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Katherine’s watch read six o’ clock the moment it was crushed under the wheel of a white Ford truck. It was under this white truck where Katherine’s watch lay in its own mechanical rubble, nestled in the warm darkness of her brown leather purse. Katherine observed the parking structure as the white truck pulled forward to roll its tire off of her belongings.

The level of the parking structure on which she stood was completely empty. Katherine watched as large orange rectangles of sunlight moved like glaciers across the barren gray floor. She exhaled as a breeze wafted through the structure and cooled her sweat ridden back.

            Moments earlier, Katherine had heard her car alarm blaring as she was walking into the parking structure. She had just gotten off work. Embarrassed, she ran up the flight of stairs and to her car, not realizing she had dropped her brown purse in the middle of the empty concrete floor. It was this mistake that left her brown leather purse and its belongings crushed and slumped under the driver’s side of a white Ford truck.

            Katherine sighed and buried her forehead into her fingers as she stood by the white truck and stared down at her trampled purse; it’s weathered brown exterior graffitied with the black track marks of a tire. Katherine panted as her blouse stuck to her, its collar choking her with heat. Her feet burned in her black shoes as she ran her fingers across the new rip in her knee length navy blue skirt. Katherine stared into her reflection on the truck’s driver-side window, only to find a look of disappointment she knew all too well and her unraveled hair wrapping itself in an elaborate blonde web around her face. She was attempting to fix it as the window of the truck began to roll down, her reflection disappearing along with it. It revealed a man she had worked with for the last three years. A man, that not once in their three years of working together, had had a legitimate conversation with her.

            “S**t.” he blurted.

            Katherine coughed from exhaustion. “Yes.” she said. “S**t.”

            “Is that your purse I ran over?”

            “Yeah I think so.” Katherine knew so.

            “D****t.” he said as he opened the white door with a click. As the door swung open to reveal the rest of him, Katherine took a few steps back to allow him to pick up her purse. The tie she had always seen wound tightly around his neck and tucked into his sweater was now absent; replaced with a lose collar exposing an array of freckles she had never seen before. His face was kind and his bright red hair reflected off of the shiny white surface that was the top of his truck.

            “I’m really sorry, Kate.” he said as he handed her the brown carcass.

            “It’s Katherine.”

            He nodded without saying anything.

            “I’m Andrew.”

            She shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell.” It did ring a bell.

            “I did the Walmart print ad last week? You did the art direction on it.”

            “Oh. Yeah. Andrew.”

            Andrew and Katherine were both employed by Reister Advertising, one of the most well known ad agencies in Los Angeles. The building in which they worked could be seen for miles and boasted a parking structure that rivaled that of Disneyland and the Mall of America. Andrew was a copywriter, while Katherine was the head of the Creative Department. He’d come up with the ideas, present them, and send them to her drawing table for a draft. It was only during these brief passing of torches that Katherine and Andrew ever spoke. He had attempted to make conversation before, but never once did Katherine respond with much more than a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. As she recalled how clever his Walmart print ad from last week had been, she began to giggle.

            “What’s so funny?” said Andrew with a smile.

            She ceased. “Nothing. I just can’t believe you ran over my stuff.”

            Andrew weaned from his jovial nature and sunk his lips back into a solemn line of seriousness. Katherine began rummaging through her leather bag to see what damage had been done.

            “I am really sorry about that. I’ll pay you for the purse and whatever’s broken in it.”

            Katherine continued to rummage as if he hadn’t said anything.

            “So what’s the verdict?”

            “It’s just my watch that’s broken.” She lied.

            In fact a number of things in Katherine’s purse were broken. She only mentioned her watch because there was no way to replace it.

            “Yeah. Just this watch.”

            “Well how much was it? I’ll replace it.”

            “It’s not replaceable. It had sentimental value.” She said, as if he knew so before running it over.

            “Well then will you just let me take a look at it?” Andrew attempted to meet her harsh tone, “At least let me look at it.” failing as he said, “Please.”

            She gathered the silvery pieces of her once functional watch from the bottom of her purse and held them in her hand. As she examined the fragments of her watch, she noticed an engraving she hadn’t read in far too long. The watch read “To my Katie. Love, your mother.” Katherine shook her hand to turn the watch over and poured its remains into Andrew’s cupped palm.

Despite the scale of Reiter Advertising, most of the employees left between four and four thirty in the afternoon, especially on a Friday like this one. The few people that could change the word ‘most’ to ‘all’ included both Andrew and Katherine. It wasn’t uncommon for them to be the only two left on their floor, sitting silently at their work stations, her pen nailed into her desk and his fingers performing a symphony on his laptop. Katherine maintained her distance from him regardless of the behavior they both knowingly shared. Katherine could only guess his reasons for staying as late as she did. She had come to the conclusion that whatever reason it was, it wasn’t as good as hers.

