She doesn't trust any man over fifty. Unless of course he's a
mailman, a teacher or a butcher. Like any relatively attractive woman
in her mid twenties, she thinks the only thing that kind of guy would
want from her is an ego stroking at ni ght and freshly squeezed juice
in the morning. But this is not entirely true; there is one older man
she trusts. His name is Frank and she's having an affair with him
even though he lied when they first met at The Back Bay Coffee Shoppe.
She has mentally recorded their first encounter as the opening of her
second epic poem, her masterpiece. She calls it Frank and His Girl
and if it were possible for contemporary poetry to ever to be optioned
by a major television network, the TV drama would be tasteful, despite
the dishonesty. And now, as scheduled, she waits for him in front of
the Stargazer Motel with her journal full of stanzas.

*

Three months ago, on that first Sunday morning in February, a
nor'easter was just about to hit Boston and The Back Bay Coffee Shoppe
was close to empty. But, true to routine, she sat at the tiny table
in the back and revised her journal, taking a sip of her large black
coffee every third line or so. Then Frank pulled a chair next to her
and asked what she was writing. "Poetry," she said, draping her hand
across the page to guard her metaphors. "Well," she whispered, "I'm
trying to write poetry." Frank replied that it takes a special kind
of person to rely on words to express their deepest feelings and ran
his finger down the spine of her journal. The hairs on the back of
her neck, which have been dormant since her father's death, came to
life. Frank went on to say he was a thirty-five year old shoe store
manager and if she were shopping around for a pair of pumps, he could
get her a good deal. Although she found this quick offering of
personal information to be odd, she was convinced of his youth. Dark
thick hair and high colored cheeks go a long way. She thought that
perhaps he was a new breed of a Boston man, cocksure about his age and
occupation but suspect of other people's perceptions. However, she
soon discov ered that his year of birth was the same as her father's.
Frank's wallet was on the nightstand in the Stargazer Motel and while
he took a shower, she looked at his license. She figured a girl has a
right to know what she's getting into, especially when she has sex
with a man after knowing him for only forty-eight hours.
When she asked why he lied, Frank slipped back into bed and began
rubbing the pressure points in her slightly collapsed arches, making
his way up her calves, then thighs. From behind, he whispered his
reason in soft, rhythmic movements. He, the older man who sold
high-end shoes, didn't want to scare off her, the young pretty poet
girl. His sweet sentiment moved through her deeply, like a childhood
dream recaptured in a new light, and she thought this to be the
perfect setup for her epic poem. As Frank held onto her, gently
kneading his finely groomed fingers into her hips, she became
convinced that her poem wou ld be taken by a major literary journal,
and quickly. How could it not? There was the prospect of new love.
With each mounting thrust Frank made, his hands now grabbing hungrily
at her breasts, a word flashed across the landscape of her mind.

Anticipation.

Surprise.

Risk. Risk. Risk.

Redemption.

RISK.

He then fell onto her with a desperate, exhausted embrace, as if he'd
spent his entire life searching for his girl in the Mall of America.
And she was glad. But when she turned over for a kiss, Frank suddenly
clicked on the motel television and got excited in a different way,
over a reality TV show called Prime Time Crusaders.
Although she'd rather not admit it, she knows the rules of the show.
Prime Time Crusaders is about seven salespeople in seven major
American cities selling televisions, broadcasted live five times a
week. The basic principle is this. The salesperson who sells the
most TVs wins a quarter mill ion dollars and a trip to every major
television studio across the world. But there are obstacles to
challenge the salesperson's ability and conviction: crossed wires,
bad reception, random blackouts in the store just when a customer is
hooked, the bi-polar boss, ex-lovers posing as customers, sewage
floods, etc. And of course, there is the biggest obstacle of
all—price hikes. She considers herself above this type of mindless
programming and wanted to tell Frank she wasn't part of the
demographic who scheduled their nights around this show instead of
reading a book. But just when she was about to eloquently state that
Prime Time Crusaders is possibly the biggest piece of capitalistic
consumerist crap, Frank pointed to a young woman on the television.
She was a hard-bodied blond wearing a pair of lime go-go boots. He
said, "I taught her everything I know about selling. She's going to
win it for Boston this year."

"Who's she ?"

"Roxy," he said. "My girlfriend."

