Catching On Fire Read online

  Of course, that was one dilemma I’d never have to deal with. Near as I could tell, I had no natural talent. So…what skill set was I supposed to pursue when nothing seemed to be rising to the forefront? The only talent I had, if you could call it that, was this weird sort of intuition. But, how do you build a career around intuition?

  I thought the only obvious venues for exploiting that particular talent would be customs agent or airport security or something like that. And I just couldn’t imagine myself doing any of those things. So, I was fumbling around trying to develop some sort of competency at marketing and public relations. But, most days, I felt like an imposter. An inexperienced kid pretending to be a professional.

  “You look like you’re pondering some deep life issue.” Jim’s comment brought me back to the moment.

  “Actually, I was. I was thinking how I have not one, not two, but absolutely no talents.” The smile in my voice was designed to deflect that sad reality.

  “C’mon…you have at least two talents.”

  Oh no. Was this going to lead to a boob reference? Not when the night was going so well! I cringed internally.

  “From what Kim’s been telling me, you’re a very good judge of character. And from what I’ve observed so far, I’d say you’re durn good at interpersonal communications.”

  I wondered if he could see the wave of relief that swept through me. “Those aren’t talents. At best, they’re…traits.”

  “Traits, talents, same thing. And those are worth their weight in gold. My fiancée is brilliant. Top student in med school. But, she doesn’t have any natural people skills. So, brilliant as she is, she pretty much sucks as a clinician.”

  “Wow. That’s so sad for your fiancée.” No wonder he never looked at my boobs. He was spoken for! I’d never gone from such a high to such a low so fast. Fortunately, if Jim picked up on my devastation, he could chalk it up to sympathy for his girlfriend’s dilemma.

  “Hey, don’t worry your little head over Kiku. She’s going into medical research. Lots of science. Very little patient contact. She loves it. And she’ll probably save more lives than she would as a general practitioner.”

  “Kiku. That’s an interesting name. Is your fiancée from abroad?” Kim was quick to take up the ball conversation-wise. She knew I could barely put a sentence together when I was feeling low.

  “Isn’t everyone?”

  Kim stared at Jim blankly, but after years of Kim-speak, I knew where he was going. He was hiding the slightest smile that confirmed it for me. It was enough to bring me ever-so-slightly out of my bad mood. Though, it made me long to get to know this Jim Kirkwood even more.

  “Aren’t we all from a broad? You know…a woman who bore us? It’s a joke. One of those forms of speech that make you laugh unless you have to explain them?” Wow. The fact that he picked up so perfectly on Kim’s peculiar sense of humor was amazing.

  “Oh.” Kim was clearly dumbfounded by the first person ever to mirror her bizarre form of humor back at her.

  “I thought after the recessive jeans crack, you’d find that one to be a knee slapper.”

  “I guess the fun’s in making them up. Or maybe it’s in the groan. Sorry. Next time I promise to groan.”

  “Maybe I’m not very good at it. Rachel groaned at yours, but not at mine.”

  “I was too busy being amazed that I had another Kim on my hands. Two at the same table. It’s more than any one person should be expected to bear.”

  We all ordered chicken souvlaki and I somehow managed to muddle through the rest of the evening with some sense of pleasantness. But it wasn’t easy.

  It turned out that Jim’s fiancée had immigrated to New York City from Japan when she was a little girl. How was anyone supposed to compete with that? Not only a brilliant doctor, but an Asian chick! What was it with American guys and Asian chicks? The men seemed to find them mysteriously alluring. I don’t think the women were doing anything to cause it. It all had to do with the men. Granted, I didn’t know if Jim fell into that stereotypical fascination with Asian women…but, it certainly helped to cement my new view that I did not stand a chance with this guy.

  “I think it’s time I got Rae home. Masochist that she is, she has a 7 a.m. Pilates class.” Kim knew I was dejected and ready to leave.

  We all got up to go, but ever “on the job,” I remembered to add Jim to my contact list. In public relations, every acquaintance might be helpful in some way at some point.

