C.G. went to the forest. She lied about going on a sleepover―at Eleanor’s, Ma, and found her parents’ trusting, Okay, Cee, maliciously benign. She slammed the front door, shouted an apology and left, to pedal furiously along the road winding like a concrete shoreline by the river. At its end she hid her bike under bushes.

A farmer she recognized from the Saturday market allowed her on the back of his pickup along with his cants, toms, corn and berries. She ate one ear of fresh, raw corn while she was in the back of that truck, threw the husk to the floorbed and let the silk glide in the air to the road.

At Tadpole Creek, where the side road meets the highway, the farmer stopped; she cut him off before he could ask any questions. “A good kid,” he decided and drove on.

Again she hitched. Lowered her thumb when three different drivers who made her anxious slowed. Accepted a lift from a teenage boy whose great ambition was showing off his red four-door. The road ended; he yanked the emergency brake. She fidgeted with her ponytail and thanked him, trying to blend finality with gratitude. She was going solo and needed him to understand.

His face flushed while she listed her scouting badges in outdoor survival.

“I-I-I was an Eagle Scout,“ he said.

Two ravens met overhead, exchanged ancient caws and flapped away.

The boy worried a speck of dust on a fender. “Okay, then.“ C.G. watched as he backed up; held her breath when he stopped; breathed with relief when he shrugged at her insistence she was fine and drove off.

Holy cow. She scampered up another, smaller road, this one gravel, past a deserted campground. It was too early in the year for campers; the park service wasn’t recommending anyone hike until June, and all the better. She loved the month of May, its flower baskets and magic Celtic feel. May a good month for a quest.

She reached the trailhead and pressed onward, gaining 300 feet in ten minutes; putting real distance between her and the bothersome world, drawing herself into the Cascades.

When she spotted blueberry bushes, she crawled under to lie on her back and stare at swaying pines and hemlocks in the misty air. She looked past ripe green leaves of the blueberries to the deep and silver greens above. Drops of water slid from leaves, splashed into her eyes and magnified the flattened structure of each leaf and tension of droplets, the universe enlarged. She remembered a time she was with her sisters and parents driving. There was no outdoors in that memory. There was only the enclosed space of an old, gray car. In the back seat, an older sister on either side, sat C.G. The family was lost. Her father swore. Her mother prayed. Each sister pinched her and she’d cried. Did they care? Nah.

She started walking and realized that wile her mind stayed anchored back home, the trail was too wet for distractions; her judgment failed, her foot was sucked into slick mud. She teetered, yanked her boot out―she was strong―and make her way onward, concentrating on the present.

Clouds abounded but there was no rain; the air rang sweet and dank. C.G. headed for a rocky area that looked safe, veered away, choosing in favor of comfort. Her mattress that night was to be an almost convex surface with a patch of resilient undergrowth. She shook out plastic, unrolled her pad and sleeping bag; stretched her tarp above, fixing it between a tall dense bush and a tree.

Water from a nearby brook was so cold it made her head ache; she filled her jug. Four matches wouldn’t ignite, then bla-zooie, a fifth flamed so she could light her small stove. She sipped hot tea, chewed raisins and cashews.

And studied the wonder of a mountain with aspens and maples emerging from its slopes. You’re my spirit guide, she informed its unmovable form. Witches used cats for familiars. But I have you, my beauty. Mountains were women, she decided.

A quick sparkle above the peak made her heart race. Was this was a sign? Hey! She waited for more, but the sky became hazy wool; she crawled into her sleeping bag, and fell asleep like slumber was an enchanted well and she’d been thrown in. Once she woke and stuck her head out from the tarp. She craned toward the summit where this time she thought she saw a flash, but after groping for her glasses―stashed in a boot―she was disappointed. The sky was dim and dull. And vast and unsettling, she thought with the confidence of the impassioned, to anyone who was not on a mission such as I am.

At sunrise she heated water to boil the two eggs she’d brought as a treat. She manged to drop both and saw the yolk spread on the ground; her breakfast was brown bread.

She needed something―armor or strength against meddlers of the world―to maintain herself―Carla Genevieve Matilda Standish-McMannis (as soon as she saved up the money she was changing her name, that was a given, what kind of parents hyphenated―or let two daughters have a say in naming the third?). She sorted and rolled her gear and slung her arms through her khaki backpack’s straps. Clouds scuttled, exposing her mountain’s classic peak the color of cedar, bare at its crest of everything but snow, a glacier on an oddly sloping side.

The final half-mile to the gap was strewn with rocks and boulders and she had to pick her way with care, step-by-step, sometimes one hand against a boulder to steady herself. This tedious climbing, this sense of being tossed and tumbled, left her grumpy. She wanted to be on level ground and when, after so many deliberated steps she could walk freely, C.G. threw herself on flat greenery. In her bliss she saw short climbs of 300 or 400 feet and across the valleys in all directions, the glorious range of mountains of which her peak―cipher and sibyl―was part.

What’s the secret?she asked; how do you do it? It seemed stoic, unless the occasional rock slide was a mountain’s way of complaining. It outlasted trees; would outlast anyone she was related to.

She rolled on her side. Before her was a tiny floating ghost of a mountain, a doppelganger which vaporized to became the sum of its parts and the essence of that sum: a mystical cloud wafting towards her, hovering, and in an instant, dissipating.

Are you playing tricks on me?

The cloud reappeared and disappeared.

Her family would smirk if they heard about her vision―and maybe they’d be right. It was weird.

We need to stop thinking and get to work. Was that her mother’s voice? In my mind’s stupid ear. The indoctrination would follow her to whatever corner of the globe she fled. She trudged up another 200 or 300 feet where she found a hollow tree to lean against as she ate a piece of bread and a few cashews. Clouds sped by, their spreading shadows dragging along green curves, the peaks and slope of the land beneath, slowly and sensuously.

Like a hand.

That was how lovers touched lovers. She just knew it―no experience necessary. She considered her mission―how to become so important every star in the sky would know her, every human on earth would love her, love C.G., for who she was. She tried to picture her life unfolding into high school and college and jobs and travel and maybe family. What she imagined was the short form of a decent life, the form without worry, disappointment or injustice. In her imagined future, she moved with grace and importance through jobs, award and applause. C.G. was fully in the future. When she looked around she was disoriented, then sensed she was being watched.

Who’s there?

Was that a rustle in that tree? Her neck was plugged into an electric cord―her hair was straight and flying. Maybe another hiker was messing with her. Maybe red-car boy was a psycho and she’d missed the signs. An eagle flew in the distance. Had to mean something.

