Misterdoe's Fiction » shopping

One Very Busy Day (part one)

Misterdoe — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 05:49:37 +0000

One Very Busy Day (8-9-00) by Storytella2000

Copyright (c) 1999-2000 MDG Sites. All rights reserved.

Like Paulette said earlier, I’ve been going through some changes, and I guess she must still be connected to my imagination somehow because she hasn’t been around. Either that, or she’s just been silently stalking me and staying out of my way.

Anyway, this morning, I went out for coffee and such, and came back with a full coffee tray and two bags. As I approached the front door of the building with both hands full, hoping somebody would be inside and open the door for me, the door swung open. By itself.

I started to panic, looking around quickly to make sure no one saw, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. I quickly stepped inside so that the door would close, waiting until it did before thanking Paulette.

“Here, let me take that,” I heard her say. Then I felt a tug at one of the bags, the one with my toasted-buttered-and-jellied bagel in it. I thought it was safe, half-remembering some crazy thing about Paulette not needing to eat, so I let it go.

No sooner did I do that than my wax-paper-wrapped bagel floated out of the bag, which then settled down onto the floor. A bit disappeared from the bagel, accompanied by a soft moan that seemed to come from the bagel itself.

“Hey, that’s my breakfast!” I protested, reaching for the bag. But as I approached, the bag slid away from me.

“I know,” Paulette said, with a grin in her voice, “and it’s good.”

Just then the elevator door opened, and I jumped at the floating bagel to grab it before anyone on the elevator could see it, bumping my unseen breakfast thief in the process. As the elevator opened, I could see it was empty, drawing a giggle from my invisible companion and a groan from me.

The bag on the floor rose and floated over into the elevator behind me, after which Paulette said, “I’ll take that.” My bagel removed itself from my loose grip and another bite disappeared from it.

==========

“Hey, wait a minute,” I said, as a snippet of an earlier conversation popped into my head. “I thought you didnt’ need to eat?”

“Didn’t need to eat?” repeated a voice coming from a mouth plainly full of food. “I never said anything like that. Must have been your imagination.” Then a few seconds later there was a burst of laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

She took a few seconds to compose herself before replying, “It *was* your imagination. Do you remember a character named Maria from some bad dream you tried to make into a story? You called it ‘Imaginary Catfight’ but you wound up ditching it, remember?”

I did vaguely recall, but hunger was playing with my perception. A few seconds later, though, as the elevator stopped on my floor, I realized that something wasn’t right here.

“Wait a minute. How do you know about Maria? That was a dream–” I whispered, as the elevator doors opened. Again I grabbed at what *had* been my bagel, missing it this time as it dove into the bag it came from. I reached for the bag, but again it slid out of my reach before lifting itself from the floor and floating out of the elevator. I was worried that someone would see it, but if they did, no one said anything. I picked up the rest of my stuff and walked down the hall toward my desk.

==========

“You wrote the story down, remember? Hel-LO? It was right there in black and white, or whatever color you write in and white… and getting back to me eating: I’m alive, OK? Maybe I wasn’t *born* like you, but still I have substance. I have a body, and it needs food.”

“So how come I’ve never seen–” I started, before she cut me off as we approached my desk.

“–never seen me eat? Never known me to have to ‘use the facilities’? Such questions! I have to confess, I was trying to live up to my screen name, Mystery Woman. I wanted to create an aura of mystery about myself. Silly, huh? But now you know better.”

As I put the rest of my stuff on my desk, my supervisor called me into her office to go over some things she wanted me to do. She got couple of emergency phone calls about some things that needed to be done right away, so I forgot all about my coffee and such until I returned to my desk about thirty minutes later, to find two large empty coffee cups, an opened bagel wrapper full of pieces of bagel crust and bits of butter and jelly, and a note: “Thanks for breakfast! It was good. Hope you get to eat something before too late… Love, Paulette.”

How do you like that? When she decides to show me she’s not quite the “fantasy creature” I thought she was, she does it by making me go hungry until lunch.

==========

I never got a chance to get myself something else to eat, so I was a little bit huffy when lunchtime came. I went out to move my car, and then headed to Nicky’s for a slice of his famous white pizza.

When I got there, Tony, Nicky’s son, looked at me like I owed him money (not a good thing) and said, “You Doe?”

“Huh?” Whatever I had approximating a “spider sense” was tingling like mad. I knew I had never done anything to this man, so I had nothing to worry about.

“Are you Bryan Doe?” he repeated. Then I realized that the look on his face was just his normal expression. I told him I was, and asked why he wanted to know.

“This weird lady came in here,” he said, “and picked up two slices of pizza and said if a guy named Doe came in here, to tell him he’s taken care of.”

“Weird?” I said, expecting the worst. “Weird how?”

“Well, it’s 90-somethin’ degrees and humid outside, like hot soup an’ all, and this chick comes in here with her head all wrapped up in scarves, wit’ shades on and leather gloves on her hands. She had on some extra-tight jeans, though. Kept expectin’ ‘em to split, they wuz so tight. Somethin’ wrong wit’ her?”

“No, she’s basically all right,” I said. Tony looked like he didn’t buy it, but I’m sure he had forgotten the whole thing thirty seconds later. Of course, there was no real doubt as to who the visitor was. It could only ahve been… OK, it could have been a few people.

8o)

So I headed back to the office in the sweltering heat, stopping in the convenience store around the corner from my job to pick up a soda and a juice to drink with lunch. Blanca, a very cute and rather busty South American woman who works there, looked up and smiled as I entered.

“Bry-en, right?” she asked. I smiled and nodded, surprised that she remembered my name from the few times I gave her a lift partway to her job.

“Some lady was here, strange lady, with scarfs wrap around her head, and gloves and sunglasses on inside the store. She said she know dat I know you, and dat you would be here for somethin’ to drink. Then she said dat you really come in here to look at me. Is dat troo?”

I was shocked. I couldn’t believe Paulette would play me out like that. But I was cornered, so I owned up to the truth.

Blanca smiled. “Iss OK. I like when you look at me. I like looking at you, too. Just wish my Inglis better so we could talk more, you know?”

While I was still trying to absorb this, she continued, “You online? Here’s my email address,” and gave it to me. I gave her mine, which she folded and put in her purse. Looking back at me, she smiled and said, “I tell you story one day. You won’t believe, but iss true. I tell you one day soon.”

I thanked her, smiling, and left, floating on a cloud. I was still in disbelief that Paulette would put me on the spot like that, but considering the latest turn of events, I thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all (I really HATE being put on the spot, generally speaking).

==========

I went into the building and up to my desk. There was a note on my desk to see the supervisor. I went in, hoping she’d make it quick so I could eat while the pizza was hot.

She said, “There was a young woman here just a while ago, who said she was a friend of yours. She wouldn’t give her name, and she didn’t want to wait for you. She just left a box with two slices of pizza at the reception desk, with two sodas. The receptionist was worried about her being all wrapped up liek that, in all this heat, and then with those extra-tight jeans on. Is she, you know, OK?”

*Just great,* I thought. *What was Paulette thinking of when she came in here all wrapped up liek that?* She should have known that she would create a stir, and that I would get caught in it.

I fumbled through an explanation of how she’s generally OK, just having some problems after a family situation, hoping the boss didn’t detect that I was making it up as I went along.

Then, when I was finished in her office, and left to TRY to eat my lunch, teh coworkers gathered around with all their questions. “Who was she is she your girlfriend what’s with the scarves and gloves in all this heat and them tight jeans are you SURE she’s not your girlfriend blah blah blah.”

I managed to escape from the questioning wolfpack and into the conference room to eat my pizza. I had to wonder just what had gotten into Paulette to come into my job in a getup like that, and I must have mumbled it out loud.

“Well, what would you have preferred?” asked an angry voice from thin air, somewhere to my right.

My immediate reaction was just to rest my forehead against my left hand and sigh, before answering. “Paulette,” I said, “I appreciate the lunch and all, but did it occur to you that you could have just called and ordered the pizza and told me about it? I could have gone and picked it up and would still have appreciated the thought. Now they’re gonna be watching ME as well as looking for you. I work for Social Services, remember?”

“Speaking of which,” she continued, “what’s with your boss hinting that something’s wrong with me? I’m invisible! I can’t go in there like everybody else! If I’m gonna go into teh place and buy food, I have to do it without causing a scene, and the scarves are the only way to do it. Until somebody figures out how to make me visible, that is.”

==========

I didn’t think it was time for me to answer that just yet, so I dug into the first of the slices. Then I thought about her clothes. “What did you do with the clothes, anyway?”

“Same thing I always do with them. I put them away.”

“No, I mean where? Could somebody who saw you in them find them anywhere?” I asked, hoping she hadn’t stashed them somewhere in the building.

She sighed heavily and said, “I put them right here, OK?” At “here” the long-sleeved Arizone Diamondbacks baseball jersey and tight jeans materialized on her, but not the scarves or gloves. Seeing how the Diamondbacks logo was stretched by her torso made it difficult to continue with the conversation, so I just sat, ate, and watched her. And thought.

OK, so if I suddenly became permanently invisible, maybe at first I wouldn’t be so discreet about it either. Then I realized taht wasn’t a fair comparison. I was looking at it from the perspective of someone who is visible. Paulette never was.

Then I began to realize that I really didn’t know Paulette’s perspective. I knew more about Kim, Nikki, and the others than I did about Paulette, and I “made” her. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t finish her story. I didn’t try to get much info out of her, and she must have figured I didnt’ want to know.

So we called a truce.

I was feeling like a first-class heel when I had finished the pizza, and said so. I thanked her for lunch, then she kissed me and thanked me for breakfast, apologizing for makign me go hungry until lunch.

“So is this what I have to look forward to from now on?” I asked, laughing. “Competing with you for food?”

She laughed. “No, not really. I might start hanging out in the bagel shop in the mornings, you know, and ‘haunt’ the place.” She let out a wicked cackled and continued, “Maybe I’ll materialize some clothes and fool around with that big flirt Sergio… give him a taste of his own medicine.”

“Come on, Paulette, don’t start anything. Why not just go back home and wait for me?” I said.

“No, sorry. I’ve been hanging around home too long. It’s time for me to get out and about. I need to stir things up, start getting into things, you know?”

Oh, no!!!!

