The One-Up Cont.

She did not know how to stop it; it became so much a part of her, the lie, that she carried the folded, loose-at-the-staples catalog around in her briefcase, and during her lunchbreaks, on planes, at airport gates, she stared at herself, wondering what she was thinking that day, the breeze on her face, the smell of the sea, the little flecks of surf that the dog's tail swatted onto her hands and forearms. Who was she then, and how did she wind up here, of all places, inbetween jobs, inbetween lovers, inbetween decades, with nothing to show for it?

She called the Pacific End catalog.

No, she did not wish to order merchandise, she explained to the sales rep. She wished the pinpoint the location of one of their shoots. Was there anyone who could help her? She was subsequently transferred to public relations, then to a marketing manager, who transferred her to publicity, who transferred her back to marketing.

"The Fall catalog," she specified quiety on the phone where she worked one of her temp jobs for unemployed tech employees. "The one with the guy on the sailboat. On page 16, the woman in the surf, where is she?

"She's in front of the Horizon Resort at Mission Beach in Tropical North Queensland, Australia."

To be cont.