Rodney, whatever is the opposite of philosophy? "My dear, the opposite of philosophy is terror." "Terror? You mean fear of death?" I asked. "I don't … - Andrea Lewis

I loved these compliments, which he lobbed at me like popcorn at a pigeon. I felt silly for craving his attention and powerful because he had noticed me. I bounced between those extremes, every other heartbeat, laying down hope one stratum at a time. The fact that he was all wrong––married, my boss, a flirt––gave me a perverse desire to make it right.

The damp packed earth beneath the magnolias was our playground, but even when I was small I watched the middle distance, as if my destiny might arise from the grooved line where the mangroves met the sky. Sometimes a pelican would appear out of the haze, six horizontal feet of pterodactyl in an effortless glissade, cruising just above the treetops, riding down the long, drawn-out minutes of the morning.

And so for the remaining two hours of the meeting, Mr. Delgado and I sat in the front and directed the discussion. Or rather he directed it and I pretended I had an equal voice. A pattern quickly emerged in which my words would be greeted by silence and chilly looks; then Mr. Delgado would rephrase what I had said, as if interpreting from female to male language, with the added weight of an American accent.