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Chapter 5: Wednesday, May 15th, late afternoon.

[MAY 15 – 4:41PM]

(Anna, Missy meet at bookstore)

Missy was so just ready for this day to be over. She was tired of picking up the same books over and over again. Why can’t customers just put books back if they aren’t going to buy them? she thought.

“Ugh, why can’t customers just put books back if they aren’t going to buy them?!” She said out loud letting her frustration boil over.

Well, I mean, unless they were cute boys, that is—Cute boys could leave books out all they liked, and she would gladly come pick those up. Like, oh I don’t know, that red haired boy from Texas she spoke to earlier. Or maybe he was from Louisiana. It was definitely somewhere South. Oh, those Southern tall ones. Red hair was good. She preferred a surfer boy cut with wavy hair. Or curly hair. But there wasn’t anything wrong with a good old-fashioned clean-cut military look.

Actually, she was completely fine with a disheveled look too and very closely trimmed beard. Really as long as he has hair he’ll do. Although… There wasn’t anything wrong with a manly receding hairline either, or clean shaven all together with a fit body. Even if he was losing his hair, as long as he didn’t do something weird with it like a ponytail. Just, eww, no. Then again, did he have cute facial hair? She’d have to see him first to judge him based on his overall style. Maybe he was a sharp dresser? There’s a lot to judging men based on their physical appearance. Or perhaps he was clever? Oh, but those red heads from the South. Those were always top of the list.

She finished straightening several books on a shelf in the Pets section and rounded the end cap on her way back to the kiosk at the center of the store.

***

Anna pulled into the parking lot. The usual post work rush made it annoyingly difficult to find a parking spot. It’s a bookstore she thought… who reads anymore? What are all these people doing here! “GO HOME!” she growled under her breath at a cute elderly couple crossing in front of her. She immediately regretted it. Afterall, they were cute. More importantly, they were a couple. Sigh. Next came a lady and her three kids. Anna shook her head. What a handful! I don’t think I’m ready for that. Nope. Not yet. Love, sure, marriage, obvs, baby carriage? Nope. Hells nope.

There was another handful, this time of cars doing the parking lot dance in front of her. She inched her way into the chaotic back-ing and forth-ing and turning and lurching. She attempted to mimic the choreography as best she could as she joined the drive-in dancing with the cars. Finally, she saw a break in the dance circle and made a bolt for an open spot.

***

“Hello and welcome to Leaf Street Books!” Missy pounced on customers left and right as they entered the bookstore. “Hi!!! Welcome!” She was good at what she did. “Hello! Welcome to Leaf Street Books!!!” Even if her major was in something completely unrelated to selling books. “Hey!!! Leaf Street welcomes you! Did you come for books? Because we’ve got those!” Accounting was ok for a while, but she just got burnt out. “Welcome to the bookstore!” Sure, the money was REALLY good. Much better than a lowly retail worker at a failing bookstore made. “Leaf Street Books! You’ve got the looks; we’ve got the books!” But as she found out firsthand from the accounting gig, money can’t make you happy. “Welcome!” It sounds silly but greeting people at a bookstore made her much happier—at least for the time being.

“Hi.” Anna said in a rushed manner. She hurried by Missy still in defense mode from the parking scramble.

“Can I help you find something?” Missy attempted to make eye contact with the new customer. Who was this? A completely new customer she’d never seen before. There was something about her… She was a digital book reader fanatic. Missy could tell—an online order only, set it and forget it subscription shopper. But… she wasn’t here for herself, she never physically goes into a bookstore, she just clicks download on her e-reader device.

“No, I’m fine thanks.” Anna continued on her way at a hurried pace, purposely not allowing any further eye contact with the bookstore worker.

She made her way to the very back of the bookstore. Along the half-minute journey, she had a new friend from the front of the store curiously watching her every move. Missy hated being dodged. She hated it when customers knew exactly what they wanted and where it was.

***

Missy stalked from afar as her elusive customer walked out of the kids books section clutching a stiff cardboard book with a green worm on the front. Her tall and slender frame allowed her to look out across the store like a lighthouse with perfectly primped blonde hair. As the young woman made her way near the front of the store she recognized the book as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”. The woman was nearing Missy once again. Missy was only about ten feet away with herself perfectly positioned between the young lady and the beginning of the check-out line. A goalie between the goal and the approaching offence. Gotcha… no other way for her to go. Missy decided to pounce again—

"Some interesting reading you got there!" She said in a delightful voice.

"It’s not for me." Anna replied, irritated.

A response! Eeeek!!! Missy knew she was in. If she could get a response, she’d be able to get her way. A response was all it took.

“Let me guess—“She usually almost always guessed absolutely wrong. See, guessing wrong would often cause the person to tell you all about their decision to purchase the item. She would immediately memorize everything they said and jot it all down after the conversation. Some time later, she would then submit the information to her boss so that they could have a better idea of who bought what and why. It was the worst way to collect information. But, hey, if her boss wanted her to do it and she got paid to do it… she didn’t care either way. The guessing game was much more effective than going up to people and asking why they were buying what they had in their hand. You just looked nosy doing that. Plus, this was more fun!

“—It’s a book for your niece!”

Anna narrowed her eyes. “How did you know that?”

“Oh, umm, lucky guess… I guess?” Missy was caught off guard. Missy is never caught off guard. Missy doesn’t like being caught off guard. On guard!

Anna stopped in her tracks and looked suspiciously at the woman in front of her. They were probably somewhere around the same age.

“Would you like it gift wrapped?” Missy asked, nervously, pointing to the book Anna held in her hands. She was almost certain it wasn’t a gift for a niece, how on earth did she get that right? Something wasn’t quite right. Or maybe this was a sign, this was exactly right! It was one of the two!

