*
Tara threw Evan’s skin on top of Dr. Stein’s. She said to herself, “Those silly men will never learn beauty is only skin deep.”
Green Filter
From petite models to architectural details, every image I captured in my camera lens earned rave reviews from critics. Customers flocked to buy my work after it appeared in the photography exhibit. My name, Gavin Beck, grew larger than life.
I abandoned noodle package dinners alone in a one-bedroom flat and took up sushi in a new apartment alongside my favorite model. At first glance, I saw nothing special about Vanessa. She was beautiful like other models. But when she began to pose, she unleashed her inner self. I watched Vanessa through the lens as she bit into a plump orange and juice sprayed from her perfect lips. I knew she had to be mine.
I begged her to go to dinner with me. For the next few months, we were inseparable. She loved what I loved, ate what I ate, and watched my favorite TV shows. We both wanted the same things out of life—marriage, children, and a white picket fence. So one afternoon as she sat at her kitchen table flipping through a magazine with a deep conditioning treatment on her hair and an oatmeal facial on her face, I proposed.
She jumped up from the colonial chair she had undoubtedly bought at a consignment shop. She slid the ring on her finger and screamed, “Yes!” She kissed me, leaving oatmeal gobs around my mouth which she carefully wiped away before kissing me again and again until I looked as though I was wearing an oatmeal mask.
Everything was not perfect though. She described herself as “green”—unlike me. This minor detail grew more detrimental after I proposed. Even when wearing her lemon-colored stilettos, my fiancé refused to ride in my newly leased Mercedes to any destination within five miles. She cringed every time I threw away cottage cheese containers and junk mail. Soon I found these items reused as decorations for my apartment
Modern society told me she was correct and I was the ignorant buffoon for making it a point of contention, so I bit my tongue until I thought it might bleed. Truly I loved her, but I soon found myself making excuses not to see her and considered breaking off the engagement.
I decided to clear my head and escape the city awhile. Under the guise of work, I booked a mountain cabin for the whole month of March. Vanessa drove me to the airport and blinked away tears as she kissed me goodbye.
Once the plane landed, a sense of freedom washed over me. The rented sports utility vehicle contributed to my new sense of identity, one more hardy and less debonair. Most mornings, I relaxed on an Adirondack chair waiting for the sun to position itself for a shot of the glorious snow-capped peaks.
The towering mountains and boundless sky chased away decision-making woes and the static in my head. When March ended, I was no closer to calling off the engagement or committing to marriage than the day I arrived. I dreaded the thought of life with or without Vanessa.
She would have picked me up from the airport had I called, but instead I hailed a taxi. As the driver accelerated, I stared out the window. The city projected a dark hue in contrast to the pure landscape where I had spent the last month. Graffiti-stained buildings and broken windows I had seen hundreds of times appeared filthy to me rather than as a part of the landscape. Industrial smoke filled my lungs.
Once in my apartment, I absentmindedly flipped the light switch when my hand grazed the uneven surface of the light switch cover. I turned to familiarize myself with it again after my month away. Vanessa had decoupaged the light switch with unsolicited catalog scraps some time back. I remembered begrudgingly rolling my eyes without even really looking at it.
In this moment, I could not remove my eyes from the color collage created with sheared images from the ads. My careful study of the images revealed the pores of an orange, a colonial furniture leg, and half the face of a child. My body rushed with excitement at the jewel I unearthed in my very own apartment. The light switch decoupage seemed pregnant with symbolism about my and Vanessa’s past, present, and future—all of which promised to be irrefutably beautiful.
Jerusalem Happened
Maria jumped to her feet and dropped the magazine on the glass coffee table. Her boss tightly crossed her arms. She said to her assistant, “You idiot, why did you do that? Find the page you were on—the page with the scalloped necklace. It is memorable. If anyone in America does not know the name Lana Falls or my songs, the upcoming video shoot will fix that.” She paced back and forth as she spoke. “A necklace like that one would complete my look. I need that jewelry designer.”
Lana knew when she behaved unreasonably. Sometimes she could not help herself. Other times, she purposely dramatized her actions to clarify the distinction between herself and her workers. Lana’s fondness for her assistant exacerbated the irrational fits rather than curbed them.
