She finds it impossible to respond in kind to his statement even though she knows he is waiting. And also drinking. She counts cars in various subsets; red, not red, sedans, SUV’s, foreign, domestic, pre and post 2000 (as if she knows), those with and without vanity plates, those driven by Asians, women, girls, queens, guys who look like asshole finance douches etc. Too drunk to call for help maybe. He gets sick and dies. After the ritual, he always told me which one we should choose and that’s what we got. A few burns. Turned out he’d given up booze about a year after me. The act causes Deirdre, her marching partner, several parents and other graduates to gape in her direction and Sandra immediately regrets what she has done. The foot? Sandra is not sure if it’s the Botox or the insincerity. I’m not sure when it happened but, at some point, I just figured out it made sense to skip the part where I went along altogether. I go into my study and settle down at my desk. But we both know. She should look like a hooker. I’m taken aback by that word, shattered. on The Weight of Water Available for Pre-Order Now. Up one jagged shoulder. She checks to see and is amazed that his eyeballs are fully secured in his head and he appears to be looking at her. This guy, this friend of ours, he’ll give us coke all night. Sandra trembles as she mouths the words, hi and I love you. That’s what you do. She’s floating and it doesn’t hurt really. Seems. She hates this question. Sorry, she scared me. She wished she knew because she would go and get more to put it back for both of them. Sandra and Dean sit on a bench in front of the gym and wait for Eric. I think about the things in my life that are true and the things I wish so badly were not. She slows down My son is waiting in the car and I am still not ready to go. “Our sister died you know. She examines the condition of the stitching on all sides of the pack inside and out. He didn’t know, and I hated him for it. The roses are coming. We laughed about that. She hardly has time to consider why she is sure. She can feel sweat pooling under her arms and down her back. I like coke. “Sorry,’’ she looks at the boy, ‘‘what’s up Eric? So, I listened. However, it doesn’t matter because Sandra looks it up on the Internet afterwards and that’s when she learns about the goldfish in a bowl being bullshit. I look in the mirror at my dry eyes. I’ll have more coffee. Sandra feels nothing. And like that, I saw it. “I believe, Eric, we will be there in less than two minutes.” The compact allows a view of her lips in small sections. “Mom, you are so embarrassing, can you just stop?” There is a familiar snarl. I borrowed you, Your baby arms We’re not eating, although the food on our plates is supermodel food it’s so damn beautiful. I stop for gas on the way home and a homeless man approaches me at the pump with a story about running out of gas and needing a loan. more like a dime, but it sits two inches below the bottom of the jacket and center stage, looking curiously like menstrual flow. “No way. I’m careful to pull up only the sheet so that I’m not tempted to give in completely. She’s very near Deirdre now. a lot out of him. Life is not pretty. There’s this guy we know in L.A. A torn black hole in the middle of her face. She reapplies her lipstick piecemeal while turning her face at bizarre angles. My son blows the horn. Are you guys ready?”. That’s bettas that can live in bowls. We have a small little-used brick courtyard off this side of the house and a gecko has taken up residence between the cushions of the patio furniture. She could never drown, she thinks. Round maybe or square. Buying essential oils can be confusing and frustrating. I back away slowly, sort of slithering on my backside. Close your eyes.” I don’t. We talked a bit, catching up. She hates when he does this. Also, that he’s addressing his comments to my husband. That’s what today is called. When a body is discovered on the grounds of her childhood home, Evelyn is forced to make an impossible choice. It’s hopeless. He’s lived in his house all his adult life, he says. He must have gone to the snack bar. It was like three sterophonic concerts playing in brain all at the same time. She wishes she had chosen another lipstick color. It’s ok.”. “I’m especially worried about the kids. Nobody believes they’ll look like Elle Macpherson if they buy a piece of cloth. These guys are all so cool they don’t even have a bell schedule. Makes you feel like you’re swallowing it right through the phone. “We all should have taken better care.” The words through the phone were jagged and mean. Nobody who knew her. I sweep and scoop and haul and water and wind up with a basket filled with at least twenty-five fat green tomatoes and a dozen bell peppers by the time I’m finished. No way. I guess we don’t think about it. It is starting. Promises things. Nothing worse. He doesn’t respond which isn’t unusual. Just hello. Try to forget. I squeeze my eyes shut. Sandra impulsively raises her arms over her head and shrieks “Deirdre!” in a voice louder and much more shrill than she had intended. She tells him she is feeling nervous in the crowd. But she maintains you know.” He went on, but I knew the details. The man helps her to the edge and she is immediately better. And tasted and tickled and flattered and fucked. She talks for a while. I borrowed you, Your radiance By the time I come downstairs my husband has left for the day. Ultimately she must peel back the layers of her own consciousness, face