Phoenix Heart (2 page)

“A deposit, I think, today.”

I finished his transaction. As I pushed the receipt across
to Mr. Sanders, with the other hand I slid a savings account brochure across
the counter.

He looked up at me. “And, what may I ask, is this?”

“Oh this?” I asked. “Well, we might be having a small
savings account promotion going on.” His eyes lifted to where the five-foot by
ten-foot, day-glow green representation of a savings passbook dangled from the
ceiling above my head.

“Indeed.”

“Actually, the bank is offering some quite attractive
incentives.”

Mr. Sanders smiled, but was already shaking his head. “My
dear, I really don’t need another account.”

“Oh, certainly, really, I completely understand.”

Mr. Sanders fingered the brochure, flicking the edge of the
thick paper with his thumbnail. He looked up at me. “Melanie,” he said, “you
don’t get some sort of incentive for pushing these accounts, do you?”

“Well, no, not really, except for the first class trip for
two to San Francisco, all expenses paid, five thousand dollars spending money. Naturally,
that’s not why I’m telling you about the promotion. Opening a savings account
here will improve your life and probably bring world peace.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Okay, what do I have to
do?”

“Really? Just go over to New Accounts and tell them I sent
you. Mr. Sanders, thank you!”

“No need to thank me. It’s always a pleasure to help a
beautiful young woman.” He tipped an imaginary hat and headed toward New
Accounts across the lobby.

Cheryl looked over at me as Mr. Sanders left. “Hey, who
died?” she asked.

“Nobody.”

“What?”

“Oh, it’s just... I really like Mr. Sanders, but I hate when
he does that.”

“Does what?”

“That ‘beautiful young woman’ bit.”

“Why? I love that stuff.”

I looked at her naturally blonde, curling hair softly
framing her heart-shaped face and her clear, exceptionally blue eyes. With no
effort Cheryl managed to look like the heroine of a 19th century gothic--the
sweet young governess, innocent on the surface but with a sexual inferno
smoldering beneath. “Yeah, well, but look at you,” I said.

She glared at me. “Oh, for heaven’s sake! Not that again. You
are every bit as…”

“Hush,” I said. “We’ve got customers.” And, thankfully, we
had, and by the time we got up to the break room after work, she had forgotten
all about giving me the speech that she’d given me so many times before.

I had yet to believe it.

* * * *

“It’s a time warp. It’s the only explanation.” I sighed and looked
across the table at Cheryl. It was a week since my graduate admissions
interview and the day the contest winner would be announced. We were sitting in
the upstairs break room with the remains of our lunches spread on the table
between us. “This week has been at least three and a half months long and this day...”

Cheryl flipped the pages of a magazine as she chomped on a
carrot stick. “This week and this day have been exactly the same length as any
other week or day. We’ll get the results of the contest tonight. If you win,
you win. If you don’t, you don’t. You gave it your best shot. You practically
safety-pinned a brochure to every man, woman, and child who stepped through the
doors.” She brandished her carrot at me. “So relax, will you?”

“Easier said than done. I don’t remember ever wanting
anything as much as I want this trip.”

Cheryl looked up from the magazine. “Why? I mean, I know it’s
nice to have the trip for free, but we’re only in LA, for Pete’s sake. You
could drive to the Bay Area in six or seven hours. What’s the big deal? The
money?”

“Yeah, well, the money’s very nice. But, no. It’s just… I
don’t know,” I said. “No break in four years, maybe. Or maybe, just that, you
know, well, something could happen.”

“What?” Cheryl asked, and then, “Oh. Prince Charming.
Moonlight.”

I smiled. “Champagne and candlelight. Sweeping into the room
in a ball gown like that one Audrey Hepburn wore in ‘Sabrina.’”

“Old movies again.”

“Being raised by your grandmother does have its hazards.”

“You don’t have to be on a trip to San Francisco to find Mr.
Right,” Cheryl said.

“I know.”

“Yeah, right.”

“What?” I asked.

She sighed and shrugged. “Nothing. So is it Andrew Richards
reaching out his hand to you as the orchestra plays ‘Isn’t It Romantic’?”

I laughed. “Right.”