The personal assistant smoothed her practical trousers and sat again to find the page. “Would you like me to get Daphne Edmond on the phone for you?”
Lana rubbed her eye carefully to avoid makeup smudges. “Who?” She preferred to emphasize the quantity of her acquaintances by pretending to let names slip her memory occasionally.
“The magazine editor, Daphne Edmond. She is your friend.”
Lana grinned. She was unsure if anyone was truly her friend anymore, but she loved hearing the word. She snatched the magazine from Maria’s grip and stared at the ad. “I don’t want to talk to her. Just find out who designed this necklace. Arrange for the designer to come tomorrow at noon.” She hesitated a moment. “No, the personal trainer comes tomorrow at noon. Two o’clock.”
Maria took a black organizational device from her pocket and disappeared into another room of the upscale New York apartment. Five minutes later, she returned with a legal pad and read her scribbled notes to the famous pop star.
Lana’s nose flared. “I don’t care what his name is! I want him to come and create a custom necklace for me. I cannot wear anything off the rack. It isn’t me.”
The assistant held back a sigh. “I asked, but he lives in Jerusalem.”
Lana closed the magazine. Through clenched teeth, she demanded, “Get me a flight to Jerusalem then.”
After a moment’s pondering, she decided to alleviate Maria’s frustration by asking a stupid question. She considered the dopey act every beautiful woman’s best manipulative ammunition. Without it, she figured she would still reside in a Lansing suburb. The stupid question made homely women view the playing field as equal. It coerced intimidated men to relax. It allowed people everywhere to listen to their favorite music—his or her own voice, particularly when spouting “worldly wisdom.”
Lana tapped her index finger to her mouth several times. “Should I bring energy bars and toilet paper? Is Jerusalem a third world country?” Then she added, “You really need to come with me.”
“Lana, you know how sick I get on planes. You will be fine.” Maria suppressed a giggle. “Incidentally, Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. They have an ample toilet paper supply.”
Following the arrangements and packing and preening and the cancelling of several days of appointments, Maria drove her employer to the airport. She walked her as far as allowed before the two exchanged their typical icy goodbyes. The hostile undercurrent evolved from Maria’s irritation with Lana’s arrogance and Lana’s frustration with Maria’s inability to sense her every desire. Despite this, both knew they depended on each other. Lana needed a responsible mother figure, and Maria, having had no children of her own, needed someone to nurture. Regardless of their aggravation with one another, they spent nearly every waking hour in New York together.
Nevertheless, Lana had grown accustomed to travelling alone and tolerated the long flight to Israel. After the plane landed, Lana trusted her rhinestone laden sunglasses to hide her from the photographers she felt certain waited for her. However, none stood on the sidewalk when she arrived. None waited in the hotel lobby as she entere
d. She pretended to be relieved.
At the bar, she ordered a drink. The bartender did not recognize her famous face. Lana reassured herself the $25,000 in personal training fees could still be seen on her buttocks whether she held fame’s power in this town or not. Fiddling with her spaghetti straps and twirling her blond extensions around her finger, she requested the bartender’s telephone number in case she needed help navigating the town. He wrote only his email address on hotel stationary before he abandoned her to attend to another guest’s needs.
The frustrated pop star was more ready than ever to meet the jeweler and receive the type of attention only money could buy. She felt confident the relationship between a seller and a buyer was international—one that consisted of butt-kissing by the oodleful.
As she strolled through the market, she felt men stare. Already so familiar with lust’s hungry look and desire’s intense stare, she acknowledged these men’s stares lacked both qualities. Their looks showed disapproval, seemingly saying, “You are a disgrace! Put more clothes on!” She wrapped her hand across her chest and quickened her pace to a sprint.
When she finally arrived at the jeweler’s shop, she pushed the door open with an aggressive thrust. The bell on the door rang with a loud and obnoxious jingle. The shop owner appeared suddenly from a back corner of the shop. He laid down an ornate dreidel to reach out for her hand. “Ms. Falls, you are early! How lucky I am to meet such a famous and beautiful young lady.” He grabbed the hand extended to him and stroked it. “And how have you enjoyed your stay here in Jerusalem?”
