The Untold Story of Astoria Greengrass

The sun had already set by 4:00 p.m. on the bleak wintry day that had Iona feeling uninspired since breakfast tea, but she would never have known it from the basement of the university's library where she had been researching since noon. In the dusty medieval cells that the campus had acquired, no natural light filtered into the low-roofed rooms, and the dingy metal lights cast buttery-yellow glows that flickered in and out, giving the dust and cobwebs shadows on the walls that made her jump or do a second-take at every narrow turn.

Iona was leaned over all the musty books piled around her, her chin resting on her hand, her gaze taken by the old stone walls, her eyes taking in the age and indentures. She looked down at her volumes and sighed. There was no more productivity to be had here, she realized. She decided to take the work back to her student dorm and try again after a meal and a game of pool if anyone was at the pub.

Iona never dreamed she would become so lethargic while researching Harry Potter and the tradition of English mythology. She loved Harry Potter! Harry Potter was a charm from her childhood that left magical traces in her adulthood, that made her feel warm and welcome when she thought of those thick, colorful books, and she had been thrilled to be able to take a college course in the subject. She was disappointed in herself for feeling so unmotivated and somewhat bored. She blamed it on the weather, and the culture shock of weaning off coffee. She had taken to drinking tea in an effort to acclimate to her host country, but found that she was a bit too American to go on without coffee as a fuel source.

Iona stacked all the books onto the table quickly, now eager to get out into the fresh Scottish air. More and more books she thumped on top of the others, until the pile was near under her chin. Slinging her schoolbag over her arm, she slid the corners of her books off the table, pulled the heavy load onto her arms and balanced it precariously under her chin, and made quickly for the narrow winding staircase to the front desk.

The librarian was a strict-looking man without much of a chin, wearing an argyle sweater vest and half-moon spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, secure by a gold chain wrapping around his neck. From behind the glow of his green bankers lamp, he looked at Iona with his eyes slitted, as though she were taking his own valuables by checking out the pile of books. He only grunted at her to take her library card, and stamped due dates hard in wet, red ink, and then pushed her pile back toward her to signal she was done, watching her struggle with the wobbly pile of books as she made out into the dark evening.

Iona walked quickly under the crushing weight of her load, wondering what sort of a caricature picture she made right now, running across the damp grass to her cottage room with half the library stacked in a leaning tower ready to topple at any moment. She near ran to her cottage door, just a short walk across the small school grounds, leaned back enough to let the books rest against her face as she used a free hand to fumble into her bag and find her key, wrestled it into the lock, turned, and pushed the door open just as the books crashed forward and went scattering about the hardwood floor of her small studio. She gasped with relief and let her tired arms hang to her sides as the muscles tightened and she allowed the bloodflow to return.

She stepped in and shut the door behind her, and after a minute, bent down on hands and knees to begin picking up her check-outs and place them on her small wooden table.

As Iona reached for a thin, emerald-green tome, she noticed that the cover was blank. There were no pictures or inscriptions. She turned it over to the back, with still nothing. The spine was also blank. She lifted the heavy cover and was surprised to find it filled with typical lined paper she used for schoolwork, and not at all the blank paper for publishing. She ran the pages through her fingers, and noticed that the pages were hand-written. She went back to the first page and leafed through one at a time. At around the third page, there was a small "Joanne" written in black cursive at the top.

"Is this someone's diary?" Iona wondered aloud. She did not remember pulling this book from any of the shelves, or sifting through it during her hours in researching this afternoon either. She continued to turn blank pages, until she opened to a page bursting full with thick, spilling ink, scrawled on from top to bottom, with ink stains and splotches filling some of the free area.

22 July 2007

It's finally done. It's all out there and slowly more and more people will finish the story and now this part of my life will be ending. It's weird to think that I have to leave this behind, on their orders. They were so clever, those wizards, to have me tell their story to such glory... and know that I would sound like a mad woman were I to admit that it was all real.

Iona looked up.

"What?" she yelped. She couldn't believe it. She went back to the first page, the one with Joanne written on it in black ink. She looked closer, and saw that next to Joanne, but lightly in pencil, was written Rowling in delicate, deliberate letters. Hurriedly she tore back to the first page.

...like a mad woman were I to admit that it was all real.

Oh, how I'll miss them. It feels so cruel to let me into the world, just to take it all away from me again. It makes me feel as though they've left a dementor hanging over my shoulder, always reminding me of what I've lost, reminding me how happy I had been, and how I can't have that back.

