Love Garden II

HER

3

I watch closely as he walks down each set of spiraling steps all the way out the door in the lobby before I retreat into my apartment and shut the door. As soon as it closes, my body leans against the nearest wall for support, while my mind begins to rewind the tape of my day back to about an hour ago, when the interview first began. I have flashbacks like this when I find myself in complicated situations that I feel need to be solved. When my memory calls me, it is insistent and vivid. It compels me to listen, and this feeling of releasing control to my thoughts used to bother me until I learned how to use it, and just how useful it is. I focus for a moment, and a faint picture of a small canine matted with mud and dried blood waiting in my doorway fades into view. I am not afraid. I know it does not want to hurt me, but in its eyes, I can see that it came for something. I follow the eyes to the kitchen, where a pile of raw meat sits on the countertop. When I turn back around, the dog has become a man. He walks in.

Him.

He speaks but I cannot understand what he is trying to say, because there is ringing coming from the kettle of tea on the burner. I open my mouth and the ringing goes silent, my mind recalls every word spoken while in his presence.

Everything I said in this interview was practiced and memorized beforehand, but I analyze them carefully. This experience is only useful if I analyze carefully. The story was fine, I believe that what I painted is what I meant, I bring my focus to his eyes. He shared more than I thought he would.

Listen.

How can I help him?

What does he need?

We dance in conversation, talking about our backgrounds, family, travels around the world, art, love…

“…my girlfriend Claire…”

***

HIM 4

When I get to work I notice that it’s quieter than usual. Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t really remember hearing anyone talking on the train, or any noise from traffic.

Why is it so quiet?

Everyone is in the meeting room. I scan around with my eyes, and they land on her. Whenever she is near me it feels like my body starts floating closer to her. I am broken from my trance when the door swings open in front of me. All eyes are on me when I walk into the room. Stacy and Will are seated at either ends of the table, and she is dead center. Their mouths are all moving, but I cannot hear them. I smile and nod to Will who is clearly not saying something that should produce this response, he gets up from the table and starts walking my way.

“Good morning, it’s nice to see you again. I’m excited to read what you wrote about me today.” Her voice breaks the silence, stops Will in his pursuit, and leaves an echo in my mind.

I take a deep breath and clear my throat.

“Good morning, uh actually there’s something that I needed to talk to you all about. I’m not sure this story is exactly ready to read.”

“What do you mean not ready? Why did you send it to Will this morning if it wasn’t ready?” Stacy stands up and both Will and I take our cue to sit down.

“I uh… I’m not sure how this happened but—”

“Listen, I didn’t come here to waste my time. So, here’s what’s gonna happen, we’re gonna sit and read this story and you’re gonna be quiet now.” I can see why Will is always so uptight every day.

I hesitate to turn the cover page.

...

The story immediately struck me. I hadn’t remembered writing one word of it except for the opening sentence, yet it felt familiar in an odd way. The language and cadence of the words spoke to me like I was having a conversation with myself. Could I have written this? This is written, to my degree, perfectly. The only alarming thing is that it is a completely different story than what she told me yesterday. Some information was left in, but most of the stories about her that compelled me were taken out, like her travels abroad and stories about her friends, and some things were inserted that I hadn’t remembered ever hearing at all.

As I finish, I look up and everyone seems just as surprised as I am. I’m sure Will just wasn’t expecting me to pull a story out of my ass in less than twenty-four hours, though I’m not quite sure I even did. However, the look on her face makes me wonder. Stacy claps her hands.

"Well, I think the story's great. Very well written Mr. Ferris. What do you think?" Stacy looks to the center of the table at her. She bites her lip lightly, then begins to speak.

“That was…familiar”

“What do you mean?” I try not to sound defensive, considering it may not even be mine to defend.

“It’s just that…I did this interview a while ago for the Chicago Post Magazine, and…this is sort of the story that one of their writers did. It got scrapped because the book didn’t really take off how we expected at first.”

No.

Stacy slams her fist down on the table and all of our heads angle down.

“Nothing ever goes right here unless I’m monitoring you like children! We’ve already announced the feature and printed seventy thousand copies of it in our magazine. What was this writer’s name?”

“Her name was Tina Dobson I believe.”

Tina Dobson?

“Tina Dobson? Hey!” I recognize in the aggressiveness of the tone that Will’s call is directed to me.

“She used to work in the same cubicle as you up until about two months ago.”

Tina Dobson!

I almost forgot about her. We used to…well we had sex one time and she wanted to move a little faster than I was expecting. I may have led her on for a bit, but I met Claire soon after and I had to let Tina know. I figured she took it pretty well and just needed some space from me. I haven’t heard from her, or weirdly enough, seen her since.

“I don’t even want to know why she asked me to move her desk. I don’t want to hear anything else come out of your mouth. You’re fired.”

Wait.

“Sir, don’t you think I’d be a bit cleaner with hiding my tracks? I mean, it’s her story! Don’t you think I’d know that she’d know if she read it somewhere else? I tried to tell you all I do not remember writing this story! Tina must be trying to set me up!”

Will looks to his assistant.

