The round robin

Aaron Aardvark stood by my shoulder and sipped his gin martini. "Jane Underwood knows how to throw a fabulous Bring your Favorite Fictional Character party."

"Yes," I agreed. "I've never seen such a colorful collection of sexually-repressed housewives, passive-aggressive mothers-in-law, egomaniacal businessmen, and neurotic yuppies all in the same room at the same time."

"Must be fun, writing about people who don't really exist," Aaron said, surveying a nubile blonde whom I didn't know -- I wondered if she were fictional or a fellow writer? "Or do they? Maybe they really do exist. I know I exist."

I had to laugh. Aaron was toying with me. He knew full well that I'd send him back to my imagination at a moment's notice, but he liked being out in the real world for once. His time machine hadn't yet brought him out to the real world. It was still caught between the pages of the as-yet-unwritten book. The most Aaron could hope for was to read between the lines occasionally.

A young man with a beard and narrow waist walked by Aaron, and I saw him stare at the boy's behind. Poor Aaron, so relentlessly bisexual. If he remained in the real world for too long, he'd have to have sex with a man. And a woman.

I sniffed, feigning indifference to Aaron's game. But instead I breathed in the scent of almond biscotti through my nose. I always loved Jane's Round Robin cookies.

My next move

Aaron finally got a ruling on his petition to attend the Nativity, and before too long his time machine transported him to Bethlehem. He emerged from a cave in the forest, God only knew where, and walked to the nearest town.

“Who goes there,” a black-bearded man in armor asked when Aaron walked by the market. “Halt and make yourself known.”

“It is I, Aaron Aardvark of California.”

“I’ve never seen hair that color before in my life, nor a face so white. Not even among the most northern of Romans. And your robe wears too closely to your legs.”

“I come in peace and blue jeans, sir. Please forgive my appearance.”

The guard reached for his saber, but paused. He squinted his eyes, looked at Aaron shivering in his dungarees and flannel shirt. “Where is this tribe of California? Somewhere east of Persia?”

After a fashion, Aaron supposed. “Quite east. I come to witness a very special birth. I seek Joseph and Mary of Galilee.”

The man grunted. “Never a more pitiful pair of nomads did I see enter the village. Off you go then, in that direction.” He pointed and went back to the market and all those hides and pelts.

Aaron turned down the alleyway the man indicated. Before too long, the small houses of the village came further apart, and then he came upon the stable. A star shone brightly above the structure and light came from within. Aaron entered and just as he turned to witness the Savior’s birth, he saw a three-ringed circus with ponies, acrobats, clowns, and a strong man.

“Damn that time machine,” Aaron thought. “I knew I should’ve downloaded the latest upgrade when my Macbook prompted me.”

It's funny

Chester darted forward when he spotted a squirrel at the base of a tree, and I broke my wrist on the leash.

“Horse manure,” I said, looking down at my twisted arm. “Chester, get back over here!”

The dog had galloped over to the tree, but he didn’t get his prize, for the squirrel outsmarted him once again. Cripe, I thought – I broke my wrist and Chester didn’t even get the squirrel.

Oh, the pain in my wrist – I felt every tendon, every bone, every fiber of muscle in my right arm shout a fierce complaint at this point, and it felt as though any slight movement, and my whole arm would fall off. I could see it there, lying on the street.

I sat down on the sidewalk and began to cry. Chester came over to me, sniffed my tears, wagged his tail, and began to whimper. He had this guilty look in his eyes, the sly little devil. Like he knew he’d done wrong. Why is it, with pets and children, when they give you that “I’ve been a bad boy, please forgive me” look, we always forgive them?

Looking back on this incident, it’s funny now, but it wasn’t funny then. Especially since I’d wet myself, didn’t even realize it until I sat down in the car when my partner took me to the hospital. Another loss – I took the dog for a walk, and he didn’t even pee.

This is my vision

“Hi, Alex, I’ll take Things That’ll Never Happen for $200,” Sonya said. The game had an unreal quality to it.

The electronic blip revealed the answer, and Alex said, “This never happens when someone says, ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’”

Sonya beat out her opponents, Herbie Blaunox and Matilda Golddigger, to the button. “What is a telephone call, Alex?”

“Correct! And the next selection is?”

“Passive-aggressive Dyslexics for $400,” Sonya said, a smile on her face. She was on a roll.

Alex recited the clue: “He slept with your best friend without telling you.”

Sonya groaned. “Who is my boyfriend Oliver, Alex.”

“It’s as if this game were made for you, Sonya.”

“Let’s move onto to Self-centered Adjectives for $600,” Sonya said, becoming fidgety.

“A compound adjective that describes a man who sits naked on your finest sofa after having a bowel movement.”

Sonya felt that queasy breath of air rise in her throat at the thought of Oliver. “What is hyper-gross, Alex?”

“You are correct again, Sonya, and you’ve now taken the lead. Final question before double jeopardy. The category is Two-eyed Monsters for $800. And the answer is …”

The square turned, and Alex continued. “The life partner I’ve chosen because no one else is beating down the door.”

Herbie Blaunox punched down on his button one-tenth of a second before Sonya did. “Who is Sonya’s boyfriend Oliver?”

“Yes, Herbie!” Alex said. “And you’ve now become our Jeopardy champion! But our Consolation Prize for Second Best goes to Sonya Schlossberg!”

Sonya woke up and sat up in bed. It was still dark, and Oliver snored beside her. She wished he’d get his deviated septum fixed.

A lie

Charlotte sat at the desk adding up the column of figures. The numbers just wouldn’t make it this month. Vera and Boris would be wanting their paychecks, and she just wouldn’t be able to give them. What would she do?

She took another look at the expenses for the month. Piano books, higher than last month. The electricity bill, much higher – Boston’s worst January on record. The phone bill, long distance to New York, all the instruments they’d bought but hadn’t yet sold. Insurance, medical bills for Vera and Boris, herself and the children – all normal. No, expenses weren’t the problem. It was income – or the lack of it. No one was buying instruments in the middle of stagflation, fewer students came to take lessons from Boris or any of her other piano teachers.

She’d have to tell Vera and Boris the truth, that they’d have to close the shop – at least temporarily, but Charlotte knew it would be for good. After so many years, too, all the hard work and labor. She’d tell them the whole truth. A lie would be so much better, but no – she’d never lied to her mother-in-law, and she’d never lied to her best friend. Today wasn’t the day to start.

The real reason

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The last time I used a pair of scissors

Honey Lou speared the scissors into the cutting board and went to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. The red blood soaked the white porcelain like cherry juice on white tile – suddenly, and with full absorption. All of a sudden, Honey Lou oticed she had to urinate – but she had to wash her hands thoroughly, get all the blood off, before she walked around the house any more than she had. She tapped her feet to forget the burning urge.

Just when the water began to run clear and the sink began to turn white again, Honey Lou eard the front doorbell ring.. Two seconds later, the door opened and she heard steps walking on the hardwood floor toward the kitchen.

“Honey Lou,” a high-pitched soprano called out. It was Trudy Bixler. Honey Lou nsides froze in place, her heart seemed to stop, and she ceased breathing – the scissors! She reached over for the scissors and washed them in the sink, concealing them with her body.

“Trudy, what brings you here today,” she said, her voice far more calm and even than she’d have thought possible.

Honey Loulooked down – blood was cleared. She rinsed off the scissors again and placed them behind the faucet. Turned off the water. Reached for the white hand towel – but stopped, and reached for the dark one instead.

“Just passing through and realized I need to borrow eggs for my cake. Would you mind being a dear?”

“Of course,” she said, “Take whatever you need. Oh – and let’s go out the back door. I want to show you my lilies. But quickly, because I have to pick up Charles and Sofia.”

Please leave, Trudy … so I can attend to the rest of this business and get on with the whole charade. Honey Lou ooked toward the dining room. She could see a gray hand under one of the dining room chairs, the fallen vase, and a pool of blood. Trudy needed to leave right away.

Behind

Before Sofia had even placed a foot on the ground outside the car, Charles had made it to the Tylers’ front door. East Grand Avenue might have larger mansions, but for Charles, single-minded in pursuing the management job at Plymouth Motors, the Tylers were simply the end. George Tyler was president of the motor division.

“Hurry up, Sofia, don’t be running behind all the time,” Charles said.

It was difficult, rushing to step out of this car, Plymouth’s latest incarnation of the small car, the Valiant Barracuda. She’d borrowed Charles’s mother’s mink stole for this occasion, too tight in the midsection, and she had a tough time getting out of the car. And then walking in these high heels – Charles insisted she must dress her best for this cocktail party.

“Just one moment, sweetheart.”

Sofia tried to adjust her face into happy lines, her beehive into a neat pile on top of her head, and her skirt into place. With all the snow, the air was so dry, her skirt stuck to her stockings, and this mink stole simply didn’t help. When Sofia reached to close the door, her finger felt a shock on the handle.

But she’d do anything to help Charles in his career. It was a wife’s duty, after all.

The new plan

Zachary unpacked Tyler’s Wedgewood china.

“Sweetheart,” Tyler said, an ever-so-slight hint of uneasy condescension in his tenor voice, “place those in the dining room china cabinet. You remember where we always kept them.”

He placed a white plate on the countertop and shrugged. Since Tyler had gone, Zachary had replaced the formica with an off-white stone. Tyler had inherited the Wedgewood from his mother, but Zachary gotten the house. He turned to face Tyler and faked a laugh.

“But darling,” he said, wary of where this might go. They’d never managed conflicts over domestic issues well at all. “You know very well I sold the china closet. We now have a credenza over there.”

Tyler paused a moment and looked down at his shoes, as if making sure he stood on his marker for a photograph. “What was I thinking. You put it where you think best, love of my life.” He said this in an even tone.

Ten minutes later Tyler came into the room with a charcoal painting of his mother as a young woman – Hildegaard, the mother-in-law whose every compliment came laced with an insult about Zachary’s domestic achievements. “Honey, would you mind if we hung this in the foyer above the crystal vase?”

Zachary massaged his forehead at the point where the crevice between the left and right brain resided. “Yes, dear. You may hang your mother anywhere you like.”

Plain and simple

“Mother,” Samantha yelled. The situation was dire. “You come here this instant!”

