Tag: StoryADay

A Town Called Oceanview | Part 2

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

Continued from “Lost” …

Introductions

“Welcome! Welcome!” an elderly woman approaching them called. She was wearing wool socks, no shoes, and a pink floral dress—or it could’ve even been a nightgown, for her massive bosom hiked it up high enough that it became indecent for someone her age to wear a dress that short in public.

She looked older than death itself; her face covered in wrinkles, her eyelids sagging low over her eyes—it was a wonder she could even see—her gray hair frayed and stringy, thinning at the temples and behind her ears. She was barely taller than five feet and morbidly obese, at least three hundred pounds or more. Her skin was a dark, leathery brown, as if she had spent too many years tanning in the sun, and it folded in ripples down her arms and legs. As round as she was, she reminded him more of an English bulldog than anything remotely human.

And yet, even on swollen feet that clumped against the hardwood floor like cinder blocks—shoes probably didn’t fit her anyway—she still moved at an unbelievably fast pace and had her thick arms wrapped around his neck in a tight bear hug before he could get out of dodge.

He hugged her back, not to be rude, though he wasn’t sure of the occasion. Did he know this woman? Grandmother? Great-grandmother, perhaps? Or was it common practice to embrace a total stranger upon greeting in this mysterious town called Oceanview? He strained to catch a clarifying glace at the girl next to him, who had been so captivated by the painting and the story of the lost fishing vessel.

“Oh, I see you’ve already met Bess,” the old woman said after she released him. Bess was a stark contrast to the old woman. She towered over her, and almost met him at eye level. Her ivory skin pulled tightly over her bones. She wore a white tank top, and her broad shoulders poked so far out they looked as if they would pierce right through the skin. Despite looking thin and frail, there was still a ray of light behind her eyes, and her sunshine gold hair cascaded down her back in waves.

“I hope your trip wasn’t too painful?” The woman was saying.

He raised an eyebrow. “Painful, ma’am?”

“Birdy, I don’t think he remembers,” Bess whispered.

“Remembers what?”

“No matter.” The woman clasped her hands together, and a low echo reverberated off the walls. The room had amazing acoustics; he suspected it once was a gymnasium before being converted into what he could only assume was a visitors center. “Sometimes it’s easier to forget.  Like my husband used to say: The ‘how’ is not always important, it’s the ‘what you do with it’ that takes the cake.”

“That’s an interesting phrase,” he said.

“Thank you. I’ve really come to cherish it in my old age, especially when dealing with some of the more distressing realities of life that I can’t control.” She was silent for a moment, and she and Bess exchanged tight-lipped looks in front of him. They seemed to be having a conversation solely with their eyes. Bess’s eyes widened, her brows arched, as if pleading to say something, to share some secret information that would help get his head out of this fog that only seemed to get worse with the women’s vague revelations. However, “Birdy” stood firm. She squinted her eyes and furrowed her brows as if scolding Bess for being so naive. Then she turned to him with a wide grin he would have mistaken for genuine if he hadn’t just witnessed the tense staring contest.

“By the way, my name is Lady Byrd, but you can call me Birdy.” She stretched out her hand to shake his, and he willingly took it, but when he opened his mouth to introduce himself, he froze.

He hadn’t the slightest clue who he was.

© 2017 Nortina Simmons

It is Short Story A Day May, and today’s prompt was kind of . . . meh . . . Anyone else feeling a little uninspired by these last few prompts? I decided to deviate today, to regain that energy and enthusiasm I had at the beginning of the challenge. I hope you enjoyed part two of Oceanview! 

First Date Jitters

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

Jessica could always tell when seafood wasn’t fresh. It had a distinctly sour smell to it, like it’d spent the last three days thawing on ice in a warm cooler with a broken seal. Jessica wrinkled her nose as soon as they entered the restaurant and plastered a phony smile when Whitmore turned to her for validation. He’d said it was his favorite restaurant to eat, had the best fried catfish in town, and she didn’t want to disappoint him on their first date, despite hating catfish, but the place was rank—like Bradford pear tree blossoms, rank; like wet mutt, rank; like a trash heap that missed garbage collection, rank; like dirty panties tossed in the hamper, rank; like an unclean crotch, rank; like a common area bathroom in an all girls dorm after the residents’ menstrual cycles synced, rank.

Whoever had decorated the interior was obviously an ex-employee of Red Lobster and didn’t give a damn about his job. The walls were covered in a tacky nautical wall paper—complete with images of anchors, sailor hats, compasses, telescopes, and steering helms—and was peeling at corners. There was an eight-foot long fish tank sitting in the middle of lobby, right next to the hostess stand, and it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks. The water was a murky dark green, and Jessica could barely see the brown shells of the crabs moving around inside, if they were moving at all—they looked dead. She made a note not to order the crab legs—probably best to avoid all shellfish, and she damn sure won’t eat the catfish. She wondered what non-seafood options were on the menu. Every eatery had to have at least two, for those stubborn patrons like her who refused to order seafood at a seafood restaurant. She flipped to land entrees. Fried pork chop with garlic mash, and chicken Alfredo. The only setback about ordering “turf” at a restaurant that served mostly “surf,” the food still tasted like “surf,” because the chicken was cooked in the same pan with the seared fish fillets, the pork chop battered and fried in the same grease as the trout, flounder, and whiting. She settled on the popcorn shrimp, accepting her inevitable fate of mercury poisoning, while Whitmore ordered the catfish.

Unfortunately, it took over an hour for their food to arrive. The kitchen couldn’t have possibly been backed up, but the reality was the restaurant was crowded, overcrowded even; there were people packed in the lobby like sardines waiting on a table. Whitmore had actually called ahead to make reservations. Reservations, for a place like this, which couldn’t have had more that a B+ sanitation rating. But he’d gotten them a good table, despite sitting directly underneath a vent that was blasting cold air, giving her goosebumps across her shoulders. However, they were away from most of the chatter of the larger parties, and thank God out of sight of that horrendous fish tank, where she would certainly lose her appetite.

They used the extended wait time to get to know each other more, though Jessica did most of the talking, babbling on and on about herself while Whitmore listened intently, nodding and laughing at all the right pause points. He was a good listener, which made him even more attractive—that he was intrigued to know every detail about her—but then she started to think he couldn’t hear her, because the couple at the table behind them had three young boys who were kicking, squealing, and rough housing in the booth while the parents ate absently as if they didn’t notice or care. In the few moments when Whitmore spoke, it was as if he were whispering. She asked him more than once to speak up, they weren’t in a library, but he still spoke in a low voice, and she leaned in closer to get a least a fragment of his words.

