The Woman Who Swam Through Postcards

It was a postcard from Martinique. Rever, it said. To dream. On the postcard, on an aquamarine glass pane of a sea, lay a golden sea-goddess of a woman, lying flat, soothed in the sun, floating on a transparent beach raft, sleeping...the essence of relaxation, surrender, sensuality...sleep. Shhh, said the card. Sex, sin, soft, sleep. Shhh... The card promised all with the one word: Rever. To dream.

Sara held the card. I want it. I want it all. She saw it ‹ the luminescent water. She smelled it‹the tang of the warm Caribbean salt air, moist and redolent. And then‹now this was very odd, to say the least‹with a jelly-like "whooshing" she slipped‹no, was swallowed by‹no, drifted‹no, dreamed‹somehow she was there, on that clear plastic beach raft, hearing a faintly metallic "cling, cling" sound in her ear as tiny wavelets lapped against the raft and echoed inside the air mattress. Sara had slipped into the postcard. Yet...part of her was still at the keyboard, still typing at the IBM PC with the grungy brown key faces. Legions of temps who had gone before had left their thin layer of dirt and coffee (and, yes, skin cells) on the keys. What part of her was at the keyboard still typing? She checked: Her weight, her legs, her ears hearing "The heretofore mentioned party, herein known as...", her fingers, typing 75 words a minute, 375 clicks a minute. So sounds and touch were still outside the postcard, but the rest of her was inside the postcard where it was silent. She raised her head and the sweet, soft breeze blew through her hair, lifting it in the warm sun. Here.

She never should have brought that postcard into work. She never should have taped it on the computer, hanging there below the monitor so that she saw clipped to the right, her boss¹s scribbled notes­in front of her, on the monitor, his words scrolling in paragraphs of pixels­and below that the postcard. Now which of these would draw her attention? Of course, another distraction. One postcard could take her away from the typing, the clicking and the words. If it took only one postcard to distract her? One postcard and she¹d be asked to leave her third temp assignment in eleven months. Here we go again.

"The parties will agree to..." Dictaphone was dangerous. Droning, dangerous words. No words to look at. Nothing to look at but that postcard. Oh, no, she was "in" again, slipping this time into the crystal clear water. She must be dreaming. Pinch herself. But no­she couldn't. " ...the aforesaid party will designate ..." Her fingers were still on the keyboard and so she clung to the keyboard with her fingertips, unable to pinch herself to see if this were a dream, while her body swayed and soaked in the warm, azure French Caribbean. Rever. Pirates.

"Sara?"

Sara jumped. Brett, her boss, was standing at her desk. "Did you finish the trust agreement yet? I want to go over it with Alan."

Sara shuffled some papers, pretending she was sorting through Brett's handwritten notes, but in reality to make sure it was not crushed sand dollars sifting through her fingers, or golden sand, or tiny silvery schools of tropical fish. "I have to print out the part you dictated on the tape," she said, staring at her now empty fingers.

"Meet you in the printer room," said Brett, rising up on the balls of his feet. Sara hated the printer room, no bigger than a closet. Several of the secretaries shared the same printer. Cheap firm. Who cared if the printer spit out 80 sheets a minute and could make copies, staple, scan and launch documents towards a passing asteroid? The room reeked of toner fluid. Sometimes she'd come out of the room after a long copying job feeling like she had a micro-layer of black dust on her fingertips, as if she had been on a black sand beach. Beach? No, she could feel the flat industrial carpet under her shoes. Her clogs made a comforting "clip clop" as she walked down the hall. Okay, she was back.

If I move fast, I'll beat him. The printer room was too small a place to get stuck in with Brett Becker. Alan Burroughs was standing in the hall. Maybe Brett would stop to update him on the status and Sara could slip into the printer closet ahead of Brett, get her typing, and be back at her desk, in Martinique.

Click. The door to the printer room opened and Brett came into the room behind her. She heard a catch. Was it the door latch? The printer? Her breathing? "Brett, it will just take a minute."

"Oh, a 'quickie?'" Brett said, grinning.

Sara frowned. A stressed Brett was a sexual-innuendo-Brett. Nip him in the bud. "Brett, this room gets a little claustrophobic...."

