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Even if Randy wasn't going to Heather's house--at least he would get a cookie out of it. She didn't want him to come anyway. She'd moved on. The way she'd moved on from love six times before. She just left. Randy wasn't that special. He was just another boy to give a cookie to.

Laundry

They sandwiched in beside the box of laundry detergent they both could've used. It'd been three years since they talked and although Ted was nervous Sheila had enough nerve for the both of them. They drank cans of beer as Matt drove. Each mile got better. The detergent smelled fresher. Cleaner. Their relationship rose and dropped after each tree they passed. Sheila smiled and told Ted "Everything will be fine, don't worry." But Ted knew that when Sheila said these exact words there was much to worry about.

She stayed in the house lately. Not because she enjoyed being there--just because the outside scared her. The people walking dogs and the children in football jerseys. Fall was like a window closing. She loved the cold, but couldn't stand the chill.

Night

Sometimes at night, she'd wait to hear the motorcycle down the street. She hoped it would come tonight. Not to take her away, but keep her feelings at bay. And there they would be. Just far enough to not get hurt.

A girl decided to go to an estate sale on the far side of town. She looked through the dresses, electric scissors, and hiking the western hills. When she came upon an orange booklet about insects, she thought of her father. He’d had one similar and read it in his easy chair on Sunday evenings. It had a sticker of five dollars on the inside. When she walked up to pay the man who sat in a blue camping chair he used an electric calculator (again, one that was like her father used to have) to come to a total of $2.50. The girl was surprised. And the man said, “Was that not what you thought?” And the girl said, “I didn’t realize it was half off, but that’s even better.” After she left she second-guessed her own words. Why is it better? She thought. Why is it better to be half off?

They sat at the dining room table hoping to find a solution to Heather's drug problem. This of course was no issue to Heather herself. She knew the solution: more drugs. Her father was concerned about her embarrassing the family again. He'd gone through her room three more times since she'd figured out the first time. Her lamp shade was twisted just a tad to the left and a letter from her boyfriend was folded one more time than she had originally. Heather found this behavior from her father embarrassing. She'd told him: You want to know embarrassing? Try running away from your family.

Rose waited for Teddy under the red “C” of Chandelier’s Grill. The way she stood, hugging her purse to her chest and looking down at her boots every few seconds, she could have been mistaken for a nervous woman, perhaps waiting for a first date or meeting a married man she intended to sleep with after a cocktail and an avocado salad. Every few minutes she’d turn to read the menu posted in the front window, changing her face as she scrolled through the appetizers, smiling at the soups, frowning at the salads, raising an eyebrow at the main dishes, nodding at the vegetarian selection, so the woman inside waiting to seat customers wouldn’t think she was staring in at her. Teddy had suggested Chandelier’s Grill after their conversation on the phone last week when Rose admitted she’d been frequenting a drive-thru taco shop that was located between the two condos she owned. She’d laughed and told him it was convenient and cheap, two C's she loved. That’s when Teddy gave her directions to Chandelier’s and told her this was another “C” she could get used to.

Carolyn’s new dining room table had arrived two days before her mother asked to sleep over. A medium-sized, cherry wood, bar-style table she’d been visiting at Floyd’s Furniture for over three months. The display had begun to show the wear of prospective buyers trying out the chairs, the scrapes along the top caused by the scooting of the basket containing wooden grapes and pears, and even the slight cracks in the corners facing the store’s carpeted walkway. But Carolyn knew she’d be more careful when she owned it herself (certainly more than the young couple she’d seen with the peanut butter-faced toddler or the bearded man who’d sat alone pretending to deal out a deck of cards to imaginary players), because this would be her first big purchase since the divorce.

Suzanne sat next to Lance as he read aloud the fast food restaurants down the freeway. Jack-n-the-Box, McDonald's, Burger King. He'd told her he wasn't hungry, that it was just a game he used to play with his mother in the car. "I'll pay $800.00, but don't let me go over that, okay?" He'd seen the ad for the truck in a newspaper left on the table at Woodrow's the week before. They'd shared a grilled cheese sandwich and crinkle-cut fries while laughing at how many used red Mazda Protégé's were for sale. It was Suzanne who noticed the truck in the paper, the title: All The Ice Cream You Want, not really. Lance stopped laughing and reread the ad to himself. He'd asked her if she thought it was carpeted. "If it's got that green grass stuff, I'm in," he said. "The windows remind me of buses. And that grass crap feels like plastic," said Suzanne. But Lance smiled and pretended to turn the steering wheel around with a knob on it. "That'd be the clincher. One of those knobs like a door handle on the wheel. Get us where we're going, huh?" Suzanne clenched her teeth, "Open doors for us, right?" She squeezed his knee, pressing his leg down causing the car to speed up. "Open something I hope," Lance said, rolling down his window to spit a sunflower seed out.