And to think! To think that it came from the mouth of Astoria Greengrass, and no one will ever know her story because she was too humble, and forbids me from publishing it. But what am I supposed to do? What do I do when that is the story that inspires me? What do I do when that is the story that really calls to me, and seems worthwhile?

Iona collapsed on the couch. She couldn't believe that she held the diary of J.K. Rowling in her hands, the very personal diary of Joanne Kathleen Rowling herself... and was she implying that the wizarding world was real, that it existed? That it made itself known to her for her to tell her story, but took themselves away again? How was this even possible? She knew the author's office was not far from her university here in Edinburgh, but it still made no sense that she brought it into her home from the university library.

The first entry was dated July 22nd, 2007. That was the day after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released. She remembered it distinctly because it was her sister's birthday, and she could hardly stay awake during the birthday breakfast because she had been up all night reading the last book that she had picked up the day before, when it was released in bookstores.

But Astoria Greengrass? Iona couldn't remember who that was. Was she related? She flipped through the journal a little further in.

29 July 2007

I can't stop thinking about it. I miss them, I do. They moved away from me once they saw that the story was completed and on it's way to release. Poor Astoria, in love with Harry all those years, forced to debase him because of her family and her position in House Slytherin. Marrying Draco because she thought it might bring her closer to Harry in some way, that he would notice her if she just told his story. And she wanted nothing in return. Nothing, save for his affection, or his acknowledgement. And don't I know those hurts of unrequited love? What is one to do? From one heartsick woman to another, I'm not sure what to do about it now.

That's why I have to tell the story, somehow. But she won't let me. I have to get it out. From here on out, I will tell the story of Astoria Greengrass's heartache, her life that is completely devoid in the novels, her love that is completely unacknowledged, and now her turmoil, married to a man because he shared something with the man that she loved.

She remembered now. Astoria Greengrass was Draco's wife. They were seen at King's Cross Station to say goodbye to their son Scorpius the same time Harry and Ron were there with their families, as they boarded the Hogwarts Express.

The diary was thicker than Iona realized, and brimming with smaller script than she thought possible. Iona found the last entry.

31 December 2007

I will find a way to put this somewhere, where someone can find it. Where hopefully someone with some semblance of writing abilities can read it, and tell the story themselves. I swore I would not publish it myself, but I didn't say anything about anyone else. If you have read this, you must send this story off far and wide. It is a story to bring one to tears, one that can save Eurydice through story as Orpheus did through song. You must read the story of Astoria Greengrass, and then send it off yourself.

And I will find you and I will thank you. And you will not know that it was me and first, but you will know it after I am gone, and we will know that we did the world a favor.

For Wizards, Witches, and Muggles Alike
Joanne Rowling

Iona's heart was beating fast. An untold story. The untold story? Wasn't it always said that those who were first would be last, and those who were last would be first? She had in her hands, a story J.K. Rowling said would shake the world. A story of Astoria Greengrass and she was the one to do it. She could do it. And she would do it.

Iona shut the journal and locked it up in her bedroom. She grabbed her coin purse and went deliberately out into the damp, dark evening, off to buy a large amount of tea and scones, and a bigger amount of coffee.

She came back, arranged it all on the table, put the water onto boil, then got her computer and the journal. And she opened the journal up, prepared to type it out and be the next J.K. Rowling herself.

30 July 2007

Here is what needs to be retold.

There once was an English witch named Astoria Greengrass. And she didn't know that she would grow to have this life, one that could move us and shake the world if only she would let us share it, but here it is. This is the untold story of Astoria Greengrass...

FIN

Great Samaritan

Dear Diary,

Day 1 of this captivity. What a waste, why didn't someone tell me sooner I needed to lose these schmucks and get on with a real life? Jerry and George deserve each other and I'm a failure by association, and Kramer... I don't know what he deserves, it might be this, but I shouldn't be around for this. Stuck in a jail cell with them because of some stupid new good samaritan law? I am a damn GREAT samaritan who made dumb choices by sticking around with Jerry and staying even after we broke up. If nothing else, maybe I'll have a ripe vault of material for the Pederman Catalog when this is all done, assuming he'd ever have me back. Still, aren't we all allowed a mistake in our lives? I mean, come on, David Puddy is still roaming Manhattan alive and free and painting his face for New Jersey Devils game, and that's the real crime here. Who can I talk to about that, anyway? Does the NYPD accept unsolicited letter of seeking employment?

