Postcard Stories

Wellesley, Massachusetts

To those who know him – and he’d be the first to admit that there aren’t many who do – Wilander Powers is one odd duck. And yet, Christine, over time, had become more and more fascinated by him.

Wilander would arrive every Wednesday night at six and take the furthest booth on the left hand side, back by the wall-sized mirror, which created the illusion that the relatively small interior was at least double in size.

If the booth was unavailable, like it was tonight, he would wait, in the neon lit vestibule by the register with the back of his head pressed against the fish-tank, until it was ready. Schmaltzy erhu music, brittle and lilting, floated through the speakers in the top corners of the place. Wilander sat with a book in hand. He was exceedingly overweight, but made it worse by dressing in a dense layering of flannel shirts and rain slickers. He had an earring in one ear and a bleached tipped square-do hairstyle which he would constantly poke fun at, referring to it as “spillover from his nineties days.” Though he would never change it. He also tucked his sweatpants into his boots, “not because he was a nerd or anything,” but “because it was practical, because it kept the rain out.”

He was also devastatingly bright, almost exhaustively so – though he’d barely made it through high school, Wilander was an avid reader and was, in particular, quite taken with the mid twentieth century post-structuralists. He was known to highjack even the most banal small-talk into unnecessary master’s thesis level digressions: “the hetero-normative structures of power inherent in the ordering of Chinese food menu items,” or how the “fortune cookie perfectly exemplifies Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of a body without organs,” and so on.

Wilander was also “an accomplished,” though self-proclaimed, community activist, and was extraordinarily proud of his achievement in fighting for the negotiation of lowered speed-bumps around the Wellesley area. As Christine peaked out from the kitchen, she saw him wearing a screen-printed t-shirt carrying the slogan; “Let’s Bump the Bumps!”

Christine’s perma-scowling mother, Mei, had shoo’d him away when he’d come by the restaurant for the first time several months back, thinking he was a vagrant. An incident to which Wilander would coyly use as leverage in every discussion of payment for his meals from then on out.

Wilander was the sort of guy who would laugh through his nose while reading books at his table. A proud snob. He was also a dreadfully loud chewer. The food seemed to stick and smack and gurgle as he gnashed his crispy duck, Szezchuan beef, or Moo Goo Gai Pan. His lips and jaw would pop with every crunch of fried crab rangoon. He would slurp down the remaining broth of wonton soup, or sigh “ahhh” after an extended sip of oolong tea.

On this night, Christine’s father had found a circular pill-calendar, which had fallen out of her backpack, and was holding it as she walked into the kitchen with plates on her arm.

“Very disappointed,” he kept saying under his breath. “How much is this costing us?”

Her mother walked in through the doors and, upon seeing Christine, slapped her across the face. “I not raise whore!” shouted her mother.

Christine choked, and took off into the bathroom to cry it out.

After composing herself, Christine walked over to the vestibule and nodded to Wilander, she walked him over to his usual table.

“It’s nice to see you again,” she said, with a forced smile. He lit up. Wilander was always pleasant around Christine. He could be very charming when she would wait his table. He would compliment her “lovely wrists,” or her “regal posture” posture as she held the menus. She enjoyed his anger and his eccentricities, and although he could put-off some by his prickly demeanor, he was kind to Christine and she was grateful. She was intrigued by how mysterious he was, how much energy he would spend in his own head, while having a distorted sense of the real world around him. She was a lonely girl, pushed into a studious social purgatory her senior year of high school by her well intentioned, but overbearing first-generation parents - which did not get any better once she started at MassBay - and the attention was exciting.

She didn’t understand how, but even found herself attracted to him merely by how unattractive he was to everyone else. It was a secret, and something that only she could feel. She also loved how he his very existence brought anger her parents. It was common that she would walk back into the kitchen and hear her mother and father arguing over how to get rid of him, since they both felt he was hurting their business.

“Are you okay?” asked Wilander, noticing the redness of her eyes, the puffiness of her cheeks. She ignored his query.

Christine went back into the kitchen where her mother and father stood. “I just wanted to be safe,” she said, with tears budding at the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry if that made you mad. I just didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t think you’d understand. Which you obviously don’t.”

