The Fall of Never(2)

I’m going to crack here. I’m going to lose it and die here.

Often, the streets managed to coax tears from her. She’d listened to the city’s clutter from her tiny apartment, mostly in the dark, mostly in frightened contemplation about her future. She felt sluggish, lethargic, and digested a constant string of poetry—Shelley, Byron, Tennyson, Browning—as well as countless midafternoon cocktails. With an absence that was nearly cataleptic she chewed her fingernails to the skin; she watched the minutes roll by on her bedroom clock, too uninspired to stir; listened to the vague cacophony of neighbors through the plaster walls.

Die here…

Then, one morning, she saw the line. It was lit up before her like an airport runway. In fact, it was so perfectly defined she was surprised she hadn’t noticed it before: the line. The straight-and-narrow. The path. It was as easy as slipping into an old habit. Routine. And, after one year of living as the city’s worn and rugged doormat, she just shook the dirt off, simple as that. She’d become one of the masses, another faceless mover in a packed sea of occupied perambulators. And that was one of the two things she had always wanted: normalcy.

The other thing was art.



Josh Cavey looked up from his cappuccino and smiled at Kelly as she stood shivering in the doorway of the café. She hustled over to him, wrapped tightly in a thick wool coat and a knitted hat, and slid behind the table opposite him. She shook the last of the cold from her body in one quick shudder.

“It’s freezing out there,” she said.

“It’s good,” Josh said. He was an average-looking guy in his late twenties, with cropped, russet hair and a silver loop in each ear. “Wakes you up.”

“I’m awake, all right,” she said, setting a notebook and a large manila envelope on the Formica tabletop. She opened the envelope and slid out a series of black and white glossies.

“Coffee?” he asked.

“I’m good, thanks.”

Josh sipped his cappuccino, the steam rising from the Styrofoam cup and up in front of his face. Kelly was aware of his eyes on her and didn’t look up to meet them. Instead, she concentrated on the photographs, and on the aroma of coffee beans and fresh pastries suffused throughout the air.

“I want to tape those hour segments today,” she told him, flipping through the photographs. “Remember those segment ideas we talked about yesterday?”

“I’m not senile.”

“I want it to be totally natural. I’m going to stay out of the shots today too.”

“Smart idea. Those bags under your eyes might not look too flattering on film.”

She paused in her work and stared up at him. If she’d ever found Josh Cavey attractive—and she had, though it now seemed like a very long time ago—she now only saw him as a transient, as someone who has stepped into this slice of her life merely to disappear before the beginning of the next. Whatever special attraction she had felt for him when they first began working on the project together had gotten lost somewhere along the way. And that was just fine by her; the last thing she needed was another person in her life.

“Are you starting again?” she said.

“What?” He held up his hands, feigning innocence. “I’m just being perceptive. That’s usually considered to be a preferred skill for a cameraman and video producer. You should be pleased.”

“I just haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.”

“Something wrong?”

“No,” she said, looking back down at her photographs. The one on top depicted an obscenely obese woman stretched out across her groaning mattress with a plate of brownies resting on her enormous belly. Above the woman’s head was a framed picture of President Richard Nixon giving his V-for-Victory salute as he stepped off an airplane.

“Something must be on your mind,” he pursued. “And I can tell by the way you’re looking at me that you want me to shut the hell up, which only reaffirms my belief that something is wrong. Is this project stressing you out?”

She drummed her fingers along the tabletop. “No,” she said, “I love the project, you know that.”

“I know it. You want to jab your pen in my right eye? Go on, I’ll be a good boy and hold still for you. When you reach gristle, though, just promise to stop pushing. I’d hate to have you puncture my brain.”

“You’re so morbid.”

“Normally you admire that.”

“Normally it isn’t six-thirty in the morning, Josh. Besides, you don’t look so great yourself, you know.”

“True—but I was out all night last night. Found my drunk self wandering from club to club with friends who…hell, maybe they weren’t even my friends, who can remember now? But that’s me, not you. So in the interest of our friendship, please tell me what’s been bothering you lately?”

His words shook her. Alone, it was easy to convince herself that she was fine, that she was stressed but was fine; however, it became increasingly difficult to foster such a belief when the words started coming from other people…

“You know what?” she said finally, sliding out from the booth. “Order me that coffee after all.”

She moved across the floor, slipped into the café’s bathroom, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Okay, Josh was right—there were deep purple grooves beneath her eyes. Also, stress lines had formed around the sides of her mouth. Deep. She’d been biting the inside of her cheek lately too—a nervous habit she thought she’d left behind during her childhood.