one step forward
one step sideways
a helpless feeling
when the earth shakes

Hearse - Ani Difranco


She called the taxi in the morning, but it was a different driver than the one she'd had the previous night. And even though she'd told them over the phone where she wanted to go, the driver still grumbled about having to drive anywhere so early and to have to go so far. It was a twenty minute drive, half an hour if they hit some traffic which was possible, so she ignored the complaining, digging deep for the manners her mama had taught her.

She checked out of her room and rode with her little bag on her lap, her purse hooked over her shoulder.

The taxi driver smoked with the window cracked, so it was freezing in the backseat but she didn't dare complain, just belted her jacket more tightly around her waist and sat on her hands. Thought about how quickly she'd acclimated to the mild California climate, how much colder Washington D.C. seemed despite having spent several years here - and in Eastern Europe.

They both listened to news radio quietly. The program was talking about the upcoming inauguration, making fun of the Clintons mostly - his accent, his wife's stiff demeanor, their pre-teen daughter's looks and interests. Brenda already felt bad for the girl, having to live in the national spotlight at the most awkward part of her life.

Brenda spoke up only when she told him where to turn.

"Ah," the man chuckled in a heavy persian accent. "I did not know they let little girls be spies!" He laughed harder at his own joke. Brenda reached into her purse and pulled out the exact change of the fare.

"Here is close enough," she said. She opened the door and handed him the money across the plastic window. "Hey, next time if you want a tip, maybe don't condescendingly call women little girls."

She closed the door on his loud swear and walked toward the security gate.

It took some time to get through security without a proper badge and they searched her bag pretty thoroughly. The bras, the stick of deodorant, they even flipped through the pages of her books before issuing her a visitors badge and telling her to go to the main building.

It was a bit of a walk and she regretted just not renting a car for the day.

It was all hurry up and wait, though. Hurry to get to the main building on time, wait for them to show her a meeting room. Hurry down the hall, and then wait for nearly forty-five minutes for someone to actually appear in the room. And then it was only a secretary who led her to Andrew Schmidt's office three floors up.

"Thanks, Shirley," he told his secretary with a warm smile that Brenda found quite misleading. "We'll be busy for at least the next hour."

"I'll hold your calls Director Schmidt," she said and closed the office door.

Andrew smiled at her as she stood awkwardly holding too many things. "Well now," he said. "Nice to see you still come when called."

It was always work to stay neutral - arguing back was her most natural state, but she didn't give him the pleasure. Didn't even let it flit across her face. The anger, then guilt, then shame.

"Sit, sit," he said. She set her bag down and sat in the chair, leaning back just a little. Comfortable but not relaxed. She was hungry, too, and tired, had planned her day poorly. Had focused on her nerves instead of thinking about how she was going to feel. She could see a big picture - all the pieces at once and how they fit and she could certainly live in the moment, but it was the short term planning the failed her. What to wear for the week, how to make things last long enough to get to replenishment. Feeding herself before a meeting.

"I could use some coffee," Brenda said, finally.

Andrew seemed to take this as a surrender of some sort. "Let's take a walk," he said.

Headquarters had a huge cafeteria with countless options. Burgers and fries, sandwiches, pizza, chinese food, mexican, pho. Most hadn't opened for the lunch rush yet and so they went to the coffee cart. She allowed Andrew to pay only because she needed someone with a permanent badge to handle the transaction. She threw a chocolate muffin on the counter as he pulled out his wallet and he only laughed and said, "Of course."

They didn't go back to his office right away. They'd have to - her things were there, but instead they went out to a courtyard and sat in the freezing cold on a bench while she ate her muffin and sipped at her hot coffee, sweetened to within an inch of its life and heavily doctored with cream. The coffee was achingly familiar. Like how church coffee always tasted the same - watered down, made in bulk by little old ladies. This coffee was distinctive as well.

She thought about her old office, her stateside supervisor, her colleagues. Most would be there still. She wouldn't bother trying to visit. She no longer had access to their compartment and besides, everyone knew she'd quit and ran. She'd already seen more than one familiar face that wouldn't meet her eye as she strolled alongside Andrew Schmidt.

"I have to say, you've held up your end of our bargain quite well," he said. "I expected… less and for that I do apologize. Your flaws have never been in your work, Miss Johnson, and I was wrong to think so."

"You and my grandma should have backhanded compliment competitions," she said, balling up the paper from the muffin in her hand.