“You’re a dirty whore and slut daughter,” said her mother. Christine grabbed a tray of food and stormed out.

As she brought over a steaming basket of pork dumplings to Wilander’s table, she slid into the booth across from him to his surprise.

“I want you to take me away,” she said.

“I don’t know what you mean?” said Wilander, nearly expelling his tea.

“I need to get out of here.”

Her eyes did not break from his. Wilander beamed, but remained cautious. He felt too ugly for this thin, and pretty, young girl sitting across from him. He felt too ugly and too awkward. Nobody was ever interested in him. If they were, he’d found, they always had an ulterior motive. Normally, to humiliate him in some way.

What did she really want with him?

“Where do you want to go?” he asked.

“I don’t care. Let’s drive north and get as far away as possible.”

“I don’t know. I have a lot to do.”

“Like what do you have to do? Where do you work?”

“I’m between jobs.”

“Okay? So what’s the hold up?”

“Money’s tight.”

“I’ll pay for gas.”

“The city needs my help.”

“The city can wait.”

“There are three new speed-bumps put in this month that aren’t up to the new code.”

“Forget the speed-bumps. Let’s go.” Christine saw the angered face of her mother through the mirror. “Let’s go right now. I’m absolutely serious.”

“Now?”

“Now. Pay, and go out to your car. Wait inside, and I’ll run out and we can leave.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

“Just do it.”

Christine sat up and walked over in through to the kitchen.

Wilander followed her directions and sat idly in the car with the heat on, and waited until about fifteen minutes had passed and he saw her shoot out of the round entrance of the restaurant with a bag slung over her shoulder. She was followed by her angular parents shouting in Chinese.

She jumped in. “Go!”

Wilander jammed his heavy foot onto the pedal, but the car screeched forward instead of back. He and Christine were yanked forward against their seat-belts. His car hit the wall of the restaurant and smashed through a crumbling gash in the exterior wall. A panda that had been painted onto it, now decapitated. Christine and Wilander looked at each other as her parents ran forward, pounding on the glass windows with their palms.

“Oh my god! Are you okay? I’m so sorry!” he said.

“Just go! GO! Get out of here!”

Wilander screeched back in reverse, and they were out of the parking lot and onto the road. Christine threw her head around and watched the restaurant, her parents, everything, disappear into the night.

She yelled out, celebratory. Wilander remained silent and fearful. He didn’t know what was going to happen next, but he didn’t dare slow down.

That night while driving, Wilander looked down at the sleeping Christine in his passenger seat, briefly illuminated by oncoming headlights. She was snoring lightly, almost purring, and for the first time for as long as he could remember he felt alive and awake. He was also confused and still cautious of her intentions. He still felt unworthy, but that thought quickly faded as she sleepily grabbed at his hand and took it into hers.

“I don’t know why, but I like you. I don’t know anything about you.”

“But why? I’m repulsive and introverted and out of shape. What would you see in someone like me?”

“You’re real.” He took it in, but didn’t know what to make of it. “But you need some self-confidence, guy.”

He looked back over and her eyes were fluttering closed.

Later, they stopped at a gas station just inside the Maine state line. It was still dark outside and Wilander and Christine walked into the convenient mart. They caught the clerk’s gaze which looked over the mismatched duo He felt a sense of pride being seen with her. Nobody ever looked twice in his direction. Nobody ever cared. This feeling he felt was exhilarating. Even though the boundaries of their new found relationship were still in genesis, he felt, briefly and wonderfully, capable of anything.

On a grainy television, back behind the counter, Wilander saw footage of a young man – dressed as Groucho Marx – being lifted to safety in the arms of a firefighter from the wreckage of a movie studio. A studio which had mostly collapsed after an earthquake hit the West Coast. The boy was injured, but okay.

Christine tip-toed through the bathroom, around little spills of questionable water. She looked at herself in the mirror. She couldn’t believe what she was doing. Ever since leaving Wellesley she’d felt as though she weren’t inside her body, as if she was watching herself from outside with the fear and delight of a feeling akin to schadenfreude. Yet, she was scared because the euphoric rush of displacement was already beginning to leave. She washed her face and then left.

