The Worst Weekend (Part 2 of 9)

[This is the second installment of the story!  Find the first installment, along with the rest of the stories I've posted on the blog,  at the Table of Contents.  Thanks for reading!]

(At the end of the last installment, Linny’s Friday night was ruined by paperwork.  She thinks things can’t get any worse, and you know how that usually works out…)

Linny didn’t make it home from work until Friday evening turned into Friday night, and all her big plans – which, to be perfectly honest, never would have materialized anyway – lost their appeal.   Her best intentions simply evaporated in the face of a pepperoni pizza and six reruns of Sex in the City.  Linny resolved to try that trendy wine bar across the street from her apartment next week, make dinner plans with Pamela downstairs some other time, and call all her neglected family members in the morning.  After staying late to deal with Jason-the-pervert while Amanda took off early for happy hour with her friends – Linny still thought those friends must be the imaginary kind – Linny didn’t feel like doing anything.

Saturday started where Friday ended.  Linny woke up on the couch, slippery with pizza grease, blinking woozily at the television.  Except on Saturday morning, the pizza grease smelled like feet and the television blasted a bright, screechy talk show into Linny’s tiny living room, making her wish she’d gone to the trouble of showering and getting into bed the night before.

She hit the channel button with a slimy finger and spent a few minutes watching a pale weatherman announce a January heat wave in front of a brightly colored map.  “This is what makes all that L.A. traffic worth it!” he announced, then waited for a laugh like he was doing a stand up routine.  He looked like he hadn’t been outside in weeks.  Linny wondered if they kept him there, under the florescent lights, all the time.  Linny turned off the television and told herself that there was still plenty of time to salvage the weekend.

Linny ended up with exactly twenty-five minutes of uninterrupted weekend.  That’s how long it took her to peel off her work clothes, take the hottest shower she could stand, and pick out a pretty cotton dress with tiny purple flowers at the hem that was just perfect for a sunny seventy-five degree Saturday afternoon in January.  Linny was just burrowing into her closet to unearth her favorite pair of sandals… when the phone rang.  Linny knew that Grandma Gina would be at the other end of the line, impatiently chewing on a pencil as she surveyed her storage room and decided she had space for a few more cases of canned peas.

Linny sat back on her heels and groaned as her relaxing weekend scurried into the closet and hid behind the sandals.  Linny grabbed a practical pair of sneakers and ran for the phone.  Her finger hovered over the “silence” button for two full rings before her conscience got the better of her.

“Hi Grandma,” she said sweetly, dropping back on the couch and pulling her feet under her.  Maybe her grandmother just wanted to talk.  Anything was possible.

“Costco!” Grandma Gina announced.  She didn’t even say hello, or how are you, or did you have a good week at work.  Just Costco, with an exclamation point.

“Really?”  Linny asked.  “We just went last week.  What on earth do you need?”

“We need everything,” Grandma Gina said firmly.  Then, covering the mouthpiece, she screamed “Harold!  Harold!  Put on your pants!  Linny’s going to be here in a minute to take us to Costco.  No, of course she doesn’t want to.  I didn’t say she wanted to go to Costco, I said she’d be here in a few minutes to take us there and she’s not going to want your naked behind in her car!”  Linny couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.  “Linny?  Are you still there, dear?”

“Yes, I’m here.”  Silently, she added “unfortunately,” and “yelling defeats the purpose of covering the phone while you say things you don’t want me to hear.”

“Good.  We’ll see you in ten minutes.  Come up to the door.  Harold doesn’t like it when you honk for us in the driveway.  It isn’t ladylike.”

Harold was Grandma Gina’s third, and sturdiest, husband.  While the other two wilted under her constant criticism and fled the moment she loosened her iron grip – four years, in the case of husband number one, and just three months for husband number two – Harold traveled in a bubble of serenity and in eleven years Grandma Gina hadn’t succeeded in popping it.  Not that she hadn’t tried.  They were tied together not by love but by Harold’s immunity to Grandma Gina’s attacks and Grandma Gina’s determination to break him.

Linny liked Harold, with his wispy white hair and permanent smile.  He wore bright sweaters and thumped his cane loudly with each step, like he could make up for his height – barely over five feet – with color and noise.  His smile grew every time Grandma Gina complained, infuriating her and allowing everyone else in the family to gauge her mood the moment the couple walked into a room.

On this particular Saturday, Harold’s mouth stretched so far around his face that Linny worried it might actually stick that way, like her mother used to say hers would when she wrinkled her nose at her smelly brother.  Linny hugged Harold hello and said “Of course, I knew that,” when he quietly assured her that he didn’t mind at all if she honked in the driveway.

“It’s very nice of you to take us out,” he said, patting her arm as she moved on to hug Grandma Gina.  “Although I can’t imagine what we’re going to do with another case of peas.”  Grandma Gina shushed him and his smile crept a little closer to his ears.

