As I read, I loaded a washer of white hotel towels. “Phew, Clorox, too much of a good thing,” I said out loud.
The humming sound of the washer provided background music as I opened more of the letters. I became entranced, losing track of time.
Suddenly, Mary stood in the doorway. I became startled, and opened the washer door and threw in the box of letters.
Letters soon were smacking up against the glass door of the washer, words bleeding away. I held my hands to my mouth.
Mary opened up the hatch and dug her hands in the machine. “The letters, what did you do Dottie?” she screamed.
She scooped out what looked like oatmeal. I trembled. "I'm so sorry, I panicked."
Mary didn’t answer, she continued to bail out the rest of the soggy letters, sobbing uncontrollably.
"I'll make it up to you somehow." I tried to console her.
She pushed me away.
"This is all I had left of my parents."
Fumes from the Clorox wafted by me, lingering around my face. "No, it can't be, I'll help you find out who your parents were."
Mary stomped her feet on a pile she made of letter scraps on the floor. "Did you read them all?"
"No, didn't finish."
"Then you don't know," she kicked around the pile.
"What don't I know?" I said,thinking she was playing with me.
"Your Aunt."
"My Aunt Toni? Are you saying she's your mother? No way." I picked up a broom to sweep away the mess.
"She's your mother too."
"Stop your lying, you know that's not true."
"I've made copies of all the letters. I found out that Daddy Love is our father, he and his wife couldn't have children and he wanted to have children," she said so matter-of-fact.
The words circled to the front of my mind, like an advertisement trailing from an airplane in the sky. Tears flowed down my puffy cheeks. Mary my sister? My father unfaithful to my mother? They were never apart.
I looked up at Mary unable to speak, and for the first time, noticed her wide smile resembled my father's.
Susan Girolami Kramer wears many hats at her job as a communications specialist and at home. She's a photographer, fiction writer, editor, graphic designer, published news and fiction writer; and serves as Rose and Thorn's Journal Newsletter producer, an online literary journal. Susan is currently working on a novel.
Dissipation
by
C.A. Masterson
The air is tinged with effervescence, it occurs to me as I hold the car door open. Ann slinks inside, graceful and treacherous and perfect, like a jaguar warily settling on a limb. The neon orange-purple sky glows for a few moments like a stratospheric light show. Like a good omen.
I don’t even mind the crush of strangers as we wait outside the theater. I’ve looked forward to this concert for weeks – it marks a move forward, out of the haze of gloom I’ve been mired in for too long. Ann leans into me; I swear I can feel her bare skin through my shirt. She doesn’t notice; her long fingers adjust a strand of hair just so behind her ear. I want to lean into her and nip her ear lobe, but settle for running my hand down the small of her back. She smiles, but her eyes have that predatory look, as if I were a moth alighting on her newly spun web that glistens in the moonlight. But oh how it glistens! And I want to be caught.
People are glommed onto the theater, onto each other. We’re in the center of a crush of bodies, being sucked inside, then dispersed within.
Ann asks if I’ve been here before.
Just once, I tell her, but don’t say with who. I don’t want to mention her name, spew it into the atmosphere, where it might reverberate in the night as it’s been reverberating through my head for weeks. Saying Yasmine’s name will conjure images: her smile, the smell of her hair, the texture of her skin.
I smile at Ann. She’s the extreme opposite of Yasmine, alphabetically and otherwise. Ann, I think, I can handle. The couple of dates we’ve been on, I think I’ve zeroed in on her inner workings. It wasn’t difficult. She likes all things trendy – this might be either challenging or ultimately boring; I normally don’t follow trends, not like I suspect Ann does. She only likes popular music, she sings along without comprehending the words. Even when sung in a gut-wrenching scream, the lyrics slide right off her, like her slinky clothes. But once you’ve gotten that far, nothing else matters.
We sit down, and when the lights dim, I feel a rush. I check Ann for any similar signs of anticipation, but she’s watching some latecomers take their seats.
