On Set
The bills were in pink envelopes now. Before they were pastel yellow with a black border around the “urgent” type. This seemed more intense. Dora brought the new envelope to just below her nose as the kettle sang out in the kitchen. Pill’s kitchen was small, probably smaller than hers had been, Dora definitely thought hers had been bigger, as she poured out the kettle to a teacup waiting at the table. She sat down and smelled her new pink letter, the envelope smelled like the inside of pockets, dry, unappealing. This one seemed more serious than the ones she has probably received before, she remembered less loud colors. She may have to explain the situation, that money was—is—not important right now, the man was.
The loan officer had been calling Dora at her apartment for weeks, so she decided to leave and stay at Pill’s, who had always been accommodating to her, even before the problem with her memories. He seemed proud to have Dora in his apartment and sleeping on his couch, like she was an expensive accoutrement. But Dora didn’t mind, the smiles and nods instead of conversations let her try to think about the Man in blue in peace. But this letter meant that she would have to talk to them, to explain the situation.
Inside the pink envelope that smelled like pockets was an outstanding fine of eleven thousand four hundred and thirty two dollars and forty-two cents, which had to be paid three days ago in full. It noted no cosigners could be contacted, her father didn’t like her going to Kenworth in the first place, and Mother like Aunt Jessica and Uncle Andrew was taught to be afraid of the government as they backed down from this advancement of pink envelopes. Dora remembered the way the light in their kitchen made it obvious Mother shook. She was someone with such good posture in all things: gardening, driving, powerful jumps in dance, all of her sent to huddling in the shadowed side of the refrigerator when a faceless debt collector rang.
“No, no,” The shrill voice was not her mother’s, didn’t sound right coming from her pink lips. “This is Doris, and no we don’t. But he says we’ll have it. Donny says he just got paid, it’ll-What?”
Doris chokes on the rest of her sentences as the Man in blue enters from the living room. He was neither small nor big, tall nor short; his is of average build with eyes that tend to squint and full cheeks dusted in peppery stubble. Dora imagines his suit is either expensive or foreign and his accompanied blue derby lays low on the back of his head. The Man takes a seat beside seven-year-old Dora in her guess for girl jeans and light-up Reeboks to survey the kitchen. He takes a big breath in raising his eyebrows at all of the fixtures. Dora’s mother continues on.
“I’m giving you a promise. Yes, I’m saying that I will promise you the money. There are things that are just happening to us right now.” Doris glances around the man at Dora her eyes concerned, but when Dora tries to look back the man inserts his head between the two. Dora studies him, trying to compare bone structure and skin tones of Grandfathers and Great grandfathers, uncles, fathers she had seen, older brothers of friends, lovers, but non of them will fit him.
“Why?” Dora’s voice is seven years big, “Why do you have to do this?”
The man smiles without teeth and takes another suck of air through his nose.
“Its all part of the test.” He lays his hands on the table and stands up, hovering over her now. His voice is low and makes everything sound rounder. “But, Dora, everything has a stopping point. I’m trying to get you there faster.”
“What do you mean?” Dora tilts her head to see the shakes her mother gets up and down her arms as she lays the receiver back in place.
The man turns his body to block her vision. “It means you need to pay attention. Can you do that?” He fights to get her eyes to his and then smiles without teeth again.
Dora’s mother takes a shaking breath and takes a few steps away from the phone. She pauses, and Dora can tell she’s trying to look at her, can tell she has her mouth open to speak.
Dora’s tea is cold and he left arm is painfully numb from resting her weight on it. There’s a clack as the fridge closes behind her and Pill walks out of the kitchen. There is a note in front of Dora:
You got another letter. Its on the table.
She keeps her numb arm slung close to her stomach and reaches for her second pink envelope.
--
Dora sits in a waiting room with sixteen chairs, one houseplant, and two paintings of the same two men sitting on the same boat. The chairs are double rows of four leading to a smoked glass window calling out names of other people. There aren’t many other people, two young boys sitting next to one another, an older woman sitting close to the glass. This place is uncomfortable, the lighting makes things yellow and there is no smell to anything, like smell was taken away. Dora feels good about this place though because if she is uncomfortable she’ll think about how uncomfortable she is and not about the man in blue.
“Theodora Fog. Ms. Windhelm is ready.”
The office is narrow with a deep cobalt rug running to a large desk and dark wood that shines blue from the phosphorescent bulbs overhead. Dora feels like this must be what a fish feels like, in a fish bowl, what it must be like in a large glass of water. Ms. Windhelm gestures to the padded chair across from her desk and Dora complies.
“You were expected here close to eight months ago. What has been keeping you?”
Her mouth snaps shut with emphasis after each sentence.
