A SENSE OF URGENCY

by Marianne Carlson

The cottage has seen better days, but it was all Rosie had and she loved it. Half a block from the beach, half a block from the golf course, it was an ideal location for a summer rental property. When Rosie’s mother was alive renting was out of the question. Her mother painted water colors, soothing scenes depicting the coast of Maine, for every room. “Like a miniature museum” friends said as they walked through the house, stopping to admire the dollhouse in the stairwell. “Look! In every room a tiny painting! How like her, the most creative person I know.” 

These same friends were nowhere to be found when senility robbed her blind. First her eyesight, then her mind slowly drifted away, like a low tide slowly washing away from the shore. Rosie and Chloe, her pug, cared for her. Chloe never left her side, she told her stories about life as a puppy on the farm, about her seven brothers and sisters, her mother, Hilde, and how hard it was to leave her pug family. “The Law of Attraction was at work,” said Chloe, and that is why she had to leave Hilde and her favorite sister, Barbara, to come and live with Rosie.  Rosie’s mother drank up every word, begging for more. “Tell me more about Hilde, about Barbara,” she would say to Chloe, her eyes misting over, happy in her own world that protected her from the bruising that life often brought to the rest of us. 

When she inherited the cottage, well meaning people told Rosie to sell it, but her heart wouldn't let her so her uncle, a financial planner, told her to rent it out. "Run it like a business," he said.  Running anything like a business was foreign to Rosie whose only previous business interactions consisted of negotiating some pretty savvy drug deals with shady Portland dealers. It was while in her second rehab that Rosie realized if she didn't shape up, she would surely die. Used to being surrounded by beautiful things, the florescent lights and white-washed stucco walls of A New Beginning Rehabilitation wounded her soul. Completely hollow when she entered, she left three weeks later, drug free, but filled with regrets, remorse and resentments. Chloe  was no longer alive, she was with her mother “in a better place.” Almost any place was better than the shaky ground Rosie found herself navigating without so much as a joint to mellow her out, but she was determined to stay clean. 

Tall, thin with beautiful posture, she floated, rather than walked. This is what you first notice about Rosie, then you begin to take in the rest: black framed glasses behind sad blue eyes that could surprise you with an unexpected twinkle, long blonde hair,  tattoos, a great sense of style coupled with a sense of urgency.  One of those rare young women who looked good in anything, she could grab a dress off the thrift shop shelf that was ready for the rag bag and look great in it.

The cottage was rented, the new tenant was to move in later in the day. Rosie floated through the cottage, scanning her check list on a clipboard, looking for cobwebs, crooked lampshades, memories. If she squinted, she could see Chloe and her mother huddled together over the kitchen table, whispering. Rosie wished that she could be with them, she yearned to die but suicide was not an option.  Gone were the paintings, the dollhouse, the antiques - anything that had made the cottage home. What remained was all generic, generic furniture, generic dishes, generic quilts from Walmart. 

“Hello, you must be Rosie.”

“Who are you? How did you get in?

“Walked right in. The door was unlocked.”

“You should have waited. The lease says arrival no earlier than 10:00 a.m.”

“I apologize.”

“Apology accepted.”

This self possessed, strange little man sat in Rosie’s mothers chair. Oddly enough, he looked perfectly comfortable, as if he belonged there. Even more odd was the feeling that her mother would have liked him there. He had a rather endearing quality about him, an ingenuous aspect to his nature. Everything about him was somewhat faded, his white hair, white beard, pale gray eyes, flannel shirt, blue jeans. He looked as if he had been through the wash with a bit of Clorox thrown in.  

“Would you like me to show you the house?”

“No need, I took a walk through, it’s perfect.”

“Would you like to sit on the screen porch? My mother loved the porch.”

“I would.” 

They sat on the old white wicker furniture with the floral seat cushions, slowly rocking back and forth, saying nothing. The bell on the chapel across the street rang, calling parishioners to Sunday service, a mild reminder to Rosie that life goes on.

“My wife and I were married in a little chapel similar to this one,” he said softly.

“Where is she? Your wife?” Rosie wished she hadn’t asked, she felt as if she was intruding, but he lit up like a Christmas tree adorned with gentle white lights.

“Oh, she died many years ago. I still miss her, I think about her every day.”

