11 November 2011

Tristessa's Story, Part 5

Follow Tristessa through her mother's disappearance, bullying, and the mysterious appearance of the shadow-man in Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4. Satisfaction guaranteed! -m

I couldn't stop thinking about Ambreel-the-shadow-man, as I called him in my head. I began to imagine conversations with him while I was doing my chores. And then I imagined that he brought friends with him, children I might have known while living between the stone buildings in my life with my mother.

I loved imagining the children.  They were sweet and helpful and aided me in sweeping the floor and cleaning out the chicken coop, and they talked about nice things like hot baths and clean toes and dresses that fit instead of hanging on my skin and bones.  Every day I thought of them, they grew clearer in my mind, even gaining personalities and quirks.  I loved the feeling of creating something so useful, and I relished the feeling of electric power I had whenever I was talking to them.

Ambreel was a gentleman and walked with me around the perimeter of the house after Ravigie decided I was allowed to venture there.

"How are you today, Ambreel?" I asked.

"I'm just fine, Tristessa Dellatierre," he said, using my first and last names, which I had almost forgotten existed.

Thinking of that, I asked, "Do you know my other names? I know there are others."

Ambreel shrugged his shadowed shoulders and I felt electricity tickle my palms. "I am in your imagination, Tristessa. You'll have to remember your other names for yourself."

"Thank you, Ambreel," I said. Turning the corner, I almost ran into Ravigie.

"Who are you talking to?" she asked forcefully. The smoke fled to the corners of my vision and the power stopped tingling in my fingers.

"Nobody," I said truthfully. I was talking to shadows and my own imagination.

Ravigie sniffed as though smelling the air and kept her nostrils wide. "You're lying," she said. "I can feel his magic. Where is he hiding?" she added, grabbing my arm and pulling me towards her. I had to stand on my tiptoes so that her vise grip wouldn't break my arm off.

"Who?" I asked as innocently as I could manage.

"Don't toy with me, child. I know his scent and I've heard you talking to him this past sennight. I will not be lied to. Now where is he?"

"He's nowhere," I said. The feeling was gone in my left arm and my calves were burning from standing so tall. "I just pretend to talk to him."

Ravigie looked at me with horror in her eyes. Without another word she dropped my arm to grab my hand. It stung as blood flowed back into the veins. The old woman held my hand up, holding her thumb in the center of my palm and pressing hard.

"Ow," I said. "What are you doing?"

"You're marked," Ravigie said, giving back my hand. I rubbed it and held it safe against my stomach.

"I don't understand," I said, knowing that she meant she could see the designs on my palms.

Ravigie looked at me shrewdly. "Don't use that magic to do anything stupid," she said. Just when I was about to ask another question, she walked away. Like she had told me not to forget to milk the goat. Like what she had just said was the simplest thing.

I cleared my throat and swallowed, letting her leave without a fight. When she was back in the house, I looked down at my hands. Magic? As I looked up again, my eyes drifted over the form of the brown paper package, which was still on the kitchen table. It made me think of the courier who had looked at me with fear, backing away before I had even had time to say hello.

Resolution flooded my mind. If I had magic, then I had power. And if I had power...no one could stop me.

Tristessa's Story, Part 4

Check out Parts 1, 2, and 3 of Tristessa's narrative to get caught up on her journey. -m


The package on the table taunted me. I could hear it: "Triiiiiisteesssssssaaaa.... I'm waiting for yooooouuuuu. Just waitiiiiing. Open me....open meeeeee..."

In any other circumstance, those words would be creepy, even terrifying. But instead of being worried, I was strangely comforted. I was not the only peculiar thing in the village. If I could hear the voice of a brown paper package, then surely there were stranger things than me. For the first time in months, I could feel my spirit lifting.

And then I realized that the shadows on the edge of my vision were not normal things.

The realization came one night when I snuck out of the house. Ravigie was sleeping. I still wasn't supposed to go any further than the front stoop, but being outside at night was the only freedom I had left. And with the package taunting me, outside was the only place that the voice stopped whispering in my ear.

I'd been outside before, on other nights, but this night felt different from the moment my right heel touched the other side of the threshold. I shivered and cleared my throat as my stomach tightened. Something was wrong. Adrenaline beating like drums in my veins, I looked inside, back into the shadows.

Dark smoke poured into my peripheral vision, clouding things until the only thing I could see clearly was the package on the table. Something like the sound of feet scrunching on gravel happened behind me, and I turned back around to face the outdoors. The smoke followed me, taking on the shape of a young man.

The darkness poured first into his shoes, then up to his knees and waist. It was only a nanosecond but it felt like I watched for hours as this person was formed out of the night. When he spoke, I heard my name. "Tristessa."

"Who are you?"

His face was clearer now; I could even see that he had a sort of a nose and broad shoulders on top of a rather lanky frame. "I'm...a shadow."

"I can see that. Is it parts of you I've been seeing?"

"Parts of me?"

"Sometimes there are dark things over here," I said as I motioned with my hands near my temples. "Like shadows." The smoke was making me feel light-headed, though, and I accidentally scratched myself on the forehead.

The man shook his head slowly, and then nodded. "It's possible. Ravigie can sense when I am near, so why wouldn't you see parts of me?"

"What's your name?" I asked. His skin was solid now, and was taking on a tint like the men from Italia. "Why can Ravigie sense you?" I added as an afterthought.

"Ambreel," he said after a moment's hesitation. And then, without warning: poof. The smoke that had poured into the smoke-man Ambreel seemed to shrink, like it was inhaling. With one great explosion, the smoke exhaled and Ambreel disappeared.

My hair was blown back and tears were pulled from my eyes. I held my breath. In a moment it was over, and the shadows were gone, leaving only the blank darkness of the night. I grinned, unexpectantly feeling powerful. My nerves were jumping in my fingertips and my blood was pumping hot through my chest, though it felt different from normal adrenaline.

I stretched my hands, looking in wonder at my palms. They even looked different. What had that smoke done to me? Tiny swirling designs played on my skin like a kaleidoscope. I turned my hands over and looked at the backs of my fingers. Smoke curled around them like tattoos of vines, then sunk into my skin with tiny electrical shocks.

For the first time in almost a year, I didn't miss my mother.

Tristessa's Story, Part 3

Be sure to check out Parts 1 and 2... Tristessa's story begins there. -m


In the days after I threw the egg at the boy, Ravigie refused to speak to me. She was so angry with me for throwing our last egg that she didn't even make me toast for breakfast. She set a cup in front of me, which I had to fill with milk myself. The well was dry; we were lucky that the goat was still alive.

The yard in front of the coop smelled strange, close to something like rotten eggs. Every time I walked past it I held my breath, and soon it became a sort of game to me. In a week I became very good at holding my breath for no reason in particular.

It was at the end of that week that the package arrived. The courier was dirty, sweaty, and smelled worse than I did. But his clothes had once been very fine, and even though he looked ready to collapse, he held his head as high as a prized stallion did during a parade. Ravigie met him at the corner of the property, a little ways away from where the garden of eggs had popped up. I stayed out of sight, watching and listening.

"I have a package for Ravigie," he said. "There's no last name."

"I don't have a last name," Ravigie said, holding her hand out for the brown paper-wrapped thing.

The man held on to it just a second longer. "You are Ravigie?" Disbelief was bright in his voice. He obviously had been led to believe that Ravigie would be housekeeper to some grand woman.

