Palm Shadows

Marta lay her palm against my cheek, fingers cool against the fever heat of yet another three A.M. panic attack. Outside, Los Angeles drizzled gray light onto palm trees that swayed like drunks at a party they'd meant to leave hours ago.

You're running yourself into the ground, she said.

I'm fine.

Bullshit. She adjusted her hat — that ridiculous newsboy cap she refused to retire despite it being 2018 and us being firmly in our thirties. We'd been friends since sophomore year when she found me crying behind the gym after my first boyfriend dumped me via AIM. Now she sat on my couch with vintage wine she'd brought, watching me spiral because I'd turned down the promotion. Again.

It's just, I swallowed against the thick lump in my throat, I go into that office and I see them — all those people with dead eyes, lunch breaks reduced to sixteen minutes of scrolling through feeds they don't even enjoy. Brennie says I should just take the money. That being a zombie is the price of admission.

Marta's expression shifted, something complicated crossing her face — judgment mixed with recognition. She'd been at her firm eleven years. She drove a leased Audi and subscribed to three different wine clubs and sometimes, when we'd had too much, she'd whisper about law school, about the novel she started in 2009 and never finished.

The zombie line hung between us, but we both knew she didn't have a comeback.

That was the thing about zombies — they didn't eat brains. They just slowly hollowed out their own, one compromised hour at a time, until there was nothing left but the mechanical repetition of tasks they'd stopped questioning years ago.

She finished her wine and set the glass down on my coaster-less table. A tiny act of rebellion against something, maybe everything.

I quit today, she said.

The words landed so softly I almost missed them. When I looked up, her palm was covering her mouth like she'd surprised herself.

What?

I did it. I walked out. Her eyes were wide, terrified, electric with possibility. I'm forty-two and I have no idea what comes next. But I think — I think I'd rather be scared than that.

She gestured toward the window, at the city beyond the palms, at all the offices filling with people who hadn't quit yet.

I started laughing. She joined me, and we sat there in my living room as the morning brightened, two women who'd spent years running from exactly this moment, finally standing still enough to let it catch us.