“You never remarried?”

“No. I would have always been comparing my new wife with my first one. It would have been unfair. 

“Oh.” Rosie could see he was not listening, he was far away.

“And it’s a funny thing. I know my memory is distorted. She wasn’t as perfect as my mind likes to tell me, but I don’t pay attention, I like to allow her to be perfect in my head.”

“I think that is what I am doing with my mother,” said Rosie, her eyes beginning to tear.

“Nothing wrong with that, no one can take your memories from you. You have a long life ahead of you, just remember, slow but steady wins the race. No sense of urgency, just one day at a time. 

It's All Temporary

ON BEING A BENEFICIAL PRESENCE

by Marianne Carlson

"I always thought there was something not quite right about her."

"Not quite right? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, you know, a little left of plumb. I mean, let's face it, she is drop dead gorgeous. I mean I really really have come to hate hate hate beautiful people. You know, they are just so perfect, I'd like to strangle them. Wouldn't you?"

"No."  Marcia munched on her bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich as she looked around Annabelle's. Her dark eyes scanned the booths, the tables, the bars, only half listening, as if she was looking for someone. It was the usual lunch  crowd, not an empty table, some of the heavy wooden twosomes set for three,  elbows and knees knocking. Marcia vaguely wondered if the fire department was aware of this overcrowding. Background music, “Someone That I Used to Know.” repeated endlessly, almost hypnotically, adding a strange intensity to the atmosphere.  The bar tender sang along as he mixed drinks, dancing behind the bar. He was in a good mood, shaking up those Margaritas. 

"Well a fine lunch date you turned out to be. You haven't heard a word I have said." Kayla was definitely someone Marcia used to know, the change in her friend was immense and very sad. Her hair, too blonde, a severe Dutch Boy cut, aged her. It was as if Marcia was having lunch with a helmet. Her skin was sallow, pox marked under gobs of foundation, and her eyes were  awful - pale, tired and mean. She wore one of those yoga workout outfits designed to go “from  gym to dinner” which  accentuated her huge shoulders and arms like an angry  mama gorilla past her prime. Resentments, the mother of all rages, oozed from every pore.

"How's business? Any new clients?" Marcia needed to change the subject. Kayla had sensed the friendship waning for months, and the more Marcia withdrew, the angrier Kayla became. She was a ticking time bomb.

"They come and they go. One client wants me to be at her home at 6:30 in the morning, and another at her house at 7:00 at night.  Some scattered in-between. And the traffic is brutal, just brutal. Being a personal trainer ain't what it's cut out to be. The truth of the matter is I am bone weary all the time. 

"Maybe you should think about doing something else, Kayla. Being a personal trainer is a young persons career. You're in good shape, but this is just too much for you. It's too much."

“Well gee thanks for the encouragement.  I thought friends were supposed to be supportive. With friends like you, who needs enemies?” 

Marcia’s iphone began to hum. Expecting a call from Sam, she glanced to see if it was his number. “I’m sorry, Kayla, I have to take this. 

“Go right ahead, anyone is more important than a friend in crisis.”

“In crisis?” Kayla was beginning to attract attention so she decided to let Sam go to voicemail which annoyed her. (Now you’re somebody that I used to know, used to know, used to know.)

“Yes, in crisis. I want a drink. Don’t you want a drink?”

“No.”

“Well, I do.” She began waving frantically to the server who was balancing too many plates en route to the kitchen.

“This place is going down hill. Can’t get anyone to wait on you any more.” Kayla continued waving her arms in the air like windmills until the happy bartender caught our server’s attention and pointed our way with a quick nod of his head, never losing a beat, a bemused smile on his face. He was kinda cute. (Now you’re somebody that I used to know, used to know, used to know.)

“Scotch rocks. Dewers. Make it a double.” Kayla barked her order to our server, talking to her as if she was a slave, not quite human. Within minutes the caramel-colored liquid arrived. Karla stirred the ice rapidly with one long red fingernail and then tossed down half the glass in one gulp.

It took but a very few minutes for the alcohol to do it’s number. Marcia found herself with a brand new person sitting opposite her, and not a welcome replacement. This replacement vibrated.  It was as if a low voltage quiver was shooting waves of anger into her pores as her index finger stirred the ice frantically, and then ordered another double.

