There I was, in a wilderness of someone else’s making, wondering how I had gotten there and if I’d ever find my way out. Unlike Moses, I hadn’t committed a crime; and also unlike Moses I wasn’t in the wilderness with a purpose, like herding sheep. Nope. I was just wandering, looking for a sign.
When I said Jessica never spoke to me again, I really meant she never spoke to me again. I texted her and she left me on read. I tried to get mutual friends to speak to her on my behalf and they wouldn’t. I even reached out to Chris, but he ducked my messages too. I called her mother. No dice. Everyone said, just give it time. She’ll come around. But she didn’t. She cut me out of her life because I had offended her brother, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why it mattered so much.
Was it the drawings themselves? Was something about him drawing me like that upsetting to her? Why would Chris’ drawings of me as a hot car girl make her throw away our whole friendship? At some point it didn’t make any sense to keep asking the questions. I just had to try to move on, without the one person who I had shared my whole life with, who knew everything about me, and who I thought would be there to the end of the line.
It really sucks to find out your ride-or-die isn’t going to do either for you.
So, yeah. Wilderness. Wandering. Wondering without answers. Looking for signs. And then, one day, I saw it- the burning bush.
Again, it wasn’t a literal burning bush. And I wouldn’t even say that it was a place where God was waiting for me. Maybe God was there somewhere, but the feeling I got from what I saw wasn’t one of holy ground. I had a profound sense of peace though, a moment of clarity that was so raw I couldn’t keep being aimless, listless, friendless. I knew as soon as I saw it that I had to move forward, without answers, because the only answer I needed about anything was right there in the headline I saw as I scrolled on the internet.
Alleged Identity Thief Finds Herself the Victim of Her Own Crime
Under the headline was a picture of Jessica. The article laid out that for years she had been part of a scheme to steal and sell personal information, most often by hacking into online order databases from high traffic websites. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. The woman they described didn’t sound like Jessica at all. They even called her by a different name- Meredith Smalls.
Had she never really been who she said she was?
I thought back to when I’d first met her, fresh out of college, looking for work. We used to frequent the same coffee shop back then, and we became friends after several weeks of both of us using the wifi to search for jobs. Jessica (Meredith?) had never landed anything permanent. She was always moving from place to place. How had I missed that she was a completely different person than the one that I had known, that she was living this secret other life that I had no insight into at all.
I still don’t know why Chris drawing pictures of me ended the relationship, but after seeing the article, it didn’t matter. I knew the truth, looking at the sign, the miracle in the wilderness without any kind of closure: she lied to me about who she was. That was all I needed to know.
I closed the article and texted my mom. You’ll never believe this. I sent her a link to what I had just read.
It was only a couple of minutes before I got a reply. Well, now you know.
I did know. It wasn’t the answer I was looking for, but maybe that was okay. After all, do you think Moses went up that mountain to see a bush caught on fire but not burning up, and to hear God telling him to go back to Egypt? No. I think sometimes you’re going about your life and then something smacks you on the head, and the pieces you tried to fit together all the sudden seem a lot more like a picture.
Let me get back to that burning bush- the one that’s way up in the mountain, after you’ve run away from your troubles. Somewhere you think you might be safe from having to confront what’s eating you. You find a burning bush when you have nowhere else to go, and when you have nothing better to do. At least, that’s how I always imagined Moses, when I used to go to Sunday School. He was running away from Egypt, wasn’t he? Maybe also from his father-in-law. Point is, he was in the wilderness, just him and his sheep, and then bam! He sees that crazy miracle.
I can’t really think about Jessica without thinking about the burning bush story. It’s not because I was running away, necessarily, but because everything that I had known previously had been upended by what should have been a big ol’ nothing burger. Okay, bad analogy to Moses, maybe. I mean, he did kill somebody. But for me, it was just an honest statement, taken a bit too personally, then taken out of context, to the point where it became a raging fire that burned down everything.
Jessica has a brother named Chris. Artist type. He draws cars and girls, mostly. He’s always trying to make zines. He’d be good at it if he could tell a story better. He just needs some refinement. Or he needs to illustrate somebody else’s ideas. Either way, I liked Chris well enough. A bit shy, a bit immature. But I wasn’t interested in him at all. Not like that. He was chasing after somebody else anyway, although, from what Jessica told me, she wasn’t too interested in getting caught. None of this part actually matters to what happened between me and Jessica, except for the fact that Chris is overly sensitive about everything- his art, his dating habits, his hair, his sister, his reputation. No criticism is taken well, even if you mean for it to be helpful. I knew this about Chris, and I should have just kept my mouth shut.
Jessica and I were at her place one afternoon, putting away her groceries and getting ready to order take out (because what else do you do after you get a load of groceries, right?) when Chris popped by. He had some new pages he wanted to show us of the zine he was endlessly drawing. Jessica and I flipped through the pages. The art was fine. Mostly. Some was mediocre. Some was really good, but only the pieces which I knew he’d done before, drawing the same scenes over and over again until he got them just right. So there we were, flipping through the pages, when one of the drawings really caught my eye, and I frowned at it. Chris saw me frown at it.
“What?” he asked.
This drawing… it was all wrong. The girl he’d drawn was sitting on the hood of some muscle car. She was in a tight tank and cut offs, just like all the other girls in the art. Imagine a 50s pin up mashed up with a 90s comic strip. She had this really pouty face, and her breasts were too big. Then I looked closer, and the face he’d drawn just reminded me too much of me, and the tank top his comic girl was wearing was definitely a riff on a t-shirt I wore all the time. So I looked up from the page, and stared at him, and said, “Didn’t know you were gonna put me in here.”
“What are you talking about?” he said, getting defensive. He took the page away from me, studying the drawing. “You think that’s you?”
“Looks like me,” I said. I shrugged. It really wasn’t worth getting him riled up, but I could tell that it was probably too late. “It’s fine. I don’t care.”
“Then why’d you frown?” he asked.
Now I rolled my eyes. Jessica had stopped looking through his other drawings, and was gesturing for him to show her the picture of me. He held it out without looking at her, and she took it, studied it, studied my face, and then said, “Stop. It doesn’t look anything like you.”
“She’s wearing my shirt!” I said. I wasn’t angry, I just didn’t understand why either of them were making such a huge deal of me pointing out that Chris had clearly drawn me with huge boobs and cut off shorts. But when neither of them made a reply, I attempted to cool off the room by making a joke. “Maybe you’re right. He could draw me better if he was actually trying.”
It was the wrong thing to say. I knew it as soon as it came out of my mouth. Chris gathered up the drawings silently, left the kitchen, and then left the apartment without saying goodbye. Jessica crossed her arms, staring at me in a way she had never looked at me before. I didn’t like that look. Again, we’d never fought about anything, remember? First time for everything.
“Why did you do that?” she asked.
“Do what? Be honest with him?”
“Make him feel bad,” she said, icily.
“God forbid a man ever feel bad about anything,” I said.
She folded up the last of the empty paper sacks that had held the groceries. When she finished she said, “I think you should probably go home.”
“Are you serious?” I asked, completely confused by her reaction.
“I said, I want you to leave!” she snapped.
So I picked up my bag, found my keys where they had sunk to the bottom, and left without saying goodbye. I fumed as I drove, wondering what had happened so suddenly that had made her go cold towards me. It was just drawings. It was Chris’ stupid drawings. Why did she care so much?
I never got an answer. She never spoke to me again.
Somewhere, high up in the hills, there is a bush that burns but is never consumed. They say a man named Moses first encountered God there, but I think maybe Moses had always known who God was, he just didn’t know what to call God until he saw that bush. Of course, the bush I’m talking about can’t possibly be the same one that Moses saw. Afterall, I don’t think Moses lived anywhere near here, and even if he did, he’s long dead by now. The bush I’m talking about isn’t a literal bush, and it’s not literally on fire either. Maybe I’m not explaining it well at all. I probably shouldn’t have tried to start off with that story of Moses; just trying to tie my story to something bigger that actually matters. What I really mean to say is, somewhere far away from everything else you know, in some remote place, there’s a chance you’ll find a miracle. For Moses, it was a bush that burned but was never consumed. For you, it’ll probably be something different. It sure was for me.