"The only one," she said. "Give it to me, boy." She glared at him so strongly that immediately he handed it over. Ravigie took it and tucked in under her arm, clamped beneath her armpit. "Well?"

The man looked like he was about to say something about being called "boy", but he wisely thought better of it and took a couple of steps backwards instead.

I don't know why, but I chose that moment to come out of hiding. The man jumped when he saw me. I started to smile, to try to clear his mind of worry, but it was too late. His mouth gaped and he staggered backwards, fingers splayed open as though searching for a handhold.

"You..." But he wasn't looking at me anymore, he was looking somewhere behind me. I turned around, curious. Just on my peripheral vision, I saw the flicker of something dark. Trying to follow it, the shadow stayed on the edge of everything, but it took on the form of what could have been a man, or the reflection of a man.

"Me?" I asked once I had faced him again.

He shook his head, turned on his heel, and ran away.

Ravigie came to stand near me, putting her hand on my shoulder and shifting the package under her arm. "Come inside, Tessa."

"Why?" I was looking after the running package-carrier, watching his heels kick up dry dirt clods as he ran back to town.

"Just come," she said, pulling me towards the door. She, too, was looking at something behind me. Looking again, the shadow became only more distorted, seeming to be obscured by smoke. It was certainly the form of a man, but I couldn't see his face.

I shook my head, trying to clear my eyes for another look. "There's someone there, Ravigie," I said, pointing. She didn't respond, but she did pull me swiftly into the house.

The old woman put the package on the table in the kitchen, then sat down on a chair and put her face in her hands. I waited silently for a minute before she lifted her head again.

"I don't want you to go outside for the rest of the week, Tristessa." When I didn't respond, she went on: "And don't touch this package."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Ravigie pushed herself up and walked through the back door to the garden, leaving me in the kitchen. I stared at the crinkled brown paper wrapped around the courier's delivery. It was the first time I had a chance to really inspect it.

The wrapping job was haphazard and sloppily tied with several loops of dirt-caked brown twine. All in all, I believe it was about the size and shape of a dinner plate, and floppy, not like a wrapped box. And I wasn't allowed to open it. After sighing once, I poked it. The paper crinkled and stayed pressed in where my finger had been, a clean smudge on the brown surface. I looked at my finger; it was covered with dust. Wiping in on my skirt, I sat in the chair and stared at the package, thinking about the garden of eggs and the shadows that were flickering at the edge of my vision.

11 September 2011

Tristessa's Story, Part 2

Be sure to look at Part 1, or, if you'd like to start with a mystery, read how Meli and Tristessa first meet in the "Twelve" series. -m.


Ravigie did her best to protect me from the neighborhood children, and it worked well for about three months. But nothing the old housekeeper could do would stand up against an entire village deciding to hate a young girl. I had dark eyes, yes, but to this superstitious clump of adobe huts and withered farmhands, they were the eyes of the devil.

It didn't help that the day before I arrived was the last day it ever rained.

You may laugh and say that is impossible, that surely in three months it rained at least once. I shall counter with the fact that the only reason children could no longer push me in the mud was that there was no mud to push me in.

The land was brown, dull, and fading under my very eyes. I tried to keep the flowers at the back of our hut alive, but without rain they had no will to live. Ravigie was growing thin and sallow. Fewer children ran and yelled and played in the rutted roads; they were all at home, sinking into a thirsty starvation. No one washed themselves. That would have been a foolish waste of water.

It was near the end of my third month staying with Ravigie -- I had had no word from or of my mother in all that time -- when the children came.

I was collecting eggs. Egg. There was only one that day, and I gently took it out from under the younger of our two remaining chickens. I was cradling it in my dirt-caked palms when something clunked on the wall of the coop. I heard snickers, then another clunk. Wary, I pushed my hair behind an ear and peaked around the corner of the doorless opening to the coop. A rock zipped past; I felt the air being pushed around it as it almost hit my cheek.

"Devil's child!" screamed one of the kids.

"Black eyes!" yelled another. I squinted out into the sun. The people in the city had said this about my mother, but it had been in reverent whispers. What black eyes she has, they had said behind their leather gloves and feather fans. Like an inky, starless sky.

Another clunk. I narrowed my eyes, took a breath, and stepped outside. I could not let them trap me in that coop. A small rock hit me in the neck, then got caught in my tangled hair before falling to the ground with a soft plop. One of the children laughed, but they swallowed their humor as soon as I looked over.

"Go away," I said. The menace in my voice surprised even me, and the boy closest to me, the tallest and cleanest, sneered.

"We live here. You go away," he said.

This was the first moment I had ever really felt angry. I say it like this because it really was years before I truly discovered what that emotion was. What it was that make all the muscles in my entire body tense. What it was that made that egg fly out of my grasp and land with a satisfying cracksplickysplat in the face of that boy.

The boy was screaming, the children were screaming, Ravigie came out, yelling. There was so much noise, so much going on at a frenzied pace, that I had to close my eyes. But when I closed them, it got worse. Almost like the noise was louder. I opened my eyes again and saw something flicker at the end of my vision. Turning, I saw a garden of eggs on the ground.

The noise stopped.

"Geh," said someone.

"Are those...eggs?" said Ravigie. Her voice was choked and she tried to make her way over to me. I backed away, holding my hands out as if to fend her off. A child exclaimed.

"They're gone!"

I whirled around in a tight circle, looking for the eggs. It was true; they were gone. Vanished like the rain. Like my mother.

18 May 2011

Tristessa's Story, Part 1

My name is Tristessa Rincressa Potenta Dellatiere. There is a father somewhere in my past, but he was not there long enough to assist in naming me. My mother's name is Umi and when she disappeared I was sent to a farm. Whenever I tell my story, some kind-meaning stranger asks me where the farm was. I can never answer them. Perhaps it was in Italia, where I am told I was born. Or Espagna. I only know that one moment I was living between the still stone bodies of houses bordered by cobblestone streets, and the next I was at the farm, pulling myself up out of the mud.

Mud can be soothing if you approach it in the right way, but this mud had children all around it, and they were taunting me. "She has evil in her eyes!" they were yelling. One of them threw a stone and it hit me just above my eyebrow. I looked up, blinking blood out of my eyelashes. "They are even blacker than a pit!" I tried to speak, but something caught the words in my throat and strangled them into silence. "Dirty eyes!"

Just then a plump woman with a soiled apron attached to her dress came bustling out of a house behind me. She was not the farmwife, but a servant or housekeeper of sorts. "Stop! Stop this now! Shoo! Away!" She fluttered her apron at the children and they ran away, squealing like pigs. "Tessa?" she whispered then. It was the first time anyone had called me that, and I did not know at first that she was talking to me.


"Tessa? You are bleeding!" she said. I looked up at her with my one blood-free eye. Vomit rose in my throat and somehow I kept it back.


"I don't know you," I said. "Who are you?"


The woman looked very sad all at once, but soon her face was wiped clean and replaced with a solid half-smile. "I am Ravigie. I care for you."


My head rolled backwards and the bile rose again. "I'm going to throw up on you, Ravigie," I said, choking. She grabbed my arms carefully and pulled me up so I was kneeling.


