《The Department of Lost Umbrellas》 Part I Just when Andrew Cavaletto thought he had finally caught a break, Mel Billingsley collapsed to his knees and died, the victim of sudden cardiac arrest brought about by a set of very clogged arteries. Mel¡¯s death, tragic as it was, might not have had any bearing on Andrew Cavaletto¡¯s improving fortunes-- the two had only met a half-hour prior -- except that, just before his ailing heart finally called it quits, Mel had vigorously shaken Andrew¡¯s hand and, with a wide grin, declared: ¡°Andrew, I think you¡¯ve got the job!¡± No one knows what Mel thought his last words would be, but it¡¯s highly unlikely that it was these. It was a swift and painless death; it may have hurt Andrew worse than Me. Even after he realized what had happened, with Mel lifeless on the carpet of his office, Andrew retained an ironclad grip on the dead man¡¯s hand. It was a little morbid and, yes, he felt a little foolish with his long lanky frame sidled up next to Mel¡¯s lifeless body. Starting to sweat, he had to use his other, unengaged hand to keep his slick red hair from falling into his face. This was, after all, a job interview and he wanted to look professional. Mel¡¯s secretary¡¯s teary recriminations weren¡¯t enough to get Andrew to let up: not when he had finally done enough to get a job again. He wasn¡¯t just about to surrender; after all, he wasn¡¯t the one who died. He was still very much alive and had just received what virtually amounted to a guaranteed job offer! By a dead man. It took two paramedics and some vigorous cajoling to get him to finally give up Mel¡¯s hand and climb to his feet. ¡°He said I had the job,¡± Andrew muttered to the paramedics. It was the same thing he had said to Mel¡¯s secretary when she first burst through the door. He was willing to keep on saying it, too, right until they took down his information for direct deposit and told him how to login to his corporate email. ¡°I¡¯m sure he did, sir, but we¡¯re going to need you to give us some space here,¡± one of the paramedics said. History hasn¡¯t recorded anything more about this paramedic, not even his name, but, boy, what a saint! A lesser person would have been well within their rights to skip the gentle words to get on with a more forceful type of persuasion, but here this guy was treating Andrew with kindness and patience, as if he was the one who had just had his heart explode, and not Mel. A real saint -- though he did eventually have to use the jaws of life on poor Andrew. On the train ride home, his head dolefully resting in the crook of the elbow he had perched on the grimy window sill, Andrew was sure that this was what rock bottom looked like. And, if it weren¡¯t, if things were about to get worse, well¡­ Best not to think about that. It was another thirteen stops until he got home. That was an awful long time to think about what had gone wrong, and not just with the interview either. In fact, if you didn¡¯t count the untimely death at the end, the interview had gone splendidly well. Sure, he maybe could have done a little bit better with the small talk and maybe it was foolish to wear that brown tie, but Mel had liked him! There were insinuations of, not just a regular salary, but a corner office and health benefits! The only thing that had gone wrong was that Mel had stubbornly refused his doctor¡¯s advice to exercise a little more and to skip one or two donuts a week. Surely, Andrew couldn¡¯t blame himself for Mel¡¯s penchant for crullers. Not when Andrew had so many other things weighing on him. Eleven stops left to go. It was just past one in the afternoon. Come the evening commute, the train would be packed with office workers fleeing from the city and their desks alike, back to the suburbs and their homes. Andrew used to be among that shiftless, restless crowd. Only eight months had passed, though it might as well have been an eternity. He used to rue Penn Station and each evening¡¯s mad dash for a seat. More often than not, he wound up not with a seat but with a few spare inches to stand-in. What he wouldn¡¯t give now to be one of those unhappy rubes, permanently frowning and prematurely scoliotic, shuttling back and forth between the Manhattan and Short Hills, Madison, Denville, Fanwood. What he wouldn''t give to have a reason to suffer that mindless hustle. Instead, there he was, deflated and defeated, alone but for a small smattering of tourists and the eldely, the only people who ever took those afternoon trains back from the city during the middle of the week. Summit. Eight stops left. Without a doubt, things had started going downhill the day he lost his job. Had he been paying better attention, he might have noticed that things had actually started going astray long before that particular, terrible day. Then again, had he been paying better attention, he would have been better at his job, and had he been better at his job, he might have been able to do something to avert disaster. Funny how things work like that. He had worked in the Financial District, not far from the cacophony of Wall Street. His company¡¯s office building was amongst the city¡¯s newest, brightest and biggest, meant to project the daring spirit of Pyramid Building & Loan. Since it did not have the same cachet as some of its tonier, engrained competitors -- the banks built by robber barons who made their fortune selling whale oil tinned with child labor-- it was incumbent upon Pyramid Building & Loan to always be the loudest, always be the brashest. And, since we¡¯re talking about New York, this required being very loud and very brash. The office had kegs in lieu of water coolers. The walls were adorned with counter-culture murals done by trust-fund kids who never made it past the first semester of art school. There were no board meetings, no closed doors, and no bathroom stalls, part of a steadfast and very uncomfortable stance against the status quo. Pyramid¡¯s CEO was no less iconoclastic. Vitali Dynko was unparalleled in looks, personality, and ambition. Whereas other men might be made of skin and bones, Vitali was built with leather and stone. His arms were crisscrossed by tattoos of the symbols of the Chinese zodiac. His head was bald but he donned a thick set of prematurely gray mutton chops. He peppered every conversation with bits of Russian, Dutch, and Klingon. He had no formal education, but spoke fondly of the time he spent in the service of a Corsican cheesemonger. And yet, Pyramid succeeded not despite its leader¡¯s foibles but because of them. Wall Street likes nothing more than a weirdo with a big mouth and bold promises. Vitali was that weirdo. From his perch in the accounting department, Andrew had a front-row seat to the company¡¯s meteoric rise, from hardscrabble start-up running on little more than adrenaline, couch money, and false hope to one of the country¡¯s biggest mortgage lenders. Soon, they would overtake those fuddy-duddy, backward old banks for deposits, too. Some astronomical percentage of every house was tied up in a Pyramid product in one way or another: either in the money to buy it, build it, make it better or knock it down. Andrew was no genius, but he could make no sense of it. Heck, no one could, not even then geniuses. Each quarter, the company grew and grew, smashing expectations and records along the way. With each rise in Pyramid¡¯s fortunes, the company¡¯s largesse grew in turn. Instead of a chocolate fountain at their holiday party, they had a chocolate waterfall. Every meeting room had its own set of Swedish-trained masseurs. Yet, they never got around to installing doors for the bathroom stalls. Of course, given that he was in accounting, given that it was, in part, his job to keep an eye on the books, Andrew should have known something was up with those books. He wasn¡¯t a Vice President or anything -- in fact, Pyramid had no such titles, viewing them as antiquated relics of the post-capitalist oligarchy. Still, he oversaw a team of competent men and women all of whom had access to the sorts of numbers that should have looked strange to people trained in the art of finding strange things in numbers. Truth be told, there were nights when he couldn¡¯t sleep, wondering about the origin of certain line items and the strange disappearances of others. And he had, on occasion, not only looked the other way, but actually closed his eyes and pretended not to see damning evidence of what most assuredly was fraud. Oh, but the wine from the vending machines was of such a good vintage! And they sprayed fantastic parfum throughout the building! And he was paid a not-so paltry wage, though most of his compensation came in the form of shares in the still private company that would only have any value after a lengthy vesting period, assuming the company eventually went public. Plus there were the masseurs! Andrew might have been content to continue like that forever. Back then, he lived in Millburn, meaning it was just six stops until he got to the city -- plus an almost pleasant trip on the A Train to the office. Plus, he was building a house in Maplewood -- financed of course with a loan through Pyramid -- that would shave an additional few minutes off of his travel time. For the time being, he had a comfortable condo, a lovely girlfriend, and a job