December 29, 2003
Only Tom
We met for coffee and a sandwich. I wanted that small sweet space between friendship and affair. I was okay with longing. Tom touched the back of my hand. He was wearing faded jeans and a soft red flannel shirt with the tails out. We ordered the same thing - ham and cheese on white with light mayo. I wanted to learn his habits. I shook two packets of sugar, tore the ends and poured them in his coffee. He smiled. I stirred. He reached in the pocket of his shirt and put mint leaves from his yard on the table. They were warm and smelled so good.
We sat across from each other in the booth and a patch of sun lit the middle of the table. My car key glinted. This tension with Tom didn?t have to resolve. If I slept with him what would happen to the wish? I was happy there at the diner, busy-hearted for that hour. I wore a black skirt for him, dark pink lipstick and a heavy polished-silver bracelet of my mother?s that banged against the table when I reached for my iced tea.
The waitress brought our food and there was mustard on Tom?s sandwich. He scraped it off with the blade of his knife. I tore off some of the mint leaves and put them in my tea. He asked me point blank if I thought about kissing him and I admitted I did. He asked why if I wanted something I didn?t just do it. I liked his question. It was like a cold gust of wind that fills your lungs with air you didn?t know you needed. I forgot I had a family.
We walked a few blocks down the median. It was a blanket of red clover and yellow dandelions. We checked into a motel on Airline Highway. I wanted to fuck him, quit the little diner dance and go through with this so I knew what it felt like to flat out do something wrong and real instead of forever thinking about an affair like some lonely romance-novel reading housewife. I wanted to step up and join my mother?s club ? acorn, tree - make love to my husband?s best friend, straighten my hair, go back home and prepare dinner, sit across the table from my husband and son with this secret dripping into my panties.
Tom and I lay on the bed and I wrapped my legs around him and rested my head on his shoulder. My mother and I took naps together when I was young, and the arm she kept around me would get heavy. If I tried to move it I?d wake her and she?d get up so I lay still. I didn?t think about her every day anymore, but right then I wanted her to come home. I hadn?t seen her in ten years. She?d left in the middle of the night with Benjamin, my father?s best friend, and moved to Spain.
The air conditioner was stuck on 65 degrees and the room was cold. We didn?t take off our shirts. Tom ran his finger under the bracelet on my arm. I closed my eyes to gather every bit of what he was doing. The TV was on too low to hear but okay, a noise you could forgive. I wondered if there were other lovers for her. I would have only one.
This flash was published in:
which you, if you want, can buy here.
We sat across from each other in the booth and a patch of sun lit the middle of the table. My car key glinted. This tension with Tom didn?t have to resolve. If I slept with him what would happen to the wish? I was happy there at the diner, busy-hearted for that hour. I wore a black skirt for him, dark pink lipstick and a heavy polished-silver bracelet of my mother?s that banged against the table when I reached for my iced tea.
The waitress brought our food and there was mustard on Tom?s sandwich. He scraped it off with the blade of his knife. I tore off some of the mint leaves and put them in my tea. He asked me point blank if I thought about kissing him and I admitted I did. He asked why if I wanted something I didn?t just do it. I liked his question. It was like a cold gust of wind that fills your lungs with air you didn?t know you needed. I forgot I had a family.
We walked a few blocks down the median. It was a blanket of red clover and yellow dandelions. We checked into a motel on Airline Highway. I wanted to fuck him, quit the little diner dance and go through with this so I knew what it felt like to flat out do something wrong and real instead of forever thinking about an affair like some lonely romance-novel reading housewife. I wanted to step up and join my mother?s club ? acorn, tree - make love to my husband?s best friend, straighten my hair, go back home and prepare dinner, sit across the table from my husband and son with this secret dripping into my panties.
