The Invisible Dialogist

She likes her coffee black. Strong. Bitter.

She has always known what identifies a woman as a “real woman”: her hands, her shoes, and, in her case, the way she drinks her coffee.

A real woman takes care of her hands and always has a proper manicure. A real woman wears shoes that highlight the elegance of her legs. And black espresso is just a sign of good taste.

She sits in her office. The walnut bookshelf covers the wall, seducing the eyes with its titles and colorful covers. She picks up her little porcelain coffee cup and holds it elegantly. Her freshly done fingernails shine, matching the ornament on the cup.

She glances down. Today, her favorite shoes adorn her feet—black, pointed-toe slip-on pumps. Four-inch heels. Simple, flawless, versatile.

She sets her coffee cup on the wooden desk and relaxes in her comfortable office chair. A busy day lies ahead, filled with many responsibilities. But she loves it.

She is not arrogant, yet she is proud—proud of every achievement, every grueling hour of work, and, above all, her ability to turn dreams into reality. Wait… was it a dream? Or a fragment of something that became a dream and then crystallized into existence?

She pours more coffee from her jezve and sips it hot, drifting down memory lane.

She has always struggled to describe that moment to anyone. How do you speak of something that happened and yet never fully did? It was within her. And it was very, very fast.

More than two decades ago, she was a newly arrived immigrant—a young woman, a single mother—who had traveled from a small, unknown Ukraine to the vast, famous America. She had nothing but her ambition, her carefully done fingernails, a pair of elegant shoes, and, of course, her love for good coffee. She had less than a hundred dollars in her pocket, which meant the manicure was done at home. She always invested in good hand cream, professional cuticle scissors, and modest-colored nail polish. She couldn’t afford designer footwear but always bought a classic pair of heels. She believed every woman’s legs looked better in a timeless style.

She traveled with her copper jezve and her five-year-old daughter. She felt complete. And so, it was time to start dreaming.

For her, learning a new language, getting a driver’s license, and finding a job were the dreams every immigrant carried.

She was offered a job as a custodian. “What could be better than vacuuming a warm office space?” she was told by other happy immigrants.

That day, the sky was clear and the air warm. She walked into the building, grateful for the job, grateful to provide. She picked up the vacuum and the dusters and marched from one cubicle to another. Then she entered the main office.

That room was different. The massive wooden desk matched the beautiful bookshelf that stretched across the wall. The chair behind the desk looked so comfortable, she imagined crawling into it and falling asleep peacefully. The whole room seemed magnificent—at least to the eyes of a young immigrant who had just stepped onto foreign soil, who had never driven a car, didn’t speak English, and had been told by others that what she needed was a good “blue-collar” job.

And then came the moment.

Actually, it was less than a moment, but bigger than an explosion. It felt real, yet fictitious. It was a vision. A dialogue. A reality that never happened.

While looking at the beautiful desk, she heard a voice:

—“You can work here!”

—“No, I can’t!”

—“Why not?”

—“I would need a college degree to work here!”

—“Then go to college and get a degree.”

—“But I don’t even speak English!” she protested to the invisible dialogist.

—“Then learn English.”

She blinked. Everything vanished. The fantasy dissolved. She was just a young woman cleaning someone else’s office. Someone who spoke English. Someone with a college degree.

Nevertheless, the scenario of a poor immigrant was only on the outside. Deep inside, the explosion had an effect—an effect of life-changing magnificence. That was the destruction of old beliefs and the formation of a new vision. She could feel the tremors in her bones. The shockwaves went so deep underground that she was convinced her imagination was reality.

The reality she pursued and achieved. Achieved by starting the very next day after that unreal encounter. The silent conversation with the non-existing dialogist is still humming in her mind.

Now, she knows it by the click of her heels, echoing through her own office, past the wall-sized bookshelf, past the memories, past the doubts.