By morning they were on the beach in Eastern Maine, watching the sun rise over the ocean.

“I’ve always liked you Christine,” said Wilander. “Why do you think I’ve been coming to your restaurant every week? It’s definitely not for the food,” he said, looking over at the shoeless girl hopping around on the sand. She looked back over at him and smirked.

They’d reached the end of the United States, but it wasn’t the answer that they’d been expecting. Their problem remained as ever-present as the night before. Together they moved in and held each on to each other’s hands, as if to keep from falling, with their bare feet digging into the cold sand.

They watched the glowing orb of sun over the water, waiting for the police, or her parents, to finally catch up to them.

Postcard: Found at the Antique Warehouse Mall in Memphis, TN in October 2011.

Stockbridge, Massachusetts

It all started last winter when Sara’s family moved to Stockbridge.

I didn’t like her at all when I first saw her. It was at basketball practice when she trailed Coach Schmidt in through the gym doors with a basketball tucked under her arm.

“The New Girl.”

She was chewing on gum, had long ponytailed hair, and had come from “the city.” She carried a certain confident smirk on her face at all times. We all immediately resented her for it. Especially me. She was damn good too, fearless and technically skilled with the ball. She had a hook shot that she could sink from way outside the box.

It was at that first practice, when were playing man-to-man defense, and I was doing my best to guard her.

Late in the scrimmage, Carrie Westholme blew a routine layup. Sara and I both leapt up into the stale gym air to grab it.

Sara’s bony elbow connected with my nose. It was burning sensation, like when you’re bodyboarding at the beach and you catch a nose full of salt water. Blood dripped out onto the court, before I even knew what had happened. A circle of girls in headbands crouched around. I was spinning, but I saw Sara out of the corner of my eye.

“What the fuck?” I said, slamming my palms into her chest. She toppled backward as Coach Schmidt ran forward to break us up.

I was rushed to the school nurse’s office immediately.

Sara had come in to see me later on. I looked like shit. My nose was swollen and purple. I told her to leave, but she insisted on staying.

“I didn’t mean to knock you like that,” she said.

I didn’t respond. I refused to look at her. I toyed with my gown, and stared at a life-sized skeleton in sunglasses in the corner of the office.

Sara sat for close to an hour by my side until my mom got off work and picked me up. I never acknowledged her presence.

The next day she was waiting at my locker with a stack of books in her arms. She was taller than most of us at that age, and stuck out in the moving waves of high schoolers switching books at their lockers. I was still supposed to be mad. I wasn’t supposed to like her. But there was something about her that was exciting to me, and I didn’t know what. Her eyes had a frustrated intensity about them, like she’d never been challenged by anything in her life.  She was the city brat responsible for the big bandage over my nose now. The cause for the muted snickers from all around me.

I moved toward her.

Sara apologized. I still wasn’t sure who she was at this point. While I assumed it was all for show - for the sake of not alienating herself within her new school environment - I was too stubborn to see that she was strikingly sincere.

The rest of that winter was a blur. Sara and I were soon inseparable.

We would carpool to and from school, usually going back to Sara’s house after practice to listen to her extensive cassette tape collection before her parents – who were both doctors and almost always gone – would get back from work. Her parents were strict, but largely absent. The kind who, because of their absence, always returned home with an unhealthy suspicion about what had been going on.

While Sara was a model student (she’d gotten into Brown early decision, her father’s alma-mater) and a star-athlete, there was reason for them to be suspicious. Sara smoked a lot. And I don’t mean cigarettes. The girl was crazy about weed. It never bothered me though. It was her thing, and I didn’t mind. Each day we’d get back from school, our hair still damp, in baggy tear-away pants and hoodies, and go outside and sit in the damp of a small treehouse which had been in the backyard when her family had moved in.

We would sit there, usually with My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, which was Sara’s favorite – soon my favorite too – on her TalkBoy, as the sun was setting and our breath crystalized in front of us.