Let me see if I can explain it a bit better.
My name is Annie, and up until a year ago, I had one of those friends who was more like a sister. Her name is Jessica, but really I think her name should be Judas. It if was, perhaps she’d feel an ounce of remorse for what she did to me. She’d have to have a heart to feel remorse though. I thought she had a heart, and more specifically, I thought she had a heart for me. Turns out, she was just another fair weather friend who had never been asked to stick around in a storm.
And what a storm that blew between us. We had never had a fight before last summer. First time for everything right? Well, the storm was so big and damaging that there was nothing left after it blew itself out. Not a spec of love between us. It was like we had never known each other, and you know, come to think of it, maybe we never had.
I’m getting a bit ahead of the story, though. So me and Jessica. Best of friends. She’s one of those errand running friends- you know, the kind of friend you can call when you just want someone to go with you to do your shopping, to make it fun. But she was also a party friend. We were always going out. And we always talked about the guys we liked, and the ones we didn’t like, and the ones we dated. She got into a real steady thing with a guy once and then it fell apart almost overnight when she found out he had another girl too. And I was there for her. We were thick as thieves, as I’ve heard my grandpa say. In hindsight, I think I can admit that she wasn’t as there for me as I was for her. Grandpa used to say something about that too. Trying to be friends with some people is like riding a bike on the highway. Or something like that. I think he just meant you were unmatched. If I was gonna do another Bible reference like the good girl my mom still thinks I am, I’d say we were unequally yoked.
Do you see where I’m going with this story? You know the kind of friend Jessica was, right? And I didn’t notice it until it was too late. By then, the hurricane winds had already blown the shutters off the house. I’d like to say it was something stupid that came between us, like a man, but it really wasn’t stupid at all. At the heart of it, it was the most serious thing in the world.
It was honesty. Honesty got between us.
If your friendship can’t survive honesty, then honey, let me tell you, you never were friends in the first place. You were just two people who were good at pretending.
This story is part of the project A Writer’s Shindig. Jolene Rice’s story is the second of 6 short stories written for the project. You can read more about our collaboration and read all the stories posted thus far at A Writer’s Shindig.
Skin Care
Cassandra spent every Sunday at the library. The library was her happy place. The smell of old books brought back sweet memories of her childhood. On Saturday morning, while other children her age were watching cartoons, she and her dad were off to the library. It was always something different; from strange animals the children were allowed to pet, to puppet shows, it was all happening at the library. While she was living on the streets, the library intimidated her. What if they threw her out? It would shatter her happy place. Cassandra was thrilled that the library was on the other side of the park near the spa, close enough she could walk. Her Sundays were filled with sweet childhood memories and learning about skin care. She could do things like have her clients wash their faces in rose water. From time to time, she applied masks. Not being a doctor, she was afraid to do much more. That didn’t stop her from learning. The letter opener that she was using was an extraction needles someone left behind. There were other sized needles, tweezers, and comedone extractors. Cassandra had never used a comedone extractor. Didn’t even think there was one at the spa. They looked like a small open hole on the end of a pencil. Where her letter opener was used to poke the skin, you pressed down on a comedone extractor allowing the pustule to protrude through the hole. It was supposed to be gentler on the skin than using your fingers to squeeze the pustule out. She got tickled; one piece looked like a spatula. A tiny little spatula for your pores. Pieces could be purchased individually or in sets. Sets started around $10.00 to hundreds when you started looking at gold plated hypoallergenic tools.
When Mr. Daily discovered she was really interested in the job, he showed her tools other techs had left behind and gave her the pick of the litter.
Jackson rolled up beside her in his chair as she set at a computer in the library. She didn’t jump; he rolled up beside her all the time. “Would you like to grab a drink when you’re finished?” he asked. “Just a drink.”
While Cassandra was sitting at the computer, she did a YouTube search for the salon, Youthful Wishes. Jackson was right, hundreds of thousands of people watched these videos. After five videos, she could tell which ones Jackson had filmed verses the girl. Cassandra began pointing them out.
He laughed. “Good eye.”
They left the library to get coffee.
“What did you do in the before time?” Jackson asked. Cassandra just sipped her coffee. “Well,” he stammered, then tried a different approach. “Was their anything special about the before time?”
“Not much.” She sipped again at her coffee, “I’m from a painfully small town called Sunshine Valley.”
“Why did you come here?”
Cassandra said, “No plan. I thought moving to the big city would be the answer to all of life’s problems. You know, stay here for a little while and then go home being heralded a hero. I would be able to get what I wanted.”
“What you wanted.” Jackson asked.
“What I thought I wanted,” Cassandra told him as she sipped at the coffee. “It is amazing how our priorities change. Things that where once so important, now just seem stupid.”
“You moved here without a plan?”
She laughed, “You could say that. What about you?”
Jackson didn’t answer right away. “To be honest, I didn’t have a plan either.”
They both just laughed.
More homesickness
Cassandra awoke with a start. She’d been dreaming about her grandmother. Maw would be so ashamed of some of the things her Sue Bug had done in the big city to survive. The moonlight from the open curtains poured into her room, falling on a pack of paper she’d found in her scavenger hunt ‘girling up’ her new workspace. She hadn’t left home because of a horrible family life. Her family was fantastic. Hateful Guts was the reason she left. She wanted to prove to him that more than one person could leave a small town and win. But damn! Was this winning?
She used some of the paper to write a letter to her parents. Cassandra told them it was her goal to be home by Christmas.
Cassandra jumped when Mr. Daily called her name. The bow-legged penguin was sneaky. But then, she reasoned, in order to be a good, pervert you needed the art of stealth? She opened the door for him.
“Oh, sorry. Never meant to startle you.” He almost blushed. “Should’ve knocked.
“It’s fine, Mr. Daily. I was lost in another world.”
“I wanted to pick your brain. Do you have any great ideas for a Valentine’s Day special?”
“For the spa as a whole or just us?”
“As a whole.”
“I might not be the right person to ask but I will do my best.”
He smiled and left.
She sat cross legged on her bed thinking about ideas for a promo. Honestly, she wasn’t the right person to ask. Love had always eluded her. Even when she got close to love it slipped through her fingers. Her love life was a joke. In high school she had a huge crush on a guy. Her parents didn’t teach her about crushes. There was zero guidance. Subsequently, everyone knew about her crush. ‘One day’, she always told herself. ‘One day’. When that one day came, it would be perfect. She was already in love. He couldn’t help but fall head over heels in love with her. Life would be perfect.
When that day did come, it wasn’t the fairy tale romance she had little girl dreams about. It was horrible. It was screaming, shouting, an emotionally dead nightmare. He worked long hours. Would clam up and not talk to her for days. When he did speak, he shouted at her. She’d convinced herself she could fix it. Fix him. Sitting here, now, it hit her like a bucket of ice water. He had his own crush. And she had ran away to the big city chasing someone else. Trying to be someone else. If she could be that other woman, maybe he would finally love her?
“Jackson,” she said out loud. “Maybe he could help me?”
They got coffee and went for another walk in the park. She told him about Mr. Daily asking her for promo ideas. Asking Jackson if he had any ideas?
“I have no desire to help you.”
His comment shook her. “Why?”
Jackson took a deep breath, “Cassandra, I need your help. I’m an investigative reporter doing a story on Dr. Mac.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Three years.”
“You’re kidding?”
Jackson asked, confused. “About?”
“You’re an investigative journalist but you drink those drinks?”
“What do you know?”
“Nothing. Just the timing isn’t good.” Cassandra paused, pursing her lips. “I need to work this out in my headfirst.”
“I don’t follow.”
“That’s why you’ve been here three years.”
That cut deep but he sucked it up. “Then help me.”
“I’m saving up enough money to go home. I’m not sure I want to help you.”
“Help me tear down Dr. Mac’s playhouse.”
“Why?”
“Dr. Mac is not a good person. Who hires a pervert to run their side piece?”
“Side piece?” Cassandra asked.
