Chapter 3: Crisis, of the First Part

“I don’t understand it.” Colin poured his first cup of coffee into his favorite dancing monkey mug and popped it into the microwave. “It just isn’t working.”

Sylvia, who had been up for three hours before him, sat at the kitchen table sipping her coffee slowly and looked up. Her eyes were red.

“We have to talk,” she said.

“I’ve put too much time into this novel, and for what?”

“Colin . . .”

“You’re right. I haven’t put that much time into it. The thing is, I expected more of response. I’m selling something you can’t get from anywhere else. I’m selling people their dreams, or at least a reasonable facsimile, thereof. Maybe people . . .”

“Colin . . .” she interrupted.

The microwave beeped. Colin sat down across from Sylvia, took a too-hot sip from his coffee, and continued, “. . . maybe people don’t need those sorts of dreams anymore. Maybe they’re really happy having their own stories handed to them, and it’s just something I don’t understand. Maybe what people really want is to putter around in whatever six-cylinder sedan Madison Avenue says will boost your libido and the libido of those around you. Maybe people are actually happy having their lives handed to them and letting their sofa’s ratio of cushion-to-ass determine how well they sleep at night. Maybe I don’t really know what people want or how to give someone a moment that will have half as much meaning to them as a BLT. Maybe, I just don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. Maybe . . .”

“Colin, slow down.”

Colin took another sip of his coffee. It was cool enough. “Maybe the message is just muddled. I just need the project to resonate with one person and for that one person to make a donation. No one wants to be the first in anything. Sure, we’re all like, look at that, first man on the moon, but maybe Armstrong actually got the short straw. Maybe NASA figured if anyone’s expendable, it’s that guy.  But hell, so far, I’ve only gotten like 25 hits, and half of those were me editing the damned thing. All I have to do is convince people—people who might not otherwise stick around long enough to read an entire novel, that this is different, somehow worth reading, that the novel will morph and change to their dreams, that this string of sentences and fragments is something worth paying attention to, that, at the very least, it can take them away from themselves.

“Maybe they aren’t listening.” She glared at him.

“I’m glad you understand.”

“I’m not sure I do, but you’re not listening. We need to talk.”

“Sorry. It’s just . . .”

“Colin.”

“Sorry. I know, I know. What did you want to talk about?”

“My unemployment ended.”

Although Colin had known this moment could come any day, he was still unprepared for the news. He’d somehow managed to work up enough self-delusion to carry him through the first blow of his own unemployment ending a month earlier. He still had managed to believe—somehow—that Sylvia’s unemployment would last at least through the 4th of July holiday and that the Democrats would break the Republican filibuster—either by making some paltry concession on immigration, by changing the Senatorial rules to eliminate the need for a supermajority, or by simply shaming their Republican colleagues into a momentary retreat. Yet, here the news was, tightening around his neck like a boa constrictor. He struggled, momentarily, for breath. He sought out any of the words that had, a few moments before, poured from his mouth in an unceasing stream. He could find none.

Jacob, their beagle, having woken from his second mid-afternoon nap, trotted into the kitchen and stretched a long stretch, then sat directly in front of Colin, staring intently up at him. “The dog needs out. Let’s talk outside.”

They followed Jacob outside and watched as he began to sniff the perimeter of the yard frantically and trotted along the fence line as if he might still track down whatever woodland creature had left behind its scent. Colin kept watching him while Sylvia gazed down at the sun-wilted ménage of spiderwort, calla lilies, dandelions, and hosta that passed for a flowerbed.

“We really do need to do something about those flowers,” she said.

“Do you think someone would buy them?”

“Not helping.”

“Well, we have to do something. How are we on money?”

 “Let’s just say you can put off that vacation to Afghanistan. I have to check, but we’re not making next month’s mortgage without a minor miracle.”

Jacob had found a place to go in the middle of the yard and was looking up at Colin with eyes that almost seemed guilty. Colin turned away, tried to focus his attention on Sylvia, like he thought she deserved.

“Or a job.”

“Right, a minor miracle.”

“Seriously, Sylvia, we should sell something else.”

“Your soul?”

“Too late.”

“You got a raw deal then.”

“Didn’t we all? Let’s just sell everything. Be done with possessions. Move to a commune in West Virginia.”

“West Virginia?”

“I like to be different.”

“I kind of like it here, Colin. I’d kind of like to keep our house.”

Colin sighed. “I know. . .”

“Let’s go inside,” Sylvia suggested, “we can have a drink and . . .”

“Look at porn?”

“No, you perv. We can relax and then start making lists with a slightly calmer mind. We can brainstorm ideas for what to sell.”

“We can also try to come up with other ways to make money.”

“Like your novel idea?”

“Yeah. Fine. Let’s have that drink and talk and list.” Colin turned toward the yard and screamed, “Jacob! Jacob!”

He didn’t hear anything other than Sylvia opening the back door and heading inside. He whistled. “Jacob! Jacob!” Nothing.

He walked out into the yard, peered behind the overgrown peony bushes and under the untrimmed holly shrubs and yew. Jacob was nowhere to be found.

Colin opened the door and screamed, “Sylvia! I can’t find Jacob!”