Do You Wonder What Comes Next?

 

I’m doing this old school, I thought, watching the sign painter finish the gold lettering on my office door window. “Nikita Rosen Agency.” I had the hat and the suit. “Professional, Personal Spook.” The small letters. If you can’t have fun with it, what’s the use? My office is on the second floor above the Vintage Café. That’s where I got the idea for the lettering. 

I had business cards made. “You have a question you can’t answer? Maybe I can help!” Phone number and official email address.

Bit and character parts suited me well. I was not the kind of woman you notice in a group. Stealthy. It helps a spook to be invisible, but just solid enough to handle material objects. OK. Five eight, brown hair, blue eyes, light skin. I blend right into the scenery.

Apparently, my parents were big jokers. They came up during the N. Khrushchev era. As University Art School students in the late 60s they were lefties, as would be expected. Maybe they thought N.K. was cute. They were Jews but didn’t know how to go about it. So, they joked around a lot, had long hair, painty clothes and did as they wished. Nothing was better than a practical joke. They are still like that. Boomers.

Enter the best joke of all. At home they called me Nikky. At school they called me Nik. It did not go well for anyone who said Nikita.

This is the part of the story where I am looking for work. I put a discrete ad in the University paper. I built an old-fashioned looking website. I told the old babes in the apartment building I was looking for snoopy work. That ought to get the news out there.

I furnished my office with old style oak office furniture. Nothing much, a desk, large, a wooden office chair. Chair for the client, a bit cushier than mine. The usual electronic devices. A file cabinet, even if it never gets used. A lamp. Two framed prints of local scenery on the walls. I had time to get them adjusted just right. I thought, “there is something missing! A big old black rotary phone on the desk.” I made a mental note. I sat there some more. Minutes ticked by.  No phone rang.  No email binged in.

I went home. My cat, a fifteen pound tabby named Richard, looked askance at me. Somehow, he always knows if I am running short on money. Not sure why he cares. He received a can of pure grain free chicken gloop. I had one of those bagged salads that comes with its own dressing and several packets of crunchy things. I would rather skip dinner than cook. Maybe if I had someone to cook for besides Richard things would be different.

Next morning, leaving the apartment building, I remembered that I wanted that old style phone. I didn’t have a landline, of course, but I might get one.

I was standing in the local thrift pit staring at a row of rotary phones in the colors of all eras when my cell phone rang.