Meet Our Guest Editors for Issue 193
July-September 2021

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by Faith Shearin

I was asked to tabulate a number based
on a life stress inventory and you know

how bad I am at math; I thought of your father
drawing a circle on the chalkboard of our

high school geometry class, his hand
like dust. I received 100 points

because you died and another 28
because our daughter started college,

20 for our new apartment, 30 because
I have trouble sleeping and eating.

I remembered you at 24: your age when
we promised till death do us part;

your life was already half over
when you danced with me beneath

white balloons; I have been counting
those balloons in our album

of wedding photographs
where they drift out the door of the reception hall

into a cypress forest heavy with moss.
You were 30 when our daughter was born,

and she was 18 when you died at 48,
and your father would have said

all of these are even numbers: divisible by 2
with no remainder.

by Jen McConnell

At the counter of the Flying J at the north end of Punxsutawney, Patrick motioned for a refill. A man came through the diner’s door, bringing in a gust of frigid air that swept down Patrick’s collar. The man took the seat next to him and nodded.

“Snowing yet?” Patrick asked.

“Not since Connecticut.”

“Gonna be this cold,” Patrick said, “might as well snow.”

The man nodded again as Patrick pulled up his collar and closed his eyes. Images of sandy beaches competed with the hum of voices around him. The warm California sun, only a few days away, was just what he needed.

“Was it the meatloaf?” a voice asked.

Patrick opened his eyes to see the waitress—Judy, her nametag reminded him—refill his cup and remove his plate. He was about to close his eyes again when Judy turned around and bent over to set the plate in a bin.

Patrick had seen Judy before on this route. She was older than the other girls—late thirties, he guessed—and nothing about her seemed temporary. Her uniform was too snug, the buttons straining across her ample chest, but that wasn’t what caught his eye. When she bent over, the space between the bottom of her blouse and the waistband of her skirt had widened, and there, on the small of her back, was a tattoo of a green, sleeping dragon.

It was the most surprising thing Patrick had seen in a long time. He started to say something but Judy lifted her head and caught his gaze in the mirror. He looked from the tattoo to her expectant blue eyes. She was waiting for him to say something. Something she heard from every other man who sat at that counter. Judy closed her eyes as if bracing herself. Before she opened them, Patrick backed away from the counter until the cold metal handle of the door hit his hip. He stepped outside, trying to conjure an image of the beach from the empty parking lot before him, but Judy’s tattoo blocked it out.

She wasn’t the type Patrick normally chatted up when he stopped for a bite. Definitely not the type he invited to a hotel room, which was exactly what he was considering. He should get into his truck and continue on to California to deliver the load of cheese. Then he could head to San Diego as planned.

Patrick watched his breath fade into the afternoon light. It should be snowing by now, he thought. When he looked through the diner window, Judy was watching him.

~ ~ ~

“Where is it?” Gail, the cheese buyer, shouted at the speaker-phone. She stood at her office window, working to get it open. In San Francisco, the morning was a clear fifty-six degrees. “That’s why I’m calling.”

Sal, a dispatcher at the trucking company, was simply a voice in Texas, one Gail heard only when there was bad news. The driver of her shipment had missed his status call. “He’s not answering his phone.” Sal was eating while he spoke. “Can’t get ’em unless they answer their phones.”

“I need that cheese,” Gail said. “It’s useless after Friday. You know what perishable means, don’t you, Sal?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I’m not fooling around.”

“Keep your shirt on. You’ll get your truck.”

“It’s the cheese I want, I don’t give a fig about the truck.”

After she hung up, Gail marched into the warehouse where her problem was just one of many. Earlier that week, a flood in Monterey had destroyed the micro-greens crop and a truck coming up from Mexico had blown a tire and dumped its load of chiles and spices.

Inside the walk-in, Gail nodded to the guys loading boxes and grabbed an inventory sheet. It was all written down but she wanted to see for herself. She ran her hands over the cold blocks of cheese. Some had been sitting for a while but it would have to do. Gail knew which chefs in town she could placate or bribe. She wasn’t about to lose everything she’d built up during the last eight years over a hack driver who’d broken down somewhere in Pennsylvania.

