In This Together

2500 words

In This Together

It had been one month since Kali had quit drinking, cold turkey—and she was about to crack.

            She and Joel walked side-by-side down a quiet street. The pavement radiated gentle warmth and traffic hummed softly in the distance. Buildings on either side of them faded into growing darkness. They were celebrating the one-month anniversary of her promise, and all Kali could think about was the single bottle her roommate had obligingly left for her.

            Joel’s voice came from beside her, distant. “Look, Kali, if you don’t want to be out—”

            “No.” She tossed him a smile over her shoulder. “I’m just tired. I’ll feel better soon.”

            Whatever she did, she couldn’t let him know how close she was to breaking her most important promise.

On their right, an empty stretch of parking lot lay in half-shadow. In the middle stood a collection of giant machines, their skyward-reaching arms black against the lingering orange in the sky. A Ferris wheel occupied the central space.

            “Look,” Kali said, pointing. “A carnival.”

            “Funny place for it,” Joel said.

            “Let’s go look.” Kali pivoted and strode across the asphalt.

She had reached the metal fence, hung with tattered flags, before she heard his footsteps behind her, then saw his white shirt beside her, luminous in the twilight. She scanned the carnival. Metal arms and pieces of rides lay everywhere.

            “Where are the people?” Kali asked. She leaned on the fence. Some of the lights were on—a spoke on a wheel here, an arch over a slide there—but most of the rides were dark. Long shadows entwined with each other.

            “Kali, are you mad at me?”

            “No,” she said lightly. She grabbed the barrier with both hands and hoisted herself up, swinging her legs over one at a time. “Come on. Let’s check it out.”

            “Wait, don’t you think it’s closed for a reason?”

            “Oh, come on. You could at least try to make this fun.”

            Joel hesitated, then followed.

            Kali grimaced at her attitude as she walked. In the empty aisles between the rides she could envision a throng of people, laughing and shouting. She stopped at the foot of the Ferris wheel.

The operator’s chair was empty, the gate unlocked.

“Someone could just...get on,” she said. “And start it. Look, the lights are even on.”

“Maybe the motor is busted,” Joel suggested.

“Maybe.” Kali looked up at the bright spikes of light outlining the wheel. She could almost smell the carnival food. Sickening.

Joel pulled out his phone and snapped a picture of the Ferris wheel against the orange sky. He spoke as he typed a caption for the picture.

“Remember when we ran into each other at that carnival? It was just like this one.”

It was hard to forget waking up from an alcohol-induced daze to someone you’d had a crush on for months. Later, she’d started to recover for him. Made promises to him.

Promises she could no longer keep.

“Yeah,” she said. She shoved her hands in her pockets and headed for a racing slide with four lanes. She felt sick—less with the thought of what she had planned than the thought of Joel’s reaction if he found out.

“Come on, Joel!”

She scaled the stairs leading to the top of the racing slide in seconds. She was going to enjoy herself right now. She owed it to him, to leave him with a good memory.

The sun had gone down, leaving the carnival lit by the few random lights that on the rides and the faint glow of faraway streetlights.

Joel stood at the bottom of the slide. “Kali, do you really think—”

“One slide, Joel, come on!” She grabbed a piece of carpet from a stack.

That’s when the lights clicked on.

Kali froze. “What did you do?”

            “I—did not do that.”

            Kali looked up at the rainbow of twinkling lights above her. They blinked rhythmically. “That’s weird, right?”

            “You should come down!”

            Kali dropped the carpet and kicked it into place. She tried to shake off the creeps as she settled onto it and bumped down the slide to the bottom, skidding into the padded plastic wall.

            “Look,” Joel said, pointing. Another spear of lights shot up into the now-dark sky—one spoke on the Ferris wheel that hadn’t been lit before.

            Kali shivered.

“Let’s go,” she said, tugging his sleeve.

            He didn’t resist. They struck off. But they’d only been walking for a minute before Joel hesitated.

            “Where’s the exit?”

            “We can go over the fence again.” Kali pulled him. The carnival was much larger than it had looked from across the parking lot, with many more machines. It shouldn’t be taking this long to get to the edge.

            Something clicked behind them. Kali jumped. Another scattered set of lights had flicked on—another spoke of the wheel, another ride.

            As if a switch had flipped in Kali’s body, her heart started racing. She needed out. Not until Joel gently pried her fingers loose did she realize how tightly she’d been holding his arm.

            “Glad we’re on the same page,” he muttered. He lengthened his strides. “It takes freaky abandoned carnivals to get you to hold my hand?”

            “Just keep going.”

            “They’re here!” someone shouted.

            Kali could have sworn the voice came from behind them. “Did you hear that?”

            Joel looked over his shoulder, squinting. “Probably someone across the parking lot.” He headed toward the admissions tent. It blocked the sporadic lights, so they walked through a shadow.