Tom and I lay on the bed and I wrapped my legs around him and rested my head on his shoulder. My mother and I took naps together when I was young, and the arm she kept around me would get heavy. If I tried to move it I?d wake her and she?d get up so I lay still. I didn?t think about her every day anymore, but right then I wanted her to come home. I hadn?t seen her in ten years. She?d left in the middle of the night with Benjamin, my father?s best friend, and moved to Spain.
The air conditioner was stuck on 65 degrees and the room was cold. We didn?t take off our shirts. Tom ran his finger under the bracelet on my arm. I closed my eyes to gather every bit of what he was doing. The TV was on too low to hear but okay, a noise you could forgive. I wondered if there were other lovers for her. I would have only one.
This flash was published in:
which you, if you want, can buy here.
December 24, 2003
Happy Holidays
December 19, 2003
Minisink Hills
My sister and I lived with our Italian grandparents in New Jersey for three years, while our parents were on tour with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians. My grandfather was the town butcher, and their apartment was on top of the grocery store where he worked.
My grandmother was a seamstress and worked at Dix, a factory in town that made nurses' uniforms. She made our clothes, beautiful little garments out of skinny bolts of cloth that had been marked down. The ladies in the fabric store showed her these remnants of silk, mohair, gabardine, too small for a woman, but perfect for a child. Dresses and skirts she sewed were lined in some surprising color of satin. The clothes were too pretty - dirndls, French linen blouses with smocking, red velvet jumpers - but I wore them and tried not to ruin them.
I missed my mother badly, but I didn't tell my grandmother because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
My parents would stay gone for six months at a time. They traveled on buses and planes and performed in every state but Hawaii. I dreamed of crashes and fires, my mother and father's faces looking out the portals screaming for help. There was nothing I could do to help them; I'd wake up in a panic and pray myself back to sleep.
After they'd filmed Fred Waring's holiday special, they'd come home for Christmas. My mom and dad would sit on the sofa, me wedged shyly between them, my sister on my mother's lap, in my grandmother's dark living room, and point at the TV and make fun of themselves. There were two things that took me a long time to understand: how they could be in two places at the same time; why the people at the top of a Ferris wheel didn't hang upside down.
One year my parents left the road and came home for good. They picked us up from my grandmother's and moved my sister and me to Minisink Hills, into a small blue house on seven hilly seven acres. Almond-eyed deer looked in the dining room window.
My parents seemed like glamorous strangers. I was in love with them, a little fan who watched them like TV, but I didn't think they could take care of me or my sister. They were dangerous. My father with his fast cars, always something small and red in the driveway, my mom spending too much money on slim cobalt blue dresses and fancy shoes my dad suspected weren't or him. I missed my grandmother.
Some nights they argued late in the dark living room and I sat in the hall in my pajamas to listen. I worried they would leave again because in one argument I heard my mother say they got along better on the road. I could hear the ice in their drinks, the scrape of chair legs, my mother walking through rooms to get away, her high heels clicking on the terrazzo, muted by the den carpet, clicking again on the terrazzo, and then my father's heavy footsteps following, begging her back to us.
This is me with my grandmother in her kitchen. This is my first Christmas without her.
My grandmother was a seamstress and worked at Dix, a factory in town that made nurses' uniforms. She made our clothes, beautiful little garments out of skinny bolts of cloth that had been marked down. The ladies in the fabric store showed her these remnants of silk, mohair, gabardine, too small for a woman, but perfect for a child. Dresses and skirts she sewed were lined in some surprising color of satin. The clothes were too pretty - dirndls, French linen blouses with smocking, red velvet jumpers - but I wore them and tried not to ruin them.
I missed my mother badly, but I didn't tell my grandmother because I didn't want to hurt her feelings.
My parents would stay gone for six months at a time. They traveled on buses and planes and performed in every state but Hawaii. I dreamed of crashes and fires, my mother and father's faces looking out the portals screaming for help. There was nothing I could do to help them; I'd wake up in a panic and pray myself back to sleep.