==========

While Bryan was still busy chowing down on that surprise lunch I had brought to his job, I quietly and completely invisibly (?) left his job, wondering just what else I could get into…

I thought about going over into the Galleria Mall and maybe causing a “ghost” scare there… or maybe raising some sand over at the library… or maybe even (I had to giggle) head on down to the police station and cut up over there. I have to confess, I liked the police station idea best; the idea of all those super-macho-posing cops reacting to a woman none fo them can see struck me as hilarious.

Then I remembered they have guns.

So I headed over to the Galleria. As I entered the Macy’s entrance, I had to step carefully to avoid bumping into the small crowd of homeless people and drifters that congregate there. I kinda felt sorry for these folks, but there was no way I could do anything for any of them without spooking the person I’d be trying to help.

I got into Macy’s after slipping by a very nervous-looking security guard, trying to figure out who brushed against him when there was no one around. All kinds of ideas about what kidn of mischief I could cause came to mind, but one stood out, and so I headed for teh escalator.

Right after I stepped on, I felt something tap my right ankle, and I couldn’t help gasping, though I tried to cut it short.

“Oh, sorry about that,” said the man holding the cane that had bumped me. “I didn’t mean to hit you.” He was blind, and so he couldn’t know that the person he bumped couldn’t *be* seen.

The woman approaching the escalator behind him shot him a strange look. I wanted to laugh, but at the same time I felt bad for him. And for *me*; I had to acknowledge him somehow, without alerting the woman behind him.

I leaned VERY close to his ear adn whispered, “That’s OK, sir. People walk and bump into me all the time.”

“What’s the matter?” he chirped in response. “Do they think yer invisible?” Of course, he laughed at his little joke, but from the look on the face of the woman behind him, she must have thought the man was going psychotic. She just about turned and ran back up the escalator.

*Oh well,* I thought. *At least I can talk to him now.*

“No, sir,” I answered him, speaking normally only after seeing no one in the immediate vicinity of the rapidly approaching base of the escalator. “Mostly they’re just being rude.”

His cane tapped the floor, and he readied himself to step forward. We both stepped off and he turned to me and said, “Well, you have good afternoon, young lady.”

“You too, sir,” I thought, wondering what that exchange would have been like if the escalator had been crowded.

Ahead of me lay my destination… the piano display.

==========

This Macy’s had had regular acoustic pianos, player pianos, and MIDI’d (oops… electronic) pianos at least since they took over that store from Sterns a few years ago (who took over from Abraham & Straus, who took over from…)

Back before Bryan actually started writing stories, he used to sometimes have this picture in his mind of an invisible woman playing the piano whenever he was in Macy’s and they had their player or MIDI pianos going. And as you all know, when it comes to stories, his wish is my command…

I approached a grand old Steinway, which seemed to be calling out for someone to play it. I limbered my fingers, sat down on the bench, and just as I was about to start playing, I noticed an LCD panel and a row of LCDs. This was a MIDI’d grand piano masquerading as the old fashioned acoustic kind.

I never did like the MIDI grand pianos much. So often they sound detuned or something, not quite like the good old acoustic piano… Listen to me, 26 years old and I’m going on about oldstyle pianos…

Anyway, I pressed lightly on a key, just to see if it was set to playing. It was, so I started playing “Linus and Lucy,” looking all the while for a salesman to come running. Momentarily, one of the salesmen did come walking up, in a money suit, saying something over his shoulder about “not time for the demo disks yet.”

I jumped up from the piano bench, almost running into the neighboring piano in my haste. I had to move because this particular model had its disk drive directly over the center of the keyboard. If I’d stayed, he would have jabbed me in the back reaching for the disk drive.

I stood and watched as he pressed the disk eject button, then tried hard not to snicker at the look of consternation on hsi face when there was no disk in the drive.

“Hey, Ed,” the salesman called out. A particularly exasperated Hispanic man in a maintenance uniform appeared in a doorway a short way from teh piano.

“Ed, we don’t have ‘Linus and Lucy’ on the demo disks for any of the other pianos, do we?”

“Wha’ you talkin’ ’bout, Lenny?” Ed growled.

“We’re supposed to rotate the demo disks, so that the customers get to hear all the pianos, and I thought we only had ‘Linus and Lucy’ for the Steinway,” Lenny replied.

“Yeah? So?”

“I just heard ‘Linus and Lucy,’ and when I came over to check the Steinway, there was no disk,” Lenny said.

“Did you check the others?” Ed asked.

“Well, uh, no. No, I didn’t,” Lenny said sheepishly.

“Then whatcha callin’ me for? Can’t you do something yerself witout callin’ me? I don’t pay attention to what song’s on a stupid disk…” Ed trailed off as he stomped away.

Lenny walked over to the other pianos to check their drives for an errant disk. I decided to have some fun with him.

I tiptoed back to the piano while he was too far away to see the Steinway’s keys and played that one-finger “shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits” riff.

Lenny’s head jerked up so violently it seemed liek it should have flown off his neck. I let out a quick sputter before I realized that for a split second he was looking right into my eyes.

He came stalking over to the Steinway, looking around for pranksters, I guess, and reached for the disk drive. Again finding no disk, he turned and walked toward the other pianos.

I stood right by the right edge of teh keyboard and played the “da-da-da-duuuum” riff from Beethoven’s Fifth. Lenny whipped around, looking at the Steinway keyboard again. This time I didn’t wait for him to step away or even turn around, playing that “da-da-da-duuuuum” again while he was watching.

Evidently Lenny was a bit high-strung.

The man just exploded. It was like he just turned into a bunch of different people. Liek he had a bunch of different ways to react to the sight of a piano playing itself and decided to try to do all of them at once. It was like a private Robin Williams routine.

The man was all over the place, more places at one time that I knew was possible. The shoplifters must have had a field day, because it seemed like all the Macy’s personnel in the basement was there in an instant, trying to console or control Lenny.

And in bits and pieces, he told them what happened. “By itself, I tell ya,” he’d start, before veering off in three or four other directions, and then, “there wasn’t even a disk, just keys moving,” and then he’d jabber some more about whatever, and then, “A ghost, that’s what it was. They play pianos, don’t they?”

Ed crossed himself so many times while watching Lenny I thought he’d wear out his arm. Finally, two guys in white coats came and took Lenny away. As he went peacefully with them, I heard one fo the ladies from housewares saying, “At least he made six months this time. And he was doing so GOOD, too. Last time he only lasted three weeks, remember?”

OK, so my “fun” didn’t start out so good. But then I went down to the food court…

==========

In the food court, I did more or less what you would expect: I played with people’s food. But I saw something that made put all games aside and get serious for a bit.

There was a guy, sitting at a table, chewing away and ranting at his girlfriend over something or other that she did that he didn’t like. Now, I guess if I was visible I probably would have pretended not to see, like so many others do. But since I don’t have that “problem” I decided to do something about the situation.

The girl looked terrified as the brute ranted, calling her every name imaginable. I took a chance and whispered in her ear, “Would you like me to do something about this?”

I guess she must have thought she was imagining it, because she ignored me. She actually had no reaction. So I tried again. “Do you want me to teach him a lesson?” I whispered.

Her eyes darted back and forth for a couple of seconds, then she bit her lip and nodded, so subtly I almost missed it.

The guy managed to stop his stream of vitriol long enough to take a bite of his sandwich. Or at least, that’s what he INTENDED to do. Because when the sandwich was a few inches in front of his face I kind of helped it along. Instead of biting the sandwich he wound up wearing it.

I thought that maybe hte idea of something like that happening might set him straight. But I guessed wrong. Even though he HAD to see that his girlfriend never touched the sandwich, for some reason he decided that it was her doing, because he started screaming at her about how she was stupid to touch his food while he was eating, and so on and so forth.

“But, Todd, I –” she started, before he cut her off with more of his tantrum. I was surprised to find that her voice sounded exactly like mine, which gave me another idea.

==========

I got as close to her as I could and whispered in her ear, “Do you want to try this again?” She nodded.

“OK, this time look him straight in the eye,” I said, “and don’t flinch or smile or anything. And don’t shift your eyes away.” She directed her gaze toward Todd but her expression was totally blank.

I cleared my throat to get his attention, and then I started. “Todd,” I said, “you know I deserve better treatment than this. I want an apology right now, and a promise that you won’t go off on me like this ever again. In public or anywhere else.”

He was watching the girl from the point when I cleared my throat, so he could see her lips weren’t moving. By this point she was looking a bit more defiant. Todd sat there looking panic-stricken, not talking, not moving; I’m not sure he was even breathing. When I didn’t get the apology I asked for, I said, “Todd, I’m waiting.”

Still no reaction. So I picked up his cup of soda from the table. He followed it with his eyes as I took off the top but when I started to pour the soda out in his lap, he jumped up from the table and ran screaming from the food court. The defiant look on the girl’s face melted as Todd hightailed it from the Galleria.

But in my singleminded quest to avenge my “sister” I forgot about all the other dozens of people in the food court. Most of them reacted more or less like Todd, though maybe not quite as loud. By the time the mass exodus was over most of the food court was empty. I figured there was no need to continue whispering.

“Are you OK?” I asked the girl.

“Yeah, for now,” she said. “Who are you, anyway?”

“That doesn’t matter,” I said. “What does matter is that you deserve better treatment than that. There’s plenty of guys out there who can appreciate you and know how to treat you. No need to settle for that kind of treatment.”

I preached to her a little longer, and then left the food court. By this time all the mischief had been drummed out of me, so I went upstairs to do a little shopping. But as I got off the escalator I found something strange… a little girl, about four years old or so, staring me right in the eyes.

I shrugged it off. Figured it had to be a coincidence, but as I moved first closer to and then away from the little girl, I could see she was following me with her eyes.

I totally forgot myself and walked back towards the little girl, and I guess she must have thought my eyes were about to pop out of the sockets because that’s the look she gave me for a moment before dissolving into laughter. My hand went up over my mouth in shock, though I had the presence of mind to keep quiet. The little girl must have thought it was a game; she started giggling.

“Whatcha laughin’ at, sweetie?” her mother said.

“The lady’s making faces at me,” she said, still giggling.