Endora popped in, wearing a New York Yankees uniform and umpire’s mask. “Oh, Samantha,” the old witch groaned. “I wish you hadn’t interrupted the game. It’s the bottom of the ninth inning in the World Series, we’re one run short of a victory. Babe Ruth is at the plate and Lou Gehrig’s on second base.”

“You take the spell off Darrin now, and I mean now!”

“What are you talking about, my dear? I haven’t done anything to Derwood.”

“Nonsense, Mother,” Samantha said. “Everything he’s saying is coming true, as if he were one of us. This morning he go mad at Larry Tate, who ended up jumping off the George Washington Bridge.”

“The plain and simple truth, Samantha, it wasn’t me,” Endora said and made the V sign on her nose. “Witch’s honor.”

“Really? Then who could it have been, Uncle Arthur?”

“If you’re going to summon that nincompoop, I’m heading back to the game. Ta-ta, my dear!”

And with a flash of the arms, Endora was gone. All of a sudden the television came on and Uncle Arthur appeared inside.

“Uncle Arthur, what’re you doing in there?”

“You turn me on, Sammy. And wait until I catch up with Endora. Nincompoop, my foot.”

If I could choose just one

The grandfather clock ticked its way toward six, and every fifteen minutes it mocked Christine with those Westminster chimes. She lay on the sofa, trying to read Anna Karenina, but couldn’t concentrate. Every twenty or thirty minutes, she’d get up to go to the bathroom. Odd, how frequently she was going to the bathroom. She hadn’t had much water to drink all day long.

Mama came into the room. “Christine, dear, do you have a decision yet?”

She looked at her mother. Of course, she’d ask. “No, I’m still thinking about it.”

Mama sighed and gave Christine a look of withered impatience. “Well, you’d better decide. Marcus will be here for cocktails at six, and Tobias is coming for bridge at eight.”

Christine felt her pulse quicken at the mention of those two names. Marcus and Tobias, she wondered why she’d gotten herself in this fix. But she needed time to think.

“I know, Mama, I’ll have the right decision.”

Mama left the room and Christine breathed more easily. Back to Anna Karenina and the same scene. Levin was courting Kitty, yet again – just like Marcus and Tobias were couring her. But Kitty didn’t have two suitors, and she wasn’t pregnant – and even if she had been, she probably would’ve known which one was the father of her child.

In my medicine cabinet

The high-pitched clackety, pingy sounds reached Elliott’s ears and he opened his eyes with a pop and looked at the white ceiling, as bare as the dull thud in his heart. The cascading sounds of doom could mean only one thing. Briony had reached for the pills in the medicine cabinet.

He turned his head to the right. Yes, Briony’s half of the bed was empty, as empty as it had felt last year when she’d overdosed on seconal and gone to Soft Landings for rehab and then come home, eyes as vacant as a recently converted scientologist. Would it start again, Elliott wondered, starting to feel the pressure of the heavy blanket on his stomach, the quickening of his heart rate, and the familiar nauseous breath of air floating across the back of his throat. He tossed the blanket off his belly and lifted his knees up. That’s how he managed his nighttime panic attacks.

He heard the quiet click of the medicine cabinet door shut – not a casual closing, of course, but a gentle swoosh intended to conceal the fact from anyone within earshot. Briony tiptoed back into the bedroom.

“I woke up, feeling nauseated again,” Elliott said. “Were you able to sleep?”

“No,” Briony said. Was it Elliott’s imagination, or had her voice lowered since rehab? When they’d gotten married, she spoke as high as Julie Andrews, but lately sounded more like Bea Arthur. “The usual rough night for me. How long have you been awake?”

“Just a minute,” Elliott said. He saw the hypnotized expression in Briony’s face, the same one he observed during that dreadful year leading up to Soft Landings. She climbed into bed next to him. “The nausea will pass. It always does after a few hours.”

Briony began to snore, light at first and then sawing away. Elliott crept out of bed, grabbed a plastic wastebasket, and went into the den with it to do crosswords and anagrams. He always wanted to vomit when these attacks hit him, but his body always retained the nausea, retained the panic. He knew, even as the nausea began to rise, as his heart began to race, that his body wouldn’t let him expel this terrible feeling.

A storm

“Norbert,” Karl said, swallowing his impatience and putting on a surface smile, “bring the deck chairs inside. And be quick about it. We haven’t got all day.”

Karl hammered the final nails in the plywood box he’d been putting together for the garden window. He’d planned on doing it some day, but had never thought they’d need it so soon after moving into their dream house by the ocean.

“Now come over here, Norbert,” he said. In the five minutes since he’d instructed his lazy partner to bring in the deck chairs, he’d taken in two. “And help me hoist this box up to the window.”

The two of them lifted it onto the ladder Karl had set up by the window. “Ouch, oh my God, holy crap!” Norbert said, dropping his side right onto the ladder. The other side slipped out of Karl’s grip and collapsed onto the pavement. The screws popped out of two sides and the wood panels came undone.

“Look what you’ve done!” Karl said. “You’ve set us back two hours. The way we’re going, the storm will have crossed Florida into the Gulf before we even get this up.”

“Oh, this hurts so bad,” Norbert said, heading toward the kitchen door. “I got two splinters in my thumb. I can’t believe it, and just after the manicure at Terry’s.”

What a complete lunatic he lived with. It served Karl right, he thought, for staying with him here in Delray Beach – and buying this house for half a million, against his better judgment. He could hear the voices of those little men on his right shoulder, issuing their “told you sos” even as the voices of the little men on the left said, “all part of living, all part of living.”

Norbert watched the Weather Channel while he sucked his thumb. “Turns out, sweetheart,” he said, “storm’s turned north and is heading up to North Carolina. We’re in the clear.”

“Oh, no we’re not, Norbert.”

Hot

“Would you open the window, Paul?” Eugene said.

“It’s hotter outside than in this house,” he replied. “And stop your complaining. I can’t help it if the power’s out.”

“Power’s been gone three days since the hurricane, and it’s still ninety degrees in this house.”

“And it’s ninety-five degrees outside, Eugene.”

“I wish you’d let us go over to Richard’s house, Paul. He’s got power and an extra bedroom.”

Paul felt the familiar stirrings of resentment whenever Eugene mentioned Richard’s name – Richard, the fling who refused to go away; Richard, the friend who flirted shamelessly with Eugene even now, three years into their own relationship; Richard, the hot man with the hairy forearms, the square jaw, and the even, thin lips.

“Sure, he’s got power – power over you. If I’ve said this once, I’ll say it again – boundaries, Eugene. Have some boundaries.”

“We’re roasting in here, love. We’re roasting.”

He had a point. And then Paul thought about Richard being in the next bedroom with his forearms, chin, and lips. Lying in bed, perhaps … hot.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

Last but not least

Wilbur ran up the hill, holding the rifle close to his body. No one would see him in the dark enclosure of the trees and bushes. What luck that Peter Runyan would be walking down Dallas Street, greeting late-day shoppers on his way to a fundraiser in River Oaks, the most exclusive enclave of wealthy donors – at this time of day, no less.

Wilbur set up his stake-out. Good, a large elm at the top of the hill, only forty feet to the street. He looked down the backside of the hill at his car, keys in the ignition, door slightly ajar. All he had to do was get in two shots – only one if he hit Runyan in the head – and sprint down the hill.

He began the long, slow wait for Runyan to appear, and thought back through the years. Back when Runyan came out of Rice and Wilbur took him in, paid for his law degree at S.M.U. Back to their sex life, first every day, then every other day, then once a week for a few years, then once in a blue moon. And then not at all. Back to the day Runyan won his first election – city commission – and they celebrated in town. Back to when Runyan dumped him and took the house in their settlement – and Wilbur lost his job that year, same year Runyan got elected to Congress. And now he was running for vice-president. Youngest candidate, the only one who’d ever modeled his biceps in People Magazine. The only one who’d ever had biceps, really.

Wilbur saw him walking in the distance. A crowd of people stood around him, but thank God – Peter was tall, with that wide smile and jet-black clean-cut hair of his. Peter’s height would work to Wilbur’s advantage. Peter made his way down the sidewalk, and just as he came into full view, Wilbur lifted the rifle to eye level, took careful aim, and –

“Hold it right there, buddy,” a baritone voice came from behind. Wilbur heard a metallic click and felt the heavy barrel of a revolver behind his ear.

Runyan’s self-satisfied smile was dead center in the rifle’s viewfinder. What the hell, Wilbur thought. He’d come this far. So he first his shot. His last shot.

Count them

“Count them,” Liev ordered. He supported himself on the kitchen counter with both arms locked at the elbow.

“Liev, there are thirteen spoons here,” I said. I looked across the island at Larry, who rested his head in the palm of his hand and looked up at the ceiling. A bunch of cobwebs, no doubt, because Mom and Dad’s house hadn’t been occupied since the car accident.

“And there are supposed to be fourteen silver spoons, Liam, not thirteen.” Liev huffed and puffed like a horse – appropriate, I thought, since he did have rather a long face. We’d used the Celine Dion joke on him a number of times. Just never to his face.

“Someone stole that spoon, and I want to know who,” Liev said, given Larry and me daggers in his eyes, “right now.”

“Liev, I didn’t take it.”

“Neither did I.”

“Well someone did. I was here for Dad’s eightieth birthday. That was four months ago. He had the car accident two weeks later and went into the nursing home with Mom right after that. Only the two of you were here since then. Who took the silver spoon?”

I shrugged my shoulders. I was guessing that Liev did a complete inventory of the house that first weekend in March. And would this be the first skirmish of the day? It was only 8:30 in the morning. And we had only one day to split all of Mom and Dad’s property. One day to divide up fifty-seven years. “Okay, I’m done with this. I’m going into the living room and packing up the books,” I said.

Liev pointed directly at me. “Not until I’ve picked the ones I want to keep. Don’t be in such a hurry, Liam.”

In my lifetime

They were there at the foot of the bed, standing. Carol, with her Marlo Thomas bob and the trim 40-ish figure she maintained even into her late 60s, managed to look sad and stiff-upper-lippish, even this of all possible evenings. Hank, a little stooped over, but ever resilient, stood at Carol’s side, holding her hand, his jaw tight but his eyes soft. On the other side of the bed sat George and Emil in two chairs, conversing with Duke, who stood next to them, something about New York in August and the theatre. Who cared at this point?