After they'd filmed Fred Waring's holiday special, they'd come home for Christmas. My mom and dad would sit on the sofa, me wedged shyly between them, my sister on my mother's lap, in my grandmother's dark living room, and point at the TV and make fun of themselves. There were two things that took me a long time to understand: how they could be in two places at the same time; why the people at the top of a Ferris wheel didn't hang upside down.
One year my parents left the road and came home for good. They picked us up from my grandmother's and moved my sister and me to Minisink Hills, into a small blue house on seven hilly seven acres. Almond-eyed deer looked in the dining room window.
My parents seemed like glamorous strangers. I was in love with them, a little fan who watched them like TV, but I didn't think they could take care of me or my sister. They were dangerous. My father with his fast cars, always something small and red in the driveway, my mom spending too much money on slim cobalt blue dresses and fancy shoes my dad suspected weren't or him. I missed my grandmother.
Some nights they argued late in the dark living room and I sat in the hall in my pajamas to listen. I worried they would leave again because in one argument I heard my mother say they got along better on the road. I could hear the ice in their drinks, the scrape of chair legs, my mother walking through rooms to get away, her high heels clicking on the terrazzo, muted by the den carpet, clicking again on the terrazzo, and then my father's heavy footsteps following, begging her back to us.
This is me with my grandmother in her kitchen. This is my first Christmas without her.
December 15, 2003
Eddie
When Malcolm carried Eddie home in the front of his jacket I was upset because I?m afraid of dogs. When I was two years old a pony-sized Doberman knocked me over. I tried after that to like dogs. Our neighbors had a collie and I made myself touch her. I would kneel and put my arms around her neck like Timmy with Lassie. I thought having a dog was full of moments like this, but not being afraid didn?t last. With every new dog I start over.
Now, Eddie?s 107 lbs. We live in a busy neighborhood and I?m afraid to walk him by myself in the park across the street because dogs attract dogs. My fears are stubborn as kudzu.
I think I saved his life once. I was in the den and I could see him out the window, shaking his head hard. There was rope hanging from his mouth. I thought he was goofing around because Labradors are non-stop chew. Still, I went to check. He was choking. I opened his mouth with two hands and pulled on the wet rope and three feet of it came out of him.
A few days later Eddie was sleeping on my pansies and I was tiptoeing to the mailbox so I wouldn?t wake him, but I did because all dogs in the world hear me coming. He got up and yawned and walked beside me, stayed with me step for step. When I got to the mailbox he stopped and leaned his warm body against my leg, the way people settle into each other sometimes and forget they?re touching. He rested like that against me. All I wanted from the world right then was for Eddie not to move and for Malcolm to not stop loving me.
Now, Eddie?s 107 lbs. We live in a busy neighborhood and I?m afraid to walk him by myself in the park across the street because dogs attract dogs. My fears are stubborn as kudzu.
I think I saved his life once. I was in the den and I could see him out the window, shaking his head hard. There was rope hanging from his mouth. I thought he was goofing around because Labradors are non-stop chew. Still, I went to check. He was choking. I opened his mouth with two hands and pulled on the wet rope and three feet of it came out of him.
A few days later Eddie was sleeping on my pansies and I was tiptoeing to the mailbox so I wouldn?t wake him, but I did because all dogs in the world hear me coming. He got up and yawned and walked beside me, stayed with me step for step. When I got to the mailbox he stopped and leaned his warm body against my leg, the way people settle into each other sometimes and forget they?re touching. He rested like that against me. All I wanted from the world right then was for Eddie not to move and for Malcolm to not stop loving me.
December 09, 2003
Hummingbird Cafe
You give me reasons and I list them on Post-It notes. I connect them, one under the other, into a long yellow ribbon and garland the gray walls of my kitchen. Short-Handed, Restaurant Booked, Chef Trouble, Food Inventory.
You can tell how much a steak weighs by holding it in your hand. You check it on the grill by touching the middle and know when it?s medium rare. Our last meal was ribeyes, potatoes Lyonnaise, creamed spinach, warm gingerbread for dessert, delicious but every bit has passed through my system. I want more food; I haven?t eaten in two days and the feeling is at first clean, then empty. I guzzle plastic tumblers of water, one after the other, and they rush through; I am a sieve, leaky. Anticipation is a diet.
