The Fish, the Tortoise, and Geraldine

Geraldine Geoffreys sat in a white room, wearing white clothes, and her hair covered in a white cap. The lighting was perfectly calibrated for optimum visuals. 

Geraldine’s job was to name new paint colours. Some people might think this an easy task, but she knew better. Names of colours were like names of people. They evoked an identity, a lifestyle, and a way to differentiate oneself from the crowd. 

Geraldine’s work partner was a young man named Marcos Alvadez. His job was to paint sheets of drywall with the sample colours, and mount them on rollers so they would become life sized paint chips. Then he’d bring them into the white room, smile at Geraldine, and remove the previous wall of paint from her gaze. His day started one hour earlier than hers, to give him time to have two or three walls ready before her arrival. On a good day, they could get through twenty new colours and names, together. 

Today, they were working on the light browns. She had to admit these were her least favourite colours, somehow representing how she felt about herself, a little too much. It was going to be a long day. 

She pressed a button on an intercom. 
“Alright Marcos, bring in the first panel.”

Moments later, Marcos appeared through a sliding door, pushing the panel toward her work station. He was young, with a cherubic face, and a smile full of warmth. He dressed in blue coveralls that were speckled with paint. His hair was short, and clung closely to his head in shiny black waves. 

Geraldine sighed as the light brown megalith came to rest before her. 

“This spot ok?” Marcos asked, then smiled at her. 
“Yes, thanks Marcos,” she replied. He always asked if the spot was ok, even though it was always the same spot where he parked the sample. Marcos retreated, while Geraldine puzzled over her assistant’s manner, and this colour. 

It came to her in a flash. “Graham Cracker Crumble”, she said out loud, then recorded it on her note pad, along with the numerical reference for the sample, which Marcos had written on the bottom right corner in large, black, ink numbers. 

She pressed the intercom again, and requested another sample. Moments later, Marcos arrived with a slightly lighter shade of brown. He parked it, after sliding the completed sample out of the way. 
“This spot ok?” He asked. 
“Yes, thank you Marcos,” Geraldine replied. He smiled at her, then retreated with the completed sample. 

Geraldine stared at this sample, letting her eyes become unfocused. She stared and stared, unblinking, for nearly two minutes. 
“Sandcastle Wishes”, she announced to herself. She recorded the name and number. All of the most popular shades were either named after food, or a place. Preferably an imaginary getaway to somewhere magical, or an indulgent, decadent treat. Knowing this bit of information made coming up with all these names a little easier. It was really about psychology, not colour. 

The day went on like this, with revolving samples of slightly different browns paraded through her office. At the end of the day, she and Marcos walked out of the building together. 

“Goodnight,” Marcos said, smiling at her. 
“Goodnight, Marcos,” she replied. Then she turned to walk home. He watched her until she turned the corner. 

Her usual route was under construction, so Geraldine found herself taking a detour down a little lane she’d never before travelled. Row houses in sooty cream coloured brick lined both sides of the street. Each yard, carved out with black, wrought iron fences. 

“Angel GiGi, I’ve been expecting you,” a woman’s voice floated toward her. Geraldine kept walking. 

“GiGi, please, I need to speak to you,” the voice called again. 

“Are you talking to me,” Geraldine squeaked, then looked around to find the source of the voice. It originated with a large woman. The voice was deeper than one would anticipate emerging from a female form. She was dressed in a green and blue muumuu, with a yellow scarf wound around her hair. She smoked a cigar, and lounged in a worn looking Muskoka chair. 

“Yes, Angel, please, come sit.” The woman gestured to another chair, this one with a fringed needlepoint cushion on the seat. 

Geraldine cautiously made her way up the walk. The garden spilled over into the path, like a wild walk in some fairytale wood. She climbed two cement stairs and found herself on the porch, face to face with the woman. It was impossible to tell if she was twenty or one hundred and twenty years old. Honeysuckle vines climbed all around them, and the occasional humming bird or butterfly floated in Geraldine’s peripheral vision. 

“Well now, here we are. I’ve been waiting to see you.” The woman smiled, reaching out to pat Geraldine’s hand. “It took you quite awhile to get here, GiGi.”

“I’m not sure who you think I am, but, my name is Geraldine. Geraldine Geofferys,” she replied, feeling shy, while trying to act unafraid. 

