Prairie Fire

by Djuna Shellam

  “And introduce her to us,” Macie chimed in.

  “That’s right,” Barbie continued her sisterly rebuke of her younger brother. “Remember? I told you this morning. Where’s your head been lately, little brother?”

  “Oh… yeah. Yeah, sure,” Chip acknowledged with faux enthusiasm, though he didn’t really remember. His mind was on his girlfriend, Deedee, who seemed to be all that was on his mind anymore. That and the maybe baby. Was this what love is? Was it fear of potential fatherhood he was feeling? Both questions were on his mind almost constantly. He remained in the doorway, frozen. Now, what was he doing in the kitchen, he asked himself, searching his memory banks. In an instant, Chip remembered the wine, did an about-face and beelined back toward the wine bottles.

  “Lovey, honey, Prairie’s in their room with her, probably getting her ready to meet us,” Barbie suggested. “Hell, I don’t blame her for stalling. We’re a lot to take in all at once. Oh no.” Barbie’s face went into full grimace as she began to worry. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, you guys.” The genuine concern in Barbie’s tone was palpable—she knew how overwhelming they might seem to someone new.

  “Don’t fret, my pet,” Macie soothed. “It’s all good. We’ll all be on our best behavior. We won’t pry, right Lovey?” Macie laughed. “It’s just a nice dinner to say, ‘Hey, welcome, you’re one of us now.’”

  “Oh shit,” Barbie said. “That would scare any sane person away, Mace. Let’s not say that. Let’s just stick with ‘Hello,’ and ‘Welcome!’ All right?”

  Barbie smiled as the group laughed heartily, their easy laughter only interrupted by the entrance of Em, who sported a serious look of trepidation. Pushed slowly into the large opening to the room in her wheelchair by a smiling Prairie, the room fell completely silent as all eyes turned to Em for a first look at their new housemate. Em’s apprehension was quickly replaced by one of controlled terror.

  12.4—Teetotaler

  “Good evening, everyone,” Prairie said, smiling proudly as she leisurely rolled Em’s wheelchair into the dining room.

  Em wanted to disappear as Prairie’s roommates all stopped what they were doing to look right at her. Her insides were aflutter, with a certain panic attack lurking right beneath the surface. It was taking every ounce of self control for her to not demand Prairie return her to her room immediately.

  Prairie put her hands on Em’s shoulders attempting to reassure her, and playfully warned her roommates. “Be gentle on Em. She’s not used to you guys, so mind your manners.” Prairie laughed.

  “Oh, hush, girl,” Gwen scoffed, smiling at Prairie and then at Em. “Em, honey, you don’t pay attention to her. We’re perfectly civil, and we are all so pleased to have you in our home, which is officially now your home, too. Come on in. Join us for dinner.” Gwen waved Prairie in. “Em, you’ll be right there,” she said, motioning to the place setting at the end of the table that lacked a chair, “and Prair, you’ll be right next to Em there.”

  “Why don’t we all introduce ourselves to Em,” Gwen said, addressing everyone at the table, and then spoke to Chip directly, “and while we’re doing that, Chip, would you mind pouring everyone a glass of wine?”

  “Sure, Lovey, and I’ll start the intro ball rolling,” Chip said as he got up and began pouring wine. He knew everyone’s preferences and didn’t need to ask, white or red.

  “Hey, Em. I’m Chip, Barbie’s brother—this is Barbie,” he said as he came around to Barbie’s wine glass, “and I live in the apartment above the garage. I’m her indentured servant during the day, and I go to CSULA.” He laughed while Barbie pretended to scowl. “Welcome to our humble abode.”

  “Thank you,” Em replied, barely above a whisper.

  “Well, Em, you probably figured out, I’m Barbie, Chip’s older and much wiser sister. And just for the record, he is not my servant. Servants actually do work from time to time.” She looked up and stuck her tongue out at Chip and winked as he set her now full glass of red wine back onto the table. “Lovey, why don’t you go next,” Barbie suggested, then gave her a look of pure adoration.

  “Of course,” Gwen said, “I’m Gwen, but you can call me Lovey along with everyone else. Just so you know straight off, I’m the big boss around here. What I say goes.” She winked at Em and endured the barrage of commentary from her roommates.