When the food finally came out, Whitmore dove into his plate, and Jessica hesitated. Her French fries where soggy and a burnt gold color, as if they’d been fried in old grease, or possibly fish grease. No coating of ketchup could save them, but even the ketchup was acidic and watered down. The hushpuppies were fried hard, and the shrimp was more breading than meat and extremely salty. She’d had better meals at Libby Hill.

“How’s your food?” she asked Whitmore when his plate was nearly empty.

She thought he might have said good, but truly she couldn’t hear a thing, and before he could mumble anything else, his mouth full of the last bites of what looked to be dry, overcooked catfish, there was a loud crash and shattering of dishes by the kitchen. A waitress had just dropped her entire ticket on the floor, right at the feet of the six-top she was about to serve, and was on the brink of tears.

Jessica sighed. There was too much chaos in this restaurant, and for the subpar food, it wasn’t worth the trouble. She’d had better dates with worse men, but she wanted to give Whitmore the benefit of the doubt. At least he was trying.

“How about I chose the where for our next date,” she suggested.

Whitmore smiled and nodded, but Jessica suspected he had no idea what she’d just said.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and today’s prompt, “Sumptuous Settings,” asks us to get descriptive, very descriptive, using all five senses…

Peace in Trials

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

“They keep killing our boys. It’s like a genocide out there!” Stella was saying. Behind her the tea kettle whistled, clouds of steam shooting from its spout. She took the kettle by the handle and poured the boiling water into two mugs already prepped with a teabag, two packets of Splenda, and a lemon wedge.

“Did you hear about the last shooting? He was only seventeen years old. A child!” She slammed her fist down on the table and the water in the mugs rippled.

“Mama, please,” Leslie said. She covered her mug with a saucer to allow the tea to steep.

“I just don’t understand this shoot first ask questions later mentality. You see a black man walking down the street, and you automatically assume he’s dangerous—his presence is life-threatening.” Stella dropped a spoon in her “World’s #1 Grandma” mug and stirred the ingredients together. Leslie remembered the year Tony and Gregory pulled their allowances together to buy the mug for Stella. They were young, around nine and seven. Having just learned there was such thing as a Grandparents Day, they wanted to surprise Stella, the only living grandparent they had left, with a special gift.

Now Tony barely paid rent to his grandmother, and Gregory hadn’t been home in weeks since moving in with Tammi. Leslie wished they were boys again, who still honored and eagerly showed their appreciation for the women who raised them, not like the entitled children of this generation, who lacked any type of respect for authority. Even if the cops did abuse their power, most of those kids deserved a few slaps upside the head.

Stella ladled some of the tea onto her spoon, blew on it, puckered her lips and slurped. She quickly wiped her mouth from the heat, then stood and took another Splenda packet from the spice cabinet. She sprinkled it into her mug and continued with her tirade. “You shoot a boy nine times in the back as he’s running away from you and then try to say you feared for your life. You? Really? While another baby is lying dead in the street? I thought the police were here to protect and serve the people, not execute them.”

“Mama!” Leslie pleaded. She massaged her temples with her middle and index fingers. She didn’t want to hear about any more cop killings. Not with Gregory MIA, not with Tony and his anger issues. Her family was at risk as it was, and with Gregory living in Pleasant’s Edge, where the police could murder without consequence—no one would miss a dead body in Pleasant’s Edge; it was the South Side Chicago of Leiland—Leslie spent most nights wide awake, deep in prayer, chanting in her prayer language for the Lord to keep His angels encamped around her sons for protection.

“You can’t expect an old woman not to worry about these things,” Stella grumbled. She took her mug and walked to the living room, where she sat on the couch by the window, leaving Leslie alone in the kitchen.

Leslie traced the tip of her finger around the rim of her mug. We all worry, she thought, we can’t help but to. Even Stella, who had witnessed the atrocities of Jim Crow and of the Civil Rights era, worries, even more now with a president in office who encourages hate speech. Each day, we become more and more endangered. When will it end? When will the killings, the injustice, the fear and worry all end? She hadn’t had a night of sweet sleep in a long time. It would be nice to get one now, assurance from God that everything happens for a purpose, despite all the uncertainty in their lives. “Jesus, give us peace,” Leslie prayed, “peace from all the troubles of this world. We need it. We need You.” She sipped her tea.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and  all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt asks us to continue in world-building but from a societal aspect. It was hard to get a story out for this prompt, and I’m not totally in love with this scene, but hey, at least I wrote something. Hopefully this is the end of the novel prompts, because I feel I’ve written all I can write about these characters. If you must know more about my novel in progress, check out my 2017 A to Z Challenge from the beginning here.

On the Other Side

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

Leslie loved the fresh greenery of Leiland’s street corners. A few years ago, the mayor began a “Beautify Our City” initiative. Every weekend, citizens from all walks of life—the seniors who still had enough pep in their movement to walk and bend without suffering, to the middle-aged and working class, to the high school students looking for extra volunteer hours—they all joined together as one body on assignment, Mayor Richardson heading the brigade, to plant grass, small trees and shrubs, and flowers, including daffodils, lilies, chrysanthemums, lilacs, azaleas, and daisies, along the roadways and on the medians throughout town.

The goal was to make Leiland feel more welcoming to those outside of town, especially travelers coming off Highway 87, where they would often endure miles and miles of gray road, overgrown weeds just off the shoulder, and the noise blocking walls built up behind them—hardly any appealing sight to witness at all apart from the occasional billboard advertising fast food at the next exit. Mayor Richardson had hoped the new vegetation would invite visitors to stay awhile, get to know this quiet, quaint little town, and maybe even decide to make it their permanent place of residence.

Leslie couldn’t say if the population of Leiland actually grew as a result, but she could testify to the initiative being a definite success, at least for her. For she often resolved to walk to places rather than drive just to enjoy the peace and tranquility of the city’s flora, smelling the blossoming azaleas in the cool, early Spring breeze, just in time for annual azalea festival in Wilmington every April.

But today was different. She drove on the outskirts of town and watched out the window as the precious green vegetation of Leiland transitioned to the cool dankness of concrete and red clay, and then she passed the sign: “Welcome to Pleasant’s Edge”; it was anything but pleasant.

