The Little Black Book

“Thank you,” said Millie as the cashier handed her a receipt. Millie’s smile, hidden beneath several layers of PPE (a.k.a. personal protective equipment), surely went unnoticed.

PPE, the buzz word – or one of many – for the year 2020, along with toilet paper, virus, and others along the same vein.

“I hope you’re driving,” said the cashier.

“Nope, I don’t have a car,” said Millie, “and I spent the last of my cash on all of this, so it’s a bus ride tonight.”

“Be safe,” said the cashier.

Millie, divvied up the grocery bags by weight, slid the handles of three bags up each arm from elbow to wrist, and grabbed the remaining two in each vinyl-gloved hand.

“Thanks,” she said with an attempt at a wave, “you too!”

The thought of taking a bus, after so many months of isolation, worried her. She’d been so careful to avoid people, followed safety rules laid out by the health officials. Only recently had the protocol to wear masks on public transit been laid out, but not everyone followed the rules.

She rustled over to the bus stop and queued up. Third in line, she expected that she would be able to get a seat right in front, next to the hump upon which she could set her bags and take a load off until she needed to disembark. Hers was the first stop so the ride was short, but the climb was so steep that even the bus groaned as it made its way up the hill. It quickly filled to capacity though everyone was mindful to keep a distance. Millie was only slightly relieved by this because someone now stood right in front of the hump and blocked the path to the exit.

Hooded and masked, it was hard to tell much about them, but they had set down a backpack onto the hump right next to Millie’s bags, jostled them a little in the process, and that combined with the blocked exit made her fume. She pressed the stop button almost as soon as the bus was in motion and within minutes it ground to a halt.

“Excuse me,” she said with waving arms as she got up and motioned towards the door.

The person turned toward the exit and with a nod to the bus driver, slipped off the bus.

“Thank you,” she yelled over her shoulder to the driver and clambered down the steps. Her arms ached from all the bags that she carried. They felt like within them was the weight of the world.

Millie had a routine for apartment re-entry once she’d been outside. First, she would make sure that she dragged her feet along the carpeted hallways as she mounted her way up to where her unit was. Next, she would give the soles of her boots a final scrub on the bristly doormat in front of her suite, a Halloween remnant that said ‘the witch is in’, but she didn’t have the space to stow it nor the heart to discard it since it did the trick of keeping the dirt out of her space. Once inside, she would slip off her boots and place them on a plastic mat. Usually her next step was to slip off her coat and immediately wash her hands, but with her current cargo, that would have to wait until she had deposited them inside the kitchen. She scuttled crablike down the narrow hallway and into her tiny kitchen, and unthreaded the bags from her arms.

Methodically packed, the grocery unpacking went fairly quickly: frozen and perishables into the fridge, dry goods onto the shelves and into the cupboards, cat food on top of the refrigerator in two piles, and finally cookies and the magazine she picked up tonight, in anticipation of a cup of tea and a bit of lounging. She dropped the entire bag on the couch. With the vinyl gloves finally peeled off and discarded, she washed her hands, put the kettle on, and was soon seated on the couch with a cup of tea. As she rifled through the bag for the lemon cookies, her hand fell upon what felt like a book.

“Hmmm,” she said as she peered into the bag at the book. It was a journal, black, and looked like one of the many she had littering her shelves. Some she used as sketchbooks, the dotted ones she used as an organizer, but this one, she was pretty sure, wasn’t hers because like her, they rarely left the apartment these days.

She released the rubber band enclosure and opened it to the front page.

“How very strange,” she said. Inscribed on the page was her name, e-mail address and phone number, written in her own handwriting. She flipped to the first entry, which was dated six months from now but directed to her.

Today we will meet during a bus ride, but you will not remember me. You will have too many cookies as you mull over this first entry and try to make sense of it. Of the book. Of me. Of how we’ve come to find each other. You will ponder on all of the possible reasons for these things. In the back flap you will find a deposit receipt for $20,000 to your bank account. In a moment you will scramble to your phone to confirm that it has indeed been deposited into your account. You will find that it has, which will lead you to flip through the rest of this book to see if there is anything else in it, but you will find it empty. For now. More tomorrow. Yours, M.E.

M.E. The initials for Millicent Enkoff. Her name pre-marriage and post-divorce.

The remaining pages were empty. Millie puzzled for a moment, unsure what to do next. Was the money really hers to keep? Her banking app told her it was in her account, as promised. Could she spend it? Pay off her bills? Was this a test of her moral fiber? Was the money stolen? Would she have to repay it if it was? She took a closer look at the deposit receipt. It had been an in-person cash deposit, with a teller. There was no check that needed clearing. The money was in there. Now what? She decided to have another cookie.