Lana gently withdrew her hand to fiddle with her dangling earring. “Terrible, really. The service at the five-star hotel is more like that of a two-star.” Lana accepted the seat offered to her at a small table. “And what is wrong with this town anyway? Everyone looks so serious. Middle-aged men glare and frown, walking around as if they were really important. So condescending!” She gazed at the shop owner as he moved towards a glass case containing a gold replica of the ark of the covenant.
The jeweler unlocked the case and pulled out a black tray with precious jewels inside. “Jerusalem is different.” He closed the case again and rested the jewels on the table before her. His eyes locked with hers. “We value things the rest of the world overlooks and overlook things the rest of the world values.”
He continued to speak, but Lana’s mind wandered because he seemed to mix a foreign language with English as though they were one language. She directed him to design whatever he deemed best and wrote her home address for the necklace’s shipment upon its completion. Lana ignored his cordial sentiments in a rush for the exit.
Back at the hotel, she stuffed her luggage with clothes. She arrived at the airport six hours before her flight was scheduled. She passed two hours by thumbing through magazine pages and calling everyone she knew. With the next two hours, she wrote new song lyrics about a lover who rejected her as she felt Jerusalem had rejected her.
As the time to board the plane drew nearer, two uniformed officials walked toward her. She grinned like a cat with a mouse in its mouth while she pretended to be distracted by her zebra purse’s contents.
The officials stood on opposite sides of her. “Mam?”Lana looked up, unable to contain her excitement a second longer. “I knew someone would recognize me!”
The older of the two men stood with wide shoulders and feet hip-distance apart. “We just have a couple routine questions, that’s all.”
Lana rose to her feet. “Routine, huh? You are not undercover journalists for a celebrity magazine, are you?”
The younger and significantly thinner man spoke up. “No, we just want to know if there was anyone you met up with during your stay here in Israel. Did you receive any gifts while you were here? Any phone numbers exchanged?”
“The jeweler. I met with a jeweler, but I only ordered a necklace. He is shipping it to me. Oh, and I have an email address from the bartender. Here,” she said as she handed the younger man the hotel stationary. He read the name aloud. The two men glanced at each other.
They grabbed her arms and escorted her to a back room for more questioning. After she profusely denied the onslaught of acronyms they mentioned, she glanced at her diamond-studded watch. She grew certain she would miss her flight. Tears welled up in her eyes.
“I hate this place; I cannot understand why anyone travels to Jerusalem.” She spit on the airport floor.
The older man chuckled. “Where are you headed…” He looked down at a piece of paper. “…Ms. Falls?” Before she had time to respond, he answered for her, “New York, is it? You love New
York, eh? Tell me this. Someone wrote a song about New York, but has anyone called New York ‘a song’? ‘A song and a lamentation.’ That’s what David Shipler called Jerusalem. You cannot fully appreciate that because it means noth…”
The other official grabbed his arm. “Now, now. I doubt she is a threat to security and that is our only concern.” He raised his eyebrows at the older man. “Would you like a drink of water, Ms. Falls?” He gestured to a nearby water cooler.
“No, thank you. I just want to go home.”
The younger man escorted her on the plane. As soon as Lana was seated, she pulled a satin eye mask over her eyes and pretended to sleep. Behind the mask, tears flowed from her eyes.
The time spent in Jerusalem reminded her of when she was called Laney Falanopholis. Everyone had appeared more important than her in the years before she had the outrageous wardrobe, breast augmentation, and thousands of crazed fans. She had felt invisible back in Lansing. When words rose from her lips, it was as if they dissolved in midair because it seemed no one cared what she had to say. She knew people would pay attention if she could develop the kind of confidence she projected after she transformed from Laney Falanopholis to Lana Falls. But she could not do that without the fans to tell her she was worthy to be heard. Jerusalem had stripped her props away from her.
She could not feel invisible again. She wiped the tear that had escaped from under the eye mask and rolled down her cheek. Laney and Lana were one person. If Lana’s words were valuable, Laney’s were also. If they mattered in New York, they mattered everywhere else.