In an effort to make the eerie humdrum, C.G. whistled and ran her hands through her wild hair, rocked herself eye-level with a hollow in the log. Oh, not a good idea. She saw two eyes, white and round and chestnut and peering―with the sure, cold insight―from inside the dead tree. Damn. C.G. was afraid to move. But that was why she was here. For a test. To get strong.

Leave! she demanded. The afternoon felt quiet. She tried to sing, but notes fell to her lap. Time for me, then, she muttered, standing up, squinting left and right. Time for me to scout the best route out. She assured herself, It’s all gonna be fine and dandy, dandy and fine. The warm sun soothed, the air was soft and pine-scented. She hadn’t figured life out yet, but she was scoring points and she had another night. A whole other night.

She swung her pack off the ground but the freaking bulky thing was alive. She dropped it and jumped away.

C.G. knew she had to get going, and that she couldn’t leave her backpack with all her provisions. She inhaled seriously, like her oldest sister did when practicing yoga, then closed her eyes and put her finger on her third eye. Wow. Energy circled into her index finger, hand, arm and coursed through her body. She lifted her pack; her fingers curled around the strips. Everything inside was inert. She settled it on her back and laughed she’d thought there had to be a battle between bad and good, darkness and light. She wasn’t Guinevere or St. Joan, wasn’t brave as Harriet Tubman or defiant as Antigone.

“You haven’t come into your own, dearie.”

C.G. almost collapsed. A hand encircled her with short fingers which barely curled over half her forearm, but they were strong. It was attached to a creature, No, not a creature, a woman, but a woman like no one I’ve ever seen.

“I’m real,” the creature, female, said.

Something happened―a movement of clouds―a play of light and dark. C.G. could see the female’s gray eyes which saw her as she wasn’t sure she wanted to be seen. That creature had too much wisdom for any one person or any one creature.

“Are you sure you’re real?”

Something scuttled along the ground. They were too high for snakes but C.G. did a quick jig, the kind you do when you don’t want an unknown near your ankles.

“Real enough.” The non-human feline almost smiled. “I’m a…” she paused, and C.G. thought her expression was cynical or sarcastic, the kind teachers and parents hated. “I’m what’s known as a crone.”

The crone―for sure not a word the woman liked using to describe herself―crouched next to her. C.G. saw she was beautiful in the way women could be―with lines and imperfections and supreme confidence in their power.

“See this?” The old woman blew on her palm and the air filled with dust that was more than dust. C.G.’s eyes stung and her throat hurt. “Not earth. Just clutter. Something temporal.” She assumed C.G. understood or knew enough to get the drift. “Don’t let yourself be so pulled into it.”

C.G. shuddered. She realized night was on the way.

The woman not quite real, or too real, pulled at her long matted hair. “You’re not there yet, but it’s there for you, someday. I have no magic for you and no more advice and about that I don’t care.” And disappeared. C.F. heard a howl or cackle.

She knew she’d better move, and would have but she no longer knew what move meant. It had something to do with her feet and legs, right? The last thing she wanted to be was a news item―Missing Mountain Teen, or the focus of an editorial on the burden of inexperienced campers on search-and-rescue teams. She was ashamed for such a trivial thought after such a momentous meeting, but then nothing was good or bad. Her feet tingled like they’d fallen asleep and were waking up. She hauled down a different trail, found a spot midway down and set up. After slunging up her tarp and boiling water, she crawled into her sleeping bag, a hot canteen by her feet.

Now, a tarp thrown over a rope to make an A-frame shelter is no tent. Each end is exposed to the fathomless black of a mountain night. The tarp didn’t afford much protection, but she barreled into an exhausted sleep.

And woke a few hours later to hear a shrill and gripping whine as if all of life’s suffering as knew it at her age had been drawn out in one audible line of pain. The pain of a life without every person alive cheering her on.

It’s over. She was ready to die. The crone showed up to lead me to the next world.

Was she was breathing? Her life would have flashed by, but she hadn’t come to the mountain to review her life. She’d come to prepare for it.

The chanting stopped.

When she woke at break of day, she saw raindrops beading the tarp. She became a spin of smooth and even impulse, packing, slipping on her large, bright poncho, tending to the details.

The mystery of life: some fear, some pain, some cessation. Some joy. Some tranquility. That wasn’t the answer but she was preparing to find an answer, maybe in a few years, maybe on her deathbed. She squinted through mist. Trees like troops flanked the mountain’s stout sides. Her spirit leaned, then sank, into the hillside of evergreens.

She reached the trailhead and made her way to she the gravel road where, in the late afternoon, she was picked up by a friendly threesome of fishermen in a station wagon. She sat in the far back with a collie and a golden retriever while the men talked.

“What we didn’t catch this trip just won’t be caught.”

“Nothing like it.”

“Not nothing.”

“We got some good fish.”

“Yup.”

“Good fish and good fishing.”

They dropped her off on the river road at her bike hideaway. The boy with the red car anxiously waited. He asked if she was okay, poured her coffee from his thermos and told her he’d spent most of the time since he dropped her off driving between the trailhead where he’d let her off and the river Then her sisters pulled up. On a hunch they’d called the friend she claimed she was visiting; noted her missing bike and pack; rummaged through maps on her desk; sweated it out; said nothing to their parents. The boy tied ’s bike to the roof of the family car, and waved.

She was glad to be with her sisters even though they didn’t stop crabbing―she was foolhardy, she was a dope. But together they snuck her through the back door so she could bathe, dress in her flannel bed clothes and greet her mother and father with respect and cordiality. Her parents kissed her with love and the usual confusion.

When she bolted upright at three a.m., hearing the chant, she called out, remembered the wail could end. She remembered the crone, and fell asleep, one hand dangling off the mattress above a small clump of earth she’d shaken from her boots.

© 2011 Sarah Gancher Sarai

The walls were bare now, some riddled with holes from the battle that the opposing armies had waged through the property a few months before. The family had scattered most likely, taken their treasured belongings and fled, planning perhaps to return someday.

Someday.

When the war was over.

Today, the men that gathered here had little purpose beyond an order to appear and the insistence of commanding officers or in one case military escort. A table, cobbled together from remnant boards and shored up with bricks at its feet, sat in the middle of the near barren space. Chairs, some little more than a bucket upended and left on the floor, were spattered about the room.