            “Wait, that’s the slide,” Kali said as they rounded the tent. She stopped. “We must have gotten—”

            They both jumped and stopped.

            At the top of the slide, silhouetted against the lights, stood a man. The lights made the wisps of greasy-looking hair around his head stand out like a halo. He was wearing baggy shorts and held one of the pieces of carpet in his hand.

            “It must have been him playing with the lights,” Joel said.

            The man spotted them at the same time. He tossed a carpet onto the slide and shot down. At the bottom, he stumbled off and staggered toward Kali and Joel.

            “He’s drunk,” Joel said under his breath. His tone was full of disgust.

            Kali’s hand loosened on his arm. Joel’s words cut straight to her heart. If he’d known what she had planned...

            The man stopped about fifty feet from them. “Hello,” he said. His voice was slurred and thick, but absurdly cheerful. “Welcome to the carnival.”

            Kali forced a smile as Joel responded slowly.

            “Uh, thanks. We’re actually on our way out.”

            “Oh no, don’t go. I love having guests.”

            “Are you the owner?” Joel asked. He pulled Kali to the side.

            “These rides are like a whole complex,” the man said. He smiled crookedly and staggered toward them. “Come and see.” He waved a bottle that Kali hadn’t seen before in a motion probably meant to be inviting.

            “We have to go,” Joel said. He pulled Kali aside and started walking.

            It’ll be a good story, Kali kept telling herself. A really, really weird story. Remember that time we ran into that random drunk guy in the empty carnival.

            Joel tensed beside her. She saw the man a split second later, sitting on a beam for the spinning car ride, leering at them.

            “Come on!” he called as they turned away. “Don’t run away again!”

            They got moving this time. Any hope of keeping a directional heading disappeared as they dodged a pile of crossbeams. Kali stumbled and dislodged one.

            Joel cursed as they turned the corner and saw him again, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the street. “Where is the exit?”

            They did an about-face again and ran for the Ferris wheel. Joel’s grip on her arm slackened until they were loosely holding hands, then running separately. Kali tried to keep an eye on Joel but he flickered in and out through random, pulsing streaks of light.

            Lights started to click out. Joel cursed again in front of her—the most profanity she’d heard from him since she’d met him.

            Then she lost him in darkness.

            “Joel!” she shouted. She couldn’t see him anywhere. She kept running, but in the dark she stubbed her toe on something and staggered. She hit something soft, like the canvas side of a tent, and fell through it.

            “You’re here!”

            Kali rolled to her feet, rubbing her sore shoulders. There was a soft click, and a flashlight propped on its end burst to life. Kali stood inside a small tent filled with trestle tables and boxes. Behind the flashlight, his face illuminated from below, stood the drunk man. He had a bottle in his hand and he was grinning.

“I never have visitors!” the man said. He left the flashlight and came toward Kali, grinning. He held out his hand for a handshake.

Close up, he didn’t look as threatening, Kali thought. He was probably friendly when he wasn’t drunk. She carefully shook his hand.

Had Joel heard her call for him?

The man was so close she could smell the bottle in his hand—a warm, familiar smell that she constantly fought thinking of. And she didn’t know where the door was. Had there even been a door? Or had she just fallen through the canvas?

The man carefully poured a small glass out of the bottle and held it out to her in a shaking hand. “Have some? We can talk.”

“I’m good, thanks,” she said cautiously. Her shoulders were so rigid her neck hurt. She wanted it. But she’d promised. She’d promised Joel.

The grin faded from the man’s face.

“Have some,” he said, shoving it toward her. Some slopped over.

“I’m...on a diet,” she lied. Even she didn’t believe it. He wouldn’t.

The smile slowly transformed into a frown.

She wanted to take it. Her fingers twitched. She was planning to have some later anyway.

She couldn’t locate the door without turning. She kept her face full toward the man, unsure how he would react. She hoped her voice wasn’t trembling too much.

“Kali!”

She didn’t dare call for Joel. What if the man flipped on her?

            “Kali!”

            “I need to go,” Kali said. “My boyfriend needs me.”

            “Have some,” the man said roughly, stumbling toward her. His grin had returned. He pushed the glass into her hand.

            Kali lurched backward, away from the man’s sudden nearness, and let the glass fall to the floor. It splintered. Her stomach dropped as she watched its contents slop all over the floor. What a waste, she thought, then stopped herself.

            The man watched it fall. Then his eyes traveled from the shards of glass up to Kali’s face. His own face contorted into something midway between anger and grief.

            “How could you?” he exploded. “How could you?”

            Kali let out a stifled scream, afraid he was going to come at her, but he grabbed another glass and poured the rest of his bottle into it, shoving it into her hands.

            “Have some!” he yelled.

            With nowhere to go, Kali took a deep breath and raised the glass to her lips. There was no sense getting hurt for a silly little promise she was going to break anyway--

            As soon as the contents hit her tongue she knew she was a goner. The old longing came rushing back. She felt like crying. She’d let everyone down. It hadn’t been very long ago that she’d thought she could beat it all by herself.

