Marlee's Muse

“Underqualified. For a barmaid job.” Marlee blew this out of her mask as she slammed her catch-all bag down on the subway seat and plopped beside it. The memory of the bar manager’s oily phone voice saying, “Come by after we’re closed,” raised an uncontrollable shiver. Marlee wished she could scrape his smarmy visage from her thoughts like the winter mud clotting her boots.

She glanced warily around the train to see if she had drawn attention. No one worrisome here; all were distanced out of one another’s contagion fear.

Coronavirus, she thought, it’s the end of the world as I know it. Well, not tonight, at least. I need hand sanitizer.

A second after Marlee moved her bag to her lap, her eyes snapped to the seat. Her bag had landed on top of an unnoticed black notebook. A very nice-looking notebook, with a pen poking out. Another reconnoiter of fellow riders proved no one else had noticed either.

Gloves followed sanitizer so Marlee could examine it closer. Her nose told her the cover was fine leather; she recognized the paper quality as extraordinary. It wasn’t a pen at all, but a mechanical pencil. Two decades of writing experience on everything from scrap paper to high-end network terminals told her these lovely finds were made for a serious scribe. The beautiful pencil’s lead-delivery system was smooth and sure. The lined white stock would welcome a penciled line as a lover receives a massage. Each page had such fine perforations, a jeweler might have missed them. The book tempted her to intimacy. She tore off her gloves without a second thought and bonded with the material glory of it.

Her conscience rattled. I can’t keep this, there must be an owner’s name or number in here.

Nothing. The notebook was as pristine as if it were just unboxed. It would be a shame to leave it behind.

“Be a shame not to use it,” she confided to her mask. Writing always brought her to a place free from embarrassing childhood episodes, turned-down freelance articles, and the crushing loss of the career she loved. Subway clacks and passenger snores melted away as Marlee put thought to paper.

She began: I am a good writer. No one thought I could make a living at technical writing. Hours in classrooms, online, and in the field scrutinizing projection equipment proved them all wrong, and qualified me to write installation and repair manuals. I can describe the intricacies of million-dollar machines to those who care for them.

Marlee felt better, which was surprising, since journaling or self-talk never did much for her before, even in her lowest moments.

I am an ace. She underlined it.

I read blueprints and wiring schematics as well as anyone, and knock out manuals in half the time most of the people in my field do.

—Marlena

As Marlee reread, her buoyancy deflated. In a clean sweep, penciled present tense verbs became past tense. …and knocked out manuals.… One sentence though, escaped the time revision, and was instead amended to, I am a GREAT writer.

Sighing, Marlee rehashed the same plaguing thoughts she had during the last six months since being laid off. When were stadiums, movie theaters, conference centers going to start ordering projection equipment again? Years? Her specialty, so narrow and deep, pivoting to write another type of manual was so unlikely that applying for a bar waitress job was an option. She glumly tore the page out of the noble notebook and stuffed it ignobly in her coat pocket.

Morning light. Another interview. Marlee scanned her tiny apartment, home for many years and adorned with so many loving touches. Also so sad. Empty desk with dangling computer cords, empty fridge and pantry, empty jewelry box. The corner pawn shop was full, though, because she wasn’t the only one in the city with no breakfast this morning. There was barely enough cash left for the subway ride to the local real estate rag, in the hopes they’d hire her for content writing.

Cold and drizzly again. Checking her coat pocket for gloves, Marlee felt the crumpled notebook page, and thought to throw it out. Only it wasn’t balled-up writing paper. It was a puckered twenty-dollar bill. It took the 15-minute walk to the subway station before Marlee shrugged it off as a forgotten bill from better times. Indeed, grocery-list making was now in order, and her new notebook was along for the ride.

The page invited more than jotted essentials. Marlee filled it with confident affirmations and positive phrases she knew would confirm to the interviewer that she was the best prospect of all the applicants.

Apparently, she wasn’t.

No car to schlep to toney gentrified rehabs, no high-end camera to take glam shots, no computer to compose glowing floorplan reviews, not since it went to the pawn shop last week to buy food.

“Didn’t you understand the want ad?” the interviewer asked after he uncovered this. He smirked as Marlee stuttered out, “but I thought, with my phone...”

So, there wasn’t going to be any celebrating with the found $20, but at least she could add coffee to the grocery list. The pep-talk words she’d written pre-interview now mocked her, so she tore the page out and pocket-trashed it upon leaving the corner grocery.

The next morning brought only worries and job-listing phone skims. Marlee knew that in a few days when the bills came, she’d have to choose to lose a utility. Not gas, she thought, pulling blankets around her. Not phone.

Okay, coffee and a walk to warm up. A coat pocket dive for a clean hanky. No crumpled notebook paper there, but two $20 bills! What in the world? This big-city gal got seriously scared, rushing the front door to check for intact bolts and chain, then the window for its wooden broomstick stopper. She even scanned the fire escape platform.