I looked beyond them all to John, whose white shadow stood by the window, beckoning to me. Tonight was the first cool night of the summer in the Hamptons. At long last the heat had broken. But did it have to wait for this of all nights? Couldn’t it have cooled off two weeks, even two days, ago? I heard John speaking to me. Come, Mark, please come to me. I’ve missed you these four years. I’m lost without you.

Well, I’d be coming to John in just a few short hours, and I’d be leaving Carol, Hank, George, Emil, and Duke to fend for themselves. And Jim, too – I’d miss him. He told me he’d be flying up to the Hamptons, but not until tomorrow. He’s the one I’m sorry I didn’t see one last time. I want him to know how much he meant to me these past four years, what he’d given me in John’s absence. I hope he knows what he’d done for me.

Blue

Mrs. Baker greeted me at the front door wearing a blue chiffon dress, silver-tipped and pointed glasses from the ‘50s, and blue-gray hair – that same blue hair rinse that Aunt Matilda and Aunt Hagatha used in the early ‘70s when they came for dinner on Thanksgiving.

“Won’t you come in, young man,” she said, her chins bouncing along with her smile. “My, what a handsome son Mr. and Mrs. Williams have! Aren’t you precious? How old are you, my dear?”

“I’m nineteen. I’m a sophomore at B.C.,” I said, trying to be helpful. Mother always told me to be polite with older people, especially women. Did she imply that I could be rude to men? True, men were usually shits, so why even try with them? But ladies, especially ladies with blue hair …

“And what’s your name? I met your older sister.”

I grimaced. I always hated telling people my name. “William.”

She looked down, touched her finger to her lips, and then smiled. “How clever of your parents. Do come sit down.”

I went inside and followed her into the living room – periwinkle blue wall-to-wall carpeting, pale blue walls, a dark blue tailored sofa, and two dark blue high-backed chairs. The drapes breathed a sigh of relief into the room with their blue-white floral pattern. I felt as though I’d walked into an old lady version of the whale tank at Sea World.

“Of course,” she said, “I’m taking all of the furniture with me, and the wall hangings. But you will have this lovely carpeting and draperies. Your mother has simply raved about the décor in the house.”

Mother would. But William knew that as soon as they moved in, the blue would go. She preferred rust oranges, greens, and yellows. Like a nightmare from the ‘70s, even if that was nearly fifteen years ago. Why did grown-ups like to live in the past?

A great choice

It’d been a long time coming, Alvin in Storage Testing thought. He slurped his Starbucks while chatting with Ken Melville in Product Engineering on his cellphone, walking from Building 4 to Building 5 at the Booble campus multi-plex. He’d given himself exactly eight minutes to walk from his last meeting – a one-on-one sync-up with Inga Muhlberg in Data Center Acquisitions (yes, he’d managed to catch up on his operations e-mail while getting the low-down on the data centers) – to his next one.

And the next one would be a real biggie. Alvin in Storage Testing had finally come due for his promotion to Manager of Storage Applications. He’d waited year after year at Booble, knowing full well that he’d always deserved to become a manager. A manager, finally – Sue’d let up on him at home, stop telling him he was a failure and should’ve left Booble long ago.

He’d be leading a great group, too. There’d be Scott Simpson in Persistent Storage, Wendy Wilkes in Imaging Apps, Herbie Bummlicker in Database Management Services, and Fred Finklestein in Logs. They’d all be reporting to him, just as everyone had thought for a long time when Martin McScrew in Storage Applications finally moved up the ladder himself.

Alvin in Storage Testing walked into Building 5 and up to the conference room. The whole team was there for the announcement. And the boss, too – Quing Chao, Director in Storage and Data Services. Alvin in Storage Testing took the only chair left at the table, on the right side of Quing Chao in Storage and Data Services. He’d be the right hand man, of course!

“Good afternoon, everyone,” Quing Chao in Storage and Data Services said. “I have an important organizational announcement to make, a long-overdue promotion for a well-deserved employee who’s worked long and hard for Booble. Herbie Bummlicker in Database Management Services will be promoted to Manager of Storage Applications, taking over the position vacated by Martin McScrew in Storage Applications.”

Alvin in Storage Testing spilled his Starbucks on his jeans.

Me, myself, and food

Their first afternoon back at Chautauqua, Ethel opened the refrigerator door. She grimaced at the Lower-East-Side-old-garbage-in-a-dark-alley smell that hit her in the face like a blob.

Among all the condiment jars was one with yellowed pickles -- and an oozing fluid that congealed down its side. The open box Arm and Hammer baking soda had collapsed and a cocaine-like power had stuck to the glass shelf. Several old lemons had turned into something looking like big raisins, and the package of Thomas' English muffins next to them contained a gray-brown science experiment inside. At least the bottle of Karo corn syrup could be salvaged. Ethel went to lift it off its shelf, but it stuck in place. Someone hadn't closed the lid.

"Just look at this mess, Norman," she said, giving her husband a stern look. "Someone didn't clean out the refrigerator last October before we went back to Florida."

"Well, next time, just remember to clean it up, Ethel. We could get bugs in the house."

Bats were more likely at Chautauqua, but yes -- this fall, when they left for Palm Beach, she'd clean the refrigerator herself.

A collaboration

Markel’s Fine Collectibles, their business during the day – at nighttime it became jigsaw puzzles. Tonight Mark and Michael were staring the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Three scenes, all horizontal shots,” Mark told Michael on the way home in their Jeep Wagoneer. Michael frequently asked why they didn’t get a new car, but Mark just tossed his head and told him, it’s my jaded jalopy, don’t make me give ‘er up.

“Hope they’re different. Nothing’s worse than a jigsaw where every pieces is the same color. Remember that one in Antarctica?”

“Kinda, sorta, maybe,” Mark sniffed. He didn’t think that one was so hard. After all, the icebergs, seals, clouds, and blue sky were all different, weren’t they? And they solved it in less than three weeks.

“Ugh, not another three weeks,” Michael said. How’d he do that, Mark thought, read my mind? Like we had these telekinetic powers. But he couldn’t really read his mind, could he? Mark put a silly thought in his head: let’s fuck vultures on our next trip to Florida.

“What’s up for dinner tonight? I’d love to have that yellowtail you bought yesterday,” Michael said, and smiled that way that massaged Mark’s heart. “While it’s still fresh, honey bun.”

There was a God, after all. That meant Michael didn’t know about Mark’s little dalliance with Vadim the ballet dancer. Good, because it didn’t matter. It was only sex, wasn’t it? Well, wasn’t it?

Delusional

“I know you love me,” Harvey said and telegraphed a frozen gaze of infatuation that hit Ellie like a meringue pie made of chiffon and sequins – neither one wanted by itself, he thought, and most certainly not wanted together.

Ellie thought about the dilemma Harvey had presented him for a moment. Should he chase him away from his aunt’s house, should he reason with Harvey, or should he try to murder him? It’d be so easy, Ellie thought – no one here at the house, and even if they were, no one would really be able to see him do it. It’d be so natural.

But then conscience hit Ellie hard on the head. Harvey had been so kind, so loyal, so faithful all these years they’d been together. He’d never let Ellie down, not in his worst moments, not even when he’d disappointed Harvey. The big guy deserved a lot better than having his neck wrung in Auntie Vee’s cellar.

“Harvey,” Ellie said, his mind made up. “Let’s you and me go for a walk. Outside. We have to talk.”

“Okay, but you know I’ll never, never, ever leave you.”

Outside they went, Ellie keeping his eyes on Harvey the whole time. And when they got to the street, Harvey looked left … then looked right … and then his rabbit ears jumped up and down and he hopped over to the other side in a jiffy.

Ellie didn’t see the potato chip truck barreling down the street, and it flattened him dead.

My family

I was just dreaming about riding a model train through the Sierra Nevadas when the heavy, discombobulated pings and bams jolted me out of sleep. Someone was fussing in the kitchen.

I looked over at the alarm clock, had to strain my neck. Why can’t alarm clocks be in the line of vision when you wake up? Eight o’clock, I never sleep in this late. So I dragged myself out of bed and looked in the mirror. A total train wreck. More gray in my head than red, all looked like straw going every which way. And the wrinkles on my face … every one of my fifty years staring right back at me and laughing. And the cellulite on the sides of my abdomen. I could spend a hundred hours a week at the gym, and the cottage cheese would still be there.

At least I still had a big penis. A good thing, since an older gay man needed a big one to get laid. The boys insisted on it. Hey, let’s be honest here – I’m writing in the first person, so I’m supposed to be honest.

So I put on my shorts and an East Hampton t-shirt and went out to the kitchen. They were all there. My father, my mother, my brother, his wife, their two kids – everyone bustling about the kitchen, doing something productive in making breakfast this morning after Christmas. Starting to plan the day. I think I’ll go to the gym this morning. We’re all bike riding in the afternoon and then we’ll have dinner with my sister-in-law’s family this evening.

Perhaps I can meet someone at the gym and get laid before lunch.

I am ready (or not)

Robert sat at the piano, tapping out a rough rendition of the Rondo from Mozart’s Emperor Concerto. He stopped in the middle of a measure –

“Are you ready yet, Alex? We don’t leave in the next sixty seconds, we’ll miss the movie.”

“Just one second,” he heard from the far bathroom. She must’ve been brushing her teeth, Robert thought – sounded like marbles in her mouth.

Robert went back to Mozart, but before he could get past the development section, Alex came out of the bedroom. Wearing a knee-length off-the-shoulder white dress with blue trim, she looked smashing. And he felt a jolt of electricity travel down his abdomen. Even the dog got excited, jumping up and down and barking.

“Told you I’d be ready in a second,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. “Now let’s get going.”

April in Philadelphia had been unusually cold, so Robert got her mink stole from the closet. She put it on and fumbled in the pockets. “Just a moment. No Chapstick. Have to have Chapstick in this weather.”

Back to the bedroom she went – forty-five seconds later, back out. “Okay, all ready. But wait, Robert – that chocolate stain above your lips?”

He rubbed it out and then raised his hands. “Okay, all out!”

“No, Robert, you’ll have sticky fingers,” Alex said. “Go wash your hands.”

They went into the kitchen. Robert went over to the sink and Alex said. “Goodness, Robert, we forgot to feed Lucy. Let me put out her food …”

And three minutes later, they were ready again – and finally got to the door. It had started to rain. “Better get the umbrella,” Alex said.

“No way will we make it to the Ritz in time,” Robert said. “Let’s just stay home and watch Singin’ in the Rain.”