"Charlene Marie Johnson, 71 Beaverwood Lane, Blue Ridge, Georgia," Andrew said cheerfully. "Mother to Benjamin, Clayton, and Leighanne, currently retired, has a dog named Magnolia."

Brenda stared at him, slightly horrified.

"I believe they call her Maggie," he added.

"Yeah," Brenda said.

"You see, there isn't anything I don't know about you and my brain is just as remarkable as yours. I can memorize your file, I can keep you right in here," he said, tapping his temple. "I know you as well as you know yourself and that's why I know that, eventually, you're going to come back to me."

"You haven't given me a lot of wiggle room," she pointed out.

"Nonsense," he said. "You have an entire country of wiggle room. I don't tell you how to help, how to run the cases. All we ask is that you show up."

She drank her coffee, cooled now, not quite as good anymore.

"You've built yourself a good reputation out there, you know," he offered. "So good, in fact, that the funds we've set aside to pay you with have already been depleted."

"Is that why you called me out here? To make me sit in the cold and shit can me?" she asked.

"Let's go back inside," he said. So they walked back to his office in silence. She didn't dare hope - there was no way he'd cut her loose. No, he'd come to alter their arrangement somehow. She just hoped she could live with it.

When they got back to the office, past Shirley who had known Brenda since she was twenty-four and didn't even look up at her, they settled back in their respective seats and Andrew reached into a drawer and pulled something out, tossed it onto the desk.

A pager.

"We'd like your old one, please," he said.

"What's the difference?" she asked, rummaging in her bag.

"This one is better," he said.

She set the old one on his desk, on the very edge and reached over to take the new one. Slipped it into her bag.

"So how am I getting paid when this thing goes off?" she asked.

"I'm glad you ask," he said. "There's been some concern about what you're doing on the CIA's dime anyhow. It's fine when you translate tapes or help find missing little girls. It's the interrogations that are causing some concern."

"You've never been interested in legalities before," she muttered.

"We've arranged a different source of funding, one that I'm happy to report includes your tuition for the foreseeable future as well as a salary for you."

"You want to pay for my school?" she asked.

"I honestly didn't think you'd last the semester, let alone do so well. So sure, credential yourself up in public administration. It'll be a good thing for the FBI's new liaison to have."

"FBI?" she said and she heard herself squawk but couldn't help it.

"Only technically," he said. "We give them money, they pay you. Everyone's happy."

"'Cept me!" she said.

"You'll be doing the same thing, but with a free ride and a raise," he said. "Of course, you'll have to work at least 25 hours a week, so probably not more than two classes, hmm?"

"No, absolutely not, no," she said. "It'll take me forever to graduate."

"Miss Johnson, I have made a very generous offer," he said, the last warmth in his tone draining away. "It's obvious you are filling a need and that is the very least you can do for your country."

She looked down into her lap. "My country," she repeated softly.

"I don't want to have to point out what a fragile position you're in. You have nothing to bargain with, you have no leverage. You cannot get by without us. You will not find a better job, not at another government agency, not at a Neiman Marcus, not flipping burgers at McDonald's. No bank will give you a loan, no school will accept your transfer," he said. He wasn't yelling but she felt as if he was a moment away from roaring into her face, from picking up the dark blue coffee mug on his desk and smashing it down again.

"And need I remind you that you have people you care about? Your family. Your friend in San Diego and their young children," he leaned in. "What happened to you in Belarus, well, one could write that off as undercover work. You aren't the first agent to ever seduce someone's wife, but two is a pattern, Miss Johnson. What you do affects not only you, but all the women you let between your legs. Do you want to ruin her life as well as your own? Ricky's and Emily's?"

"Enough," she said. Her hands were balled up in her lap, her knuckles white and trembling. "Stop it. You've made your point."

He leaned back, smiling once more, though his face was still red, his nostrils flaring.

"That's wonderful to hear. We'll put this ugly talk behind us, then. You, young lady, have a plane to catch. And when you return to Los Angeles, we'll make the proper adjustments to your schedule."

"After my finals, I hope," she said.

"I told you I wouldn't interfere with your classes and I am a man of my word," he said. "I like what you're learning out there, Brenda. It's useful, it's practical."

"How so?" she asked.

"There's more to interrogations than finding the truth," he said. "More to it than gathering information and analyzing it. You're getting to see it in action. What you find saves lives. It excites me to know that we'll be saving lives together for many years to come."

She picked up her bag and her purse and shouldered them both on her right shoulder.

"I need a ride back to the airport," she said.

"Very well," he said. "Shirley will instruct security at the gates to call you a cab."