  Prairie interjected, “What are you all groaning about? You know it’s the damned truth! She’s right, Em. Lovey is the queen mother in this household.”

  “Ah, I was kidding around, Em. I wish I was the queen mother around here, maybe someone would listen to me once in a Blue Moon,” she bowed her head and feigned dejection, to which the response was a collective, “Awwww…”

  “I guess I’m the last one,” Macie said, pushing her blue tinted aviator glasses up on her nose. “Well, I’m Macie. I’m active duty Air Force in L.A.. I’ve been there for a while, but…”

  “She doesn’t know how long she’ll get to stay before they ship her elsewhere,” Prairie interjected.

  “If I want a promotion,” she explained, “I’ll have to go somewhere else—my current position is the highest rank for my AFSC. If I don’t get promoted, I’ll stay. If I do, it’s sayonara. So…”

  Em thought the way Macie said sayonara in her obvious midwestern accent—maybe Minnesotan or the Dakotas—was funny. She smiled, but wanted to laugh.

  “We obviously don’t want her to ever leave us, but we know it will happen eventually,” Barbie admitted.

  “White or red,” Chip asked Em. He held up two wine bottles for Em to choose.

  “Oh!” she said, startled, so absorbed was she in the conversation she didn’t notice him. “Um… neither, thank you,” Em answered timidly.

  “Uh… oh,” Chip stammered a little, still holding the bottles aloft. “You want a beer or a cocktail instead, because I’d be happy to…”

  Em interrupted him, “No, I actually don’t… drink. My water is just fine. Thank you,” she repeated, though her voice was barely audible.

  Chip so badly wanted to make some kind of smart or witty remark about a non-drinker residing in the house, but he dug deep for his self-control and was able to answer with a simple, “Of course. More for me!” he joked. He quickly returned the bottles to the kitchen and returned to his seat, noting that he wasn’t the only one struggling with self-restraint.

  Everyone looked to Prairie to see if she, somehow, would be able to shine some light on Em’s unexpected teetotaler status in the future. Was it a religious thing? Was Em an alcoholic, or was there some other juicy reason? Prairie was quite aware what they were all thinking, because she was wondering the same thing. Being at the hospital all the time, the subject of alcohol never came up—Em’s abstention was a complete surprise to her. Feeling the tension and collective wondering building, Prairie sought to redirect the focus to the activity at hand, “Well, now you know who everyone is, Em, and everyone, you know Em, what do you say we dig in and chow down now, eh?”

  The sudden burst of activity at the table impressed Em as everyone grabbed a ladle or a serving spoon, and began serving themselves, passing food around, and requesting certain dishes. She sat quietly, observing, thankful the attention was away from her. She hated having to say she no longer drank only because she knew it would make them uncomfortable. It was not only the first time since the accident she had uttered those words, but the first time ever. If she had abstained from alcohol in the first place, she wouldn’t be in her current predicament, and she and Alice…

  “Em, what do you want to eat? I’ll fix your plate for you,” Prairie offered, interrupting Em’s train of thought. “You want some potatoes?”

  Em nodded. As Prairie inquired as to her eating preferences and little by little filled her plate, the other roommates subtly observed Em to see who she was, wondering if she was going to be a positive addition to the household, or a mistake. Not surprisingly, Em was wondering the exact same thing.

  12.5—Fl
y on the Wall

  Throughout the meal, Em ate slowly and methodically, savoring every bite of the delicious meal Gwen had prepared. It was the best food she’d ever tasted, except perhaps for meals Izzy, her family’s housekeeper, made whenever the household cook had her days off. Em loved good, normal, food. Her parents’ taste in food was exotic, and high-society, a palate Em never seemed to acquire.

  Her shyness allowed her to remain mostly invisible, while taking careful notice of how everyone at the table interacted with each other. Her writer’s stealth observance was only interrupted from time to time when everyone would turn their focus on her, asking questions which she answered as briefly as she could without being rude. She was touched by how polite and considerate they were, never asking questions that required difficult answers or that felt remotely prying.

  “So you’re a native Californian?” Gwen inquired.

