A Hard Lesson
They sat in a mildly crowded café at the corner of Ninth and Springfield. It was approaching the lunch hour, so they were fortunate to beat the crowd and get an inside table; the day was overcast and the outdoors tables were less desirable. Afrobeat music flowed through the café.
The woman, in her mid-twenties, wore no makeup at all. Her black hair was cut fashionably short, although her eyes seemed to peek out wearily behind some rather long bangs. She rested her palms flat on the table. Dressed simply in a t-shirt and jeans, the woman did not fit in with the business people on their lunch break who sat at most of the other tables.
Her companion, an older man, sat directly across from her. His brown hair was beginning to gray right around his temples. He wore slacks and a button-down shirt. The top few buttons on his shirt were left unbuttoned, as if he had decided he felt too constricted as he hastily yanked off his tie. The man had a somber demeanor that contrasted with the relaxed appearance of his shirt.
“Aileen, honey,” the man said gently, “what went wrong?”
“I never said anything went wrong. Maybe things were never right to begin with. How can something that wasn’t right in the first place go wrong?”
The man reached over to Aileen and placed his hand on hers. Abrasively, she pulled away.
“Just don’t touch me right now, please,” she said. She placed her hands in her pockets.
Nodding, the man simply replied, “I’m sorry, honey.”
“I just think we made a huge mistake, is all. We should have been more careful, more cautious. It was just…” Aileen’s voice trailed off as a waitress brought them their drinks.
She had a bottle of Snapple, which she poured into a glass full of ice cubes. He had a tall glass of orange juice. They took tentative sips of their respective drinks. More people began to trickle into the café. A few people even sat at the outside tables.
“You were saying?” said the man.
“I’m just so disappointed, is all.”
“Life is full of disappointments.”
“So I’ve heard. Thanks a lot for reminding me,” she said softly.
“Look, I’m not saying that I don’t have my regrets, but we can move forward. Just put this behind us and get on by with life. You know, honey?”
“Stop calling me that,” she said loudly. No one at any of the other tables seemed to notice.
The man looked away from her and began playing with his napkin. With a practiced exaggeration, he sighed.
“And that,” Aileen said, “is just as annoying.”
The man looked into her eyes. “At least I haven’t said, ‘I told you so.’”
“Dad, you were basically saying that the whole time Lester and I have been together. You just knew this would happen. I hope you’re happy now.” She took a large gulp of her Snapple.
They spent the next few minutes without saying a word, avoiding eye contact. The din of the café more than made up for their silence. The Afrobeat music continued.
Eventually their waitress returned with their meals. Aileen had a simple grilled cheese sandwich. Her father had a Panini tuna melt.
“Lester isn’t a bad person,” Aileen said, her mouth full.
Her father swallowed before he spoke. “People make mistakes sometimes. That’s all there is to it.”
“You don’t have to rub it in, dad.”
“What? I was saying that we all make mistakes. Take me, for instance. Your mom and I—“
“Don’t talk about mom right now!” Aileen said, cutting him off. “This isn’t about you and mom. This is about me.”
“You mean you and Lester,” he said, shaking his head dismissively.
“Please, dad, can you lend me the money?”
Without even pausing, he replied, “No. People have to learn from their mistakes.”
“Are you talking about Lester? Or are you talking about me?”
“Both of you. A grown man should know better than to do what he did. And you should have been a better judge of character. I tried to raise you right.”
“Dad,” Aileen said, “don’t play that card with me. If you’re not going to help me, just say so. Don’t make me beg.”
He finished his tuna melt and wiped his mouth with his napkin.
“It’s like I said,” her father stated, “people need to learn from their own mistakes.”
“Fine,” Aileen said. She stood. “I’ll find some other way to get the money. I can pay his bail on my own.”
He watched his daughter leave the café. He finished his orange juice and again wiped his lips with his napkin. The waitress came with the check. He handed her several bills and told her to keep the change. The waitress thanked him and walked away. He got up and left. Outside, the clouds were beginning to thin out; a few rays of sunshine crept through the nimbus fragments.
“Kids,” he said, to no one in particular. “They never learn.”
_________________________________________________________
No Easy Way Down
Furniture Empathy
Leslie Hardwick came home from a long day at the office and plopped straight down in the living room loveseat. She took the pins out of her blonde hair, hair which seemed darker than it was mere weeks ago. She kicked her shoes off and dragged her toes through the worn ruffles of the blue carpet. For a moment, she sat there, leaning all the way back in the seat, with her eyes closed. She sank further into the loveseat. The chair was much too big for just one person. Her home was shabby, but at least she had a comfortable chair. Leslie knew how to accept small victories.
In the kitchen, the dog barked. Sighing, Leslie slowly got up from the loveseat. She flipped on her pink house slippers and sauntered over to the kitchen cupboard. The dog was still barking.
“Yeah, yeah,” Leslie mumbled absently. “I can hear you.”
The dog, an unkempt, black-haired mutt, whined a bit. He licked Leslie’s slipper.
