Chapter 1

She came at him in Waves.  As always, the feeling was at once suddenly surprising and comfortably familiar.  He knew that he was powerless to resist it.  So Alan Schwartz surrendered.  He sucked in the pungent, salty air.  He let the spray tickle his face.  He felt the rhythmic tides lap gently against his feet and then reluctantly recede, as his toes alternately became surrounded and abandoned by the swirling, muddy sand.

When Alan snapped out of his daydream, he was momentarily discombobulated.  He scanned the room for clues in order to re-orient himself.  Yep, he was still behind his desk in his office – the office of a busy, middle-aged, slightly disorganized (at least to the outside world; he knew exactly where everything was), somewhat absent-minded, self-employed litigator.  Active case files were strewn everywhere, reminding him of work yet to be done, patiently awaiting his undivided attention. 

Come to think of it, “office” wasn’t really the right word for this room.  Sure, Alan’s diplomas hung on the wall, including those advertising the academic honors he earned in law school.  His law licenses were displayed as well, of course.  But so, too, was his baseball memorabilia, including his two most prized possessions – the Sandy Koufax autographed baseball and the baseball signed by the 1969 Miracle Mets.  The room was really more like a den than an office.  Or like a teenage boy’s bedroom, with internet porn discreetly replacing the girlie magazines that used to be hidden under his bed. 

Describing the office as a den or bedroom made sense to Alan.  Because it was the one place in the world where he felt completely at home and comfortable, notwithstanding the chair.

Alan chuckled as he thought of the chair in which he was now awkwardly sitting.  He had accidentally set it on fire over the winter – while in it, no less – as it leaned against a nearby space heater.  The smell of burning leather had prompted him to turn around to find its arm ablaze, and he raced into the reception area screaming, “My chair’s on fire,” to the befuddled look of his secretary.  It’s a good thing Alan wasn’t living in his mother’s luxury senior citizen residence at the time.  Because, when she accidentally set her apartment on fire (apparently by throwing a lit cigarette into her waste paper basket, and don’t even ask why an 86 year old woman was smoking), they moved her to the dreaded fourth floor – the prison ward – a locked wing reserved for the old folks who are too far gone to care for themselves.

Alan was perfectly capable of caring for himself.  He even succeeded in getting the chair manufacturer to replace its charred seat/arm assembly.  In doing so, though, the “technicians” managed to break one of the chair’s mechanisms, so that his seat now sunk really low, so low that Alan had to reach up to type on his keyboard.  To make matters worse – or funnier, depending on your viewpoint – the chair also listed grotesquely to the left.     

It was from this skewed vantage point that Alan peered at his computer screen.  It obediently stared back at him.  Gone was the brief he had been drafting when the Wave hit, replaced by his the screensaver – his name floating randomly against a dark background.
           
Alan smiled at his own egocentrism as he watched his name meander aimlessly in front of him.  “Alan Schwartz. . .Alan Schwartz . . .Alan Schwartz.”  Not his best trait.  Still, this was an improvement over his previous screensaver – a humongous, full-color, close-up photo of his face.  At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor, or his uncanny ability to be self-effacing, insecure and conceited all at the same time.
           
Actually, conceited wasn’t the right word.  Alan just enjoyed showing off his  intellectual skills from time to time.  When that photo filled his computer screen, though, it sure looked like he had a swelled head.  But that’s not why he zapped it.  Rather, he deleted the photo only because his left eye always looked much smaller in photos than his right eye, as if he he’d suffered a stroke or injured it in some freak accident. 
           
Before returning to his brief, Alan dutifully followed what had become almost a religious ritual since the most recent wave of Waves had started a couple of years ago.  He opened his desk drawer, removed the group photo, whispered “I love you” and gently kissed her.  Returning the photo to its place, he recited the questions for the umpteenth time today, as if they were part of a Passover Seder:  Is it possible to yearn for someone you hardly even know?  If you love someone who has no idea how you feel, does your love even exist?  Does she know how I feel?  Could she feel the same way?
           
These last two always reminded Alan of junior high.  “She likes you,” your friend would say.  “Does she like me, or does she like me?,” you’d respond.  No one really knew, and you never found out.
           
There was one thing that Alan did know:  His four questions were rhetorical; he’d been asking them for years without ever getting an answer.  So, for the umpteenth time today, he sighed, shook his head and recited his mantra out loud: “Things seemed so much simpler when I was a kid.”  Then he tried hard to concentrate on the brief.  He had made a point of coming to the office early this Friday morning, just to work on it.  It was due Monday.  And, anyway, he needed to spend some billable time for a change.