"You can sit there looking so perfect. No one knows how hard I try. God I hate you sometimes. Say something. Oh you're too high and mighty to talk to me now?  I am doing everything I can to be the best personal trainer in the city and I am! I. am. the. best. Itch marketing. Mark.Et. Ting. I donhave the money to mark. Et. Myself. Whaddaya have to do to gedadrinkk around here? 

Memories came flooding back. Marcia as a child, sitting at the dining room table, her father, very drunk, yelling at her mother. “You’re a worthless bitch. Whaddaya do all day, you piece of shit.” Marcia and her little sister never saying a word, playing with their food, terrified for their mother.

“Never try to reason with a drunk,” her mother told her later. “Just remove yourself from the scene as quickly as possible because you can’t win with a drunk, just try to be a beneficial presence, and then get the hell out. ”

The server and the happy bar tender stood over their table. “You need to leave,” the bar tender told Kayla who sat wedged into her chair, mama gorilla ready for battle. 

“Fuckyou. I’m a paying customer.” Kayla slammed her fist down on the table, knocking over the empty scotch glass. 

Marcia remained mute as the left over patrons sat, eyes riveted to their table. She wondered if she was a beneficial presence, but when the bartender winked at her, she didn’t care. He was kinda cute.

It's All Temporary

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

by Marianne Carlson

Our marriage counselor told us that it was important to set rules for a fair fight. Rule #1 was "avoid accusatory, all encompassing statements. "You always, you never" were no nos. I can close my eyes and picture the small, wise, sweet man who wanted so much to help. A Paulist priest, his office was warm, uncluttered. Books of a religious nature lined his shelves and a picture of a very gentle Jesus hung on one wall. Even I, an agnostic, could learn to love that Jesus. There was no crucifix. I think he knew he would be pushing his luck with a crucifix; send me right out the door.

When I found the letter, tucked in among a pile of old bank statements in the attic, memories came flooding back, memories from 15 maybe 20 years ago. The letter wasn't dated but in my mind's eye I saw our son, Jason, now a freshman at Harvard, as a toddler with his blonde hair, big blue eyes, snot running out of his nose, I saw our three bedroom, two bathroom house painted brown, lots of toys and tricycles on the front porch, I saw myself, pregnant with Jenny, now a high school senior, an honor role student with her father’s gray, troubled eyes  who never saw a dog, cat, horse or squirrel she didn’t want to take under her wing,  I saw Jerry coming home late, trouble in the dining room, (the waitresses hated their new uniforms) trouble in the kitchen, (the chef was drunk again) trouble with the bar tender. Always something. Jerry was in the hotel business, a demanding occupation, and I was an unreasonable and demanding wife. It was typed, the letter. As I read, a sense of disquiet enveloped me.

Dear Jerry:

I am uncertain whether Father Paul can help us. It is unclear to me why priests would ever make good marriage counselors anyway. What do they know about the difficulties of hanging on to something  that was once precious, but is now slipping away like sand through our fingers?  Expecting a priest to understand a marriage is like expecting an elephant to understand a ballet. 

(I would think I could have come up with a more appropriate simile. Our marriage was many things, but a ballet it was not.) 

Because the "Rules of Engagement" set forth by Father Paul prohibit any blanket statements, I will refrain from calling you an asshole. 

(That was harsh. Do you think I might have found a slightly more eloquent pronoun? How about jerk? Or maybe fool? But asshole?  Did I write this before or after my "three week vacation"  in rehab? I suspect it was definitely written before the meds began to kick in, before I turned into a  zombie.)

I feel nothing for you any more, but don’t feel badly because you are not alone.  I feel nothing for anyone except Jason, and my love for him is so strong it frightens me.  Perhaps the child I carry will help me to learn how to be human once again. I don’t know. 

(Jenny’s arrival did enable me to pull myself together long enough to worship every hair on her head. I still do, which is probably why our mother/daughter conflict has been worse than anything I could have ever imagined. We were best friends until she reached puberty  when she turned on me. Jerry became her everything, I became the monster. When I look back at pictures from this era, I am very surprised I didn’t have horns. Was it at that time that I lost my mind?) 

