Pisces

Tom liked to take photographs at random and then stare at them for long periods of time, making up back stories for the strangers encased within. His favorite was one he took in Washington. There’s a girl walking past the front of the Lincoln Memorial, headphones in her ears and a camera held at her side. She has a pink shirt on and her hair tied back in a bunchy ponytail. Her name is Anya. She’s a 22-year-old German student, who recently finished up at university. She’s been traveling ever since with a group of friends, celebrating their summer of freedom. She’s always been a loner, though, and tends to wander away from the group to listen to music and take pictures. She has a tattoo on her right shoulder and usually thinks public tragedies are kinda funny, but usually only a few days before everyone else starts to agree. She doesn’t have a career path in mind. She just wants to be.

Tom has the picture framed on his desk, right next to his three-year-old computer and a series of office supplies that could be considered arranged Feng Shui, but only if you lacked any sense of depth perception. Friends would often ask who Anya was and Tom would explain. They’d ask where she is now, but Tom wouldn’t know—back stories can’t predict the future.

Most days when Tom worked at the temp agency, nobody would come in. “For America being so unemployed,” Tom would say to himself, “Sure aren’t many New Hampshirens looking for jobs.”

And Tom would take out the Daily Press and find the horoscopes. He was a Leo, but he’d only read Pisces. He had a lot of friends who were Pisces. There was Jim, the exotic pipe seller from downtown; Toni, the quirky veterinarian who kept walking in back of pictures at his sister’s last birthday party; and, of course, Anya. She only read her horoscopes sometimes, but Tom felt happy enough reading them for her. As long as he knew her day would be “filled with experiences” and that she “will be reunited with a past circumstance,” then all was well in the world.

One day, he was halfway through Anya’s half-star day, when a young woman came in. She had short, blonde hair, much like Tom’s, except straight and clean. Her eyes were green and she dragged her feet just a little bit when she walked. It made the carpet ruffle. Her purse was brown leather and had some kind of awkward logo in the corner - a star surrounded by a circle.

As Tom peeked over the edge of his newspaper, she took a seat at the chair across from him at his desk. She swiveled back and forth a couple times, while he folded up the Press and set in on the ground. He then folded his hands on his desk and leaned forward.

“He—,” Tom coughed in mid-word. “Hello. And what brings you in today?”

The young woman opened her purse and began digging through it. As she spoke, a light Southern drawl entered her words. “Why, I just moved up here with my son.” She paused to dig deeper into her purse. “And I just need some work until I can find something permanent.”

The woman began pulling a few superfluous items out of her purse, setting them on the desk as if it were her home study. First, she set down three tubes of lipstick. Next, four old, folded up business cards with different names on them. Then, a slightly bent photograph—in it, she stood before a monkey cage with a young boy and an older gentleman.

Tom decided it was taken when she went to the zoo with her husband, Bill, and her son, Freddie. Bill was actually her high school math teacher. They always flirted during class with their eyes, despite the woman’s absolute lack of talent in any of the mathematical sciences. Bill was strong, though, waiting until she graduated to pursue anything. They were married a year later and had Freddie after two-and-three-quarter years of marriage. Of course, he recently left her for a younger model. Bad luck always follows Geminis.

Finally, the woman took out a crumpled sheet of paper. She put everything else back in her purse. Tom stared at it for a moment, before realizing it was for him. He unfolded it, revealing a resume—one that only filled the sheet halfway. Her name was written along the top: Tay L. Harlor.

Tom turned to his computer and opened up a blank document. He typed her name into it first. “I’m just going to open up a file for you,” he said, as he typed.

Tay looked around the office, smacking her lips together every few seconds.

Tom coughed again. “Address?”

“Fifteen Rochester. Just down the street.”

Tom’s fingers moved across the keyboard, creating a stiff, cold melody, but a continuous flow of thoughts. “Date of birth?”

Tay threw her purse back over her shoulder. “November thirtieth. Nineteen seventy-five.”

“Sagittarius?”

Tay chuckled. “Why, I have no idea.”

Tom continued typing. “And what’s your area of interest?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Somethin’ not too difficult - data entry or somethin’. You know, somethin’ like that.”

Tom nodded, and finished typing with a striking poke at the “Y” key. He turned to face Tay, staring straight at her nose, unable to make the leap to her hopeful eyes. He prodded the resume and then pulled it closer. “We’ll contact you if something comes up.”

Tay nodded and turned to rise. As she stood, her heels mounted squarely in the carpeting, she tossed a string of her hair to the side and spoke. “Any openings here? At the, um, agency?”

Tom coughed again, wiping his hand on his Dockers afterwards. He tapped the resume twice and brushed the edge of the keyboard. “I don’t know if you’re qualified.”

“Really?” she asked, with a degree of genuine wonderment in her tone. “I mean, all y’all really do is read the newspaper and type a couple things in the computer. I could do that.”

Tom stared at his desk. “There’s more to it.”

“I don’t see too many more pieces,” she said. “I give you my information, and you construct some kind of…thing, and then tell me what I can do. Which’ll probably be data entry anyway.”

Tom scooped up Tay’s resume and placed it softly on the top of a nearby pile of other papers. He pulled a stack of post-it notes from the corner of his desk, several feet away from his pencils, which he simultaneously reached for with the other hand. He slowly jotted the word “priority” on the note, stealing glances at different sections of his desk as he did. He tore the note from its pile and attached it to Tay’s resume. He coughed. “We’ll contact you if something comes up.”

Tay nodded and looked around the office once more. She turned and walked away, the rubbing sound from her heels growing a little louder. She walked out the door with her hair pushed back from the wind outside.

Tom leaned back in his chair and reached for the Press, but stopped halfway there. Instead, he picked up the picture of Anya and watched her, once again, make her way across the steps leading up to Lincoln. She was listening to Tracy Chapman. “Fast Car” is her favorite.