Fish Heads and Duck Skin Read online

  If skepticism were a building, mine was a skyscraper. If cynicism were a horizon, mine was a skyline packed with doubt-riddled skyscrapers popping out of the ground like blades of grass after a spring rain, too many to count. Yet, inexplicably, my eyes filled, and my throat constricted. I blinked and swallowed, blinked and swallowed. Keep it together, I reminded myself. This is no time to lose it. Especially when you know this is all a bunch of hogwash. But I couldn’t help being transfixed.

  “Do you have any more questions?” she asked.

  I cleared my throat. “Uh, yes. When?”

  “When what?”

  “When do I get to choose the new path?” I unbuttoned my blazer and immediately re-buttoned it.

  “I don’t know when. Not too long, I suspect.”

  I scratched my legs through my brown skirt. “Okay then, how will I know?”

  “Oh, you’ll know.” She made the Oh, you’ll know face.

  “But what if I choose the wrong path?” I blurted. “What if I see something that looks like a reasonably creative path and I choose it, but it’s wrong? Will I be screwed because I’ve fumbled the trajectory of my whole life in error?”

  She smoothed the already-smooth hair next to her face. “You know how you’ll know you’re on the right path?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because it’s the path you’ll be on.” She stood and reached her hand out to help me up. “Come on, it’s time for you to mingle.”

  I thanked her as I gathered my purse and she collected her cards. I was halfway out the door when Pam called from the couch, “Calista!”

  I stopped and turned around. “Uh, no, I’m Tina.”

  “Yes, I know your name.” She smiled. “Calista is the person who will bring you the journey. Keep your eyes peeled for Calista.”

  “Oh, but I don’t know anyone named Calista.”

  “Yet. You don’t know her yet.”

  7.

  The next morning, I found my skirt in a perfect oval at the top of the stairs where I’d stepped out of it. My blazer was strewn, inside-out, next to the front door; my new fuchsia scarf folded and placed on top of it. One tread-worn black flat lay behind a houseplant in the foyer. The other dangled off the third step from the bottom of the staircase. My cream-colored, pit-stained, only-wear-if-you-aren’t-taking-off-your-blazer blouse was under a wet washcloth at the bathroom sink. I had apparently attempted my newly learned face washing technique with my newly purchased rose petal–n–apricot facial scrub. I found my purse, empty, on my desk chair in the office, the contents in a pile next to the file cabinet. I’d apparently checked email half-naked while searching for something at the bottom of my purse. Thankfully, I found nothing in my sent box from the time in question.

  While I don’t remember getting from Jennifer’s car to my bed, I do recall the conversation and corresponding events once I got there. I woke Daniel by shaking both his shoulders while giggling. I remember feeling relieved when he looked more confused than angry. I silently scolded myself for my relentless case of hiccups because they made me seem drunk, as if none of my other actions would have led him to that assumption.

  “You up?” I asked. Hiccup. Giggle.

  “Huh?” he replied, not opening his eyes.

  “You awake?” I said a little louder, tapping his arm.

  “Mm,” he said.

  I leaped up and straddled him, grabbing his shoulders, first shaking them side to side, then, with more power, up and down.

  “What is it?” He blinked several times. “What’d I do now?”

  “You’re not in trouble! (Hic!) On the contrary, I have excellent news, and it can’t wait ‘til morning. (Hic!)”

  “Seriously?” He squinted at me.

  “I’m dead serious.” Giggle.

  “What is it then?”

  “We aren’t getting divorced!” I bounced up and down on his stomach. “Isn’t that fantastic?”

  He paused. “You forgot to tell me the part where we were getting divorced before breaking the news that we’re now not getting divorced.”

  “Well, we weren’t so much getting divorced as on an unpleasant pathway that might have led us there. I mean, don’t you agree?”

  He looked at me, exasperated. “Is this why you woke me up?”

  “No, um, I mean, I spoke to a psychic tonight.”