In the New York airport reporters swarmed around Maria like zombies waiting for a taste of celebrity blood. She innocently tapped her cheap vinyl flats against the metal chair legs and tried to blend in with the other passengers. That is until she spotted Lana.
The pop star’s hair was disheveled. Her eyeliner had smeared. And her arms were wide open. Unsure how to react, Maria gently wrapped her arms around Lana. Reporters snapped pictures from every angle. Still joined in the embrace, Maria whispered to her, “What happened?”
Lana replied, “Jerusalem happened.” She let go of her personal assistant and lifted her purse strap back on her shoulder. “And I am all the better for it.”
As the two walked through the airport, Lana slid her arm in Maria’s. Lana stopped shouting orders at her employees and gave everyone a raise. She treated Maria less like a servant and more like a friend.
Annette’s Café
Sapphire eyes blazed from under the cowboy hat as he sauntered past the yellow mop bucket. He removed the felt hat and adjusted the fist-sized belt buckle before he sat in the corner booth. When I approached him, he grabbed a menu and pointed to biscuits and gravy with his sun-aged hand, the good one that still had five fingers. He was no drugstore cowboy.
Though he was a regular, no one at Annette’s Café knew his name. He never spoke to anyone. When he finished eating, he routinely carried his guest check to the register, paid with a five dollar bill, and left a dollar fifty tip. Annette instructed us not to disturb the lone cowboy.
Something like the feeling a child gets when warned not to touch the sugar caddy rushed over me that day. When the lone cowboy lay down his guest check at the register, I pulled ones from my black tip apron and
paid his bill. He didn’t smile or say anything, but he left a twenty dollar tip. I broke the routine of the untouchable cowboy. To me, this seemed a small victory.
Good Deed Collector
Arthur Meeks loved his job as a guardian angel. He had worked his wings off for five hundred years protecting generations of human lives, and other angels respected him for it. No one stole his manna from the refrigerator. Heaven’s most infamous gossiper never whispered about him at the Spring of Life water cooler.
Honestly, the loud mouth preferred to talk about humans anyway. Her favorite topic was the human inclination to reveal surplus skin—making her flesh envy oh so obvious. She also loved to discuss major human concerns like population growth.
She cackled as human leaders grew more perplexed by the population problem. She laughed because angels saw the comet’s trajectory long before the humans did. She insisted some of the less pious angels drank too much wine before they went bowling on the fringes of the solar system causing the comet to veer. (That theory remains unverified.)
Regardless, the angels knew the frozen rock would strike Asia thousands of miles sooner than the scientists. They knew it was too big to be stopped and would devastate the human population. However, they did not foresee its affect on heaven’s unemployment rate. With so many humans dead, millions of guardian angels—including Arthur Meeks—found themselves unemployed.
Arthur knew it would be several generations until the human population could support the number of guardian angels it demanded prior to the comet. This reality forced him into a depressive state. Most times, he sat on clouds feeling sorry for himself until he finally succumbed to the inevitable and accepted a job as a lowly good deed collector.
Angel Resources must have reported his negative attitude to the archangels because they assigned him to a region known as
America—the hardest place to collect good deeds. Not only that, but his first assignment did not consist of the standard ‘motivate someone to let a car out in traffic.’ No, the assignment required Arthur to prompt a stranger to help a blind man cross a street.
Upon receiving the detailed paper of the assignment’s when, where, and what, Arthur exhaled a deep sigh. He had a two-hour-long sulking session before his assignment began. Then he dragged his feet during takeoff, flew slowly through the heavens, and arrived at Fifth and Main Street a few minutes late.
When he finally arrived at the intersection, the situation had nearly reached a code red. The blind man had already entered the first lane of Main Street’s four lanes. Honking cars careened around him in a whirlwind.
Amidst all this commotion, the blind man’s guide dog sniffed after a chicken bone that dangled from a demon’s palm. The demon glanced up at Arthur and snickered before he resumed walking backwards, tempting the dog, and leading the blind man into the second lane of traffic.