I almost didn’t invite her tonight. I’d bought these tickets months ago, when I was still with Yasmine. She’d gotten so excited that these three musicians were coming to town that I bought the tickets online that day. They’re amazing, she’d said. Unique.
That’s exactly how I think of Yasmine – amazing, unique. But also challenging, on lots of levels. It was such a struggle sometimes just to have a conversation without it turning into something socio-political. My consciousness had to be at its uppermost heights at all times in order to even be in the same vicinity as Yasmine’s. It felt too much like work, sometimes, to maintain that level of purity in thought and spirit. I’m just not that pure.
When the stage lights come up, the classical guitarist, pianist and bassist step into the spotlights and introduce themselves to applause. The pianist nods at the others, and they begin an intricate melody that nearly lifts me out of my seat. The bassist’s hands caress the curves of the oversized instrument as if it were a woman, and the way he moves with the bass, it nearly looks alive. The guitarist’s fingers skitter up and down the frets, both hands moving like spiders on the neck of the acoustic guitar. The pianist’s hands are a blur as he sways back and forth with the rhythm. When the melody ends, I clap, begging for more.
Why aren’t they singing? Ann asks.
It’s all instrumental. I told you that.
I thought that was their name. Her mouth is pouty.
Just listen, I tell her. Let the music carry you away.
I wish, she says, but her hands clench the ends of the armrests, like she’s in for a rough ride.
I ignore her theatrics. My eyes search the faces of those scattered around me in the dark theater. Couples nod at each other enthusiastically, some just watch the musicians eagerly.
Then I see Yasmine. Her seat is three rows in front of ours, to the right of the stage. I force myself to turn back to the musicians as they begin the next song. I don’t want to look at her. I don’t know why she’s here. She shouldn’t be here.
It was my final revenge, keeping these tickets after we split up. She’d wanted to see this group, not me, though I later listened to their CD and couldn’t stop. I’d play it in the car, at home, wherever I could. It was the only way I could lose the terrible feelings that were churning inside me. The music was soothing to my soul, it filled the echoing chasm Yasmine had left. Some nights the chasm transformed to an abyss that nearly swallowed me. But the music always levitated me, always saved me.
Now it’s all crashing down again. I can’t keep my eyes off Yasmine. She’s listening so intently as the guitarist pinches and squeezes the notes, she winces at the sad strains, then her mouth opens in a surprised smile as the music flies into a wildly ecstatic melody.
How much longer? Ann asks.
Should be an intermission soon, I tell her, my smile sour.
I lean forward. My jaw tenses. Yasmine is mesmerized, so caught up in the music she’ll never look in my direction. Her eyes follow the music to whichever player is spotlighted.
Then everyone’s clapping, and the house lights come up.
Oh good, Ann says. I need a drink.
I shuffle behind her, stealing glances across to the next aisle as Yasmine smiles at the guy she’s with, talking excitedly. She’s elated to be here. Of course she’d be here, I tell myself. I should have expected it. My ego told me she’d never come, she’d avoid the concert to avoid me.
Ann heads straight for the bar, and gives me an expectant look. I follow to pay for her drink.
Let’s go outside, she says, seeing others outside smoking.
I want to grab a CD, I tell her.
Okay, come out when you’re done. She doesn’t wait for an answer. She’s already walking toward the door, flipping on her cell phone. It rings immediately, and it’s like an alarm bringing her out of her cryogenic boredom to animation once again – her arm flails as she speaks, pacing, nodding; stopping to sip her drink, she taps her foot.
Watching her, I feel my neck grow thick like a tree trunk, my legs stiffen, and my shoes take root on the carpet. Everything feels so wrong, out of control, people are whirling around me like I’m surrounded by a cyclone.
In the reflection of the glass-front building, I see Yasmine walking toward me. My neck extends like a turtle from its hard shell, my roots snap as my body turns toward her. But she’s looking at her companion, and shines her warm smile on him instead of me.