“Her clinic is downtown. Miles away from this dump. Downtown is where all the action takes place. Where she does all her photo shoots with high powered politicians. Downtown is where her rich clients go. This dump is where she sends her poorer clients.”
Cassandra stopped walking. “Her?”
“Yeah.”
Cassandra was instantly pissed. “Do you want to bring her down just because she’s a successful woman?”
“No,” Jackson gasped. “Heavens no. She’s a bad doctor. Dr. Mac encourages the clients to eat oil rich or highly processed foods. She prescribes them oils instead of hydrating lotions. Some have even been prescribed oil pills.”
“Cod or fish oil can be good for people.”
“No, these are straight up oil. Like cooking oil. She owns a lab, Earth Bound. They make oil pills out of vegetable oil that you can buy at the grocery and then prescribe to her patients. It’s what got me onto her.”
Cassandra started walking again, thinking. “Here’s the first clue I’m going to give you, stop drinking those shakes. I want to be sure I’m right before I tell you what I think is in them.”
“First clue,” Jackson smiled.
Bringing down the house
Over the next year, Cassandra kept feeding Jackson information that didn’t make sense to her. The shakes. And while it was noble that Mr. Daily only hired society’s rejects; Cassandra never filled out one piece of income paperwork.
Cassandra’s new room was much closer to the massage parlor side of the salon. One night she heard crying through the air vent above her bed. A small voice whimpered, “I just want to go home.” Then she thought she heard someone say. “Shh, it will be okay. The first time is always the worst.” Cassandra had been through a lot of hard times, but no one had ever made her do anything against her will. This was the last straw. Yes, she would help Jackson bring Dr. Mac’s playhouse down.
Jackson couldn’t really bring Dr. Mac down. No newspaper wanted to touch the story. Dr. Mac donated heavily to the city and to many charities. She was considered a ‘who’s who’ among the city’s social elite. It was Cassandra’s idea to use the internet. To spread the word that Dr. Mac was a bad doctor. And they had proof. Dr. Mac was prescribing her patients oil and oil pills. The oil Millie used on her clients was Dr. Mac’s creation. Dr. Mac was encouraging her patient’s skin to produce too much oil so they would go to her spa.
Cassandra had started using her library time to find anything they could use against Dr. Mac. She found a newspaper article from five years back, outlining indecent exposure charges against Mr. Daily. She found another newspaper; front page was an article about Dr. Mac opening her first skin care clinic. In what she hoped would be the first of many. And who was in the picture with her, Mr. Daily. They learned that Dr. Mac and Mr. Daily were brother and sister. Cassandra and Jackson assumed that Mr. Daily was all in’ on her shenanigan since his sister was kind enough to let him run the spa. And she had bailed him out. Mr. Daily was never charged. Dr. Mac’s money talked louder than the charges. In a paper dated for the next day, following the indecent exposure claims was a retraction from the paper stating it had all been a misunderstanding. That same year, Dr. Mac donated $100,000 to the chief of polices reelection campaign. Chatter from several internet sites called it ‘hush money’. The more they dug, the dirtier Dr. Mac got.
Cassandra was right. The shakes were bad news. Least of all being that no one had filed for a food handlers license. When she was able to prove what was in them and told Jackson, he was sick for a week. “How many of those did you drink?” Cassandra asked smiling. His response was puking again. It didn’t matter where he was at when she mentioned the shakes, he threw up. Each one had a purpose: the ‘Cassandra’ was for vitality. ‘Sue’ was overall health. ‘Jackson’ was for mental focus. ‘Millie’ was for skin health. Mr. Daily’s was the ‘Randy’. It was blue for a reason. Giving the shakes employees names just ended up being creepy.
By the time the internet was done with Dr. Mac no one wanted her pustule shakes. Or her oil heavy skin care regimen.
Going home
Jackson watched Cassandra sprint up the steps of the bus. This was not the same woman he first met, dripping wet and hungry. She was alive. Happy.
“Do I get to know your last name?” He asked as Cassandra stepped onto the bus.
This story is part of the project A Writer’s Shindig. Jolene Rice’s story is the second of 6 short stories written for the project. You can read more about our collaboration and read all the stories posted thus far at A Writer’s Shindig.
Doing a good job
Cassandra had clients start asking for her by name. She tried to be gentle and not cause much bleeding, especially on someone’s face.
One day on her lunch break, Cassandra wandered over to the hair salon. As Cassandra watched the beautician work, one said, “I bet you’ve lost ten pounds.” The beautician showed the client a large pile of hair in the floor. It gave Cassandra an idea. She started collecting all matter from a client in a jar. After each session, she put it on a scale in front of her client and announced how much the jar weighed. Making sure the client knew how much the jar weight before she started filling it. Mr. Daily liked it so much that he made a contest out of it.
Cassandra was good at her job and Mr. Daily noticed. After a month, she got a cot. After two months, she got new clothes. After six months she got special items like Rose water for her clients to wash their face. Mr. Daily started doing before and after photos. Even her YouTube videos got more views than the other techs.
Move
As Cassandra came out of the bathroom, the smell of pizza hit her in the stomach.
“Come”, Sue patted the floor. “Join us.”
“Just a moment.” A sick feeling overtook Cassandra, as she started looking for her dollar. “Where is it?” she said more, to herself than anyone? She flung her belongings onto her cot. “Where is it?” she shouted.
“Oh,” Millie sighed. “We were a dollar short on the pizza, so I borrowed yours,” she announced with pride.
“You had no right.” Cassandra shouted.
“It’s just a dollar,” Millie reported.
“That was the last dollar from the last paycheck I made from the before time.”
“The before time?” Jackson asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It was the last dollar from my old life.” Cassandra cried.
Millie sank her teeth into a slice of pizza. “Time to let that shit go.”
“That was my decision. Not yours.” Cassandra left the room.
She bumped into Mr. Daily in the hall. He noticed her puffy cheeks and handed her a hanky. “Clean, promise.”
She smiled, “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“I was looking for you.” He returned the hanky he had offered her to a different pocket, before he pulled out one to mop his head with. “How would you like to move?”
“Move?”
“Come,” he grinned. She followed him through one dingy hallway to another. They stopped in front of a dirty green door. “Come.” It was an equally small room like the one she was already in, dirty but empty of people. And it had a real bed. The only door in the room led to a small bathroom with a tub. How long had it been since she’d had a proper bath? “Your reward.” Mr. Daily smiled. “Clients love you.”
“I’ll go get my stuff.”
“Good. Good.” He blushed. “Oh, good.”
Mr. Daily did a little dance in the hall. Not noticing that Cassandra saw him. ‘Dance fat man, dance,’ she thought smiling to herself. The image of a penguin flooded her mind again. This time it had on a top hat and was dancing with a cane.
It didn’t take long for the other techs to start treating her differently. Millie flipped her off. Down under the table where clients couldn’t see. “All over a dollar.” Millie hissed, with a downcast smile.
Each tech was busy, quietly working on a client. Soft music played in the background, filling in the space. Phyllis’s client was a young man. With each extraction, the man said, “Ouch!” or drew a sharp breath through his teeth. Phyllis ignored his winching noises and kept working. Jackson filmed the entire cession. Each time silence returned to the room the man cried out in pain. He’d give Cassandra a minute to relax and then shatter her nerves all over again.
Suddenly he screamed and started thrashing like a two-year-old in a candy store after being told he couldn’t have another lollipop. Cassandra almost poked her client in the eye.
“I’m so sorry.” Cassandra apologized.
The lady smiled at Cassandra, turned then shouted at the man, “Idiot! What’s wrong with you?”
Mr. Daily rushed into the room, mopping his head. “What?!”
“Sounds like a temper tantrum to me.” Cassandra’s client reported, pointing in the man’s direction.
“What did you do?” Mr. Daily questioned Phyllis.
“She hurt me!” The man rose up off the table, blood pouring down his face
“Phyllis?!” Mr. Daily shouted.
Jackson was now sitting beside Cassandra. He had stopped recording the cession with Phyllis when the man cried out. “She’s fired,” he reported. “That’s her third offense.” Before he moved to roll away, “Oh here.” He handed her a dollar.