~ ~ ~

It had taken more convincing than Patrick had been prepared for. Judy wasn’t young and that—combined with her hesitation—made him more curious. He waited in his cab until her shift was over, ignoring the ring of his cell phone. While the heater blasted, he listened to a hockey game on the radio.

The phone stopped ringing, then began again. He knew it was Sal, whose company owned the truck, but he wasn’t worried about Sal. It was the buyer, Gail, who was probably up in arms. When Judy stepped out of the diner, Patrick shoved the phone under the seat.

Inside the motel room, dusky light came in through the edges of the heavy curtains. Neither of them switched on the light. Patrick wasn’t nervous as he moved toward Judy, not like he sometimes was with the young ones. Judy stood still until Patrick was right in front of her, then reached up and slipped her hand onto the back of his neck.

He came quickly, surprising them both. Patrick expected Judy to get dressed and leave, disappointed and ready to tell a tale, but she came back from the bathroom smiling. She curled naked against him, resting her slender hand on his chest. He felt his heart throb against her palm. They shared a cigarette and watched hockey on the muted television. Patrick stroked Judy’s hair, letting the long strands slip through his fingers.

“I haven’t done this in a long time, you know.” Judy tapped his shoulder. “Don’t look at me like that. You don’t know me well enough to look at me like that. I swore to never get involved with a trucker again.”

“You call this involved?”

She waved him off, the cigarette smoke curling around her fingers. “It’s not a lifestyle for me,” she said. “Some of the girls, a different guy every week, thinking each time he might be the one. As if Prince Charming would drive a truck.”

“Don’t think so, do you?”

She handed him the cigarette to finish and rested her head on his shoulder. They watched the game until Patrick saw her glance at the alarm clock on the nightstand. He lifted the sheet, pushed her gently onto her stomach and began to trace the tattoo with his fingertips.

“Tell me,” he said.

 ~ ~ ~

She was seventeen, working the counter at Dairy Queen. Earlier that summer, her sister had fled to the city.

The only tattoo shop in town was in the strip mall behind Dairy Queen. One afternoon, Judy pressed her face against the window to see the drawings inside—skulls and snakes and lightning bolts. The door opened and a group of boys tumbled onto the sidewalk. They laughed at Judy, pointing at her pale legs. As Judy turned away, a girl came out and yelled at the boys. She looked at Judy as the boys took off.

“Come on.” The girl held open the door. Judy glanced at the tattoo of daisies around her wrist. “You’ll hate yourself if you don’t.”

Judy made herself a deal. If she didn’t see any design she liked, she would leave. But as soon as she walked in, she saw it on the wall—a drawing of a sleeping dragon, wildly colored in red, yellow and orange. The cartoon was so big it would cover Judy’s whole back. But, Judy thought, she could handle something smaller. And just one color wouldn’t hurt so bad, she told herself, as the girl rummaged for tracing paper.

“How’s this?” The girl held up the paper.

“Yes. Just green,” Judy said. “My favorite color.”

Behind a partition, Judy unbuttoned her jeans as the girl motioned toward an upholstered chair. Judy straddled the chair and bent forward. The air was cold on her exposed back as she watched the girl set up.

The first prick of the needle made Judy jump so high she hit her head on the shelf above, rattling glass jars of Q-tips and gauze. As Judy stood shaking, her back throbbing, she knew she couldn’t bear the pain. But the girl didn’t wait. She yanked Judy down, said “deep breath,” and started in with the needle.

“Feels like it’s happening to someone else,” Judy whispered.

“Endorphins,” the girl said.

In the mirror, Judy could see black ink mixed with blood on a piece of gauze in the girl’s hand. The endorphins were fading and Judy could feel the pricking of her skin all over again. She dug her fingernails into the padding of the chair. Later at home, she would scrape bits of blue fabric from under her fingertips.

“Almost done with the outline,” the girl said.

“That’s the worst part, right?”

The girl smiled at Judy in the mirror. Green ink was smudged under her left eye.

“Sure,” the girl answered.

