Prologue

 

by Ed Peaco

Published by River Oak Review 

No. 15/16, Winter 2000 / Spring 2001

Chosen for Santa Fe Writers Project fiction contest, 

2002, posted among the best 65 entries

From my favorite window booth in the coffee shop, I watched Doralisa chatting on the opposite sidewalk with a man dressed in rags. I didn't mind that she was making herself late. I liked the old coffee shop, which was in the grand old office building I worked out of, and I liked watching her. She broke away and hustled across the street, her semi-gray hair flying wildly, her feet scurrying under the yardage of her jumper. She saw me and waved, and her small blue pack, the kind kids take to school, slid off her shoulder and down to her wrist. She sat down, stowed her pack under the table, and started in.  

It was Monday, which for me was blue serge day. 

“An apartment just opened up. There’s room for one family,” she said. “I don't know whether it should go to the family with the single mother who has cirrhosis of the liver or the people living in the refrigerator box.” 

She was famous for doing the dirty work agencies couldn't seem to get done. We'd known each other a couple of weeks. We were supposed to be ironing out the details of the grant she'd received from the community do-good group I raised money for. She'd talked us out of quite a little wad. But I'd reached the stage of hoping we'd talk about new things. “Pick the single mother,” I said, “even though she's an alcoholic.”  

“But Marvin, she's not an alcoholic. She has the congenital form of the disease. There are so many reasons why we need money.” 

I let her unruly dark-and-gray hair distract me when she pushed it off her forehead and it fell back into her eyes. Blue eyes, though pale. “About your proposal, I've still got a few questions,” I said. Among the movers and shakers in Change for the Better, as it was called, I was known for getting things done, which was a big plus in a group full of moralizing blowhards. I wasn't exactly a model member, but I had my own reasons for belonging.

“She says she can't work, but the state says she can, so her benefits were cut off, and they all ended up on the street. She says she needs a stress-free environment, preferably with air conditioning.”

“Don't we all.” A figure in multiple overcoats passed by the window, and Doralisa smile and waved. We'd gone off track. I wondered how long it would take that congenital cirrhosis woman to end up like my friend Hank, wasting away in a nursing home. He wasn't old; he had M.S. I was about as old as he was when he bought a motorized wheelchair from me, which, at this point, he couldn't get out of bed to use anymore. How quickly the years had been dragging on, and yet a lot of things had changed. I wasn't selling just wheelchairs anymore. I was managing all manner of medical supplies for hospitals and clinics, getting paid not for pushing product but for saving money. It was a new era, and things were going pretty well for me.

“She's invested in a grave plot,” Doralisa said. “She says she has ten years left, at best.“I watched her lips move. I didn't feel like serving my community.

“That's rough,” I said, thinking Hank had been laid up about that long, and might have that long left to go. I looked down at my list of questions. We were taking a chance on her; she was known as something of a maverick. But, with box people and a grave-plot woman on the table, I didn't see a way of getting back on track. So, I said, “I know a guy whose days are numbered.”

“And what do you do for him?”  

“Talk to him, when I can think of something to say.” A group of my office neighbors strolled by the window. They waved at me, and I nodded and gave them a two-fingered wave back. Truth be told, I'd forgotten to visit Hank the week before.

“There's more you could do.”

Sure, I could do more, I thought. I could spend all my considerable free time with Hank instead of drinking beer, watching ESPN and eating from my never-ending pot of something meaty on the stove. I could let Doralisa spend the money I piss away even after maxing out my retirement plan. I finally said, “I do what I can. I stick with him.”

“So, who would you choose?”

“For what?”

“Aren't you listening?” she asked.

I was wondering what she would think if she knew about the perpetual stew on my stove. If things kept going, she'd eventually discover things about me. “Ten years?” I asked. “How does she know?”

“She's been told.” 

“How does she seem?”

“Resigned.”

“That's a long time, actually,” I said. 

“Or, there's the laid-off couple that got wiped out by medical bills,” she said. “The daughter went on a hayride and fell under the tractor and lost her scalp. Now they live in a box.” 

Normally, when people talk a lot at me, I tend to tune them out. Maybe that would have been a better way to go. Instead, I laughed. “Her scalp? Is she getting help for her scalp?” I asked. 

Doralisa leaned over. “You should meet Cliff, my son. He likes to laugh at others' misfortunes.” Her glare was scary. “How can you find anything in that family's situation the least bit funny?”