“No, it’s okay.” Cassandra smiled. “I’m over it. Why will she get fired?”
“Phyllis will ignore client instructions.” Jackson said. “Her first offence was a woman who wanted her back done in sections. The client was on some very strong blood thinners and was afraid that she would start bleeding. The woman fell asleep, and Phyllis did her whole back in one sitting. We didn’t think we’d ever get the bleeding stopped. The client threatened to sue.
A new girl was sitting at Cassandra station when she showed up for work the next morning. Jackson was right. Phyllis did get fired. Mr. Daily did it quietly.
Mr. Daily had put the sign back in the window. He had a passion for hiring homeless people, drifters and folks down on their luck. Score one for Mr. Daily, Cassandra thought. Was it really hurting anyone that he watched the girls shower? Maybe he watched the guys too. Growing up in a small town, that was the sort of thing that got you branded as a pervert, but he did this really great thing of hiring undesirable folks.
Homesick
Cassandra stood in the phone booth with her fingers shaking. She picked up the receiver. Then quickly hung it up. “Let it go.” She let out a long even breath as a way to steady herself. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember her parent’s phone number. The only number that came to her was Hateful Gut’s. But he would know how to get ahold of her folks. The number rang once before she slammed the receiver back onto its holder. “No. Not him.”
She jumped as someone beat on the glass. “Hey lady,” the man was very drunk and slurring his words. “Get out lady.” As she opened the door, the man tipped his hat. “Gotta call a ride lady.” He licked his lips, “gotta,” stumbling backwards, “ride.” The phone rang as he stepped inside. His hand shook picking up the receiver. He spoke into the phone. “Gotta. Need ride.” He burped.
Cassandra sat on a nearby bench watching him as she built up her courage to try again. The man all but fell out of the phone booth. Smiled at her; tipped his hat again. He stumbled around. With his back to Cassandra, he peed on the phone booth. A beat cop walked past her then tapped the drunk man on the shoulder. As the drunk man turned, he peed on the officers’ shoes. “You, my ride?”
“Oh yeah,” the officer spoke. “Yeah, I’m your ride.”
A cold wind started blowing. It blew a sheet of last month’s news across her shoes. Why couldn’t people throw trash away? The streets were lined with garbage cans. Throwing this away wasn’t difficult. The phone rang, pulling Cassandra from her thoughts. She just stared at the booth while the phone inside rang out five times. Cassandra smiled; it would be too sweet if Hateful Guts was the one trying to call back. “Good, score one for me.”
Shots rang out through the night. “Time to go home,” she said to herself. Passing the booth, the phone started ringing again.
New work stuff
A knock-on Cassandra’s door startled her. It was Mr. Daily. She answered the door with a protein shake in her hand. “Good?” he asked, pointing at the shake.
“It’s okay.”
“Just, okay?” Mr. Daily asked.
“I’m not real hungry but I needed something.”
He changed the subject. “Come with me.” He talked as they walked. “This building is an old hotel. Dr. Mac has been transforming it into a salon. How would you like your own workspace? You did such a great job training our new girl. She’s gentle and kind.”
“Thank you.”
Mr. Daily stopped; Cassandra thought it was two doors down from the big open room they all worked in. He opened a door to a room. The smell told Cassandra it had been freshly painted. There were no decorations of any kind, it was just a plain white room. “This is going to be your workspace. We’ll get you a new workstation.” He paused. “You can girl it up.”
“Girl it up?”
“Flowers and shit.”
She couldn’t contain her laughter. “Thank you, Mr. Daily.”
He twisted his shoe on the carpet, “what’s your favorite flavor?”
“Carmal.” Mr. Daily looked blank. She smiled, “caramel.”
Mr. Daily just giggled.
The penguin was back. Her mind filled with the image of a penguin wearing pink rabbit ears, munching on a chocolate egg, with a ribbon of caramel hanging from its mouth. It was all she could do not to laugh. She never wanted Mr. Daily to think she was making fun of him, but he always conjured up that penguin image.
She did ‘girl up’ the new workspace, a little. Mr. Daily allowed her to look for things that might be nicer from the empty rooms of the hotel. Lighter curtains, a couple small end tables, a fake tree for the corner of the room. She even found a compact disc player with a bunch of classical compact discs; perfect.
Her first client for her new space arrived with Jackson in tow. It was Tantrum Man. He was drinking something. “Have you tried these?” Tantrum Man asked just before he sucked at the straw, forcing pink liquid up. “This is great.”
She and Jackson exchanged glances. Both admitted they had not tried the drink. “This might be the best thing Dr. Mac has done.” Tantrum Man drew more pink liquid up the straw.
More and more of Cassandra’s clients came in drinking Dr. Mac’s new drinks. Cassandra even saw Jackson drinking them. One day he held the drink in his hand up high so she could see it. It was in a clear cup. From the bottom up, it was white. About an inch from the bottom was a band of brown, more white, then a small pink band, then more white. The top was brown with whipped topping and a cherry. “This one is called the ‘Cassandra!”’ He laughed.
Cassandra didn’t say a word. She suddenly felt naked.
Jackson slurped at the drink. “I taste vanilla and caramel. Delicious!” He smacked his lips.
Her client had a different drink, the pink one. “It’s the ‘Millie’,” her client reported. “It’s hot strawberry. It’s a sweet heat. I like it.”
Jackson locked eyes with Cassandra. “The ‘Cassandra’ is my favorite.”
She moved to start setting her client up. “I’m honored.”
That evening Cassandra was surprised to find a bouquet of red roses in the floor outside her bedroom door. The card read, “Thank you. Dr. Mac.”
This story is part of the project A Writer’s Shindig. Jolene Rice’s story is the second of 6 short stories written for the project. You can read more about our collaboration and read all the stories posted thus far at A Writer’s Shindig.
A job
Cassandra stopped. Rain was seeping through the taped hole in her raincoat. Wiggling her toes inside the boots was squishy. The waterproofing was long gone. In her wildest dreams, she never imagined it would take this long. How many stories floated around back home of Bob or Bill going off to Detroit, getting a factory job and making it big? She had only heard one story about Carl, who couldn’t make the big city dream work. It scared her to death thinking she would end up like Carl. That’s why she stayed, too afraid to go home as a failure. This decision left her penniless, homeless and hopeless.
Looking up, there was a HELP WANTED sign in a window. Her damp hand caressed the last dollar she had to her name. She wouldn’t spend it. Couldn’t. That was the last dollar she had. Even if someone gave her $5.00; this one stayed. It was the last dollar from the last paycheck she’d earned. ‘The last one’, she reminded herself. Her dad would preach to her brother, ‘son, any job is better than no job’. Just now she was beginning to know what he was preaching about.
A drop of water ran down her back, it shocked her out of the haze she was in. This rain was relentless. Worst of all; it was cold. Cold rain was ushering in months of the white stuff. Bitter cold temperatures. Nights of worry. Nights of being afraid she would freeze to death. Long days of hunger. Even the rats were safe from her knife when it got that cold. All creatures needed warmth.
HELP WANTED. The sign seemed to pulse and glow. She admonished herself, ‘no one will hire me in the shape I’m in. I’m soaked to the bone, and I know I stink’. But the sign kept pulsing and glowing. Beyond the sign was an empty waiting room. No one was anywhere. “Go on. At least we tried,” that still small voice encouraged. Another drop of cold rain rolled down her back. “What the hell? It will get me out of the rain for a minute.” Taking a deep breath for courage, she opened the door, walked over to the sign and removed it from the window. In her hand, it no longer glowed. Or pulsed. It was just a plastic sign.
A man about her height waddled from behind a curtain covered door. His bald head shone, even in the dim light of the waiting room. He breathed hard, removed a hanky from his pocket and sopped his head. His walk reminded Cassandra of a bow-legged penguin. Her mind suddenly filled with the image of a penguin on a horse; complete with a cowboy hat, spurs and chaps with a piece of straw hanging out of its mouth. ‘Crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Funny little man’, she thought.
The polyester suit he had on was from 1970, at least, and was busting at the seams. ‘No one wore plaid or polyester anymore, did they?
