"We're here."
Julie studied him for a moment. "This can't be it. What was the name of the beach we were looking for? Why-there's no sign here at all."
"This is better. Look at it. Nobody's here; no kids, no dogs, no Frisbees." He looked at her then and batted his eyes before saying, "Just you and me."
Julie stared at him for a two count, pushed his shoulder and tisked before getting out of the car. "We can try it. Don't forget the umbrella and the chairs."
Tom smiled away the death threat thoughts and said, "Yes dear." She didn't even make a good pack-mule.
He carried the beach chairs they found at Wal-mart that morning, the umbrella from poolside at the hotel, and a cooler with her cheap box wine. She carried the bag with the hotel towels, her book, and his computer.
Huge boulders formed a storm barrier they had to navigate down to reach the beach; he led the way. Tom picked up a piece of driftwood as big as a baseball bat before heading out.
"What's that for?" Julie asked. She stopped walking.
Tom said, "To hammer the umbrella into the sand."
It was low tide and they walked straight out from the car. The beach dipped low and rose again to an exposed sand bar.
Julie said, "Why are we going out so far? What's wrong with right here?"
"We'll have a better view out there."
"Seems like a lot of extra effort for nothing."
He carried most of the stuff, so she followed. Tom stopped on high ground; put the cooler and the chairs down. He used the driftwood to bang the lower half of the umbrella into the sand, and then clicked it back together.
She moved in with a chair and her bag, taking up the larger portion of the umbrella's shade. "Open the wine, Tom."
He looked at his watch and said, "It's not even noon."
Julie said, "On vacation it doesn't have to be. Besides, it'll be that much closer to noon by the time you get it open. Get to work."
Tom wrestled the container open and poured her a cup. She settled in with her wine and her book-a romance novel with a shirtless hunk on the dust jacket. With Julie quietly reading and drinking, he could relax. He opened his notebook computer and started on his email.
Later, Tom woke with a start, his feet suddenly cold and wet. He was surrounded by water. He closed the computer that was still on his lap and looked over to Julie. She was also roused by the water, but was having a hard time sitting up. Her snug black and white bathing suit accentuated her amplitude.
"Jeez." Tom yawned. "The tide came in."
Julie managed to get up. She put the beach bag on her chair so it would not get any wetter and began packing. "We have to go."
Tom stood, surveyed the situation. Their sand bar had been reduced to an islet by the tide. The main beach seemed distant. "We'll have to wade in."
Julie looked to shore. "Great idea coming out here. What did you say? We'll have a better view?"
Tom spotted a dorsal fin off to his right, circling. "It's a good view," he said. There was another dorsal fin to his left. He folded his chair around his notebook computer, grabbed her chair and folded it also. Leaning the chairs against his leg, he took down the umbrella and tucked it under an arm.
Julie had the bag by the handles, held to her chest. "Is that all of it?"
"Think so ... "
"Can I get anything else?"
He knew it was an insincere offer. "All set." He had a wrist looped into the cooler's handle and clamped the umbrella under his arm as if ready to joust. He held the two chairs and the notebook computer over his head with his other hand.
Tom warily looked around again, and then said, "Lead the way, I'm right behind you."
He watched as Julie waded into the water, heading to the beach and the car. The water had gotten pretty deep. She was up to her waist when he saw one of the dorsal fins return.
She was good for something; she made a good distraction.
The Mercantile Exchange
By Kim Beck
Dust from their arrival billowed over Milburn Mercantile's pine pole awning in a reddish-brown cloud. A lone sorrel drank from a trough in the corral beside the building. Angled near the storefront's hitching post sat an unattended one-horse farm cart.
Nannette's father unhitched the wagon mules and led them to the paddock while casting sidelong glances at the saloon across the street.
"Does Pa think we don't know what he's up to or something?" Nannette said. She shook the trail grit from her long skirt and followed her ma up the wood planks.