Sara always had the apple prepared ahead of time. She must have carved it up at night. She would smoke out of it, exhaling out the window of the treehouse. Every night she would offer, but I never smoked. And I would watch until her eyes were tinted red and she was high. I liked the way her eyes looked after she smoked, more relaxed, and less annoyed at everything. I enjoyed the way it made her smell, something like pine needles. I tried to imagine how the drug was affecting her thoughts as, at that point, I’d only smoked once and not enough to really feel it.

After awhile, we would always sneak back indoors before it got too late, make food, listen to music, and watch Nicktoons on TV.

Hanging with Sara during her nightly ritual, along with my stellar basketball season, had somehow turned it into the best winter of my life.

Then came the night that changed everything. We’d been sitting in the treehouse, and it was February and bitter cold, and Sara had just smoked and was sitting back with her arms behind her head. I was a few feet across from her, cross-legged, reading a story for my French homework; the medieval fable Aucassin and Nicolette. Sara noticed me shivering and looked like she was on the verge of saying something for a long time. I laughed and asked her what was up and she leaned forward and took my hand in hers. I was surprised and suddenly felt warm. My stomach was twisting. It felt like the time my teammates had dared me to sneak into the boy’s locker room after practice one time, when Coach Schmidt was on the phone in her office, and see how long I could last before running back out. After awhile I picked up my flashlight, flicked it on, and began reading portions of the text aloud.

“What’s it about?” asked Sara.

“These troubled lovers named Aucassin and Nicolette, in like medieval times, and all the obstacles they face to be together.”

Sara nodded and remained still.

“What are you doing?” I said finally, and immediately regretted it. I hoped that she hadn’t heard me. Whatever Sara was expressing, I didn’t want “it” to feel threatened and retreat. I figured she’d smoked herself silly.

“I don’t know. You look cold,” she said as she put her arm around me. We sat there for a long time, until I turned to face her. I tested my nose against her cheek, and she remained calm, her fingers running along my arm.

Neither of us initiated the kiss, it sort of just happened naturally. She set my glasses aside and looked at me. I was nervous and shaking, but felt good. I’d never done anything like this before. I had always been the “nerdy jock” type, and had only been kissed once at that point. And that was by Wiley Coates and it had been a school bus dare and bland and stupid and meaningless. Nothing even close to how good this felt, how right.

She slunk down, her back against the cool wooden flooring, and I moved on top of her as we continued kissing. I felt a wonderful surge of confidence. As if absorbing Sara’s own confidence through her mouth, but I couldn’t shake the anxiety of what this would all mean when she came down from the weed and realized what was going on with more clarity.

But, she never got a chance to. Sara’s mother, who’d gotten home early from the hospital, was already halfway into the treehouse when I scrambled off Sara and we all remained silent, her panicked eyes darting between me and the apple and the lighter, before Sara began to laugh.

“Well this is awkward,” Sara said, stifling an almost idiotic giggle. Her mother, who had begun crying, told me I needed to get out of their home. She said I wasn’t allowed to see Sara again.

By the weekend, Sara was back in Manhattan at a drug rehabilitation center. I spent the rest of winter and spring in a depressive state. I stopped paying attention in school and began having anxiety attacks. I missed Sara a “fuck-ton,” as she’d always said. Nothing made sense without her. I wanted her to hold me and kiss me again. Worst of all, I hadn’t heard from her in months.

I would circle her parents home on my bike at night, hoping maybe she’d have returned, but the upstairs window – Sara’s bedroom window – was always dark.

One night, I ditched my bike behind a tree down the street, and snuck into their front yard. I could see people in their front living room, the curtains wide, the glow of a TV out across the lawn. I pulled my hooded sweatshirt up over my head, and snuck along the bushes. I reached the side of the house, and pressed up against the cold panels of the house. I felt creepy and weird doing it, but I had to get a peek inside.

I stood up on my tip-toes, and peered in through the window. Sara’s parents sat on separate ends of the couch. Her mother had a magazine in her lap, and her father sat at the edge of his seat – staring in at a baseball game on the television. I squinted, straining to see. I grabbed hold of the window-sill and pulled myself up, just off the ground. It was the Red Sox versus the Cleveland Indians.