            The drunk man watched her. Slowly, his anger melted, but he didn’t recover his cheerfulness.

            Kali stopped, desperately trying to hand the glass back. She backed away from the man, conscious of the stink that filled the place and the dim light and suddenly afraid.

He followed her, refusing to take the glass back.

            “Have some more. Come on. I don’t have friends in often.”

            The worst part was that she wanted to so badly. She stopped moving and raised the glass again.

            Everything happened quickly. There was a rush of air behind her. A pair of arms wrapped around her body. The glass flew from her hand, slinging liquor everywhere, and smashed into the ground. She stumbled sideways.

            And then Joel had ahold of her and he was pulling her out, dragging her away from the tent, toward the fence.

            “The police are coming; are you okay?” he yelled as Kali got her feet under herself. He shoved the crowd barrier aside and pulled her out into the dark parking lot until his momentum faded, and then he tried to hold her. “You scared me, Kali. Don’t you ever—”

            “I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing a sob. She pushed him away, repulsed by his touch. He’d come for her instead of waiting for the police. Suddenly her plans for the rest of the night hung on her like a forty-pound weight around her neck.

            “Shhh.” He took her hand instead. “It’s okay.”

            “No, it’s not; I took it; I wanted it so bad and I took it—”

            “That’s okay. That’s normal.” He rubbed his finger back and forth over her knuckles. The lights of the little carnival winked out one by one.

            At his touch, she knew she had to tell him. “Joel?”

            “Yeah.”

            Kali took a deep breath and told him everything.

When she was done, he held out his arms and wrapped her in them. “Baby, thank you for telling me. It’s okay. It’s a process.”

            Kali shook her head.

            “I’m here for you, remember? We’ll figure it out. I’m proud of you. And I’m glad you’re safe.”

            Kali pulled away and crossed her hand over her stomach. He was too good for her.

            “Kali.”

            Kali wouldn’t verbalize it to him. But she had failed. Failed him, failed her counselors, failed everyone who’d worked so hard to get her out of her addiction and all the problems it had caused her. She’d have to start over.

            “Kali. I’ve worked too hard and you’ve worked too hard to give up right now.”

            Kali listened to the soft pleading in his tone. She’d heard him like that one too many times. She’d had headaches and taken her anger out on him because she couldn’t have what her body craved. She’d kept him up till the small hours, video chatting her, to keep from going out or going crazy.

            “One sip and some craving doesn’t change how I feel about you,” he said.

            It didn’t change how she felt about him, either. It only changed how she felt about herself.

            She turned back to him. He was a shadowy figure in the dark and he looked forlorn. She went to him and let him wrap his arms around her.

            “I’ll always be here,” he said into her hair.

            “I don’t deserve you,” she said into his chest.

            “We’ll beat it.”

            It was Kali’s one-month anniversary of swearing off alcohol, and she was going to beat the addiction.

I Never Knew

1900 words

I Never Knew

Will you be okay tonight?

I’ll be fine, why wouldn’t I be?

I just don’t want you to be melancholy on your birthday.

You always use the funniest words. Melancholy.

You know what I mean. Call me when you start feeling down.

I’m sitting atop my duvet with a glass of red wine, a blue scrapbook on my lap. Brian left an hour ago, leaving me to wash the dishes in peace. It left me a lot of time to think--to be melancholy.

I’ve just turned thirty, and I’m in the mood for memories. My cat curls up next to my leg, lazily swatting the flicks of sunset light that bounce off the shiny pages as I open the scrapbook. I run my fingers over the sharp edges of the pictures, remembering.

            I open to a grainy old photo. It’s me--skinny, leggy, gap-toothed, my hair in tight pigtails that stick straight out above my ears. I’m clutching a puppy so tightly I can almost see its eyes bugging out. I close my eyes.

****

            I hear his car pulling up in the driveway and I run for the door, eager for him to grab me off my feet and swing me above his head until my wispy hair touches the doorframe. I remember the smell of the sunshine and the hot glare of the pavement outside--it must be July or August. Daddy has his hands behind his back. Suddenly nervous, I stop short.

            “Jamie,” he says, and I hear something in his voice I haven’t heard before. “Jamie--”

            I wait. My mother puts her arms around me from behind. They are cold and her skin is damp from washing. “Jamie,” she says into my ear. “We brought you something. But you have to be very careful with it and take good care of it yourself.”

My father slowly brings his hands out from behind his back. In them sits a squirming puppy, round-bellied and soft, pink skin showing through the fine hair. I open my mouth and squeal so high I stop making noise. I lunge for the puppy and wrap it in my arms, not caring that it squirms. It licks my face and I think I might faint with happiness.      

