Small Places : Nick L Belardes [84 of 128]

• She never ventured from the silk roads spun by the fatty bagworm spinners. They ate no less than three leafy pies before a hard day's work.
• She didn't even miss her kitchen filled with petals of pita-jingos and banana-leaf tropical bungos-
• -cooked for the most daring of appetites. There, in her roomy kitchen, sat tilted leaf-cakes as high as five bagworm hats,
• and were topped with twirlers and unlit sparklers. It was in those kitchens that made the young bagworms most happy.
• Because everyone knew they grew, and grew, and grew when they ate... They grew so much they slept on bagworm bunkbeds twenty bunks high,
• where all the bagworm children could dream about pies all night. But that was far away in the treetops.
• Mrs. Bigmoth was busily trudging her way through a forest of snakes, bugs and thistles. In fact, she was followed by snails,
• blue specks of bugs and two ancient-looking walking sticks. "Who are you??" she turned around and said.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [83 of 128]

• Suddenly the old man waved his walking stick like a ghetto AK-47: "It's a war these days with the bagworms. The entire forest is at risk!"
• He then turned and hobbled down the path. Each stab of his walking stick sounded like gravel was being pulverized into dust.
• For days afterward I dreamed about bagworms. I imagined a treetop worm colony living in silk purses and patent-leather homes,
• all bedazzled. In my dreams the bagworms were distressed. Each night at 10:10, booms rung through the forest,
• shook the webs, disturbed the baggy babies. After a bout of Nyquil, I dreamt a bagworm fell from a tree.
• Somehow she had an umbrella and floated to the forest floor during the booms. "I'm angry" the bagworm said.
• "There will be no more booms in this forest by the time I'm done." She marched past mushrooms as big as houses.
• Little blue glowing bugs floated across the forest floor. Green-lit snails oozed across paths of slimy light. The bagworm marched on.
• This marching, angry bagworm, was notably married to Eli Bigmoth. He ran the silk-spinning factory next to a huge zebra-striped baghouse.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [82 of 128]

• "Check your email," Mike says. I click on my inbox to discover the prez has actually done some work today.
• Mass email: "Effective today, and with the deepest of regrets, I have terminated Milt Butterlink's employment with Buildicon.
• "As you may recognize, this leaves us with a huge void. We will begin our search for a new Marketing Manager shortly." - The Prez
• Twenty-Six.
• I once took a stroll in Ohio forests and saw huge webs of silk filled with worms. "They're bagworms," said an old man with a walking stick.
• The old-timer's right eye was more open than his left. His wrinkled walking stick could have been a skinny arm.
• His wisp of hair was a cloud. His eye went wider: "They live in the trees. There's no spiders there."
• He bent close and breathed on me. "In fact, they kill the trees." He continued: "Years ago you'd see few bagworms.
• They spun webs, ate a few trees and went about their business. Those times are gone."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [81 of 128]

• Mike ignores the TV news: "It doesn't matter if it's my idea, your idea, or the corporation's idea. Managers are supposed to be jerks."
• Me: "You sympathetic idiot. Milt stepped on the bulldog's tail. He'll be gone within days once Joan's allies move against him."
• Milt Butterlink looks like he has the stomach flu, day four. He's a ghost-white walking stiff as he woodenly walks amongst the cubicles.
• He isn't talking, singing, saying "superstar" or even looking anyone in the eye. Even Kira de Frito looks like she's seen an apparition.
• The prez exits his office. His goggles are off. He steps in front of Kira and says to Milt: "Come, take a walk with me." Milt's eyes widen.
• Milt walks down a corridor with the prez. Mike: "That's not a good sign. A day like this needs an 80s theme song. 'Thriller'?
• Me: "I told you. Milt has been given the anvil of corporate death. Joan must have mustered some serious forces of vengeance."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [80 of 128]

• Mike: "Can anyone?" Me: "That's not the point." Mike's beer looks flat as he says, "Would life be any better under a different manager?"
• On the bar TV the evening anchorman is talking about a political tea party by the downtown civic center. "Look at that guy," Mike says.
• "That's about one political party unhappy with those in power," he adds. "They're never satisfied. It's always a power struggle."
• The anchorman has perfect dark hair, a perfect suit. He looks like he runs 20 miles a day. "Maybe he feels corporate stress," Mike says.
• Me: "That guy? He's a celebrity talking head." I chug my beer. Mike: "I bet he eats fast-food like the rest of us. He has a boss too."
• Me: "You're telling me that @KiyoshiTomono has it rough? He gets free haircuts and suit cleaning. Mike: "And that makes life easy?"
• Me: "Look, Milt is a micro-manager. How could it get any worse? I'd like a little credit for my intelligence."
• Mike: "You don't get it. Managers aren't in this world to be liked. They're here to get production out of workers like you and me."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [79 of 128]