Impressionist Flowers

I found Mrs. Rosenthal standing over her dining room table, her stomach resting on the mahogany as she arranged the flowers – gladiolas, daisies, red roses, and baby’s breath as the base. She’d put on her best off-the-shoulder sequined gown, had teased her blonde hair into a gorgeous doo, and put on her best make-up that I picked up before I even entered the room. Every one of her eighty-four years looked smashing.

“Mrs. Rosenthal, what are you doing up like that? What if you fall? Let me arrange those for you.”

“Pure nonsense, Charley Kramer, be still. And take your sweet pretty red head and wait for the other guests in the other room,” she said. Her voice scolded but her eyes smiled. “I’ll be along in a jiffy.”

I shook my head and laughed. What would I ever do with my favorite neighbor, what would anyone everdo? She was the grande dame of the Duquesne, and whenever she got something into her head, none of her neighbors – or anyone else in New York, for that matter – could get her to budge. But we all loved her.

I went into the living room. The walls were covered with photographs from her life – the gorgeous young dish who’d wowed vaudeville audiences with her luscious gams, the young mother of two who shocked society by becoming the first Jew to live at the Duquesne, the middle-aged political activitist who’d marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. – and the older woman who refused to slow down, no matter what. Every time I walked into this apartment, I felt the sheer force of her life, and I felt alive.

Mrs. Rosenthal came into the room. She had a devious sparkle in her eyes. Perhaps mischievous trouble to come? “So Charley,” she said, “we’ll have a little musicale after dinner tonight. You’ll play Gershwin on the piano and I’ll sing.”

Someone to Watch Over Me – I was sure she’d want to sing that one.

Whipped cream

Agnes could feel the rough edges of Norman’s tongue caressing her lips, her teeth, her own tongue, alive and vital, pressing back against his. She felt the stubble of his chin, his square jaw, as it rubbed against her own smooth face and neck. And then she could feel the prickles of that stubble travel down her neck and into the valley between her breasts – and then to the right, and to the left. And she felt his smooth, wet tongue as he fondled her nipples, one and then the other. And all at the same time she felt the rising waves of passion between her own legs as he massaged her clitoris and her vagina with a hand she adored – at once muscular, at once soft and sensitive, his fingers thin but those hands powerful with their hairy knuckles.

Agnes had never known that passion like this could exist. And as far as they had gone here – naked to each other, nothing between them, only their shared desire for each other and for this moment – this moment came to Agnes as a surprise, a revitalizing and tantalizing jolt, one that took her to the edges of her emotions. And she could never have known that Norman, muscles tense, eyes ablaze, a bright redness in his cheeks, fully erect and pressing against her abdomen and legs – never have known that Norman desired her this much. Norman leaned into her, kissed her, his lips wandering over to her left ear, biting and licking it. And as the electricity between them kept recharging itself and she thought she’d go over the edge any second now, he whispered into her ear –

“Let me go get the whipped cream.”

Tomorrow

The clock ticked its way, unimpeded by anything, that Thursday morning. Tomorrow, Madeline thought, tomorrow she’d be facing life alone. Life alone in this monstrosity of a house she didn’t really love, but would be hers, finally and absolutely.

“Mrs. Groves,” Imelda the housekeeper said, approaching Madeline, who was sitting on a lounge by the pool, “Mr. Carter is on the telephone. Would you like to speak with him?”

Carter, Madeline thought with something like hopeful alarm – why would he be calling on this of all possible days? Did he want to call off the whole thing? Did he want to tell the lawyers, we’ve changed our minds, we don’t want to go through with it? Did he really love her, after all that had happened?

And yet she’d gotten what she wanted – a Maserati, a housekeeper and a butler, this mansion in Pacific Heights, a view of the Golden Gate Bridge, and no one she’d have to share it with. Isn’t that what she’d always wanted? But no, she suddenly knew – it’d always been Carter she wanted.

“Yes, Imelda, please bring the telephone. I’ll speak with him.”

Madeline arranged her face in smooth lines. Odd, how a facelift and here-and-there Botox injections could turn the face into silly putty, so easy to arrange whenever she wanted. She cleared her throat and blinked. She wanted her voice to sound smooth and mellifluous when she consented to Carter’s moving home again. She wanted him to think of her with dignity and grace, someone whom he could trust –

Imelda brought the extension from the house.

“Carter,” she said into the phone.

Madeline heard noise in the background, like Carter was sitting in the Pacific Diner down on Union Street. Union Street – he was only five blocks away! He could be there in ten, perhaps fifteen minutes!

“Good morning, Madeline,” he said, business-like as ever. “I called to see if you’d agree to let me have my mother’s Waterford crystal bowl.”

“But Carter, I thought maybe –“

“I’m marrying Rhoda on Saturday, and I’d like to give it to her as a wedding present.”

These are the numbers

Jack sighed like a horse – and sounded like it too. “Look, Steve,” he said, “the numbers don’t add up in Ohio.”

“We’ve still got two-thirds of Hamilton County to come in,” Steve answered. By now, beads of sweat had emerged onto his forehead, which looked like a wet cinnamon roll.

“That’ll be ten thousand at most, and ninety percent of Cuyahoga’s still got to come in. And they’ll go at least seventy-five percent for the dark side.”

“I still say we hold on, even if the networks have called Ohio.”

“They don’t even need Ohio because they got Colorado and Nevada. And he’s leading in Virginia, too, by two percent. And Prince George County hasn’t even come in. And then there’s Florida …”

“We’re going to win in Florida, no question. Rick Scott’s done his job there. No way we’re losing that state.”

“It’s time for the governor to call the president.”

“It’s time for you to shut the hell up. Get me the right numbers, Jack.”

The cashier

The door swung open and a cold wind blew into the restaurant. Thelma felt that blue icy snap that went up her skirt when January’s wind came inside. Why’d Sal have to put the cash register so close to the front door? A diner in Camden, and she had to work the cash register by the front door all year round.

“Just a minute, sweetie,” she said to the customer, not bothering to look. “We’ll get you a table in a jiffy.”

“Thelma,” baritoned the voice, somehow familiar and bringing some sort of unpleasant taste into her throat – “can it be my favorite trombone player?”

She looked up at the figure – overweight, shoulders slumped over, a big pot belly. The sun shone behind his head, so she couldn’t make out the face, but the voice, was it – no, it couldn’t be, she’d thought he’d gone to Buffalo – yes, it was, he came into focus … Herbie Ballard.

Herbie Ballard, the football jock at Cherry Hill High who’d dated Samantha Harding. She’d swooned over him two years running, just like every other teenaged girl. And here he was, forty years later, coming into her restaurant, calling her by name.

“Well, if it ain’t Herbie Ballard. And you – rememberin’ my trombone. Ain’t never did get over you leavin’ town, marryin’ that girl. What’s her name now?”

“Phyllis,” he said, lowering his voice. “Came back to town to bury her this weekend.”

I'm all alone out here!

Ice and white surrounded Martin’s eyes as he made his way up the glacier, picking at ridges, inching his way along the journey, slipping here and there, standing to look at the valley.

“Is anyone out there?” Martin said, hearing his voice echo across the frozen lake at the bottom of the mountain. “Can anyone hear me?”

Nothing answered except the boomerang of his own voice, coming back to him hollow and tinny, isolated and alone. He renewed his climb up the mountain. A sharp wind hit him on the back and he felt the stab of cold up his legs and onto his neck – what was he wearing here that allowed this kind of cold to penetrate into his bones?

And just as he reached the top, he looked forward at the frozen ocean beyond, blue sky with orange sunrise – or was it sunset? And then the snow beneath him began to settle. He could feel himself descending, reached out for a ridge, but none was there, beginning to fall, seeing the frozen, jagged edges below him –

Martin woke up in a sweat. It’d seemed so real to him, really, just like being there – and yet he woke up hot, not cold.

“Darling,” he said aloud, “you’re not going to believe the –“

And then he remembered. Savannah had moved out three nights ago.

Keeping track of something

Ralph put on his glasses and his golf visor from the Marlborough Country Club, and the he sat at the bar with his receipts stacked on the left, his calculator on the right, and his Macbook Pro in front of him. He pushed the stool into the bar as far as it would go, until it squeezed his fat tummy toward his back. And he placed his hands on the keyboard as if getting ready to play a Rachmaninoff piano concerto. Yes, number 3 – let it be the Rach 3.

Kay walked by, wrapped in nothing but a towel, ready to shower. She’d be going to her pilates class, and after that, she and Tiffany would have an afternoon by the pool at the club. Ralph wished he could keep slim and trim like Kay always had been, but age had caught up with him.

“Honey, will you get salmon for dinner this afternoon when you come back from the hardware store?” Kay said. “And be sure to get a shrimp appetizer. Oh – and I’d like you to stop at Whole Foods and pick up my special organic drinks for me. And don’t forget to call the plumber. He needs to come next week to unstop the bathroom drain …”

“It wouldn’t have stopped up if you cleaned your hair out of the sink occasionally,” Ralph replied, his attention divided between his wife and their monthly receipts. He wondered what this $275.00 at Dr. Sanjay’s office was for – ah, yes. Botox for Kay.

“Ralph, we’ve talked about this before. It isn’t healthy for us if you make me feel bad. Please don’t speak to me with that tone of voice. Oh – and after you call the plumber, be sure to call the electrician on your way home. And don’t forget vacuum cleaner bags at the store. When I come home from the club, it’d be really nice to have clean floors. You might consider doing that for me …”

Ralph chose to ignore this. “Just to warn you, Kay,” he said. “This month will be fairly expensive for us. Your share may be more than $2,500 again.”

“Not again. It must all those books you buy.”

Why didn’t he just send Kay back to her mother? Life would be so much simpler. And then Kay’s bath towel fell off her shoulders, and he saw once again the soft curves from her shoulders to her ankles. What was he asking himself?

Family Halloween

“Trick or treat,” Justin said when Mrs. Schaetzle opened the door. His parents stood behind him.

The old German woman retreated to her foyer table. She brought out three Nestle bars and dropped them in Justin’s basket.

“One for the bumblebee,” she said, her Prussian accent thick and heavy, looking at Justin’s black and yellow costume, “and one each for the Spearmint Twins.”

Leah and Martin had rented a bicycle built for two during the day and had ridden up and down Market Street on it. It’d been quite the sensation, and the ride on Castro Street had been more of a procession than anything.