“This Marty Donovon guy is about to pitch a perfect game,” I heard her father say to Sara’s mother, who nodded. “Do you realize how rare that is?”

“That’s great honey,” she said, failing to glance up from her magazine.

I slipped backward, and toppled over, crunching back into the bush below the window. I scrambled out of the bush and up onto my feet. I heard several noises from inside.

“What was that?” her mother said, alarmed, from inside.

I took off, and as I darted out through the yard, toward the street, I turned briefly to see the silhouette of Sara’s parents in the window, looking out into the darkness of their neighborhood.

Back home, over dinners, my mother would comment that “you’ve hardly touched your chicken,” and ask “whatever happened to that friend Sara of yours?” “I really liked her?” she would say. And each time I would recite the same story that we had gotten into a fight.

Yet, each time I would see my parents during that time, the routine would refresh; the frantic search of their face, of their tone of voice over the phone, for any hint that “they knew.” My mother was on the school Parents Board, and because we all know that parents talk, I was anxiously awaiting the day when the truth finally reached my parents ears.

I was almost relieved when they finally found out.

Like Sara’s parents, they also blamed it on the weed. They didn’t believe me when I told them I never smoked with Sara. They wouldn’t ever let me take a drug test to prove myself, either.

Even when I got into UMass on a basketball scholarship, it wasn’t the joyous occasion I had always imagined. The fucking elephant remained in the corner of every room when my parents were around, swinging its goddamn trunk around and knocking over shelves and glassware and my mother’s religious themed teapot collection. Figuratively, of course.

I didn’t know what to do to make any of it better.

“Don’t lie to me,” my mother would say, attacking her dishes with a sponge. “You were smoking that junk too, and it warped your mind.”

Every Sunday after church, my mother would try and talk me into attending NA meetings and I would refuse and continue to beg her to stop. My life was shit. All I wanted was to see Sara again, to be with her, to feel excited again, like I had that evening in the treehouse. If I couldn’t have her, well then I was almost sure I wanted to die.

The whole school seemed to find out too. Everyone acted different around me. Students who I’d been invisible to just a month previously, would now hold extended smiles and nods as if I were some courageous martyr. Or, on the other end of the spectrum, people would shake their heads or scowl. I even caught that fuck-nut Kevin Markle carving “DYKE” onto my locker with a protractor while his buddies stood in a semi-circle, pointing and laughing. Though even with all this attention, I’d never felt more alone.

Close to graduation, I overheard two kids in the hallway mention that Sara’s father had nearly disowned her when she turned down Brown and had tried to go to Hampshire instead; i.e., a school way closer to ME. Her father had apparently told her that the “weed had destroyed her ambition,” but I felt strangely calmed and exhilarated by this news. I went home and locked myself I my room and stared at my ceiling fan while Loveless played on repeat from my boombox.

I heard a knock on my door, and when I opened it my father stood lanky and sheepish. He cautiously smiled at me and handed over the postcard. “Don’t tell your mom,” was all he said before turning back down the hall.

I spent the night reading it over and over. On the postcard, Sara had written a portion of Aucassin and Nicolette. I cried and fell asleep with my damp cheek on it.

I woke up in the middle of the night and went down the hall to pee. In the bathroom mirror, my face was smudged with her writing. Her return address in New York was imprinted on my cheek. I rinsed my face and toweled myself clean, but when I got back into my bedroom I couldn’t return to sleep. Still in my pajamas, I tied up my shoes, and pulled on a sweatshirt.

I snuck downstairs, tip-toeing along the chilled kitchen tiles, keeping an eye on the cracked open door that led into my parents bedroom. Along the cabinets, I carefully reached for my mother’s ring of keys. I closed my hand around them, making sure that they didn’t “clink” and then slipped out into the garage. I sat in the car for a half-hour, psyching myself up. The green numbers on the dashboard read: 5:15 and I knew my mother would be up soon.

At last I hit the garage door opener, cranked the ignition, and shot backwards out of the garage and into the street. My mother ran out into the yard, frantically keeping her nightgown closed around her body. She was screaming and waving and I saw her fall to her knees in the grass through my rearview mirror.