When she opened his office door he said, "See you around, Agent Johnson of the FBI."

Shirley looked at her, finally, and reached for the phone.

oooo

She called Sharon from the airport. She didn't mean to, exactly, but she had so much time to kill before her flight. She fed herself, bought a glossy magazine and flipped through every page. Bought a fresh book of crossword puzzles and filled out three in blue ink before she wandered to a bank of payphones and dropped in a quarter.

It rang three times before an out of breath Sharon answered. Brenda could hear Christmas music underneath the harried, "Hello?"

"Hi," she said. "It's Brenda."

"Oh!" she said. "Hi! You got home safely!"

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I did."

A gate agent made a boarding announcement and Sharon said, "Where are you?"

"I'm at the airport again," she said. "My brother Jimmy's comin' in."

"I'm glad you called," Sharon said. "Your school called and said they'll have a room ready for you by the first of the year. They left a number. You got a pen?"

"Oh," she said. "Uh, hang on." She pulled the pen out from the book of crosswords and flipped the book over. "Go on."

Sharon fed her the number and she wrote it on the glossy back cover.

"They said they wanted you to return their call," Sharon said. "I didn't feel like it was my place, exactly, to call and tell them you didn't want it."

"Um," she said.

"You don't, right?" Sharon asked, her voice getting a little softer. "I know that… I know when we talked about it, it was at an odd time but you really do fit in here and the kids like you so if you want to stay, stay, Brenda."

"You don't think it's a bad idea?" she asked.

"It's certainly your choice," Sharon promised. "But we want you to stay."

"They ain't even gonna be there now, anyway," she said. "I'll call 'em back after Christmas."

"Okay," Sharon said. "Hey, while I've got you, why don't you give me the number of your parent's house? In case we need to get ahold of you."

"Sure," Brenda said. "But I wouldn't call today. We're all here waitin' on Jimmy."

"Of course, I should let you get back to your family. Why don't you call me when you get back. The kids'll be in bed then," Sharon said.

"Yeah," Brenda said. "I can do that."

"Talk to you later," Sharon said.

"Bye." Brenda placed the phone back onto the receiver and picked it back up again. Dropped in another quarter and dialed. "Mama? Yeah, it's me. My flight is just about to board, but it should be on time okay? Daddy'll be there?"

"Of course," her mama said. "Fly safe."

Her flight didn't leave for another two hours, but she settled in at the gate with a textbook, her puzzles, Sharon's voice looping in her head asking her to stay.

oooo

Her parent's house still felt like home. More to her and Jimmy, the two youngest, than to Bobby or Clay Jr. but maybe that was because they'd been almost graduated and ready to be on their own by the time the family settled in the suburban home. They'd moved a lot growing up, Army brats, and it had been a real luxury to go to the same high school for all four years.

Everyone was already there when Clay and Brenda finally rolled into circular driveway. Her mama, Jimmy and his friend Frank, Bobby and Joyce and baby Charlene. Clay Jr. on his own because of the divorce.

"Wanda has the kids on Christmas," was all he'd said on the matter. The house was big but stuffed to the gills with people and would be more crowded still when all the grandparents and cousins showed up for the big day. Christmas had always been a big affair. Not Brenda's favorite holiday - that went to Halloween and then switched to any major holiday that the government was closed and she got paid to stay home once she got too old for trick or treating.

There was candy all over her parent's house and she grabbed a handful of chocolates that were in a bowl by the door as she walked in.

"That all you brought?" her mama asked as she came in. Her mama was already in her nightgown - red flannel with a white collar. Brenda thought half a year back to her mama angrily scrubbing dishes at the sink in the kitchen when Brenda was about to leave for California.

"All my warm clothes are here," she said.

"Well don't fill up on candy, I saved you some supper." Her mother eyed Brenda's fistful of red and green foiled candies.

"I won't, mama," she promised. She ate four, squirrelled the rest away in her nightstand. She'd unpack later. She looked around the small bedroom and it seemed to be as she'd left it. It was obvious her mother had been vacuuming and dusting, but Clay Jr.'s room had become her father's study and Bobby's her mother's sewing room. Even Jimmy's room had been redecorated to be a bland guest room and he was younger than Brenda. Hers never changed. Same twin bed, same ruffled curtains, same books on the bookcase. Nancy Drew and Eloise and Harry the Dirty Dog.

Her daddy went to bed - everyone else had already - but her mama sat with her while she ate.

"How come you never change my room?" she asked.

