Last Call at the Oasis

Mara moved through the office like a zombie—not the brain-eating kind, but the corporate variety: eyes glazed, soul hollowed, spreadsheet after spreadsheet draining whatever life remained. At 4:17 PM, she found herself at the water cooler for the third time that hour, staring at the plastic bottle as if it held something sacramental.

"You look like shit," said Daniel, her work friend of seven years. He was holding a Tupperware container of what looked like spinach and quinoa, steam still rising. "Eat something. You haven't had lunch."

"I had coffee," she said, which wasn't true. She'd had nothing but caffeine and regret since her husband walked out three weeks ago, leaving behind a half-empty closet and a mortgage she couldn't afford alone.

Daniel pressed the container into her hands. "Spinach, lemon juice, olive oil. My wife's recipe. She says iron helps with whatever it is you're going through."

Mara took a bite. It tasted like health, like something responsible people ate, like everything she wasn't anymore. She felt tears prick her eyes and turned toward the window, where a dying palm tree swayed in the office park's artificial breeze.

"I'm getting a palm reading tomorrow," she heard herself say. "There's a place downtown. $40 for twenty minutes."

Daniel laughed, then stopped when he saw her face. "You're serious."

"I need someone to tell me what happens next. Even if it's bullshit. Especially if it's bullshit."

"What if the line is broken?" Daniel asked softly. "What if there's nothing there?"

Mara looked at her own palm, the creases and lifelines mapping out decades of choices she'd made and hadn't made. "Then I'll draw my own," she said.

The water cooler bubbled behind them, a tiny artificial spring in a desert of cubicles. Somewhere beyond the glass, real rain was falling. For the first time in weeks, Mara thought she might actually want to walk out into it.