Category: blog

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. All the story slots are sold, but if you are enjoying the pieces, please consider a donation to show your support.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

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Shake It

For Liz Butcher. Thank you for your friendship and support.

Maybe it was the goddamn rain, or the guy next door with the relentless topiary sculpture impulse and the chainsaw; or maybe it was simply everyday life that was starting to get Danny down. He couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that he was on a treadmill, a little hamster going round and round. It made him want to roll over and go back to sleep, just say fuck it for once… But oh my god the Lawrence file deadline, was that today? And now he was already late.

Out on the street, he discovered his car boxed in by SUVs, bumper to bumper. He maneuvered out carefully, and took a deep breath, and launched himself into the mad rush of the commute. Everyone with day jobs will now please do the crazy chicken to get onto the expressway. Everyone on the expressway will now please immediately come to a stop and proceed to your destination one meter at a time. Thanks for playing our game! Enjoy your day!

He didn’t have time to stop for coffee, so he called his admin and begged. By the time he got to work, he was totally off schedule. He slung his briefcase in the corner and sat. The desk was a mess. Did Marshall even know how to file?

“Here’s your fix,” Marshall said. One ear was plugged into his iPod; the other earbud dangled down his shirt front, next to his tie. Tinny music leaked out as he leaned to put Danny’s grande non-fat fair-trade macchiato on the corner of the desk. Was that the Miami Sound Machine? Apparently, it was: Marshall plugged back in and did a little conga step out the office door. Must be nice to have nothing more to do than dance. Like filing.

Deep breath.

He opened the Lawrence file. Jesus, what a giant spaghetti mess this meatball’s life was; everything turned upside down in a single bad-judgment moment of signing an employment contract without reading all the words. The document itself was a masterwork of convoluted language and parenthetical clauses, a solid one-way trip to Don’t look now, you’re fucked, and Joe Lawrence was just another schleb who had followed a boss cow into a chute and then gone white-eyed at the slaughterhouse door.

Deep breath. It was his job to help this guy. Dig in and figure it out. So he got to work. But then there was a crisis on the McCready filing and he had to do an emergency conference call. And then just as he got back into the zone on Lawrence, there was a fucking fire drill. Blaaat blaaat wroop wroop wroop. Effectively loud: he wanted to keep working but he couldn’t stand the noise, so he grabbed his coffee and headed for the stairs, and wow, he needed a caffeine blast right about now, and that’s when he found out the coffee was cold.

There was a garbage can by the stairway door. He ditched the latte. Marshall saw, and said, “I’ll get you another,” and they joined the throng funnelling into the stairwell and trotting down two by two, side by side, very orderly in the stairwells and then shifting and jostling as new people came in at the landing on each floor. The alarm racket made any conversation impossible, and the flashing red and white lights made it all seem more urgent. He was glad to get out into the parking lot, where there was more space.

When he got tired of standing, he opened his car doors and windows and sat in the driver’s seat. He put his hands on the wheel. Maybe he should just say fuck it after all. Get on the expressway and move with ease between lanes, because everyone with day jobs was jobbing. Text in his resignation from the airport while he was boarding for Guadelajara or Venice or Vegas. But then what? The fact was that he liked his house in spite of the chainsaw artist next door, and he liked his car, and he even liked his job saving dumb fuckers like Joe Lawrence from the axe. He didn’t want to be free of those things. He just didn’t like the feeling sometimes that he was in a chute.

Deep breath. Soon it would be time to go upstairs and make more documents for Marshall to not file. And here came the Dancing Queen himself with Danny’s latte, plugged into his iPod again.

Something inside Danny shook itself awake.

Danny said, “Give me that.” And when Marshall offered the coffee, Danny said, “No, that,” and pointed to the iPod.

He was conscious of Marshall staring as he found the song and plugged the player into his car system. And turned it up loud. Marshall’s eyebrows were in the stratosphere.

Danny said, “Come on, shake your body, baby.” And showed him how. Marshall grinned, and took hold, and did. People stared. People smiled. And people lined up and followed Danny, just like he was the boss cow leading them to greener pastures, and they did the conga around the parking lot until it was time to get back to work.

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. All the story slots are sold, but if you are enjoying the pieces, please consider a donation to show your support.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

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This and That

For Ellen Klages. Thank you for your friendship and support.

“Ma, you want to meet a nice guy, you should try the Senior Center,” Christy said. She put the last of the canned corn in the cabinet, folded the cloth shopping bags under her arm, wiped the counter with the dishtowel, straightened her waitress uniform, and said, “What else are you doing today?”

“Oh, this and that,” Shirley said.

Christy sighed. “Okay, then I gotta go. You got everything you need? Love you.” Kiss, kiss, and she was gone.

Shirley sat in the chair by the apartment window and watched Christy cross the street. A taxi driver yelled out his window, “Lookin’ good!” Shirley saw Christy’s appreciative smile, the extra spring it put in her step. And Shirley smiled too, although it still hurt the right side of her face: it was good to see her daughter with that bounce.

“So what do you think?” Shirley said. “Go to the Senior Center and meet a nice guy? Think this face will scare them off?”

