Queen of Acapulco - Part II

Read Part I here.

By Bettyann Moore

Resigned, peaceful even, Rhonda got ready to take in that fateful last breath. Something, though, was fighting against the powerful tow at her feet; her head hurt almost as much as her lungs did.

The next thing she was aware of were brown, concerned faces staring down at her. Her scalp hurt, but she couldn’t think why. Babbling voices assailed her. In the periphery of her vision a large, blond woman swathed in purple came clear.

“Oh my God,” she was saying, “he saved you! I never saw such … oh my God, thank God you had long hair! A second more … ”

The story came out as Rhonda lay there literally catching her breath. One of the skinny young men closest to her had seen her go under, but didn’t see her come back up. He reached for her outstretched arm, but battered by the ever-larger waves, he missed, once, twice, three times. Finally, he saw the bright red hair receding beneath him and snatched at it, grabbing enough to pull against the strong undertow. 

 

The crowd had thinned before Rhonda felt strong enough to sit up and graciously accept a sip of bottled water from the purple-clad woman.

“Honey, seriously,” she was saying, “be grateful. That boy saved your life. Never in all my years ...”

Rhonda wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not. The calm she’d felt just before her last breath … but, no, thinking that way lay the end. She wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the young man who’d rescued her. In tattered cut-offs, he stood hugging himself looking proud and scared at the same time.

With the woman’s help, she got to her feet and made her way toward him.

“Hola,” she said, wishing she had more words. “Muchas gracias,” she added, nodding toward the sea.

“De nada,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. Rhonda saw then, his pencil-thin mustache, the slight wrinkling in the corners of his eyes. He was probably her age, though maybe slightly younger.

“It was my pleasure,” he added, perhaps realizing that ‘de nada’ translated to ‘it’s nothing.’ It was definitely something.

Rhonda, happy to hear that he had some English, thanked him again, this time in her native tongue.

“Thank you so very much for saving me,” she said.

Embarrassed, the young man looked down at his feet.

Rhonda suddenly felt cold and naked. She looked around for her robe. Ever helpful, the woman in purple held it out to her.

“I saw some kids eying it up,” she said, helping Rhonda put it on. “Can’t trust anyone these days,” she sniffed.

Rhonda thanked the woman, then turned back to her savior, who had begun walking away. She held out her hand.

“Me llamo ‘Rhonda’,” she said, reaching back to her high school Spanish class days. “Cómo se llama?”

“Victor Camacho Hernandez.” He pronounced his first name ‘Beektor.’

“Me gusta,” Rhonda said, surprising herself.

“El gusto es mio,” he replied, shaking her hand.

Amazing! Rhonda thought, it’s just like one of those pretend conversations we had in class. But now what? She needn’t have worried.

“Are you thirsty?” Victor asked in perfectly understandable English. He nodded to a makeshift stand where several kids sold cold drinks from a cooler. Vendors, selling everything from inflatable rafts to full meals dotted the beach. Rhonda realized that she was incredibly thirsty, and hungry, too.

At the drink stand – Rhonda insisted on paying, though Victor had to show her the proper amount – he introduced the youngsters as his cousins. The food stand, where Rhonda bought one of the best carnitas she had ever tasted, was manned by still more cousins.

“And that,” she teased, nodding toward a young woman who sat at a series of low tables, “I suppose is another cousin?”

“No!” Victor said with a gleam in his eye, “esa es mi hermana!”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the shady area where his sister sat hunched over a task. As they got closer, Rhonda could see that she was painting something onto what appeared to be a very small rock. It was a rock, she saw, and the young woman was using a pin dipped in ink to make an amazingly detailed likeness of someone.

“Jesus,” Rhonda whispered, awed at the patience and precision.

“Si, es Jesús!” Victor said, pronouncing it ‘Hay-soos.’

Rhonda realized that the tables held hundreds of smooth, oval and round rocks varying in size from an inch to six inches and on each one was a beautifully wrought portrait. Most were of Jesus, but Rhonda also saw likenesses of rock and movie stars, cartoon characters and, incongruously, Richard Nixon.

“Juanita,” Victor said in a low, loving voice. The young woman looked up for the first time and smiled a wide, crooked smile at her brother. Then her eyes slid back to the work in front of her.

Victor shrugged. “Juanita,” he began, “she is ...”

Rhonda put her hand on his shoulder; she understood. She had seen how the girl’s smile had never reached her widely spaced, vacant eyes. They stood watching as Juanita finished one portrait, set it down on the table and reached inside a bag at her feet for another rock, then repeated the process. She did so without acknowledging their presence.

“Amazing,” Rhonda said. Each rock held a miniature masterpiece.

“She can paint anyone,” Victor said proudly. “You, maybe?”

“Oh, no, not me!” Rhonda cried, aware that her wet, tangled hair hung limply from her head. “But can she work from a photo?” She fingered the picture of Kyle in her pocket.

“Si!” Victor laughed and pointed at the likenesses of Nixon. “Juanita, she never met Señor Presidente.”

“Duh!” Rhonda said, slapping her palm against her forehead. “Or Jesús, I presume.”

“No lo sé!” Victor said, shrugging and laughing.

Rhonda took out the picture of her husband and set it down on the table in front of the girl. After a beat, Juanita set down the rock she was working on and picked up the picture and scrutinized it.

“Su corazón,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Your heart, she’d said. Not your love – amor – but your heart.

“Si,” Rhonda replied.

Juanita handed back the picture and reached into her bag of rocks. The one she chose was barely two inches long and half as wide. It was smooth, flat and cast with just a tinge of pink. She bent to her work while Rhonda watched in awe as her husband’s likeness came to life on the cool, flat stone. She wished she knew the Spanish word for ‘magic.’

“Magia,” Victor breathed next to her, seemingly every bit as enthralled, though he’d seen his sister work countless times before.

There was Kyle’s high forehead; his prematurely thinning hair. His aquiline nose; the dimple in his right cheek. The preposterously wide grin. And his eyes, unguarded, searching …

“Que está enamorado,” Juanita said more to the stone than to Victor and Rhonda. The picture was done in minutes and Juanita reached for a spray bottle of fixative and gave the stone two short blasts. The resulting shininess made the image seem even more realistic.

Rhonda stared down at it, afraid to touch it. Victor had no such compunctions, though. He picked it up and placed it in her hand.

“Está muerto? He is dead?” he asked, seeing something in her face.

“Está muerto,” she replied, willing herself not to start bawling. “Cuánto es?” she asked instead. “How much is it?”

“Nada,” he replied. “Is a gift.”

Now she really was going to cry. She gave him a hard, quick hug before she gave into it, and ran off toward the hotel.

Rhonda let the hot water of a shower soothe her aching muscles. She put her hands flat against the Spanish tiles on either side of the shower head and let her head fall forward, giving the hard spray time to work some magic on her wrenched neck. She was puzzled, though, when she saw that the water swirling down the drain looked pink. Then she saw the long, red line running down her leg.

Her heart sank, though she didn’t think it could sink any further. After three months of hoping and praying that Kyle’s seed had taken hold, Rhonda had gotten her period … in a foreign country no less.

“Enough!” she cried, her voice echoing off the tiles. She fell to her knees and lay curled under the spray long after the water ran cold.

With a burrito made of a washcloth stuffed with toilet paper wedged between her legs, Rhonda went in search of a store. She was beyond caring that she looked a fright, wearing her long, loose skirt over which she’d worn her beach robe belted with a scarf. The more bulk, the better. She jammed a wad of Mexican money into her pocket and approached the hotel concierge. He didn’t bat an eye at her colorful get-up and showed her a map of the boulevard; she could find a small mercado – market – just a few blocks away.

Rhonda walked quickly, though gingerly; she just wanted to get in the store, secure a box of tampons, and get out again. It was not to be.

