The Goldfish on the Desk

The meeting had drained her completely—she was moving through the afternoon like a **zombie**, hollowed out by three hours of quarterly projections and passive-aggressive comments about team synergy. Elena returned to her cubicle to find Marcus standing there, holding a small bowl.

"He needs a home," Marcus said. "I'm leaving the company. Can't take him with me."

Inside the bowl, a single **goldfish** darted nervously. Its scales caught the fluorescent light, shimmering like something precious.

"You're leaving?" Elena asked, though she'd already heard the rumors. The corporate restructuring had everyone on edge.

"Got an offer. San Francisco." Marcus smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Take the fish. His name is Harold."

He placed the bowl on her desk beside the bottle of **vitamin** D supplements—her doctor's solution to the seasonal affective disorder that had been shadowing her since November. "You need to get outside more," he'd said. As if the world beyond her apartment held anything but reminders of what she'd lost.

Harold circled his small kingdom, his orange body flashing against the glass. Elena watched him, strangely moved.

"Why 'Harold'?"

"My grandfather's name. He lived to ninety-four." Marcus shrugged. "Maybe there's something to it."

Two weeks later, Elena found herself at a bar in Los Angeles, drinking something pink and too sweet with a **palm** tree painted on the wall behind her. She'd come for a conference—or maybe she'd come because Harold kept staring at her from his bowl, his unblinking eye demanding something more than scattered flakes and her muttered apologies about late nights at the office.

A woman slid onto the stool beside her. Sharp features, clever eyes, a smile that suggested she knew exactly what she was doing.

"You look like you're running from something," the woman said.

"Maybe toward something," Elena countered, though she wasn't sure what.

"I'm **Fox**." The woman extended her hand. "As in, clever as a. My parents had a sense of humor."

"Elena."

"So, Elena," Fox said, signaling the bartender. "What brings you to Los Angeles besides expensive cocktails and painted palm trees?"

Elena thought about Harold in his hotel room bowl, swimming endless circles. She thought about the vitamins she'd forgotten to take. She thought about Marcus's departure and the empty seat beside her at work and the way she'd been moving through her days like something already dead, waiting to realize it.

"I think," Elena said, "I'm learning how to swim."