Andrew takes her hand. “Come,
Melanie,” he says. “I’ve waited all my life for this moment, the time when I would
dance with the most wonderful woman in the world. It’s you, my love. Only you.”

“Classes start Monday,” she said. “He’s teaching Biochem.”

“Oh, sure.” I reached over to the stack of magazines next to
the couch and pulled out
People
, flipped it open, and slapped it down. “This
I’d have a chance with.”

I’d opened it to a two-page spread of a couple walking into
a large party. My mind barely registered the shapely, blonde woman. Instead, my
eyes fixed on the tall, lean, late-twenties man at her side. The photographer
had caught him at the best possible moment. His eyes looked directly into the
camera lens so that the green and gold of the irises were clearly visible. His
mouth was open to laugh, his teeth showed even and white. The planes of his
face were clean-shaven and tanned. Though his slightly long, thick, red-blond
hair was combed back from his broad forehead, one strand hung down above one
eye. He was just reaching up a hand to rake it back.

During the interview the week before, that same strand of
hair had fallen down across his forehead, and while I’m sure my mouth had
continued in some way to function, muttering at least semi-intelligent words,
all I’d been able to think about was how much I’d wanted to reach across and
brush that strand of hair from the forehead of Dr. Andrew Marshall Richards.

“Just your typical, run-of-the-mill, science teacher.” I
laughed. “With Caren Granzella, that run-of-the-mill, drop-dead-gorgeous, supermodel
clinging to his arm. Not in my wildest fantasies.”

“Caren who?” he asks as he
approaches Melanie with the silence and power of a panther. “She is nothing to
me. Only you can…”

“Well, I am glad to hear you say it.”

I looked up at Cheryl’s face and a chill shivered through my
little dream. “What?”

She looked around the empty lunch room and then back at me.
“I said I’m glad to hear you say it.”

“Well, thanks a bunch.”

“Mel, in spite of what you think, you’re pretty,” Cheryl
said. “And you’re smart. And you’re funny. I think Andrew Richards would be
lucky to have you. But, I don’t want you to do what you always do.”

“And what is that?”

She looked at me for a long moment, took a deep breath, and
then said in a rush, “Fixate on some unavailable guy so that you have an excuse
to bypass all the real guys.”

“Huh?”

“And even if he were interested, then you’d convince
yourself you’re not worthy, too unattractive, whatever.”

I sat back in my chair and stared at her. A flush rose in
her cheeks, but she didn’t break the gaze. Someone told me once that only truth
hurts; by that measure, what she had said had to be absolute gospel.

“Wow, thanks Cheryl,” I managed to say.

“Melanie, you’re my best friend. I want you to be happy and
you are not happy. You went after this trip to San Francisco because you think
something will happen, right? That’s what you said.”

“So?”

“It’s always this way. The perfect trip will change your
life. Getting into the perfect grad school will change your life. Meeting Mr.
Perfect Andrew Richards will change your life. And yes, all those things are
great, but until you realize that life is not perfect and you decide
you
are going to change your life, you can go on ten thousand trips and the only
one coming back will be the same old Melanie who left, the Melanie who is so
lonely that sometimes when I look at you it feels like someone has my heart in
their hand and they’re crushing it.”

She was leaning across the table, her eyes wet, her voice
shaking.

I could feel my eyes begin to burn, so instead, I smiled.
“Cheryl, I really appreciate the fact that that was very difficult for you to
say, and that it shows me what a good friend I have, but you’re pretty far
off-base.”

Cheryl blinked, started to say something, shook her head,
and looked down at the table.

“Don’t be upset,” I said. “You know, maybe at one time I was
like that. I don’t know, maybe you are right about when I was younger. But I
just told you, I don’t have any fantasies about Andrew Richards or anyone else.
I just want to go on a fabulous trip to San Francisco and if you want to be the
‘two’ in ‘trip for two,’ you’d better hope I win.”

“You are lovable,” Cheryl whispered at the table. Then she
looked up, and this time the smile I’d raised on my face like a shield dropped
away.

“I don’t know…”

“Your parents were sick. No, not parents. Your sperm donor
and your egg donor were sick, twisted people.”

“Stop it.”