            My father kneels down, looking straight into my eyes. His eyes are wet as he watches me cuddle the puppy. “Now you’re big enough to have this responsibility. You have to take care of it.”

            “Yes!” I squeal. “She can have a pink collar!”

            Daddy tries to explain to me that Natasha is a boy. But all I remember is Mommy sinking onto the couch, watching us and crying. The sound of her sobs is as real to me as the warm, soft fur on the puppy’s belly. I remember falling asleep that night to soft puppy breaths on my cheek and Mommy’s sobs in the next room.

****

            Before I met Brian, I didn’t know that parents often give their children gifts to cover up the rifts that are growing between them. I never realized that Mom and Dad were moving apart, even then. To me, they were just two proud parents who’d made their little girl very happy.

****

My fingers brush over another picture, bringing back a sharp smell of disinfectant and white tile. People are everywhere--tall, gangly kids in braces and graphic tees and too-short pants, short, childish kids in braces with spiky hair. Puffs of perfume and cologne assault my nose. I hold my two thin spiral notebooks close to my chest, trying to hide the growing sweat stains I feel under my arms, as I search the endless progression of tiny metal plaques for my room number.

            I find it. The teacher is tall and has his hair slicked back, wearing a tee shirt and jeans with sneakers. He smiles at me as I walk in and I feel myself blushing. I smile back and make my way to a desk in the back. Everyone else in the room is head and shoulders taller than me and already talking in small groups. They look at me sideways. I move toward my desk and, like a shark swimming through a shoal of fish, I clear a path through the 6th-grade science class of Room 554, leaving me alone in a pocket with the teacher smiling at everyone but me.

            I drop my books on the floor when I try to put them in my desk and everyone stares at me as I pick them up, hundreds of fish eyes staring right at me, unblinking. They don’t make a sound but I can hear their laughter beneath their unsmiling faces.

****

            I pull out the picture, grimacing, and tuck it away toward the front of the book. Middle school was a difficult time. It was difficult for everyone, I supposed. I always thought that I’d just forgotten my deodorant that day. Before I met Brian, I didn’t know that I must have been experiencing a developmental delay in my growth and coordination.

I pull a picture out of the binding of the album. It must have fallen and gotten tucked away. It shows the perfect summer day, the grass a vivid shade of green.

****

I’m barefoot and I can feel the sponginess of the ground beneath the thick grass. We’re all wearing white and Mommy is holding onto me, trying to keep me from running off and spoiling my dress. She doesn’t have to hold on to me. The dress is the prettiest thing I’ve ever worn and if I stain it, Mommy will be upset. She’s been crying a lot recently and she’s gotten angry too. Natasha sits down a few yards ahead of us and starts pulling at the white ribbon around her collar. I call her back and she comes obediently.

            Mommy has not said a word to Daddy the whole day. She looks like she’s been crying. I don’t want to ask her about it because she spent two hours in the bathroom doing her makeup and if I make her cry again she’ll smudge it. So I don’t ask. Last time, she cried and then she yelled at me. Just a little; she was very upset. I don’t want to upset her--today is our family picture day!

            It’s hard to keep my eyes open because the sun is shining into them. But the photographer is nice and takes a thousand pictures. She gives me a sucker when she’s done.

            “We’re bound to have gotten one nice one,” she says as my parents give her a tip.

It takes forever to walk back to the car. I’m hungry and I wish my parents would hurry. They don’t, though. They just look at the ground when I tell them to hurry up.

            Daddy doesn’t open the car door for me like I’m a princess, bowing and helping me up with his hand. He just opens the door. I get in and buckle myself into my car seat. When I look up, Mommy is crying and there’s a streak of black makeup on her hand.

            “Mommy,” I say softly, waiting for her to get upset at whoever made her cry.

            “Might as well tell her now,” Daddy says. He’s holding the steering wheel with both hands and he doesn’t make vrooming noises when he starts driving.

            Daddy always makes vrooming noises when we pull away. Something is wrong. My stomach hurts and I feel like crying, but I try hard not to. Mommy needs me to listen. Natasha puts her head in my lap.

            “Baby,” Mommy says. “I have to move away. I can’t live with Daddy anymore.”

            For a second I think I might throw up. “Why?” I ask.

            “Daddy has done some very bad things.”

            Daddy’s hands hold tight to the steering wheel. I try not to cry but the tears hurt my throat. They buy me ice cream and I pet Natasha’s head, but it doesn’t help. I’m sick for days. A few days later, Mommy gives me the picture as she kisses me good-bye. It’s the most perfect picture of our family we’ve ever taken.

****

            Mom told me later that Dad cheated on her with a lot of other women. But I never knew that he probably cheated to relieve the stress of raising me while they both worked. I never knew...until I met Brian. It explained so much.

I hold the family picture as I turn the page. I pause over one on the second-to-last page of the album, touching it with my fingertips.