"You want to redecorate?" her mama asked. "I don't think we have time this trip but maybe if you came home for the summer…"

"No," she said. "That's not… I just mean why haven't you made it another guest room or a library or a home gym or somethin' like the boys?"

"Those boys left and I knew we'd never get them back," Willie Rae said, waving a hand in the air. "Once Jimmy moved out of state, I knew it my heart that all my boys were gone. But you're my girl, Brenda Leigh. Girls should always know they have a home to come back to."

"Well that's sweet but I don't think it's necessary," Brenda said. "You could put a bigger bed in there, have more guests."

"What if you want to come back someday and you don't feel like you have a room of your own?" Willie Rae asked.

"I don't need the same things I had at sixteen to recognize this as my home, mama," she laughed.

"Maybe I like to think I'll get you back one day, honey," Willie said, reaching over and patting her hand. "You're a hard one to let go."

Andrew Schmidt, Sharon telling her to stay, now her mama. Brenda felt like she was being pulled in every direction, wondered what she would do if she could do exactly as she pleased. Where she would go, who she'd choose with no strings attached. California was supposed to be that for her but it seemed like nowhere was far enough away.

She cleaned her plate, kissed her mama, went to bed.

Christmas Eve she managed to get her daddy to let her take his car to the mall. She'd had a few things for people delivered to the house where they still sat in brown boxes, waiting to be wrapped, but she had been too busy to put much effort into shopping. The mall was a madhouse, the absolute worst place she could be. Still, she braved it to buy her daddy a sweater, her mama a silk scarf. She was climbing the stairs to the third floor of the parking garage with her bags when her purse started to beep an unfamiliar sound.

She dug out the new pager which was chirping merrily.

"You gotta be kiddin' me," she said to it. "Here?"

It would be cutting it close, getting home inside an hour on the day before Christmas, so she put her purchases in the trunk and disappointed the car waiting several yards away with its turn signal on, after her parking spot. It was a harried looking woman with two kids in the backseat. Brenda mouthed an apology but she just drove angrily on.

There was a bank of payphones just inside the side entry and they were all available. She chose the one second closest to the door and pulled a quarter out of her pocket, listened to it rattle down and settle with a clank. She dialed the number.

"Agent Aurora, Savannah," she said.

"Merry Christmas to you, too," said a familiar voice.

"Do you know where I am right now? I can tell you it's nowhere near Los Angeles."

"I do know where you are," he said. "I have no job for you."

"Oh," she said. "So you're callin' just to see if I'd answer?"

"I couldn't possibly say," he said, but it sounded like he was smiling. "But you have answered, despite your location, and I'll certainly pass that onto my superiors. Happy Holidays, Brenda Leigh Johnson."

"And to you, sir."

She hung up and headed home.

oooo

The pager felt strange because it was permanent. So many years covering her tracks, so many scraps of papers and maps and instructions burned over cold metal trash cans. Notes pressed to the underside of park benches, brown paper bags fished out of garbage cans, shaking out her hair as she pulled off a dull brown wig. These were all things she associated with her old life - ways to disappear without a trace.

Carrying around the pager felt counter-intuitive, even after nearly six months of doing it. She knew that she'd passed their test and that they probably wouldn't call her until she returned to Los Angeles, but she also felt paranoid like she had to keep it where she could hear it or check it every hour.

Every time she told herself she was feeling paranoid, she reminded herself of the two cars that had been following her across the country. That had been real enough for her to want to trust her instincts.

Christmas morning, Brenda woke up to blood and cramps. There was nothing in the bathroom next to her bedroom but she found an old box of maxi pads in her parent's bathroom and she took the whole thing. Once she cleaned herself up, she crawled back in bed and was there for about seven minutes before she heard a sharp knock on the door.

"Brenda Leigh," her mother called. "It's Christmas, darlin' and your grandmas are here."

As was everyone else. The living room was packed when she made it down - grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins. She got hugged as many times as she could stand and then picked up her niece just to use her to avoid anymore contact.

Charlene was nearly too old to be lifted but she wrapped her long legs around Brenda just the same, overwhelmed by the crush of people so early in the morning. Christmas breakfast was a tradition and Brenda felt a pang of guilt that she hadn't gotten up at the crack of dawn to help her mama by peeling potatoes and cracking eggs. Charlene stuck with her until she saw her own mother again and then Brenda was abandoned.