“There’s a man in my memories so I’m going to need a little more time.”
Ms. Windhelm shakes her head and adjusts the lay of her glasses.
“You’re already three months behind on final notices, another twenty days and we have to start seizing assets. I can’t defer any more time because you’re seeing someone.”
Dora wonders if her face could get as thin as Stacey Windhelm’s. She begins to suck in her cheeks and decides against it. It might seem insulting if they both had sucked-in faces.
“But I don’t know him, that’s the thing.”
Ms. Windhelm’s face gets more sucked in.
“I can’t defer a loan because you have forgotten someone.” She shuffles a group of papers, which were probably covered in Dora’s full name, and birth date, how much she made last year as a substitute teacher, how much she owed, and probably other things that they didn’t need to know but found out from asking her friends like, how much, per average did Dora give to the bum at the Pershing bus stop and did she save wrapping paper to use again or just wastefully throw it out—and thought that Ms. Stacey Windhelm had good enough hands for modeling and could probably do it too, if she wasn’t such a stickler about stuff.
“That’s just it, I don’t remember anything, especially about him. And he’s been in more and more of my memories. Its like someone is walking on set, but the set is me.”
Stacey Windelm brought her almost model’s hands to her glasses again, but decided against it and let them drop.
“Someone is in your memories? Have you seen a specialist?” Dora shakes her head. “I think someone told me to before, and I would probably go if I could remember to. That’s why I’ve been late about things, forgetting. I’ve been trying not to remember and its getting in the way of things. I believe that if I can just figure this out then I can get you the money.”
Stacey slides forward and her model’s hands touch Dora’s regular ones. They are smoother than clay earth and shine.
“I can’t do anything more. Mild psychosis is not a deterrent. There’s nothing I can do. You need to put something up right now as collateral.”
Dora thought about what she could give, there was no money all of it was gone to moments she couldn’t quite recall using. Her apartment was probably gone, probably, and the only thing she still had was her ring, which wasn’t with her, she had forgotten it. It was deep in a zipped pocket of a rolling suitcase of Pill’s apartment. She slept on the couch by the floor and sometimes would go to the bad and reach for the ring, which was not her, nor her mothers. It was the first thing she had forgotten. Dora fought now, for that memory, but still nothing.
“I can get you something. It should be worth a few hundred. I haven’t get it appraised, I always keep forgetting.” Dora slides her hands into her lap.
“Well, we can meet tomorrow morning.” Stacey brought her model’s hand to a paper calendar on her desk. “We’ll do nine.”
“No,” Dora is standing, “I won’t remember have someone call Pill’s house and he’ll make me answer. I’ll tell him not to let me leave tonight.”
Dora left the fishbowl an walked out past the talking smoked glass.
--
Dora thought that she should try to remember some things, it woud be for the best, maybe she could try to remember how she got the ring. It would be nice to know it before letting it go.
So, later, when she had gotten home and Pill had smiled and nodded goodnight she went to her rolling suitcase and reaching into its guts and pilled out the ring. It was silver with a square garnet stone piece. Was garnet something important? Was silver? There was an engraving, “Shelby”, and Dora didn’t think she knew a Shelby, or remembered one for that matter. She placed the ring on the table and stood up over it. She walked around it, seeing it at all angles. She felt her arms shake and realized she was nervous and showed it like her mother would. It wasn’t always so noticeable, but the sung light never fully lit the room and Dora could always tell when her shadow shook. She stares at the ring, but its not on Pill’s coffee table, but on the tall white painted wood of her kitchen table. Her mother is still shaking near the faucet and her father is talking now, he has something stringy in his hands, it wasn’t paper, and he played with it.
“You know, you’re not doing so good.” The Man settles in his chair and is not smiling. “In fact you’re going bad.” He glances at the ring and lays a hand on the table, close to it, but not touching.
“Now, I’m going to have to start doing some drastic things to get some incentive out of you. Everything has to have an end Dora, even tests.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you’re going to be missing things. I have to take them away. It will only help the test.” With large pink fingers he plucks up the ring by its square head and tucks it into the front pocket of his suit.
The man in blue takes her by the arm and with a gentle tug leads he away from the room. He nods at Doris and Donny, who nod back and continue to talk and shake respectively. He opens the screen door to the backyard and they step outside.
“I still don’t understand.”
“Well you need to work on that. That’s part of the test.” And then the man’s hand is away from hers and the buzz of cicadas from the branches of a shadowy tree in a neighbor’s yard buzzes loud, and the sunlight swallows Dora up.
There is a sharp pain in her legs from standing. The red eye of the sun is just peaking into the windowsill and the ring isn’t on the table. Instead there is a note. “You’ll get it back with everything else. Pass the test.”
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