by From Where You Dream- The Process of Writing Fiction (mobi)
"Sorry," I mumbled, my face hot.
She didn't say anything. "She's beautiful," I offered and Sam nodded. She put the picture back down and for a moment I was afraid she'd pick up the picture of Diana and I couldn't stand that, I'd have to leave, and I desperately wanted to stay. "She looks like you," I smiled, trying to show I meant to harm.
"You think?" Sam wrinkled her nose, cocked her head. Is she playing with me?
"Your mouth," I began and floundered.
She smiled, ducking her head.
"You have the same mouth," I continued.
"Thank you," she paused, looking at me like I might be about to pass out and I might have. "Do you want some wine? That's why I came looking for you, to ask if you wanted some wine."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Diana. I've really fucked things up for you and I should leave."
"What do you want, Dee?"
I smiled helplessly, looking at the picture of her mother as if for guidance. She took a step closer. We were a foot away from each other. I smelled her lavender soap, her deodorant, a piney-clean scent, I could even smell the Carmex on her lips.
"I want to be with you," I said and didn't just mean it euphemistically. I do, I want to fuck her, I want to sleep with her, I want to wake up with her, but I want to just be with her too. Just sit very still with her sitting very still beside me and know that we are the only two people who belong in that room, who are wanted in that room.
"Why?" she asked, and I laughed. Why is never the right question to ask about sex. How, maybe. When, sure. Where, that can be an issue. Even what has its place if you know where to shop and you aren't timid. But why ?
"Is that a 'no'?"
She grabbed my hand and led me to the kitchen, which smelled of basil and garlic and was warmer than the rest of the house. She poured wine into the two glasses on the counter without letting go of my hand. "You have through dinner to
tell me why," she said and raised her glass to mine before we drank.
I'm still thirsty, sitting at the table with the smiling orange-head magnet no longer cold in my hand. I squeeze it hard. It leaves dents in the flesh of my fingers. The orange face, faded to the color of Tang with too much water, grins up at me as if we share some embarrassing secret. "Orange you glad you're mine?" I hear the front door open. Sam's home. The why from my memory echoes in my head.
I pick up the picture of me and Sam drawn by her daughter. Jill has drawn the laugh line on Sam's face. It is a good likeness. I put it back on the fridge. I pick up the letter and crumple it up, stuff it beneath the milk-wet paper towels. I climb the stairs to our bedroom and find Sam already undressed, already in bed.
Christie Grimes
Stone
I fell asleep on the futon again. When I woke, my eyes darted to the muted TV and I wondered what could have woken me. I felt an ache in my chest as if all my muscle were taut against my breastbone. The dingy carpet was in the shadows but I spied pieces of tortilla chips that had been brushed from the coffee table in a feeble attempt to clean. My back and muscles ached. The muscles in my calves were tight from being rigid, poised, ready for some type of assault or flight. I smelled a faint odor of furniture polish which fit oddly into the forgotten dusty apartment. I rolled my head to the side feeling the creases on my face. I worked my jaw, slowly unclenching it and loosing the muscles. The clock on the bookcase read 4:00 and Oprah was smiling at a guest. The small marble cat on my coffee table appeared to grin at me in the shadows, its green eyes flittering in their purple housing. The cat was the last gift I had received from a man. Not a potential lover, mind you, he was married, had three children, and told stories about how he brought his wife a flower each day until she fell in love with him. He had given me the cat the day I left. Something he saw in the store and thought of me. Our relationship had always clicked. He would have bailed me out of jail or picked me up at the hospital, but 1 never would have asked. Our relationship was strictly work. His shaggy too long hair hung in his eyes when we hugged and wrestled, and I knew that he cared about me like an adoring brother, or maybe a what-might-have-been look with a smile. I treasured that purple cat, but today it spooked me. The toothy smile did not seem playful, it was sinister. The whiskers blowing from the air vent made the plastic come alive and twitch at me. I pulled the small blanket up to my chin and tucked my feet under me, locking the blanket into a sleeping bag comfort. I glanced up at a picture adorning my bookcase which I took alone at the top of a mountain. No one would climb the formation with me to see the spectacular view of green, yellow, and auburn tones. The picture did not show my smiling face, nor anyone else's. 1 had pocketed a chunk of granite on the way down. It was larger than my hand and