Fiction Fix Sixteen

himself walking in the cemetery. “Maybe,” he mumbled.
“No,” Desirée said, stopping her barefoot dance. “No, not ‘maybe.’ Yes. Yes, yes, yes!
You have to do it, baby. You just have to. It’s so amazing! Remember that day?” She tapped
the photo on the fridge. “You were freaked out at first. Then we got there, and you felt it?
Remember? You could feel that way again.” Desirée opened the fridge. “To be surrounded
by all that death and to be standing there…so alive! You’ll feel the whole world. I know
it’s in you. You just have to let it out, baby.” She took a slice of cheese from the fridge.
“Want some?”
It was Jacob, the Irish ex-pat “corporate mystic,” who suggested Desirée walk through
cemeteries barefoot. He started this whole thing. Desirée mentioned him one night as she
and Gil sat on their front porch enjoying the warmer weather.
“We’ve got this new guy at work, Jacob,” Desirée said as she stood and threw her
arms wide. “Yeah, the bosses brought him in from Ireland – can you imagine? Ireland.
Huh. Anyway, he’s some sort of motivational guru who does these workshops on how to
be more spiritual at work. Crazy, isn’t it?”
Gil laughed and watched his girlfriend reach her arms up toward the porch ceiling.
She was on her tiptoes but was still too short to touch. She wobbled there for a long time.
“I mean, it just seems weird because a company doesn’t seem like the type of place
where spirituality should matter. Now, you know me – I’m all about spirit and emotion.”
Desirée turned back toward Gil, a strand of her hair curling around her softening eyes.
“And passion. Yeah, you know about that, huh?” She laughed and shook her behind. Gil
raised an eyebrow, blushed, and watched as she shook, twirled, then shook again.
Desirée sat next to him, throwing her leg over Gil’s lap. He enjoyed the warmth of
her thigh. “Jacob had us take our shoes off today. Can you believe it? Right there in the office
– in the big conference room. I’m always kicking my shoes off under my desk anyway,
so it was no big deal to me, but the others – you should have seen their faces!”
“What did he have you do then?”
“Oh, man, it was wild! He had us stand there with our shoes off, and then he says,
‘Close your eyes now’ with that Irish accent, you know?” Gil did not know, hadn’t met
Jacob, but Desirée’s attempt at an Irish accent was cute. Awful, but cute.
“‘Relax your eyes,’ he told us. ‘Let your breathing slow down. Pay attention to your
body. Your brow. Relax it. Let it fall. Now your fingers. Relax them. Now your feet. Pay attention
to the here and now. Pay attention to what your feet are telling you. They are your
most direct connection to the world.’”
Gil studied Desirée’s face. She had closed her eyes. Her Irish accent was already getting
better. “And, damn, if I didn’t feel it,” she whispered.
Fiction Fix 67