When you call I add a note ? Come By ? and I stay awake until 2 a.m., pull on my scarf, gloves, snow boots and walk the icy half-mile to your restaurant. Under my heavy coat I give you my new soft red wool sweater. Your staff has gone home. You cook for me and I want to throw my arms around your knees while you make breakfast at the stove. Eggs over easy, crisp bacon you flatten under iron skillets, coffee with steamed milk. Kissing me with short-order tricks.
You send me presents and swear to me they aren?t parting gifts: sugared pecans baked in your salamander, whisper-dry champagne. A tin of velvet apricots dipped in white chocolate is left at my apartment door. I nibble one and pretend it?s your ear, and sip wine, and wait for a snowy night when all of your customers dine at home.
You can tell how much a steak weighs by holding it in your hand. You check it on the grill by touching the middle and know when it?s medium rare. Our last meal was ribeyes, potatoes Lyonnaise, creamed spinach, warm gingerbread for dessert, delicious but every bit has passed through my system. I want more food; I haven?t eaten in two days and the feeling is at first clean, then empty. I guzzle plastic tumblers of water, one after the other, and they rush through; I am a sieve, leaky. Anticipation is a diet.
When you call I add a note ? Come By ? and I stay awake until 2 a.m., pull on my scarf, gloves, snow boots and walk the icy half-mile to your restaurant. Under my heavy coat I give you my new soft red wool sweater. Your staff has gone home. You cook for me and I want to throw my arms around your knees while you make breakfast at the stove. Eggs over easy, crisp bacon you flatten under iron skillets, coffee with steamed milk. Kissing me with short-order tricks.
You send me presents and swear to me they aren?t parting gifts: sugared pecans baked in your salamander, whisper-dry champagne. A tin of velvet apricots dipped in white chocolate is left at my apartment door. I nibble one and pretend it?s your ear, and sip wine, and wait for a snowy night when all of your customers dine at home.
December 05, 2003
Claire's Prayer
My mother passed Claire the mashed potatoes without looking at her.
?Thank you, Valerie,? Claire said in her sing-song voice, and asked my sister, Bay, to please pass the gravy boat. Bay did, but the handle was small, like on a tea cup, and the heavy boat tipped over. Brown drips dotted the tablecloth and my mother looked uneasy but told Bay not to worry.
It was our second Thanksgiving in Alabama. We?d moved here from Idaho two summers before because my father said he couldn?t take the cold winters anymore, but the temperature outside was a freak: thirty-one degrees and the weatherman calling for snow flurries.
My father had gone to the health spa to swim laps before lunch, so he could have two pieces of pumpkin pie, he?d said, but he was an hour and a half late.
Claire made an excuse for him. ?He?s probably sitting at the shallow end, talking to some faculty member.?
?Smart guess,? my mother said.
Claire was studying to be an opera singer at the university and my father taught theory and composition in the music department. He used to complain about her: ?An airhead,? he?d say, ?with a decent middle register,? but over the last few months she?d become his favorite student and our family friend.
Claire had been teaching Bay how to drive. On the weekends she?d come by the house early so they could practice in the empty parking lot at Winn Dixie. And twice a week she walked with my mother around the neighborhood. I didn?t do anything special with her; she was five years older and I didn?t like how she?d cozied into our family with her good manners, so curious about us. Hadn't she seen musicians before? My mother called her the third daughter, although Claire called my dad and her by their first names.
The brown dots of gravy weren?t being absorbed. I slid my knife under them and lifted them off, which left brown stains on the linen. ?Let it be,? my mother said.
Snow flitted outside the window.
"Look how pretty," Claire said. "I've only seen snow once."
?Looks like it's followed us down here," my mother said, taking a sip of wine.