"I'll hold your hair," Ravigie said. My hair was already caked with mud and she really didn't have to hold it back. My stomach heaved and my entire body shuddered as my stomach emptied itself of the little amount of food that I had actually eaten an hour before. Ravigie rubbed my back with her fingertips and whispered soft shushing noises while I heaved and hurled and expelled.


Ten minutes later I was laying on my back in the dirt, wiping my mouth with a wet bit of rag that Ravigie had brought out from the kitchen. She grabbed a shovel from the side of the house and turned over the mud and dirt so that my pile of waste was covered out of sight.


It was only then that I cried a little, and it was the last time I would ever let myself cry for real.

02 May 2011

Short Story Contest

On Saturday night I sent in my 890 word entry to the Writers Weekly Short Story Contest. I have to wait 6 weeks to find out if I made it into any of the final rounds.

I wonder if I'm allowed to post what I wrote yet? Or is that jumping the gun?

The story is called "Remember". I don't actually say so but it takes place in Paris. Writing about cobblestoned streets made me want to go back. Maybe someday I will be rich and I will be able to do whatever I want without worrying about student loan payments (I have some lovely choice words for those $%!*# things).

Please stay tuned for further series. I've had some crazy dreams lately and you won't believe me when I say that I didn't actually make it all up.

-m

27 April 2011

Twelve, Part 6

NB: Last part of the series! Read Parts 1-5 for the whole story. It's worth it, I promise! Enjoy. -m


The ship had been moving for over an hour, and Tiberon was antsy. He refused to sit still. Up, down, back and forth…he was all over the place.

“Tiberon. Seriously. You’re driving me crazy,” I said.

“That girl is driving me crazy!” he yelled, shoving his finger in Tessa’s direction.

“What am I doing?” Tessa said, eyes wide like a doe in a thicket.

“You’re…you’re…Just stop it!”

“Tiberon, she’s not doing anything,” I said. It was hard to keep my voice even, because in reality, Tessa really was doing something. By not doing anything, she was doing it. She’d promised to make our lives really difficult when it was time for her to take the next pill. We all knew that this was in about ten minutes.

Tiberon punched the wall, mumbling to himself and generally making a lot of noise. I sighed and puffed out my cheeks, playing with the air in my mouth. Five minutes passed. Two more minutes. Thirty seconds. Six nanoseconds. The closer we got to the two-hour mark, the slower time seemed to move. I looked down at my hands and felt guilty for even considering getting my gun or any of my knives.

“Tessa, please just take the pill?” I asked.

“Nah,” she said. “I’d rather not. Thanks though.” I rolled my eyes and looked at the clock on the wall. We had just over a minute. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the little bag of eleven pills, carefully opening it in plain sight and tapping a tiny brown pill into the curved palm of my hand.

“How does it taste?” I asked.

“Like puréed vegan,” Tessa said. I snorted, then wiped my nose with my wrist. Tiberon was glaring at me, but all I could do was shrug.

Tessa, who had been sitting in a chair not far from the door, stood up and went to stand in front of me. “I just want you to know,” she said. “That I appreciate you not using your gun on me.” I nodded. Sounded like a good bye speech to me. I took a deep breath, preparing to grab that little neck and shove the pill down the throat inside it. Tiberon was getting ready, too, cracking his knuckles and stretching out his arms.

And then…someone knocked on the door. We three looked at one another in surprise. No one was supposed to disturb us. Tiberon was closest to the door, so he was the one who slowly edged forward and reached his hand out for the slick silver handle. He barely had it turned the whole way before someone’s foot smashed it in.

“Look out!” Tiberon yelled as he dove for cover. Before I had any time to react, a mini bazooka-like machine gun was thrust into our room. It fired at the window, which shattered. Gotta admit, it was a pretty cool sound, but at that exact moment I was trying to figure out the best way to untangle my limbs from where I had fallen next to the bed. Tessa was laughing.

“You guys are so easy!” I sat up. The window was whole, and Tiberon had his fist around the knob of a closed door.

“Stop it, Tessa. Avel wants you to get safely to America,” I said.

“Avel can shove it!” Tessa said. Then she disappeared. I could still hear her giggling, however, and I jumped straight for the sound. “Ow!”

I tried to find her mouth, but it’s very difficult to differentiate invisible noses from invisible chins, and she was fighting me tooth and nail. “Tiberon, help me!” I glanced up to see where my partner was, but he had sat back down and was grinning benignly.

“See? That’s how it’s done, girl,” he said. “Never doubt a man with biceps like these!”

“What are you talking about? Help me!”

“I know, I thought she’d never let us do it,” he said. Then he pulled a knife out of his pocket and started trimming his nails.

Tessa’s laughter stopped just long enough for her to whisper, “Pay attention to me!”

“Take the pill!” I countered. She reappeared again as she crawled to the space of carpet underneath the window.

“No!”

“Avel will be angry!”

“Then you take it!”

Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were wild, and without thinking I decided to take her advice. Why not? We didn’t have enough to get there, anyways, and maybe if I took the pill myself I could surprise her enough that I could shove the next one in her mouth.

I tossed my head back and dropped the pill in. Tessa laughed triumphantly and tilted her head back in her signature move of illusion-preparing. Her fingers flexed, her eyes unfocused, and she grinned like a hyena.

She did it again.

And again.

And once more.

But…nothing changed. Her eyes grew wilder and angry.

“Why don’t you react?! Why don’t you see it?!”

I looked around the room. “See what?” It must not have been the correct answer, because Tessa screamed and lunged at me.

But instead of landing on me, she landed on my bag, which was right next to me. I heard a zipper and a swish of metal on fabric, and I was in the air and trying to tackle her when she turned the gun on me. I froze.

“You don’t want to shoot me, Tessa,” I whispered. I was out of breath and could feel my heart pounding in my throat.

“Watch me,” she said, backing up into the window, which she hit with a small thump.

“Please just take a pill,” I said.

“No,” she said. And then she turned the gun on herself.

“Tessa, please. Tessa…”

“I’m not taking it,” she said. “Not ever.” She swallowed hard and started squeezing through the safety of the trigger.

“Tessa, stop!” I took a step forward and she pointed the gun back at me, tears streaming down her face.

“No!”

She flipped the gun back around and squeezed the trigger. The window exploded behind her, but there was no blood. The last thing I heard was laughter like ringing in my ears. The last thing I saw was Tessa’s right foot as she dove through the shattered window and into the water below.

No, scratch that. The last thing I saw was the clock, which read noon straight on, and then I saw tiny black stars. There must have been something funny in that little brown pill.

Making a Difference

NB: I didn't re-edit or rewrite this. I just found it and thought it was interesting. Please forgive the weird spacing; for some reason I can't change it. Enjoy. -m.


The red brick building off of W. Colfax has wooden floors that creak with every step and smells like cooked chicken. From the outside it almost looks like a cross between a church and a community center nestled between houses with neat front lawns. A hand-sized cross ornament is hooked on a nail in the windowsill in the big meeting room, but it’s not a church, even if all the neighbors refer to the building as such.

“It’s fascinating to be strategic about collaboration,” Jude says, pausing to wave to a woman leaving the building with her kids. “Hey, great job today!” he says. “Now you can go home and make me some enchiladas, huh?” The woman grins and manages to wave back, even though she has a baby in one hand and a Ziploc of chicken drumsticks in the other. The Mothers of Preschoolers group had taken a class from a food scientist about how to make a chicken last for five meals, hours later the meeting room still smelled like a home-cooked meal.