heavy in my pack, but the grainy wholeness of the rock felt more real than the picture, and it gave me comfort even when I felt the solitude of not being able to share the moment with another. The rock lay at the base of my bookcase crammed between particleboard and the wall. I walked over to it, shuffling my coarse feet across the carpet, creating a scratching sound. I picked up the rock and rolled it from palm to palm, small particles of dirt and crystal attaching to my hands. I rubbed my forefinger over the black streak creating a jagged Z through the center of the beige and gray rock. My fingers traced the letter, feeling the smooth black penetrating. It felt coarser, more raw than the granite exterior. I rubbed my fingers into it, softly scraping my index finger, enjoying the painful sensation in my skin. Still holding the rock in my left hand, I gently swung my arm up, feeling the lift of the weight of the rock. My finger wandered to the blunt edge of the back of the rock. On the floor it balanced flat, raised in a trapezoid shape with the black only visible in a small streak on the top and only completely visible in design from underneath. I had almost ruined the Z by breaking the rock. I hurled it the last time he left me. He walked through the door leaving me only with myself. No answers, no accommodations, and no love, understanding, or kindness on his face. I wanted answers. I thought I could fix everything if he would only let me kiss him, grab him by his large arms and trace his lips with my tongue. Slowly, erotically seducing him, sucking on his lower lip and forcing my tongue into his mouth probing for answers. But he pulled away, taking a backward step toward the door when I tried to push my body into his and against the wall. Instead he turned to the side like a matador and he left me. Motionless without a grip, I saw his hand reach behind him and I stood tense, afraid to spook him. He glanced at me, at my body rather than my eyes and his head started to shake but he stilled it, cocking it instead. He opened the door, sidestepping through it and quietly pulling it shut, clicking into the door frame. I stood for a moment before crumbling to the ground. It was no use chasing him. I knew when he would not look at my eyes. I felt it in my chest, a strange tightening, a hope coiling around nothing, pulling tighter and tighter trying to capture something so thin that it cannot be grasped. That is when I walked to the window and stood at the edge, trying to see out the corner of the blinds without moving them and without being seen. I could only see the dark headlights of his car as it reversed out of view. I felt angry, humiliated, and defeated. I backed away from the window into the bookcase and tripped into the rock, stubbing my large toe. I hopped backward and seized the rock, hurling it with my arm and my body into a shot-putter stance and flinging it into the floor where it bounced on the hard ceramic tile, breaking a quarter inch off the side into a crumbling piece and shattering the tile beneath it into cracked jagged pieces. I walked over to the rock and carefully rolled it over, afraid to see what I had done. I saw the dirt and residue on my hand and the small black shards falling off in dust. I looked for the Z. Once I brushed it clean, it was still there, only slightly torn, a small piece of the end of the rock still had the black streak but now that flat surface was no longer level, it was split into several layers of rocky slope down a path of granite. I breathed out, he never even knew what that rock meant.
We shopped for rings one time, halfheartedly joking but serious in that way that you hop
e it will be right, that you hope that you are not imagining things, that you are wanted and loved and protected. So, we window-shopped which took us into a jewelry store where I saw the ring that would mean it for me. Like choosing the cup of life or death, it was a test. We walked through the display cases promising eternal love for any price, the greater the amount, the greater the result did not add up in my estimate. I dragged my fingers across the glass cases leaving trails of smears behind. He followed me, rubbing my shoulder and leaning into my back, pressing me into the case until I laughed. When I first walked around, I spotted it. A small band interlaced with weaving. Like serpents braided together in a loop, the lace a continuous Escher connection in a Celtic pattern. He ambled to the other side of the store browsing among crosses and ID bracelets and finally asked to see an elaborate ring made of smooth white gold. Its pale color disguising its value. He turned it over in his fingers and winked at me. The ring had a large diamond inset in the middle with two small emeralds on either side. It sickened me. My stomach felt gassy and my breath lacked oxygen, as if breathing through a filter. He held it out to me and I touched the fold, cold to my finger and hollow and light in my palm.