God knows I have free time now, so I'm going to list all the people I would rather be stuck in a jail cell with for years instead of these three locos

-Mr. Pederman
-The rabbi in my apartment building
-Ned The Communist
-Joel Rifkin (the actual serial killer, not my ex)
-Simon the Pretentious Brit
-John F. Kennedy Jr (obviously)
-Roxy the Barking Dog
-Vegetable Lasagna from the Plane
-Vincent, of Vincent's Picks
-Frank Costanza

Oh Jesus, George has apparently been reading this since he can't find anything else to do with his useless life and saw I preferred his father over him. Now he's going on and on about how he's better than his father and listing out everything his father's ever done, and I'll give him one thing, he really is sullying that Costanza name, which is saying a lot cause that name has already been run through the mud and the sewers and dirty subways out to Queens and back.

Oh my God how do I get a transfer to Riker's Island?! I gotta go, I gotta so slap their faces and bang their heads together. Just another day in my life of bad choices.

Laney Benes

Key South

I got a letter in the mail. That didn’t surprise me, because all my correspondence comes in the post mail for me, but what surprised me was who it was from. Rory Abbott, with his name on the envelope. I used to let myself secretly think, in unspoken thoughts I was too ashamed to acknowledge, that I wanted him to reach out. I wanted him to work to find me, to tell me that he missed me and wanted me to come back and start our life together.

I stood at the mailbox in the humid morning air, the sea breeze blowing my lazy fallen strands of hair back around my neck. It was a lush morning, and quiet. The heavy tropical plants seemed to be collecting sweat already, the bright houses were glowing in the morning rise, and chairs rocking breezily on their thick wooden-plank porches.

I looked back down at the browned envelope in my hand, already damp, having spent a few days traveling through the Keys, no doubt. Now that this letter was here, I didn’t know what I thought. I didn’t feel the sense of relief and romance that I thought I would. No, there was nothing but a wave of self-loathing that I had worked so hard to give up.

I walked back up to my porch, barefoot over the uneven cement where thick crabgrass grew in the cracks, slowly, slowly up the steps, and sitting at small table in the small wicker chair on the porch in a daze. I tossed the mail on the tabletop in front of me, Rory’s letter face-up. I sipped iced coffee. I thought about Rory. I thought about me. I thought about the plane that brought me here, and the disaster that kept me here.

It’s been four years now. Back then, I was living in Boston. I was married. I would have said that I was happily married, because I truly felt that I was happily married, but happily married people don’t have affairs. So why did I do it? I’m asked that by everyone, but I asked it of myself more. I had just moved to Boston with him. We had been married a few years, I loved him. Then I met Rory, by chance, on the small walk of West Street off the Commons. I felt nothing more than some sort of Hunt; it raised my blood pressure, awoke my Fight or Flight, brought tension and adventure to my life. And the moral world, the world on paper, can’t seem to believe in relationship indulgence out of marriage. I didn’t believe in it either, until it happened. Isn’t that the way it always goes? And now? Am I criminal for being human?

When everyone found out, I broke. Why was I surprised? Energy in, energy out. Tension build, and tension break. My husband left for a week, to stay with his brother in Milwaukee. I didn’t blame him, but I cried on the floor while he packed his things. Who had I become? I thought I had integrity. I still felt like I had integrity. Did this slip invalidate my entire life? I couldn’t stay there in that emptiness. A friend had once told me about a beach in Belize. I had never seen the beach in Belize.

I loved that beach. It was lush. I felt loved, at a time when I wasn’t loved, not even by myself. It was weird though, the way I couldn’t push the dark thoughts out, couldn’t stop internally berating myself, couldn’t stop thinking about my husband, about Rory, about the way I ruined my life at 24, and the stain I was going to carry on now forever… but when the afternoon thunderstorms came, my mind was clear, I could think of anything.