that only required him to lack all his scruples. It was the American dream. Like all dreams, though, his came to an end. And like the kind of cramp you get in the bottom of your foot first thing in the morning, the end of this dream hurt. It began with a group of very angry pensioners in Ontario wondering where all the money they had been plowing into Pyramid had gone. And then there were the wiretaps that made it seem like Vitali had been using funds from new investors to pay the big returns he had promised older ones. And then there was the paper trail showing that a great deal of Pyramid¡¯s cash had, in the course of changing hands all over the world, had gone missing somewhere around the Cayman Islands. For his part, just before the authorities arrived at the Pyramid Building & Loan offices to kindly ask for an explanation for all these abnormalities, Vitali gave an impassioned, prerecorded plea from what looked like a very spacious yacht, explaining that this had all been a misunderstanding, that things would be clarified, and that, under no circumstances, should anyone stop investing in Pyramid Building & Loan. Later that morning, Vitali made a second video: he was forfeiting his passport and taking up citizenship in a small breakaway dacha recognized only by two otherwise unrecognized states, one of which is famous for its oil refineries; the other for its patricide. Suffice to say, for all the money Pyramid had spent on their office and its perks, Vitali had prudently made sure to squirrel away enough in his personal accounts to live off of very comfortably, so long as he could survive on polka and borscht. In lieu of a severance package, Andrew was given two cardboard boxes and fifteen minutes to clear out his cubicle. Eager to erase the memory of Pyramid¡¯s malfeasance, the building was swiftly being repurposed into a coliving and coworking space where adults would be dared to never grow up. Andrew was forced off the premises after fourteen minutes. He left with two boxes filled with detritus and mixed feelings. Even after they sold all of Pyramid¡¯s assets, the government failed to recover even a smidgen, a tad, or a speck of what was owed. This included the money that those Ontario pensioners had invested, but also money from otherwise clever tech funds, those rival big banks and, lo and behold, Andrew Cavaletto. Not only was his stock worthless but his mortgage was too. Everything he had put in disappeared, like the eggs of sturgeon down a fugitive founder¡¯s throat. Of course, he wasn¡¯t alone in suddenly finding himself unable to foot his housing bill; when Pyramid went belly up, it took plenty of others with it. It was, after all, a very fatted belly. The government, gracefully, stepped in to help those big creditors who suddenly found their fortunes fading. As for people in Peoria, families in Flagstaff or couples in Kenosha? They suddenly had a Pyramid-sized crater in their bank accounts. Six stops. The sky was clearing up outside, though, somehow, it felt no less dreary. Andrew had, for once, the forethought to notice the clouds in the sky before he¡¯d left that morning and had come to the City with an umbrella in tow. Obeying the cosmic rule that dictates that whenever one is prepared for rain, it shall never come, the sky stayed dark and ominous but altogether dry. Enough of this umbrella talk. There¡¯s time for more of that later. For now, it¡¯s time to talk about how Andrew became the most hated man in Millburn. Andrew¡¯s path to pariahdom is a little hazy. He barely knew any of his neighbors and had an altogether forgettable face: a little longish, the color of dough made with refined white flour, a passable chin. When he went out, it was mostly in Morristown, where Erin lived, and not in Millburn. However, like flies to a carcass, bad news travels fast and whether it was the work of a nosy neighbor or an enterprising internet troll, soon the whole town seemed to know that Andrew not just worked at Pyramid, but may have missed a golden opportunity to do something about all the hijinks that occurred there. No one suspected him of being involved; he was much too poor to be a white-collar criminal. His crime was guilt by association, and though it may not come with a mandatory sentence, the punishment doled for an offense like that is often much harsher. Rationally speaking, no one could have blamed Andrew and Andrew alone for all that transpired. Common sense would show that many others sidestepped their professional and civic duties. A logical appraisal would show that the events that transpired weren¡¯t the results of one man¡¯s failing but part of a larger social reckoning, the effect of years of prioritizing profit over all else. Not one person in Millburn seemed interested in rationale, logic or common sense. They were too busy pelting Andrew with rotten eggs. And spray painting very mean things on the sidewalk in front of his townhouse. And writing letters to the editor of the local newspaper containing even meaner things. And there were the billboards. And the skywriters¡­. All of which made finding a new job even more difficult, especially at a time when firms weren¡¯t too keen on hiring the guy who was about as well regarded as the captain of the Titanic. Upon receiving his resume, most places didn¡¯t entertain the thought of interviewing him. The kindest word used to describe Andrew around that time was ¡®unhirable¡¯. Having grown tired of harassment on the street and at home and finding fewer and fewer occasions to go into the City for interviews, Andrew broke his lease on the apartment in Millburn and moved further into the suburbs, to Bellwether, where his parents offered him his childhood bedroom for lease at a nominal rent, so long as he was willing to, emotionally speaking, die a little bit. Only after that, while living under the same roof as his parents, with the same posters on his bedroom walls that he had when he was twelve, did Andrew¡¯s girlfriend of three years break up with him. Two more stops left. By this point in the journey, he was last left in the car. They say misery loves company, and yet there he sat, all alone. Bellwether wasn¡¯t separated from Manhattan so much by miles as it was by mindset. It was as if all the life of the City gradually leached away, stop by stop. By the time the train made it this far down the tracks, there wasn¡¯t much life left to go around. ¡°Edinburgh? What¡¯s in Edinburgh?¡± He had to ask her to say it again. It wasn¡¯t because the place was too loud; one of the things they liked most about Hooray Tandoori was that it was always very nearly silent because it was always very nearly empty. How it had managed to survive had always puzzled them. This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. No, he needed her to repeat herself because he couldn¡¯t believe his ears. Here she was saying she was going to move to Edinburgh when he didn¡¯t know it from El Paso. Erin laughed until she realized that, no, no he wasn¡¯t kidding. ¡°Andrew, I told you. The university. I was applying for a job there. You must remember. I did those interviews over Zoom during the pandemic. Anyway, I got it. I know, gosh, I know how crazy things have been for you for the past few months. I get it. I don¡¯t blame you. But I told you about this back in -- April? It must have been April when I first applied.¡± Of course she had told him, and it wasn¡¯t even that he had forgotten being told. It was only that he thought that, when she had said she was applying for a job at Albion Imperial College, it was something she sort of loosely planned to do one day. More like, ¡®I¡¯m going to take up gardening¡¯, and less like, ¡®I¡¯m going to take a job in Scotland that will almost assuredly mean that we have to break up.¡¯ ¡°And I¡¯m happy for you--¡± Her eyebrows peaked. ¡°You don¡¯t sound happy, Andrew. Surprised. Disappointed. Hurt. Angry¡­¡± This had all occurred less than a week ago: very much at the bottom of Andrew¡¯s ever-deepening psychological trough. Never mind being a persona non grata; never mind the indignity of being back in his boyhood home-- there was still a Ken Griffey Jr. poster on his wall; no, the worst thing was the feeling that none of it was going to get any better. Down in the dumps, despondent, depressed, Andrew had wrestled with any number of labels. The only good, uplifting thing in his life had been Erin. At a time when it felt like his life was dissolving away, she was the last thing in it that felt solid and real. She seemed to know when to listen -- when Andrew wanted only to be heard --, and when to offer advice -- when Andrew had otherwise run out of ideas. She hadn¡¯t just buoyed his spirits; she might have been the one thing keeping him from capsizing altogether. The sort of thing the captain of the Titanic could have used. The lights at Hooray Tandoori were dim. They always were. This only added to the idea that it was some kind of front for something. Regardless, the food was fantastic and they had made plenty of good memories there. Erin had long declared it the closest thing they¡¯d find in New Jersey to Indian food as good as her mother¡¯s. It was worth the trip to Edison. That was why they had chosen it for their anniversary dinner. Three years together; though surely, after news like hers, it would be their last. He tried his best to manufacture a smile. ¡°Of course I¡¯m happy for you,¡± he said. This wasn¡¯t untrue; he was just more unhappy for himself. She chewed at a piece of naan without breaking her steady gaze. Her deep brown eyes did not waver. It was her eyes he had first noticed and, perhaps, fallen in love with. ¡°But, and I know this is going to make what I just sound untrue and make me sound selfish in the process, but I can¡¯t help but wonder what you getting a job on another continent means for us.