A lump, hard as a tree knot, formed in her throat. She watched Roxy
evade a group of Jehovah Witnesses while, at the same time, explain to
a family of four that a digital TV is ideal for a busy schedule. It
was quite an extraordinary display of multi-tasking. When the
Witnesses finally left, the two children clapped and the TV was
bought. She didn't expect there to be a "Roxy" character in Frank and
His Girl. "Frank," she said, "you lied to me again."
"It doesn't matter," he said. "Roxy and I are breaking up."
Before she could respond, Frank rolled on top of her, the heavy motel
blanket helping to press his body into hers. She gave in, allowing
Frank to nearly swallow her tongue, even though she knew he'd be
showering again before he went home to Roxy. She also knew that
outside the Stargazer Motel all of Boston was frozen white and the
walk back to her apartment would be long and cold. But in that bed,
at that moment, the word expectation swam under the sheets like a
bright fish. All the girl had to do was catch it.

*

By the third week of their affair, she and Frank had a routine. Every
Monday, Wednesday and Friday they'd meet at the Stargazer Motel at
6:30 in the evening and as they made love, she'd recite her old
sonnets and sestinas while he'd gently tug on the rope of her amber
hair, confessing that she had a way with words that made him feel like
no other. Afterwards, they'd order Chinese take-out and watch Prime
Time Crusaders at 8:00. She considered these rendezvous the necessary
building blocks for her epic and took mental notes, absorbing details
like a seasoned bard. Later, she would write them in her journal.
Frank peeled off my clothes slowly, as if they were bandages… He was
attentive when I discussed rhyme and meter and then gently kissed the
soy sauce off my chin… As I watched the TV cast a mixture of light and
shadows onto Frank's face, I knew my chance at atonement for my
father's death had come…

One of her favorite parts of the routine was their commentary of Prime
Time Crusaders. At this point, she'd her wrap her arms around him and
soak up as much of his heat as she could, for after the show, they'd
part and sleep in their own beds. Their comments would play out like
this: Sparky from Chicago doesn't know enough about speakers, Pat
from New Orleans is not convincing when she proclaims, "Television
will save the world!", Lonnie from Seattle could've sold the 52" flat
screen to that lonely widow if she weren't so easily distracted by her
own reflection, etc. And as far as she was concerned, she could say
anything she wanted about Frank's girlfriend since he was leaving her.
During the episode where a herd of highly trained lab rats were
released in the store and Roxy, wearing a pair of emerald four inch
heels, sold only one TV instead of her usual three to five because one
of the rats sunk its teeth into her ankle, she said to Frank, "Guess
Roxy's parents didn't love her enough."

"Well, what about your parents," he asked.

"What about them?"

"Did your mother love you?"

"In a motherly way."

"And your father?"

She took her hand off his thigh and said, "He died of a broken heart
ten years ago."

"What do you mean?"

"It just stopped working." She pulled the covers over her head and
crossed her arms under her breasts. She didn't expect this to happen
so soon, the asking of certain questions that lead to heavy back
story. There are some things that a girl doesn't want to talk about.
Take, for example, this list of things:

1. The girl's boss treats her poorly because he suspects that she
takes liberties with the office supplies. (In truth, she only takes
post-it notes and red pens because she likes to stick her inspirational poems on random, happy places such as bathroom stalls,
coffee pot handles and inside the elevator. She considers this a form
of self-publishing. The only person she tells this to is Murray, the
office mailman, who also tries to keep the building's mice population
under control with Have-A-Heart traps. They have a genuine
understanding. Murray tells her that she's bringing a ray of sunshine
into her co-workers lives with her poems. And she tells Murray that
the mice he releases find homes in along the Charles River rather than
return to the office building only to be taken care of by the
exterminator.)

2. The girl desperately wants to be a famous Boston poet. (Since the
age of five, she has filled ten fat notebooks with her poems. Her
kindergarten teacher, Mister Santorini, acknowledged her first haiku
about beef soup and said she had raw talent. Mister Santorini
declared that anyone who writes about the wonders of beef soup without
having existed in a trench for thirteen weeks in WWII France must know
a thing or two about life. But still, she feels that her poems will
never amount to much. As she comes to the end of writing a poem, she
often thinks, This has been written before, but only better. Don't
all poets feel this way… especially Boston poets? Well, this poem
isn't going in a stamped envelope any time soon. One of her problems
is she's over-studied Plath and Sexton. Because of this, she fears
she may never drive herself to that edge where any poet worth their
salt wants to jump off. For too many reasons that she'd rather not
put into list form, Frank and His Girl has to be good enough to be put
in a stamped envelope.)