“Hi Grandma,” Linny said, moving in for one of Grandma Gina’s famous squeezes.  She squeaked as the tiny old woman pushed every bit of air out of her lungs.  “I like your hat.”  Grandma Gina always wore a hat.  A formal hat.  Often one with a veil or a large cluster of fruit on it.

“Thank you.”  Grandma Gina touched the red, wide brimmed hat, complete with a large black bow, and blushed.

Harold’s face started to relax.

“You look pale, Linny,” Grandma Gina complained.  “You need to get out more.  Have you eaten?”

Linny assured her grandmother that she had eaten, and she planned to get out in the sun as soon as they finished shopping.  None of this stopped Grandma Gina from emptying her refrigerator into a paper bag while saying things like “You like these dark red apples, don’t you, Linny?” and “You’ll eat this yogurt for breakfast,” and “I don’t know what possessed Harold to buy an entire salami.”

Grandma Gina thrust the bag into Linny’s arms, solving the why-do-you-have-to-go-to-Costco-every-damn-weekend mystery.  Linny thanked her.  She had no idea what she was going to do with an entire salami.

“You guys ready?”  Linny asked, anxious to get the shopping trip out of the way.  Trekking through a warehouse store with her bad tempered grandmother while Harold wandered off and got lost in the frozen food section was a terrible waste of a beautiful day.  If they hurried, Linny could still have a few hours to herself before the sun went down.

Grandma Gina’s good mood evaporated in an instant. “We are not guys,” she announced primly.

“I’m a guy.”  Harold winked at Linny and she giggled.

“Harold, be quiet.  You have nothing to contribute to this.”

“You’re right, darling.  And I’m outnumbered anyway!  Linny, to our chariot!  Gina, aren’t you coming with us?”

“Linny hasn’t corrected herself.”  Grandma Gina remained rooted to her kitchen floor.

Linny risked a glance at Harold.  She wished she could communicate the words “Let’s leave her here and go to the beach” with her eyes.  Instead, she smiled at Grandma Gina.  “I’m sorry, Grandma.  Grandma Gina, Harold, are you ready to leave?”

“That’s better.”  Grandma Gina took Linny’s arm.  “That color suits you,” she said, patting the blue t-shirt Linny wore instead of the pretty dress she wanted to wear.  Dresses didn’t lend themselves to Costco trips with Grandma Gina and Harold.  Too much heavy lifting.  “I have a hat in that exact shade.  Remind me when we come back.  I’ll give it to you.”

Harold’s grin receded an inch and he raised an eyebrow at Linny as if to say, “see, she’s not all bad.”

[Come back next week to find out if she really is that bad... and thanks so much for reading!]

The Worst Weekend (Part 1 of 9)

[This is the first installment of a new story!  The rest of the stories I've posted on the blog are available at the Table of Contents.  Thanks for reading!]

Spandex at the Office

“Are you sure?”  A bottle of mayonnaise hovered just above Linny’s sandwich, and a young man wearing an apron hovered just above the bottle of mayonnaise.  He looked earnestly over the sneeze guard that separated Linny from her lunch.

“Yes, I’m sure,” she snapped.  What business was it of his to criticize her diet?  He knew nothing about her.  He made sandwiches for a living.  “Extra,” she instructed, even though she didn’t want it.  “And I’ll have ranch dressing and two chocolate chip cookies, please.”  She didn’t like ranch dressing, but she liked being ordered around by the boy in the apron even less.  She could scrape it off.

“If you say so.”  He squeezed the bottle regretfully.

Linny looked down at herself as the man rummaged for the salad dressing.  Stylish workout pants, a shiny blue tank top, a jacket made out of something with “moisture wicking” on the label, and a pair of blindingly white running shoes looked back up at her.  Combined with the date – January 5^th – and the love handles creeping out where her shirt ended, the outfit probably gave the impression that she wanted to be second guessed on things like mayo.  She actually wished someone had second guessed her decision to join Annabelle for early morning yoga before work.  Casual Friday or no casual Friday, Linny did not feel comfortable in spandex at the office.

“Thanks,” she said, when he handed the bag over the counter.  She smiled, but he already had his eyes on the next customer.

Do Squirrels Like Olives?

Linny took her lunch outside.  She hadn’t planned to eat outside, but she hadn’t planned to get her sandwich with a side of low self esteem, either.  She would find a place to sit at the edge of the park.  No one would notice her because they were all in a hurry to get to their own sandwich shops before their lunch breaks ended, and it was a cold, windy day that didn’t lend itself to lingering on park benches.  She could eat invisibly outside.  In the sandwich shop, with the apron boy just a few feet away, she would have felt like an exhibit.

Linny finished her lunch in a hurry.  She lost the entire top slice of bread to the ranch dressing, which soaked through during the time it took to walk from the sub shop to the park bench, and she had to flick most of the gooey, mayonnaise covered olives onto the ground.  Annabelle, who always discarded half her bread and never touched mayonnaise, would feel like a good influence if she knew, but Linny wouldn’t tell her.  She hoped squirrels liked olives, otherwise she’d be littering.