• Twenty-Five.
• I proudly hang my Milt-moon drawing. Across from me Mike designs a poster that looks like Buildicon products actually do invade planets.
• Wireless devices appear to beam wi-fi lasers. Me: "Nice invasion ad. You should add explosions and Army tanks."
• Mike: "Invasion? There's no invasion. Well, not an intended one. Not a bad idea actually for these RadioBlast products."
• I change the subject: "So, did Joan call you?" Mike: "Yeah, but I couldn't understand her. Something about 'Kill Milt with cigarettes.'"
• "Maybe I shouldn't have jammed Joan's foot so hard in the meeting," I say. Mike: "You stepped on Joan's foot and you're alive?"
• I look at Mike and wonder why Joan let me live. "She was foaming at the mouth," I add, hoping to justify my near-death office moment.
• We take the conversation to a local bar. "Milt's gone off the deep end," I say, remembering the snail dream. "He can't manage people."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [78 of 128]

• Suddenly there are more dandelions. They're all smiling, standing over me, tickling me with their grassy feet. I can hear Milt singing.
• Milt sings: "I'll get you little snails! I'll pull off all your shells. Then I'll cook you in a pot, steam you 'til you're hot!
• "Little garden snails come to me! You'll see, I'm hungry. I've got my hoe and I twirl it so. I'll slice you into my shiny glass bowl!"
• The dandelions reach down and pick me up. They carry me to the madly singing gardener. The flowers scurry as he stops singing.
• There is a native chant sung by the dandelions hiding in the grass. I slither as fast as I can. But it's like sliding on molasses.
• I feel Milt pick me up. He's a wooden giant with horrible breath of the worst corporate manager nightmare kind.
• My shell cracks as he squeezes me too hard and drops me into a shiny transparent glass bowl filled with dead snails.
• I feel my two slimy eyes cross in fear. Dandelion heads move through the grass. I curse them and Milt as I fall out of bed and wake up.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [77 of 128]

• A ladybug has a muddy shell and twitching wing. She whimpers while water rushes into the sewer.
• A moth loses its grip, falls into the water. The bugs don't talk to each other.
• Other than water, the only sounds are Milt hacking at snails. I hear screams, shells crunched, a cackle.
• I move closer to the huddled snails. They smoke cigarettes. "Why are you here?" I ask. One of the snails turns around. It's Joan.
• Her crushed shell looks painful, like a broken Easter egg. "I once lived in a beautiful garden. I avoided poison, birds, curious children.
• "Then the gardener found me and stepped on me. He thought I was dead and left me on the sidewalk to wither. I came here."
• A snail missing an eye looks at me. "It's the only place left for us. We hang on as long as we can. When we fall, we go to another place."
• I look down at the swirling water. A roly-poly spins on its back like a boat caught in a whirlpool. It yelps for help then is gone.
• I slither my way back out of the sewer and head for an imaginary garden that only my dreams can muster. A dandelion bends to me and smiles.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [76 of 128]

• Twenty-Four.
• Downstairs Joan is lying on her back in the middle of the parking lot smoking a cigarette. "You need to get up," I say.
• Joan won't look at me. "I knew it would be me. I'll kill that no good..." Me: "I don't think Milt can be killed. He's not human."
• That evening I walk home, wondering if Joan will be lying in the parking lot covered in classifieds when I return the next day.
• Outside my front door five snails hang on the wall. I start to feel like one of them, escaping the water from the garden, barely clinging.
• I go to sleep dreaming about a starry canopy and moonlit snails on the run from a mad gardener who looks like Milt with a crooked hoe.
• In the dream I grow squishy suction cup feet that stick to the ground as I run. Milt gains on me and takes a swing with his hoe.
• He chops my feet off but I instantly grow new ones as I slither into a sewer. This seems to be the darkest place I can imagine.
• Inside the sewer are other frightened bugs. Snails with broken, oozing shells huddle in a corner. A cockroach with one antenna shivers.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [75 of 128]