Frank chuckled. Those guys oughta be so lucky. You’re beautiful, kid.

Outside the window there were people going places, and shops that made any kind of coffee you wanted. There was a park down the street full of little ones on swings in the morning and older kids on skateboards in the afternoon. There were cafes that served all kinds of food. Greek, Ethiopian, who even knew? There were neighbors on the stoops in the evenings. And there were ambulances that took people to the hospital where they died and there were kids with frightening faces and hard hands who would knock an old lady down and break her face and take her purse and make her scared so that now her daughter did all her shopping while she sat at the window.

This and that, kiddo, Frank said.

Shirley nodded, and stood to take her tea mug into the kitchen. On her way past the mantel, she kissed her fingers and pressed them to the box with his ashes.

#

“Ma, you want to meet a nice guy, you should maybe go to the Spring Festival at the church. Probably a lot of nice guys there.” Christy checked the bathroom closet. “You got enough toilet paper? Toothpaste?”

“Honey, give me a break, will you? I had your father, they don’t get any nicer.”

Christy came out of the bathroom and leaned against the doorway. “I just want you to be okay. I don’t want you to be alone.”

“I been doing fine on my own,” Shirley said. “I’m wrinkly and my knees hurt and I can’t eat garlic anymore, but I’m not…” She didn’t want to say it: I’m not old. But she saw the look on Christy’s face.

What are you, an idiot? Yes, you are, Frank said. Shirl, you’re old.

“I’m not old,” Shirley said. “Inside I still feel like a kid. I want to go eat some of that Greek food they got over on Central. You know I never had that? I want to go dancing. I want to go hear a big band play and drink one of those Sex on the Beach cocktails. I never had that either. The cocktail, I mean,” she added. “I had sex on the beach.”

“Ma.”

“What? It was with your father, in case you’re interested.”

“Ma!”

“I’m not too old to have sex, you know.”

Christy put her hands over her ears. “Oh my god, stop talking, Ma, stop talking right now!” She was laughing. And Shirley didn’t know how to say that in her heart she was still dancing all night and then fucking on the beach while the surf pounded in time. But now she was supposed to get her kicks at the Senior Center? When the fuck did that happen?

Three months ago when some kid knocked you down and took your Social Security, Frank said.

“I just think it would be good for you to get out,” Christy said.

“Somewhere for old people,” Shirley said, and was surprised by the tiny tremble of anger in her voice.

“Ma–”

“Maybe next week,” Shirley said.

#

It happened so fast, she was wheeling her basket to the supermarket, it was raining, not too hard but enough to make people keep their heads down, and suddenly WHAM on the side of her face and YANK her purse jerked off her arm and OLD BITCH HAHAHAHA and thump of young cruel feet gone gone gone. So much gone in that moment. Her keys and the cash from her Social, the photo of Frank and Christy, her little pillbox with the painted flower, and all those nights of dancing, and all those days when she knew that she was young of spirit, no matter what her body had to say about it.

She sat in the chair after Christy left, sat all afternoon while the sun went down behind the buildings and the shadows lengthened in the streets, and thought about next week, and the week after that, and the week after that.

“Frank, tell me what to do,” she said.

I can’t tell you anything, Shirl. I’m dead. Christy finds out you’re asking me, she’ll get you out, all right. Straight to the nuthouse.

“I don’t want to be old.”

That’s life.

“Fuck you, Frank,” she said, with all the love in her.

I wish, kiddo.

“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”

#

“Ma, I’m at the apartment, where are you?!” Christy’s voice on the phone was frantic.

“I’m fine, honey. I’m with a nice guy at the beach.”

“What? How did you get… Ma, are you lost? I’ll come get you.”

“I got a phone smarter than I am, how do you think I got here? My phone told me to take the number 3 bus and by god, it was right.” And never mind about how she’d almost turned around at her own front door, how she’d nearly peed herself with terror every time a kid got on the bus. “I’ll be home later, I’ll call you.”

“Ma–”

“Christy, honey, you need to get a life,” Shirley said, and it gave her immense pleasure to hear her daughter’s indrawn breath and then her delighted burst of laughter before Shirley hung up the phone.

How you doing, kiddo? Frank said.

“My knees hurt,” she said. “Want to dance?” And she held her purse to her chest so she could feel the box of him against her breast, and she turned with him slowly on the sand.

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. All the story slots are sold, but if you are enjoying the pieces, please consider a donation to show your support.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

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The Bad End of M3

For Anonymous. Thank you for your support of me and Clarion West.

“Miss Simons is substituting for Emma Longstrom,” Principal Dubby said. There were polite smiles and involuntary grimaces. “Poor old Emma,” the math teacher mumbled. “Terrible thing.”

Susie agreed it was a terrible thing when an educator of 25 years experience — an utter professional, to Susie’s certain knowledge — could be so distracted in the classroom that she would allow her attention to wander while operating dangerous equipment. And an arts and crafts teacher with only half a hand… well. Susie shook her head.

Dubby said, “Miss Simons specializes in behavioral issues.” The others nodded and then frowned into their coffee, except for the older woman in the back of the room, whose knitting needles continue to whip up stitches while she regarded Susie.