Linny stood up reluctantly as her watch inched closer to 1:30.  Just three and a half hours of work until the weekend.  She could survive three and a half hours.

Linny arrived at her building and waved hello to the security guard behind the desk.  “Hi Linny,” he called as she entered.  She handed him the extra cookie and he grinned wide enough to display a missing molar.  “Thanks, sweetheart.” He peeked into the white paper bag and his grin grew.  “You have a good afternoon.”

“You too, Fred.  See you Monday if I don’t see you on my way out.”  Linny walked slowly to the elevators, marveling over the power of sugar, butter, and eggs to brighten someone’s day.

Your Problems Don’t Matter on Friday Afternoon

The elevator crawled to the fifteenth floor, where Linny went straight to the Human Resources suite, keeping her head down and pretending not to see the six employees who popped out of their seats the moment she came through the door.  She didn’t want to hear about their problems at 1:30 on Friday afternoon.  She didn’t care if Julie was clipping her nails in her cubicle again, or if Roy left another tuna sandwich to rot in the refrigerator, or if that creepy guy with the mustache was the prime suspect in the case of the stolen lunches.  None of it mattered on Friday afternoon.

“Hi Amanda,” Linny said wearily as her own nail clipping, tuna eating, lunch stealing cubicle mate came into view.

Amanda grunted hello and lazily flipped a page in the magazine she was reading.

“You didn’t go out to lunch today?”

Amanda grunted again.

“Anything happen while I was gone?”

A third grunt let Linny know that Amanda had twenty-five seconds left on her lunch break and  planned to enjoy every last one of them.

Linny fell into her chair and spun once, not quite ready to let go of her own hour of freedom.  Friday, she thought, enjoying the way the word loosened the tight spot in the middle of her chest.  She loved the promise of Friday afternoon.  It didn’t matter how many loads of laundry she had to wash over the weekend, or how much of Saturday she had to spend at Costco debating the merits of a case of dill pickles verses a case of sweet pickles with her eternally indecisive grandmother.  On Friday, the weekend stretched out, beautiful and endless, in front of her.  Linny admired her almost empty desk and fantasized about leaving a few minutes early.

Linny’s phone rang, dragging her back to the workday.  She answered it in her best professional voice and crossed her fingers.  If Jason wandered into the ladies room again, she’d have to stay late filling out forms and calming people down.

“Lin-neeeee.” Annabelle started the conversation with her trademark whine, and Linny felt her teeth press together, like she could keep her cousin’s voice out if she closed her mouth tightly enough.  “You didn’t eat bread for lunch, did yooooooou?”

Linny pulled a pen out of the cup on her desk and rolled it guiltily between her palms.  Sometimes, she thought Annabelle was tailing her.  “No,” she lied.  “I had a salad.”

“Dressing?”  Annabelle asked.  “I bet you had dressing.  Whatever, at least you stayed away from bread.  I’m telling you, that’s your whole problem.  It makes you swell up.”

Linny doubted that her “problem” was bread related swelling.  She was more inclined to believe that she had a bad case of Annoying Cousin Who Insists On Being Friends Even Though We Have Nothing In Common.  “I’m working, so I have to go,” Linny said sweetly.  “But maybe I’ll see you this weekend.”  If I absolutely can’t avoid it, she added silently, and gave the pen another guilty squeeze.

“Linny!  That wasn’t a personal call, was it?”  Linny’s boss poked his head into her cubicle.  He was smiling.  He didn’t care if Linny made personal calls, but he couldn’t resist teasing her when he caught her breaking the occasional rule.

“No Sir.  Of course not.”  Linny blushed and shuffled the three remaining papers on her desk – a blank employee discipline form, her own bank statement, and an advertisement for cruise vacations that the fax machine spit out earlier in the day.  “I was just… finishing things up for the week.”  She deposited the papers in a neat pile on the other side of the desk and nodded meaningfully at them.

“Sir, huh?”  Linny’s boss laughed.  “Haven’t I told you to call me Steve?”

“Every day, Sir,” Linny answered.  “Um… I was wondering… Since I’m pretty much done here, could I sneak out a little early today?”  Linny crossed her fingers again, this time behind her back.

Jason The Pervert Ruins Friday

Steve sighed.  Linny never asked for anything, and he wanted to say yes.  “I’m afraid this is going to have to get done today,” Steve said apologetically, adding another page to the pile.  “If you and Amanda work together, you can probably still get out of her by 6:30.”

He looked so sorry that Linny buried her own disappointment under an efficient nod and went back to straightening up her desk.  She liked Steve, and he wouldn’t ask her to stay if he didn’t have to.

“I’d do it,” Steve said, “if it was anything else.  But you know I’m not good at smoothing things over.  If I try to calm them down, we’ll get sued.  I need you to work your magic, okay Linny?”  Steve gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder and left, ordering Amanda to be helpful as he disappeared into the hallway.