The woman looked around. I wanted to run away, thinking I’d been discovered… I’d become visible somehow… but the woman didn’t seem to be able to see me. “What lady, honey?” she asked the little girl.

“The lady right there,” she said, pointing right at me.

“I don’t see anyone, honey,” the woman said. “Are you sure that’s not your imaginary friend Holly? She likes to hang out at the mall too, right?”

“That’s not Holly,” the girl said, a look of indignation on her face. “You don’t see the lady standing right there?”

This was getting too weird. I turned and walked away, not wanting to see how this little minidrama would unfold. Along the way I passed the elevator that led to the food court and checked the mirrored outer doors for a reflection. Not seeing any, I had to wonder how it was the little girl could see me. But soon it became apparent, as I passed other young children, that some of the younger ones, up to about age four, did in fact seem to be able to see me. Since according to some people I don’t even exist I had to wonder how it was these kids could see me. I figured maybe it had to do with their being so young, with vivid imaginations and still-forming minds. Or something. I don’t know…

Then I made my way to the Yankee Clubhouse store, tucked away in a seemingly forgotten corner of the store. With the success the Yankees have had this year (right up to a couple of weeks ago, anyway), I would have expected the store to be a mob scene. Maybe all the Yankee fans know the story Bryan keeps telling me about the ‘64 Phillies; maybe they think it’s all over.

Anyway, I went into the store and looked around for a bit, hoping to find a Derek Jeter sweatshirt with his number and “Derek” on teh back instead of “Jeter.” (Too bad the Yankees don’t license one with his FACE on it!) I knew that I could have done like I told Bryan I can do, and just “made” myself one, but I wasn’t really in the store to shop; I was there to give people reason to sit awake at night instead of sleeping.

But it seems that the tables were being turned on me, because when the salesman came out of the stockroom into the store… he could see me, too.

==========

“Is dere anyting I can do for you, miss?” the salesman asked, in a strong West Indian accent.

I tried to ignore him, willing someone else to be nearby that he could be speaking to. Someone *visible*. But when I turned and looked around, there was no one in the store but the two of us.

*What’s going on?!* I thought. *No one’s supposed to be able to see me!* I could accept little kids being able to, since their minds are still learning to sort out imagination and “reality.” But this guy was an adult! I mean, I’m a figment of Bryan’s imagination and even *he* couldn’t see me!

The salesman eyed me worriedly, and cautiously took a couple of steps toward me. “Are you OK, miss? Do you need–”

What I *didn’t* need was for this guy, a complete stranger who wasn’t even supposed to be able to see me, to get near enough to touch me. “No! I don’t need anything! Get away from me!” I backed away from him, going towards the front of the store, and in doing so I passed a mirror. I was able to confirm that there was nothing “showing,” nothing that he should have been able to see. Not *normally*, anyway.

“Miss–” he started again, before the phone rang, right by the cash register. As he ran back to answer it, I noticed a strong scent of something that somehow smelled both minty and mediciney. I couldn’t quite figure out what it was, so I tried to sneak a little closer to the register to see if it was coming from teh salesman. Maybe he spilled some kind of medicine on his outfit or something…

==========

I heard teh salesman say, “Hold on a sec, let me get the other phone,” just before putting down the phone by the register and going back into the storeroom. I inched closer to the register, noticing that the smell got stronger the closer I got to the register. It seemed to center on a large coffee mug sitting on teh counter right next to the cash register. It had a strange smell, like peppermint tea laced with Listerine.

I stood there, trying to figure out just what this stuff could be. I couldn’t think of anything I’d ever seen or known about that would give off an odor quite like this stuff…

A voice said, “Miss?” I nearly jumped on top of the counter. It was the salesman. I was so engrossed in thought that I hadn’t seen or heard him return.

“A li’l jumpy, are we?” he asked, in a sympathetic tone. “Whatever i’tis, miss, you should try to relax. You’ll be able to deal wid it better. Now, how can I ‘elp you today?”

I stood there, stunned, still not able to process that an adult could see me. It took a few seconds for me to find my voice.

“I, um, I’m looking for a Derek Jeter sweatshirt, one that says, um, ‘Derek’ on teh back instead of ‘Jeter.’” I swallowed, and tried to look casual, but I imagine I must have looked like I was in pain.

“A ‘Derek’ shirt?” he repeated. “Did you actually see someone wearin’ a shirt like dat?” I nodded.

“Well,” he said, “I t’ink it was prob’ly a special horder, ‘cuz we never get ‘Derek’ sweatshirt. I better check just to be sure, though. Be right back, OK?” As he left, he took the mug with the strange-smelling drink.

I took stock of the situation. It was obvious that the salesman had no way of knowing there was anything unusual going on, so there was no point in me overreacting. Strange as it may sound, if no one knows I’m supposed to be invisible, then it wouldn’t occur to them that anything might be wrong with them seeing me. Only I would know the difference, and since I had no idea just how many *other* people I’d run across who’d be able to see me, the best thing would be to play it cool. And maybe find out what it is that made me visible to them…

==========

I was *almost* relaxed by the tiem the salesman came back, with bad news. “I’m sorry, miss, but we don’t ‘ave any of dose shirts in stock. You probably ‘ave to go to de Stadium for a shirt like dat. But we ‘ave plenty of other Yankee stuff available, if you’re hinterested in showin’ off ya team,” he said with a smile.

I wasn’t quite as interested in showing off my team as I was in irritating Bryan just a *little* bit. His precious Mets had lost their shortstop, Rey Ordonez, for the rest of the season, and I just wanted to tease him a little bit. Though if they had any of those shirts with Derek’s face on them, I might have had to buy one. And not just to get on Bryan’s nerves…

I looked around a little, and told the salesman that I’d probably be back with a Mets fan that I’d be dragging in with me. That drew a smile.

“I see ya relaxed some,” he said. “I ‘ope ya don’t mind too much about me bein’ nosy ‘ere, but what was it dat had ya so woun’ up?”

I thought about my few-minutes-ago observation, and figured it wouldn’t hurt anything, really, to tell him. Either he’d believe or he wouldn’t. Either way, if I came back with money, the money would be the same color. But when I actually tried to *tell* him why I had been nervous, I got jittery again.

“Well, um,” I started. “See, it’s like this. You really aren’t, um, supposed to be able to see me.”

He raised one eyebrow. *Oh great, a Trekkie,* I thought.

“Whatcha mean?” he asked, in an flat voice.

“Wellll,” I drawled, “this may sound kind of strange, but… I’m actually a figment of someone’s imagination.”

He chuckled, then, in response to my double take, he quickly backpedaled. “Sorry, I don’t mean no offense or anyting, but my grandfather used to say almost de same ting, dat we all figments of our own imagination. Never ‘eard noone say dat ’bout demself, though.”

“Your grandfather said that?” I said. “Interesting. But what I meant was that I’m a figment of someone *else’s* imagination. In a way you can say that I don’t exist.”

“Don’t exist? ‘Ow can dat be?”

“I can’t explain it,” I said,”because I don’t really understand it myself. But that’s why I was so shocked that you could see me.”

“Hmm,” he started, as he took a sip of his brew. “I guess mebbe dis stuff really work, den.”

“What *is* that, anyway,” I said, quickly adding, “if you don’t mind *me* asking?”

“‘S a tonic from down ‘ome,” he said. “‘Sposed to ‘tune’ the mind and body. Jus’ a lil somethin’ from bock ‘ome in Barbados.”

“You mean,” I said, “that you can see me because of some homemade rotgut?” This time it was *my* turn for disbelief…

==========

Naturally, when it turned out that the salesman was able to see me because of some homemade brew he was drinking, it kind of left me speechless. Kind of seemed like Paul C’s Cathy and Greg story, in a way.

I left the Yankee Clubhouse store a little shaken up and found my way out of the Galleria. I still had some time to kill before Doe got off work, so I crossed Martine Avenue and went into the library to pass the time. I felt for the old woman who looked quite shaken to see the library’s revolving doors start going by themselves, but what could I do? It was either that or the handicapped entrance.

I went into the library and headed for the computer to check out the online catalog. Once I found what I was looking for, I headed to the sci-fi section and spent an hour or so there, trying to stay out of people’s way. I know I had originally gone out to stir things up, but the idea of anyone other than *maybe* Doe being able to see me took most of the mischief right out of me.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t as discreet as I should have been. I was standing in a narrow aisle, reading a book of Robert Silverberg’s collected stories, when a young guy entered the aisle. I saw the movement in the corner of my eye, and froze, too late realizing what he must be seeing.

But when there was no gasp, or yelp, or anything, I looked up to see that he was engrossed in a book. He evidently didn’t even see the large book floating above the aisle at eye level. I quickly stashed the book in the case in front of me and stood as close as I could to the bookcase behind me, with my back up against it. He did brush against my chest as he passed, but he was so into his book that he didn’t seem to notice.

That brief, offhand contact, though, awakened something in me. Somethign I didn’t even know was there. But the library was no place for that. Even if I could strip off my clothes and take care of the urge right then and there, I had no way of knowing if someone else who could see me would happen to cross my path. I had to hold on a bit longer.

But I found I was having some difficulty keeping my mind off that urge. I managed to get the situation under control by selecting the single most unattractive guy in the place, and just staring at him until the feeling went away.

That worked, all right; the feeling ended so quickly and finally I feared that maybe it moved without leaving a forwarding address. I knew there was no real need to worry about it, though; when the time arose, Doe would be able to take care fo that for me. At least, I hoped he would…

==========

So I left the library and headed for Sam Ash music store. By now it was 4:15, and Doe would be getting off work in 45 minutes, which would leave me a little time to browse before meeting him at his job.

The store was packed. I overheard one of the salesmen claiming that the one of the guitars, in a locked case, “used to belong to Jimi Hendrix.” The customer he was talking to naturally disbelieved, so the salesman took the guitar out of the case to show him something or other that was supposed to prove it. I guess this salesman was a bit of a showoff, because after that customer left, the salesman strapped on the guitar, plugged it into an amp behind the sales counter, and began to play around with it.

Just then the phone rang, and it was for the salesman; he put the guitar down, behind the sales counter, and took the phone. I looked around, and didn’t see anyone looking my way, so I took my chance. I quietly stepped behind the sales counter, picked up the guitar, and began to play.