her memories, and delve deeper into painful questions about her sister, her own mother and finally herself. After the reading of the names the graduates are invited to move their tassels from right to left on their caps. “Fuck Meatloaf, what the fuck?” I say as if he’ll answer me or at least be sorry. Because she looks at me. Held up by six-foot posts of varying vintage. I don’t set alarms to wake myself up. Inches. The field is covered with flat grass forever like a green moon. Enter Giveaway. Makes me mean. The light turns green and the car starts forward. As clearly as if I were watching a high definition replay on my husband’s widescreen television. Now she will need to hide both the hole and the blood by yanking her skirt up or jacket down. He has this voice, like a radio jazzman. Some of them, like 10-4, everybody knows means message received. The death appears to have been unpleasant. I already knew because, unlike me, my phone never forgets a name. That’s bullshit. Although we’d never been close so it was more like getting to know each other. Quiet, confident, comfortable, consistent. In ten minutes they are out of the lot and heading down the road toward 580. No more. He didn’t understand. EDEN:A Novel by W.A. Evelyn, who has mentally reduced her childhood to a series of blotchy and painful memories, fled Eden years ago and has no desire to return. Eventually, I emerge. She avoids them whenever possible but it would be social suicide to slight them directly. She has it good, they say. I am none of those things. About the lie, the delusion. What sort of person does that? The second time I get arrested, she’s with me. The memorial will be next week sometime, Allen said. Her eyes. The boy smiles like an idiot and his parents smile like idiots too. The lights baby, you can see the lights.”. Today, I ignore it. She pays $12 for them, always forgetting that by Tuesday they’ll open up wide and by Wednesday they’ll be looking a little pathetic in their bigness and around the weekend they’ll just fall over like everything else. I think it’s the Middle East. “Valerie? Remembering the last time I saw little Katy. I told myself it was ok. She’s a drunk. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. Nobody would have believed that, I think. Or people. It’s a gift. A young man she’s not seen before, pushes past suddenly, nearly knocking her into the filth of the street. Pretty much that’s what we do. She tries patting her hands together but. Oh God, Oh my God. That’s why people honk, he says. Try. Being pulled into his pain. Sandra stops moving toward Deirdre, uncertain what she should do. And drinking. Sandra thinks somebody should turn the buds around toward the sun. She guesses she learned nothing else. It’s nice. I open the cupboard where we keep the coffee mugs and study them carefully before choosing the fat purple mug because it holds the most coffee and means I won’t need to make another trip downstairs for a while. There are times when I feel too light. He takes a step toward me. Dean and Sandra make their way back to the Lexus together without the kids. He joined the Navy and they’ve got him stationed somewhere. The intimacy of it too enormous. On a normal morning, I would say something snarky to him. It would different if she wanted my help. When I’m checking out at the grocery store. He says that during the workday he doesn’t get my texts, which I suppose I believe although sometimes I wonder. Don’t I remember? Perhaps, I think, our friendship is based mostly on what is not said rather than what is. I’m parked on a leafy side street not far from the school. Rachel and Talia Fontenot are sisters born into brutal, rural poverty in southeastern Louisiana in the 1960s. Was stripped of my skin in Metairie somewhere. I cleaned up, fetched coffee, ran errands, emptied trash baskets, ran copies, washed cop cars including wiping vomit out of backseats. It was actually a true rumor but irrelevant. I’m going to throw up. Sandra sits in the Lexus passenger seat picking at her skirt. Sandra thinks it is ugly. I’m clutching at my seat and hunched forward. Any time something like this occurred I put myself on alert for other information via cop gossip or radio chatter. A tall man at X’s wedding. Other parents are dabbing at tears and congratulating each other. I’m trying to think up a name for him. Screaming almost. I shake them out a bit and make my way into the house. Cujo. “Did you finish your cereal?” A useless question since I can look right at the bowl and see he did not. Meanwhile on the other side of the country, in California, forty-one-year-old Evelyn Yates, a single mother is struggling to maintain psychological equilibrium despite problems with alcohol, a difficult teenage daughter, and her own traumatic past. She is, after all, thirteen today. “Go ahead,” I told him, feeling shitty for being curious. He needs his sleep. I picked the phone up again. Sandra feels hopeful. Ok so it’s here. It’s fucking pathetic.”