Linny lifted the form reluctantly, like touching it would make it real.  “Employee Complaint Form” the typed title said.  Underneath, in loopy cursive writing, Linny read the following: “I found Jason in the ladies room again today.  It was 1:38pm and I have witnesses.  This is unacceptable.  I demand that you take action or I will call my lawyer and we will file a sexual harassment Law Suit next week.”  The words “witnesses” “unacceptable” and “sexual harassment” were surrounded by tiny stars, and “law suit” was capitalized, presumably to emphasize its importance although it actually gave the impression that the writer just dropped in from 1850.  Linny slumped onto her desk as her early Friday turned into a nightmare of paperwork.

“I don’t suppose you’re going to help me with this?” she asked Amanda.

Amanda smacked her gum and gave the form a cursory look.  “Sure,” she said.  “I’ll help.  But I leave at four.”

“Right.  Of course you do.”  Linny prepared to call Jason-the-pervert into the office while Amanda dug through her desk for another chunk of watermelon bubble gum.  “Just my luck,” Linny muttered, pulling up the pervert’s personnel file and wishing someone would just fire him already.  “He couldn’t have waited until Monday morning.”

Linny silently cursed Jason-the-pervert, Amanda, and even Steve as her Friday slipped away.  If she’d know what her weekend would be like, she might not have done that.  She might have invented some more paperwork, turned off the phones, and stayed at her desk until a new week started.  But she didn’t know, so she rushed through her work and felt sorry for herself while everyone else skipped happily out of the office.

[Come back next week to find out how things go so terribly wrong... Thanks so much for reading!!!]

Still Life (Part 10 of 10)

[This is the last installment of Still Life.  You can find the rest of the story, as well as the other stories I've posted on my blog,  at the Table of Contents.  Thanks so much for reading!]

(At the end of the last installment, Greg Elean spent the night watching Judy  paint the wall around Uncle Ed’s house…)

I Did That

Judy returned to her painting that night and spent a few minutes admiring it while the sun went down.  It was beautiful – better than she expected it to be – and she felt like a different person as she examined it.  “I did that,” she said, but she didn’t believe herself.

Greg surprised Judy by appearing, moth-like, the moment she lit the spotlight.  Judy felt like a woman in a dream, and the reality of Greg, arriving with a lawn chair and a cocktail shaker, comforted her as she prepared to work.  He stopped a few feet away and stared.  “Wow,” he said.  “I didn’t realize how great it was last night.”

Judy thanked him and spent five minutes rearranging her buckets.  The idea of putting a paint brush on the wall scared her – what if she couldn’t do it again? – but as Greg offered her a drink and settled into his chair, she relaxed.

Following Boys Home in the Morning

Judy and Greg spent the night the way they spent the one before, but this time, Greg didn’t leave when the sun came up.  He helped her with the sheets.   “Come over,” he said, sounding impulsive in a way that had to be rehearsed and reminded Judy that he was an actor.  “I’ll make us some coffee.”  Judy thought of Uncle Ed, who would need his own cup of coffee, and hesitated.  “Just for a few minutes,” Greg insisted, so Judy followed him home.

Judy felt out of place in Greg’s bright modern house.  Her black clothes stood out against his white walls.  She avoided the furniture for fear of smearing paint on something.  “Can I help?” she asked, following him into the kitchen.

“No no.  Please.  Sit.”  He squinted at a complicated coffee machine, then pushed a button experimentally.  The machine buzzed and sputtered.  “Damn thing,” Greg mumbled, then blushed.  “Sorry,” he said.  “I had one – a normal one, with a pot and an ‘on’ switch.  My manager bought this contraption.”

Judy joined him at the coffee pot, which did have an astonishing number of buttons.  “I think you need one of these,” she said, finding a collection of small plastic tubs on the counter.  They said things like “Columbian,” “French Vanilla,” and “Decaf.”  All coffee words.  Greg, remembering how to operate his coffee pot all of a sudden,  theatrically punched a code into the machine with one hand while dropping two “Columbian” tubs into a slot with the other.

Unveiling?!

Judy and Greg drank their coffee on the balcony.  No cars drove by – it was much too early for tourists – and Judy lost track of time as Greg asked her about herself, her job, her painting, and her crazy Uncle Ed.  “I can’t wait to see it in daylight,” he said, gazing at the sheet covered wall.  “I have a friend,” he added, “who represents artists.  I’ll make sure she’s here for the unveiling.”

“Unveiling?” Judy asked, startled.  She hadn’t thought that far ahead.

“Of course!  We’ll do it at that party your Uncle’s been planning for you.”  Greg smiled indulgently.  “I’ll call the press.  They follow me around like ducklings.  We might as well use them.”  He winked.  “We’ll pretend you’re already a big deal.”