Vera stood in the principal’s office along the windowless wall wondering who’d ratted her and Emily out. Mr. Harris’s mouth moved in short twists while his tone remained high-pitched and similar to his voice during the assembly the day before when he’d announced that a student had “crapped” all over a toilet seat in the girl’s bathroom. Vera pushed one of her elbows into the light switch turning the lights off and then on again. She hadn’t held much of an opinion of her school’s principal until he’d mistaken chewed up pumpkin pie for poop.

Now she hated him.

Mr. Harris blinked and moved his mouse back and forth over a stack of blue detention slips on his desk. They’d pulled the trees out at the grade school on Saturday, right after peeing down the slide, but they hadn’t seen anyone on the playground or in the surrounding fields who would have told on them. Mr. Harris brushed the tops of his cabbage-shaped shoulders as he continued to ask Vera why she’d decided to destroy innocent trees and all Vera could picture was Emily sitting at the top of the slide with her pants halfway down, shouting, “Is it coming down straight? Is it making a puddle?”

Chicken Coop

When I found Granny in the chicken coop where she’d been collecting eggs, she was hunched down in the hay as if looking for pennies at the fair and her hair looked like a poodles, tiny curls that hadn’t been combed out yet. I’d said, “Granny—did you get your hair fixed up?” She didn’t answer. So I just watched her, still and leaning over, wondering if the hay was hurting her knees and that’s when I saw the pieces of eggshells crushed underneath her outspread fingers. The clear coagulated ooze surrounding her hands, yellow streaks in the pools. I came closer to her and patted the curls on her head, still wet, but soft. “It looks professional Granny, like a movie star,” I’d whispered. Nothing. Then Momma opened the little door and squeezed in behind me, “What’re you two doing in here? Tryin’ to lay eggs yourself?” And I knew something was wrong, and I knew my Momma didn’t know yet (by her tone), and all I could say was, “Feel Granny’s hair Momma, it feels like a baby-dolls.” The chickens started up the plank toward the opening that Granny was in front of and Momma started throwing hay at them yelling, “Git, Git, Git,” sounding like chicken Morse code and they must have understood, ‘cause they started flapping their wings and walking backwards with the claws of their feet dangling on the walkway, making a terrible scratching sound.

"Stay back," Greg's putting his arm back like he's swiping at me, trying to keep me from getting ahead of him, like a dog zigzagging in front to keep the lead. I can't see the furniture except the faint outline from before the lights went out, the curve of the sofa, the edge of the curtain, the Happy Birthday sign still hanging along the window. The street lights are still on outside, and I start to wonder if this is some kind of joke. Earlier he'd insisted upon camping outside, but we were having turkey and swiss sandwiches for dinner and I'd told him about how the cheese mixed with the fresh air and eating it outside grossed me out, and all he'd said was: Oh brother, 'cause that's what he always said after I gave a little of myself, Oh brother, as if we were family.

Legal Matters

Val hoped, with the money her and Wendy earned, she’d be able to buy two movies a week. Up at Sound Stairway, previously viewed movies were $5.99 and since her allowance was only $10.00 she’d never bought two in the same week. Trying to save the remaining money so she could buy two the next week was never possible, since the candy shop and the dollar store were in the same building. It wasn’t until Wendy offered the two of them up to her step-father to clean his law office every Thursday after school, that Val could imagine having enough money to do as she pleased.

Puzzles

With Gary only half-through the daily crossword puzzle, Anita knew she would be spending the afternoon suspended in yet another wordless bubble. She’d tried to cancel the paper a month ago, but they called two days later and spoke with Gary offering less than what they’d been paying for it for the last three years. She pretended she didn’t know how it had gotten cancelled in the first place. Lately, during the silence, Anita has been wishing she were a dog person—a rambunctious dog-lover who lets the pup run amuck, chewing on furniture and tearing up the newspaper. Obviously she can’t teach Jellybean to do any tricks, unless she considers litter on the end tables some sort of help. Gary wasn’t always into crosswords, in fact when they met he was fascinated by insects and they’d often take day-trips up to Morgan-Lang hill and collect them in old prescription bottles. He’d told Anita being around flying bugs made him feel whimsical. She’d laughed, and just to impress him since they’d just begun their togetherness, she told him they made her feel desirable. Breaking the silence as Anita reminisced; Gary called from his recliner, “What’s a nine letter word for household pest?”


Thanks to The One Minute Writer's daily prompt: What puzzles you? Check out her blog!