¡± Again she laughed and, again, she realized a little too late that he was being very serious. ¡°Andrew! Andrew, we¡¯ve had fun, haven¡¯t we? Three years of fun. That¡¯s what we¡¯re celebrating, aren¡¯t we? You didn¡¯t think this would go on forever, did you?¡± Dr. Erin Trottier, Phd could probably count the number of times she hadn¡¯t been the smartest person in the room, whether it was a hall closet sized room or a full auditorium. However, unlike most smart people, who sometimes seemed to use their intelligence solely to come up with ways to remind you of how dumb you are by comparison, Erin managed to stay modest. She did not like to mention the awards she had received, the journals that had published her or the number of times she¡¯d been called on to explain very complicated topics of particle physics to cable news anchors and their live audiences. What she did enjoy was pickleball, work, and spending time with Andrew. She picked at the skin of her knuckles. Just as she knew clawing at her hand would hurt, she had expected this all to sting for Andrew-- that seemed unavoidable. She had only hoped it wouldn¡¯t hurt too bad. There was certainly a scale of harm. Where this would fall¡­.sprained ankle¡­lower leg amputation¡­.lobotomy¡­remained to be seen. Unaware of Erin¡¯s impromptu diagnosing, Andrew took a long sip from his glass of water, completely draining it in the process. Silently, he prayed that the server would notice and refill it so that he would have an excuse to not speak. Because, as it happened¡­ ¡°Oh, dear. You did, didn¡¯t you? You thought¡­?¡± ¡°I mean, maybe not forever, but..¡± Another piece of naan freshly stuffed in her mouth, her voice came out muffled. ¡°Oh, Andrew. Andrew, Andrew, Andrew.¡± ¡°You said it yourself.¡± he pleaded,¡±We had three good years together. Was it crazy for me to think that, I don¡¯t know, three could become four which would naturally lead to five and then six and then¡­. we might eventually get married?¡± Even in that dim light, her eyes twinkled. ¡°Andrew. Marriage? Me? I couldn¡¯t. Not again.I thought you knew that. Once was enough. And, if I were ever to consider it again, I don¡¯t think that you--¡± The words were very nearly all the way out of her mouth before she realized that this was not the thing to say and not the time to say it. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean that Andrew. Really, I didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Of course not,¡± he cleared his throat. Hooray Tandoori was quickly becoming his least favorite restaurant. He would be leaving a very bad review after this dinner, that was for sure. ¡°It¡¯s just, you know, I¡¯ve always been focused on my career. And professorships like this don¡¯t come up all that often.¡± ¡°But you already have a job.¡± She rolled her eyes. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t want me to settle for Frelinghuysen State College, would you? It isn¡¯t exactly the center of the universe for, well, anything. You know, I think they¡¯ve got more phone books in their library than actual books.¡± He smiled, despite himself. Even in the worst of situations, she knew how to disarm him. And it was true. He wanted what she thought was the best for her. She was too smart, too clever, too Erin for New Jersey. For him, too. ¡°No, I wouldn¡¯t want you to settle. But I suppose I thought you would move on to NYU. Or Fordham. Or Seton Hall.¡± She leaned in conspiratorially. ¡°Seton Hall, Andrew? I¡¯m trying to improve my career, not destroy it.¡± He wasn¡¯t going to argue with her. He understood where she was coming from. He understood her well enough to know how much this meant to her. None of that made him feel any better, though. ¡°In one month, I¡¯ll be 44. If I don¡¯t do this now, Andrew, I might never have the opportunity again. I¡¯ve got ten years on you. That¡¯s a decade that you have to explore and learn and try new things. And¡­It¡¯s not just that I want to do this-- I have to. I¡¯m not going to pretend to be one of those woo woo crystal people -- that would certainly hurt my reputation with my new, very esteemed colleagues. But I almost feel like this is something I¡¯m fated to do.¡± How was it that, all at once, he could want her to stay, not go, not stay and not go? How was it that every permutation, every answer, seemed to point him back home, the sad little bedroom in Bellwether? ¡°Think about it this way. I enjoyed every day we spent together -- not for some far-off goal. Not because I thought we might one day get married. I wasn¡¯t working towards anything. The time we spent together wasn¡¯t my Frelinghuysen State College -- a stepping stone to something else. Something better.¡± He managed to smile. ¡°I was your Albion Imperial¡± The waiter came, at last, although it was too late to save Andrew and too late to save them, too. ¡°Bellwether Bellwether Bellwether. Bellwether is our last stop. Please make sure you¡¯ve gathered all your belongings. Bellwether Station is our last and final stop.¡± The conductor¡¯s voice sounded shrill and hollow as it echoed up and down the empty train car, like an auctioneer at a funeral. Andrew sensed a slight lift in the conductor¡¯s voice, a hint of joy or effervescence. Andrew wondered how she got off feeling any kind of joy or happiness, but then he remembered: she would only be in Bellwether for a few minutes. She got to leave, to go back to the City, to not even step foot in the hangdog town. From that perspective, Andrew would have expected confetti and streamers. To put it lightly, Andrew felt very much like someone who had a hand in another man¡¯s death. He rose out of his seat and sighed. He looked again out the window and saw the shamelessly shabby Bellwether Station signs and sighed. And then he sighed again for good measure. You get the idea. Now seems like the right time to step away, for a moment, from Andrew. Don¡¯t worry: we won¡¯t be long. Plus, we¡¯re only skipping more of the same from him: more moping, more slouching, more sighing. It really is a drag. But, if, perversely, you need the whole run down, he checked his pants pockets to make sure he had his phone and his wallet. He fished out his keys from his jacket. He picked up from under the seat the suitcase where he¡¯d stowed away an unnecessary cabal of backup resumes. And at each step of the way, he punctuated every other moment with another sigh. In fact, with all that carrying-on and pocket checking, Andrew failed to notice that his umbrella was gone. He was far too occupied feeling sorry -- mostly for himself, though a little bit too for poor dead Mel Billingsley. And now, a few words on Bellwether, Andrew¡¯s home once and now home again. In a normal story, a town like Bellwether might get little more than a passing mention, a polite nod. This is not a normal story. Bellwether is not a normal town. Bellwether was founded at the turn of one of those recent centuries, a time of great, unrivaled, unchecked kookiness. At the top of the pantheon of kooks, even kookier than the snake oil salesmen, the carnival barkers, the theosophists, and the osteopaths, was Elias Drinkwater, Bellwether¡¯s town father. Elias, a native of Torrington, Connecticut, was convinced that the end times were near. However, unlike other soothsayers who used numerology or divine inspiration to forecast the date of the apocalypse, Elias had a much less specific, much more hands-off approach. Preaching about the dangers of sin and the coming price to be paid by the sinners, the only way to quiet Elias for even a moment was to ask him when he thought things might wind up. ¡°Oh, any day now,¡± he would say, before rolling back into his unorthodox and tenuous interpretations of the good books. And thus a nickname was born for Elias and those who followed him. Because, although Elias had an unconventional approach to religion and was a cantankerous kook, the Any Day Nowists grew like a summer callus in a tight pair of shoes. The only explanation history offers is that these were fairly boring times and that people were looking for something to do, no matter how unpleasant. Their tenets were simple but absolute: the end of days, of course, were nigh, though on an as of yet undetermined date; showering or the use of any kind of soap or cleaning agent would curry no favor with the Lord; and onions, by contrast, were something of an express lane to heaven. The people of Torrington amiably tolerated the Any Day Nowists for well over two decades. Sure, they were unconventional, and yes they could be standoffish, and of course, they had a unique effect on the townspeople¡¯s olfactory systems, but by no means were folks going to stand by and listen to the casual besmirching of the Any Day Nowists. The youngsters of Torrington were known to come to blows