I began to cry, as a feeling of terrified elation rushed through me. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I removed my Loveless cassette from my pocket and popped it into the car stereo system and headed south towards New York City as the sun began to peak over the trees lining the highway.

All I knew was that I was going to see Sara again, real soon, and I didn’t care what happened beyond that.

Postcard: Found at the Melrose Trading Post in Los Angeles, CA in October 2011.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Olinda moved to Cambridge with no real plan other than to sit on milk-crate furniture for most of June and wait for Jack to get back.

She arrived on a bus late one night, downtown. It was warm that night and the back of her t-shirt was soaked in sweat. She took one of the final trains of the night over the river to Cambridge.

The apartment was completely bare and simple; a railroad-style one bedroom. The walls were cream white, and covered in a series of tiny holes from where paintings and photographs from the previous tenants had been hung. Wooden slats covered the floor, groaning under the weight of each step. It was stuffy, despite the open windows. There was a flat-wooden work table in the corner of the room with a broken computer chair, which sat far too low to the ground. On the table was a woolen blanket, a pillow.

The first thing Olinda did was undo her suitcase and remove a calendar. She ripped June out of it – “Afghan Dogs” – and taped it on the wall.

She reached in and took a telephone from her backpack and plugged it into the wall.

She sat on the floor, rosy cheeked, wiping the dribbles of sweat from her hairline. She detached a sleeping pad from a clip on the side of her backpack and put her lips to the nozzle until it was inflated and firm. She looked at the Afghan on the wall, smiling at its sublime, dumb, open mouth. She wanted one of her own, to take into parks and on walks someday.

On warm nights that month she would sit out on the fire escape and watch the glowing images from her neighbors TV across the street.

And during the day she would walk. Olinda would walk for miles, across the campuses, in and out of bookstores and libraries, and along the Charles.

He called late one night. “Sorry, I wasn’t sure about the time difference,” he said. His voice sounded much different when long distance, over the telephone.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“How’s the place treating you?”

“It’s great,” she said twirling her hair, balanced on one foot, her elbow holding her up against the wall.

“I think about you every day.”

“I think about you too. Did you go to Angkor Wat?”

“That’s Cambodia. I’m in Bangkok now.”

“Yeah, but did you go when you were there?”

“I told you I was going to be really busy, Olinda. I didn’t get a chance. We’re meeting with some developers today. This place is crazy. The traffic is really bad.”

“Be safe.”

“What?”

“Be safe!”

“I can’t hear you, sorry. I’m on a company phone.”

He hung up.

Olinda put the phone down and stepped out through the window onto the fire escape. She took a Ziploc out of her pants pocket and slipped a cigar out of it. She flipped her zippo open and sat with her back against the wall, leaning the pre-cut cigar into the flame. Her eyes watching the large screen TV from the open window across the street. She took several puffs and blew the smoke into the air.

“Mind if I join you?” said a voice from somewhere underneath her. She opened her legs, and saw a scrawny fire-headed young man peering up at her, palming a pack of cigarettes. She waved him up and her scurried up the fire escape. He was awkward looking, not particularly attractive. He had two crooked teeth and smiled like an idiot, she thought. His jeans were rolled up at the ankles like he’d been wading through a creek all day, and he wore a dirty white t-shirt with the word “college” written in sharpie. He put his hand out, and sat cross-legged next to her. “Ricky,” he said. He had a  jittery demeanor, like he was constantly suppressing impulses to speak or move.

“What kind of a name is Olinda?” he said after sucking down on the cigarette, way too fast.

“It’s a city in Brazil.”

“You’re Brazilian.”

“No. My mom is Portuguese, but grew up in Seattle. She and my Dad were planning to go on a vacation in Olinda when she found out she was pregnant with me. They never ended up going, though.”

“Philosophy.”

“I’m sorry?”

“That’s what you’re studying, isn’t it? My Dad works at Haaahvard. I’ve got a talent for guessing majors.”

“I’m not in school. I’m here because my boyfriend just moved here. How old are you, anyway?”