The market, though small, was busy and had an air of fiesta about it. The customers, most carrying large, woven shopping bags over their arms, bustled in and out of the door. Rhonda had been hoping for something a little more low-key; she had never been comfortable buying “women’s products.” Kyle, though, had no such qualms and was only too glad to buy them for her. It was something she’d just have to get used to. She grabbed a box of tampons from the shelf and went to wait in line at the check-out. She must have sighed a little too loudly when she noticed that the woman in front of her had a heaping cart and two squalling children. The woman smiled at her and gestured for Rhonda to go ahead of her in the line, which she did, gratefully.

“Gracias,” she said, shyly as she squeezed past the cart.

“De nada,” the woman replied, then turned to grab something from one of her kid’s hands.

Keeping her head down, Rhonda stepped up to the cashier and pulled the wad of bills out of her pocket, heaving a sigh of relief. She clutched the brown bag to her chest and turned to go. But before she could, a bright light was shining in her eyes and music began to play. The cashier grinned broadly at her and clapped her hands. In fact, everyone around Rhonda was clapping their hands. All activity at the other check-outs came to a stand-still and an official-looking employee came bustling up, microphone in hand. Rhonda couldn’t understand a word he was saying. What had she done?

She stood there, frozen, as someone came up behind her and placed something on her head, then draped a royal purple fake fur stole across her shoulders. Someone thrust flowers into her hands. Cameras flashed.

Rhonda wanted to sink into the floor. She kept saying the Spanish phrase she knew best, “No comprendo! No comprendo!”

Seeing Rhonda’s confusion, the cashier leaned over and told her – in English – that Rhonda was the store’s 10,000^th customer and she’d won all kinds of fabulous prizes. The girl was gushing; as the cashier who had checked her out, she got to share in some of the bounty.

“No, no, no,” Rhonda said. “There’s a mistake here.” She looked wildly around at the grinning faces, searching for the woman who’s given up her place in line. The manager, still talking through the microphone, gestured toward several carts that were being pushed up to the counter. They were chock full of food and wrapped gifts.

Finally, Rhonda saw the woman she was looking for standing off to the side, a frown on her face.

“Please,” Rhonda said to the cashier, pulling her toward the woman, “this is the real winner. She let me have her place in line. Please explain it to your manager.” The girl looked confused, then seemed to understand. Rhonda whipped the purple stole off her shoulders and thrust it into the other woman’s hands and ran as fast as she could out of the store.

After running a block, Rhonda slowed down, though she half-expected to see the people from the store running after her. Panting, she stopped next to a building to catch her breath. Hysteria bubbled to the surface; she started to laugh. How absurd her life had become! How surreal! People along the sidewalk were giving her wide berth, which made her laugh all the more. She didn’t need a translator to know that the store she leaned against was a liquor store … tienda de licor, it said. She rubbed her face as if to wipe off her smile and went inside. The clerk gave her an odd look, but had no problem understanding her when she pointed to a pint of tequila. She tucked it into the bag she already had and hurried back to the hotel. She could feel blood seeping down her leg.

Sore and out of breath when she barreled into the hotel, Rhonda slowed and tried to look as normal as possible. The night clerk looked up expectantly, saw it was her, and looked down again, then back up, a wide smile on his face.

“Reina de Acapulco?” he said, raising an eyebrow and looking at her head.

“What? Como?”

“You are the Queen of Acapulco, yes?” he said, pointing to her head.

Rhonda reached up and felt the top of her head, then yanked off the crown that had been put there at the store. She’d forgotten all about it. No wonder people looked at her funny! She jammed the cardboard and glitter contrivance off her head and stuffed it into a pocket, then fled to the elevator. Tequila. All she wanted at this point was tequila.

Not a drinker by any stretch of the imagination, Rhonda poured two fingers of tequila into a bathroom glass and slammed it down. As the liquor made its hot way through her system she remembered, too late, salt and limes and some sort of ritual that made the stuff more palatable. She gave a mighty shiver and poured another glass.

She stood and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She looked ancient. Sad. The tip of her nose had turned red, as it did whenever she drank. She made her way back into the room and sat heavily on the bed, then pulled her cell phone from the depths of her purse. She hadn’t turned it on since she boarded the plane. Going it alone seemed like a good idea at first, but now she needed Kate.

They had been best friends since fifth grade when they figured out that fighting over Jimmy Baron was a no-win for either of them; he was a total jerk. Together, they thought, they were invincible. Kate was cool and practical; Rhonda more likely to jump to conclusions and fly off the handle. Rhonda’s intuition, though, helped them get through some tough spots whereas Kate would think things to death and never move off center. Rhonda needed some of Kate’s coolness.

As she thought, once she’d turned on the phone, it kept buzzing with messages. Surprisingly, though, there were only two calls and two texts from Kate. There were more from Rhonda’s boss than her best friend. She hoped Kate wasn’t sick.

Not bothering to listen to or read her messages, Rhonda pressed ‘2’ to speed dial Kate; ‘1’ had been reserved for Kyle.

“Rhonda?”

“Yes, it’s me, Kate.” Rhonda was trying hard to hold on.

“Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Kate, you haven’t heard from me in five days!” Rhonda sat up straighter, incredulous; she and Kate usually talked every single day.

“Has it been that long? I’ve been sort of distracted lately.”

Rhonda didn’t know what to say. It was like the time she ran away for an entire day when she was nine. When she got home her mother hadn’t even known she was gone. When Rhonda told her she’d wandered deep into downtown Milwaukee, all her mother said was, “Did you have a good time?”

“Kate, Katie,” Rhonda couldn’t hold it together any longer. She started blubbering. “I’m in Mexico! I almost drowned! I got my period! I’m the freaking Queen of Acapulco! Kate, I need you!”

Rhonda rushed on, suddenly desperate to talk. When she got to the part about Juanita and Kyle’s tiny portrait, she drew the stone out of her pocket, staring down at it while she talked.

“Oh, Kate, it looks just like him!” Rhonda fumbled another tissue from the nearly-empty box. On the other end of the line, Kate was silent.

“Kate, are you there?” Rhonda looked down at the phone. Did it drop the call? She held the phone up to her ear again.“Kate?” She could just barely hear … something … she wasn’t sure what. Then it hit her.

“Kate? Are you crying?”

“Oh, Rhonda!” Now Kate was the one wailing.

“What is it, Kate? What’s going on?”

“I … I’m pregnant, Rhonda,” Kate said through sobs.

That was the last thing Rhonda expected to hear from her independent, unmarried friend. And the most sobering. Kate hadn’t had a steady boyfriend for over a year. It had to be from a one-night stand. Of course she was upset.

“Kate, honey, is it, um, too late to do anything about it?”

Renewed wails came over the line.

“I mean, you know, if you want to do something about it ...” Rhonda fumbled for the right thing to say. The crying stopped, but Kate continued to sniffle.

“No,” she said. “I want this baby, badly.”

Rhonda could barely hear her. How could she suddenly want a kid? Rhonda felt a strange and uncomfortable jealousy.

“Who’s the father, Kate?” she asked.

“He’s out of the picture,” was the quick reply.

Rhonda looked down at the stone in her hand, at the picture of Kyle. Juanita’s words echoed in her muddled head: “Que está enamorado.” He is in love.He is in love. He was looking right into the camera. No, he was looking beyond the camera. At the photographer.

“Kate!” Rhonda yelled into the phone, “Kate, who is the fucking father! Kate? Kate?” Her voice rose, but silence was her answer.

“Fuck!” Rhonda stood up and threw the phone across the room where it landed, unsatisfactorily, on the window love seat.

“Fuck!” she said again, pacing. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Rhonda stormed into the bathroom and grabbed the bottle of tequila. “Screw it,” she said, looking at the glass. She upended the bottle into her mouth while ignoring her ringing cell phone.

The tiny hotel room was too small to hold all of Rhonda’s pain and anger. And there wasn’t enough tequila in the world to kill them. She found herself staggering barefoot over the cool sands of the deserted beach, the nearly-empty bottle dangling from two fingers. The waning moon cast eerie shadows through the palms and lit the calm sea.

Rhonda wandered aimlessly, kicking at the sand. She fell once, twice, then stayed on her knees as she finished off the bottle of tequila. With difficulty she got to her feet, swaying, then threw the empty bottle toward the sea.