Judy should have been horrified.  A week earlier, she would have been horrified.  But she wasn’t.  It sounded like a wonderful idea.  “I’ll invite my boss from the college,” she said, imagining Mr. Alger in Uncle Ed’s backyard.  “And my students.”  And John, she thought, but didn’t say.  She didn’t know how to explain John to Greg Elean, although she did know that she wouldn’t be sitting on Greg Elean’s balcony, discussing the unveiling of her painting, if John hadn’t forced her to take that spotlight home.

I wouldn’t even have started the painting if John hadn’t arranged Ana’s gallery opening, she thought, and the idea sunk to the bottom of her stomach like a rock.  She felt like she did when she drove by a bad accident that she could have been involved in if she hadn’t been ten minutes late leaving the house.

Judy pictured Uncle Ed’s color coded guest list, still splattered all over the living room floor.  She had a lot of names to add.  Ana would need a special symbol.  Something to let everyone know she shouldn’t be allowed in the house with her spiders.  “Thank you,” she said to Greg.  “For your help.  And for the coffee.  I should go, though.”

“Stay a little longer.”  Greg placed a hand lightly on Judy’s arm.  “I like your company.”

Coffee, Not Blood

Judy sat on Greg’s balcony until she saw Uncle Ed on the front steps, an empty coffee cup in one hand and a dripping dish towel in the other. “I really better go.”  Judy squinted at Ed.  The liquid dripping from the towel was dark.  Coffee, she hoped, and not blood.

Judy leaned on the railing to get a better look, and almost toppled over when Greg yelled “Ed!”  Uncle Ed froze.  “Ed!  Come over!  I’ll make you some coffee!”

Ed flailed his arms around, like a man stranded on a desert island, waving at a helicopter.  “On my way!” he shouted.

“See?  Now you don’t have to leave.”  Greg joined Judy at the railing.  He stood so close that his arm touched hers, but she didn’t stammer and blush like she would have a day earlier.  “Tell me about the rest of your family.  Will they come to the unveiling?”

Judy liked the way he didn’t call it her thirtieth birthday party.  She wondered if he would argue with Uncle Ed over the invitations and the writing on the cake.  She hoped he would.  “Yes, they’ll come,” she answered.  “They… don’t all get along with my uncle, though.  There might be fireworks.”

Greg laughed.  “Fireworks make great publicity. Don’t worry about it.  Although I can’t imagine anyone disliking your Uncle.  He seems like a lot of fun.”

Why Can’t He Use The Driveway Like a Normal Person?

Judy thought about all the times Greg Elean saved Uncle Ed from burning, drowning, and falling to his death.  “A lot of fun” didn’t seem like the right phrase, but she loved Greg for saying it.  “Enough about me,” Judy said, still surprised that she could put words together while standing so close to Greg.  “What are you doing, creeping around your neighbor’s house in the middle of the night?  Don’t you have glamorous parties to go to?”

“Ha!  They aren’t so glamorous, you know.”

“No?  They look glamorous on television.”  Judy wanted to suck the words back in, but if Greg thought she sounded like one of his stupid fans, he didn’t show it.  He just nodded, like he understood, and then winced as Ed’s head popped over the wall.   Why can’t he use the driveway, like a normal person? Judy wondered.

“I don’t blame you for not believing me,” Greg’s eyes stayed on Ed.  “I should take you to one, so you can see for yourself.”  He smiled shyly and glanced at Judy.  “If you’d be interested.”

“Um… yes, I’d be interested.”  Judy’s heart pounded, almost distracting her from Uncle Ed’s precarious position.  “Not because I don’t believe you, though.  I’d just love to go with you.”  She blushed.  Greg leaned a little closer.  Uncle Ed grunted as he hoisted himself on top of the wall.

“I better help him,” Greg said.  “Or we’ll be having coffee in the emergency room.”

Greg made the transition from romantic lead to action hero in the time it took to leap over the balcony.  “Hold on, Ed, I’m on my way!” he yelled, racing across the yard.

X-Ray Vision or Very Low Standards

Uncle Ed waved his coffee cup at Judy.  He looked pleased with himself.  “Jude!” he shouted.  “The painting looks great!”

Judy looked at her painting, still covered in sheets, and at Uncle Ed, who either had x-ray vision or very low standards.  Greg propped a ladder against the wall and climbed up, then guided Ed down like a firefighter.  When they reached the ground, they both turned to wave proudly at Judy.

Greg patted Ed on the back – congratulating him for not breaking a leg, Judy thought – and walked out to the sidewalk.  Uncle Ed waited on the grass.  Greg looked both ways – for traffic, cameras, or both – and jogged to the middle of the street, where Uncle Ed’s newspaper waited in its usual puddle.  Greg peeled it off the pavement and held it up triumphantly, puddle water running down his arm.  “She’s going to be on the front of this thing in a few weeks,” he told Uncle Ed, trotting back into the yard, and Ed nodded as if Greg said something more like “Nice day today, isn’t it?”  “I mean it.”  Greg pointed at the front page, not sure that Ed understood him.  “We’re going to get all the reporters in Los Angeles out to see the wall when it’s done.  Judy is going to be a big success.”

