Margot pushed open the door at the back of the lounge and stepped out into the alley.

Another show, another unappreciative audience, another few minutes of indifferent applause.

She sighed and walked through the darkness toward the street. Her worn purse hung loosely at her side, clashing wildly with the black sequined dress and high heels she was still wearing from the show. She kept a slow pace, in no hurry to get home.

There’s no business like show business, she thought, shaking her head.

She reached the street and stepped out onto the sidewalk, ready to face the pimps, the prostitutes, the beggars, and the drug dealers on the route home.

The street was amazingly quiet tonight; barely anyone was about, with only the occasional figure passing by on the other side of the street. The large grey buildings loomed above her, some of the windows boarded over, all of the buildings appearing to be completely ignored.

A man in a trench coat stood across the street; he stopped and stared at her. She kept walking.

“Hey!” she heard him shout. She ignored him and continued to walk.

“Behind you! There’s a guy!”

She glanced quickly over her shoulder, and saw another man approaching.

His hand was coming out of his pocket, the glint of cold steel following it. She turned around, raised one leg up into the air, and kicked him in the forehead with the heel of her shoe. He fell to the ground, a small mark dotting his forehead like the member of an Asian religion.

“You don’t mess with twelve years of ballet,” she said to the crumpled figure. Looking down at her shoe, she noticed the heel was cracked, and would likely fall off at any moment. “Damnit all to hell!” she swore, and took it off.

She heard footsteps and turned to see the man in the trench coat approaching her.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice soothing with sincerity.

Margot glanced down at the figure laying on the ground. “Yeah, I’m fine, but there goes my favorite pair of shoes.” She looked away from the unconscious figure and smiled politely. “Thanks for warning me.”

He chuckled. “Well, my dear, you certainly know how to take care of yourself.”

He tucked his hands in his pockets, looking almost as out of place in this neighborhood as she did. His grey trench coat showed hardly any wear, with a hint of a three-piece suit revealed at the collar. His dark hair, slicked back, reminded her of the forties and Clark Gable.

“Do you think you’ll be okay?” he asked, smiling at her.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” She held up her damaged shoe. “It’ll just be an uncomfortable walk home, that’s all.” She stuffed the shoe into her purse, shrugged, and took off the other one. “Uh…thanks again,” she said.

“Hey, I’d hate to see harm fall upon a lady as lovely as yourself.”

She laughed. “You’re a real charmer, aren’t you?” Shaking her head, she added, “I’d love to buy you a cup of coffee or something, but I’m beat. I had one hell of a night.”

“That’s okay,” he said. As he smiled, the light from the streetlamp above cast a shadow across his face. “You just be careful on your way home.”

“Will do, Boss,” she said, and watched as he crossed the street and continued on his way without once looking back.

Once he had disappeared into the night, she started walking, the cracked pavement snagging little runs in her nylons. She briefly considered calling a taxi, but after she had paid the accompanist, she had less than fifteen dollars to her name. She continued to walk the seven blocks home.

It was after two when she finally closed the door to her apartment and slid the three locks into place. Opening her purse, she took out the shoes, and tossed them into the bottom of the closet. A fog of weariness guided her movements as she grabbed a glass of water, went to her cassette player, and put on Ella Fitzgerald. A long sigh of relief escaped her lips as she stretched out on the couch, careful to avoid the third cushion where a spring tended to poke through.

As the soft horns played in the background, she thought about the Cobalt, the small lounge where she was currently performing. It was no way to achieve success. She made almost nothing there, barely enough to pay her rent, let alone eat, and she’d never make enough to record an album.

She closed her eyes, imagining her dream, picturing a concert hall filled with fans; it was a dream she had had since a child, and one in which she was quickly losing faith. Still in her dress and her torn nylons, she quietly drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Maxie’s Cafe still had class, much like a beautiful woman who aged gracefully. Once the site of a notorious speakeasy, the diner had been renovated in the sixties to add vinyl seats and a formica counter. Margot sat down on one of the stools and reached across the counter, now dull and worn from too many scrubbings, to snag a bran muffin from the tray.

“‘Morning, Mary,” she said to the waitress, who was drying coffee cups at the sink.

“Hi, Margot. Good show last night?” The elderly woman dried each cup with efficient movements and stacked them with an ease that revealed years of experience.

Margaret chuckled. “The usual, Mary.” She took a bite of the muffin and swallowed. “I’m never gonna get ahead.”

Mary came over and leaned on the countertop. “Dear, all artists struggle. Hang in there. With your talent, you could blow anybody out of the water.”

She turned and grabbed a container of apple juice from the cooler. “Here.” She set it down in front of Margot. “Y’know, if people didn’t stick to their dreams, there wouldn’t be a single successful person in the world.”

“Well this dreamer almost got stuck with a knife.” Margot opened her apple juice and took a sip. “I got attacked last night on the way home.”

Mary placed a hand over her heart. “Dear Lord, what happened?”

Margot shrugged, and told her about the warning she had received from the man across the street, and the kick she had planted in her assailant’s forehead.

Mary shook her head.

“Jeez, Margot, you gotta try and get in somewhere else!”

Margot gave her a wry smile. “Who’s going to hire a hold-out from the thirties?” she asked, and then stared down at the bran muffin in front of her. “I’m considering giving it all up.”

Mary sighed. “I’m not a psychologist, Margot, you gotta know that. But let me tell you one thing. And this comes from years of experience. If you don’t stick with what you like doing, you’ll never be happy with your life.”

Margot considered the statement for a moment. “But I’m not so sure if I’m happy now.”

“Dearie,” Mary said, reaching across the counter and taking Margot’s hand, “Let me tell you one thing. If you don’t follow your heart, your dreams won’t follow you.”

Margot smiled. “Sounds mildly profound.”

“It’s a line from a song I heard about a hundred years ago,” Mary said, her grin creasing the wrinkles in her cheeks. “I don’t remember the song, but those words have stuck with me since the first time I heard them.”

Margot broke off a piece of the muffin and stuffed it in her mouth. “What was your dream, Mary?”

The old woman smiled. “Certainly not owning this place, let me tell you,” she said, walking towards the back room. “But I’ll show you.”

She emerged a few minutes later carrying a small teddy bear and set it down in front of Margot. Margot picked it up and examined it.

“I make them,” Mary said, brushing her finger over the bear’s ear. “I’ve been making them for almost thirty years now.”

“It’s beautiful,” Margot said, studying it closely. The seams were almost invisible.

“I used to sell them at flea markets and such. I haven’t been pushing them too hard lately. But I still make them. It’s what I like doing.”

“That’s wonderful, Mary,” Margot said, running her finger along a seam of careful stitching.

“Listen, if you’ll make me a promise, that you won’t give up singing, I’ll let you have that bear. It’s the first one I ever made.”

Margot looked up at her. “Mary, I couldn’t! I couldn’t take anything from you, especially your first bear!”

“I’m not taking it back, and you’re not quitting singing,” the older lady said with finality. “And remember what I said. If you don’t follow your heart, your dreams won’t follow you. Now get outta here.”

Margot smiled, held the bear to her chest, and laid a five dollar bill on the counter. “Put that on my tab, Mary.” She walked out the door before the woman could say anything else.

* * *

Margot turned the faded brass knob, pushing the door to her manager’s office open enough to poke her head in.

Stan was at his desk, the phone to his ear, his grey hair disheveled and his glasses slipping off of his nose. His gaze met hers. He nodded and she entered.

He muttered a few final words into the telephone and set it back in its cradle. “So, Doll, how are things?” He pushed up his glasses and leaned back in his chair.

She sighed and sat in the old wooden chair in front of his desk.

“As thrilling as usual. Cobalt three nights a week. Anything come in?”

He moved some papers around on his desk. “Yeah, somebody called. They want you for Carnegie Hall, but I lost the number. Besides, it’ll conflict with the Cobalt.”

Margot shifted in the chair. It creaked beneath her. “I know you’re trying, Stan,” she said, trying to ignore the sting of his sarcasm.

“Seriously, though, some Ladies’ group is looking for someone like you to do some event they’re planning. Willing to pay about five hundred.”

Margot’s eyes widened. “Five hundred?”

Stan nodded, his glasses slipping further down his nose. “I sent them a tape. I’ll know by Friday.”

Margot pursed her lips. “That would be incredible. Dare I hope?”

Stan shrugged. “You’ve got a good chance. You’re talented, young, you’ve got the figure…”

“A figure shouldn’t matter with a Ladies’ group.”

“You never know.”

She let her purse slide to the floor. “Stan, I ve been thinking of giving it up.”

He let out a large sigh and sat back in his chair. Margot didn’t speak.

“You’ve only been at this for two years,” he said finally. “That’s nothing …you’re what? Twenty-nine?”

“Twenty-seven. I won’t be twenty-nine for two more years.”

“And every year after that. Listen, you’ve got talent. Nobody does the stuff you do like you do it.”

“Nobody does the stuff I do, period,” she said.

He shook his head. “Hon, the old stuff is making a comeback. The so-called Standards are dear in the hearts of millions. We just have to wait for it to click.”

She looked down at the floor. “What if it doesn’t?”

“And what if it does?”

Margot swept her hair back. “I’m losing faith in myself, Stan.”

“It’s happened to everyone who’s ever come into my office. You just have to stick with it. You’ll pull through.”

He picked up one of the pieces of paper from the desk. “Besides – I have more news.”

She took the paper from his outstretched hand. On it was written an address and a phone number.

“A guy who owes me a favor,” Stan explained. “He just started up a recording studio. It’s small, but pretty high-tech. Anyway…”

She waited, but his voice had trailed off. One of Stan s games. She had to prompt him to deliver the big news.

“Anyway…?”

“He’s going to record your demo.”

She felt a tingle of excitement start at the back of her neck, but as it crawled down her spine it became fear.

“But Stan! I can’t afford this!”

“I told you he owed me a favor. This one’s free. He’s in on the deal if it gets signed.”

She stared at him, terrified and thrilled all at once. “And I don’t have a band…”

He motioned to a filing cabinet in the corner of the room. “You think I can’t have one in three minutes?”

“And material. What would I record?”

He shrugged. “That’s up to you. It’s your baby. Just get me something I can sell,” he said flippantly. “Use your imagination. Follow your heart.”

His words cut through her panic. “What did you say?”

“I said get me something I can sell.”

* * *

Excitement rushed through her veins as she exited the building. The slip of paper was in her purse, nestled beside the teddy bear. Traffic flowed noisily along the street, but she saw only the sunshine. Crossing the street, she walked slowly down the sidewalk, considering her conversation with Stan. Maybe she had been too quick to consider quitting. . . .

A hand grabbed her shoulder and yanked her to the side as a courier on a bicycle sped through the spot where she had stood. She turned, astonished, and looked up at the same man who had rescued her the night before.

He was as shocked to see her as she was him.

“You again,” he said with a quizzical expression.

It took Margot a few minutes to catch her breath. “I’m afraid I might quickly become indebted to you,” she said with a nervous laugh.

“Hm, he said distantly, looking down the street. Then he turned back to her. “I’m sorry. What was that, my dear?”

She shook her head. “Nothing, I was just babbling.”

He released her arm. “Well. Now that you seem to be okay,” he began, “I–”

“I am most definitely going to buy you coffee,” she insisted, taking his hand and pulling him down the sidewalk. She dropped his hand when he followed of his own will.

“I can’t imagine it will do any harm,” he said.

Margot held the door of Maxie’s open for him and waited for him to enter. They walked to the counter and sat down just as Mary came in from the back.

“Mary,” Margot said, “This is the gentleman who rescued me last night.”

He modestly looked away. “I would hardly call that a rescue.”

“And,” she continued, “saved me from certain injury in the street just now. Which at the very least deserves a cup of your coffee, Mary. And no arguments…um…” she paused, realizing that she hadn’t asked him his name.

“Call me Les,” he said with a smile. “And coffee would be fine.”

“I’m Margot.” Mary poured two cups before disappearing into the back.

Margot reached for the sugar. “I d like to thank you again for last night,” she said.

He smiled and sipped his coffee. “It really was my pleasure. Although weren’t you a tad overdressed for that neighborhood?”

Margot offered him a bran muffin, which he declined. “I had just gotten off work.”

He raised his eyebrows in a way that made her laugh.

“Not that kind of work! I’m a singer. I was performing at the Cobalt.”

“Really? I was there, once, years ago…”

She waited for him to continue, but he returned to his coffee.

“I’ve been considering quitting,” she said to break the silence. “There’s really not much demand for my style of music.”

“Which is?”

“Old standards. Big Band stuff. Torch songs. Anything before 1950.”

He smiled. “How interesting.”

“Interesting, perhaps, but in demand, no. ”

He set down his cup. “Well, when one has a dream, one must pursue it. Follow your heart, so to speak.”

Margot’s eyes narrowed. “What was that? Follow your heart?”

He smiled and shrugged. “An old expression.”

“It’s the third time today someone has used it.”

His shoulders seemed to stiffen for a moment but then relaxed.

“Really?”

She nodded. “First Mary, then Stan, my manager. Mary said it was a line from a song she heard years ago.”

He put the cup to his lips and quickly drained it. “Thank you, Margot, for the coffee,” he said. “It has been an absolute pleasure. I really must be going. Perhaps we shall meet again.”

Hearing the bell on the door, Mary emerged from the back once again.

“Your friend left?”

Margot nodded slowly. “In a real hurry, too.”

Mary smiled. “He seems nice. Your age, clean cut, well-spoken…”

Margot was still nodding. “It’s just…”

“What?”

“He left so quickly. He used your words – that ‘follow your heart’ line.”

Mary shrugged. “So?”

“It’s strange. Stan used those same words in his office.”

Mary leaned on the counter and rested her head in her chin as she waited for Margot to collect her thoughts.

“It bothers me how comfortable I felt around him,” Margot mused.

* * *

Margot had managed to push all thoughts of Les from her mind as she flipped through the albums in the used record store. Plumes of dust rose as she flipped the records in the racks; the 78 RPM section did not seem to get much browsing.

She glanced at the song titles as she flipped through them, looking for something that might trigger her imagination. She smiled as she came across an old Bing Crosby recording of Who Threw The Overalls In Mistress Murphy’s Chowder? A great song, but not one she was about to put on her demo.

There was a bundle of perhaps a dozen records bound with string. The price attached said four dollars. The top one was an old Louis Armstrong, so Margot decided to splurge. Who cared what else was in there?

She went home and began to lay out her things for that night’s show. But the records stayed on her mind, so she snipped the cord and put Louis aside.

The label on the second album was unreadable. Curious, she carried it to the record player and placed it on the turntable. Horns blared lightly as it began playing, and she recognized the beginning strains of Melancholy Baby.

The man singing it had a rich, melodious voice, but she had never heard him before. The arrangement made the song sound hopeful instead of sorrowful. It made her smile as she got dressed for work. She was still humming the melody when the next song started.

The pensive piano notes caught her attention immediately, but she didn’t recognize the tune. The same voice began singing as she started to apply her lipstick.

She froze when she heard the chorus.

When a passion holds you

In the fashion that it’s known to

All you have to do

Is follow your heart

And your dreams will follow you.

Shaken, she turned off the turntable, finished applying her makeup, and walked out the door.

* * *

Margot didn’t sleep that night. She spent hours carefully transcribing the song, until she had both the vocals and piano accompaniment on paper.

At seven o’clock she grabbed the cassette copy she had made, slipped the record into a large bag, and headed to the diner.

A few customers were eating breakfast when Margot walked in. Mary looked surprised to see her.

“You’re up awfully early,” she said.

Margot smiled and shook her head.. “No, I’m up awfully late.” She handed the cassette to Mary. “Play this.”

Mary turned to the cassette player behind the counter. Turning off the radio, she slid the cassette in and hit the play button. The music started to play.

Mary’s eyes lit as she recognized it despite the scratchy sound. “My lord, you’ve found it!”

Margot nodded excitedly and set the bag on the counter. “I found it completely by accident. I didn’t even know what it was when I bought it. And, after yesterday, I think it’s the perfect song for the demo.”

“Demo?”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” she said, and told Mary of Stan’s offer.

After congratulating and hugging her, Mary said, “It’s a beautiful song.”

“We’re going to have to worry about rights and credits though,” Margot said, handing the album to her. “But I can’t tell who recorded it or wrote it. Do you remember?”

Mary shook her head as she held up the album and looked at it. “We might be able to find out, though. You’d be surprised at what Bon Ami can do.”

* * *

Stan said much the same thing as he squinted at the small print on the record. “It’s a perfect song. Shouldn’t be hard to find authorship. We’ve got a manufacturer.”

Margot pointed at the label. “And a last name. Price.”

Stan set the album down on his desk. “Let’s go with it then. I’ll get somebody to look this up. You may as well go ahead and get everything ready for the cut.”