with the youth of other towns if even one unkind word was said about the strange clique. By and by, though, Torrington¡¯s patience wore out. Perhaps it was that the town got tired of being lumped in with the weirdos in others¡¯ estimation. Call it a case of too much pride to be tolerant. Maybe it was a feeling that the Any Day Nowists ought to assimilate and be just like everybody else was, the way God and the Founding Fathers had intended. Or maybe it was just that, at long last, they couldn¡¯t take that peculiar smell of unwashed onion bodies any longer. Cooler heads tried to prevail, but when a series of letters, less and less kind with each mailing, went unanswered, the town made an ultimatum: either Elias and his Any Day Nowists clean up their act, literally, or leave. Unwilling to violate their strange and sacred sacraments, the Any Day Nowists had no choice. They had to find a place where their proclivities would be more welcome, where they would be amongst other outcasts and castaways, where they might even go unnoticed on account of the wholesale oddity thereabouts. It¡¯s no wonder, then, that they chose New Jersey. ¡°This land,¡± it¡¯s said that Elias pronounced on the day of the town¡¯s founding, his hand atop a ceremonial shovel and his mouth dripping with onion juice,¡± though barren and, in fact, salted by its previous inhabitants, will one day be fertile and fecund. Whereas we have been forced to flee from our homes on account of our faith alone, we do declare this to be a utopia, a heaven on Earth. From this day forth it shall be a Bellwether, a sign of things to come.¡± One man¡¯s utopia is another man¡¯s smelly, sickly, poorly plated, and sewerless swamp. By all accounts, Bellwether should have gone the way of any number of similar efforts: wreck and ruin within a few weeks, its inhabitants forced to crawl back to their hometowns with their tails between their legs and soap in their outstretched hands. Considering Elias was at the helm, things ought to have gone even worse. Yet, the town flourished. Bellwether¡¯s success, believe it or not, was a credit to the Any Day Nowists¡¯ unique beliefs. It wasn¡¯t the prohibition against showering or the doomsday prophecies. The growth of the place from a few bare-knuckle huts to a real, full-fledged village and then a bustling burgh coincided perfectly with America¡¯s brief fascination with one thing; onions. Time and history books have mostly forgotten the bygone era, the Bloomin¡¯ Twenties, when onions became all the rage. No one quite remembers either who originally thought to, first, slice and dice them like a flower and then deep fry those pungent alliums. But by dint of their alluring shape and spectacular taste, nevermind their eventually disproven potent medical benefits, blooming onions became all the rage. At first, the fad was confined to the country¡¯s elites: the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, and the Gettys were all proud Bloomers. It didn¡¯t take long, though, for even common folk to begin to partake. And no matter whether those onions were being fried on the Miracle Mile or on Main Street, there was a good chance they came from Bellwether. It wasn¡¯t a boomtown: it was a bloomtown. At its peak, Bellwether had three theaters, two libraries, eleven brothels, and eight thousand three hundred ninety-six acres dedicated to the full-scale cultivation of the onion. Even during these halcyon days, though, the people stayed humble. Most of them stuck quite closely to the creed, the bedrock that the town was founded on, eschewing showering and subsisting on a diet of onions alone. They saw no reason to give up their ways, not when the world was set to end any day now. When it came, the end times were not heralded by scowling demons or eight-legged rats. There was neither fire nor brimstone. Nothing out of the ordinary rained down from the sky. Instead, in docks and warehouses all across America, the end came by way of cheaper onions from places like Vidalia and Walla Walla. Of course, by then the Bloomin¡¯ Twenties were over; the country had moved onto other fashionable trends, like talking pictures and women¡¯s suffrage. This double whammy doomed Bellwether. Industry, and all the things it supported, collapsed. A great many people, devout Any Day Nowists for generations, left the town, disillusioned. Bellwether never recovered. The whole world catapulted full-speed to the future whereas Bellwether stayed exactly where it had always been, only a little older, a little sadder, and a little deader with every passing day. All of which brings us back to Andrew. The microwave was just about to beep, his Hot Pocket having properly gone from freezing cold to atomically hot in mere seconds, when it occurred to him that he had forgotten something. What that something was, he couldn¡¯t remember. He cursed under his breath -- his mother was leading a guided meditation session with her group in the living room -- and did a quick mental inventory. Wallet in my pocket. Phone on the counter. Keys? No, keys on the hook by the door, I can see those. The suitcase I had brought up to my room and left leaning on the Pokemon trash can. Jacket on the coat rack next to the umbrella stand -- ¡°God damn it,¡± he said, this time not nearly as quietly as the last. He quickly apologized for the qis he had disturbed, though, by the looks on the faces staring back at him, his hurried mea culpa wouldn¡¯t suffice. It didn¡¯t help that the microwave dinged immediately after, almost definitely stymying the retirees¡¯ chance at reaching nirvana. Chagrined, he retreated to his room with the Hot Pocket in hand but his sense of self in shambles. He very nearly slammed the bedroom door behind him. That would have been all the proof that his regression from adulthood to infancy was complete. Returning to that bedroom, cursing under his breath, being jobless¡­and then! And then! Losing the umbrella. It wasn¡¯t about the umbrella of course. It meant nothing to him. Someone somewhere has an umbrella very precious to them, an heirloom umbrella, a relic from the old country passed down by a cherished ancestor, one who had a bad case of sciatica but the good foresight to gift their descendants a decent umbrella. This was not that kind of umbrella. It hadn¡¯t cost more than ten dollars and, truth be told, wasn¡¯t worth even half that much: it gave Andrew trouble when he tried to close it and one good gust of wind had threatened to turn it into a sharp and pointy paperweight. But losing it, at a time when the only thing he seemed good at was the art of losing, was an insult he couldn¡¯t bear. Half the sneers downstairs had nothing to do with missing out on enlightenment. He was only a little less infamous in Bellwether than he had been in Millburn and though being Dee Cavaletto¡¯s son came with some benefits, she couldn¡¯t spare him all their derision. Not when he had had a hand in wrecking their retirements or costing them that second mortgage or¡­ He lazily kicked at the briefcase and the aborted adulthood it represented. Cheap as it was, it flopped open disgorging its contents like a contestant at the end of a pie-eating contest. He had expected to see only his stack of resumes, rendered useless by his incompetence, but something peculiar caught his eye instead. A business card. It wasn¡¯t his; he didn¡¯t have one. What was he going to put on it -- disgraced accountant? Bringer of doom? It wasn¡¯t one he remembered getting in any of the interviews either. Solid black matte with a drawing of an unopened white umbrella in the middle, he couldn¡¯t fathom where it could have come from. An uneasy feeling swept over Andrew as he reached down to pick it up. Idly, he wondered if this was one of those hidden camera shows and if he had inadvertently signed a waiver permitting them to air this, the final throes of his miserable collapse, for all the world to see. One camera in the Super Mario Bros Clock above his bed, another hidden in the books on his nightstand. They¡¯d have all his worst angles captured for all the world to see. He flipped the card over -- white background, black text -- and mouthed the words in a whisper to himself: Ruben Crespo Dept. of Lost Umbrellas 222 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011 Part II, Chapter 1 Andrew was at a loss for words; Ruben Crespo had that kind of effect on people. ¡°You have many questions.¡± he spoke in a ratatat cant, like a box of tap shoes tumbling down a marble staircase,¡± Not the least of which, of course, is: what have I done with your umbrella?