It was gone when I got on the plane. I was back to my place of suffering, the room I knew would always exist in my brain, always there in my mind for me to revisit, no matter how many locks I put on it. We had a layover in Miami, but we didn’t get that far. The plane required an emergency refuel and the closest airport we could get to was Key West, and we barely made it there. As the plane descended in a rocky, turbulent landing, I knew my impending death would be everything I deserved. I cried against the window while they refueled, until they told us we all needed to disembark. I wrestled my carry-on out of the overhead compartment, and sulked into the airport to wait, but as I exited the plane into the Florida air, something changed. Something smelt of hope, the wind brought a sense of rebirth with it, that heated island air. I was barely in the lounge when they announced our plane was discovered to have a mechanical error, and to see customer service to book new flights. I saw the signs for customer service. I walked towards it. Got to the desk. And then I kept on walking. I walked right out of airport. There was nothing to go home for. I had ruined lives. Me, I was the cause. I didn’t deserve to feel better, and they didn’t deserve me around for the hurt, and they didn't deserve me around to use me. I would be home now, on Key West.

I took a cab to the downtown. I found a room not far from Ernest Hemingway’s house. I saw the neighbors waving to one another. I saw the old man smoking at the outdoor café. I saw the roosters roaming the streets. And I saw myself here, for a long time.

I had a fine job in Boston, but the job market in the isolated Key was limited. I approached the landlady of my small inn and offered to work for her for room and board. She agreed. I worked for some of the sunset cruise companies in the evening for money. I made friends with tourists, I made friends with the locals. I didn’t tell anyone but my parents where I was, and told them not to tell anyone else. The humid climate suited me well after those cold Boston winters. The small, intimate community was good for me after the sprawling anonymity of the larger city. I found myself happier here, alone, than I had ever been with someone, up north. I found friends in other local business owners. It was enough to satisfy my lonely times, but not enough to ever make me godmother, and that was how I liked in. I began painting the lighthouse in different painting styles. I braided my hair, I bought flowing island dresses, I let go of my self-degradation. I bought a bike. I fed the roosters, the roosters who wake us for morning, for light. And only sometimes would I wish that I would Rory would work to find me, to prove to me that maybe it had been real, that maybe it was worth ruining my life over. But he never did. And each year I forgot about it a little more, and my wedding ring tan faded into oblivion, as though it had never been there.

And four years later, here it was. I had disconnected myself in every way possible, and his sealed, stamped letter had found it’s way here to my life on Key West that had been so devoid of everything before, that at times I really was able to convince myself that it had never happened. I looked at the letter, and reached for it, and my fingers were trembling.

I looked at it, and took a breath, and then tore it open, pulling the letter from it and almost ripping it, and was disappointed at the brevity of it, even though I hadn’t read it yet. What would it say? Would he reappear? Would this all be worth it? Would he come? Would I go? Would it be an ending?

 
You’re hard to find, you know that? Let me know when you’re in town again, I still have that spare room

Rory

I felt sick. I had wanted to hear from him I realized, but I wanted it to be something other than it was. But it’s what it had always been. Why did I still want him more than the man that had been my husband? I see now that he was the better man, better for never reaching out, better for never tormenting me, for delineating me. And he was the one I knew I’d never find again. Who comes up with these endings? We all have so many acceptable endings for our lives, so many permutations and ideas, and none of them ever what we are actually delivered.

I heard a rooster crow. I took my iced coffee in my hand and walked back down the porch, down the crooked walkway, into the street. Did Hemingway ever feel this validated? He had to have walked this street at some point during his tenure here. I smiled because for the first time, I knew with certainty, I knew that here was where I’d stay forever.

The Future Adventures of Penny Coppercoin

Penny Coppercoin was walking along her favorite avenue with the deserted old buildings, imagining what life must have been like when the cities were still populated. She heard stories from her grandmother and saw holograms of it in her classes at school: people covered the sidewalks going every which way, in and out of buildings. She wondered how people found their way or remembered which corner was which, or how they lived in all the cement and brick buildings. She like the ancient, old, bent-metal sign on the road in that said "Nashville" from over a hundred years ago. Her grandmother told her that's what the city used to be called. Cities used to have names that they made up, usually named after the first people and what they called themselves or places. Of course around 2050 they realized how politically incorrect this was, and that's when they renamed all the areas to represent the House of the United States. The northeast where the capital still was, was the Bedroom, where everything happened behind closed doors, and the middle was the Living Room, because that's where most of the low-key suburban living happened, and the southeast corner where Penny Coppercoin lived in was the Garden.

Penny often snuck out during the day, when the rest of the world was sleeping. After the Great Skin Diseases of the 2070s happened, the United States transitioned to the Nocturnal Clock, and the rest of the world quickly followed suit. Because of this, everyone deserted the hot cement cities in search of the countryside and forests, and built their houses below the earth, to stay cool while sleeping. Penny Coppercoin would go out with her best friend and sidekick, Lincoln the Lightning Bug, and it was much easier for them to go unnoticed during the day, when his flickering flame wouldn't be seen as well.