“Even private schools these days are a war zone,” the young Social Sciences teacher said. She had a high blink rate, and Susie thought that cleavage really wasn’t appropriate in the classroom. “A war zone,” she said again, and crossed her arms tight over her breasts. In the back, the history teacher shook her head briefly.

“The fifth-graders can be a bit of discipline challenge,” the math teacher said, with a twitch. “Just got to show them who’s boss.”

“You can count on it,” Susie said. The history teacher seemed to be the only one who got the joke: she smiled into her knitting as if to say, Well, now we’ll see something interesting.

#

A good substitute had sharp powers of observation and snap assessment skills. Susie could step into a fifth grade home room and within 30 seconds spot the usual suspects: the class wit whose father generally beat him at home, the boy embarrassed by rapid onset penis growth and therefore likely to act out physically, the girl who secretly collected spiders in a jar in the basement — you had to watch those girls, they liked to work from a distance — and, of course, the bossypants. Susie’s long experience had taught her that 80% of trouble in any class could be laid at the feet of one of those kids. She would have bet her mortgage on it, if she’d had one. Well, there you were, being a substitute was not a stable job, but it was important and fulfilling, requiring judgment and precision, and Susie always executed well.

Principal Dubby led her to the classroom. Through the glass pane in the door, Susie saw pretty much what she expected: uniformed children behaving badly. A couple of boys wrestled in a corner. A girl with a jar of poker chips doled them out to petitioners in twos or threes. At least five students were on phones. A boy in the back was defacing his desk. And they were loud; they sounded like a football crowd, even from out here.

The principal took a breath, looked at the door handle, and rubbed his palms on his trousers. “Never mind,” Susie said. “I’ll just introduce myself and get started, if that’s all right with you.”

“Ah, well, yes…” he said.

“All will be well, Mr. Dubby,” she said. “I’m a professional.”

“I just hate… I’m not sure I should put you in there.”

She waited. They all thought their situation was special.

He looked through the glass again. Inside the room, a boy stood behind a seated girl, grinding his pelvis into the back of her head. Ah, the penis case. The girl was crying and trying to protect her head without touching his crotch.

The principal said, in a grim tone, “They really are little beasts.” Susie nodded.

“Thank you for your help, MIss Simons,” he said, and turned and left her. Susie smiled. Time to get to work.

A textbook flying through the air narrowly missed her as she walked to the front of the room, but she’d noted that it wasn’t aimed at her, and she decided not to put the book-flinger on the list; apart from anything, he was defending himself, and Susie respected that. She spared a moment of contempt for the young Social Services idiot who thought she was fighting a rearguard action, apparently with her breasts; perhaps public schools were a war zone, but private schools were a jungle.

“Hello, class,” Susie said at normal volume. Two or three students at their desks sat up straight and looked at her. Good. She made sure they saw her put her fingertips in her ears and then nodded at them: You too. They did, looking suspicious.

Susie said again, Hello, but now the word went on a long time, and her voice grew louder and thinner, until the students began to shake their heads like dogs being trained by barkstopping whistles: There’s something in my ear, get it out!

The noise stopped, and the children looked at Susie with gratifying stupefaction.

“I am Miss Simons,” she said. “Sit.”

They did. The girl with the jar of poker chips took the classic Bossypants seat in the second row, where everyone could see that she was unhappy and ready to express at the first opportunity. Susie thought, Let the hunt begin.

“Now that I have your attention,” she told the class, “I will call roll. Please raise your hand when you hear your name.”

The second-row girl said, “That’s not how you do it. We already checked ourselves in on the list at the beginning of class.”

“If you want to speak, please raise your hand and I will call on you.”

“That’s not how Ms. Longstrom does it. We each get chips and we have to put a chip in the jar every time we speak.”

Susie noted without comment that Bossypants did not put in a chip. Then she began with the first name on her list, “Laura Alvarez,” and looked for the relevant hand.

“That’s not how we do it!”

“Brixton Adler,” Susie said. Ah, penis case. Billy Carson responded to his name with Hellooooooooo and gave Susie a satisfied look when everyone laughed. The tear-faced girl, who Susie now unfortunately thought of as the Headbanger, raised her hand to the name Elizabeth Meeks, and gave Adler a spider-eyed look.

Then Susie called, “Mary Marsha Mahoney.”

Bossypants said, “No one calls me that. Everyone calls me M3. Because my name has 3 M’s.”

Susie said. “Do you prefer Mary or Marsha?”

“All the teachers call me M3,” Mary Marsha Mahoney said.

“Mary, then,” Susie said, and went on. And privately enjoyed the look on Bossypants’ face: You’re not doing it right!

#

When Susie brought out the paper cutter, she could see some of the students flinch reflexively.

“We’ll continue the bookmaking project that Mrs. Longstrom began,” she said. “Now, there’s nothing to be afraid of. No one is to use the paper cutter without my supervision. Please form into your groups and begin working.”

