Gary Glauber
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The Mix-Up
She came over to the park bench where I was sitting,
waiting for the workday to end so I could watch
the people file out of the busy courthouse.
She sat down and kissed me on the forehead.
“Hello Scotty,” she said. “Ready for our date?”
I had never seen this woman before in my life.
“Hello Ann,” I said, reading the necklace she was wearing.
“Are you going to start with that again?” she said.
“You know that’s not my name.” I figured
it could have been a monogram of some sort.
“You know what it stands for,” she told me.
“Actually never named?” I guessed. She smiled,
before stopping to reapply some deep red hued lipstick.
“The vet says Dyson’s going to be okay.”
It was obviously good news.
“Thanks for taking care of that,” she said.
I had no clue as to what she meant, but I smiled
and nodded my head thoughtfully.
“Quite strange weather lately,” I offered.
“Have you ever seen such strong winds?”
She said it reminded her of the time we
were at Punta Cana, at the height of hurricane season.
“That wasn’t me,” I said.
“Yeah, it was probably your twin brother. We were in
that two seat kayak, trying hard not to bother the armed guards.”
Perhaps I did have an identical twin brother.
That might explain why this woman thought she knew me.
“I don’t remember that at all,” I confessed.
“That’s what you said then too.” She reached in and
gave me a passionate kiss as if to convince me.
I didn’t resist. She was an attractive woman, this not Ann.
“Today a man showed me a card trick, “ she said.
She pulled a deck out of her bag and after shuffling,
asked me to select a card, memorize it and put it back in the deck.
She then divided the deck into three piles and then back again into one.
“What was your card?” she asked.
“I feel like I shouldn’t tell you,” I said.
She undid my cuff button and rolled up the sleeve of my right arm.
There, on the inside of my forearm, was a tattoo
of the Queen of Hearts. I had no idea how that got there.
It was in fact my card. “Most impressive,” I noted.
She gave me that winning smile again.
“Did you bring the coupon?” she asked.
I checked my pockets. There were only my keys,
some loose change, a flash drive, and a newspaper article
someone had clipped out. I unfolded it
and gazed at the headline:
“Man lost at sea in Caribbean storm.”
The article was about me. It described
everything I could remember about my past,
including my fine performance playing Tony
in a high school production of West Side Story.
“You were good as Tony,” my female friend said.
“Yes, but I’m not dead,” I told her.
“They think you are,” she said, “but we know better.”
I didn’t know anything of the sort.
“Pinch me,” I said, assuming that was the kind of test
that might prove worthwhile here.
“Maybe later,” she said, “but we’d better get going
if we want to make that reservation.”
I had all sorts of reservations, but as I watched her
get up and head down the street,
I found myself following after.
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Gary Glauber is a poet, fiction writer, and teacher. His work has received multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. In 2013, he took part in Found Poetry Review’s Pulitzer Remix project. He has been widely published. New work is forthcoming in Fjords Review, Agave Magazine, Ozone Park Journal, JMWW, Stone Voices, Noctua Review, Dirty Chai, Thin Air Magazine, and Deep Water Literary Journal.