fiction

Peas and Broccoli

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My name is Gus.  Gregory named me.  Gus.  No last name.  Gregory is only 3. He’s not up to speed on the concept of last names.

I’m a superhero accountant and Cheez-Its bring out my powers. I wear them in a pouch around my neck. I can climb like Spiderman, but I can also fly.  I am often blamed for not eating the mushrooms when they’re served.  Gregory does not like mushrooms. His parents insist he try them each time, but he doesn’t have to finish them. Gregory so hates mushrooms that even a taste makes him shudder. He tells his mom and dad that I will just spit them out. I wouldn’t. That’s bad table manners. So, Gregory spits them out.  Well spits it out. He will find the smallest one put it in his mouth with a grimace, wretch, and then spit it out.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

His parents think he is overreacting. He is not. Gregory simply cannot abide the texture. 

Gregory likes Miss Rachel on YouTube and his life-sized Cody doll. Cody is very soft and squishy.  Apropos of nothing, Gregory will holler, “Peas and broccoli” and then collapse into peals of giggles. It always makes his parents laugh. Me too. 

Gregory loves me.

I do not make his parents laugh. They think I’ve gone on too long.  They are concerned.

I think it’s unfair that they try to shoo me.  I’ve done nothing wrong. I am Gregory’s friend. His best friend. His only friend. Maybe when he starts preschool or daycare he will be done with me, who knows.  I hope not. He is my best friend too. 

During nap time, we whisper to one another in our secret language.  This really concerns his mom and dad.  It’s clear that it’s a secret language and it’s clear that we use it to keep the adults out.

Even Grandma isn’t allowed to know the secret language either and he tells Grandma everything.  Even about me. She knows there is a language, but Gregory will not translate for her.

“Peas and broccoli” in the secret language is a phrase of complete exasperation. Oh for peas and broccoli. You get the idea.

But when I’m not around, Gregory doesn’t use the secret language.  At those times, the phrase is just nonsense.

I love Gregory, but he will soon be done with me.  I have served my purpose.  I am similar to his dad, but I always have time for Gregory.  No household tasks or homework to interrupt our time together. His mother is just a lost cause.  She is so stressed.  Trying to keep the home neat and orderly. Trying to get a promotion at work.

Perhaps they are right to be concerned.  They are blowing it. There is only this one time that Gregory will be three. Will believe in me and my ability to climb skyscrapers or fly from one to another. Will make me spit out mushrooms and holler Peas and Broccoli.

Isobel

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Isobel scrubbed out what was left of her third cigarette of the morning and drained the dregs of her second mug of coffee.  Black of course.  No sugar.  Of course.

She’d been chain-smoking Marlboros and shotgunning coffee since she joined the Academy at 14.  It was the only way to keep her profile long and lean.

Sacramento portrait photographer Mayumi Acosta aims to share the many facets of the women she photographs. https://lnkd.in/gsamcc7r

Isobel was famous for the lines she could make of her body.  She preferred modern dance in nothing but a leotard the exact shade of her skin, but when you are called to dance, you go where your talent takes you. 

And so she was the prima for the New York Ballet – a position envied by many.

Today they had her costumed in swirls and twirls of scarlet silk and chiffon. Madame signaled that it was time to begin.  She walked in her toe shoes, that distinctive walk that only ballet dancers with years of experience can duplicate, to the center of the backdrop.  Simple black. The scarlet of her costume, the pale peach of her skin, with her dark hair — oh the photos would be extraordinary if the photographer had even a drop of skill.  En pointe, she lengthened her neck, pulled her arms into position, and rotated.  She heard the photographer gasp before she heard the camera shutter start its incessant chatter.  She always strained for that sound. When her audience gasped, she knew her body was telling her true.  She had arranged the lines perfectly. The veins and arteries of her neck reaching upward as did her arms and fingers – balanced perfectly on her toes and the wooden blocks inside her shoes.

Would Claude be in the audience tonight?  She wondered as she pirouetted and her skirts billowed to the background rhythm of the shutter clicking.  Claude was pursuing her with diligence and finesse. She had learned he was a podiatrist early on.  She was dubious that she could allow herself to be at ease with him.  Surely, such a doctor would want beautiful feet.

What most didn’t know was that professional ballerinas had the world’s most god-awful feet.  Isobel was vain.  She did not see her ugly feet as the vehicle for her talent.  She saw them as grotesque appendages never to be exposed to a curious world.  She never wore sandals and only went to the beach with water shoes. She could not fathom exposing her naked feet to a connoisseur. 

Claude’s interest was likely to be rebuffed.  Again.

Be Careful

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“Be careful what you wish for, Missy.”  I can hear my mother’s words reverberate in my head.  Be careful what you wish for, be careful what you wish, be careful.  Be careful.  I was raised to be fearful.  Somehow, the times, the burgeoning women’s movement, the rise of feminism, the advent of women as something other than playthings for men, allowed me to transcend my upbringing.

