Sondra Friedman
The Wallet
Jim parked in his usual spot, five cars from the elevator door, far enough to avoid the smokers and close enough to avoid unnecessary steps.
As he made his way inside, he spotted a wallet lying on the ground. It almost blended into the pavement, but he had a birdwatcher's eye and caught the sheen in the leather. Naturally he picked it up. Someone was probably in a panic over the thing and he could use a bit of heroics.
The wallet was thin, black, and of good quality, without nicks in the leather or loose strings along the binding -- unlike his own mottled
brown version. According to the license, it belonged to Graham Deaver, who turned thirty last month and stood six feet two with blue eyes,
a sturdy jaw line, and the smooth-faced look of a man who's slept with many, many beautiful women. Jim didn't know any Grahams,
but figured he could deliver the wallet to the reception desk and make this one's day.
He pushed the up button as he studied the wallet, tightening and releasing his grip around it to see if his fingers left any impression. The elevator was lethargic. He pressed the button a second time, then a third, until the doors opened with a ubiquitous ding that seemed to say: "We heard you the first time."
In the wallet were three credit cards, two of them platinum, along with ninety dollars, a bank receipt with a checking account number visible,
a debit card, and a photo of a young woman in a white string bikini. She looked Polynesian, exotic, pouring out of the itsy bitsy straps. The photo made Jim feel strange and fluttery. For a moment, he forgot his $43,789 in debt, monthly mortgage, equity loan, wife with a passion for jewelry and son who just made the varsity hockey team and wanted new equipment instead of a family pizza to celebrate.
The McAllis Insurance Agency reception area was comprised of the receptionist and her desk, two brown couches, and a fish tank full of murky, bubbling water. Jim headed swiftly past to the kitchenette and poured himself a cup of coffee. The creamer supply had been replenished that morning and he took four instead of two, promising to make up for it later. There was a conference call in ten minutes. The new sales rep was wearing pink lip gloss and said hello when she passed. The call got delayed. Someone couldn't get the dial-in number to stop beeping. Jim folded post-it notes into airplanes and flew them across his desk. They went nowhere, of course, but it amused him to see them try.
It wasn't until he was on the way home, driving near the bank, the same branch as Deaver's, that he remembered the wallet. He pulled into the turn lane and hesitated with the blinker clicking. Just a tad, a bit, nothing noticeable, maybe a print-out of Deaver's balance; a taste of what might be in there. People skimmed all the time. Business depended on it. When it came down to it, how was a skim any different than any other kind of commission? A tip, a service fee, a tax on engaging with the human race? Entire countries survived on skims.
Besides, the things Jim wanted weren't luxuries, they were dreams, really. A barrel of motivation to remove the blub growing around his waist. A canoe. A cabin on the west side of Whidbey Island with a view of the Olympic Mountains. A pair of waterproof, nitrogen-filled, 7.5x43 binoculars for bird-watching. Quiet.
Out the window, he spotted a brown creeper pecking a fir tree. "I don't need this." He pulled back into the lane and headed home.
The debt wasn't as bad as incidences he'd read about in the news. There was one doof who spent five years paying
off his credit card bills with new credit cards until he owed $200,000 in interest alone. That wasn't Jim's scenario.
Jim's debt came from a real estate scheme his college buddy convinced him to get in on. They gave money to rental property
investors with this hot new mortgage company that went under six months later and swallowed their investments like a great, big slice of cherry pie.
The obvious solution was to tell his wife, but what's obvious isn't always easy, or right, in each given situation. When it came to
financial matters, Stacie claimed "brain agita" and told him she'd handle household issues and Keith's schooling and activities
if he'd take on the money part of the equation. To balance the load, she took a part-time job as a sales clerk in a jewelry shop
at the town center. This worked out perfectly for maintaining her accessories collection, but did little to alter the overall landscape. Plus Jim despised the costume earrings she insisted were queen-like and reminiscent of her proudest moment: the time she starred as Cleopatra in a college play and paraded across the stage in a gold cape with earrings that hung down to her shoulders.
Stacie served baked ziti for dinner that night. It was overcooked, but he ate two helpings anyway, then collapsed on the couch like a stuffed puffin.
"How about we share one of those milky chocolate bars?" Stacie offered, heavy gold hoops dragging down her earlobes. "I tried a bite
at the supermarket -- a mouthful of heaven. We could go halfsies."
"Why not." He thought of the extra creamers and chocolate fat molecules becoming friends.
She took a large bite and amazed him by how much she could fit in her mouth at one time. When she finished, she wiped her lips with
the back of her hand and cuddled beside him, smelling like a candy shop. A marshmallow of a woman, his wife; himself --
a Graham cracker? He chuckled at his own joke and wished she hadn't opened that chocolate bar.
The wallet spent the night in his jacket. He woke up with indigestion and dressed while acid burned the lining of his stomach.
"You look nice," Stacie said.
"Do I?" Now and then he wondered if she ever said what she meant anymore. He couldn't recall a comment of hers that'd stuck with him over the years. Stacie had wonderful expressions for food, however. When they first married, she'd melted a bag of chocolate chips and served him a bowlful with whipped cream. "Crème a la cocoa, a la crème." Silliness. She ate fried bananas to get her "daily fruit infusion" and believed a stick of butter helped everything go down. Since their son's birth, she'd gained a pound or two a year. Soon Keith would be off to college. Jim hoped for his son's success and for other things too.
He pulled his coat on and pecked Stacie on the cheek, thinking about how he might find Graham Deaver's address in the company database.
His office could be two floors above, around the corner from Marla and the rest of the accounting team. He'd never ventured into that
territory, and now he would be sure to avoid it.