  “Can I get your contact info? I like to keep track of all the people who save my butt.”

  Kim rolled her eyes. “Beware of joining Rachel’s PR hit list. You’ll get roped into handing out water at charity marathons.”

  “I happen to be an experienced water-hander-outer…” Jim’s easy smile disappeared as he stopped dead in his tracks. His mouth dropped open and his eyes fixed on the cover of the notebook I had just fished out of my purse.

  Kim and I stared in confusion. Jim had the weirdest look on his face. It was a cross between shock, worry, fright…a whole range of emotions. Then he pulled a little memo pad out of his back pocket. There, scrawled across the cover of his memo pad, were the exact same doodles I had drawn on the cover of my notebook. Weird symbols that looked like hieroglyphics and equations. Jim and I dropped back into our seats, staring at each other.

  Jim was the first to speak. And he did so cautiously. “Those…doodles…are yours?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think we need to talk.”

  Chapter 4

  We were both too tired to have what was sure to be a long conversation that night. And we both had packed schedules. We arranged to get together the next weekend. That would give us a chance to come to grips with this new reality. To decide how much we dared to share with one another.

  Kim went berserk in the car. She had no idea what was going on. This was a part of myself I kept secret even from her, my best friend, with whom I shared every other thought, emotion or event in my life. I had nearly confided in her hundreds of times, but this, this was just too weird to share.

  No one knew. Not my parents, not my siblings. No one.

  I was afraid people would think I was insane. Heck, I thought there was a chance I might be insane. I even asked my doctor if she thought I could be mentally ill. She assured me I was not…but then, I didn’t tell her why I thought I might be insane.

  I could tell Kim was deeply hurt that I had a secret I was keeping from her. But, I still couldn’t tell her about it. I don’t know how to explain it. It was too big. Too incomprehensible.

  If I was crazy, I didn’t want anyone to know. And if I wasn’t crazy – and I really didn’t think I was – I worried that having knowledge of those symbols could be dangerous. (Of course, I worry that everything is dangerous. I am a self-admitted safety nutcase. But, hey – just because you think every last little thing is hazardous, doesn’t mean that it’s not.)

  I minimized our bizarre encounter as much as I could. “Of course I never told you about my doodles. What’s to tell? I have this weird image that sticks in my head sometimes. I never thought much of it.” I was, of course, lying through my teeth. To my best friend. Something I never would have thought myself capable of.

  “But…when Jim had the same doodles…at that moment I realized this stupid, insignificant picture in my head might be something more than I thought it was.” We sat in silence for a minute. “Kim, could you do me a huge favor?”

  “Sure, what?”

  “Never, ever tell anyone about the doodles?”

  “Um…yeah…sure.”

  I could tell she thought that was a really weird request. But, then she brought up a whole other issue. “Do you think your attraction to Jim has something to do with the fact that you have identical doodles?”

  I had been thinking that same thing. “It is strange that the first time I’m really, truly attracted to guy in anything more than a superficial way…that he turns out to have the same weird image in his head
.”

  “Then, maybe he’s attracted to you, too!” Kim was ever the optimist.

  “I don’t think so. I wasn’t getting any attraction vibe off him. I mean, I thought he liked the both of us…in a ‘friends’ kind of way. But attraction, no. I think he’s so committed to his fiancée that his thoughts don’t even stray in another direction.”

  “Well…he’s not married yet. And you are going to see him again. If you’re still hot for him, you could let him know how you feel.”

  That was a dilemma. Do I make some sort of play for him? It didn’t feel right to go after someone else’s guy. But, I had never, ever, not once felt this way about anyone before.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure, no matter what my head tells me to do, that I’ll end up being a puppet to some unconscious instinct. I mean, trust me, I certainly didn’t choose to bat my eyes tonight.”

  We both broke into giggles at the memory of my shameless, uncharacteristic flirting.

  “Kiku is probably some cute little thing that I don’t stand a chance against anyway. I mean, a doctor doesn’t want to be dragging around a wife with hooker boobs.”

