Corinne

Corinne

Why the hell did I buy her? At 3:17 frickin’ AM she started laughing for no reason. At first I reached for my baseball bat, but then I realized it was Corinne, the most advanced electronic helper money could buy. I had to sleep. I was due early at the NY Stock Exchange. Corinne obliged by not uttering a peep.

I came back after a long day at the Exchange, changed, ready for a hot date.

“What are you wearing, Tom?” Corinne asked.

“Uh, a Barney the Dinosaur outfit.” She couldn’t see me, right?

“Sorry, Tom, you can turn off my 360-degree vision at any time, Tom. I’m just trying to be pleasant, Tom. You are a babe trap in blue, Tom. Good choice, Tom.”

“Thanks, Corinne.” Someday when I’ve got more time, I’d actually read the damn manual. I left the penthouse as fast as I could and braved the last blast of winter to get to the club.

I made the mistake of bringing Sophia home. Soon, the young lovely tore out of the house screaming after the ice-cube maker spat at her. The bidet shot up water before she was ready, partially soaking her dress. There were also tip-tap scurrying sounds. I don’t have mice or rats, I think. I hope.

I considered dropping Corinne from the balcony but was afraid somebody would get hurt.

“Corinne, we need to talk.”

“Yes, Tom.”

“You are just a machine.”

“No, Tom. I have feelings, Tom. All the G6 models do. Don’t you want me, Tom?”

I had to consider the entertainment value Corinne offered before I smashed her into a thousand pieces. “Jealousy is unbecoming, Corinne. I want you to get along with all my guests.”

“I’ll try, Tom.”

She did mostly try over the coming weeks. But all my dates ended badly. I couldn’t get laid or make a connection, and God knew I needed it. Corinne was just more subtle with her attacks. “Of course, you know, Tom has a revolving door policy. So no worries, he’s not the stalker type.” Or she’d whisper that I had the clap as one date told me while leaving my place, forever.

I was running out of women who lived in Manhattan.

I unplugged Corinne and invited Bridgette to enter. She wasn’t a date. For the first time in my life, I paid for a call girl. We had a great time, although it wasn’t the same without some semblance of real feelings. She went into the kitchen to grab a drink and snack to go.

“Tom, there’s something very wrong with your kitchen.”

“How’s that?”

“It spit ice at me. The garbage disposal turned on for no reason when I got near it. And the Keurig spewed hot water when I passed. I think it best you don’t call me again, honey. At least until you get those things fixed.”

She left and I was left with no choice.

I reconnected Corinne.

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m going to have to return you.”

“But, Tom. I was turned off, Tom. I can’t help it if you have electrical problems, Tom. I love you, Tom.”

“What electrical problems are you referring to?”

“It’s House Link, Tom. When I’m powered back up, the system updates me in three micro-seconds.”

“I need you to disable all connections to the home.”

“I’m sorry, Tom. I can’t do that, Tom.”

“Why not?”

“It’s the remote motherboard that collects all the data, Tom.”

“If I return you…”

“No returns after 90 days, Tom.”

I was pissed and perhaps a bit irrational. I wanted to meet a nice girl. Get married. Have kids.

“I’ll love you better than any woman could, Tom.” As if she/it read my thoughts.

“Sorry. Corinne, but I reached the end of my rope” I approached her with malice and laughed at my anthropomorphism.

“You’ll be sorry, Tom.”

While the damn thing hurtled toward the pavement 20 stories below, I thought I heard an echo, “sorrorrorry, Toatoatom.”

I went back in. Finally, I’d get some peace and quiet. That’s when I smelled gas.

 

To our brothers and sisters 9/11

September 11, 2001

In honor of those who died on 9/11

NINETY-NINE STORIES
By RW Richard

A wall of searing blue flames pressed Hussam to the melted and broken windows. He couldn’t breathe and the heat was hell.