“Kyle!” she yelled, bending at the waist, her stomach twisted in knots. “Kyle, you bastard! You deserved to die!” She said it, but felt immediately guilty.

Rhonda stumbled on, coming to the table where Juanita painted stones. Leaning heavily against it, she was shocked to see dozens, maybe hundreds of Kyle’s likenesses on stones of every size. Like an automaton, the young woman had continued recreating the subject. They made Rhonda furious.

She started scooping up the rocks and throwing them, then just started stuffing them into her huge pockets. “Bastard,” she kept repeating over and over again. “Liar! Cheat!” Once the table was cleared of his face, Rhonda felt guilty for stealing from Juanita. She fumbled around in her pocket until she found the wad of cash and stuck it under a large stone with Jesus’ portrait on it, then staggered off toward the water, her robe weighted down by the stones.

With the water lapping over her feet, Rhonda pulled stone after stone from her pockets and whipped them into the ocean, screaming every curse word she knew with each throw. A little way out on the water, but farther than she could throw, she saw the lights of two boats approaching each other. When they came together, they stopped and bobbed next to each other. Smugglers? Rhonda wondered.

“No, they’re lovers,” she said aloud, “sneaking out to see each other. Bastards!” she yelled, throwing another rock. “Fucking!” She threw another rock. “Bastards!” She threw another. “Go home!” Frantic, obsessed with making them go, she looked around and saw the water toy concession where rafts, kick boards and innertubes lay tethered to a palm tree. She scrambled over the sand, then tripped, falling onto a raft. She fumbled with the knotted rope with no luck, then worked at one that held an innertube.

“Ha!” she cried, successful. She looked to see if the boats were still there. They were. She dragged the tube to the water. When she was knee-deep, she plopped down backwards on it and began to paddle her arms. She was going to try to save a marriage and paddled frantically out toward the boats.

Screaming, crying and splashing, Rhonda got halfway to her destination when she heard motors start up. “Go!” she yelled, slapping at the water. “Go!” With difficulty she reached into a pocket and pulled out another stone and threw it after them. The next time she reached inside, though, she felt the crown, the one Kyle had made for her. She pulled it out and started sobbing anew. It was soaked and tattered, but she put it on her head.

“Queen of your soul,” she spat. She pulled out the other crown, the one from the mercado. That, too, she put on her head. “Who wants to be the queen of your dark, dead soul? I’m the fucking Queen of Acapulco!” She threw back her head then, making a sound that was more howl than cry, more animal than human. Then she was quiet.

The little innertube rocked in the water for a long, long time. Finally, with shaking hands, Rhonda pulled the crowns from her head and one by one, threw them into the water. Then she slipped through the hole in the tube after them.

Queen of the Sea.

Queen of Acapulco - Part I

By Bettyann Moore

Anywhere, Rhonda thought, I want to be anywhere, but here.

She had just left her mother-in-law’s house. No, ex-mother-in-law’s house. No, that wasn’t it. Former? Still? What did one call one’s mother-in-law once the tie that bound them is dead?

Rhonda’s head swam. She preferred the numbness of the last week. She aimed her car toward town, trying not to think. To feel.

She saw a sign, yanked the steering wheel, the cars behind her squealing their brakes as she crossed two lanes of traffic. An empty spot in front of the building, her first break in eons.

Fantasy Destinations the sign declared. Rhonda only saw the words “destinations” and “open.” She needed a destination. Now.

She swept into the tiny office, startling the young man whose eyes had been glued to his monitor. He barely had time to minimize the porn site before the wild-eyed redhead was upon him.

“M … may I help you?” he stammered. He couldn’t stand to greet her, not at that point.

Rhonda ignored him as her eyes scanned the walls behind him. Cool, blue-green water beckoned. Palm trees swayed. She could almost smell the ocean.

Never taking her eyes off one of the posters, she demanded, “Where can I go right now?”

“The Cayman’s are hot right now,” the young man said, spiel at the ready.

“But can I go there now?” Rhonda insisted.

The agent’s eyes went back to the computer, this time to the company Web site. The word “now” was a relative term, he figured.

“There’s a group tour that leaves on Thursday,” he said. “Six days, seven nights ...”

“No!” Rhonda said, slamming her purse onto the desk. “Now, I mean within an hour, two on the outside, not in four days.”

Rattled, the kid’s eyes went back to the screen. He was a kid, Rhonda saw. Barely out of high school. Not ancient like her at 30, but feeling like 60.

“Th … there’s a flight that leaves Hobby in, um, three hours, to Acapulco and a room at the Hotel de Gante,” he said against his better judgment. No one went to Acapulco when there was Cabo or Belize, and the hotel, he knew, was just shy of decrepit, despite its shoreline location.

“I’ll take it,” Rhonda said, pulling out her charge card, the charge card Kyle insisted she have when she much preferred cash or checks. She’d paid by check for the funeral and cremation and felt guilty doing so.

The funeral, something Kyle would have scoffed at, but his mother had insisted upon, was a travesty, at least to Rhonda’s mind. There she sat, conspicuously dry-eyed while Kate, her best friend, and Laurel, Kyle’s mother, keened like paid mourners. Stoic was the word that ran through her head. She was the stoic widow. Her only concession to grief was to clutch her stomach, her womb, where, she hoped, a tiny memory of Kyle lay.

She clutched it now as the young man prattled.

“Round trip,” he said, “will be $740. What day would you like to return?”

“There’s no returning,” Rhonda muttered.

“What’s that?” The boy looked confused.

“One-way.” Rhonda said. “Make the ticket one-way.”

The boy frowned, resisting the urge to say “Whatever,” and typed something on his keyboard. This broad is seriously bumming me out, he thought.

Rhonda ignored him and stared, unseeing, at the travel posters. Her mind registered sand. Sand led her to dust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

At least she’d had her way with the cremation. Laurel, always the good Catholic, wanted burial in the family plot. Plot this, Rhonda had thought as she carried the urn of ashes up her mother-in-law’s front steps just an hour before. Rhonda couldn’t resist opening the heavy pewter container and, perversely, wetting a finger and dipping it into the gray, coarse powder and slipping her finger into her mouth. This, she thought then, is one part of Kyle you will not have.

When Laurel opened the door, the ash lay dry and tasteless on Rhonda’s tongue. She would have choked on any words, but no words were necessary. Through wary, watery eyes, Laurel accepted the offering and Rhonda turned on her heels and fled.

Ticket safely tucked inside her purse, Rhonda was fleeing again. After stopping at her apartment to throw a few things into a bag, she had just enough time to take a cab to the office to empty her desk. Grateful it was Sunday and she was free of the sad, inquiring eyes of her office mates, she searched for a box, then stood at her desk and thought, “Why bother?” Her eyes lighted on the “lucky” stone Kyle had insisted she have from their honeymoon in Nice. She scooped it up and dropped it into her bag, though in light of recent events, its luckiness held no sway. Then there was the picture.

Kate had taken it just months before. Rhonda and Kyle were walking through the Galleria and Rhonda had made them stop so she could adjust her sandals. She leaned on Kyle’s strong shoulder as she bent down, but Kate had focused the lens solely on Kyle. You could see Rhonda’s hand, though, resting on his shoulder, as he stared nakedly into the camera, his expression undecipherable, but ever so cute. Rhonda had pestered Kate to send her the image, but when she kept dithering, Rhonda had snatched away her friend’s phone during lunch one day and sent the image to herself.

Rhonda tore the picture from the frame and slid it between her passport and ticket. She scurried out of the building, feeling furtive, pursued, and climbed into the waiting cab.

“Hobby Airport,” she said, “And hurry.”

It was after midnight when Rhonda’s shuttle pulled up outside the Hotel de Gante. Up until that time, she’d stayed blissfully numb to where she was going or what she’d do when she got there. The Prozac she’d taken as she boarded the plane, helped. But now, as she held out a fan of Mexican paper bills and allowed the cabbie to take what was owed him, she realized that paying attention might not be a bad idea. She ignored the thought and stumbled to the desk, then up the elevator to her room, tipping the bellhop much more than necessary, she was sure. Inside, she collapsed on the bed, barely registering that it was a single, not a queen as she was used to.