“Isn’t that a holiday thing?” Anna asked, staring down the blonde in front of her. “We’re in the middle of May.”

“Oh! No, no, we do it year around. All you have to do is ask.” Missy smiled, her smile had a slight hint of deviousness about it, like she was about to get her way, it was her anticipation smile. She loved getting her way, especially when someone wasn’t initially going her way.

Great, another thing to waste my money on Anna thought. “How much does it cost?”

“It’s free!” Missy bounced excitedly as the words shot out from her mouth.

“Well, if it’s free, I mean, why not?” Anna shrugged. Then looked at her super geeky tech watch she had recently and unapologetically splurged on—she needed it for running, stop judging her! Sometimes you just have to splurge even if you’re nearly broke! Anna noted the time on her watch, she had a little bit of extra time, so, why not? She nodded yes to the bookstore employee.

Missy strutted up to Anna and placed her hands out in front with her palms facing up. She didn’t utter a single word, only waited for the slightly startled twentysomething staring back to get the hint—she didn’t. Missy wiggled her fingers without moving her hands. Anna furrowed her brow. “Well, are you going to hand me the book or what?” Missy huffed.

“Oh! Yes. Sorry. I’m sorry, my mind must be elsewhere at the moment.” Anna said. She handed the book over nearly dropping it in the process.

“Follow me.” Missy purred, giddy with excitement.

The two of them walked up to the front register where Anna extracted a debit card from her purse to pay for the book then they walked over to a small kiosk in the middle of the store.

This was Missy’s home base. She had more than meets the eye hidden on several shelves just out of view from the customer. Missy had been known to console teary-eyed customers on the spot with a comforting tissue, or a touch of eyeliner to a fellow female friend in need, or male friend, who was she to judge. Eyeliner for all! There was the usual safety pin for a broken article of clothing, or a complete eyeglass screw set to repair a dropped pair of glasses, and when that didn’t work, she had an assortment of tapes and various adhesives. One time she actually produced an engagement ring from her box of jewelry for an impromptu on the spot proposal in the Parenting and Family section. She also happened to have an old and somewhat fussy still working Polaroid camera to document the event. Her words of “Congratulations! I say just embrace the mistake, the little guy inside will thank you later for sticking it out and being there for him!” caused quite the uproar. She then produced a pregnancy test from one of her mid-level kiosk drawers to calm the nerves of the young man who had just proposed. Missy learned that moment it’s best not to make any conclusions without first asking all the facts; she forgot it about an hour later. It was probably due to the nice buzz she had going on from the bottle of champagne and glasses she pulled from a secret bottom shelf drawer to share with the newly engaged, kid-free, bookstore couple.

She is the Marry Poppins of the bookstore. That kiosk is her magic bag filled with an unlimited supply of knick-knacks and fixes.

Anna and Missy chatted idly as various gift-wrapping items materialized from behind the kiosk and sprawled out on the countertop. Anna began to reveal the information her mind was withholding, playing cards placed on a table one card at a time. The more words Anna assembled for Missy the slower the gift-wrapping items assembled themselves. Eventually they stopped entirely as Missy began to dispense advice after she pushed the half-wrapped book aside. She reached behind the kiosk countertop and pulled out a small makeup kit and various perfumes.

Missy touched up a bit of Anna’s makeup here and there.

“ …and lets do something about that hair shall we?” Missy continued.

“Wow, thanks.” Anna replied in complete surprise at what was happening.

Anna was now feeling almost completely at ease about her blind date that Jenna decided to set her up on. Why she agreed to this was beyond her. It was more for Jenna than herself. She didn’t want to let her friend down. She was sure it would be yet another dud. All duds, no studs. Ba-dum-tsss. I really am a total catch Anna thought. She wasn’t going to just settle for wherever Jenna snagged this snaggletooth fresh fish catch of the day from, she probably cat fished him on her behalf and used some truly awful photos. Lord knows there’s too many of those from nights of drunken debauchery. How embarrassing if she did use a photo of two, and there’s more than a few she can think of that she wished never existed!

“I would say the best place to sit is that far seat back behind that one wall. That way you won’t have to compete with the blender noise when Brandi makes the frozen blended coffee or fruit smoothie drinks.”

Missy waived over to Brandi and she waived back, then she made a hand motion to indicate she was sleepy and ready to go home and crash on the couch. She put both her hands together palm to palm and put her head against her hands. Missy pointed to her wrist and made an it’s almost time, hang in there motion.

After Missy’s mini counseling session, she finished the original task of gift wrapping the book.

Anna picked up the store branded bag containing wrapped-up book, “Thanks for everything! You’ve been really helpful!”

“Come back after the date and tell me how it went! I’d love to know.” I need to know. Missy thought.

“OK, will do!” Anna turned to head towards the bookstore exit. She wanted to put the gift in her car before making one last minute visit to the restroom just to freshen up and make sure her hair wasn’t an absolute mess. Not that she didn’t trust this bookstore girl, but it’s tough to put your faith in someone you’ve known all of about five minutes.

Missy hollered in Anna’s direction as she walked away, “Wait!”

After about a minute Missy had managed to place her cell phone number in Anna’s phone and populate her own phone’s contact list with Anna’s number.

“Just in case the date isn’t exactly—you know—ideal. Make some kind of distress signal.”

“Distress signal?”

“Oh you know, start talking really loudly or put your hands up in the air like you’re stretching. Or maybe like a whistle along with the music overhead.”

“Gotcha.”

She walked out of the bookstore feeling extremely confident. Maybe this date would go great? Why not?