She turned to Gregory, who sat next to her in the passenger’s seat. He was quiet most of the ride, only speaking up to direct her where to turn. Leslie tried not to worry about him—what was going on in his personal life, why he had dropped out of college after finishing just one semester—she wanted him to know that no matter what he did, she would always support him; he was her son after all. She only wished he would speak to her more and try not to take Tony’s abuses so personally; his brother’s unfiltered mouth being the only reason Leslie could think of for why Gregory never wanted to stay home.

“You know Tony and Kerry will be moving out soon,” Leslie said. “Your grandmother’s giving them one of her rental homes.”

He said nothing, only rested his elbow on the door handle, put his chin in his hand and continued to look through the window. What was he thinking? Would he even tell her?

Leslie sighed. She’d thought the news would at least get a reaction from him. To know that all the noise of Tony and Kerry arguing, and Tony taking all of his anger and frustrations out on his quiet and reserved little brother would finally cease. Then it would only be Leslie and Gregory left in the house, and they could seize the opportunity to repair their relationship, restore that tightly weaved mother-son bond they once shared when Gregory was a child, before his father passed.

“It’s just up here.” Gregory pointed right of the intersection just ahead, and Leslie turned into a dilapidated trailer park, where the siding on the houses cracked in places and the roofs either slanted or sunk in. On one home she even spotted the clean entry point of a bullet hole in one of windows, the glass cracked in a spider web-like pattern surrounding it. To her right, on the other side of the street, a barbed wire fence stood at about seven feet tall and extended down to just beyond where she could see an end. Posted on the front of the fence, every twenty feet or so, were “No Trespassing—Authorized Personnel Only ” signs. Behind the fence, a mound of gray rubble, just as wide as the fence itself, towered over the neighborhood.

“Please don’t tell me she lives here,” Leslie said as she put the gear in park. She regretted making this drive without first considering where she was taking him. She had been so desperate to get Gregory to trust her again and open up to her that she had been willing to take him to the home of a girlfriend she’d never even met, and it had to be in the worst part of Cumberland county, to further worry her. Pleasant’s Edge wasn’t known for its herbaceous greenery like Leiland, or for its friendly neighbors exchanging pleasantries. Pleasant’s Edge was infested with crime and rampant drug use. More people were dying of gang violence and heroin overdoses in Pleasant’s Edge than in anywhere else in North Carolina, and Leslie had just dropped her youngest son off at its front step. Was he in any of those things also?

“At least tell me this girl’s name,” Leslie said as Gregory opened the door to get out.

“Tammi,” he said. No details on who Tammi was, how they met, how long they’d been seeing each other, if she was a sweet and respectful young lady—though her environment warned that she was anything but. Nothing to give Leslie a clear indication of who she’d just handed her son over to, other than a single name: Tammi.

“Will you call me to come pick you up later?” Leslie asked, but she wanted “later” to be now. She wanted for Gregory to get back in the car and they speed off back to Leiland, back to safety, back to the cover of precious trees and flowers and herbs, symbolizing a city that cared, before he got into any more trouble, which he would surely find here.

“Nah, I’ll have Tammi’s mom take me home.” Gregory slammed the door behind him and crossed in front of the car to the yard of the trailer Leslie had parked in front off.

Leslie started to roll down her window to ask when he thought that would be. She feared it would be another week before she saw him again. Granted he was old enough to make his own decisions now, she wanted to remind him that he still had a home to come back to. He shouldn’t feel obligated to shack up with this girl in poverty as if he had lost everything, including all hope and all dignity.

As he walked up the driveway, she heard something shatter underneath his foot, and he briefly stepped with a limp before regaining his stamina and continuing to the house at a quicker pace to disappear in the darkness behind the open door.

Leslie remained parked in front of the trailer, wondering if anyone from the household would come out to greet her. Was it just Tammi who lived there, or were there others? Did she have roommates? Were her parents the actual homeowners? Leslie knew she couldn’t linger any longer, the indigenous folk would start to suspect something wrong. Already she could see through her rearview mirror, two men in all black, wearing black du-rags tied around their heads, approaching the car. She looked back to the trailer, where the door was now closed, and her eyes fell to the shattered glass on the sidewalk. She floored the gas without thinking, without realizing what she’d just left her son to. She wanted to erase it from her mind, but there was no way she’d be able to rest that night knowing that a broken crack pipe lay just outside the home she had allowed her son to enter.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and  all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt asks us to shape our characters’ physical world. For this one, we switch back to Leslie and “Lost Boy” to take a glimpse into the stark contrasts between the towns of Leiland and Pleasant’s Edge just next door. To learn more about my novel in progress, “Lost Boy,” read my 2017 A to Z Challenge from the beginning here.

First Impression

~ Nortina S. ~ 4 Comments

He was cute—kind of short, and a little shy, but cute. He handed her a red plastic cup filled with spiked Hawaiian punch and invited her out onto the patio, away from the crowd. It was thirty-eight degrees outside, and an inch of snow dusted the wood floor of the porch, but Jessica followed him outside, without a jacket or sleeves, to escape the noise of the housewarming party. Two more guests had arrived, and her ears were beginning to ring from the twenty separate conversations going on around her, topped by a woman she had yet to identify, who had a hyena’s cackle for a laugh.

Jessica exhaled in relief, watched the steam of her breath dance and swirl above her head in the frigid air. She flung her arms over the banister and laid her face into the damp snow. “Ahhh, peace and quiet,” she said.

“You know, I read somewhere that thick, fluffy snow can actually absorb sound. Something about how the ice crystals in the snowflakes are made up. That’s why it always seems so quiet after a fresh snowfall,” he was babbling. It was adorable how nervous he was.

“What are you, a nerd or something?” Jessica joked.

He stretched out his hand. “Whitmore.” When Jessica only raised an eyebrow, he added, “Ok, I guess the name kind of confirms it.”

Jessica smiled—he has a sense of humor. “Sorry,” she said, “It’s just—that’s not what I heard inside.”

“I can’t imagine what you heard inside. If you could even hear anything at all. By the way, that woman with the obnoxiously loud laugh…”

“Oh my god, who is that?”

“Tonia. She’s the one in the red dress and has long curly hair. She’s my roommate’s girlfriend. That’s who I came with.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry you have to deal with that!” Jessica giggled and took at sip from her cup. Whitmore put his arm over her shoulder, pulled her into him in a bear-like side hug, and laughed into her ear. She wasn’t sure if her actions has invited him in for the close physical contact, but she didn’t push him away either. She settled in against his hip, and they turned toward the closed patio doors and watched the party silently continue inside, everyone’s lips moving but no sound coming out. It was calming.