“Thank you, Mrs. Schaetzle,” Martin said. “Justin, what do we say to our neighbor?”

“Thanks, ma’am.”

They walked down Sanchez. Leah looked over her shoulder at Mrs. Schaetzle’s grey house. “Living across from her gives me the creeps, Martin. She can’t be less than ninety years old. How long before she goes, do you suppose? I’d love to get my hands on that house when it goes on the market.”

“Who knows? From what I heard, she was an old Nazi who fled Germany for South America in ’45 and then came up here in the early ‘60s. She probably worked as a guard in Auschwitz or somewhere.”

“Yes, I can see her standing over a suffering child with a whip, shouting orders to clean floors with toothbrushes. The sooner we get her house, the sooner we can do a complete makeover.”

I am determined

Little Jeffy stared at the avocado green refrigerator. On a tablet posted on the lower door, Mr. McCartney had leaned down and written 4 on one row, 5 on another, and he’d put a plus sign next to the 5 and drawn a line under it.

“Tell me what the sum is, Jeffy. What are 4 plus 5?”

9, of course, Jeffy thought. So he took the pen from Mr. McCartney and wrote 9 under the line.

“That is correct, little man,” Mr. McCartney said. “I will tell your mother to give you an extra helping of ice cream.”

Chocolate chip ice cream, Jeffy hoped. It’s my bestest favorite in the world, he told Mr. McCartney. And boy, that wasn’t hard at all. A piece of cake, just like Gaddy was always saying – but this time, he’d get ice cream.

“Now, young man, I want you to do another problem.” So Mr. McCartney erased Jeffy’s 9 answer and he erased the 5. Then he wrote a 7 in its place. “Go ahead and figure this one out.”

Oh, that’s easy, too, Jeffy thought. 4 plus 7, the answer was – Hey, this isn’t fair! This is a trick! Something’s wrong here. You can’t add these two numbers and still get a number cause 9 is the biggest number! Why is Mr. McCartney laughing in that funny way?

So Jeffy took the eraser from Mr. McCartney’s hand, wiped out the 7, and put the 5 back in its place. And then he took his marker and wrote a 9 under the line again.

Mr. McCartney put his head back and laughed like a monkey at the zoo. “Oh, Jeffy, you can’t do that!”

“But can I still get my chocolate chip ice cream?”

It bores me

“You lazy bum, get your head out of that crossword puzzle,” Martha spat out. “We have to talk about yesterday.”

George was trying to find a 5-letter French word for book. Admittedly, his French had become rusty since leaving Paris back in ’79, but he still fashioned himself an expert on the language and culture. He looked up at his wife.

“What is it, my dear?” He turned his attention back to his crossword, but his reading glasses slid down his nose and onto the newspaper. He retrieved them.

“I said, get your head out of that puzzle and listen to me when I’m talking to you. You sat in the living room yesterday reading TV Guide all afternoon at my sister’s house. And you barely said two words all afternoon to Herbie. He’s starting to think you don’t like him.”

Livre, he realized – the 5-letter French word for book. “That’s silly. He’s a good enough sort for me,” George said at some point between filling in the V and the R. Next clue – a 6-letter word for avoidance.

Martha came over to his chair and stood right in front of him, hands on hips. George looked up for a second. If this were a movie, she’d be Shelley Winters and he’d be Ernest Borgnine.

“You have to promise me,” Martha said, “that the next time we spend time with my family, you pay more attention to Herbie. And to my sister, too. They’re beginning to think you don’t like them.”

“All right, Martha, whatever you say,” he said. He turned his full attention to the puzzle. The 6-letter word for avoidance popped into his head.

My brother

Alice’s phone rang at 4:30 in the afternoon, just as she and Edward were sitting down for tea and scones. Gertrude walked into the room, the noise of her housekeeper’s shoes echoing all the way up to the third floor. “We have Mr. Marcus ringing on the line.”

Edward, who’d already made himself comfortable in his leather chair by the fireplace, took his pipe out of his mouth and sighed. “Oh, Gertrude, not when we’re having our tea, please.”

Alice turned to him, “He’s my brother, Edward, I won’t be a moment.”

Alice walked across the hall with Gertrude, who disappeared into the kitchen to oversee the other servants preparing dinner. Tonight would be beef bourgignon with hollandaise asparagus.

Marcus seemed to call everyday with one trouble or another. Last week, it’d been his car accident in the Austin Healey. Monday, it’d been from the hospital, where he’d been taken after a Sunday night barroom brawl. What would it be today? It was only Thursday. He hadn’t yet made it to the weekend.

She reached the phone. Something in Alice told her to hang up the receiver and walk back to Edward and their starchy existence – but a little voice inside of her said, Go ahead, pick up the receiver. You know this is your real life. You know this is where you’d rather be.

“Marcus,” she said into the receiver. “This is Alice.”

She heard desperate crying. “Alice,” he said between sobs, “Jane has thrown me out of the house, and this time I think she might really mean it. May I come stay with you and Edward? Please, darling. I need you to hold me while I fall asleep, just like we did when we were young …”

Alice looked at the grandfather clock in the mirror’s reflection. Edward had inherited it from his grandmother.

Larger

Anthony spilled the MetRx powder all over the kitchen. Tiffany ran from the living room.

“Look what you’ve done, all over my fruit salad!” Tiffany said, straightening her blouse when she stood up. Since she’d gotten the enlargement, she’d been having difficulty with the old blouses. But they couldn’t afford new clothing anymore.

“Hey, bubbles, you clean it up for me. I have to head out to the gym,” Anthony said, leaning down gently. He didn’t want to pull a muscle today. “I’m meeting up with Rocko. Today’s pecs and glutes day.”

“Be back by five o’clock. We’re going to my mother’s for dinner this evening. And then we’ve got our massages at eight tonight.”

Anthony sighed, scratched his forehead, and looked around for a moment. “Ah, not sure I can go tonight, honey. I’ll have to do an hour recovery when I get home. Tomorrow’s biceps and lats.”

“But it’s my mother’s sixtieth birthday, and you promised.” Tiffany looked as though he’d just slapped her.

“I really need to keep my priorities straight here, Tiffany.”

A deception

After three martinis and twenty “God damn that cheating slut,” Marty smashed the Lalique vase, Waterford bowl, Royal Doulton balloon lady, and Tobacco Leaf serving platter on the kitchen floor.

William deserved no less for his decision to resume his affair with his old flame, Roberto. He knew very well how Marty felt when he and Roberto went out drinking, when his mother invited Roberto to family functions, and when his father brown-nosed him because, like him, he voted Republican.

“I need some freedom,” William had asked just two nights ago, just before they went to bed. “That doesn’t mean I want to break up. I just want to open it up a little, you know what I mean?”

Marty had sat up in bed at this remark. Things had been going so well between them – they’d had great sex twice since the past Sunday. William had never given any indication it was boring him. Marty said no, let’s take our time about this, and he put up the usual arguments you’d expect from a clingy housewife.

Marty guessed that was his role in this relationship, the clingy housewife.

And then this afternoon, William had called, saying he was going out with Roberto, and that it was a sex date. “But we agreed,” William had told him, “we could have occasional flings.”

Marty had said no, Roberto was off the table, but William insisted. “We’ll talk about this when I get home after my sex date.”

After he was done cleaning up, Marty asked himself, how’d he ever explain the broken collectibles? It’s not like that drunken time when he’d thrown all of William’s old porn away. He couldn’t explain it all away with one of his stock lies.

Moving forward

Last night I closed the laptop after surfing presidential polls and went into the bedroom.

“Let’s watch Bewitched before heading off to sleep.”

I gave Mike a back massage while we watched Uncle Arthur switch Samantha and Darrin’s voices. To great comic effect, of course, and we both laughed ourselves silly as I rubbed out the knots in Mike’s hamstrings and glutes.

When the episode was over, I said, “All right, one episode’s worth of a massage, that’s all.”

“Another episode, let’s have another episode!” Mike said, hoping I’d forget and keep on doing the massage.

We both fell asleep during the next episode … something about Mrs. Stevens forcing Samantha to hire a housekeeper so that Samantha could join social committees. I could never understand why Samantha called her mother-in-law Mrs. Stevens, but maybe that was the era.

I don’t remember how the episode ended, but I did wake up early – 4:30. Might be due to the time change, might be the early hour I went to sleep. But I really think it’s the election. I went straight for my laptop and checked out the polls. Obama’s moved forward in the past few days … good news for a Democrat like me. Washington Post had a summary of the talking heads’ predictions – 12 for an Obama win, 7 for a Romney win. Twelve for progress, seven for the reverse.

I’ll bet I know how Mrs. Stevens would’ve voted, but thank goodness – she was a fictional character. And even so, she lived in a blue state. And I’ll bet I know how Darrin would’ve voted. He’d have been a Romney man, always trying to get Samantha to conform to his way of life. But Samantha … there’s an Obama voter if ever there were one.

Now if only she could twitch her nose and settle the whole thing …

Fallen garbage can down the hill

Elliott walked down the hill on his way to the shuttle stop, but Gracie stopped at her usual place, dead in her tracks.

“Come on, Gracie, hurry on up. Five minutes to the Google shuttle.”

Gracie always chose this one house to poop in front of, I guess, because the driveway always had a nice bunch of leaves. But Elliott took another look at his watch. He’d probably miss the shuttle.v Just like he’d missed out on that windfall – the courts gave it all to Hal, who waltzed in with his mother’s lawyer (also his new boyfriend) and demanded half of Elliott’s Google stock. Hal would throw it all away on trips to Acapulco and glitzy artwork. It’d all be gone in eighteen months, just like the new boyfriend. And then what? Elliott no longer cared.

Gracie finished up and they continued their walk down 18th Street toward Dolores Park.

But Elliott did care about his parents, even if they were three thousand miles away in a nursing home. Mom with Alzheimer’s Disease. She still remembered him when he called, but she couldn’t tell him what she’d done since yesterday. And Dad – his mind still there, but the body completely disabled by the stroke. The only thing they seemed to be excited about these days – well, that would be Republican politics. And that reminded Elliott of the election – of course, given Elliott’s recent luck, if it were a tie as everyone predicted, it’d probably go to the Repulsivecans. Mom and Dad would be happy, but the rest of the world would be screwed.