“What you want?” He barked at her. Cassandra jumped, holding up the sign. “Rug! Rug!” he shouted. Pointing a shaky finger at her, “Rug!” She realized she was dripping in the floor. The carpet under her was wet. She did as he requested, moving to the rug. He waddled back through the curtain, returning with towels. It shocked her that he laid the towels on the floor with such care. Even more of a shock, his pants didn’t bust open when he squatted down.
After raising up, he wiped at his head with the hanky again and as he eyed her up and down. “You need place to stay?” he grunted.
“Maybe,” she answered cautiously.
“Come.”
Cassandra followed him through the curtain, down a dark hallway to a small dingy room. Four cots were in the room, three were occupied, with other people stretched out in the floor. He left her standing in the doorway. The empty cot obviously belonged to the lady standing in her personal space. Cassandra’s main thought was that this lady needed to back up off her.
“He never comes in our personal space.” The woman giggled.
This woman with ‘No personal boundaries’ ushered Cassandra into the room. “Come, come. He acts like a jerk but he’s really not. Not as long as you work. I’m Sue.” She touched her chest. “Millie,” she continued, pointing at the redhead. “Phyllis and Jackson.” Jackson had his back to the girls. “Jackson is one of our camera operators,” she giggled, as she led Cassandra to a small, equally dirty bathroom. “In the morning, I’ll show you the ropes.”
Cassandra didn’t get a cot. It didn’t matter. This space was dry. Unless the ceiling caved in, she was content.
When her nerves settled, her stomach let out a long loud groan. Jackson jumped, then asked, “hungry?”
“A little.” She admitted. Each of them pulled out something for her to eat, offering their treasures to her. “I only have a dollar,” she blushed.
Jackson snorted. “Who knows when we’ll be hungry.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact.
At, 7 a.m. Millie kicked the bottom of Cassandra’s foot. Millie was carrying towels and soap scraps in her arms. “Come. Lucky you, there’s soap scraps today.” Cassandra thought they were going OUTSIDE! In that moment Cassandra was too shocked to ask why they were going outside. She had enough of being outside. When they reached the outer door, a blast of cold wind hit Cassandra in the face, filling her mind with all the reminders of why outside sucked!
Jackson pointed to a shower; “no one really knows who set it up. We just know it works. We are all usually so tired when we get finished for the day; no one has the energy to search for answers.” This shower looked like one Cassandra had seen in a movie once. A girl was showering in a little box outside of a beach house to keep from getting so much sand in the house. Lucky for the house, she guessed, but not for the girl. That was the scene in the movie where the girl was violently murdered. This thought made her shiver and Sue noticed.
Sue yawned and stretched, pulling Cassandra’s attention away from the freezing weather outside for a brief moment. “We should let you pick. The shower in the bathroom is lukewarm, but we all know Mr. Daily watches us.” Sue gave a nervous chuckle, “who showers in their clothes. Right. I guess it’s the price we pay,” she shrugged. “We have all gotten used to cold showers.”
Phyllis gave a sarcastic grunt, “some of us like it.”
“Let him watch,” Cassandra snapped. Almost running away from the cold rain shower. It might feel good in the heat of summer but not today. The last thing she wanted was to be bone cold – AGAIN. Honestly, who really knew? If Mr. Daily wanted to watch them that badly, he might have been camped out on the roof. Cassandra didn’t care if he saw her naked or not. All the things she had done to survive on the streets, a Peeping Tom wasn’t that scary.
When she walked back into the small room, wrapped in towels, Phyllis giggled. “Mr. Daily got his money’s worth from you. Here,” she handed over a set of blue scrubs. “These are old but clean. They’ll do until you can get different things.”
Cassandra was happy not to be putting on her old, dirty clothes. One of the hardest things for her to do was put her dirty clothes back on once her body was clean. Doing this made her feel dirty all over again. There weren’t many places on the streets to do laundry.
Cassandra’s new job
The job she had stumbled into was a spa. Her first day was spent observing. There were three sections: a hair salon that included manicuring and pedicuring, a massage parlor, and skin care. She learned really fast that skin care was pimple popping and black head extractions. That would be her job. The skin care section had six chairs; four ladies and one guy were busy working.
Sue cut through the silence. “If we go to any of the sections for service, we get docked a day’s pay. Jackson and I have been here the longest. We let each other cut our hair.” She ran her fingers through her brown bob. “He does good. One of us can cut your hair when you’re ready.” She paused, “if you want to. We do good for self-taught. The only words of warning, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. The only holidays are Thanksgiving and Christmas. Don’t be mean to the clients. It’s so hard to know where Mr. Daily will draw a line. This guy Ted used to work here, got fired ‘cause a client smacked him on the ass and Ted told him to keep his hands to himself. Mr. Daily told him be flattered. He had a nice ass for a man.”
“You are beautiful.” Sue told Cassandra. “Don’t be surprised if you get lots of attention. Even from Mr. Daily.”
Cassandra sat with Sue, watching. The person she was working on had just a few blemishes that needed removed. Sue wore a face mask, glasses with a set of magnifiers clipped onto them. On her tray she had gauze, Q-Tip’s, and what for the world to Cassandra looked like a letter opener. On the thumb of Sue’s left glove, she stuck a sticker of a raven. On the thumb of her right glove, she placed a sticker with a name, logo, and phone number. “The stickers are to tell us apart on camera.” She wiggled her right thumb, “and of course advertising the spa.” They never use our names. Sue smiled. “You get to pick your sticker out before you officially start.”
Cassandra watched in silence as Sue worked. First, Sue instructed her client to wash his face. Then Sue tucked a towel under the collar of his shirt. As Sue massaged his face, she hummed a little tune. Cassandra hadn’t heard the song before. When she was finished humming, the cleansing began. Sue used the letter opener to poke a hole in the skin over top of the blackhead. Cassandra was amazed that Sue used her fingers to push the black head out of the pore. There was a little blood but not much. The pustule was then collected off the skin with the letter opener and gently placed on the gloved index finger of Sue’s left hand.
Cassandra thought she should be repulsed by this. In the moment when she found out what she would be doing, there was a moment of ick. But watching Sue work, that ick was quickly being replaced with curiosity.
If the client you were working with had a bad complexion, you got a camera operator. There were only two. Jackson and a lady.
Millie oiled her clients faces. Others did nothing, just got to work. Some clients liked to chat while others were quiet. Cassandra didn’t like the oil Millie used. It immediately started soaking through Millie’s gloves. Both the client and Millie were oily messes by the end of the session.
Day 2
Before Cassandra started, Sue showed her sheets of stickers. “We have already chosen our stickers. Pick what you like.” Sue smiled. It didn’t take long; Cassandra picked out a sunshine. As she caressed the sheet with her thumb, a ping of homesickness raced through her. What was her family doing right now? Mom was cooking breakfast. Dad was puttering in the shed. She hadn’t talked to them in a long time. How nice it would be to hear their voices.
Cassandra’s first client was a sixteen-year-old girl. It was all Cassandra could do not to cry. This girl didn’t have a face. She was a pustule with eyes. A woman was berating the girls every step. Cassandra thought it might be the girl’s mother. She wasn’t sure. Living on the streets had taught her not to judge relationships. Here was a young girl with an older female making her life hell.
“You haven’t been following the doctor’s orders!” The woman yelled at the girl. “You haven’t been taking your pills! How am I going to marry off a pus bag? If you were fat, at least that would give me something to work with!” This woman wanted to sit close to the girl, continuing her assault, but Cassandra wouldn’t let her.
Once alone with the girl, Cassandra got her to talk. She was taking the medicine. Doing all the skin care regimens Dr. Mac had prescribed. Her face had never gotten this bad.
Jackson rolled over to them and began filming. He made eye contact with Cassandra and mouthed, “You got this.”
Cassandra started at the girl’s forehead and worked her way down. Cassandra felt more confident starting at the hair line. If she did more harm than good, this girl could comb her hair this way or that way to hide a fraction of her face. After her client had washed her face, Cassandra tucked a towel around her client’s shirt collar. She instructed her to remove her earrings. Cassandra didn’t see a necklace.