“I don't know. Sometimes you just have to laugh.” I hadn't told her the whole story of Hank, which I could only hope to chuckle over. I hadn't told her yet I'd been divorced for ten years and living on my own in a trailer, which I thought was hilarious. 

She stood up. “I hope you understand why I'm leaving right now.” 

“I'll make it up to you.” It was all I could manage. I couldn't believe she was leaving over no more than this. The way I remembered it, you had to be screaming at each other before you got up and stomped away. And you weren't supposed to skip any steps. You were supposed to relish each little ratcheting up of the conflict.

She stooped for her pack. “It's not me who matters,” she said from under the table. Then she reappeared, dug through her pack, and produced a sticky-note pad. She wrote something on it and pasted in on my side of the table, upside down to me. It said, You're warped. She slung her pack over her shoulder and left.

—   —   —

When I went to visit Hank that night, the people at the home said he'd been rushed to intensive care after inhaling his puree. He'd been there before and always bounced back, so I wasn't too worried.

I went on to the hospital. A phone hung on the wall next to the double doors to intensive care. A sign said to call Extension 2761 before entering, but I ignored it. The doors opened on their own after I touched the big shiny dot on one of them. Inside, everybody looked busy, so I found Hank's bed myself and opened the sliding glass door. He had tubes up his nose and in his arm and wires taped to his chest. The equipment whined softly and flashed like a stack of VCRs. Hank looked puffy. His face was sweating, and he was breathing heavily. The room had a clock, a window, and wallpaper of that dirty-pink color my ex-wife would call mauve, with a paisley pattern, probably to soothe people who had tubes in them.“Where you been?” he asked. His cough shook the tubes. It was a messy, rattling cough, like gargling, but deep in his chest. The sound gave me some trouble in the back of my own throat. “They about buried me last week,” he said.

“You mean you were worse?” I asked. He tried to laugh but gave way to rattling, then hacking. It turned into one hell of a coughing fit. 

A nurse and an orderly burst in and blew by without looking at me. Staring down Hank's throat, the nurse asked me, “What do you think you're doing in here?” Hank coughed and gasped while the orderly stuck a tube down his throat and suctioned him, which sounded like draining the last of a milkshake through an industrial vacuum cleaner. The nurse clutched my arm and pulled me aside. 

“Are you family?” she asked.

“Friend.” 

“You'd better put on a mask and gloves, my friend. You want some of what he's got?” I looked at the suctioning, and Hank lying there with his mouth wide open, chest heaving. I apologized. “Stay a few minutes, but don't let him say much” she said. “Come back any time, but call first.”

While Hank settled down, I put on a mask and a pair of surgical gloves. He stared at the ceiling. Sure, being Hank's friend was tough for many reasons. But in other ways, it was easy. I could say anything I wanted, or just sit. Showing up was all that mattered. How tough could that be? I looked out the window for something to talk about. “We're nine floors up. Did you know that?” I asked him. “The sun is low, and this building has a shadow six blocks long. You can't see from up here, but the leaves are turning. Remember when we used to go outside during leaf time?” I wished I hadn't rambled onto something to remind him of his wheelchair days. “Remember when you used to tear down the hall and scare the old ladies? Remember when I helped you escape?” I'd looked the other way as he sped down the sidewalk in the chair I'd given him, one of the early motorized jobbies. He cruised the neighborhood, and I finally found him at a hopscotch meet. The escape was a silly stunt, the kind of thing you'd get away with maybe once, but worth a try. So Hank had really done all right by himself, as far as I was concerned. It was possible for good things to happen, even surrounded by bad.

Hank tried to speak. I bent over and listened. “Say something new,” he said. I shrugged, groped for a line, and came up empty. I was still remembering the old days, when he could swallow safely and I fed him, when he had power over his fingers and pestered me every day with phone calls. I'd left my number on the customer service label stuck to the side of the chair. But there was nothing new there, which made me think of bringing up Doralisa—what the hell. 

“I met a woman,” I said. Normally I wouldn't bring up such a subject, because it was a sore spot for Hank. His wife bailed on him when he was still pretty much able-bodied. 

Hank opened his mouth and made a little ticking sound, as if a flap over his windpipe had blown open. “Fluff my pillow,” he said. I fluffed it.

“She's really nice, but I kind of set her off today at lunch.”

There was a long pause while Hank swallowed and breathed. “Take off that blanket,” he said. 