“So how do you know the new homeowners?” Whitmore asked.

Jessica shrugged. She couldn’t say she knew anyone at the party. She’d come with Alex, but Alex ditched her the second they walked in to go mingle with Rebecca and her guests. Rebecca was purely Alex’s friend. They grew up together, were BFFs in high school, and followed each other to Queens University in Charlotte, where the three of them had attended college. Jessica never liked Rebecca, but she put up with her for Alex’s sake. Truth be told, Jessica thought Rebecca was a sneaky, unapologetic slut, and she stole Jessica’s boyfriend freshman year, the same guy she’d just bought this grandiose, three-story house with, patio, spacious back yard, and five-foot deep swimming pool included.

“Old friends,” Jessica finally answered, but if Whitmore had asked Rebecca’s fiancé, Jonathan, he probably would have said he didn’t know Jessica at all, having forgotten their four expensive dates together as broke college students to the African American Art Museum and Discovery Place in uptown, Scarowinds, and the movie theatre at Concord Mills, where they watched Wolfman and Jessica spent most of the time hiding behind Jonathan’s shoulder. He’d even forgotten their drunken make-out session on Alex’s futon. Jessica couldn’t get out of there fast enough, embarrassment written all over her face. Whitmore had swooped in just in the nick of time to save her.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you are a very beautiful woman.”

It sounded awkward coming out of his mouth, as if he struggled to find the right words, but Jessica accepted the compliment, since most men couldn’t respectfully talk to a woman anyway—“Aye, sexy!” and “You bad!” being their common cat calls, as if that would merit them seven digits.

Would he ask her for her phone number next? She could only expect it.

“So do you live nearby?” he said instead.

“In these uppity ‘burbs?” Jessica rolled her neck sarcastically. “No, I live closer to town.”

They were quiet for several moments. Whitmore bounced his leg, shaking Jessica with him. She was attracted to his shyness—it was a relief from all the entitled men she was used to, who assumed they could con her out of sex without bothering to get to know her or even pursue a relationship. Still, she wished he would just ask her out already, before they missed their window of opportunity. Eventually someone would notice they were missing.

Inside she spotted Alex walking toward the doors. She shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “Where the hell have you been?” They were caught. Whitmore must have seen her too, because he stiffened and quickly removed his arm from around her. Jessica couldn’t help but chuckle; he really was a gentleman. She turned to face him, and his eyes revealed a hint of apprehension.

“Relax,” she purred. She placed her palm on the center of his chest and felt his heart racing.

“Beautiful woman make me nervous,” he said.

“That’s obvious.” She leaned in closer to him, put her lips to his ear. “Find me before you leave,” she said, and swiftly turned around and rejoined Alex, and the noise, and the party. She took one last look over her shoulder. Whitmore remained on the patio. He kept his eyes on his feet, but she noticed a smile slowly creep across his face. She had him. She only hoped he would muster the courage to seek her out after the party. She would gladly write her number down on his palm, slip it into his pocket before anyone saw them.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and  all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt asks us to  imagine the first meeting between our protagonist and a secondary character. I chose Jessica and Whitmore, because, well, at one point he was a likeable guy, right? Jessica did chose to date him afterall. Unfortunately, when you give a mouse a cookie…

This week of SSAD prompts has really inspired me to bring my first novella, “Love Poetry,” back to life. I’ll talk more in depth about my plans for the story in a later post, but if you want to learn more about the characters, Whitmore, Jessica, Alex, and Bruce, check out my 2015 A to Z novella…

Impossible to Refuse

~ Nortina S. ~ 2 Comments

“You did what!” Alex’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets. She’d always had wide eyes though, appearing surprised by everything. That day she wore color contacts, which puzzled Jessica because Alex had 20/20 vision and her eyes were already green, thanks to the wide color spectrum of her multiracial heritage.

Jessica shook her head. She needed to focus. This wasn’t about Alex’s eyes, although she wanted to ask if they were drying in the chilly breeze, if it hurt to blink because her eyelids didn’t stretch down far enough. Even now they seemed to be protruding further from her head, as if they were being drawn out the more upset Alex became, similar to the wooden fibber Pinocchio and his lengthening nose.

“He followed me to the bathroom, what was I supposed to say?”

“Uh, ‘Get out!'” Alex rolled her eyes, and they looked as if they would roll right out and onto the grated picnic table. “You know they got laws for that now. Don’t really know how they’ll ever expect to enforce ’em, but the truth of the matter is they’re there. And they’re there to protect stupid women like you from making dumb ass decisions with creepy ass men like Whitmore.”

“I really don’t think that’s what the lawmakers had in mind.”

“Jess!” Alex grabbed the edge of the table and shook it, rattling the silverware on top of their empty plates, the ice in their glasses. “You’re missing the point. You told me you were going to break up with him.”

“It was our two-year anniversary. I couldn’t hurt him like that.”

“Then you lie and tell him you want to remain friends, you don’t accept his marriage proposal!”

It sounded insane hearing it said out loud, but Alex wasn’t there. She couldn’t begin to understand Whitmore’s strategy. She remembered all those nights they’d fought about his need to always be in control. Jessica was a grown woman. She shouldn’t have to check in by text every night to assure him she would answer whenever he called, she shouldn’t have to tell him she loved him a certain number of times before he finally believed her. She didn’t appreciate behind compared to his cheating ex-girlfriend, even down to how they styled their hair.

“If I remind you so much of her, why do you stick around?” she’d demanded.

“Because I love you. Does that mean nothing to you, that I love you? That I want to make us work? That I’ll do anything to make us work?”

And it was the way he always made her feel so guilty. As if he was doing everything right, and she was the one being unreasonable. As if he was the best thing that had ever happened to her, and she was stubbornly ungrateful. As if he was the only boyfriend who cared enough to make sure she was satisfied first when they made love, who would buy her the entire world without her even having to ask, who would grovel and kiss her feet not because he wanted forgiveness for something he did wrong but because he worshiped the ground she walked on. No man would ever love Jessica as desperately as Whitmore loved her, and didn’t she want that? Didn’t all women want to be loved unconditionally, incessantly, adored body, mind, and soul, by the men in their lives?

