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Terrance dashed into the kitchen out of breath, his coat off, tie askew and smudged with dark smears. He slung his briefcase on the counter and grabbed Gloria by the shoulders. An electric wildness lit his eyes in a way that Gloria hadn’t seen since they'd been in college, as if something burned in him.
"It was incredible," he gasped.
"What was, dear?"
"What happened today. It--let me get a drink first."
So Gloria put down the recipe book she'd been holding and trailed Terrance into the den. He went to the liquor cabinet, snatched a bottle of single malt scotch and a tumbler. He sloshed some of the scotch into the tumbler and quaffed it down. Tears sprang to his eyes and he gasped and immediately poured more.
"There's a hole burned in your shirt," Gloria said mildly.
"There was a fire."
"A fire? Where?"
"Let me start from the beginning. Wait. Come on, I'll tell you while I set up the VCR."
"For what?"
"For the news, that's what."
So she followed him to the living room, feeling a bit like a stray.
"After work, I was walking to the garage, not really paying attention to anything. My mind was on the meeting with Harrington this morning. That SOB was busting my chops again about the Mandover account, even though it was his nephew that loused it up.
"By the way, today was it, I am officially retired."
"Can we afford that?"
"We can. We will. We’ll be fine, you'll see.
"So I'm walking right past the shops, right past this new shoe repair place, and it just exploded. Flames just shot out of it like you wouldn’t believe. Glass shattered, smoke poured out, and in front of the store this girl's screaming 'My sister! My sister's in there!'"
"Dear God," said Gloria.
"For a second, I froze. I mean, what was I going to do? I'm no fireman."
Terrance ran his hand through his hair, shoving it up in haywire spikes.
"But there was no one else. Can you believe that? Five thirty on a Wednesday afternoon, and there was nobody else, just me and that girl. I stood there thinkin' there's gotta be sirens on the way, gotta be. But the smoke lifted for just that long and I saw the kid, way in the back, through this tunnel of smoke. And I didn't even think it over."
"You went in?"
"What was I gonna do?"
"You went in," Gloria said again, marveling.
"Yeah," he said, holding her eyes with his own, "I went in.
"This voice inside me says, 'You'll never make it, Briggs. This is crazy.' And the girl in the shop, she yells out, 'Don't listen to that, Mr. Briggs!' As I'm running forward, I'm thinking, how does she know my name?"
Gloria shrugged.
"I ran forward and grabbed the girl, she couldn't have been more than sixteen, and I pulled her out of there. We get out on the sidewalk and I'm coughing and the air's so sweet and finally I hear sirens, and people have started to gather around. The girl's sister, the one who screamed at me in the first place, looks at me and says 'She's right about that voice, Mr. Briggs.'"
Terrance punched a button on the remote, brought the TV back to life to set up the VCR.
"It'll all be on the news, you'll see. But that's not what really matters."
"It isn't?"
"No!" Terrance grinned and grasped her shoulders. Gloria liked his hands. They were hands meant to wield a mallet or an ax, a bat or a saxophone. They were not broker's hands.
"See, it's the voice of fear that says that, the voice of safety and too much comfort. A voice that says 'Don't bother dreaming, it won't happen.' Or, 'Don't risk it.' It's the voice that tells you watch what you eat and to look both ways before you cross or to stay off the phones in an electrical storm, and sometimes what that voice says is right and true. But you can listen to it too much, you know? It doesn't know when to shut up, and you can listen to it too much.
"And when it tells you to always play it safe, well, baby, that's the worst advice anybody ever gave."
"I don't see . . ."
"It means it's time you and I lived. Even if we get a little scratched up. It means you and I got to stop survivin' and start livin'!"
She smiled. "Do you mean it?"
He kissed her like they kissed back before they got married and the corners were sanded down. He meant it.
"Now, I'm taping this and I got a resignation letter to write. Tell me, where do you want to go tomorrow?"
"Paris?" she asked.
"Milan."
"Tokyo?’
"Antarctica."
"The moon?"
"The moon! The moon it is!"
And he kissed her again and then he was gone in a flurry, singing to himself. Man couldn't carry a tune, but Gloria loved to hear it. She stared at his wake wonderingly. Then she smiled. Hummed a little to herself. She went back to the kitchen and pulled the business card out from between two cookbooks. A friend had given her the card. Said, “When you're ready to wake him up, call them.” And never spoken of it again.
The card read: SPARKS, INC. Followed by a phone number.
Gloria called the number. After the usual number of rings, someone picked up the other end but did not speak.
"I just wanted to say thank you," Gloria said. "It was everything you said it would be. I'm including a little extra with the second payment. Thank you so much."
She hung up and started planning her--their--new life.
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