• "Why do I seem to do it all?" Milt barks. I make no comment. I'm not going to talk. Besides, everyone is speechless.
• I sense Joan is about to scream a war cry. I step hard on her foot. I step harder because I don't think she felt it.
• Milt starts to mumble. This is the cosmic moment where even corporations are suddenly bad movie experiences. Vishnu actually looks awake.
• Vishnu, the Web guru of all things. He must have a delete button for this surreal meeting,
• or at least some kind of anti-virus garlic necklace. Mike knows it’s not him. He always watching Survivor and
• knows how to make his corporate life live to the last man.
• Mulani runs everything in the department and gets paid a tenth of Milt’s enormous salary. She’s safe.
• Joan is expendable simply because she is insane and is a sort of mini-angry version of Milt in a constant state of meltdown.
• Kira de Frito could lose her job but wouldn’t understand whether or not she suddenly got a promotion
• to a Brazilian office on a wireless banana plantation. Sure, it’s egotistical of me to say I’m the soul of this marketing department.
• I guess I wouldn’t blame Buildicon to go soulless. It happens.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [74 of 128]

• Katie Starburn walks past the conference room window wearing bright orange and matching fiery glasses.
• Her bright red hair is poofy. She's fabulous in her mocking of corporate attire: a poster child for rebellious cubicle-wear.
• Katie scoffs through the glass at Mulani who hasn't snapped out of her death stare with Milt Butterlink's nose.
• I can't help but think my life is crazy, even interesting, as Katie passes and gives me a wink. Milt continues to ramble.
• My mind wanders. I draw a moon-like world floating in the cosmos with a little Milt Butterlink standing on it, yelling,
• "This is my planet!" "I can't trust any of you to do your work. That's why I'm getting rid of one of you," Milt says.
• He waves a blue marker in the air. Milt believes he does all the work and thinks that teddy bear grahams have more brains
• than those of us with college degrees. As supposed non-thinkers, we have to get approval on all our daily tasks.
• Milt: the consummate micro-manager in a Cosby sweater.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [73 of 128]

• "Do you understand what I'm saying? Look, I have drawn the most important marketing strategy of our time." It looks like a bug.
• More stares. I start grabbing teddy bear grahams. I line them up against my notepad so that they stand to face Milt.
• Most have no arms. One is headless. It's as if these cookie creatures deserve to listen to his marketing nonsense.
• As I grab another, Milt suddenly stops talking and stares. Milt sees the teddy bear grahams.
• He looks at them as if they are judging the very core of his plan. There is an uncomfortable silence.
• Leaning forward, Milt suddenly says, "I can't talk to you while they're looking at me." I start crunching them.
• Milt pauses and stares again. Is he contemplating their cookie brains? I see Mulani bite off an arm.
• Suddenly it's a front row seat to corporate drama. "I'm disappointed," Milt says like a true marketing manager frankenboob.
• He adds, "Someone's going to get fired in this meeting." I stop crunching cookies. Frankenbooby has the floor.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [72 of 128]

• The snout of boredom pushes its way from the front of your face. You fight it. You try to push it back in like you're made of Play Doh.
• You miss the day when you didn't think there were Star Wars prequels and the world was like bikini-clad
• At-Ats lazing in bright morning snow. I often wonder what would happen if I fully transformed into boredom itself.
• Would I merrily drain the soda machines of corporate America? Milt stands before the meeting room.
• He turns his back on the marketing team and writes on a board with a blue felt marker.
• "This is a great color," Milt says. I'm not listening. I watch Mulani dump an entire box of teddy grahams onto the table.
• I start drawing pictures: teddy bears dancing, teddy bear balloons, teddy bear adverts, teddy bear stormtroopers and Milt as Darth Graham.
• As Milt talks, Mulani stares at something in his nose. I refuse to look. She's hypnotized. Poor thing is locked in a nostril stare down.
• "You don't get it," Milt says." There is something integral to this department that's missing. It's called family." Quiet stares.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [71 of 128]