The pain went in waves. Endorphins, Judy repeated to herself. Also this: if she could do this, she could do anything. Faith, Judy had always thought, had to do with God and miracles. But, she was beginning to understand, faith was simply the belief that something could be done. Courage was what you needed to do it.

At the one-hour mark, Judy thought she might faint. Her freckles had disappeared into the paleness of her face.

“It hurts,” she whispered.

“Relax,” the girl said.

After another five minutes, the girl sat back and snapped off her gloves. Judy collapsed against the chair. The girl dug into a jar of balm and rubbed some onto the fresh wound with a touch so tender it made Judy cry.

~ ~ ~

Gail watched out the window of her office at the branches of a tree moving in the breeze. She didn’t know what kind of tree it was. Trivia like the names of trees or birds or solar systems were useless to Gail but today she wished she knew what kind of tree it was. The phone rang.

“His truck was spotted off a turnpike in northern Pennsylvania.” Sal sighed. “Still not answering his phone.”

“So if you know where he is, go get him.”

“It’s not that simple,” Sal said. “Look, I can get you another driver for pickup day after tomorrow. Four days late is all.”

“You think I can get cheese again just like that?”

“You’re a smart gal, you’ll think of something.”

Gail slowly counted to ten.

“Still there, Gail?”

“I want to talk to that driver.”

“Not gonna happen.”

“But you know where he is?”

“Word is he’s holed up with some waitress at a motel. Can’t reach him. Didn’t expect it from this one.”

Gail thought about this. An adulterous affair, a drunken one-night stand, a Hollywood love-at-first-sight fling. Those she could grasp. Holed up was something new. To disappear from the world and forsake all responsibility. Not care that other people were counting on you. That was impossible.

“He doesn’t expect to keep his job, does he?” she asked.

“Don’t think he’s worried about that right now. If you know what I mean.”

“Someone should care, Sal. My job’s in jeopardy, too.”

“You’re not going to lose your job over something you can’t control.”

“But I can control it.” Gail hit the speakerphone button and walked to the window. She pictured Pennsylvania covered in snow. Quiet and peaceful—the way winters were supposed to be. “I order something, it comes in, I send it out. I control it all.”

“Don’t tell me in all these years something like this hasn’t happened before.”

“Not by some jerk probably left his wife for a piece of waitress ass—”

“So it’s a morality thing?”

“I don’t care what he does on his own time. That’s my cheese.”

“You’re taking this way too personally. It’s a great story. The guys here are dying.”

“You’re defending him?”

“Maybe you need to relax, let loose a bit.”

Gail knocked the receiver from the stand, killing the line. She stared at the tree outside. How many times had she been told that? Lighten up, relax, give in to the moment. No one—not her son, not her mother, definitely not her ex-husband—had ever understood that this was living for her. This set rhythm of life, when things ran just as they should, that’s what made it all work. Change meant chaos, and chaos meant not being able to count on anything.

Gail looked at the leaves on the trees, counted to ten, then called Sal back for the location of the truck.

~ ~ ~

When the phone rang, neither of them reached for it.

“Probably wrong number,” Patrick mumbled.

The phone rang again. Patrick reached across Judy to pick it up.

“What?”

“This is Gail, the cheese buyer. Remember me?”

“Oh, hey.” He sat up. “Sorry about your cheese.”

There was silence. Patrick thought about hanging up but he was curious. From the little contact they had, he knew Gail was neurotic but he didn’t think she would track him down. He slipped out of bed and walked naked to the window, stretching the phone cord to its limit.

“That’s all you have to say?” Gail asked finally.

“If it’s any consolation, I know I’m fired.” He parted the heavy curtain with a finger, surprised to see two inches of snow on the ground. “Look at that, it’s snowing.”

Judy rolled over. “I thought I heard it snowing,” she mumbled.

“What?” Patrick asked.

“Why?” Gail asked in his ear.

“Why is it snowing?” Patrick asked into the phone.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Gail asked.

Patrick felt the cold through the window, raising every hair on his body. There was movement along the street but the sounds were muted by snow. When Gail repeated her question, Patrick moved to flip the heater on high, then returned to bed. He rested his hand on Judy’s arm.

“Would you believe me if I told you I was in love?” Patrick said into the phone. He felt Judy shift under his fingers.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Gail said. “There’s a difference between sex and love.”

