-- This is a piece I wrote for Study of the Short Story class. We picked pictures of alumni out of the school hallway and made up stories about them. Jim McPhee, I hope you are a lot more well-adjusted than this. --

Jim McPhee buttoned his second cufflink and pulled his collar straight. Looking askance at his reflection, Jim sucked in his gut and adjusted his cummerbund for the fourth time. Tonight was the company’s annual employee appreciation banquet. This would be Jim’s twentieth attendance. Manager of customer service at a large bank, rumor ran that he would be receiving yet another token plaque thanking him for his years of client-calming.

Jim was bored. For the last five years, the only thing he couldn’t count on being the same was his cell phone bill; he found the ingenious fee system masochistically exciting. At forty-nine, comfortable routine bound him like cashmere shackles.

Jim lived life almost entirely within his head these days. A rich fantasy life kept him mellow enough to deal with crabby old ladies who had heard about that free checking and wanted to know, young man, why Fiscal Washington wasn’t doing the same. In his mind, Jim’s greying hair disappeared, along with the slight paunch and near-sightedness. He ran along basketball courts instead of producing useless paperwork, climbed mountains and surfed instead of placating newly-graduated students astonished by the consequences of interest.

Jim brushed his hair a final time and tied his shoes: right first, left second. He wondered if he should rejoin a gym. After Serious Fitness went under, he had simply let gravity take the wheel. All these new places were so intent on strange diets and charts of muscles. Jim missed the stationary bike and a simpler weight system. Back in high school, when he actually played basketball, body fat and muscle groups interested him. Now he just wanted to run across the house to the phone and not have to catch his breath.

Jim warmed up the car. While he waited for his wife, he wondered if an affair would snap him out of this disconnection. The newness would ignite his interest and the problem of hiding his activities would stimulate his mind. But when Sheri slid in next to him in the same spangly dress she wore every year, that idea withered. Jim couldn’t do that to her. No matter how unreal he felt, he still loved her. And he doubted whether anyone else would have him. They had been married for twenty-three years, and most of them had been good. Her feng shui kick last year had irritated him, but only because he kept tripping on the silly little footstools on the way to bed every night.

Jim thought about buying a new car. An El Camino, perhaps. He had always liked those. He parked his sensible Volvo V70 and opened the door for Sheri. Blue, with a hard top. He would love one of those. Of course, he still had four payments on the wagon and Sheri thought El Caminos were the sickly love child between a truck and the Dukes of Hazzard car. Not sickly, but sleek, Jim felt.

Jim waved at his coworkers and seated his wife at their table. She cooed over the floral centerpiece and gossiped happily about children with the other spouses. The menu was a fancy affair guaranteeing heartburn later that night. He ordered a scotch, neat, and resigned himself to small talk. While conversation ran the strained routes of coworkers forced to spend their free time with each other, Jim let his mind wander again. Perhaps he should cultivate an exotic drug habit. Hashish or absinthe, an alluring mind-bender to color over the grey days. A tinkling laugh jerked him out of a dream of Arabian harem girls and French painters. Sheri laid a casual hand on his wrist and repeated a pun someone in middle management had cracked. Jim laughed obligingly and kissed her on the cheek. He didn’t have the money or heart to keep up imported drugs for long. And really, it would just turn into a new routine.

Jim ended up with a small check and a thank-you ham. Sheri found the ham funny and planned to cook it up the next night to celebrate the check. As Jim tugged free his bow tie, he wondered if the check would cover a down payment on a small sailboat. He could smell the sea salt as he took his shoes off: left first, right second. If he bought a boat, he could fish on weekends and take Sheri on romantic day trips. Of course, that would involve learning to sail. And Jim wasn’t a strong swimmer. For that matter, he didn’t like fish.

Jim sighed and pulled back the covers on the bed. Maybe the gym held the answer. It was an achievable goal, and he liked the camaraderie of smaller gyms. It would be relatively simple to check on the internet on coffee breaks for a suitable place, and he would be set. Tomorrow. He would start looking tomorrow. Jim turned out the light.