the brick, four vignettes

November 2083 - James Porter is 26, April Hutchins is 20 // Mariah Buchanan is 25 // Berjes Monif is 38, Jodie Larson is 28 // Beau Jackson is 20.

*soundtrack: "Brick" by Ben Folds Five *

11:13 a.m.
This is only the second time James has been back on campus since he left it, and it's bringing back memories both good and bad. These apartments weren't here when he was, and neither was the sculpture park and coffee bar on the corner. They've still got the student pub though. And that building at the end of the street, that old stuffy Academy Hall, was where he spent his senior year with Mariah.

This is only the second time he's been back on campus, and the first time was for her, the girl with the warm dark skin and bright blue eyes, the first girl he ever loved. He loved her and she spun him for one hell of a loop. He doesn't do drama. He doesn't do games, and Mariah is the reason why.

Maybe if he'd have met April a few years earlier, he might be up for it, but not now. Not after Mariah. She broke him good and clean. It's a shame she never seemed to do the same for herself.

But the way it happened, he didn't meet April a few years earlier. And the way things are, she's much more drama than he wants to deal with. But as put off as he is, she hasn't been in to work at the bar for a couple weeks and he wonders why. That's why he's here, back on campus after three years, knocking on her door.

And she answers.

"Hi," she says, which comes out like a cloud. She could read a phone book and it would feel light and breezy. And then there's her friend, the big, goofy one, standing behind her, poised and watchful like he was her body guard.

"You're lucky," she says. "I'm not usually up this early, but I have an appointment in a little bit."

"It's not early," James says. "It's almost noon."

Still, behind her, the guy stares. "You can back off, Big Brother," James says to him. "I'm just here to talk."

"It's okay," April tells him. Big Brother uncrosses his arms, and she leads them outside.

The air holds the cool chill of morning, and the sky holds dark clouds that threaten snow. April clenches her hands in her lap and moves her hips closer to steal his warmth.

James is mostly here of his own accord. Max wondered about her too, but as much as he might have liked her, Max is Max, and his college girls quit on him all the time.

"I didn't say I was quitting," she says. She cowers under her own shoulders, more than just feeling chilly. "I kind of got into this little situation," she says. "Ummm, pregnant."

"You're scared it's his?"

"I don't know, maybe."

"It's not his," James says.

"Oh," she says.

He smiles lightly. "You'd think he'd get around like he does if that could happen? He's got that shit fixed."

She nods. "I guess he would."

"Well anyway," James says. "I don't work for him anymore after this either. I'm done picking up his scraps."

"Where are you going?"

"Nowhere he'd think to look for me."

"You're going to be a tax accountant, aren't you?"

He laughs. He doesn't know how she manages to laugh sometimes, but she does.

"I think I'll get out of the city," he says. "I've always wanted to have a cabin out in the woods or something, with a dog. But I kind of have to disappear. You can't really quit a job like I have."

"So you're not going back to tell him?"

James shakes his head. "He can find out on his own. I guess I just wanted to come see if you were still alive, or something."

"I'm alive," she says.

He would kiss her, if this were some other reality, where she weren't so messed up, and involved with Max, and pregnant by whoever. He did like her. But he already knows she's too much game for him. And besides, he has a feeling Big Brother might want a kiss more. James is a peaceful kind of guy. He isn't about to move in on anybody's girl - not right here on the dude's own porch anyway.

So he stands then. But as he gets up, he does give her a good solid squeeze right on the fleshy part of her upper thigh. "Be good, April," he says.

"Yeah, you too," she says.

***

11:42 a.m.
Mariah's office is a sanctuary. It's safe because she's made it that way. It's comfortable like home, with plump goosefeather pillows and aromatherapy candles. She wants her patients to think of her as a friend. They tell her their most trusted secrets, and she wants them to feel safe here.

But maybe she felt too comfortable here herself, taking some paperwork down the hallway in an afternoon gap in her appointments. She only left her door open and unattended for a few minutes.

She almost never would have noticed the note if it hadn't been left right there by her open laptop. She stares for a moment before she's sure she'd left that pad blank. She knows it was, and she knows that's not her handwriting. She didn't see anyone coming or going, but that's for sure not her handwriting, and she has a good idea whose it is.

She lowers herself into her chair, anxiously taking in each word, afraid of what it might say. She recognizes his handwriting immediately - hard but precise, quiet and to the point. It's these moments, so unsuspecting, just when she's managed to settle back into her life, that he comes flooding back to her again. Just a few words, no address, no signature.

"You were right, it wasn't a good job. You were right about a lot of things, so you don't need to be so bitter."

She rises from her chair and she speaks out loud to her empty office. "I'm not bitter."

The memories come rushing back to her, even when she doesn't want them. Oh how they used to fight, how they argued, over anything and everything - about their careers and their lives and their friends, and even the goddamn weather! How he got under her skin. They weren't right for each other, they were all wrong, but how they got to each other, how they got into each other.

She says it again. "I'm not bitter."

She was right about how wrong they were, but he's wrong because she's not bitter. She's happy. She has everything.

She clenches her fists and she screams, "I'm not bitter!"

Her boss walks by her open door, startled, but he carries on. In the hallway, the nurses are staring.

She fumbles for her cell phone and dials her husband's number. She just needs to hear his voice, but the secretary picks up. "He's in a meeting, honey. Is it serious?"

"Serious?" she asks.

"Yes, should I tell him it's an emergency?"

"No," Mariah says. "It's not. Not an emergency."

She closes and locks her door. She puts on a quiet piano concerto, lights her aromatherapy candles and lays down with her eyes closed, trying to push the uninvited memories from her mind.