¡± Andrew opened his mouth to speak and then promptly closed it again. He did have many questions and primary among them was the whereabouts of his umbrella. But even listening to Ruben was exhausting; he thought he might throw his back at trying to respond. On his way into the City, Andrew had steeled himself for a battle. His umbrella was at stake, yes, but so was his pride. And while pride won¡¯t get you anywhere in a rainstorm, it still is a good cover. He was only one day removed from having a man die in his arms. Well, hand, technically. Regardless, he had nothing to lose. What were the chances that would happen again? Low, he hoped. His plan went something like this: he¡¯d burst into the building at the address on the card. He¡¯d demand to see Ruben Crespo, no matter what the person at the front desk said about needing an appointment. He would wait, amiably, no more than fifteen minutes for Ruben to be free. And then! ¡­.And then! Well, there was still some time to work out the ¡®and then¡¯. He was never much of a planner, anyway. As for what he¡¯d say to Ruben, Andrew had run through all the options: I¡¯m here for my umbrella and I won¡¯t leave until you¡¯ve handed it over. No, a little too aggressive. You¡¯ve got five minutes to explain this whole umbrella nonsense before I start getting answers my way. And you¡¯re not going to like my way. Much too aggressive. And fanciful. And a threat he couldn¡¯t possibly act upon. He wasn¡¯t about to start a fight over an umbrella. More importantly, he wasn¡¯t about to lose a fight over an umbrella. How¡¯d you get this business card into my briefcase and what¡¯s it going to take to get my umbrella back, anyway? A little whiny, perhaps. Spineless even. But it was direct and simple and, Andrew thought, the route most likely to wind up with him leaving with his head held high, his pride restored and his umbrella in hand. No, it wasn¡¯t ambitious, but he figured it was high time to get an easy win instead of a guaranteed loss. With that plan in mind, Andrew strode confidently past the gourmet doughnut shop and the boarded-up haberdashery next door and straight into 222 West 23rd Street. He paused, only for a second, to notice the words CHELSEA HOTEL etched into a limestone arch over the doorway of the old building. A tingle went up his spine. There was history in those somber red bricks. And, if the goosebumps he was fighting off were any indications, it hadn¡¯t been a happy one. Andrew barreled through the dated, musty lobby. He was relying on the strongest force known to man: moxie. Moxie is brute force multiplied by momentum taken to the third power. It¡¯s useful in the same way that a nuclear bomb is: it¡¯s sure to get the job done so long as also destroying the job isn¡¯t a problem. The wall calendar behind the receptionist showed a bucolic mountain scene, a little yellowed by time. Upon closer inspection, Andrew saw it hadn¡¯t been switched out since the Carter administration. It was a late Easter that year. ¡°Ruben Crespo, please,¡± Andrew said to the receptionist. She rolled her eyes, communicating at once her impeccable despondence. If she cared any less, she might just disappear, her molecules lazily floating off into the ether, destined to join up with other unmotivated atoms, or whatever. Languorously, looking more at the grime-colored floor than at Andrew, she relayed the Department¡¯s floor and suite number. It seemed to pain her to meet this bare minimum standard for helpfulness. Andrew couldn¡¯t help but wonder if this were community service rather than her actual job. Still, before he continued towards the elevators, he thanked her, though both of them knew it was more than he deserved. That was when the receptionist sprung into action. From sloth to swift. It was as if, inside the well-honed apathy machine, there was a real human being after all. Think of a turducken, though with less saturated fat. Her hand darted out and took Andrew¡¯s arm in its grasp. ¡°Here¡¯s the thing: we don¡¯t get a lot of visitors. The kind of people I usually see either work here or have scheduled business with someone who works here.¡± ¡°I think Mr. Crespo is expecting me,¡± Andrew said, aware that he was not being entirely truthful.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. ¡°Here¡¯s the other thing. No one I¡¯ve ever sent up to talk to Ruben Crespo ever comes back--¡± The receptionist broke out into an otherworldly cough. She doubled over at her desk like a flimsy piece of tissue paper. Andrew was sure that she hadn''t finished her thought, that, before she began hacking for air, she was going to say something after the word ¡®back¡¯. He was caught between desperately wanting her to finish and wanting to help her. Luckily for him, he was in no way qualified to help her, anyway. He could be guilt-free. Eventually, her body satisfied with expelling one lung and a chunk of her liver, she managed to reach for a bottle of water. ¡°Ugh,¡± she scowled at last, ¡°Don¡¯t worry. What I¡¯ve got isn¡¯t contagious. What was I saying again?¡± ¡°Something about the people who usually come to see Ruben Crespo.¡± The receptionist thought about it for a second before shaking her head. ¡°Whatever it was, I don¡¯t remember now. You need anything else from me?¡± ¡°So, can I have it back?¡± Andrew spoke with temerity. All the planning in the world couldn¡¯t account for Ruben Crespo. ¡°What is ¡®it¡¯ exactly, Andrew, and why do you want ¡®it¡¯ back?¡± Ruben sat back in his chair, his feet resting on his desk like two sphinxes. He chewed at a piece of spearmint gum nonchalantly. With his yellow tracksuit and black sneakers, he looked a little like a ripe, unopened banana with greasy shoulder-length hair. The only explanation for Ruben Cresp was unabashed, absolute shamelessness. He had never encountered modesty and had no plans on getting acquainted with humility, either. He hadn¡¯t once doubted himself, not since leaving the womb, which he probably did with a strut and a half-hearted nod towards his mother in passing. Anything short of that would have stopped him in his tracksuit years ago. Andrew couldn¡¯t remember having introduced himself, either to Ruben or to the long-suffering receptionist. Of course, it was in the realm of possibilities. Stranger things had happened -- and would happen, too. Choosing to not dwell on that mystery, he tried to regain the upper hand with Ruben. ¡°¡®It¡¯ is my umbrella. And I¡¯m here for ¡®it¡¯ because you took ¡®it¡¯ from me.¡± Andrew dug out the business card from his pocket and flung it towards Ruben¡¯s propped-up feet. ¡°And how did you get this in my briefcase?¡± Ruben spared the business card only the slightest glance. ¡°Tell me, Andrew, your best guess: how many people come all the way from Bellwether for an umbrella? How many people lie to their lovely, winsome parents so they can come to the City to pick up an umbrella? Tell me. And then tell me why you¡¯re really here.¡± Maybe he had said his name -- but he certainly hadn¡¯t told anyone in the building he¡¯d come from Bellwether. And while someone, conceivably could have guessed his name and his hometown, Andrew had very serious doubts that anyone would be able to divine the nature of the conversation he had had with his parents before leaving that morning. Yes, he had proffered a little untruth to them when they asked why he was heading for the train again two days in a row. He couldn¡¯t not lie to them, the way they stared back at him, like two golden retrievers pleading with their eyes for their overdue afternoon walk. Surely it wasn¡¯t illegal to imply that you¡¯d been called back for a second round of interviews. Surely he wasn¡¯t required to admit that the man interviewing him had died and that now he had about as little chance of getting the job as Mel did of learning the breaststroke. Ruben went on before Andrew could come up with any kind of rebuttal. ¡°Tell me, too, what does it feel like to go from the joy in one second of thinking you¡¯ve finally got that job to the despair in the next when a man has died before you?¡± ¡°What¡¯s going on here?¡± Andrew¡¯s voice quivered as he rose out of his chair. He didn¡¯t know what he would do next but figured it would land somewhere between lunging over the desk to wring Ruben¡¯s neck or hightailing it out the door behind him. ¡°One last thing: tell me how did the doughnut you bought before you came here taste?¡± Andrew paused and raised a quizzical eyebrow. He looked around the room. For the second time in as many days, we wondered if this was some kind of gag, with him as the punchline. No hidden cameras in sight, though that would be very much like a hidden camera to stay out of sight. It is their nature, isn¡¯t it? Ruben¡¯s office was simple. Thick hardwood desk. Bookshelves filled with old encyclopedias lined the walls. The only strange thing was that, instead of photos of distant locales or friends and family, the room was littered with mirrors. Big ones. Small ones. Full-sized. Porthole shaped. ¡°Doughnut? I didn¡¯t buy a doughnut.¡± Ruben shrugged. ¡°Well, nobody''s perfect. We had you pegged as a doughnut guy for sure. Crullers, specifically. Your loss, I say. They are very good. To die for. Everything else was right, though, no? Pretty impressive.¡± No more sure of his next course of action, Andrew stood up fully upright, knocking his chair to the floor. ¡°Who are you? Doughnut notwithstanding, how do you know so much about me? How do you know anything about me?¡± Ruben quickly jumped to his feet, too. He leaned over his desk so that his face was as close to Andrew¡¯s as it could be without it becoming very uncomfortable. It was only moderately uncomfortably close. Andrew could smell Ruben''s days old aftershave. ¡°The Department of Lost Umbrellas. Of course. If that¡¯s all you came for, I can make sure you leave here ready for the next rainstorm. ¡± Was he whispering or was it the pounding of Andrew¡¯s heart that made it so hard to hear Ruben? ¡°I think I could even tell you the next time it might sprinkle if that¡¯s all that bothers you. But, we, well, I think we know enough about you to be fairly certain that you are here for something greater than an umbrella.