing, but Cheryl noticed her flushed cheeks. “Humph!” she grunted. “It’s okay. She can believe what she wants. I think you should know the truth though.”

  “Are you?” Ana asked before she could stop herself.

  “Am I what?”

  “Sleeping with him?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Sorry,” she said after noticing the indignant look on Cheryl’s face. “So what’s the truth?”

  “I think she’s jealous.”

  Ana’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “Mmh-hmh.”

  “Over Rufus?” Ana laughed.

  Cheryl said nothing. She sat waiting for Ana to continue. Her face was granite.

  “Well,” Ana said, “I guess maybe since he’s the boss-”

  “It’s got nothing to do with that.” Cheryl slipped out of her black leather jacket, and threw it over the backrest to reveal a tastefully cut, white V-neck blouse and a necklace with a gold heart locket.

  Very nice locket, Ana thought, while still under the assumption, though fading, that Cheryl was sleeping with Rufus. But she wondered if Rufus bought it for her. Then, as fast as sunlight disappearing from the shiny locket as Cheryl turned, she dismissed the thought.

  “That’s lovely,” she said pointing to the locket.

  Cheryl touched it delicately. She smiled, “Thank you. My mother bought it for me on my last birthday. She said there’s no greater love than the love a mother has for her child.”

  “That’s very sweet.”

  “Yeah. And she’s right.”

  She felt for the heart-shaped locket, pressed a tiny notch on the side and pried it open with her fingernail revealing a hollow space inside. “She wants me to put a picture of her in it but I said ‘Mom, I can’t fit anything into that tiny space.’ And she said ‘Try.’ I said okay and left it at that.” She closed the locket and folded her hands primly on the table, signaling that it was time to get back to business, her smile waning.

  “I think Shawna’s in love with Rufus.”

  “No way,” Ana gasped.

  “That’s what I think.”

  “Yeah but do you know.”

  “I have a hunch. And my hunches are rarely wrong.”

  “No offense, but I’ve known Shawna for over four years. I think I would’ve known.”

  “Maybe. But then again, maybe not.”

  “Oh, c’mon Cheryl.”

  Throwing her arms up, “I’m just saying. That girl hates me. Hates me,” she finished with an emphasis on ‘hate’. “And for what? I’ve done nothing to her. I even apologized.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know!” she said.

  Ana sat open-mouthed.

  “I don’t like fighting, Ana - hate it! You don’t know what it’s like coming into the office everyday and one of the first things you see is a scowling face. You don’t even have to see it to know that damned scowl is there. And the way she looks at Rufus.”

  “How’s that.”

  “It’s a kind of yearning.”

  “No way! Sorry, I’ve never seen it.”

  “Because you don’t look hard enough. But I know. And you know how I know?”

  Ana waited.

  “Because I work closely with Rufus. That’s how I know.”

  “Sorry,” Ana said, slightly annoyed. “I’m not gettin’ you.”

  “You don’t see because you’re blinded by Shawna’s strong personality, her don’t-fuck-with-a-sista attitude.

  “You miss what’s not being said. Her body language. The quick glances at him, the tension in her face when he’s near her. Have you ever noticed how she talks to him, like he’s below her?”

  “Condescending?”

  “Exactly.”

  “She sounds like that to everyone unless you get to know her.”

  Shaking her head, Cheryl said, “No. I know when someone is overcompensating.”

  “I’ve never noticed it.”

  “Well, look harder.”

  Are you suggesting that Shawna and Rufus are-”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. All I’m saying is that girl’s got something for him.”

  Ana’s mind was a lightning storm of activity. Cheryl had opened up ideas she would not have considered in a billion years. “You missed your calling,” she said. “You would have made a good lawyer.”

  “I actually thought of that back in college. Make tons of money being a defense attorney, but I had some moral issues to contend with. What if I had someone acquitted and then that person went on a killing spree? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”

  Ana could have continued on this side trip down the life and times of Cheryl Anderson, but she was eager to return to the topic of her friend.