Millie’s cellphone rattled on her nightstand and woke her from a deep sleep. She groggily reached for it and brought it up to her ear.

“Hello?”

“Hey.”

It was her son. He called her so infrequently that she was instantly concerned.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, leaning up on an elbow.

“Yeah. Just wondering... did you transfer some money into my account?”

“Oh... yeah, I did.”

“Ooookaaaaay... what for?”

“Well, I figured you could use a bit of extra cash so I transferred some. Will it help?”

“Yeah... of course. Well, thank you. Where’d it come from?”

“Long story. I’m gonna need some coffee in me before we get into that, but I’m glad it will help you. Maybe we can get together for a coffee or dinner or something, sometime soonish?”

“Yeah, that’d be cool. When?”

“Anytime. Your schedule is busier than mine.”

“Okay. I’ll text you some dates,” he said.

“Sounds good. I’m looking forward to it,” she said, and rang off.

With cellphone in hand, Millie shuffled from her bedroom to the kitchen, mindful of the cat that was weaving through her steps as she walked.

“Sometimes I’m convinced you exist merely to see if you can trip me,” she said to the gray tabby.

After the kettle was filled and set onto the stove, Millie picked Portia up and tucked her purring head under her chin.

“You know I love you, you little beastie,” she cooed.

After Millie had decided to leave her marriage of almost twenty years, their silver 944 Porsche had gone to her husband and she got herself a silver tabby. Not necessarily an even trade, but at least she didn’t have to worry about quarterly tune-ups.

With a thumb pressed against her cellphone the screen came alive. Another press of the thumb and her bank app flicked on to the welcome window. Minus the money she had transferred into her son’s account, the rest of yesterday’s deposit was still there. The little black journal was on the living room coffee table exactly where she had left it. It appeared undisturbed but as she flipped it open there was now a new entry.

Today is a new day, eh? You are still reeling from yesterday – the hunk of change in your bank account calls to you like the sirens did to Odysseus. You will spend the day deliberating on what to do with it. Change – the only universal constant – that is what you want and yet it feels like it’s happening as slowly as shore erosion or continental shifts, but come it will, you can be sure of that. You wonder who I am and how I know these things, even though in the pit of your belly, you already know. I am six months ahead down a path you did not take. I am one of many of us, edging towards collective coherence, which lies at the intersection of opportunity, desire and faith. I’ll hold enough faith for the both of us until you build the capacity to hold it for yourself. More soon, but for now... what desire burns at your center? Listen to your bones. Yours, M.E.

Life often felt like a stringing together of random events, choices solidifying chaos into structure the way swinging across each rung of the monkey bars used to bring us to the other side as kids. Millie wondered if there were any parks around that still had monkey bars in them.

She had spent so much time listening to so many other voices that her own had gone silent. It was only since her last remaining parent had died and her divorce finalized that Millie had begun to feel the stirring of her inner self. Truly, what did she want?

Each successive morning, Millie opened the journal to see if a new entry had materialized, but it remained obstinately silent. Somehow certain that it had to do with her indecisiveness around taking action on the thing that fluttered like a butterfly in the depths of her belly, she took a deep breath and submitted her application to a writing program. Then she masked up and went to the mall to purchase a laptop. There was enough cash left in her account to clear some of her revolving debt and the rest she slipped into her savings account for when she got more clarity around her next burning desire.

Millie stepped off the bus, her new laptop safely nestled inside the backpack she jauntily swung over her shoulder. The driver looked over at a person standing on the curb but they waved the bus on. Millie looked over at them.

“You!” she said, as her eyes widened in recognition.

“Yes, me,” they said. “Let’s walk.”

Millie stared at the gold band on M.E.’s left hand.

“You’re married,” said Millie.

“Yes,” replied M.E., “I made different choices. I took a chance on an earlier partner that wasn’t even on your radar, and everything flourished. We’ve been happily married for twenty years.”

They walked in silence for a few blocks.

“So you finally signed up for the class,” said M.E.

“Yeah,” said Millie.

“That’s exciting, right?” asked M.E.

“I’m terrified,” Millie admitted.

“Yeah, I get it. I was too. The thing about daring is that it will get easier the more you do it.”

Millie nodded.

“I just never had enough confidence in myself to think that I could do it,” said Millie.

“Sometimes you just need to find someone who believes in you for long enough until you come around to doing it yourself,” said M.E., “even if that someone is just... another version of you.”