Just the Beginning (Kendall & Maisly)

fiction

Kendall had it all planned out: apple martinis by candle light at home to break the ice, maybe a little canoodling in the room’s one easy chair. His bitter chocolate colored corduroy sport jacket lay over the arm. His outfit would be complete both for fashion and chivalry in case the night air chilled her bare shoulders. He stood in the doorway to the library wondering when she would emerge. Kendall hoped she would wear the green satin cocktail dress again.

His shoes creaked on the hardwood floorboards as he shifted his weight. Looking back toward the coffee table to check the candle’s flame, his eyes gravitated to one book on the shelf – Rage of Angels – and he was struck how this tiny room stacked madly with books whose borders made a spontaneous order could bring him such comfort. Chaos at its best. Stepping toward the shelf, Kendall ran the flat of his fingertips against the bindings, stirring up dust and remembering these pleasures. A faint scratching noise returned him to the present. His watch hands snuck past 7:30, lurching against the evening’s plans.

Maisly wasn’t dressing. She wasn’t finishing her hairdo. Maisly wasn’t rouging or glossing. Kendall followed the scratching noise, noticing the narrow floorboards chasing past each other’s end down the narrow hallway, to the east wing where the Plainsman couple had been murdered thirty-three years before.

Maisly was sprawled on the floor scraping the remains of peeling finish where cleaning agents had burned through to naked wood. Bloodstains had been bleached too long. Sweat matted her fine, curly hair to her temples and her neck. Dark circles dotted with tears framed her troubled eyes. Small cuts on her fingers bled where the metal file had slipped or caught itself in uneven grooves. Her motion was frantic, panicked, even. Her lips were moving, but no sounds were escaping.

Kendall’s footsteps, though light, bowed tired boards, creaking with each pace. Maisly heard nothing, startling when he gently touched her shoulder. She looked up.
“I’m not ready,” she breathed.

“I know,” he said tenderly. Kendall slipped away without expectation to blow out the candle in the library.

Fannie Dubois, Gone Carter

I’m Fanny Dubois now. Fanny Carter is concretely a person of the past.

I miss my bed the most, our bed, Jack’s and mine. It was the perfect bed. I have slept on firmer matresses, with down comforters and fat pillows. But it is my queen-sized, aging mattress with the hand-me-down headboard that still holds my heart. I miss the large spheres on the posts at the corners; I loved how they fit perfectly in my palm as I walked by. I’d press my palm wholly to the orb and somehow felt more grounded as a result. Over time, I rubbed away the finish with this ritual.

I loved it when the navy blue cotton sheets were clean; they were coolest at bedtime, unhindered by lint and fuzz that collected over time. But when Jack traveled, I preferred the sheets with a week’s worth of sleep on them. Jack’s pillow held his scent. It wasn’t cologne, because he never wore any. It was just the essence of him and his pomade. Actually, when we met, when we were dating, and even when we first married, I didn’t like the smell. But over time, the musk and oil became a comfort to my soul – a “mentholatum” for my stuffy heart – especially when he was gone.

I miss lying next to Jack with our white stitched quilt over us. It was barely wide enough to cover the sides of the mattress when the bed was made, let alone when we were in it. But it’s soft and bumpy texture made me happy. It was light, so we didn’t sweat, but had enough weight to hold us there together. I miss everything about that bed.

Jack died six years ago, and here I lie in a strange hotel bed with a new husband on our wedding night. Lance is wonderful, and I love him. But this bed is not ours, and I don’t yet like how he smells.

Jessie & Rick

Today Jessie resigned herself to meat pie for dinner. She was facing the fact that gourmet meals, braised, sautéed, poached or otherwise, made no good impression on her young husband. Rick was an oilman who lived in coveralls, grease-stained like his fingernails. He was a meat-and-potatoes-at-the-dinette-table kind of guy. Shepherd pie and King of the Hill of TV. A “Thanks for dinner” and a pinch-on-the-tush sweetheart.

Jessie tried to spruce up the bachelor-pad-gone-coed since their wedding, but there’s not much that can be done to improve a room whose singular piece of art was a neon beer sign. She was young – a woman on the old side of girl with glossy black hair pulled into a ponytail that was backcombed at the crown. Her cheekbones were high and pink with blush like pale roses. Ever since eighth grade, Jessie had worn Cover Girl’s “Petal Silk” because it matched the color of the roses her mother planted to celebrate her conception. Hers was the well-planned mother who owned a flag for every season and holiday, proudly displaying hearts, shamrocks, birthday cakes and snowmen at the appropriate times.

Jessie had grown-up to get married, make a home and start a family. Rick married for warm dinners, clean socks, frequent sex and dead-of-sleep cuddles. As Jessie sat at the kitchen table, she sipped lemonade, planned meals for the week and made out a grocery list. She was distracted by memories of their morning kiss when Rick pulled her close gently securing her body next to his with one strong arm embracing her back and hips. As her eyes focused again on the notepad where she had written a seven-day menu, she sighed and crossed out each entry. Where she had first written “pasta primavera” she scribbled “Hamburger Helper.” “Shrimp and vegetable ka-bobs” became “fish sticks and canned corn.” “Parmesan crusted steak with asparagus and rice” became “meat pies and canned peaches.”

Jessie held her glass of lemonade, now sweaty with condensation, and stared into the wood grains exposed by the wearing table varnish. She added “tin foil pie plate” to her list and headed for Safeway.

Jenny Reason

fiction.

“Jenny Reason, 25.” I was practicing introductions all morning. “Jenny Reason, age 25.” No matter how I phrased it, my name still sounded like “any reason,” like it was the punch line to a dorky pun.

The job fair was starting in ten minutes and I had to decide how I would greet the dozens of employers trolling for graduate students as interns. Why my age needed to be part of it seemed silly to me, but today is my birthday and I’m fighting to own my adulthood.

People hear that I am a graduate student and they assume I’m really smart – a national merit scholar or a high school valedictorian. But that hasn’t been my path. Orphaned at age twelve with no suitable guardians in sight, I was placed in foster care and bounced from house to house like there wasn’t any reason to keep me. At 15 I had had enough and I ran away from drudgery to find my home in terror.

By 21 I found respite in a mentor and a GED program. Made it through state school, and now I’m studying to be a child psychologist.

Today, my birthday is my every reason to break into the field. I smiled at the St. Mary’s Mental Health sign above me and shook a hand.

“Hi. I’m Jennifer.”