  “Yes. I… I was born and raised mostly in Los Angeles,” Em answered, her voice soft and barely audible to Barbie.

  “She’s a native, honey,” Gwen said to Barbie to her right. “You’re the only one I think I’ve ever met, Em. Everyone I know out here is from somewhere else, like all of us. I’m from Kansas, Barbie and Chip are from Michigan—“

  “Minnesota, here,” Macie interjected.

  “Montana,” Prairie quipped. “But you already knew that.”

  “Is that weird to you?” Gwen asked

  “Oh, no.” Em knew other natives, but she agreed they were in short supply, leaving her feeling sometimes as if she was a minority in her home state. She shrugged, reconsidering the question. “Maybe,” she admitted.

  There was so much laughter and loving chiding between the housemates, Em felt immediately envious, doubtful she could ever get to the comfortable place with them that they’d obviously found with each other. It was also the first time she’d ever been able to observe Prairie in an entirely different environment outside of the hospital. More than anything, it was the first time in months Em had been in a normal environment that wasn’t a hospital. She tried to recall the last time she’d been in a civilian home with a family of any semblance, calculating that it had been years. This was the first time in a household of this familial makeup—ever. It felt odd and curiously wonderful at the same time.

  Right away, Em fell in love with Barbie’s brother, Chip. Not in a romantic way, but if she could choose a brother, she would choose Chip. He was ruggedly handsome in a not handsome kind of way; tall, strong, and extremely funny and kind. She thought his bushy eyebrows and the crook in his nose added to his charm, along with his big white and almost imperceptibly crooked teeth that flashed whenever he smiled. There was a strong resemblance between the siblings, Barbie and Chip. The resemblance was mostly in mannerisms. Their familial features were subtle, their similarity evident only to someone like Em who, with a writer’s eye, was keenly observant of such things. Em could also see right away how beloved he was by the women at the table and was certain he would make a wonderful husband and father someday. In his current role, however, he was the endearing younger brother who lived above the garage and worked with his sister.

  Em’s heart melted when at one point during the meal he caught her eye and said to her in a quiet voice, with an effort not be obvious to the others, “If you ever need help up or down the porch stairs, Em, you just call me.” And then he winked at her with a wink that said, You can count on me. That was all it took for Chip Tilding to gain a permanent place in Em’s heart.

  Macie was interesting to Em. In certain ways, she was different from all the women, perhaps because at times, she seemed a little more masculine, or butch, than the other women. She was also the only blonde, the only one of them who wore glasses, and her voice was strangely androgynous. Prairie’s voice had a slight masculine timbre to it, but it was subtle. Macie’s voice was different. If Em closed her eyes and didn’t know Macie was a woman, she wasn’t sure she’d know whether she was male or female. It wasn’t unpleasant, just different. Macie also had so many freckles, Em couldn’t believe they didn’t just blend together.

  Her teeth were perfectly straight, and she had a big smile, but her teeth were more of a grayish color than white. It didn’t seem to bother Macie, because she smiled a lot, which was something Em really appreciated about her. She was also more quiet than the others, listening more and only making droll comments when it seemed absolutely necessary.

  From the moment Em entered the dining room, it was clear to her who the mother of the house was, and that was the plump and motherly Gwen “Lovey” Love. She fussed over each of the household members in a way Em guessed no one would ever mind. Em didn’t know how long Gwen had assumed the role of house mother, but from the way Gwen looked at each of them, and clucked over them like a mother hen, it almost seemed as if they all belonged to her. Em’s favorite part about Gwen was her twinkling light brown eyes—she found herself staring at Gwen several times, mesmerized by the scintillating joy that Gwen emitted almost continuously. She made Em think of Mrs. Claus, which made her smile.

  It was easy to see that Barbie and Gwen were a couple. They were comfortable, respectful, playful and caring, and from every indication, still very much in love. It was the little things Em observed that cemented her feelings about the couple. The small touches, subtle, but meaningful; the loving smiles when the other wasn’t looking, the kind banter that was in no way sarcastic or hurtful. Then there were the words that passed between them—unspoken. They were a couple in total sync, and it was a connection that had elements Em recognized from her own parents’ bond, though Barbie and Gwen’s was quite different.