“You don't have a blanket, just a sheet.” I raised it to let the air circulate, caught a glimpse of his withered legs. I knew they were there, and I knew I'd cringe at the sight of them. But I looked anyway. 

“Got that bonus?” he asked. 

“It's looking good.” I'd told him about how there’s a little extra held out of every one of my contracts. If I bring the client in under budget, that extra is my bonus. If not, it goes to the client. It’s a fair and civilized way to make a living.

Hank widened his eyes and opened his mouth, but he didn't say anything. Then he said, “Careful,” and his chest heaved a few times. “She'll cost you.” I shouldn't have brought her up. So we sat in awkward silence, which was made worse by Hank’s not being able to say much anyway. He finally said, “Open a window.”

“The window doesn't open.” I wasn't going to let him run me all over intensive care. We were silent, and then Hank started coughing again, but he stopped short of another disaster. “I hope you beat this thing and feel better soon,” I said. He shook his head, which I took to mean he didn't care. 

“Last time I'll say it,” he said, eyes widening, which was his way of screaming at me. “She's gonna cost you.”

“I'll be back tomorrow.” He shook his head again. Up until then, he still seemed pretty strong—strong enough for me not to think about what was happening to him, only about cheering him up for a few minutes each week. But now he was weaker and skinnier than ever, scary to look at, even for me. How much more would he have to put up with? I couldn't help but think he'd be better off dead, and I don't think like that as a rule. As I marched out, I wanted to slam open the double doors. But I forgot they opened on their own. They resisted my shove, and I had to stop and watch them swing out slowly. Pissed me off even more.

—   —   —

I ran into Doralisa on Tuesday, brown worsted day, on my way from the building to the parking garage. I was on my way to the cleaners to pick up my Wednesday and Thursday suits before a one o'clock appointment. Our downtown isn't much, but it's big enough to have squalor and commerce side by side. Doralisa was talking to an old-looking man bundled up in several layers of overcoats. She waved at me and kept talking. I shifted my briefcase from hand to hand until he went away. 

“Have you ever seen that man before?” she asked, looking after him. “I ought to introduce you to China. He's quite a guy.” 

“Can't say I'm acquainted with the gentleman.” It was just something to say. 

“About yesterday,” she said, running her hand through her hair, which fell back into her eyes after she let go. “I can forgive you if laughing was your way of dealing with the stress,” she said. “Was that it?”

“That's too easy,” I said. 

“I can tell if you're lying.” She ground her heel into the sidewalk. “I hear nothing but lies all day long. Then I go home to my son and more lies.”

“It was just the way you were going on,” I said. 

She looked up suddenly and grabbed my arm. “Come on, I'll show you something.” She led me down an alley between two old buildings no more than six feet apart. It was damp and dark. I was thinking about being late for my one o'clock. Halfway down, a fire escape blocked our way. Something was dripping from way up, puddling where we'd have to wedge ourselves between the steps and the wall. Doralisa gathered her jumper against her legs and slipped cleanly through. I had to shuffle sideways. My briefcase got stuck long enough for a big drop to splash on the top of my head. I touched the wet spot, felt a trickle down my temple. We turned the corner and came into a clearing of sorts, a courtyard of weeds and piles of trash hemmed in by four blind walls. Light shone overhead, but shadows filled most of the chilly space below. Up against the far wall, a cardboard box big enough to carry a refrigerator, or maybe a walk-in meat locker, rested in a patch of sun. I smelled urine and booze. One of the piles of trash moved. It was two guys sitting against the wall, arms around their knees. One of them waved at us. “They weren't here yesterday. Neither was their box,” she whispered. She waved back. “This is where you land after you fall through the cracks.” 

I figured out that my parking garage was on the other side of that wall. I recognized the back walls of a historic theater and a bank, but the fourth wall stumped me. The courtyard was a sad sight, but what do you say? It looked like the cleaners, not to mention lunch, was going to slide right into my one o'clock, and the rest of the day was going to be all jumbled up. At least she didn't spread a blanket and insist on a picnic. We faced more light on our return trip through the alley. At the fire escape, I timed my shuffle and avoided the drips. 

On the street again, I decided that if I gave up everything before the one o'clock, I could stop worrying. “Can you do something for those two?” I asked. 