Margot couldn’t stop the smile spread across her face.

Oh, continued Stan. “About the ladies thing?” He positioned his glasses. “You got it.”

* * *

For the first time in her history of appearing in the lounge, the applause seemed genuine.

Margot lingered behind after the performance, sitting at the piano, looking at her roughly transcribed notes as the porter ran a broom across the abandoned dance floor.

The accompanist had done a brilliant job with the piece, and the room had stood still as she sang it. The energy of the thunderous applause still exhilarated her, making her reluctant to leave the glory behind.

The bartender walked over to the piano and handed her a manila envelope. “I forgot. Your manager sent this over,” he said, and went back to the bar.

She set the envelope in her lap and tapped the beginning of the song out on the piano keys. Hearing footsteps, she turned, expecting the bartender once again. Instead she was stunned to see that it was Les.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” he said, leaning against the piano.

“No,” Margot said, “The lounge is closed. But it’s okay.”

He shook his head slowly. “That’s not what I meant. This didn’t make any sense until tonight.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“The assignments I get are usually pretty basic, and never the same person twice. Now it all makes sense.”

She stared at him, still confused.

He motioned to the envelope. “You may as well look inside.”

There were two sheets in the envelope. One was a note from Stan, the other a photocopied photograph. She read the note.

“Found the guy. Lister Price.
Sad story – recorded one album.
Woulda been big but died in a car accident
the night the album was released.
We’ve secured the rights.
–Stan.”

She glanced at the photograph. Although it was grainy, she recognized the dark-haired man immediately. Standing up, she looked at Les, fighting back tears. He gave her a sad smile.

She went to embrace him, closing her eyes as she moved to kiss him, but her lips met only air.

###

Copyright © 2000-2008 David L. Hebert
All Rights Reserved

David L. Hebert is a Canadian practicing lawyer. In addition, his work as an author and editor has included contributing to Macmillan Teach Yourself Grammar and Style in 24 Hours and The Unofficial Guide to Online Genealogy. He is the author of The Everything Learning French Book. You can learn more about him by visiting his personal Web site.

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“Young lady!” The voice was soft but penetrating. Automatically I put my hand on my jeans pocket, which contained my money and my keys. A year earlier in this very store, my purse had been stolen, and it had been hell to replace I.D. and credit cards. Now I was wary of my fellow-shoppers. Here, at the front of the store, near these shelves laden with dishes, cutlery and trinkets, it was easier to move about safely than in the narrowly spaced rows of clothing.

That day I didn’t need any wearing apparel — didn’t need anything, except to get out of the house.

“Young lady!”

Weariness swept over me at the sound. Insomnia, and now this? Joan-of-Arc voices to add to my list of symptoms? Had my psyche finally fractured?

No, it was from outside myself. No one had ever addressed me as “young lady,” not even my mother, God rest her soul. My former boss, who was the reason why I was wandering a nearly-new store on a weekday afternoon, had treated me like a doddering crone on the verge of senility, though I was a mere forty-nine to her forty-two years. She’d had a peremptory voice not unlike the one I’d just heard, but wouldn’t have called me “young.”

I heard it again. “Let me out!” it demanded. Out of what? I looked around. The change rooms were far off to my right, the washrooms yards away to my left. There were no footlockers, no suitcases on display. Had I crossed a line? In Shirley Valentine, the husband said to the wife: “You’ve looped the freaking loop.” There was nothing big enough to conceal a person, not even a child. That china sugar bowl with a lid could have held the Dormouse from Alice in Wonderland.  The Avon bud vase with a stopper could have concealed a genie, I suppose, but the latter had transparent sides, and contained nothing. There were no teapots, no bread boxes. Wait. What was this? A spice cupboard, like a piece of doll’s furniture, painted blue, with pink flowers around the tiny doors, and below, a shelf of the proper height for a bottle of sage or cinnamon.

“Psst!” The whisper was compelling. I reached out and opened a tiny door. Empty. I tried the other. It wouldn’t budge. “Help! I’m imprisoned. Get me out of here.”

No “please.” My troubled soul had generated a demanding voice. Was it a classic symptom of schizophrenia? I didn’t know. I was no psychiatrist, only a lab technician who’d had ambitions for a career in science until Jerusha Burnside had shriveled them.

“Who are you?” I whispered, thinking back to my Sunday School days and the Bible heroes who had heard messages from Beyond.

“I’m Mrs. Daisy Vetch,” the voice replied, “and my daughter-in-law is a witch.”

Pretending to examine some gas-station china, I inched closer to the spice cupboard. “Did she cast a spell on you?”

“That’s right. I knew from the moment my Fred married her that he had made a big mistake.” Peevishly, Mrs. Vetch began her story. She had been visiting at her son’s home, as she did four days a week, because her daughter-in-law Joanie was overwhelmed by the twins, and had completely abandoned any pretence of housekeeping. Their sweet little bungalow was a dust-heap littered with diapers. Sometimes, when the children got whiny, their shrill voices cut through her head like a knife, but even so, she always made it a point to go and visit according to schedule, because her son Fred had grown up in a nice home and she owed it to him to give his wife a few pointers.

I was hypnotized. Other people’s domestic situations intrigued me, especially since I’d lost my job. My husband had been wonderful and consoling when I came home sobbing one day and announced that I could no longer tolerate Jerusha, the boss from hell. Jerusha was notorious in the Institute, though I hadn’t known that before coming to work for her, and hadn’t had a choice of group leaders anyway. When a project got underway, she would then change the rules. Frequently she took data from her underlings and presented it as her own. In front of other members of the group she berated me for my alleged stupidity. Was it for this that I had slaved over a lab bench to get my Ph.D. in Chemistry? My family doctor said no; that I should take time off. My husband urged me to quit outright. Disability insurance seemed a better option, however, because we were still paying support to the children of my husband’s first marriage.

It sounded as if Mrs. Daisy Vetch’s domestic situation was more fraught than mine. I listened.

On the fateful day, she had offered to show Joanie how to make a spaghetti sauce. “Would you believe,” she whispered, through the crack in the spice box,” That she had been using sauce from cans?”

I could; that was what I used.

“Instead of paying attention,” Mrs. Vetch continued, “Joanie was unloading the dishwasher. She started to ask me for measurements — how many teaspoons of this, how many tablespoons of that, and of course I couldn’t tell her, because like all good cooks I trust my instincts and go by taste.”

Joanie then accused her mother-in-law of not wanting her to be able to recreate this culinary specialty. The twins, feeling the tension, started to scream. Suddenly, Joanie raised her hands, pointed her index fingers at them and said, “Shush!” To Mrs.Vetch’s surprise, they quit rocking their playpen and sat down quietly and reached for their toys.

Mrs.Vetch’s knees turned to jelly. She blanched and faced her daughter-in-law with an accusing stare. “You are a witch,” she gasped.

Mrs. Vetch already knew that her daughter-in-law dabbled in the occult; she had crystals hanging from the ceiling, and had bought books on the mystic nature of trees, on Reiki, and on other New Age subjects.

The younger woman laughed in her face and said that if she were a witch, she would know the quantities of ingredients for the spaghetti sauce without having to ask.

“If I were a witch,” she said, “I would have rid myself of you long ago, you meddlesome old biddy.” Then, according to Mrs.Vetch, a wicked smile came over her face and she said, “Of course, I’ve never tried.”

Smiling, she held out her arm and pointed her finger at Mrs. Vetch, and the old woman felt her blood coursing through her body. Next thing she knew, she had shrunk to the size of a Fisher Price doll. Then Joanie’s large hand, with its talon-like fingernails and mysterious silver rings, reached down, picked her up, and placed her in the spice cupboard. “And here I’ve been ever since,” the voice moaned.

Apparently Joanie had gotten rid of the cupboard a few days later, when her husband complained of rattling noises around the house and began to worry about squirrels in the attic. Mrs. Vetch had been trundled away by a charitable organization which collected used clothing and household items and sold them to Bargain Village.

“I want out,” she declared. “Get a knife and pry open the door.”

Stunned, I looked around. Sure enough, there was a pile of old silverware, including a table knife. Inserting the tip under the edge, I heard her squeak: “Be careful of my hair,” but the door refused to budge. Evidently Joanie had jammed it on purpose, or had put a spell on it, too.

“What are you doing?” This second voice was at my elbow. A young woman in a red tunic over a white pullover peered at me.

“Just trying to get this little door open.” What a foolish admission, for what would I do when a tiny live woman tumbled out? “I’m giving up on it,” I added. “I don’t want to buy it.”

The clerk shook her head, and went back to her cash register.

“I’m sorry, I can’t budge it,” I told Mrs.Vetch.

“You’ll have to get a little saw and cut the spice cupboard in half,” she told me.

My husband wasn’t the handyman type. Where would I get a saw?

As if reading my mind, she said, “At a hardware store.” Her tone implied that I was stupid for wondering. She was Jerusha Burnside all over again.

“But what will I do with you once I set you free?” I asked. Certainly I couldn’t take her home with me and rely on her to keep silent in a drawer, and she couldn’t stay here either, where she might well fall prey to prankish children, big spiders, and mice.

Brusquely she informed me that when I’d set her free I would have to take her to her son and daughter-in-law’s home, where she would confront Joanie. Fred would finally see his wife’s true nature, and after the younger woman had restored Mrs.Vetch to full size, he would kick his witch-wife out of the house.

“There’s a hardware store across the street,” I told her. “I’ll be back.”

“Wait! “Don’t leave me here. Buy the spice cupboard. Take me with you.”

I looked at the price tag. Fifteen dollars was not unreasonable, but I had only ten in my pocket, to prevent myself from over-spending. I explained in a whisper, while keeping an eye on two shoppers moving within earshot. “See you later,” I murmured, and left.

The hardware store had an astonishing variety of little saws for every conceivable hobby purpose. I identified one that I thought I could use without severing a finger, and had the clerk put it away for me. When I arrived home it was 4:30 and my husband was back from his school day, with a pile of student essays on the coffee table alongside his Coors can. He seized the remote, snapped off the rerun of Drew Carey, told me that I looked peaked, and that we should order in.

Gratefully I accepted.

That night I couldn’t sleep. Finally, at 6:00 a.m., when the birds were twittering, I came to a decision. Before buying any little saw, I would pay a visit to Mrs.Vetch’s daughter-in-law — if she existed outside my fevered brain. Joanie didn’t sound like the name of a witch; Endorra, Esmerelda, or something along those lines were what I would have expected. This foray into suburbia and the scene of the alleged crime was to be my test — of Mrs.Vetch’s veracity and of my sanity.

My little plastic daffodil from the Cancer Society was on the dressing table; I could easily pretend to be canvassing. If Joanie seemed reasonable, I would liberate Mrs. Vetch and present her to the younger woman. Presumably Joanie had spread the story that her mother-in-law had gone on a long vacation. Perhaps the two could make a deal; a restoration to normal size for Thumbelina Vetch, in return for a solemn vow of future non-interference.

Then again, Joanie might hand her miniature mother-in-law over to the children or the cat for mauling, or squash her under her heel, or put her in the garbage grinder. Before I freed Daisy, I had to see what the younger woman was like as a human being — if she was a human being.

After seeing my husband off to school, I dressed as if for work, and found Fred Vetch’s address in the telephone directory. At 9:15 I was halfway out the door when the telephone rang. I could guess who it was. Representatives of the insurance company that paid my disability pension liked to make spot checks, to root out malingerers. Naturally the firm did not want to pay three quarters of my salary on into the
future, but hoped to find grounds to cut me off.

Could I be in the office at 11:00 to meet with my new counselor?

On the bus, heading downtown, I fretted about my attire. Would my neat, working-world clothes make me seem rehabilitated. Should I have worn stained jeans and a sweater? The counselors kept changing from visit to visit; either there was a high attrition rate, or the shuffling was intentional to keep the clients on edge?

When the receptionist told me the name of my new counselor, my hands began to sweat and my knees to tremble. Certainly I seemed too agitated to hold down a job. Why? Because I was to meet with a Joan Vetch.

The tall woman’s face was framed with dark curly hair, like Cher in The Witches of Eastwick. Her smiled was friendly, and not at all mysterious. Her navy suit and white blouse were unexceptional, but she wore an amethyst necklace — said to have magical powers. Her dangling pewter earrings fascinated me — one was of a smiling sun, the other, a crescent moon.

From a silver frame on her desk beamed a man with two children, one on either side of him. They were blond, identical, and somewhere between one and two years of age.

So this was the evil Joanie? I was too overwhelmed to do more than nod when she said my name, and shook my hand. Her clasp was warm and dry, and as I sank into the chair that she indicated, I relaxed. She too sat down, not behind the desk, but in the chair opposite mine, where she leafed through my file and looked at me with a kindly expression.

“I see that you worked for Jerusha Burnside.” She nibbled her lip and nodded thoughtfully. “Quite a few people on disability pension once worked for her at the Institute.” Joan leaned toward me in a woman-to-woman manner. “This is off the record, but Jerusha is well known as a toxic personality. Someday you’ll recover from the experience of working for her, and get your career together again, but you must take your time to recover your equilibrium.” Her large hand with long red nails and gleaming rings reached out and patted mine. “If we manage to escape the negative forces in our lives, we eventually heal, but it takes a while, as I know from personal experience.”

She confided that a year ago she was bogged down in domesticity, in a climate of negativity and was beginning to lose hope. Summoning up all her energy, she had taken action on her own behalf and had gotten away from the forces that pulled her down. “Relax. You’ll get there,” she said. “Your pension is assured for the next fifteen months, and you needn’t come for any more interviews until that time is up.”

I floated out of her office. In fifteen months, the last of my husband’s kids would have graduated and would be self-supporting. A balloon of hope began to inflate inside me. I almost regretted not having frequent interviews with Joan. In our brief time together, some of her strength seemed to have brushed off on me.

At the mall at the center of the downtown core, I bought myself an amethyst paperweight. At the book store I purchased several New Age works. At home, engrossed in them, I surfaced in time to cook a nutritious, tasty meal for my husband. That evening I looked through the night school offerings from the board of education calendar. On the weekend, my husband decided to go to Bargain Village to scout out some used flowerpots. On entering, I spied the blue spice cupboard, and when he was browsing, I approached it, trembling.

Both little doors hung open. So did my mouth.

Someone must have pried open the stuck door, and if anyone had been captive, she was gone.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 J. Kristin Dreyer
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

Ruth Latta is the author of more than 200 published short stories, which have appeared in publications such as North American literary magazines (Fiddlehead, The Storyteller, and White Wall Review) and the British Quality Fiction for Women. She is the author of two books: Life Writing: Autobiographers and Their Craft and her collection of short stories, A Wild Streak. Her book review column appears in the Ottawa monthly, Forever Young.

The Spice Cupboard is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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The ride was agonizingly silent. She leafed through a magazine that she had already read three times. It would soon be her turn to drive, and she would not even have the comfort of reading. She liked to listen to the radio, but inevitably, she would start singing of which he did not approve. He wouldn’t complain, of course. That would take too much effort. He would just sit there and sigh and make those awful moans of disapproval.

He, in this case, referred to Sharon’s husband, David.

She would not have to call him that for much longer. She had her second appointment with her attorney Monday morning. She had to survive this weekend with him, and then she could go free.

Her mother had set up this fishing trip. She had talked to each of them separately, because talking with David and Sharon simultaneously was futile. After much prodding and even a little threatening, they had both reluctantly agreed to go to a cabin, alone, together. Her parents kept the kids, paid for the cabin, and made all of the arrangements. The only stipulation was that David and Sharon had to go, and that they at least had to fish together. So, she was in the car with her husband headed to a cabin on Sage Lake.

David soon pulled the car into a gas station. He quietly filled the tank while Sharon visited the facilities. Once those tasks were completed, they met inside. She placed a beverage on the counter for each of them. He paid for the purchases. Then they were again on their way – with Sharon now in the driver’s seat.

She turned on the radio, but was careful not to make a noise. “We used to sing love songs to each other,” she recalled longingly. Sharon had grown weary of trying to figure out what had happened to their marriage. She could not remember when she had given up on it completely. There was not a certain date that she could recall anyway. It was just a slow process that led them to the silent, torturous bond that now legally held them together. “After ten years and two children, we must not have anything left to say,” she would tell herself during those times when she longed to talk to him. But, in the back of her heart, she knew that two people could find conversation after years of marriage. She saw people do it all the time: her parents, his parents, people at work. She couldn’t help but feel like a failure for her inability to maintain communication. Then her emotional pendulum would swing to the other extreme and she would be overcome with anger at David’s lack of caring. She was caught in a viscous cycle that she desperately wanted out of by the swiftest method of exit.

It was late Thursday night when they arrived at their destination. David unloaded the car while Sharon placed perishables from the cooler into the empty refrigerator and their small supply of groceries into the cupboards. They each carried their own baggage to a separate bedroom, just like at home.

