Episode-10: Broken Wing Finger

Alice and Sisko stood in Alice’s kitchen draped in aprons. Sisko’s was spotless and Alice, apron and all, was covered in flour. Alice stirred thick cookie dough with a wooden spoon while Sisko rinsed dishes and shook her head at Dr. Phill

“That guy is such a crock of you-know-what, Alice,” she tisked while she wiped down the counter where Alice was still mixing.

“So change it. I hate this garbage anyway,” Alice dug a spoonful of chocolate chip laden dough out of the bowl and held it up to Sisko, “Want this?”

“Eeeww! No! I’ll get salmonella.” Sisko closed her mouth squished her face up in a grimace of disgust. Alice shrugged her shoulders and ate the dough.

“Your loss. Do you have the baking sheet ready?” Sisko nodded and pulled moved the baking sheet to the counter where Alice was mixing. Alice pulled a big spoonful of dough out of the bowl and was about to drop it onto the cookie sheet when the doorbell rang. Sisko rolled the dough off the spoon.

“Are we expecting anyone?” she asked.

“Nope,” Alice wiped her hands on her apron and walked out to the door with Sisko on her heels, fluffing her hair. Alice opened the door to an Armani suit and corporate smile.

“Oh, God,” Sisko moaned. She grabbed the door from Alice and started to shut it, but Nick stuck his hand out and stopped her. Alice caught a glimpse of his gold pinky ring and grabbed its native finger shoving it backwards from the hand and stretching it in its socket.

“I don’t know who you think you are, but if my sister tries to shut the door on you, I suggest you be a gentleman and let her,” she said, enjoying the surprised look of pain on Stockbroker324’s leathery, tan face.

“I just wanted to ask you out again,” he stammered, “I thought you seemed nice.”

“I’m not.” Alice wrenched the pinky back, delighting in the sick snap it made as it dislocated. Reflexively, Nick stepped back from the door and onto the porch. His mouth opened and started to form words.

“You…” Sisko slammed the door. Alice locked it. They looked at each other, listening. It was quiet for a second. And then the pounding started and the shouting. Alice and Sisko shrugged and walked back into the kitchen. Sisko flipped the TV to the cooking channel and turned up the volume. Alice finished globbing cookies onto the baking sheet. When the cookie sheet was full she put it in the oven and set the timer, uncorked a bottle of wine, and poured glasses for Sisko and herself. The pounding and shouting went on longer than they expected, but sitting on the sofa with wine and the TV turned up, they hardly noticed Nick was there. Soon the homey aroma of cookies filled the air and they really were as happy as two screwy sisters could be.

Episode-5: The Faux Hawk Butterfly

“Tell me you finished it, Al,” said a man in his mid thirties with soft brown eyes and a salt and pepper faux hawk as Alice unlocked her office door. She shook her head.

“Peter, you have no idea the night I had last night. There has to be some bug we could feed my mother that would eat her from the inside out, do you know of any?”

“I think they’re called parasites, but we don’t study those.” Alice rolled her eyes at him.

“I hate her, Peter. I mean I really hate her.” Alice set her coffee on her desk and dropped her bag on the floor.

“So you didn’t finish it?” he sat down in a chair across from her. Alice heaved her bag onto the desk and rummaged through it.

“She set a date up for me, and didn’t tell me until forty-five minutes before it was supposed to happen.” she handed Peter the paper.

“Oh, you’re a godsend. Thank you. What did you do?”

“I went and then I freaked out and ran away from him. Why are you smiling?” Alice’s mouth twisted into a hesitant smile, “what?” she was almost laughing now at Peter’s infectious grin.

“You’re just such a dork. The least you could have done is gotten a free dinner out of it. But you have to make everything so huge.”

“It is huge, Peter.”

“No, it’s just a date. They’ll all just be dates. And then you’ll meet the person of your dreams out of the blue.”

“Says the confirmed bachelor. And, I already had the ‘person of your dreams quota’ filled for my lifetime.”

“You’re such a defeatist.”

“You’re late for your first class.”

“Shit.” Peter hissed and flew out the door. Alice sighed and shook her head, but her smile lingered as she powered up her computer. Peter had been at the department a few years before Alice got there and they had become immediate friends, despite Peter’s affinity for the convenient monarchs. She did applaud his conservation efforts though. Alice groaned, she had an email from Nick. Her mother must have given stockbroker324 her work email, Alice took a deep breath and opened it.

Alison,

Your mom told me all about your situation. I understand if you need to take this slower. I think we could be great together. I really want to hear more about your butterfly hobby. I think that’s really cute.

Call me, or email me back, whatever,

Nick


Alice hit reply.


Nick,

Alice is not short for Alison. It’s just Alice. I don’t have a ‘situation’. And, I am an Assistant Professor of Biology at California Polytechnic State University. Hardly cute.