"He's watering the animals. Hush yourself." Her ma pushed the door open and walked to the low counter. She took the basket from Nannette and presented Mr. Milburn with two-dozen quail eggs.
While they exchanged pleasantries and fussed over egg quality, Nannette sauntered back to the entrance and looked out. Across the road, Pa hurried through the saloon's red swing doors. She turned away, frowning. Toward the back of the store she saw a young man in a curled brim hat, tipped low in the front.
He turned his head and regarded her for several seconds before reaching to inspect a bridle. He was a sight like none other. The way he moved held her attention and she drew toward the rear without taking her eyes off of him.
Mr. Milburn stopped her by saying, "Afternoon."
"Yes, it is," she said distracted by the goings on in the tack aisle. She hovered near a display of liniments.
Ma sighed, "Really, Nannette."
Mr. Milburn chuckled. "You fancy something I can help you with?"
"Perhaps," Nannette said. "After I look around." But she didn't stray. She rested her hand on the shelf and watched the cowboy. He moved with casual confidence as he inspected leather reins. He looked like a prime stallion in a blue shirt, strong and healthy. After a minute, her other senses kicked in. She looked down at a purplish mound, and hopeful to smell like something other than tallow, said, "This soap has dried lavender."
Ma said, "We make our own."
Nannette said, "But the egg money ?"
"No." said Ma. "We'll need wicking though."
Nannette frowned and noticed the cowboy with the flashing eyes watching her. She pressed her lips together and sashayed toward a board with several notices nailed to it. She studied the papers a moment before pointing to one. "This competition-for best action shooting. I'd like to be there. When is it? The ink is smeared over the date."
"That's not for ladies to watch," Ma said, fingering gingham fabrics Mr. Milburn produced on the counter.
"I don't intend to watch." Nannette said. "I intend to enter."
Ma said, "That would be untoward. I won't allow it."
Nannette produced a closed-mouth smile. She brushed a long piece of hair back into the bun at the nape of her neck. "We'll see, Mother," she muttered.
Mr. Milburn clucked his tongue. "I'm not sure ladies are allowed."
Nannette studied the poster again, focusing on the hundred dollar cash and chestnut gelding prizes. If she won that award, she'd be free as a falcon. And she could buy sweet smelling soap if she wanted it. She heard footsteps then, boots on planks. Without turning around she said, "There's nothing written here that says men only. It says you have to be fifteen, which I was four years ago. I can shoot the wings off a dragonfly. I'd like to enter."
"Act like a proper lady," Ma said, whisking up the willow-braid baskets and bundle of wicking.
"I'd say she looks right and proper," the cowboy said.
Nannette spun around at the low, smooth sound of his voice. He stood, one hand smoothing his worn buckskin vest, one hand holding a new bridle. He wore guns on each hip. She studied him, guessing he was military by his stance. He lifted his hat and replaced it high on his forehead, a new mustache and beard sprinkled around his mouth. He locked eyes with her. And held it. Her heart beat a woodpecker rhythm against her breastbone. "I like this man." Nannette said, offering him a brief genuine smile.
The cowboy said, "And he likes your mettle."
She watched his
eyes rake over her and felt the rush of mutual attraction.
Ma grabbed her elbow and thrust a basket in her hand. "Time to leave. Let's gather your Pa."
Nannette didn't budge and said to Mr. Milburn, though her eyes stuck to the cowboy's. "You never said when the contest was."
"It's Saturday. Noon," the cowboy said. "I'll be there."
Pa walked in the door then, face reddened, a bottle poking out of his pocket. "Howdy. Hotter than an ember out there. You get the laudanum Fern?"
Mr. Milburn said, "You ailing?"
Nanette almost laughed for her Pa's ailment was a sore head after slinging too much drink.
Pa settled up with Mr. Milburn while Nannette and the cowboy stood near the lanterns. Nannette said to him, "I wonder if I might know your name?"
Her ma hovered at the door, scowling.
"The name is Gavin Stroud."
Pa heard them and looked at Gavin with narrowed eyes. "Mister, you'd better be affording my daughter respect."
