“You have a visitor,” the candy stripe girl said. Her nametag told Dale that her name was Candy, which seemed somehow fitting. He nodded to her, a gesture to open the door, which she did, before sliding out after the person who was outside entered. Dale immediately wished he had gotten Candy to vet the … Continue reading cotton candy girl
They met online, but that was only the setting. It could have happened anywhere—a bar, a club, a finishing school, a Turkish bath. It was going to happen somehow, somewhere, but it happened online. She was fresh from finally leaving Leon, after years of saying she would; he was startlingly single, though the women in … Continue reading settling
“You need to sit still,” Mrs. Nottingham admonished, hair brush in hand. Penelope was the absolute worst when it came to patience. Every day she had to sit through hair, and makeup, and dress fittings, an endless litany of responsibilities out of the spotlight that hopefully would make her more palatable to the public when … Continue reading Nottingham
The elevator buttons lit up one by one, as if touched by a child’s ghostly index finger, the display sparked like a Christmas tree finally dressed in its finery. Craig and Lindsay stood side by side at the rear of the car. They were headed to the fifth floor for a meeting, but, even though they knew each other, they did not interact. Neither did they react to the sudden illumination, one by one, of the floor numbers.
On four, Allison stepped on without even glancing at the display. She nodded at Craig but completely ignored Lindsay. It was rare for Allison not to speak, though it seemed customary for the other two, but she simply eased herself next to Craig as the doors slid shut once more. She was preoccupied by other things at that moment anyway.
At eight that morning, when she arrived for work, the fountain out front had sometime in the night begun spouting black water. She glanced at the strange color, but it didn’t slow her down. It wasn’t her problem, though she hoped it would be remedied by close of business. Not because she was afraid, of course.
“It’s probably just a prank,” they said around the water cooler on four. Delightful Décor had spread downward two floors from the fifth, which meant five more water coolers, and more chances to hear office gossip. Continue reading “Waiting to Exhale”
The man at the door was new, a beefier version of the last guy, and the guy before him, but in every essential way he was the same: same broad shoulders, same blank look on his face, same everything. Which was both comforting and unsettling at the same time. Claire could imagine him doing unspeakable things in the dark, when he wasn’t at the nightclub door.
“ID?” he asked.
She was wearing her short black skirt, with the wraparound waist that showed pretty much all of her legs, a new, thin red blouse, and matching lipstick. When she looked in the mirror, Claire often saw a mature woman looking back at her, even though she was only sixteen. It wasn’t her first time being asked for ID, but it was the first in a while, and she frowned before fishing in her purse.
“Here,” she said, slipping the man at the door her fake Delaware ID. That was the trick, of course, a close enough state but probably not one he’d seen often, if at all. She smiled up at him expectantly, like she had done this a dozen times before. She had done this a dozen times before.
“Go on through,” he told her, handing back her ID with a smirk on his face that said he knew more than he was letting on.
She didn’t care. She was in. Claire hitched up her skirt, as a sort of thank you, and eased inside like she’d done it a dozen times before. It was easier to blend in, to be one of the sweaty masses, than it was pretending day after day in school, and with her mom, and everywhere in between.
“Want to dance?” a guy asked her seconds after she entered. Continue reading “The Dozens”
“Who names their band Tool?” David asked from his perch on the back of the couch. I’d told him sixty-four times not to sit there.
“Apparently Maynard Keenan,” I said, smiling. I shooed him from the couch, which was really no worse for wear. David plopped down next to me instead. Apparently our conversation wasn’t over.
We did the dance often, the questions, the answers, and the switch. Sometimes he would ask, sometimes I would, but we would always end up where we started, at him rolling his eyes. Often the questions were easy ones, but every once in a while he threw me a curveball.
“Where do babies come from?” he asked last night. I pretended not to hear him. “Where do babies come from?” he repeated, louder. David’s ten, and can outlast a zombie in who can stare the longest without blinking.
“Well, they come from pockets in trees, like baby kangaroos in pouches,” I said. “When mommies and daddies go hiking in the forest, they can take them out and name them whatever they want. Once the babies have names, they belong to the mommies and daddies. Before they have names, they still belong to the trees.”
He pondered the idea of arboreal humanoids, but shook his head slowly after a minute.
“No. Way,” he said. “Trees are too rough. The bark would hurt the babies.”
“That’s what sap is for,” I told him. “It keeps them warm and protects them from the rough bark.” Continue reading “The Switch”
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Soprano
A Writer's Journey
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Exploring life, love, lifting, and (almost) literally everything else, frequently aided by laughter and libations
Just a small town girl who writes about Christian stuff.
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Bree Defined
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