“Of course she’s going to be a big success!”  Ed agreed.  “She took her time getting around to it, that’s all!”

Judy couldn’t hear them from the balcony, but she was thinking the exact same thing.

[Come back next week for the first installment of a brand new story, and thanks so much for reading!!!]

Still Life (Part 9 of 10)

[This is Part 9 of Still Life.  You can find parts 1-8, as well as the other stories I've posted on my blog,  at the Table of Contents.  Thanks so much for reading!]

(At the end of the last installment, Judy was ready to  paint the wall around Uncle Ed’s house, and John just gave her a strange gift…)

Color Coding the Party

Judy planned to put John’s spotlight straight into the basement when she returned to Uncle Ed’s house, but she didn’t.  She left it in the car, which she parked at the very end of the driveway, near the wall.  She told herself that she left the spotlight in her car because she didn’t feel like carrying it in, and that she parked so far away from the house because she didn’t want Uncle Ed to ask what she had in her back seat.  But really, Judy just had a funny feeling about the light.  She didn’t want it in the house.

“Jude!”  Uncle Ed exclaimed, the moment her key turned in the lock.  “Jude!  There you are!”  He always said it like she just returned from an expedition, and not like she just walked in from another regular day of work.  “I’ve made a guest list!”  Jude found Uncle Ed in the living room.  Giant sheets of paper covered the floor, and Ed sprawled on top of them with a box of markers.  “It’s color coded,” he explained, rolling off his guest list so Judy could get a better look.  “Green is for friends.  Blue is for neighbors.  Yellow is for family we like.  Black is for family we don’t like.  And anyone with a little red star will steal things, so you have to follow them around.”

Judy scanned the list for red stars.  “That looks  just about right,” she agreed, and said nothing about how ridiculous it was to expect her to do security at her own birthday party.

“It better be right!  I spent all day on it!”  Ed popped up and headed for the kitchen.

“You did a good job.”  Judy followed him, hoping he wasn’t hungry.  She didn’t feel like making dinner.

Paint The Wall Tonight

“We’ll order Chinese!”  Ed shouted, reading her mind, and she smiled.  “You look like you had a long day.”  Uncle Ed pushed Judy into a chair and slapped a menu on the table in front of her.  She didn’t need to look at it – Uncle Ed always wanted fried rice, egg rolls, and the gooey fried chicken with pea pods – but she opened it anyway.   “I saw what you did,” Ed said, speaking more quietly.  He stood at the sink, looking down at the dirty dishes like they might have something interesting to say.  Judy wished he would wash them.  “You’re going to paint the wall tonight?”

Judy nodded.  She was glad Uncle Ed knew, and also glad that she didn’t have to tell him.

“Good girl.”  Uncle Ed didn’t look at her.  “Get two orders of the rice.”

Judy ordered the food, but she didn’t feel like eating.  She pushed rice around her dish, shredded a piece of Uncle Ed’s favorite gooey chicken with her chopsticks, and arranged pea pods around the edge of her plate.  After dinner, she rushed the cartons of leftovers into the refrigerator and piled their dishes in the sink.  She waited impatiently for the sun to sink behind the trees.

When it did, Judy put Uncle Ed’s buckets of paint into an old wagon and dragged them out to the wall.  She found her sketch and her paint brushes, filled another bucket with water, and changed into black pants and a long sleeved black shirt.  She carried a step ladder and looked like a burglar.

Judy got lost in her task almost immediately, but as the sun dropped lower she found herself unable to distinguish between the bright blues and purples that would become the night sky in her painting.  She willed the moon to come out, but clouds stuck to it stubbornly, like someone dipped it in glue and rolled it around the bottom of her purse.  Judy looked at the wall, and then thought of the spotlight.  Her eyes automatically wandered to Greg’s balcony.  If he was home, he would see a light.  “Don’t be stupid,” Judy mumbled.  “Greg Elean doesn’t care about your painting.”  Judy ran to the car and dragged the spotlight out of her back seat, then ran back to the house with the end of the extension cord in one hand and the fingers of the other hand crossed.  She hoped it would reach.

The cord did reach, and the light worked.  Judy painted until she couldn’t keep her eyes open, and then she draped the wall in sheets and fell into bed.  When she woke up in the morning, Uncle Ed had washed all the dishes.

A Second Moonless Night… and a Visitor

Judy spent the day looking anxiously out at the wall and counting the hours until sundown.  If she worked all night, she could be half finished by morning, and the idea that her project would be done in just a few more nights filled her with excitement.  Once she finished it, she knew she wouldn’t be excited anymore.  She would be terrified, and Uncle Ed would have to drag the sheets down so that the tourists who drove past Greg Elean’s house every weekend could say “Oh look, there’s a mural,” and then forget about Judy’s masterpiece as they gazed at Greg Elean on his balcony.