I walk dejectedly to the end of the line to buy a CD, keeping my eyes on the floor, on the person in front of me, anywhere but on Yasmine, so I won’t have to see her with someone else.
I try to remember the exact turn of events leading to our breakup. It began with something small and stupid, exacerbated by stubbornness. She wanted to go to some artsy foreign film, I wanted to go out dancing. It escalated, spiraled uncontrollably out beyond our reach until we both said things that were meant to cut to the bone, to weaken the spirit of the other. We’d been talking about moving in together. Maybe I wasn’t ready, then, and wanted to buy some time. I didn’t know what I had. Seeing her tonight, comparing her to Ann – it’s like comparing an orchestral warmup to a symphony. One’s just going nowhere.
I pay for the CD – it’s their new one. It will either help me through this latest crisis phase, or be such a terrible reminder of my continuing failure that I’ll have to smash it into atomic bits and lose myself in some mosh pit instead, and dance like a primal being incapable of communicating my overwhelming emotions by any other means.
Yasmine would understand what I mean. She used to get me out of my occasional funks by giving me a look. You’re bedeviling me, I’d tell her. You’re a Yasmanian devil. She’d laugh with a gypsy whoop, and climb on top of me, and her whirling dervish of kisses would drive me to the brink of insanity, then reel me back in to the safety of her cradling arms.
People are drifting back inside the theater. Beyond the story-high windows, Ann’s still yapping on her cell phone. I go outside and tell her, without waiting for a pause in the conversation, we need to get back to our seats. She rolls her eyes, tells whoever she’s talking to she’ll call back soon, and flicks off the phone.
Do we have to go back in? she asks.
I really like them. And I paid a lot of money for these tickets.
Ann understands money; she speaks fluent currency. It’s her measure of success, of people’s worth – even her own.
Okay, she says, but stamps her foot a little.
I walk. Let’s get back before the lights go down.
We just make it, stumbling past those seated in our aisle. I’m apologizing to the woman next to my seat for stepping on her foot when my eyes snap to Yasmine’s. Her eyes are wide, watching me. I freeze.
The lights go out.
I fall into my seat, riveted to her through the darkness. When the stage lights come up, I see only her profile as she watches the musicians take their places. She’s blinking too rapidly, though – a sign she’s nervous. She glances at me, jumps a little when she sees me, like I’ve slapped her. I feel like my brain’s out of order, my movements are in slow motion. I can’t think of anything else to do but stare.
Her companion leans his head toward hers, says something. She turns back to the stage.
The guitarist plays with such intensity of feeling, I close my eyes as the song sends me out of my body, floating on the waves of music. I imagine myself with Yasmine, on our last good day together. It had rained all day, and we’d stayed in bed, exploring each other like two spelunkers, exhilarating at new discoveries. I replayed as much as I could remember of that day in my head.
Are you all right? Ann whispers harshly into my ear.
I crash again, angry at the abrupt landing. Sshhhh!
You’re weird, she says.
I close my eyes again, trying to recapture the moment. But it’s irretrievable, and now the song is ending, and fury builds inside me.
I quell my anger with this thought: I’ll drop her off at home tonight, and never call her again.
I reopen my eyes as the trio begins a new song, and see Yasmine, watching me again. She looks sad. Her sadness creates a new chasm inside me, spilling her sadness into mine.
I miss you, I mouth at her.
She looks away. Then looks back.
I miss you, I mouth again, more insistently.
She looks from me to Ann, who’s now leaning forward, suddenly attentive. But I can’t stop looking at Yasmine. I tilt my head toward the door, my eyebrows raised as if to say please.
She looks uncertain, but doesn’t say no.
I tilt my head again.
Are you flirting with that girl? Ann says.
My eyes beg Yasmine: please please please please please.
To my astonishment, she gets up, says something quick to her companion, and walks up the aisle, her eyes shining in the near-darkness, locked on mine. As if I’d taken a hit of helium, I stand.