  He turned his head. “Oh for the—”

  “I know, I know, it’s nuts, but listen. She looked at these cards, and they told her stuff! She said we’re going on an amazing journey. Together! And we’ll also do some self-exploration, and she looked so sure! And I feel so relieved and happy! I mean, don’t you think it sounds exciting?”

  “I’m sure a person who buys into that stuff would think it sounds very exciting,” he said, closing his eyes.

  I grabbed his face gently and brought it back to center. “Most of me doesn’t buy into it either. But what if it’s true? What if she’s right?”

  “Tina,” he said in a clear, flat tone. “I don’t believe in psychics, or fairies, or Santa. I know you want me to, but I can’t get there, okay? And I’m very, very surprised you can. Maybe this is what you needed to hear to stay married to me, I don’t know.”

  “It’s not that! I just … she looked so sure.”

  “Maybe she knew you needed to hear it. These people are experts at body language.”

  I let go of his hands and pressed my fingers into my temples. “But she was specific! She spoke about someone named Calista.”

  “I don’t know anyone named Calista.”

  “Yet!” I whined. (Hiccup.)

  He was silent, expressionless as he inspected me for a while.

  “Look,” I said softly. “Can you do me a tiny favor?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Can you believe it with me for one night? Then, tomorrow, we’ll lock it away and never think about it again? I just … Please?”

  He surprised me when he nodded with soft eyes and a small smile, as though appeasing a desperate child. “Yes. I’ll believe it tonight.”

  I smiled and grabbed his hands, weaving mine into them, then suspending our hand knots between us. “What if we could go somewhere exotic, just our family, and do exactly what we want to do? I could write, and you could, oh I don’t know, build robots or something, and we could watch our kids grow up and not worry so much that we were doing this all wrong. We could have the freedom to ponder and be instinctive and full of love instead of irritation, and, and be happy with exactly where we were at that very moment. We wouldn’t need so much stuff and so much help and so many conference calls, and, and facial scrubs. And I could be nice.” I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

  He raised his eyebrows. “That would be amazing.”

  “And I’d donate my work clothes and wear cutoffs as a uniform and have a permanent flip flop tan.” I kissed him on the nose. “Because writers wear flip flops, Daniel. It’s in their by-laws.”

  He stroked my hair and leaned up to kiss me back on my nose.

  I kept going. “And our kids would thrive and be multilingual Ambassadors for Good.” This time I dropped my nose lightly onto his clavicle.

  He chuckled.

  “Why is that funny?” I pushed his shoulder softly.

  “Because it tickles. But also, it rings funny to me: ‘Meet our very small children, Piper and Lila, future Ambassadors for Good.’” He let go of my hands and raised my head. He pulled my shoulders slowly to the side and rolled on top of me, then located my collar bone and rested his nose on it.

  “That tickles!” I squealed.

  “I know,” he said, giving me tiny kisses.

  I resumed talking. “I’m saying our children would be doing something with their lives that feeds their hearts.”

  He looked up, mid-kiss. “Feeds their hearts? How sweet.”

  “Everyone needs a full heart,” I smiled, kneading the back of his head.

  “My heart’s full right now, is yours? Le
t me check.” He unclasped my bra.

  “It is, it’s full,” I said, and sighed.

  8.

  Three weeks later, when my alarm beeped at 5 a.m., I smacked the off button but didn’t get up. It had been a rough night—I hadn’t fallen asleep until two hours earlier because the modern-day plague had descended upon our home and, for two nights in a row, the vomit fairy busily bestowed her gifts upon everyone but me.

  At 6:45 a.m., I woke up again, this time to my phone ringing. I immediately flew into a level ten panic. I was late, extra, super late, on a Do Not-Be-Late! kind of day. My heart started thumping as dark sweat clouds accumulated in my arm pits. I could only think in four letter words.

  “SHIT!” I screamed. Lila started crying. “HELL!” I hollered and shook Daniel’s arm. He moaned like the ill man he was. I answered my phone.