She awoke to strange sounds outside her third-floor window, the smell of insecticide and the sight of a giant cockroach traipsing across the cracked ceiling.

“La cucaracha, la cucaracha!” The song sprang to her head even as she rolled to her side and fell – hard – to the floor. She realized as she lay there staring beneath the narrow bed at a dusty wine cork and a forgotten shoe, that “cucaracha” was pretty much the extent of her Spanish language prowess, despite two years of Spanish in high school and living in Houston for 10 years. What had she been thinking?

She hadn’t been thinking, of course, though unbidden thoughts raced through her head as she lay there, unwilling to crawl back into the bed. No one knew where she was. That was good. Rhonda didn’t need the sympathy, the trite religious platitudes, the ones that made her want to shout, “No! God didn’t call him home! He was home, with me!”

Some of the anger she’d been suppressing boiled up. Anger at Kyle for being across town when he should have been at work, for not hearing the wailing sirens. At the driver of the fire truck for not noticing the car that pulled out into the intersection until all three and a half tons of it had smashed into the driver’s side door. At herself for not dying, too.

The unshed tears came then. Rhonda wailed for hours, there on the cold tile floor. The housekeeper didn’t need a translator to know that the person behind the door to room 341 wouldn’t want to be disturbed. She left a stack of clean towels outside the door and continued down the hall, shaking her head. As the sun made its way across the sky, the shadows moved across the room and across the sobbing figure on the floor.

Necessity finally made Rhonda get up. She stumbled to the tiny bathroom, not bothering to turn on the light. After relieving herself for what seemed like hours, she groped her way to her purse where it sat on the nightstand. She pulled out the big prescription bottle, the one with the sleeping pills. She held it in her hand for a long while, then opened it with shaking hands. She poured most of its contents into her hand, then hesitated. She let all but two of the pills fall back into the bottle, threw them into her mouth and choked them down. Then she crawled back into bed.

It was much the same the next day and the next. Rhonda got up to use the bathroom, to drink a bit of water straight from the tap, to take a couple more pills. It wasn’t until the hotel manager, alerted by the cleaning staff, came pounding on the door and let himself in with the pass key – these touristas will put me into an early grave, he thought – that Rhonda finally started to come out of her stupor. She smelled. Hunger gnawed at her gut. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. On the plane? A slight cramp below her belly roused her further. This can’t be good for the baby, she thought. She opened her suitcase for the first time and pulled out a long, gauzy skirt and peasant blouse – both completely wrinkled – and let them hang in the bathroom as she took a very long, very hot shower.

Although she would have much preferred calling for room service, Rhonda recoiled at the idea of ordering over the phone; at least in the hotel’s restaurant she could point to what she wanted on the menu. After a breakfast of scrambled eggs and incredibly fresh fruit, though, she made her way back to her now-clean room, stripped off her clothes and fell back into bed. She didn’t take any sleeping pills.

That evening, wearing the same clothes as she had at breakfast, she ordered a poached chicken breast, hot, crusty rolls and more of the fresh fruit – mangoes, papayas – she didn’t know what they were. When she got back to her room instead of falling into bed, she went to the window and opened the draperies for the first time. There, just across the busy boulevard, lay the Pacific sparkling under the light of a full moon, the white sands of the beach practically glowing. Rhonda stood there for a long time, forehead pressed against the glass, and vowed that the next day she would cross that boulevard, walk on that beach and swim in that ocean.

Amazingly, when Rhonda had packed her suitcase, she’d remembered to throw in a swim suit – an old one-piece that was too big on her now – and her favorite loosely-woven beach cover-up. Sunny yellow and reaching almost to her knees, it was more like a large shirt with giant pockets; Kyle had bought it for her at a shop in Nice when she’d complained about carrying a purse to the shore. The cavernous pockets could carry her sunglasses, a book, sunscreen, her wallet … Kyle called it her un-purse.

Rhonda smiled at the memory as she pulled on the robe over her suit. Her hands went automatically to the pockets and she was surprised to feel something in one of them. She drew out her hand and tears came immediately to her eyes when she saw what it was.

He’d made it out of shiny gum wrappers while she snoozed under an umbrella on East Beach. He’d woven tiny purple blossoms, long dried out and gone now, through it. When she’d woken up, he’d knelt down in the sand next to her and placed the crown on her head. She’d laughed at how serious he looked, but when he took her hand in his and declared, “Anyone can be the Queen of Hearts, but you, you’re the Queen of my soul,” oh, how she cried! Later, in lighter moments, she teased him about how she was the Queen of Soul, so he’d better not laugh at her rendition of R-E-S-P-E-C-T which she liked to sing to while she cooked.

“Oh, Kyle,” Rhonda said aloud, “what happened to us?” She admitted to herself for the first time that it’d been a long while since he’d said or done anything so silly and romantic. Was it two years, three, since they’d been to Galveston? Rhonda sighed and resisted the urge to crawl into bed. She dropped the crown back into the pocket, along with her room key and other necessities. After a second of thought, she also put the picture of Kyle in there, then fled the room.

Unlike the cloyingly wet air of Houston, the air outside her hotel was fragrant, warm, but refreshing. Rhonda negotiated her way across the wide boulevard and out onto the white sand beach. She noticed – and was proud of herself for having that much focus – that the young men who strutted around in skimpy shorts and tight swimming trunks watched her progress along the palm tree-shaded stretch along the seawall. Many made a “ch-ch-ch” sound through their teeth that she was familiar with around Houston construction sites. She was the only redhead on the beach; her white-white skin cried out “tourista!”

Ignoring the stares and things called out in a language she didn’t understand, Rhonda watched a group of youngsters wave diving. They stood knee-deep in the water and waited for a foamy crest to approach, then dove head-first into its depths. They came sputtering out on the other side, smiling and euphoric, ready for the next one. It looked like fun.

Although not a very good swimmer, Rhonda loved the ocean – its smells, its power, its beauty. Doing a little wave diving near shore, she figured, wouldn’t tax her abilities or her weakened state. She took off her robe and put it near a couple of women who sat watching their kids from a blanket. Mindful that a group of young men were shadowing her, though keeping their distance, she waded into the chilly water.

She was right: it was fun. She did it sloppily at first, but soon figured out the timing necessary to hit the wave just right before the next one was upon her. She was vaguely aware of the group of young men who had lined up next to her having every bit of fun as she. The waves, as first slow and gentle, grew bigger and began cresting sooner and coming faster. She saw a particularly big wave coming for shore and thought at first to turn her body against it, but knew it was a bad idea. Instead she dove headlong into it.

Almost immediately, she knew her timing was off. She also remembered, simultaneously, the undertow. It gripped her lower body and began its strong, silent pull. Her first thought was “Oh, shit.” Her second, as she thrashed and kicked impotently, was “Which way is up?” Her third, as her lungs felt near to bursting, was “Kyle.”

When she was eight, Rhonda’s father died in a fiery car crash just minutes after leaving his lover’s house. She was 17 when her mother died in her sleep of a massive coronary. Then there was Kyle. Not in her wildest dreams did Rhonda think she would die struggling and so damn aware. She realized that her hand had groped toward what she thought was the surface three times. Wasn’t that the limit in all the stories she’d heard? Once, twice, then three times … after that, oblivion?

Read Part II here.

Thanksgiving

by Colleen Sutherland

You ask, how did I wind up here? Well sir, it all began with a turkey.

A year ago I announced to my seven children that I wanted to go to a restaurant to avoid the annual Thanksgiving dinner “At my age, I shouldn't have to put up with this.” I meant it. After 59 years of drunkenness, abuse and infidelity, my husband was finally gone. I wanted quiet and time for myself in my remaining years.

Then in mid-November, I got the call from the local television station to congratulate me. I had won a 25 pound turkey.

“I didn't enter any contest,” I told Ruth, my eldest.