“There doesn’t have to be.”

“For men like you—”

“Don’t finish that sentence, Gail.” Judy’s skin was warm under Patrick’s palm. His fingers wandered across her body, down to where her back met the roundness of her hips. “You don’t know me,” he said. “Order your cheese again, they’ll get someone to deliver it. Chalk it up to life and move on. There is no why for this.”

~ ~ ~

At three in the afternoon, Patrick smoked in bed while Judy took a shower.

“What will you do?” Judy asked as she came naked into the room. She slipped into bed and ran her hands through Patrick’s curly gray-brown chest hair.

“That’s what this is all about, sweetie.” He slid his hands along her body. “I usually just act. I finish a job, watch a ball game, go to sleep, get up the next day. Never stop to think about it. I’m forty-seven years old. Life isn’t slowing down.”

Judy said nothing, caught by the word sweetie. He didn’t say it like the truckers at the diner who called her honey or darling. She believed he meant it, if only for that moment.

“Are you thinking about it?” Patrick said. “Losing your job?”

“I think too much,” she said. “Not going to work is an action, right? Not acting is an act too, isn’t it?”

“Some things just happen on their own.”

They made love slowly, pausing after about twenty minutes, talking for a bit, then beginning again. Judy’s own body surprised her. She hadn’t enjoyed sex in a long time. It didn’t happen often these days so it wasn’t something she worried about. But this time was different. It felt so much better when she stopped wondering if he was enjoying himself. Of course he was.

Afterward, Judy could feel Patrick’s breath slowing down toward sleep but her body still tingled. Forty-seven. He probably couldn’t go again for a while. Less thinking, she told herself, more acting. She reached for his hand.

“More?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re quite a gal.”

“Don’t think about it. Just do it.”

“Turn over,” he said.

It was a special trick, he told her. Something he learned from a girl who dated girls for a while. Judy did what he said and realized that, even at thirty-eight, she knew very little about the world.

~ ~ ~

“It’s a rough time to travel, ma’am,” the travel agent said. “Been snowing all day.”

“I can drive there from the airport in three hours, right?” Gail sorted her inbox as the woman rattled off flight times over the speakerphone. It wasn’t a good time to take time off work but there never was a good time.

“Yes, ma’am. Will you need a hotel?”

“No.”

“Anything else? I can fax tips for driving in the snow.”

“I grew up in Michigan,” Gail snapped. “I think I remember how.”

“Have a good time,” Bill, her boss, told her as she said goodbye.

“I’m not going for fun.”

“Do us all a favor and try.”

Normally Gail would have spent a week arranging to leave but she only had time to get home and pack before driving to the airport. She wanted to catch Patrick before he left—to see what someone who could do this looked like. Then she’d visit the diner to see what woman would be taken in by that kind of man.

~ ~ ~

When Patrick woke up the next morning, he knew Judy would go back to work. She was asleep on her stomach, her face turned toward him. He lifted the sheet, bent over her back and softly kissed her tattoo.

She left without saying much. A quick shower, a lingering kiss and a slow drag on Patrick’s cigarette. He knew she wouldn’t regret it.

The phone rang ten minutes later. Patrick imagined it was Judy calling from the diner; the first sentimental thought he had in years. But it was Gail, on her way to the motel.

“If that’s what you want, Gail, but can’t promise I’ll be here,” he said.

“I don’t care. I want that cheese.”

“It’s a long way to go to prove something.”

“I’ve gone further.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“Just leave the truck keys at the motel office.”

“But why?”

“That’s none of your business. What about the girl?”

“She went back to work.”

“Couldn’t rescue her?”

“That wasn’t the point.”

“What was?”

Patrick lit a cigarette. Through the part in the curtains, he could see it was still snowing. He wondered if Gail had clothes for this kind of weather.

“Be careful driving,” Patrick said and hung up.

He watched a game show while resting his hand on Judy’s pillow. He pictured her bending over for silverware or a bottle of ketchup, her tattoo peeking out now and then.

Maybe he would wait for Gail to show up. Ask her if she had ever done anything that took blind courage.

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