• If Milt has a strategy then I'm in an ant farm clawing at the glass, ripping at a sea of wallpaper. "I'm going to make it happen," he says.
• He goes off the deep end: "All this Buildicon wireless is freakin' great.
• I know I was meant to be a Hollywood producer, but life changes... "I mean, I got Adobe into the business.
• I cooked macaroons with Bo Derek. She kissed me and wondered if I was made of wood. Sweet, huh?
• "I'm going to manage this wireless company right into the mystical universe! I'll market us to the stars!"
• Milt snorts and sloshes his beer. I stop listening. I look at the man's book at the next table:
• "Twenty Great Romance Novels To Scoff At" and think of Mulani's mean smile.
• Twenty-Three.
• Workplace boredom is not a fluffy little teddy bear we squeeze and blab baby talk to. Rather, it sinks its teeth in like a werewolf.
• Such a corporate infection takes root just when dreaming of Fijian jungle paradises, crushed ice vanilla Cokes and big-brained snowmen.
• Think about it. You wake up one day at your desk and find yourself transforming into the boredom monster. You twitch. You convulse.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [70 of 128]

• Milt gives me a look. His wooden-looking fingers wiggle. "French, huh?" he says. I can see the desire in his Franken-eyes.
• He grunts: "OK." The waitress has fair skin and thick blue eye shadow with eyebrows painted on.
• For some reason I want to reach over and smear them across her forehead. Milt orders a Sierra Nevada beer.
• He then looks at me boyishly: "Wow. Wow. This is so cool!" Three Sierra Nevadas later he loosens up.
• "So what's this all about?" Milt says. Me: "What do you mean?" He looks like an idiot struck him silly: "This! This right here! Right now!"
• I look at Milt: "I don't know. Still trying to ponder the ten minutes after I woke up this morning." Milt: "No!" Me: "No?" Milt: "No!"
• Milt: "Well let me tell you. It's about strategy." He's the boss. So I have to listen even though he's starting to talk like Kira de Frito.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [69 of 128]

• I imagine people pushing peas the size of planets in a mad race for my fork. This is what I do on my time off, besides bug collecting.
• I try stacking jars of bugs into a living room high-rise.
• I'm strangely envious of a caterpillar living two stories above a one-armed mantis.
• My last day off the phone rings. "Hello?" It's Mulani: "How's your week been?" Me: "Oh, just building a few things, was being productive."
• "Miss me?" I say. Mulani: "No, but Milt does. He stares at your empty chair every morning as if sad." The mantis waves its one arm at me.
• My first day back Milt finds me before I leave for an extended lunch. "Wanna have chow with me? One on one?" What can I say? "Sure, Milt."
• We head to a dive on 19th Street. "Hey, Milt. Are we going to have a drink?" Milt: "We're on company time. You know the policy."
• I remind Milt that Buildicon employs French workers and they drink like fish. "They're French!" he says. Me: "We can pretend we're French."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [68 of 128]

• There's no reasoning with melting brains. Joan has that terrible look in her eyes again.
• She's near complete meltdown--adrenaline implosion. I've only seen this kind of behavior in my psychologically impaired
• ex-girlfriend's Border Collie. Oh, and in my nephew, the freak-out king.
• Both dog and little boy are intelligent. But both are afraid of their own tails, like Joan, when shadows are cast on their dark worlds.
• Set up the perfect conditions, add a few scary 'Boos!' and you have wailing, crying and peeing. That's a complete meltdown. Still with me?
• Joan is freaking about Milt. "Why?" she says. It's written in her eyes. Her questioning his corporate worth. "I dunno," I say. Though I do.
• Twenty-Two.
• I've been off work for a week collecting bugs in jars. I line them on a shelf and wonder which one could be my little corporate cubicle.
• "I'm taking some time off to get to know myself," I told Mulani. She didn't call once. My cell phone looks like a stink bug.
• TV dinners are my escape. It's like I have Alice and Wonderland Syndrome. I shrink to the size of corn and crawl across an aluminum sea.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [67 of 128]

• I manage to flip a tricycle. I lie on my back wondering if it's the Christmas spirit I see in the wondrous eyes of children laughing at me.
• A store worker steps over me as if this is normal. A kid gives me the stare of toyshop shame,
• grabs the bike and pedals toward LEGO central. As the chaos comes into focus I notice a man standing next to the giant pink wall
• of Barbies. He has two buxom beauts out of their packages. It's Milt Butterlink. He's got a Barbie fetish. Making them talk,
• he's playing with them in the store. I have to hear what he's saying. When I wake on Christmas,
• I realize that being in the toy store was just a nightmare. I finished my shopping on time. Milt wasn't there.
• Besides, there are no Milt Butterlinks creative enough to play with Barbies in toy stores. If only I would have dreamed they came to life.
• Imagine, Barbies hungry enough to devour a sour marketing manager? Entire shelves of Star Wars action figures might get jealous.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [66 of 128]