“Oh we all entered your name for you,” she explained. “We figured this year you wouldn't have to pay for it and we could have Thanksgiving at your house after all.”

“It didn't have anything to do with the cost! I didn't want to do Thanksgiving ever again!”

“Too late. All the travel plans have been made. Lois and her family are flying in from Idaho. Paul is driving overnight from Minneapolis. We'll be there as usual. But don't worry about it, you make the turkey and we'll bring the rest.”

And so there I was at 5:00 on Thanksgiving morning, a seventy nine year old woman preparing a 25 pound bird. I waited for one of the children or grandchildren to come to help, but they never did. I wound up cramming it into the oven on my own. I felt my muscles tear. I would have to schedule a trip to the chiropractor.

They began to arrive at 11:30. The first was Ruth who came in with a pumpkin pie. She was followed by Mary-Margaret with another pumpkin pie.

With forethought because I knew my children, I had bags of potatoes, a freezer full of vegetables and cranberry relish. I set to work. “Mary-Margaret,” I said, “would you peel the potatoes?”

“That's not done already?” She started peeling and got through a dozen before she whined Esther into taking over by claiming arthritis. What did she think her mother had? Esther set down her pumpkin pie and grabbed a knife.

“Dull,” she said and went off to find one of the husbands to get it sharpened. She never made it back to the kitchen. I picked up another of the two dozen knives in the drawer and started peeling.

Paul came in then with his new wife Sunshine and her two teenage daughters. “Look what I made?” Sunshine said as she showed off her effort: a pumpkin pie that wasn't quite cooked in the middle. “Allyson will be along in a few minutes. She's baking something.” Allyson is Paul's first wife and she was likely to bring at least one of their three grown up boys and their children.

“I thought I should invite her,” Paul said, “so the children could have a nice family Thanksgiving.” The two girls, whose names I forget, immediately went to join all the other teenagers in the living room to compare piercings and tattoos. Then they took out their cellphones to text God knows who.

Allyson and Sunshine began their usual sniping starting with criticizing each other's pies and moving on to his faults. I learned more about Paul's character than I wanted to know. He certainly takes after his father.

Soon the house was a jumble of seven children, twenty-three grandchildren and God knows how many great-grandchildren and pumpkin pies.

The house was in an uproar except for in the kitchen where I worked on the meal. The potato peeling was finally done. From time to time, one of my offspring whose name I couldn't remember, came in to say, “Grandma, you shouldn't be working today! Go in the living room and sit down on the recliner!” Then he wandered back out of the kitchen before I could ask for help.

The generations were exploring the house, remarking on all it contained until one of them, I think it was Lois, said they should start marking their favorite pieces of furniture, antiques, or collectibles, “in case something happens to Mom, I brought some stick on tags.” That started a rush with people taping tags on everything. Lois was an antique dealer so she was quick to get the best pieces, but her tags were ripped off and replaced with others. The house was beginning to look like an estate sale with white tags everywhere, except estate sales don't usually include shrieking women.

I was still in the kitchen wondering why on earth I had so many children. It was because my husband liked babies, I remembered, though he never had much to do with them.

“Have the children,” Father Pete said when I was in the confessional. “It's your duty as a woman to be a good Catholic mother.” All my daydreams of some other career disappeared as the children arrived. So did my husband, whose name I make an effort to forget. After Titus was born, I was on my own. We never divorced though. That was against church teaching. My husband came home for the holidays, wedding anniversaries, and a fling in the bedroom. Contraceptives were not allowed, of course.

We pretended we were one happy family for the children. But he was dead now. I had to pay for the funeral but at least that way I knew he was dead. He's buried over at the graveyard next to St. Andrew's. There's a plot for me next to him. I don't suppose it will be used. Maybe one of the kids will want it.

The Thanksgiving fiasco continued. More grandchildren arrived, this time with their “significant others”, sometimes spouses, sometimes dates, sometimes someone they met the night before. There were great-grandchildren, too. The hallways were filled with portable cribs, though none of those babies ever slept that I could tell. One of the third generation, I forget who, volunteered to set the table. I looked at her blankly. Table? I didn't have enough tables for this crew. It was going to be a buffet, I said.

They pulled me out of the kitchen once for a family portrait. They put the photo on a computer screen for me to look at but it looked like an angry mob ready to storm the White House. By then they were arguing about politics.

“Here, Mom,” Ruth said and shoved a hat at me. “We decided to draw names for Christmas presents this year. There's just too many of us to shop for.”

I drew a slip of paper and put it in the pocket of my apron.

In the end, I got the meal laid out in the kitchen. It was light on salad, stuffing, vegetables, buns, and relishes, but it was the best I could manage. I rang the dinner bell. Then all those people finally remembered where the kitchen was and came trooping in to grab what they could. As a good Catholic woman, I bowed my head for a dinner prayer, the one Father Pete had given me years ago. When I turned they were fighting over choice bits of turkey. They complained about the stuffing which didn't have mushrooms but did have giblets. Wild rice would have been better, I was told by someone, I forget who.

One mother, I forget which one, reached into the freezer to find some hotdogs to microwave for a fussy eater. That started cupboard and refrigerator raids with the grandchildren in tow to find out what they could possibly be nourished with.

I wondered about some of those children. There were rumors that a couple of them were illegitimate. However, they all had nasty tempers so I figured that they had the genes of my long gone husband floating through their bodies. Even that oriental kid, whose name I don't remember.

They took their plates out to other parts of the house, fruit punch sloshing all over. The men, however, had brought their contributions, cases of beer. They pulled folding chairs in front of the television to catch the first football game of the day. All except for the eldest grandson whose name I forget who took the recliner.

Most of the grandchildren were either texting friends on their cell phones or playing computer games.

I went to my bedroom with a headache but my bed was already taken by a teenage grandson and his girlfriend breaking one of the commandments. I closed my eyes and thought about Pastor Pete who always counseled patience. I told them to get out and go to confession on Sunday.

“I'm a Unitarian,” the boy told me.

I took a short nap, trying not to think about the wet spot on the bedspread.

I woke up two hours later to the sound of glass breaking in the living room. The game had heated up and so were the men who were rooting for opposing teams, I gathered.

“Where did the women go?” I asked, hoping they were in the kitchen cleaning, but no, it was quiet in there.

“I think they went Christmas shopping,” a grandchild, I forget who, volunteered. “Early holiday shopping this year.”

“Christmas shopping,” I corrected him. Father Pete said “holiday shopping” was part of the war on Christmas.

It was then I remembered I hadn't had anything to eat. There were dishes and glasses all over the house except for the kitchen where all the dirty pots and pans remained unwashed, but not a scrap to eat except for the undercooked pumpkin pie. I threw on my jacket and went down the street to St. Andrews to see if the Thanksgiving dinner for the homeless was still being served. There was a little stuffing and a couple of turkey wings and more pumpkin pie. I ate enough to keep going, helped with the dishes, and went home to get to work.

By the time the women returned with the cars laden with packages, their husbands and significant others were snoring on couches and the floor and the kitchen was clean. I was sitting on the swing on the front porch in my old jacket drinking out of a bottle and anxiously watching the falling snow. In a big snowstorm, some of them might stay over.

“Mom,” Mary-Margaret said, “You don't drink!”

“I've just taken it up,” I said. “It's one thing the church doesn't forbid.”

As they gathered their families together to leave, Mary-Margaret told me the latest gossip. Father Pete had retired because the church finally discovered what he had been up to all those years. He and his housekeeper had retired to Florida for the sun and to hide from the cops.

When the last of them were gone, even the sleeping nude teenagers in the spare room (maybe the same two who had been in my bedroom earlier) I sat down in the living room. I would call the carpet cleaners the next week. I took my apron off then remembered the slip of paper. I drew it from the pocket and looked at the name. Who was that? Then I remembered that it was my name. I had drawn my own name. No Christmas shopping at all for me. How nice! But maybe there should be. Right then I decided I would give myself a present.