3. All of the girl's ex-boyfriends have never officially broken up
with her, they just stop calling. (When she ran into her most recent
ex at an Irish pub, right before Frank entered her life, he told her,
" I couldn't get through to you. Guess you have a bad connection." It
had been several months since their last date and she wanted to make
sure that was true. She knows this sounds ridiculous, but people who
live alone never phone themselves, so who knows what she could have
been missing? Later that night, after a few pints of dark beer, she
called her home from a payphone and got her answering machine. She
couldn't recognize her own voice and quickly hung up. No wonder! She
sounded like a desperate game show host and who wants to date that?
However, she hasn't gotten around to changing the message. She
doesn't know what to say yet since Frank has never called her. All
their conversations have been face to face, the way he wants it.)

4. When the girl thinks of her father the only thing she can picture
is a shadow. (She doesn't want to admit that she mostly remembers him
on the couch watching television with his foldout table set up with a
remote control and his dinner. But he wasn't always a shadow. When
she was a child, she'd go to the butchers for her father where good
old Sam saved her a special cut of meat that her mother later added to
a Shepard's Pie or stew. After dinner, her father would talk about
his reruns, explaining to her the misadventures of Hogan's Heroes or
the struggles of Gun Smoke. "That's Colonel Klink," he'd say pointing
to the TV. And she'd smile, happy just to sit next to him.

Once she learned how to write though, she tried to get him off the
couch and away from the TV. She'd write him poems about traveling to
far-off lands or a simple family car ride and then place them on his
foldout table next to his dinner. But her father was becoming distant
and fading. For hours, he'd silently search the TV Guide for his old
shows. He wanted nothing to do with cable and their polished people
and news anchors. Once, in an unexpected moment of rage, he shouted,
"How many times do we have to see the Space Shuttle blow up? Where's
my Dobby Gillis?" At the end of each week, she would find her poems
behind the couch or stuffed between the cushions. Her mother, in
turn, hung them on the refrigerator until the next batch of poems was
found.

As a teenager, she adopted a different approach. She'd take drugs and
sit on the couch next to her father who was now addicted to channel
surfing until he found a show. Whether it was pot, acid or her
mother's green pills, she'd feel confident enough to ask her father
questions like "Do you think Gomer Pyle will really be considered
funny by future generations?" or "How many times can you watch a rerun
until it becomes over run?" Most times he remained silent and her
special trips to Sam the butcher, who was very old at this point, were
appreciated less and less.

The late nights, however, were the hardest for her. This was when hi s
favorite reruns would finally come on and there he'd be on the couch,
staring, the glow of the television splashing shadows onto his face.
Sometimes she'd cry and sometimes she'd take her mother's blue pills
and allow sleep to engulf her.

Then, on the morning of her sixteenth birthday, she and her mother had
a heart-to-heart about her father. Her mother stated that his
situation was inevitably sad and it was only a matter of time before
his reruns ran out and then he'd have nothing to look forward to.
"You see," her mother said pouring her fourth cup of coffee, "your
father is ultimately trying to relive the years he was happiest in."
"And when was that?" she asked, hoping this would be the answer to
getting her father off the couch.

"The time leading up to that day he realized how the rest of his life
would play out. Oh, it happens to all of us, dear. Sooner or later."

Her mother smiled and patted her on the cheek a lit tle too hard.

"You wake up one morning and BAM," her mother said, her face now wiped
of all expression. "You realize you missed your chance."

"At what?"

"Living the kind of interesting life that's only shown on
television." Her mother opened her bottle of red pills, swallowed two
with her coffee and then continued. "But we each have different ways
of coping."

She did not fully understand this, and yet, she couldn't help but feel
responsible for her father's current state.

A year later, when she turned seventeen, her father's body finally
caught up with his broken heart. Inspired by this desperate
situation, she wrote him her first epic poem, Memories from an East
Boston Couch, a marathon of stanzas detailing her interpretation of
his life when he was young, his life before she was born. It wasn't
about Howdy Doody or The Ed Sullivan Show. Rather, it was about his
childhood days of playing stickball in the streets of Do rchester,
games watched at Fenway Park where he'd give the play by play to his
grandfather who was going blind, the time he drank whiskey at a high
school dance and kissed his first love, his tour of duty in Vietnam
War where he lost his best friend, Michael Flynn. When she handed
over her twenty-page poem, her father silently folded it in half and
tucked the pages between the cushions of the couch.

And that's when she heard it. Something inside her went snap. She
took a bat to the TV and smashed its glass face into a pile of sharp,
sparkling dust. She waited for him to say something, but he just
looked on from the couch, wordless. Her father then took to his bed
and never left.)

But she didn't want to get too deep with Frank by revealing her list.
At least not until she knew a few things about him. She pulled the
covers off her head and staring at the Stargazer's water stained
ceiling, she asked Frank some questions o f her own. "When are you
leaving Roxy?"

"When Prime Time Crusaders is over," he said and cracked open a fortune
cookie.

"Right after?"