****

I’m standing outside, in front of a cluster of vines loaded with flowers. My hair is blowing in the warm breeze, covering my face. I’m laughing, a corner of a neon sign poking out from behind my head. I’m blissfully unaware of how much that coffee shop will change my life.

I step inside, hit with the warm, grassy smell of coffee and tea and essential oils. My friend heads to the restroom and I study a menu, scrawled in messy chalk calligraphy on a dusty board. I’m frowning over an iced or hot drink when he walks in and sits down at the counter, talking easily with the barista. He’s eye-catching, cute, with thick brown hair and a beard and a ratty, colorful sweater. His smile is a mile wide. My friend comes back and catches me staring and we laugh together, self-consciously smoothing our hair behind our ears.

It doesn’t take long for him to notice us. He orders another coffee and drums his fingertips on the counter while he waits. He winks over his shoulder at us.

As the barista hands him his coffee, her hand bumps the register. A little coffee sloshes out onto his hand. He jerks his hand away and slaps the counter, spitting profanity. My friend looks at me and giggles. “That must have hurt,” she says, swirling her own drink and taking another sip.

When I look back at him, he’s smiling, showing the barista all his teeth as he helps her mop up the puddle. He drops a dollar bill in the tip jar as he walks away.

“Hey,” he says, stopping by our table. “You look like new friends to me.”

He buys another coffee and sits down with us and smiles and laughs and chats. He’s charming, sweet, caring. He asks questions and listens genuinely to us, and he puts us right at our ease. When he leaves, he asks very politely for my number.

****

I pull the picture out of the album and smile at myself. If I’d known I’d meet him when I stepped inside, would I have looked different? Less carefree, more nervous? More relieved?

Meeting Brian has changed me. I hold the picture and look at it as the light fades and my wine gets warm on the table beside me. He helped me talk. He opened up my past. I’d always thought I got away with a pretty good life. But no one really understands how much childhood events affect adult behaviors. I’d thought I had a couple of sad things happen in my life, but I didn’t realize how much they’d really happened to me. How much they really hurt me.

I sigh and put the picture away, a faint shiver going through me.

Call me if you start feeling down, he said.

I run my fingers over the pictures. Their brilliance has faded a little. The feel of them beneath my fingertips fills me with...melancholy. I pick up the phone.

Before I met Brian, I never knew how much I never knew.

"Chocolate" -- July 24

Word count: 600

Chocolate

“Are these all the kinds of chocolate you have?”

The employee looked up at Matt with a quizzical expression. “No, this is it.”

“All right. Thanks.”

As the employee walked away, Matt leaned over and studied the shelf of chocolates. He blinked sleep out of his eyes. It was 1 a.m., and the fluorescent lights of the corner store glared off the snow piled against the windows.

Milk chocolate.

Dark chocolate.

Semisweet chocolate.

Melting snow dripped off his scarf into a puddle on the floor as he tried to remember what kind Brittney liked. Matt had painful memories of his last midnight run—and the hour of sobbing when he returned with the wrong kind.

“I’m sorry,” Brittney had said, burying her face in his shirt. “It’s not your fault.”

Matt pushed aside a handful of packages of milk chocolate. He struggled to remember. Did she like dark chocolate or semisweet—or was it white chocolate? Brittney had not answered his text.

Not white chocolate. Matt picked up two packages, one of dark and one of semisweet. He checked out and tucked the bags in his pocket, wrapping his scarf more tightly around his neck.

Outside, snowflakes flickered through Matt’s headlights, floating on the breeze. He drove home as quickly as he dared, sliding on the slick streets.

The porch light shone through an increasingly thick slurry of snowflakes. Matt jumped out of the car and hunched his shoulders around his ears as he jogged toward the door.

Neither he nor Brittney had gotten a good night’s sleep in almost a week. He hoped the chocolate would buy him a few more hours of precious sleep—and hopefully Brittney, too.

Wrapped in half a dozen blankets, Brittney waited for him on the couch. Matt turned on a lamp as he walked in. She struggled upright, looking at him with red, puffy eyes.

“Did you get it?”

Matt had learned never to ask Brittney if she’d been crying. Instead, he shed his coat, brushing stray snowflakes from his shoulders and pants, and sat beside her on the couch. He handed her the two packages.

“I couldn’t remember which one you liked,” he said, rubbing her swollen stomach. A tiny foot kicked beneath his hand.

“Thanks, Matt.” Brittney held the packages to the light. She handed the dark chocolate back to him with a short laugh. “These are nasty.”

He tossed the package to the other side of the couch, allowing himself to let out a sigh of relief. No tears. “Do you want something to drink?”

Brittney mumbled “no” through a mouthful of semisweet chocolate. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I’m like this.”

Matt held her close. She was warm and his eyes began to close. A quiet rustle across the room crossed his mind, but didn’t register.

“Matt, stop crinkling the package.”

“I’m not—”

“Stop, please.”