Penny and Lincoln were playing around a huge old electric guitar when Lincoln started glowing off and on faster and faster.

"Oh no, Lincoln! You're right, it is getting dark, everyone is going to be waking up soon! We need to get home and get in bed before Mom finds out!" Penny cried. She strapped on her backpack and went running down the pavement. It always hurt her feet, but she liked the feeling of resistance. Lincoln zoomed ahead, glowing on and off and lighting the way back into the forest.

They ran fast out of the town and into the lush forest as the afternoon was ending and the humid heat was just starting to cool with a river breeze. Penny was running full force, jumping over small hills and tree roots, dodging branches and brambles, and she recognized their civilization coming in with the flags propped up on poles in the earth, signaling the rooftops of homes and nearby stairwells leading down into them. As she was rushing past one, though, she past by the warm smell of hot, fresh bread, and stopped in her tracks.

"Wait Lincoln!" she shouted ahead to the fluttering insect. "Do you smell that?"

Lincoln came rushing back and blinked in her face.

"We should visit the baker first. We can bring home some bread for Mom," she suggested. Lincoln switched on and off, buzzing loudly his disapproval, knowing it would make them late.

"Well, we'll probably be late anyway, and this way Mom will think we just left to pick up breakfast. Come on!"

With that, Penny turned right and led the way to the riverside, going down the stone steps into the cavernous muddy walls of the bakery until there was almost no light left, and candles lit the way.

Penny and Lincoln found the baker wiping his brow with a flour-covered hand and yawning awake.

"Nickel! Fancy seeing you here so early. What can I get for you?"

Penny was confused. The baker looked a little delirious, and he had called her a weird name, even though he had known her since she was born.

"I'd love two fresh loaves of bread, sir," she said politely, unsure if she should correct him or not.

"You got it, and I'll even throw in a fresh fish or two for being my first customer," he smiled and winked at her. "It'll be just a minute, the loaves were just put in the oven. Hang out with the president," he suggested, waving his hand to the corner of the room. Penny knew something was up with the baker, he didn't sell fish, and it wasn't the president in the corner of the room, it was the mayor, sitting and reading the newspaper.

"Miss Penny Coppercoin!" he declared, lowering the newspaper. "What are you doing up so early?" he asked.

"Oh you know, just getting breakfast sir. How are you?" she asked politely.

"Well I was doing fine, but suddenly my own breakfast is not sitting well with me. I had one of them French pies, you know that quiche or whatever it's called, but I'm thinking I'm going to have to stick to 'Murican food, I do feel a little queasy..." the mayor went a little pale as he talked, and Lincoln flitted in and blinked in front of him.

"Mr. Mayor you don't look very well, should we go up to the riverbank?"

"As a matter of fact, Penny, that's exactly what I'd like to do! You have to see the new house I bought, I've been dying to show someone and I haven't shown anyone yet and I've been thinking that I might die if I don't show someone soon!!" he exclaimed, throwing down the newspaper and bounding down the hall and up the stairs, following by Lincoln, lighting up and down, who seemed to be just as excited as the mayor.

Penny was the last one out, and could just make out the mayor running upriver, shouting over his shoulder "this way! this way!" she sighed and then went running after them full force, following Lincoln's blinking and coming up on a small lopsided wooden shack, with a creaky, uneven swining door that had the cutout of a crescent moon on it.

"This is the new place I just bought!" the mayor declared with pride. "Do you know how hard it is to find old real estate from the Above Ground Era in the forest? I can't go too far or no one would vote for me again ha ha!" he laughed at himself, before putting his hand over his mouth in a wave of nausea that turned his face green.

"Sir? Are you okay?" Penny asked. Lincoln fluttered his concerned.

"Oh yes, yes. Just that quiche that isn't going down. Isn't this great?" he kicked the door to show a tiny, inside with a square floor and a hole dug into the ground, and a putrid smell coming out of it. Penny put her hand over her nose and Lincoln went dark with polite disgust.

"They were called 'outhouses' in their day, they were like a home away from home, and you don't even need to leave to go to the bathroom! You just go over the hole," the mayor beamed with his nauseous green face.

