Narcissus Lake

Personal happiness is a high price to pay for something that can never be repaid.

 

“Your report on the Johnson account was lackluster,” my boss said sharply, dropping the manila folder onto my desk. “Revise it by tonight, I want it on my desk tomorrow, you got that, Geralds?” I mumbled a “yes ma’am” before going back to type mindlessly on my computer. My boss stormed back to her office, her mahogany door slamming closed with her gold nameplate reading, “Hester James” loudly for the whole office to see. The second she was behind closed doors, the gossip resumed.

 

“That b***h needs to get some,” one of the other pencil pushers told his secretary. “She got pushy one day when I wanted to put a picture frame of my wife and daughter on here. Can you believe that?”

 

“She just doesn’t like the fact rubbed in her face that her family probably disowned her for being such a b***h,” his secretary responded. “At any rate, the frame would sort of distract us, don’t you think?” He giggled mischievously with her before she shrieked, his hand probably going up her skirt. I scowled; his secretary wasn’t even that hot anyhow.

 

I opened the report on my desk before resting my head on my hands. Hester James was quite possibly the bitchiest executive in this office, and she loved to make my life miserable. Working for other executives, they never seemed to have a problem with the research I’ve ever done, but Hester James virtually destroyed every report I’ve written since I started working for her. Grammatical errors I never even heard of showed up on my reports. Threats of termination were scribbled furiously on the final pages if I didn’t straighten up. I did notice that another executive I did research for noted that I had far more superior reports before than when I worked with him.

 

“Sorry about Blister,” my coworker said, poking his head from the top of his cubicle, no doubt after he was done feeling up his secretary. “She’s really been busting your a*s lately.” I looked at the calendar.

 

“It’s almost her birthday,” I said, looking at the March calendar. My coworker sank.

 

“That’s right,” he said. “My wife wanted to go out that night, but it looks to me like I’m stuck here at the office “

 

“Is that really a problem?” I asked, nodding the back of my head towards his secretary who was more than likely swinging her hips again. My coworker began to drool all over my report.

 

“Well hey, I can’t have the real thing all the time like I want to,” my coworker said. “Ally is sort of what keeps me sane while I’m here, you know? Something to look at that makes me forget how much my life sucks.” I shook my head and changed the subject.

 

“I wonder why she’s always such a b***h on her birthday,” I said. “She scowls more, she sneers more, and overall, she works us harder until there’s no more bone left in our hands.”

 

“Dunno, maybe she’s worried that each birthday means she’s becoming less of a hot piece of a*s,” my coworker said, making me daydream about her long, straight blond hair, and her sharp facial features that she could probably make work to her advantage if she didn’t always treat us like crap all the time.

 

                                    *            *            *            *

 

I shocked myself; abiding by all of her corrections (and every so often, having to ignore her periodic personal abuses in ink), the report was ready not only before she told me to have it done, but before the sun was completely down in the sky. The California sun was beginning to turn the office orange as the day ended. I straightened out my tie and made sure my brown spikes were still standing tall, and I walked to her office. Her office had a glass wall, allowing us slaves to peer into her semi-private sanctuary. I was prepared to pull my fist up to knock when I noticed that she was standing by one of the walls in her office, her left side facing me.

 

Except for her bookcase and that one plant that every executive must have in their office, Hester James only had one other thing in her office that the company didn’t give her when she got the job and her office. I knocked.

 

“Come in,” she said in a professional voice. I opened the door, and the split second I took to look at the painting was all I needed.

 

It looked to me like abstract art, or so my one art teacher in college said when I wasn’t imagining what she looked like naked. Beforehand, I probably would have said that a four-year-old had just taken different paint colors and made strokes all over the canvas, but there seemed to be a pattern in the dark shades of paint strokes that I couldn’t place just yet. All the different shades of red, purple, black, dark green, yellow and orange seemed to reach out to me, making me warmer inside than the lack of air conditioning in that building ever did.

 

The plaque under the painting read “Narcissus’ Lake”.

 

“What can I do for you?” she barked. I had to stop myself from frowning. She really looked ugly when she wasn’t supposed to be.

 

“I have the report for you, it’s been revised,” I said.

 

“Hand it to me,” she ordered, holding her hand out. I learned really quick after just starting to work for her that you never even take a breath around her without her command. I put the report in her hand.