"If she wins, I'm going on the trip with her first."

"And if she loses?"

"I have to console her and then I'm leaving." He popped half the
cookie in his mouth and chewed as he spoke. "Roxy's been through a
simulated earth quake, food poisoning, and not one, but two false
pregnancies, in addition to public slander. Who knows what she'll
have to go through next to sell a television… It's a war out there."
On the TV, Roxy continued to nurse the rather nasty rat bite on her
ankle. With enviable poise, she looked directly into the camera and
told all of America that she will sell more televisions during the
next episode, promise. Then Roxy faded off screen and the credits
began to roll.

"When would you leave her sooner, Frank?"

"If she loses, of course," he said, extracting the fortun e from his
cookie. "But I have to stay on an extra week or so. Roxy's worked
real hard. She's the face of hope for Boston."

"That's what the Red Sox are for," she said and watched Frank
silently read his fortune. He grinned and then ate the other half of
his cookie along with the tiny slip of paper. Disgusted and becoming
angry, she said, "You ate your damn fortune without showing me."

"Listen," he said, "I know this is difficult. I'm here for you, but I
have to support Roxy." He paused, as if needing to put his notes in
order for a small lecture, and then waved away an imaginary fly from
his face. "You understand," he continued. "It's the patriotic thing
to do."

"The patriotic thing to do, Frank, is tell Roxy about me." She
grabbed the remote and quickly turned up the TV. She wasn't sure what
Frank was going to say and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear it.
After a moment, he smiled. "You don't trust me."

"Why should I?"

He reached under the bed and pulled out a shoebox. "Because you love
me," he said and then slid a ruby pump onto her foot. "One hundred
percent leather. A special order for my special poet." Moving in
close, he nearly embraced her, but not quite. "You tell me," Frank
whispered into her ear, "is this not love?"

Although they weren't a perfect fit because of her slightly collapsed
arches, the pumps were gorgeous and made her legs look long and lean.
Feeling the charge of Frank's words—their convincing yet elusive
quality, their ability to draw her into a world of security and then
push her into a foreign landscape that was both exciting and
terrifying—she modeled the pumps for him. As she cat walked her
scantly clad body from one end of the Stargazer room to the other,
somehow transforming the small dingy motel room into a Back Bay
penthouse, she thought about Roxy and her role in Frank and His Girl.
Roxy is the obstacle for the girl (who is the hero, really) to
overcome. Without an obstacle, there is no conflict. And without
conflict, her epic will flop.

*

This is what she did the Tuesday before last. She knew that writing a
poem for Frank wouldn't take care of the all the dirty work, so she
decided to become one of Roxy's obstacles. She had to knock Roxy out
of first place, and fast. She figured Frank would be watching Prime
Time Crusaders at home and when he'd see her confront his soon-to-be
ex-girlfriend, he'd know her heart was true. Wearing her ruby pumps
and a blond wig, she charged into Roxy's work and held the place up
with a BB gun that looked like the real thing. Every customer cleared
out into the streets of downtown Boston, but the Prime Time crew
stayed and kept the cameras rolling. She felt like the ideal female
protagonist, the hero, strong and sexy, and winked at all of America.
She said, "I'm going to be frank here," fig uring that saying "frank"
would shake Roxy more than the gun. "You can't sell me a TV."
Roxy squinted and gave her a once over. She touched her own blond
hair and asked, "Are you supposed to be my long lost evil twin or
something?"

"What?"

"My twin," Roxy repeated, smugly raising an eyebrow. "But, I really
don't think so."

"What's that supposed to mean," she asked and pointed the gun directly
into her pretty face. Roxy didn't flinch. "You think I don't know
what that means?"

"I think you know exactly what that means," Roxy answered. "And for
that, you deserve this 24 inch TV at 25 percent off."

She wasn't about to fall for her famous reverse psychology bit. She
had seen Roxy sell a portable television to a homeless man and knew
she had to stay tough. "My heart is worth more than a cheap sale,"
she said and held her finger tight on the trigger.

"I can see you're not a cheap girl," Roxy said and pointed down at the < BR>ruby pumps. Then, without missing a beat, Roxy offered her a
television at wholesale. A signature move. Running her finger along
the top of a 36 inch, flat screen, she said, "I'll give you my
employee discount, too." Then Roxy paused. She tilted her head just
so, as if she had caught a scent of weakness in the air, and clicked
her silver cowboy boots twice. "And," she added, "I'll throw in a
year's worth of satellite cable."

A larger than life television with endless channels? All those old
reruns just waiting to be found and watched? Her head was swimming
with shadows. "But why," she asked Roxy, trying to swallow everything
down. "Why would you do that?"