Jude and Cindy Del Hierro began Confluence Ministries as a sort of response to a world of volunteers with bad communication skills. According to Jude, some churches and non-profits seem to view volunteering as a competition. Churches may expect the people they serve to show up to church the following Sunday, and counting numbers can be a favorite game of both groups. It becomes about which group can help more people, not about what kind of relationship the community needs to form with volunteers.

“We just asked ourselves, ‘What are we doing? And what could we do differently?” Jude says. “How do we close that gap?” It’s how they decided to be a catalyst for grassroots groups with a heart for helping.

The Colfax community in which Confluence lives doesn’t have the best reputation in Denver. It’s been compared to run-down versions of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury and New York’s Greenwich Village, but a drive down the road from Golden to Denver shows marked improvement.

Before Jude and Cindy moved to their neighborhood near Colfax and the building got its renovation, volunteers trying to serve downtown kept on running into each other. “One group would come at six and hand out burritos, and half an hour later a guy with some sandwiches would show up. He’d be all like, ‘Why don’t they want my sandwiches?’” Jude says with a grin, then spreads his hands. It’s part of where Confluence began, to create a matrix of people who wanted to live in a posture of serving a community in which the average household income is $35,000 and 82% of the kids in the public schools are getting free school lunches.

Jude is dressed for meeting people. Black jeans, t-shirt, and crocs may not be his daily outfit, but they are worn at the edges and he seems ready to meet politicians and help out the Mothers of Preschoolers group. His wife, Cindy, is wearing jeans and a black tank top, and her eyes shine from behind her glasses.

Confluence is about getting everyone in the community to flow together, according to Jude, Cindy, and several Confluence volunteers. They raise all their own fundraising and have a couple of part-timers as well as a couple of full-time people.

Reaching a community such as Colfax isn’t an easy task. Perfect solutions sometimes just don’t exist. So Confluence partners with anyone and everyone who has ideas, meaning that some of the things that get planned range from passing out bagels and balloons at the AIDS Walk, to connecting local musicians with kids for music lessons.

Jude and his wife Cindy were associate pastors at Church in the City when God told them it was time to make a life change. They moved to W. Colfax, got a hold of the creaky old building, and began networking faith-based ministries and other non-profits as directors of Confluence Ministries.

It’s easy to see how it got that way. Voices play in the background like a movie soundtrack. As a ministry hub, all sorts of groups and organizations use the building. City Councilman Rick Garcia holds neighborhood meetings there, as well as Whiz Kids, and study groups for ESL learners, and GED students. It’s all part of the vision to be a good neighbor, and to build relationships with a community that needs them badly.

One day a volunteer group came in looking for something to help with, and Confluence set them up cleaning a neighborhood block, doing yard work, and otherwise making the area more beautiful. Now, the project is known as Extreme Community Makeover.

Before the red brick building was home to Confluence Ministries, it was a hideout for the homeless and for troubled youth, a place where people spent their time sniffing powders and fooling around in cobwebbed corners. In 2003, the renovations began. Windows had to be replaced, cleaned, and inspected. Floors were redone, molding was glued and nailed. It takes a lot of work to get a ministry hub into motion.

The last item on the renovation list is the kitchen. At the moment, it’s a large room made of wooden studs, nails, and some wires strung through large holes. The chicken dinner smell doesn’t reach the real kitchen yet, but soon it’ll be done and more than chicken will be made downstairs.

Organization Saves You Money

My mother has a very “sophisticated” system in place for organizing her coupons. It’s a blue folder and both sides of it hold a random, chaotic array of money-savers. I’ve gone through it a few times and found coupons that had expired three years earlier.
Everyone who uses coupons should have a way to organize them, because if you know where to find your deals you save time, money, energy and maybe even annoyed glares from fellow shoppers. (Remember that time when you kept apologizing but you just knew you had a coupon for something? It’s OK. It happens to all of us).
I organize coupons by keeping them in an accordion wallet; coupons that I want to take advantage of as soon as possible go on a magnetic board by my bathroom mirror. Needless to say, I’m just a bit more organized in this area than my mom is. With kids to take care of and a job on the side, life--not sorting coupons--is her priority.
But it doesn’t have to be a nightmare to organize your coupons, and for those of you who don’t have a touch of OCD like I do, these ideas will make the task all the easier.
1. Come up with a system
Don’t just cut out your coupons and stash them in a shoebox. If you do all of your coupon cutting at once, make an organization board so that you can cut and sort at the same time. Just get a poster board and use a yard stick and a marker to divide it into boxes about 4 inches by 6 inches.
Write a category name at the top of each box. As you clip out the coupons, place them in the appropriate box on your board, and when you’re done the only thing you’ll need to do is put all of your stacks in their appropriate holders.
2. Decide on a chest for your treasure trove
I chose an accordion wallet because it is small, portable, and has snazzy index tabs to fit labels into. My grandma drops her coupons into an envelope, and one of my friends sticks hers on the fridge. Other coupon clippers use index file boxes, Ziploc baggies, recipe boxes and Tupperware with cardstock dividers.
Storage should be sturdy and easy to move, since you probably don’t want to lug around a pile of flimsy envelopes that need to be replaced every few weeks. Do a little bit of research on the Internet or watch other people as they shop. Even I was surprised by the many different ways of organizing that I found; I was impressed with the ingenuity one woman showed in turning her son’s old trading card binder into an easy-access, organized coupon utopia.
3. Expiration dates.
Whether you use envelopes, an expanding file, or a photo album, create twelve different categories, one for each month of the year. You can stick this month’s stack of coupons in your purse or glove box and empty it out at the end of the month.
4. Products
This is great for those of us who are very picky about the coupons we clip. If you buy a limited number of things with coupons—such as Herbal Essences Shampoo and HP Ink—you can get away with having only those categories in your collection.
5. Stores
Some stores send out more coupons than others, and many of us shop at the same handful of stores every week. By organizing by store, you know exactly which products you’re looking for, and where.
6. Categories
To sort by category, just think of the layout of your store. Most grocery stores are set up the same way, with produce on one side, foodstuffs in the middle, and health & beauty and things for the home on the other end. Many stores and internet coupon websites already organize their coupons by category, so all you have to do is label your categories like they do. This also makes it easy to find coupons at the register.
7. Double Up
If using only one of these ideas isn’t enough for the amount of coupons you use, instigate more than one of them. You could store everything by category, then by product or by expiration date.

03 March 2011

Twelve, Part 5

Tessa was gripping my hand like it was the last thing in the world she would touch. It hadn’t occurred to me that she lived in her own illusionary world, but I thought of it now and realized that without her own coating over reality, everything probably seemed foreign, maybe even terrifying. Her eyes were so wide open I worried that her eyeballs would fall out.

“Hey, are you OK?” I asked. The girl stared at me, unfocused and flailing in a sea of unfamiliar colors and textures.

“I can’t…I can’t…I can’t…” she murmured like a mantra. Flexing her fingers over and over again, Tessa tried to create illusions around her. She did it the same way Avel did, by focusing on something from afar, flexing her fingers, and tilting her chin up.

“Madam?” someone called out. I turned. In our haste to get Tessa in a room where she could freak out in privacy, I had bypassed the ticket checker. Apologizing, I handed over our papers, heart beating like a tom-tom.