They ate toast with strawberry jam and sipped coffee sitting across the wide table from each other on Friday morning. Sharon read a chapter from a book on math skills for middle-graders. David seemed to be buried in his own literature.

“Do you know how to fish?”

His voice startled her. She still loved that low, raspy sound. She looked up from her book.

“We promised your mother we would fish. Do you know how to fish?” he asked, looking directly at her this time.

“Yes. We used to go when I was a kid.”

“I saw the stuff in the car that she sent along. I was hoping you would know how to use it.” He returned to his reading.

“You have never been fishing?”

“No. Why?” he asked looking up again.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t know that.”

. . .

The boat motor started on the second pull for which Sharon was thankful. She acted like she knew what she was doing as she maneuvered them into a small cove at the corner of the lake. The poles were set, and there was even a container of fresh night crawlers in the small tackle box.
“Mother is certainly thorough,” Sharon thought, not sure whether she should feel grateful or resentful. She baited both hooks and estimated the depth for the bobbers. She handed a pole to him and gave brief instructions. “If a fish bites, yank up on the pole and then reel it in.”

He silently accepted the pole and directions. Sharon had to admit, the lake was beautiful. The silence seemed more tolerable when the subtle sounds of nature accompanied. There were times that Sharon longed for an argument. They had ceased fighting roughly six months ago. If she had to choose a time, that was probably the point when she had given up. When they had stopped even trying to work out their differences, deciding instead to coexist, independently in the same dwelling with not even a bit of symbiosis.

“Pull up,” she yelled to him. “Now!”

David yanked the pole and fumbled with the reel. The end of the pole wobbled with the weight of the fish. “What do I do now?” he asked.

“Just keep turning that crank,” she said pointing to the reel in his hand.

“Yahoo!” he said with a genuine smile on his face as he lifted the six-inch perch into the boat.

Sharon couldn’t help but smile back.

“Is that what you call a fish?” he asked with a tone of self-pride.

“Actually, we could probably call that a minnow,” Sharon remarked sarcastically followed by a snicker.

“Give me a break. It’s my first fish,” David jokingly protested. “At least let me think I’m a great fisherman for a minute or two.”

“Be my guest.”

“Now what?” he asked, staring at the flopping fish.

“I never was very good at this part. We have to get him off of the hook and into this bucket,” she said as she reached over the side to fill it with water. “One of us has to grab hold of it.”

They both took a deep breath and stared at the now still creature.

“Here goes,” Sharon finally muttered. She smoothed the dorsal fins down with her index finger and wrapped her thumb around the belly. The fish began to flop with newfound strength. She quickly retracted her hand.

“I’ve got an idea.” David pulled his flannel shirttail out of his blue jeans. He laid the fish on the shirt and then wrapped his hand around it.

“We did it,” he said as the fish darted around the bucket.

“We did it,” she thought as she cast her line back out into the still water.

She and David actually laughed together when, in the bottom of the tackle box, they found written directions on how to clean and fry fish. They fumbled with the scaler and the filet knife, and they estimated that they probably picked more bones out of their teeth than they buried with the guts. But, their supper had been wonderful. Sharon couldn’t help but wonder if it was the food that tasted so good, or the fact that they had prepared it together.

The math book was dry, as instructional guides for teachers generally were. At a particularly dull point in her study, she looked over at David lying on the sofa.

“How do you like that book?”

“It’s alright,” he said without averting his eyes.

“I read it about a month ago.” She too returned her gaze to her book.

“You mean, we have this book at home?” David asked, now looking toward his wife.

“Yes.”

“I just bought it on the way here.”

“Where? At the gas station?” she asked as a question, but answering it herself.

“We don’t pay attention to each other, do we?” David asked flatly. It was not a revelation to him, just the stating of an obvious fact.

“No we don’t,” she said as she once again returned to her reading.

The second day’s catch was not significant, and Sharon’s growling stomach beckoned her to make alternate dinner plans. She suggested a restaurant she’d seen as they’d driven to the cabin.

Sharon couldn’t help but feel as though she was getting ready for a date as she ran a brush through her hair. She was actually having a good time this weekend. She could sense that David was, too. The beautiful water was like a glistening beacon amidst the grunge of their dismal alliance, and they both seemed to appreciate the sense of tranquility that it provided.

“I really don’t think it was far,” David said as he closed the cabin door behind them. “Let’s walk.”

“This reminds me of that place we found on our trip to Chicago.”

“That breakfast deli?”

“Yes. We just started walking….”

“…and we stopped when we smelled food.” David finished the sentence for her. He then did something that he hadn’t done in years; he held her hand.

Time and years of yard work had added calluses that she did not recall from their younger days, but it was pleasant just the same. The gentle sway of their walking allowed her to feel his palm. They talked about the Chicago trip. They talked about old times. They talked about the kids. The restaurant was at least two miles away, but the conversation made it seem right next door. After months of agonizing silence, they had relearned how to speak with one another.

When they returned to the cottage that night, she invited him into her room. He accepted. They rediscovered old passions and playfully uncovered new ones. They held each other close as they drifted off to sleep listening to the gentle tap of raindrops from a summer shower strumming on the roof.

They again fished in silence the next day on Sage Lake.

It was even more awkward than before.

Questions circled about her mind.

Did we become intimate again too quickly?

Is he glad that the weekend is over so he can be rid of me?

All taunted her with negativity. Sharon longed to talk, like they had last night. “Why shouldn’t I?” she thought. “He is my husband.”

Finally, she spoke. “I have an appointment with my attorney tomorrow.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think I want to go.”

He looked at her with reddened eyes. He reached into his shirt pocket and produced a business card. “Butch, the other social studies teacher at the high school, gave me this.” He handed it to her. “He and Mary went to this counselor a few years ago. He said it really helped them.” Sharon leaned forward and produced a similar card from her rear pocket. “You remember Connie, the secretary, don’t you?” She smiled through her own tears as she handed him her card. “Maybe there is some hope left for us,” she said out loud.

They held each other as they sobbed with such intensity the lake rippled outward from the small boat. They felt the pain that had been bottled up inside them for so long begin to release and disperse calmly out over the water.

They sat in the small watercraft for hours discussing details of life that they had ignored for years. They held each other close. They talked of books they had read and emotions they had felt. They did not place blame but accepted the reality of what they had allowed their marriage to become, and they outlined a game plan for improvement. They even occasionally kissed, simply to feel the warmth of one another’s lips.

. . .

“Stay as long as you want, honey. The cabin is rented for the whole week, and your father and I have your children enrolled in Bible school at church,” her mother said when Sharon called her from the pay phone at the local grocery store.

“How did you know it would work?”

“A mother just knows,” she said in her best omnipotent voice. “Now you have a good time.”

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Larisa Dawn Sutton
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

“Larisa Dawn is an Ohio writer and is the married mother of three children. She has her BSN from Bowling Green State University and works as a nurse at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio. Lara writes fiction and humor. Her work has also appeared in previous editions of The Blue Rose Bouquet, The Journal of Nursing Jocularity, and in local newspapers. She was also the tech editor for a diabetes cookbook. You can reach her at lara [at] blueroses [dot] com. “

Fishing for a Solution is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Miss Sampson studied the sign and shook her head in disgust. In all her eighty-four years, she had never seen such disregard for the English Language.

The sign was posted in the window of a restaurant on Main Street. On it was printed a menu which looked as if it were done by the hand of some teenager whose best subject was art, or perhaps physical education. Anything but English. It advertised “Pizza Pop’s” and “French Fry’s” for what Miss Sampson assumed to be a low price, although she would never eat there. Nothing disgusted her more than blatant grammatical mistakes.

In situations such as this, she wanted to approach the creator of the sign, grab him or her by the ear, and ask, “Whose French, and whose fries?” She might one day try it, but she realized that it was pointless. She knew from her forty-five years of teaching that people would not learn. She turned from the sign and continued down the street. She was upset, again.

When she was a teacher, she had always tried to show the essential rules of grammar to her students; it hadn’t always been easy, but she saw to it that every student graduated from her class with a proper grammatical education. She wished that she could say the same for the teachers of today.

She had noticed a definite decline in proper grammar after Latin had been removed from the curriculum. When it was a mandatory subject, students knew what a direct object was. They knew how to use prepositions. They knew when to use “whom.”

Miss Sampson quickened her pace as she walked toward the parking lot where she had parked her car. She wanted only to go home. She was upset. She felt betrayed.

Perhaps it was due to apathy among teachers, she thought, or to the ignorance of the general public. But, whatever the cause, its effects were completely intolerable. Something had to be done.

She began to drive home, veering blocks out of her way to avoid a sign that particularly annoyed her. It was located in front of a Real Estate office, and on it were advertised such statements as “Prises Cut”, “Beet The Tacks”, and “Bye a lot Now”. The sign was designed, she supposed, to attract attention, but it did nothing more than make the people in the office seem foolish.

She was almost home when an idea struck. She turned her car around, drove to the mall, and went into the Office Supply store.

“Hello, Miss Sampson,” the owner said, greeting her in much the same way he had when he was eight. “What do you need today?”

“Oh,” she said, peering down one of the aisles, “I came in to look at your markers.”

The man smiled and nodded his head. “Right over here,” he said, and guided her down the aisle. “I have to go and check some things in the back, so I’ll get one of the employees to help you.”

“Thank you.” Miss Sampson smiled at him and began to look at the selection of markers on the shelf.

She had picked up a few when a young man approached her. He was well-groomed, well-dressed, and seemed very pleasant. But he should have kept his mouth shut, she decided. It completely destroyed the image.

“What can I do you for?” the young man asked.

Well, you could start by not ending your sentences with prepositions, she thought, but ignored his mistake. She had far too many pressing things on her mind than to bicker with a stock boy.

She explained that she was looking for markers, and he helped her to pick out a wide variety. Once she was satisfied, she went to the counter to pay. She had amassed quite a collection.

“You sure seem to need a lot of blue,” the checkout clerk noted as she pushed the buttons on the cash register. Miss Sampson had chosen just about every type of blue marker they had, with a few extra colors just in case.

“My granddaughters are coming in for the weekend,” she lied. “They like to play with dolls, and they have decided to paint a sky.”

“Sounds like a huge undertaking,” the clerk said, not even looking at the elderly lady. “I hope you have fun.”

Miss Sampson smiled. I think I shall, she thought.

She left the store and thought about the lie she had told the clerk. There was no way the clerk could know that Miss Sampson had never married. She simply didn’t want suspicion thrust upon her, and that story was the best that she could manufacture at the time.

When she arrived at home, Miss Sampson laid her markers out on the table and studied them intently. She was happy with her purchases; she now owned a marker for every occasion. The largest one had a tip that was almost an inch wide, and was precisely what she needed for what she wished to do.

She gathered it and the others together and carried them to her sewing room. She had plenty of work to do before dark.

***

Miss Sampson crept quietly along the bushes, ducking low to avoid the lights of passing cars. She was dressed completely in black, from her collar to her shoes, and she had a black balaclava pulled over her head. It was hot but necessary. She needed something to cover her white hair.

She crouched outside the Real Estate office, studying the detested sign. She reached inside her jacket and removed the large poster marker from the pocket she had sewn into it that afternoon. She uncapped the marker and began to write.

The blue appeared black in the darkness, but the shiny ink was clearly discernible as she wrote. She corrected the spelling of “bye,” “prises,” and both “beet” and “tacks.” It took only moments, and she crept quickly away once she had finished. There was no time to admire her work tonight. The enjoyment would come tomorrow.

She had many similar corrections to make that evening, and only had so much time. She had to work quickly if she hoped to finish on schedule.

***

She stifled a yawn as she drank her orange juice the next morning. She had watched the sun rise from beyond the horizon and then sat down to watch the morning news.

There was no report of her deeds on the local news. It would take until noon to tape a story. Miss Sampson knew that the reporters couldn’t possibly miss the item, since she had corrected a sign outside their building, too. She leaned back in her chair and smiled with satisfaction.

She was tired. She would have liked to have gone to bed, but there were more corrections to make yet that day. One she especially wanted to correct was the sign in the window of the restaurant on Main Street. It would be a challenge, but she looked forward to it.

***

It had been difficult to get down the sign unseen, but Miss Sampson had managed. She snuck it into the bathroom and made her corrections there. She scolded herself when she found another – “Perogy’s” were six for a dollar ninety-five.

She made her changes and replaced the sign, hoping that no one had noticed. She had changed from her black “evening-outfit” into a flowery print dress. Its large pockets required no alterations and now held a select few of the markers she had bought the day before.

She returned home satisfied. Perhaps now, she thought, people will take grammar more seriously and realize their mistakes. She turned on the television and waited for the news.

The story of her corrections was the second to be shown. They aired clips of much of her handiwork, including a sign that had advertised a “multy-family” garage sale. As she had corrected it, she wondered idly if those people wrote “multyple”, too.

The Police, according to the report, were treating it as an act of vandalism, and not the service to society that it was. Ah, well, she thought. The had laughed at Einstein.

The report went on to say that an intense investigation was underway to find the perpetrator of this “heinous crime.” Too bad there wasn’t a murder last night, Miss Sampson thought dryly. It might have lightened the reporter’s spirits.

Miss Sampson shut off the television and went upstairs to bed. She had gone almost thirty hours without sleep, and it was not an experience to which she was accustomed at all.

***

She was awakened the following morning by the insistent ringing of the doorbell. She rose on its third ring and answered the door on its sixth.

“Miss Sampson?” the officer outside asked.

“Yes, may I help you?” she asked, gathering her robe tightly around her.

“I am here to investigate a case of vandalism, Ma’am. I would like to ask you a couple of questions.”

Damn. “Well, of course, officer. Come in.”

She led the officer into the house and offered him a chair at the kitchen table. He opened his notebook and looked down at the page.

“Now, we got a phone call from the people at the office supply store,” he told her, “And they seem to remember you buying a lot of blue markers. Did you?”

“Well, yes, officer,” Miss Sampson nodded, supposing that the granddaughter story wasn’t as brilliant as she had thought. “But that hardly makes me a criminal.”

“I know,” the officer said, nodding. “But there were a couple of people who saw you changing the sign in the restaurant. Do you deny that?”

Miss Sampson almost did, but admitted to the officer that she was the perpetrator. He sighed and told her that he would have to take her to the station.

She nodded her head slowly. “Just let me get my teeth.”

***

Miss Sampson looked at the man sitting outside the door. he was one of the men, the officer had told her, who had seen her replacing the sign. She had waited outside while the man gave his statement, and was now being ushered into the office where she would give hers.

This was the first time Miss Sampson had ever been arrested. It was an entirely invigorating experience. She had never felt the like before.

She gave her statement, and then was asked by the officer to sign the page. She read over the page and winced.

“Honestly, officer! This is precisely the thing I was trying to stop!” she said, grabbing the pen and correcting the mistakes. The officer obviously didn’t know when to use a possessive apostrophe any better than the general populace did.

She thrust the page into the officer’s hands and grabbed the other man’s statement. Before the officer could conjugate the verb “to be” in both the indicative and the subjunctive, she had corrected that one too.

***

On the day of her court appearance, Miss Sampson was led into the courtroom and shown to the defendant’s stand. She didn’t contest the charges, on her lawyer’s advisement, but explained her actions to the judge.

“So you see, your Honor, grammar is in such a deplorable state, I simply had to act.” The Judge nodded his head thoughtfully for a moment, and then sat up in his chair.

“Since this is a first offence,” he began, “and given the nature of the crime involved, I think that one hundred hours of community service would be in order.” He smiled down at her. “Hopefully this service will be performed in elementary schools, aiding in the instruction of students on the usage of proper grammar.” He tapped his gavel on the bench. “Case dismissed.”

The judge called to Miss Sampson, asking her to approach the bench. “I would just like to say one more thing. Please try to keep your nocturnal activities to a minimum.”

The elderly lady’s smile grew even larger. “Of course, your Honor.” She began to giggle as she asked, “You are not going to demand the seizure of my weapons?”

The Judge smiled. “I think not, Miss Sampson. Perhaps you will be able to use them in your new capacity.”

“Perhaps so,” she nodded.

“And, next time,” he continued, “you might wish to approach the owners of a sign when you see an imperfection. It would be much kinder to your record.”

“I shall,” Miss Sampson replied. It might be unnecessary, she realized. Already the signs in the windows of the town were being replaced with ones that were more carefully constructed.

“Good,” the Judge said. “I’m glad this is finished with.”

Miss Sampson let it pass.

###

Copyright © 2000-2008 David L. Hebert
All Rights Reserved

Author’s bio:

David L. Hebert is a Canadian practicing lawyer. In addition, his work as an author and editor has included contributing to Macmillan Teach Yourself Grammar and Style in 24 Hours and The Unofficial Guide to Online Genealogy. He is the author of The Everything Learning French Book. You can learn more about him by visiting his personal Web site.