¡± From pounding to silence. For a moment, Andrew¡¯s heart skipped a beat. It was only a moment, but that was long enough for him to wonder if it had gone and left him for good. He finally exhaled when it dutifully returned home. ¡°Now, take a seat please, Andrew,¡± Ruben suggested, settling himself back in, too. ¡°I have much to tell you. Some of it is good news. But, well, for the bad stuff, I think it would be better to be sitting down.¡± Part II, Chapter 2 Vitali had had it up to here with all the veal. And the escargot. And the merlot. Add to that list coq au vin, onion soups, mille feuilles and souffl¨¦es. He would have had the chef fired but, oh, it wasn¡¯t Marie¡¯s fault. Before French cuisine, he had grown bored with sushi and showed Chef Midor the door. And that was after he had had enough of ceviche and empanadas from Miguel, another victim of his culinary malaise. That¡¯s to say nothing of the Australian beef, the St.Louis-style pizza, and the spanakopita. It seemed as if every month Vitali spent at his brother¡¯s dacha, he needed a new master chef. None could please him for very long. On second thought, he would have Marie replaced. Her fault or not, it was exceptionally easy to blame her. Throughout his forced exile, Vitali had exhausted his interest in a great many things besides food He could only wile away so many days jet skiing or fox hunting. And, of course, it was great fun to have your own professional ballet troupe, but, really, when you¡¯ve seen one spin, you¡¯ve seen them all. There were no good movies left to watch in his personal theater and no good books left to read in his personal library. Falling out of Igor¡¯s favor had severely limited his entertainment options. At least then he could fly the helicopter over for a change of scenery. The amenities were largely the same in that dacha, naturally -- there are only so many ways you can decorate with elephants tusks, for instance. But it was the little things that mattered, like a sauna with a view of the mountains instead of the lake. The art was better at Igor¡¯s dacha, too; Ilya, Vitali¡¯s brother, was an inexplicable fan of Manet whereas Igor, thankfully, preferred Monet. It was a refreshing change to go over there now and then. As so often happened with Vitali, though, boredness set in. It was no different for him with romance, be his paramour male or female, than it was for hobbies or foods or sport coats. His passion was, at the onset, scalding hot; in the middle, lukewarm to cold; and at the end, frozen solid. He and Igor barely talked during their last few days together. Eventually, he wasn¡¯t permitted to land at Igor¡¯s heliport at all. With that, Vitali was officially restricted to the grounds of his brother¡¯s property. Nowhere else was he welcome, unless he was willing to adjust to the feeling of handcuffs on his wrist. This his brother stated plainly and with great frequency. Step even foot in the wrong direction, he was fond of saying, and you¡¯ll be trading in your Armani for an orange jumpsuit. As if Vitali had worn Armani in the past decade -- fashion was yet another topic Ilya was painfully ignorant about. And what difference did it make, he had wanted to say in reply, to be imprisoned there in the Hague or here in your dacha? Yes, yes, he enjoyed the trappings of wealth; but, lo and behold, he was now their prisoner. It had taken almost forty years for Vitali to realize that the only thing he liked more than conspicuous consumption and fancy things was freedom; the only thing he could not afford. ¡°You¡¯re in a particularly despondent mood today, brother.¡± Ilya and Vitali sat at opposite ends of a very long breakfast table. It was constructed from the very rare planks of a very extinct tree. To be heard, they were forced to holler at one another, making every conversation appear more heated than it truly was. Yet, this was still too close a distance for either of their tastes. ¡°You noticed,¡± Vitali yelled back. Ilya, in fact, had only barely noticed. As usually was the case, he was multitasking. While Vitali sulked, Ilya worked. In addition to this brotherly quality time, he was monitoring esoteric activity on two laptops, answering emails on his tablet, and eating a piece of maximally dry toast. The sound of his teeth crunching through the brittle bread echoed through the cavernous dining room. ¡°What is it this time?¡± Vitali was the older brother, but, lately, Ilya got away with the patronizing tone and air of indifference. He, after all, was funding this little staycation of Vitali¡¯s. When all that imaginary venture capital money disappeared, it was Ilya who paid to have Vitali spirited away. It was Ilya who paid for the chefs who fell out of Vitali¡¯s favor. It was Ilya who footed the bills for the gold leaf toilet paper and the stained glass shower stall. It was Ilya who, at last, held the power. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. To live with Vitali as your brother meant living perpetually in the shadows, a sapling dwarfed by a sequoia. Vitali excelled at nearly everything and people noticed -- their parents especially. Whether it was the violin, downhill skiing, or calligraphy, the Dynko parents were so impressed by Vitali¡¯s inborn talents, they often neglected to let Ilya have a go at things at all. His best, they figured, would fall far behind Vitali¡¯s worst. Unlike Vitali, Ilya hadn¡¯t been afforded distinguished tutors or international boarding schools. Most of what he knew he had learned from watching a small dusty TV in their Sheepshead Bay apartment. Never a wealthy family, they lived beyond their means to give Vitali what they thought he deserved. For Ilya, there was less than nothing left in reserves -- financially, emotionally, or otherwise. But now, Ilya had upset the natural order of things. Through sheer force of will and powered by years of resentment, he had come out on top. This, however, was only the beginning. ¡°I said --¡± ¡°I heard what you said, Ilya.¡± The brothers spoke in the same slipshod multilingual cant that Vitali was famous for, though Vitali¡¯s accents, regardless of the language, always seemed inflected by an air of opulence from his years spent in Switzerland. Still not looking up, Ilya rolled his eyes. ¡°Then why the silent treatment? You know how busy I am, Vitali. Too busy for your games. ¡± ¡°Because, Ilya, I¡¯m not going to tell you again what I¡¯ve told you countless times before. I¡¯m bored. This place, this mansion, is nothing but a very beautiful prison. Like a very attractive person with handcuffs for lips. Or a taser where their --¡± Ilya cleared his throat and, at last, looked up at his brother. ¡°And this is my fault? Your boredom? I rescued you from real prison, I hope you remember.¡± Ilya¡¯s motivations for coming between Vitali and a maximum sentence were not entirely altruistic, that was much was certain. The true nature of his benevolence, however, was unknown. He was an early investor in Pyramid Building & Loan, yes, but Ilya had long ago divested himself from his brother¡¯s venture -- and at a handsome profit, too. Nor could his actions be chalked up to brotherly love, loyalty, or affection. Put very simply, Ilya lacked all three of them. Whatever drove Ilya, only he knew. For the time being, at least. ¡°Yes, and I¡¯ve said my thanks many times, but¡­ ¡°Not nearly enough times if you ask me,¡± Ilya interjected. ¡°...but I never expected to be locked away here forever. This is no way to live, Brother.¡± Vitali slammed his well-manicured, jewel-encrusted hand on the table. ¡°I need to be free.¡± Ilya could not feign sympathy. He lacked even the basest of bonhomie towards his brother. ¡°Yes, and what happened to Igor? Perhaps you wouldn¡¯t feel so cooped up here if you hadn¡¯t made a mess of things over there. Would you like me to call Igor? Is this another mess of yours I need to clean up, Vitali?¡± Vitali scowled and threw a very expensive glass at the wall. Even shattered into pieces on the floor, it was still worth quite a bit of money. ¡°You don¡¯t understand, Ilya. You are content staring at spreadsheets and ordering people around like they were pieces on a chessboard. You could live here the rest of your life and not grow bored, so long as you still had the power to make the world spin the way you wanted it to. Not me, Ilya.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t like fancy things?¡± Vitali guffawed. ¡°Of course I like fancy things -- look at me! I am a fancy thing. But I need to be out there.¡± He pointed, and though his finger seemed to suggest he meant the bucolic alpine lake out the window, what he really pointed to was well beyond their line of sight, well beyond the horizon or anywhere one of Ilya¡¯s helicopters could reach. ¡°What good are fancy things if you¡¯ve no one to show them off to?