I got so into it, I closed my eyes and just wailed away on that guitar. When I opened my eyes again, all activity in the store had stopped. Every eye in the store was on the guitar that they all must have thought was “haunted,” because not one of them would come any closer than about six feet away.

I realized that none fo them seemed to be looking at me, only at the guitar. How was I gonna get out of this?

An image flashed in my mind: the beginning of that “Invisible Couple” Levi’s commercial, when the guy is trying to tidy things up on his way to the door; a guitar floats up off the floor and flings itself into a corner.

I slowly and deliberately lifted the guitar strap from around my shoulders, unplugged the cord from it, took the guitar in my right hand, lifted it over my right shoulder, and threw it as hard as I could towards the back of the store.

A few brave souls ran towards the flying guitar; a few terrified folks ran from the store; but most just stood frozen. Maybe they were waiting for a sign that what they had just seen didn’t really happen.

==========

There was an open path leading from the sales counter I was standing at to the front door, and I took it quickly and quietly, before any of the frozen folks started moving around. Just for kicks, when I got to the door, which had been helpfully propped open, I picked up a magazine from the rack next the the main sales counter, just inside the door, and threw it into the crowd.

The guy standing closest to me, who was about three feet away, saw the magazine sailing over his head, turned around and saw no one there, and yelled, “I’m getting out of here!” That started the stampede, thankfully after I was safely outside the store. By then it was close enough to five that I decided to just go to Doe’s job and wait outside for him.

==========

When I got to Doe’s building, there were a few people standing around. I was a little nervous about whether any of them could see me. White Plains is notorious for attracting off-center folks who congregate in the downtown area, and infants and off-center folks were the kind most likely to be able to see me. I was glad when no one seemed to notice me, though I was still wary.

Five o’clock came, and shortly afterward so did Doe, lugging the oversized bag full of notebooks and story printouts he carries to work with him each day (no wonder his back hurts!) He started towards the Galleria, where his car was parked, so I hurried over to him and grabbed his hand.

He flinched at first, then whispered, “Is that you, Paulette?”

“You’d be in a lot of trouble if it wasn’t, wouldn’t you?” I replied.

He chuckled. “So to what do I owe the honor of you meeting me here today?”

“I told you earlier,” I said, “that I was tired of being cooped up inside the house, remember?” He groaned.

“Don’t give me that,” I said, raising my voice just a little bit. “How would you like being stuck in the house all day?”

He panicked. “Paulette, keep your voice down! I don’t want to start anything out here!” Then, after he had calmed down a little, he continued, “So what did you have in mind?”

I didn’t answer right away, partly because I was a little bit ticked off at him, and partly to make him squirm. I guess I got to him, because when we got into the Galleria parking lot, he whispered, “Paulette, you still there?” I tapped the back of his hand to let him knew I was. He continued, “I don’t mean to be a spoilsport or anything. It’s just that the thought of you running around getting into things makes me nervous. I don’t want you to get me into trouble, or to get *yourself* hurt.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. “I can take care of myself. And I won’t do anything to cause trouble for you, either.”

“So what did you have in mind?” He asked again.

“Nothing fancy, for now,” I said. “I just thought you might want to check out Sam Ash. They have that keyboard you wanted.”

“And just *how* did you know that?” he asked, trying unsuccessfully to fight a grin.

==========

“You don’t think that I went home to Mount Vernon, turned around, and came back to White Plains between lunch and now, do you? Without a car or anything?” I replied, grinning myself.

“Oh no,” he groaned, his smile fading. “What did you do?”

“Why are you so suspicious?” I said. “How do you know I didn’t just hang around and wait for you?”

“Your exact words were, ‘I need to stir things up, start getting into things, you know?’ So I’ll ask you again, what did you do?” By this time we were in his car and parking in the Chester-Maple municipal lot behind Sam Ash.

“Let’s just say I was here earlier, and leave it at that, shall we?”

Doe didn’t say a word as we got out of the car. I walked over to him and held his hand, wondering what was going through his mind. I do know how he thinks, but not just *what* he things; I can’t read his mind. I was pretty sure he was mentally filing through all the hijinks could have gotten into earlier at Sam Ash (does anyone ever get into lowjinks? What’s a jink, anyway?)

==========

When we got to the front door at Sam Ash, Doe was nervous about going in. “What’s the matter?” I said. “Even if I did do something — and I’m not saying I did — nobody has any reason to link it to you, right?”

That seemed to relax him a little, and we went in. A few people were still standing around the “Jimi Hendrix” guitar, which was still where it landed when I threw it. “Wonder what that’s all about?” Doe mused.

I didn’t say anything in response to his wondering, but I couldn’t help chuckling. He heard it and said, “Did *you* have anything to do with that?”

“Mmmm, I might,” I said.

“I don’t think I wanna know any more,” he mumbled. I squeezed his hand and led him to the keyboard section. He went directly to the Korg display, stopping in front of the KX-88 digital piano and the BX-3 and CX-3 organs. “Did you–” he started, before I cut him off.

“No,” I said, “just the guitar.”

Oops! I wasn’t supposed to have told him that. *Oh well,* I thought, *it’s out now.”

“What did you do?” he whispered, a half-smile on his face.

“It’s a ‘Jimi Hendrix’ guitar, according to the salesman,” I whispered in Doe’s ear. “I just made them think it, you know, came to life.”

“And then what?” he whispered.

“And then it was time to meet you,” I whispered back.

He didn’t say anything to this. Instead, he began playing a riff or two on the KX-88. I began to tinker with the BX-3, and I could see it was making him nervous. He didn’t try to stop me, though, so I went on.

He began playing a riff from the instrumental version of a song called “Lovin’ You,” by Tony Toni Tone. I picked up on the song right away and began playing the organ part along with him.

Someone walked in from another room saying, “Hey, that’s pretty good, that you can play both–” He stopped when he saw that Doe was only playing the KX-88, and the BX-3 keys seemed to be moving by themselves…

==========

“Oh no!” he wailed. “Now it’s happening again over here!” Before Doe could say or do anything to react, the guy (who turned out to be the store manager) ushered him and all the other customers from the store. I managed to get in front of the fleeing crowd so I wouldn’t have to worry about any unexpected contact. Once Doe was outside he started looking around for any signs of me, so I walked over and grabbed his hand.

“What was that all about?” he whispered, once we were a safe distance from the store.

“Let’s just say I gave them a little concert earlier,” I said, “without them knowing just who or what I was.”

“Paulette!” he whisper-yelled sharply, as we walked to his car. “You can’t go around doing stuff like that, do you understand? You’re gonna mess around and get someone in trouble, maybe even yourself!”

“Get myself in trouble?” I repeated. “How could I manage to do that? It’s not like anyone can see–”

I cut myself off when I remembered the Yankee Clubhouse store, and the salesman there who *could* see me. Bryan chimed in as soon as I stopped speaking.

“Paulette? What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” I replied truthfully, as we got in his car. “I just remembered something I wanted to get for you at the Galleria.”

“Something you wanted to get for me?” He said. “How? You don’t have any money. You mean, something you picked out that you want me to get for myself, right?”

“Something like that.” He drove back to the Galleria parking garage and parked at level 4East. Once we got out, I took him by the hand and led him toward the Yankee Clubhouse store. He followed without complaint until we were right in front of the place. Once he realized that’s where I was headed, he balked.

“You want me to go in *there?*” he said.

“Yes, I do,” I replied. “Come on, it won’t kill you, Mr. Mets fan. I just want to show you something, that’s all.”

He went into the store, but he made me pull him in, and took one step at a time, like he was expecting a monster to drop down on him or something. Just then the salesman from earlier came out of the storeroom. I smiled at him, expecting him to speak or acknowledge me somehow, and shake up Doe.

Instead, he approached Doe, asking, “Evenin’, sir. Can I ‘elp you?”

“Uhhh,” Doe started. “I-I guess I’m just looking.” The salesman nodded and moved toward the sales counter.

Poor Doe was clearly uncomfortable in Yankee territory. I’m sure he was expecting some kind of cue from me, but I was preoccupied with trying to get the salesman’s attention. At first I just smiled and waved at him, but it was like he didn’t see me. Of course, I thought maybe he was ignoring me or something, and got a little bit huffy. After all, he had seen me earlier.

==========

I came up to the sales counter and was standing right beside the salesman when I let loose. “What’s the matter?” I said. “Now that I bring a man with me you wanna act like you don’t see me?”

“‘oodat?” he said, in a shaky high-pitched voice, his eyes darting around as he spoke.

“It’s me, Paulette. We spoke earlier, remember?” I didn’t know what to make of his reaction, thinking it was some weird kind of game or something, so I smiled. “Only then *I* was the nervous one.”

The salesman began whimpering, “Stop, please, make it stop.” After a few moments I realized what was really going on, and I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. I couldn’t believe it. The same guy that was so warm and friendly and relaxed earlier was now acting like he was scared of me. I backed away from him a little and, not knowing what else to do, I turned to Doe and shrugged. “I guess he can’t see me anymore,” I said.

“Anymore?” Doe repeated, by now as close to the salesman as I was. “You mean, he saw you earlier?”

The salesman mouthed the word “anymore” in unison with Doe, and then covered his face and began shaking his head and moaning softly when he heard my answer to Doe’s question. “Yeah, he saw me. We spoke and everything.”

“I can’t believe dis,” the salesman said. “It’s ‘appening all over again. Chris is gonna get me fired, I know it.”

“Chris?” I repeated.

I guess it was too much for him to try to deal with an invisible woman there in the shop, because he acknowledged my question with his hands still covering his face. “Did I ‘ave some funny-smellin’ drink ‘ere when you spoke to me hearlier? Was I reeeal mellow and calm an’ all?”

“Yeah, you were,” I replied. “In fact, you were trying to calm *me* down.”

“Why did he have to calm you down,” Doe asked, “or do I wanna know?”

“I was nervous when I realized he could see me.”

“Hit was that smelly stuff I was drinkin,’” the salesman said. “It was Chris that saw you earlier today, if I unnerstan’ you correctly. ‘E’s part of me, kind of. That tea I was drinkin’ bring him out.”

“Huh?” Doe and I chorused.