She walked over to her car, unlocked it, tossed the book in the backseat of her car and headed once again, back into Leaf Street Books towards the café to await the arrival of her date.

[annaaugustphoto]

Chapter 4: May 15th, 12:15PM...4:15PM

[MAY 15 – 12:15PM]

(Anna and jenna reading humor blog)

Anna logged back into all the usual work related systems:

ChatNOW… online.

ChatNOW was a personal chat program that Anna used to chat with her friend Jenna across the office.

InChat… online.

InChat is the inter-office logged chat that the company has been forcing all employees to use for communication between CSR agents. CSR stood for Customer Service Representative. It was a demeaning job where you were kept chained to a desk for 8 hours a day (except for a lousy thirty-minute lunch break along with a couple paltry bathroom leaves) and you were forced to listen to customers bitch about their problems. As Jenna put it in one of her status updates:

“Customer service is the fakest job ever. #wehateyou #wearenthappyyoucalled #shutup #letmepretendicarewhenireallyamflickingyouoff”

If her husband wasn’t one of the top lawyers in New York City (And his firm represented the company) she would have been fired years ago for the crap she put up online for the whole workplace to see. No one messed with Jenna. Ever.

Anna opened up the various tabs in her web browser to check the usual sites she liked to, you know, keep tabs on (Cheesy puns for the win… Does anyone still say “for the win”?). She was still hungry after lunch. She only had enough time to run down the street and get a quick bite to eat, and enough money to buy a small soup with a package of crackers. Sometimes she just didn’t feel like packing her lunch the night before, and she always hated herself the next day after lunch time if she ate something unhealthy, or, in this case, didn’t eat enough. Only four hours and fifteen minutes left to go. And she had that blind date tonight after work at the bookstore. Maybe she would run in real quick before the date and grab that gift for Heather. It beat sitting in the car alone with her nerves.

Jenna pinged Anna on their personal chat. They weren’t supposed to be using personal chats at all anymore. Everything was supposed to be going over the inter-office chat now. So it could be logged. But that was just ridiculous—truly ridiculous.

Jenna and Anna worked as customer service representatives at a somewhat fly-by-night website hosting company called Four Nines Internet Hosting Services Inc. At least once a month all the systems would be down and they would be required to stay late after work to make up for the time. That was also truly ridiculous, but it was a job, at least, for Anna it was. Why Jenna even worked was beyond any kind of comprehension. Probably because she had her own office, and who doesn’t want their own office?

The chat message zipped its way out through the network connection on Jenna’s PC, through the corporate firewall and internet traffic logging device at Four Nines hosting out into the wide world of the web, connected with the ChatNOW servers which figured out the currently logged in user’s eyes the message was destined to end up in front of, made its way back through the firewall and network infrastructure at Four Nines and finally popped up on the screen in front of Miss Anna B sitting in cubicle number 4 in front of a computer named CSR-BellianoA.

JennadogLvr: Anna I think I’ve found your dream guy.

AnnaBRunnerGirl: Ooooo, girl, show me now!

JennadogLvr: OK, but you have to promise to invite me to the wedding.

AnnaBRunnerGirl: Shut up. You know I will. Stop teasing me and just link me already!

A linked website appeared in the chat window between her coworker and herself. She clicked on the link. As soon as the browser window finished loading Tara walked behind her on the usual post lunch rounds. Anna minimized the open windows with lightning speed. She was well practiced at this and had yet to get caught

Tara V. AKA ‘Evil Tara’—as Anna and Jenna usually called her—was Anna’s direct boss. She used to be a CSR just like Anna. She also used to be Anna’s friend. But times change and people do too. Tara slowed her stride to a near stall as she crept behind Anna’s cubicle. Anger began rising inside of Anna. Just the thought of hearing her voice was enough to bubble it over the top. Just as it seemed like Tara was about to open her mouth with that stupid southern accent, Anna received an incoming call. She adjusted the earpiece over her head and clicked the button on her phone to accept the call from the call queue. If she hadn’t grabbed the call someone else would have. She would much rather talk to some pushy, upset and irate customer than hear Tara’s voice. If Tara bragged about her stupid brand new orange kayak one more time, Anna swore she would steal that thing, strap it to the top of one of the New Jersey Transit trains and watch Tara chase down the tracks after it.

God that was awful. But the mental picture of Tara running down the train tracks chasing after her kayak strapped to the roof of the train that gave her just the chuckle she needed to get through the rest of the day.

Anna spoke with the tone of a saint—fake it till you make it. “Hello and thank you for calling Four Nines Internet Hosting Incorporated. Four nines uptime means you’ve got piece of mind! My name is Anna how may I be of assistance to you?”

[MAY 15 – 4:15PM]

As the clock ticked down towards quitting time she remembered the link from earlier in the day that Jenna had sent her way. Several times throughout the day Jenna had messaged asking if she had a chance to look at it, but today was slammed with calls. This morning wasn’t bad call wise, but as soon as Evil Tara AKA E.T. had her stalk walk after lunch things got a little bat shit crazy. She was wondering if maybe Tara had told the others on the CSR team to avoid picking up some of the calls so that Anna would get stuck with them. Probably. Kayak to the roof of the train Anna kept thinking over and over. Kayak to the roof of the train.

Finally, there was a small break in the calls. Anna opened the link to the website. She was expecting some ripped shirtless muscular Fabio-esc Photoshopped model. Instead, it was a blog of some sort. The site was titled Kenz and Friendz. The dot com had a small subtitle, ‘No friends were harmed in the making of this blog’. Anna cracked a smile. Jenna knew her type.