Susie moved through the room offering guidance and reviewing their work. Her teaching mind was impressed, as she’d expected: Emma Longstrom really was a pro. Look at the talent she’d encouraged out of Spider Girl! Susie very much hoped Elizabeth would not be on the final list, and turned the other part of her mind to sorting out what had happened to Emma.

It didn’t take long. Across the room, she watched M3 Bossypants commandeer the paper cutter with the group’s manuscript in hand, shushing a girl who said, “We’re supposed to wait for the teacher.”

“We don’t have to wait for her, she’s just a substitute and she probably doesn’t even do it right.” And then Bossypants raised the handle and shoved the too-thick stack of paper under it, and held it in place…

With her thumb right under the blade.

And as Susie assumed control of the situation, and the paper cutter, and sent Miss Mahoney back to her chair, she could see it as clearly as if she were watching a film: Emma seeing the vulnerable thumb, rushing for the cutter, moving young Miss Bossypants aside, the wail of protest, “I was doing it!” and the shove and the teacher’s hand slipping as the blade came down.

“Class dismissed,” Susie said. “It’s time for lunch.”

#

She stuck her head into the Faculty Room to see who was there, and wasn’t surprised to find the history teacher knitting. “How’s it going?” the teacher said.

“Just wrapping up,” Susie said. “I wonder if you’d care to join me for lunch?”

“Thank you,” the teacher said with a smile, and put away her knitting.

They waited in the janitorial closet beside the girl’s bathroom, and when Mary Marsha Mahoney came by alone, Susie opened the door and smiled and said, M3, here’s how we do it, and dragged the girl inside. The janitor’s duct tape and the classroom paper cutter came in quite handy.

“Has anyone seen Miss Mahoney?” Susie said when she called roll after lunch. “No? Well.” She ticked Mary Marsha Mahoney off her list, and went on with class. Time to start keeping an eye on Brixton Adler.

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. All the story slots are sold, but if you are enjoying the pieces, please consider a donation to show your support.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

---

The Rock and the River

For Jane Gladson. Thank you for your support of me and Clarion West.

It was good they got off the boats for lunch, because by then Betsy was within a twitch of tossing the Larson kid over the side, preferably straight into the vacuum suck of the rapids, still clutching his stupid phone, whining all the way about why didn’t they have 3G down heeeeere? Bets didn’t think anyone on the boat would miss him, including his parents, who had raised Ignoring The Adolescent to a fine art. Then she would only have to get the Anderson family and Encyclopedia Guy eaten by snakes. The rest of them could stay as long as they left her alone. And then maybe Bets could enjoy the Grand Fucking Canyon.

When she signed up for the river trip, she imagined a small group of other adults, people of calm competence and intellectual mien and passionate adventurous spirit. She didn’t expect three motorized rafts of competitively-sunglassed executives who took a quick look around as they set off, noted that the Grand Canyon had a lot of rocks, and then got down to the serious business of checking each other’s status in the real world and telling the driver how to steer. All except Encyclopedia Guy, who went into full-bore full-volume download mode on the specific amount of damage that badly-conceived government management policies were doing to the river and canyon and wildlife and downriver ecosystems. Why, it’s all dying right this second!

He didn’t seem to notice that she flinched. Bets settled her baseball cap and bandanna more firmly onto her bald head and tried not to waste too much time hating him.

Once they disembarked onto the beach, she joined the line of folks unloading food coolers and cookgear. Then one of the bluff VP-on-vacation types shouldered in and tried to take the cooler from her, saying, “That looks heavy, you just let me get that for you, honey. You go on and find a seat.”

Fine. Fuck him. Bets released her grip, and enjoyed his nearly-drop-it-on-his-foot surprise at how much it weighed. She was still stronger than she looked. But the pleasure didn’t last, and the sourness still sat like lemon on the back of her tongue; because what did it prove, except that she still needed desperately to be strong?

#

So she sat on the sand and watched the river, while the not-dying-right-this second crowd fetched and carried and set up tables under the instructions of the boat drivers. Behind her, the cheerful human chaos. Before her, the Colorado: green and serene, opaque in spite of the hard hot sun that lit the canyon walls in such sharp detail it almost hurt to look at them. But look she did: the ancient rock, the river humming to itself, rolling on and on, and it was almost like music, on and on, almost like voices, on and on and–

She came back to awareness between one blink and the next, and found a child sitting silent next to her. A girl of perhaps eleven or so, a small, compact person in a white t-shirt and jeans and well-worn hiking boots who turned and grinned and said, “You hear that?”

“Almost,” Bets said.

“Come and get it!” a woman announced from the table. It took Bets a while to unkink herself and stand; by the time she was on her feet, the girl was gone, presumably somewhere in the crowd around the table. Bets got herself a grilled salmon filet and a spoonful of rice salad, ignored Encyclopedia Guy’s lost-lamb look, and found herself a rock for one as close to the river as she could.

#

After lunch, everyone piled back into the boats, and for a while the Andersons insisted on giving everyone a move-by-move account of the season finale of Dancing with the Stars, and Bets found herself so angry she wanted to scream. Don’t waste my time! But eventually the food and the sun did their work; the chattery people relaxed into silence, the Larson boy gave up on the internet and fell asleep, and even Encylopedia Guy was content to sit and only mutter to himself occasionally. The canyon narrowed around them as the river carried them deeper in and deeper down. There were no more beaches; the walls rose straight from the river, so high now that the sun and sky seemed impossibly far away, as if Bets were looking at them through the wrong end of a telescope.