Nope, Gracie and he made the shuttle. But that’s what life was like for him now – all downhill from here.

Write about giving

The grandfather clock ticked away the seconds in a jagged staccato.

“Once again,” Bobby continued, dropping his eyes to the floor throwing his baritone down, where it bounced off the hardwood floor and nailed a stake of dread in Ken’s heart. “It’s all about you, isn’t it?”

“What I’m saying is this,” Ken stammered out, aware that Bobby was doing it again, “I have a right to be angry about the paintings. We agreed –“

“This isn’t about the paintings, this is about your need to control every situation –“

“We agreed that we’d buy the wall hangings together and that they’d be something we both liked. You went ahead and bought four large paintings, and hung them all, without even asking me.”

“Do you really hate them that much? I was sure you’d love them. They’re perfect.”

The dog – Bobby’s choice, yet again – walked on over and stuck his head on Ken’s lap. “What is it, Buddy?” But Ken knew already what Buddy wanted – a walk, just like always. Bobby never walked Buddy. Somehow, over the years, that’d become Ken’s job – three times, every day.

“And I don’t hate them. That’s not the point! The point is that, once again, you made a decision without even consulting me! And we’d agreed … by your own words … that we wouldn’t hang anything that didn’t have our mutual agreement.”

“Well, just give me this one time. But why does it always have to be all about you?”

Trying again

Melba unpacked Arnold’s Limoge.

“Sweetheart,” Arnold said, an ever-so-slight hint of uneasy condescension in his graveled voice, “place those in the dining room china cabinet. You remember where we used to keep them.”

She placed a white plate on the countertop and shrugged. Since he’d gone, she’d replaced the formica with an off-white stone. He’d inherited the Limoge from his mother, but she’d gotten the house. Melba turned to face Arnold and faked a laugh.

“But Arnold, darling,” she said, wary of where this might go. They’d never managed conflicts over domestic issues very well. “You know very well I sold the china closet. We now have a credenza over there.”

Arnold paused a moment and looked down at his shoes, as if making sure he stood on his marker for a photograph. “What was I thinking. You put it where you think best, love of my life.” He said this in an even tone.

Ten minutes later Arnold came into the room with a charcoal painting of his mother as a young woman – Gertrude, the mother-in-law whose every compliment came laced with an insult to Melba’s domestic capabilities. “Honey, would you mind if we hung this in the foyer above the crystal vase?”

Melba massaged her forehead at the point where she thought the crevice between the left brain and the right brain resided. “Yes, dear. You may hang your mother anywhere you like.”

Honesty

Aaron couldn’t tell the truth to all these people depending on him.

He’d promised Mary Boleyn he’d look after Henry Fitzroy. He’d made an obligation to Caesar Claudius that he’d keep watch on Caligula. Sir Isaac Newton was counting on him to stand under the tree and wait for an apple to fall on his head. And Eleanor of Aquitaine wanted Aaron to lead an invasion of Normandy.

Why did he get himself into these messes? All these famous people, whenever Aaron saw them, all he could do is promise them this, promise them that. But he was a human being, too. He had needs and wants. And how would they feel if, one day when he visited them in that clackety-clack of a time machine, he turned the tables on them?

“Queen Eleanor,” Aaron could hear himself saying. “I’ve decided to wear some of your jewels to the king’s pig roast. Would you be a dear and hang these from my nipples?" “Sir Isaac,” Aaron would baritone, “I think we need to give that tree a little shake. Go climb up it and jump up and down on that branch. I’m in a hurry. I’ve got an appointment with Socrates.”

“Great Caesar with the stutter,” he said, knowing the old man had a sense of humor, “every time I get near Caligula he turns me around and makes sport with my behind. Would you be a dear and point your flabby little arse at the heathen and service him yourself?”

“Lady Mary,” Aaron said, a velvety tone of appreciation for her round breasts in his voice, “would you stroke me a hundred times just here? That’s right, on that spot.” But no, he had to be a star fucker and go blubbery every time someone famous asked him a favor.

In the dark

She’d put off the crystal chandelier for months. It stood there in the dining room, chiding Molly for her own laziness.

“I think I’ll clean the crystals myself,” Molly had told her husband, Geoffrey, before he headed to work that morning. Geoffrey had a business dinner that evening, he told her. He worked so hard for them – frequently late, burning the midnight oil at work he said. Plenty of evening business dinners. Don’t call me evenings, darling, he would say, I need to focus on my daily reports.

Molly got the ladder out of the broom closet to start her morning’s task, but the recyclables basket turned over when she pulled it out. She groaned, “Horsefeathers!” Not only had she let the crystals get dusty and dirty, she’d made a mess of all Geoffrey’s discarded business papers. He probably should’ve put them through the paper shredder.

She picked them up – receipts, invoices, old reports. She took a look at a few of them. One report, Accounts receivable 05.09.2009, just like any of the others. Receipts for business dinners – Top of the Triangle, the Willows, the Marmion. Odd, those were all out-of-the-way hotels, none anywhere near close to his office. Well, business. And then receipts for flowers and confectionaries – must be business entertainment. He did often entertain clients. And then Molly found it! A reservation for a week’s trip to the Cayman Islands … during that week in December he’d told her that he’d be going to Memphis for a business conference.

Everything became crystal clear to Molly. Of course! Geoffrey was planning a second honeymoon for them.

Winging it

“Get out of the kitchen, Elliott,” Ron said, the red capillaries bulging on his nose and his toupe sliding off the top of his head. “Don’t try to tell me what to do. I’m captain of this ship.”

There would be no talking to him, nor did I even care to. Let the idiot moron try to fix the refrigerator door. So I walked out of the kitchen and past the Marilyn Monroe poster and into the living room. Diana sat on the red leather sofa doing a crossword puzzle.

“Dad,” she yelled out toward the kitchen, “listen to Elliott. We’ve only got an hour or so before the hurricane starts getting really ad. And he’s been a refrigerator repairman for the past seven years. He’ll fix that door hinge in ten minutes flat.”

“Diana,” I said, sotte voce so as not to upset the ‘captain of the ship,’ also known as my bonkers father-in-law, “Wild horses couldn’t drag me back into that kitchen to help your father. The door can fall off the hingers for all I –“

Of course. Just as I said that, we heard a loud crash and a boom and a tenor cry for help from the kitchen. We went into the kitchen and found Ron lying on the floor with the refrigerator door on top of his head.

I looked at Diana. Her face had gone gray. I decided to take her lead. At that moment, the power went out and the kitchen went dark. Nothing happened for the longest time, but I could hear Diana’s heavy breathing.

I broke the ice first. “What shall we do, Diana?”

“Let’s get in the car and drive to a Days Inn. Across the state line into Georgia.”

Skin

Okay, Jack. It’s 6 a.m. at the condo. This morning you’ll take your shower – first thing, no delay, no putzing around he house, no coffee in the coffee maker, no emptying the dishwasher, no cleaning out the birdcage, no de-pooping the litterbox, no walking the dog, no daily write, no checking in with your work e-mail … just a shower, first thing in the morning. Jack, it’ll wake you up – he tells himself.

Jack gets out of bed and heads into the living room, doesn’t bother to put anything on since first thing he’ll do is a shower. Woops, Jack tells himself, I forgot to fold that load of towels last night. So he opens the dryer door, folds the towels and puts them away. Last one, the kitchen hand towel. And those clean dishes in the drain pan – got to put them away, one at a time. Might as well empty the dishes at the same time. Don’t forget to put the doggy bowl down for Trouble – who stands their wagging his tail.

“All right, Trouble, I’ll feed you. But first, Daddy’s got to clean the birdcage and litter box.”

Twenty minutes later, the pets are cleaned up and fed. Trouble ate it right up, now he wants to go outside. “But not until I empty the wastebaskets and the garbage.”

You know, Jack says aloud, I might as well eat breakfast before I shower. I can brush my teeth in the shower. And you know what, use your time wisely, Jack, so eat breakfast in front of the laptop. And do that daily write, and check your work e-mail.

An hour later, all that done. So finally Jack can head into the shower. What’s that smell? Forgot to put the garbage outside the condo door, will throw it down the shute when I walk Trouble, Jack says. Outside he goes with the garbage.

Sarah walks by with her shih tzu, looks down, and raises her Republican eyebrows. Woops, Jack tells himself, forgot to put anything on. “Excuse me, Sarah. So sorry …”

“That’s all right, Jack, I’ve seen it before. Many times," she says, a shrug in her voice. "And by the way, I'd try a different hair dye."

A rock and a dandelion

“If life gives you lemons,” Elena said, the wrinkles in her jowls coming into focus as she gave me that faux intellectual purse of the lips as the whipped cream on top of her Katharine Hepburn-accented ice cream, “just turn it into lemonade!”

I’d had enough of her platitudes years ago, but this time, I couldn’t pretend like someone had rung the doorbell and I needed to hang up the phone. She was actually here in person, sitting in my parlor sipping Lipton Tea in my grandmother’s Wedgewood cups. I’d already made the fatal mistake of confiding my latest firestorm in her.

Georgianna, I told myself, enduring the town’s biggest bag of hot air even for this courtesy call would be far worse than enduring my youngest boy wanting to become a ballerina.

“Mother!” Harry had scolded me with his own purse of the lips, but without the wrinkled jowls, “a dancer. I shall be a dancer, not a ballerina!”

Men didn’t do such things, Henry said, and then turning on me, he blamed me for our son’s prissy mannerisms, flowery language, fairy hobbies. As he usually did when our boys misbehaved, he left me to repair the damage and went to shoot pool with the “boys.”

Harry on one side of the equation, threatening to run away to his Aunt Gertrude in New York if we didn’t allow him to take ballet lessons at Boston University three days a week, and Henry on the other side of the equation, implying he’d disown our son if he so much as looked at a tutu, did not make for the stable household expected of an Andover matron. I was caught between a rock and a hard place.

What a deal!

“Can you believe it, George,” Martha asked, the crescendo of her voice’s soprano creedping across the room all the way to George’s ears. “We got this room at the Hooters Casino for just $79 a night.”

George plopped the luggage on the bed and sighed. He squinted. As soon as they’d landed in Vegas, he’d put sunscreen on his face and head, but schwitzing all the way from the parking lot across the street, it’d run down into his eyes. And they burned.

“That’d be a fortune back in Dubuque, Martha. And even parking across the street’s costing us $15 a day. Highway robbery, paying that much to park. You’d think I was made of money.”