            “I can’t fix this.”

            “I figured.”

            “But.” He lifted his head and smirked towards Katherine. “I know a guy who can.”

            “I know an entire company that can.”

            Andrew sighed through his nostrils in frustration. “But, Kate it’s-”

            “Katherine.”

            “But, Katherine it’s six on a Friday. You’d have to wait until Monday just to send it in.”

            Katherine held her arms under her chest and raised one hand to graze her throat with her fingers, “And?”

            “This guy can fix it right now.”

            “I don’t need it now.” She lied again. The truth was, the engraving on Katherine’s watch dusted and lit the candle she held for the relationship she once had with her mother; a flame that hadn’t been there for her to neglect in years. Katherine’s parents divorced when she was eleven as a result of her mother’s infidelity. Although her mother received full custody of Katherine after the divorce, Katherine never completely forgave her for what she did to the family she once treasured. There had always hung a dark cloud in their relationship and Katherine avoided it by dodging her mother until speaking became unusual.

            “You should need it now. It’s from your mom right?”

            “Now?” she said, swiping the glimmering pieces out of his hand and pouring them into one of the many pockets in her purse.

            “Well, yeah. Where are you headed to now? Are you busy?”

            Katherine was headed to the same place she was always headed to at six on a Friday: her apartment, where she did what she always did after six on a Friday: nothing. It was routine for her to unlock her apartment door and push it open to find her gray cat perched on the tile beside its empty food bowl, waiting patiently to see it filled. Katherine lived alone in her apartment with the exception of this cat; an apartment that doubled as a museum for Katherine’s work as the head of Creative. The walls were lined with images of handsome men and beautiful women holding various objects they were selling: lipstick, food, cars, each other, etc. She kept these on her wall because she envied the people she had created in her artwork. She wanted to feel the way she made them feel; to love the way she made them love; and to live the way she made them live. In the same way gyms displayed posters of weight lifters on their walls, Katherine displayed her advertisements. She hated her seemingly unbreakable routine and as a result disliked going home and stayed at work longer than she was obligated to.

            “I am busy actually.”

            “With what? A cat?”

            “What?!” The person inside of her shrieked as if she had been showering and the curtain had been pulled.

            “It’s definitely a cat. Isn’t it?”

            “So what? I still have to feed her.”

            “Let’s get this watch fixed right now.”

            “I really can’t.”

            “Yes you can.” They both paused. “Look, I know where this guy is and you don’t. I’ll give you a ride there and he can fix your watch. Plus it’s not really a place you’d want to go at night alone.”

            Katherine hadn’t been offered to go anywhere with anyone since she could remember. Now that her opportunity stood before her, she was tempted to indulge.

            “Who’s going to feed my cat?”

            “Don’t you have neighbors?”

            “I need money to pay the guy, and you for gas. And what about my car?”

            “He’ll do it for free, I won’t charge you for gas, and I’ll drop you off here.”

            Katherine stood biting her nail, rendered defenseless without her excuses.

            “Fine.” She submitted. “This better not be a trick to rape me or something.”

            Andrew laughed as they stepped into his white truck. Katherine did not, but desired to. With Katherine clasping tightly onto her brown bag in the passenger seat of Andrew’s white truck, they glided down the levels of the parking structure and onto the glowing orange streets outside.

 

            Ten minutes passed as they idled in traffic. The cabin of the truck was filled with thick, silent awkwardness as they watched a rainbow of cars meander around them. The inside of the cabin was a dark gray and dirtier than Katherine would have liked it. The cup holders were stamped with light brown rings and the dashboard seemed to keep warm with a quilt of dust. At Katherine’s feet were papers rolling back and forth on a small collection of empty plastic bottles.

            Katherine leaned forward and began shuffling them together before putting them in her lap and tapping them on the dashboard to straighten them into a neat pile. The top sheet revealed itself to her as she tapped. She could only recognize the Cedar-Sinai emblem in the upper left corner before Andrew pulled them from her fingers.

            “Thanks.” He continued to lean as he opened the glove-box and shoved the papers in. “Those are nothing. You don’t need to read them.”

            Andrew’s father was diagnosed with lung cancer roughly four years prior to Katherine’s watch breaking. The reasons for his late evenings at Reiter Advertising now lay crumpled in the darkness of Andrew’s glove compartment.

            The silence returned until Katherine spoke.

            “I forgot to ask you where this guy is.”

            “Venice.”

            “Venice Beach, Venice; or Venice, Italy, Venice?