She scrolled down and viewed the latest post—a whole mess of really amazing photos taken at exactly the perfect moment—she was immediately sucked in. Photos were her ‘thing‘ after all. There were 50 photos in all. The title of the post was something like 50 photos with amazing timing. Or something to that effect. Most of them were funny, two or three were absolutely hysterical. Many of them were, well, amazing. She picked up another call before she could read beyond the most recent post. The site was added to her bookmarks and saved for later on to check up along with her usual sites to keep tabs on.

Across town Micah McKenzie noticed another hit on his analytics dashboard screen he just happened to be checking at the exact same time. The user’s location was Madison, NJ. He sat at his desk wondering who this mysterious person might be stalking his blog in the same town as he. His first thought was a fellow coworker, but after clicking on the hit to reveal the detailed stats, he noticed the Internet Service Provider listed as Four Nines Internet Services Incorporated. He had no idea who that person could be. There were multiple hits it looked like, coming from two different machines; one of the machines was running a slightly larger screen resolution than the other, so, definitely two different users. It seems he had two new blog readers.

[annaaugustphoto]

Chapter 3: Wednesday, May 15th, 9am

[MAY 15 – 9AM]

(Micah And Tracey At Work – Dude’s Money Site - Fakename Game ‘Game #1”)

“Dude… DUDE!” Tracey pushed his way across the room backwards on his rolling office chair towards Micah’s desk. He rolled up next to his coworker and attempted to grab at the mouse.

“Whoa, Tracey can’t you see I’m in the middle of something here?”

“Yeah whatever you never do any work, you just browse dating profiles all day anyways. This is WAY more important. Open up your web browser!”

“No.” Micah guarded his mouse.

“Yes. Or I’ll roll my way back to my computer, hop onto one of the administrative servers and remotely kick you off your own computer.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me.”

They sat staring at one another silently.

“Fine. You’ve got one minute.”

Tracey commandeered the mouse and keyboard from Micah. As he typed in the address, he read it aloud: www.dudesmoney.com.

Micah sported an ‘I’m unimpressed’ expression awaiting some stupid video of a monkey or a cat or a dog or whatever it was Tracey thought was so amusing it was more important than working on his current task. He had to temporarily disconnect his remote assistance connection and abandon working on the president of the college’s computer with a deadline of less than 20 minutes just to humor his coworker.

“Check it out this dude’s giving away his money! FREE MONEY!”

“What the?” Micah was marginally intrigued, updating his external facial expression to match.

“Yea! One dollar per person. I already claimed mine. Spent it downloading a music single. I have one penny left over. What the heck am I going to do with one penny? But what do I care? FREE MONEY!”

Micah read over the site. The terms went something like:

-One dollar per person.

-Paid electronically via any electronic payment site.

-First come, first serve.

There was more−A little about section of some sort. Micah continued reading. The font was so small it was impossible to read without zooming the browser up to 500 percent. His eyes darted back and forth as they scanned the page.

“OH MY GOD. TRACEY! THIS GUY IS DEAD!”

Tracey laughed. “That’s right, he’s no longer with the company. Isn’t that great?! Who wants my crap? Hahahahah it’s GENIUS! You should put that in your humor blog.”

Micah recoiled in disgust, “No, I’m not putting that in my blog. It’s terrible! That’s horrible! I can’t click on that. That’s not even funny at all.”

“Dude when did you become such a saint? Just click on it and donate it to charity then.”

Micah closed the window and went back to work on the president’s computer problem. He brought up a search engine and started to type in the combination of phrases that would produce a desired result. As he typed in the various search queries and received the various search results he muttered a related response back at the computer screen:

Typing.

“No”

Click back button. Type, type, type. Click.

“No”

Click back button again. More typing. Click.

“No”

Click back. Thinking. Typing.

“OK, wait, Maybe.”

Click back button again. Typing.

“No.”

More thinking and typing and clicking on links.

“AH HA!”

An answer.

Good things come to those who are persistent—Except for relationships. Those just never happen, that is, until you stop trying. At least that’s what everyone says isn’t it? Or in Micah’s case it’s just lots and lots of excuses. It’s always bad search results for Micah—never anything good.

He copied the piece of code from the solution box into a blank notepad document. Then he changed a few variables to match the settings on the mail server.

“Let’s see if this one works.”

He copy and pasted the text from the notepad program into the run command box, hit the enter key and crossed his fingers.

‘Please wait…’ appears for a few seconds on the screen then followed by “Command completed successfully.”

“YES!”

He picked up the phone and dialed the number for the college president secretary.

“Hello, yes…. The president’s email problem should be fixed. Yes, have her try and open the shared calendar as well when she gets a chance that should now be displaying all the events correctly.”

***

Now that the hot issue for the day was resolved there wasn’t much else happening on helpdesk. There were a couple of printer problems they quickly fixed. Micah took care of an email password reset and reset the server that handles external requests for library journals, students were getting some kind of cloud handshake error. Who comes up with the names for these things? There were a number of new PC deployments, but college professors were notoriously difficult to contact after graduation. It was now officially the first week of summer vacation. Ninety percent of those new PC deployments would sit there until late August. That’s what happened last summer, and the summer before, and the summer before that. Basically, that task would have to wait until Fall. Not much goes on in the town of Madison, New Jersey in the summertime, and Micah assumed this summer wouldn’t be no different. But hey, maybe not.

Micah logged into his blog and began reviewing the final version of a draft he had written but not yet published. Tracey was equally as bored. He was probably chatting online with his wife, and by probably… he was. The clicking of mice and clacking of keys on a keyboard were eventually interrupted by three words

“Fake name… Go!” Tracey said out loud while continuing to glare at his computer screen.

“Robert Meadly.” Micah replied without casually in a slightly accented voice trying to pretend he was from anywhere but here.