Cassandra’s hands shook as she picked up her letter opener. Looking up, Jackson was watching her. He winked. Right, she’s got this. She traced her client’s hair line with her finger. Then began above the left ear. Her first extraction slid out with ease. As did the second and third. Poke, squeeze. There went four and five. With each extraction, Cassandra became more confident. She felt bad the first time she made a pore bleed. It didn’t last long. A wipe with her cotton ball usually did the trick before moving on.
In the center of the girl’s forehead was a cluster of inflamed pores. Four of them were massive as compared to the smaller ones Cassandra had been extracting. She poked one, did a little squeeze and nothing happened. With another try, she poked a little deep. The hole started bleeding. Cassandra gave it a good squeeze. She jumped as pus hit the face shield. “That one was juicy.” Jackson commented. “Take off your shield, let me get a shot of that before you clean it off.” Cassandra was thrown a little by his comment. But she figured he knew what he was talking about and did as he had instructed.
After four hours, her eyes needed a break. “How are you feeling?” Cassandra asked the girl.
She snubbed, “just wanna cry.”
“Let’s take a break. Go to the bathroom and cry. Wash your face. Maybe even go get something to eat.” The girl gave her a weak smile. “You’re doing great.” Cassandra reassured her. When the girl had left the room, Jackson spoke, “we are getting some really good footage. That one that popped and went airborne was great.”
Cassandra carefully took her gloves off, stretching out her fingers. “My hands are already killing me.” She rolled her shoulders and neck. “I can’t believe how exhausted I feel.”
“I’ve learned from other techs, this first week is a killer. Don’t worry, your hands and shoulders will get used to this all too quickly.” Jackson smiled.
“What are you doing with the footage?”
“The really good,” he put great emphasis on the work good. “Stuff gets put on YouTube. You won’t believe the thousands of people that watch these. It’s more exposure for the spa and Dr. Mac.” He noticed Cassandra squeezing her hands. “When we are finished for today, I know where a couple stress balls are. They will do great things for your hands.”
“Thanks, you.” Cassandra was amazed that he noticed anything at all. The one man that had been in her life, other than her dad, noticed nothing other than what was right in front of him.
It hadn’t been fifteen minutes; the older lady and Cassandra’s young client were back. “Why are you up? You’re not done. Now you’re swollen and still gross,” the older lady yelled at the young girl.
“I stopped the session,” Cassandra reported. “You scheduled this session for eight hours and you will get eight hours, but state law says I get an hour for lunch.” Cassandra pointed around the room. “Everyone else is busy.”
“I want to see the time stamp on the video,” the older lady demanded. “I want to make sure I get my eight hours.” Cassandra looked toward Jackson in disbelief; he nodded in acknowledgment. “Why is her face still puffy and gross?” the lady demanded.
Cassandra held up her letter opener. “Our skin is our largest organ. I’m poking holes in it. Of course it’s going to be angry. How would you like it if I poked you?”
“Do your job!” the woman huffed, stomping out of the room.
That evening, the shower was the only place Cassandra was able to be alone. She sat in the floor shower sobbing. Not only for the way that woman, who she assumed was the girl’s mother; treated her. Cassandra assumed that level of destructive language murdered that young girl’s self-esteem. It was so hard being a girl/woman in the first place. To have your parents, especially your mother, not support you, makes it even harder.
I previously posted a version of this story that was not complete. One of my fellow writers and blog readers invited me to a “woodshedding” writer’s group at the end of 2025, where I worked with other writers to improve and complete the story. It was a fun exercise in collaboration.
All the stories from the group, A Writer’s Shindig will post here for the next 6 Sundays. You can read more about our project atA Writer’s Shindig.
Now he was the one who banged open the door. Hargin yelped is surprise, spilling his bottle of ink across his parchment. He cursed loudly. “Beagus!” he said, rising from the chair, quill in hand, and steam billowing from his ears. “What have I told you about barging in here like that?”
“Sorry! So sorry!” Beagus said. “I was just excited.”
Hargin softened. “You saw your goose girl, huh?” He put the quill down on the desk. His eyes were cheery now, like he held a secret.
Beagus blushed. “Oh yes!” he said. He felt twisted into a knot.
Hargin laughed. “Try again with the smoke,” the sorcerer said. He plopped back down in his chair at the writing desk. Beagus watched him shuffle several sheets off the desk and drop them in a disarray on the floor. Beagus knew he’d be tidying that up later.
Beagus sat down in the chair at the table, then poured some of the water from the jug into the cup. Then he frowned at what he had done, took the cup to the window, and tossed the contents outside. He couldn’t use Hargin’s water, then he’d only see what Hargin saw. He went back to the table, poured from the jug again. He lit the candle easily—a quick snap, just like his master—then dipped the candle into the cup. Concentrate…down, down, down. He coaxed the flame and it began to fill the cup with smoke. The smoke began to swirl and then descend onto the water, and when he peered into the pictures forming he felt a smile spreading through him. There she was! Edith was dancing, the veiled flowing around her shoulders, and then…there he was! He laughed as he watched this smokey version of himself dance with the bride.
“What do you see?” Hargin asked from behind him.
“I’m gonna marry the goose girl!” Beagus beamed.
He heard Hargin moving across the house. “And what about the princess?” he asked, right above Beagus’s head.
“Oh,” said Beagus, remembering.
“You’re supposed to be looking for the princess!” Hargin said, bopping Beagus on the head with his parchment as he said every word.
Beagus attempted to protect his head from the light blows by putting his arms between himself and Hargin’s parchment. “I’ll look again!” he said, shrinking.
“Bah!” Hargin said. “Before you do, go talk to your goose girl, and get her out of your head!” he said.
Beagus didn’t wait for further instruction before he raced from the house and back down to the pond. Edith was just beginning to round up the geese and take them back to the coop. She shook her stick at them, and they honked in protest. Beagus watched as all the geese eventually waddled into a loose formation. She began to drive them away from the pond, tisk tisking at them as she came towards Beagus.
She noticed him. “Oh! Hello again,” she said.
“Hi!” Beagus said. “I…eh…I came back!”
She laughed at him and shook back her hair from her face. She wiped an arm across her forehead, which Beagus could see was damp with a sweat. “It gets warm sitting in the sun,” she said. “Walk with me to the coop?”
Beagus beamed. “Oh, okay,” he said. “But I’m supposed to be…um…well.” He realized halfway through his sentence that he should not be telling Edith—or anyone—about his divinations.
She waited, clicking at the geese as they milled around her, honking and flapping. “Coming or not?” she asked, as she began to walk. The geese clustered ahead of her as she went, and she swung her stick from side to side, herding them ahead of her. Beagus watched her retreat for a moment, sighing to himself, before running after her. “I’m coming!” he called.
When he caught up to her, she looked sideways at him, her little smirk lighting fires behind his eyes and in his belly. “When will you be a sorcerer?” she asked sweetly.
“Oh I’m a long way from being a sorcerer. I can’t even see the princess in the smoke.” He’d said it without thinking, bewitched by Edith’s presence. He slapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes going wide with panic. “Oh!” he said, as she stared at him in confusion. “Oh! Don’t say anything about it! Please!”
“You’re divining for the princess?” she asked.
He nodded, then shook his head. “No, I mean, yes, but…I’m not supposed to tell.”
“I won’t tell,” Edith said. “Although, if you need to know who the princess prefers for a suitor…”
How had she guessed? Well, it wasn’t exactly what the queen had asked them to divine, but it seemed to Beagus that it should matter. Shouldn’t she want someone who looked at her the way he looked at Edith? “Do you know?” he asked, eagerly. He rubbed his hands together nervously as they walked.
“She told me she likes Prince Manford, from Esteria.” Edith said it so confidently, as if she had announced that the sunlight was hot.
“She told you?” Beagus asked.
Edith smiled at him. “She tells me all sorts of things,” Edith said.