¡± Ilya had to hide his grin. For the longest time, it had been something of a tell of his. He was no good actor; of course, this was yet another way Vitali had bettered him. One look at his smirking face and it was obvious he was cooking something up. He had to harness a great deal of self-control to not betray himself and the underhanded plot he was preparing. ¡°Well, Vitali. I¡¯m convinced. You win. You¡¯re free. On one condition¡± It was too good to be true. It was cliche, but there had to be a catch. Nevermind a catch; there had to be a trap. Vitali knew his brother too well to expect anything else. This had been too easy. Ilya had been too willing. He wasn¡¯t free yet, after all. Nor would he be, unless Ilya got something out of it as well. ¡°On one condition,¡± Ilya said at last. Part II, Chapter 3 Erin was so close, she could almost smell the haggis. Technically, she wasn¡¯t that close; never mind stepping foot in Scotland, she hadn¡¯t even left New Jersey yet. In fact, what she was smelling was the unique petrochemical aroma that lingers in the New Jersey air like forgotten leftovers from yesteryear. But she was close. Closer than she¡¯d ever been. Plus she had been blessed by the algorithm with an unusually affable driver. Mind you, years of experience with the apps had lowered her standards quite a bit. Creeps. Jerks. Absolute weirdos. Artan was none of those. Perhaps most importantly, he had not asked her which way she preferred to get to the highway. This had long been a pet peeve of hers -- who really got in a car dead set on taking one highway or another? Go whichever way the app tells you to go, she felt like saying. Of course, this could only come off as rude and discourteous, and she certainly didn¡¯t want to come off as if she thought these drivers were just the Help, who ought to blindly follow the machinations of an app, especially considering how big a cut the companies took from every fare¡­ But really, so long as the road was paved, the traffic was moving, and they weren¡¯t likely to fall headlong into a pothole, she could care less which way they took. Artan had spared her all sorts of trouble. The trouble of navigating, the trouble of small talk, the trouble of having to write your last will and testament in the backseat of a Corolla because your driver has the alacrity of a jackrabbit when it comes to changing lanes. He kept his lips mostly sealed -- except to make sure the air conditioning was cool enough. He did not treat the speed limit as a lowball offer in a high stakes negotiation between him and his speedometer -- Sixty-five miles per hour? This sixty-five miles per hour is an insult. A joke. Come to me when you''ve got something to say to me that isn''t going to make me laugh. In the meantime, I''ll be here switching lanes like a kindergartner giving hopscotch a go. Erin was very nearly tempted to not just tip him but tip him well. She was contemplating breaching the previously unbreached 30% threshold, a feat no less significant than the shattering of the sound barrier or the moon landing. He was that good. Erin could not remember the last time the world seemed so open and full of opportunity. She was going on forty-six years old; yet, she had never felt so young. Yes, her knees were a little wobbly; yes, and her skin betrayed a wrinkle or two. But none of that mattered as much as the freedom she saw on the horizon, just eleven minutes, one demeaning security checkpoint, ninety-three minutes at the gate(more if the flight was delayed to clean bird poop off the windshield), and seven hours in the air, away. Had it felt this good when she left Tommy? She didn¡¯t think so, though it wasn¡¯t quite the same. Then she had been trading the known for the unknown. She had been taking a risk with no safety net, no parachute, nothing to catch her fall if she came crashing to the Earth. The safe thing would have been to stay with Tommy. Safe and middling and in no way satisfying whatsoever. Tommy had not, to be clear, changed in any way after they got married. In fact, Tommy¡¯s problem was that he hadn¡¯t changed at all -- not since the day they¡¯d met. What had seemed, as teenagers, as an admirable lack of ambition, presented itself, as adults, as parasitic laziness. He could be compelled to shower daily, if begged; to look for a job, if cajoled; and to fill up the gas tank, if handed the cash and explicitly to do so. He was a man-sized millstone in flannel pajamas and a stained Darth Vader tee shirt. If she hadn¡¯t left when she did, she might still be sitting next to him on his lumpy couch, eating, drinking, and breathing, but barely living at all. Leaving Tommy gave Erin her freedom, but it also robbed her of nearly everything else in the process. Just months before, they¡¯d decamped from Philadelphia for Dallas and her graduate program. Divorce meant losing her home, losing her stuff, and losing her unshaven security blanket, all in a city and a time zone where she barely knew another soul. That she finished her program on time was no small miracle. She marveled sometimes that she survived at all. She shuddered. This time things were different. She was different. She wasn¡¯t fleeing; she was upgrading. A better job at a better school in a better city in a better apartment -- just steps away from the Royal Botanical Garden, no less. The closest she could get to royalty near her current place was the Dairy Queen. While the new apartment was only temporary housing provided by the university while she got her footing in Edinburgh, she had already spent plenty of time pursuing listings online and went absolutely bananas each time she read the word flat. She would have two weeks to settle in before the term started, plenty of time to discover the best coffee shops, the best book stores, the best running routes¡­.the best her that she had been in years. The old her? She was leaving that behind in New Jersey, like lint in a dryer, though with less risk of fire. She was taking as little of the old Erin with her to Edinburgh as she could: only what would fit in her one checked luggage and one carry-on. It had been hard to part with some of the rest, especially a great many of her books. But not long after she notified her landlord she wouldn¡¯t be renewing her lease, she began a great purge of all the trappings of the old her. The furniture and the knick-knacks and the forks and spoons and knives. What she couldn¡¯t sell for a pittance she gave away just as easily. It wasn¡¯t about the money; it was about being committed, fully, to the future. The apartment was empty of her things and the locks would be changed by the morning. She didn¡¯t want anything to have the power to compel her back or hold her down. Anything or anyone. Not even Andrew. Artan asked again which airline she was taking. As a girl sitting in the backseat of her parent¡¯s car, she had always fantasized about the places she might go and the people she might be whenever they passed in the vicinity of an airport. Each exit sign, with the logos of the airlines and the terminals they flew out of, seemed to offer a promise of a life she might fulfill. A chef in Paris via Air France? A scuba diver in the South Pacific via Fiji Airways? A reindeer in the Arctic via Aeroflot? She was a young girl with more imagination than awareness of what people in Russia did. So sue her. What do people in Russia do, anyway? It should have been harder to break up with Andrew. They hadn¡¯t even called it breaking up, but that¡¯s what had happened, hadn¡¯t it? It wasn¡¯t like they were still together. It wasn¡¯t like they were teenagers, either; they didn¡¯t need to put a name to their situation to make it official. Though they hadn¡¯t said they were breaking up, the fact that they were about to live on two different continents had made it official. Hadn¡¯t it? She loved Andrew. He was a good person. He made her happy. Even during this recent rough patch, which was about as fetid an understatement as they come considering Andrew¡¯s role in a global economic collapse, she wanted him to be happy. Now that she was leaving -- very nearly almost gone --, she wanted that same happiness for him still. The thing was: she wanted happiness for herself, too. Joy for her could not come in New Jersey at Frelinghuysen State College under the auspices of her old life. For him to be happy, she would have to stay. For her to be happy, she would have to leave. It was a take it or leave it kind of thing. Or was it a Catch 22? She should have felt worse and maybe, in days or weeks ahead when her Scottish honeymoon faded into a Scottish depression as bleak and incomprehensible as the local accent, she would feel worse. Maybe she would remember the good times they had together and miss him by proxy. Maybe she would remember how pleasant it had been to meet such a person just as the doldrums of the pandemic began to ebb. Maybe she would remember how charming his smile was, even behind a mask, and how taken he was by her eyes. Maybe she would come to terms with all these feelings and memories that she¡¯d otherwise left as unprocessed as next year¡¯s taxes. In the meantime, though, she would enjoy every moment of her sudden windfall of freedom.