  “You do not have hooker boobs! Hooker boobs hang out. You always keep yours neatly tucked away – completely hidden – under multiple layers. Really, Rae, you should loosen up a little…let those babies get some air now and then.”

  “Make the men drool like the dirty dogs that they are?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I want them to drool over my mind. My personality. My sick jokes. Not my boobs.”

  And we both sat in silence the rest of the way home…wondering if there were any men who would ever care about the inner us.

  Chapter 5

  That week was the slowest week of my life. It dragged on and on. The days were spent second guessing myself. Rationalizing. Carefully planning exactly how much information I was willing to share. (Not much, it turns out.)

  The nights were spent tossing and turning, my mind roiling with “what ifs” in a cauldron of conflicting emotions. Deep at the core of my being I knew that our shared vision was earth shatteringly important. That it was somehow tied up with something that would affect the future of the entire planet. I don’t know how to explain it, but those symbols and the feelings about them were tied together. They came as a package. It wasn’t like I saw the symbols and developed a feeling about them. I just knew they held a key to our survival and they must be shared with the world.

  I also felt that the importance of those symbols put us in a position of danger. I was pretty sure that wariness was coming exclusively from me. But, I felt it was very rational to be afraid. Any knowledge crucial to earth’s survival would give the possessor of that knowledge a great deal of power. And there was nothing powerful people wouldn’t do to gain additional power.

  Even though it seemed trivial in the face of earth-altering information, my personal future was at stake, too. That wasn’t trivial to me. I was both living for seeing Jim again. And dreading it.

  I gathered all the composure I could to prepare for our meeting. I threw on jeans and a baggie hoodie. To me, that definitely conveyed casual, disinterested, impersonal – the exact opposite of what I felt. And it had the dual advantage of minimizing the boobage. Even though it didn’t appear that my chest was going to be an issue around Jim, I felt more comfortable when the ta-ta’s were less noticeable.

  We had agreed to meet at Chestnut Ridge Park. A bit of a drive for Jim, but we’d have lots of privacy there this time of year. And the casino – a big old lodge – was available in case it rained or got too cold.

  As it was, we had no need to escape the weather. It was a perfect late September day. The air had a crisp coolness to it, but the sun shining on my brown hair kept me wonderfully warm. We didn’t enjoy an overabundance of such glorious, cloudless days in Buffalo. It was exactly the kind of day you wouldn’t want to waste inside.

  Jim and I met at the casino as planned. When I first spotted him, I swear my heart jumped. He was exactly as I remembered: cute, though not achingly handsome. He radiated a warmth and genuineness that just had to make you smile. He was just as casually dressed as I, but I doubted he spent time and energy agonizing over his wardrobe choices.

  Jim smiled, flashing that dimple that melted me. “Hey, there, damsel. This place is awesome.”

  Chestnut Ridge Park was set on the first ring of hills surrounding the flat, flat city. From the casino, you could see over the woods to the suburbs, to Lake Erie and the city. The view was spectacular. On a really clear day, you could see some of the Toronto skyline in the distance.

  When I was in high school, my friends and I would pack coolers and spend all day picnicking here. But, that was slightly before every high schooler had a cell phone and Internet access. These days – at least in the fall – the park was largely empty except for big, planned picnic events and the ever-present joggers.

  I took a deep breath of appreciation. It was a shame, really, that so few people were enjoying this wonderful place on such a glorious day.

  “So, this is the casino?”

  “Mmm-hhm.”

  “You had me worried. I thought you might be dragging me to some gaudy gambling den, not a grand, rustic lodge.” He looked like he actually did think that.

  “Around here, most of the park lodges are called casinos. Probably what they called ‘em in the era they were built. I think this park was a WPA project…you know, ‘The New Deal.’ That was back when the government actually got something worthwhile for the money it spent. Funny…how the Depression was such a terrible thing, yet here’s something good that came out of it…still providing a benefit seventy years later. It seems like everything bad has some good to it and everything good has some bad to it.”

  “So…do you think our…vision…is good or bad?”

  “I think it’s about something good. It feels…important. And it scares me.”