They reached the coop. Beagus pondered what the princess was doing confiding in the goose girl as Edith sent the geese through the coop door in ones and twos. Then she lowered the door and smiled at him, again looking just like honey and sunshine. “Will you come see me tomorrow?” she asked
He nodded his head so hard he could feel his cheeks shaking. “Yes, yes, I’ll come to see you tomorrow at the pond.”
“Good!” she said. Then she was off, sauntering down the path to the village.
Beagus couldn’t believe his good luck. He ran back to Hargin’s hut, his heart enflamed by the memory of Edith’s smile. He banged open the door as he entered, wincing as Hargin yelped just as he had before.
“Beagus!” Hargin yelled from the desk.
“Sorry!” Beagus said, his adrenaline and his excitement propelling him across the house to his master’s side. “The princess prefers Prince Manford, from Esteria!”
A smile crept across Hargin’s wrinkled face, a light in his eyes both mischievous and playful. “Did you see that in the smoke?” he asked.
“No Edith said…wait…” He studied Hargin’s features, and when the sorcerer raised as eyebrow, Beagus dared to ask, “Is that what you saw in the smoke? That she would tell me?”
“You see what you see, and I see what I see, remember?” Hargin said. This time the reminder was merry. He gave Beagus a wink. “Why don’t you try to confirm what Edith told you tomorrow, eh? Before you go running down to the pond?”
Beagus laughed, and shook his head. “Will I ever be as good at this as you?” he asked.
Hargin shook with silent chuckles. “You keep looking and we’ll find out,” he said.
Beagus went to his cot in the corner, and laid down on it, watching the sun sink lower out the window of the house. Tomorrow he’d look for the princess, but for now, he’d enjoy thinking about dancing with Edith.
I previously posted a version of this story that was not complete. One of my fellow writers and blog readers invited me to a “woodshedding” writer’s group at the end of 2025, where I worked with other writers to improve and complete the story. It was a fun exercise in collaboration.
All the stories from the group, A Writer’s Shindig will post here for the next 6 Sundays. You can read more about our project atA Writer’s Shindig.
Beagus hung his face over the cup before him, willing the smoke from the candle down, down, down into its contents. It danced on the surface of the brown water in the cup before gliding back up, escaping the vessel. Beagus silently cursed for what felt like the hundredth time. He tried again, this time concentrating on the flame. Yes, good, this is good, he thought as he watched the way the flame dipped into the cup. The smoke began filling the vessel, and he doubled his concentration, speaking to the smoke now. Beagus smiled as it responded to his command be heavy and his plea show me what I seek. When the smoke was hovering over the water within the cup, he blew out the flame on the taper and placed it beside him on the table. Then he lifted the cup to his face with two hands and peered into it, watching how the smoke formed shapes and pictures on the surface of the water, staining the surface of the liquid dark as ink. He smiled as he saw a girl dancing, before she was whisked away by friends. They covered her in a veil, presented her as a bride. A slow chuckle burbled from inside him as he imagined it. He, a novice sorcerer, and her, a girl who kept the geese.
The door of the house creaked open before it banged against the wall. He was so startled that his jump of surprise caused the water in the cup to splash up into his face. He could taste the dirt and the smoke in it as it ran over his lips. He blinked the water from his eyes before looking towards the door., Hargin, who was a real sorcerer and his teacher, was hauling in a load of firewood, badly wrapped in a blanket, which he drug across the house. He grunted from the effort as he moved towards the fireplace. He spilled the load all over the floor before he got to the place where a few logs were already neatly stacked. Hargin muttered as he picked up what was left of the load in the blanket, huffing and puffing as he placed them into the stack next to the hearth. Then, finally, he turned and looked right at Beagus, sitting at the table with smoke and water and shock still covering his face.
“What did you see?” Hargin stomped towards the door and closed. The man was huge; Beagus wondered why he hadn’t built a bigger house.
“The goose girl is getting married,” Beagus said.
“To who?” Hargin asked, shutting the door with more force than was probably necessary.
“Oh…” Beagus said. He hadn’t thought it could be anyone other than him.
Hargin put his hands on his hips, and Beagus thought the sorcerer couldn’t decide if he wanted to laugh or frown.
“Next time don’t use dirty water,” Hargin said. “You can’t see as well if it’s full of dirt.”
Beagus wondered why he hadn’t thought of that.
“Stack that wood up, and then I’ll show you how to do it,” Hargin said, pointing to the pieces that were still scattered from the door to the hearth. “Again.” The last word was a growl.
“I am getting better,” Beagus said, scurrying to where the logs had spilled across the floor of the cabin. “It took me much less time today to get the smoke to dance on the water.”
Hargin grunted in reply, pouring more water from the jug on the counter. Taking the taper in one hand, and snapped his fingers with the other. A flame sputtered into existence on the wick. He concentrated. The wick sputtered and crackled. Beagus watched Hargin fill the cup with smoke with one try, then peer into it. A laugh escaped him, then he straightened, and stared at his pupil.
Beagus hadn’t managed to stack one log on the pile as Hargin worked.
“You weren’t supposed to be looking for the goose girl. You were supposed to be looking for the princess,” Hargin said.
“I know,” Beagus said. “It’s just that…when I think of marriages, I can’t help myself…”
“What do you know about the goose girl?” Hargin said, interrupting as if he’d never had a young and tender infatuation.
Beagus felt his face flame. “Oh, well, not much…”
Hargin laughed again. “Go and talk to her,” he said.
Beagus beamed. “Do you mean, the wedding I saw…?”
“Ah! None of that!” Hargin said. “I see what I see, and you see what you see. Remember?”
“Oh,” said Beagus, placing one log on the stack. “Yes, I remember.” He hated that rule. He wanted Hargin to tell him what he saw in the smoke so that he knew if he was doing it right. The sorcerer assured him that this would not work the way he wanted it to.
Hargin drank the rest of the water in the jug in a single gulp. “Need more water,” he said.
“I’ll go get it,” Beagus said, though he knew Hargin hadn’t meant for there to be question about who would do the chore.
As he hurried out of the house with the jug, he thought about the goose girl, Edith. She was pretty, as sweet as she was plump. Beagus adored her…from afar. He didn’t have language for how it made him feel to see her chasing the geese from their coop, to the pond, then back to the coop. They honked and pecked, irritated with her, but she always just smiled and talked to them like they were the best of friends. He watched her out of the window of the sorcerer’s hut as often as he could, which ended up being every single morning, and every single evening, much to Hargin’s frustration.
When he reached the well, he fetched the water as quickly as he could. He planned to take the long way back to the hut, the path that went past the pond, just in case she was there with the geese. The jug was heavy, and Beagus knew he should have gone straight home. But the smoke had shown him a wedding, and it was the goose girl’s wedding, and he thought, maybe, just maybe…
Edith, the goose girl, was at the pond, watching the geese on the water, and throwing little pebbles that made ripples across the surface. In Beagus’ excitement, a strangled sound escaped him. She turned, smiled, and said, “Hello.” There was sunlight on her hair, and Beagus felt like a puddle in her presence.
“Hhhhhhh….hi,” Beagus said, kicking himself for being so stupid, as if she too was a sorcerer and put a spell on him that took away his words.
She continued to smile, but the longer he stared, saying nothing, the tighter the smile became. “Eh…what’s your name?” she finally asked.
“Beagus!” he said. The jug was getting heavy.
“The sorcerer’s apprentice?” she asked. She was honey personified.
He snapped his mouth shut, realizing that he’d been standing there drooling like a fool. He nodded vigorously. “I have to get this water back to the sorcerer.”
“Oh,” she said, the smile falling even more. “Okay,” she said. Then she frowned. “Why did you come by the pond with it?” She looked curious, not wary.
“Just…eh, just wanted to see the…geeeeeese,” the words crawled out of him.
“Oh,” said Edith. “I’m Edith,” she offered, picking up another pebble.
“I know,” he said. Then he cursed himself. What if she thought he was a creep?
Instead, this knowledge brought a smile back to her face. “I come here every day,” she said. “You can come visit with me? When you’re not fetching water?” Her words were light, expectant, filled with the light of hope.
“YES!” Beagus said. Too forcefully. “Yes, I can,” he said more calmly.