Ricky looked in through the window, at the hollow apartment. “You guys like minimalists or something?” Olinda finally cracked, she laughed in his direction. “He’s not gonna pummel me for sitting here with you, is he?”

“No, nobody’s going to pummel you.”

“Well that’s good.”

“He’s in Cambodia, Jack. Actually, Thailand. He’s doing business there. He just got this place, but won’t be back for a few weeks.”

Ricky put out his cigarette, then stood up. “My friends are playing a show this weekend. You should come.” He pushed a flyer in front of her. “It’s right close to here, off of Mass Ave. They’re good. Kind of funky rock music, with a sax player. See you there if you wanna come.” He began heading back down. “I’m twenty-two by the way.” And slipped back in through the window.

Olinda looked across the street. George W. Bush was speaking at a podium on television, she could see his mouth moving, but the TV was on mute. She put out the cigar and went back inside.

That night she sat over the stove-top, heating up a pot-full of Kidney beans, and pouring cheese and onion slivers over top. She wanted to call Jack, but didn’t know what time it was over there. She could have calculated it, but she didn’t.

She walked by the venue twice that Saturday, debating on whether to go in. It was loud and the walls seemed to be expanding out onto the street, overflowing with twenty-somethings sweating through their bandannas and sleeveless shirts. The building walls were covered in graffiti, and there were bright yellow awnings hanging down over the sidewalk from the roof. Everyone was talking loudly outside, smoking, their hearing sufficiently damaged for the night.

“You are Olinda from Washington. You’re friendly and have a lot of interesting things to say,” she thought to herself.

She walked up to the door and bought a ticket.

Ricky sat alone in a side booth. He cupped a beer in his hands, lost in thought, and watched the band bobbing up and down to the funky beat on-stage. Olinda got a drink, and walked over and sat down across from him. He perked up when she sat. They yelled across the table at one another, but neither could hear one another, except for the ten seconds in between songs, when they would try and fire off as much information back and forth as they can.

After a few more drinks, and a series of similar sounding songs, Olinda stepped out of the booth and onto the dance floor. She shimmied left and right to the beat and threw a smile in his direction. He sipped down the remainder of his drink and accompanied her, throwing out finger-guns in both directions. Olinda twisted as Ricky mimicked her movements, a few feet away. Lights spattered the audience, smoke shot out from the corners of the stage.

For the first time since moving to Cambridge, she felt good.

Much later in the night, after the concert, they walked along Massachusetts Avenue, heading in the direction of the river. They didn’t say much, their ears still ringing from the show. Olinda kept yawning to pop her ears. She worried that the ringing wouldn’t ever leave. Becoming something she’d have to live with. She thought of obese bearded characters in silent movies, leaning in, twisting an ear-horn in their ear to listen to whoever was speaking. This thought made her giggle.

“What’s so funny?” asked Ricky.

She told him and he laughed.

“What’s the one sense you could live without?”

“Isn’t that disrespectful of people who do live without a sense?”

“I couldn’t live without my hearing,” he said.  “I couldn’t live with myself knowing that there is music in the world, and that I wouldn’t ever be able to hear it again. What would the point in that be?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not sure what sense I could live without.”

“What is it that you want to do with your life?”

She remained silent. It was the question Olinda dreaded most. But not that she didn’t have an answer.

“I have to pee,” said Ricky when they got to the river. “Don’t look.”

He ran up in front of a wide tree, lining the river. It was quiet, and empty. She sat on a bench and waiting, looking out at the buildings across the river. From behind the tree, she heard his voice. “What do you want to do with your life, Olinda?” he called out. She could see the arc of pee shooting out from behind the tree over the edge, and turned away blushing.

“I want to write poetry,” she said, after a moment.

“What?” he called out from behind the tree.

Ricky walked back around finally, with a bound in his step.

“Poetry,” she said.

“Not much money in that.”

“I don’t think – it’s not really about the money.”

“You’re parents are well off,” he said with a smirk, and sat down next to her on the bench.

“That’s kind of rude.”

“It’s true though, huh?”

“Not my parents, but Jack is. Said he can support me while I try and get started. He’s been in his business a long time now. Once he finalizes things with Sandra, things will better and we can fully move on.”