Martha took her wig off – a Marlo Thomas flip-up – and put it on its stand on the dresser. She put a comb through her flattened hair. “Now, George, don’t complain. This is a once in a lifetime trip, sweetheart. Look here, George, the hotel has a buffet and it’s only $11.95 if we don’t drink. All you can eat.”

“Well, four days here will set us back nearly a thousand,” George said, feeling the butterflies creep back into his stomach. “Don’t know how we’ll pay the credit card bill when we get home, don’t know how.”

Martha put the brush down. The furniture had glass tops on it. “Maybe we’ll go across the street and make some money on the slot machines.”

“And maybe we’ll grow wings and fly back home ourselves. Then I can haggle with Southwest to refund us the unused airline tickets.”

Up close

Sleep would not come to Margo that night. She tried walking upstairs to the living, her terry cloth robe wrapped about her. When she reached for the poker to stoke the dying embers in the fireplace, she got a jolt of static electricity. Damn Santa Fe and damn New Mexico, she thought. Always so dry in February. Margo nestled herself among the pillows on her sofa and soaked in the fire’s dying warmth.

At least she’d be going to Florida tomorrow morning, but she needed to have sleep. It would be difficult to deal with her cousins and Aunt Marcia’s friends in Stuart. All those plastic surgery victims her aunt had surrounded herself with. Why hadn’t she moved Aunt Marcia out to Santa Fe after the stroke? But she’d insisted, she’d be happier in her own home.

Margo looked out the bay window. The full moon bounced off the Sangre de Cristo mountains off in the distance. She felt lonely all of a sudden – she always did in those wee hours after midnight when sleep wouldn’t come to her, and Norman’s snoring drove her to this living room of isolation. She stood up and walked over to the window for an up close look at the mountains. Perhaps they couldn’t sleep, either, and perhaps they were lonely, too.

Margo sighed. Better to get it over with now than wait another two hours. She had to be up at seven to make the airport on time. So she went into the bathroom and drank from the Listerine bottle. She stared at herself in the mirror and saw wrinkles she’d never noticed before. Next in line, after Aunt Marcia, she’d be the next one to go. Within minutes, she could feel the alcohol coarse through her veins. She lay in the bed and tuned out Norman’s snoring.

Why am I here?

It came around to Ellen’s turn. She read from the piece of paper. “Describe an incident where you lost control of yourself.”

I had liked her immediately, an older lady wearing an older lady’s blue dress with a white lace sweater. A regal smile, a diamond – not too large, but a size that advertised both wealth and modesty – and a sophisticated pitch to her New Hampshire accent.

She talked about vacationing with her husband and her brother (I still didn’t know what that meant) in the Adirondacks – and her brother went into a CVS with her husband and tried to steal a bottle of Listerine. He put it in his pocket and walked right out of the store and back into the car.

Ellen’s husband calmly got back into the car and sat with his hands at the wheel. “Your brother stole a bottle of Listerine,” he said to Ellen and then turned to her brother. “I told the management inside and they’ve promised not to prosecute if you go back and either pay for it or return it.”

Ellen went beet red and then exploded. “How could you do such a thing to yourself, Gerald, and to us? Haven’t you learned anything?”

I kept picturing the bottle of Listerine – and the addiction – and what that bottle meant for Ellen’s family. It was my turn now, and I had to talk about the effect alcohol addiction had had on my own family. And me.

Something silly

“Vera, darling,” Iris said to her maid, pointing down at her gin and tonic. “Would you be a dear and get rid of this drink? Brian and I are heading down to the Chicken Coop for dinner.”

Vera was watering the plants. “Yes, Mrs. Carrington.” Vera had a bucket in one hand, a newspaper under her armpit, and took the drink in the other hand. She looked around, shrugged – and dumped the excess ice from the glass into the geranium pot. And then Vera marched into the kitchen.

“What are we going to do about her, Brian? She put my drink in the plant.”

“Good for the plant. Let’s get going.”

Five minutes later Brian had helped Iris into her stole. He jingled his keys.

“We’re off, Vera,” he called out into the kitchen. “We’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Enjoy your evening at the Chicken Co-op,” Vera answered.

Tell me about the eggs

Feeling bloated and wrinkled, Gertie stood hunched over the sink in her apron and paisley house dress, chopping onions for the omelet she was preparing. Just so Herb could drive their nine-year old Plymouth to the same damned accounting job he’d been stuck in the past seventeen years. Her reading glasses fell off her face into the raw egg batter.

Gertie broke down. Nothing ever went right where Herb was concerned. What ever happened to the days when she won all those statues for ballet performances? And what ever happened to her lithe figure, the one that’d excited so many admirers? She looked like a square box these days.

Herb sauntered into the kitchen with that smirk on the blotchy face she’d come to despise. Gertie went back to cleaning her glasses.

“Puddin’, add some sour cream in my eggs today. And make my coffee black,” Herb said.

Gertie looked over her left shoulder – oh, how her upper back twinged when she did that.

“Look. You want eggs, Herb? Well, here are your god-damned eggs.”

Gertie picked up the box of eggs and tossed them against the fridge. She walked out the kitchen door a right across the street. And a bus flattened her dead.

A strong attachment

“But Reginald, darling, it is time I must leave … I shall always feel a strong attachment to you al. But for me, it has been simply midsummer madness!”

Payne sat, enraptured, as Rosalind Russell got stuck on the back of Coral Browne’s costume. The play-within-the-movie had everyone in the audience laughing (both on-screen and at the Pantages) .. Payne most of all. He’d saved up the money for weeks to come in from Pasadena on the trolley.

Ever since reading Patrick Dennis’s madcap novel and hearing all about Rosalind Russell’s Broadway triumph, he’d been waiting for the Warner Brothers Cinerama masterpiece. And here it was, with the rhinestones and martinis all the way. Payne had sat wide-eyed, his shoulders not even resting on the seat, ever since Auntie Mame came trotting down the stairs and shook the monkey’s hand.

After the last fade-out when Auntie Mame heads off to India with Patrick’s son Michael, Payne headed out of the theater.

“Excuse me,” a young man with an attractive dimple said to Payne. “I couldn’t help but notice your excitement. What did you think of Roz?”

“The best thing she’s done since ‘The Women.’ Simply fabulous, darling, simply fabulous!”

“Spoken just like Auntie Mame!” the other man said. Payne couldn’t help but notice the violet eyes, just like Elizabeth Taylor’s. But he looked more like a cross between Monty Clift and Rock Hudson. “Would you care to walk over to Johnny Rocket’s?”

“I’m so sorry, I have to catch the return to Pasadena,” Payne said. But Auntie Mame was the treasure that kept on giving. “On the other hand, I have plenty of time.”

Graffiti Art

Chester draped his arm around Barb’s waist. She’d gained a few pounds in the eight years since they’d last been together, but no matter. He liked the feel of his right side nestled into her left. They talked and laughed, walking down Sansom Street. It reminded him of Florence, really, that summer of ’31 before either of them had gotten married.

They crossed the corner of 39th Street. Chester looked down the alleyway and saw two shadows, clustered together in the distance at the foot of a brick wall. Two lovers, no doubt, sharing an intimate moment they thought was private. Well, Chester thought to himself, I’ll give it to them –

But no, the man was pulling his arm back and then struck the woman in the face. And she wasn’t caressing him back, she was struggling, struggling for life itself. Chester broke free from Barb and ran toward them.

Chester bored his eyes into the man. He raced at top speed directly to him. “Stop this! Stop this right now! You leave that woman alone!”

He reached the couple and tore the man off the woman. The man smelled of urine and vodka. A large man, but very soft around the middle – unlike Chester’s lean-muscled physique. The man let out an ogre’s groan and then Chester felt an electric gash in his stomach. Chester let out a scream and grabbed the knife out of the man’s hand before he could take a second swipe – and made a bullseye with it in the man’s heart. He let out a blood-curdling cry and collapsed onto the pavement.

So fast, yet so long. Chester felt sharp pains in his abdomen. Barb came up to them, shaking all over. “Chester, Chester … are you all right?”

“You’d better go, Barb. No one can find out you were here. Go!”

What's in the bowl?

After everyone left from the Stupid Bowl party that Hal and Debra had hosted that afternoon, Debra plopped herself on their ‘70s velour sofa and sighed like a mule. Gosh, she wished Hal would let her get rid of this tacky relic. No one kept these L-shaped sofas any longer.

She could hear Hal tapping away on his keyboard in the den nearby. These days all he did was sit in front of that damned computer of his, surfing the web for God knew only what, usually in his underwear and a baseball cap. Sometimes he didn’t have underwear at all, but then he always wore a t-shirt. He saved his naked time for when they had sex. Which was every Saturday afternoon at 4:30, an hour before she had a cosmo and he had a Michelob. Their weekly treat, sex and cocktails.

Whenever she asked him what he was looking at, he always gave excruciating detail: “stuff.” That’s all, nothing like the news, politics, movies, cars, just “stuff.” She wondered what he was looking at as she sat there, inspecting her finger nails. She’d have to go in for a manicure this week – she was due for another round of “Jungle Red.” But then she noticed the keys in the bowl with the large M on the ring.

They’d be Melinda’s keys. She picked them up and yelled out toward Hal, “Honey, I think Melinda forgot –“ and then she noticed those two odd keys. Funny, they were just like their own keys to their cottage in Half Moon Bay. She looked closer – yes, they were the exact same keys. Same black octagon with a gold fleur de lys icon in the middle. What was Melinda doing with their keys?

She walked ever so quietly into the den. Hal sat there, sure enough, in his underwear and that stupid baseball cap. And then she saw – Internet porn. That slut.

The ticket

Ah, the freedom. Tommy drove down the I-5 at a leisurely 75 miles per hour, past the cattle ranches, and viewed the wide open vistas of the San Joaquin Valley. Was there any feeling like this, knowing he was free now, could do anything he wanted, go any place he cared, screw any babe he put his eyes on? Freedom and money, he’d sought them both for years, and now he had them.

He’d have to get new wheels. The ’93 Deville he’d stolen wouldn’t make it to Mexico like he planned – but it did give him speed. Had to watch it, he found himself going up to 85. Back to 75. No matter – he’d go to a used car lot, pay cash for a 2-year old BMW and be on his way. He’d already gotten the fake license and passport from Ricky in Modesto.