“Well, he loves me. Is that so bad? And maybe, with more time, I could grow…”

“No! No!” Alex pressed her knuckle against her ears. “I’m not hearing this. I’m not hearing this.” She dropped her hands in her lap. “I mean, dammit, Jessica, did he brainwash you too.” Her dad’s Italian roots were beginning to show. Her voice rose a level higher, became edgier. Once again all eyes were on Jessica’s table. Despite their sitting outside, the traffic from the street across from the café where they’d just had brunch was doing little to drown out their conversation. Alex lifted her hands again and waved them in parallel motion, front to back, side to side, as she spoke. “Whitmore doesn’t love you,” she continued. “He’s obsessed with the idea of loving someone, and you just happen to be the unfortunate girl he’s latched onto.”

“That’s a little much, don’t you think?”

Alex held up five fingers. “Let me finish.”

Jessica shrugged. She tried to ignore the glint shining in her eyes from the sun’s reflection in the diamond jewel on her engagement ring. She rolled it around her finger so that it faced the table and all she saw was the studded band. It was easier to pretend it wasn’t there then.

“When you love someone, you know them,” Alex was saying. “Or at least you make it a point to try to get to know them as much as you can. Whitmore knows nothing about you.”

“How do you figure?”

“First of all, he took you to a fondue restaurant, and you’re lactose intolerant! If Whitmore loved you so much, he would know that cheese, or chocolate, or anything with milk in it makes you gassy as hell. And then he followed you to the bathroom that you just funked up with all your farting to ask you again to marry him? Who does that? No girl wants to get proposed to after she’s just stunk up a bathroom. She wants it to be romantic, memorable. She at least wants to smell fresh! Tell me y’all didn’t have sex too.”

Jessica burst out laughing.

Alex rolled her eyes, which only made Jessica laugh harder at how they were a nudge away from being popped out.

“I’m glad you think this is funny. We’ll see how much you’re laughing when Whitmore decides y’all have to live together. You really think he’ll wait till after the wedding to start on baby Whitney?”

Jessica’s phone buzzed in her purse that was slung across the back of her chair. She twisted around, took it out of the front pocket, and looked down at the screen. It was Whitmore.

Alex smirked. “Speak of the devil.”

Jessica hesitated to answer. She didn’t want to admit to Alex that after she’d told Whitmore yes, he’d given her a key to his apartment too. “We’re building a new life together now. There’s no reason why we should still live separately,” he’d said. And again she couldn’t think of a way to refuse him. She had already accepted his proposal—how could she be ready to spend the rest of her live with him, forever and ever, if she wasn’t willing to come home to his bed now?

“Where are you?” He spoke through his nose. A sign he had grown impatient. Impatient of what? Had she not passed his ultimate test?

“Just having brunch with Alex.” She could hear him sigh on the other end. He never liked Alex, and she made no secret that she disliked him too and would do everything in her power to break them up. She couldn’t fault Alex for that. She was only looking out for her best friend. She only wanted what was best for Jessica, especially since Jessica hadn’t figured out what “best for her” even meant.

“Are you almost done? I have a surprise for you back at your place.”

Her place? That was right; she had given him a key, contingent on emergencies only, because she didn’t want him to get in the habit of popping over whenever he wanted, even though he did it anyway, because to Whitmore anything was an emergency. Jessica tried to feign excitement in her voice anyway. “What kind of surprise?”

“You’ll just have to see when you get here. Don’t keep me waiting. Love you, beautiful.”

Jessica hung up the phone, then clutched it in her fist and groaned when she realized she didn’t say I love you back. She would pay for that when she got home. Perhaps Whitmore would be too eager to show her the surprise to even let her slip up bother him. After all, they were engaged to be married now; Whitmore could finally be satisfied with the love she was willing to give him, not all-consuming like his but enough, she hoped.

Jessica’s stomach began to bubble again, and the food she’d just woofed down—overly sweet strawberry pancakes with cream cheese filling— rose at the back of her esophagus. It was unlikely Whitmore would ever relent his controlling love over her. If anything, now that he had her sealed, he would get worse.

“Rushing home to daddy?” Alex asked as Jessica gathered her things.

“Stop,” Jessica said.

“I just want you to be happy, Jess. Can you honestly say that he makes you happy.”

“Name one couple you know that’s actually genuinely happy in their marriage,” Jessica snapped. People doing get married to be happy, and if they do, they have a lot to turn. Marriage doesn’t guarantee happiness, or fulfillment, or even freedom. They were both products of divorced parents; they knew full well.

“Just do me a favor.” Alex took the pen from the bill booklet the waitress had left on the table and scribbled a series of numbers on one of her unused napkins. “There’s this guy who works at the station. Great guy, hilarious. You’d love him.” She put the napkin in Jessica’s hand. “Call him when you get over this façade love with Whitmore.”

Jessica blew air through her cheeks, but she nodded, took the napkin and stuffed it away in her purse to forget about it. She didn’t want to alert her friend that she was in too deep, there was no saving her after this.

She took the long route home, but still arrived five minutes earlier than she wanted to. A U-haul truck was backed into a parking spot right outside her apartment. Boxes surrounded the back of the truck, and she wonder which one of her neighbor’s was moving out, until she saw two men carrying her couch into the trailer. She sprang out of the car. Her apartment was open, and Whitmore was standing in the doorway. She ran to him.

“Whitmore, what the hell?” she breathed.

He didn’t answer, only clasped her face in his hands and lowered his head to kiss her. He slipped his tongue between her lips and pushed further into her mouth, their teeth knocking. He stayed there long, steady, rolling his neck as he kissed her. When he finally pulled back, Jessica gagged for air.

“Don’t you have something to tell me?” he asked.

“What?” Jessica said after a series of coughs. She could still taste him, a trail of his saliva sliding down her tongue back to her throat. She swallowed and gagged again when the hint of flat SunDrop rose to her mouth again.

“When we talked on the phone, I think we might have gotten disconnected.” He waited for her to confirm. “I told you I loved you, and…”

“I love you too?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

She couldn’t answer.

“Do you love me?”

No

“Jessica?”

He was starting to whine like a child, and Jessica had to put her foot down. Things were moving too fast. It was like the earth was spinning triple its rotation. She felt dizzy, like she would faint at any moment, but she gathered her composure, tried to remain as level headed as possible—one of them had to be.

“Whitmore, where are you taking all of my things?”

“To my place. Whatever doesn’t fit we’ll put in storage.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Jessica blurted.

“You said your were ready to live with me.”

“I didn’t mean today! I can’t just up and move without giving notice. I still have five month left on my lease.”

“Can’t you sublease? And if not, I’ll just take care of the bill until it’s up. Jessica, I want you with me. I want you all to myself. Don’t you think I deserve that?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. He kissed her, harder this time. When she tried to break free, he cupped the back of her head and pulled her closer, his larger, wider nose blocked the airways to her nostrils. With his tongue deep inside her mouth again, she had no alternative to breath. He was suffocating her.