  Jim sighed. “I guess we should get down to business, kiddo.”

  We walked to an out-of-the-way picnic table where we’d have total privacy and got down to work. Both of us brought our notebooks…pages and pages of images scribbled like notes taken from blackboards embedded deep inside our heads

  We spent a good hour pouring over each other’s scribbles. It was perfectly clear that we were both seeing the same images in the same sequence…but, there were a lot of blank spots. We filled a few of those in for each other, but there were still plenty left. We agreed the images looked like they could be mathematic or scientific formulas – at least large parts of them. But, they were written in unfamiliar symbols that had no resemblance to any numbers or language on earth – we’d both done the research over the years and couldn’t find anything that even remotely matched.

  Once we got through the details it was time for the bigger issues. The issues we’d been avoiding. Jim broke the ice.

  “Soooo…have you ever told anyone about this?”

  “Not a soul. I’m assuming, since you don’t appear to have been institutionalized, that you haven’t either?”

  “Nope. Not even Kiku…though, I’ve wanted to.” Jim looked off into the distance.

  “Where do you think…all this…is coming from?” I wondered if his theory matched mine.

  “Well, my most promising theory used to be that I had some one-of-a-kind obsessive-compulsive disorder. But, you’ve sort of shot that theory to hell. I’ve been going through alternate theories all week. I think the ones that hold the most promise are that we’re part of some government experiment with images implanted in the hospital at birth…or are brains are somehow able to pick up encrypted signals scientists are sending to each other.”

  “Those theories sound… rational…”

  “Why is there a big ‘but’ in you tone…doesn’t it make sense to assume the most reasonable answer is probably the right answer?”

  “Maybe that’s a good approach in medicine…but, we’re not exactly dealing with a reasonable problem. Don’t
you have any…feelings…any gut sense…any intuition about this?”

  “Uh…no.” Jim shrugged. I looked at him, exasperated. How could men be so out of touch?

  “But, if I did have a feeling…why would I give that any credence? Logic trumps feelings when it comes to…science. Wouldn’t you have to say this falls into the science category?”

  “Science fiction might be more like it. But, intuition isn’t necessarily something separate from logic…it’s complementary.”

  “I’m not following you. Intuition and logic are opposites.” I could tell by the look on his face that he was dismissing me. Males! Start talking about feelings and they assume you are nuts.

  “Let’s take medicine for example. I’m guessing there are doctors who are excellent diagnosticians. And I’ll bet some of them operate on a sort of intuition a lot of the time. All the symptoms might not necessarily line up exactly right, but they get a feeling that a certain diagnosis is the way to go. That intuition may not be a magical thing…it’s probably based on cues so subtle that they can’t identify them with their conscious minds.”

  “So, you’re defining intuition as an internal logic you just can’t put your finger on…well, that makes some sense.”

  “Good. Because I have a…feeling…as to what it’s all about. A very strong feeling.”

  “Well, don’t keep me here on my tiptoes chokin’ on the rope…let’s hear it!”

  “‘On my tiptoes chokin’ on the rope?’ Are you from some cowboy era? You have the most….archaic…way of speaking. You make a ninety year old sound like a whippersnapper.” I couldn’t help myself. The “goshes” and “gollies,” I let slide. But, this just stopped me in my tracks and cracked me up.

  “Me? Archaic? Well, now, I’d say that’s the tiger calling the zebra striped, Missy. WPA…New Deal…you’re beyond archaic…you’re…encyclopedic! Who under sixty talks like that?”

  We both admitted to being a little quirky. Apparently he was raised by New Age, tree-hugging parents who practiced a near-subsistence lifestyle on a farm in Wisconsin. They had no video games or cable TV. His relaxation time on long winter nights was spent watching old movies on whatever local stations their ancient, analog TV could pick up on its rabbit ears. (Okay, if you’ve never had to sit through your parents’ olden days stories, rabbit ears were little portable antennas that sat on top of TVs to pick up the signal…and you usually had to adjust them for every station and sometimes put aluminum foil on them! Technology has come a long way in the last 40 years.)