Roxy smiled. Her blue eyes sparkled. "Because I can."

The girl tried to resist but just couldn't. Her arches ached. She
lowered her gun and bought the damn thing.

The next night at the Stargazer Motel, she brought her journal with
the intent to show Frank that she was writing him an epic. She never
shows anybody her poems until they're finished, but this time was
different. Her buying the television had subsequently promoted Roxy
to be the favorite to win Prime Time Crusaders and she couldn't bare
the thought of Frank staying with his girlfriend longer than need be.
But this night, Frank showed up over an hour late, unapologetically,
and his lovemaking took on a different rhythm. He rushed at her, his
hands pulling off her clothes, his teeth nipping at her neck and
breasts. He whispered nothing and came quickly. At that moment, she
could have been any girl.

After he rolled off of her, Frank said he wasn't hungry and turned on
the TV. Roxy was in the middle of selling a projection television to
a blind teenage boy. "It's all in the stereo system," Roxy cooed.
And when she saw Frank smile as Roxy ran her finger along the edge of
the blind boy's ear, she felt as if she were fading. But she was n't
going to let this happen, not after she had gotten this far. She got
out of bed and pulled the plug.

Frank looked beyond her, keeping his eyes focused on the blank screen.
"You shouldn't have done that last night."

"I proved my love for you," she said. "First with my words and now
with my actions. I even wore the pumps you gave me." She took her
journal off the nightstand and crawled back into bed, moving as close
to him as she could. "I want to show you something that I'm writing."

"You weren't part of the Prime Time Crusaders obstacle schedule, were you?"

"No," she said, trying to kiss him. "I did it myself."

"You jeopardized the integrity of the show and the pump. I thought
you were a poet." Frank closed his eyes and shook his head. "You,
sweet girl, are un-American."

Then Frank got up, put on his clothes and left her in bed with the silent
TV.

*

And now, as scheduled, she waits for him in front of the Starg azer
Motel with her journal full of stanzas. It's late April. The
magnolias lining Commonwealth Avenue have exploded into pink and pale
green and an uncountable number of boats have filled the Charles River
with an uncountable number of sails trying to catch the deceptive
currents of a Boston spring wind. And now, having shed their winter
layers, people buzz about, everywhere. Walking, rollerblading,
biking, and jogging. Some with their dogs. Some with their children
or friends. But she waits alone. And as she waits, patiently
standing in front of the door of their motel room, she thinks about
all the invisible waves and frequencies passing through her body and
she thinks about Frank. It's been seventeen days and no call. Maybe
he lost her phone number or maybe it's her bad connection or maybe
it's her phone message. Or maybe he's just waiting until the end of
Prime Time Crusaders to contact her. Next week is the finale and she'll be watching Roxy on her new 36 inch flat screen. The Red Sox
season has started, but Boston's focused on Roxy and her winning the
grand prize. Her new nickname is "Beantown Supernova." She can only
hope that a digital converter will blow up in Roxy's face.
So why does the girl continue to do what she does? Wait and hope?
Hold onto words? Believe this man loves her enough to leave another
woman? Because lying underneath a motel blanket feels like she and
the man are just resting before they hop in their car and take on an
open road and then another. Together. She wants to find out what
happens next, the unwritten story, the re-envisioning of the unwritten
story as it continues to write itself. To her, this is larger than
possibility, even greater than any good poem. She can catch
expectation if only she had the right bait. She waits.

But there is one moment, when the girl was not quite a child and not
quite a teena ger, that she remembers as is. It was a late August
night, the humid air full of blood-drunk mosquitoes. She was too
tired to write a poem about the anxieties she'd had all summer about
starting the seventh grade, but too hot and sticky to fall asleep. At
this point, she hadn't yet discovered the wonders of her mother's
pills or how a crying spell could knock her out for hours. So she
peeled herself out of bed, sat next to her father on the living room
couch, and watched a rerun of the final episode of M.A.S.H. The
familiar silence settled over them like a wet, woolen coat and the
girl, feeling smothered, wanted to scream. But then, during a
commercial break, he suddenly took her hand and squeezed. He turned
to her and said, "Hawkeye isn't going to leave BJ behind this time."
She knew her father had watched this several times: Hawkeye getting
into the helicopter and as he rose over the Korean hills, he saw BJ's
message spelled out in stones—Goodbye. But that didn't matter to her.
Her head cleared. She moved in closer and squeezed him back, keeping
his hand in hers. Because at that moment, as they returned their eyes
to the TV and wiped their minds of the known storyline, the girl had
been asked to believe, that on her father's couch, anything was
possible.

End.