101 Words

“She goes out the front door,” Wayne barked.

The black funeral home van sat idling in the side yard, close to the large sliding glass doors, its back open.

He thought of the day he put the key in the front lock and carried Missy over the threshold.

“But we’re all set through the back door,” the driver said. “Big frame, one step and we’re outta here, sir.”

“She came into this house through the front door, in my arms, and if you make me, she will go back out the same way.”

His voice cracked.

“She deserves the front door.”

I saw them together in the atrium, laughing, her golden hair catching the sun, his hand on her arm. I’d planned to surprise him, take him for lunch.

I quietly withdrew.

That evening nothing was said. I appeared happy. Jolly even. When he went to bed, I checked his phone and read the messages. Obviously from her. They were affectionate, if not yet loving. A bud about to blossom.

I bought exciting new lingerie, read cookbooks, and bought West End tickets. He responded eagerly and when I next checked the phone, he’d left her.

It was then that I left him.

United in our dislike of Cara, we discuss her during every lunch break. The way she giggles at the boss’s lame jokes. Tosses her hair. Gives him that look. (No wonder the boss schedules so many lunchtime ‘meetings.’) The company handbook clearly states that romantic relationships between team members and management are prohibited. We follow the rules. Why doesn’t she? We decide to report her to HR. That’ll teach her! But before we get the chance, the boss calls her into his office. He yells. She quits. After that, we don’t talk about Cara anymore. We’re too busy badmouthing the boss.

Steve’s mom had been gone a year. It still hurt. Slogging through the bramble to the newer plots, he glimpsed a cracked tombstone consumed by weeds. It’d been there ages longer than the rest, by all appearances. Curious, he stooped to clear it.

The epitaph read:

—Look Behind You—

Clever gag, Steve thought, standing up. Leaves crunched behind him. Steve tried to resist that childish urge to run. It’s silly, a defunct instinctive response. A heavy grunt followed by warm breath grazing his hand. Steve looked. And boy, did he run. He never stopped. And the beast never stopped chasing him.

Hidden in a dark corner of the abandoned building after his escape, he rested, setting down his heavy bag.

His conscience grated on him like tin foil between his teeth. He had invited the newcomers into town over the objections of his neighbors. Superstitions, he had scoffed. Truth be told, he had welcomed the newcomers’ gold, not them.

When he noticed their hungry looks and the drool snaking down their chins, it was too late.

But not too late for him. He reached for his sack of gold.

Out of the darkness a hand touched his.

“Thank you for your invitation.”

Barry was our only option. Two days before Battle of the Bands and we were down a sax player.

“Well, let’s hear ya,” Ray the drummer said.

My pleather jacket was suddenly too much. Sweat flooded my pits as Barry, tuba and all, panted onto the stage. Silence. Then he latched on, blew in, the robust notes swelled, the deep blare blasted—‘Jubilee Stomp.’

We—me, Ray, Gretchen on bass—stood slack-jawed by the buttery burps of tuba.

Barry finished, out of breath and glistening. Claps, whoops overtook.

I spread my arms wide, enveloping Barry, my brother, and damn, that tuba.

Little Fiona kicks the covers off her trundle bed and hurls Beary Bear across the room. “But I want them,” she screeches at the babysitter.

“No,” the babysitter repeats again. “No cookies. It’s bedtime.”

Little Fiona pouts, tucks her curly hair behind her ears like a vindictive sorority girl. “Like the others. You’re not fun.”

The babysitter, just one week out of college, walks calmly down the stairs. When she returns, she places a serving tray littered with cookies and a hefty glass of milk on the bed. Then of course, a good ol’ waste basket on the floor. “Go nuts.”