Suddenly Penny remembered a lot of what she had learned in school about the Above Ground Era and old houses.

"Mr. Mayor!" Penny cried. "You can't! This is what is making everyone sick! Your outhouse is going downriver toward the baker's and that's what's poisoning his bread and quiches and making him delirious and you sick!"

The mayor reflected a moment, then turned around and retched into the hole dug in the outhouse.

"My, my, Penny Coppercoin, you are a true detective, a real go-getter, just as bright as your name and you just saved my life and many others' lives. I think you deserve to be Mayor for a Day, what do you say?"

The mayor unpinned his Mayor Medallion from his suit and put it proudly on Penny, and Lincoln the Lightning Bug flickered his approval bright.

"Now, what do you say we go back to the bakery and order up some new bread after this is all sorted out? I'll take you home personally and explain the whole ordeal to your mother, and you'll serve in my spot for the day, and you can even bring that flickering light with you."

Penny Coppercoin didn't have to think twice.

"Race you to the baker's!" she cried, and took off running before the baker or Lincoln knew what had happened.

Yankee Swap

I had already been sitting at my desk for a good 45 minutes, completely hungover and unmotivated, squinting in the fluorescent lights, wondering why I was being paid for this job, when Shaw'na finally decided to arrive to work. She used to be Shawna from Long Island, but started working in the city and hated that she wasn't "really" a New Yorker. So when she moved to Harlem she changed her name to "Shaw'na" to fit in, and it was a real bitch to replace all her business cards with that apostrophe too. She annoyed me because she had a job even worse than mine at this lame printing company, but she was even happier than me at it. What made her so happy about supply ordering? She should learn to be miserable like me.

Anyway, on this morning when she sauntered in close to an hour late, something seemed abrasive. My stomach dropped when I watched her come in. She had her biggest knock-off Chanel bag on her arm and her nails looked freshly done. It was nothing new for her, but there was something that felt different in my gut. She had an aire like something was truly amazing, but how could that be right? It annoyed me. Our long, long weekend was over, and after five days off we were back here on a rainy Monday morning in midtown Manhattan with jammed subway commutes cause the 4, 5 and 6 trains couldn't get their damn act together.

"Hay girl!" Shaw'na said as she sat in the cubicle next to me.

"Hi," I said wearily. The lights burned, my coffee wasn't helping, and my hangover wasn't even reminiscent of a good night. It just was.

"No, no! When I say hay girl, you say..." Shaw'na prompted.

"Hay," I said monotonously.

Shaw'na never let us greet each other in any other fashion. I hated it. She was horrible in reading people, which was truly unfortunate because she irritated most people she came in contact with. Her bangs were brushed over from one side from way too far away and gave her a trashy, sleepy look. She flung her head to the right to clear the bangs from her eyes.

"That's right girl! Now why don't you take that post-it next to you and write down your contact information cause I don't know when we're gunna see each other again," she gave a frown which probably was sincere coming from her but looked over-exaggerated and borderline sarcastic. Still, my interest was piqued.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "Are you taking a vacation?" I swiveled my chair slowly towards her, feeling more aware of my old makeup smeared under my eyes and hastily thrown-up hair.

"You could say that. A long, permanent vacation with no real intentions on ever coming back," she glanced around and then leaned in slowly. "I'm quitting today!" her eyes widened and mouth opened in a feigned surprise excitement, waiting for me to return the look.

I'm sure I looked surprised, but likely in a stupefied and dumbfounded manner. How the hell did she have the opportunity to quit?

"Over the weekend I did something truly earth shattering," she confided, throwing open palms up at me for emphasis.

Well this was new. I envisioned her having collected all the stray dogs in New York and putting them in her Harlem studio for safekeeping, but wasn't sure how that was going to warrant foregoing an income.

"Um, wow." I said. Was I supposed to respond further? Was I supposed to ask questions? Admittedly, I was jealous, so I didn't want to give her the satisfaction of my curiosity, and I also knew she wouldn't be able to go long without telling me anyway.

Steve walked by on his way to the kitchenette, and Shaw'na and I both broke off our little huddle and tried to act normal.

"Hi Steve," I said.

"Hay boy," Shaw'na called out at the same time.

Steve pretended not to have heard us, and he may have even started walking a little faster too.

"Okay, are you ready for this?" Shaw'na leaned in a whispered to me.

"Mmhmm," I answered, trying not to show how curious I was.