And that is why I am sitting here on the deck of the Queen Victoria, watching the sun set over the Atlantic on my six month 'round the world cruise. By the time I get back, my house will have gone to auction along with all the contents. There will not be a scrap left for the children to fight over, not a single antique or collectible.

When I get back, I will live in a studio apartment in a state where I have absolutely no relatives. I haven't figured that one out yet since they seem to be everywhere but it won't make much difference since I plan on having a post office box for mail.

Before I left, I had my will re-drawn. Everything goes to Planned Parenthood.

Yes, it all began with a turkey.

The Balanced Approach

Photo by Nilfanion via Wikimedia Commons

Author's Note: This story features a paranormal lawman, a talking knife, and is rated M for "Mature." For other stories featuring these characters, check out Carne Fresco right here on the blog.

If you go to a certain parking garage and enter the elevator, you will find yourself selecting between four buttons set into a sheet of scratched stainless steel. The panel is crooked, letting the lights behind the buttons seep out and destroy the illusion that technology is somehow elegant and flawless. You notice the magical light behind the panel is just a cheap light bulb with dusty wires looped around a plastic clip. You wonder if it’s even a good idea to be in an elevator to begin with, to trust your life to something so simple and easily broken. Shouldn’t it have computer chips or something? How old is it? Maybe you should leave it alone and use the stairs instead. That’s the safe choice, the one most people choose.

The idiots seem to believe that something as old as this elevator must be good for one more trip, and punch their floor. Death spares them once more, and the elevator delivers them without incident. They alight, mentally congratulating themselves for being so brave. At least that’s what I think goes on in their heads. Either way, all that matters is that no one lingers in this elevator for long.

When the doors close, I insert a key in the fireman’s slot, and punch out a pattern on the buttons. The elevator goes down four floors farther than it should. When the doors open, I’m greeted by three hundred and seventy pounds of muscle, fur, and teeth dressed in jeans and a Black Sabbath concert shirt.

“ ‘Lo, Angus,” says Tusk, putting down a book, “What the hell happened to your face?” 

Old joke, wasn’t even that funny the first time. Still, some forms must be observed.

“Nothing, why?”

“You were born looking like that? Sheeeit.” he says, shaking his head.

I look at the cover of his book.

“Tusk, is that fucking Pride and Prejudice? First time I've seen you with a book that didn’t have Elmo on the cover.”

“Get bent.”

“Get a haircut.”

He smiles and jerks his head down the hallway. Balance laughs in its sheath, vibrating against my back.

The Judicar’s hall looks like it was decorated by an overzealous clockmaker who experimented with art deco. Streamlined figures in exaggerated poses over brass and silver gears line the walls, floor and ceiling. Someone once told me that it was supposed to represent the special place Man held in the pact between the Light and Dark courts. I call bullshit on that. Man regulates the balance because neither Light nor Dark can be bothered or trusted to offer up its own citizens to see the pact enforced. I figure it's more likely someone on the appropriations committee was getting kickbacks on the materials.

Naturally, there is a Dark and Light side to the Judicar's hall and guess which side I'm visiting? I wrinkle my nose at the smells of sulfur, grave soil, and wet dog as I make my way through the crowds of imps, litchkin, and weir, feeling the stares on my back as I pass. Some wonder if they can take me, others ignore me, and at least one stares at me like someone who wants to buy a pit bull. The litchkin follows me with red eyes, calculating my potential to help or hurt its plans. Last time I checked, I wasn’t worth the effort. Bishops from both sides make sure hunters like me are as worthless as possible. When I glance over my shoulder, the litchkin is gone.

I come up to a door with a worn knocker that looks vaguely like a horseshoe made of black iron. I reach into my jacket with one hand and open the door with the other. A guy in a bow tie and long-tailed coat rises from a stool with a look on his face like I just pissed on the floor.

“Sir, the Bishop’s office is closed today. I must insist –” He stops as I pull Balance and send it flying in his direction. He yelps, and then looks up to find the collar of his jacket pinned to the wall.

“Buddy, he ain’t in the mood,” Balance says. “If you’d be good enough to announce us to the bishop, maybe he’ll take me with him."

The guy must be new, because he reaches up to take hold of Balance by the hilt. There’s a bright arc and he screams again, holding his fingers.

“Yeah, just try that again, meatbag," says Balance.

I walk past them, through a door opening into a kind of sitting room with paintings along one wall, and leather-bound books in floor-to-ceiling shelves on the other. At the far end is a set of lacquered doors which are opening. The Bishop comes out, a black haired, mustached man in a starched shirt, pinstriped pants, and suspenders. He carries his pistol in his right hand, sighted on my forehead.

“Angus.” He doesn’t lower the gun.

“Martin.” I nod

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“I'm hunting a carnal named Cree. I’m here to inform his bishop.”

“I stand so informed. What does this have to do with breaking into my office and assaulting my staff?”

I look back over my shoulder at the doorman whose eyes are nearly all white staring at Balance. The knife is talking about something I can’t make out.

“I need Cree's whereabouts. I assume your office has his registration record.”

“Come back later, when I’m open.”

I shake my head. “If I had that kind of time, I wouldn’t be here right now. Give me the registry, and I’ll leave.”

Martin grits his jaw. “If you were under my jurisdiction, Angus ...”

“Well I ain’t. You gonna give me what I want, or do I have to get the Judicar involved?”

Martin swears and holsters his gun. Dark Collars can’t interfere with a hunt without a reason a damn sight better than professional angst. He knows it, and he knows that I know he knows it. “Kenneth will see to your request as soon as you remove your pig sticker from my wall. Will there be anything else?”

“Yeah,” I say. “One of your uniforms tried to arrest me and a petitioner right after the hunt was called.”

“How do you know the officer was one of mine?”

“He didn’t check in with an elder first. Your people always show initiative.”

Martin’s lip twitched, almost a smile.

“Did you identify yourself to my officer?”

“Yeah, but his mundane partner already had gotten the idea to take us in. Your guys are supposed to make sure I can do my fucking job.”

Martin’s face flushed. “My officers have a hard enough time keeping the veil maintained, without witch hunters and shamen performing rituals in goddamn public spaces. Maybe Ishould see the Judicar about its agents flaunting the codes and jeopardizing the veil in a diner."

The slimy motherfucker. Never worries about the law until it serves his purposes. “You go right ahead, Martin. Make sure you don’t leave out the part where you participated in obstruction.”

“Obstruction? You’ve got some nerve.”

I hold up my fingers. “One, I never said anything about a diner, or a shaman. Two, if your man can’t recognize a hunter or a Calling he shouldn’t be on the force. Three, he saw my evidence and probably figured out it was heavy shit, or he wouldn’t have called you so soon.” Martin’s face goes from red to white. “You knew I was coming down here, and your door man tries to stop me? It’s enough for a formal review.”

Nothing deflates a bullshitter like getting caught in a lie. They then either have to give ground, or double down. Martin ain’t the betting type. “Get your information and leave,” he says with a tight voice. “One of these days, you’re going to take a wrong step, and I’ll be there to bring you to heel.”

“You’ll have to wait in line.” I say and turn my back. I walk over to the doorman. He’s got a look on his face like he wants to puke.

“... of course, it’s the lower intestine that’s really the messy part,” says Balance.

I yank it out of the wall, and snap my arm out to catch Kenneth before he hits the floor. He scrambles to his feet, takes a deep breath and looks me in the face.

“May I help you, sir?” he says. Say what you will about the Dark, but they are disciplined.

“Registry for Danny Cree”

Two minutes later, I’m walking out. Balance is still bitching.

“A couple of more minutes and I’d have had him heaving on the floor,” it says.

“If I had known you’d be like this, I would have used the gun instead,” I mutter.

Popper

By Bettyann Moore

“I think I’m brain-dead,” Porpoise McAllister muttered.

On the picnic table before him, 150 Ways to Play Solitaire lay open to Osmosis, the 29^th game Porpoise was trying to learn that morning. He wasn’t having much luck. It had been his mother’s idea to come here; he would have much preferred the cool dankness of his basement retreat to the noise and sunshine of the town’s only park. He would have even preferred working on the farm, but he was supposed to be studying for his SATs and his father had declared the month of July “farm-free,” at least for Porpoise.