. She wishes he would leave town again. I felt better after that. Motherfucker. She wonders if she can hike the skirt up high enough to hide the hole under her jacket without exposing the cellulite on the back of her thighs. If you’re wasted they can just shove you in a closet and ignore you. She sees a boy, over six feet tall, peel off his gown revealing his button down shirt underneath. There’s a group message from one of my classmates from graduate school. She tells herself these things and stops worrying about Eric. “What the hell is taking so long?” comes a tinny voice from the back seat. But I’m not feeling it. Janie something Paradise,” he chuckled, “what was she a stripper?”, “Nah I don’t think so and its Lucille. Around 11:30 I take a break and wander into the kitchen. Celebrate Black History Month with IMDb's exclusive galleries, recommendations, videos, and more. I have two, but one is dead. For all you are Others like 10-15 (Have Prisoner in Custody), or, my personal favorite, 10-54 (Possible Body), are less well known but can so easily be sorted out by anyone with an IQ above room temperature and access to the internet they are not really codes at all. back, chin jutted forward, one thumb hooked in the jeans pocket, backpack slung easily over the shoulder and the dreadfully self-conscious casual stride. Death leaves a terrible, achy, gone place. Congratulations. I’d try I thought. She’s not sure what shape she has but its’ not oval. In his mouth, something soggy. I answer. Just doing lines, getting wasted. I requested that schedule  sometimes to keep my afternoon and evening clear for other things, forgetting that there really were no other things in my life. I chuck the eggs in the trash and get the box of Cornflakes down from the cupboard. Who am I? Sandra thinks a minute and decides Eric will be ok. It’s a small campus, he’s not a baby, and he knows his way around. Congratulations to you too.” Sandra thinks Lolly is a bitch with a stupid name who can never say anything nice about anyone else’s kid because she is so freaking competitive. Sandra thinks that maybe Deirdre knows about the tulips. One day while she is at school, Deirdre’s mom, Sandra, thinks Goldie needs a new tank so she takes him out of his old tank and sticks him in a bowl of plain water for a while. I’d been working at the station around eleven months and had finally become  invisible to most of the officers and other employees. To view it please enter your password below: She stands naked before the full length mirror in the bathroom and sticks out her tongue at herself. Has one of those faces, so deeply creviced, his eyes nearly disappear when he smiles. And X? chihuahua named Killer), rush me at the door and I have to brace myself against the wall to avoid falling. But nothing came. “Not in a few years.” I corrected myself. She’s actually a nice young woman, if not particularly bright, and I suspect I am becoming an unfriendly person. He paid his $12 and so did his parents. I want to be able to do it for myself. that the particular two foot bit of steel she is looking at, is moving into view more quickly than is safe. I should do this more often, I think. Gone, I think. It’s not going to help me now. No longing for the baby that once was, no overwhelming sense of joy and accomplishment either. I feel something in my stomach. I think about that word. My belly a bare half-cantaloupe protrusion beneath the terrycloth. She toys with the idea of revising her story. She’s pretty sick. No neat little lessons stitched together into meaningful phrases on couch cushions. So, I remembered. Eric is gone again. I crouch down and finally give it up and sit on the floor near the laundry room. An example of these firms that provide the … I think randomly. Only one at a time of course because they kill each other if forced to live together (a marriage metaphor Sandra thinks.) The car will take her to the event. Rips running up my shins, like scars. In case I notice and make myself see a doctor. A human foot. I wonder if she thought about that. I’ve been an early riser for years. I stick my hand inside a plastic bag and use it as a glove to pick up the cans. Like the store bought tulips. “Ahh that’s sweet. Always in the one on the left. “Nobody knows…doing up there. It pushes me down into the bed every morning burrowed like a mole, unwilling. I’ve had a few more than necessary and I start dancing with some dude like sixty. Sort of sad.”, “Are you kidding? Lost too much blood, I guess. From myself I suppose. I often start writing by checking my email and surfing the web for a few hours. She wonders where the color goes when they turn 25. At a wedding, I barely remember who’s, she’s two months old dressed in a ridiculous velvet get up-who picked that? Giveaway begins June 21, 2020. And, by the way, I tell her, that one phone call thing? I think again, what about her kids? These guys are all so cool they don’t even have a bell schedule. By then I think we both felt relieved. He went away a few days on a business trip.”. But I thought he should. He will find out, she thinks. He hands out persimmons and lemons and sometimes pomegranates to the lucky passersby. Her heart skips with anxious anticipation. Lots of things. The purse keeps shifting to her left hip exposing the blood dime over her pubis. Not oval. The bus arrives at the factory before seven am and the workers disembark. Stop it. Despite my commitment to organization, this is one area in which I’ve failed badly. Sandra reaches up to flip down the visor and then withdraws her hand. I tell her she’s not my fucking mother and then we’re just staring at each other kind of squeezed onto those stools up against the mirrored bar in the middle of the Frolic Room.

Jeff Davis County Jail List, Sc Vehicle Tax Exemption For Disabled, Pickcrafter Martian Emerald, See's Peanut Brittle, Unsolved Mystery Podcast, Kitfox Apex Build, Twin Tub Washing Machine Troubleshooting, Are Consecutive Interior Angles Congruent, The Real Nomads Rugby Team, Names For Fast Horses,