He took her arms and put them around his neck. With his lips still locked with hers, all she could do was moan, which sent him the wrong message. He scooped her up, wrapping her legs around his waist and carried her back to the bedroom where only her box spring remained— her mattress, bed frame, and all other furniture, including the clothes that hung in her closet, she presumed, had all been packed away in the U-haul. He laid her down on the box spring and stood over her.

“Whitmore,” she gasped. Her lips felt tender to the touch, almost to the point of blistering.

“Shhhh,” he said, and lowered himself on top of her, locking their lips again so she couldn’t speak.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt asks us to write a story in which our protagonist makes the other choice. Picking up where we left off yesterday with Whitmore and Jessica, what if Jessica actually said yes? What if Alex never set Jessica up on a blind date? What if there was never a Bruce to sweep Jessica off her feet and steal her away from Whitmore? How would the story develop then? 

If you want to learn more about the characters, Whitmore, Jessica, and Bruce, check out my 2015 A to Z novella…

Love Poetry

~ Nortina S. ~ 3 Comments

“I know how much you love poetry, so I wrote you a poem.” Whitmore bent on one knee and pulled a sheet of paper folded into quarters from his back pocket.

Jessica stared at him. She wondered if she was making a face. He complained that she always made faces when he did something special and romantic. And tonight was special. Tonight was romantic. He’d reserved a table for them at the Melting Pot. A single rose placed on top of the menu greeted her when she sat. Inside the menu, not one entrée was under thirty dollars, yet they still had to cook the food. They were in a side room of the restaurant, separated by a sheer curtain. The area was secluded for lovers only, intimately lit by dim candlelight and shaded wall lamps. Each table sat two, and as the centerpiece, a single burner for the shareable fondue as the appetizer, and the broth to prepare their entrée.

It was their two-year anniversary, and that made her nervous. For the last month, Whitmore had been talking about marriage, about kids. That morning while in bed, he listed off baby girl names—Whitney being his favorite—made plans for how to raise her—dance recitals, beauty pageants. He knew nothing about women, about teaching little girls, yet he wanted one more than anything, while she couldn’t decide if she even wanted to be a mother to his child.

“Whitmore, wait,” Jessica said. Two years. Two years she’s been with him, and for a year and a half it felt more like an obligation. Could she manage another two years, or twenty? A lifetime. Whitmore was manipulative in preserving their relationship, even when he knew that his love for her was much greater than hers for him.

“When the sun sets, I still have light,” he began to recite.

Jessica tried to smile, but her lips were chapped from the cold weather, and under the tension and pull of her curled lips, the dry skin split at the center. She ran her tongue along her bottom lip. She folded it into her mouth and sucked the blood, metallic against her taste buds.

“Because your moon brightens my nights.”

She wanted to laugh. Whitmore hated poetry. It was one of the many things they didn’t have in common. Opposites attract, they say, but sometime she wondered if she and Whitmore were just too incompatible. When they first met at a mutual friend’s housewarming, she’d told him that she wrote poetry as a hobby, and he replied, “Like roses and violets? Seems kind of elementary.” Elementary was the poem he read now. Anyone could rhyme, but where was the compassion? Where was his care in choosing the perfect words to express his feelings?

He never wanted to learn the complexity of true love poetry. She worked as an assistant events coordinator in the downtown art district. They held poetry readings every weekend, for both amateur poets and the contemporary ones who had books published. He turned down her invites to readings, his excuse being he’d forget to snap instead of clap. It was a joke to him, and ultimately his needs were more important that her love for literature and art. When she gave him a translated anthology of her favorite Pablo Neruda poems for Valentine’s Day, he tossed it on the bed without reading the first page, wanting sex instead. It was rough, robotic, just like his poem.

“My precious angel descended from Heaven above…”

Jessica grew more uncomfortable. The room was quiet. Four other couples sat at the surrounding tables, and they all watched. Whitmore loved to make their relationship public. It was easier to get Jessica to bend his way when they had an audience. In public, he was sweet, the perfect gentleman. In public, he gave his girlfriend the world, treated her like a queen. PDA make-out sessions, extended posts of total devotion on social media, poetic restaurant proposals. How could she say no?

“…saved me from the heartache of unrequited love.”

Jessica flinched. He was only using poetry to soften her, to get her to say yes. It only infuriated her, but could she really deny him in front of his audience? For two years she’d been saying yes reluctantly, but this was her life now, and she couldn’t leave it in the hands of his controlling emotional love.

He reached behind his back again and revealed a small velvet box. A gasp escaped the mouth of the woman at the adjacent table, probably expecting a proposal herself, but Jessica sat still.

Would he really do this? Embarrass them both in front of all of these people? Ask for her hand anyway when she had told him she needed at least three years? Force her to commit to him when just that morning, after he’d spent nearly an hour planning for a baby they didn’t have nor were expecting, she had told she wasn’t ready for that next phase in their relationship?

“Jessica Monet Ryan.” He slowly opened the box, a diamond ring enclosed. “Will you marry me?”

On cue, everyone in the room “Awwwed”

Jessica couldn’t stomach it anymore. She shook her head, and Whitmore’s face dropped. “I think I’m going to be sick.” She would use the raw cubed steak as her excuse. She’d skewered it, lowered it into the boiling butter and chive flavored broth, but she didn’t leave it in long enough. It was still redder than she wanted, raw, blood oozing when she bit into it, like her period she was so relived to see soaked through her panties in the bathroom that morning after all of Whitmore’s baby talk. She rose from her seat, stepped over Whitmore, knocking the ring out of the box with her knee. It rattled and spun on the floor, and while Whitmore turned away to find where it landed, she scurried for the exit in pursuit of the bathroom, temporarily  tangling herself in the separating curtain.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and  all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt asks us to write about the days leading up to the beginning of our novel. Since I did all of that and more during this year’s April A to Z Challenge for my NaNoWriMo novel, “Lost Boy,” I switched to a novel I haven’t looked at in a couple years. Perhaps you remember Whitmore and Jessica from my 2015 A to Z novella…

The Lord Will Keep You

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

Bacon sizzled and popped in the pan. Leslie hovered over the stovetop, watching the bacon’s translucent pink transition to a deep, crispy red. She forked the strips out of the pan and onto a plate lined with a paper towel to trap the grease.