?Should I go by the spa and see if his car?s still there?? Claire said.
?I don?t think he needs another wife, dear,? my mother said.
I?d heard my parents arguing that morning. My father was writing an art song for Claire to sing at her senior recital.
?I don?t even own a winter coat,? Claire said.
?That?s nothing to be proud of,? I said. She wore a fluffy black turtleneck and her hair was in a French braid.
Bay picked at wax drips on the candles. She?d taken diet pills so she would look good for the winter formal and her appetite was zip. Her hair was French-braided, too.
?Everything smells so good," Claire said. "I?m hungry."
?Maybe you should say grace,? my mother said, putting her fork and knife down, hanging a spotlight over Claire, who closed her eyes and asked that we bow our heads.
We didn?t pray in our family. The food would be placed around the table so we could serve ourselves and pass the dish, water glasses would be filled, wine for my parents, warm bread in tin foil, soft butter, my father would do a little conducting motion, count two bars with his fork, and the quartet that was our family would dig in.
I went outside without a jacket to wait for my dad. The snow didn?t stick, but it looked like Idaho until it hit the driveway.
?Thank you, Valerie,? Claire said in her sing-song voice, and asked my sister, Bay, to please pass the gravy boat. Bay did, but the handle was small, like on a tea cup, and the heavy boat tipped over. Brown drips dotted the tablecloth and my mother looked uneasy but told Bay not to worry.
It was our second Thanksgiving in Alabama. We?d moved here from Idaho two summers before because my father said he couldn?t take the cold winters anymore, but the temperature outside was a freak: thirty-one degrees and the weatherman calling for snow flurries.
My father had gone to the health spa to swim laps before lunch, so he could have two pieces of pumpkin pie, he?d said, but he was an hour and a half late.
Claire made an excuse for him. ?He?s probably sitting at the shallow end, talking to some faculty member.?
?Smart guess,? my mother said.
Claire was studying to be an opera singer at the university and my father taught theory and composition in the music department. He used to complain about her: ?An airhead,? he?d say, ?with a decent middle register,? but over the last few months she?d become his favorite student and our family friend.
Claire had been teaching Bay how to drive. On the weekends she?d come by the house early so they could practice in the empty parking lot at Winn Dixie. And twice a week she walked with my mother around the neighborhood. I didn?t do anything special with her; she was five years older and I didn?t like how she?d cozied into our family with her good manners, so curious about us. Hadn't she seen musicians before? My mother called her the third daughter, although Claire called my dad and her by their first names.
The brown dots of gravy weren?t being absorbed. I slid my knife under them and lifted them off, which left brown stains on the linen. ?Let it be,? my mother said.
Snow flitted outside the window.
"Look how pretty," Claire said. "I've only seen snow once."
?Looks like it's followed us down here," my mother said, taking a sip of wine.
?Should I go by the spa and see if his car?s still there?? Claire said.
?I don?t think he needs another wife, dear,? my mother said.
I?d heard my parents arguing that morning. My father was writing an art song for Claire to sing at her senior recital.
?I don?t even own a winter coat,? Claire said.
?That?s nothing to be proud of,? I said. She wore a fluffy black turtleneck and her hair was in a French braid.
Bay picked at wax drips on the candles. She?d taken diet pills so she would look good for the winter formal and her appetite was zip. Her hair was French-braided, too.
?Everything smells so good," Claire said. "I?m hungry."
?Maybe you should say grace,? my mother said, putting her fork and knife down, hanging a spotlight over Claire, who closed her eyes and asked that we bow our heads.
We didn?t pray in our family. The food would be placed around the table so we could serve ourselves and pass the dish, water glasses would be filled, wine for my parents, warm bread in tin foil, soft butter, my father would do a little conducting motion, count two bars with his fork, and the quartet that was our family would dig in.
I went outside without a jacket to wait for my dad. The snow didn?t stick, but it looked like Idaho until it hit the driveway.
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Pia Z. Ehrhardt.
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