“It’s about time you got here, Art,” called a second angel assigned to the task. The younger and more virile angel flew erratically in and out of cars, yanking their steering wheels to avoid the blind man. “You could have cost Frank here his life and cost me my job all for the sake of a silly good deed.”
Arthur knew good deeds were not silly, but deeds did seem like chump change compared to protecting human life. “Sorry, Sam,” Arthur said to the younger angel. “I’ll get right to work. Say, I could use some potential Samaritans. Could you stop that second lane of traffic for me?”
Sam groaned, but he jumped in front of a blue sedan. He thrust his arms forward and stopped it. Tires skidded and brakes squealed as the other cars screeched to a halt behind it. The blue sedan’s driver busily inspected his gauges, wipers, and blinkers because he planned to swerve around the blind man—not stop completely. He could not understand why his car suddenly failed to move forward. The driver could not see the guardian angel, the demon, or Arthur.
Although the entities were invisible to humans, they could be heard, sort of. When angels spoke to humans, it occurred to them as a random thought. Arthur figured he would begin with this approach. He flew into the passenger seat of the sedan leaned forward, and whispered into the driver’s ear, “Help the blind man cross the street.”
The man thought to himself, “Somebody should help that man cross the street, but I have my own problems to deal with right now. What a lemon this car turned out to be!” He popped his car’s hood—hitting Sam in the face—and jumped out of the automobile.
Arthur rolled his eyes. He flew out of the car and shook his head in Sam’s direction. This fellow was no Good Samaritan.
The driver in the next car, a yellow compact, appeared to be a young woman. She was tapping her nails on the wheel as she waited for someone to let her out in traffic.
Arthur flew to the side of her car, stuck his head in her open window, and whispered, “You must help that blind man cross the street!”
The young lady thought to herself, “I should help that man cross the street.” She felt tingles—a side effect of Arthur’s excitement.
Just then, a demon appeared in the passenger seat and smeared some goopy doubt on her shoulder. Suddenly, she suspected the man was not really blind at all and would mug her as soon as she began helping him. The young lady locked her doors and rolled up her window. Arthur yanked his head out of the window in the nick of time.
Although all of this occurred with lightning-fast speed, time remained in motion, as did the blind man. About this time, he had entered the third lane of traffic. Sam let go of the blue sedan and ran to stop a truck in that lane.
Luckily the blue sedan’s driver did not realize he could start his car again, so he attempted to push his car to the side of the road. Arthur might have gotten someone to help him, but that was not his assignment. Instead, he watched as Sam struggled against the truck.
“Sam, I promise the next person will perform the good deed. I’ll make sure of it.” Arthur flew to the car behind the yellow compact, where a middle-aged woman fiddled with her radio. Since she was unable to see the blind man from her vantage point, Arthur knew he needed a new strategy.
He wanted to make the task more convenient somehow. He looked up at a storefront sign advertising donuts, and it dawned on him. He blew the scent of a chocolate frosted long john right under her nose. Immediately, her mouth started watering.
Without delay, she pulled into the vacant spot on the side of the road. She hopped out of the car and began digging in her purse for meter change. When she looked up, she saw the blind man entering the fourth lane of traffic.
Without pausing to check for oncoming cars, she ran into the street and hooked his arm in hers. Together, they stepped on the curb—much to Sam’s relief. She introduced herself to the blind man as Irene and petted the guide dog, which incensed the demon.
Arthur snickered at the demon. The angel snatched up the good deed and placed it in his canvas bag. He drew the strings tight and soared back to heaven with his treasure, satisfied with himself for accomplishing the challenging task.
In heaven, Arthur placed the good deed bag directly on the archangel’s desk with a wide grin.
The archangel did not look up when he spoke, “Good news, Art. An African woman is celebrating the birth of her baby girl. She needs a guardian angel. You feeling up to it?”
“Nah, I think I’ll pass. I just got this good deed collection figured out. Anyhow, it seems really rewarding—the kind of reward you feel inside, ya know?”
The archangel looked up and raised his eyebrows. He opened the canvas bag and peered inside. His face became radiant; he smiled. “Yep, sometimes the littlest things have the greatest ability to make you feel good inside.”