In the kitchen was her mother and her grandmother, her mama's mother - Billie. Brenda was closer to her paternal grandmother, but she liked her mother's mama well enough. She fell in line, taking over for Billie who was slicing a pile of oranges into wedges. Billie kissed her cheek and said, "You look flushed, Brenda Leigh."

"Just warm," she said.

"You look puffy, too," Billie pointed out.

"Thanks," she said dryly. Her mother shot her a look.

"You been eatin' too much sugar?" Billie asked.

"No, Grandma," Brenda said, "It's just my personal time of the month, that's all."

"And she eats too much sugar," Willie Rae added.

"You two stop pickin' on her!"

She hadn't noticed her other grandmother, Charlene, tucked into the small reading nook her father favored, just off the kitchen. She was partially obscured by a table top Christmas tree, almost certainly on purpose. Charlene was never much for crowds. Brenda thought uneasily of that cold bench at headquarters.

"How's Maggie?" Brenda asked.

"She's staying with the neighbors who feed her table scraps, so she's happier that I'm away, I'm sure," Charlene said.

Brenda turned back to her cutting board and pulled another orange toward her.

"Take the little stickers off first," her mother said.

"I know, mama," she replied, feeling at the end of an already short rope. Maybe small talk with her cousins and bear hugs from her uncles was better than this after all.

By the time she made it through the pile, her hands stung. The ragged skin at her nail beds, the dry areas around her knuckles, the papercut she had on the inside of her finger. She stuck that finger into her mouth and soothed it with her own tongue.

"Carry that out to the table, Brenda Leigh," Billie said, waving a spatula toward the heaping bowl of orange wedges. "It's almost time to eat."

"Yes, ma'am," she said.

oooo

The day after Christmas, the phone rang in the afternoon and her mama called up the stairs for Brenda.

"It's a gentleman for you," she called with a smile in her voice. That ruled out a stranger, it ruled out a family member and Brenda hadn't really kept in contact with anyone much from high school, let alone tell anyone she was coming home for a handful of days.

But it was a friend from high school, sort of. It was Casey Pickett. Her mama and his mama were church friends - he'd gone to a different high school but they'd seen each other once a week in Sunday school while growing up and then, when they got a little older, had gone out a few times. She'd gone to his Junior prom, he'd come to her Senior prom. A couple homecoming games and the dances that followed. One Sadie Hawkins dance. They'd never been boyfriend and girlfriend, not officially, but she liked Casey and he'd always made her laugh.

He hadn't been her first, though thinking of him now, she couldn't figure out why that was. In fact, for as much time as they'd spent parking in his daddy's pickup truck, he hadn't technically been her anything at all. They'd gotten as close to the cliff as they could have without taking the plunge, but she'd been somewhat of a good girl. Sort of.

She picked up the phone and said, "Hello?"

"Brenda Leigh Johnson," said a deep, familiar voice. "Will you go to the dance with me?"

She laughed. "No sir," she said. "I'm too old for that."

"Oh," he said, in faux disappointment. "How about dinner and a movie?"

"Well that sounds just fine by me."

He came to pick her up at 6:30, a little early for dinner but that was because she was on California time, not used to the early bird special schedule that her parents were settling nicely into. But he took her to a semi-decent restaurant. Okay food and not too cheap, before they headed to the movie theater.

"Mel Gibson frozen in time, Steve Martin as a con-man, or paralyzed soap opera star in the bayou?" he asked as they stood looking at the movie times.

"Frozen Mel Gibson, obviously," she said.

Casey held her hand during the movie and she let him, purposely not thinking about Sharon.

After the movie, they drove up the hill to where they used to park when they were younger. She didn't think about riding in the car with Sharon.

Casey leaned into kiss her and she let him, but she didn't think about kissing Sharon.

She didn't let anything happen past a little light necking because it was, after all, her time of the month but she wondered, unsure whether or not she would have let him go all the way, thinking the entire time about Sharon using Brenda to get her out of her system.

She could use people, too. Could be spiteful. Could be casual.

He dropped her off at home, kissed her cheek, said, "It was good to see you, Brenda Leigh."

"Likewise," she said. "Bye-bye now."

She told her mama she'd had a nice time, kissed her daddy's cheek goodnight. Climbed the stairs and collapsed into her bed, thinking so hard about not thinking about Sharon that she'd circled right around to thinking about nothing else.

She was lying in her bedroom in her parent's house, feeling lonely and homesick. Had been on a date with a lovely boy who had doted on her and wanted nothing more than to make her happy and all she'd done is compare him to her landlord.

She rolled over, pressed her face into her pillow, and thought about screaming.