            Andrew laughed under his breath. “Venice, Italy, Venice. I’m headed to the airport right now.” He laughed in a series of short puffs.

            Katherine’s rigid lips flexed into a smile as she laughed along with him. She quickly muffled her laughter with a cough and allowed the truck to sink back into silence. She looked out of the window and sighed, trying to find something new to talk about. The subject she found was small.

            “So how’d they like that Walmart ad?”

            “Why do you insist on being called Katherine?”

            She was shocked by the depth of Andrew’s question in comparison to her own. “What?”

            “Why, do you, insist on being called Katherine? Why not Kate, or Katie? Your mother calls you Katie, right? That’s what your watch said.”

            “Don’t start digging up problems I have with my mother. I hardly know you, we just work together.”

            “I didn’t.”

            Katherine was hushed by the realization that she had slipped from her nature and revealed more than she would have liked for the curious man that sat next to her.

            “Almost there, Kate.”

            She didn’t respond despite her desire to correct him. She adjusted her feet in an attempt to get comfortable again. She failed to do so as Andrew pointed and said, “We’re here.”

            Andrew pulled up to the curb and turned off his white truck before facing Katherine.

            “He’s a bit touchy so don’t be so rude.”

            “I’m not rude. You don’t even know me.”

            “Well.” said Andrew shrugging and stepping out of the truck. “Just don’t.”

            Katherine opened the door. She trotted around the front of the car quickly to catch up with Andrew on the sidewalk. Andrew stood at the meter dropping quarters in as Katherine peered up to a neon sign that was plastered onto the wall above the front door. It read “Tom’s” in hot pink and “Tiques” in bright blue. She flashed a smile to herself and looked out to the street. The road they had parked on was a light gray and was littered with veins of black asphalt filling in its ancient cracks; its numerous skid marks like gashes on a wounded soldier.

            “You got a quarter?”

            “Yeah I think so.” Katherine reached into her bag and pulled out three and dropped them into the meter.

            “I owe you.” said Andrew as he counted the small change in his hand and walked to the glass door of Tom’s Tiques. Katherine followed. A sign on the door read ‘closed’ in an ominous red.

            “Hm.” Katherine walked up to the door and peered in, using her hand to shield her eyes from the sunset. “Looks like they’re closed. I’ll just send it in on Monday.”

            “They don’t close,” corrected Andrew.

            Andrew walked up to knock on the glass window. Katherine watched her reflection wiggle like jello as he knocked.

            “Tommy! Open up!”

            A minute and three knocks later, a woman appeared through the darkness of the shop and unlocked the door.

            “Andy. What in the hell are you doin’ aroun’ here?” said the woman with a smile.

            “I need some fixin’, Ms.O’Donnell.”

            Katherine stood with a quiet smile, stunned by warmth she hadn’t seen in another person for a long time. Mrs. O’Donnell was a thin, boisterous old woman whose eyes had grown thin from smiling and being outside too much. She spoke with a charming southern twang in her voice that encouraged Katherine to disguise her cold urban demeanor.

            “A friend too, Andy?” Mrs. O’Donnell inquired.

            “Oh, yeah. This is Katherine.”

            “Kate.” said Katherine with a smile planted on her face.

            “Well Kates are always welcome here. Come on in. Thomas’s at the counter doin’ whatever he does.”

            As Andrew and Katherine walked into Tom’s Tiques, Ms. O’Donnell flicked the lights on. There in the small interior of Tom’s Tiques were castles of antique furniture; glazed mahogany chairs stacked to the ceilings and walls splattered with dusty silverware. The counter was in the back of the shop and behind it was a man sitting. The counter was mahogany like the chairs were but lacked the same luster from years of use. Ms. O’Donnell escaped into the back, leaving Andrew and Katherine with the sitting man. A bell speckled with rust sat on the counter beside an old newspaper. Andrew rang the bell and the man swiveled in his stool to face them.

A man of great age, Mr. O’Donnel’s skin seemed to resemble the street Andrew had parked his white truck on. In his hand he held a gold watch, its back torn apart and bare. From the pocket of his dark green pants flowed crumbs from a biscuit he routinely picked pieces off of and put into his mouth. He seemed like a man who knew very well what dirt tasted like and how heavy a gun felt in one’s hand. He looked up from his glasses and through his mangled eye brows at Andrew.

            “Son-of-a-b***h, Andy.”

            Andrew smiled. “How the hell are you, Tom O’Donn?”

            “Ah. Who cares?” They laughed and shook hands until Mr.O’Donnell turned his gaze onto Katherine and asked, “Who’s the girl, Big Guy?”

            “This is-”

            “Kate.” she interrupted.

            “Well, Kate. Andy. What the hell are you doin’ here?”

