Joy to be found by Simon Pinkerton

Andréa Portilla


Joy to be found

I find it in the gaps, the bends: setting up meetings knowing I'll cancel them; inviting guests to the residence, purposely leaving for hotel rooms in other cities so they arrive at an empty house and question their own scheduling; putting my phone's alarm on for 3:00 a.m. so I wake and can experience insomnia I don't have; enjoying my restless legs' jumpy energy and going downstairs to eat cereal before coming back up to bed without cleaning my teeth—waking in the morning tired, to sticky front teeth and sour-sweet breath; a mild headache at the office as I schedule two clients for the same time slot and relish the ensuing shouting match about deservedness and priority; making a winning pitch and then never cashing the check, never doing a day's work on the account, never returning the phone calls; explaining to the bosses that I never agreed to take the client on, that they were mistaken to think I did.
          
          I'm out walking just before midnight in the next city over (a drive that takes me 100 minutes exactly) and I see a petite and crazily-pretty woman carrying her heels, barefoot on the cool, clean, rain-stroked bridge, breezing by me soundlessly. I look for blisters on her ankles but they are completely unspoiled. She stumbles and puts a hand out to steady herself on a fine old piece of steel that webs up to the expansive, liberated apex of the arch.
         
          I ask if she needs help getting somewhere, and I don't smell a trace of booze, even as she looks at me with smudged, lazy eyes. She giggles and slurs a hello. She’s just having fun. I ask her where she's headed, and she indicates a downtown Marriott by whirling her finger and then jabbing it towards the lit sign. I ask her where she's from and she tells me "Here, silly".
         
          My instinct is to ask if she wants to go for a drink, but I walk with her, looking out over the reflected lights that flare twice and are swallowed in the weighty river's vacuum. She bumps my hip with hers and motions to the left somewhere with her eyes, like she's waiting for me to pick someplace for us to go. I tell her I know somewhere we can go for gelato where they think my name is Patrick.  
       
            She orders three scoops and tells me she only wants a bite of each and that I should eat the rest, that she'll pick flavors she thinks a guy named Patrick might like. As she tastes them I watch her mouth closely. She describes the taste of each bite in words I can only describe as fertile, then asks me how far removed my actual name is. I tell her it's similar enough not to be jarring when they greet me. She tells me that she thinks it's no coincidence that we met tonight. She correctly guesses my real name on the first try, blows my mind for the second time in twenty minutes.  
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Bio: Simon Pinkerton is that guy you recognize from high school and can’t believe still lives in town. He can often be found <insert your favourite verb/activity here, to increase interest in and rapport with this author>. Please find him @simonpinkerton and please read his fiction and humor at places like Word Riot, Vanilla Sex Magazine, Queen Mob's Tea House and Entropy Magazine.

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