  Em’s parents, Antonio and Kathleen, were a unit unto themselves, almost to the exclusion of everyone around them. Sometimes, in anger, Em would think of them as an evil two-headed monster. Not because they were mean or hateful, but because they were one—a unit. Their oneness was so understated, most people didn’t see it, recognize it or understand it, but Em was certain they must have felt it. She had.

  Throughout her childhood, Em understood early that her parents were everything to each other, and anything or anyone else came in a distant second. Though she sensed a deep and loving bond between these two new roommates, Barbie and Gwen, Em didn’t feel a sense of exclusion of all others as she had with her parents. Even as a stranger to Barbie and Gwen, Em felt included, to the point there was almost a sense of herself being drawn into the sphere of them. Despite their tenderness with each other, not once throughout the whole evening did Em ever feel walled off from either of them, separately or as a couple, or remotely uncomfortable. She’d never been witness to such a coupling. It was nice. If that’s what being a couple was, then she wanted that.

  “Lovey, you outdid yourself tonight, babe,” Macie declared as she cleaned the last bite off her plate. “Em,” Macie began as she reached for her wine glass, “if you’re going to live here, you need to know our dirty little secret here in this house.” Macie’s tone was serious enough to create an instantaneous butterfly match in Em’s stomach.

  “Don’t do it, Mace,” Chip warned. “You’re going to scare her. She won’t like us anymore.”

  “Mace,” Prairie warned, drawing Macie’s name out for dramatic effect.

  Em’s eyes were wide with consternation as she wondered if they were playing with her, or if she was about to become a helpless victim of some strange and sick pervert ring. She didn’t know these people. They could have drugged her water, her food. Her eyes darted quickly as she looked for a way out.

  Barbie nudged Macie, “Cut it out, brat.”

  “I was just going to confess to Em—”

  “Don’t do it!” Gwen commanded, smiling, her eyes twinkling.

  Em looked to Prairie, the worry on her face so obvious, Prairie began to snicker.

  “The only reason we let Lovey live here is…” Macie paused for effect, as the others at the table tried desperately not to laugh, their mouths twitching out of control. “Is…”

 
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Mace, you’re such a drama queen,” Prairie interrupted. “Em, none of us can cook. I mean…”

  Immediately, everyone joined in, admitting their limited cooking skills, almost to the point Em couldn’t really understand what everyone was saying. Her puzzled look told Barbie she needed to take charge of the chaos.

  “HEY!” Barbie commanded in a loud drill instructor’s voice. The room immediately fell silent. “Em, don’t let these yahoos get you all worked up. It’s a fact. Not one of us can cook. I mean, the toaster’s even off-limits. And Lovey has succeeded, over the past few years, in making us hopelessly dependent upon her.” Everyone nodded and murmured their support for Barbie’s words.

  Barbie turned to Macie and chided, “And you, my dear, are a bad, bad girl.”

  “What did I do?” Macie playfully protested, wide-eyed.

  Barbie continued, “Lovey uses special times such as this to show us just how marvelous she is, and how pathetic and needy we are, and how we would absolutely starve if she didn’t feed us.”

  Em breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Lucky for me you all are so hapless in the kitchen,” Gwen added. “Hey, I think that makes me the boss of the kitchen, doesn’t it?” She looked around the table for support she already knew she had.

  “If Deedee cooks even half this good,” Chip interjected, beaming, “I’m going to be a happy-assed man.” All eyes turned to Chip.

  “What?” Barbie immediately sensed her brother was saying much more. Her eyes narrowed. “Do I need a shotgun?” She looked to Gwen who winked and then back at Chip who was grinning ear to ear.

  “Maybe.” he raised his eyebrows up and down, causing Barbie’s eyes to bug. “Yup. I’m gonna propose. Saturday night.” Chip looked around at all the women’s smiling and proud faces as his announcement registered. “Oh shit,” Chip said under his breath as he was reminded of the current male to female ratio, especially with the addition of Em. His smile left, replaced with a worried look. “What the hell am I doing? If she says yes, it’s going to be six to one around here.”