Going to Ecuador

A short story
by Larri Ann Rosser

There was nothing Britne wanted more than to be part of her company's team in Ecuador, but she knew it wasn't going to happen. She simply wasn't senior enough. Britne did everything she could to distinguish herself from the other junior associates. Always on time, well-spoken, impeccably dressed—her hair, face, and body perfectly turned out but not in the least flagrant—she strove to be the absolute picture of an up-and-coming young advertising executive. Her efforts did help. For a second-year associate, she'd gotten some plum assignments, including face time with clients and a certain amount of creative control, but it wasn't enough to get her to Ecuador. Those assignments would go to the people whom management really trusted, people with proven track records or those owed for some extraordinary performance in the recent past.

Filing reports in her Manhattan office, Britne replayed the scenario in her mind, looking for some offering, some approach, some card she could play to be part of the team. The packed file drawer offered no immediate answer, but she kept the question open. Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest places.

Her thoughts returned to Ecuador in the company locker room, where she changed for her afternoon run. Ecuador, Ecuador, Ecuador. It seemed so important that she get there. Ecuador was a high-profile assignment, a national campaign with a new client. A start-up office would offer lots of freedom to be creative, to establish rapport with the locals, to really show what she could do.

As she examined the problem from every angle, her legs carried her to a part of the city she didn't usually see. Low brick building and iron filigree replaced towers of high-gloss blocks and glass, hand-painted signs edged out contemporary logos, and the trees grew large enough to make a canopy over the street. Britne stopped, winded, by a tree that chimed in the restless breeze, bottles on the end of its branches rubbing together like snapping fingers. She'd never been here before, never seen this narrow street, this tree of bottles, or this faded sign that spelled out Problems Solved, Futures Revealed.

Such kitsch, Britne thought, like an old, grade-B movie. Still, her hand sought the ornate brass doorknob. This wasn't superstition, she reassured herself. All the best brainstorming books suggest getting radical ideas from an unexpected source when you're stuck. This was the unexpected source, that's all.

The woman looked up as the door creaked open, her green eyes luminous in her dark face. "See your future?" she asked, her exotic accent a perfect match for the rasp of the door.

"I want you to tell me how to get to Ecuador." Britne placed a twenty from her pocket on the table. "There must be some secret I can find, some trick I can pull to get there."

The woman's mouth curled into a broad, slow smile. "Ah, yes," she said, pocketing the twenty. "You want to go to Ecuador. Of course you do."

"Of course I do," Britne echoed, ruffled. "It's a great opportunity to showcase my talents. I have more experience than most of the associates hired with me, because I worked as a graphics designer in college and externed at Levits. I could really get ahead if I just had a chance to show what I can do."

The woman nodded, earrings dangling, as she shook something in the palm of her hand and then dashed it on the tabletop.

Mesmerized by the patterns of small bones and ivory on the black silk runner, Britne continued, "I need to get to Ecuador. That's my big chance. But the competition is fierce, and I don't have anything to give me an edge-up. Can you give me some help, some advantage?"

"Yes." The woman drew out the little word like a song. "You want it so bad, you can have it. There are always ways."

Britne's heart flared with hope. Maybe this was her shot.

"But you'll have to learn to take off your skin."

"What?" Britne barked. "That's not advice, that's cartoon voodoo bullshit. Do I look that gullible to you?"

"If you looked gullible, I wouldn't tell you," the woman replied. "I say truth. But look. You too smart to drink a potion and sit here with me, so you take home this bag. Put it under your pillow, and as you go to sleep, think of taking off your skin. You see what happens."

So much for the brainstorming books. Snorting, Britne stuffed the bag into the pocket of her running shorts. Might as well get something for her twenty. As she ran back towards her familiar life, her body heat released scents from the bag's contents. On she ran, surrounded by a cloud of angelica and anise.

She did put the bag beneath her pillow as she prepared for bed that evening, but only because it smelled good. She lay in the thrumming city night, flashing lights painting patterns on her face, trying to make some sense of what the woman had said. Take off your skin—did that mean change her appearance? She already spent a ridiculous percentage of her salary on clothes and grooming. Her behavior? She scrupulously followed all the best advice for young executives, but she should check to see if there were new books recommended. Maybe she needed to approach the problem from a completely different direction, she thought as she dozed off.

An hour or so later, she woke from a dream in which the dark woman from the shop sang and scratched Britne's skin with hard, polished nails. Britne sat up abruptly and rose from the bed. Not until she was standing did she realize she'd left her skin behind. It lay crumpled on the bed like expensive silk pajamas, with her perfect hair attached.