Perfect Sentence is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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One of my most frequent fantasies involves being the only female in a roomful of dignified men, each dressed in a dark custom-tailored suit and a power tie.

While growing up in a small Ohio farm community, I could only imagine the stylish world I read about or saw on TV: a world where men wore something other than bowling shirts, coveralls with mid-thigh black (or
fatigue green) rubber boots left unbuckled to the ankles, or white socks with their Sunday suits.

I left the five hundred people in my hometown behind and set out for the big city hoping to find fame, fortune, and men with fantastic wardrobes. I longed for some class. Perhaps I could find it in a place that actually had a couple of stop lights. I knew somewhere there was man without a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

The right clothing can project the power of a man in a way that a coordinated purse and shoes could never do for a woman. It’s unfair actually. But with the exception of a pastel-colored leisure suit ensemble (what mystery writer Les Roberts refers to as a “full Cleveland”), a dark shirt with a white tie, a shirt that doesn’t completely cover a beer gut, or jeans slung so low you-know-what shows when he bends over, a man can
wear about anything and really command a presence.

All this may seem rather petty, but at the time I really didn’t have anything much more serious than this about which to be concerned. The Vietnam War was already a memory. The free love movement never did quite make it to our area; girls still had reputations. And AIDS was a diet candy. Even if it was spelled differently, it reflected my biggest concern at the time: thick thighs.

With this in mind, picture a group of ladies in the various stages of being single and looking for some male companionship.

Brenda, Julie, Connie, Martha, Rhonda, and I spent more weekend nights together than we would have preferred. We’d go out of town, since once someplace has become your hometown, there’s that unwritten rule: the
hunks live somewhere else.

Our typical nights usually ran about the same. Brenda would say, “And to think, I could be home nice ‘n’ comfy on the couch with my pillow and blankie.”

Julie would add, “For this I’m paying a babysitter?”

Connie was always worried about missing a call from Peter. She’d mention that for our benefit, wanting to give the impression of her faithfulness and devotion to the jerk she’d been seeing for the last couple of years. We
each knew that if Connie was alone that weekend, it probably meant that she and Pete had had a fight. That meant that he would be spending the weekend with his ex-wife, so Connie would be thinking about spending the weekend with whomever she could find.

Batting her skimpy eyelashes, Martha would demurely whisper something like, “If I could only overcome my shyness.” Actually, Martha was a crotch grabber. Very subtle.

Rhonda always said, “Maybe if I’d worn a different shirt.” Rhonda had the lousiest fashion sense of our little group. She’d buy jeans on sale that were always too short and then sew a contrasting colored band of material around the hem to make them long enough. The shirt she wore always clashed with the hunk of fabric stuck on the legs of her jeans.

I usually wrote poetry on the napkins since I had, unfortunately, never mastered that special eye contact followed by a sweet smile-type of courage that going out looking requires. Connie was a master at it. She was seldom lonely when Peter wasn’t around.

I was also the one who had been complimented recently with: “You have nice muscle tone for someone your size.” Yes, thick thighs are a hereditary curse. I usually had a sliding scale of confidence, so that night
it was about as low as it could go.

We managed to have a few good times together. As the reader of the group, I was always trying out new advice. Once I experimented with my possible psychic powers by trying a technique that promised that, with the
proper concentration, I could will myself to surround someone with an attracting white light of good vibrations. It worked, too. Actually, I tried it
several times that evening. Unfortunately, each time the zapped stranger came over to our table, he’d ask the person sitting next to me to dance.

This night we were at a bar just off Route 53 near Lake Erie because Julie had gone to high school with one of the guys in the band. (She’d graduated with more people in her class than were in my home town.) We were about as excited as six people can get who know they have nothing better to do on a Saturday night than to travel thirty miles to hear somebody named Alvin sing.

Julie had been carded on the way in. “I didn’t remember that I had my daughter’s teddy bear clips in my hair until I got in the door,” she said, flipping a strand of her hair back over her shoulder, “but it wasn’t until I reached inside my Snoopy change purse to get out my license that I really got embarrassed.”

Our table conversation later that night was up to “not too bad for a local group,” so things were pretty well proceeding according to their normal schedule.

Then he walked in.

I couldn’t help but notice him. His clothes were neat! Granted, they were casual. Not the suits I prefer. But, they fitted him so well.

“Now there’s one Trish should zap,” Julie offered.

“Are you kidding,” I argued. “And watch him ask you to dance?”

Our table was about five tables back from the dance floor. Julie and Rhonda were seated to my right on the vinyl-covered bench attached to the wall with Martha, Connie, and Brenda seated across the table from us on chairs.

“He smiled at me,” Connie announced, turning her back to us. This was her standard response.

“I think he smiled at me,” I whispered to Julie, embarrassed that he might have noticed my staring at him.

“I think he did, too,” she whispered back. “Go for it.”

Instead, in an attempt to not appear too desperate, I pulled some business cards out of my purse and started shuffling them. Then I decided to try smiling back. After all, I had practiced in front of a mirror all day.

He stood at the bar awhile talking to Jack, a guy Connie had gone out with a couple of times.

“Funny we never noticed him here before,” Connie commented.

“He seems to know Jack,” I added.

Our table conversation was abruptly stopped because Alvin and his friends had just ended their break. It’s hard to exchange subtle comments when you have to shout over the noise of a rock band.

So, we stared instead. At least I did. Prince Charming himself could have ridden in on his white horse – I was always looking for him to – and I wouldn’t have noticed. Unless, of course, he was wearing a suit.

About that time, he took off his jacket. He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and rolled them at the cuffs. About that time, I started to drool. His forearms were incredible. Some women like well-developed biceps. Not me. I look at the area between the wrist and the elbow. If that part of his arm is skinny, forget it. His wasn’t.

Then he smiled again, so I mouthed (with a smile, of course), “Come here.”

He sort of tilted his head like he didn’t understand what I meant, so knowing my mother was nowhere around to see how bold I was being, I patted the bench beside me.

He started walking toward me.

I started to think about crawling under the table.

He smiled again, looking right into my eyes.

I panicked.

He sat down. Next to me. Our thighs touched, for God’s sake.

Oh boy, now what do I do? I thought, so I leaned over, touched his arm and whispered in his ear, “Why don’t you ask me to dance and if the answer’s ‘no,’ will you please keep smiling so my friends won’t know I’ve just been rejected?”

“I don’t dance,” he told me.

“Huh?”

“Actually, I can’t dance.”

“Uh, I can’t quite place your accent,” I stammered, trying to change the subject before he deserted me. “Where are you from?”

“Africa.”

“Oh.” I knew I was definitely impressing him with my vocabulary.

“Actually,” he said. I remember that part distinctly. He said ‘actually’ a lot. “I’m from the Canary Islands.”

“Oh,” I said again, not knowing what difference that made. I didn’t know that the Canary Islands were near Africa, but I wasn’t going to let him know that. He probably already figured I didn’t know how to talk. I couldn’t risk having him think I was stupid, too. Instead, I asked, “So, what are you doing here?” Not much better than “You come here often,” I know. But, it was the best I could do on short notice.

He leaned back against the wall. He started to put his arm around me, but instead began playing with my hair, twisting it around his finger.

“You have very beautiful hair,” he said. At that time it was still a very light natural blonde. It was also long, almost to my waist.

Then he answered, “I’m here to pick up a cheap.”

Some women might have been offended by that. I was probably just too naive to think he could have been talking about me, which is just as well. I’m sure if I would have slapped his face or something that could have messed up the rest of our conversation.

“What can you pick up cheaper in Ohio than you can get in the Canary Islands?” I asked.

“Actually, I picked it up in California. I just left the turnpike and drove until I found someplace to stop for a drink.”

I must have looked puzzled, because he added, “I picked up my cheap in California. Cheap. J-e-e-p.”

“Oh, jeep,” I said with a laugh. I repeated it a couple of times until he could almost pronounce it, then gave up. I bombarded him with questions: Don’t they build jeeps in Germany or anywhere closer? Why California? I ask lots of questions when I’m nervous.

“I had a four-wheel drive custom-built in California because we have so much rough open country,” he told me. “After I closed my art gallery out there, I started driving my cheap to New York. It’ll be shipped home from there. I’m flying home Monday.” (Just my luck.)

“What’s your name?” I asked him. I had less time than I’d hoped for.

“Tony,” he said. He told me his last name, too, only I can’t remember it. I guess that’s why I’ve never been tempted to call him.

“Mine’s Trish. Or Trisha. That’s short for Patricia, after my mother.”

We talked for at least an hour about my growing up in a small town, his going to private schools, my being the oldest of six kids, his being an only child, his colleges and art studies, my mother’s worries while I was going to college that if I got too smart I’d have trouble finding a husband, his age of 32, mine of 25, his never being married, my divorce, and his wondering why I’d let my body go when I had such a pretty face. (I didn’t ask him why he was losing his hair.)

We held hands.

He looked in my eyes.

I thought I’d die.

“I think one of your friends is trying to get your attention,” he finally said.

“I can talk to them anytime,” I told him, ignoring the others.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” Martha asked. Actually, to coin a oft-repeated phrase, she blurted her way into our conversation. The band was on break again. I guess she needed something to do. (If she would have reached over and grabbed his crotch, I would have killed her. Literally.)

So, I sighed and said, “Tony this is….” I introduced him to everyone around the table and got that out of our way. I turned my back on them as soon as I was done and hoped they wouldn’t bother us anymore. They didn’t.

Then he held my hand some more. I still get those shivers in the pit of my stomach just thinking about it.

“Did you drive?” he asked after an uncomfortable pause.

“Yes, but….”

“Would your friends mind if we’d leave?”

“They probably would,” I answered, “since they rode with me.”

“Should I follow you home then?” he asked.

Someday I’m going to learn how to not show my initial reaction. I don’t know if I had silently responded to that question by looking scared or what, but before I could answer, he asked, “You’ve never done this, have you?”

“Huh?” I really can sound intelligent sometimes. I guess this wasn’t the time.

“You’ve never gone to bed with someone you’ve just met, have you?”

I shook my head.

“I thought not. Why don’t you walk me to the door?”

I told the girls I’d be right back and slipped my hand into Tony’s as he stood up.

***

For a moment I thought about leaving with him. Connie could have picked up somebody who’d have taken them home.

We walked out of the bar and around the corner.

We stopped at the door. Tony leaned against the brick wall. I laid my head against his chest. I’d been waiting all evening to feel his shirt. I knew it had to be silk. It was.

“It’s probably just as well. I don’t think you could have handled it,” Tony said. “Innocence is commendable, I guess.”

I just looked into his eyes and said nothing.

He touched my face with his left hand and brushed my hair away from my mouth. I always shudder when a guy touches my face. I loved it then. Still do.

He smiled for a moment. My bottom lip quivered. Then he kissed me. A soft, tender kiss. And yes, I saw fireworks. I hope he did too. At times I remember thinking he was somewhat a rich snob. But for a moment at least, I felt him leave his conceit behind.

“I couldn’t do that to you, Trish,” he said as he placed both his hands on my shoulders. Pulling my head back down to his chest, he added, “I really don’t think you could handle tonight knowing that you’d never see me again.”

He kissed my forehead before ending our embrace. Then he walked out the door. He didn’t look back.

I leaned against the wall for a moment, took a deep breath, then turned and walked back into the bar.

***

You know, I would have let him come home with me. I could have worried about everything else – later.

Sometimes, when I feel like escaping for awhile, I read a romance novel. Other times I imagine that had he spent the night with me, he would have become so obsessed that I would have seen him again. And again. That’s what always happens in the novels. And I love happy endings. Of course, I call them happy beginnings. I met mine in church. He wears dark socks with his suit now.

###

Copyright © 2001-2008 Pamela Rice Hahn
All Rights Reserved

Author bio:

Pamela Rice Hahn is the author of The Everything Improve Your Writing Book, Lazy About Grilling, Journey to the Center of the Internet, Macmillan Teach Yourself Grammar and Style in 24 Hours, The Unofficial Guide to Online Genealogy, and 13 other books. In addition to her editing and design work on The Blue Rose Bouquet; Pam has also created a number of other Web sites, including Chronic-Illness.org, GenealogyTips, Fawnn.com, and CookingWithPam. You can learn more about her by visiting her personal Web site.

My First Silk Shirt is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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This issue’s Critique Corner: See the author’s bio at the end of the story regarding how to contact him to comment on his story.

It is hard to say how long it has been since Muriel has heard the voice of another human being. The last time she thought about it she suspected it had been a few weeks, at least. As Muriel sat on her blue satin pillow next to the window watching the rainfall she wished for another voice aside from her own. Perhaps Harold would telephone and ask how she was, but that was just wishful thinking and nothing more. Her son Harold had not called in more than five years, yet every time the phone would ring she held onto a glimmer of hope it might be him. Three years ago during a rare telephone call with her brother she had found out where he was. Harold had found himself a job managing a fancy new restaurant on a long pier in Florida. She suspected he was doing just fine. Harold had always loved people and he always loved the sun and sea. He would be happy there as there was little for him to smile about in Vancouver.

Muriel tried her best to look through the rain but her eyes are not once they once were years ago. There had been a time when she could have shot a marble of a post from a distance.

As far back as her memory would recall her father had loved guns. He polished and cleaned his favorites daily, stroking them like a lover and purring to them like they were his babies. Muriel sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor in her yellow dress would stare up at him awestruck. Her father never said a word during his gun cleaning rituals, which usually lasted a few hours. Many long hours had been spent with her teaching exactly how to handle and shoot a gun safely. Muriel learned every inch of her gun and was able to strip it down, clean it, and reassemble it before she ever fired her first live round. Now, at age sixty-five, she was lucky to see more than a few feet out into the rain.

All life on her block had seemed to have come to a complete standstill. There were not even any cars on the street as far as she could hear, which was rather well. God had, so far, been kind enough that if he was to start taking her sight from her he would leave her hearing alone. The lack of sound made her feel more alone than ever. At least with the sounds of life carrying on outside of her world was some comfort to her old bones.

Why do you look so sad China Doll?

“You know why I am sad, please don’t make me explain. You know how I hate that,” Muriel said to the voice and rested her forehead against the cool glass.

Why do you do this to yourself? You sit in front of that window day in and day out yet you cannot see anything. Why not listen to one of your records or play a book on tape. You know you like those. Just please dear do not sit there like that all day. It breaks my heart.

Muriel was not listening to him, forgetting all about her earlier wishes for the sound of another voice. Instead, she focused more intently on the rain. Finally the sound of a car, likely one of those boxy mini-vans (her son had told her about them in one of his last visits) that everyone was buying lately. The only car she had ever owned was a Cadillac, the same make and model her father had driven. Her father had loved Cadillacs almost as much as he had guns, so Muriel loved them as well. It was always that way, her father’s likes when she was a little girl quickly became her own and his enemies were always hers too. They were inseparable from the age of four until she turned eighteen and he passed away suddenly. The doctors could not give them a clear reason why he had died. All they could say with any certainty is that he did not suffer when he went. Muriel thought that her father had missed her mother too much to continue on anymore, constantly wishing she were still there. She had read the statistics when couples reach a certain age and one passes away, that the other generally follows soon after. Living alone and thinking of her husband every hour of every day, that scenario never left her mind.

I can see that tear you know, you cannot hide these things from me. The voice from behind her spoke again.

“It is my house I am allowed to cry as much as I want to,” Muriel said, sounding rather indignant. After all she had worked very hard to have a home while others she knew moldered in old folk homes.

This is far from a party, if you happen to be crying about that, but if it is your party. I guess you can cry if you want to.

She thought she could hear soft laughter following his comment.

“Very funny. Now please dear, no more jokes today.”

Muriel sighed and looked away from the window to the voice, at the body of her husband who not have been there but was. “You look well I guess, all things considered.”

All things considered, yes I do” He smiled and she looked into his soft gray eyes with a clarity that was impossible. The rest of the room was its typical blur but her late husband was clear as day and crisp as a photograph. He was a ruggedly handsome man, very stocky with extraordinarily broad shoulders. She had noticed him back in college from a seat thirty rows up at a football game. Her college had been very much a football college as it was all that mattered to most of the students. The stadium on game nights was always filled right to the rafters with screaming, hollering intoxicated fans.

How she had been so blind not to see him until then she never understood and they would joke about this throughout their marriage. Vincent would laugh so hard sometimes that he would double over in his chair saying he had decided to turn on his blinker that day. Whatever it was, blinker or not, she had seen him the moment he stepped out onto the field that day. He was much larger than the other players, who she later found out all affectionately called him ‘the bear’.