Deeper down. Deeper down. Moving faster now toward the rapids ahead, just a mile or two, soon now, where the river would dash itself against the rock and break and reform and break again, on and on.

But now they came around a bend, and the boatman slowed and steered them toward a place in the wall where the rock was black and dense. “Touch it,” the boatman said.

People hesitated: the boatman was holding the boat in place with a deft hand on the reverse throttle, but this close to the wall it was impossible to miss the muscle of the river underneath them, impossible not to know that it had carved these mile-high walls one molecule at a time with irresistable force and relentless will, and that it would go on doing so, on and on, on and on–

Bets felt a hand on her arm. The girl said, “Go on, touch it.”

“Where did you come from?” Bets said.

“I’ve been right here,” the girl said, and her eyes were the dense deep black of the rock, except there was light at their center like the light of the sun. She said, “Listen.”

The boatman was speaking again. “This layer of rock is two billion years old.”

Two billion years. Bets put her hand to her mouth.

Listen, the girl said again. And Bets listened with every fiber of her being as she reached out and touched two billion years of sunlight and shadow, of water and wind, two billion years of plants and small creatures and dinosaurs and people, all the things they were and said and did and felt, what they loved and feared and everything that gave them joy, two billion years of the river that she could hear so clearly now humming Life life life, life is the rock and the river and the sun, and we are going on and on and on.

The girl said, You hear that?

On and on and on. “Yes,” Bets said, and began to cry.

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. All the story slots are sold, but if you are enjoying the pieces, please consider a donation to show your support.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

---

Sweet 16

For Michael Pardy. Thank you for your support of me and Clarion West.

Valerie was mad for fashion and lifestyle magazines. All the girls in the caravan park read them, even though no one could afford trendy clothes or $20 mascara. Most of Val’s friends loved the celebrity mags as well, but she wasn’t interested in what boy bands or TV stars were doing. She was too busy planning her own stylin’ life away from her parents house — well, it wasn’t a house at all, was it? It was a bloody stupid caravan made to look like a house with a little porch, and some flowers in the dirt patch out front that died and had to be replanted every year because it was too bloody hot in Adelaide. Once she got out of there, she was never coming back.

Tick tock, counting down the clock. Two days until her 16th birthday. She could leave school. She could leave the caravan. She could get a job in Melbourne and live in a bedsit with girls who would teach her how to find flash clothes at great bargains, and what clubs were the best, and they would all have boyfriends with good jobs, boyfriends who were older, maybe even 25, who had their own apartments you could move into and buy appliances and a lounge suite and then you were on your way.

She sat at the kitchen counter with her pile of magazines, her scissors, and her clip box, cutting out the best makeup tips and ideas for classy home decor and filing them under the tabs she had created. Office Clothes/Face. Evening Clothes/Face. Kitchen Cabinet Organization. Parties and Entertaining. Holiday Destinations. Bedroom. It was important that the bedroom be sensual and welcoming without being too feminine, because men wanted to be with women without being reminded of them all the time.

And the magazines had given her great tips for her Sweet 16 Party. Don’t have an entertainment-friendly home? Find an unusual and exciting location that shows your individualism! Val planned her party at the bowling centre where her dad worked as night manager, and her boyfriend Derek was the top scorer on the car wash team. They would have half the lanes for themselves, with a red rope blocking off the section, and a DJ, and a mirrorball, and free food from concessions, and they could bowl and dance all night, and at midnight her dad had promised her a bottle of fizzy wine.

And she knew. She knew that Derek’s bowling shirt would have a mustard stain, that her dad would make an embarrassing speech about My little girl, that lots of the kids from school were only coming for the free bowling. She knew. But she was going to make it the best bowling dance Sweet 16 Party they’d ever see in their entire stuck-in-Adelaide lives. And then she and her clip box were off to something better.

#

But it all went wrong right away. The red rope was just colored twine, so thin that it was hard to see, and people kept trying to walk through it and pulling the stanchions down. The sound system was wired so that bowling announcements from the public lanes interrupted the DJ music, even when she and Derek were dancing to Their Song and everyone else was watching. It was supposed to be beautiful: the darkened dance floor, the mirrorball sparkling light down on them like stars, wrapped in Peter Cetera’s voice and Derek’s arms. It was supposed to be the moment when all this was almost all over, and for the three minutes of the song it was safe to let herself love everything about the life she was leaving. But this was the life she was leaving, the life where some insurance adjuster’s strike was more important than a Sweet 16, where the ordinary always overcame the special.

And some of the boys brought flasks, and soon the punch was practically hallucinogenic, and all Val wanted was that three minutes: so when Derek said Let’s go sit in my car, she did, and when he said Let’s not use one this time, let’s make it special, she said okay. And while she in Derek’s back seat, midnight came and went and she missed her dad’s speech and the fizzy wine, and two weeks later she missed her period.