“Maybe next week.” She shook her head, threw her hair back, and it fell into her eyes again. “Anyway, I want to cook for us,” she said. “My son eats garbage. He never comes in till late. We can have some peace and quiet. Tomorrow night?”

Now I didn't want to leave. I put down my briefcase so I could touch her, but how and why? “It will beat the hell out of the pot of ham and beans waiting for me.”

“Maybe I should come over to your place. Sounds like you're already set to entertain.” She let her pack fall off her shoulder. Then she held one of the straps and swung it back and forth.

“Last week I had chunks of kidney in there with the beans.” I rubbed my belly. “There's still some of that kidney floating around.”

She stopped swinging. “Let's stick with my plan.” She pulled a datebook out of her pack and logged our dinner. She pulled out a sticky-note pad, too, and wrote something. She slapped the note on my briefcase and took off. The note said, Organ meats are bad for you.

—   —   —

After work Wednesday, tweed day, before going to Doralisa's place, I went to the hospital to see Hank. This time, I used the phone outside the double doors. I put on gloves and a mask. “He had a rough night,” the nurse said. “He's better now, but that's not saying much.”

Hank was sleeping, and he looked like hell, breathing dryly from his gaping mouth. Grey-greenish milky stuff flowed from a bag down a tube into a nostril. I pulled up a chair, repeated his name until he woke up. “How are you feeling?” I asked. He spoke in a slurred whisper. There was a rattle in his chest, but nothing like the day before. I had to ask him to repeat his answer.

“Tired,” he said.

“You seem better.” My face already felt clammy against the mask. He blinked and stared at the ceiling. 

“Nurse says so,” he said. He cleared his throat and said, after several silent attempts, “Open.” I heard him but didn't understand. I asked him to repeat. “Open the gate,” he said, and I knew I'd heard him right. “Been stuck here too long.” He breathed a few times. Then he took two deep breaths and got a look of determination on his face. He was looking at something between him and the ceiling, or else beyond the ceiling. “Let me loose,” he said. It was loud—loud for him. I lurched back, bumped the bedrail with my knee. “If you won't, I'll find somebody who will,” he said. He kept his head where it was but aimed his eyes at me. I don't know if he meant it, and he must have known I wouldn't do it. He was just in a bad mood.  

“Hank, I don't understand everything you're saying, but I get the general idea.“ I wanted to hear my voice before I tried to say anything important. “I got to say, over all the years, all you've been through, I'm impressed by how strong you've been.”

“Not much left of me.”

“But you're getting better,” I said.

“So?” He looked away. I touched his hand; it was cold. He went back to sleep. I listened to his breathing, loud but regular, as peaceful as I could hope for. I slumped back in the chair and tried to match my breathing with his. 

—   —   —

In Doralisa's driveway, I parked in front of a motorcycle, which I assumed belonged to her son. I arrived empty-handed and out of sorts. She led me past the TV room, the living room and the formal dining room with two places set. She pointed me toward the den. “Get yourself a drink,” she said. “Everything in the kitchen is reaching critical mass right now.” She turned away. The place was crammed with shiny woodwork, stuffed furniture, and big mirrors in frames. It was just as well that I had nothing to give her, because she probably had anything I would have brought. I didn't like seeing myself wherever I looked. She glanced back long enough probably to see some look on my face. She stretched her arms as if to embrace the whole house. “What can I say? It was part of the settlement.” She left the room.

I poured myself some of her whiskey and went searching for her. I met her head-on at the entry to the dining room. She was carrying two plates. She nodded; I pressed myself against the wall as she passed. The back of my head touched something. Doralisa set down the plates and rushed past me again. I reached back to be sure I wouldn't dislodge anything. Then I moved my head and looked at what I was holding—an ornate wooden spoon hanging from a hook. I held the spoon in place as I moved away from the wall, then I turned around, still fingering the spoon. It had been a while since I'd been in a house with stuff on the walls. 

Doralisa returned with a bottle of wine. “That spoon is from Wales. It's a spoon for good luck,” she said. “Come on, everything's ready.” I had to adjust to dinner, salmon with almond rice and asparagus. She told me the wine was a white Bordeaux. The meal was pretty much over my head, but not out of my reach. If I thought about  it, I could taste that it was special. I ate without saying anything. 

Then Doralisa launched into something. “We found subsidized housing for a single mother and her three kids whose father was a non-union construction worker who got killed when a nail gun went off by mistake.”

“Please,” I said. 

“Eight nails in the head. He almost survived.”