Britne gasped and hugged herself in panic. Then, reassured that her arms worked and she didn't seem to be leaking, she crept to the mirror for a look. She was relieved to find that she didn't look like an anatomy drawing, all ropy muscles, blue veins, and red arteries. Instead, she looked like some creature from the jungles of her dreams. Without her skin, she was stockier and not quite as tall. Her surface was slightly mottled, rough and smooth at the same time like a snake, and she seemed to have grown a different kind of hair, wild and tightly curled. Her large eyes glowed. She moved like a panther, and she felt strong and free.

In this state, she decided to go and look for the secret that would get her to Ecuador. As she glided out into the street, she saw people tottering awkwardly around in their skins, hard shoes, and confining clothes that limited their movement, jewelry that trapped necks and wrists like shackles. From the corners of her eyes, she glimpsed a few different others sliding smoothly through the darkness, eyes glimmering as hers did. Outside her skin, Britne could see the city in a whole different way. The subways followed ravines full of sand and cactus, with a trickle of pure green water at the bottom. Wall Street hid a rain forest, verdant and fecund.

She had some trouble finding her company, which was now located in an evergreen wood. The halls were surfaced with loam, and small creatures scurried from her tread. She located the personnel manager's office and searched the files. The reports were bland and dry, leaving a taste in her mouth like dust. Locating her own evaluation, she hacked and growled deep in her throat as she examined the lifeless words.

After prowling through the needle-floored halls to her office, Britne turned on her computer, then hissed at the flashes and beeps it produced while booting up. She thought of pulling up some of her recent work, but for some reason she found the device offensive. It didn't smell alive, and something about it reminded her of cages and death.

A dawn chorus of birds reminded her that she'd better get back. She left the smoldering computer with a sniff, then wove gracefully back through the wild landscape to her apartment and crawled into her waiting skin.

When the alarm sounded, for a moment Britne couldn't move. She lay wide awake as the honk and blare of morning traffic washed over her, but her thoughts didn't connect to her body. The feeling passed quickly, and she set about her morning routine, thinking of the strange dream she'd had. The train dissatisfied her with its clanging and diesel smell, and the people in the streets moved like wind-up toy soldiers. Her office felt dull and scratchy, like sandpaper or burlap bags. She did her work with the usual efficiency, thinking all the while how important it was for her to get to Ecuador.

That night, it seemed she'd barely put her head on the pillow before she woke, exhilarated. Springing from her Egyptian cotton sheets, she left her skin tangled in the matching comforter and then lunged for the door. Joyously, she left her apartment, which now nestled in a cave behind a fern-covered pool, and headed downtown. It occurred to her that the answer might not be at her office, so instead she explored the city. She picked her way along the broad palm beaches of the island and slipped silently through the dense jungles behind the business district. She danced a staring, yowling curvet with one of her kind and tracked another relentlessly through a tax office blanketed with rocks and furze until the horizon began to pinken.

The next morning, she was impatient with her face cream, hair spray, and high heels. Work seemed rote and meaningless, offering no opportunity for the exercise of her strong muscles or for stealth. That evening, she told herself she had a cold, went to bed early, and found herself running through the luxurious green city by nightfall.

In the morning, when she returned to her skin, she stopped to inspect what she'd left behind. It seemed a pity, so much work put into softening the skin, coloring the hair, controlling the girth of such a useless instrument. It did her no good, but still, it was a master work of its kind. She felt bad leaving it crumpled there like refuse. She reached out and straightened it, molding it into the shape of a person and pulling the front closed.

Britne leapt back in surprise as her skin twitched and rose without her. It headed for the shower, where it creamed, exfoliated, and rinsed just as she'd done every morning since puberty. It briskly chose a tailored blue suit for today's meetings with individual clients—save the suit with the red lapels for presentations—added pantyhose and heels, fixed the hair, and headed for the subway.

Fascinated, Britne followed as her skin purchased a paper and turned straight to the business news. At the office it greeted the doorman distantly and her bosses' secretary with warmth. The skin went to her office, organized her folders, grabbed a coffee, and headed for the morning meeting. Britne trailed along, hidden by the tall pines that formed the hallway. Her skin took its place at the conference table, then listened intently to discussions that made Britne want to doze in the sun filtering through the trees. The skin's report was concise and brilliant, and the department heads glowed with approbation. Britne crept behind as her skin went to lunch with colleagues, completed a market research report, and made plans to meet a young man from Finance for drinks. Her skin ran flawlessly through her day, not once stopping to chafe about joining the Ecuador project.

At a club that evening, Britne watched from the branches of a huge banyan tree as her skin talked and flirted with the man from Finance, fending off overtures from a couple of other swains at the bar. The skin drank avidly from the small, smelly glasses that the bartender offered, and led her chosen one onto the dance floor to march and sway with the noise that made Britne bare her teeth. When her skin pulled the young man out to the concrete street and kissed him passionately, Britne nodded in satisfaction and turned away. Even with legs like hers, it was a long way to Ecuador.

Copyright 2007 by Larri Ann Rosser