Arthur was not sure who got the African assignment. It could have been any of the unemployed ex-guardian angels. In the following months, Arthur rejected numerous offers.
Over time, nearly all of the ex-guardian angels returned to their former positions. Some good deed collectors even
received promotions to guardian angels. Sam was eventually promoted to archangel. Arthur, however, continued to blissfully collect good deeds until he happily retired.
He moved into a humble cloud dwelling over Irene’s house. When her flowers started to droop, he squeezed the cloud to rain droplets of water onto them. When she planned a family picnic, he shoved the cloud out of the path of the sun’s rays. All of her friends were confounded by her great luck, but Arthur knew it was not really luck at all.
American Balloon
A red latex balloon was tied to the child’s chair like a beloved yaht in harbor. It bobbed and weaved, blown about by the vent’s breath. The birthday song overpowered the conversational roar, and the aroma of simmering sauces filled the restaurant’s air.
Across the room, Mr. Raffio spoke to his waitress with a subtle accent. His waitress, Cheri, leaned in. “Say it again. I could not hear you.”
“I want another glass of milk and a balloon for him.” He rested his hand on his son’s shoulder.
The waitress stood upright and adjusted her tuxedo shirt. “I will be happy to bring you another glass, but we don’t give out balloons here.”
Mr. Raffio’s carmel-colored hand motioned to the child with the balloon. “That kid has one.”
Cheri cleared appetizer dishes as she spoke, “His parents must have brought it.”
Mr. Raffio glanced at the five other guests seated at his table. “Then, could you go buy my son a balloon at a corner store?” He grabbed her arm and slid her ten dollars.
“Sir, I am sorry; I can’t do that. Friday nights are really busy. I’ll be fired if I leave now, even if it is for a patron.” With two fingers, she held out the ten dollar bill for him to take back. Instead of accepting the money, he handed her several more bills.
She chuckled out of awkwardness. After she counted the money aloud, she looked up at Mr. Raffio. “One hundred dollars? I would love to take it, but I need to keep this job.”
Once more, she attempted to return the money to the patron.
The man slouched further in his chair and made no effort to accept the money back from her. “You are treating me like this because I am a foreigner…”
The waitress interrupted. “I am treating you like an American who thinks he can buy anyone or anything!” She sighed. “You cannot buy me.”
Mr. Raffio took a money clip from the shirt pocket of his sheen button-up. He placed it in her hand.
After counting the money, she said, “One thousand dollars? And all I have to do is get your kid a balloon?” Cheri paused. She threw her arms up in surrender. “I suppose you can buy me after all.”
The waitress shoved the cash in her apron and walked over to the child with the balloon. She stooped to whisper in his ear. The child beamed and opened his hand. She plunked three gleaming coins into the youthful palm.
Afterward, she peeled the blade on her wine opener and cut the balloon’s ribbon. She closed the knife, returned to Mr. Raffio’s table, and tied the red balloon to his son’s chair.
The red latex balloon bobbed and weaved, blown about by the vent’s breath. Mr. Raffio grinned at his boy and rubbed him on the head. Cheri disappeared into the kitchen, where she counted her money next to cucumbers and lettuce. Yes indeed, pride is a profitable little gem.
The Van Table
It all started during a science exam. Miss Cheswick challenged her fifth grade students with most questions but expected everyone to receive a point for marking their home planet correctly. Van penciled the circle corresponding to Jupiter.
He performed exceptionally well on the other exams, so Miss Cheswick assumed he mistakenly marked the wrong letter on the multiple choice. She called Van to her desk while the class quietly completed a web of life handout.
When the square-faced boy with bushy eyebrows and hair of the same coarse texture approached her desk, she swiveled in her chair to address him. “Van, I think there may be some confusion about a question on the exam. Perhaps we can take an oral approach to this question.” She cleared her throat. “What is your home planet?”
“Jupiter.”
Miss Cheswick thanked him and told him to return to his desk. She marked a bold “X” on Van’s test form, then scratched her head with the grading pen. After a few moments of brooding, she scribbled a note on a post-it. It read: Van-parent conference.
