The Muse (2 page)

“I feel really silly asking this,” she said in a low, raspy voice, “but can you tell there’s something kind of strange about my outfit?” She rested her hand on her curvy hip and posed like a runway model.

I stopped lathering soap in my hands, biting down hard on the derisive words that, had I been a braver woman, would’ve knocked her down a few notches from her pretty little perch. I knew her type too well – entitled to stares and dropped jaws. Rather than attempt it, I scanned her taupe dress, her bare calves, and her sandaled feet, like a fearful bird pecking crumbs in the wake of hasty tourists. I turned back to the sink, to the safety of the running water and shrugged. “Looks fine,” I mumbled.

“So, you didn’t notice my mistake?”

I looked back up at her reflection in the mirror, skirting around her penetrating eyes, her dark, wavy hair resting at her breasts, and her exotic features. I shook my head.

In my peripheral, I saw her nod with gracious appeal. She turned and entered the stall. “Okay then. All is good.”

I continued washing my hands while checking out her slender ankles and the way her sandals cradled her feet so delicately. Her crimson toenails sparkled and the strings of her sandals flirted with her soft, smooth, creamy skin. I grazed from one pretty sandal to the other and that’s when I noticed her mishap. She wore one dark blue sandal and one black one.

An imperfect beauty.

My heart twirled as I shut off the water. I tore off the paper towel and hid my giggle until I passed well out of earshot of the woman wearing two different colored shoes. The joy of such a discovery saddled me in giddiness.

Eva Handel was her name. I guessed her to be part Chinese, part white. When she entered the meeting room minutes later, my breath hitched. She moved through the air as gentle as wind swept through a field of wild flowers, delicate, yielding, and breezy.

When she took to the podium, she sprinkled us in smiles and good wishes for a successful second quarter. Her eyes sparkled under the golden overheads, and they waltzed from one person to the next, connecting us in her sweet lullaby. Her golden cheeks glistened, her dark hair cascaded like pretty ivy around her shoulders, and her inflection pitched in just the right places. Her sandals stood out to me like a well-wrapped gift, offering me a most impeccable view of a most flawless mishap.

She spoke with eloquence and grace, undeterred by her mismatched sandals and the three-hundred-plus people who sat staring at her. She joked about her bumpy motorcycle ride down the New Jersey Turnpike from the city and about how excited she was that her bike came complete with a small hatch so she could pack her running shoes and her sandals. Even from the back row of the room I caught the gleam of humor in her eye as she balanced her secret like a well-trained model balanced a book on her head. She danced around her secret, playing with it, placing it out in front for all to see. A magician with an invisible wand. A hot biker chick with a knack for humor.

Eva Handel could carry a crowd with ease. Where luck failed, she used wit to pull her through. She said how excited she was to be part of our team and eager to learn from each of us how she could take live events to a whole new level. She discussed future plans to initiate a series of public service announcements geared at piquing the interest of the youth into setting exercise into their daily habits. She opened her arms wider and talked with her hands as she climbed the rudders of joy. She loved camerawork and she couldn’t wait to get started on these short clips.

When she finished her speech, she sat back down on the stage next to a bald guy wearing a bright orange shirt and blue tie. She smiled and joked around with this guy who gazed into her eyes and swayed into her. The two chummed-up in private musings leaving the rest of us to guess what playful secrets they were sharing. For the remainder of the speeches, I couldn’t help but stare at her from the safety of my back row seat. I enjoyed the soft way her lips curled up into a smile whenever someone referenced her and the subtle sexiness of her ankles as she crossed them over each other time and again, a movement so unobvious to onlookers yet so intense to me. At one point, I looked up from her mismatched sandals and up to her eyes. She caught me and offered me a knowing smile. I flushed and sank lower in my seat, surprised by the flutters and my racing heart. I circled my gaze around the room, my head in a halo of joy, wondering if anyone else noticed that the most beautiful girl in the room just smiled at me.

Yes, she smiled at me.

Chapter Two

I first signed up for Twitter a year ago, after being forced into it. Sanjeev required everyone in the marketing department to take part in a free webinar,
Five Easy Steps to Building an Online Presence
, being hosted by his alma mater – College Park. I had sat through the first fifteen minutes of that webinar rolling my eyes at the information, information that I knew darn well I’d never use. Why would I want to socialize with a bunch of strangers from across the world when I could walk out of my front door and be trampled on by any one of the eight-plus million people who lived in the greater DC and Baltimore region?

So, while everyone else listened in to hear about all of Twitter’s bells and whistles, I played Solitaire. When the tone of the instructor’s voice changed to that of a person set to close up the lecture, I tuned back in to ensure I didn’t miss her instructions on how to access the presentation slides. I had no doubt that Sanjeev would insist on some sort of follow-through action step. Even in his most reserved state, he was a manager who exuded passion about education. He loved learning new things, and his enthusiasm towards personal and professional development overpowered his soft tone, his averted eyes, his flushed face.

Twenty minutes after that webinar ended, Sanjeev rounded us up like cattle at feeding time and requested that we each create a Twitter handle that mirrored our personalities and go live with an account. Then, he instructed us to follow each other and test it out. So, for thirty agonizing minutes I combed through the downloaded PowerPoint slides, racked my brain for a unique Twitter name, and finally created my online persona, @jktwitter. I opted to use the generic “egghead” image Twitter provided for my profile picture. Katie, with her one-thousand and eleven followers already, had followed me first.