I owe you an apology. I am very sorry I nearly set the house on fire. I threw all that trash into the fireplace out of spite, because you told me not to. It was childish, I could have killed us all. I don't think you can blame me for acting out, though. My entire world is unravelling, and the only ones around to help me pick up the pieces are a diminutive priest with eyes like a golden retriever and a little blonde boy who loves me unconditionally for the time being. It won’t last, though, because I’m not lovable.

(I had forgotten about that, about the fire.  I was a mean, vindictive woman. I still am. No wonder Jenny hates me. It's a miracle Jason even tolerates me.)

That fire emboldened me.  I started seeing Father Paul on the sly, two, three, sometimes four times a week, and believe it or not, it was meek little  Paul who initiated the change in me, he helped me  morph from a shy kitten into a tiger with claws.  Who would have guessed it? In retrospect that gentle Jesus must have more going for him than I ever gave him credit. Paul likes you, he likes you a lot more than I do, which is a fine kettle of fish we are in: you, me and Paul. I shall remain in the kettle, I'm not going anywhere, and we will continue to follow the same rules of engagement. We shall see. Love, Janice

What a ninny I was! I wouldn't have gone anywhere if my life depended on it. And poor Jerry! He didn't deserve this. He may have been more in love with the hotel than with me, but after reading this letter, I don't blame him. And what's with all the "J's"? Paul would have said maybe I wanted to throw Jesus in the mix,  we both would have gotten a good laugh out of that. I miss him. I even miss Jerry and hope he is happy with Jane (yet another J!)

It's All Temporary

Somebody That I Used to Know

It's All Temporary

AN INDIFFERENT WORLD

by Marianne Carlson

“This ain’t no way to treat a lady.” 

“She knows, she just KNOWS that we can’t make a move without her. Why would she LEAVE us like this? It is humiliating.” 

Gracie, near tears, spoke from a prone position underneath the stage. Head thrown back, her mouth appeared massive, way too big for the rest of her face. Partially open, no teeth, there was nothing cute about her. The studio was a mess. A large backdrop, a photograph of an ultra modern kitchen,  leaned against one wall, the heavy pots and pans hung from hooks on the ceiling.  

“My arm hurts. I think it needs stitches, and my glasses fell off. How am I supposed to read without my glasses?” From behind a stool, Deedee, was almost in tears.

“Reading is the least of our worries, Deedee. What if she has skipped town? 

“Skipped town?  You mean just up and left? Deedee sounded horrified. She would never do that without putting us back in the trunk. And she wouldn’t leave all these props scattered every which way. She is very meticulous. She likes things in their proper place, she’s obsessive compulsive, she’s got an attention deficit disorder,  she’s got a borderline personality disorder, she’s deteriorating as we speak.

“She is a manic depressive, approaching a complete psychotic break.” Gracie continued their litany of psycho babble from under the table as if they actually knew what they were talking about.

“I liked her a lot better when she was in her manic phase. We may have  worked a lot, but at least she was fun to be around.”

“Yeah, remember the show about the parking wars? That was funny.”

“And the fortune teller?”  

“Well, she is depressed now.” 

“And for good reason. Cooking with Gracie, got exactly 12 hits. In the  entire internet youtube world, 12 hits.” 

“Well this cooking crap has got to go,” said Gracie. Who wants to watch puppets cooking?”

“Nobody. I have an idea. Puppet porn,” said Deedee.

“Puppet porn?” Gracie thought for a bit. “ I like it, I love it. Puppet porn.

“No, I’m serious, Gracie, we need to step up our act.”

“I think I heard her come in. Shhh, she’s talking to someone.”

That someone was David, Brenda’s friend with benefits. Brenda, a small blond with stiff kinky hair like a mop was sitting in the living room, a room not suited for living, but the living room nonetheless. Everything about the room was dark, including (at the moment) Brenda. The drapes, upholstery, carpets, were all more suited for an older, more mature person. Brenda inherited the house and everything in it from her uncle, an attorney who had a propensity towards the dark side of life. Into this house blew Brenda, like a small tornado. She converted the dining alcove into a puppet studio; this studio became the heart and soul of the house.  