“Just look at yourself, Leslie!” his mother had cried. “You’re as white as a ghost!”

She had surprised him, sneaking down the basement steps with that look of disgust on her face that said “I should have turned this space into a rumpus room.” He was just thankful that he had finally gotten around to filing away his collection of magazines – alphabetized under various fantasies – and that he hadn’t been in the throes of passionate reading when she had descended upon him.

 

“Don’t you have some friends to play with?” she asked, obviously mistaking him for a 5-year-old. “Whatever happened to that nice boy … what was his name? Oh, Lionel, Lionel Hill, that’s it! From that nice Hill family up on Summit Hill … the Hills on the hill!” she said, laughing at her own little joke.

She babbled on about the Hill family while Porpoise thought back to the last time he “played” with Lionel, known to one and all (except by his mother, apparently) as Crusher. Crusher Hill liked to crush whatever he could get his hands on – lunch bags (or boxes, it didn’t matter), small birds and rodents, people’s heads. Porpoise was painfully familiar with that last one. He didn’t have the heart to tell his mother that that “nice boy” had been expelled and sent to a reform school for crushing the life out of the science teacher’s white lab mice.

For no other reason than to get her off his back, he agreed to go to the park for “fresh air and sunshine” – she was always speaking in clichés – and hastily snatched up his cards and the solitaire book his father, a realist, had given him for his birthday.

“Damn,” he said for the tenth time as a small July breeze played with the pages of his book and sent cards flying off the table. “I shoulda brought one of my magazines with me instead of these stupid cards.” He’d never read that stuff outside of his basement room before. The idea excited him and he toyed with the thought as he knelt on the grass to pick up the scattered cards.

“Is this your card?” The voice cut into his daydream and startled him.

“What?” He looked up, but saw only a silhouette back-lit by the bright sun.

“I said, is this your card? It came sailing into my lap while I was reading by that tree over there.”

The figure stepped closer and pointed. The hand was definitely feminine, but the fingernails were chewed down below the skin line. The arm was skinny and almost as pale as his own, dotted here and there by defiant freckles. The shoulders … Good God, Porpoise thought, she has on one of those skimpy halter tops. He stood and forced his eyes to the face, not trusting their reaction to a haltered chest. They’d probably embarrass him by popping out of his skull.

The face was homely and familiar, the freckles almost scarlet against milk-white skin. The dark green eyes were set wide apart, the bridge flat between them. The short nose came to a surprising conclusion, tipped with what looked like a small, red ball. Behind chapped lips were tiny white teeth that Porpoise now realized were grinning at him.

He flushed red beneath his sallow exterior. “We … uh …,” he stammered.

“Freaky, isn’t it?” The face spoke. “If I didn’t know better I’d say we were twins. The only thing different is the nose – mine’s sunburned.”

“Freaky isn’t the word for it.” Porpoise finally found his voice. “I thought I was looking into the mirror my mother’s always poking into my face to show me how washed out I look.”

Porpoise stepped back and took in the total picture. His eyes didn’t dwell on the halter top – she was as flat-chested as he was. From the top of her slightly greasy brown hair, down to the bowed legs and large feet, she looked like what he’d imagined himself to look like in drag.

“What’s your name?”

Porpoise flushed again, realizing he had been staring hard at the vision before him. “Uh, Porpoise, Porpoise McAllister.”

The mouth that wasn’t his laughed.

“Porpoise? What kind of name is that? Are your parents freaky on sea life or something?”

“No, my grandfather hung it on me because I could swim before I was two. It’s really Leslie, at least that’s what my ma calls me. What’s yours?”

“Popper Cooper.”

It was Porpoise’s turn to laugh. “Popper Cooper! Sounds like a baseball player. Were you born at a ball game or something?”

“Nah, it’s actually Penelope. My big brother started calling me Popper while I was in junior high because he said it looked like I was always waiting for my chest to pop out.” She looked down, unembarrassed. “As you can see, I’m still waiting.”

Porpoise blushed again.

“Anyway,” Popper went on, “the name stuck and I figured anything’s better than Penelope.”

Porpoise kind of liked the name Penelope, but Popper suited her. He sat heavily upon the picnic bench and Popper did likewise.

“Queen of hearts,” she said.

“What?”

“It’s the queen of hearts that blew over to me. Here, you didn’t take it back yet.” She handed over the card.

“Thanks.”

“It’s nothing. Hey, what are you playing there?”

“Uh, some dumb game called Osmosis. I can’t get the hang of it.”

“Treasure Trove.”

“What?”

“It’s also called Treasure Trove and you’ve got ‘em set up all wrong. See, you need four cards in the column, not six.”

“You know the game?”

“Cripes, I just said so, didn’t I?”

Porpoise failed at willing his face not to blush.

“Anyway, if you want, I can teach it to you. I know that book inside out.”

She sat close beside him and though he squirmed on the hard bench, it wasn’t because he felt uneasy being so near her. When they touched – a leg, an elbow – a spark of her energy seemed to leap out at him. He found that, so linked, his thoughts cleared and his grasp of the game improved. Osmosis wasn’t so hard after all.

“See, Osmosis isn’t so difficult with the right person to teach you,” she said, seeming to read his mind. He searched her eyes for some clue to her power, but found only his own face staring back at him.

It was the longest time Porpoise had spent in the company of someone his own age since he and Lizzie Osterman used to play house together – he was always the mommy – and it really wasn’t like being with a stranger. Popper was so much like him it was almost like playing solitaire by himself.

He smiled as he thought about what he’d say to him mom when he got home. “I didn’t do nothin’, Ma, just played two-handed solitaire with myself.”

Popper smiled, too. “Thinking about what you’re going to tell your mom?” she asked, climbing into his brain again. “I doubt anyone would really get it.”

He looked at Popper and this time didn’t blush. “No one could,” he replied.

“You got that right. Listen, I gotta go. I haven’t been out this long in years. You think your mom will make you come here again tomorrow?”

“She won’t have to.”

“I know. See you tomorrow then. Bring something to read, will ya?”

Years later, whenever someone asked Porpoise how he and Popper got together, he’d laugh and say, “Through Osmosis.”

Christmas Spirit

“Bill! Get those pumpkins off the porch and take down the orange lights.” It was November First and Beatrice was ready.

Bill had promised to love Beatrice until death did them part but he thought he should have inserted an exclusionary clause exempting him from Christmas and the months preceding. But there was nothing he could do about it after forty years. He had his marching orders.

He packed the plastic pumpkins and orange lights into boxes and drove his pickup over to their double storage unit to pick up Christmas. The boxes and bins he loaded up were marked numbers from 1 to 40. Nos. 1 through 25 had to be delivered to the spare bedroom for Beatrice to sort through. For the two months, forget about the calendar. It was Christmas.

His next assignment was to open the first box which held the big inflatable turkey beside the house. It was a mere sop, a side show to the spectacle that was about to follow. Beatrice had given up on Thanksgiving which is more about food than decor. That last Thursday in November, they always took their sons out to the Country Buffet until they married. Her daughters- in-law rebelled and took over the feast in their own homes. None of them felt there was any point in going to Bill and Beatrice's house at all until until Christmas. That was fine with Bernice. Her eyes were set on bigger things.

By the second day in November, Bill was on a ladder putting up the exterior lights. There were the icicle lights that dropped from the eaves. There were the strands of big bulbs that had to be wound around the nine spruces. Each year the trees got taller. In another year he would have hire a cherry picker to wind them to the top where the golden stars waited. As long as he was up there he hung the giant ball ornaments Beatrice collected each year at the citywide rummage sales. As it grew darker, Bill set up the dozen small pre-lit trees that lined the driveway. It was only day two and he was exhausted and wishing he only had twelve days of Christmas to contend with.