“Robert, it’s nice to meet you. Where are you from?” Tracey still hadn’t looked up from the chat with his wife. Micah was still was finalizing his humor blog post. He quickly opened up a search window and found a map site to look up Wisconsin.

“I’m from Madison… Ummm… Madison, Wisconsin.” He couldn’t think of any other towns or cities also named Madison and the summertime vibe had already settled in his mind. He was tempted to just say Madison, NJ, but there was a rule against using any person, place, or thing directly related to where you are in real life at the time of the game.

“You’re such a cheater, close your web browser.”

“How can you see my computer screen? You’re busy talking to your wife on chat.”

Tracey avoided the question, “So, Robert, how old are you?”

“Forty-six.”

“What do you do?”

“I run a small camera shop.”

Tracey hesitated. Apparently, he was deep in conversation, or possibly disagreement with his wife.

“And do you have any kids?”

“One.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Girl.”

“What’s with all the one-word answers!”

“What’s with all the one-word questions?” replied Micah. “Also, you know this game is over right? You can’t ask a non-game related question in the middle of the game.”

“Dude, that’s such crap, you can’t just give stupid one-word answers.”

“I’m the one who taught YOU the game. In the first place, which means I can do whatever the heck I want.”

They both went back to mouse clicking and keyboard clacking between moments of intense silence.

***

“Did you get your tickets?” Ben asked casually strolling into the IT Services Office, but no one ever called it that, it was simply referred to as the tech office.

“For what?” The two of them chimed back in unison.

Tracey lowered his voice. “Wait… I think it’s a trick.” He whispered over at Micah. Then turned to face Ben and spoke in a loud and confidant tone. “Yes, boss, we already took care of that problem. The ticket has been closed.” He said convincingly while winking at Micah.

“What? Oh, yes, good job, keep closing those support tickets. Anyway, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the lottery, boys, the lottery!” Ben replied pulling out some recently purchased lotto tickets.

[annaaugustphoto]

Chapter 2: Tuesday, May 14th, 7pm... 9pm.

[MAY14 – 7PM]

(Alex Basketball Court In Apartment)

“I still can’t believe you setup a freakin’ basketball court in your apartment.”

Micah took another terrible shot and hit nothing but… rim.

“Yea dude, I know. Sick right?”

Micah’s friend took a shot… nothing but… net.

Quick backstory, Micah’s friend’s name is Alex. He sometimes went by A.J. Although, he also had been known to respond to Mr. Jones, depending on who was calling him. Mr. Jones was a nickname he gave to himself from his favorite song of all time “Mr. Jones” by a band named The Counting Crows, you’ve probably heard of them—Alex mostly just liked the song “Mr. Jones” because his middle name was Jones, but additionally, the music was catchy, and it made for a good karaoke song choice, Alex isn’t exactly the kind of guy who’s big on deep meanings in things, if you know what I mean—His full proper name is Alex Jones Footman. Micah and Alex go way back. The two of them met at a summer sports camp in Maine when they were kids. Alex was absolutely amazing at sports—and Micah was absolutely terrible. For some unknown reason Alex always made it a point to pick Micah for his teammate, turning what could have been a truly terrible summer camp experience into a not so bad one. Micah felt forever in debt to him for that.

Micah walked up to the net and looked behind the backboard. He pushed his face flush against the wall and spoke in a muffled voice back to his friend standing behind him, he talked as if he were trying to reach a distant stranded small animal stuck between the walls, or, like when you’re halfway behind a couch trying to plug a charger into an electrical outlet that you can just barely reach. “Dude, how on earth did you mount this? Did you just screw the backboard right into the wall?”

“Yea dude. Just went to the hardware store and picked up a few supplies. I printed out some make your own instructions from online. It was cake bro.” He took a few more shots in a row from various angles making every single one before tossing the ball to Micah.

“You are such an idiot. You know you’re not getting your security deposit back, right?” Micah took another terrible shot and missed entirely.

“Totally worth it.”

The two shot hoops for a while and in-between watched a basketball game. Every now and then they would share a few snippets of conversation.

Alex threw the ball into the air above his head and caught it again from his sitting position on the couch. He got up bounced the ball once then took a shot. Nothing but net, yet again. He picked up the ball and turned to face Micah.

“Catch!”

He tossed the ball in Micah’s direction. Mr. not paying attention caught the basketball with the side of his face. Micah let out a loud yelp. Alex nearly fell over laughing, “Oh shit! Bro are you ok?”

“Yeah I’m fine. “ Micah mumbled while rubbing the side of his head and keeping his eyes staring down towards his lap. “What the heck was that for?”

“I’m so sorry dude! I thought you would see me throw the ball! What are you doing anyways? Checking your phone. You’re always on your phone.”

“Yeah.” Micah said in a distracted distant voice. “Us IT nerds like our phones.”

“Let me guess, you’re either reading work emails, or you’re on that stupid dating site again.”

“It’s one of those things.” Micah stayed in his same distracted tone.

“Dude, you need to go out with me one time. I’ll be your wingman. I’ll help you score big time!”

“Sure, okay. Sounds good.” He continued to scroll and type on the phone, distracted.

Alex sighed and plopped back down onto the couch, ”So what happened with that girl you were talking to on that dating site?”

“Which one?”

“The last one? I don’t know, the red head?”

“She disabled her account today.” Micah put his phone back into his pocket. “I’m kind of annoyed. She sent me a message just last night about how she was supposed to volunteer in the city this weekend. Then I logged in today at work to message her back and her profile was in disabled state. It’s so annoying.”

“Maybe she found someone else dude. You gotta pounce on that as soon as you can bro. You gotta just get in there and get on that. Don’t wait too long.”