Matt opened his eyes. On the other side of the couch, a long-legged spaniel made eye contact with him and wagged his tail slowly. The second package of chocolates lay open between his front paws.

“Henry!” Matt pushed Brittney’s head aside and lunged for the dog, digging soft, goopy chocolate out of its mouth with his fingers. “Bad dog!”

“Henry?” Brittney sat bolt upright, a smear of chocolate on her mouth. “Did he swallow it?”

“Bad dog!”

“He’s going to die!” Brittney burst into tears.

His own tears prickled at the back of Matt’s throat as he scooped the dog up and headed to the sink to wash out his mouth. It was going to be another long night.

"The Party" -- July 17

Word count: 750

The Party 

You don’t have to sparkle. Just…be gregarious.

I don’t know how to do that.

Just…for heaven’s sake don’t frown.

Billie had a headache from smiling. Clutching a bottle of craft root beer, she stood by the wall and watched people walk by, keeping a thin smile pasted across her lips. Why had she let Liza drag her out to this party?

Soft music covered the room like a blanket as the singer perched on her chair and crooned into her microphone. Ripped denim, oversize clothes, and glittering piercings dotted the room. Liza had left her and stood in a crowd of denim jackets, holding a clear plastic cup of white wine.

Liza was definitely going to get the deal. She’d been negotiating with the producers for months. She had a smoky, rich voice and a ridiculous talent for lyrics. She had a charming smile and a few connections in the industry.

Billie had a degree and no music deal.

For heaven’s sake don’t frown.

Billie checked her smile.

“How’s it going over here?” Liza materialized in front of Billie. “You don’t look like you’re having fun.”

“I am.” Billie took a drink of her root beer. It was getting warm. Was her smile really that bad?

“You should talk to some people.”

Billie shook her head. “Maybe later.”

“All you have to do is stand on the edge of a conversation and smile.” Liza held up her clear plastic cup. When Billie didn’t respond, she reached to Billie’s side and clinked it against Billie’s bottle. “Good luck.”

She flitted off.

Liza made it look so easy. She made everything look easy. Singing, dancing, writing. Talking to people, negotiating, working with a producer.

Meanwhile Billie worked 9-5 at a gas station. She studied her nails and scratched a little dirt out of them. She’d only come to this party because Liza hinted so broadly that she should. Maybe she would meet someone, Liza said. Maybe she should get out of the house more, Liza said. Maybe if she would just try a couple events, Liza said.

Liza’s delighted squeal drifted faintly over the room as she fell into the arms of a blond-haired girl with pink highlights in her hair. “I missed you!”

Watching the two hug each other and then grab a booth and sit down, smiling and chatting like they’d known each other their whole life, Billie felt an aching loneliness grow behind her breastbone.

Billie shook herself free of the annoyed thoughts. She was here to make connections. Scanning the room, she spotted a small group at a table with an empty seat. When she sat down, a well-dressed man turned to her and smiled.

“Hello,” he said. “Who do I have the honor to welcome?”

“Hi, I’m Billie.” Surely he would be able to tell her smile was fake.

“Tom.” He reached out for a handshake.

Billie obliged. Her palm was sweaty. She tried not to grimace.

Tom turned back to the others at the table and they continued their discussion. Something about the music industry. Billie tried to look interested, but Tom kept spouting numbers and the others repeated them, and she couldn’t follow what was going on. So she sat in a bubble of silence, waiting for something to come up that she understood.

Across the room, Liza entered another group and immediately fell into conversation.

It looked so easy. But when Billie opened her mouth to speak, her throat felt constricted and the words fled from her brain.

“And…Billie, was it?”

Billie jumped. Tom had turned to her and was smiling. She tried to smile back, her heart pounding.

“Yes.”

“Have you released anything?”

Billie hesitated. What a strange question. “A…bird got caught in my house,” she said. “I let him go—”

Tom laughed, a deep belly laugh. Billie broke off, heart racing, confused.

“I mean music; have you released any music?”

Understanding flashed through Billie’s mind. Blood rushed to her face. She would have to leave. He could never take her seriously after this.

“I’m sorry, I…” Billie looked around for Liza among the confusion of brightly colored hair and denim-covered shoulders. It was time to leave.

But if she left, she knew she would never come to an event like this again. Billie spotted Liza across the room, talking and laughing with her producer and two young women who sang on her album, and she dug deep for her determination. She took a deep breath.

“Actually, I’m looking for a producer.”

"Tell Me Everything" -- July 14

Word count: 1000

Tell Me Everything

“Brownie blizzard, please.”

“What size?”

Kels looked at Melanie.

“Medium?” Melanie said. “And make it two.”

The Dairy Queen was empty. Outside, the sunlight diffused through a thin layer of gray smog. Little traffic passed on the road. Ceiling fans spun lazily, forgotten ten years ago and never removed. Tattered signs advertised “new” ice cream flavors that had left the menu five years before.