The salesman sighed hard before continuing. “De tea, dey call it Bajan green tea, from Barbados, where I’m from. Hit’ somethin’ like Chinese green tea, only it got some other stuff in it dat mess wit’ me ‘ead and bring out another side of me, one I canna’ control. When ‘e’s out, I’m like sleepin’. I don’t know nothin’ about nobody comin’ in ‘ere earlier today that’s suppose’ to be invisible. To me it like I’m speakin’ to a man an’ a ghos’, and dat make me nervous, yunno?”

==========

I wanted to apologize, but before I could say anything else, Doe spoke up. “Paulette, let’s go, and leave this man alone. Sorry for the mixup, um–”

“Reggie,” he said, sticking out his hand. “And no problem a’tall. No one really at fault, it’s just a misunderstandin’, dat’s all.” Doe shook his hand, and then extended a hand for me to take it. I did, and then turned to Reggie.

“Reggie, I’m sorry–” I started. He flinched as soon as I started speaking, and that’s when I stopped short. I figured that if it upset him that much to hear what must have seemed to him like a voice out of the air, then I’d better keep the apology to myself for now.

Thank goodness for Doe. “Reggie, I think what she wants to say is she’s sorry for shaking you up like that. I’d guess she didn’t know about your, um, situation, and I know she wouldn’t want you to think she was here to play a trick on you. Probably wanted to play one on me, in fact.”

He and Reggie said their goodbyes, and we left the store. I expected a tongue lashing as soon as we left the store, or when we were in the parking garage on the way to the car, but Doe didn’t say a word all the way to the car, making sure to hold on tight to my hand. Almost like he would to a child, it occurred to me later that day.

When we finally did make it to the car, though, he lit into me. “What in the world was that all about back there?”

I took a deep breath. “You want the short version?” I said.

“Please!”

“Well,” I started, “I thought it might spook you a little to find someone who could see me when even you can’t. Turns out I was the one that got spooked.”

“*You?*” said Doe. “What about poor Reggie?”

“Well, it’s like you said. I wasn’t trying to do anything to Reggie, I was trying to play a trick on you. I didn’t know anything about his *other* situation.”

Doe didn’t say anything else, as he maneuvered the car out into traffic. Finally, as we approached home, he said, very softly, “Two people in one body. That’s kind of creepy.”

“He didn’t say two actual people,” I said. “He said this Chris was another side of him. So they’re really the same person. Kind of like me and you, when you come down to it.”

He slammed on his brakes. Fortunately there was nothing behind us. I went off anyway. “Doe, what are you trying to do, put me through the windshield?!”

He ignored the question and fired back with one of his own. “How do you figure Reggie and Chris are like us?!”

“Well… I came from your imagination. I was only part of your reality until that happened, and now I’m out in the world. And you can’t control me.”

Doe answered in measured tones. “Yeah, but evidently Chris has to make Reggie drink that stuff before he can come out.” He was silent for a bit before adding “Interesting.”

Interesting, indeed. I made up my mind to find out more about this split salesman. It would take some doing if I was gonna find out anything without shaking Reggie up, but with my built-in advantage, I could find out what I want to know soon enough.

HOME

Meeting Stacey Dash

Misterdoe — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 20:44:00 +0000

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Valerie X, and I’m invisible. That’s right, invisible. As in see-through. As in am-I-really-there. And by the way, the answer to that is no, I’m not really there. You see, I’m a figment of someone’s imagination. You know how sometimes all you have to do is believe something strongly enough, and it comes true? Self-fulfilling prophecy, they call it. Well, I guess that’s what you could call me. A guy who calls himself Bryan Doe fantasized about me so much that one day he came home to find me waiting for him in his apartment. It’s been a fun ride, for me at least.

I told him that day that if he could see me, I’d look like Stacey Dash (that’s who he had in mind when he was daydreaming about me). Well, for those of you who know about Bryan’s website, you all saw how I had teased Bryan, telling him how I’d look like Stacey Dash if I were visible (if you don’t know Bryan’s website, just click on the “HOME” link at the top of the page). Well, I didn’t post it or anything, but lately I’d been telling him that I’d figured out a way to become visible and that one day I would do it and not tell him. He’d think it was Stacey Dash, of course, and make a fool of himself.

I haven’t actually figured out how to make myself visible, but I just wanted to play with his mind. Anyway, one day he was shopping at a department store down in the Bronx, and I was following him (he didn’t know I was there). I saw Stacey Dash enter the store, looking in the same section Bryan was in, and I watched to see what would happen.

Bryan saw her, and of course he was staring. I hate to admit it, but the girl is gorgeous (I’m not one of those women who can’t admit that another woman is attractive. Besides, I’d look like her, and I think I’m gorgeous myself). Bryan stared straight into her pretty eyes, which of course means that when she looked up, he was staring her right in the face.

“Well, hello there, gorgeous,” Bryan said, confident that he was really looking at me. Stacey said a very offhand “Hi” and kept shopping.

Evidently that offended Bryan, because he got just a little arrogant. “After all this time, I can finally see you, and all you have to say is ‘Hi,’ and then you go on like everything is OK?”

Stacey looked him straight in the eye and said, “Look, mister. I don’t know who you are or what kind of game you’re playing, but I’d appreciate it if you’d leave me alone and let me shop.”

If Bryan had been smart, he would have taken the hint and went on his way. But who ever said Bryan was smart? He walked right up to her, until their faces were just inches apart, and said, very quietly, “Look, Valerie. I appreciate a gag just as much as the next guy, but this is too much. After all this time I finally get to see you, and you want to act like you don’t even know me? Why don’t you just drop the act and do what comes naturally?”

“Look, creep,” Stacey yelled, “LEAVE ME ALONE!! SECURITY!! Would somebody please get this guy away from me?!”

By then it had occurred to me that I probably should have stepped in to put a stop to things before Bryan got himself hurt, or into some kind to trouble, but it was just too much fun to watch. It stopped being fun when two huge slabs of beef popped up seemingly out of nowhere to answer Stacey’s call for help.

I could see that these guys weren’t bodyguards, and they didn’t look much like store security, either. At least they weren’t wearing uniforms or anything. While one of them asked Stacey, “Is this guy bothering you, Ms. Dash? You want maybe we should work his sorry @$$ over?”

The other didn’t wait for an answer, he just pounced on poor Bryan like a lion on a mouse. Bryan didn’t even have any time to react, to try to defend himself, or to get away. One moment he was in Stacey’s face, the next he was face down on the floor beneath a good quarter-ton of angry male fandom.

I couldn’t budge the guy off poor Bryan, but I did what I could. When the guy raised his fist into the air to pound poor Bryan, I grabbed it and held it there. Stacey was standing about five feet away, looking terrified at what was unfolding there in front of her. Once she saw the guy’s fist just stop in midair, and the terrified look on his face, she took off screaming.

*Just great,* I thought. *There goes my chance to make him think Stacey is doing this.* Then, making my voice as mean sounding as I could, I whispered in the man-mound’s ear, “You’d better get up off him and leave this second, fella, or you’ll be screamin’ worse than Pretty-Girl, there.”

He jumped up, much faster than I would have thought somebody his size could move, and hightailed it out of the store. Bryan lay there moaning and groaning, looking just like Beetle Bailey from the comics after Sarge had worked him over.

Before I could tell Bryan I was there, or try somehow to get him some help, the store security guards were there. They took one look at Bryan and called 911. Then they stood guard over him, like they were afraid somebody else would beat Bryan even worse, so I never got to tell him that I was there.

The EMT’s got there and took Bryan to Jacobi Hospital. The cops that came to the store with the ambulance left their car doors open when they went into the store (NYC cops are getting sloppy; you’d think after the Diallo mess they’d tighten up their act), so I had no problem getting to the hospital, though when we reached the hospital I had to climb into the front seat and then out the front passenger door window to get out of the car.

Again, they stood guard over Bryan at the hospital, so it wasn’t until he was given a room for overnight observation that I could even let him know that I was there.

As soon as the nurse left the room, I walked over to the bed. I absentmindedly brushed against his foot when I approached the bed.

“Val?” he mumbled. “Is that you?”

“It’s me, Bryan. How do you feel?”

“Like I’ve been run over by a freight train.”

“I wish I could have stepped in sooner to pull that guy off you,” I said, “but I couldn’t get to him any earlier.”

“That was you?” he whispered.

“Yeah. Didn’t you– that’s right, he had you face down. You couldn’t see anything.”

“I heard a voice threatening the guy,” he whispered again, “but I wasn’t really paying any attention. I didn’t recognize your voice.”

“Uh, well,” I started, a little embarrassed, “you were busy getting beat up at the time. And it’s all my fault.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“You thought Stacey was me, so that means all this is my fault. I’m gonna make it up to you somehow,” I said.

“You don’t have to make up anything,” he said. The nurses must have heard him talking, because one of them peeked into the room.

“You all right in here, Mr. Doe?” she said.

“Yeah, I’m OK,” he said.

“Just checking,” she said. “A couple of the nurses thought they heard you talking.”

“Maybe I was,” he said. “I got roughed up pretty bad. But I’ll be OK, I guess.”

She must have been satisfied with that answer, because she left and went on her way. I was pretty sure of how I could make it up to him, and it wouldn’t get done with me there in the hospital. I kissed Bryan good-bye (I didn’t realize how tender skin can be after you’ve been beaten up) and went on with my plan.

I walked back to Bryan’s to see if I could find out online what Stacey Dash’s New York contact address was. I thought it might be some kind of FI solidarity thing if I went in TFI mode so I could experience what Kim and Nikki go through. Then I realized that would be silly; where would I go to look for invisible shoes, anyway? So I took them off and carried them.

Two minutes of bare feet on cold, wet concrete made me change my mind quick. Besides, in New York they don’t have plain ice on the sides of the road. Salt, sand, oil, and jus

t plain dirt combines with ice to make this hard, barely translucent black stuff that doesn’t melt until the temperature hits 50 and stays there for a week.

I put on the shoes I was carrying and made my way by subway back to Bryan’s (good thing for me it wasn’t rush hour). I checked with the fan club site and of course got an LA address. I knew I could do better; Stacey Dash is a Bronx girl, after all.

I finally found a local Bronx address after some online searching, so I made my way back to the #2 subway and rode to the 180th Street stop, near where the Bronx River Parkway crosses over it, thinking this would be so much easier if I could switch back and forth between invisible and visible.