 

“Sit down,” she commanded, nodding curtly to the chair in front of her desk. She thumbed through the report, nodding, her face unreadable. After a minute or two, I kept glancing at the painting, wondering what the pattern I was seeing in the painting. Sometimes I thought I saw a face in it, but I wasn’t sure.

 

“It’s satisfactory,” she said finally. “I still want your next report in by tomorrow as we agreed.” I nodded and almost got up, forgetting that I couldn’t leave without her permission.

 

“You may leave,” she said, leaning back in her leather chair and spinning around to face the setting sun amidst the Los Angeles skyscrapers.

 

“Thank you, Ms. James,” I said politely. She didn’t bother to turn around.

 

“Geralds?” she asked out of the blue. I stopped, my hand on the doorknob.

 

“What can I do for you, Ms. James?” I asked. She turned around slowly, facing me, with a slightly nervous look.

 

“What do you think of that painting I have on my wall there?” she asked. I froze. Definitely not a “yes ma’am” answer required. I looked at the painting. From a different angle, the silhouette of a person seemed to stand out to me, even just for a second.

 

“It’s exquisite,” I said simply. A flash of relief and maybe even excitement came to her eyes. She was finally starting to look beautiful. Then she straightened her look out and bade me a good night.

 

                                    *            *            *            *

 

“Well maybe you could get me the Gucci purse later,” my girlfriend said, hanging off my arm like yanking on it was going to make me a slot machine in Las Vegas. I grumbled, walking through the mall, holding all of her bags, wanting nothing more but to be in Sam Goody or someplace that didn’t sell that God awful Britney Spears perfume that my girlfriend practically bathed in. We had been walking around in that damn mall for an hour, and I was feeling very frustrated at this point with no apparent reason. My girlfriend started yapping on her cubic zirconia studded, baby pink cell phone, something about some skin-tight bikini she wanted to get at Nordstrom’s.

 

While my girlfriend stood by the window of some clothing store, contemplating how much more of my salary she wanted to donate, I noticed a painting on the wall of the mall. I always knew paintings could never do the same things photography could, but I loved how the painting of a girl dressed in a flowing white dress stood in the middle of a grassy field, her golden hair and her dress blowing in the wind, as she faced a wide, passionate blue ocean. I smiled for the first time since I got up that morning. Having Hester James snapping at me every minute of the day, getting distracted by my horny coworker, and my girlfriend draining my funds again all ruined my day until I saw this beautiful painting. My eyes wandered to the label under it.

 

“My Destiny”

Oil painting

1998

H. James

 

                                    *            *            *            *

 

“Dude, the museum’s going to figure out that I’m gone pretty damn soon,” Justin whined as I dragged him into my building. “I only have an hour lunch, and I can’t call and tell them I’m having another ‘emergency’ again!”

 

“That’s your stupid fault that you said that whenever Maggie wanted a nooner,” I snapped, looking both ways before sneaking into my office. Reaching her door, I peered into the glass. Her office was empty. Justin’s eyes widened as I took the paper clip and shoved it into the lock.

 

“Are you f*****g crazy?” Justin asked in a loud whisper. “If that b***h is as crazy as you say she is, she’s going to pulverize us when she catches us!” The lock clicked and I opened her door, dragging him inside.

 

“What do you think of this painting?” I asked, ignoring all of his protests. Justin started mumbling to himself, something about post-modernist painting and some artistic babble. He looked at the label and then he began to mumble only words he knew.

 

“That name explains a lot,” he said. I shook my head.

 

“That’s about as clear to me as how the hell I got this job in the first place, since she hates me so much,” I snapped, a touch of bitterness in my voice. “What about that person you see in the painting?”

 

“What person?” he asked, examining the painting. He jerked back.

 

“Do you see a person?” I asked. He lifted an eyebrow.

 

“I don’t see anything like a person,” he said. “Uh…well, I can see a cat, but that’s about it.”

 

“A cat? I asked incredulously. If he hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t have remembered that Justin once said he wanted to start his own veterinarian clinic when we were fifteen.

 

“All sorts of animals,” he said, admiring the painting. “I mean, I swear, I can see animals I haven’t had contact with since we were in high school, before I took up that management position at the museum.” I squinted. The person seemed more accentuated the more I looked at it. The person started looking more beautiful the more I admired the painting.

 

“This would look great at the museum,” Justin said, nodding his head. “Your boss may be a b***h, but she’s also a bitching painter too.”