#

She didn’t sleep at all the first night she came home with the baby to the caravan. Will you be all right? her mum said, and Val said yes. After her parents went to bed, she got out her clip box and went through every article and every photo, one at a time; the smiling girls with their straight white teeth and glittery bracelets and tanned, fit men at their sides, the cunning cosmopolitan flats with exposed brickwork and track lighting, the Ten Best Places to Kiss in Melbourne.

Tick tock, said the clock. The baby would be awake soon. Val closed the clip box, and turned to the pile of parenting magazines, and began to read about diaper bags.

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. If you would like something written especially for you, please consider sponsoring me.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

---

Bubble and Sass

For Nicola, who wanted another story of Bubble. I love you.

Bubble the Box-Master was relieved when all but one of the Usurper’s boxes were quelled and their flattened carcasses carried away. One box was no trouble, but so many at once, all needing reconnoiter, domination of contents, and then regular re-intimidation… it was frankly exhausting, and took time from his responsibilities in the neighborhood. Pirate was becoming restive without proper supervision, and there was a tribe of rats in an oak tree on the next block whose spines needed snapping.

At least the Usurper was finding his proper role in the order of things. He had learned to recognize rudimentary commands — out, in, food, lap — and was proving unexpectedly good at helping Staff understand the autonomy a busy cat required.

“Oh, let him out, Susan, he’s got things to do.”

“What if he runs away again?”

“He didn’t run away. He came to find me and bring me back to you.”

“Danny, you don’t know anything about cats. They don’t fetch,” Staff said. “But I love that you’re such a romantic.”

#

Bubble made his rounds and found a message from Scooter: Oak tree. New development.

Scooter was waiting under a bush. Bubble settled beside him. Rat trouble?

Scooter twitched his tail in a laugh. Trouble for rats.

A soldier rat lay dead under the tree. A second made its way cautiously along a branch overhead. Step, step, pause. Step, step, pause, a black-eyed terrified look at the crushed warrior below. Step, step–

Whooosh. Death dropped from a crook in the tree, landed with four-footed surety, seized the rat in sharp teeth and broke its neck with casual elegance, then slung the body sideways and sent it spinning to land splayed near its fallen comrade.

The tabby cat on the branch stared at Bubble and Scooter with green-eyed battle joy. She gave them a hiss of triumph, then turned and leaped, twisted beautifully, landed lightly on her feet, grabbed one of the dead rats in her jaws, and disappeared into the bushes.

Bubble blinked in approval.

Toldja, Scooter said.

They rose and stretched, and investigated the remaining rat. A beautiful kill; and the intoxicating scent of the killer. I like her, Scooter said. Bubble turned a cold stare on him and bristled slightly. But not really my type, nope, not all all, good luck with that, Boss, Scooter said, and hunched a moment before he took himself off in the other direction.

Who was she, this mysterious malefactor of rats? Bubble the Besotted followed her trail into the brush.

#

And around. And around. And again around the neighborhood in a loop. She was everywhere but wherever he was. Bubble the Backtracker approved of her more and more. He like a challenge.

He found her, at last, in his own back yard. She sprawled in the grass, licking her leg unconcernedly. The second rat body lay a foot away.

Bubble assumed the crouch of non-hostility for a minute, and then proceed to give himself a thorough bath as well. Eventually, she rose and yawned and stretched, and came to touch noses with him.

Sassafras, she said. I brought lunch.

Bubble’s heart swelled. A huntress. It was so romantic.

They ate the rat except for the liver, which Bubble encouraged Sass to leave as a gift for Staff and the Usurper. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the Usurper came out barefoot, stepped on the liver, yelled, “Yooock!” and dropped the box on the patio while he hobbled back inside calling for Staff to bring him a paper towel.

He didn’t eat it, Sass said.

They never do, Bubble said. But they seem to appreciate it anyway. Come on and help me with this box.

By the time the Usurper returned with the packet of Friskies treats, Bubble and Sassafras were curled up together in the box. Sass was asleep: beside her, Bubble the Boyfriend raised a baleful eye.

“Awesome,” said the Usurper. “You go, dude.” He shook some liver-flavored nuggets from the packet and put them within reach. Enough for two.

Very good. Very good indeed. A reward was in order. Bubble butted the Usurper’s hand and rechristened him Majordomo. Tomorrow he would make sure to mark all Majordomo’s possessions properly, and then turn his attention to the delicate matter of introducing Sassafras and Staff. Always so much work to do. It was frankly exhausting, being head of a family.

He blinked, settled himself more comfortably against Sassafras, and went to sleep; and dreamed of rat corpses piled ten deep, of drowsy tumbles in the afternoon, of black and tabby kittens in the sun.

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. If you would like something written especially for you, please consider sponsoring me.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

---

Allie Allie In Free

For Jeanne Magill. Thank you for your support of me and Clarion West.

Alice Watts found the house on Larch Road when she was ten; already old enough to imagine herself in someone else’s life, already old enough to yearn; already sure she would never be more than she already was, the silent, watchful child of people that other people called trash. So much already in her life.