This was not a place of comfort or hospitality. It would, however, become a war room over the next few hours, nothing grand in stature or decoration, but grand in purpose.

Looking at the orders in his hand Captain Healy felt the press of both his duty and the victory he longed for sitting heavily on his shoulders. The plan was merely a spark of innovation and a spark, as he knew first hand, could start a fire that might consume him as well as light the way.

He was the first to enter the room, take his bearings of the random spill of furniture, and set his will to see the matter through.  A soft rap of sound on one of the inner doors caught his attention, turned him toward the immediate future, the task at hand. “Enter.”

The door swung open, held in place by some nameless private that Healy had never bothered to ask for his name. Three men entered the room, uneasy by the looks of their expressions, and unsure of their purpose they assembled. No one indicated that they take a chair but it seemed ‘expected’ and fulfilling that expectation had been ingrained into their lives. Each picked a chair and left one unclaimed, the head of the table was his.

“Take a seat, gentlemen.”

The request startled one of the men. He had expected an order from the Captain as any subordinate soldier would. He was the last to lower himself into his seat.

He was also the first man that the Captain addressed. “Lieutenant Morris, you made good time from the coast. I am sorry that you had to leave your work.”

Grey nodded, a stiff movement that gave away little of his true feelings. “There are those who can continue my work before I return. We can’t afford to lose time in any event.”

There was a subtle rebuke in his words, but Healy wasn’t looking for a confrontation and so he ignored it. “Lieutenant Morris is part of our submarine corps. He and his men are making vast improvements in our fleet, hoping to punch an irrevocable hole in the Union Navy.”

The other men murmured in agreement, the hopeful sentiment was one they shared.

“And you, Donnelly.” The Captain acknowledged the man to his left, quiet in manner and pale in color. “Your specialty is ordinance.”

“And I didn’t want to have anything to do with the military, but here I am.” Burke’s gruff interjection was not a shock to Healy, but the other two showed their surprise openly.

“You have skills that will be pertinent to this conversation, Mr. Burke.” Healy offered a hospitable smile, or as close as he could approximate one. “Your connection to this group will be revealed in due course.”

“I don’t see how we have much of anything for the lot of us to talk about together.” He leaned back in his chair. “I have other duties to perform.”  With that he began to rise from his chair.

“You have a duty here, Burke.” The captain’s tone cut into atmosphere of the room, stilling Burke’s actions. “I’ll thank you to have a seat so that we may begin.” Looking about the table, Healy saw the expectant and curious looks of the assembled group. It was, he agreed, an odd assemblage, but it was the only configuration that he could imagine that could make this feat possible. “We’re looking to create a warship. The likes of which will stagger the Union in their tracks.”

“Ship?”  Morris’s shock sputtered from his lips. “The war for superiority is on the ground, Captain. What good is another ship when we’ve already bested the Union at sea numerous times? At this juncture, it is merely a matter of out-producing them; putting boats out to sea and bringing down the Union fleet.”

The captain listened to the words and gave them their due, but neither his expression nor his resolve changed. He had expected a good deal of complications and was prepared to overcome them. “The Army has the battle well in hand and the ship that we’ve been tasked to build is one meant to ride the air, not the sea.”

The room was stunned into utter silence; the captain’s worn boots the only sound as he stepped to a side board and retrieved a large sheet of paper and a pencil sharpened just for the occasion. Smoothing the paper out on the table, he felt the scars of the old wood through the sheet and removed any remnants of dust from the surface. Satisfied that the canvas he used was suitable for his purpose he began to draw a round shape, a bit longer in height than a circle but his repeated tracings blurred the image somewhat. “The body of the ship will be light, held aloft with hydrogen gas in the same manner as a balloon.”

That had Burke’s attention and his derision. “Ride the air, hmm?” He looked at the other men at the table in turn. “We’re tethered to a base,” he explained, “we can be towed by train, wagon or barge, but it won’t fly. Not the way I think you’re meaning.”

Healy barely acknowledged the argument, addressing it only with a pointed look. His hand outlined the round body and added gored panels running from top to bottom. “We’d fill it with tankers that we’ve captured from the Union. They will provide a reliable source of gas and travel with the ship; a dock, but one that we could mobilize.”

Donnelly shook his head. “How does that answer Mr. Burke’s challenge? The restriction of a balloon stems from the fact that it needs a connection to the ground, a pull to move it along and give it direction. There is little use for such a craft in active war.”

“Exactly.” The Captain allowed himself a moment to gather his thoughts, softening the deeply etched lines about the corners of his eyes. “That is part of the problem.”

Morris ventured a query. “Then you’ve an idea to sort it out… to make it move from one place to another on its own?”  He sounded more hopeful than his expression alluded. “Forgive me, but that sounds like quite a flight of the imagination, Captain.”

Burke wasn’t about to make it easy. “Have a few trained pigeons up your sleeve, Captain?” He sat back in his chair, one booted foot sliding out a bit and under the table. “Can’t see how you’d make it work otherwise.” He looked about, waiting for someone to agree with him, to understand his meaning. “Up in the air you’ve got the wind buffeting the balloon around, not much you can use up there to steer.”

Captain Healy turned his sanguine gaze on another man at the table. “That’s where you come in, Morris.” Using his pencil he drew a shape beside the balloon. One that was easily recognizable to the sailor.  “Moving through the water is harder than moving through the air,” he drew a hasty sketch at the back,” blades cut through the water, propelling the ship through it. Wouldn’t the same concept work in the sky… rudders and-”

“A submarine in the air?” Burke banged his fist on the table top before him. “It’s not the same thing.” He leaned forward with a measuring gaze on the captain. “The weight alone would drag it down! You’ve brought us here on some fool’s errand, Captain, I’m done.” Folding his arms across his chest he stared at the wall, his ruddy complexion darkening. “Stuff and nonsense.”

Perhaps it was a vague expression on Morris’s face or the silent working of his lips that gave Healy some measure of hope. When Morris finally spoke it was as if he was caught in a daydream. “Wind has a current, like the ocean. The submarine must stay afloat even in the midst of water, but a balloon-” He looked to Burke for assistance and received a grudging response.

“Stays aloft with lift. Lighter than air is the way we keep it up above the trees.” He shifted in his chair uneasy at how quickly he was drawn back in. “I doubt you could make one big enough to support the weight of rudders of any kind.”

“Not size then,” the Captain conceded, “perhaps number? Placement? A single alteration or-”

“Or a number of changes along different disciplines.” Morris shook his head desolately, his slim frame wavering. “How much time would it take? How much time would we have?”