She had asked a girl sitting beside her who the large man was near the bench. There was just something about him that even from a distance had deeply intrigued her. At the time it was only budding curiosity. It took another year for it to evolve into something as potent as love. The girl beside her had looked at Muriel like she was from another planet and told her it was the bear! That and where the hell had she been for the past three months of the season?  It was a valid question as after all she had been to every game so far that season.

She had found out that Vincent had been just that, a bear, when she met him a week later behind the school near the faculty parking lot. Only he had no aggression in him off the field and she saw that his eyes were much too small for his large cranium. It truly gave him the look a stuffed, chubby bear. However Muriel had seen the streak in him, the kernel inside that allowed him to explode on the field and tear a hole through anyone in his way.

The man had been stubborn as well — so very damn stubborn as most men are by their very nature, she supposed. It had been a struggle to win his eyes and a long battle to get his heart. If her father had taught her anything, and she felt that even after a lifetime of her own experiences that he had taught her a lot, it was to never give up.  Muriel did not give up and another year rolled by when she finally got her prize.

“Are you putting on weight again?” Muriel asked the portly wavering image of her husband. After graduating from college, he had weighed in at just over three hundred pounds. This was taking into account that for a man of his size and stature, two hundred and twenty-five is average.

Me? Vincent asked and ran a hand through his ash-colored hair, what was left of it anyway. I will eat as much as I please! You know that as much as anyone that no doctor ever did manage to tell me what to do.

“Yes dear. You were thickskulled all the way and it got you far it did,” Muriel said, now standing a few feet from her husband.

Yes, Vincent said, letting his head hang down like a bulldog accepting scorn from its master.

“Oh come over here love, I am sorry,” Muriel said and walked toward her husband until she came into contact with the wall beside the fireplace. She looked back to see that he was still standing there and saw a tear in his eye. They each stood together in silence and looked at each other hands at their sides like department store mannequins. The room around them might have looked like a painting if you were to have stood back against the window and looked at them.

There came a knock at Muriel’s door a few minutes later, which received no immediate answer.

Harold stood outside in the rain wondering how long it would take his mother to answer the door this time. It had been some time since he had visited, much too long, but even back then it took her a year to respond. He continued to knock awhile longer, then tried the door, which was not locked.

Harold stood in the doorway like a deer caught in headlights. He was afraid to move. Never in his entire life had he ever known his mother not to lock the door behind her. It had just become a habit to lock the door when he came home and to triple check that it was locked whenever he left. The fact that at this time of night, at least eight-thirty or so, and in this weather that her door was unlocked meant only one thing.

In his mind he could clearly see her lying in the middle of the living room floor. Her eyes opened wide staring up at her carnival glass sculptures that littered its landscape. Many years had pointlessly gone by without contacting her, even so much as a few minute telephone call never happened. He would have very much liked to have a solid explanation, but he did not. The rain was soaking through his clothes as he stood on the threshold staring into the dimly lit front hall. Soft light streamed from the living room as well as the sound of what was likely a radio.

As Harold took his first cautious step into the house, he immediately felt like turning around and going back home. Whatever it was he was going to find, he felt would be easier to handle if he received it as a phone call rather than in person. His eyes looked to the living room to the door and back again. Harold was about to turn around when he heard voices coming from the living room.

“My dear bear, now look who is crying.”

It was the voice of his mother.

Then came another voice he had not heard in a long time. His father’s. And, while it had its old familiar edges, it sounded very old.

I do not know where to start love. Too many things to say.

“We have all the time in the world,” he heard his mother reply.

My China Doll.

Harold walked into the living room feeling more frightened than he ever had before in his life. Everything up until that point in his later years would seem nothing more than a blur. He saw his mother sitting beside the window with her eyes closed and a smile across her burgundy-colored lips, a small brown teddy bear with tiny blue eyes clutched tightly in her arms. He could see no one else in the room or signs that anyone had ever been there.

“Mother?”

He asked quietly at first, not really hearing himself. “Who were you talking to?”

She gave no reply or even turned her head and opened her eyes. In fact, she seemed to be perfectly still, like an old doll or a mannequin from a department store.

Copyright © 1999-2008 Bryan Dobson
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

Bryan Dobson aka PeeJay is an author from North Vancouver, British Columbia Canada, who says that “once I manage to finish editing my first novel, I may make it somewhere. Any day I can go through less than seven cans of coke to make it through another two pages of text is a good day.” Peejay spends much of his time online in the #Authors on the Undernet chat channel, where he is an op. You can learn more about Bryan at his Web site. Bryan welcomes your comments about his story; send them to him via email.

Muriel is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Mickey swore loudly as he jerked his unpolished, size eleven winklepicker boot at the side of the jukebox, trying for yet another free play.

I sat transfixed by Lorna’s steady, dark gaze and faintly challenging smile, lusting after her more than she could ever have realized. But Lorna belonged to Mickey – it was like that in those days – and if he picked up even the faintest idea of what I was thinking, I was a dead man. I tore my eyes away from hers and stared at the floor.

His kick was as well-aimed as usual and some new bloke called Cliff Richard started singing about his Living Doll for the third time; Tom shot a daggers look at us, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he shoved a cup under the espresso coffee machine and tried to drown the music with the equipment’s hissing and gurgling. Tom was the owner of the Bluebird Cafe and a bit of a hard-nut, but I think he was as frightened of Mickey as the rest of us were.

The Bluebird was near the bus station and was frequented mostly by drivers, conductors and delivery men during the day. But at night, it was ours. We’d strut and swagger, resplendent in our drainpipe trousers, winklepicker shoes and sleekly swept back DA hairstyles with the mandatory curly bit at the front. We’d straddle the chairs back-to-front like they did in the American films, and swig coffee or cola into the early hours.

None strutted and swaggered more threateningly than Mickey. He’d made menace into an art-form before most people had even heard of Brando, and it was common knowledge that he carried a cut-throat razor in his pocket.

‘Davey’s rotten quiet tonight,’ Lorna said suddenly. ‘Arncha, Dave? You all right?’

I’d been covertly staring at her breasts, sharply thrusting inside her angora jumper, and I nodded dumbly, wishing she’d not drawn her boyfriend’s attention to me just at that moment. He stared at me, Brylcreemed quiff quivering slightly above his heavy, pock-marked face, and a silence settled abruptly over everybody. It was a sort of expectant hush that I had dreaded being the subject of often enough.

‘She spoke to yer,’ he said with a kind of quiet sarcasm. ‘Aintcha gonna answer her, Davey?’

‘Er… yeah, ‘course,’ I mumbled. I could feel myself shaking and hoped it didn’t show. ‘Sorry, Lorna, I wasn’t thinking. I’m fine. I’m OK.’

‘I’m fine, I’m OK,’ Mickey mimicked, to sycophantic sniggering from the others. ‘Well, Davey, you make sure you stay that way, eh?’ Then, without any warning, his left foot smashed into the leg of my chair and I went sprawling to the floor.

I felt my neck reddening amongst the hoots of laughter as I scrambled to my feet and it was then, in that very moment, that I determined that I would somehow get even for this insult.

. . .

It was a week or two later that Mickey failed to turn up one night. His seat remained empty all evening and every play on the jukebox had to be paid for. Nobody seemed to know what to do; this was an unheard of situation and even though a few of us knew where he lived nobody was sure whether or not it was a good idea to call at his house.

‘Someone oughta find out what’s up,’ Lorna said, at about half-past nine. ‘Go round, like. What about you, Davey?’

I shook my head. I’d known Mickey since school days and was very much aware that you simply didn’t check up on him if you knew what was good for you. Anyway, I’d met his mother in the high-street earlier that day, and it was no surprise to me that he wasn’t there. But I didn’t tell the others what I knew.
‘I’ll go.’ It was Don who had spoken. He was a newish member of our crowd. ‘Anyone got his address?’

Lorna gave him directions, then fixed me with those dark eyes of hers. ‘Let’s hope nothing’s happened to ‘im, eh?’ she said, to nobody in particular. There was a kind of anticipatory edge to her voice which, for some reason, seemed to hold a promise that sent erotic thrills surging around my loins.

Don was back within the hour. ‘Oh, er, he’s in the nick,’ he said in answer to everybody’s question. I knew that wasn’t the truth, but kept quiet. Don would have his own reasons for such a statement. ‘He’ll be in for about three weeks,’ he added airily. ‘Maybe four.’

‘But why?’ Alec said, mystified. ‘What’s ‘e done?’

Don tapped the side of his nose and looked conspiratorial. ‘Can’t tell yer that,’ he said quietly. ‘You know Mickey. I’ll let ‘im tell yer, when ‘e gets out.’
The rest of that evening will stay in my mind for as long as I live. I flirted ardently with Lorna and she, in turn, flirted back, fluttering her lashes and hooking her elbows around the back of her chair, so that those wonderful breasts achieved even more prominence than usual.

. . .

It was the next night that Dawn arrived. Dawn was almost the opposite of Lorna; where Lorna had a sleek black beehive hair-do, Dawn’s golden blonde tresses hung in loose curls down her back. Her eyes were blue and clear and her lithe figure was flattered by the wide belt she wore around bottom hugging, white trousers. Thrusting bosoms, she had not, but there a promise of a softness and feminine warmth beneath her crisp linen blouse that was quite enthralling.

‘Can I join you lot?’ she asked, plonking herself down on an empty chair. ‘Only, I’m new in town and I don’t know anybody yet.’

Alec, Don, Bert and his girlfriend – I never could remember her name – and Johnny all stared; Lorna simply glared. Then the newcomer shot me a smile that turned my legs to jelly. ‘I’m Dawn,’ she announced.

I instantly wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anybody. My God, how I wanted her. It was exquisite.

But Mickey would be back in three weeks, maybe four, and he’d have her. It was the unwritten rule; he had to have first pick and if he wanted her, everybody else would have to pretend not to. And if she didn’t want him… well, that was most unlikely, because he seemed to have some hidden charm, some special power over females, that to my knowledge had never once let him down. That was how he’d got Lorna. But once he’d seen Dawn, Lorna would be history – unless I could think of something. I began to form a plan in my mind.

A week later, I went into action. It was a Thursday evening and everybody was there. First, I selected an Elvis Presley record on the jukebox; Elvis was persona non grata as far as Mickey was concerned and I got some odd looks from the others. But it was two-and-a-half minutes later that I really began to stake my claim. As the record came to the end, I strolled over to the jukebox to deliver a sideways kick in what I hoped was the right place.
It worked perfectly. Everybody stared in disbelief as the strains of “Blue Suede

Shoes” filled the room again, and even Tom forgot to be angry at this abuse of the machine. It was him, in fact, that started a very slow hand-clap and within seconds all the others joined in. ‘You ain’t arf gonna be in trouble when Mickey gets to ‘ear about this,’ Bert muttered, with a leer. ”e’s gonna paste yer.’

I shrugged my shoulders nonchalantly and without a word, grabbed Lorna by the wrist and jerked her onto the clear bit of floor between the tables and the yellow laconite counter. As the others stared in open mouthed disbelief, I began to jive with her. The six easy lessons I’d had at Mimi Legrand’s dance academy the previous week paid off, and her stupefied expression gave way first to amazement, then impressed pleasure, as I spun her from one hand to the other.

‘Mickey’s gonna kill ‘im,’ Alec whispered.

The others nodded in agreement and Dawn looked from one to the other of them with a puzzled expression on her face; she didn’t yet know how it was with Mickey.

Dawn was truly nice. She even took the trouble to see where had Don had got to when he didn’t turn up for a couple of nights and loudly admonished everybody for laughing when she announced that he’d got measles. I noticed that she was grinning faintly herself, though, and was entranced when she caught my eye and the grin suddenly became a radiant smile. My plan simply had to work. It just had to. Dawn had to be mine.

For the next two weeks I lorded it over the rest. I kicked the jukebox every evening and was rewarded by Tom making the expresso machine hiss and gurgle even more loudly than he had for Mickey; I danced with Lorna frequently enough that we moved in a practised unison that was almost sexual in its own way; and I took charge of the evening meetings, setting the pace and the tone of the conversation. I even changed the sitting habits of the entire group, from the reverse straddle, to balancing precariously on the back legs.
Everybody seemed to accept my leadership without much question, even apparently growing tired of speculating how Mickey would kill me on his return. They began, instead, to idly contemplate how I might defend myself or maybe even try to maintain my new position, though the consensus of opinion was that this was unlikely and anyway, it was akin to blasphemy to even think such a thing.

My own stubborn refusal to answer any questions seemed to convince them all, Lorna included, that I possessed some special power like Karate or Judo, or something. But they were wrong. I had nothing but my wits.

All in all, I was having a wonderful time, and actually began to feel quite cocky. But all good things come to an end and one evening, Bert came bursting through the door, his eyes alight with excitement.

‘Mickey’s back!’ he yelled. ‘I was on the top of the bus an’ I saw him in the garage with ‘is bike.’ He grinned triumphantly around at everybody. ‘Gettin’ petrol,’ he added, unnecessarily. I had long been aware that Bert could scarcely wait for this moment and now his enthusiasm began to rub off on the others.

‘You’d better run, Davey!’ Alec advised.

‘You might as well just die now,’ Johnny said, to laughter.

‘Watcha gonna do, Davey?’ Bert leered.

In answer, I strolled to the jukebox and dropped my threepenny bit into the slot. I deliberated for a while, somehow controlling the shaking which had started in my stomach, then jabbed at the button to play “Blue Suede Shoes”. Then, to gasps from everyone present, I grabbed hold of Lorna’s wrist and jerked her onto the floor.

I had timed it to perfection. The door opened just before the record stopped, and Mickey stood there staring, open-mouthed; his gape became an angry snarl when I nonchalantly tapped the side of the jukebox with the side of my foot to start the music again, and I thought he’d burst a blood vessel when I began to twirl Lorna back and forth.

‘Oy!’ he yelled, finding his voice suddenly.

I let go of Lorna’s hand. ‘Stay there!’ I commanded her, and she obediently did so. As I said, that was how it was in those days.

I walked up to Mickey, staring fixedly at him, as the others looked on expectantly. ‘Everyone thinks you’re a tough guy who’s been in the nick,’ I said, quietly enough that only he could hear it above the music. ‘But if you hurt me, I’m going to tell them all that you’ve simply had measles. I saw your mum and she told me. And now Don’s got it – caught it from you, of course, so they’ll all have to believe it.’

It was touch and go. He glowered at me for what felt like half an hour, then his eyes narrowed. ‘Have you told anybody?’ he asked.

‘Not even Lorna,’ I answered steadily. There was a kind of honour in it, now I came to think about it.

He pushed past me, kicked the jukebox in a different place so that the record stopped with a screech, and glowered challengingly at me for a long moment before taking his usual seat and stabbing his forefinger at the chair next to him. Lorna practically fell over in her haste to get there, and everybody watched me, waiting for the next move.

But I had already achieved my objective. I had been seen to encroach on every single bit of Mickey’s territory and yet live to tell the tale. And more importantly, he had been seen to reclaim his property.

‘What on earth did you say to him?’ Bert’s girlfriend asked me in an amazed whisper. I knew that every single one of them was just as astonished as she was and I revelled in their awed silence.

I smiled mysteriously at her, put my forefinger theatrically to my lips, then went and sat down next to Dawn.

Copyright © 1996, 1999-2008 Terence Watts
All rights reserved.

Author Bio:

Terence Watts is a writer and hypnotherapist.  Hypnosense, his web page, contains a wealth of information about hypnosis.

Drainpipes and Winklepickers is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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By most accounts, the drive-in theatre on Highway 17 should have been a peaceful, relaxing place to take the family for a night of reasonably priced entertainment. The only downfall that kept it from being so was its location, almost exactly halfway between our hometown of Mosquito Flats, and the town of Sodbuster Junction, whose inhabitants where the natural enemies of our people. Where this rivalry began has been lost to the mists of time, perhaps it was at a softball tournament, or a school basketball game, but whatever the reason, it was our duty to despise them.

Sodbuster Junction lies thirty miles west of Mosquito Flats, along the banks of Catfish Creek. From what I understood, the town was first settled by a group of lying, thieving scoundrels who had set out to find a land where lazy, dishonest and good for nothing people could live with others of their kind. The fact that they had fresh running water flowing through their town tended to make the inhabitants think they were better than us others from what they called, “That dustbowl back east”. Our town on the other hand, was one filled with good, honest, hardworking people, who cared about their fellow man, and wouldn’t for a minute think of pointing out that nearby Lake Sukumunder was full of trophy-sized fish, while you could fish all day in Catfish Creek, and be lucky to come home with anything larger than the occasional leech that would attach itself to your bait. Indeed, humbleness was kind of a trademark of our great town.