Judy didn’t think about the tourists as she uncovered the paint buckets, but she did think of John, and she silently thanked him as the moon once again refused to come out.  She painted, listening to the scratch of her paintbrush and the rumble of distant traffic, and she didn’t notice the footsteps until the feet stopped just inside her pool of light.

“So this is what you’re doing out here.”   Greg’s voice always surprised Judy when it came out of Greg, and not out of a movie screen, and she never knew how to respond.  She certainly couldn’t sink a little lower in her seat and daydream about him, like she wanted to.  “I saw the light as I drove in my garage last night,” he continued.  “But by the time I parked the car it was gone.  I thought I imagined you.”

Judy isolated the last sentence – I thought I imagined you – and stored it for later.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

It was a stupid question, coming on the heels of So this is what you’re doing out here.  Judy thought Greg must be used to having other people write his lines.  Greg took another step into her light bubble and shined his beautiful eyes on her, making her feel like they were the only two people in the universe even though he probably had some model waiting in his bedroom.  Greg clasped his hands behind his back and turned to her painting, and Judy waited, expecting it to melt off the wall.  It didn’t.  It must be stronger than me, Judy thought.  “You’re an artist,” Greg said, more to himself than to Judy.  “I remember your Uncle saying that.”

A Bug Under a Microscope

Judy searched for a witty remark – anything had to be better than standing in front of Greg Elean with her mouth open and paint dripping on her shoe – but she couldn’t find one, so she just said “I teach art,” as if teaching art and being an artist were two completely different things.

“You’re very good.  This is beautiful.”  Greg turned back to Judy, interest lighting his eyes.  She didn’t feel like the only girl in the world anymore.  She felt like a bug under a microscope.  “I had no idea.”

Judy thought, with some satisfaction, about the abandoned model in Greg’s bedroom as he settled on the sidewalk behind her.  He occasionally offered a comment or a suggestion, but mostly he just sat there, thinking or meditating or doing whatever Greg Elean did when he wasn’t forcing young women to fall in love with him.  Judy painted.  At first, she felt self conscious with Greg’s eyes on her ugly black pants, but she forgot him as she worked.  She noticed him again at dawn, and they said the shy, awkward goodbye of strangers who spent a drunken night together.

“You’ll be back tonight?” Greg asked, and as Judy said yes, she imagined the model asking if he would call her.

[Come back next week for the last installment, and thanks so much for reading!!!]

Still Life (Part 8 of 10)

[This is Part 8 of Still Life.  You can find parts 1-7, as well as the other stories I've posted on my blog,  at the Table of Contents.  Thanks so much for reading!]

(At the end of the last installment, John got Ana the spider girl a gallery opening, and Judy decided not to spend the night feeling sorry for herself.  She left Ed’s garage apartment with plan…)

A Silly Scheme…

Judy didn’t say anything to Uncle Ed when she returned from the home improvement store with buckets of primer.  She just put them in the garage, next to the paint Ed already purchased for her, and went inside to sketch.  It would take at least a day for the big white wall around E’d's property to dry after the rain, and by then her sketch would be perfect.

Judy spent Friday morning applying primer to the side of the wall that faced the street and trying not to stare at Greg Elean, who watched her from his balcony with a cup of coffee in one hand and a puzzled look on his handsome face.  He must wonder why I didn’t hire someone for this job, she thought, and found it comforting that to any observer, she appeared to be doing menial labor.  She could still back out of her silly scheme.

Soon, though, the wall gleamed under the fresh coat of primer and Judy couldn’t pretend she didn’t have other plans for it.  She stood back and surveyed her work – her canvas – and let herself imagine how it would look with her painting on it.  She glanced at Greg’s balcony.  He still stood there, no longer holding the coffee cup but still looking worried about her.  She wondered if he would call Uncle Ed and tell him that you can hire people to paint walls for you.

Judy’s eyes wandered back to the wall.  She wouldn’t be able to paint it all at once.  She thought about that.  About how exposed she would be, with a piece of the wall painted and the rest white and naked.  Everyone would know what she was up to.  They would stare at her, just like Greg.  “No,” she said out loud.  She could paint at night and cover the finished portion with sheets during the day.  No one would notice her.  No one ever did.

Field Trip to the Museum of Junk

Judy showered in a hurry and arrived at the college just as John started class.  He stopped when she entered, hesitating like he thought she might have violence in mind.  I wasn’t that rude on the phone, Judy thought, dropping her bag and holding her arms away from her body slightly, showing John she meant no harm.  John continued, but didn’t take his eyes off her, and she wondered if he felt guilty for stealing her class.

Judy dropped into a seat.  The students acted like she wasn’t even there.