“Alright, grazi,” he said after giving Tessa’s fake passport a cursory glance. I looked him in the eye and smiled, wondering how much he had been paid off today.

Pulling Tessa along like a stuffed toy on a child’s leash, I wound around the upper level of the ship before stopping in front of room 112. Tiberon was close behind us, his massive shoulders taking up every inch of space in the hall. He tried to turn sideways to allow a couple of tourists to pass, but even that didn’t help much. They had to wait for us to get into our room before they could venture any further down the hall.

When I let go of Tessa’s hand she collapsed on the spot. I didn’t even have time to think about catching her. Tiberon was holding too many bags to be of any use. We both exchanged looks, expecting the worst and feeling like terrible guardians. I was about to put my hand on her back to try and comfort her when I heard the strangest sound: laughter.

“Uh…Tessa? Are you…OK?” I glanced up at Tiberon, who shrugged. Tessa’s giggles filled the room when she rolled onto her side, her hair splayed fan-like on the bland blue carpet. She smiled up at me, one of the first smiles I had seen her produce without any traces of mischief or false happiness.

“I’m grand, grand, grand! Wonderful!” She cracked up again, unable to control herself.

“I’m gonna go check out what they have to eat,” Tiberon said, leaving me with the hysterical kid. He shut the door quietly, and I wish I had glared after him the way that I wanted at that moment, because, well, in my experience, you don’t just drop a partner in the middle of a firefight.

Just as the door clicked, Tessa lifted up her head and grinned at me. The laughter was gone, as was the unfocused gleam in her dark eyes. I suddenly felt uncomfortable and exposed and I reached for my gun. It wasn’t there. My boots squeaked as I shifted position.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“I’m tired of laughing,” she said. “Let’s go do something.”

“How about we wait for Tiberon to get back?” I asked. I didn’t like the way her eyes were glinting. As if in response to this thought, Tessa stood up suddenly, white teeth flashing. Her hair looked almost black again, and her face was in shadows since we hadn’t turned on any lights yet. The only light was coming from the window behind her.

“How about we wait for Tiberon to get back?” she said, mimicking my tone and mocking it. I reached for the knife in my boot, ready to restrain her with force, then checked myself. I was going to use a switchblade on a little girl? What kind of idiot does that? I pulled my hand back up to my knee and stood, looking down on her and enjoying the extra height my boots gave me.

“Would you rather do something else?” I asked. “I’m wide open for ideas.”

“How many of those little pills are there?” she asked out of the blue. When I looked her in the eyes, though, I had a wiggly little feeling that the twenty minutes since I gave her that first dose had all been planned. I was being set up.

“Got a whole bag of them,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. Tiberon, you leave me again and I’ll kill you, I thought. Tessa smiled sweetly and brushed a wrinkle out of the bedspread before sitting down. After she patted the mattress next to her, I sat down, too.

“How big is the bag?” she asked.

I hesitated, then held out my hands like I was holding a cantaloupe. “This big. Give or take.”

“I see,” Tessa said. She put a hand to her chin. “And how often must I take them?”

“Every two hours,” I said, not wanting to lie about that part, since she would figure it out soon, anyways. I could see why the Palermo guys were so nervous about her. Tessa reasoned like an adult and creeped me out like a talking snake. And then she put her hand on mine.

“It’s alright, you can trust me. I won’t do any illusing.”

I could hear the unspoken loud and clear: Don’t you dare make me take another pill.

“I’m sorry, but Avel said they had to be every two hours,” I said as I pulled my hand out from under hers. Tessa looked up at me from under her black eyelashes and looked like she was about to say something when Tiberon came back in holding a plate of sandwiches, pizza, and cartons of milk and juice.

“So I raided the kitchen. Little chef guy wasn’t too happy that I didn’t want to wait for the buffet,” he said as he kicked the door shut and put the tray on the empty bed. It took him a couple of seconds to catch the look in my eyes. "What?"

I looked as nonchalantly as possible at Tessa, who was still glaring in her "I'm angry" pose. Tiberon squeezed his lips into a thin line, completely failing to understand the clues of the situation. He straightened while tossing a box of chocolate milk to Tessa.

"Meliora and I were just discussing the idea that I really don't need to take those pills so often," Tessa said. I looked at the girl with surprise. I had never told her my real name; as far as I knew, she still thought I was Renee.

"Who told you my name was Meliora?"

"Nobody," she said, fingering the milk carton and pushing the flaps back to open it. "I just knew."

"You mean you were listening at the door, don't you?" I asked. She just grinned.

"You and Tiberon talk very loudly, Meliora," Tessa said. She downed some of the chocolate milk, then wiped traces of it off of her mouth. "Especially about the twelve little things you have in your pocket. Oh, I'm sorry. It's down to eleven, isn't it? Eleven little pills? I was just wondering, how are you going to get me to America if you think the boat is eating your toes?"

Tiberon looked down at the floor, half expecting to see it rise up and attack his feet. I kept my eyes on Tessa. We still had an hour and a half before the first pill wore completely off. Ninety minutes to prepare for battle.



Twelve, Part 4

Tiberon and I were probably stupid not to put more distance between us and Tessa. I mean, what’re you supposed to do? She was just a kid, and everyone was treating her like she was the most dangerously volatile being on the planet. Avel’s Palermo contacts were so afraid of her that after we met her, they gave us a car and let us do wherever we wanted. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a little bit bad for her.

Poor Berto was assigned to follow us around, and Tiberon and I let him join us for dinner. Well, “let” is sort of a lenient word in this instance. More like, we very strongly encouraged him to talk with us over a cordial meal. It’s amazing what you can do with a dark-eyed illusionist and a semi-automatic.

On our twelfth day in Palermo, I was packing my bag and making sure everything was ready to bring across the border. It would be easier to take everything out of Palermo, since our hosts had such an impressive grip on the authorities in the city. But I still wanted to be prepared. As I was zipping the last compartment, I heard a tiny knock on my door.

“Signora?” It was one of the wives. Tiberon and I didn’t know enough Italian to tell them that we weren’t actually married, so I let them call me Signora or whatever they wanted. Very few of them ever wanted to talk to me; I guess I scared them by not being afraid of their young charge.

“Yes? Sì?”

“I want to ask after my cousin,” the woman said. She was petite, maybe 15 or 20 years older than me and wearing red Louboutins under a white Chanel pantsuit.

“Your cousin?” I asked. Was I supposed to know her cousin? My stomach dropped as I remembered the last time I had been to Palermo. It had been a few years, but...I sighed.

“Sì, my cousin Luigi, he has been a contact in New York for a year,” she said. It was hard to catch, but her voice took on a shrewd tone, and she eyed me like I was a piece of art of questionable origin. Luigi…the name rang a bell. I smiled, using the half of a second I had to think as quickly as possible. Luigi? Wasn’t he the guy that fell on his thing? That one time? I mentally kicked myself. I felt like I should know how to answer her, yet I was coming up with nothing but blanks.

“Luigi?” I clarified. The woman nodded curtly. I opened my mouth, ready to answer. The first word, “he”, was out of my mouth before I realized that Luigi was the guy Avel’s instructions had talked about. I was supposed to hate him or something.