I stood there in front of the travel agency door looking at the poster.  Travel!  It said.  And oh I wanted to go in and book a trip- to somewhere, anywhere I haven’t been before.  To escape nostalgia.  I wanted new and unfamiliar.

But in times of decision, I heard my mother’s voice.  Over and over.  Boys don’t like girls who…your future husband will want…, when you are grown and married…, when. . . It was like I never had a chance.  And then I was forty with a husband and I didn’t give a fuck what he wanted.  That was my sign to get out.  I wished for a life other than what I had, and my mother’s voice came back to me, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Photo by Keszthelyi Timi on Unsplash

I have been sincere with my wishes.  They represent my core values.  I didn’t need to be careful; they were front and center and required no deliberation.

I left my marriage.  Not gleefully I recognized the tragedy and the failure it represented, but as the bible said, be ye not unequally yoked.  We were unequal in every way.  It was a disaster.

And here I was possessed of half of my retirement account and newly paid-off credit cards.  I went in.  A bell tinkled with the movement of the door.  The woman at the front desk seemed surprised and I said as much. 

She said, “We don’t get much foot traffic.”

I said, “I need a trip to somewhere I’ve never been.  A place most people don’t go.  A place where I can lose myself in the novelty of moving through unfamiliar streets.” 

She snapped her fingers and said, “I have just the place for you.  And we have a promotion going on.  It’s quite the deal.  Free airfare if you book The Budapest Hotel.”

I paused for a second and said, “I’ll take it.  Do I need a visa?  Travel papers other than a passport?” I didn’t even know what country Budapest was in.  I knew nothing.  It was perfect.

“Yes, but it’s pro forma. We can take care of it here.  Just fill out some online forms and voila!”

An hour later I had everything I needed to leave for Hungary the following Tuesday.

I didn’t second guess myself, oddly enough.  I strode into my boss’s office and told him I needed five weeks off beginning Tuesday and he said no.  So I said, “I quit.”  And he said, “Now woah, wait a minute…” but he wouldn’t relent and neither would I.

I was sitting on the plane, in first class no less due to an upgrade for the number of weeks I had reserved a room at The Budapest Hotel.  It took nearly all my retirement account to reserve the suite.  But I didn’t care.  Maybe I’d care in 20 years, but not now.

The flight attendant brought me a glass of crisply cold champagne, a finger bowl, and a warm towel.  The juxtaposition of the temperatures and the textures was sublime.  I handed her the used towel and she took the bowl.  I was left with nothing but the bubbly and my thoughts and I penned this. 

I think this trip will be transformative.  I’m going to keep this journal and document my deepest feelings.  The ones I’ve always shied away from because of Mother’s voice in my head.

Maisie Anne The Fae

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Maisie Anne O’Keefe looked to be Black Irish – that sumptuous result of Spanish DNA and Irish DNA colliding, but in reality she was Scots. 

Upon her birth, both parents looked at the other and said, “This wee one does not have red hair.”  Both were present at the home birth, or they might have wondered if babies had been confused in the nursery. Maisie Anne was the 7th daughter of a 7th son and and the 7th daughter of a 7th daughter.  Gossip had been rife throughout Adelaide’s pregnancy.  This child is fae, the village folk whispered.

And indeed, Maisie Anne O’Keefe grew into the reputation the village folk had invoked with their words.

Art by Paula Belle Flores

While still small, she exhibited an affinity for and a bond with birds.  Any time she left the cottage, the birds would gather about her.  As they grew bolder, they would perch on her shoulders, her hands, her arms, and even her black tresses.  As time went by, they began gathering at her doorway each morning eager for her exit. 

She kept seeds and whatnot in a pouch tied about her waist and she would feed the birds as she walked to the shoppe in the square where she served tea.

One winter began early and was fierce.  The snows came and stayed and she didn’t have enough seed on hand to adequately feed all the birds that waited outside her door.  She feared for the birds though she wasn’t usually prone to fear.  The birds, the villagers whispered, were her familiars.  Maisie Anne thought of them as her children as the years had gone by and would-be suitors were too intimidated to woo her.  Her parents had died, and her siblings had scattered.  She alone lived in the cottage and had meager means.

That evening she set to with the saw her father had used as well as his hammers and nails.  She needed a warmer hat and the birds needed shelter from the cold.  When she was almost done, she went outside, perched the ladder to the side of the cottage, climbed up, and grabbed some straw.  The cottage had been fresh thatched that autumn and the straw was almost pristine.

When she was done, she had a hat of branches, straw, and wood for the birds to use for warmth.  They flocked to her in numbers the villagers had never seen.  When they asked Maisie Anne what she had done, she replied that she couldn’t keep them from starving, but she could keep them warm.

The following morning, Maisie Anne left the cottage sporting her hat and discovered that during the night the villagers had left bags and bags of seed for the birds and provisions for Maisie Anne.

She and her hat became a spectacle each and every winter from that time forward.  Tourists came from miles around to see the fae0 one feed and shelter the birds.  The tea shoppe did very well with the added custom and Maisie Anne’s wages were increased, but still the villagers provided for her and the birds.