“Okay, I mean fine maybe she did find someone else. But I’m saying it’s rude.. We’d been talking for a few weeks—“

“WEEKS!?!?! Whoa, whoa, whoa bro! What did I just tell you? Pounce.”

Alex made a cat like motion with his hands.

“Well, I didn’t want to scare her away by seeming too forward. It’s… You don’t want to come off as creepy or weird or desperate—So I’ve read. Anyway, it doesn’t matter now. I can’t ask for her number, she’s long gone. It just seems rude though. I spent all that time and effort putting thought into typing those messages. And then she just disables her account without an explanation! It’s just… rude.”

“I guess. That’s your view of things. Maybe she doesn’t see it that way.”

Micah fell silent. He didn’t care to continue this conversation. It was pointless. What was the point? Once someone was gone from your life, they were gone. That was it. That was that.

They returned their attention to the game.

Alex and Micah slouched side by side on the small green couch in front of the large screen flat panel TV perched precariously on a very small Ikea coffee table with one busted and then patched up leg. The coffee table was placed so that the wall supported half the weight of it—you know, so that it wouldn’t fall over.

Alex and Micah were both fairly tall guys. Alex, an even six feet and Micah was just shy at five foot eleven inches. Though they were almost the same height, their bodies were vastly different. Micah was a lanky tall. He had the artsy look. That’s what most people told him at least. He wasn’t sure how a T-shirt and jeans look qualified as “artsy” but he always seemed to take the compliment. Better than “IT nerd”. His friend Alex was a slick and suave muscular build that made him appear as though he worked out constantly, which he did, which is why he had that look. Suddenly the game cut to a commercial.

“Commercial break, name and, go!”

“Now?”

“Now isn’t a name.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“This is exactly why we need to play!” Alex chided.

“Fineeee”

“Fine isn’t a name either.”

Micah punched Alex in the shoulder.

“Ouch dude. What the heck? You know I’m just messing with you. I figured you needed some cheering up since you got digitally dumped today and all.”

The Fake Name Game, or Fake Name Go, or sometimes name and go, or just Go as they more commonly referred to it, was a game that Micah learned at summer camp with Alex. Him and Alex used to play it while shooting basketball during free time almost every day and almost every summer they were at camp together. The game basically entails the following: One person starts by asking the other to fabricate some sort of name that is not their own. Using a friend or family member name is also not generally allowed.

It’s up to the person who initiated the fake name request to grill the other person until they finally crack and the lie is exposed.

Sometimes the fake name game is short lived. Other times, it can go on for quite some time. This particular game lasted exactly the same amount of time that the commercial break did, what are the odds?

“So what happened with you and Jen?”

“Which one?” Alex asked getting up off the couch and picking up the basketball to shoot some more. He took a shot just as one of the players on the TV took a shot.

“Seriously? I don’t know dude, the one you were with last time we talked.”

“We broke up, kinda. We’re still talking every so often”

“And by talking you mean…”

“Yep. She can talk ALL night. If you know what I mean. She’s got a way with words. But the sound of her voice is the most annoying thing I’ve ever heard. How about you bro? Besides bad luck on the dating sites. You getting your…”

“—I’ve… I’ve got nothing.” Micah stared out the open window at the glowing Pour House sign down the street.

Micah got up from couch and picked up a spare basketball. Alex had half a dozen sitting in various spots around his apartment; think hidden Easter eggs when you were a little kid. Oversized Easter eggs that look like basket balls, because they are basket balls. Micah took a shot and missed entirely.

“Micah, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you should just give up.”

“Give up? Really?”

“Yeah you haven’t made a basket yet bro.”

“Oh. You mean basketball. I’ll consider your suggestion.“ He tossed the ball to Alex. “See I have one theory that most of the girls that sign up for dating sites are just window-shopping. They don’t actually want to take anything home. They just want to try it on… see how it fits.”

“And that’s a problem why?” Alex took a shot and hit nothing but net. “My guess is this… they recently broke up with a guy… they bad mouth him to all their friends. But she secretly still wants him. The friends—buying all the bad mouthing—suggest signing up for a dating site to ‘get over’ him. I’m sure tons of girls have that scenario.”

“And how would you know that?”

“That’s what my last ex-girlfriend did after I broke up with her. Who knows, you probably even chatted with her on that site. It’s funny how small the world can be.” Alex took another shot and finally missed.

[MAY 14 – 9PM]

(Anna Edits and Daydreams)

Anna took another bite of the pizza that she had stopped and picked up after her phone call with her mom. It was cold by now. She’d been working for 3 hours straight. She placed the pizza slice back on the plate next to her computer monitor and peered into the glowing rectangle in front of her. The computer screen, a virtual photograph, displayed the latest lucky couple to claim each other forever and ever. Another happily ever after.

“So pretty,” She whispered half to herself and half to her cat sitting on her lap.

Another beautiful and happy bride, that wasn’t her, taunted her from the computer screen. A mix of emotions flowed through her. She felt jealous, very jealous. Then she felt angry. The anger melted into sadness and finally a longing. There’s got to be someone out there for her she thought. She bit her bottom lip and drifted off into daydream.

She began to imagine herself in place of the bride in front of her on the screen. The photo was—for all intents and purposes—perfect: newly wed bride and husband out on the dance floor. The DJ announcing “Can we get the newly weds out on the dance floor? Just the newly weds… everyone else please take a seat. This dance is for the lucky Mr. and Mrs. only”.

The lucky Mr. and Misses danced away. The idea of true love consumed her. In her mind she swayed in his arms. The song was slow. The dance was everything, perfect. Everything was perfect.