  “Hey, where are you? James is here,” Mary whispered. Mary was my friend and also a nurse in the Cath Lab at Scripps. James was a mega-shyster and also a rep for my biggest competitor.

  “JAMES? Are you kidding me? Who called him?”

  “Dr. Burns must have called him when you weren’t here by six.”

  “That asshole! I’m coming. CRAP!” I scrambled out of bed, tripping as I tried to unweave myself from the sweaty tangle of sheets.

  “Uh, Tina, I don’t, uh, think—” Mary stammered.

  “I’m on the damn schedule, Mary! I’m coming!”

  She paused. “You were on the schedule …”

  “Mary, please, this is my livelihood.”

  “Yeah,” she sighed. “Okay.”

  Forty minutes later I tipped my unbrushed, pony-tailed head into the doctor’s lounge. James—tall, blond, and conniving, sat on the mauve, circa 1988 sofa, a double-layered box of donuts on the beat-up coffee table in front of him, every product in his catalog displayed around the box like it was the set of an infomercial. He talked at two doctors while they watched the news on the small TV and chewed on old-fashioneds.

  “Hey James, may I speak with you for a moment out here?” I said in my sweetest voice while smiling with mouth only. I wiped the sweat from my upper lip.

  He looked up with the only expression I’d ever seen him make—a cocky, detestable sneer. “Sure, Tina, be there in ten.”

  Ten minutes! I thought as I pulled my head back into the hall. In ten minutes, he could sink my battleship. I stewed. I paced. I went to the bathroom, twice. I told myself to stay calm. I said, Tina, be rational. Be mature. Have an adult conversation. But it wasn’t lining up to be that kind of day. It was more of a hit-a-patch-of-black-ice-while-steering-with-your-greasy-thigh kind of day, and I had already careened off the road. I was now hanging upside down by my seat belt in a wet ditch, car wheels spinning.

  When James finally sauntered out of the lounge, I met him with one hand on my hip, one finger pointed at his smirk and demanded, “Do you think you can just waltz in here and steal this account from me?” Before he could answer I blurted, “Because that is so not happening.”

  “Tina,” he said, both palms out. “This place is huge. There’s plenty of business here for both of us.”

  My eyes burned in fury and fatigue. “No, James. There’s only enough business here for me. And I have the contract, I have the relationships …”

  “But today, I have the donuts.” He chuckled.

  I threw my arms up. “I’ve had a bajillion donuts with these people! They are like family to me!”

  James snorted. “It’s true they choose you most of the time, but this morning they called me, ready to try something new.”

  “Are you listening to yourself? James, you’re a one-night stand! You’ll get slighted and then hurt and then boil the bunny! You’re Glenn Close!”

  “I don’t think I’m the crazy one here.”

  “I’M NOT CRAZY!” I shrieked in what could only be described as a poor impression of Minnie Mouse. I glanced around to see if anyone else had heard it. “Look,” I said in a low growl, “you need to leave.”

  James Santa-laughed, “Oh, ho, ho, ho,” then said, “I’m not leaving, I’m on the schedule. Dr. Burns is using my product in OR 7 as we speak.”

  I felt my face turn purple as my eyes bugged. “That, is, a fluke. I was late, and you were staring at your phone, waiting for it to ring.”

  He laughed. “Was it a fluke? Or was it fate?” He shrugged. “Either way, I’m here all day,” he said before turning and strutting away, like a rooster.

  I was so furious, at James, at myself, and at the state of my household, I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t give James the satisfaction of watching me be hauled away. So, I just sat there, hands fisted, watching him retreat.

  Then my phone rang; it was Daniel. In my frenzied state, I wasn’t going to answer, but he was sick and so were the kids, so I reconsidered right before it went to voicemail.

  “Hi, how’s everyone doing?” I asked, my voice suddenly scratchy.

  “Better, I think. Kids are asleep, thank God. I feel like I’m on the mend. But that’s not why I’m calling.”