Leslie pulled the dog food out of the cupboard. She found the dog’s bowl in the corner. With her foot, she maneuvered the bowl over to herself and poured the last of the dog food into it. There wasn’t much left.
“Sorry, Rex,” Leslie said, patting her dog. “This’ll have to tide you over for a while now.”
Rex, ears drooped, nibbled gently at the dog food in his bowl. The atmosphere was contagious.
The doorbell rang. Leslie left her dog to answer the door.
“Hey, Lily,” she said after opening the door. “I was wondering where you were.”
“I was just finishing up some homework at the library,” Lily answered. She gave her mother a slow hug. “Chad came home with me. He stopped to say hi to Mrs. Jackson down the block. I’m real tired. I’m going to rest for a while. Talk to you later?” Lily took off her shoes and went into her room. She shut the door quietly.
Leslie went back to the living room. The sun was beginning to set. It was at just the right angle where a sharp beam of light was aimed straight through the window and onto the loveseat. Leslie pulled the curtains. They were thin and made of a low-quality material, but it wouldn’t be as bright now. It was only a little bright. Satisfied, she plopped back onto her favorite piece of furniture.
After a moment, she felt something. She was sitting on a small object. She felt around a bit. It was a watch, a cheap analog watch with a white face and a black plastic wristband. Holding it in her hand, she realized it belonged to her husband. She sighed. She slumped over in her loveseat; the chair had never, ever seemed so enormous.
The living room wasn’t too dim. Neither was it too bright. It was just lukewarm.
Iron Bars
School was never Chad’s strong point. There wasn’t much about the fourth grade that he enjoyed. He didn’t like homework, he didn’t like the gross cafeteria food, he didn’t like his teacher, Ms. Cohen, and he certainly didn’t like the way Bobby Thurston teased and mocked him.
Recess was the only thing Chad enjoyed. He liked being able to be by himself. He liked not having someone watching over his shoulder all the time. He enjoyed climbing on the monkey bars, especially when the other kids were busy playing tag and left the play structure alone.
Playing on the monkey bars, Chad got his mind off of everything he didn’t like. He could just concentrate on swinging from one bar to the next. The goal was always clear. There weren’t any ambiguities. Imagine his disappointment when he saw Bobby walking toward him.
“Hey, Chad,” Bobby said, “who’s your daddy?”
Chad was halfway through the monkey bars when Bobby said that. Chad dropped to his feet, agile for a nine year old. “Nobody,” he said.
“Hey, Chad,” Bobby said, in the exact same tone of voice, “Can I meet your dad?”
Although he faced Bobby, Chad bowed his head down and stared at the ground. His brow furrowed. “No,” he answered. “No, you can’t.”
Bobby laughed like a fat, ugly bully. He ran across the playground where he exchanged high-fives with his buddies.
Chad vibrated angrily. But he didn’t cry or lose his cool. He didn’t know what else to do, so he grabbed hold of the monkey bars again. He started again from one end. It was the cold feel of the bars that fascinated him. They reminded him of his father.
Once Upon A Time
“Are you going to the dance this Friday?” asked Stacy. She and Lily sat together at a table in the courtyard.
Lily shrugged. “Probably not. I have other things to do. Are you gonna go?”
“I was thinking about it,” Stacy replied. She squinted her eyes, even though it was a cloudy day. “But if you’re not going, I don’t know if I want to go.”
“Sorry,” Lily said. “Things have just been… Well, yeah. You know.”
Looking into her friend’s eyes, Stacy nodded understandingly. “We’re not going to miss much, anyway. They never play any good music at those dances anyway.”
“Listen, I have to do a little last-second cramming. I have a history test coming up next period and I need to get myself ready. Talk to you later?”
“Okay,” Stacy said. “I’m gonna go across the courtyard and say ‘hi’ to Jamie and Andre over there. See you later, Lily.”
With the table to herself, Lily opened up her backpack and dumped the contents on the table surface. She just had a binder and her textbook. She opened up the book and was annoyed to realize it was the wrong one. Somehow, she’d brought her math book instead of her history book. Quickly, Lily packed up her binder and math text and walked briskly to her locker inside the school.
Someone had taken a sizeable newspaper clipping and stuck it on her locker. The clipping was about her father. It was a big news story about his arrest, trial, and conviction. To the other teens in this podunk town, it was the biggest story of their lives. They couldn’t seem to stop talking about “Mister Hardwick, the criminal.”
But to Lily, that news was just ancient history. She tore the clipping off her locker and crumpled it, stuffing it in her pocket. She glanced around a bit to see if the person who had stuck it there was watching her. No one seemed to be paying any attention to her. Lily had a test. She needed to cram for her exam. So that’s what she did.
Droopy
It was sunset at the Hardwick house. Rex sat on his haunches on the front lawn. The grass hadn’t encountered a lawnmower for a while. It all grew uneven and scraggly. Rex didn’t notice. He was just a dog. He was only hungry.
1 comment:
Thanks for posting this. I love how you talk about a cheap analog watch and how it just goes along with the story. I never have been much of a creative writer before but have always wanted to try and see if I could do something creative. It just seems like it would be a lot of fun.
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