Today both the heart and the soul were in need of a boost.  When she made a puppet, Brenda became so obsessed with her project that she shut out everything else. The rest of the world simply did not exist; she and her growing puppet were enveloped in an invisible protective shield. Day blended into night, sleep and meals became superfluous. Her love for her creations was something fierce to see, it gave her a persona that sometimes resembled a vicious mother, a mother blinded by love and an inability to understand why the rest of the world did not appreciate her efforts.

“I suck, David.  It’s an indifferent world out there. I am a complete failure, a pant load. No one cares what I do.

“You’re not a pant load, Brenda. You are the most talented person I know.” 

When Brenda fell into one of these moods, David assumed his mentor/therapist/priest mode. He was tall, thin and serious, a PhD student in biomedical research with rimless glasses behind brown eyes as calm as cows and soft blondish hair falling almost to his shoulders. He was far more interested in parasites than puppets.    Although he loved Brenda dearly, her moods were becoming burdensome to him. Not knowing what was coming next, he tried to reason with her as if he was talking to an exotic caged parrot with a large vocabulary.  Gracie and Deedee adored him.

“I am too a pant load. I am going to build a fire and throw every one of my puppets into it.” With an ominous glint in her eye, Brenda methodically stacked wood in the fireplace, placed scrunched up newspaper under the logs and lit a match exactly as her uncle had taught her years ago. Soon a blazing fire lit up the dark room.

“What happened? Where are we?” Deedee woke up. She was sitting on a large desk, leaning against a stack of books, her glasses on the bridge of her nose, right where they were supposed to be.”  The room, far from dark, was brilliantly lit by large, florescent lights overhead. Unforgiving in their intensity, they glared on both Gracie and Deedee, offering them no place to hide.  David stood over his microscope, his white lab coat unbuttoned, his attention fixed on the slide under the glass. Gracie, although shaken, was sitting next to Deedee. Both girls had managed to regain their dignity, as they whispered to each other. 

Neither David, Gracie or Deedee had any idea what an impact the presence of the girls had on the other students in the lab. David carried on with his research, digging deeper and deeper into his thesis. Language in the lab cleaned up considerably. Experiments went smoothly. Long-standing disagreements cleared up almost overnight. All went well until the day that Brenda came looking for David.

“You bastard, I want my puppets. You stole them.”

“No, I saved them, you tried to kill them, Brenda. You are an unfit mother.”

“They are mine and I want them back.”

While the bickering continued Gracie and Deedee slipped quietly behind a bookshelf. There they remained until peace returned and Brenda left empty handed.

It's All Temporary

THE TIP JAR

by Marianne Carlson

Helen was not a wealthy woman, far from it. She worked as a food server at a bar and restaurant called Annabelle's.  They used to be waitresses, now they are servers. Although she had  zero patience with political correctness, apparently the political correct mafia sent out a decree declaring that waitressing was demeaning, serving was worthy, therefore she served.  Actually it's not a bad motto. "I serve."

Annabelle's owner, an intense, methodical man with no sense of humor named Matt required that his servers wear uniforms: pale blue/green dresses which fell to the knee. The servers hated them. The color washed away any sign of health, they always clocked in  looking as if they had been up all night. Matt had poured over catalogs for days before choosing these uniforms and he chose this particular "green" because he thought it would be a good neutral color that would please both his customers and his staff. The opposite was true.  No one would say it to his face, but there was a universal groan from  hungry people as they slipped into a booth on the day the uniforms made their first appearance.

        "What happened to your uniforms? I liked those little red checks!"

        "What a horrible color."

         "He can't be serious."

"Barf green."

Matt was unaware of the bruhaha his choice of uniform caused, but Helen was mortified. Customers and staff alike were unhappy, and from that day forward life at Annabelle’s took an unfortunate turn. For Helen, the turn was almost catastrophic. It was as if she woke up one morning a different person, like a child recovering from a long illness who was regaining her strength, but not her old self,  which had been replaced with a much sadder soul. 

“What’s with you these days?” Helen’s long-term lover, Jeff, asked as they lingered over coffee. It had been a long day at Annabelle’s, a day where everything that could have gone wrong, did.

“I’m just tired. Matt has been in a terrible mood for days now, the sous chef never showed, tips are down, Agnes quit.”

“Agnes quit?” Jeff was surprised, he always liked Agnes, she had the same biting sense of humor that he had.

“Yup, she told Matt that life was too short to wear vomit green every day, took off her apron, threw it in his face, and said I quit.”