  “What is it?” I said, wiping my forehead on my forearm and shuffling toward the exit closest to the coffee cart.

  “Remember how I posted my resume on the grad school alumni board last week?”

  “Uh, no,” I said, smacking the square steel button that opened the double doors leading to the hallway. Caution tape extended down the length of the hall, keeping people from touching the milky, depressing, still-wet blue paint. No wonder people stay sick in hospitals, I thought. They need to brighten their blue. I took off my hair cover and spun it around on my pointy finger.

  “That’s right, you were out of town. Last Friday I posted my resume there but never checked it because of this whole flu thing.”

  “So what happened?” I asked while motioning to the guy at the coffee cart. I held my fingers in an L for large and then scribbled in the air to say, “Put it on my tab.” He nodded. He knew what I wanted, and he knew I was good for it.

  “Someone saw it and wants to talk to me. They have a unique position, and they think I’d be a good fit for it. I have a phone interview tomorrow at 10 a.m.”

  “What’s the name of the company?” I asked, taking a lap around the coffee cart, grabbing a napkin and an insulated ring.

  “There’s no name yet, it’s a start up—”

  “Wait a second.” I stopped mid-lap. “This sounds fishy. Is it even real? Or is it one of those shams where you have to ‘invest in your career’ before you can earn any money?” I started circling again. At lap three, my mocha appeared. I took a sip. On a scale of one to ten, for hospital mochas, this coffee cart usually produced about a 4. This one was no exception. I sighed and turned toward the lobby.

  “It’s real. The company’s funded by Michael Hicks, a big-time alum from my grad school. His company went public last year, and he donated a mega-load of cash for a massive new library on campus.”

  “Oh right, I remember you telling me about that.” I stopped to peer in the window of the hospital gift shop. It wasn’t open yet, so I made a mental note to compliment Ethel, the volunteer buyer, later on her scarf selection. I was a recent convert to scarves, and these weren’t half bad.

  “Last year Michael sponsored a contest where students could submit their business plans, and he’d choose one plan and provide the funding to get it off the ground.”

  “Okay?”

  “He picked a plan by a woman who graduated two years after me. She wants to import robotic toy sets geared toward little girls to spark their interest in robotics and programming since most robotic products on the market currently cater to boys.”

  “Sounds like a no-brainer to me, but why no name?” I turned toward the giant help desk in the lobby. It already had a line, even though visiting hours hadn’t started yet, probably full of people looking for an update on their loved one. I looked at my pink clogs. I moved my toes to see if I could tell they were moving. Nope.

  “The company orig
inally had a name, I think it was Four Mighty Queens, but the initial response was better than anticipated. Now they want to launch globally with a name that appeals in every market. Apparently, names are very important in China, and the number four is unlucky there. So next week they’ll vote on a new name.”

  “Why is four unlucky?” I looked back at the line of loved ones; it hadn’t moved.

  “It sounds like their word for death.”

  “Eek.” I turned away from the line. “Alright, so they need something more China-friendly. Where do you fit in?” I walked to the window overlooking the ostentatious fountain blowing like Old Faithful at the front of the parking lot.

  “If the interview goes well, I’ll prepare a proposal and meet with Michael, then fly to China for a site visit. And, if I’m a good fit, I’ll get an offer.”

  “Hold on, China?”

  “Yes, Shanghai. That’s where the factory is located and where they’ve opened the global offices.”

  “The office is in Shanghai, but you’d work here?”

  “No, Tina. I’d work in Shanghai. I’d have a two-year contract with the option to renew.”

  I dropped into a seat against the window and leaned forward, putting my head in my hand. “Wait, what?”

  “All the components will be sourced and assembled in China. I’d manage the whole process on site, from sourcing to manufacturing to quality control.”

  “But, China? Do you want to live there?”

  “I don’t really care where it is, I just know I really want this job—it’s perfect for me. But I wanted to talk to you before I go further in the process. Do we want to live in China? Because I’m not going without you and the girls, I mean, unless you—”