"You and me are in this together, kiddo," said Brett. "You gotta give it to me, baby." He made a silly, suggestive pelvic thrust forward, like a Chippendale dancer. Sara, even with the copier between them, stiffened. Brett laughed, "I meant you¹ve got to give me the trust agreement, of course. What were you thinking of? My, you have a dirty little mind." He pulled the papers from the exit hopper and turned before she could bring up the “baby” bit. Again. Four "babies" that week. Quadruplets.

Crissi, Alan Burrough's secretary, came in the door a moment after Brett left. "Whoo-hooo, I saw you two. In the closet with Bre‹ett!"

"Just the trust agreement," said Sara, trying to wangle around Crissi.

"I think he likes you," said Crissi.

"I think he¹s married," said Sara.

"Living with someone," said Crissi. "Brett Œcomes on¹ to everyone. It doesn¹t mean anything. Besides, he¹s making Associate Partner soon." Crissi, for all her 24 years, liked to play the all-knowing older woman around the office temps, even the ones older than her. "Just play nice. He needs a secretary. Play your cards ...who knows?"

Sara knew. She had been asked to leave three temp jobs in eleven months. It wouldn¹t last. She'd do something to screw this up, too. "Temp-to-perm" jobs always meant "temp-to-temp" in her case. Without a permanent job she wouldn't get either of the two things she wanted most in life. Forget passion and portfolios, she wanted a studio apartment and health insurance. That was it. So middle class. So "Fifties." Not having to share a bathroom with anyone was a major life goal. No more roommates. Roommates with four cats (roommates who sneakily tried to pretend there were only two cats by naming three of the cats "Charles.") Roommates playing the same heavy metal CD seven times in a row. Roommates screaming all night while having sex with each other&emdash;and then screaming all night because they were not having sex with each other&emdash;and then the three Charleses screaming because they wanted to go out and have sex. No, no more roommates. Sara wanted to escape to a place where she would have her own mailbox, her own phone, her own sink, her own silence. Then she could live. She would slip into her own place and be herself, without people blisters, and just meditate. She would brew herself a pot of mango tea and sit and read black-and-white art magazines from Europe with heavy, glossy pages. She would be safe. Rever.

Sara went back to her desk. She peeled the postcard off the monitor. She would tell the agency she would take this job, any job. She could handle "Brett the Lech." She would "type like the wind." She could rent a basement studio in Allston. She could move in June, if she had a job.

Damage control. Sara went out on an emergency run at lunchtime to buy postcards. "Do you have any boring postcards?" she asked the little old man in the card shop. He said they#39;d all be boring until they came out with a "Red Sox - World Series Champs" postcard. So Sara had to fight for control of the twirling postcard rack with a seven-year-old tourist kid from Ohio whose biggest thrill in Boston was twirling the postcard rack. As it spun around Sara quickly grabbed the least-enticing ones­the postcard with the big crock of beans and the baked bean recipe, the postcard of Fenway Park, the postcard of Paul Revere's house. She bought postcards of hospitals, and of the downtown financial skyline. She got a fold-out postcard of every site along the Freedom Trail. How could she get into trouble on the Freedom Trail?

When Sara got back from lunch, she hung one of the new postcards where the sensual postcard from Martinique used to be. Dictaphone tapes from Brett and Mr. Burroughs were stacked up like little bricks on her desk. God forbid they should not "keep the temp busy." Besides, Crissi now fancied herself Office Manager and she didn't do Dictaphone tapes anymore. Oh well, Sara thought, Dictaphone was better than Xeroxing and at least it would take her mind off... no, keep her mind on. She would think "studio apartment." What you can believe you can achieve. Visualize. The power is within. Hold a mental picture in your mind and it will become real. Somehow New Age training seminar mumbo-jumbo mantras did not apply to being a temp.

The afternoon crawled by, tape by tape. Sara found herself changing the postcard every twenty minutes or so. She'd be okay until she'd start to get fascinated about a postcard‹what actually was behind that tiny window upstairs in Paul Revere¹s house?‹then she¹d slip in, through the wrinkly Revolutionary yellowed glass pane, and find herself at an old wooden table with his silver pieces, heavy, shining, and watch herself in a reflection of a silver bowl, typing. Time for another postcard.