And so the industrial road that separated her Walton Springs neighborhood from Larch Road might as well have been a mountain that she could never climb: no native guide, and too many ways to slip and fall. People from the Springs never crossed Walton Road. But on this summer afternoon, Allie was on her bike on the Springs side of the road, pedalling furiously away away away, her face stained with tears, her mouth and chin smeared with blood where Teddy had slapped her aside when she’d tried to put herself between him and her momma. “Leave her, she’s just a child,” Momma said, and pulled Allie up and whispered, “Go on now, and don’t come back for a while.” And then Teddy grabbed Momma and she said Teddy, don’t make my little girl see this, and Teddy shoved Alice out the door, slam, Allie on the outside —

Then the noises began, and she grabbed her bike and did a running start out onto her street, and all she could do was ride away, away, until she found herself on Walton Road with its deadly blind curves and its dangerous traffic of semitrailers loaded with enormous steel pipes or doomed cows bound for slaughter, pickups with biting dogs in the back beds, souped-up beaters that looked like nothing but had it where it counted, like the hard-eyed boys who drove them. There were no sidewalks, just the huge parking lots of the warehouses and the big-box stores, the junkyard and the auto repair shop. Everything on the Road moved fast, and a small girl riding too close to the edge could get knocked down in the windslap of their passing.

She should have turned into the factory outlet mall and made her way back to town. But she was full of something horrible and huge, some feeling like teeth eating her from the inside, and all she could think was away, away, go go go! So she worked up as much speed as she could, and then she pointed her bike toward the other side of the Road and shut her eyes and went.

Air horns. Air brakes. The stink of diesel and rubber and when she opened her eyes, the looming toothy grin of the chrome grill ready to bite her in half, and the shocked O face of the man behind the windshield as he wrenched the steering wheel into the four-inch swerve that saved her life. The bumper and the great grinding tires squealed past her and her bike thumped over the grass verge and down toward the railroad tracks below. She flew up from her seat and for a moment she thought she would go right over the handlebars; then she came back down hard and her left pedal smacked her in the calf, and her feet found their purchase and she rode bump bump down the hill and across the tracks, thud racketaracketa THUD and it slowed the bike enough that she could put her foot down and scoot to a stop and finally stand, trembling. It all happened so fast that she could still hear the truck driver’s final shout of fucking crazy KIIIIIIIID! fading away.

Her bottom hurt where she’d come down on the hard rubber bicycle seat. Her calf was aching like sweet jesus billy-oh. Her jaw was tender. But the chewed-up feeling was tucked away somewhere inside her, like a balloon in a closet: it would pop out as soon as she opened that door, but right now… right now, where was she?

About a hundred feet away was a bright yellow barricade with a sign: Larch Road. No Trespassing. On the other side of it, a road began, winding away underneath tall trees whose branches interlaced to form a thing-opy, a canopy of leaves through which the sun sparkled and danced.

She pushed her bike across the weedy dirt and around the barricade. She knew what trespass meant. It meant her and her momma and the guy in the truck and the boys in the old cars. It meant what Teddy was doing right now. And Allie thought away, away, and set her bike upon the road, and went.

I wrote this today as part of my commitment to the Clarion West Write-a-thon. A dedication means that person sponsored it by donating to CW, and then provided me a writing prompt that sparked the piece. If you would like something written especially for you, please consider sponsoring me.

Here’s all the work of the 41 days. You’ll also find these pieces cross-posted at Sterling Editing as incentive for writers to practice their editing and story-building skills.

Enjoy.

---

Perfect

For Jill Seidenstein. Thank you for your support of me and Clarion West.

Jack got to the restaurant a half hour early to make sure everything was ready. The champage chilling. A duck breast reserved for Holly because it was her favorite. And the small box safely handed to the matire d’ for the dessert presentation. That was the part Jack found hard: giving the ring to a stranger.

“Take good care of it,” he said. “I want tonight to be perfect.”

“Of course, Mr. DuBois. Of course.” The man smiled. “I know what it’s like.”

“How long have you been married?” Jack said.

The maitre d’ laughed. No, he snickered. “Oh, not for a while now.”

Jack managed a smile, but he was imagining Bam! Pow! right in the kisser. It was like a doctor making jokes about cutting off the wrong leg while you were on the gurney counting backward by sevens. And now his hand was trembling a bit. Did he really want to punch the guy?

The maitre d’ was looking at Jack’s hand too. “I think I’m a little nervous,” Jack said. He looked at his watch. The fussing over preparations had taken forty-five seconds. Only twenty-nine more minutes until Holly arrived. He blinked. Maybe she could come early.

The phone rang. Holly. Kismet. God, he loved that woman and her perfect timing. He answered and said, “Honey, want to start early? I can move up the reservation.”

“Jack, um…” Uh oh. That was not stress he heard in her voice, it was not. “My meeting’s running long. Goddamn Rick Marcuso is insisting that we talk about delivery schedules seventeen months out, can you believe this asshole?”

It was stress. Now Jack wanted to punch Rick Marcuso too. He could feel his face becoming tight. The maitre d’ stepped back with his hands raised a bit, I’ll just give you a moment.