“And what good would it do?” argued Burke. “We’d move faster, venture farther, but fat lot that would do for us now. Keeping an eye on the Union Blue won’t be enough.”

Donnelly lifted his hand and caught the Captain’s attention. “I don’t think we’ve been shown the whole picture. Or at least I believe I am about to enter into it.”

The captain’s quiet acknowledgement continued into the explanation. “The lift of the balloon, the maneuverability of the submarine and lastly,” he turned to Donnelly, “perhaps you will be so kind as to bring in our acquisition.”

Rising from his chair, the man brushed at the ever-present dust discoloring his dark coat. He made his way around the table and opened the door. Two soldiers took the opportunity to enter the breach carrying in a small structure, the top of which was shrouded with an oilcloth. They set the object down beside Donnelly and exited without a word.  Lifting the corner of the cloth he let it fall to the floor at his feet.

“What is that?” Morris half stood from his chair and stared at the complicated mass of metal perched on the wooden stand.

Donnelly touched the cool iron of the barrel, his hand gentle, and the hushed tone of his voice reverent. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the ‘coffee mill’ guns that the boys of Pennsylvania have used on our troops.  This gun was recently brought to our attention by a Dr. Gatling from North Carolina.”

Indicating the barrel of the weapon, Donnelly pointed out that it had six barrels that “rotate and fire a continuous spray of bullets operated by a single gunner.“

Burke turned up his nose at the mention. “Heard he offered it to the Union as well.”

“Yes,” Captain Healy accepted the truth of the statement, “he admitted as much, but that, as he says, is the prerogative of a businessmen.”

“He’s a Carolina boy,” Grey took up the argument, “he should be loyal.”

Holding up his hands in surrender, Donnelly ventured forward with a thought. “However it came to be, we have acquired a dozen of the guns and I believe Captain Healy has asked me here because he’d like to add these to this ‘ship’ of his.”

Healy nodded his assent. “You have me dead to rights on that score, Donnelly.”

Morris leaned over the diagram on the table. “It’s crazy, what you have in mind here.” His fingers traced the pencil lines, smudging a bit here and there. “Even if we could find a way to put something like this up in the air,” he sighed, a long suffering exhale of air from his lips, “adding a gun… is pure madness!”

Burke, who they would learn could always be counted on for a prediction of dire consequences, added in his own assessment. “Madness, truly. This isn’t as simple as forge-welding something together. There’s gas involved and ordinance.” His laughter shook his shoulders and his middle but the darkness of his narrowed gaze was imperious. “A spark could send the whole thing up in flames! Then the Union would make a mockery of our innovation.”

“Not to mention,” Grey continued the thought, “if the Union were to bring it down, capture it for their own use.”

The three began to argue at once, at times with each other and then against as they began to out-shout opposing viewpoints with their questions and declarations. These men, all three intelligent and well educated in regards to their own specialties seemed to find no shortage of opinions about the proposal.

The pencil, given over by the Captain during the ensuing debate, passed from hand to hand to hand as they scratched out possible configurations and then crossed them out in turn.

Healy could only stand back and watch in amazement at the wild conjectures of their imaginations and the demanding press of their viewpoints on the subject at hand. He thought, given the obvious discord surrounding the table, that they would never see eye-to-eye on the project.

He was wrong.

It was Donnelly that finally cut through the ragged cacophony of noise with his pronouncement. “We all agree.” He looked at the Captain, his gaze steady even as his hands shook slightly with nerves. “It’s impossible, but we’d all like to try.”

© 2011 Ray Dean

Dear Readers,
It was a great honor and a great time guest editing for Whistling Fire this month. My theme was steampunk. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry, our first piece, “After Crystal City” by Andrea Myer, is about as steampunk as it gets. Her story shows a woman living in a steampunk world in all of its glamor and gore. I found it to be both a welcoming and frightening introduction to steampunk and I think you will too. Enjoy.
Cheers,
AE Stueve

© 2011 Andrea Myer

She found herself in a rented an apartment on the North side of the Chicago where she knew she could easily get her bearings—as if that were a metaphor for getting her bearings in the whole of her life. That was the thing about Chicago, it always feels like home. In some kind of primal, sensory way. The clatter of the elevated—the smell of kosher hot dogs—the car horns, the sirens–the feel of the icy wind on your cheek—the musical litanies of the neighborhoods: Wicker Park, Wrigleyville, Pilsen, North Shore, Lakeview. She holed up in that apartment for months while the grief worked its way through its stages. Shock—anger—depression—small stabs at acceptance. Old friends called to see if she were alright. And she was alright. If they would only leave her alone for a while, she would be alright—surely.

She took to going to the noodle shop at the corner of Lincoln and Addison where she absorbed herself in the consumption of momos—Tibetan dumplings, tender with savory fillings. This was really only the only food she could manage to eat. And while she sat there, her thin frame hunched over the plate, she thought of Tibetans—mountain people—sherpas—yaks—Everest climbers. For some reason, this was a nourishing exercise, not only the noodles but the thoughts that accompanied the noodles.

It was November. The first Chicago snow tickled her face as she trudged to the noodle shop at mid-day. She ordered—sat—took her first forkful—and began thinking of oxygen tanks they brought up the mountains to keep from getting altitude sickness. How some people refused them, but it was so dangerous to attempt to go without. Her eyes came up and suddenly met those of a Chinese man sitting two tables away.

“You seem to be enjoying those momos,” he said. “No question, they’re the best in town.”

She wiped her lips.

“They are my weakness.”

He pondered this. Then, in a businesslike tone, said, “Have you tried the ones at Tan Chew’s on Belmont? Not quite as good, but an interesting filling all the same.”

She liked that. That he found it interesting without being the best.

“No, I haven’t. I’ll make a point of trying them.”

He attended to his tea, which she knew was hot and strong and invigorating. Perfect for the city’s first day of snow.

“Not many people know what momos are,” he said. “I come here for the Vietnamese pho myself—one of the best you’ll find.”

She thought he had almost said ‘not many Caucasians know’ but had caught himself.

“I haven’t tried it yet, but I will take your recommendation.”

He seemed unaccountably pleased by this.

“I’ve made a bit of a study of the restaurants in this city—during my business pursuits—I can tell you the best food at the best price anywhere in Chicago.”

She contemplated him as she took a bite from the momo.

“What business are you in?” she finally asked.

“Advertising.”