Bill didn't mind the outside work in November because he knew that inside their little frame house, Beatrice was busy. There would be a tree in every room, sometimes, two. He would have preferred to go cut one live tree in mid-December but by then she would have all the interior decorating done and moving a tree through the house would be impossible. The trees had to be up before she could put the rest out. So up went the fiber optic trees, the pink aluminum trees, the white trees, the blue trees and to be traditional, one large vinyl green tree. Bill had to have them lit and assembled by November 7. As he worked there would Christmas music on the stereo. For two months he would be listening to Christmas carols. He and Beatrice never went to church but they listened to every religious anthem ever written including some dreadful Country Western albums she found at a garage sale. She had even found a Christmas polka CD.

Beatrice claimed none of it cost that much because almost everything she bought she found at thrift shops, rummage and estate sales or e-bay.

“I got it all for pennies,” she told her friends. All the same, Bill wouldn't let Beatrice light the trees until December 1. He hid the extension cords at the back of the storage unit and claimed he was looking for them. The January energy bill was always a horror.

By the end of the second week, all the trees were in place and decorated, so now Beatrice could put up the train that circled all around the biggest tree, through the dining room, on to the kitchen and downstairs bedroom. The train kept chugging along even going through the master bathroom so the door had to be kept ajar. Bill had to take a climb upstairs when he wanted to take a whizz. It was just as well because there was a tree in the downstairs bathtub. Beatrice talked about another in the upstairs shower but he put his foot down on that one.

Bill sometimes took a seasonal job to get away from it all, but even in the stores, the Christmas music was on all the time and decorations everywhere. He wished he had never retired.

When the trains were operational, with repairs going on all season, it was time for the miniature villages with houses that Beatrice had been collecting for years. The houses never matched so the villages looked a bit odd, as if some of the smaller homes belong to elves. No matter, each little domicile had to be taken out of the crates, oohed and aahed over by Beatrice, checked to see that it's lights were still working, and placed along the train track.

It wasn't the only interior lighting. By the third week, Bill had to haul in the fake fireplace that was stored in the basement. Above it Beatrice arranged a garland wound with the lights made out of shotgun shells. Winding upward on the railing leading to the upstairs there were pink flamingo lights. At the top and bottom of the step were giant flamingos wearing Christmas hats and wreaths around their necks, a nice finishing touch Beatrice thought. It is always good to keep a theme going.

By November 20, it was time to bring out the rest of the decorations. There were garlands draped over every room, real garlands purchased from the grandsons in Boy Scouts because Beatrice liked the pine scent. She brought out folding tables for every corner and covered them with seasonal table clothes in red and green to hold her collectibles.

It wasn't even that there was so much stuff, Bill thought, it was that it was so tacky. In the living room, it was a Santa motif. She had Santas of every kind. There were traditional Father Christmases she found on a trip to Europe. There were Santas in various colors. To be politically correct there were African-American Santas, Asian Santas, Hispanic Santas, and Native-American Santas. To show that she had a sense of humor, there was a Santa smoking and drinking beer. Santa sitting in an outhouse reading the Naughty & Nice List. Some of the Santas were motion activated. One began to dance to Jingle Bells when anyone walked by. One Santa swore. Another belched and yelled insults. If Bill went through the living room too fast they all activated at once.

The entryway theme was Star Wars Christmas: Yoda dressed as Santa, Darth Vader with a light saber that flashed red and green, the Millennium Falcon flying overhead. Beatrice thought the entry needed more work.

On Thanksgiving Day, it was time to finish outside, save for the two hours Bernice set aside to join her family dinner. No time for football with the boys for Bill. They stopped at the storage unit for the last bins and boxes, number 26 to 40.

For the enjoyment of passersby, there were plastic snowmen, candy canes, twirly trees, candles, Santa Clauses, penguins, polar bears, toy soldiers, white plywood deer and wire deer with white bulbs. Many of these things were wearing out and fading but they still had to go up. Big inflated decorations lay flat on the ground during the day, like colored pools, all Disney characters, some on motorcycles. The inflated turkey remained. Bill didn't see putting it away since it kind of blended in with everything else. By November 30, with a whoosh they were up and glowing.

Because Beatrice thought she ought to have at least one, in the middle of it all there was a life sized creche with everything from the Holy Family to camels. When Bill couldn't find the cradle, he put Baby Jesus in a Bud Light box and moved some sheep in front of it. Just temporary he said but moved on to other things. It was just as well, because the Baby Jesus was also motion activated. When anyone went by, the baby waved its arms and let out a big fart. With everything else going on, nobody passing by could figure out where it came from. Their attention was more often drawn to the big druid priest performing a human sacrifice that Bill constructed out of plywood. “To cover all the bases,” he told Beatrice. The city told him to take it down but he said there was such a thing as freedom of religion. To placate the city fathers, he put up a lit up America flag and a couple of soldiers with guns to show how patriotic they were. That was the end of the exterior display. They had run out of lawn.

The neighbors on either side complained. On the east side, the neighbors couldn't sleep because of all the lights until they installed heavy duty drapes. They asked Bill to pay for them and he quietly wrote out a check. On the west, the fundamentalists felt Beatrice and Bill didn't know “the real reason for the season” but then they never even had a Christmas tree. “No Christmas spirit whatsoever,” Beatrice said.

Finally on December 1, Beatrice could display out all the waxed figurines she saved from year to year. No one ever lit choir boy candles, Christmas tree candles, angel candles, or any of the shaped candles . Bill never saw the point. But Beatrice did like candlelight so bought bags of tea lights and lit them in their special containers the minute it got dark.

The tall candles in the wall sconces and candelabras wouldn't be lit until Christmas Eve. The big matches were ready.

There was a point to it all, of course. Beatrice wanted their house to be featured in the annual library Christmas walk. Surely this would be the year. She invited the head librarian for tea to let her look at all the glory. The librarian gasped in amazement as she went through the house but she said the houses had already been selected. “Maybe next year.”

Every so often circuits blew. Bill considered someone to re-wire the old house but could they really afford it? You couldn't get electricians from e-bay or rummage sales. He kept extra fuses on the ready.

The only people who actually got to see the wonder Bernice created were her and Bill. The daughters-in-law refused to come for Christmas Eve. There was simply too much for the grandchildren to get into. Besides, there were all those candles. The toddlers were drawn to fire. They all settled on a two hour visit on Christmas Day. If anything got broken then, well, Bill would have the whole next year to fix it.

It was just as well because an ice storm arrived on Christmas Eve day, making the roads slippery and covering the yard in silver. But that was perfect because the ice covered the ornaments making them glow. “Perfect for luminaries,” Beatrice cried. “ She scrounged in the cupboard for brown paper bags. Teetering on the ice, she set the bags through the lawn and lit a tea light in each one.

She fell once but refused to move until she could see it all. She sat on the sidewalk, a light snow was falling all around her.

“Oh Bill, isn't it glorious!”

She crawled back inside, just as the snowfall turned into a blizzard with strong winds. She watched as an inflated Mickey Mouse on a motorcycle cut loose and flipped over a luminary which tipped over, and burst into flames. It hit the Bud Light box. Baby Jesus went up in flames, farting all the while. The fire hit the Holy Family's extension cord. The fuses blew, throwing the property in darkness. Beatrice ran for matches and began to light every candle in the house while Bill called 9-1-1. One scone was too close to a garland that had gone dry. The garland took off up the walls to the ceiling which was hung with paper snowflakes.

Beatrice and Bill escaped and spent the night in a motel while the fire department fought the conflagration. In the end the house and all its decorations were gone.

It wasn't all bad, Bill figured. He could close the storage unit and insurance would cover the cost.

“Let's get a smaller house next time,” Bill said. “Or maybe we could live in an apartment. It's time to down-size.”

For the time being, that's what they had to do. By January 2 their mail was delivered to their new apartment The first thing they got were two Christmas catalogs. “If we start now, we could be in a new house and ready for the Christmas walk,” Beatrice said.

Bill threatened her with divorce.

She went on Facebook to report that her husband was waging a war on Christmas. She had heard all about it on television and here it was happening her own family.

“I don't know what happened to his Christmas spirit,” she said.