Clearly we have nothing in common. I do not see any further need for correspondence.

Good day,
Alice Haze, PhD


Alice hit send and drummed her fingers on the desk while she sipped her coffee. She checked her itinerary for the day. A couple undergrad classes, one on bee keeping which she always enjoyed. She’d thought a lot this past year about giving up her post and moving to the country to keep bees. Peter always talked her out of it. Told her she’d be a terrible business woman, “honey doesn’t sell itself, chickadee,” he would say. He was right too. The screen saver on her computer clicked on, a flying CPSU turned into a poorly animated butterfly against a black background. Alice stared at her reflection in the black screen. Straight dark hair, glasses, a good complexion, she’d always thought she was ok looking, but did it even matter now? She looked down at her clothes, functional grey wool skirt and jacket, with a black blouse, and leather boots, she looked like a teacher. She looked like what she should look like. Sisko had offered a makeover. Alice didn’t want to change anything ever again. Her screensaver clicked back off and a pop up announced incoming mail from stockbroker324.

Alice,

Sorry about the name thing. Didn’t have to be a bitch about it though.

Nick

Alice deleted it without a reply and looked at the clock. She had to get to class.

Episode-4: No Swagger

Alice had refused to drive with Stockbroker324, whose name turned out to be Nick, so she followed him to the restaurant. In the car she blasted Brit pop for no other reason than it made her feel perverse and argumentative. It made her feel like being a dark and difficult smart-ass punk. Which she was, just not on a regular basis. That was one reason she loved Joe so much. He was the physical manifestation of what she wanted her soul to be: dark, brooding, and brash. She might have been the same to him, the picture of his soul, but she doubted it. Joe was infinitely more complicated than Alice and she loved that too, trying to dissect and unravel him, she missed it. And in the car listening to Arctic Monkeys prattle on about sex and vulgar apathy she felt something akin to swagger. She put on red lipstick as she pulled into the restaurant. Nick opened her door for her and as she got out she breathed in his cologne and wrinkled her nose.

“This isn’t where I had intended to go,” Nick said, his face betraying nothing to Alice, “but it’s the only place I could think of without a dress code.” Alice flashed the sardonic smile she love to bestow on Sisko.

“You’ll have to forgive me, my mother set this up. I didn’t really want to come.”

“Well, this should be fun then.” Nick said as Alice walked ahead of him. It was a seafood restaurant, most of the places in Morro Bay were seafood restaurants. Alice entered the restaurant first and gave her name to the hostess. She turned and Nick was sitting in a seat near the door pointing to an empty spot next to him. Alice sat down.

“You know, you’re really pretty. That picture you put up on the site didn’t do you justice.”

“So, you’re a stock broker?” Alice asked, watching a family eating at a table near them. Nick cleared his throat.

“Yep. Do you know anything about preferred stocks?”

“Nope. Do you know anything about polyommatinae?” Nick let out an audible sigh.

“You’re really going to make this hard aren’t you?”

“Why are you being so persistent? You could have just bailed back at the house.”

“Sometimes the things you have to work for turn out to be the best things of your life.”

“I am neither a thing nor a tough nut to crack.” Alice was losing her swagger, the thought of keeping this up all through dinner just made her exhausted.

“Ok, ok, I get it. I can’t possess you. Didn’t mean to make it sound that way. I’m just not a quitter is all and I’m guessing, you have a cute little smile under all that toughness.” he raised his eyebrows. Alice furrowed hers.

“I’m not really a starter.”

“What does that mean?” Nick seemed to like this game.

“It means I don’t want to be here.” Alice ran for the second time that night, Nick calling out an apology after her. Alice knew she was the one who should be sorry, but she couldn’t be coy or flirtatious with a stock broker. With anyone.

It was dark, it was late and she had to work in the morning. Home meant facing her mother. The restaurant meant facing a reality she wasn’t ready for. She picked up her cell phone and called Sisko.

“Let me guess,” Sisko said on the other end, “you hate him?”

“Just tell mom I’m coming home, and if she’s there when I get back I’ll kill her.” Alice hung up the phone. She was half serious. Her father and Sisko would cover it up, they were good at that sort of thing. It’s not like they liked her either.

As Alice sat in her car outside the restaurant a dragonfly landed on her windshield. Anisoptera, she mouthed to herself, but she didn’t know exactly which species. She watched the big-eyed killer. It was dark and she couldn’t make out its color, reddish maybe, but its complexly veined wings shimmered in the streetlamp lighting the parking lot. Her grip loosened on the steering wheel as it just sat there. Alice never killed dragonflies for specimens. They lost their color when they died, a verification, she thought, that they were not as ephemeral as the butterflies she studied and should be left to fly.