She cracked half a dozen eggs into a bowl, scrambled them with the same fork she used to flip the bacon, and poured them into the hot pan. She cooked robotically, not fully aware of her own movements, working on muscle memory alone.

She hadn’t slept at all the night before, tossing and turning until almost four in the morning, while next to her Antonio lay completely still but for the rise and fall of his chest under his heavy breathing. She envied how quickly he descended into sweet slumber, mere moments after kissing her goodnight and laying his head down on the pillow.

She had to coax herself into sleep. After hours of fruitless efforts to get comfortable, she clicked on the lamp by the bed and retrieved her Bible from the top drawer of the nightstand. God was keeping her up for a reason, and she desired to know why.

She opened the Bible to her favorite psalm, 121:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help / My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. / He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber / Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep…

She stopped, prayed, “Lord, why have you kept me awake? Why do you refuse to grant me sleep while you work on my behalf?”

She didn’t expect a response. He rarely answered her prayers, especially when she question His motives. She used to be embarrassed by that. She’d been saved since her undergraduate years in college, nearly three decades, but she had never heard the voice of God.

It was on their second date, when the conversation had turned to salvation and whether or not they both had a relationship with Jesus Christ, that Antonio assured her there was nothing wrong not being able to hear His voice. He doesn’t always speak to you, she remembered him saying. Sometimes it’s just a feeling, like butterflies in your stomach when you talk to your crush. When He wants you to do something, it’s like you get dizzy, and you can almost see yourself doing it in your head. Some would call that a premonition, but it’s not; it’s the Holy Spirit leading you. “That’s how I came to give my life,” he’d told her. “I saw myself walking to the altar even before I did it.”

She waited for that feeling, that vision, to see herself fast asleep, and then to lie back dizzy, pull the covers up to her chin, and actually sleep. But God startled her that night, His voice like thunder filling the room.

“Keep reading.”

And she could hardly keep the Bible steady enough to read, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She laid it across her lap, stuttered through the words as she read aloud. Her ears still rang from hearing him for the first time, and her voice sound minuscule in comparison, like those squeaky little cartoon chipmunks she used to watch on television as a child. But she kept reading as instructed, whispering low to herself the entire psalm, down to the last two verses.

The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul / The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

And as if by the snap of His mighty finger, she was asleep.

Antonio’s cold hands curled around Leslie’s shoulders, jolting her back into the present.

“Morning, beautiful.” He kissed her neck.

She shuddered out of his embrace. “Honey, your hands are like ice.”

“That’s because I don’t have you to keep me warm.” He wrapped his arms around her waist, rocked her side to side, and slipped one hand underneath her blouse to caress her stomach around her belly button. She closed her eyes, rested her head on his shoulder, and he dipped down, lightly pressed his soft lips against hers. After twenty years of marriage he could still swoon her off her feet.

“Ugh, get a room!” Tony said from the kitchen table behind them.

“Watch who you talking to, boy,” Antonio snapped. “And last time I checked, every room in this house belongs to me. Unless you want to start paying the mortgage.”

Leslie hadn’t even noticed the boys were already at the kitchen table waiting to be served their breakfast before school. Tony slumped in his chair. He returned his attention to something on his phone’s screen. Leslie hated they’d even bought him one. He was a teenager, growing more and more distant from his family, and a cell phone only expedited that, but he needed a way to contact them whenever there was an emergency. She was reluctantly forced to compromise. At least she could still control his minutes. Limited text messages and no phone calls after 7 PM.

Next to him Gregory wrote in a thee-subject spiral notebook. Across the page he had written out the multiplication table, up to 20. He had a math test that day, and she was proud to see him studying. She wished Tony would follow his little brother’s example, since he was at the moment failing History.

“Boys, make sure you have everything together for school. Breakfast will be ready in a minute.” Leslie cut the heat off the eye of the stove and stirred the eggs with a whisk. Some of it had begun to stick to the pan, and she sighed in frustration.

“You ok, sweetie? You seem tired,” Antonio said.

“Couldn’t sleep.” She thought to ask him if he had heard anything last night. Those two words God had spoken had been so loud, so clear, but while she could barely contain her heart, pounding through her chest, Antonio didn’t even flinch. The message was meant only for her. If God had wanted her to share it, he would’ve woken Antonio too.

“Here, go sit down. I’ll finish up.”

Leslie couldn’t help but chuckle. Breakfast was ready, all that was left was dividing it onto four plates, but if Antonio thought he was helping, she wouldn’t refuse him. Chivalry was far from dead when it came to their relationship. She only hoped her boys would inherit their father’s same kindness and respect toward women.

She sat next to Gregory and smiled. “Ready for your test?”

He closed his notebook and stuffed it in his bookbag on the floor. “I think so.”

Leslie nodded. “Confidence, sweetie.” She turned to Tony across. “Put that phone away at the breakfast table.”

He rolled his eyes.

“Keep rolling your eyes like that, and they’ll get stuck there.”

He sucked his teeth. “Whatever.”

Leslie stood and was about to reach across the table to pop him in the mouth, but she heard a loud crash behind her. She spun around. Antonio was no longer standing in front of the stove. She rushed around the kitchen island and found him on the floor unconscious, the hot pan on his shoulder next to the oven, the scrambled eggs split all over his chest.

“Oh my god!” She fell to her knees, cradled his head in her lap. She slapped his face repeatedly. “Come on. You’re alright, you’re alright.” She swiped the tears from her cheeks. “No, you’re alright. Come on. Come on!” she pleaded.

“Mom?” Gregory and Tony had followed her. They stood at the corner of the stove next to the fallen frying pan. She looked up at her youngest son, and all her fear transferred into his eyes. They curved downward like almonds and welled up with tears.

She shook her head and pushed his legs back. “Call 9-1-1!”

“I-I don’t—” He looked over his shoulder at his brother behind him.

“Tony!” Leslie screamed. “We gave you that phone for emergencies like this!”

He scrambled to tug his phone out of his front pocket, suddenly tight around his hand. He finally ripped it out but dropped it on the floor. Leslie snatched it up. On her third try, she got the operator—the first two times, her fingers moving too fast, she dialed 9-0-1-1 and 1-1-2-9.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“Get me an ambulance!” She panted heavily, tried to swallow back the sobs and mucus building at the back of her throat. Her voice faded in and out as she tried to speak, her chest bouncing in rythm with the fluttering of her racing heart. She was too flustered even to remember their address. “It’s my husband,” she stammered

“Ma’am, try to calm down. Can you tell me if he’s breathing?” His voice was steady, smooth. He spoke at the same level as he had when he first answered, not raising even half a decibel. He was probably used to this, trained on how to handle frantic callers like her, deescalating as much as he could over the phone before the police and paramedics arrived.