What would he do in Mexico? He’d buy a cantina by the beach – work as a bartender, dole out margaritas to undersexed Missouri housewives on vacation who’d love to have a 9-incher screw them on the beach. The Deville’s speedometer edged to 90 …

The sirens came behind him from nowhere – that patch of grass behind the hill, Tommy supposed. What to do? He stopped and looked about him. The pig got out of his Charger, started toward him with a John Wayne swagger and reflective Ray-Bans like a grunting top from bad ‘70s porn.

Tommy prepared himself. No traffic in either direction.

“License, insurance, registration –“

Tommy lifted his left arm and pointed the revolver straight at the officer’s face. Before the officer could react, Tommy plugged his face. The pig ricocheted backward onto the highway. Tommy threw the gun down on the car’s floor and pulled away.

Ah, the price of freedom. But thank God he was left-handed. Cop would’ve seen the gun in the right hand. Next time – he’d have to watch his speed. One whacked cop was enough.

It didn't work

The television came on again but all Daphne got out of it was snow. She threw the remote at the monitor. “Horsefeathers! You deal with it, Giles. I give up.”

“Now, Daphne, sweetheart” her husband said, that pouty scolding tone coming back into his voice, “you know very well I can’t fiddle with electronica. Reading those pesky user manuals give me a sick headache.”

Daphne groaned. Giles was always complaining of a sick headache these days. “Where’d you put your reading glasses?”

He raised his brows and narrowed his eyes. “On the end table, where I always put them.”

“They’re not there,” Daphne said, hands on hips and wondering why their Friday evening was being wasted on cheap plastic crap from China. “I can’t very well look at the DVD player if I can’t see that damned black-on-black print they put on these damned machines.”

“You’re the one who wants to watch ‘Rashomon’ tonight,” Giles said, all puffed up. “Not me. I’d have been perfectly happy to play gin rummy.”

“We’ve had the movie from Netflix almost a week. It’s about time. Drats, you lost your reading glasses. Magnifying glass? Flashlight?”

“That’s James’s routine, not mine. Why don’t you call customer service?”

Twenty minutes waiting for someone to pick up the phone, make her go through everything she’d already tried, and come from half way around the world with an incomprehensible accent?

“I’d rather eat my fingernails.”

Shoes

Mel ran to the shoe room while Val waited. The tap, tap, tap of Val’s heels on the linoleum could be heard throughout the entire house – from the grand foyer all the way up to Mel’s shoe room. Too bad, Mel thought, waiting would be a good thing for that shoe-tapping Type A lawyer.

What to wear? Granted, it was only April and the Seattle gray hadn’t lifted for the season yet. Mel doubted it ever would this year. It’d been a gloomy year ever since Val had swept Pat up on New Year’s Eve and had that January affair. Well, screw Pat, though Mel had decided to leave that up to Val. And why not? There was this mansion on the lake, the Mercedes in the garage, and a room full of shoes. All Pat had was monthly visits to the salon.

Mel meandered in the shoe closet, organized to perfection. Winter boots, dress shoes for formal occasions, pumps for their most outrageous parties, rows of tennis shoes for the gym (they always belonged to the absolute latest in gyms), flip flops for boating when they decided to cruise, sandals for those trips down to Catalina (Mel could never understand what Val saw in southern California), and of course work shoes, just to remember what it was like before Val punctured a hole into life.

Tonight they were going to an Obama fundraiser. Their president needed all the money he could get, fighting those evil Repulsivecans. Mel knew perfectly well that Pat would be there with that Suzy Chapstick smile, tanning salon tan, and Botox-filled face. Well, screw Pat – and this time Mel would do the srewing. Val would get a lifetime’s surprise tomorrow morning when coming into the guest bedroom and finding Pat in bed with Mel.

In the corner

I sighed when I came home from the hospital. Visiting George every evening after a day at work was dragging me down, I had to admit. Even George had said something recently. Martha, he said in that nicotine gravel of a voice he had, you got to get you some fun sometime.

But how could I have fun anymore? Without George at home I had too much to do around the house. Tonight, however, I couldn’t deal with it, so I opened the refrigerator door. How beautiful it sat there, that bottle of New Zealand white wine. As shiny as a new car on the showroom floor. And I started to reach for it …

No, I promised him. I promised myself. And remember what happened the last time I drank? I ended up in Hayward without knowing how I got there. I can’t do it … but I need something, some guilty pleasure. So I raided the freezer. Thank God! A little of that French vanilla ice cream left. And some Smuckers caramel sauce. Yum … heat it up in the microwave. I went to the corner table in the kitchen and had my ice cream treat … yum. But not enough. It’s too silent here.

I think I’ll go into the bedroom and masturbate to my Victoria Secret catalog. The house is too quiet without George here.

The surprise

Richard had been planning ever since Helen had bought the Lexus without asking him. But this November Friday was the night, the weather windy and stormy just as he’d hoped. No one would hear what he planned for her at the Mendocino cabin. None of their friends would be coming up for the weekend, and Helen’s mother would be expecting her in Scottsdale late that night. But she’d never arrive.

Yesterday, he’d gone up there in a Fusion he’d rented on his fake ID and stored his supplies in the pantry. Bought at different stores, of course, so no one would make the connection. A bungee cord, plastic sheeting, a ball of twine, a steel saw, and a large sack. After it was over, after he’d avenged all those credit card bills, he’d take Helen to the plot he’d already unearthed halfway down the coast on the way to Bodega Bay.

The first part went off without a hitch. He surprised Helen at home, sitting in the foyer, waiting for the taxi to come up Pacific Street to their house. He’d take her to the airport, he decided – he wanted to see her off. Thank you, she said – so much nicer than taking a taxi. But don’t bother calling the taxi, he said – no need at this point, let’s just go. So into the car they went, and as soon as she shut the door, he did it. A well-placed chloroform-soaked handkerchief over her face. Helen, unconscious in less than ten seconds. He gave her a morphine injection to make it last.

His wife … how many years now since they got married, twenty-three? Right around this time of year, he could never remember the date. But she always did. And every year, another expensive diamond he’d have to buy for her. Well, there she lay in the back seat of their Range Rover – no one could see her. He drove very carefully up to Mendocino. No need getting pulled over by the California Highway Patrol.

He drove through the neighborhood. The usual traffic for a Friday evening, weekenders still coming up from the city even this late in Fall, even with the horrible weather – cars lined the avenue going up the hill toward their own house. He pulled into the driveway, around the back, and into the garage. He opened the rear door, dragged Helen out – good, unconscious but alive.

Had she gained weight on the drive? She seemed ponderous for such a petite woman as he lifted her over his shoulder, opened the door, and started up the stairs. When he reached the top, he opened the door into the great room.

The lights went on. Forty people stood up and yelled, “Surprise! Happy anniversary!”

Allow me to introduce myself (again)

The fifteenth of October. We’ve finally turned the corner. Four months of schwizting through my shirt at 7:00 in the morning when I walk my dog, four months of agonizing anxiety over whether a hurricane will destroy my home, four months of cabin fever, Florida variety – all over now. Having weathered the worst weather the country can offer, for the next eight months we can now offer the best it can.

Icing on the cake, we start a new Round Robin today. I think this is #11 for me, though I’m not sure. I’ve stopped counting them, just like I stopped counting the number of trips I was taking to East Hampton to visit Mark. I believe it was #15 when I went up there in August to bury my gallant, dapper 92-year old friend. There’ll probably only be one more East Hampton trip, to close down the house when it sells. But there’ll be lots, lots, lots more Round Robins.

My New Year’s resolution, Round Robin-style, is to do my daily writes when I wake up in the morning. Today’s a promising start. I’m here on the East Coast, looking out the window toward the Atlantic Ocean (can any of you do that from San Francisco) at what promises to be a beautiful morning. I say “morning” because in Florida, the sky’s only good for two, maybe three hours of predicting the weather. But I digress, as I’ve been known to do. My resolution is to do these writes in the morning, because they always put me in a happy mood.

I read the roster of Round Robin participants and found so many people I’ve partnered with in the past. I’m psyched to be writing with such great people. We’ve got a number of great poets in the group, fiction writers, dialogue queens, plot mavens, scene setters, and even a few geek types (count me in there). Let’s get the party started.

The round robin

Agnes, Norman, Brian, Cristina, Victoria, Siobhan, Patrick, Gracie, Granny, and Uncle Collin sat around the ‘60s-tiled, industrial gray room with a small toilet and sink against the back wall.

“All right, characters from my novel,” I said at last. “Now is the time for you to tell me what you’ve learned during this Round Robin.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Norman Balmoral asked. “I’ve learned that my wife has a dangerous brown mole on her thigh, and that you might give her cancer in the next revision.”

“Just a thought, Norman, no need to worry about Agnes. You, on the other hand, I’d be very careful if I were you.”

Victoria gasped. “Don’t you lay a hand on my son, or I’ll come over there and slap you.”

“You go, girl,” Gracie said and gave a big chuckle. “About time this writer learns he can’t play games with his characters. And just to get the daily write out of the way, he’s taken shortcuts in his stories.”

“Gracie, that’s unfair. I’ve never taken shortcuts for you. How could I? You’re an 80-year old former slave.”

“Quit reminding people. That’s in the past, young man. No one cares if I was a runaway slave at 7. You’re living in the past!”

“I know, I know.” She had me there.

“Jim,” Brian said, leaning in my direction, “I really like the idea of making me a happy homosexual and Patrick an unhappy one.”

“I’m not so crazy about the idea,” Patrick added.

“What’s this about my son being a homosexual? No one told me that.”

I had to clarify for her. “Siobhan, and Uncle Collin, you’re not supposed to know about that. Ever.”

I cast a Samantha Stevens-like spell on them so that they’d forget about it. Hey, I’m the writer after all. I can erase memories if I like.

“Stuff and nonsense,” Granny bellowed. “I’ve had enough of this group therapy twaddle. It’s time for a glass of sherry.

“Just one moment.” I looked over at my heroine, quiet and pondering each of us. I was concerned. I’d never written her as overly reflective. “Agnes, we haven’t heard from you yet.”

“I’m tired, Jim,” she said. “I’m simply exhausted. And now I learn you’re contemplating this new cancer angle. Could you just bring this story in for a landing? You’ve been working on it for three years and I’m just tired. Set it in stone and put the story away. Please.”