“I’m not sure how long I’ll be,” Holly said. “Could we just stay in and have pizza?”

“No!” Jack said. “Um… no, honey, just… just take as long as you need. I’ll get our table and wait for you.”

The maitre d’ had seemingly become fascinated with the molecular structure of the wood grain of his podium.

“Jack, really–”

“Holly, I’ll wait. Take your time. Love you.”

“Fine,” she said. “Whatever. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He ended the call and tried to hand the phone to the maitre d’. “That’s yours,” the man said.

“Oh. Right,” Jack said. “I think I’m a little nervous. Oh. I think I already said that.”

The maitre d’ said, “Perhaps you’d like to wait in the bar?”

#

Forty-nine minutes and three martinis later, the maitre d’ led Holly into the bar. She was still in her work clothes, swinging her briefcase and wearing the adrenalized mad-dog grin of a woman who has just stomped her enemies into the corporate mud. She was practically vibrating. He stood to embrace her.

“God, I need a drink,” she said.

Jack said, “How about champagne?”

She smiled. “Perfect!” Behind her, the maitre d’ smiled and gave Jack an approving nod. Everything’s back on track.

The champagne was chilling at the table. Holly beamed at Jack as the maitre d’ popped and poured and left them with a discreet smile.

Jack opened his mouth to say To us or I love you, but Holly clinked her glass with great gusto against his and said, “Jack, you must be psychic,” and drank a big gulp of champagne. “Psychic. Because not only did I crush Marcuso in the meeting, I got co-ownership of the project and I’m in charge of the goddamned delivery schedule now. So here’s to Rick Marcuso for shooting himself in the foot.” She raised her glass again. “Fuck him.”

She drank another hefty gulp and said, “Honey, are you okay?”

“Sure,” Jack said.

“You need food. We should have stayed in, we’d be eating by now.” And before Jack could respond, she had touched the arm of a passing water server and said, “Excuse me, can we please get some service?”

“Um, sure,” the server said, and gave Jack a look that blended sympathy and Uh oh, not going so great, huh?

Perfect.

Jack watched the water server confer with the maitre d’, and the maitre d’ said something, or did he snicker? Jack wanted to punch him again. Instead he smiled at Holly as she gave him her blow-by-blow with Marcuso over the last of the champagne, and the appetizer, and half of the penne pesto she ordered instead of the duck because she was too wound up for anything fancy. He would be happy if he never heard the name Marcuso again. Jesus, was he really going to propose to a woman who called guys by their last name like they were all in the locker room? Was he really? Yes. Yes! He was. Oh god, the dinner plates were being cleared away and the waiter was saying, “And now for dessert–”

“Oh, let’s just get the check,” Holly said. “It was a great dinner, but I’m pretty beat.”

“No!” Jack said. Holly blinked. The waiter smiled desperately and looked back and forth between them. “I mean… ” Jack said, “Um, I’d really like some dessert, Hol.”

“Fine,” Holly said. “Whatever. Get what you want, I’ll be right back.” She sighed, stood, slung her purse over her shoulder and trudged toward the bathroom.

“Well–” the waiter said delicately.

“Just bring me the fucking shortcake,” said Jack.

Holly was in the bathroom for seven thousand hours. What did women do in there? It was too hot in the room. He could feel the sweat under his arms. The whipped cream was melting. It was perilously close to dripping all over the diamond discreetly tucked under one of the strawberries beside the shortcake. This was a terrible idea. It was the across-the-universe opposite of perfect.

Holly sat down opposite him. “Okay,” she said, “Eat your dessert, Mr. Sweet Tooth, and let’s get out of here.”

Was he really going to propose to this woman who all of a sudden had no sense of timing whatsoever? Was he really going to hand this diamond — that he’d agonized over on four separate visits to the jeweler, until he’d been sure it was perfect — to a stranger? But then she smiled and shook her head and said, “Sorry. Take your time. I love you.” And he loved her too and his brain was melting along with the whipped cream and all he could think to do was say, “Here, have a bite.” And push the plate across the table. Well, really, he kind of punched the plate, and it slid and caught on the tablecloth and shot the shortcake right into Holly’s chest.

She shrieked and came to her feet, flapping at her chest with her napkin, shoving shortcake and berries and whipped cream onto the carpet, and “No!” Jack said, and scrambled out of the chair onto his knees and began pawing through ruins of the cake as Holly said, Jack, what are you doing? Jack, stop it! Stop it! and everyone was staring and at the side of the room the maitre d’ put his hands over his face and Jack finally found the ring inside a dollop of whipped cream, and held it up and shouted, “Holly, would you shut the fuck up, I’m trying to ask you to fucking marry me!”

The room was absolutely silent.

“I love you. Please marry me,” Jack said. He could see from the corner of his eye the maitre d’ and the waiter holding each other’s hands in a death grip.

“Oh my god,” Holly said.

The room held its breath. The world hung suspended. Jack’s heart stopped beating. The whipped cream slid off the ring onto his finger, because his hand was shaking.

Holly’s eyes filled with tears, and she smiled a perfect smile.