Diane Payne's most recent publications include Cutleaf Journal, Your Impossible Voice, Miracle Monacle, Hairstreak Butterfly, Table Feast Literary Magazine, Invisible City,  Miramichi Flash  Best of Microfiction 2022, Spry Literary Magazine, Persimmon, Another Chicago Magazine, Whale Road Review, Fourth River, Tiny Spoon, Bending Genres, Book of Matches, , Watershed Review, Superstition Review, Windmill Review, Lunch Ticket, Split Lip Review, The Offing, Elk, and McNeese Review.  More can be found here: dianepayne.wordpress.com

The Bill He Clutched in His Hands That I Never Paid

While at the Apple Store with the repair specialist, I engage in small talk with the friendly young dude, then blather about having always been an Apple fan, ever since that first used computer I bought long ago, until today, when I end up replacing my old dead laptop, which I was hoping they’d take mercy on me and replace for free because of my endless loyalty, but they could see they rebuilt it for free just a year ago, and a lot of good that repair job did me. 

I quit groveling and carry my new laptop to the phone specialist, deciding to replace the old phone before it also dies. The sales rep is eager to chat while we wait for the new phone transfer to finish. I tell this young man about long ago being at an Apple conference in California that was focused on using Apples for adaptive devices, and how I somehow squeezed into this VIP cocktail party and managed to meet Steve Jobs and smooth talk my way into getting a free computer for every one of my special education students. He smiles politely and appears impressed that I met Jobs, though he doesn’t seem to believe me. I assure him that this was long ago, before he was so amazing to the rest of the world still hovering over their Dells and IBMs while missing their old Atari’s. I do tell him I was a young special education teacher and I was out in the world, at least to California, on my first paid conference. I don’t tell him I was unaware hotel guests were not supposed to wear their swimsuits in the fancy elevators on their way to the hotel pool, nor that I was not supposed to invite a strange man on the elevator who insisted on seeing my feet, even though they were right there barefooted on the elevator after my swim, to my room, and this older man had a really powerful foot fetish, and eventually I needed my foot back and asked him to leave so I could buy dinner, where I then met a young man my age, and for unexplainable reasons, we shared a table, and then told the people at the nearby table that we were celebrating our first anniversary, and people clapped and bought us drinks, and we felt like superstars. When we left the fabulous restaurant, I generously paid for his meal since he said it was his birthday, and I figured it was on my work tab, so what the hell, and when he realized that I was staying at such an expensive hotel, he walked me there and convinced me to open up the mini fridge and drain those little bottles of booze one by one, until he said he had to go, implying I was getting the wrong idea because he was gay, and it was really his birthday and friends were waiting for him, which left me feeling less joyful, realizing the night was coming to an end.

The next week the school superintendent called me to his office and asked what the hell I spent all this money on, which was odd since the receipts basically showed an itemized account of my first adventurous conference, and I assured him I was pretty certain Steve Jobs would be sending my students brand new computers, and he rolled his eyes and said there was no way I talked with Steve Jobs, and I said there was no way I earned enough money to pay off those bills he was clutching in his hand so I left his office, hopped on my bicycle, and pedaled home feeling like a somewhat more savvy adult, not realizing decades later I’d still be trying to get a free computer.