  “Okay,” Ana said abruptly. “I’m still having trouble swallowing all this. I think you’re wrong-”

  “That’s fine-”

  “-but you never explained how working closely with Rufus clued you in on how Shawna feels about him. Did he say something to you?”

  “No. He didn’t have to. I notice things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like Shawna coming into the office all the time having a question about this or that.”

  “So?”

  “She does it a lot, like at least ten times a day. You haven’t noticed that because you’re too busy concentrating on your own work and you’re not his administrative assistant. So you don’t see what I see.”

  “Yeah but have you ever caught them together?”

  She shook her head. “No, and I’m not sure I ever will. Like I said I never suggested they’re having an affair. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. Could be that Rufus just likes the attention.”

  Ana considered this, tried to size up Rufus in her own head to complete the puzzle, but she needed more information. “Can I ask you, has he ever made a pass at you?”

  “No,” Cheryl said. “His eyes wander sometimes, but that’s normal. Half the time I don’t think he knows he’s doing it. But what man wouldn’t look at me. I’m hot stuff!”

  Ana gave a polite chuckle. She took a bite of her sandwich. She chewed, swallowed, and took a sip of water.

  “But, no,” Cheryl continued, “he never flirted with me. I’m thinking it’s all her.” She stared at Ana for a long second. At last she said, “I feel something’s going on, too, at least with her. You aren’t the only one with a sixth sense. I’ve got it too. I think I inherited it from my nana.” Brows furrowed, she stared pensively at the coffee cup cradled in her laced fingers. “I can sense what people are thinking. Know what I’m sayin’?”

  Ana nodded as though she knew, but the truth was she didn’t know.

  “They don’t have to say or do anything and I’ll know what they’re thinking.”

  “You’re saying you’re a mind reader?”

  “Kinda. I don’t know exactly what they’re thinking but I sense it.” She sipped from her cup.

  Ana continued eating her turkey sandwich, listening, trying not to laugh. Considering she might have had her own bona-fide psychic experience, Ana supposed she should have been a little more open-minded. Then again, when something unique occurs to one person, everyone else wants to get in on the fun. That’s cold, thought Ana,
ashamed. Cold.

  She took another sip of bottled water.

  “I sense what they’re thinking,” Cheryl repeated. “And I’m often right.”

  “Like an empath,” Ana replied grinning. The grin disappeared before Cheryl noticed it.

  “I suppose so.”

  “What am I thinking now?”

  Cheryl paused. “It doesn’t work that way,” she said. “You have to be in a heightened emotional state, feelings like fear and love will do it. I saw it in you two days ago.”

  “Well, I made that pretty obvious.”

  “Yes, but I sensed your thoughts and I was quite disturbed.”

  “Okay, tell me.”

  “They weren’t clear. I couldn’t see anything specific-”

  “Tell me!”

  Cheryl pulled back, allowed a few seconds to pass.

  “I sensed that your unborn twins were somehow involved.”

  Ana felt a stab in her chest. “Rufus told you.”

  “He said that you said you had a vision-”

  “I didn’t say-”

  “But nothing about what he said had anything to do with your babies.”

  “That was Shawna,” Ana said firmly. “She said some weird stuff about telepathy and her children. Rufus heard her say it and then told you. Maybe you forgot.”

  “No. I don’t forget anything. If he said it I would have known it. He didn’t say it, Ana.”

  A chill touched her spine and ran up the nape of her neck.

  “You saw something,” Cheryl added. “And I think your brain blocked it out because whatever you saw was too terrible to contemplate.”

  “You’re making me uncomfortable, Cheryl.”

  “I’m sorry. That is not my intention. I know you don’t believe me. I can tell.”

  “Why - because you sense it?” Ana scoffed.

  Ignoring her, Cheryl said, “I can see it in your eyes. They’re laughing eyes.”

  No longer having an appetite, Ana closed the plastic lid, sealing inside a half-eaten turkey sandwich. She grabbed her bottled water and got up to leave. “I have to go.”

  “Wait!” Cheryl grabbed Ana’s wrist. “I really mean it. I’m sorry I scared you. Would you please just answer one question before you go?” Seeing how desperate Cheryl became, Ana decided to allow the question.