LITMIR.BIZ

       Global Plastics

      Aimée shifted in her plastic seat in front of the stage across from N39. Four men were on stage, wiry mics hooked up to the table. Framing them, two banners spotted with logos, each bearing the title—in leaning blue lettering—Global Plastics.

      *

      “… to most accurately mimic the strength, resilience and flexibility of a human hand …”

      *

      Aimée shifted again. There was an odd sensation, as if right behind her shoulder. She turned discreetly around and glanced at the seated public in the rows behind her, suits and blazers, attentive to the lecture. Everyone’s eyes were on the speaker. She turned back to the stage and tried to listen.

      *

      “Yes, metal devices are durable, but they are frustrated by their limitations—”

      The speaker had a small head with white hair and pinkish lips at the center of his graying beard. His bright-red tie spotted with white dots stood out against his pale-blue shirt and his dark-blue suit-jacket. The name-card in front of him read: Docteur de Saint-Pé.

      *

      “… more supple, coated with polyurethane.”

      *

      Next to the doctor, the man in the black suit nodded dutifully, his brown hair thick and neat. On the other side of the doctor, a long-faced man with deep indents leading to his mouth pursed his lips like a question mark, his thin blond hair catching the overhead lighting. The last man at the end of the table in the asphalt-colored suit flared his nostrils as if punctuating the doctor’s speech.

      *

      “And, of course, injection molding technologies …”

      Aimée tried to concentrate on her father’s words, but she felt as if her seat was being budged. She glanced down at her hands holding her mobile phone on her lap, and gripped the device more firmly.

      “… this biofeedback is precisely what the amputee has to rely on in order to determine how much pressure to exert in any given movement … something metal devices don’t and can’t offer …”

      The doctor gestured to the brown-haired man on his left and smiled.

      “Like the V3 Remotion Knee in California …”

      Both men smiled at each other. The asphalt suit itched his nose.

      “These plastic sockets are based on vital primary anatomical principles.”

      *

      She was clutching her mobile phone, trying to force her eyes forward, but her head was drifting over her right shoulder again, resting on the man sitting beside her, with long earlobes, who was jotting something down on his notepad. Behind him, there was a woman, dry skin coated with layers of make-up, dark eyebrows colored in, her eyes loyal to the speaker. Aimée twisted her torso farther round in her plastic seat, sweeping over the faces of the sitting people, looking for the source of her agitation. But not a single person’s eyes were on her, everyone was looking straight ahead at the speaker.

      “… as with Touch Bionics,” the doctor continued.

      It was there though, the feeling. Behind the audience. A man had halted his step. Gray suit, eggish body, balding head with a thin pair of glasses on his nose. His head was facing the stage but his eye was directly on her. She met his stare and the two held each other’s gaze. The man lifted his left hand and began moving it toward his chest. Aimée watched his hand disappear between the jacket lapel and his button-down shirt. She felt her own blouse shift and wrinkle at the ribcage. Then she saw his hand reappear, first wrist-bone, then knuckles, and she exhaled as if he were pulling something out from inside her. He held a square sky-blue silk handkerchief and put it to his mouth to cough. He coughed several times, then crumpled up the handkerchief and began sliding it back into his jacket pocket. Aimée’s shoulders shriveled into her heart.

      Then the man was walking away, into the rows of stands, toward the internationals section.

      Aimée unwound herself to turn back toward the stage. She lowered her eyes to her lap, where her hands were still gripping the mobile phone, as if sensing it was about to ring between her two palms. She looked up again to the panel and saw a different stage altogether, an elevated theatre stage, deep in its black-painted floor, framed with a heavy curtain drawn open, lights crossed and fused over the body of a woman standing barefoot in a white satin nightie. In her shadow, a younger lookalike, white satin nightie, thighs, knees, spread toes.

      FEMME (facing audience, looking at horizon)

      I was young once.

      FILLE (facing audience, looking at public)

      I was old once.

      *

      Aimée was a miracle child, meaning her mother had had her when she was deemed past her prime, and it was the last mistake her parents had shared. Their other two children were already grown up and making their own lives when Aimée came into the emptied nest, and not two years in, her parents filed for divorce. Her mother moved to London in a sweeping gesture, underlining how many years her father had kept her from doing what she had wanted to do all along. Incidentally, she had a beau waiting for her there.

      Her older sister, Sylvie, followed suit, calling Paris a dwarfish

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