“If you don't mind,” I said. She looked hurt. “Friend of mine's at death's door. I just came from there.”

Doralisa cupped her chin. “Oh, no, and here I was, going on.”

“It's not unexpected,” I said.

“Now is when you'll be needed most,” she said, pressing her hair against her forehead. 

“I'm not giving up on him.”

She glanced at the ceiling and struck the table with the side of her hand, a gentle karate chop. “You’re having a crisis, and here I've just gone off.” 

“No crisis.” I chuckled, trying to smooth things over. Then I stopped trying.

Doralisa put her napkin on the table. “I know. I have just what's needed right now.” She stood up, refilled my glass, and excused herself. In a moment, she returned with her blue pack. She sat down, pulled out a clear plastic package, and pushed it across the table. It looked like a bag of beans. It had printing in strange writing and in English. “You're giving me a package of lentils,” I said.

“Do up a pot of them with scallions, celery and carrots, a bay leaf, a little cilantro. Better than meat, and you'll like it.”

“Thanks.”

“They're special. From Pakistan.”

“Maybe I shouldn't take your special lentils.”

“Then what kind of lentils would you take?” she asked. I liked that. The whole lentil thing was a perfect distraction from Hank. But because I knew it was a distraction, it made me think back to Hank, although the sad thoughts were easier to handle. Then I saw myself in the mirror over her shoulder, and I didn't like having to look at myself. Doralisa must have noticed. “Sterile in here, isn't it?” she asked. “Maybe we should have eaten on the floor in front of the TV.” 

At that moment, the crashing of a door sounded from the back of the house, and her son, Cliff, stomped toward us. He appeared in the dining room, backwards baseball cap, sleek-shaped sunglasses, dirty T-shirt, baggy shorts, black high-tops. She introduced us. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet. My calves ached just watching him.

He slit his eyes at me and said, “Move your car.”

“Why?” I asked. At first he didn't bother me. I was calm, thinking of all the angles, like I do when a client brings up something that's not in my pitch.

“This is my friend, Marvin,” Doralisa said.

“He's blocking my machine,” Cliff said. “Tell him to move his car.” 

“Cliff,” Doralisa said, her neck tightening against what looked liked cables under her skin. I didn't want to know her this way.

“I'll move it,” I said, throwing my napkin down. I felt like telling him off, but why? He was just a kid.

We went out the back door. He was right; I'd wedged him in. He told me, “My mom is a sad, lonely bitch. You must be a real loser.”

“Fuck you,” I said, which surprised me. He gave me what I'd have to call a threatening look. After I backed down the driveway, I got out of the car, and Cliff sped toward me. I jumped back to avoid a handlebar in the ribs. But I forgot about my feet, and he ran over one of them. I don't think he tried to do it, or realized he did it, but who knows? I fell to the asphalt as he sped away. My foot felt as if it were still being run over. A rod of pain throbbed down the middle of my tongue. Doralisa came to my aid. “I've been crushed,” I said. I grabbed her and held on. 

She struggled out of my grasp. “I'll drive you,” she said. I started to worry when I saw the look on her face. She wasn't wailing, but she was gnashing her teeth. “You see what I put up with,” she said.  

—   —   —

My boss told me to lose the crutches. He outfitted one of the demos with a support for my foot and gave me a van with a lift. I used to demonstrate chairs all the time, but it took me a while to adjust to the pace and accept the machine as my source of power. Once I did, everything was easy. I wasn't trying to pitch the chair, but I did attract attention. As far as I could tell, clients didn't think I was faking or trying too hard; they were impressed. So I had to indulge them. I did all the usual things—slow, fast, reverse, spin around. The product sold itself as never before. No wonder Hank liked it so much and felt bad on days they didn't get him out of bed. And then they never got him out of bed, and his chair just sat there until I took it away.

I visited Hank that morning, Thursday—blended navy with beltless slacks, not my best day—even though I feared he might envy me and my chair. But I felt like showing off. I went up to intensive care and invited myself in. His bed was empty, which meant one thing to me: death. I'd often wondered how it would happen and how I'd find out, but it always seemed too far off to worry about. Now I was thinking this was it, and I felt ready—it might as well be now, when we were both ready. 

The nurse said he'd been moved out onto the floor. She told me the room number and said, “It's normal for visitors to think a patient is dead when he's really only transferred.” 