            “It’s her watch,” explained Andrew.

            He set the gold watch down and motioned for Kate to hand her silver pieces over. Mr. and Mrs. O’Donnell had been good friends of the family and knew Andy’s father and mother before Andy had ever existed. They had owned their antique shop since Andy could remember and, to Andy, they were capable of fixing anything as long as it was “smaller than a man and didn’t say a thing.” Thomas took a few moments to feel the parts in his hands to assess the damage.

            “Yeah I can fix it. I’ll need ten or so though.”

            “Great.” said Andrew. “How much do I owe you?”

            “Nothin’” Thomas looked up from his work and put a piece of biscuit in his mouth before asking, “How’s your old man?” Crumbs feel from his mouth and stuck to his pants as he spoke.

            “Good, Tommy. He’s gettin’ better.”

            “That stuff they’re doin’ workin’ for him?”

            Andrew nodded. Thomas nodded in return before returning to his work. After he swiveled away from Andrew and Katherine, Andrew grabbed the newspaper on the counter and they walked over to a couple of old chairs and took a seat to wait.

As they sat, Katherine tried to connect the few dots she had acquired about Andrew’s life. A few minutes passed as she gave up and asked, “What was Mr. O’Donnell talking about? The part about your father.”

            Andy crossed his legs and began reading the newspaper, “He’s got cancer.” He was silent and Kate was hesitant to find out more. A few minutes passed and he spoke again through the pages of the newspaper.

            “Everyone has s**t to deal with, Kate. It’s not just you.”

            Katherine was surprised to find that her harsh tone from earlier had been matched. She apologized and decided to keep her questions to herself. She realized Andrew had scabs and regretted picking at them. As she tried to guess what his father looked like, she thought about her mother, the mother she neglected for longer than she wished she had. The image of her mother lying on a death bed, her eyes red from exhaustion and her lips speckled with light orange vomit, flashed into Katherine’s mind. For a moment, Katherine felt fortunate for what she had; for the mother whose clock was ticking a bit slower than the clock of Andrew’s father. The feeling fleeted as the moment did and guilt pulled at her stomach. Andrew spoke as he adjusted in the antique chair.

            “Sorry.” He said. “I shouldn’t assume.”

            She felt bad for not having a mother or father with lung cancer; for not having as good a reason as him to hate the world. She wanted to compensate. Katherine crossed her legs to match his and cleared her throat. “My mother cheated on my father.”

He said nothing.

“I stopped talking to her because of it.”

Still nothing. Katherine’s eyes grew red as a lump in her throat did.

“I miss her, and I feel terrible for missing a person who could do that.” Katherine sat anxious to hear what he would say. The lump was unbearable.

“I don’t hate her for what she did but I want to. I should hate her for that and I can’t stand that I don’t.”

            Her eyes were damp and the lump in her throat had cleared. Through the gray pages of the newspaper Andrew asked, “Why are you telling me this?”

            “Skeletons for skeletons.”

            He folded the newspaper and set it on his knee before giving her his attention. “Feel better?”

            Katherine hesitated. “I do.”

            He paused before answering. “Good. Me too.”

            They sat in a silence that was unfamiliar to the two of them. They were comfortable. Several minutes past before Mr. O’Donnell dangled Katherine’s watch and rang the bell on the counter. Andrew and Katherine got up from their seats and made their way to the counter. Katherine slipped the watch onto her wrist and thanked Mr. and Mrs. O’Donnell before following Andrew out of the shop. It was nearly dark outside and the sun looked like an orange slug crawling on the horizon.

           

The drive back to the parking structure at Reiter Advertising was a quiet one. As Andrew pulled up to Katherine’s car, she waited in the passenger seat.

            “Thanks for taking me to get my watch fixed.” She said as she held it up to her face for him to see.

            He nodded. “Good luck with your mother.”

            She did the same. “And your father.”

            Katherine stepped out of the white truck with her brown purse and drove home to her cat and her museum.

           

            Katherine arrived home and opened the door to her apartment. Her cat was exactly where she imagined it to be. After feeding it she picked up the phone and dialed a number she hadn’t dialed in far too long: her mother’s number. She folded her arm under her elbow and listened to a succession of rings before hearing her mother ask her to leave a message at the ‘beep’. Katherine set the phone back on the receiver stood in her living room. She listened to the quiet chewing of her cat and looked at the work that covered her walls; at the people she had created for these products. She wondered what their lives were like beneath the smiles she had created for them; what creatures greeted them as they walked through their front doors in the evening. After a minute or two she looked down at the rip in her skirt and held it in her hand. Under her breath she said to herself, “Damn,” And disappeared into her bedroom, unzipping her skirt as she walked.