“He…he’s a traitorous bastard,” I grunted, trying to sneer and work up some spit at the same time. The saliva launched about an inch away from my teeth and plummeted. It wasn’t the most beautiful shot, but at least I didn’t hit the Louboutins. The woman watched me spit with a slight hint of amusement playing at the very edge of her red lips. Without another word, she smiled, dipped her head at me, and disappeared.

I was suddenly very tired, and I stood unmoving for a minute before I remembered to check that I had the twelve little pills in my pocket. Then I sat down next to my bag. A tiny voice in the back of my head told me that I had just passed a test. Wasn’t sure what had gotten tested, but, hey, I don’t argue with passing scores.

Tiberon came in then, sat on the bed next to me. “Some lady asked me about Luigi,” he said. “I never thought I’d use so much Italian cussing.”

“She asked me, too,” I said as I stood and stretched. “Think they were making sure we’re actually from Avel?”

He shrugged. “No other explanation. C’mon, let’s get out of here. I had some of the ladies dye the kid’s hair. They were shaking in their fancy feet-killers the whole time.”

Laughing, we both threw our bags over our shoulders and went to find Tessa. She was outside, sitting cross-legged on a bench in the sun. Her hair had been black, but now it was much lighter, like mine. She was wearing it down, hanging in her face. I dropped my bag on the ground next to her, making her jump.

Berto was on the other side of the courtyard, reading a paper and trying to look like he wasn’t actually there. Tessa glared, then smiled when she saw that it was me and not one of the Italians. “You’re late,” she said as she unfolded her legs and slipped her shoes on. I looked at her intently, tilting my head.

“You cut your hair, too?” I asked. Tessa shrugged as she self-consciously touched her new bangs.

“Do they look bad?” she asked.

“Oh…no! I just wasn’t expecting them,” I said. “They look good.” Tiberon tossed our luggage in the trunk as I looked at Tessa, thinking that now her eyes looked even darker, deeper now that they were framed with hair with a slight hint of chestnut.

“Berto! You’re driving us!” Tiberon yelled. The little man grimaced, tossed his paper down and stalked over to us, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Girl…in back,” he said in the broken English we’d become fluent in over the past twelve days. I looked down at Tessa, who didn’t seem very happy, but she obliged Berto by sitting as far away from him as she could manage in an enclosed space. I saw her eyes light up mischievously so I poked her in the side before she could drive the poor man crazy.

We drove for about twenty minutes before the car stopped at a dock. A small ship was a port and passengers were boarding. I got out and stared for a second, then looked back at the other three.

“Boat?” I asked. Tessa smiled sweetly.

“I don’t do planes,” she said. She even tossed her hair at me as she walked towards the gangplank. Tiberon came up next to me and handed me my bag and our papers.

“Dudes told me this morning. Sorry I forgot to mention it,” he said.

“It’s fine. But…why are we taking a boat? It’s going to take forever!”

“Tessa doesn’t do planes,” he said, mimicking the girl’s tone from before.

“Seriously?” I asked. “We’re taking a boat across the Atlantic just because some kid doesn’t like flying?”

Tiberon didn’t answer; he just lifted his shoulders in defeat and went to join Tessa. I turned back to Berto and thanked him before following them.

As I caught up, the boat changed shape. Lines melted and regrew, and new colors jumped into existence in a kaleidoscope of awkward movements as I stood still and dumbfounded. For a minute I forgot about Tessa and I looked around for Avel. The small ship now had wings and levels like a skyscraper. I blinked. My head hurt from trying to remember that it was just a boat, not a flying building.

Tessa giggled, giving away the game.

“Stop it,” I said, rubbing my eyes. I remembered Avel’s instructions. I was supposed to give Tessa the first dose of the twelve pills now. “Here, you have to take this.” I handed her one of the tiny brown pills from my pocket, along with a plastic water bottle.

“What is it?” she asked warily.

“I have no idea. Avel’s orders,” I said. At the sound of his name, Tessa relaxed and unquestioningly popped the pill in her mouth and swigged some water. The plane-boat thing was so strange, I couldn’t help but stare at it. I don’t know if Tiberon noticed, but the pill had an immediate effect. Tessa’s eyes grew wide with surprise, her pupils dilating, then contracting, as the illusion of the flying building-boat disintegrated and was replaced with reality.

Avel had managed to take away the one thing that made her terrifying. I felt elation and relief flood every inch of me, only to be taken over by this thought: I only had enough for a day's worth of traveling.

22 February 2011

Twelve, Part 3

Our contact at the airport was named Berto, and he held his “Renee and John” sign like it stunk of bad eggs and old banana peels. Within a few minutes of disembarking we were winding through the night-blackened streets of Palermo. Berto didn’t like talking, even though Tiberon kept on trying to joke with him. I kept wishing I knew any form of Italian or Sicilian; after Tiberon joked a little Berto said something under his breath, and I really wanted to know if it was insulting or not.

I kept nodding off. The road wasn’t exactly the smoothest in the world, though, so my head lolled back and forth, first towards the tinted window, then towards Tiberon’s shoulder. I don’t even know how long it took us to get to our destination or how we got inside. I vaguely remember hearing someone welcome us, and my voice thanking him for his hospitality, but the next thing I knew I was hearing birds and waking up in a less-than-comfortable twin bed in a room painted pink.

“You’re up,” Tiberon grunted from the other bed. He was leaning over, lacing his boots. The bed protested his weight as he sat up straight. “Figured I’d let you sleep. You talk a lot.”

I ducked my head and felt my face flush. Sometimes I talk in my sleep, especially when I am really exhausted. The thought of what I may have said made me incredibly uncomfortable. Tiberon grinned at me.

“Don’t look so nervous; I put the pillow ‘round my head. Better get dressed, though. Our host wants to have breakfast in ten minutes.”

I slipped on a pair of skinny jeans and tucked them into my boots, then stared at my bed for a minute, trying to decide what kind of weapon I was going to bring in with me. I had my gun and a couple of knives. I picked up a little switchblade that fit in my pocket and bounced it in my hand a couple of times. Really I wanted my gun, a sweet little 9mm. But I’d have to wear a jacket to cover it up, and it was pretty hot outside. The breeze coming in the window smelled of the ocean, but it also smelled like baked sunscreen.

And then it occurred to me that we weren’t here to do anything nasty. We were just picking up a package. So, logically, it might be considered rude to carry weapons in the house. Dropping the blade back into the bottom of my bag, I zipped it shut and shoved it under the bed. Adjusting my white tank top, I tossed my hair and left everything in the room.

A group of men was waiting for me in the dining room. I was barely a minute early, and Tiberon looked pointedly at his watch before grinning at me and tossing his head towards a guy sitting at the head of the table at the other end of the room.

He was older, maybe in his 40s or 50s, with slick black hair and a pristine pinstripe suit. I instantly felt underdressed, especially as I realized that even Tiberon was wearing a suit jacket stretched over his enormous shoulders. I didn’t even know they made things like that in his size.

But there wasn’t much I could do about it. I just lifted my chin and stood next to my partner, looking everybody in the eye. The men were whispering to one another, and they looked back at me with faces that looked not a little uncertain.

I looked up at Tiberon, nudging him with my elbow. “They’re looking at us all funny,” I whispered. He nodded.

“Afraid,” he said. I raised my eyebrows. The Mafia was afraid of us? What? Why? Before I could whisper anything else, however, the boss spoke.

