Flash of anger. I could see it there, plain. There was a way he had to control his body’s reaction to me calling him on that. How we both knew I’d never get that invite, ever. Then it was gone. But I’d expended capital, and I wouldn’t know how much until the punishment. Maybe the punishment would even be disguised as a perk.

He wouldn’t look at me as he said, casual, “Oh, what the hell—go. Have fun. Just don’t order room service or book a room with a gold-plated toilet.”

That was my cue to laugh. But I didn’t.

[23]

“Work toward a better world, but never forget what world you live in.”

Strange, this compulsion. I lived within it, but also studied it from afar. I would be in a meeting presenting charts, ideas, diagrams to a client and they would have no idea I was somewhere else, in another world. And neither would I, at first, and then I would have the peculiar feeling of continuing the presentation while spying on my own distractedness. Muscle memory of so many other presentations carrying me through. Click of the key to advance the slide; the transition from statements to the questions I only asked when it was safe.

The nylons that signaled “familiar” and “safe” to the client. The high heels, with their wide, pragmatic soles. The stiff, siege-like quality of my dark gray business suit, that kept them far enough away that they could not peer into my thoughts.

But my thoughts kept spilling out, strange and stranger. I kept having a dream. Every night. The hummingbird flew down like a tiny god, to the back deck of our house. Some fairyland version, glowing phosphorescent in a cascade of emerald, sapphire, and hot pink. As if revealing a true self as it descended steep from on high. Looking the whole time as if being moved seamlessly by an invisible hand from an invisible point in the sky to a hovering position above me.

The hummingbird gave me what I can only describe as an imperious or even contemptuous look, hovering there weightless. It pierced me. Found me wanting.

Then, with a slight leftward tack, the hummingbird veered off, disappeared, and I woke with a start. Sweating. The ticking of the bedroom clock, too loud.

In the neighborhood we had an unidentified drone. Not a delivery drone. One of the new small ones. Could perch on a branch so you almost didn’t register the presence, because you thought it was a bird. Then, I loved drones. I loved how I could order something and it would be there immediately. I would toss the plastic in the recycling bin and never questioned the magic of how I had received yet another gift. We could do drones well, but we could not stop pouring plastic waste into the ocean.

And, still, I was lost in the dream.