Judy didn’t even think about frowning when John mentioned Ana’s gallery opening.  She felt too excited about her own project.  She just smiled and clapped.  As John herded everyone onto the bus for their field trip, Judy thought about her wall, clean and bright and waiting for her at Uncle Ed’s house.  The idea kept her smiling as Ana became an art class celebrity and John led them through a dark, cluttered museum where Judy expected, at any moment, to turn a corner and find a dead old woman, imprisoned by junk like the people in those documentaries about hoarders.  They finished at the museum and drove back to the college, and Judy didn’t even mind being stuck in traffic on a noisy bus.

Can You Use This?

“Judy?” John said her name cautiously as she gathered her things and prepared to leave after the trip, like he thought she might snap at him.  She thought of her wall and smiled warmly.  John seemed off balance – Judy suspected that a dirty look would have made him more comfortable.  He sighed, resting one hand lightly on his backpack.  It looked lumpy.  “I’m sorry,” he said, as if that wasn’t what he planned to say at all, and his hand pressed more firmly on the bag.  “I know this semester isn’t going the way you planned.”

“It’s okay,” Judy said, realizing as she said it that she wasn’t lying.  John had hijacked her class, but he wasn’t the one who made her invisible.  She did that to herself, and she was going to undo it.  “My plans weren’t so great.”  She squirmed under the weight of her school bag, but didn’t put it down.  She wanted to get back to her wall.  “I’ll see you next week.”

“Judy?”  John unzipped his old backpack.  “Can you use this?”

Not Possible

Judy stopped and let her own bag slide off her shoulder.  Not possible, she thought, as John began pulling an object out.  He tugged patiently, extracting an enormous light – at least three feet across and attached to a metal stand – and a huge coil of extension cord from the mouth of the backpack like a man delivering a big metal baby.

At first, the size of the object captured Judy’s attention so completely that she didn’t see what it was.  She just stared at John, convinced that Uncle Ed’s insanity was not only real, but hereditary.  “That didn’t come out of there,” she said, after a long silent moment, and John shrugged.  “It… it wouldn’t fit!”  Judy insisted, taking a step closer and examining the thing.

“Yes.  Yes, I know.”  John ran a hand over the light.  “I should have unloaded it by your car.”

The absurdity of John’s response silenced Judy again.  How could he be so calm?  How could his biggest concern be how to get the thing into her car?  And then she really looked at it.  “What do you think I need it for?” she asked, suspicious.   John couldn’t possibly know about her wall.

“I don’t know,” he answered, shrugging again.  “But you do need it.  That I know.”  He looked from the light to the bag hopefully, like he thought he might be able to cram it back inside for the long walk out to the parking lot.  “Take that end.”

Judy lifted the stand and crammed the extension cord under one arm while John carefully balanced the light.  She didn’t want the thing – darkness was crucial to her plan – but John’s order startled her shocked body into action and before she knew it, they were easing the light into her back seat.

“You need it,” John repeated, looking earnestly into Judy’s eyes.  “Promise that you’ll use it.”

“No, I don’t need it,” Judy answered, frowning at her cluttered back seat.  She would have to get it out of the car at Uncle Ed’s house, and then she’d have to find a place for it.  She didn’t want to do any of that.  “I don’t need it.  And I don’t know why you think I need it.  Or how you fit it in there.”  Judy pointed a trembling finger at John’s backpack.

John took a deep breath and Judy backed away until she stumbled into the car door.  She didn’t want to stay for his answers – she suddenly wanted, more than anything, to drive straight to her parents’ house, where her mother would hug her and make tea and she could forget about John entirely – and John didn’t want to answer her, but they were both trapped by her questions.  Judy waited.  John sighed.  The contraption creaked as it settled into Judy’s car.

“Well?”  Judy asked, sounding more confident than she felt.  “Are you just going to stand there?  Answer me.”  I’ll wait one minute, she thought, chewing her lower lip. Then I can say “Fine, be that way,” and storm off with my dignity intact.

Pennies and Gritty Gum Wrappers

John peeked into his bag.  His eyes swam around inside it for more than a minute, but Judy didn’t storm away.  She couldn’t.  She held her breath, waiting for him to pull out an elephant or a small car or a troupe of clowns.  “I don’t know,” he said finally, reaching in and fishing around for a better answer.  Judy couldn’t imagine what he thought he’d find.  The only things she ever found in the bottom of a bag were pennies and gritty gum wrappers.  “I only know that you need it.  You have to promise that you’ll use it.”

Judy wanted to say “No, I don’t have to promise anything,” but she couldn’t.  Something about John made it impossible.  She nodded.  “Sure.  I promise.”  She told herself that she was saying it to make him go away.

John hoisted the empty backpack onto his shoulder and walked back toward the college, waving goodbye without turning around.

“I need it, do I?”  Judy muttered, starting the car and angrily backing out of her parking space.  She thought about her wall.  John didn’t know about her wall.  He couldn’t.  She told no one.  “I don’t need it.  And he doesn’t know.”

[Come back next week to see what Judy does with the contraption in her car...  Thanks so much for reading!!!]