By M. Covic
Alice sat on Muni, thinking about the presentation she hadn't been involved in that had succeeded in convincing Safeway that, in order to capitalize on the treasure trove of data they'd collected over the years, they needed artificial intelligence. The video had shown data leaving shopper's bodies without their awareness, weightless strands of shimmery numbers drifting up and dissipating into air. "How to turn data," the voiceover had spoken. "Into information." Araknoid had been awarded a multimillion dollar contract.
She shuttled under the security cameras on time, dressed in her finest business casual. Her cell phone began to tweet. "Hello," she said.
"Hey," replied her little brother Caleb, laughter burbling under his voice.
"He-ey," said Alice.
"Check out your display."
It showed a picture of the building she was standing in. "Goddamn it," she muttered, clicking refresh. "This thing keeps fucking up," she spoke louder, addressing Caleb.
"What does it say?"
"It says you're in Safeway!"
Caleb laughed and laughed.
"What?" Alice said, beginning to move across aisles and look down each one. Sure enough she spotted her six foot seven brother and made eye contact. He had this way of moving his head back and forth like a chicken when he grew nervous. Waving his hand in the air, he turned away. He didn't want the people in between them to know they were talking.
"Oh my god," she said.
Her first assignment was to put a wire nut on two exposed wires sticking down from the false ceiling. Her boss Justin's face rose and fell, feeling victimized by the bad set. They spent over an hour trying to find the right size nut and then stood in need of a ladder.
Meanwhile, a show started up behind them, something Safeway put on for its customers. It involved the employees making dances of their jobs. An older gay couple was quite good. They performed a lovely sequence of wiping off a long line of glass windows. One held a white towel at his hip and swirled it in alternating circles. His partner slid up and clasped his elbow. They pushed off across the linoleum like skaters on ice.
Afterwards, Alice searched out Justin. He covered the receiver of his phone with one hand and turned around. He was so good-looking she experienced a recurring sense of disorientation, like maybe this was a movie.
Meanwhile, the gears churned in his head, trying to discern the reason for her visit. "I'm in the middle of redoing the website," he mentioned.
Alice hid her surprise and the slight she felt at not being put in charge of the project herself. She knew far more than he did about web design.
Seeing she'd run out of things to do, he handed her three pages to rewrite. "It's almost done," he said of the website. "I got my friends to help me with the programming off hours." He mentioned a crash and laughed wildly.
"Well," said Alice. "Knock on particle board!"
He laughed, his eyes flashing in presumed merriment.
She traversed the long stretch of grayish linoleum to the back of the store, pushed open the double rubber doors and negotiated the cardboard box corridors to the break room, its refrigerator and her lunch. The bright sun blinded her, even after the supposedly well-lit interior. But she maintained her stride, moving along a route she knew quite well, among people living contiguous, analogous lives.
"Under construction," Roz greeted her. Heavy equipment and supplies littered the plaza where they'd agreed to meet. They perched on a horizontal ladder and opened their paper sacks. "So I moved," Roz said.
"You did?" Alice cried, picking aluminum foil out from around her egg salad sandwich. "That's so great. Where is it?"
"East Bay," Roz gave her Snapple a good shake before unscrewing the lid.
Alice nodded, fishing some chips from a bag and popping them in her mouth.
"Really close to your sister's, actually," Roz added.
Alice raised her eyebrows, chewing.
"Less than a block."
"Wow," said Alice, the coincidence making her head spin.
Roz took a big bite of her veggie sandwich.
"That's crazy," said Alice. She took a drink of bottled water. "Well you'll have to give me the address."
They gazed out at the moving crowd. Some hippies stuck out like hand-colored photographs.
"Circa early seventies," Roz surmised.
Alice tittered. The tallest hippie seemed taken by something about Roz and Alice, staring as he approached the plaza. "Sitting sideways huh?" he said. Whereupon the hippies themselves proceeded to gather around the base of a vertical ladder.
Alice and Roz watched the hippies get into position as they ate. It seemed to take a very long time. "Maybe they are setting up for a photo shoot," Alice speculated.
The woman stood deep in conversation with the beanpole man, at about two thirds of his height, the sun catching the frizz on her long blond hair. Alice was struck by the way she was handling him. He seemed so into it, into her.
"Maybe a homage to Fleetwood Mac," Alice said.
Roz snorted, spraying kiwi-strawberry Snapple from her nose. The woman glanced over as Roz wiped herself off with a pastel napkin.
"Who's next?" Alice said, noticing the third hippie already sitting at the top of the ladder.
"I am," said the woman.
"Oh-h," said Alice.
"Well of course," the woman said. "He's the tallest."
Alice and Roz nodded.
Back at Safeway there was still nothing for Alice to do. She sent an email saying she would work the rest of the day from home and set off down the road. She tried to remember the conversation from the night before, in which she and Lara had made plans to meet at the Place. It had been succinct. Indeed, they were twins and hardly needed to speak to exchange information. Still, at the rate Alice took half days, she couldn't be sure anymore just what time "after work" meant.
She showed up four hours early to find a dance rehearsal for junior high school students going on. Spotting some regulars, she sat down. The dance seemed to involve a lot of body contact. She met the gaze of the man sitting across from her. He raised his eyebrows and smiled. She glanced away. The kids were bouncing like a clapper of a bell from wall to wall. Several people looked at her in recognition. So she left.
She was walking down the street when a car horn blared. A brand new yellow Volkswagen bug pulled over to the sidewalk in front of her. Her sister leaned across the front seat to shove open the passenger side door.
"When did you get this?" Alice exclaimed, slipping inside.