Our differences hardly seemed to matter, as both towns went about their business, and the inhabitants rarely crossed paths. Only on summer weekends did the rivalries flare up. That’s when the drive-in theatre on Highway 17, the only paved road in the area, showed the most recent movies every Friday, and Saturday evening. It was there that differences showed up. They would be driving Chevys, purchased at the GM dealer in Catfish Creek. We would show up in Fords, bought at Bentley’s Garage in Mosquito Flats. There were not only the material differences, but those of intellect as well. I can remember sitting at the wheel of my father’s truck, laughing as a carload of dishonest Sodbusters were getting busted at the ticket booth in front of us, with a trunk load of other hooligans who were trying to sneak in.

“What’s going on up there?” came a voice from behind me.

“Shut up Waldo!” I snapped, “We’re almost up to the booth!” If there’s one good thing I could say about the Mosquito Flats Combined School, it’s that it breeds the kind of intellect that recognizes how ticket takers at a drive-in don’t realize that you can stack three people horizontally behind the seat of a Ford pickup truck.

Once inside the drive-in, we would choose a spot that was amongst others of our kind, separated by a row of empty stalls known as “no man’s land”. Fortunately, the owner of this establishment, a certain Mr. Bruebaker, had found the good sense to set up two lines, one at each end of the concession stand, and two sets of bathrooms, so as to keep the rival factions apart, and his establishment in one piece.

The drive-in was situated on land owned by the railroad, outside of any municipal jurisdiction, so neither side could claim it as their legitimate territory, though we did have a slight advantage. You see, the drive-in sat on the east side of Highway 17, still under the jurisdiction of the Moose Tail RCMP, who were responsible for law enforcement in the Mosquito Flats area. This meant that it was “our” cops that patrolled it. We used this to our advantage every chance we could. Like most Friday nights, near the end of the first show, Constable La`France had cruised in, and almost immediately, for what reason I don’t know, proceeded to where we were parked.

“I take it you boys got no booze, yes?” He would usually ask.

“Of course not Sir.” I’d reply.

“Burp!” Waldo would say, as sort of an unintentional way of inviting the officer to search our vehicle.

After a thorough search of the truck, Constable La`France inevitably found a six pack of what we referred to as “decoy beer” behind the seat.

“Well, what do we have here, eh?” Was the inevitable question.

“It’s called beer in English” Waldo would reply to remind the officer to write out a ticket for possession of alcohol by a minor. I would have to come up with an original excuse to get out of this one.

“It’s my Dad’s beer, Constable La` France! He must have forgotten to take it into the house after he bought it yesterday.” Whew! That was close. I was good at coming up with flawless excuses at the drop of a hat.

“I see.” Replied the constable as he set the confiscated bottles into the trunk of his cruiser, “Amazing how it stay so cold in there after all dis time.” Then all of us would concur that it was indeed a near-miraculous thing, but go figure.

“You have no more booze in the truck yes?” was always his parting question. It’s at this point that we would reassure him that due to his diligent investigating, he had rooted out all of our well hidden stash. Only our strong moral conciseness led us to confess that if we had a vehicle that had a really good hiding spot, like for instance a console such as the one in the blue Chevy that was parked second from the end of row three, we would be hiding lots of open liquor in it. Stumpy Edwards, who accompanied us on most of our drive-in adventures, would then go on to explain to Serge how his cousin Ben, who owned a Chevy, spent many an hour laughing at cops who couldn’t find all the well-hidden booze contained in their vehicles. This tendency to make a laughing stock of the police, was apparently a trait shared by most Chevy owners.

After that, we wouldn’t see Constable La`France, who had by then forgotten all about writing the ticket, for the better part of an hour, as he disappeared among the crowd on the other side, toolbox in hand. By the time he returned, we had finished all the beer from the air cleaner housing, and had started on the rum and coke from the windshield washer tank. Come to think of it, if you were to question any RCMP officer today that had ever been stationed on the prairies, most of them would swear to you that Ford trucks always had two washer fluid tanks. One for the left side of the window, the other for the right.

Later on in the evening, Waldo and I were in the line up at the concession stand, when Waldo noticed a peculiar sight that left him momentarily confused. Although he spent most of his time this way, and was probably better at operating in a confused state than any of my other friends, this was an altogether new kind of confusion. Apparently, some girl nearby was smiling at him.

“You see that Eddie?” he whispered excitedly. “She’s lookin’ at me!”

“Yeah right!” I chuckled. “You probably got your fly open again!” It was my Solomn duty as Waldo’s best buddy, to keep him rooted as firmly in reality as possible.

“I checked it, and it’s still closed!”

“Well don’t be so obvious when you’re checking it!” I scolded him. There are literally tens of ways to make a girl think twice about approaching you, and I imagined that rubbing your hand up and down the general area of your zipper was one of them.

“She’s givin’ me that there, ‘come hither’ look!”

“Well, what are you waiting for dickhead?” I encouraged him, “Go hither!” Apparently from what followed, Waldo thought that “to hither” meant to stumble twice on his way over to her, then start talking in gibberish.

The girl seemed actually kind of pretty, and myself and the other two, who had by this time had left the washer fluid tank unguarded and come over to watch the spectacle, took to the job of sizing her up. She looked about sixteen and a half, Stumpy figured, and by the way her hair glistened in the light of the full moon, he said he was ninety percent sure her parents had a water softener.

Jimmy Dickson had a deeper insight into Waldo’s new friend. Jimmy by the way, was our group’s expert on all matters pertaining to girls, romance, and sex. All those hours spent in the bathroom reading his older brother’s Playboys, and his mother’s Cosmopolitans had not been lost on him. He knew not only what women looked like when they were naked, but what they really wanted in a man as well. “She jus’ wants him to build up her failing self-esteem,” he volunteered. “By the way she dresses, I’d say she’s asking for attention that she’s not getting at home.”

“Hmm..” I replied, without the least hint of sarcasm, “Jeans, and a t-shirt. That’s a cry for help if I ever saw it!”

By the time Stumpy and I had finished harassing Jimmy about his Freudian insights, Waldo had vanished. At a time like this there is always much confusion as to which path to follow. You could either go look for your friend, who was now under the dangerous influence of both alcohol, and hormones, making him an easy target for trouble, or go back to the truck and drink his remaining share of the washer fluid tank. Considering the friendship that Waldo and I had shared over the past decade or so, there was only one clear choice.

“Want the last couple of ounces Eddie?” Stumpy asked as the second show was finishing.

“Sure.” I replied. After all, a friendship that had endured as long as mine and Waldo’s can survive such indiscretions as drinking his share of the booze.

As the bright floodlights came on overhead to indicate the end of the show, Waldo stumbled out of nowhere, wearing what the rest of us were to later agree was the stupidest grin we had ever seen, even from Waldo. When he was just about up to our truck, a horn honked, and Waldo turned to wave at the smiling face that stared out at him from the window of a grey, four door Bel-Aire.

Wait a minute. Was that a Chevy he was waving at?

The ride home was pretty silent that night. Waldo had his chin parked on the dashboard, staring up at the stars with that big, stupid grin that made the rest of us cringe. All except for Jimmy, who was passed out with his head slumped against the side window, drooling in a way that you don’t want to think about when you’re eating. I looked over at Stumpy, and the two of us gave our unspoken concurrence that there was only one thing that could be done, and regardless of how difficult it was, we had to do it.

“Yo, Waldo,” I said.

“We gotta talk,” Stumpy added.

“‘Bout what?” Waldo asked, his eyes still glazed and looking skyward.

“About her.”

“Ya’ mean Tiffany?” he grinned. Tiffany? This was worse than we thought. To our knowledge, only preppies, and Catholics named their children Tiffany, and our town had neither of them. Stumpy took the initiative, and tried to explain things to Waldo.

“Me an’ Eddie been thinking some, and … well, we’d appreciate it if you didn’t see her anymore.” he said, with a note of sympathy in his voice.

“Are you outta’ yer damn mind?” Waldo was taking this better than we had thought. “We all been planning fer th’ day one of us would meet a girl!” Yep, Waldo was taking this very well. “An’ now that I gone and done it first, you guys is gettin’ all jealous”

“Look man,” I said in as understanding a voice as I could muster, “we’re glad you met someone, and believe me, we all want you to be happy, but you gotta understand that a girl from that town can’t be no good!”

Waldo was unimpressed. “Aw, you guys don’t believe all them ol’ wives’ tales, do you?” But it was true. After all, what would a girl from Sodbuster Junction want with one of us? It could only be part of a vile conspiracy on the part of all citizens of that town to mess with our heads, and lead us astray. “I think you guys is all paranoid!” he added.

And that was that. For the all of next week, Waldo made himself scarce. None of us had heard from him by Friday afternoon, so Stumpy, Jimmy and I had just assumed he was been busy working at his father’s fertilizer plant, and went around to pick him up for our usual Friday night trip to the drive-in. When we got there, Waldo’s mother, Irma Hinkley, informed us that Waldo had left earlier that afternoon with a girl driving a green Chevy pick-up truck.

It was worse than we could ever imagine. Waldo, our lifelong friend, companion, and champion cow tipper had been lured away by the enemy. The way this shameless harlot had posed as an innocent young girl to kidnap one of our own was more than just devious, more than just dirty, and under-handed.

It was indeed an act of war.

The three of us returned solemnly to my place where we instantly put in place a battle plan that, although unrehearsed, was nonetheless instinctive to anyone whose friend was now trapped in the jaws of a ruthless adversary. Jimmy got on the phone and talked to some other guys around town who, though we didn’t normally hang out with them, instantly volunteered for service as they learned the state of emergency that had arisen. During times of crisis, all schoolyard cliques were cast aside for the greater good of the community.

Within half an hour, our front yard had become the marshalling ground for a group of nearly a dozen young men who had come forth to defend the honour and reputation of our town, and bring home Waldo, who by now was being talked of as a fallen hero. My grandfather, long known for his distaste for the Sodbusters, offered us the use of his Dodge Newport, reasoning that someone entering that town in a Ford would be too easy of a target. It was also the only vehicle handy that could fit a dozen people in relative comfort.

“Go get the bastards!” Gramps yelled in encouragement as we rumbled off down the lane. I’m sure I caught sight of a tear in his eye, for this was indeed a solemn occasion. For the first time since the end of the Korean War, the young men of Dustplain township were going into hostile territory, facing an enemy that greatly outnumbered them. Then again, he could have been laughing hysterically, but who’s to know?

Half an hour later, we were pulling up the main street of Sodbuster Junction. At first I thought we had been drastically mistaken in our opinions of these neighbours of ours, but soon realized that that was exactly what they wanted me to think. The unspoken, yet deeply embedded evils that ran through this alien society had been carefully hidden behind a facade of a quiet, gentle little farming town. All along the main drag we saw numerous examples of the deception. A church here, a Salvation Army there, over in the park a small band played as dozens of townsfolk pretended to sit quietly, enjoying the music. These may not be good people, but I had to give them credit for their ability to put on a show.

We had expected to be set upon, and beaten, or tortured the minute we entered the town, but the citizens who milled about the street slyly acted as if we were just another car passing through, and pretended not to notice us. Near the first intersection, a Chevy Caprice driven by a suspicious-looking couple in their early nineties approached us from the opposite direction. As they passed, both of them smiled at us, and the little old lady in the passenger seat did her best to give us a feeble wave with her shaky little hand.

“Seem friendly enough.” Jimmy commented.

“It’s just an act.” I retorted. My companions too, had underestimated these people. “They know we’re here now. That was just their first line of defense, posed as a friendly old couple”

“Dirty bastards!” said Bobby Thurmun from the back seat.

“Yeah,” agreed Stumpy, “I don’t care how old she is. If she tries to pull that crap on me again, I’m gonna kick her ass!”

“I’ll back you up man!” offered Danny Best in a show of solidarity with Stumpy. The team, or should I say, the strike force, was beginning to work together as a unit. This was good, because phase two of the battle plan was about to go into action. One of us was gonna have to go out on a limb and ask some questions. We decided to pull the car over and have some of the guys pretend to work under the hood, while a few of us poked our head in the Chinese cafe and made a few inquiries. Not that these shrewd operators were likely to give up anything we could use, but it was Waldo’s only hope, and we knew it, so I pulled the car over and popped the hood. I got out of the car and pretended to fiddle with the carburetor, with a few of the guys covering my back, while Jimmy led his squad over to the cafe.

We had been parked for only half a minute or so, when two large, burly men pulled up behind us in a big Chevy 4X4. This was it I thought, the old spies had ratted us out, and now the town death squad had come by to do horrible things to us that even in our worst nightmares we hadn’t dreamt of. I thought about making a break for it, but realized that these men were not about to approach us without perhaps dozens more backing them up, well hidden as they may be.

As the two men strode up to the front of our car, we all stifled a shudder of fear, and put on a brave face.

“Hi boys!” Said the first burly death squad member. “We noticed your hood up, and thought you might need some help.”

“Yeah,” Said the second one, “My brother and I here own a garage around the corner. we’re closed right now, but if you need some assistance, we’d be happy to lend you some tools and advice if it’s needed.”

I gave the others a sideways glance to be sure that they were ready for possible combat. “That’s okay, I was just checking my oil,” I said.

“Good idea son,” the first man commented. “You can never check it often enough. Glad to see a young man like you who’s so conscientious with his vehicle”

“You boys from out of town?” the second one asked. The temptation to lie was there, but I couldn’t handle these games any longer. It was time to tell the truth and stand our ground. Maybe one day they would build a statue out at Lake Sukumunder in our memory. Besides, these men surely knew who we were anyway.

“We’re from Mosquito Flats,” I said. Fast as lightning, the men raised their hands from their sides and lunged at us.

“Well, what do you know?” the first man said as he shook my hand. “Welcome to Sodbuster Junction!”

“We don’t often see many people from your parts,” the second man added as he shook hands with the other guys.

“We gotta get going home for supper,” the first man explained, “but if you ever have car trouble out here, you just take this card and give me a call. My home number’s on the back.”

“Sure will,” I said. And with that the two men walked back to there vehicle, waving as they drove off.

“Can you believe these people?” I asked the rest of the group, “Look at the way they play with us! It’s like a cat who bats around its prey before crushing it in his jaws!”

“Yeah,” Danny agreed. “They aren’t just mean and devious, these people is dang cruel!”

“Took all I had not to kick that guy’s ass when he tried to shake my hand!” Stumpy fumed. I must say it gave us all a little more confidence, having Stumpy along. In a situation like this, you need a guy who isn’t afraid to almost kick someone’s ass.

Jimmy and his squad, whom we were beginning to fear were missing in action, returned with a piece of paper in Jimmy’s hands. “They’re gonna ambush us!” Jimmy yelled. “I went and asked someone if they knew a sixteen year old brunette with a green Chevy pick-up truck, and someone drew me this map!”

“Luring us into a trap!” Stumpy cried. “These people have no shame!”

“We still gotta go get Waldo,” I said. “I know it’s dangerous, but we can’t just leave him here with these sadists.”

The rest of the group agreed, and in minutes we had parked the car in the back lane of what we had been led to believe was Tiffany’s house.

Music and laughter abounded from the back yard of Tiffany’s home. Upon further investigation, we were able to determine that some kind of garden party was going on.

“There he is!” whispered Danny, who was peering through the hedgerow. “Muh god, He’s wearing a tie!”

“If they brain washed him, and turned him into a pansy, I’m gonna kick someone’s ass!” Stumpy added.

We watched closely as people milled around near the hedgerow, just inches away from us. Just when it looked hopeless, as there was too many for us to fight off at once, we got a lucky break. Waldo had wandered away from Tiffany, and had excused himself to take care of some business behind a bush in the back of the yard.

“Now!” I said, and our elite commando force leapt into action, scurrying down the hedgerow to the back of the garden. In a sweeping move that not even the best choreographers in Hollywood could re-create, Jimmy and Danny bound over the back fence, scooped up Waldo on their shoulders, just as he was doing up his zipper, and bolted out the back gate towards the waiting car.

“What’n hell are you doing?” Waldo cried out.

“Quiet you idiot,” Stumpy scolded. “We’re here to rescue you!”

“I don’t wants t’ be rescued!” he said ungratefully. “Tiffany…Help!!!”

Poor guy was brainwashed.

Within an hour, we had Waldo safely back in his driveway. On the way home, we tried to clear his mind of the brainwashing by forcing him to drink a small bottle of whiskey, which he agreed to drink after six guys sat on him, Danny held his jaw open, and Stumpy threatened to kick his ass. This was all part of the plan to help him as you will see.

Waldo’s father, seeing him in a wobbly, bruised state, and smelling of cheap whiskey, naturally sent him upstairs, then demanded an explanation from us. We explained how we had gotten an anonymous call that tipped us off to the fact that Waldo was in a bar in Sodbuster Junction, drunk as a skunk, and trying to fight with the local cops. As his closest friends, it was our duty to go rescue him.