The picture of Deaver had grown even rosier overnight: an apartment with a view of Lake Washington, walking distance from the
waterfront, and that ice cream shop that still makes root beer floats. A black leather couch and good lighting -- no tiger-print pattern
pillows or lamps with gold ornaments stitched around the circumference. Decent taste in music, and beer, a refrigerator full of bottles from the brewery in Woodinville. A king-sized bed shared with various women, all young, fit and obsessed with being free and, of course, naked.
Best of all, a house on Whidbey Island to spend weekends, alone, watching the sun rise over the water and sparrows soar into parting clouds.
Maybe catch a red-tailed hawk in flight, or even better, a purple martin. Hikes along the beachfront before the rest of the world awoke,
and the sound of birds singing to one another.
To help pay off the debt, Jim had told Stacie they needed the home equity loan for the new heater and pending college tuition. That was
a year ago, and he was still paying down the loan and trying to slowly siphon bits off to cover the debt. He also stopped buying
double-shot lattes, canceled his annual birding trip, and downgraded his Redwest Salon haircuts to QuickDo's, which made him look
like Lurch from The Munsters. Stacie and Keith had a field day teasing him but saving twenty-five dollars each month added up, a little. It all added up, a little.
On the way to work, the wallet sat beside his own in the passenger seat. He regarded them both. One: battered, bloated, with bad credit rating. The other: sleek, polished, cash-flow positive.
He could blow-up his car. There was an empty lot a few miles from his house. He could make it look as if he'd been killed in an accident. Stacie would get the money from his insurance policy and there would be plenty to take care of her and Keith. Keith could go to one of those private colleges in the northeast where people come from families with connections and a certain degree of certainty. He could sneak up into Canada; hop a ferry to Victoria Island for a visit and continue north from there, hide out for a few months then ferry back to Whidbey, returning as Graham Deaver, the single ornithologist. "I'm with the Audubon Society," he'd tell the cute girls at the coffee shops. They'd take him for an eccentric. He'd grow his hair out to prove their point and wear a Michael Bolton-style ponytail in summer. Maybe they'd ridicule him. Maybe they wouldn't.
There are multiple layers of dirt in this world, he reasoned. Few people take the time to consider the differences among surface horizon, subsoil and substratum, not to mention bedrock. Dirt helps plants grow and worms prosper. Birds need worms and the best soil comes from worm crap. He was hardly breaking new ground here.
At the front desk was a small sign: "Wallet missing. Reward if found."
His right pocket hung lower than his left. He could leave the wallet in an envelope after hours. Stick it in the mailbox on his way home. Tell them he found it in the bathroom. Or in the hallway, the cafeteria, a conference room. No one had to know. No harm done.
The receptionist nodded as he approached. He paused, thinking she was about to say something. When she didn't, he disappeared inside.
"What's news today, Jim?" said Sara-lynn, the new sales rep with strawberry blonde hair.
He paused to consider the question. "Nothing really -- and you?"
"Same old, same old." She smiled and picked up the telephone.
At five o'clock, he stretched his arms and glanced out the window. A spotted towhee landed on the lone fir tree decorating the back lot. Early for a visit to these parts, he noted. The bird kicked its feet along a branch, a male; its head was black and eyes red and gleaming.
On the way out, Sara-lynn told him her car was in the shop and wondered if she could get a lift to the bus stop. Instinctively, Jim reached for the wallet in his pocket. "My pleasure."
She smelled like a butter cake. It must've been her perfume or skin lotion,
but the aroma made him hungry just the same. Thankfully her chatter distracted him as he pulled out of the parking lot and concentrated on the road ahead. "I can take you all the way home, if that would help. I'm in no rush tonight."
"Don't worry. I like the bus; it gives me magazine time."
"I insist." He drove past the bus stop and turned onto the highway. A minute of silence filled the car as he merged, swerving slightly when the traffic lane hesitated before letting him in.
"There's a bus stop right off the ramp," Sara-lynn offered as they neared the next exit. "How about you drop me there? I think that makes more sense than fighting rush hour."
He remembered there was a sanctuary a mile or two past this particular exit. Years ago he'd seen an impressive array of birds there. Back then the trail was dirt instead of paved with brambles and shrubs poking out, making it easy to veer into a thicket where you could hear the chirps and whistles of any number of creatures. With the sun close to setting, they might make it in time to catch a goldeneye or red-breasted sapsucker. Who knows, she might even let him put a hand on her shoulder while he guided her line of sight. He pulled the car off the highway.
"Jim, you're going the wrong way."
"I just want to show you something."
"What exactly do you need to show me?"
"That didn't come out right, did it." Maybe she noticed the extra bulge in his coat pocket too? He turned the car into a driveway and headed back to the station, pulling his coat over his thigh so the wallets didn't bunch up on one another. "There's this sanctuary down there that's something to see, that's all. No harm done?"
"No harm done but I've got to get home."
"The thing is, I really love birds and last time I went there I saw all these birds and nearly tripped over a wood duck that lost its way --
a vivacious fellow with a green head. I had to escort him back to the estuary. You know how I did it? I spoke in honk-lish. Honk, honk, honk, honk." He honked another time, just in case.
"That's okay." She looked out the window. "Everybody has a hobby."
"I suppose."
"It's good you didn't stop there." She zipped her coat to the tippy top. "Now you can make it home in time for dinner."
When he dropped her off, she waved in a half-friendly way. He didn't get back on the highway or go to the sanctuary, instead he pulled into the cul-de-sac across the street, parked in front of a darkened house and waited until the bus arrived, watching her petite figure climb up the stairs into the light. Then he waited some more until the next bus came, and watched pedestrians climb aboard that one too. The heater crooned inside the car. Likely he'd need to replace the coolant or maybe the core itself. For now, it sounded like a low call from a loon passing
over water.
©2007 by Sondra Friedman