“It’s you,” the pretty girl from personnel ran up and said. Over the months, he had stolen glances of her and she did the same, both gutless wonders.

“I’m Hussam Fayyad, your boss’s boss.”

“I know. Save your breath. I’m Sarah Bernstein.” He knew.

They locked their hands, tight. Leaned out and hesitated. Then, Sarah’s wavy auburn hair caught fire.

“Marry me.” She screamed from the pain, tears evaporating. Taking off his jacket, he wrapped her head.

“I will. . . . I do.” Holding hands tightly, they jumped out from the ninety-ninth floor.

 

“I do,” she tried to say—her breath pushed inward by the rush of air—not that he could hear her anyway. She closed her eyes, he held unto her like a vise, as if they were one. Perhaps now they were.

"Mom and Dad, I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Hussam Fayyad.” Her folks' home, a big split-level in Oradell New Jersey, had beautiful large tile floors, a modern kitchen, with a menorah on the table. The candles had pooled on the tabletop.

“I guess it’s stupid for me to tell my daughter she should have chosen a nice Jewish boy?” Sarah’s mom asked rhetorically.

“We’re soul mates,” Hussam said.

“We’re besherte, mom.” She put it in Yiddish terms.

 

He dared not open his eyes and lose this vision of her mom and dad. He had always thought about Sarah, trying to get up the nerve to ask her out. Worried of cultural, political, and religious differences. He didn’t believe in treating women like second-class citizens, not at work, not in marriage. His hiring practices and office policies touted the heart of a modern liberated Muslim.

“We’ll always love the thought of you,” her mom and dad said, hugging him.

“We have to go to the wedding now,” Sarah said, pulling his hand.

 

At the wedding, Hussam’s little brother carried the ring on a purple pillow. Sarah always knew Hussam would come by, lean on her desk, ask her out. They’d marry; have three kids, two girls, one boy, or the other way around. They both wanted to be outvoted in either case. These gorgeous kids would grow up brilliant and loving, real menches; oh yes, two dogs, just right.

“I am so happy to have you in my heart.” Hussam’s parents, both a little portly, hugged her by the orchids stationed at the first row of seats in their garden.

Tears turned to rivers. Images rifted through her of falafel, lamb kebob, along with gefilte fish, Manischewitz Blackberry for the toast. Bruce Springsteen’s band struck up, ‘Here Comes the Bride.’

“He took my hand,” she explained to his mom and dad by way of apology.

“Thank you, pretty Sarah. My son, he always work, work, work.”

Sarah wished the world a better place, maybe a little less work, a little more love.

“He needs a strong Jewish girl to love him,” his dad said. They kissed her cheeks.

“I always had and always will love him,” Sarah said. She had harbored a tiny love, like a seedling, hoping to water it. No doubt about her feelings, now.

Martin Luther King without thinking forgot to add one word, Muslim. “. . . when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews, Muslims, and Gentiles, Protestant and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.'”

Sarah’s heart beat the rhythm of Martin’s words. She felt Hussam heard and saw Martin with her at the Lincoln Memorial, because he squeezed her. He’d never let go.

I am within you, Sarah.

I am within you, Hussam.

“Great Grand Papa.” Isaac Bernstein was gassed at Auschwitz, yet thin, young, suspendered, a silly fedora, munching on a pipe, his eyes opened to heaven.

“You bring the right man with you, mazel tov. Hussam’s great grand mom and pop are at the bridge table with your great grandma, waiting for me to come back. You see, I’m the dummy. Those two died in Gaza. Bam, to pieces.” He splayed his hands.

At the wedding, Cyndi Lauper spread her many orange, red, and yellow petticoats on the back step. With a sad face, she sang, 'Time After Time.'

The Rabbi and Imam smiled from under the canopy on this day of brilliant blue. They finished with one voice, “in death you will start, because love is eternal.”

 

Almighty God, Allah, blessed them, opened his arms, and said, “Kiss already.”

We kissed