If Rock and Roll Were a Machine by Terry Davis

the mild glow of windburn.
    There’s a softness in Darby’s appearance and a contrasting strength in her manner. And she’s real smart. Bert has heard her do surgery on the staff with her sarcasm, suchscorching commentaries having earned her the nickname Darb Vader. She doesn’t seem to need people to think she’s smart, though. She doesn’t seem to need people to think she’s anything, except editor of The David Thompson Explorer , and this strength is more alluring to Bert than muscle tone. Bert has suffered thoughts of Darby since the morning he first saw her in the journalism room and didn’t know her name.
    Bert would like Darby to know that Tanneran thinks he’s a good writer. He’s considering walking around the table and letting his essay slip out of his back pocket next to Darby’s grapes and cheese. When she returns from talking to the photographers, she might notice Tanneran’s handwriting and get curious. But this is too weasely a thing for even the weasely Bert Bowden.
    And it’s also too late, because Darby is crossing the floor right now. Bert lowers his eyes to the last half of his sandwich. His peripheral vision just includes Darby’s green grapes across the table. He keeps his eyes at this angle as he takes a bite of sandwich, the totality of his manner meant to illustrate the hypnotic appeal of peanut butter, honey, and his grandmother’s homemade bread. Bert chews and watches Darby’s grapes. Darby does not appear behind them. Bert feels a presence at his side.
    â€œBowden?” the voice says.
    Bert turns to face Darby’s boxer shorts. As he raises his eyes a viscous brown string descends from his sandwich to the chest of his white T-shirt where the word TRIUMPH is written in blue over a picture of an old Triumph twin. He tilts the sandwich and puts it back down on the table. He looks at the brown doodle on his shirt. He looks up at Darby, who is looking down at him.
    â€œNasty sandwich,” she says. She squinches her face. “That looks like something my baby sister . . . Never mind,” she says.
    With his finger Bert scrapes off what he can of the sticky stuff. Then he licks the finger.
    Darby squinches her face again. “Bowden,” she says, “Tanneran thinks you’re a good writer, and he’d like to see you do a feature for us. I had an idea that might interest you.”
    She steps around the table, grabs her chair with one hand and the paper towel her lunch is sitting on with the other, and slides both nearer Bert. She sits down and pops a grape into her mouth.
    â€œThere’s a French kid in my English class,” Darby says. “Among other things, he’s into motorcycles. He’s also on the football team. To be perfectly honest,” she says, “he’s a stud muffin.” She points a cheese stick at Bert’s shirt. “You’re into motorcycles, and I thought you might like to profile him for us.”
    â€œThat’s Camille Shepard,” Bert replies. “I work for his dad.” A voice in Bert’s head is telling him to be cool, not to present even the slightest suggestion that he needs this. “I could give it a try,” he says.
    Darby rises and waves the Asian kid over. “Bert Bowden,” she says, “this is Cheng Moua. He’s a member of theHmong ethnic group, and he’s the photographer you’ll work with. Read my lips,” she says. “Cheng Moua, not Eddie Hmongster.”
    As Bert rises to shake Cheng’s extended hand, Mark Schwartz, seated on the window ledge, chants, “Hmongster! Hmongster! Hmongster!”
    â€œShut up, Schwartz, you gonad,” Darby says.
    â€œHi, Bert,” Cheng says. “Call me Eddie if you want.”
    Before Bert can reply, Darby says, “Cheng is the only photographer we have who can shoot thirty-six exposures without thirty of them featuring Krista