“Yes, it’s you, Geraldine. I got a message for a woman in white, with the name GiGi. Geraldine Geofferys. This is you. You are here, you’re all in white, and you’re name is right.” The woman puffed on her cigar. 

“If you say so,” Geraldine replied, not trying to hide her skepticism. “What is it you want to tell me? What is this mysterious message?”

The woman considered her for a moment. “Your hand, please,” she requested, placing her cigar in an ashtray on a nearby windowsill. Smoke swirled around them, seeming to create a curtain blocking out the outside world. The woman examined Geraldine’s palm. 

“You are lonely. You eat dinner alone each evening, and watch television all by yourself. You fear that no one will ever love you.” The woman traced the lines of Geraldine’s palm. 

“I’m not alone, I have a pet fish, named Sashimi,” she responded, a little stunned. 

“Sashimi sees how sad you are when you come home, he sent me a message,” the woman replied, pulling her hand away, and picking up her cigar once more. 

“My fish sent you a message?” Geraldine closed her fingers into her palm. 

“Indeed he did. I get messages from many animal friends. They are expert observers. You can trust this message because it comes from an animal friend who loves you. He is worried you are sad. And it’s important to know that you are not alone. You have a partner, you just have to let him into your world.” The woman spoke as though hearing that animals sent her text messages with their minds was somehow an everyday occurrence. 

“A partner,” Geraldine was perplexed. “I spend my time at home, with my fish, or at work, with the colour samples. Who could I possibly have as a partner? I don’t talk to anyone.”

“There is a man, a man with a paintbrush and a smile, he is your partner,” the woman gave a knowing nod. 

“Marcos? You must be joking. He’s at least ten years too young to even notice me,” Geraldine scoffed, incredulous, and embarrassed by the thought. 

“His tortoise told me,” the woman replied, in a matter of fact way. 

“Okay, sure. I think we are done here. Thank you ma'am for this revelatory information, but I’ve had enough of your honeysuckle, cigar smoke, and weird mystical porch.” Geraldine gathered herself, and hot stepped it back out to the sidewalk. When she looked back, the woman was gone. 

When she arrived home, Geraldine immediately went over to Sashimi’s tank. 
“Have you been sending secret messages with your mind to a woman who smokes cigars and lives a few blocks from here? One bubble for yes, two for no.” Her instructions could not have been clearer. Sashimi’s response was one bubble. Geraldine eyed him suspiciously. “I am not lonely,” she said, arguing with the fish. He swished his tail in response. She could have sworn he was saying, “ya right.”

“Even if I am lonely, it’s not your job to fix my life. I’m supposed to take care of you, not the other way around,” Geraldine said, her tone softening. She put a finger to the glass, and Sashimi came up to it, popping his lips against his side of the tank. 
“Okay, I’ll think about your message,” she said. Sashimi released one large bubble. Geraldine took that to mean he was shouting “yes!”
She picked up his food, depositing a couple flakes in the top of the water for him. He eagerly swam to the surface. 
“This all seems crazy, you know that, right?” She questioned her fish. He released another bubble, then went back to eating. 

The following morning, Geraldine arrived at work, feeling in a bit of a flap. Not only had she been informed she’d been working each day with the man who could one day be her husband, but she found out that animals really do communicate with humans. 

She tried to push off the scatterbrained feeling consuming her, and focus on her job. 

“Please bring in the next sample,” she spoke to Marcos through the intercom. He arrived with a panel that she immediately named, Blood Orange. “Hold on a moment, if you will, please, Marcos,” she requested while she scribbled down the information for the sample. 

“All finished?” Marcos asked. He looked at Geraldine with hopeful eyes, deep, dark, soulful eyes that Geraldine could now see, were looking straight into her heart. 

“Marcos, one moment, of you will,” Geraldine said, while gathering up the strands of courage which were presently strewn around inside her soul. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, do you have any pets?” She looked at him carefully, smiling in an awkward way. 

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he grinned at her. He left his post next to the sample then reached into his pocket. “Here is my pet tortoise, Eloise.” He held his smart phone out to her. She reached for the phone, and in the handoff, their fingers brushed, and for just a moment, every colour that had ever existed, passed through their cells. 

In their conversations in the following years, Eloise and Sashimi would congratulate one another on their excellent match making.