"Gavin," she whispered.
"Nothing but, sir." Gavin said.
"Time to ride home." Pa said and walked out the door as Gavin conferred with Mr. Milburn.
"Nannette?" Gavin said.
Surprised, Nannette turned in the doorway. She soaked up the image of Gavin's black hair and dark brown eyes.
"For you." Gavin held out the cake of lavender soap.
Nannette hesitated taking the intimate gift. But then she did. "You are most kind. I'll treasure this," she said.
Gavin tipped his hat. "My treasure shall be seeing you again."
Stung by a notion that her life would soon change, Nannette vowed to be at that competition no matter what. She followed her ma to the wagon, her head swarming with things worth remembering until Saturday.
The Nearest Thing
By John Wiswell https://www.johnwiswell.blogspot.com
Felix and Creed grew up at different ends of Eagle Street. A curious zoning law shuffled and dealt the neighborhood children to different hands of schools, and so these two boys only met for two weeks in their entire childhoods. The boiler exploded at Creed's elementary school and his class was temporarily reassigned to Felix's district building, left learning short division in what was normally the art and music supply room.
During those two weeks Creed only had one memorable meeting with Felix: pounding him for lunch money. Creed was a big, funny-looking boy, and the school counselor told his parents that being mocked for it was turning him into a bully. Ironically, being beaten up by a big, funny-looking boy was the primary reason for Felix's pathological fear of large men for a decade afterwards.
Creed was kicked out of his house at thirteen for "causing more trouble than you're worth," as his father put it. Felix's mother, who was the rare sort of school counselor that might have actually helped Creed had they met more than once, was killed in a car accident that same year. Felix's father did his best, but the boy still ran away from home a year later.
A year apart, the two youths followed almost identical strings of towns down the Mississippi. Their nearly identical strings leant them almost identical tastes for spicy food, appreciations for jazz, and talents for finding somewhere safe to sleep. Felix never slept under the same arches that Creed had, though.
The trek introduced Felix to a wide array of very tall men: all smiling at first, some of them perverted, one who hurt him badly, and the last a lanky paraplegic whose endless supply of dirty Bible jokes began to turn the boy around on his phobia. This last gentleman, Mr. Corksworth, shepherded Felix into a halfway house. The comfort of regular meals kept him long enough to discover the trampoline, and a talent for gymnastics.
Creed also visited that halfway house, though he meandered so slowly down the river that he actually arrived after Felix. He slept in the alley under the kids' windows until a cripple invited him inside for breakfast. Yet minutes into his cornflakes he overheard a girl gossip that he was too "mean and gangly" for these parts. He left moments before Felix came downstairs.
Creed spared girls because only hitting men satisfied. It'd started when others wanted his food or squatting rights. He lost enough to learn how not to lose as often. His talent matured, if such tendencies can be said to mature, to the point where he fought in private clubs, where only underage performers were desired, and the winner always lost a little more than the loser by the end of the night. By the end of the year, the satisfaction of hurting drained right out of him.
It was only by luck that he fell out of such circles and into the circuits of the smallest of small-time pro-wrestling. Professional wrestling, "hitting people for fake," but making it look real, for pathetically small crowds. Those crowds, sometimes only ten people, cheered his work with profanity normally reserved for threats, and yet they swore with happy enthusiasm. They were intimate, and they hated him.
You see, puberty and black spandex turned Creed from a big, funny-looking boy to a big, evil-looking son of a bitch. Crowds cheered his work, but his work was making his opponents look like they had a chance. They chanted him down until he left the ring, at which point none could meet his eye. On that level in that queer art, he was the scariest guy anyone had ever seen, even before turning 18. And when he turned 18, "we could actually pay you over the table if you wanted," not that he ever did.