The Ghost

She’d said I was like a ghost, and fluttered her hands in the air that looked more like a butterfly. I laughed and did the whole “who me?” bit, but then it sunk through me: a cloud of annoyance, with the top hovering around my head and the bottom coming just under my diaphragm. The whole sensation was unshakable, throwing me into a funk that seemed to last a little over a week. I’d wake up while it was still night, noticing the back porch sensors being triggered by raccoons cleaning up the rest of Mr. Magee’s food dish, and then I’d think of ghosts. Not like Casper or the see-thru versions of my childhood favorite horror movies, but skewed versions of myself when I was thirteen, fourteen, all the way up until now—thirty-eight. I demanded to myself I was no more of a ghost than those portrayed on television—mere special effects—after all who had I ever haunted? Old friends or co-workers? Acquaintances? My ex-husband or past instructors? And is that what she meant when she’d said it, that I’d become a recurring memory for her, or perhaps she only truly wanted to compliment me.

The Talk

The conversation started light. How was I doing? Fine. How was she doing? Okay. George her beagle had died, but now there was Kyle, the German Shepherd, so things were looking up, she'd said. Some comments on the weather and the price of gas weaved through, a bit about the plastic cups we were drinking out of. The necessity of recycling, she'd warned. I didn't bring up my habit of using disposable picnic-ware for my meals. A few words on how bad diet drinks were on the body. I was glad I'd ordered mine before she arrived. Then, when the waiter came by to see if we were ready for the check, he was wearing one of those T-shirts with the fake tuxedo printed on the front with a red tie, we said "not yet" in unison and began talking about Derek as if we'd seen him only yesterday.

Award Speech

He scribbled it on the grocery receipt Laura left in the fruit bowl on the table. The oranges were starting to go soft, so a discolored smudge was at the top of the thin paper, near the store name and date: Frederick's Foodsaver, February 23, 2009. In his neat handwriting he began writing: Jimmy, Tom, Lucy, macaroni and cheese, chess, Japan, Twinkies (not low-fat), and the late Jim Henson. He stuffed it inside his jean jacket, put on his stocking cap and as he got into his car he wished he would have remembered to get the rest of the Twinkies back from Laura, those award shows never had Hostess.

This paragraph was prompted by The One-Minute Writer's prompt for today: You've just won an Academy Award. What will you say in your acceptance speech?
Check out her blog: http://oneminutewriter.blogspot.com/

The Makeshift Treehouse

Mattie hadn't been back to the treehouse since the weekend her step-grandmother came to visit and then ended up leaving in an ambulance. At the dinner table the six of them, Mattie, her mother and step-father, Greg and his friend Tommy and Grandma Jess, ate hamburger pie made with Bisquick and green beans. Greg was the first to see Grandma Jess roll her eyes back and open her mouth just wide enough to allow the gray-colored sludge to roll down her chin. He watched with his own mouth open, eyes wide, frozen as if seeing the water in a stopped up toliet creep to the top of the bowl. Mattie saw Greg and poked him in the arm to get him to close his mouth. Then Grandma Jess started to shrug her shoulders in fast, jittery movements and Mattie's mom jumped up and put both arms around her to keep her from falling out of the chair. Later, when Greg was put in charge while their parents stayed at the hospital until after dark, Mattie went out to the treehouse with the leftover hamburger pie. She divided it out onto her plastic dinner plates, mashing each portion with a wooden spoon, trying to get it to look like it had on Grandma Jess's face.

Personalized

Faye was a horror. A selfish, passive-aggressive, black-haired beauty that stayed with Neil just until he dropped out of the welding program at the community college and then she left him. She broke every personalized coffee mug that he had given her. She washed his clothes with olive oil. She even threw his Macadamia nuts on the floor and crushed them with her tiny little feet. But Neil just sat at the kitchen table, legs crossed, reading the letters to the editor and sucking on a handful of sunflower seeds. And finally when he heard her car door shut, Neil spit his seeds on the floor and uncrossed his legs, resting them up on the table—right next to the broken handle of the first mug he gave Faye.

Desserts

"Ice cream," she whined.
"Cake!" he pounded his fists on the counter.
"Rainbow Sherbert!" she insisted.
"Devil's food." he plugged his ears.
"I'm allergic to chocolate." she screamed in his face.
"I'm allergic to you." he kept his ears plugged so the words sounded funny only to him. He laughed.
"You think this is funny?" she pried his hands away from his head. One slipped and he slapped himself.
"Yes." But he didn't really.
"Forget it. Fine. Devil's food." she grabbed her keys.
"You're driving?" he rubbed the side of his face.
"So?" she put her hands on her hips.
"Okay." he shrugged his shoulders.
"What?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking."
"Thinking what?
"I'm not sure Devil's food sounds that good anymore."