“Wow!” 

“You should have seen the look on his face, I think it was the first time he realized what effect these new uniforms have on his beloved Annabelle’s.”

Without Agnes, work became tedious. Helen did not realize the joy Agnes had brought to her day. No one else had the ability to make her laugh in quite the same way as Agnes because her laugh consumed her. When Agnes laughed, Helen laughed, sometimes with her, sometimes at her, but there always seemed to be something to tickle their funny bones. They had nicknames for the regulars: Shifty, for the man with the shifty eyes, Ms Tits for the buxom blonde who came in every morning for coffee, and Quaker Oats for the truck driver who ate oatmeal every morning for breakfast. The customers still came like clockwork, but without Agnes, the nicknames didn’t seem satisfying, they were merely customers.

What did not tickle her funny bone, was the gnawing sense that Agnes had been stealing. The tip jar on the counter was a prime target, it always sat there unattended, and more than once Helen saw Agnes take money from the jar and pocket it when she thought no one was looking. Now that she was gone, the jar remained solvent, bills and coins stayed put.

Several days after Agnes quit Helen and Jeff were getting ready for bed when their was a knock on the door. They were both tired. This was odd, no one was expected,  so when Jeff opened the door to find a most distraught Agnes, neither knew quite what to do.

"Can I come in?"

"Of course, what's up?"

She was so agitated that every cell in her being seemed on fire. She sat on the couch, fell on the couch is more like it, and speaking in a whisper, told them she was being stalked. 

"Stalked? Who is stalking you? You don't have to whisper,  only Helen and I are here.

"Please close the blinds."

"Ok." Helen closed the one remaining blind, tip toeing to the window at the same time rolling her eyes behind Agnes' back. 

"Who is stalking you?"

“I don’t know. Maybe one of the customers from Annabelle’s. Maybe one of the staff. That creepy sous chef. He gave me the creeps from the day he walked in the kitchen.”

“Were you followed today?” Helen thought about the sous chef’s absence, but said nothing.

“I think I was. Can I sleep on your couch tonight?”

“Of course.” Jeff grabbed a pillow and blanket from the linen closet, handed them to Agnes with a smile, went into the bedroom, and fell asleep quickly, like a small tired child exhausted from play. No stalker would disturb his sleep but this was not the case for the two friends who noticed a small dark car parked outside. The sous chef drove a small black VW.

Helen and Agnes kept vigil, waiting for the car to move, but it remained until about 2:00 a.m. when a patrol officer checked the car and told him to move on. With the aid of the cop’s flashlight, the girls could make out the profile of the sous chef.

The following morning Agnes was gone when Helen dragged herself out of bed. The sous chef was also gone from the kitchen at Annabelle’s. when she clocked in. He, too disappeared in the dead of night never to be seen again. Helen tried repeatedly to contact Agnes with no luck. She simply vanished.

What also vanished were the barf green uniforms. The little red and white checks reappeared, and business at Annabelle’s immediately picked up. The tip jar was almost always full but Helen’s heart was empty. For days her hands shook when she poured coffee, mixed orders, arrived late, burst into tears for no reason. Before going to bed at night, she always checked. The black VW parked outside frightened her, so much so that she called the police who told her that there was nothing they could do. The driver was not breaking the law. Not yet.

It's All Temporary

NATALYA AND VALENTINA

NATALYA AND VALENTINA

by Marianne Carlson

For as long as she could remember, Natalie had an imaginary twin. As a child her twin was her constant companion. Had it not been for Valentina, life in the small NJ suburban town outside New York City where she grew up would have been unbearable for it was Valentina who pushed her, kicking and screaming, to try out for the swim team, to sing a solo in Guys and Dolls in the local theatre production, to denigrate herself continually auditioning in front of bored clients looking for the perfect teenager. How ironic her life had become. Since the Ruth White Agency had signed her up, Natalie was  the perfect “girl next door” in magazines and on billboards. She sold shampoo, deodorant, jeans, her soul. As her fame grew, her ego, brittle to start with, diminished and was in danger of disappearing altogether. Natalie walked through the door,  charming agents and photographers alike, but it was Valentina who always sealed the deal. 