She laughed, like a bell. “Get back to your master then,” she said, shooing him away with a wave of her hand and a tinkling laugh.
Beagus nearly ran back to the house, propelled by his excitement.
This is the last post for now of my unfinished stories. I think all the characters I’ve shared here have a bigger story to tell. I hope you’ve enjoyed wondering what else might happen to them.
Katherine Amelia Herrington has a mantra that she says everyday as she brushes her hair. She stares at her reflection and recites six words, looking directly into her own eyes as she does. “Pride is an ugly, ugly sin,” she says. The hairbrush snags on her wet hair, then slides through easily the more strokes gives it. She dries her hair with the tiny black hairdryer that she purchased for travel about four years ago. Though she no longer looks into the eyes of her own reflection, she continues to meditate on the words. “Pride is an ugly, ugly sin,” she thinks, as she gathers her hair into a braid. A touch of blush, a bit of mascara, and today, a very sheer lip tint that gives her a hint of red. Then she’s back in the bedroom, stepping into her shoes and donning her jacket. She grabs her laptop bag from the front year and the one bedroom apartment where she lives alone. Not even a cat to keep her company. She moves out the door to her car, which is parked on the street two floors below, and thinks, “Pride is an ugly, ugly sin.”
Katherine (Kate, actually; no one calls her Katherine except her grandmother) is a realtor. On this particular day, she’s showing a house in the West Oaks Glen neighborhood, where people who have too much money (and probably too much pride) purchase their starter home. The houses typically sell for between $1.1 and $1.4 million. Very modest homes, thinks Kate as she turns left at the stop sign. The drive to the house she is showing is not far, about 15 minutes if she doesn’t hit any red lights. The first light she comes to is red, and as she slows, she glances at the digital clock in the dash. She has time to spare. The car comes to a stop and she turns up the radio.
She used to live in a house like the one she is about to show. It had a truly stunning front porch, with a swing and a patio table. The foyer ended with an arched entry way into an expansive living room. The open concept fed right into the kitchen. Separating the space was spacious island with a breakfast bar. The kitchen was a dream, always awash in natural light, especially in the morning. The yard was lined with tall trees. There was a wet room in the primary bathroom, complete with walk in shower and soaker tub. The stone fireplace was her favorite feature.
But pride is an ugly, ugly sin, and that’s why she was living in a tiny one bedroom apartment alone. Not even a cat to keep her company. The cat had gone to Steven, just like the house.
She missed the turn she needed to take because she had been stewing again. Steven, the cat, and the house were a sore thumb that would not heal. Every time she thought she’d be able to move on, here he would come again. Another phone call. Another threat to take her to court. Another drunk text. Another intrusion.
He should have thought of how she’d take the news, and what it would mean for their marriage, before he decided to do what he did.
Oops, she thought, as she came back around the same intersection to take the correct turn. There I go again, thinking I’m better than him.
When she pulls up, the resemblance to her old home has her chewing her lip for a moment before she can get out of the car. The potential buyers are already on the porch, ooing and ahing the way potential buyers sometimes do. Buyers do a lot of criticizing as well, but she hasn’t had any of that from this particular pair.
“Good morning!” she says cheerfully, pretending, like she’d been pretending for a year now. “Are you early, or am I late?” she jokes.
The woman smiles excitedly, eagerly. “We just couldn’t wait to get inside.”
Kate chuckles as she opens the padlock on the door that holds the key. This is the 4th time she had shown this house in the last 60 days. She has yet to disclose to this couple the thing that has kept all the other buyers away. The primary bathroom is covered almost to the ceiling in bubblegum pink tile. Nobody wants to spend $1.2 million on a home that will need a reno as soon as the deed is signed. There is no photograph of the ugly bathroom online. She’s tried to bring this up with the listing agent, but the seller really does not want people to rule it out before they see it.
Pride is an ugly, ugly sin, she thinks as she turns the lock. “Alright, let’s take a look!” she says as she opens the door.
This is the second of three short scenes from stories that aren’t fully written. Some of these scenes are part of a larger work that remains unfinished and some of them are from tales that haven’t come to me…yet.
“Lydia Agnes,” the shepherd called.
I snapped by head up, fully at attention, though I had been drifting off to sleep. The training had been grueling that morning, and now the worship service was a welcome place of quiet and reflection. It was so quiet that I had forgotten to reflect, and instead found my head bowing in a nap, rather than prayer. I wasn’t entirely sure why the shepherd, Mary Josephine, had stopped in the middle of her homily to address me. But then I noticed that she and I were the only people left in the chapel.
Embarrassed, I stood and made a respectful genuflection to Mary Josephine. “I apologize, shepherd. The course this morning must have tired me more than I imagined it would.”
Mary Josephine nodded, an amused smile on her lips. There were still some candles burning behind her on the altar. No one ever blew them out; the prayer they represented would continue to flick to heaven until the candle burned out by itself. I looked for the one I had lit just that morning. The taper was roughly half melted away. I wondered if I would receive an answer, a sign from heaven, or a good word before the wick burned down to nothing.
“The training for Lydias is more rigorous than the others,” she agreed. “A lot of math.” She laughed, she ancient face wrinkling even more as she did. I’ve never seen anyone with crow’s feet quite as pronounced. “Never had a head for math, myself.”
She was in a good mood, and was being good natured about my lack of attention during the celebration and sharing of the word. I managed a weak laugh of my own. “Yes, sometimes I think perhaps I should have become a Martha instead.” My eyes went to the candle, burning away with my prayer.
“A Martha?” the shepherd said. She walked a few paces towards me, stopping at the wooden pew right in front of the one where I sat. This chapel was tiny. Just 8 pews, 4 on each side. I had seen it full a few times, but that was only when all the women were together. We had another shepherd in this house, who kept different hours, and several women who did not like to attend chapel at night. Perhaps they were too afraid that they would be caught napping.
“Yes,” I said, drawing my eyes back towards Mary Josephine. She was a good shepherd, and I had no doubt in my mind that she had always known that she would be a Mary. “I think I could have been happy in a life of service,” I said.
“We are all in a life of service, Lydia Agnes,” she said.
It was not quite a scolding. “Yes, I know, shepherd. That’s not what I meant.”
“You meant that you enjoy cooking for others, and making them feel welcome with gifts and treats and the small treasures that you can offer from your own hands.”
I pondered the explanation of what a Martha did for the community. I ticked through the list of what my own mother had done as a Martha. Homemade bread, cakes, handmade gifts, taking away dishes, giving me a treat, words of encouragement, letters in the mail, small notes left for me in surprising places, a tidy space, a long, lingering hug. “Yes,” I agreed. “I think I would have been a good Martha.”
“Do you think you’ll be a good Lydia?” Mary Josephine asked.
Lydias were good with money. They were all business. They liked solved problems. They were the backbone of the organization. The fundraisers. The advocates. The string pullers. The connection-makers. “Oh, yes, I think I’ll make a wonderful Lydia,” I said. But my eyes went back to the candle I had lit that morning as soon as the confident words had left my lips.
Mary Josephine took another step forward. “I think, Lydia Agnes, that almost all of us question from time to time if we have chosen the right path.” She smiled again, but this time it was tight. “I, for instance, have always had a nagging doubt that instead of a Mary, I should have been an Anna.”
“An Anna!” I exclaimed. Annas were few. It was said that the role of Anna chose you, rather than the other way around. I fidgeted with my Lydia ring. “To be an Anna is a great responsibility.”
“Yes, I know,” Mary Josephine said. “Which is why I chose the role of Mary.” She looked pensive, almost disappointed. “But…” she shrugged. “I’m old now, Lydia Agnes. I don’t think I will be changing my role among the sisters.”
“Nor should you,” I said, not thinking about how it might sound disrespectful. “You are a wonderful Mary. I love listening to you proclaim that word.”
Mary Josephine smiled again. “I thank you for that, little sister.” She placed her hand lovingly on my shoulder. “Off to bed for both of us, I think, now.” She moved away from me, towards the chapel exit.
I twisted the Lydia ring on my finger again, watching my prayer burn.
The Quick and the Dead 