“Isaac get me Tina Dobson here now.”

“Yes, I would get on that, sir…but you let her take a mental health leave two weeks ago.”

“What! Two weeks for a mental break? That’s ridiculous, the most she should’ve gotten is a day. Get her here now.”

“Yes sir.” His assistant leaves the room to call Tina, and I’m hoping she gets here soon.

“Until then, you’re still fired. I want you out of my sight.”

On my way out, I can see Stacy chewing out Will, most likely about this mess that I am, for whatever reason, at the center of. But I also catch her eye, sat still at the center of the table. I linger in them for a moment and begin to feel sorry for her. I couldn’t give her what she wanted, what she deserved. She deserved a good story, and she is the only person I regret bringing into this mess.

***

HER 4

He gets up to leave and I let a breath out that I shouldn’t have. I can’t help it. If Will actually believes him enough to call Tina in, then this has already gone too far. I can’t let her be the one to go down for this. I should’ve known that they'd want to call Tina in. She tried to get away from him, took a break from work just to not have to see him, and he stole her work!

Well...kind of.

He should be fired, that’s it. Looks like I’m gonna need to speed this up.

As he passes the glass window in front of me, we lock eyes for a moment. I almost start to feel sorry for him.

…

“Hey! Wait, slow down!” I catch him before he gets on the train.

***

HIM 5

Walking out of the office for what might be the last time, I can still only picture the look of disappointment on her face when I left. I should’ve done more to prove it wasn’t me who sent that story to Will. I think about accepting defeat and going to see Claire at the hospital, but something tells me to call Tina.

To my surprise, she picks up the phone rather quickly.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Tina. It’s Tyler Ferris. Listen, I don’t know if you remember me, but we used to be…kind of…close.”

“Yes, I remember you Tyler.”

“Okay good. I know you’re probably wondering why I’m calling you right now. Well, I’m in a bit of a situation at work, it seems that somehow one of your stories got sent to Will today from my email. I just want to know how this happened.”

“That sounds like you’re trying to find a nice way to tell me you stole my story.”

“Tina, I would never steal your story. Listen, I don’t want to accuse you of anything but it’s a little weird how we stop communicating, then you go missing, and now I’m getting accused of plagiarizing your story.”

She scoffs.

“First of all, I’m not missing. I’m on a well needed mental health break because not only was it hard being around your insensitive ass everyday, but I also needed a break from Will’s incessant fits. Second, I have no time or desire to scheme up a plan to get you fired Ferris. If someone is trying to set you up, it most certainly isn’t me. What story is it anyway?”

For some reason, I believe her.

But if it wasn’t Tina, then who could it be?

“A feature for the Love/Hurt author.”

“Huh.”

“Huh? Huh what? What huh?”

“I remember doing her interview back when I still worked at CP. She was a bit weird. Kept asking me about you actually.”

I stop in front of the train station.

“Me?”

“Yeah. It was around the time I was going through…us. I never mentioned your name, but she kept asking me about ‘the boy who hurt me’ and told me it’ll be okay because soon he’ll have to choose.”

My heart starts racing uncontrollably.

“Thanks, Tina. This was very helpful.”

I hang up the phone and begin to walk towards the train, but someone grabs me by the arm.

***

HER 4

Nights like these are my favorite. Dancing around to the parade of instruments and their tempting melodies plowing through the speakers in my bedroom. It is when I am truly in my moment. I do not know what I have just done or what I will do next, but I let the rhythm move me where it wants me to go, and I am one with it.

I crawl into the kitchen and reach up in the cabinet for a glass to fill with wine. I drink half then fill it again, then go to sit down at my computer with the bottle and glass still in hand.

I start typing…

Good evening, lovebirds. Welcome back to another installment of your favorite stories. Today’s return is marked with a pleasant note. For I am pleased to say that another one bites the dust.

This week’s challenge was the pursuit of Tyler Ferris. May I just say, this one was very fun because I got to work with an old friend. She called me a few weeks ago and told me about this drunken mistake that she made, and how afterwards he wanted nothing to do with her, and all she was so embarrassed that all she wanted was to get away from him. I also did a little digging of my own and found out he’s been charged with sexual assault four times, but it’s all covered up by his rich father and his friends at the DA’s office. Don’t ask how I know this, but do know that this information will be released, along with the tape I have of him admitting to what I can only assume as half of the disgusting things he’s done while being on Earth. I know that you all wonder about my tactics. I didn’t want to hurt his girlfriend, but I needed to know if he would hear me. He didn't seem to care much anyway, and since she’s an actress, my play on dramatics should be appreciated. Thanks to some very effective cognitive manipulation, Tyler will never know who did any of this to him. As always, he had two options. Ending or renewal. You all will be pleased to hear that Mr. Ferris chose to be renewed, and so that means we have a new addition to our garden! All nurses be prepared to work hard, and when you see Tyler, give him a warm welcome from me. Remember ladies, what we do here is important. Keep sending in your stories, and maybe your candidate will be next!

Yours always,

***

"Welcome to Love Garden Psychiatric Hospital, Mr. Ferris. We're so excited to help you on your journey!"