Anna let her heart overtake her mind. She felt a wave of intense emotion sweep over her, a yearning for a love story, her love story. The daydream became so vivid and so real. It was as if she could actually picture herself dancing before of all the wide-eyed onlooker-wedding guests glued to their seats. Not a single guest’s attention strayed. No uneaten remaining piece of cake was stabbed at with a fork and consumed instead of watching the newlywed’s dance. No candid photograph was taken with the disposable tabletop cameras. All eyes were on the couple silhouetted by the lights on the dance floor.

The music filled her mind and her heart. The music played on and she danced away.

The screensaver kicked in and brought her back to reality. Her playlist on the computer music player application continued on. Well, daydream over I guess. She looked down at her cat and noticed he was staring back at her as if to say “What about me? I love you!”

She sighed and closed the open picture.

“Someday” she whispered to herself.

Simon changed his look to ‘Fine, I see how it is’.

Simon is Anna’s cat. Entirely grey without a single hair of fur anything but gray. It was fitting. He was wise beyond his cat years. Like a wise old man in cat form. With gray hair covering his entire body. That meant he was extra wise? He always knew the right thing to say back to his owner, even in his own little cat body language.

He was probably just saying: feed me, or perhaps pet me; but his owner, Anna, interpreted it as I understand exactly how you feel and I’m completely empathetic to your cause. At that point he would put a paw on her hand and look her in the eyes to convey the meaning “stay strong.” At least, that’s the way she saw it. He was really just putting his paw on her hand to say “please pet me?” Either way it was a win-win! Anna always felt better and Simon got his way. I mean, what do actual intentions really matter if the outcome is good? Right? Right.

Anna looked down at Simon and then leaned over to hug him in close. He acted like he wasn’t into it, but he totally was. He let out a small meow to signify she should follow up with a little scratching behind the left ear. Anna complied. As she sat with a purring cat on her lap she thought about love or the lack thereof and if she would ever find someone.

Okay, so, quick backstory, Anna was pretty in her teens. I mean, she drove all the boys wild in school. They would stare at her in math class and drool. But she just wasn’t interested in any of them. They were all a bunch of buffoons—Especially at that age. She was interested in… a refined man—A man with grace and chivalry—A man that would take her hand and hold the door for her; and mostly wouldn’t drool. Really, they would drool, this is not an exaggeration of the truth, this really happened on more than one occasion in both middle and high school. Of course, when she arrived at college she put herself entirely into her studies. She just didn’t have time for boys. Sure she had a few come and go but they were just slightly older versions of the same boys from high school. Well, that’s not entirely true.

She had a very big crush on this one. He turned out to be gay. And then she had a relationship with another one that was only a relationship when his friends weren’t around. And, finally, there was… Sigh… Oh what does it matter, it’s over and done with.

After college with the stress of trying to find a job and dealing with life in general she lost her hourglass figure that all the guys seemed to care about. I mean, she wasn’t exactly skinny before but she was fairly fit. It’s not that she didn’t workout. She works out, she gets up every morning and goes on a run—Okay, fine, nearly every morning, look, what are you the running police? Anyway, her body just decided that it wanted to do something other than what she had imagined in her mind. It’s not that she’s out of shape at all. She’s perfectly in shape. She’s just not the shape that any of the guys she seems to meet seem to want. Again, Anna gets up “every” morning, in fact, to go on a run. She doesn’t always go on the run, but she gets up every morning, so that counts. Sometimes she goes on another one at night even! Or, a first run if the first run didn’t happen. Although, if she has a lot of work sometimes, she skips the second run. Like tonight, she skipped the second one as well, and got pizza instead. But most nights and mornings… okay, most nights, she goes on a run. Look, she goes on runs, she’s doing a couch to 5K… It’s called a couch to 5K for a reason, because you’re supposed to include the couch part, that’s where you start. So, she’s starting with the couch part, okay, running police… back off, the 5K part will happen eventually. And, so, sure she orders a pizza or eats a bowl of ice cream every now and then but who doesn’t? Okay running police? And you know what, she even goes to the local YMCA to use the pool once a week, or, every other week. What are you the swimming police too? No, you’re not because there are no swimming police, there’s lifeguards and they tell you not to run. See, running police, this is why she wasn’t running, she was just trying to listen to the lifeguard. Sometimes there’s too many people telling you conflicting things, run, don’t run. I mean which is it!? Anyway…

She was pretty. No, she still IS pretty. And she’ll find someone. She’ll find her gentleman. She’ll find a guy that will treat her with respect and not demand she eat a stick of celery for all three meals.

[annaaugustphoto]

Chapter 1: Tuesday, May 14th.

[TUESDAY MAY 14 – 10AM]

(Micah Work – Strange Dream)

“I had this really strange dream last night.  I invited all my exes over for dinner.  They got along famously.  They were laughing and dining with one another as though they were old friends, like they’d known each other for years.  And they were all wearing their most remembered outfits.  You know how every person you’ve ever known has that one thing they used to wear and for some reason just sticks in your memory?  It’s like in all of those cartoon TV shows.  They always wear that same thing.  Well anyways, you know what?  Every one of them kept making it a point to complement each other on how good they all looked.  But isn’t that what women do? They always tell each other how fabulous they all look.  Oh I love that outfit it’s so cute!  Well, it would be cute if it wasn’t what she was wearing when we broke up.”

Micah paused momentarily to finish updating one of the open tickets he was typing a response on.

“What’s crazy is that not a single one of them gave me even the slightest glance.  It’s like I wasn’t there at all.  They wouldn’t even give me the time of day!  And when we sat down for dinner, they passed the dishes right over me.  They didn’t even so much as speak a single word about me.  What’s with that?  How can you not even mention me!  It’s my party in my dream!  Instead, they just talked about what was currently going on with their own lives.  Constant compliments and congratulations.  Not a single one of them even so much as looked in my direction the entire time.”