The Boston buildings were easiest. She could hang up a postcard of a hospital and wander the halls. The sounds of doctors being paged in her ears and ringing bells that made her wonder what the codes meant. People were walking along in green scrubs looking "thoughtfully concerned" and everywhere staff were pushing things‹patients, charts, and carts. It was easy to work inside a postcard of a hospital.

"Hey, you¹re working up a storm," said Brett, rifling through the tapes on her desk. She knew he was snooping to see if she had begun transcribing his tape yet, but she had started on the work for Mr. Burroughs. "What are all these postcards?" Brett asked. "Are you some kind of tourist here? Not staying, just visiting? Ha-ha." Brett laughed at his own joke but Sara felt a pang. No, she wanted a permanent job. She was sick of being a temp, "just visiting." "Can you begin mine?" asked Brett. "I¹m going for a bite. I¹ll be back in half."

Sara spent Brett¹s mid-afternoon lunch break inside a postcard of Fenway Park. The soft green grass in the centerfield, the cathedral-like quality of the empty stadium (obviously they took the photo in the quiet of the morning)‹this was a safe place. No cheering crowds or the crack of the bat, or peanut hawkers selling their wares, "PEA-nuts. Get your PEA-nuts." Just the silence. Safe.

"Sadie, Sadie, postcard lady. You haven't started my tape yet? I need it today." Brett was back already? Sara tried to pay attention to what he was whining, but she was having trouble finding her way out of Fenway Park. So many stairs and seats and there were no ushers in the postcard to tell her where the nearest exit was. She finally, a bit breathlessly, poked her head through the postcard.

"Boy, you're spacey today," said Brett. "Anyway, I need the Mullens deposition. The one I gave you the day before yesterday?"

"I didn't print that out yet? Well, I did it yesterday." Sara frantically grabbed the mouse and hunted through the directory. "See, I did it yesterday," she said, pointing to the date on the screen.

"Well, a lot of good it does me stuck in your computer behind those postcards. Ship it to the printer. I'll get it. Go have coffee or something." Well, at least he was picking it up himself. One tryst per day in the printer closet with Brett Becker was enough. Maybe a cup of coffee would be good. She really wanted mango tea but everyone in the office had howled when she suggested they order it. She went to the break room and poured herself a lukewarm cup of coffee. She filled a coffee pot and poured the water through the coffee maker to make another pot.

Brett came in, leafing through the document. "You do good work, Sara, and you*#39;re on my A-list when I think of who can do the work but...."

Sara knew she should "pause" and "elicit feedback," but instead she blurted out "But what?" She knew it wasn¹t her secretarial skills or her background or the fact that she didn't giggle at his constant barrage of sexual innuendos.

"You're just so spacey sometimes, kiddo," said Brett. "You put those Dictaphone ears on and I have no idea where you've gone.... Like they write on all those postcards, 'Wish you were here.' I need someone on top of things, not in left field."

Brett left. Left field? O my God, that's exactly where she had been. He knew. Sara looked over at the coffee pot, relieved. At least he hadn¹t noticed that she forgot to put coffee in the coffee filter. He hadn¹t noticed that she had just brewed a pot of water. She went back to her desk. She took the postcards and ripped them up into little one-inch squares and let them "snow" into the wastebasket. She needed a job.

A little blue square of postcard landed on the corner of her desk and caught her eye. It was water, steel blue and soft. She slipped her legs into it, a piece no bigger than a Cheez-It®, and it felt cool and safe. With her arms still outside the postcard, she put the headphones on and pressed the Dictaphone start switch. She checked: Her fingers were still on the keys. Mr. Burroughs was gruffly clearing his throat in her headphones. He sounded like a backhoe. Then she remembered Brett's words, "Spacey." That meeting in the break room was her interview. He was letting her know he was not going to hire her.

The water felt soothing. Her body was so buoyant. All she wanted to do was float. If her fingers weren't on the keys typing... Sara let go of the keys, sank into the water in the lake in the middle of the Public Gardens, and slipped under a Swan Boat.