"Borrowed it from someone I'm staying with right now," said Lara, smiling her glamour girl smile and stepping on the gas.
Then Alice wasn't so sure she had been four hours early after all. It was one of those things, those strange coincidences. They sped up Clipper and then down crooked side streets lined with single family homes. Each house was similar, yet unique, often featuring a small front garden plot.
"I thought we were going to get drinks," Alice said.
"That's right," Lara adopted a remedial tone. "We are." She pulled over to the side of the road and parked. Alice watched suspiciously as Lara got out, stretched her arms to either side, arched her back and let out a long sigh.
Fine white brume clung to their hair and skin as they traversed the narrow switchbacks, rising in this gradual way up the steep backside of Mount Davidson. Eucalyptus had long since overthrown any native tree population. Mounds of tall grass spilled over the tops of greenish stratified rock. Ivy crept out from cracks and crevices.
"Watch it!" Lara held her arm to stop Alice from stepping into a purple chalk circle. Alice pulled her eyes off the row of rock-climbing bolts rising up the huge concrete cross and looked down into the remains of a candlelit ceremony.
They continued along the concrete plateau and stepped out into a grassy area. A breeze carried the sound of children playing on a playground far below. Lara knelt at the side of a small hill and began taking her shaman objects back from holes in the hillside. She pulled out a necklace and lifted it into the air.
Alice strayed off to gather wildflowers. A woman came around the bend, holding a little dog on a thin leash. Her eyes fell on the flowers. Alice let them drop. Still that sticky feeling on her hands.
"AL!" Lara shrilled.
Alice jerked around and saw she had wandered quite far afield. She hiked back to her sister and they descended the mountain. Soon the metal beams of the Bay Bridge were tearing by.
"I thought we were going to go for drinks," said Alice.
"We are," said Lara. "After I take a shower."
The bug bounced up into the driveway of Lara's five story pink stucco apartment building.
"Well," said Alice. "I guess I can go see if Roz is home."
She climbed a brief incline and turned into a cul-de-sac shaded with big oak trees. Roz was speaking to someone behind her as she opened the door. "Alice," she stared, briefly startled. "Come in!" she opened the door wider. "We were just getting ready for a party."
Violet sat in an upright chair at the dining room table, with her dancer's posture. Her platinum blond hair fell in a sleek finger wave. "Alice!" she smiled.
"Would you like something to drink?" Roz pulled open the refrigerator door, lined with bottles of Sierra Nevada.
"Water would be great," said Alice, pulling out a chair opposite Violet. "Thanks."
Roz passed a glass to Violet who filled it from the Brita pitcher on the table. "So how are you?" said Violet. "What have you been up to?
As Alice ran on, Roz drifted in and out of the room, looking lost and busy at the same time.
"Why were they taking their coats off the trees?" Alice was saying. "Why were they there in the first place?"
Violet held up a pipe packed with a fat bowl, a white crystal lodged on top. "Wanna tonuk?" she said.
Alice shrugged. She took one hit and wandered into the next room. Somewhere, a DJ played. She sat down; then she lay down. "We get together and listen to the hits," someone said. Alice slipped off into semi-consciousness. There was laughter and the smell of grape juice concentrate from a waxed cardboard container. "Who is blowing those damn soap bubbles?" a woman said.
Someone came into the room and stood behind Alice. Alice tried to turn to see who it was and found herself unable to move. Then something was thrown on top of her, like a pile of clean laundry, as if maybe the person didn't know she was there. But Alice, through her half-open eyes, saw that it was dirt. She heard the sound of dirt falling.
Violet and Roz quieted down when Alice appeared in the doorway. Their eyes moved from left to right across her face.
"I um* sorry," Alice flushed. "I have to go. I just realized* oh my god!" she slapped her forehead. "I left my purse and sweater somewhere. I left my purse and sweater at the Place!" she laughed in a self-effacing manner and left, shutting the door behind her.
Dusk masked the nooks and byways of the quiet Oakland street. Lara was sitting in the front seat of the yellow Volkswagen, using the rearview mirror to check her lipstick. "Finally!" she said as Alice got in. "I was just about to drive up there and honk!"
"Sorry," said Alice.
They coasted down the road, propelled mainly by gravity and then Lara accelerated up the onramp to the freeway.
"How's Roz?" said Lara.
"Good," said Alice.
Lara rolled down her window to pay the toll. "Have you lost weight?" she said.
"No."
"When was the last time you checked?"
"I've weighed the same since high school!"
Lara took the first exit off the bridge.
"I thought we were going to the Place," said Alice.
They pulled into a striped spot in an underground garage. Lara got out, put on her long coat and flipped her hair over the faux black fur collar.
"I left my purse and sweater there," said Alice.
Lara clacked away, her footsteps echoing in the concrete enclosure.
"I have to go get them," Alice said, trailing behind.
"So go!" Lara responded. "I told some people I would meet them here."
Alice stopped walking. Lara glanced back with an inquisitive smile, which Alice failed to return. Lara shrugged and kept walking. Alice turned around several times, finding herself under a nostalgic street lamp but nowhere near a street. She needed to get down to street level but this was a mall, designed to get lost in. One store in particular, Milosoft, extended like an octopus beneath the entire structure. Every time she looked around, the tip of one of its black tentacles popped up in the form of a store. She burst into a rage, then fell into sharp spikes of panic. She asked a few people but no one could help her.
She reached the sidewalk just as the sky turned its final indigo blue. She needed to find Valencia. But this wasn't the same city. She walked under a freeway overpass. She passed mansions with beautiful sandstone cliffscapes.