I didn’t reciprocate the follow.

I followed Doreen right away and then a few others. I read their feeds for about one month, entertained with the conversations between people. Tom, a graphic designer, told Carly, a print production associate, that her smile was lovely. Yes, he used the world lovely. She responded with a wink and “ditto.” A few short weeks later, they snuck off to lunch alone. Soon, I’d found them snuggled up in a hug at the copy machine, walking hand-in-hand around the duck pond, and sharing many more winks and kisses on Twitter for all of us to see.

During this time, I would try to sneak into a conversation and add my opinion, but each time, I’d go well over the one-hundred and forty character limit. I’d try erasing a period or a comma, but I couldn’t bring myself to send out grammatically incorrect tweets. On those lucky occasions when I could fit my thoughts within the character limits, I’d erase it anyway. My comments were usually derisive and challenging and the last thing I wanted to do was toss myself out to marketing and the rest of the world like shark bait.

One time Glenn, the associate director, tossed a good tweet out there that demanded an intelligent response. He asked what we’d do if we were president of America for a day. People came up with the usual boring answers like feed all hungry, no taxes for a day, blah, blah, blah. I wanted to say I’d fire all of the current staff and hire a competent one. That would be the truth. The current White House staff wasn’t letting the president do his job. Fire their asses, I’d say. But, @jktwitter kept silent and sat back and observed her colleagues socializing. From behind my computer screen, I lived vicariously through their emoticons, their whimsical phrases, their banter with perfect strangers about weather, sports, politics, causes, and celebrity mishaps, happy I didn’t need such affirmations and ego-massaging to keep me intact. I quickly grew bored with this e-voyeurism and resumed my exciting life as a proofreader and marketing headline writer in a cubicle.

I’d made it through one winter and one season of
House
without logging into my Twitter account.

Three days after our introduction meeting to the New York City staff, I had been proofing the latest sporting goods catalogue, sipping on some lemon-flavored iced tea, and licking a cherry Tootsie pop when Doreen popped over to my cubicle.

“I’m following Eva Handel on Twitter—you know that funny one with the motorcycle?”

I shrugged and shook my head, putting up a compelling act. “Which one was she? I don’t remember.”

Doreen smiled. “She was the only other pretty girl in the room besides you.”

I smiled back at her and chuckled. Doreen spoiled me with compliments all the time. That’s what mother figures did. They baked you muffins, fed you fattening bagels and smothered you in niceties to try and build up your self-esteem. She offered them to me so often that after a while thanking her seemed a futile thing to do.

Dodging the compliment, I charged ahead. “I didn’t notice. You know me. I don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff.”

“Well, you might want to pay attention to it this time, because you’ll never believe what she said on Twitter.”

Had she mentioned me? Mentioned our smile? Mentioned her mismatched shoes?

I flushed. My temperature spiked. My skin prickled and, in a flash, a blanket of goose bumps covered my arms. I twisted around the chaos and whispered, “What did she say?”

“She tweeted that she loves everything about the mid-Atlantic—especially the wonderful hospitality of her new colleagues—but she despises Old Bay seasoning.” Doreen stretched her eyes in horror like Eva had insulted her personally, and she wanted me to defend her.

I happened to love Old Bay seasoning, and, as a good Marylander, held it in the highest regard. Old Bay represented Maryland perhaps more than the Ravens, more than the Orioles, more than Inner Harbor. We doused our burgers, our fish, our clam cakes, even our salads with the stuff. She may as well have insulted our intelligence, our culture, and our belief systems. I latched onto this stimulant, gripping it like it was a machete that I could use to clear the pathway to the likes of people like Eva. Instant access.

“I might just have a reason to get back on Twitter, my friend.”

Doreen nodded with a hint of pride weaved into her wide smile. “Good. Go get her.”

# #

For the rest of the afternoon, I sat in my cubicle proofing. At one point, I read the same line of text over and over again until my eyes blurred. I turned the page and focused in on a block of sidebar text. I read it. I read it again. I read it a third time and still I didn’t know any more about the stroller with one wheel in front than I did the first time my eyes scanned the information. The only thing I did recognize after a tenth final attempt was that I wanted to tweet to Eva.

Even though my deadline for proofing the fall catalog loomed in front of me, I took to the Internet and opened up Twitter. Curiosity sneaked its way in and wouldn’t release its grip. I logged on about ten times that afternoon, typing in my tweet comeback to her, and each time going well over the character limit. Each time I backspaced my comment, my eyes wandered to her picture. Warm flutters tickled through me as I settled in on her sly smile; her dark, rich hair falling past her golden shoulders; and the light twinkling on her lips. I snapped away from her picture each time, sidestepping the danger of my ego-driven mind. I’d last a few seconds before focusing back on her again. Her eyes, cascaded in mystery and intrigue, peeked up over an oversized, purple and pink ceramic mug, teasing visitors to her Twitter page. My tummy rolled. I stared at her and imagined that secretive smile spreading across her face again.

I clicked into her images and scrolled through screens of her in different shots. One she was jogging, her legs curved and sculpted like I’d always wished mine could be. Another she was hugging a Boxer puppy and looked about ready to burst with love. I loved Boxers and remained firm that one day when I bought a house with a fenced yard, I would get one. In another shot she was swinging on a tire hanging from a tree. Her hair fanned behind her, spraying the air.

I used to swing on a tire, too. We had so much in common.