Leslie squeezed two fingers against Antonio’s neck, but she couldn’t feel a pulse. The phone fell from her ear, and she fell facedown across Antonio’s stiffened chest. “Please, God! Please don’t take him from me!”

And again, He answered her. Two times in under six hours after twenty-seven years of silence.

“Remember what you read.” He was preparing her for what was to come, a trying of her faith in Him, like when He commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Could she trust Him to be her only source after the love of her life was taken away from her? Job tore his clothes, fell prostrate to the floor and worshiped Him when he lost everything. Could she do the same?

The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away…

 No, she couldn’t accept it. “Not this, God. Anything but this!” She prayed unceasingly, knowing He wouldn’t change His mind, but she continued anyway, while Tony and Gregory stood over her, frozen, and watched. Their lives were about to change catastrophically, and while she knew that all things worked together for the good to them that loved Him, in that moment, as she prayed and prayed for Antonio’s healing and deliverance, she wasn’t sure she could say with tenacious zeal that she truly loved God over the man who lay dying in her arms.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and  all this week the prompts are geared toward novelists! Today’s prompt comes from Lisa Cron and asks us to investigate a turning point in our protagonist’s past. This was the perfect opportunity to explore more backstory for my NaNoWriMo novel, “Lost Boy.” Last month, I used the April A to Z Challenge to plan out the novel. If you missed it, read it from the beginning here! 

A Town Called Oceanview | Part 1

~ Nortina S. ~ Leave a comment

Lost

He couldn’t breathe. He took quick sharp inhales back to back, but couldn’t catch his breath.

His stomach was flung to the back of his throat, and pressure built in his head as if he were hanging upside down. He looked out the small, circular window and saw the earth spinning. The sky in the ocean, the ocean in the sky, the land between in a winding, twisting, blurry streak of green, black, and shades of brown, spinning into the center of his sight, and disappearing as if going down a drain.

An invisible force thrust him back into his seat, and he grabbed tightly onto the armrests as his body stretched in opposite directions. In his ears a piercing echo, like an engine blown, like a thousand screams, like a countdown to detonation, like a tumbling descent from the heavens.

He braced himself for impact, for certain death, as the sound increased in volume, and he peeled back his lips from his chattering teeth in an attempt at one final call for help from an unseen God.

Then total silence, total darkness. He felt he was still falling, but in extreme slow motion, conscious but unable to change his circumstance. He was suspended between time and space—freefall in limbo. He heard voices in the distance trying to break through the barrier. They were muffled at first, but grew louder and clear the closer they came, bouncing around him like a ripple in a wave underwater, until finally the burst through the bubble.

“Interesting story, isn’t it? A crew of fishermen lost at sea over thirty years discover a small island and build a town.”

He was standing in front of a framed painting of a large schooner against a black sky in the middle of the ocean being tossed to and fro by the winds and the waves. The plaque underneath read: The Net on its maiden voyage, mid-October 1869.

The source of the voice that broke him from his trance stood next to him. She had her hands behind her back, admiring the painting. He scanned his surroundings and realized he was in a small museum, one that depicted the apparent history of whatever town he’d found himself in. Mounted on the walls were more paintings, each one representing a point in the timeline. He assumed he stood before the first, since behind him was an entrance door that was closed off by a velvet rope.

He turned to the woman who was now smiling at him.

“I’m sorry.” He hesitated. He couldn’t remember why he was there, or how he had even gotten there. It was as if he’d been picked up and put somewhere he didn’t recognize. He wondered if he should tell her this. How crazy would he sound to her?

“I’m feeling kind of hazy. Could you tell me where I am?”

Her smile slowly faded away. She lowered her eyes to the floor and said, “Oceanview.” He waited for details—Oceanview, California? Florida? Which ocean was viewable—the Atlantic, Pacific? But she offered no explanation. Her smile returned, a little weaker, and he tried to smile too, despite being helplessly confused, but when he looked into her eyes, he saw a hint of fear and perhaps even sadness, and he wondered if there was something more dire about this Oceanview that she was unwilling to reveal.

© 2017 Nortina Simmons

Up Next: “Introductions” …

It is Short Story A Day May, and today’s prompt from Julie Duffy invites us to take a second look at a story we’ve written in the past. I have so many stories I could return to and write from a different angle, but I decided on this story, which I haven’t looked at since writing it back in 2014 for a fiction writing class and later posting it here. 

Dreams are Real

~ Nortina S. ~ 2 Comments

It wasn’t so much a nightmare as it was a memory. A memory of a life, of what it could have been had she only said yes.

Now, with him feet away in the produce aisle, picking up, sniffing peaches, and putting them back down again, she wonders if it would be inappropriate to walk up to him and say, Hi. Remember me? Remember what we were, what we used to be, what we could have been together?

She had fallen asleep watching the Newlywed Game and dreamt they were married, that they quizzed themselves on how well they knew each other, fought whenever they got a question wrong, made up all night when the game was over.

She could still feel his touch on her skin, his body pressed into hers, his heart beating against her chest. It was real, it had to be, until she woke, and it became a nightmare, because she was lying along on the same dead mattress she’s had for the last nine years, with its lumps and broken springs and bedbug carcasses.

No sense in trying to change the past, she reminds herself. Fate is fate, and she missed hers. Still, it wouldn’t hurt just to speak, would it? She takes a step forward, and he turns his head, in the other direction; someone is calling his name. But it’s not his name they scream.

“Daddy, Daddy!” The little girl runs to him carrying a bunch of spotted bananas. He scoops her up, sits her on his right hip and kisses her forehead as she drops the bananas into the basket he carries in his other hand alone with the peaches he’s finally selected. And although a mother doesn’t follow, the pang in her chest cautions her from continuing on the path toward another heartbreaking nightmare.

She drops her grocery list to the floor, just as he begins to spin around with his daughter in his arms, and she exists through the sliding doors, just as she came, having purchased nothing, with the one wish that her dream could still be fulfilled, if only he’d find the post-it note on the floor, see it stuck to the bottom of his shoe, discover the thumbprint on the pastel yellow slip of paper, and diligently seek its match.

—Nortina

It is Short Story A Day May, and today’s prompt from Maria Hazen Lewis, “Nightmare,” hit a little close, because I just had a dream about an ex…