 

“You wrote a good report.”

 

I turned around in horror, seeing Hester James, with her long blond hair done up in a tight bun and her business suit hugging her body like it was her second skin. Hester James didn’t scowl, but the look in her eyes said that she would kill me if she had the power. Hester James walked away from her office, her arms crossed and becoming stony. I would have killed to have her call me a weak excuse of a male secretary again if that meant she would just talk to me.

 

                                    *            *            *            *

 

Why Hester James would keep her phone book in her drawer, I would never know, but thank God that she did. Judging by the scribble in the phone book, her parents must have lived in this little brick flat for a long while. I walked up the six cement steps leading to the front door before the button I pushed buzzed loudly. The door opened, and a medium sized man with white, balding hair greeted me. I had no idea how old he was, but he looked like he could have been someone’s grandfather in his dark khakis, his dark brown sweater, and a green wool coat.

 

“Can I help you, young man?” he asked. I nodded.

 

“Do you have a daughter named Hester James?” I asked. He smiled sadly before nodding.

 

“Come in,” he said quietly, holding out his arm to gesture me in. I walked inside, the house, sitting down on their worn out sofa. Mr. James asked Mrs. James to begin boiling some tea before sitting down. I looked on the walls, seeing little paintings that were made by a five-year-old and I was impressed by how much discipline and mastery there seemed to be in a simple painting of a cat or a house. Mr. James sat on the sofa.

 

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” he asked me. I sighed.

 

“Your daughter is my boss,” I started off. Mr. James nodded before smiling a little wider.

 

“She’s been doing very well for herself,” Mr. James said. “I guess all our hard work finally paid of with her.” I looked up.

 

“Was she a problem child?” I asked. Mr. James shook his head.

 

“Not really, she was well-behaved,” Mr. James said, accepting tea from Mrs. James as she sat down. “Very bright, and very sweet, as you probably know.” I lifted an eyebrow but refrained from speaking for a moment.

 

“She really seems to like art,” I said, gesturing to the old paintings. Mr. James turned around and laughed heartily.

 

“Her stuff was cute,” Mr. James said amusedly. “Took her a while to actually get serious about something.” I bit my lower lip before looking at those paintings again.

 

“She seemed very serious about her paintings then,” I said, nodding towards the pictures again. “I’ve seen kids do paintings before, and I’ve never seen them do better than what Hester has on the wall there.”

 

I realized I had never once called her by her first name before.

 

“Well, we had to get her to get serious about something,” Mr. James said, his voice firming. “Her mother and I had very low paying jobs while she was growing up. We were barely able to get her through college. She didn’t have money to move out or do anything, so if she was going to stay under this roof, she had to make something of herself. She would never have gotten anywhere with those little pictures on our wall.” I looked around the house. Sure, it didn’t look like a mansion, but it was filled with little figurines, nice lace curtains, and antique furniture. I didn’t see any other paintings on the wall. I made some small talk with them for a few minutes before excusing myself. I made a remark about what a beautiful home they had. Mr. James was really beaming now.

 

“She’s the perfect daughter,” he remarked. “She was a good investment after all; our hard work on her has actually paid off when she decided to pay for all of this.”

 

                                    *            *            *            *

 

I hated my job anyhow, so I took a risk and picked the lock to her apartment building and went through the bar gate to get inside. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I could tell by the dim streetlights that there was trash everywhere on the street, and I saw a few kids huddling at a street pole, and smoke drifted out from the middle of their huddle. I was sort of expecting a penthouse or something to that effect.

 

Without even asking, I tried the doorknob, to find that it was unlocked. My heart pounded, now half-expecting that someone had already broken into her home and that I would going to be to blame if her dead body was lying on the floor.

 

The same dark shades on her painting at work were splashed onto the walls of her apartment, and I suddenly felt very strange. I knew I had just walked into her apartment without even being asked, but the feeling of trespassing felt deeper than merely breaking into her apartment building. The strokes of paint were even bigger on her walls than they were on the painting, as if I had shrunk and was looking at the painting even closer than before.

 

The clinking of glass bottles greeted me before I saw her silhouette in the hallway. I heard liquid splashing around in another bottle as I noticed the silhouette took another swing of God knows what. I took a step forward, realizing that I had been standing on her business suit from earlier that day. The silhouette stumbled towards me, mumbling drunkenly. Her hands were suddenly on my shoulders as she used me to keep herself standing.