“You are lovable and one of these days a man is going to
come along who won’t let you run away. When you try to laugh it off or find an
excuse why he’s not the one, he’s going to grab you, turn you around and say,
Hey, listen to me! I love you, and for once you’re going to believe him.”

We stared at each other for the longest moment before I
blinked and looked out the window. Sprinklers swept the park across the street.
The wet grass sparkled in the bright sunshine. “Swami Cheryl sees all and tells
all, huh?” My voice was only a little shaky. “Since you’re so good at telling
the future, maybe you’ll tell me whether or not I won that blasted contest.”

“Change the subject if you want, but someday I’m going to
get a lot of satisfaction telling you I told you so.”

I turned back to her. She stared at me, the set of her face daring
me to contradict her, and while ordinarily I would have managed to change the
subject, to pass the whole conversation off as a joke somehow, I couldn’t
because too much of me was crying out at that moment, pleading with The Fates
that Cheryl would get her chance to tell me exactly that.

“Ladies?”

We both jumped and looked toward the stairs leading down to
the bank lobby. Mr. Jackson stood on the steps looking up at us. “I do hate to
break this to you but lunch is over. Would you like to come down and relieve
Ms. Williams and Mr. Eagleton so that they might have lunch?”

“It would be a joy and a privilege, Mr. Jackson,” I said.

Mr. Jackson’s lips twitched and the slightest flush colored
his pale, wrinkled cheeks. He nodded, turned and disappeared down the stairs,
the glint of the overhead light on his bald pate the last thing to be seen. His
voice floated up the stairwell after him. “I knew it would be.”

His words were followed by an awkward silence. Cheryl
cleared her throat. “Mel, look, I’m sorry. Maybe I went too far.”

I held up a hand. Mr. Jackson’s interruption had been enough
to let me regain control. “Just stop Cheryl. I’ve heard enough. You know, you
may have to wait to tell me I told you so, but I’m not going to wait to tell
you something.”

“Mel.”

“No, please. I’ve been wanting to say it for quite a while
now, and you really have to be told. You have a piece of spinach salad stuck
between your two front teeth and it looks really gross.”

Cheryl looked up. A grin slowly spread across her face. She
took a step around the table. “You, you…”

I threw up my hands and backed away. “No, stop, please! Your
wit is cutting me to shreds.”

“One of these days, Melanie. One of these days.” She waved a
fist. “Pow! Right in the kisser.”

“You’re scaring me to death.” I began clearing the last few
things off the table. “You go on ahead. I’ll clean up and be right down.”

“Okay.”

I watched her disappear, and then I turned the magazine
toward me. I touched the photo, touched that strand of hair hanging over that
broad forehead, traced my finger down the side of that face. Then I flipped the
magazine closed, swept it and the rest of the trash off the table into a
wastebasket, and headed downstairs.

* * * *

“Melanie.”

I looked up from the spreadsheet on the screen over to Mr.
Jackson. “Yes sir?”

“It’s five o’clock. Lock the doors, will you?”

“It is?” I looked up at the clock, and then around the
lobby. There were only four people left in line. The agonizingly long afternoon
had suddenly come to an end. “Sure, I mean, yes sir, of course.” I took the
keys from him, walked over to the front door, and knelt down to lock the bolt
at the base of the door then stayed nearby, unlocking and locking the door as
the last customers left. Just as I bolted the door after the final one, a
shadow came between me and the lowering sun. I looked up to see three men in
business suits coming up the front walk. I shook my head and smiled an apology.
We’re closed
, I mouthed.

The man in the center, silhouetted against the bright light,
was a tall, thoroughly intimidating man with steel-gray hair and a coal black
suit. He shook his head, pulled a wallet out of his pocket and flipped it open
to show an ID. I squinted through the glass, trying to decipher it.

“It’s okay Melanie, let them in.” I jumped, and turned to
see Mr. Jackson standing above me, his expression carefully composed.

“Uh, yes sir.”

I unlocked the bolt and the man pulled the door open as I
tried to scramble back out of the way. They barely waited for me to move,
almost stepping on me in their hurry to get in.

“Jackson,” growled the grey-haired man, “we have things to
discuss.”