She nodded.

“If you’d like some advice about where to go—any cuisine, you name it—Asian, Mexican, Lebanese–.”

“Well, Chicago certainly does offer just about anything—but I’m afraid I don’t go out much.”

“Except for momos.”

“Yes—except for momos.”

For some reason, she felt he was pondering the possibilities of the situation. And she wanted to head him off.

“I’ve only just moved back to the city—after my husband’s death. I’m still getting—settled here.”

He carefully wiped his hands on the napkin.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you.”

“How long have you been widowed?”

She couldn’t quite remember, but grasped at a small detail remembered from her return to the city. The forsythia had been in bloom. She remembered that. Yes. Beautiful yellow-flowers amid the melting snow.

“Since the spring–March.”

He nodded and got to his feet.

“Yes. Well—it was very nice talking with you.”

She smiled vaguely.

After that, he showed up time and again when she was there. Before talking with him that first time, there was no consciousness of his presence. City-style. Now she had to acknowledge him—every time.

Before long, he had cordially asked if he might sit at her table with her. The talk centered on him. The story of his coming to America—his stint at a Midwestern university where he could get no dates—his spate of engineering jobs—his divorce—his present business. All she had to do was listen through his accent and let him paint the pictures for her. It was something that took her away from her own thoughts. Like the momos—and the thoughts that accompanied the momos.

One time, as they sat together at the table, his conversation took an unexpected turn.

“I was wondering—maybe you’d like to attend a concert with me on Friday. It’s a jazz quartet. I heard they’re quite good.”

“I’m afraid I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Oh—I see. Perhaps another time.”

Their conversation went on to other subjects without missing a beat.

But another time, weeks later, as he finished the pho, wiping his hands carefully on the napkin, he tried again.

“There’s a Van Gogh exhibit this Sunday at the Art Institute. Perhaps, you’d like to go with me?”

She pushed the remains of the pale dumplings around on her plate with her fork.

“No—I’m not ready. I’m sorry.”

“When will you be ready?”

“I don’t know that I ever will be ready.”

“It’s because I’m Asian, isn’t?”

“Don’t be manipulative.”

“I’m not being manipulative.”

But then, he realized he was.

“Oh—now I feel terrible. I feel totally humiliated,” he said.

She gave him a wry look. But even that didn’t deter him.

Soon, he became so insistent, she had to stop coming to the noodle shop for momos. Which made her sad. And made her sad to think she had made him sad, too.

A few weeks later, she returned to the noodle shop. She placed her order and sat down to once again enjoy the quiet contemplation while she ate. A young man came in, placed an order, and looked around the empty shop.

“Great food here, huh?”

She smiled and went back to eating.

“What do you have there? What’s that called?”

“Momos.”

“Momos.”

“Tibetan dumplings.”

“Never heard of them. They good?”

“Very.”

“What’s in them?”

Just then, Chen came through the door. He looked at the young man—and her. She gave him a little wave, but his expression didn’t flicker.

“These are chicken,” she answered the young man. “But the lamb momos are also good.”

“They’re seasoned, right?” the young man said.

“Oh yes. With onions—and garlic. There’s a bit of ginger, too. And cilantro, I think.”

Chen stood stiffly at the counter, refusing to look at her.

“Sounds good. Maybe I’ll try some of that next time.”

It was only after the young man left with his Styrofoam tray of noodles that Chen came to her table.

“I see you made a new friend,” he said.

She just looked at him, looking for his meaning.

He lapsed into silence trying to calm himself.

“I know I have no right to be jealous,” he said.

Still, she could think of nothing to say.

“Neither one of us is ready for this game, Chen.”

“This game?”

“This romantic jousting. Neither one of us. You’re still focused on what you came here for. I’m still focused on—things I’ve left behind.”

His eyes stayed on her.

“Yes, I see. Perhaps you’re right.”

The counter man called him for his bowl of pho.

When Chen returned, he stood over her table uncertainly with the bowl in his hands.

“May I sit here with you—or not?” Chen asked.

“Of course you may.”

He arranged himself and his food and settled down to eat.

“It’s more complicated than I thought—you Caucasian women.”

She laughed.

They went back to eating.

“You seem representative of the species, however—perhaps you could teach me.”

They walked in the late spring snowfall. It was clean and fresh, and nothing about it had to be defined.

© 2011 J. Lang Wood

with a Bad Haircut and a $700 a Month Therapy Habit,

Shacked Up with Hazel Kitchen

© 2011 Page Getz

Sitting on the top step of the porch of our brick and flagstone house on May Street. It had rained earlier in the day and the air was thick with the muggy smell of wet grass. Small puddles filled the chipped flagstone crevices of the porch. I was looking into a puddle watching specks of dirt floating and wondering what kind of ice cream I’d get today. My dad was sleeping on the couch again; I could hear his deep rich snores out here on the step. I had told him that Mr. Joyce, my Little League baseball coach, was on his way to pick me up and take me for ice cream. To which he answered without opening his eyes, “that will be fine”. Dad spent most of his time on the couch since he closed The Blarney Stone, his bar, mom said if his customers drank as much as dad did we would be millionaires.

I had a lot of ice cream that summer; usually after a game, Mr. Joyce would take me to the Prince Castle the ice cream place on Western just outside the city. He didn’t invite the other kids. Just me. We would go for long rides down side streets or along the forest preserves and get ice cream at the end of the rides. Mr. Joyce had been a coach for a while. I don’t think he was really very good at coaching but he let me play second base even though some of the other kids were better fielders and hitters than I was.

Coach’s baby blue Pontiac pulled in front of my house. I ran to it hoping no one saw me. I pulled the door open by the shiny handle it felt heavy resisting my hand. Mr. Joyce reached across the seat to help get it open. On the gray vinyl bench seat, his hand rested outstretched. I got in and sat as close to the door as I could and did not look at him.

“Hey Mr. Joyce,” I said

“Hey” he said “go for a ride?”

I didn’t want to ride today just the ice cream “how about ice cream first?”

“Usually we do the ride first, then ice cream, no?” He said.

I sat there looking out the window and I saw Al and Chucky playing strikeout in the schoolyard across the street. “Hey Al! Chucky!” I wanted to call out “ice cream?” I sighed. Looking up at Mr. Joyce, I said “ice cream first.”

The ice cream was usually one small scoop. But today, I was thinking more. Bigger. Richer. “Hot Fudge Sundae!”

