The Fine Print

Jen’s already waiting for me. She has a coffee in a ceramic mug, a perfect milk foam fern and sugar in the raw on top. Her hair is sleek and highlighted, her nails sharp and polished, and her clothes clean off the rack.

It’s really been a long time.

She sees me. She gets up, not taking off her huge sunglasses, and gives me a hug. Her coat is so soft I don’t want to let go.

“It’s been too long!” She smiles.

“I know. That’s on me, I’ve been busy,” I say.

“For a year? Sure, sure,” she laughs. “It’s okay. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

I smile. I missed her.

“What would you like? It’s on me.”

“Oh no,” I say, “I couldn’t-”

“Nonsense! My treat,” she says as she gets out a little black notebook and pen.

“Uh, if you insist. Just a coffee?” I watch her write it down.

“A latte. No pastry? I’ll get one if you do. Come on, let’s be naughty!”

I sigh. “All right. A muffin?”

She jots it down and takes the notebook with her to the counter.

It’s a sleek cafe, too. Minimalist. There’s so little going on you know it must be expensive just to cover the costs of the interior designer. A person sitting by the front window has a dog in a bag with a bow in its hair.

Jen comes back with my coffee a moment later. I get a latte heart. The muffin is poppy seed. I should’ve told her what kind.

We chat for a while. Dogs, kids, other people’s dogs and kids. Marriages. Divorces. Good fortune and bad. Illnesses. Where everyone is now. She knows it all. I eat it up.

Eventually, it turns to her. She’s not married, no kids, but a successful career.

“Doing what?” I ask.

She waves her hand. “Complicated kind of stuff. Talent scouting, in a way.” And leaves it at that.

She takes a first sip of her latte, forgotten in the rush to remember. The perfect fern sits with a corner distorted, warped out of place. Pulled.

She asks about me. I keep it similarly vague. A bit of a rough patch. Some things to work out. You know how it is.

“No,” she says, grinning through the sunglasses, “I don’t.”

I frown. Just a little. Yes she did. I knew she did. She knew the chest-tightening feeling of dependency. Of lack. She’d come to me for money a few times, and then me to her. Rent, food. Medicine, gas. Passing around the same $20 bill till it wore through, into nothing.

Chills.

“Well, it’s rough.”

“I could help you with that.” She’s still grinning.

“No, Jenny, I couldn’t. You’re doing well for yourself now, clearly, and I have to make my own way.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all!” she grinned. Wider? “Just tell me exactly what you’re in debt for.”

The bluntness shocked me. I looked at her name brand bag. Her shoes. Her phone. Maybe…

I look at her grin.

I tell her.

She grins wider. “Oh, that’s entirely doable. Entirely! How much does it come out to?

I hesitate.

“Come on!” Her teeth are so white. Her lips red…

“About ten grand,” I say quietly. And that was after I’d paid so much of it off. But the interest…

“Let’s double that,” she says. She writes a note in her little black book and then takes out her larger navy checkbook.

“Jenny! I couldn’t possibly, no it’s okay.”

“It’s already done,” she tears it out of the checkbook, her pointed nails bending the paper just a little. She holds it out to me.

“I won’t be able to pay you back… not for a while.”

“No, silly!” She nearly yells. There’s a little tightness in the back of her throat.

“You won’t have to pay me back.”

I pause. “Are you sure?” I say, looking down at it, up at her. My heart is racing. I can imagine the weight of it off of me. The hours I wouldn’t have to work for the past. The weight. Off of me. My shoulders, my neck, my forehead. Even seeing it was a respite. Tantalizing. Mouth-watering.

“Sure as the devil,” she says.

I look at her. I look down.

I take the check.

“Excellent! Just one little thing.” She takes out another little black book. “You have to put down everything you buy in this book. You know how bosses are, they like things very orderly. But buy whatever you want! In fact, have fun with it. That’s the whole point.”

“Your boss?” I ask, not looking up at her. I’m fixated.

“Yes, yes. He funds my little outings, my little philanthropy. Not that you’re a charity case, dear. You’re an investment. If your life gets better, doesn’t the world get a little better?” She grins.

I grin. “Yeah, sure. Gotcha.” I take the little black book and put it in my bag.

She grins. “Superb. Just sign here,” she turns to a back page in the little black book, with little words in little script, “so I can tell my employer who it’s going to.”

I sign.

Jen gets up. “I really should get going. Duty calls!”

With a flick of her heel, she’s gone.

I leave the coffee shop. I look left and right across the sidewalk, to the people doing their own days that are not life changing.

I stand on the sidewalk outside of the coffeeshop and I laugh. A little, and then a lot. I laugh into the brisk, foggy air. I laugh to the sky, arms reaching out. I double over, laughing into myself. I laugh and laugh and laugh until my side of the sidewalk is clear and my sides are stitched into knots. I laugh until I fall to my knees and weep.

I pay my debt and I breathe free. I breathe free for the first time in years. I owe no one, and no one owns me. I walk the street free and I drive my car free. I go to the doctor free and I go out at night free. I treat people, I donate, I treat myself.

And I write it all down, every penny, in the little black book. I don’t know if she’s going to ask me for it back, if her boss will tab it out and ask for any missing money back or what. So I write it all down.

I match Jenny in dress next time we meet. I’d bought a single very good outfit for the occasion. And I buy her the latte this time — and write it down. She gets a swirl. I get a fern.

I tell her how grateful I am for the gift, how much it helped me. How the past month had been the best of my life, money to burn and nothing to worry me.

“Gift, yes,” she says. “You know, there could be more of them where that came from.”

I look at her. “What do you mean?”

“My employer is involved in philanthropy. He has too much money, so he gives some away. And,” she sets her cup down at this, “when I, or now you, give to someone else, we get money too.”

“Yeah?”

“When I gave you that first gift, I got the same as you. And if you give to someone else, you’ll get the same as them.”

I take a sip. My fern gets pulled to one side. “Really?”

“Really. You just have to make sure they sign the book. Here.” She gets out three more little black books. “Give these to people when you’re ready.”

She grins. I take the books.

I give the first to a friend and the second to a stranger. I get 7 more little black books from Jen. As they give the books out, the money flows in.

I buy a house. A dog. A new car. I get a pool. I swim in it. I write it all down.

I buy sunglasses. People don’t like looking me in the eye, and Jen suggests it. The culture nowadays. It’s easier when you can’t see the eyes.

I make sure to keep up with my friends.

One day, I can't get in touch with Jen. She doesn't answer anything. A day later, I get an invite for her funeral. The casket is closed. The picture of her is grinning, glasses on.

Her husband said it was sudden, and mysterious. I don't push it.

The books start coming in my mail.

Years pass. I get married. I have kids. I pass on notebooks. I grin. We live in seclusion. In prosperity.

One day, I’m with my younger kid. We’re at the mall back to school shopping. Except, it’ll be her first time at school.

We pass the fountain. She begs me to make a wish.

“All right, all right.” I laugh. I fish through my purse for a couple pennies.

“On the count of three, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Three?”

“Two!”

One. As the penny plops into the water, I feel my bag grow red hot. I open it and my little black notebook has burst into flames. I throw it in the fountain, trying to douse the flames.

I don’t think. I run. And as I run, I feel myself being pulled back to the fountain. Back to my bag. Back to my notebook.

The last thing I see is my daughter’s face.

And then darkness.

And then a grin. A grin in the darkness with the brightest teeth I’d ever seen.

“Time to collect."