Marlee had to sit down. This wasn’t just forgotten money. It was NOT there yesterday. No one had broken in to — ridiculous! she thought — put money in her pocket. What if…

No. No way.

She zeroed in on the book on her empty desk. In a flash, all her senses sparked with sensory impressions of soft linen paper, fine-grained leather, the pleasure of thoughts flowing to paper.

She’d researched her subway finds. The book and pencil were from a line of high-quality Moleskine products, but it wasn’t their cost that tickled her senses. Something else urged that pencil to that page. Timorously, Marlee opened the notebook. Calm and a tingle of desire settled in.

Across the top she wrote, Marlena Korpi, January 28, 2021 and paused. What should she say? Who are you? Is this really happening?

No. Just write.

Just hope.

Technical writing was out. No computer or schematics to consult, so Marlee thought adventure writing would be a perfect contrast to the dismal, hopeless era she was in.

Daphne clipped the black wire seconds before the bomb detonated. Her partner, enveloped in a blast suit, removed his explosive ordinance protective hood and exhaled noisily.

She wrote the entire day, scribing, erasing, revising. By the time evening darkened her window, she had only three notebook pages of a story, but it was one that combined her knowledge of complex machinery with creative writing.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this. I should be hitting the employment ads,” she fumed. “The eviction moratorium will end soon and I’ll have no place to go. I can’t lose this place. I can’t lose anything more.”

It was cold in the apartment, so she retired early instead of turning up the heat. Superstition had won; she’d tucked the three pages into her coat pocket.

The next morning, Marlee didn’t know whether to jump for joy or make a mental health appointment. Three $100 bills replaced the notebook pages.

She chose to pinch herself. “This just can’t be.” Looking over to her desk, she added, “Can it?”

She jumped a mile at a knock on the front door.

“Silas! Come in!” Her heart stopped thumping as Marlee welcomed her downstairs neighbor, the very kind owner of the quadplex they lived in. “Can I pour you some coffee?”

“Oh thanks, but I’ve got an interview. Just came up to see how you’re doing. Things still rough?”

“Well, I might have found some, um, freelance work. Look what I have for you.” Marlee held out $200.

“Oh my god! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this. Since no one in the building can pay rent right now, I’m totally strapped myself. It’s only my savings keeping the bank at bay.”

Once the door closed on a grateful Silas, Marlee set her sights on her desk. This HAS to work.

The pencil felt like an old friend already, the notebook like a mentor. She wrote with inspired care. Only coffee, thesaurus, and bathroom breaks interrupted the flow that filled four pages. It was work and it was hard, and her whole heart was in it.

Or so she thought.

The next day’s yield was two fifties and two tens. After much reflection, Marlee figured it out. She’d gotten the names wrong of two secondary characters introduced in the initial three pages. Maybe it was too much work. Marlee’s energy was weirdly drained that morning, as if she’d diagramed Jumbotron wiring circuits all night. Maybe there was a workaround.

Well, she thought, ten dollars is ten dollars, and unshelved one of her favorite books. She penciled a page from it into the notebook before wadding it up in her coat pocket, and heading out to pay the light and gas bills.

The wad was still there the next day, white and blank. Marlee scolded herself with bitter resignation, “How did I think this stupid book was going to be my salvation from penury?” she uttered. “Am I supposed to waste my days chained to a pencil? I’m an idiot; this all just fantasy.”

Ready to relegate it to jotting down grocery lists, the book nevertheless drew Marlee like a lost soul to a map. Maybe the book is smart, Marlee mused. “But, how am I supposed to write a consistent story if I have nothing to review,” she implored the notebook, adding, “and I really need the money now, instead waiting to fill all the pages?” A clever thought occurred to her. She was going to snap a phone pic of each page before tearing it out.

“Oh no!” Marlee wailed, when daylight revealed both the phone picture and page were blank. Her thoughts crushed her: Is it all just a hoax? Have I been in a coma the last few days, or just dreaming? Or am I blowing it? Do I really need to maximize this gift, or just keep trying for a job?

The black notebook was spotlighted as the window’s morning sun brightened her desk. It grabbed her attention like a typo in a Shakespeare sonnet.

Marlee put her best brains forward. She knew she couldn’t manage an entire book. She’d have to write really engaging short stories, four or five pages, tops, every single day.

“I know I have it in me,” she spoke to the book, then added, “but first, some business.”

Marlee took a few minutes to scribble down her weighty debts. Credit cards, back rent, parking tickets and car out of impound, overdraft fees, a computer, Mom’s jewelry out of hock…

“Around twenty thousand bucks,” she guessed. Fanning through the black notebook’s pages, she added, “I better get busy. And use both sides.”