“We usually get one scoop!” he said. Not today. We said nothing for a moment; “Okay.” he patted the space between us with his right hand. “Closer, come closer,” he said.

“Ice cream first,” I said. “Hot fudge.”

He sighed and snorted as we pulled away. I hated his snorting. It reminded me of our neighbor, the Sorenson’s boxer, who grunted and snorted at the fence whenever I walked by on my way to school, his nosed pushing through the chain link. The Sorenson’s didn’t much care for us, always muttering about “Shanty Irish” and “a disgrace“. They wouldn’t let their kids play with us, which was just as well because my house wasn’t right to have kids over anyway. When friends asked to come over my Dad was always too tired or one of my brothers and sisters was sick with the flu and might be contagious. He snorted again; I moved closer to the door, he patted the seat harder this time. “No. Ice cream first! Hot fudge!”

Another quick snort and we were off. We didn’t say much, maybe a few words about the White Sox chances this year and the game we had coming and “could I play second again?”

“Sure, but don’t be afraid of the bounces, put your body in front of them” he reached over to pat me a few times but only the tip of his middle finger touched my thigh which made me stiffen.

I was thinking thick hot fudge on vanilla. I love the thick warm fudge dripping over the white vanilla, sweet covered in sweeter, nuts sprinkled and gliding through the fudge. A cherry on top was optional as far as I was concerned, but a not a bad place to start the feast.

We got there, finally. I pushed the car door open forgetting to shut it behind me.

“Hey the door!” Mr. Joyce yelled. I kept going toward the faux castle facade past the sign with the profile of a dashing young Prince savoring a cone. Prince Castle. Once inside I was washed with a blast of cold air. It was always cold inside which quickly dried the dampness at the back of my thighs. I looked up at the menu behind the tall white and glass counter and saw that the hot fudge sundae was almost the most expensive at three dollars only surpassed by the banana split. I had made a good choice, though obviously coach was feeling the pinch. “Sure you want the Sundae, not a scoop?”

“Sure.” The girl behind the counter dug deeply into the brown vat of vanilla bending her elbow with the weight of her body to break the hardened surface of the fresh tub. I watched as she pulled the long ladle out of the silver fudge container my eyes pleading for more. I ate slowly digging my spoon into the sundae glass, allowing each spoonful to melt a bit in my mouth and finally getting the last speck, my tongue stretching into the small indentation at the bottom of the glass unreachable by spoon. I took a moment to savor my small victory.

© 2011 Patrick Moloney

Samuel was not a simple man. I’ve lived too long in this coastal Maine community to make that mistake. He’d arrive in overalls if he came straight from the boat, and leave his dirt stained rubber boots at the bottom of the stairs to my office, but that meant nothing. People here lead simple lives. They are not simple people.
And so we talked of loss. The loss of sons, whose talents he supported even as they took the boys far away and deprived him of the pleasures of watching their success. The loss of a curly haired daughter whose virus beat out his race over winter seas to the mainland hospital. The loss of a partner, who found the island fishing life too small, too stifling, and once the children fled, took wing herself. The loss of believing in his own choices, most frightening of all.
Always, it came back to those hands. “I needed to work with these” he’d say, “I still do”
And as we parsed the cost of that, and tallied what he lost, he’d repeat that wistful thought, “Ain’t nothing much harder to get at than the truth.”
One day I asked what that statement meant to him, and where it came from.
He smiled, let his hands drop gently and fold into each other as he lifted his head and began:
“Oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths:,
Win us with honest trifles; to betray us
In deepest consequence.”
“Shakespeare?” I asked
“Macbeth,” he answered. “It’s that scene where his friend tries to warn him that the three witches can’t be trusted, that they’ll tell you small things that are true but lie to you about the important stuff. I guess I have my own three witches.”
“Anyway,” he laughed, “the short version works better on the boat.’

Near the end of our time together, when the loss had etched its way through rock and found fresh soil to water, he arrived one day carrying a bucket of shrimp. Hundreds of still squirming tiny Maine creatures captured in a silver bucket that dripped on my rug. He handled it with two fingers. I knew I would need both arms to carry it down to my kitchen after he left.
“I’ll take ‘em back if you can’t use ‘em.” he offered.
I smiled.
We both knew I’d be up past midnight, until my hands ached, snapping the heads off, peeling the translucent shells away from the tender pink bodies, dropping the perfect thumb nail sized gems into a bowl.

© 2011 Mary E. Plouffe Ph.D.

I’d been spending more and more time writing love sonnets, a poetic form that never used to interest me. Not that I can get those poems published either. They were a little too overwrought and caught up in weird fanciful ideas about the saving, redemptive aspects of love. Maybe this little excursion would turn me in another direction.

A forty-one-year-old intermediate-school teacher for fifteen years, married ten years, trying to get my poems published for five years, exactly five published, all of them in online magazines, and I recently received my hundredth rejection letter, counting both snail-mail and electronic-mail rejections. The neatness of the years and numbers caused me a bit of discomfort, abrading my sense of self.

I didn’t tell my wife about the e-mails, let alone the rendezvous, if it could be called that. My e-mail correspondent called it a tryst in the e-mail inviting me to meet her. What an archaic word, I wrote back, and she said her sexual fantasies and turn-ons were postmodern. What would you call postmodern sex, I asked her, and her answer was rather strange: “Molly Bloom having sex with Samuel Beckett in a Jane Austen novel, as James Joyce was off at a Barenaked Ladies concert simply because he loved the way the syllables of their name danced on his tongue.” Impressively witty, yet not postmodern sex in my estimation, but I didn’t have a better reply. As much as I wanted to, I was afraid to mention that fascinating yet baffling e-mail to my wife, who had gone to a Halloween party dressed as a character from an Austen novel on the night I had received that first enticing e-mail.

My mysterious correspondent e-mailed me that she would be there on the last Tuesday night of the month, at 10:45 precisely, but she wanted me there around 10:15, standing at the bar drinking a beer. Order a pitcher of beer and two glasses and she would join me. I don’t know who was more eager for the meeting, me or my e-mail correspondent.

Before going off to teach, I was checking my morning e-mail, deleting the abundance of spam, an especially large quantity that morning, and there was a one-sentence e-mail with the subject header, “YEARNING”: I am a small piece of a broken ancient artifact, a tiny token to accident and the chance of enduring love—to live fully is to be a flower, to love fully is to be the garden.