Mr. Hinkley thanked us for our help, and suggested that Waldo would be busy for a few weeks, and we might not see him around much. That was okay; in fact, it was part of the plan. That was just about enough time for him to get over the brainwashing, we hoped.

It was a proud, but solemn bunch that returned that night. The war was not over by a long shot, but we had won the battle. Our friend was safe.

What Waldo did for those couple of weeks I’m not sure, but I think it must’ve been something to do with school work, as he demonstrated his knowledge of physics to me during a phone call a week later.

According to his calculations, if my house were just half a mile closer to his, he could pick me off my front porch with high powered rifle, without ever leaving his room. Funny the things you can learn when you have the time to sit down and think a lot.

###

Copyright © 1999-2007 Troy More
All rights reserved.

Author’s 1999 Bio:

Troy More a.k.a. wyzaz writes humour, science fiction, and alternate histories. He is the author of several plays, a hundred or so newspaper columns, as well as humour and science fiction series in magazines from Toronto to Kuala Lumpur. Along with illustrator Maritza Campos, he also publishes the single panel cartoon “True Romance” — soon to go into syndication. Troy is an op on several IRC channels, including #Authors and #Brisbane (where he’s pictured on their gallery pages); he is channel manager for #science_fiction and Managing Editor for Planet 3 ‘zine. Troy is also the new editor of “Undercurrents” — the Undernet’s newsmagazine.

The War is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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He slammed his book shut and pushed the wooden chair away from the small kitchen table. He had to do something. They had been sharing an office for more than three months. The semester was almost over. Randall couldn’t let Kayla choose another statistician for her thesis. He knew her work better than anyone, and he definitely wanted the chance to spend more time with her.

Randall began to devise a plan as he showered away the sweat and grime from his workout session earlier that evening. He had to think of some way to casually open up the lines of communication in a positive direction. Not that talking about work wasn’t positive for the sake of their careers, but it did nothing for their social lives. “What social life?” he muttered to himself.

Suddenly, a light bulb appeared over his head so vividly he thought, in the midst of his shower, it might actually electrocute him. He scrambled across the wet tile floor, grabbing a towel from the rack as he slid past. He returned to the kitchen and frantically searched through the recipe box on the counter. “Here it is,” he said aloud, for no one else to hear.

As he carefully mixed together the ingredients of his Grandmother’s Christmas Cookie recipe, he couldn’t help but wonder if God created the holidays just so people would have a reason to talk. The cookies would be his ice-breaker.

He had known from the moment he met her in August that they would be perfect for each other. Kayla was at the University to complete a Ph.D. in Applied Psychology, and he would soon be done with his doctorate in Statistical Analysis. They were both 28. He had worked for two years compiling stats at the state university before returning for the final leg of his education. She had joined the service right out of high school which accounted for the delay in her completion. Unfortunately, they also shared a habit that had kept them from conversing much socially thus far: They were both wholly dedicated to their work.

Randall had planned to ask Kayla over to his apartment for some of his famous enchiladas after the bustle of the beginning of the semester. Mid-terms arrived before he even gave the idea another thought. They did speak, but in short, choppy, to-the-point sentences about work. They proof-read each other’s grant proposals. They did normal office-mate activities. Randall knew that if he didn’t make his move now, it was possible that she would find another statistician and change offices over the break. Randall had taken the time to check up on her a little. It was not only with him that she kept a tight lip; it seemed to be with everyone. He was determined to break through that shell and get her to open up.

Kayla Ellen Frank spritzed her short hair into place in the university gym locker room. She dabbed on a few strokes of make-up and then sat for a moment to review the plans for the day. She removed the leather schedule book from her matching leather soft-sided briefcase and crossed the 6:30 a.m. aerobics class off of the top of her day. She would go directly to Founders Hall to teach the 8:00 a.m. freshman psych class with only a brief stop at her office. From 10:00 until 1:00 a.m. she would work on research. For lunch, she would grab a sandwich at the deli and then type in her latest findings. “I have to learn to type faster,” she scolded herself, eyeing the one hour block of time that she knew the task would exceed. She had a few minutes to review the chapter for her own class and then another freshman psych class in the evening.

Kayla dropped the briefcase on her desk with a loud thud. She opened the bottom drawer to remove the graded term papers to return to her students.

“Would you like a cookie?”

The familiar voice disturbed Kayla’s trance-like concentration. “What?” she asked hastily as she spun around to see her office-mate. She hadn’t even noticed him when she walked in.

“A cookie.” Randall held out the plate of painstakingly decorated cookies.

“No thanks,” she said, returning to her work. “I just finished my aerobics class, I’d hate to spoil all my hard work.” Kayla scooped up the pile of papers and turned to leave the tiny office. “Maybe I’ll have one at lunch,” she said to Randall who still had the plate half extended toward her.

Her stomach grumbled as she stepped into the hallway. Kayla had forgotten to go to the grocery store for three nights in a row now. The only thing edible in her apartment that morning had been a few crumbs at the bottom of the package of crackers that she had eaten as a snack the night before. “Maybe I will take one now,” she said, poking her head back in the door.

“Help yourself.” Keeping his face toward his reading, Randall motioned to the plate now situated at the corner of his desk. He smiled to himself. It was quite an accomplishment to make Kayla Frank change her direction midstride.

“Did you make these?” Kayla asked taking a bite of a bell with yellow icing and a sparkly sugar coating.

“It’s my Grandmother’s recipe. I made them last night,” he said, succumbing to the urge to turn and face her.

Why?”

“Why, what?”

“Why did you take the time to make cookies for no apparent reason. This is the end of the semester. We have finals coming up. We have. …”

He interrupted her all too familiar list of demands upon them. “I made them because I wanted to wish you Merry Christmas. I know that finals are coming, but Christmas is, too.”

I know Christmas is coming,” Kayla said, defending herself. “I scheduled an hour for shopping next week sometime.”

Randall grinned as he watched her pop the last bite of the cookie into her mouth.

“Oh, don’t analyze me,” she said with a sneer.

“I’m not.”

“Yes you were. I do it myself when I stop to think how ridiculous I sound sometimes.” She returned his smile. “I’m just very driven.”

“I know,” he said feeling more sure of himself with every word of their brief encounter. That was one of the many reasons he couldn’t stop thinking about her. She shared his love of research and knowledge. He wanted to share more.

“Could I have another?” she asked, pointing toward the plate.

“Of course.”

And then she was gone.

The plate was now neatly covered with plastic wrap still in its place at the corner of Randall’s desk. Her typing went even slower than usual. She couldn’t help but think that another cookie would be a delicious finish to her bland lunch. Each time the thought crossed her mind, she would then scold herself, “I am not supposed to eat anything sweet until Sunday.”

Kayla allowed herself one day a week to binge on sinful food. Health was important to her. She walked to campus each day. She attended aerobics classes four mornings a week, and she counted every calorie that touched her lips. She was in complete control of every ounce of the 120 pounds on her 5’5″ frame.

She had resigned herself to being a hopeless control freak years ago. When she was a sophomore in college, she decided that she was going to try to break her compulsive habits. For a week, she didn’t allow herself to look at her schedule book. It was the worst 7 days of her life. She couldn’t sleep at night, worrying that she may have forgotten something. Ultimately, she’d learned to accept herself for who she was, bad habits included. Balance was what she knew she needed in her life. But at the present time, balance was what she did not have.

Calories or not, the temptation was too great. “He did make them for me,” she said to justify taking the cookie from his desk in his absence.

“I wonder if he really did make them just for me,” she thought as enjoyed the melt-in-your-mouth confection. “I haven’t taken the time to make a batch of cookies in years. I barely have time to make a salad.” She sighed. “I barely have time to even carry on a conversation.”

She stopped typing as she contemplated her last thought. She really could not remember the last time she had talked to someone simply for the joy of the other person’s company. She had one hour blocked off on Sunday and Thursday evenings to return phone messages, but for the past several weeks, she had appropriated that time for research. She ate her meals in her office buried in her work. The few sentences she had shared with Randall that morning were probably the most socializing she had done since the department’s Halloween party. She had meant to ask Randall why he hadn’t attended, but of course, she hadn’t. There always seemed to be more important things demanding her immediate attention.

A wave of panic moved over her. “What if he made me cookies, because he is moving to another office?” He couldn’t move. He was the perfect statistician for her work. She had planned on him compiling the data for her thesis, even if she hadn’t gotten around to asking him yet. She had assumed that he knew her intentions. “If I haven’t told him, how could he know?” she asked herself. Grabbing her schedule book from the corner of her cluttered desk, she scrawled, in pen, “Ask Randall to do Stat work on Thesis.”

Now that she was taking the time to think about it, she actually liked just talking to Randall. They did not do it very often, but every once in a while they would exchange a few words about something other than work. With the schedule book still open, she entertained the idea of making a note to herself to strike up a gregarious conversation with him. She abandoned the idea. Ordering herself to speak with him on friendly terms would only seem contrived. Dialogue had to flow. It had a certain amount of spontaneity that had to be respected. That, she remembered. Even if she hadn’t practiced the art in quite some time.

She reached for another cookie as she unsuccessfully tried to concentrate on her typing.

It was late in the evening when Randall opened the door of the darkened office. He knew that Kayla would not be done for another hour. He could use the time to grade some of the papers his undergraduate students had handed him a few moments before. He couldn’t help but notice that there were a few cookies missing. “She likes them,” he thought, smiling as a rush of pride put an involuntary grin on his face.

With red pen poised, he pulled a paper off of the top of the lofty stack. He was able to concentrate on the task at hand for only moments at a time. His mind kept returning to Kayla. He didn’t have the slightest clue what his next move would be.

“I’ll march right up and kiss her,” he told himself boldly, followed immediately by a boom of his own laughter. That wasn’t his style.

“I’ll offer to do the statistical analysis for her thesis.” He abandoned that idea, knowing that it would only launch them into a long discussion about research and work. He looked forward to those topics, but that could wait. He needed something personal for tonight.

“Maybe she’ll actually let me walk her home,” he thought with skepticism. He had offered to do so on several occasions when Kayla worked late. She only lived about a half mile from campus, but he worried about her just the same. It was a little out of the way for him, but he would have gladly made the extra steps. He had to admire her steadfast independence. Sometimes he would walk by her apartment later in the night, to make sure that her light was on and that she had made it home safely.

“Be calm. Be yourself. Offer her another cookie,” Randall coached himself as the time for Kayla’s return approached.

“You’re still here,” she said as she slung her coat over the back of her chair.

“I had some papers to grade,” he said as he turned to face the object of his desire. The statement was almost a lie. The papers did have to be graded, but he could just as easily have taken them home. The truth was, he wanted to see her again.

“Thank you for the cookies. They were delicious.”

“There are more.” He motioned toward the plate.

“I really shouldn’t.”

“But you will,” he said playfully, pulling the plastic wrap back and holding them close enough for her to breath in their sweet aroma.

With cookie in hand, she sat to face the ever present mound of demands on her desk. “I am so tired. I don’t even want to work on anything else tonight.”

“I’m about done here,” he lied. “Would you like me to walk you home?”

Her familiar statement, “No thanks. I can make it on my own,” almost passed her lips. “Why not?” she asked herself. “That would be nice,” she said with a smile.

The cool night air brought Randall back to reality. He was stunned that she had actually accepted his offer. It was all coming together. They didn’t charge forth, trying to reach their destination in record time as was usual for them both; they casually strolled. Their frozen breath mingled together to form a cloud above them as they talked about old movies and music rather than bio-psychology and bell-curves.

“Why did you make those cookies?” Kayla asked point blank as they neared her apartment.

“Because I wanted you to enjoy them.” He hoped he was saying the right things. It all felt incredible.

“I have a party to go to on Sunday. It’s not really a party, just brunch with some old friends,” she stammered. “Could I have your cookie recipe? I would like to take some along.”

“How about I help you make them on Saturday?’ he suggested.

Kayla liked the warm feeling that she had not felt in so long as she accepted his offer. She had not taken the time to think of Randall as more than just a statistician. She liked how she thought of him now.

“How about some dinner first?” he added to the offer.

“That sounds even better.” She stopped at the front door of her building. She debated about asking him the question that had haunted her the entire walk home, but then decided she had to know. “You aren’t moving to a different office, are you?”

“No. What gave you that idea?”

“Never mind,” she said with a slightly embarrassed laugh. “I’m glad. I like you where you are.” She looked up at his deep brown eyes.

“I’m happy right where I am … now.” He added the last word with just enough emphasis for Kayla to know the real reason for the cookies.

Though uncomfortable, the cool nip of the night air had reminded Kayla not only that she needed to shop for a warmer parka but of sensation in itself. She had been so preoccupied lately that she had ignored all signals around her. How long had it been since she had allowed herself to linger in the faculty lounge long enough to smell the fantastic fragrance of freshly-brewed coffee? How long had it been since she had called her mother and listened to what she had to say? After all, listening didn’t obligate her to agree with what was said. How long had it been since she had taken the time to feel anything?

“Far too long,” she said aloud as she settled back to relax on the couch to savor her last cookie of the day.

“What a difference a day can make.”

Copyright © 1998-2008 Larisa Dawn Sutton
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

“Larisa Dawn is an Ohio writer and is the married mother of three children. She has her BSN from Bowling Green State University and works as a nurse at St. Rita’s Medical Center in Lima, Ohio. Lara writes fiction and humor. Her work has also appeared in previous editions of The Blue Rose Bouquet, The Journal of Nursing Jocularity, and in local newspapers. She was also the tech editor for a diabetes cookbook. You can reach her at lara [at] blueroses [dot] com. “

The Charm of Christmas Cookies is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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One moment Jess was laughing beside a tree, the next he was racing through hell with the odor of death all around him. Chunks of frozen earth erupted from the ground and pelted him. Jess’ lungs and legs ached in the bitter cold as he dodged plumes of black smoke. His rucksack bumped wildly against him with every stride while his fingers held a white-knuckle grip on his rifle.

His unit has just arrived from the states, comprised of a portion of the United Nations medical relief convoy advancing toward Kosovo. Every vehicle at the rear of the convoy had just been destroyed and the forward vehicles remained under heavy shelling. E. & E., escape and evade Jess thought, as he left the outskirts of the village.

He headed across a field, crouched behind a long, low stone wall. Wearing winter white camouflage and a helmet of robin’s egg blue, he felt like a moving target in his peacekeeping uniform. Either side of the armed conflict could have been firing. The lumpy terrain of the open field exhausted him.

With the shelling finally in the distance, he dropped to his knees, gasping for air beside a barn. His wary blue eyes darted toward the field beyond. Mortar craters scarred freshly tilled land. He quickly stood again and slid along the cold stone wall of the structure. The smoking remains of a small house sat around the corner of the building.

He cautiously peered through the doors. Smaller and without the sound of livestock, it reminded Jess of his grandfather’s barn in Wisconsin. Against one wall, vacated stalls sat beneath a loft full of hay, and on the opposite wall, forsaken white feathers sprinkled the earthen floor near the empty coops. For an instant, he marveled that something so far from home could look and smell so familiar.

Bolting inside to the darkest corner of the barn, he silently hunkered down with his M-16 pointed outward. Jess fearfully scoured the structure’s desolate interior. The whites of his eyes looked pronounced against his young face, blackened by smoke and dirt. He strained to hear something other than his own breathing and the periodic shelling in the distance. It was nearly silent, and he had never felt so frightened in all of his nineteen years.

His eyes slowly adjusted to the muted gray light. From the open barn door, a triangle of pale sunlight revealed wisps of straw littering the floor. Dust danced in a square of light from the opening in the loft above him. He tried to think of something comforting, like the clean white socks, warm from the dryer, or a bowl of hot tomato soup and crackers, but he could only think of dying.

With his back to the wall and his weapon at the ready, he walked around the entire barn. He kept looking to the loft but there was no ladder. Feeling momentarily safe, Jess removed his blue helmet. His fair hair exposed, he wiped his damp face and neck. He replaced the helmet with the chinstrap hanging loose.

The longer he remained in the barn, the less he thought about dying. Now his challenge was to get back to safety. The barn door only revealed the shelled fields and rugged mountains; the loft offered a better view of the opposite direction.

Back home, his grandparents both insisted he stay away from the loft. His grandmother feared he would fall. His grandfather just said he would ruin the feed. They often hid the ladder when he came to visit. Just like at home, the wooden beams forming each vacant stall supported the loft and he scaled them with difficulty, carrying the extra weight of his rucksack and weapon.

Once in the loft, he listened intently before crawling on his hands and knees to the open loft door. One corner of the roofless farmhouse was still smoking while a red ball waited in the yard.

In the long valley beyond the house, troops moved in ragged formation down a distant road. He wondered which side they represented. Was it better to be found by one or the other? He searched the landscape in the fading sunlight for any sign of the peacekeepers. Seeing none, he sat down to keep watch. He cradled his weapon to his chest, feeling a chill as the sun set.