***

11:50 a.m.
Berjes wonders if maybe everyone's on edge this week. The holidays are coming up quickly, and it's just days before the elections. But holidays always put people on edge, with all the things left to finish. All the things waiting to be decided.

Does he go to his ex-wife's Christmas dinner, or doesn't he? She invited him to be there, but of course, did she really mean it or not? Does he really want to be there with the new boyfriend? Is she going to marry him? Is he better in bed?

But none of that is really important. All that really matters is what's best for their daughter, Hazel, and doesn't she deserve to have her dad there on Christmas?

And should he finally take his wedding pictures down off the wall?

Yes, he should. And he did, finally, just this fall, and replaced them with other pictures.

The pictures a person hangs on a wall, they're just one of those things that gets looked over. They blend into the scenery hardly making an impact, you hardly notice what the pictures actually contain. Hailey, how he looked over her for so many years, until finally she was gone, and here he was removing the wedding pictures of some marriage that barely had a chance to exist.

It's a lesson. Pay attention, plenty of things are snuffed out before they ever had a chance to exist.

Jodie comes into his office without barely a knock, just a light rap on the wood and there she is. She was never one to knock, even before all of this. But Berjes thinks if she's going to fight him like an enemy, then she needs to stop coming into his office like a friend.

What she's doing to him now is just infuriating. He's good at his job. He's on top of his career and he's well respected for what he does. He's done a lot for this hospital, building both the psychiatric department and the obstetrics department in his term. He gave her her job, he guided her, he helped shape her career into what it is. And this is how she pays him back?

"So I finished that proposal, for the women's clinic," she says. "I suppose you'll probably make sure it gets lost or something."

"I take my job seriously, Jodie. Your proposal will be heard."

"I never did anything cruel to you, Jodie. When did I ever do anything but help your career?"

She snickers. "Well having your job would really help my career."

"This isn't some game," he says. "This isn't a popularity contest. This is about skill and experience, and you're not taking it seriously."

"I have to go," she says. "I have an appointment in five minutes."

She starts to back away from him, but he's not done with her yet. He's not.

It surprises her that he takes her hand. It even surprises himself. He expects the cold touch of her skin this time, her fingers so small and icy in his own. He feels inclined to hold them until they're warm, but he knows she won't let him touch her that long. He says, "I didn't want to end up resenting you over this."

For a moment she stops, she pauses, her face softens, her eyes grow wide as if split right open. Something seems to resonate.

But then she snatches her hand away, pulling it close to her chest, tucked firm underneath the other. "Well, that's your choice, isn't it?"

He's said all he can say to her. Now, he's done.

"I have an appointment," she says. "I have to get changed."

***

12:03 p.m.
Beau sits down to wait as April goes to sign in at the counter. There's a clock on the wall, and she's actually three minutes late. Beau wonders if this is like at the dentist, where they make you wait an extra half hour, just out of spite, for being late. It's like punishment.

"Are you nervous?" he asks her, as she settles down beside him.

"No, I don't think so," she says. She stares at him for a moment, edging on a thought. "Do you think my mom thought about doing this to me? Because my mom was single, she didn't know whoever the hell my dad was, she could have done this to me."

"But she didn't," Beau says.

"But maybe she should have. Because now I'm here, and I'm a wreck."

"Do you think I would have been reborn to somebody better? Do you think I'd be different, in some other life? I'd be happier?"

"I don't know," he says. "I'm glad you're here."

She watches the corridor, the nurses coming and going. She doesn't take her eyes away. "Sometimes I wonder if you'd be better off without me."

A nurse comes around the corner. "April Hutchins," she says. There's a catch in April's breath, and she sits so still that the nurse says her name again. "April? She's ready for you."

"Okay," April says, not to the nurse, but softly to Beau. Then she stands, and follows the nurse down the hall.

For a few minutes, Beau tried to read some magazines. Mostly fashion magazines, women dressed like metal birds, and advertisements for makeup. He watches the people come and go, some pregnant, some not, some trying to have babies, some trying not to have them. He's never been in a women's clinic before. He doesn't even know how many pregnant women he's seen before, all up close, and round.

He goes downstairs to use the bathroom. He gets a bag of cookies from the vending machine, and a bottle of Coke. There's lots of time to wait, but he wants to be there when she comes out.

He feels inclined to proclaim that this was not his fault, but that would mean confessing why they're here. And for now, no one knows. He tries not to look at them. Some of them try not to look back. How many roomfuls of women sit down to wait and then get called in? He starts to keep count, but then he loses it. He starts counting again from the beginning.

She'll be better after this. He can help her. He can love her and help her get better, and then they'll both be better. They can start all over again. And if they lose track along the way, they'll start again from the beginning. They have to. Because the further she sinks, the more he can feel himself drowning.

One hour and forty-seven minutes pass, two attempts to read the magazines, thirteen nameless women come and gone, and then April is there, standing in front of him, her face an ashy void.

He stands.

"Okay," she says. "It's done."

The hallway back to the elevators seems to take forever to traverse. At the mouth of the hallway, the doors stand open, and icy cold air rushes into the building. Outside there are flurries filling the sky, melting quickly at the pavement before they've even had a chance to land.

He reaches his arm around her waist, pulling her even closer as they break the barrier into cold. He takes her home.

*******

(footnotes: James // Mariah // April, Beau)

notes: please pardon my very badly drawn note in Mariah's scene... and the badly drawn snow in the last shot. The first snowfall of the season actually happened earlier in the day, and I wanted the snowfall for the last shot, but I couldn't make it happen again for some reason. So I drew it ;)