No, I tell Ann. I’m leaving with her.
Laughter bubbles inside me for the first time in weeks, and I hurry toward Yasmine, whisper a general sorry for the missteps landing on others’ feet, for the weeks I’ve wasted alone, for trying to fill the chasm Yasmine left with a shallow puddle named Ann.
I grasp her hand and we walk through the exit. I feel my feet more solidly on the ground even as we’re practically waltzing, as I ask Yasmine, Can we go somewhere and talk?
She stops, then, lays a hand on my cheek, like a blind woman divining the true person underneath.
Yes, she says finally.
The pianist, bassist and guitarist provide the soundtrack to this moment I could live in forever. I kiss her, capture her in my arms for a short time, in defiance of the song that’s ending and the starry sky destined to dissipate into morning.
C.A. Masterson calls Pennsylvania home, but she’ll always be a Jersey girl at heart. When not with her family, she’s in her lair, concocting a magical brew of contemporary, historical, and fantasy/paranormal stories. Also writing as Cate Masters, look for her at catemasters.blogspot.com, and in far-flung corners of the web.
The Mirror
By
Susan E. Bangs
Madeline waited patiently for her train. It had been a long week and she wanted to get out of the city. The other passengers stood on the platform, some anxiously looking at their watches. Finally, her train arrived and she got into the second car that had several available seats. She situated herself comfortably and waited for the train to lurch forward. As she waited, she fumbled in her purse for the ticket she had purchased. The conductor began his rounds as the train slowly left the station.
Accidentally, Madeline knocked her purse onto the floor and in picking up the items that had fallen out, she noticed an envelope discarded under the seat in front of her. It was a large manila one that had “Open If Found” written in bold letters on the outside.
Curious, but hesitant, Madeline opened the envelope and found a mirror inside. When she looked at herself in it, a stranger looked back. Suddenly the stranger spoke, “Congratulations Madeline, you have found what many have sought. Think carefully before you speak because the first three wishes that escape your lips will be yours.”
Madeline thought she had fallen asleep and was dreaming, but when she looked again at the mirror, the same face looked back at her. “Who are you and what kind of wishes can I make?”
“I am who you want me to be and your wishe
s can be anything.”
“I want to be with you wherever it is that you are.”
“That’s simple enough. Come along then.”
The next thing she knew, Madeline was transported to a beautiful, plush landscape where the air was fresh and everything around her burst with color.
“Oh, I haven’t felt this alive in a while!” she exclaimed.
“What else do you desire?” the stranger asked.
“I want to be in an evening gown dancing with the most handsome man there.”
“Done then,” the mirror said.
Madeline could hear the music and felt herself swirling to a Viennese waltz. She was captivated by the charming man whose arm encircled her waist as they effortlessly glided around the room.
“You have one final wish,” the stranger said.
“I’m so tired of my mundane routine—I want to leave it forever.”
“Done then,” the mirror replied.
When Madeline’s son arrived to pick his mother up for dinner, he found her in her usual folding chair, where she always waited, holding a mirror smiling and slightly slumped over. The son tried to wake her, but couldn’t. He felt a sudden sense of grief yet peace overwhelming him. His mother’s battle with dementia was over.
“Done then,” he said as he gently bent to kiss her good-bye.
Susan E. Bangs is a professor at Harrisburg Area Community College where she teaches English as a Second Language and Spanish.
Betsy’s Delight
By
Marlene Ross
“Let’s go for ice cream, Hon. What do you think, Dan?” Betsy leans into the doorway of her husband’s home office. “It’s so hot. How about it? Hon, did you hear me? Want some ice cream?”
“I have to finish this report,” says Dan, closely scrutinizing the figures on his laptop, “and I have a conference call in about ten minutes.”
“Can’t you take a break from work? It’s Saturday for Pete’s sake; didn’t you hear the news bulletin? If every household reduced power consumption by five percent, a shortage might be avoided during this heat wave. Turn off your computer and help out.”
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