I got off the train and walked to the buildings near the intersection of 180th Street and Boston Road, just south of the zoo. I wandered around, basically, until I found the address I had been given. I figured it must have been a relative’s address; I didn’t want to think she would still live here.

Once I knew where the building was, I went into a few stores, looking for one with one of those old-fashioned phone booths, the kind with the closing door. I found one (in use of course), and waited until it was empty. The fool who was using it closed the squeaky door behind him when he left, so I had to open the door V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y, so as not to attract anyone’s attention.

Once I got the thing open, I dialed the number I had seen on the Web. As luck (?) would have it, Stacey herself answered the phone.

“Hello,” she said.

“Hello, Ms. Dash,” I replied, somewhat nervously. I was kind of at a loss as to what to say next, so she was the next to speak.

“Hello? Is anybody there?” she said.

“Yes, I’m here. Sorry… Uh, Ms. Dash, this is about the young man you saw get beat up in that department store. That was actually my fault. I look something like you, and he must have thought you were me. I know I’m asking a lot here, but would it be possible that maybe you could visit him in the hospital? I thought maybe it might make him feel a bit better.”

“He thought I was you?” she repeated, disbelief evident in her voice.

“Yeah. We’ve become kind of close but without him ever, uh, actually seeing me. I told him I’d look something like you, so I guess when he saw you, he just assumed…” I trailed off.

There was silence on the other end while she let my words sink in. Finally she said, “OK, I guess I could do that. Where can we meet?”

“Meet?” I didn’t expect her to want to meet me anywhere else but at home.

“Yeah, a meeting place. Somewhere public, like maybe the 180th Street subway station?”

Obviously I couldn’t do that, and it was just as obvious that I couldn’t explain that over the phone. But I tried anyway. “Ms. Dash, I was kind of hoping that we could meet where you are now. If we met in a public place… well, you might miss me.”

“I might ‘miss’ you?” she said. “Didn’t you just say you told your friend you looked like me? How could I miss you?”

“Um…” I was at a loss for words. I could never tell her the real reason over the phone and expect her to believe it. “It’s kind of hard to explain it over the phone,” I said quickly. “Could we meet where you are now? Believe me, it would be much easier to explain face-to-face.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that,” she said. “I mean, I don’t even know you. How do I know this isn’t some kind of scam?”

“You could call Jacobi Hospital and ask if a Bryan Doe is a patient there,” I said.

“Do you have the number?” she said warily.

“No I don’t, and even if I did, I’d prefer that you looked it up yourself so you’d see I’m for real,” I said. “But really, it would be so much simpler if we just met face to face somewhere out of public view–”

I didn’t get to say another word.

“Look,” she said, clearly angry. “I’m sorry about your friend, I really am. But I don’t know what you’re really up to. If we can’t meet in a public place, then we can’t meet.” Then she hung up.

I wasn’t looking forward to having to scare her, but it seemed that was the way she wanted it.

I quickly opened the phone booth door, forgetting about the squeak until it reminded me. The cashier and store manager looked right at the phone booth, which meant I’d have to wait until they were distracted before I could leave the store.

I stepped softly out of the phone booth and waited by the door. While the manager tried to figure out what had happened, two customers entered the store. One was very belligerent, giving me the distraction I needed. No one would ever notice that the door lingered open a few seconds after the loud customer had let go of it.

I walked out of the store, around the corner, and into Stacey’s building. According to the name listing by the mailboxes, the Dashes were in a second floor apartment. I wasn’t sure which was the right one, since none of the doors had apartment numbers on them. After a few minutes, though, I could hear voices getting louder behind one of the doors. When the door opened, a young Hispanic woman emerged laughing. Right behind her was Stacey, saying, “And she actually wanted me to let her come *here* and meet with me! How do I know she’s not a stalker or something?”

“It’s that face, Stacey,” the other woman said. “You got that little-girl face, and those eyes. People think they know you.”

“Yeah, well, if she tries something, she’ll get to know me a lot better, know-what-I-mean?”

“So you’re not gonna go see the guy?” the other woman asked.

“I would have, at first, if the girl had just agreed to meet me somewhere public. But now, I don’t know. I just get the feeling that she’s not telling me something.”

The other woman looked at her watch. “Omigod! Look at the time! I gotta go. But Stacey, take care of yourself, and let me know what happens, OK?”

“OK, Rosa,” she said. “I will.” As the other woman went down the stairs, Stacey looked out the hall window, I guess looking for me. I took my chance and slipped through the open apartment door and into the living room, where I waited for Ms. Dash to return.

I heard the door close and after a couple of seconds Stacey’s face lit up her living room. While I tried to figure out how to let her know I was here, she said out loud, “She must think I’m some kinda fool.”

I saw my chance and I grabbed it. “You’re not a fool,” I said.

She looked around, clearly frightened. “Who said that!?”

Time for a mind game. “I did, Stacey,” I said. “Or should I say, ‘You did?’” By this time my face was just inches away from hers.

“Who are you?” she repeated, clearly confused. “Where are you?”

“Basically, I’m you,” I answered. “I’m where you are.”

“OK, so I’m cracking up,” she said. Her tone of voice suggested she was playing along with a joke, but the expression on her face was serious. “So what do I want with myself, then?”

I thought that was pretty funny, but I had to choke back the laugh so I wouldn’t give myself away. “You owe that guy in the hospital a visit, don’t you?”

“I don’t owe anybody anything,” she said. “Except myself. I gotta get myself to a therapist. They always told me this acting stuff would mess with my head.”

“You’re not crazy, Stacey,” I said. “You’re just fighting your conscience, that’s all. You heard what happened. That guy in the hospital got beat up because he thought you were somebody else.”

“But that wasn’t my doing,” she protested. “Those big crazy guys did that. I didn’t ask them to. They just did.”

“But you could have stopped them, couldn’t you? Or maybe you could have done something for the guy in the store? Instead you just ran off and left him for somebody else to find.”

She sighed, looking off into space. “I could have done something for him, I suppose,” she allowed. “But when that

guy’s fist just hung there in space, and he looked at it all helpless, I thought he was flippin’ out or something. I didn’t want to wait around and find out.”

“So you *do* owe him something,” I repeated, hoping that I was at last getting somewhere.

She heaved another sigh. “I guess I do,” she said. “I guess I do.” She took a jacket from the hall closet but she left the apartment before she put it on. Standing outside the apartment door, she said, “Is there something else… I need to tell myself? Or am I cracking up, like I thought?”

“No, you’re *not* cracking up, Stacey,” I repeated. “And now you can see, like I told you on the phone, that I’m not a stalker.”

She screamed and ran back into the apartment and locked the door. I silently cursed myself for not waiting until she had gotten to the hospital to let her know about me. I knocked on the door and was still knocking when the peephole clicked open. You don’t have to guess what she saw, or didn’t see. She screamed again and ran from the door.

I kept knocking but she wouldn’t answer. I tried calling her again from the phone booth (the door had been oiled). She answered, and even managed to stay on the line after she recognized my (”her”) voice.

“What do you want from me?” she said, in a wavering voice.

“All I want is for you to visit my friend in the hospital,” I said.

“Who are you, really?” she said, sounding a bit more composed. “*What* are you?” Then, catching herself, she continued, “I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right. I meant, what happened to you? Why can’t I see you?”

“That’s a long story, and I don’t know how long I can stay in this phone booth to tell it,” I said. “But I was in the store when that guy attacked Bryan. I had no idea that things would turn out like that, or I would have interrupted him while he was bugging you. Like I told you before, I told him that I would look like you if I were visible, but as you found out, I’m not. So I guess I’m asking you to see him so I won’t feel so guilty about what happened.”

“But you still didn’t tell–” she started. I knew where she was going, or trying to go, so I cut her off.

“Look,” I said. “All I can say right now is, I mean a lot to him, and he means a lot to me, and right now it would mean a lot to us both if you would visit him. If you don’t want to, I’ll understand. Either way, I won’t bother you anymore.” It was obvious that I had miscalculated by “exposing” myself to her too soon, and it began to seem like Bryan wouldn’t get his visit.

I was feeling kind of dejected, and with nowhere else to go, I went to Jacobi and waited in Bryan’s room. What I was waiting for, I don’t know. I felt too guilty over what had happened to let him know I was there, and yet I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere else.

Imagine my surprise when, a couple of hours later, Stacey Dash walked into Bryan’s hospital room!

I won’t violate Bryan’s privacy by going into detail about what happened in the hospital room. I did let them both know I was there after a few minutes. It didn’t seem like I was interrupting or hindering anything, but still I wanted to let Bryan have some privacy, so I left for a while.

When I came back into the room, Stacey jumped a bit. I guess most people would jump seeing the door to a hospital room swing open by itself. Then she caught herself and smiled.

“So, you’re a figment of his imagination come to life?” she said, sounding unsure of whether she should believe it.

“That’s me,” I said. “And I guess he must have really liked you, because–”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said, smiling. “You’d look like me.”

“You sound like you don’t believe,” I said.

“Well…” she trailed off.

“Then, see for yourself,” I said, and “blinked on.” (I had to find some other way to say it besides “became visible.”) I was wearing a plain white t-shirt and tight blue jeans. Stacey’s eyebrows jumped halfway up her forehead as she looked at her own invisible figure standing ten feet away from her, undetectable if not for the clothes I was wearing.

“Well?” I said. “Whaddaya think?”

She blinked fast a few times and said, “I think if somebody’s imagination can do that, he is probably a very lucky man, and maybe dangerous too. Still, I’m flattered. I get a lot of complements, but never anything like this.”

“I didn’t exactly *make* it happen, at least not consciously,” Bryan said. “I was daydreaming about an invisible you, and when I got home, she was there.”

“Still, you could have been thinking about anyone, and you chose me. And then you got beat up over me. I have to make it up to you somehow, don’t I?” she said, with a gleam in her eye.

Well, Stacey wound up giving Bryan season passes to the Mets and Yankees for the 2000 season, and she got him a walk-on role on “Clueless.” She even wanted to sneak me onto Clueless, in a dream sequence or something. Bryan was all for it, of course, but I had to turn her down. After all, I felt guilty enough as it was, getting Bryan beat up and all, I would have been really miserable if I’d gotten a TV appearance out of it. Not that anyone would have known about it, really. I mean, Stacey would have to have gotten billing for the scene. After all, I don’t exist. I’m not real. Right, Bryan?