Just then, the bell rang. The teacher led her twenty-four children down the hall to the cafeteria. They lined up together, purchased their lunch, and sat down at their respective tables. Boys sat at the ‘boy table.’ Girls sat at the ‘girl table.’ Van sat at the ‘Van table.’ The others did not abandon Van because he was a nerd. Nerds congregated at the end of the boy table. For some reason, Van had abandoned them. He did not seem to have much to say to other kids. If he did, he tucked it under a blanket of tightly held insecurities. Still, other children made no efforts to include him.
The behavior did not surprise Miss Cheswick. After fifteen years of teaching, she had seen fifteen other boys and girls—one from each class—isolate themselves in similar ways. One girl, Maria (Miss Cheswick could never forget) finished the entire year without saying an audible word to anyone and no one, besides herself, made an effort to elicit one word from her.
Other teachers might have grown hardened to these forlorn children after so many years, and Miss Cheswick wished she could behave with such apathy. However, she remained compassionate toward them and often fought the urge to take her lunch beside them—an act she neglected to do because she knew it would only further isolate them from their peers.
So she walked to the teacher’s lounge where she always took her lunch. Instead of grading papers in silence as she often did, she placed a call to the number listed as Van’s home phone. A woman answered, whom Miss Cheswick presumed was his mother.
“Mrs. Lojze?”
“I don’t know of any ‘Mrs. Lojze.’ I am Ms. Layla Bower. May I help you?”
“I am trying to reach Van’s mother.”
“In that case, you are looking for me. Van Lojze is my son.”
Miss Cheswick and Ms. Layla Bower arranged to meet for an informal conference after school. It would be their first meeting since she did not participate in activities like other parents. Ms. Bower never graced the bake sale fundraiser with her prizewinning sugar-laced brownies, nor did she exhibit her exceptional organizational skills by heading up clever games at the class parties.Although there were many stay-at-home moms within the school’s invisible boundaries of semi-affluent neighborhoods, sometimes both parents worked full time. If Ms.
Bower was a single mom, as the teacher suspected by the different last names, there would be little or no time for her to engage in anything besides providing for Van’s basic needs. Miss Cheswick mulled over these thoughts as the fifth grade art teacher entered the lounge.
The eccentric teacher fluffed her purple peasant skirt and sat beside Miss Cheswick. “Whatcha doin’?”
“I just got off of the phone with Van’s mother.”
“Oh, that kid. He’s odd. I gave the kids free time today, and they had a field day—splashing paint all over themselves and one another. Van, he just sat there and looked at a lump of clay for fifty five minutes. No kidding. I don’t think he has any imagination whatsoever.”
“Funny you should say that, because he marked ‘Jupiter’ as his home planet on his science test.”
The art teacher stole a celery stick from Miss Cheswick’s lunch and began gnawing it as she spoke. “Maybe he just likes planets. That’s what we’ll do next! The class can make a whole solar system.” She spread out her arms to emphasize her vision of the project before leaving Miss Cheswick to her celery sticks and thoughts.
She remained in this pensive state until Ms. Layla Bower arrived for the conference. Ms. Bower stuck her platinum blond head in the classroom door.
“Miss Cheswick?”
Th
e teacher welcomed Ms. Bower. She instantly sized her up as an atypical parent by her distinctive clothing choice—a fur-collared cardigan and tight black jeans. Miss Cheswick appreciated the difficulty she might have fitting in with other parents. The teacher’s own conservative attire sharply contrasted Van’s mother’s flashy clothing, but she resolved to make her comfortable enough to convey some insight regarding her son.
Van, who stayed after school to be picked up by his mother, did not acknowledge his mother in any way when she entered the room. He did, however, eagerly comply with Miss Cheswick’s request to wait in the hall until after the conference.
The teacher sat at her desk and thumbed through the three-page test, bound by a single staple in the top left corner of the pages, until she found the question. She turned it 180 degrees, so the test would be upright for Van’s mother.
“Van is a pleasure to have in class—very bright. The fact that he is so intelligent makes his answer even more disturbing. Do you know any reason Van might think his home planet is Jupiter?” A bouncing ball sound caused Miss Cheswick to look into the hall, where another student stood and glanced at the two adults. She excused herself and closed the door while Ms. Bower analyzed the test booklet.