“My American friends,” he said, standing. He was taller than I thought, though still shorter than me. “I hope you have slept well.” Tiberon looked at me, raising his eyebrows in surprise. The boss’s accent was very nearly perfectly British, with just a touch of the soft Italian vowels. “Please be seated. Eat with me.” He extended his arm over the table, and as if on cue a slender woman with perfectly coiffed hair came out of the corner and led Tiberon and me to places at the left and right of the boss.

“Thank you for seeing us,” Tiberon said with an unfamiliar tone of respect. I stared at him from across the table, feeling like something either really terrible or really fun was about to happen. Adrenaline was dancing in my veins, making my hands shake. I busied them putting a napkin in my lap, trying to cover up the nerves.

Several women appeared carrying covered dishes which, I was surprised to see, were filled with scrambled eggs, toast, carved ham, and many kinds of bread and jams. Coffee was poured into mugs all over, and I was offered hot chocolate, too. Tiberon caught my eye. They were serving us American food, and it was weird.

We ate in silence for about fifteen minutes before the boss spoke again, wiping his mouth with a napkin before leaning back into his chair.

“The girl is in her room,” he said. “We do not interact with her.” Several of the men nodded and began murmuring to one another. The women in the room stayed silent, but they were all watching me, like I was supposed to say something. So I did.

“Why not?” I asked. The men stared at me. “What? Do you all leave your children locked in their rooms?” It was a very bold thing to say, but as the only seated woman, I figured it was a now or never sort of deal for proving I could handle myself. The boss shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and I felt no small ego boost that it was because of me.

“She is dangerous,” he said.

Tiberon put his fork carefully on his plate. “What do you mean, ‘dangerous’?” Just by looking at him I knew we were both thinking about those twelve little pills in my jeans pocket. They were still there. Again, the man shifted, but this time he tossed his napkin on his plate, stood, and motioned for us to follow him.

He walked slowly through a door that led to a long corridor. We turned several times and walked up a staircase before he stopped at the end of a wide hall and stood aside for us. There was a key in the door, and as I reached for it, the boss’s face became terrified. He crossed himself and backed away down the hallway, his staccato steps swiftly vanishing around the corner.

“Got your gun?” Tiberon asked me as I began to turn the key in the lock. I shook my head.

“You?” He held out his empty hands.

“If we die I’m gonna kill you,” he said. I laughed humorlessly. The key clicked. I pulled it out and stuffed it in my pocket. Our breathing was loud even though we had only walked there. There was no sound coming out of the room. Nothing. When I swallowed I glanced up because I was sure Tiberon had heard me gulp. Clearing my throat, I placed my hand on the knob.

It turned easily, and the door opened without a touch from either of us. I gaped. Tiberon gaped. We exchanged looks and gaped some more.

We were on the seashore. Quickly I thought back to where in the house we were. We had to be at least three stories up. A beach does not belong in a bedroom.

“Oh, hello,” said a little girl. She had black hair and black eyes and she appeared out of nowhere. “Can I help you with something?”

“I…We came to take you with us,” I said. She spoke like such an adult it threw me off big time. I instinctively reached for my gun, which wasn’t there, and in that moment I realized that I was wearing a bikini. “Uh, Tiberon?” He looked at me, tried to say something, and started choking. He was dressed in a pair of blue swim trunks, and there was a pair of goggles around his neck.

“Are you alright?” the girl asked. “Don’t you like the beach?” I blinked, unable to respond, and when my eyes opened a millisecond later, we were standing on top of a grassy knoll in the mountains. I was wearing a red dress, and Tiberon had a picnic basket on his arm.

“Stop it,” I said. My voice sounded pleading and pathetic, but I couldn’t help it. The girl grinned impishly.

“I’m afraid not,” she said. “I’m having fun.” The scene changed again, and we were in Time Square.

“Stop!” I yelled. I jumped for her, but she leaped out of my reach, floating just above the ground. I mean, literally. She was floating, and her black eyes reflected the lights of the neon signs, and I have to say, I don’t think I’ve ever been more terrified.

Tiberon was standing, frozen and mute, just inside the threshold of the door. The little girl looked at him and started laughing.

“Your friend is silly,” she said, pointing at him. “He doesn’t know what to do.”

“Please stop,” I said. “We’re not here to hurt you. We’re just taking you to America.”

She dropped to the floor, surprised. “America?”

“New York, then west,” I said. “I don’t know why.” She shrugged.

“My mother named me Tristessa. You may call me Tessa,” she said.

“Tristessa?” I asked. It sounded vaguely French, but in her young voice it sounded strange.

“’Sadness’," she said, giving me the definition. The illusion around us melted away, and our feet were soon on the solid wood of a small bedroom with floral wallpaper.

17 February 2011

Fill 'Er Up!

An article I recently wrote for an online audience. Just trying to keep my researching skills well-honed. Enjoy. -m


Fill ‘Er Up! : Developing an Eco-Friendly Bar

With people all over the world becoming environmentally conscious, it is getting easier to find restaurants that have earned eco-friendly certifications. Equipment like refrigerators and cocktail workstations are often designated as being green or eco-friendly (just look for Energy Star, EcoLogo, and Green Seal), but smaller, disposable things often escape notice, especially in a bar. Bar owners can consider changing just a couple of the following things to save money, energy, and even time.

Ice: Unless you have the physics know-how and time to make a solar icemaker, chances are that, like everyone else, your bar uses an ice machine of some sort. Clean water, whether it is distilled, purified, or filtered, produces the best ice. Water that freezes while full of impurities will make ice that could potentially taste strange to customers.

Cutting boards: There are several different types of cutting boards on the market; plastic and wood are the most popular materials. Bamboo is arguably the more eco-friendly cutting board material, and it’s strong enough that it won’t fall apart while your bartender is slicing dozens of lemons and limes during Happy Hour.

Aprons: From cotton blends to polyester and hemp, fabrics come in all colors and textures. Something to keep in mind while choosing an apron material is where it came from. Fabric is eco-friendly when it is made from natural fibers (like cotton, instead of polyester) that haven’t come in contact with pesticides.

Towels: The simplest way to ensure that towels behind the bar aren’t wasted is to reuse cloth towels instead of using up paper towels, which end up in the wastebasket after a single use.

Coasters and Napkins: Instead of using paper napkins, consider using reusable coasters. Coasters come in all shapes and sizes of recycled materials, including bamboo. Think about adding the creative touch of woven cloth coasters or unique pieces of glass instead of white paper napkins.

Straws: Depending on your restaurant branding style, you could use compostable straws made from corn-derived plastic. Their manufacture causes less pollution and they work just as well as traditional plastics. Straws can also be made out of stainless steel, which can be chilled for use in cold drinks. The alloy is hygienic, easy to clean, and with proper care, could last 100 years.

Produce: Lemons and limes are some of the more popular food items to have behind the bar. A great way to stay green is to buy produce from farmer’s markets, and you can save electricity by skipping the machine-made juices and doing it by hand.

“Green” alcohol: If you’d like to do more than conserve energy and prevent waste, consider buying liquor that is certified organic. Serving environmentally friendly alcohol could be an easy way to help make your entire bar eco-friendly.

Training: In the busy environment of a restaurant bar, it’s essential you train your bartenders in the new practices. They need to know what to use when, and that it’s OK to tell you if something new isn’t working.

03 February 2011

Twelve, Part 2

This is Part 2, obviously. If you need to read Part 1, the link is just to the left. Enjoy! -m.