An Eye for Beauty (part one)

Misterdoe — Tue, 31 May 2005 17:01:00 +0000

One Friday, about eight weeks ago I went grumblingly with my friend Paula while she went clothes shopping. She’s not my girlfriend, at least not yet, but if being dragged into a women’s clothing store is the price I pay for being able to spend a couple more hours with her, then so be it.

As we went in, she made a beeline for one particular display, stopping in front of a mannequin in a strapless body-hugging minidress and matching tights. The mannequin was positioned on a small platform near the cash register that would have given a person a good vantage point to see everything and everyone in the store. The colors of the outfit were like an explosion in a paint factory, meant to draw attention to its wearer. I imagine the designer figured any woman would be proud to have her figure highlighted the way this outfit was drawing attention to the mannequin.

I looked at the mannequin, wishing it was Paula looking so good in that outfit. So did she. “One day I’m gonna wear that,” she said.

I decided to be gallant. “What do you mean, ‘one day?’ Why not today?”

She turned her cute, shapely self toward me and smiled. “Now you know I can’t wear that just yet, but mark my words, I will.” Then she went on with her shopping.

Evidently there had been a “fine woman” convention in the area, because the store was full of them, and I am genetically wired to notice all beauty within my field of vision. Fortunately for me, Paula does not seem to be threatened by this. It was a wonder I didn’t get whiplash from all the whipping my head back and forth.

Paula found what she wanted, paid for it, and we turned to leave. When we got to the front door, Paula turned, looked longingly at the outfit one last time, and left the store.

Paula is not a clothes horse, but she is a sharp dresser, and usually buys something from Finelli’s every week (usually on Friday). And every week, we both stop and stare at the outfit on the mannequin, and while she shopped I’d get an eyeful from the other shoppers. And every week, the mannequin was in that same spot.

* * * * *

Finally, eight weeks after she told me she would wear that suit, she asked a salesclerk if there were any more in stock, since none were on the display racks.
“Wait a minute!” I said. “You told me you needed to go on a diet! What changed?”

She fixed me with a you-can’t-be-serious look. “You don’t notice anything different about me?”

I knew I had to tread lightly; one wrong remark and all my plans would go down the drain. “Um, well, I can see you’ve lost some weight, but you made it seem like you had to do something drastic.”

Her smile lit up the whole store. “So you did notice! I’ve lost 25 pounds.”

“Twenty-five pounds? Since when!?”

“Since I first told you that I would wear that outfit. It snuck up on you because I did it right. Two or three pounds a week. If I had done something drastic, I would just turn around and gain it all back.” While she spoke, all kinds of female fineness swirled around us. I almost hurt myself trying not to look.

The salesclerk came back and told Paula that the display dress was the last one in the store and that if she wanted it she could have it for one-third off. She jumped at the offer before the woman could change her mind. It was very interesting to watch the salespeople removing the dress from the mannequin. They had to take great care not to rip it; it was *that* tight on the mannequin. I wondered if it had stretched, but I was just about to find out that it had not.

* * * * *

Finally they got it off, and the salesclerk walked towards the dressing rooms with the dress in her hands.

“Hey,” Paula called out. “Where are you going?”

“Don’t you want to try it on?” the clerk asked.

“No need. It’s size 8; I’m size 8.”

“Uh, miss,” she said nervously, “I know it’s a great-looking outfit, and a great deal, but it’s still a good idea to try it on.”

Paula grudgingly tried on the dress and tights. When she came out… It was like the outfit was made expressly for her. “What do you think,” she asked hopefully.

I was in awe. Once I found my voice, I answered, “It looks great. You look great. I always knew that, but the outfit just brings it out more. Please go ahead and buy it.” Which she did.

On the way to the car, she said, “I know our conversation in there kept you from being able to look around like you usually do.”

I pretended to be innocence itself. “What are you talking about?”

“Come on,” she replied. “I know when you’re around a lot of attractive women, you can’t help looking. I just want you to be discreet.”

I sighed hard. “Um, OK. Discreet. I can do that.”

On the ride home, she was unusually quiet. Not icy quiet, but more like uneasy silence. I was as uneasy as she was, if not more, not knowing whether I should take her at her word or if she was really hurt.

When we got to her place, she put the shopping bag down in the living room and went into the bathroom. Just as the bathroom door locked, the shopping bag began to rustle. I dropped the magazine I was reading and stared at the bag. The bag rustled some more and then Paula’s dress and tights rose from the bag, looking like Paula (or her invisible twin) was wearing them!

“I’m cracking up,” I said out loud. “I have to be. There’s no other explanation, because this can’t possibly be happening…” I went on and on, watching while Paula’s outfit stepped out of the shopping bag and began walking towards me.
I was sure I’d either fallen asleep or gone crazy, so I intentionally said the stupidest thing I could think of. “I know, take me to your leader, right?”

I almost fell out of my chair when Paula’s voice answered me, coming from somewhere above the top of the dress. “Real funny, Mr. Comedian. You gonna mess around and lose that girl if you’re not careful.”

* * * * *

“That girl?” I repeated, staring at the empty clothes Paula had just bought. “S-so you’re not Paula?”

“Do I look like Paula?” the voice asked.

“Well, um, yeah. Kind of. I mean, you do have her shape, whoever you are.”

“Whoever I am? Do you see anyone in front of you?” the voice asked sarcastically.

“Um, no. I see clothes with Paula’s shape.” And they were giving me a bad case of the creeps.

The voice answered, “That’s because she put me on back at the store. I couldn’t have done this otherwise.”

“How –” I stated, before the voice cut me off.

“If I were you,” the voice replied, “I wouldn’t worry about how; I’d worry about keeping Paula. It hurts her when you turn to look at every round butt that passes anywhere near you. And don’t try to play Mr. Innocent, either, because I saw everything back at the store. You were standing right in front of me, remember?”

“Who are you talking to in there, honey?” Paula called out from behind the closed bathroom door. “Or are you on the phone?”

“I’m not on the phone,” I said, “and I’m not talking to anyone. You must be hearing things.” Then I turned to the outfit and whispered, “I should have told her.”

“Yeah, right, like she would have believed you,” Paula’s voice whispered back. Just then I could hear the faucet running in the bathroom. “Listen, I gotta drop; she’ll be out any second. But we’ll talk again soon, I’m sure of it.”

The suit walked back over to the shopping bag, stepped inside, and collapsed into it. I just sat there, staring in openmouthed shock. I was still staring and gaping when Paula came out of the bathroom.

“Are you all right?” she asked me.

“I… guess so,” I replied absently. “Something just happened. I can’t really explain it. It might have been a dream.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” she asked insistently. “I was about to run back out for a couple of things I forgot, but I could always do that later.”

“No, no, that’s OK. You go ahead and do whatever you have to do. I’ll be all right.”

She put on the coat she had bought at Finelli’s three weeks earlier, then changed her mind and put on her old standby, leaving the new coat draped over a chair.
After the elevator door slid shut behind Paula, the shopping bag rustled again and the outfit stood up and stepped from the bag. I noticed that its movement was just like Paula’s.

“It feels good to be able to move around and not be stuck in one position, like I was back at the store,” the outfit said in a gleeful tone voice. Then it took a seat on the couch to my right and, turning more serious, it continued. “Like I was saying before, you need to stop watching every butt and chest that passes and pay more attention to Paula.”

I usually look at someone when they’re speaking to me, specifically at their eyes, unless it makes them uncomfortable. What was making me uncomfortable about this conversation (besides the fact that the other speaker was an empty outfit of clothing) was that, since there were no eyes to look at, I wound up staring at the torso of the unoccupied dress. I found myself looking at it, then looking away, then looking back. After a while the voice giggled and said, “I’m sorry if I’m making you uncomfortable, since you have to do just what I’m saying not to do in order to look at me.”

“Um, yeah,” I replied. “It is kind of weird.”

“Well,” it continued, “it’s perfectly OK to look at me like that, at least when I’m empty. Be careful about doing that when she’s wearing me, though, because she might not appreciate it.”

While I ruminated on what I had just been told, I heard Paula’s voice again, this time to my left. “You also need to work on breaking out of friendship mode.”

I didn’t hear Paula’s keys, or the lock turning, so I turned and started, “I didn’t know you–”, before I saw that Paula wasn’t there. What was there was Paula’s new coat, unbuttoned but moving like she was in it. The coat, well, hovered over to where I was sitting and the other voice (well, the same voice but from another source) said, “She’s been sending signals at least as long as I’ve been here, but you seem to be trying to stay ‘just friends.’”

The coat then sat on the couch, to my left. As it did, it pulled its sleeves away from its pockets, revealing black leather gloves, which it folded in its lap as it continued. “She really likes you, but if you keep ignoring her signals, she’ll stop sending them, and I’m sure you know what that means.”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I have been holding myself back.”

“Well, let go, man,” the coat said, putting its right glove on my left knee. “If you really like her that much you gotta show her, and tell her. We know she likes you–” (at this point the coat gestured toward the outfit on my right) “– but if you feel the same way, you have to tell her. We can’t do it for you.”

“Well, do you have any suggestions, since you’re so full of advice?” I knew I didn’t need to be sarcastic, but it was just a little bit spacey to be getting romantic advice from clothing. But of course, they had plenty of advice.

“Yeah,” Paula’s voice called out from a back room. I looked up to see black fishnet pantyhose standing in the corridor leading to Paula’s bedroom. I did a double take.

“Fishnets?” I asked.

“Yeah, fishnets,” the voice answered. “Paula really likes you, and wants you to notice her legs more. You’re really not that observant.”

I had picked up an apparent contradiction in their messages, but the voices continued before I could address it.

“Speaking of which,” the minidress outfit chimed in, evidently speaking to the coat and the pantyhose, “did you both know he actually waited until she’d lost 25 pounds to notice that she had lost weight, and didn’t say anything until she told him?”

“Hey, now, wait a minute,” I called out in my defense. “I did notice. I just, well, didn’t say anything.”

“Now, that’s a crying shame,” the coat chided. “It really doesn’t ‘count’ that you noticed if you didn’t say anything. How could she know that you noticed or what you thought about it if you didn’t tell her?”

