Today Will Be Different(28)

“Hey,” I said. “You’re a poet. Talk like one.”

“They empty that trash at twelve, three, and six,” Jimmy said. “I seen a lot of folks have second thoughts, come back but it’s gone.”

“I stand on my little mat flogging my fish story. Fresh from Alaska! On the box there’s an icy, roaring stream jumping with sassy fish. Really, it’s antibiotic-pumped tilapia farmed in Vietnam that maybe makes a stopover in Alaska. But hey, the price is right! Americans. You can see it in their walk. If they find something cheap, it puts a disgusting little bounce in their step.”

“Okay!” I said.

“And yet, it genuinely pains me when people like you spit out my samples.”

“I didn’t spit it out!”

“I saw you,” he said. “Yesterday was worse. Yesterday they gave me ostrich jerky.”

“That was you?” Jimmy said, his chair leaping back with a zzzt.

“I didn’t kill the ostriches. I didn’t hang them up to dry and hack them into strips! I just handed it out. I’m a poet!”

“Do you mind if we do this in the shade?” asked Jimmy. He put his chair in reverse and zzzt’d backward.

“Do what in the shade?” I watched him recede farther away from where I needed to be, and yesterday: the sculpture park.

“Our talk!” Jimmy shouted from under the eave of Costco.

“We’re not having a talk!” I said.

Alonzo lowered himself onto the curb, a three-step process accompanied by a fair amount of grunting.

“No, don’t sit down!” I said. “Ugh! I’m telling you, I don’t know whether to shit or go blind.”

“Shit,” Alonzo said. “It’s hardly Sophie’s choice.”

He was now cradling his head in his hands. “Costco’s the only insurance that pays for in vitro. My wife’s going to kill me. But nothing is worth another hour of that place.”

“Come on, Alonzo.” I patted his back. “All work has dignity.”

“She’s right!” called Jimmy from the shade.

“Not that work!” Alonzo shouted back. He turned to me. A puzzled look befell his face. “Wait. What happened to your steak fish?”

“Right. Uh. It was delicious, but my son is with a stranger who expected me back an hour ago and the line was really long and—”

Jimmy motored over. “Where did you leave it? I’m not going to turn you in. It’s just, it could thaw.”

“In a basket of T-shirts.”

“Oooh,” Jimmy said. “You better show me.”

“Yeah,” Alonzo said. “Show him.”

“No.” I reached through my legs, pulled up the back hem of my dress, and tied it in a three-way knot. Looking like Gandhi from the waist down, I climbed the rungs of the dumpster.

“My life,” I said, “is with my son, who I need to get back to before someone calls Child Services.”

I snatched the apron and tossed it at Alonzo’s chest. He let it bounce off.

“Your life,” I said to Alonzo, hopping down, “is in that Costco.” I tied the apron around his neck.

“Jimmy?” I said.

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Your life is escorting Alonzo back to his steak fish station.”

“Can do.”

“I’m a poet,” Alonzo said. “I’m writing a novel. It’s called Marigold, My Marigold. When I came to work, I passed a rack of marigolds. As I did, one broke off. This one. It was a sign. Today is the day my novel comes first.”

“Alonzo,” I said. “Quit tomorrow. I don’t care. Just talk it over with your wife.”

I aimed him in the direction of Costco.

“Go back to your darkling plain,” I said, giving him a helpful shove. “Everything will be fine.”

“My what?” Alonzo asked, turning back.

“Your little standing mat. Your darkling plain… pretend I never said it.”





I’d love to tell you I jogged the half mile back to the museum at a measured and steady pace. Really, I sprinted with boobs flapping, R. Crumb calves wobbling, throat burning, blister on the inside of my right heel forming. And stopped after a hundred feet.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. Spencer must have waterboarded my number out of the recesses of Timby’s mind.

“Yes, hello?”

“Am I speaking with Eleanor Flood?”

I took my phone away from my ear.

JOYCE PRIMM.

“Joyce, hi! I’ve been meaning to call!”

“This is Camryn Karis-Sconyers,” the voice said. “I’m an editor at Burton Hill.”

Whatever was about to happen, I had the strongest premonition I shouldn’t hear it standing up.

I’d arrived at a small fishing pier. A Native American in a jean jacket sat on a bench with a portable radio. At his feet was a bucket filled with bloody gunk. BAIT 4 SALE. He nodded at the empty spot beside him. I sat down.

“Nice to meet you,” I said to Ms. Karis-Sconyers.

“I’m calling because we’re moving our offices downtown. I’ve been going through our files and found one for The Flood Girls. I’m wondering what you’d like us to do with it.”