“I'm relieved to know that.” I'm glad she gave me something to be annoyed about, because I felt queasy for feeling so calm when I thought he was dead. 

She glared down at me in the chair, like maybe she thought I was faking. “What happened to you?” she asked. 

“My foot got hurt,” I said, rolling away. I pressed the big disk at chair level to open the double doors. 

I followed the nurse's directions to Hank's room. I threw on a mask, pulled on gloves and rolled in, waving. “You did it,” I said. “You're on the mend.” The head of his bed was raised; he was sitting up.

“What's with the chair?” he asked.

I took his hand, which did not move. It felt warm through the rubber glove. “Traffic accident,” I said.

“You OK?” He did something with his hand. I think I felt a little grip. I didn't know he had any. 

“They say I'll make a full recovery, so I decided not to be mad.” 

“Same kind of chair as mine?” he asked.

“More power.”   

He winked, a slow, shuddering wink, and raised one eyebrow a little. It was a lot for a guy who couldn't move much. “Still in love?” Then he eyed the window without moving his head. “Close the blinds. Too bright.” I backed up, rolled toward the window, and did what he wanted. When I returned, he said, “Bring her by if you want.”

“All right. I'll do that.”

Hank chuckled; I didn't know about what. Then he said one word, “Battery.”

“Battery?” 

“Keep it charged.”

“I'll remember that,” I said. I didn't bother to tell him this model had a built-in recharger. The one he used didn't.

He kept looking at the window. “Dead battery means you can't keep up, and somebody else is catching up.” His eyes rolled over to me, and he blinked. “Dark in here. Open the blinds halfway?”

“As you wish,” I said. It was turning into one of those visits. 

“Come back here,” he said. On my way back, I sideswiped the bedrails and overturned a wastebasket. He shook his head a little. I thought he was making fun of my driving, but he said, “Buy yourself a new suit. You've had that one for years.”

“It's my Thursday suit,” I said. I let the wastebasket stay on its side. 

“Makes you look like a salesman.” He sniffed, or rather he blew a little air out of his nose. “New threads, OK? By the time they send me back to the home.”

“Anything you say.”

“That bonus? It's gone. You'll have to blow every dime of it on her.”

—   —   —

Doralisa’s jaw went slack while I slalomed to her table Friday at lunch. “Want to press charges?” she asked. “If we get a conviction, they might send him to a long-term adolescent psych program.”

“Forget about revenge,” I said. “You would want that for your kid?” 

“Of course. He's troubled.” She put her elbow on the table and rested her head on her hand. “I wish there was something I could do,” she said. “Can I do your shopping?”

“Hell, no,” I said. “Just have lunch with me. Talk.” But then I feared she'd tell more horror stories, so I kept talking. “I tried the lentils.” 

She looked surprised. “How did you manage?” 

“By standing on my good foot,” I said. “Ate some early, and they were chewy. Let them simmer awhile, and they were soft. Good either way.”

“When they’re chewy, they’re like meat, only better for you,” she said. I didn’t tell her I just added them to my standing pot and let them go, adding water whenever I got down to sludge. I played with the power button at my fingertips on the right arm of the chair, just to see the red light flicker on and off.

“You kind of like that chair, don't you?” she said.

“It's like getting a pager. You wonder how you ever got along without one.”

“That's a terrible thing to say.” She threw back her head, and her hair flew out of her eyes for a moment, then fell back.

“I can't help it,” I said. She looked down and flashed a smile at the table. Then she looked up again, and our eyes met. She started to say something. She averted her eyes, but I kept looking at her eyes and her moving lips, and a feeling of peace came over me, and she stopped trying to talk. By peaceful, I mean pleasantly tired and thinking good thoughts. I wasn't sure how it happened. It seemed to come from nothing. The usual distractions flickered in the back of my mind, such as my schedule and Hank's strange warnings, but for once I swept them away. I wanted to give her something, and I broke out of the peace because I had nothing to share. I looked at my hands, checked my pockets, reached around into the pouch behind. What could I have hoped to find? At a loss, I peeled off the adhesive label stuck to the side of the chair. It had my name on it and my office number, to call if the user should have any questions or problems. I pasted the label across her wrist, and she looked away again, probably because it was a silly thing to do, and she didn't want to watch. But I was ready to do it, and she must have been ready to let me do it, because it happened. And there was no sense in stopping with just a sticky label. Right then, when she wasn't looking, I took her hand and kissed her fingers.