 

“I had to fire my interior decorator,” she slurred, making me feel drunk just by breathing her air. “Couldn’t afford her anymore.”

 

“Why?” I asked, not really knowing why I wanted to know.

 

“Couldn’t, I had another payment to make,” she said, walking away from me and plopping onto her couch.

 

“To your parents,” I said knowingly. She whipped her head around, and I expected her to demand how I knew that.

 

“I owe them a lot of money!” she screamed at me. “I owe them for everything! Everything! After all, they sacrificed everything so I could succeed, not to make messes with paint!” I shook my head looking around.

 

“Is that where all your money’s going?” I asked. “You make more than enough money as my boss, do you give it all to them?”

 

“It’s their money!” she yelled at me, and I could hear her voice drowning with tears before she drowned it with more whiskey. “It’s all theirs, you hear? I owe them for all the money they spent on me!”

 

“You’ll never be able to pay them back!” I yelled at her. “They paid everything for you from birth to college!”

 

“They wanted a successful daughter,” she yelled back, noticeably crying now. “Can’t pay them back for all those nights we stayed up while I did homework, can’t pay them back all those hours I spent doing my art thing in high school, and can’t pay them back for keeping their grown up daughter with them when they thought they were supposed to be retired. It’s the least I can do.” I shook my head.

 

“When you be able to stop paying them back and taking care of yourself?” In the dark, I saw her shrug.

 

“Can’t pay them back for being my parents,” she said, throwing the whiskey on the floor. “So never.” She sounded so defeated. I sat on the floor. I couldn’t pay my parents back either. Unlike her parents though, my parents didn’t have the luxury to look at my job and believe I had actually made something out of myself.

 

“That’s a lot of money,” I said quietly.

 

“Lots and lots,” she said. I thought back to her painting. I fleetingly thought to myself that she could have made a lot of money off the painting in her office. Something inside of me told me that it wasn’t the point of the painting.

 

“You have work in the morning,” she said quietly, finally saying out loud that she knew I worked for her. She remained where she was long after I walked out the door.

 

                                    *            *            *            *

 

                                 Executive Dies of Alcohol Poisoning

 

           

LOS ANGELES, CA—In the early morning hours of March 13^th, reported to be her birthday, Hester Grace James died in her Los Angeles apartment, apparently drinking herself to death. The police see no strong signs of a break in or of any physical struggle. James, 28, lived in a fairly rough neighborhood, despite her high paying job. While coworkers never noted any sign of personal distress, her apartment was drenched in paint all over her walls, as if made in frustration, signaling that she had a disturbed personal life. She is survived by her parents.

 

                       

           

 

*            *            *            *

 

I made sure that the guys at UPS lowered the painting very gently into the shipping crate. Justin begged me to give Hester’s painting to the museum, that people who honor her memory and finally remember her as the painter she must have dreamed herself to be when she was young. I wrote the address down on the form and gave it to the girl working the register.

 

“Is this a commercial or residential address?” she asked, pointing at the box I forgot to fill in.

 

“Residential,” I said as she filled that part in for me.

 

Her parents deserved to take back what they worked to create, even if they didn't see the same thing in it I did.

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[Gathering_Stars]

I think this piece was too rushed, you have the main character go from being just the average employee to this guy totally involved in his boss' life in oh point two seconds. There were a lot of things I did like about this, but I think you need to make it more in-depth.

[Pratibha]

this is so touching yet shocking at the same time...a brilliant career finished....
I am glad Slender smile asked me to come over and read this one.
I still don't understand why parents force their ambitions on their daughters and sons....
i will make sure i don't do such a thing to my son.
My Mom said to me, "we don't want anything from you, we want u to take care of ur son just the way we did...in fact better than what we did."

[Bud]

Hungary for more! Love how the painting is a central focal point. Though, this does have an air of sadness. But there's a suspenseful hook, as well! Wonder piece! Keep on writing...eager for what's next.

[Slender Smile/Husna Tay..]

So sad....:(
I am crying right now....
hw could they think her as their investment?
oh how could they do that to their own daughter.?
so sad.....
it's a very touching one......
I am glad u participated.

[Angel's Lady]

Very powerful right to the very end...
Great story. Well-written. Excellent details and visual imagery.
Good job!