I am short of breath. Not surprising as the air quality is the stale, recycled airplane variety that infuses the brokerage firm in this downtown high rise I call home from 8 to 4.

Joe-Ann passes my cubicle on her way to photocopy a document no one wanted to read the first time. Likely something about compliance to securities' regulations so we can avoid a white collar jail sentence. I have to think the coffee would be better on the inside.

Joe-Ann, our designated hall monitor and keeper of all rules, will distribute the compliance material in our monthly meeting this afternoon. She will undoubtedly mispronounce the jargon those of us with more than a cursory glance at a career might be able to spell backwards. We forgive her the naïveté because we have to. She reviews our jobs and hands out raises. Or not, as the market dictates.

I get up and walk the gauntlet of cubicles to the ladies' washroom. Moving forces me to breathe deeper.
Our receptionist, Mavis, has re-coiled the hair on top of her head and reset her makeup. Currently she has her skirt hiked up to realign her nylons. She is back from mat leave and spends some time each day crying in the loo. Seems a husband and baby don't make you happy either.

Mavis smiles, lowers her skirt and marches back to reception to spread her false cheerfulness over the PA system. I envy her the ability to lie.

The mirror is sink-to-ceiling tall and wide enough for four people to gawk shoulder to shoulder. I am mid-forties, attractive, or so my mother tells me. The mirror shows me how one dimensional I am with no sharp edges, appendages or connections. I'm flat like the stupid Flat Stanley kids' book character that my friend Beatrix brought to New York last May for our girls' weekend.

Her son needed to write an essay on Flat Stanley's escapades. Stanley went everywhere with us – the Empire State Building, on the ferry to Staten Island, even to the precipice of the barricades keeping us out of the New York Stock Exchange.

I photographed Stanley in various states of peril or glee – his crayoned cut-out clinging to the side of a subway in Hell's Kitchen before sneaking into a taping of Saturday Night Live. Stanley ended up with lipstick on his crayoned-collar after too many martinis consumed by Beatrix in a Soho watering hole. By the time he returned home, Stanley was positively three dimensional with dirt and creases.

Beatrix and I were born three days apart in Toronto General Hospital. I remember nothing of our first meeting, likely as our mothers paced the halls waiting for a jail break, or not. Maybe they didn't want to go home. Maybe the hospital felt like a spa without the chirping bird and waterfall sounds.

Beatrix introduced herself to me in First Grade. She was chunky with glasses and I was skinny with the lank hair of an emaciated horse ready for my foray into dog food. Still, she shared her mother's peanut butter marshmallow squares with me. That was before peanuts were outlawed in schools and this type of camaraderie was quashed forevermore.

Beatrix lives in Toronto and I live in Calgary; time and cultural zones apart. Her husband, Bill, comes to town every month or so on business. He is a lawyer and he is in charge of their new western office. He takes me to dinner and we talk about Beatrix who is at home with their kids. We drink too much and reminisce about how Beatrix and I met Bill at the same time at a stupid Western University sorority party that I dragged her to. Then he pays the bill, which he calls the william, as I chortle and clutch his arm. We leave to drink more at my place since it's cheaper and we're both cheap.

Mavis' nasally sing song voice penetrates my washroom sanctuary. I have a call on hold. I need to call reception lest she send a search party in to find me staring at myself in the mirror feigning introspection.

My car is ready. I dropped it off for service this morning. My Hyundai Santa Fe is five years old and starting to need the little things that make you consider buying new, but you can't afford that either.

This time Danielle, the perky service technician's assistant, tells me it's a timing belt. Like without timing my life is all wrong. The best part is the timing belt isn't gone, but according to Hyundai after 80,000 kilometers could go at any moment. It's anyone's guess and they just want me to be safe.
I inquire how much timing costs. Danielle says it fast, as if I won't notice the three zeros lurking after the one. I authorize it. I can't be without my car. Should the belt break my engine could be shot. I'd be stuck at work, or worse on my way to or from; in limbo without even a cat to miss me.

The shuttle driver from Hyundai will meet me at 3:30 p.m. down in front of Holt Renfrew. I can check out the mannequins in sequined gowns balanced on embroidered surfboards. The state-of-the-art store opened at the peak of the recession. Their shortsighted wastefulness makes me hopeful that the froth might return to the stock markets justifying my raise, so I can buy the purple braided leather satchel draped over the arm of the overdressed surfer.

Every six months I take my car in for service. Every time I do, it's Mr. Shuttle Driver that drives me to and from. I don't know his name, but he told me he used to drive truck. He shakes his head and grunts at the irony, like can you believe nothing ever changes?

I put my phone on ‘do not disturb' and grab my purse. I ride the elevator down alone and emerge into the marble-floored, cathedral-ceilinged foyer that is cold and still. My lungs expand again as I step outside my building. The air is crisp in January, even if exhaust hangs on the air like stale breath.

A puffy younger woman waits in front of Holt Renfrew too. She's likely waiting for Mr. Shuttle Driver as no one loiters on the sidewalk. Everyone is going somewhere.

"Nice to get off work so early," she says to me as I stand a polite distance away.

"This is late for me on a Friday."

"Lucky you," she says. Huffs like she's run a flight of stairs.
That's what Beatrix always said. She thought I was lucky to be thin, single, and working instead of at home with kids.

Mr. Shuttle Driver pulls up in front of me. I crawl in the back and Joyce, as she announces, gets in the passenger's seat as if she'll navigate. Instead she talks the whole way back to the dealership. I tune her personal details out as I imagine Mr. Shuttle Driver does.

I don't share mine. I never sit up front. Beatrix would. She'd have shown him a picture of her kids already.

Joyce lets me go first as I seem to be in a hurry. Danielle has gone home and left Dexter in charge. He has a thick thatch of brown hair over blue eyes. Too bad he works in a car dealership because his smile is welcoming, nearly disarming.
Joyce struggles to put a car seat in the back of a courtesy car, as I locate mine in the second row. Her Elantra needs extensive work and must stay overnight. Dexter smiled at her too and she smiled back.

I look in my blurry rear view mirror. These tears could ruin my makeup. I can't breathe again no matter how close I stick my nose to the pine tree air freshener.

Beatrix called last night to say she has cancer. She needs me to meet her in New York again. She'll take me everywhere. We'll have such adventures. I won't be Flat Helen anymore, as I'll earn a third dimension with the words ‘adulterous bitch' she'll hold on her tongue but never say.

Beatrix told Bill to come and leave their kids with his Mom. It will be like the first time we all met; how she saw him first, but I had the last dance.