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.
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.