• Twenty-One.
• I'm told that within three days I have to design an ad that can be torn out of a magazine and folded into the shape of a wireless device.
• Thinking back, I remember youthful days ripping apart cereal boxes for their intriguing back-of-the-box army diagrams.
• I always folded the cereal box army tanks hoping for truly magical war machines with big boxy cannons my plastic army men could straddle.
• Never failed. My army tanks would look like swans. Now my boss expects me to design fold-outs that engineers would love on their desks.
• Milt: "Nothing too goo gah now. I just want a wireless device people can fold together, fill with sand and place their pencils in."
• Me: "Sure you don't just want me to design a drawing they can tear out and color?" Milt: "These are engineers I'm talking about."
• The FAO Schwartz toystore is abuzz with Star Wars laser beams, action figures as tall as elves and Barbies looking like TV show rejects.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [65 of 128]

• I sit on a December bench in a mist-breathed park. Fog rolls in like smoke off fingertips. Christmas sort of flickers through it all.
• It's so late here that I don't expect her to show up. A stream nearby sounds like the Milky Way mist.
• I imagine swirls of stars pouring past. I look across the grass, out onto the car-less highway.
• Houses beyond that are blurry sparks, fireflies of a lonely holiday night. "What are you doing here?" she says.
• I can barely see her shape. She's black in the fog. Lamps nearby shine like ghosts and I shiver. I feel small again,
• like I'm inside an ant farm that's slowly filling with water. I can't think of words to say. Ants wait for my direction.
• It's like she's not there next to me on the bench in the fog. I'm guiding ants through tunnels. Each sandy cave is a dead end.
• The image morphs into a maze of cubicles. I imagine Milt chasing me like I'm some kind of
• photocopier that stole his marketing budget report. "I have to go," I say. I leave her in the fog.
• I imagine running away from corporate meetings and strange Christmas office parties. Freedom.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [64 of 128]

• Tortured, sits the receptionist, Joyce. She's a Jehovah's Witness. Joan knows this. She hangs cards from Joyce's desk, says,
• "Oh Christmas." Tinsel is spread on branches. Plastic gold ornaments dangle like costume jewelry.
• Glitter-glue-named Stockings hang misspelled and empty.
• There's nothing redeeming about a plastic corporate tree used to lure a false sense of cheer among workers year after year.
• Real trees are different. Even our marketing manager Milt Butterlink said, "We could use a really freakin' cool flocking live tree."
• But then Buildicon workers learned he wanted an eggnog sort of tree-cutting hoedown at his home in the mountains. Who wants that?
• If I wanted to socially network with coworker types, I would crash corporate Christmas parties all over the city.
• Or do some people do that? Mulani faked sick: "Mountain air makes me break out in hives." Milt's beady eyes stared:
• "There are no beehives on Butterlink Ranch." So here we are once again. Not enough tinsel from 1982 cabinet supplies.
• Not enough 1994 Kmart ornaments. It spins like a dying NY ballet.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [63 of 128]

• Katie: "You've never seen a running back until you've seen my little girl plow through several linemen.
• They cry to their mamas every time." Me: "It's good to see you've taught her a thing or two about your weightlifting days."
• We're late getting back to the office. "You can't teach an 8-year-old girl weightlifting. She's just mean and likes to make boys cry.
• I support such goals. Healthy." Me: "I wonder if you make Vishnu cry every time you leave his office."
• Katie laughs, "I do try to sway mankind. The things I tell you." I watch Katie finish her last lick of coffee. We get up and walk.
• Me: "Yeah, I often wonder that myself. So, why do you tell me everything?"
• Twenty.
• We have the best false sense of family in all of downtown, I think, as Joan stands the corporate Christmas tree onto its spinning base.
• It's the same plastic tree each year. Tall, it turns slowly like some kind of new George Foreman tree grill you can attach marshmallows to.
• Joan loathes everybody these days. Her eyes are red with hate. But for a fleeting moment, the fake decor sort of fills her with Xmas cheer.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [62 of 128]