He typed while he talked.

“I woke from the dream at Four Thirty AM.  Four Thirty AM on a Tuesday dreaming of not one ex, but all of them.  I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get much worse than that.”

“Let me ask you something, Micah, what was for dinner?” Tracey flipped a screwdriver around in his hand then looked back down to the laptop he was replacing a failed hard drive on.  He finished unscrewing the last screw and removed the failed hard drive.

“How is that important?” Micah turned back to his computer screen and typed a few more sentences before clicking the mark as complete button.

“It’s not.  But, I’m pretty sure the whole story is pointless.  I’m out of food at home and need some dinner ideas before I go shopping so I figured your little story might help me with my shopping list.”

“You’re a funny guy Tracey boy.” Micah concealed a smirk and closed the ticket tracking program to switch open his browser.  He pointed the address bar to one of the various dating websites he’s tried over the past few years.

Tracey opened the shrink-wrapped package that contained the new hard drive.  Tracey is Micah’s wise guy coworker responsible for nearly every bit of trouble that Micah had ever gotten into at work (and some of the trouble he’d gotten into out of work as well).  Tracey spent most of his time at work wasting the hours online, watching funny videos, chatting with his wife and always complaining about how he needed to lose weight but then would bring free food from around campus back to the office to snack on between his online distractions.

“You know, Micah, maybe you should talk to one of the Psych professors about that dream.  Sounds like you’ve got some issues.”

Micah tossed a look across the room.

“What?!?!  Don’t look at me like that.  I’m just saying!  That’s some messed up stuff.”  Tracey finished snapping the new hard drive into place. “Meanwhile, my only issue is what to make for dinner tonight.  I’ve scoured the campus today and there isn’t a single bit of free grub to be found!”

“I thought your wife makes all the dinners?”  Micah asked.

“She does, but she’s out of town this week visiting her sister and I’m out of dinner ideas.  I’ve already had TV dinner, Chinese, and pizza twice each.  Oh and I walked over to the next door neighbor during their dinner asking if they had a wrench I could borrow to fix a leaky pipe.  I made out like a bandit that night and the next night I actually had a leaky pipe I needed to fix.  So it was good karma all around.”

“Do you even know what karma is?  I’m pretty sure—you know what, never mind.  Anyway, maybe you should just learn to cook?”

Tracey laughed.  “Ha!  Learn to cook.  That’s a good one.”

“So how’d you get out of going to your sister in-law’s?”  Micah scrolled through his list of matches on the dating site.

“Eh, I told her I was allergic to her sister.”

“Why does that answer not surprise me?”

Micah began typing an email to a girl with a main profile picture of herself wearing middle of winter gear lounging poolside in the hot sun sipping on some sort of fruity drink.  

The photo caption read:

This is what happens when you take a January trip south to visit a friend in Miami and your luggage gets mixed up with someone bound for Maine.

He typed out a short message to her.  He said something like: ‘So, that’s a pretty funny main pic you have there!  I’d love to hear that story of how your luggage went north when you went south.  Maybe over a cup of coffee sometime?  -Micah’

He closed out the web browser and opened the ticket tracking software to see what the next issue at hand was.

[4:30PM]

(Mom Daughter Phone Call)

“Well dear, why don’t you just try that dating site you had talked about signing up for?”

“No mom.“ Anna paused. “Well, I did already.”  She lied.

“And…”

“Nothing.  It was a waste of time.”

“Awe dear well you will find someone!  Just keep your chin up!”

“More like keep doing chin ups.  No one is going to want me with a body like this.”  Why did she just say that?  She knew it wasn’t true.  She needed to stop thinking those thoughts.

“Oh honey, just you wait—I’ m sure your knight in shining armor will come along.  Or at least that’s what we always tell the young ladies at my new church.  You’re too young to be getting married yet anyways.”

“Mom, I’m 26.  That’s the age of most of the people getting married at the weddings I shoot for. Ugh, I hate when you try to tell me how to control my life.  Listen I have to go ok.  I have over 1200 photos to go through and 3 other shoots that I’m way beyond behind on editing.”

“OK dear well, just remember I’m coming down for a visit next weekend.  Make sure to mark it on your calendar ok.  I can’t wait to see you!  I miss you more than anything in the world.”

“And I miss dad more than anything in the world.”

“You know he misses you too.  Every time you pray he hears you.”

“I know.”  She wiped away a small tear starting to form in the corner of her eye.

There was a long pause.  Over the course of the next minute only the slight sound of breathing could be heard.

“I miss you too mom.  Next weekend will be fun.”

“Are you sure you are okay Anna?”

“Yea I’m just grand.  Anyway, you’re going to a new church?  You’ll have to fill me in on all the details.”

“Well, actually Anna, it’s the same church, we just moved locations temporarily so they could fix some leaky pipes or something like—Oh and your niece is turning two in a few days.  Have you called your sister?  You might want to pick up a little something and send it her way.”

“Yes, mom, I remember.”  She lied again.  She had completely forgotten about that little rug rat.  She would just stop somewhere one day after work this week and pick something up.  Maybe tomorrow, she really had too much work to do tonight with her photo editing.  It was going to be a long night, she meant to start working the photos the night before, but exhaustion had taken over after work and she just spent the whole night in front of the TV.  Weddings take it out of you.  It’s a lot of work photographing a wedding.  The people in the wedding have it easy.

The convo dwindled down as convos generally do between a mom and daughter.  Finally the two devices disconnected.  But the two hearts remained.

Anna started her car, pulled out of the work parking lot and headed home.