“Well, uh, I wasn’t sure if she really was losing weight or not and, if she wasn’t, I didn’t want her to think I was suggesting it.”

“Come on, now,” the minidress said. “Didn’t she tell you in the store that she would wear me one day?”

“Well, yeah, she did.”

“That should have tipped you off,” the pantyhose said. “Why don’t men pay more attention to things?”

Before I could say anything to defend myself or men in general, I heard more rustling. It was coming from a plastic shopping bag under the coffee table right in front of me. The bag just kind of rolled around, like something was trapped in it and couldn’t get out. Paula’s voice answered again, this time from inside the bag. “They take women for granted. They think that because women outnumber them, there will always be someone there for them. And if one gets away, another will be along soon.”

“Oh, great,” I moaned. “Now I got a plastic bag putting me down?”

“No,” the voice called back, “I just can’t get out of this bag. I’m stuck somehow.”

I unrolled the bag and looked into it. There was some kind of garment with a black-on-white windowpane pattern on it. There was also a piece of strapping tape stuck to the outfit and to the bag. I pulled the tape out of the bag, and a few seconds later a shapely windowpaned catsuit stood up, a plastic bag over its feet.

“Whoa! Where’d you come from?” I said in barely concealed glee.

“Paula’s sister gave me to her last night to congratulate her for losing the weight.”

“Well, it looks like we’re running out of places for you all to sit,” I said, hoping for a particular outcome.

“No, we’re not,” the catsuit answered. It then stepped out of the bag and did just what I had hoped, sitting down on my right knee. Of all the clothing assembled around me, the catsuit was the closest to a complete outfit, and so I put my right arm around it. It responded by putting its left arm around me and leaning close.
Paula”You know,” the pantyhose said, “you should do that with Paulae sometime instead of just her clothes.”

“Could any of you explain to me just how you’re able to talk and move around like this?”

“We could,” the catsuit said, “but it would just go in one ear and out the other. You’re a guy. You just wouldn’t get it.”

“But the truth is,” the pantyhose continued, “that every woman has at least one outfit or piece of clothing that speaks to her. If something’s really bothering her or if she feels really strong about something, the outfit can speak for her as well, but only to someone really close to her. But this was an extreme case. Something had to be done, so we all spoke up.”

Just then Paula’s keys began jingling in the lock and the door opened. Evidently the clothes didn’t think they had enough time to get away, so they all just dropped where they were. Paula came in carrying a paper bag and went straight to the kitchen. Half a second later she backed out of the kitchen, looking into the living room with a baffled expression on her face.

“What are my clothes doing all over the place?” she said. Moving closer, and looking right at me, she continued. “And why is my new catsuit draped over your leg? What’s going on here?”

I didn’t think I could make her believe what had just happened, but I decided that what I had learned was more important anyway. “Listen, Paula,” I said. “I don’t know how to explain the clothes, but there’s something more important that I need to say to you, so please hear me out.”

“I know it bothers you when I look at other women. I can’t excuse it by saying that I have an eye for beauty, because you should be all the beauty I need. And I haven’t been as attentive as I could be, or I would have known to mention as soon as I first noticed your weight loss. I actually noticed in the third week, but then, well, it became less noticeable. You lost a lot of weight at first, right?”

She smiled in spite of the baffled expression she still wore. “Yeah, I did lose more at the beginning,” she replied. “I lost ten pounds in the first 10 days, and then I hit the brakes hard and took another month and a half to lose the other fifteen.”

“Well,” I continued, “I waited forever to say something, but I did notice. And I’ve been trying hard to maintain a friendship and not move too fast when you’ve been sending me signals and I haven’t been returning them. I just didn’t want to take a chance at losing what we have now.”

“That will never happen. I want to be much more than just a friend to you, but only if it’s what you want to.”

“I can’t find the words to say how much I do, Paula. You look gorgeous, and you’re a beautiful person. It’ll take the rest of my life to show you that. I love you, Paula.”

“You love me?” she asked, tears welling in her eyes. “Do you realize that’s the first time you’ve ever said that to me?”

“It is?” I’d felt so strongly for her for so long I was sure that I’d said so before, but in retrospect it all made sense. Of course I thought I’d told her. I hadn’t been paying attention. “Well, don’t worry, you’ll be hearing it a lot more from now on.”

She studied me for a few moments before asking, “What’s gotten into you tonight? Where did all this openness and insight come from?”

*I might as well tell her,* I thought. “You see all these clothes lying around? Well, they spoke to me while you were out.”

“My clothes– spoke to you?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yeah. They told me that I was hurting you by looking at other women, that I wasn’t being attentive or observant enough, and that I was taking you for granted. Incredible, isn’t it?”

Paula looked around at her clothes lying around the couch and — I wasn’t prepared for this reaction — she looked hurt. Like she had been betrayed. “Um, I’m not trying to get rid of you or anything, but I have a big day tomorrow. Are we still on for breakfast?”

“Of course,” I said, and kissed her. She grunted in response and kissed me back. While we were in liplock, with me facing the couch, I saw something even odder than the earlier display. Most of the coat continued to lay limp on the couch, but the sleeves and gloves filled out like there were arms and hands in them and started to clap silently. After a few seconds, I could hear the sound of gloves lightly brushing against one another, and evidently so did Paula. She turned around just in time to see the gloves fall limp on the couch.

“Sorry, but you gotta go,” she said, pleasantly but firmly as she guided me to the door. “I have to straighten this out. See you in the morning?”

“In the morning,” I repeated. “Good night.”

I went home exhilarated, bewildered, and full of anticipation. Exhilarated because Paula finally knew just how I felt. Bewildered because, let’s face it; no matter what the outcome, it just ain’t normal for clothes to talk and move on their own. Period. And I was full of anticipation because I knew that our relationship was going to change, permanently, for the better.

I went home, did a little cleaning, and went to bed. Just as I was about to drop off to sleep, my phone rang. I got the unexpected surprise of hearing Paula’s voice from the other end. “This is a surprise,” I said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again tonight. How did everything, uh, go?”

“What do you mean? There wasn’t but one way for things to go. I just wanted to be alone with my thoughts for a while. I also needed to wash my new perfume out of those clothes.”

“New perfume?” *Uh oh,* I thought. *Back into weird territory again.*

“Yeah. I’ve been using this new amino perfume that’s supposed to inspire the wearer to be bolder. It didn’t have much effect on me, except for maybe that catsuit, and Francesca bought that because of the diet. But the perfume had a huge effect on my clothes, evidently. You should have seen and heard all the protesting when I took them to the laundry room. ‘Come on, Paula. We did it for your own good. Somebody had to tell him. We only wanted what was best.’ Stuff like that.”

“Well, if they were only doing it for your benefit, what was the problem?”

She gave me the familiar men-don’t-know-anything sigh and said, “That’s supposed to be a girls-only situation. Men aren’t even supposed to know about the unspoken agreement between a girl and her clothes. They only talk to her, and if they talk to anyone else, it’s only with her permission. Now, about that breakfast tomorrow–”

“You’re not cancelling, are you?”

“Never! I just wanted to tell you that, well, when you pick Paula up, be sure to pour out your heart to her and make her do the same.”

“Wait a minute,” I said warily. “Who is this?”

After some laughter from the other end, the voice said, “Sorry I didn’t tell you right away. This is Paula’s phone. Paula herself is fast asleep.”

“Her phone?”

“Yeah, her phone. Top of the line, computerized, all kinds of features, and I can talk, too. Anyway, when Paula comes home after your breakfast, her clothes will tell me all about it, so make sure the date’s real juicy, OK?”

“Let me get this straight. You’re not Paula?”

“Really, I’m her phone. You sound like you don’t believe, so listen to this…” With that I heard ringing on the other end. How that could be possible if the line was in use I couldn’t even guess, but I waited to see what would happen.

The ringing stopped and Paula’s sleepy-sounding voice answered. “Hello?”

I waited for the prankster at the other end to identify herself (or himself), but after a second or two of silence I knew I had to speak or else she would hang up. “Paula, hi, this is Bryan.”

“Hi, Bryan,” she slurred.

“You sound like you were sleeping,” I said.

“I was,” she said, sounding every bit like she was telling the truth. She would in fact make a very good actress if she chose to go into that profession, with her ability to tell huge whoppers with a straight face, but somehow I was sure that she wasn’t putting me on. She had really been asleep.

I had no idea what to say next, and I didn’t know whether I should tell her how she was awakened. After a bit of silence, Paula said, “Bryan, why’d you call? Is something wrong?”

I decided to spill the beans. “Actually, Paula, I didn’t call you. I got a phone call and heard your voice on the other end. I thought it was you until a couple of seconds ago.”

“But I didn’t call you,” she protested. “I was fast asleep.”

“Actually, Paula, that was me,” her own voice replied, sounding much more alert. “I called him.”

“Who is–” she started, before she evidently recognized her own voice coming back at her. “Oh no!! Why can’t you all just leave me alone?” Heaving a sigh, she said, “Hold on a minute, Bryan,” and then I heard some shuffling around. I heard muffled voices that sounded like they were coming from another room, away from the phone. The voices all seemed to be Paula’s, making it sound like Paula was arguing with herself Finally, I heard another click and Paula was back on the line.

“Bryan, are you still there?” she asked, clearly angry.

“I’m here,” I said, with no idea what she was about to do.

“Good. I want you to be my witness.” Then, sounding like a PA announcer, she continued. “Now hear this: I want every scrap of clothing and every gadget in this apartment to leave me and Bryan alone from now on. I need every scrap of clothing and every gadget to leave us alone tonight so we can get some sleep. Is that understood?”

I heard a chorus of Paula’s voice from the other end of the line, though the response wasn’t clear to me. I guess she was satisfied with the reply, because she next addressed me. “What did they… I mean, what did she… what were you told?”

“It’s not important, Paula,” I said. “What is important is for both of us to get some rest. We can talk about it in the morning, OK?”

“Fine with me,” she mumbled, adding “See you in the morning” before she hung up.

As sleep crept up on me, I thought about Paula’s talking clothes and gadgets and wondered if we would indeed be left alone. I wondered too what was the real reason for that phone call. But there would be plenty of time to think about that in the morning.

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