Initially, I had no intention of responding to an unknown, unseen stranger, even if I was fascinated by what she was writing to me. It felt poetic, pleading. At first I thought it was one of my students, playing some sort of mind game with her teacher. I assumed it was a female almost immediately, even though it wasn’t until the third e-mail that the person sending the messages made that explicit. Then exactly a week later—I checked the time and date of the previous e-mail—I received a second and longer e-mail: I am the hands of the clock trying to turn from time, not to see my ticking captor, and trying to be eternal as Hell, only to be tossed into the boiling fluids soon to be evaporated into the nothingness of Heaven. I am part of the clock I despise and lie to dramatically, locked into its fixed scheme for an instant for an instant for an instant…

I could hardly be sure what she meant but I studied her e-mail, looking for clues to her identity and her intentions. Then I started to suspect that she was quoting from something existing. I searched on the internet but couldn’t find anything specific.

The third week, again, exactly a week later, I received her longest e-mail to date: I am a buffoon of bleeding and wounds, creating unwritten myths as I walk unnerved, saying I stroll calmly as I gallows walk forward past the past caught in days toward more abhorrent days in ways foreign to my nature; both enraged and enfeebled, made to think madness is safe, I was sickened into sanity as each dense moment, frightful as slow death, drew me even more unsure, left me even more uncured. I ponder the questions as a sentenced woman ponders the length of forthcoming days…

I became more suspicious that the e-mailer was using words from literature, maybe not good literature, but the internet again didn’t reveal the source to me. I had certainly discovered plagiarized work by my students, but maybe I was wrong about the e-mailer. I guessed she was in her early twenties, maybe immersed in goth culture, and I imagined that she would cultivate such a look, with dark clothing and dark make-up. In my previous e-mail to her I asked for a name, even a fictitious name would please me, but she wouldn’t give me one. I asked her how she knew my name and e-mail address, and she wrote that Cupid had e-mailed it to her last Valentine’s Day. I assumed this was her sense of humour though it wasn’t as witty as her earlier words about postmodern sex, but there was no getting around that most of what she wrote was anything but humorous. I found myself e-mailing her several times during a week, but she would e-mail me only once a week.

On the fourth week, I sat expectantly at my computer, certain an e-mail would arrive at the sane time the messages had arrived in previous weeks, and it did: Before I take my gallows walk, as much metaphoric as literal, I want to spend a night with a sympathetic soul. I want to engage in the physical, to discard any prudence or good sense. I want to give my body as completely as humanly possible to another person. You can free me from my personal burdens or change what has to happen, but we can give each other pleasure for one night.

I put together all the messages she sent me in one long prose poem and I suggested she submit her writing to a literary journal, something interested in the avant-garde or surreal. Again I asked her who she was, begging for a hint or two. “Identities,” she wrote on the fifth week, “interfered with true passion.” It wasn’t as if I had already committed adultery. I could always leave after meeting her.

There they were, a dozen men, none of whom I knew or even recognized, each with a pitcher of beer and two glasses in from of him, all, I assumed, waiting for her. I watched them and started a poem, not a love sonnet but a poem about the unpredictability and frightfulness of everyday life. At closing time, the dozen men, in different stages of inebriation, left the bar. At least one, I thought, would dream about the mysterious e-mailer tonight. I know I would.

© 2011 J. J. Steinfeld

It’s fitting to end this latest round through email, the medium you used to contact me after twenty-four years. At first I thought it was a matter of convenience; you Googled my name, found some essays I’d published, discovered that my mother was being treated for cancer. She was shocked when you called to wish her well. Not knowing what to say after all these years, she thanked you and made polite conversation. Then she rang off, as you’d say.

It should have ended there, but you weren’t done. You tracked down Mark, our only mutual friend, and asked for my email address. I’m sure you never even thought of calling me. You probably figured that as soon as I heard that British lilt, I’d hang up. In an email, you could choose your words carefully, use that flowery prose that makes you sound like a deep thinker. You could express your heartfelt concern for my mother, note that she was always so kind to you, tell me how far you’ve come since you projected that calculated image of yourself, an abandoned puppy in need of a home. Now you’re married with three children, and hold a PhD in literature. I always found it odd that you decided to become a writer. That was my dream.

In your email you flattered and cajoled. You said you never forgot the way I looked when I was the maid of honor at Amy’s wedding. The dress I wore was the color of the sky, and I took your breath away. My smile shone like the sun. I would always be your first love. Then you admitted you’ve been feeling depressed lately, because you’re divorcing your wife – the woman you left me for. The marriage lasted twenty years before falling apart. You made a shy, hopeful plea that we might be friends again.

Email is clean and easy. You can dupe someone with the click of a mouse. I fell for your charm, just like I did the day you and your “mates” walked into the diner where I worked when I was twenty-one. You looked up from the table and smiled in my direction. I noticed your disheveled brown hair and sea-blue eyes. When I came over to take your order, you started chatting me up, said you were spending the summer in America. I was just out of college, trying to figure out my life, dodging customers while carrying trays full of drinks. By the end of the meal you had my number.

I fell for it then, and I fell for it now, the sweet talk, the false humility, the stories of being wronged. At least back then, I could say I was fooled by chemistry. This time I have no excuse. You can’t have chemistry with words on a screen. But you can build illusions around them. In your case, the words were pretty and neat, like your handwriting used to be. Always placed carefully to achieve just the right effect.

I was stupid. I believed the lie we’re all told, that people get wiser with age. I thought that misunderstandings have an expiration date. Now I see that forgiveness is like a siren, seducing us straight toward a shipwreck.

Your initial emails were so ingratiating.  When you talked about your divorce, you went on at length about how miserable your life had been. I admit it; I liked hearing that. It was better than knowing that the girl with curly blond hair that fell past her waist made you happier than I ever did. I still remember the way she brushed past you at the bar, so close her hair touched your shoulders. We all have fantasies about our lovers’ next relationships. We like to imagine them going horribly wrong. Still, we don’t really expect it to happen. We’re resigned to those moments late at night, when we sneak onto Facebook pages that have no privacy settings, and find pictures of weddings and babies. Ski trips. Reunions. Hotel balconies in the Caribbean. So it’s unsettling, now and then, when our fantasies come true. We want to feel vindicated. Instead, we just get uncomfortable.