The airport terminal was packed with people. I mean, wow. Tiberon and I pounded through the automatic doors at near-full speed, our bags bouncing over the threshold and landing awkwardly on single wheels. Our acquired driver hadn’t dropped us off in front of our airline, but no matter. It was only a few steps away. We jostled over, cut in line in front of a family of 8 with a pair of harried-looking parents trying to count everybody, and waited.

Tiberon flung his arm around my shoulders and pulled me tight. When I looked up at him, confused, he grinned at me. Ah, yes. The surnames on our passports were the same. Avel wanted us to be man and wife for the time being. I looked down and twirled the simple fake diamond around my left ring finger. It had felt strangely exhilarating when Avel had pulled me aside and put the tiny jewelry box in my hand. I’m pretty sure he got it at Kohl’s or something. I shook the thought out of my mind and focused on the moment; I leaned into Tiberon’s side and wrapped my arm around his waist. We were directly behind a group of sorority chicks in mini skirts and five-inch heels, and in front of them was an insufferably long line of airline patrons.

“Where’re we going?” I whispered. Avel hadn’t wanted me to know until we’d gotten to the airport. I don’t know why. It’s not like I was going to tell anyone.

“Check it out,” Tiberon said, handing me a stapled pair of papers.

I glanced at the first page. It was a printout of a friendly email saying our tickets were booked and all we needed to do was check in with our passports. “Palermo? Why the heck are we going to Palermo?” Tiberon shrugged as we stepped around the corner created by the queue bars, his eyes on the legs of the college girls in front of us.

Palermo is the capital of Sicily, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s also home base to the Italian Mafia. I’d been there a couple of times before, nabbing art and some other things. I thought of the twelve little pills in my front jeans pocket. Avel had always been completely against drug running, but I couldn’t think of what else the pills were.

My mind was exploding; I wanted to ask Tiberon so badly about what he knew we were doing, but there was no way I could do that in the middle of the airport. I would have to wait until we were seated. Standing there was agony, especially since it seemed that the line was hardly moving. I glanced at my watch. We'd only been inside for 10 minutes, but it felt like hours.

Finally, the lady at the desk efficiently took our papers without smiling, printed our passes, and growled at us to put our baggage on the scale. We were dismissed a minute or so later, and Tiberon and I walked quickly around the corner, down the escalator, and into the security zone. I held my breath when I accidentally made eye contact with one of the guards. Years of smuggling things and I still got nervous. Ridiculous. With a tight smile, I looked away and then down at my boarding pass. My passport said that my name was Renee Diebin, Tiberon’s was John Diebin. Avel must have thought it was really funny to give us a last name that, in German, was closely related to the word for “thief”.

Despite being chock full of hundreds of slow-moving travelers, the line wound pretty quickly through the rails, and in almost no time at all I was handing over my boarding pass and photo ID. The woman looked at me shrewdly and I smiled at her. My heart was beating so fast, I thought I was going to pass out. And then someone pinched my butt. I turned halfway to see Tiberon grinning like an idiot behind me. I blushed and smiled back, swatting his next pass away from my backside. I faced the security guard again; she was looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

“My husband,” I said, smiling apologetically. The woman nodded once, handed me back my papers, and ushered me through the scanner.

Nothing beeped on me or Tiberon, and we were seated on the plane just before the pilot addressed the whole plane. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking...”

While the attendants were doing their routine, I pulled a long envelope out of my pocket. Inside was a piece of paper folded in thirds. It was typed on a piece of graphing paper and was remarkably clean, despite the fact that some of the letters had been typed repeatedly, making them darker. Leaning towards the window, I unfolded Avel’s instructions and read them quickly.

I looked up at Tiberon, who was reading over my shoulder. His eyes were easily as wide as mine. He jabbed his finger at the last line on the page.

“Outbursts?” He rumbled in my ear. I raised my shoulders and held them there in an extended shrug.

"Hair dye?" I asked him. This time he shrugged.

"Must be in my bags," he said, adding, "I ain't doin' no babysittin'."

The way he said it made me think that he'd had no idea what Avel had planned. I refolded the paper carefully, reining in the urge to smell it, to see if any traces remained...but no. I slipped it back in the envelope, folded it, and stuffed it in my pocket, trying my best to seem like I didn't care whether I messed up the message or not.

Engines whirred and I heard the flight attendants quietly asking passengers to turn off their cell phones and to buckle their seat belts. Click, click, click! resounded all around the cabin. My stomach dropped as the plane took off. I stared out the window for a few minutes before leaning back and closing my eyes. If I was going to have to drag a little girl halfway across the world, I was going to get as much real sleep as I could, while I could.


01 February 2011

Twelve, Part 1

Twelve little pills. They didn’t budge in their tiny plastic bag as the town car went over a speed bump. I pushed them around, organizing their round brown bodies into four neat rows. They were big enough that the rows stayed put, and I smiled to myself. Another speed bump. We were hitting them pretty fast, definitely too fast for them to be any use. I guess when we got in and my colleague put his gun to the driver’s head, he believed us when we told him to leave as quickly as possible.

This would usually be the part where I revealed what we were doing, or what the little pills were. But the thing is, I had no idea. None of us did. It was one of those jobs that had you playing so far out of your normal playing field that it didn’t seem shocking when someone showed up with a bazooka made out of candy mints. That was just part of the job. The weirder thing was when that stuff worked. One of our group members was still in the hospital thanks to that bazooka. I’ll tell you this: getting a hole blown in your stomach is not more pleasant when it’s done with red-and-white striped sugary bits.

Tiberon, my colleague with the gun, turned and grinned at me as we hit yet another speed bump at 53 miles an hour. I glanced up and saw the driver’s face reflected in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t enjoying this as much as we were; yet again, who would? It’s not every day that you and your boss’s car get jacked in the middle of downtown and you have to drive your guests to the airport. I imagine I wouldn’t have been too ecstatic, either. It’s why I refuse to drive town cars.

I grinned at Tiberon and turned my attention back to the twelve little inanimate bodies in my hands. I assumed they were meant to be swallowed. I mean, what else would you do with capsules like this? Throw them? They couldn’t possibly manage to be airborne for longer than a couple of seconds, more if you threw them out a window. My instructions were to get them through security, then onto the plane. Easy cheesy. No one could see these things in their rectangular plastic bag and think, “Those are worth $6 billion. I’m going to confiscate them.” Nah. They were more of a “You’re one of those vegan thingies, aren’t you?” sort of pill. Thank goodness for that.

We hit the last bump at nearly 60 an hour and I narrowly missed getting my skull slammed into the ceiling. Glaring, I yelled, “Watch it! You don’t have to kill us!” Tiberon laughed and patted the driver on the top of his head.

I hated not knowing what I was doing, or why. But I wasn’t the brains this time. Maybe that was what really bothered me. I was supposed to be the brains. I always did the planning, the team gathering. Tiberon I knew ‘cause we’d worked together before. The other guys, who were following us in the Camry, they were complete strangers. But I trusted them because I trusted Avel. And Avel was the brains.

Debatedly, I thought to myself, smiling as Tiberon and I got out of the car, yanked our fake weighted baggage out of the trunk, and sprinted inside.

If Avel said that these twelve little pills would mean no more cons, and no more annoying police chases, then OK. I could do that.