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Her last thought before getting out of Artan¡¯s car was that the last thing she could have wanted for Andrew was the way he had acted the last time they saw each other. He came to her mostly empty apartment to say goodbye. There was no dinner this time, no naan, and no ceremony. Just farewells and well wishes. Except that Andrew was, well, a little off. Erin couldn¡¯t attribute it all to her imminent departure. After all, he had been somewhat involved in a man¡¯s death. Perhaps she shouldn¡¯t have attributed any of it to her leaving. Heck, for all she knew, he wasn¡¯t acting odd at all. Of course, for that to be possible, she would have to accept that there was a global cabal of pickpockets snatching people¡¯s umbrellas to effect global change and avoid a coming apocalypse. She didn¡¯t need to be a physics professor to struggle with that one. She had listened as carefully, as patiently as she could manage. She had listened to every last word and waited until he finished before asking if he had been getting enough sleep and if he was feeling well. ¡°Of course. I¡¯m feeling fine.¡± ¡°Oh, good. Good. Because, I mean you look great,¡± she had replied, despite the frenzied look on his face and the way excitement seemed to tremble through him like kids in a bounce house. ¡°I¡¯m a little amped, yeah. But, I mean, you heard me, didn¡¯t you? The parts about the Department of Lost Umbrellas, I mean.¡± She nodded a little unsteadily. Perhaps it would have been less strange if they weren¡¯t so alone in that barren room, only a simple lamp and her sleeping bag to keep them company. If they had been sitting on her couch or out at the movies, if there had been a little bit more in the world than the two of them, it might have felt different. Instead, she stood across from him as he careened through a truly fantastical, utterly unbelievable story that had a little bit of conspiracy theory, a little bit of tall tale, and a little bit of fairy tale but somehow managed to be completely, absolutely crazy. ¡°Oh, I heard.¡± It wasn¡¯t her hearing she was worried about. ¡°I absolutely heard. It¡¯s just,¡± she paused because, when it came right down to it¡­¡®Just¡¯ implies an exception. ¡®Just¡¯ implies that all but one little insignificant word had made sense. ¡®Just¡¯ is for corrections for misspellings and typos. Oh, you said flammable but you meant inflammable? Let me just fix that. ¡°Could you explain again the part, uh, about how you went back to the City for your umbrella? Can we start there?¡± It had been no time for just. ¡°Please, just try one more time.¡± ¡°Ma¡¯am, it don¡¯t matter how many times I try. It¡¯s not letting me let you through.¡± Ow, Ma¡¯am. That one hurt. It wasn¡¯t the first time she¡¯d been ma¡¯amed, but this one stung worse than the others. She¡¯d gone from feeling like a spry newborn to a haggard old maid with one fell ma¡¯am. ¡°Look. Sir. Officer¡­,¡± it was one of those names that required patience and perseverance to power through. It was no different from her mother¡¯s multisyllabic maiden name, booby-trapped with linguistic trap doors. This was no time to stumble over a vowel or vomit up a consonant: not when her future lay in the hands of a TSA agent with a tricky name. ¡°...Officer Suz-work¡­¡± ¡°Szwarc,¡± he sighed. ¡°Damn it, of course. Szwarc. Officer Szwarc. I can¡¯t impress upon you how important it is for me to get on this flight.¡± Officer Szwarc didn¡¯t want to be there. That much was obvious with the look of resignation he wore like a second skin. He had all the enthusiasm of a wrinkled bed sheet. Nothing so traumatic had happened throughout Officer Szwarc¡¯s life that would make him want to be a TSA agent: he wasn¡¯t a psychopath. Nor did he want to have to be the bad guy when it came to this seemingly perfectly normal professor. But the message on the terminal was unequivocal. In fact, it had never been so explicit. ERIN TROTTIER SECURITY RISK: HIGH PERMISSION TO BOARD: NO WAY IN HELL Usually, the thing just said yes or no¡­ ¡°I wish there was something I could do for you--¡± ¡°I have a flight to catch! I already got rid of all of the stuff in my apartment!¡± ¡°--and I understand how this is an inconvenience to you at this time--¡± ¡°An inconvenience? An inconvenience? I¡¯m going to be stranded at Newark Airport, the toilet bowl brush of the civilized world because your little computer says I can¡¯t board my flight?¡± Officer Szwarc cleared his throat and looked at the line forming behind Erin. ¡°That¡¯s technically not true, ma¡¯am.¡± Erin was long past losing her cool. Her cool was gone. She had catapulted her cool, along with her respectability, her professionalism, and her sense of decency, high up into the stratosphere. ¡°Oh, no? That¡¯s not true? This airport isn¡¯t like a toilet brush? More like a douche? Or a bidet.¡± Officer Szwarc didn¡¯t need any of this. He had gone to Bard. He had studied Proust. He loved watercolors. He wasn¡¯t even from Newark. He grew up on a farm next to a brook with a field full of goats, where the sun shined brighter than his boyhood imagination and where every breath he took took his breath away. ¡°That¡¯s not the untrue part, Miss Trottier. I was referring to the part about you being stuck at Newark Airport. High-security risks have two options. They can go home or they can turn themselves over to the remand Airport Police for further investigation and processing. Either way, you¡¯re not allowed to stay here in the terminal area.¡± Erin stepped back and took and filled her lungs with air. She had once taken a course meant specifically for high-pressure situations like these. It all started with separating yourself from the situation, taking a deep breath, and then¡­ Unfortunately, she couldn¡¯t remember anything else from the course. Not a single step other than the first. She did know that in the end, the problem would be resolved, she would grow stronger and similar situations in the future would be even easier to overcome. If only she could get to the glory of the finish line without having to do any of the stuff in the middle. If only she knew what to do after she took a deep breath. Was she supposed to exhale? She probably ought to exhale. What then, though? ¡°Ms. Trottier, it¡¯s up to you, but I¡¯m going to have to ask you to move out of the way. These people have flights to catch.¡± Never mind these people, Erin wanted to say, I have a flight to catch. I have my future to catch! What she really could have used right then was Artan. Things had been going so smoothly before she stepped out of his car. It wasn¡¯t but a moment after she closed the door that she stepped in a wad of sticky gum, got one of her bags caught in the airport¡¯s automatic door, and bumped into that group of elderly nuns. After her most profuse, loudest apologies, she laughed a little at her unlikely string of bad luck, surely imagining that had been the worst of it. She hadn¡¯t counted on Officer Szwarc. Of course, she knew, it wasn¡¯t his fault: it was the damned little box that said she couldn¡¯t get on her flight, no matter how many times she had him scan her driver¡¯s license. And now, here she was, desperate enough to utter the words no good, decent person wants to say, not even in jest. They were only a handful of words but they still managed to carry quite the punch. It didn¡¯t make her happy to say them. It didn¡¯t make her feel good about herself. If she had heard someone else say them, she would have surely rolled her eyes at the obstinance, the classlessness, the sheer buffoonery. ¡°I¡¯m going to need to see your manager,¡± she said through gritted teeth, revolted at herself and the depths of her desperation. ¡°No can do, ma¡¯am,¡± Officer Szwarc said. Erin couldn¡¯t help but hear in his voice the the faintest hint of joy, like finding an unwrapped chocolate bar in a sewer. ¡°What do you mean ¡®no can do¡¯?¡± ¡°My manager left for the night and, as I said, I can¡¯t have you staying in the terminal. So either you go home and come back to talk to my manager in the morning or I call for someone to escort you to a cell for the rest of the night.¡± That was how Erin found herself when, she ought to have been at cruising altitude, waiting outside the terminal for a car to pick her up. If she were another person, she wouldn¡¯t have let up so easily with that Officer Szwarc. She would have stood her ground and then felt summarily ashamed when it was her face as recorded in countless high definition cell phone videos plastered all over the internet as Professor Karen. She, literally, had nowhere to go. She had left the destination field in the app blank. There were places she could go. She was well-liked. She had friends. Surely, most of them would recognize that some cosmic snafu had ensnared her, a calamity straight out of Kafka or Costanza. She could explain the story; they would commiserate; everything would be, if not better, than certainly corrected by the morning. It wasn¡¯t shame or embarrassment or confusion that was holding her back. What Erin feared was that this was the beginning of the unraveling of everything. It was better to persist in ignorance, to pretend in defiance of the truth. What she risked by acknowledging this brief hiccup was that the universe might finally recognize her not as a well-qualified, hard-working woman with imposter¡¯s syndrome but as the authentic imposter she had considered herself along. Better to live in denial. Better to pretend it wasn¡¯t happening. Better to get in the car when the app buzzed her back to attention. Better to not act surprised when it turns out to be the same car you got out of before, driven by the same smiling person. Better to pretend, against all odds, it¡¯s not Artan behind the wheel.