When Miss Cheswick sat again at her desk, Ms. Bower said, “This is my fault. I haven’t been very forthcoming with Van about his roots. You see, his father and I only dated a short time. I knew very little about him at the time, and we did not stay in contact. I want to say he moved to Alaska. I can assure you that his father is not from Jupiter—unless we are talking about Jupiter, Florida, in which case he may be. He did look a bit Cuban. Is Arik, spelled with an ‘A,’ a Cuban name? I’m rambling, aren’t I? Well, I will send Van to his uncle’s this weekend. The two are fond of each other, the way a father and son would be. Maybe that will help.”
Monday morning, the teacher did see a change in Van, but the change was not what she had hoped. The boy she had seen walking past them in the hallway during the conference was talking to Van and the other kids. She overheard him saying, “Van is an alien. I even heard Miss Cheswick say he admitted it.”
Miss Cheswick pretended not to hear the conversation.
Van replied, “I did not say I was an alien. I said that my home planet was Jupiter.”
“Same thing,” another boy called out.
“No, it’s not. My father is an alien, but my mother is human. I guess that makes me part alien.”
Yet another boy asked, “Well, where is your father now? Can we see him?”
“He had to return to Jupiter. He flew me back to Earth with Mom. He thinks we belong here.” When the boys started to turn away, Van added, “But he put this microchip in my hand to keep track of me. Look.” He extended his hand for the boys to see.
Miss Cheswick glanced over, squinting to see a splinter or something else un-extraordinary. Whatever it was, it was too small for her to see, but there was something because the boys ooh’d and ah’d before bombarding him with a series of questions.
She stopped listening in. On the one hand, she was appalled that the children would embrace an alien, yet allow a normal child to alienate himself without taking any measure to include him. She did take comfort in the fact he was interacting, in some way, with the other children.
The interaction extended to more than just the other children over the next few days. She was not sure which of the boy’s dads was a reporter for the Warrrenton Heights newspaper, but she was certain that’s how Van’s story got in the headlines. She rolled her eyes when she saw the newspaper and thought how ridiculous it all was.
Somebody else did not think it was ridiculous at all. A man in a black suit came to visit the school the day after the article was published. He requested Van’s presence in the office about a ‘classified matter.’ Miss Cheswick learned no more about the visit until the following day when dozens of reporters showed up at the school—scribbling notes. And dozens of photographers showed up too snapping pictures.
She heard on the news that night the man was with the FBI, and scientists aimed to identify the shiny substance in Van’s palm.
Ms. Bower’s interview was aired as well. She was very ambiguous about her relationship with Van’s father. In fact, she played into the rumor—saying she oddly did not remember much about that time period. She glowed. It seemed to be her moment in the sun.
Miss Cheswick did not think Ms. Bower’s moment in the sun should be at Van’s expense. She looked online for Arik, with an ‘A,’ Lojze that lived in Alaska. Before long, she was on the phone with him—discussing Van’s need for his father at such a time of distress and confusion.
The gruff male voice said, “Do you know what a flight from Alaska would cost? I don’t care what he needs. I cannot afford that.”
“I’ll pay.” The teacher wished she could suck the words back into her mouth the second they fell from her lips. She hoped she had enough room on her credit card for such a trip. “Well, I will get back to you when I see if it is possible.”
She did manage to charge the flight, kicking herself even as she requested an extension on the card’s limit. The truth was that she felt some responsibility for this media circus since she called attention to Van’s Jupiter exam answer. So she grew determined to bring an end to it. She called the local news station and the press—telling them they would have an opportunity to interview the alien father at her house.
After Arik arrived at the airport, Miss Cheswick invited him into her home. He was burly and handsome—square faced with bushy eyebrows and hair of the same texture, just like Van. She asked him if he would like to call Van or if he preferred she do it for him. He let her coordinate their meeting with the reporters, requesting they get it over with as soon as possible.
When they all arrived in her living room, the whole family sat in a row of kitchen chairs she put in front of the fireplace. Who knows? These would probably be the only family photos Van would ever get.