“How did you two meet?” he asked. “Don’t take offense, but you seem like an odd match.”

She paused, her mouth opened and closed. “We met online,” she said, finally.

Ricky leaned in, and put his hand on her knee. Her eyes went wide, like window-shutters opening. She brushed his hand off, neither saying anything afterward. A heavy subtext hung now over their small-talk. It was thick like humidity.

“You like ice-cream?” he said, standing. “I work at a store we can walk to. I’ve got the keys to the back. I can grab us some.”

“You’re really going to play that off like it didn’t just happen?”

“I was hoping to, yeah.”

“Well that’s not fair.”

“Yeah, sorry. It’s not. I don’t know what that was about.”

Olinda walked back home that night, alone, leaving Ricky by the river.

She tried to call Jack when she returned, but he didn’t answer. She sat on a milk-crate and ate some left-over beans out of the pot in the fridge. They were cold and she felt sour, and lonely.

She sat at the desk and begin sketching out a new poem, but felt distracted. After awhile, she got tired and lay down on her sleeping mat, but couldn’t get comfortable. It was surprisingly cold at this time of night, for this time of year. She got up and tried calling Jack again, but nobody answered.

She looked up at the wall, at her calendar. A wild tongued Afghan ran with its fur distorted, in weird ripples, heading directly toward the camera of whoever had taken the picture. It looked blissed out and wonderful. She wondered what it thought it was chasing, what was on the other side of the photo. She wanted to picture that all that was behind the photo was a rabbit running out into a field, but she knew that there was a camera crew, and a guy pacing in the background, on a cell-phone, yelling for more money, and two severe women in scarves standing behind a series of lights, and another guy holding a reflector to redirect the sunlight, and the dog ran oblivious over and over again at the whistle of a hired trainer. She wished all of this wasn’t true. She’d never felt more alone. She heard the television from across the street, reverberating between the buildings. She wrapped the blanket up around her and sometime around then she must have fallen asleep.

Her ears still rang when she woke.

Two months later Olinda saw Ricky when Jack walked her in to the ice-cream store.

Jack wore leather gloves, and ushered her in under his arm. They made eyes through the glass partition, and Ricky offered them samples of chocolate pecan. Neither acknowledged the pretense.

Jack got a call, handed her some money, and stepped outside. Olinda saw him on the side-walk. Ricky leaned in, while she paid for the ice-cream.

“I’m really sorry about that time by the river,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it,” she said.

“No, I mean it was uncalled for and –”

“– I said don’t worry about it.” She took a quick glance over her shoulder, toward Jack pacing across the sidewalk yelling into his phone. “It was nothing.”

That night Olinda couldn’t sleep. She slipped out of bed, onto the fire-escape, and went down to the window below.

She tapped lightly on the window, and felt like a creep, but saw a figure moving toward her. His hair was messy and his eyes were squinting. He opened the window, and poked his head through.

“What’s up?” he said. He looked surprised to see her crouching there.

She leaned in and put her hand behind his head. She lowered herself, putting her lips on his, and rolled back on her heels.

“What was that about?” he said when they separated.

“Touch,” she said.

“What?”

“I never answered you that night. Touch is the sense I couldn’t live without.”

She looked at Ricky. She felt embarrassed and unsure. She stood up, and moved back up the ladder, in through her window and was gone. Ricky stood there, confounded, then ducked back inside closing his window.

Back in the apartment, Olinda pulled the milk-crate out of the closet and placed it back against the wall. The rest of the apartment was now fully furnished. In the closet, she also noticed the ripped out calendar page for June. She walked it over and tacked it up on the wall. She sat and waited under the calendar – knowing she wouldn’t sleep tonight – for when Jack would get up and leave for work.

That morning, Jack walked in efficiently. He nodded toward the calendar.

“Wrong month babe,” he said snugging a tie up against his neck. Olinda turned around from the stove-top, a skillet of eggs sizzling out in front of her.

“I know, I just like the picture,” she said, placing the skillet back on the stove.

Postcard: Found at the Melrose Trading Post in Los Angeles, CA in October 2011.