"Try it on, seven and a quarter, right? It should fit."
I shook my head, hoping my fingers had grown fatter, that it would not slip over my knuckle. This hope left me when he took my hand and gently looked into my eyes and smiled, his cheeks tightening, his eyes crinkling at the edges. I felt the band slide onto my finger effortlessly. He lifted my hand to my eyes and I felt a band go around my heart.
"What do you think?"
"Is this the one that you like best?"
"I came in last week and had it fitted for you."
I thought about the effort that he had put into it, but it didn't fit. It did not fit my heart, my head, or any other part of my body. My finger felt alien to me as I looked at it. I slowly reached up and disentangled my hand, sliding the ring off and placing it in his hand. I smiled.
"Let's look some more, shall we? It's beautiful but I'd really like something simple."
He snorted and then his mouth hung open and his eyebrows raised as he realized I was serious. I absently popped my ring finger, massaging the area where the ring had set.
"Look over here, for instance. What do you think of this one?" I led him back to the small silver case, pointing at the ring displayed in a velvet prop.
"That's just a plain old ring. Why would you want it?"
I shrugged and asked to see it. I took it and rolled it between my fingers, feeling the bumps and holes between the intertwined metal ropes. The outer edge was smooth but I pressed my finger into the pattern. My skin seeped through. I released the ring between my index finger and my palm and I looked at the tiny snake pattern it had left. I tried to place it on my finger but it was too small and would only loosely slip onto my pinky finger.
"I like it because it means something."
"Means what? What meaning is there in a cheap piece of silver? That says a lot to me."
I looked up and stared into his brown eyes. His brow was furrowed and he looked at me with a mixture of amusement and patronizing knowledge that he knew me better than I knew myself. I placed the ring on the counter and let it twirl in a small circle, rattling before I led him out of the store. We went home that night and tried to make love but there was a wall. His skin felt synthetic and his kisses forced. I was content to lie there within myself knowing me and realizing that he did not.
I felt the same chill now. My skin loose and the air chilling me internally as I sat the rock on the ground and rocked it back into place with my big toe. I rubbed my hand across my throat and let it rest on my chest. He had come the closest to penetrating my armor, getting past my skin, my tough hide, and all of the challenges that I placed for him to prove himself. He passed. But after all that he had not reached me. He had only reached someone that he thought was me. And, maybe it had been.
I sat with my knees hugged to my chest and rocked slightly, pushing the rock with me. I tilted it out onto its broken side and let it fall heavily back to its resting place. I could run my entire foot across its top and lift the base by lifting my heel, pointing my toes down when I arched my foot. The black streak was barely visible, showing and then disappearing as I rocked it and stopped as I leaned forward with the rock raised. The floor was hard beneath me and I leaned into the wall beneath the windowsill. With a quick thrust of force from my foot, I pushed the rock against the wall, stuck and exposed, the beautiful black marble visible, smooth and worn. It was covered by the granite, rough and crumbling. Years of sediment piled onto it, covering the delicate beauty hidden beneath the coarse exterior.