Tall and graceful, she moved like a giselle with the long, lean look of a ballerina. When she smiled, which was rare, she was captivating. When pensive, she appeared to be consumed with melancholy, her mind was clearly somewhere else,  not a good place for her to be. 

“Natalya, we have to be more careful, people are beginning to notice.” Valentina always called Natalie “Natalya.”

“Notice?”

“Yes, never talk to me in front of other people. They will think you are odd, that there is something wrong with you.”

Fear gripped her. As Valentina talked, a feeling  of  pure terror engulfed Natalie.  They were coming more frequently, the preliminary rush in her head leading up to a full-blown panic attack, leaving her weak, vulnerable and shaking.  She had learned early on to never let anyone know what she was thinking,  never tell anyone, never utter an opinion about anything. Valentina thought for her. The magnitude of losing her twin began to take hold from that moment on. Natalie’s reality, her fame depended on Valentina, without her she was nothing. 

“Look at it this way, Nat. I’m the alpha dog, you the beta.” 

“OK. Fine with me.”

But it was not fine. If you are always someone else, who are you? Natalie was a graceful swimmer, her free style times beat everyone else in her age group but while Natalie walked into the locker to change into her bathing suit, it was always Valentina who walked onto the deck of the pool.  And then there were those damn auditions. Natalie’s mother enrolled her in a spiffy advertising agency in Manhattan. The woman who interviewed her was everything Natalie hated - large, loud and brassy with lots of bracelets that clanked as she drummed her long red nails on her day planner while looking at Natalie through myopic, pale blue eyes too proud to wear glasses. One too many face lifts had frozen her thin lips into a smile that looked more like a perpetual grimace, and through that grimace she oozed hostility born from jealousy. Surrounded by young girls on the cusp of their   allure, hers had long since passed her by. As a result, anger bubbled below the surface, and  unacknowledged anger can be a very scary thing. There was no way Natalie could deal with the horror of this woman, but Valentina loved her.  She was a challenge, and Valentina loved nothing more than a challenge.  

“Dear, you are exactly what Ruth White looks for. How do you stay so slim?”  Both Natalie and Valentina hated it when anyone called them “dear,” it was the kiss of death as far as they were concerned.

“I swim.”

“Wonderful. Just keep on doing what you are doing and you will go far with us.” The Grimace said she would be in touch, and the next thing she knew Valentina was signing a contract. She signed “Natalie” on the dotted line.  

“Oh, my dear, you are lovely beyond belief,” Natalie muttered as she went down the elevator, talking to the mirrored walls surrounding her.

“You bet your sweet ass I am, and we are going to make some big bucks off of you, Grimace, ” answered Valentina.

And so it began: the “cattle calls,” looking for teenage girls for a fast foods commercial, a shoe line, a family scene advertising a mini van, rain gear. Natalie auditioned for all of them. The panic attacks reared their ugly heads on a regular basis. Every time she read or danced or smiled or cried or ate some God-awful processed cheese for yet another self-serving client, Natalie panicked,  but Valentina was always there to put the pieces together as quickly as she fell apart.

“Please swim to the edge of the pool, pause, and then climb slowly up the steps. Try it again, you almost have it.” The client for SwimGear was becoming exasperated.  It was hot on the deck and the lights from the crew and photographers were making it even hotter. Natalie began to shiver, she had been in the water for over an hour and she was cold.

“What am I doing wrong?”

“The timing is off, if you could swim a little slower, and then pause and wait before you climb the stairs.” The client, the ad people, The Grimace was pissed. 

“I can’t do this, I just can’t. Natalie’s world was beginning to cave in on her, the panic, the voices, they were in the pool, they were coming after her.  

“Over here, Natalya, over here.” Valentina waved from lane six, her white bathing cap and black goggles shrouded in a cloud of mist.  Natalie left lane one, and swam under water across the pool.

“What the fuck is she doing now?” The camera man shook his head while wiping the sweat off his red, pudgy face. 

Natalie’s lungs were caving in but she managed to reach Valentina.

“Valentina, I thought you had left me, I thought you were gone, this time for good,” Natalie sobbed.

“I told you, Natalya, I would never leave you. You need to believe me. 

The crew on the deck watched the white bathing cap go under water again, and waited for it to reappear. After ten minutes, The Grimace called 911.

It's All Temporary