Within an hour, small campfires and smoldering ruins became the only lights in the valley, like diamonds thrown by the hand of God. He placed his canteen in the straw beside him after a long drink. When he reached for it again, it was moving. He jumped to his feet as the canteen disappeared beneath the pile of hay.

Jess stabbed the thick straw with the rifle barrel. When it hit something solid, he shouldered his weapon to fire. Before he could, the canteen mysteriously reappeared. Small fingers slipped away from the base of it and returned under the hay.

He pushed the rifle barrel into the hay again and heard a muffled whimper. Jess remembered the red ball outside the little farmhouse. He circled the mound of hay, poking it twice more before he stumbled over a ladder hidden by the straw. As he fell, a shot when through the roof of the barn. A wisp of humanity rose from the hay and scrambled toward the loft door. Jess jumped to his feet and took aim at the skirted silhouette in the moonlight.

“Freeze,” he yelled, unable to pull the trigger.

“Asha-a-a-d! Where are you?” she screamed in her native tongue.

Her hesitation before jumping gave Jess time to grab her arm. Her legs sailed out of the opening but the rest of her slight body remained inside. With his adrenaline pumping, he easily pulled her back into the loft and tossed her into a corner.

“Don’t make a sound,” he demanded, pointing his rifle at her.

“Ashaad,” she whimpered as she sank to her knees.

Her frightened stare hit Jess hard though he wouldn’t show it. Standing above her, pointing his rifle at her heart, he waited for her to make the slightest move. The young girl looked up through strands of tangled, dark hair at her white-suited attacker. She knew what would happen next but she wasn’t prepared. A girl of fifteen is never prepared to be raped.

Jess thought she was scrawny, with dirty clothes made from rough fabric. She crouched in the corner, her matted black hair full of straw. He watched her tears make white paths down her filthy cheeks.

“Don’t move,” he ordered.

Never taking his aim from her, Jess moved toward the loft door and closed it quietly. When she tried to crawl away from the corner, he placed on hand on her shoulder and pushed her back.

“Stay right there,” he commanded.

She cringed when he touched her. She shrank back into the corner, gasping from fear until she vomited.

“Oh, hell,” he said with a grimace. He located his handkerchief and tossed it at her. She refused to touch it.

“Use it,” he said nervously.

“What?” she asked in her only language, wondering what he said.

“Just keep quiet,” he said in a forceful voice. “If anyone finds me here, I’m dead meat and you’re going with me.”

She stared at him with dark eyes but didn’t respond. They remained like that for five minutes, watching each other and afraid to move.

“I’m going to sit down by the door,” he said, finally breaking the silence. He continued talking though there was no glimmer of understanding in her eyes. “Don’t move. Understand?”

“What are you going to do to me?” She wept timidly, speaking in words that were only gibberish to him.

“Of course you don’t understand me,” he said, whispering to himself. “Why should you? This whole fucking day has been a big a blunder as the rest of my military life. I didn’t want to join; my buddy did. I just went along for a laugh. He flunked the physical. How’s that for a laugh? And now I’m here, in this God forsaken country. And what for? I mean, who’s fighting who here? It’s not even big enough to be a country. It’s like New York declaring war on Rhode Island and New Jersey.”

“Are you going to kill me or what?” she asked, when he finally stopped raving.

He raised a finger to his lips and made a shushing sound. She stopped talking. He sat down gingerly. The night was deafeningly quiet.

“Is this your barn?” he wondered aloud.

“I wish Ashaad would come back,” she whispered.

“What is ‘Ash-head’ anyway? Is that your name?” He pointed to her. “Are you ‘Ash-head’?”

“I won’t tell you anything. You’re a man, a soldier, just like all the rest, waiting for someone to kill.”

“I’m Jess,” he said, pointing to himself. “Jess.”

“Yes,” she mimicked in a questioning tone.

“Not ‘yes.’ Jess,” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said again.

“Oh forget it,” he said, pausing for a moment. Then he pointed to here and asked, “Ash-head?”

“Marijtka,” she said quietly, placing her hand against her chest.

“Mareesha,” he tried.

“Marijtka,” she repeated.

“Look, you can call me ‘Yes’ if I can call you Mareeshka,” he said.

“Marijtka,” she corrected him again.

“Shit, we can’t even say each other’s names.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” she said in frustration.

“What did you say?” he asked.

They looked at each other in silence. She wasn’t even as old as he was; at least he didn’t think she was. He didn’t feel like putting himself in her shoes.

“Your house?” he asked, keeping his rifle trained on her as he nodded in the direction of the ruin outside. When she didn’t answer, he became more animated. “You, Mareeshka -”

“Marijtka,” she started but he continued.

“Mareeshka’s house,” he said, opening the loft door slightly and nodded toward it.

She hesitated, then pointed toward it and then to herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

She looked at him curiously when he used a soft voice. She started to say something when voices from outside interrupted her.

Jess lunged toward her, pressing his rifle barrel against her side and covering her mouth with his hand. To his surprise, she pulled a long kitchen knife from her skirt pocket and held it to his throat. They remained frozen with their weapons on each other, until the voices passed.

“Give me the knife,” he whispered once the voices faded completely. She kept a life-threatening grip on her weapon.

“For God’s sake, I’ve got an M-16. Give me the knife,” he said angrily, taking it from her forcefully as she was putting it back in her skirt pocket.

“Don’t touch me,” she said immediately.

“Give me the damn knife,” he said, grabbing for it and ripping her skirt in the process.

“Don’t touch my clothes. I won’t take them off,” she said, muffling her fear as her tears began. She ran to the corner and pulled herself into a ball as he continued to reach for the knife.

“Stop, stop,” she said, helplessly.

“There,” he said, pulling away from her with the knife. She looked up as he started to throw it out the loft door. At the last second, he changed his mind and dropped it into the long pocket along his thigh.

“You wanted the knife?” she asked in disbelief.

“I don’t have any idea what your saying,” he said, leaning again the wall of the barn but keeping his rifle on her. By her reaction to the voices, he could tell she didn’t want to be discovered any more than he did. They sat opposite each other in silence, his weapon still on her but relaxed.

“My grandfather had a barn like this,” he said, not expecting her to understand. He lifted a handful of straw to his nose and took a big whiff. “Same smell.”

“I hope Ashaad comes back soon,” she told him for no reason.

“I wasn’t supposed to go in the loft but I always did. How about you?” Jess asked.

“He should have been back by now. I don’t think he’s coming.”

“Mareeshka…” he said and she looked at him. “It’s kind of pretty. Mareeshka.” For no real reason, he smiled at her.

“Yes,” she said softly.

“I’m glad you agree,” he laughed.

“Yes,” she said, looking confused and pointing at him.

“Oh, that ‘yes.’ Hey, so you can’t say ‘Jess.’ It doesn’t matter now. Hey, are you hungry?” he asked, as if he expected her to answer.

“Yes,” she said again and again he laughed.

“Great,” he said, knowing she didn’t know what she said. Trying to hold his rifle steady, he fumbled for a candy bar in the side pocket of his rucksack. When he produced it, her dark eyes grew wide. He took a bite and offered her one. She nearly devoured the whole thing.

“Hey wait -” he objected. She looked up in fear and slowly handed it back.

“Keep it,” he said, pushing her hand away. “You must be starving.”

She watched his face closely. He lifted her hand, the one that held the candy bar, toward her mouth.

“Go on. Really.”

She took a small bite and watched his face. He smiled and nodded. She took another, then another. When it was gone, she began licking the wrapper.

“God, don’t eat the wrapper,” he said, and she stopped instantly. “I’ve got more.” Against his better judgment, Jess shed his rucksack awkwardly as he held his rifle on her. He unzipped the top compartment and pulled out a brown package, one of his field MREs with pork chops in white letters. He held between his knees and opened it with her knife. He handed her the square, dry entree.

“These taste like dog shit.”

To his surprise, she handed it back.

“Don’t you want it?” he asked, staring at the hunk of food in his hand. She started to move toward him and he lifted his rifle at her. She hesitated, then continued, slowly taking his hand, the one holding the food, and pushing it toward his mouth. He took a single bite and handed it back. She took one also, then tried to return it.

“No, no. It’s all yours,” he laughed, pushing her hand toward her. She devoured the whole thing, barely swallowing. He handed her the rest of the packaged meal. She ate it without hesitating. When she finished it, she opened the wrapper of the pre-moistened napkin and started to eat it as well. After the first taste, she stopped immediately.

“That’s the napkin, silly,” he said softly.

“This tastes worse than the candy wrapper,” she answered.

“It’s for this,” he said, dabbing the corners of his mouth with an imaginary napkin in a formal style.

She laughed at him and it sounded like music. She wiped her face and then her hands. With the three days of dirt removed, she wasn’t as ugly as he thought. In fact, she was almost pretty. She handed him the napkin and motioned for him to rub his own cheeks. He didn’t understand why she wanted him to do that and was surprised, when he did, to see the napkin turn nearly black.

For no real reason, he handed her the comb in his pocket. She looked embarrassed at first, then struggled to pull the comb through her hair. Jess looked for something to sit on. Finding nothing, he removed his helmet, put it on the floor near the wall, and sat. Her hair seemed to grow longer as she combed it. It took a while with his small comb but she finally finished. Her black hair reached the middle of her back.

She tried to return the comb. Jess ran his fingers over his short sandy hair and wouldn’t accept it. She tucked it into the ripped pocket of her skirt, looked up and him, as if trying to decide how to say thank you. She could only give him a shy smile.

For the first time, he took his finger off the trigger. He would have asked her for a date if she had understood. He blew warm air into his fists, one at a time, then fingered the trigger again. She pulled her knees under her long skirt, wrapped her arms around them, and shivered. She pulled some hay around her but it didn’t help much.

Jess wandered to the loft door and opened it a crack. He stared at the small fires in the long valley. It was too cold to stand there for long, not that he could see much in the darkness. He closed the door and walked back to her. She watched every move he made.

“I get the feeling you don’t trust me,” he told her.

“What are you expecting for the food and the comb?” she asked him.

“If I sit beside you we will both be warmer,” he said. To Jess, it seemed a peculiar request to make of someone you held at gunpoint. Still the whole day had been like that. He knelt down on one knee, then both, moving slowly toward her.

“Don’t try it,” she whispered, watching him intently.

He sat down slowly then scooted next to her. She moved away.

He waited, then slid next to her again. After they moved halfway across the loft that way, Jess began to chuckle. By this time, there was straw all over them. He picked up a handful and let it trickle on top of her hair. She brushed it off immediately. He did it again, smiling the whole time. She grabbed a handful and threw it at his face. He tossed some back at her. Gathering hay with both hands, she threw as much as she could at him. He did not intend to let go of his weapon but he held his own in his one-armed battle of straw tossing. She couldn’t help herself. She was laughing at him.

“Go ahead,” he offered, getting up on his knees and throwing out his chest. “Hit me.”

She picked up her biggest armful yet and bombarded him for all she was worth. He didn’t move.

“Hit me again,” he teased, pushed more straw toward her for ammunition.

She gathered a huge armful again, but instead of throwing it at him, she tossed it in the air. It came down on them both.

The battle was over. She sat back, exhausted, leaning against the barn’s stone wall. He moved beside her and propped himself against the wall as well.

“My grandpa would have swatted me for that,” he said with a laugh.

“You have a nice laugh,” she said.

He looked at her but she didn’t move away. He slowly, slowly put his arm around her shoulders. She was stiff at first but eventually allowed her body to conform to his. He touched her small hand and played with her pinkie finger. It felt good not to be alone.

“Who are you, Yes?” she asked in a small voice.

“I’m warmer. Are you?” he answered.

When she fell asleep, he felt her steady breathing as she slumped into his lap. He petted her hair and closed his eyes as well.

Voices awoke them both with a start. It was nearly dawn.

Jess put his hand over Marijtka’s mouth and readied his weapon. She listened intently for a moment, and then she covered his mouth. They weren’t her friends either. Marijtka looked down frantically, moving straw aside to reveal a knothole. They both lie down quietly on the loft floor to take turns peering at the enemy. When Marijtka first looked, there were six. When Jess looked there were ten. If he had been alone, he would have surrendered. With Marijtka, he was immediately put on a side, and from her reaction, not the right one.

With all he had heard about the atrocities of war, especially to women, he knew he had to defend them both. He suddenly began to pile straw over Marijtka. She resisted at first, then tried to help. At the last moment, he slid the kitchen knife under the pile to her. It disappeared from sight as Jess lay on his stomach and grappled for his helmet.

Jess watched through the knothole. The one in charge appeared to be the tall, dark man with three days’ growth of beard and a red kerchief at his neck. He tapped the three men closest to him, then pointed to the loft. They scaled the support beams, as Jess had, toward the loft. With Marijtka under the straw behind him and his weapon ready, Jess waited for their heads to appear. Jess shot the first one before he spotted them. A second head appeared momentarily, then dropped from sight. Jess let a round fly in the second soldier direction.

Before he could think, Jess was on his feet and blasting round after round down into the barn. In seconds that passed like hours, the men below at first considered returning fire, then opted for escape. Three lay on the barn floor, dying, while the others fled. Jess jumped to the loft window, hoping to see them flee but he didn’t. He held his breath, trying to watch down in the barn and out the loft window at the same time. In the quiet, he felt a sense of dread.

He got back on his stomach and crawled to the knothole. The three motionless bodies still lay on the floor of the barn.

The enemy vehicle, just outside the open barn doors, remained empty. Marijtka started to rise but he pushed her head down, recovering her with straw.

The silence gave way to a squeaking sound outside the loft door. Jess turned to see two men, hoisted by the others up the hay lift pulley rope, fly in the opening. Jess fired at the first, sending him back out the door. The second fired at Jess but missed. When Jess hit him, he fell on the pile of hay and Marijtka. He heard her muffled scream and turned as three more scaled the support beams into the loft. Jess was able to pick off the first two before the third one shot him.

Jess’s weapon flew from his arms as blood oozed, then flowed from his shoulder. As the soldier prepared to finish Jess off, Marijtka’s knife stabbed him through the calf. The soldier fell backwards in great pain, tripping over the ladder and careening out of the loft.

Jess was able to recover his rifle, and though dizzy, fired down into the barn to kill the soldier who shot him.

Marijtka shrieked as he did and when he looked at her, she was pointing toward the loft door. The leader and the last soldier were making their way into the loft. With a lousy aim, Jess fired and fired and fired and fired. Both soldiers leaped out the loft door to the ground. As they fled in their jeep, Jess keep up his volley until they were only a swirl of dust on the horizon.

Jess crept around the loft in a daze, trying to check both the barn, the area outside the barn doors, and then back to the loft door. After three checks of both, he dropped his weapon and fell unconscious on the floor of the loft.

“Yes?” Marijtka whispered from under the hay and the body of the dead intruder. She heard nothing.

“Yes?” she said again, pushing aside the hay and the body of the intruder above her.

She stared into his face but he didn’t respond, as the blood from his shoulder stained the floor of the loft and slipped through the slats in the floor to the barn below.

The first things Jess noticed when he woke were Marijtka’s tears on his hand and a burning pain in his shoulders. She had his canteen beside her, trying to keep him cool with the moistened fabric she ripped from her skirt.

“The rucksack,” he said, pointing to it sprawled open on the other side of the loft. She brought it to him. He tried three times to look in it, collapsing each time. Marijtka began removing items one by one and showing them to him. Each time he shook his head until she uncovered the box with the red cross on it. She poured antiseptic on his shoulder, which stung like hell. She covered his wounds with bandages, wrapping his shoulder over and over until the blood wasn’t quite so noticeable.

Just as she finished taping it into place, she froze. They both heard the sound of trucks pulling up outside. She crept to the loft door for a look. Jess attempted to follow her but the pain stopped him. She backed away from the opening in disbelief.

“What?” Jess tried to rise again, but was unable to do so. “Shit! How many?” he asked, showing her fingers. “Five? Ten? Fifteen?”

When she opened and closed both of her hands three times, he knew it was hopeless. She picked up his helmet, pointed to it, then pointed outside. He looked at her curiously.

She pointed to the helmet again and pointed individually to the each soldier below.

“Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes.” Then she pointed to him. “Yes.”

“Up here,” he yelled, then smiled at her. “We’re up here and we need help.”

Copyright © 1998-2008 Luanne F. Oleas
All rights reserved.

Author bio:

“Luanne F. Oleas aka LadyLu is the author of Wild Dancing and other novels. Her The Pirate and The Butterfly is one of The Blue Rose Bouquet‘s most popular stories. In addition, she is an op on the #Authors Undernet chat channel (one of the Top 10 channels on the Undernet). This California writer’s work has appeared in Reader’s Digest and other publications.”

A Night in the Loft is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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