My toe rubbed a piece of the black edge and I wondered if I wasn't better without him. The colors of the granite swirl in some areas and the drab colors hide the vivid pure black underneath. The black rock feels powerful, and the rock surrounding it poor and dry. The light granite color was a mask of ugly plain mountain, deceptive and tamed. I stood and left the rock propped upward against the wall, revealing the jagged black design underneath. I walked to the door and opened it. I stepped out into the hallway, the dirty runner cold beneath my feet. Barefoot, I walked outside my building and stepped onto the cement. Stepping gingerly around loose stones and pebbles, I looked across the lot and felt the cool air brushing my skin. Taking a deep breath, I felt the air chill and burn my lungs. I felt the breath in my fingertips and my toes. I stood on my tiptoes, pressing my feet into the cold pavement. I scanned the area and walked over to a large curb. I sat beneath a tree and crossed my ankles, staring at the ground. Amid pine needles and gravelly rocks, there were small pebbles and stones that had blown to their resting place. I leaned over and brushed my fingers through them. I picked up a small red stone. It was smooth and had shades of burnt red and orange swirling across its smooth surface. I rolled the cold stone in my hand and closed my hand over the stone, embracing the color.
Gay Milner
Marzipan
Gunshot. What? I must have fallen asleep; the red patch burns on my thigh against the Naugahyde. It's hot, and the air damp with stickiness that belongs to this landlocked land. The gunshot?—yes—The Virginian, that blond boy Travis, snub nose and cupid mouth on the other side of the smoking barrel. But the grainy black-and-white, the grainy sound (a soup of music) is just the faded image of some more violent dream. I can't hold it. I pull myself hand over hand back into it because I must save myself, or her, or it. What did I need to do? A lump of failure in my chest.
Over the cowboys a cheap cardboard frame sits on the fake wood of the TV set, little gold pressed curlicues around a snapshot of Dogzilla, his rich red hair curly on his ears that hang like a pageboy to his thin black smile. Irish setter as coed circa 1958. And is that my only personal memento, the only photograph worth bringing after thirty-five years? What was that dream? I'm a cowgirl, my dog has been abducted by a rustler; crap. What creature is it that I must save?
I balance myself, pain slicing up from my spine across my right hip socket, unsteady on my feet, and hobble to the front door, swing the squeaky screen. On the porch—knobbled knuckles of my stockinged feet on the red cement—I reach for the post and am overcome with dread. This porch support is a double cylinder of painted metal, held ten inches or so apart by (also painted, rusting white) metal shapes: a series of interlocking tendrils, leaves, two birds in flight. Where it disappears into the clapboard ceiling it has been patched with grainy putty. Its two feet are buried in the red cement. The grain of the paint grates on my fingertips.
I look "into the eyes" of this flat white metal bird, and there tumbles out of the hot void where the dream has fled a moment from Liege. I was—what?—no more than eight or nine because the market was still there, and yet there was some fear attached to food, the possibility of want. Nine, then. 1939. My mother's hip warm against my shoulder in a coat of loden green. A bird was pecking at the edge of a puddle, at a piece of cake or petit four. Yes. My mother w
as buying bread and I was waiting to see if there would be a marzipan, a biscuit, a mille-feuille for me. I was—why?—terrified that I would be ignored, denied, expected to go home without a treat. I wanted to bend and snatch the cake away from the bird, who seemed impossibly bold at my feet. Like the German boys who would not hesitate to say anything— scum! kike! gypsy! This bird had my sweet, unless (her voice murmured above me, the inconsequential murmur of the housewife and the merchant, his deeper, dulcet, reasoning plaints mixed in with hers)—unless she would remember me. Why did I both suppose that they could feed me and fear that they would not? The bird cocked a beady eye at me. Taunting. An ordinary small brown bird, fat with feathers, who might yet pluck out my eyes.
My mother said, "Simone. M. Partenier is speaking to you."
Partenier. The name comes back unbidden, the patissier of the open market. His banner ran along his stall at the level of my knees in red scrolling script that I could read: Partenier Patisserie. In front of that the malevolent bird sat pecking at the petit four, shaking it like a dog with a sock (like Dogzilla my only darling, my only offspring, whom I have abandoned).
"Say thank you to M. Partenier." Who handed down a plain crust of day-old roll. Betrayed, I couldn't speak.