"Over the weekend... I... bought Staten Island!" she squealed and threw herself back in her chair.

"You bought Staten Island? What does that even mean?" I was missing something. I didn't even feel very excited, just very confused.

"See, over the weekend I went to City Hall and they were doing a fundraiser. Apparently one of the cabinet members had been let go and was very bitter, so even though I was just trying to buy an old Louis Vutton wallet left behind by Bloomberg, the cabinet member drew up a contract that actually said I was buying Staten Island for only $50. They found out too late, and the contract was entirely legal and binding, so now I own Staten Island and I collect all the incomes and own all the land and everything!"

Holy cow. Maybe it was the hangover, maybe it was the whiskey shot I had poured into my coffee, but clarity hit me at that moment.

"Shaw'na, can I see the contract?" I asked as politely and friendly as I could.

"Of course, girl!" she handed it over with pink acrylic nails.

I looked over it hastily, hmm'ing and haw'ing and raising my eyebrows and pointing to different things.

"Shaw'na," I said. "This line here says that you owe all the taxes from Staten Island, not that you own them. So you would actually have to pay all that to the federal government."

"Wait, really?" the disappointment was clear, and she immediately leaned over to see what line I was reading, but I jerked it away quickly.

"That's horrible!" she exclaimed. "I don't want that!"

"Neither would I," I said sadly. "But you know what Shaw'na, you've always inspired me and been my friend. This contract isn't signed yet. What if I sign it and take it over for you, and I'll let you have my job when I leave so you'll still get double the income."

I actually had no idea if that were true.

"You would do that for me?" her eyes were watery with gratitude.

"Of course I would," I said, putting one hand on her shoulder and reaching for a pen with another.

I signed the contract as fast as I could with a sloppy one hand. I stood up on my desk and cupped my hands around my mouth.

"Excuse me!" I shouted. My hangover was feeling a little less horrible by the moment. "I'm quitting this bitch! Peace out suckers!"

I threw all my personal effects from the desktop into my purse and was marching out past all my dazes and confused and miserable coworkers. I didn't bother going through the drawers.

It was a horrible thing to do. It was. I was not proud of it at all. That's why, on some nights, I still shed a tear for the wrong I did to Shaw'na from Harlem, as I relax on my gold-threaded hammock in my Manhattan penthouse apartment with views of my island just across the water. And to clear my conscience, I renamed it Shaw'na Island, and tourism has never been better.

Elliott's Afternoon

            Elliott wanted out. His chair at the small table was facing the front entrance windows, and he couldn’t help glancing out that way, through the parted orange-plaid curtains to the falling snow and growing mounds outside. He wiped the slow-falling sweat from his forehead on the long white polyester sleeve of his Elvis Presley costume and took a breath, trying to hide how badly he wanted out of the stuffy hot café and to go run out amid the snow and icy wind that would surely bring some cool relief to this hot and sticky air he was baking in now.

            It was quiet around their small polished table, the only noise was a small radio playing from the bar, and the ticking pendulum of a hanging clock by the door. The café owner was wiping down the wood-and-gold espresso machines and didn’t seem at all aware of the tense four-top square table where Elliott was sitting.

            To the left of Elliott was John Lennon in one chair, and although he seemed wispy and hollow, it paled in comparison to his relaxed demeanor, and he would tilt his long greasy hair from side to side as if acknowledging a melody only he could hear. Across from Elvis was a static-seeming Richard Nixon, sharp in his 70s suit, but nevertheless old with his drooping skin and large pores. He did little more than take in his surroundings with lips pressed tightly together, eyes keenly taking in each movement. He seemed to study Elliott the most, and be the most offended when Elliott glanced outside of their company. To the right of Elliott was a life-sized, shiny, candy-red lobster comfortably upright at the table, curling down the chair with his tail propping him up from the floor, his large bubble eyes atop long stems, claws happily pinching around coffee mugs and water glasses. Elliott guessed that the lobster was partaking in the novelty of sitting at a human table, but he didn’t know what to make of the linked gold chain around the lobster’s neck, heavy with a solid gold banana charm hanging down the front. And then there was Elliott at the head of the table in white Elvis pantsuit, gold glasses and stiff black hair, sweating and trying to contemplate a quick exit into the Albuquerque winter desert. He glanced at the center of the table where his beloved thin chrome flashlight sat atop their small pile of bettings, with John Lennon’s small circle-frame glasses, Nixon’s red telephone, and the lobster’s claw bands, which had to be cut off by Elliott himself for the lobster to wager. Anything would be better than this right now. Anything would be better than losing his flashlight. The heat was making him irritable, and he didn’t feel that he had much left to lose. He grew bold.