I told you I got married ten years ago, that I was happy.  You responded by wishing me well. Your tone was wistful, if such a thing can be managed over email. Then you mentioned you had started dating a woman who is twenty-two, and said you finally had found your soul mate. That made me cautious. What was a 47-year-old man doing with a 22-year-old girl?  You sounded tortured when you spoke about your new love. She was headed to California for graduate school, and you couldn’t bear the thought of the separation. The .jpg you sent showed a raven-haired woman riding a bay mare in a field. She was smiling into the camera with the sun behind her, making it appear as if a halo surrounded her head. My stomach actually lurched when I saw it.

The rhetoric you used to describe Debbie sounded disturbingly familiar. I started to remember the letters you wrote every day – every single day – when you went back to Bristol for a year, the endless tilted words scrawled across cellophane-thin pages. You spouted praise that made me sound like an angel, described desperate dreams of a lifetime together. I was just twenty-one. I was a human being. And we had dated for just one summer.

You should know, by the way, that I put those letters into a big cardboard box after you broke up with me, and burned them. I saved a few for posterity, but last year, when I came across the letters in an old drawer, I tossed them into the garbage.

I don’t know why I kept responding to your emails. I offered what I thought was objective advice. But with every new email that landed in my in-box, the warning bells got louder. Soon a fleet of fire trucks was screaming through my brain.  Something was wrong with the way you kept tearing up your wife and professing desperate love for your new girlfriend. Something was equally wrong with the way I kept writing back. I told myself that I was just helping out an old friend. But I think I was trying to set you straight.

Finally, I realized this correspondence was going nowhere, and that’s when I told you we should take a step back. I suggested that maybe I wasn’t the right person for you to confide in.  After all, you hurt me pretty badly in the past, and although we hadn’t brought it up, I had to be honest about the fact that I hadn’t forgotten.

That’s when the trouble really started. Suddenly, you began vomiting mountains of details about the past, describing events and conversations I couldn’t recall. You wanted to be sure I understood that you had been in the right, that you were the wounded party. Whatever I remembered was off base. Your memory was what seemed off-base to me, but the emails kept coming. In one, in a warm, light-hearted tone, you described a trip back to Bristol to see your parents after we broke up, including an excursion to a park we had once visited together. Your description of laughing and enjoying yourself at a time when I was in pain ignited the first sparks of anger.  I wrote back and told you not to make light of the past. Please remember, I said, I had been young and inexperienced, trusting and naïve. Our breakup had been extremely painful for me.  You had moved to the States to be with me, sponsored by my family, and then left me for another woman eight weeks later. At the time, I was distraught. I stopped eating.  I didn’t date for more than a year. Please don’t minimize what was a painful time, I wrote.

Silence. For three months. Then this week, when I heard from you again, you were enraged.

The words in your last email were like an explosion of poisoned arrows.  Every sentence was aimed to rip a hole.  You twisted every supposed memory to embarrass and humiliate me.  You accused me of having a terrible temper, for example, claiming I punched a door once because I wanted a sandwich.  I don’t remember anything like that ever happening. I am five feet tall, and weigh about 110 pounds. The wall would have won.

You also claimed you’d never left me for another woman. Instead, I had made your life miserable and you had no choice but to leave. The woman who became your wife was just a friend, you insisted, and she offered to help when you had been badly beaten down. You hadn’t started dating her until after we were long over. This was news to me. I remember slapping you in the face the day you told me about Debbie, the only time I’ve ever hit anyone in my life. Your face turned red with rage, and I thought you were going to hit me back. Then I saw the two of you holding hands on the street a few days later, and had to duck into to a public rest room to get sick.

We all know the fickle nature of memory. No two people recall anything the same way.  But I should tell you now that I forwarded your email to a few people who knew us back then. None of them remembered what happened the way you did. And none of them remembered any of the incidents you described.

You declared, in that last email, that you had been to numerous therapists (a fact I didn’t think was worth boasting about). You said the one you are seeing now describes you as an “exceptional parent” who is “brilliantly perceptive.” I, on the other hand, am “morally corrupt.”  You told me you hoped I would take a good look myself and grow up. Only after I had accepted the truth, you declared, would you be willing to hear from me again.

I’m sorry, Jude, but…willing to hear from me again? I’m telling you right now: if you ever contact me again, I’m calling the police.

I have learned something from you, though, Jude. This world of open access, this ability to get in touch with anyone you ever knew, can be just plain dangerous. Sometimes it’s better to let the people who hurt you get torched by that sunset they drove into. Let them simmer in the Crockpot of your memory, so that every now and then you can dip in a spoon, and remember how bitter they taste.

So this is the deal. I’m removing you from my Facebook friends list. I’m altering my privacy settings so you can’t search or see my page. I’m blocking your email address from contacting my account, and just in case you use a fake address or something, I have my trigger finger twitching on the “report spam” button.

And if I ever, by coincidence, actually see you in person, maybe walking down a street in some city in another state, I’m going to do what I couldn’t do in cyberspace, Jude – walk right by, and pretend I never knew you.

Andrea

© 2011 Faye Rapoport DesPres

Hey sexy,

Bet you think you never here from me again?

Sexy? That wasn’t a word I’d use to describe me. And what about the bad spelling

and grammar? Still I scrolled down to see if a name was included:

Ruben.

Did I know a Ruben? It’s not like Bob or Tom. I stared out the window of the café, watched the leaves catapulting from their trees. I tried to recall him, scanned through the file of various men. It wasn’t a vast one, believe me.

And then it registered. Ruben was a trainer I’d met at the Wisconsin Athletic Club. He’d spent two years in Nicaragua working for Habitat for Humanity. Before he left, we’d had a drink at Hi- Hat.

The place was dark, hazy with smoke. He sat at a table with high bar stools.

I sat opposite him, his perfect teeth lit up the entire room. My legs dangled in mid-air. “I feel like a doll on these seats.  Or a zoo animal. I’m too short to reach the ground.”

“I like you. You’re funny,” Ruben said. He sipped his cosmopolitan.

He’d ordered Chardonnay for me. I wondered how he knew white wine was my preference. “Thanks for the wine,” I said. “Cheers.” We clinked glasses.

I wasn’t sure he could understand me, but I didn’t care. “Really? You think I’m funny? I think I’m depressing,” I said, thinking we should have gone to my place. I wanted to tell him I was engaged to the wrong guy. Wanted to mention there was a strong possibility I was pregnant. But I didn’t. Just stared at his perfect eyebrows, those dimples that held such promise.

Now, married with two kids, and barreling toward divorce, I sighed. The wind had picked up outside, swirling the leaves up toward their former branches. I glanced back at his text, bit the inside of my lip. Should I delete it?

© 2011 Robert Vaughan