Kels took a seat at a booth with her back to a wall. The pink plastic embraced her and she put her elbows on top of the slightly sticky table.

Melanie joined her. “So, Kels, how are things with you?"

“Fine.” Kels gave a thin smile. Why had she even scheduled this meeting? Now that Melanie was sitting there in front of her, swiping on a thin layer of chapstick, sunglasses perched atop her head, Kels felt her throat closing up, shutting out the words she had wanted to say so badly when she called Melanie in a panic, ready to cry for three days straight.

“When are finals?”

“Three weeks. But most of my teachers are making us start to study right now.”

“Are you stressed?”

Kels managed a short laugh. “You can’t even imagine.”

Melanie hadn’t seen the four hours of sleep a night in the past week, the times Kels turned the shower on at 2 a.m. so she could cry without her ten-year-old sister hearing her. She hadn’t seen the note Mr. Olivier had added to her last essay, asking whether everything was all right at home.

“It’s good practice for college finals.”

“Well, if I go to college.”

It wasn’t all right and it could never be all right again. But as Melanie looked up from her planner, her eyebrows contracting, Kels’s courage to tell her friend about it melted like soft serve ice cream on hot asphalt.

“Not go to college?”

Kels squirmed. “I’m not sure it’s the right fit for me anymore.”

It wouldn’t be, in about seven months.

“It’s not for everyone.” Melanie set her pen down. On her calendar, Kels couldn’t help but notice the sparkly pink sticker next to big, bouncy letters—Kels, ice cream. “How are things with Matt?”

“We actually aren’t together anymore.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“No, it was…stupid.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Kels hesitated. She’d had the weight of her secret behind her breastbone for weeks, keeping her up at night. It was impossible to tell anyone about it.

“Not really,” she said in a small voice.

“Okay.” Melanie gave Kels a warm smile with a worried look behind the eyes. “You seem off. Is that what’s bothering you?”

“Yeah.” Kels cast around in her mind for something else—not Matt, not home, not the sick sense that something alive and slithering had taken over her stomach and made it hard to breathe and sleep and eat. “I’ve just missed you. When are your finals?”

Melanie referenced her planner. “Four…five weeks.” She rolled her eyes. “Except two professors are having theirs in three weeks, and in two of the other classes, we’ve only covered about—”

“Two medium brownie blizzards.”

“I’ll get them.” Kels jumped up and crossed the empty store. The sleepy-looking employee behind the counter upended both cups, shaking them slightly, and then handed them to Kels.

“Thanks.” Kels contemplated the ice cream as she walked back to the table. She handed Melanie hers and slid back into her seat, studying the shapes of the brownie chunks barely visible beneath the ice cream surface.

“I wonder what makes it stay when they turn upside down,” she said absently. She turned the cup over.

When Kels was little, she had been fascinated with Dairy Queen ice cream. She’d begged her parents to buy her blizzards just to watch and laugh hysterically when employees upended them on the way out the window. She’d thought it was magic.

Now, as she studied it, forgetting for the moment that Melanie was there, all she could see was soft ice cream melting, clinging to the sides of the cup as it slid. A drop hung on the very edge, quivering.

Melanie’s hand caught it before it could splatter onto the table, and Melanie’s hand turned the cup right side up.

“Hey,” she said gently. “Don’t spill that on my planner.”

Something motherly in the gesture and in the way Melanie wiped the ice cream from her palm with a damp napkin reminded Kels of sophomore year, when she had met Melanie and suddenly everything in her life had begun making sense, as though Melanie was a strong magnet collecting the scattered pieces of Kels as they flew through the air.

“Kels.”

“Hm.” Kels buried her spoon deep in the ice cream she’d suddenly lost her taste for, willing the tears to stay in her eyes.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”

The pressure behind her breastbone was about to burst her chest. Kels’s fingers went limp on the spoon and she pushed her ice cream softly to the side.

“I’m…I’m um, pregnant.”

“Oh.”

Kels couldn’t bring herself to lift her eyes but she heard Melanie shuffling, flicking her planner closed. The bubble in her chest burst and it was too late to stop the tears. Something hot filled her chest.

“Are you leaving too? Like Matt?”

Suddenly Melanie was beside her, wrapping her arms around Kels. She smelled like lemon candy and her fingertips were cold from the ice cream.

“No, I’m not going to leave!”

Kels leaned into Melanie’s hug, letting the support of her arms pull her flying pieces out of the air and piece them together. She didn’t trust her voice. Tears trickled quietly down her face.

“Why don’t you come back to my house?” Melanie asked after a minute. “We can talk. We can do this together.”

Kels followed without speaking, still holding her melting blizzard close to her chest, her breathing clearer and more free than it had been for a long time.