            “Look guys, I never wanted any trouble. Please just let me take my flashlight, and I’ll get out, and we’ll call it a day,” Elliott pleaded, running his hands through his hairsprayed hair with a crunch.

            “No Elvis, you’re not getting it a’tall. We don’t want to call it a day, mate,” John Lennon said in his wilting English voice.

            “We want you,” Nixon began in a deep throaty voice, “to give up writing your book. You are dividing your effort up. You’ll fail at everything at this rate. We’re trying to help you.” He pointed harshly, which gave Elliott the impression of an Uncle Sam poster.

            The lobster lifted his glass toward Elliott, apparently in agree with the other two.

            “Your attachment to material things is so very disturbing Ellie man,” John whispered. “Look at you. What do you dress like Elvis for anyway?”

            “It’s- it’s my job,” Elliott retorted. “My father was an Elvis Impersonator, and I promised him I’d carry on the legacy. It’s what we have to our name. It was his dream, and my dream. I’m making it real. And I was just going to document it with a story. I’ve been out doing research for this book, it was going to celebrate my father’s entire life. And he gave me that flashlight, when I told him about the project he told me it would always light my way!”

            “Is it lighting your way now?” Nixon asked point-blank. “You gave it up for our bet. Our bet that we could outsit you, and if you won you would take everything, and be able to be everything you ever wanted. But if the flashlight is so important, why would you risk it to have nothing?”

            The lobster made some sort of cooing sound and pushed a mug of coffee to a corner. His eye blinked. Or at least Elliott thought that’s what a lobster blink might look like.

            “You know,” Elliott said, gaining courage, “my daughter used to pray every night that Harry Potter might come true, and I thought it would be a good idea, but I think I forgot how awful boggarts are!”

            “Hey! You watch your mouth sonny,” Nixon shouted, offended.

The lobster snapped his claws in anger.

“Ah, come on now, you don’t really mean that,” John Lennon said.

“I do! I do!” Elliott screamed. “Boggarts are horrible and they are your worst fears, and they mess you up!” Elliott slowed down and he realized the error in his afternoon. “Oh my God,” he said. “Boggarts mess you up. You guys are trying to mess me up! How did I forget that? You’re not helping me! You made me think you were helping me, but you’re not! You voiced my own insecurities and I was so desperate for an answer to my life’s problems that I listened to any solution you offered me, but you are wrong! I can write this book, and I can impersonate Elvis, and I can be a good father! I can do all these things!”

Elliott grabbed his flashlight back from the pile and moved to stand up, but only found he was immobilized in his chair. He could not separate himself, he was stuck in seat, sweat pouring freely now, while the three boggarts sat calmly and blank-faced, looking back at him.

“Elvis liked something enough, my man,” John Lennon said through an emotionless face. “Elvis liked something. If you were so good an impersonating him, you might know what it is. And set yourself free to go write your book and be an Elvis father. Is that what you wanted, do I have that right?”

Elliott’s mind was racing. Elvis liked something? We all like something. What did Elvis like? Music, of course. Guitars, girls, Tennessee. What did that mean? Just then, Elliott’s stomach grumbled. After all these hours of sitting, he was hungry. Elvis would probably eat a peanut butter and banana sandwich. That’s it! Elliott thought. The banana!

Quick as a karate chop, Elliott grabbed at the gold banana charm hanging around the lobster’s neck and yanked hard, while the lobster’s claws circled wildly in fear, and John Lennon and Richard Nixon were shouting “No!” and jumping toward Elliott, but it was too late. The gold chain broke and at the same time, all three of the boggarts exploded into a puff of air, Elliott screaming in fear from all the commotion, falling back into his chair, this time alone at the table.

“Alright, alright, I hear you, no need to shout!” the barman came bumbling over to Elliott with pen and pad ready.

Elliott was flabbergasted. “Um… uhh…” he took a breath, bewildered, looking about himself with wide eyes.

“Could I… may I… think you could do a uh, a peanut butter and banana sandwich?” he asked.

The barman hesitated a moment, rolled his eyes, coughed, and then grunted out a yes before turning away and heading to the kitchen.

“And can you open up a window in here already?!”