• Katie about her man: "Oh God. Men? They're all whores. Who cares about that whore? He's nice and all. But he doesn't do it." Me: "Do what?"
• Katie: "I haven't had it in 4 days. Maybe 5. Maybe it's 6. I refuse to accept that it's been a week. I'm too devastatingly beautiful."
• Me: "No way. You? I mean you're...you didn't...?" Katie: "I'm beginning to forget what my fingers aren't like."
• Me: "Oh that's serious information." Katie: "I'm going to make Mulani jealous. You just wait. She has nothing that I don't have."
• They're both taken and unhappy. What can I say? I still want my arms around Mulani. "How's your coffee?" I ask. Katie looks angry.
• "Nice try," Katie says. Me: "How's your kid?" Katie: "She's fine. I'm beginning to think she shouldn't be playing football."
• Me: "You mean soccer." Katie: "No, I mean football. She kicks most boy's tails. Should have seen her last game." She slurps her coffee.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [61 of 128]

• Nineteen.
• At work, construction workers pound on cubicles. Milt stands over them like a mad scientist gazing into a rat maze. Me: "What's going on?"
• Mulani looks cute in her pigtails. She says, "We're downsizing. Literally. Milt wants to make the cubicles smaller." Me: "The man is sick."
• Mike: "Why not just make each cubicle the size of a yoga mat and have hard drives wired through our navels?" I pray Milt didn't hear him.
• Katie has on a fluffy leopard print coat. Her fiery hair is slickened. "I see they're fixing your kennels," she says. "Wanna see mine?"
• Me: "Hi Katie." "Coffee?" she growls. Me: "Why not? We've gone to the coffeehouse every day this week." Besides,
• I like being seen with her. We pass Mulani. I sense a disturbance in the Force.
• I smile as Katie and I head away from the cubicles into the elevator. "What's wrong with me?" Katies says as we walk.
• "No. No. Don't answer. I can take the rejection." Me: "Why aren't you happy with your man?"

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [60 of 128]

• I'm dumbfounded as usual. "What? How? Why? I say. Suddenly I feel like I'm caught in a bad cubicle sitcom. Katie seems to be fluffing.
• "Oh God you men are so dumb" she says. "What is it with my boobs you don't like anyway? See those two businessmen sitting over there?"
• Me: "What about them?" They sit drinking coffee. Katie: "They're putty. Look how they stare at me. They're wondering the eternal question."
• Me: "What's that?" Katie: "Are they real?" She looks down at her breasts then back up. "Big dumb men." Me: "Most of us are."
• Lying in bed looking at the stucco ceiling. It's like my life: a bunch of splatter in a box; white paint hides the unevenness.
• I imagine Katie Starburn crawling across the stucco like some kind of fake-boobed demon queen in a big pink coat. I turn on my side.

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [59 of 128]

• Not this place with its stone floors, beat-up couch, young folk mingling at tables and a couple of women in power suits firing up laptops.
• Heads turn as we enter. Katie looks powerful in her pink coat. Her hair is flaming red and her eyes green and oceany, very mysterious.
• We get blended mochas. She licks the cream off her straw and is up front with her intentions. "What is it with you and Mulani?" she asks.
• "Nothing." That's my equivalent of "I don't know." It's evasive and Katie sitting there in her big pink frillydilly knows it.
• Katie: "I see how she looks at you. I'm not dumb." Me: "I never said you were." Katie sighs. "You turned me down, you know." Me: "I know."
• I think again, then say, "It wasn't that I turned you down. It was just..." Katie shifts in her seat. "Oh God don't say it," she says.
• We're 20 minutes into our 15-minute coffee break. Me: "Say what?" Katie: "That you love her. I'm going to make her jealous you know."

Small Places : Nick L Belardes [58 of 128]

• She throws on a bright pink coat and thick black cat-eye glasses and comes back over. "You want to get a coffee?" she asks.
• Her breasts are practically lying on my desk. Mike wishes they were on either side of his ears. "Of course," I say.
• "Oh God, Katie," Mike says in mock love. "You watch yourself," she says waving a finger at him. "You're the only man I'm afraid of."
• Mike barks and snaps as if he's a dog about to bite her finger. "Be a good boy," she says, pats his head and we're off to find some coffee.
• "Mike's a crazy boy," she says as we walk. Several heads turn as she passes in her pink coat. She's a fabulous star to the sidewalk people.
• I figure they're just wondering why I'm walking with her. We pass an Asian food hideout, downtown bars and finally reach the coffeehouse.
• Most coffeehouses are strange drive-thrus in this dark commuter town. "Don't stop in, just stop through" is their motto.