Short Story Wednesday
The Choice, Part 3
Dear Readers. Welcome back and thank you for sticking with me and my weekly short bits of fiction. This is The End of another story. Part 1 set up the rural town and introduced Lannie, my young protagonist. Part 2 introduced Glenna, the one noble lady in town, and the “interesting” Mrs. Leonard who just might have designs on Glenna’s husband, Herb. So what next? Let’s find out.
Part 3
Glenna poured another glass of lemonade and Mrs. Leonard chattered about how devastatingly hot this summer was turning out as she dabbed a tissue down the V of her ruffled blouse. Glenna’s hair had come loose from her ears and looked like a wig set lopsided on the mannequin in La Mode’s Dress Shoppe down on the square. I guess I was staring because pretty soon Mrs. Leonard and Herb stopped talking and stared at Glenna, too. Without a pause, Glenna swept her hair behind her ears and handed Herb the lemonade.
My mother was right. Glenna didn’t look too good, but then to me, Mrs. Leonard didn’t neither, even if she was stirring up Herb to a considerable degree. ‘Course that spelled trouble. The same kind of trouble Colleen Simpson caused me last year when she came to school, her boobs all but popped out of her scoop-neck T. She sent Charlie Barnes into fits. From that time on he never asked me to the Friday dances. I wasn’t about to let that happen to Glenna. She was too old to get another husband and she was sterile besides.
I didn’t sleep that night until I had a plan I thought Glenna’d go along with. Something to get Marjorie Leonard back across the street where she belonged and me and Glenna out in the garden again. Glenna could be one stubborn woman. I’d have to be really clever—sneaky actually—to get her to cooperate.
The next morning I filled an A&P bag with a pair of Mom’s good hair cutting scissors, curlers, Avon Cover Up and blusher, a dark eyeliner and some of my eau de cologne. It smelled rosy and Glenna, I knew, liked roses a lot.
“Hi!” I tried my easy-going-come-to-visit voice, but it didn’t work. She could spot a phony a yard away.
“You come to fix my hair?”
“Got everything here.” I held up my A&P bag.
She led the way into the kitchen and plunked into a chair. “All right, fix away.”
“What happened?” I spun a circle to take in what I couldn't believe I was seeing. The house was spotless. The sink looked naked without a single dirty dish and I swear I could see my face in the linoleum.
“Herb likes a clean house.”
“It wasn’t never this clean.”
“How do you know? You been here every day?” She sounded snappy like a dog on a tight tether.
I shut up and evened her hair.
“I’m gonna give you some curls, okay? I expected all kinds of hell, but she shrugged and sat still while I rolled, combed and fluffed. Then without asking, I put on the makeup.
You brought perfume, I expect.” Her voice came out flat and tired sounding.
“Right here.” I pulled out the Eau de Rose.
She tipped the bottle over her finger, patted behind each ear and, without looking at me, hiked her skirt to put more between her knees. “How do I look?”
“Great.”
“I smell okay?”
“Rosy.”
She nodded and smiled, sort of like she did when bugs got to her Petunias.
“You got a dress?” I felt I might as well go all the way while she was prone to listening.
“It’s over there.” She pointed to the ironing board where a red cotton dress hung to the floor—clean, starched, and pressed.
“I gotta go, Glenna. See you tomorrow?”
“I’m going to town tomorrow, Lannie.”
“Oh, sure. Okay. . . later.” Now that was a puzzle. If Glenna went to town it was to the A&P and that never took her more than fifteen minutes.
It was a week before I got to Glenna’s again. School was about to start, and I was on my way to La Mode Dress Shoppe. Despite my resolve not to stoop to Colleen Simpson’s low level of behavior, I had in my mind to buy a scooped-neck blouse I’d seen in their window even if it took all my summer allowance.
When I got to Glenna’s, the flowers along the side of the house sagged, heads down to the ground—the tiredest-looking bunch of plants I’d ever seen. In the back, the Black-eyed Susans looked like they’d lost a fight. The whole garden slumped under the hot sun.
She’s sick. My first thought.
I knocked at the back door. Glenna stuck her head out. She’d been boutiqued. Her nails were hot pink and she smelled sweet all over like she’d been dipped in a tub of bubble bath. She didn’t have on her jeans or the red cotton dress from last week, but a polka-dotted blouse and full skirt cinched in tight at her middle.
“I’d ask you to come in, Lannie, but I’m on my way out. Herb’s got the afternoon off and we’re going to the movies.”
Well, darn her anyways. How could she do this to me? I watched her and Herb walk towards town, his arm around her waist, her leaning into him like she needed staking up. It was terrible what I was seeing—Glenna going over to the other side. She’d be playing canasta with Mom and her friends next.
I sat on the porch step while Glenna’s garden shriveled, and inside I felt just as droopy as her petunias laying their heads down along the brick walk.
It was a while in coming, but when it did it was like one of the pastor’s revelations. I suddenly saw how this life was chuck full of bad choices. Like when I was ten and Mom made me pick my own punishment for stealing the grapes at the A&P. I could get my legs switched with a peach tree limb or my butt whacked with Mom’s pearl-handled hairbrush. Now, tell me how do you choose between saving your legs or your butt?
I wondered if Glenna’d had the same kind of predicament. Stay herself, or keep Herb home where he ought to be.
I had some thinking to do about buying that scooped-necked blouse or keeping true to the girl I was, so I picked up the garden hose and flooded the Black-eyed Susans to give myself some time to cogitate. I heard the pastor use that last Sunday, and I thought it was very sophisticated sounding—a word someone who knows about how the world works should use.
The End.
Hope you enjoyed meeting Lannie. She’s been in my head for some time. I may have to find another story for her to live in.
Libby and Harley are two other girls who caught my heart and kept me up at night until I wrote them a story.
Here’s a quick summary of Shattered:
Courage put Libby Brown into the final selection for the Olympics, but betrayal crushed her spine and her chance at the Gold. Now she has two choices, use her courage to put her life back together, or remain shattered forever.
A very enjoyable read! Thanks for sharing it. :) Hearing someone say, "cogitate" would probably stick in my mind too.
These characters do live in our heads. Thanks for the introduction. Hope Lannie has a good life ahead (I would have chosen the butt spanking - that's what butts are for). And the character that lives in my head most of the time is now featured in a new WIP that I hope to publish this year, even if I can't get a publisher interested and have to do it myself.