"Paper Frogs" -- July 12

Word count: 1000

Paper Frogs

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

They are in Kindergarten, too young to understand what the words mean. The adults smile and shake their heads and joke about it at school events and playdates. Every week, on the playground at recess on Monday, Wednesday, or Thursday afternoon:

“Will you be my girlfriend?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Oh. Want to play Kitties and Doggies with us?”

“Sure!”

He has dark black hair that Daddy spikes in the front; she has a curly golden ponytail that falls out of her fine hair halfway through the day. In the classroom, they sit at different tables, and he watches her to see what colors she uses on her picture. Their pictures turn out similar. The parents elbow each other and make jokes about in-laws.

It’s a beautiful Wednesday and the sun is shining gently on the wild hair of children at play, beating down on the playground equipment and making it hot to the touch. Twenty-five children run riot, screaming with joy as they play by rules that are written in no book but known as instinctively as breathing to the entire pack.

“Ellie, will you be my girlfriend?”

She thinks, her golden ponytail half-gone, her hair hanging in a tangled mess down her back.

“Not today. Maybe next week.”

“Maybe tomorrow?” He is hopeful.

“Will you play Cops and Robbers with us?” she asks, and he perks up.

“I want to be a Cop!”

They run off at full speed. They are in Kindergarten, too young to know what a heart is, and too young to care.

****

“Ellie can come with us. She’s cool.”

They are ten years old and it has been years since he asked her to be his girlfriend. The girls in the class clump together at recess and on weekends, leaving the boys to their games of basketball and football and dodgeball.

Ellie still can’t keep her hair in a ponytail, and Myles spikes his own hair now. For her birthday, Myles spends hours in a bookstore, clutching the money he’s saved from doing extra chores, trying to choose a book that Ellie will love from the glittering array of shiny covers.

She loves it.

Valentine’s Day, right before their eleventh birthdays. Myles puts the finishing touches on a painstakingly hand-folded origami frog. He adds it to the pile of pink and blue and green frogs in a grocery bag on his kitchen table, ready to take them to school. Each frog has a piece of candy taped to its back and a name carefully written underneath with Myles’ mother’s drawing pens. Only Ellie’s has a note beneath the garishly colored lollipop.

Will you be my Valentine?

He cannot focus on the teacher. Ellie’s frog sits atop a pile of cards in a paper bag taped to her desk. He pictures her ripping off the lollipop, finding the note beneath. He hopes she does not read it aloud. He finds his eraser in pieces on the desk when the teacher calls on him for a fourth time.

On the way out the door at the end of the day, too flustered to say goodbye to Ellie, he spots the paper frog in the trash can, remnants of lollipop wrapper clinging to it. The message is torn nearly in half.

His mother is waiting in the car to speak to him about his lack of attention.

****

Ellie dyed her hair red last summer. Myles spots her across the hall on the first day of senior year, surrounded by five or six girls.

“When did you start drinking those?” Ellie asks him, pointing to the energy drink in his hand as they take desks together.

“SATs,” he answers, all the explanation she needs.

Myles has stopped spiking his hair. Ellie still can’t keep hers in a ponytail. She did all the summer reading. Myles worked at a summer camp and didn’t even read text messages.

In second period, Ellie clinks his energy drink with her tumbler of coffee. She has three different colored highlighters. Myles listens absently to the teacher telling a long story about his summer as he folds tiny paper stars from the corners of his notebook pages. Somehow all he can think about is a paper frog, torn and abandoned in a trash can.

He catches Ellie’s arm before she walks into her next class. “Hey.”

“What’s up?”

“Hey, um, now that we’re older…maybe we could…I mean, do you want to…maybe, be my girlfriend?”

She steps back.

“Um…”

Images of a paper frog flash across his eyes.

Myles doesn’t bring it up again.

****

Myles has gotten used to the questions at family events. He has an answer prepared.

“I’m focusing on my career right now. In fact, I just got promoted. They’re sending me off to temporarily fill an overseas position in the next year or so.”

He and Ellie still cross paths. At twenty-eight, they no longer compete to see who can drink the most energy drinks (Ellie) or put in the most all-nighters to finish late classwork (also Ellie). Instead, a small group of friends from their graduating class meets occasionally for coffee. Increasingly, the others bring their spouses, and then their children, along.

One Saturday morning, only Myles, Ellie, and one other friend show up. Ellie sips her iced tea and chats. Myles folds his napkin into origami stars, watching Ellie talk. Her passion is palpable. She has plans, hopes. She’s smart and knowledgeable. She’s thinking about going for a doctorate. Most importantly, perhaps, her ring finger is bare.

Later, Myles sits on his couch, a box of pizza on the table in front of him. His finger hovers over the “send” button on his phone.

Hi, Ellie, it’s Myles. I was wondering if you’d like to go out for coffee next Sunday afternoon? :)

Is it worth trying again? He stares at the screen, mind filling with old images—paper frogs in the wastebasket.

He deletes the text and begins planning for his move overseas.