At the same time, a wiry young man named Felix Jester came down the circuit. Any time you threw him in the air, he'd come back down on top of you, like he'd trained in gymnastics or something. He was so nimble that no matter how badly an opponent bent or stretched his limbs, he laughed instead of screaming. The crowds loved it, and had no idea that Felix, their favorite hero, was living out of a used car as he traveled from show to show. The fans had no idea their most reviled villain, Killer Creed, also lived out of a used car. Even the promoters of those wrestling shows had no idea that these two cars were parked next to each other outside the arena the night before their owners fought for the first time.
Felix was trying to sleep, while Creed was getting his jazz on with the new car CD player attachment he could finally afford. Who cared if CD's were outdated when used John Coltrane and Trio Beyond were going so cheap?
Felix cared. He rolled up his window, waved to get the guy to shut that crap off to no avail, and finally gave up because you couldn't be mad at Louis Armstrong. Eventually he tapped on Creed's window and asked him to turn it up.
They spent the night talking from the front seats of two of the ugliest automobiles in the state, their doors open, almost touching. It was 1:30 AM before one figured out the other was wrestling, and 2:30 before the other figured out the other was wrestling him, "but jazz does that."
They had a heck of a match, especially for two guys who had never met before. Rematches were inevitable, and the feud of the acrobat and the killer wound up lasting years. Promoters forbid them from traveling together lest they ruin the gig, and they did not complain. All they needed were those nights with car doors open, when the road no longer separated them.
The Vial
By Tom Bentley https://www.tombentley.com
Lily Farquat checked the vial for the third time that day. She held it up to the light and shook it slightly. The old cut glass was heavy, and its facets still threw off quick slants of light, but Lily's eyes looked only for the liquid within.
More accurately, her left eye looked, for at eighty-four, her right eye only offered her a muddy haze, its clarity lost to milky cataracts years ago. Satisfied that its contents were intact, she put the vial back in the cupboard, pushing it behind the cans of soup.
Four days, she thought. Four days. Maybe a dance at Luthjen's. Or beignets and coffee at Du Monde-how long has it been?
All the shades in the little house were drawn; they had been drawn for nearly ten years, winter and summer, drawn the day that Lily turned 75. That day she had taken every mirror in the house and had them sent away.
"Don't care to have anybody looking in on me-they can mind their own business, and I'll
mind mine. And I don't care to be looking into any more mirrors. I know what I look like."
She had rid herself of most of the reminders of her past-everything but the vial. The vial was older than Lily, older than Lily's mother. It had been given to Desiree, Lily's grandmother, by Marie Leveau, after Desiree had saved Marie's daughter from being trampled by a horse.
Marie told Desiree that the potion would grant its drinker youth and vitality, but that its effects would last three years, and not a moment longer. However, the juju would only work if the vial's entire contents were taken at once.
Desiree accepted the gift with sober thanks, but had always laughed about it in private. She'd kept the vial in a drawer, and given it to her daughter Rose on her sixteenth birthday. It was willed by Rose to her only child Lily, accompanied by a note detailing instructions for its use.
Lily had scoffed, but later she'd been given a book about the Leveaus, and having read it, read countless others. She'd looked at the vial ten thousand times since then, shaking it, pulling out its tight glass stopper and smelling it, falling asleep with it clutched in her hand. There was validity in the vial's age, portent in its liquid gleam. Lily knew its power was real.
She bided her time, noting the slackening skin on her arms, the brown splotches on her hands. She'd always been a vigorous walker, loving to stroll the Garden District and the waterfront, but as those neighborhoods and her body fell into disarray, her interest in walking waned.
But she had the vial. Four days to go. She was dozing in the chair, dreaming of dancing in front of the statue in Jackson Square when the knock startled her awake.
"Lily, it's Letitia. I brought you a few things. Can I come in?" It was the new social worker, whose eagerness Lily had not yet been able to put off.
"Fine, fine, an old woman's sleep isn't important. Why should I rest?" said Lily.
"Now that's no way to talk, on this fine day. I brought you that good strong rye loaf from Boudreau's, and this little angel food cake, because I know that somebody's birthday is close. A little soup too."