Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology Series, Book Seven
176
Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology Series, Book Seven
176eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781550967265 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Exile Editions |
| Publication date: | 11/27/2017 |
| Series: | Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology Series , #7 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 176 |
| File size: | 645 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Halli Villegas
Road Kill
Her daughter squatted, studying something on the front step. Leslie saw Margery's blonde head, hair so blonde it was almost white, tilted in the position she took only when deeply absorbed. They would be late if they didn't get going now. They would be late and Leslie hated driving in the dark, especially on unfamiliar roads, roads that would take them farther and farther from the life they had into one that they did not yet know.
"Margery," she yelled, wanting to hustle the little girl along but knowing that it usually took more than one call. "Margery, come on."
Her daughter glanced up but did not move. From where Leslie stood beside the car she saw the ice-blue eyes, just like her ex-husband's, briefly light on her, measuring, wondering how serious mama was. With a small shake of her head, Margery went back to studying whatever was on the stoop.
Leslie walked over to the steps. Her daughter's thin shoulder blades poked through the sun-faded pink t-shirt like a bird's fragile wings, shifting slightly when she breathed. Reaching out, Leslie touched the girl's shining hair. "Margery, we have to leave now."
"Look, mama." Margery gestured with one hand, a curiously graceful gesture. Then she pulled back her arm and hugged her knee again, the blades of her back tense and still now.
On the front step lay a dead robin. Its eyelid at half-mast, head thrown back at a wild angle, yellow beak slightly open. It appeared as though in the throes of some ecstasy or other. This is what had caught her daughter's interest.
"Leave it, Margery. It's dead."
Margery uncurled her hand and put out a tentative finger to touch it. "No mama, it's not dead. It's just dreaming."
Leslie yanked Margery's arm. "Don't touch. Birds are crawling with bugs. It's dirty."
Margery stared at her mother, eyes wide. A blink, and then she stood up and took a step back, wiping her hands on her shorts. "But it's not dead. I don't want it to be dead. It's just sleeping."
Leslie took Margery's hand and said, "Come on, let's get in the car."
Margery followed obediently, but she looked back at the bird on the stoop. She saw the feathers riffle softly, once, twice. She knew the bird would wake up when they left, wake up and fly into the trees where it would watch their car pull away with Margery and mama.
In the car Margery sat quietly, resting her head on the window. The past two days of sorting through her toys, folding sundresses and sweaters, helping mama put everything in the boxes carefully marked Margery, had worn her out. Her head swayed with the motion of the car, dipping lower and lower, thumb creeping into her mouth. This was a regression. At six, Margery was too old to be sucking her thumb for comfort, but Leslie let it go. If she was honest, she wanted to do some self-comforting too. Not suck her thumb, but a nice bottle of Gamay Noir in a dark room would be good, would help a lot. She watched the yellow clapboard of the Cape Cod style house becoming smaller and smaller in her rear-view mirror.
That house had been Joe's idea; in fact, Margery had been Joe's idea. This shameful secret still caused Leslie intense guilt. At forty the idea of children, if that particular desire had ever been there, was long gone. She loved their life in the city. Theatre and museums, other childless couples over for drinks and dinner, long Sundays in bed with newspapers and bagels. It was the way she thought adult life was meant to be, her adult life. Joe wanted children. Joe wanted a son to throw a ball to, wanted the big clapboard house with the echoing rooms and the scurrying animals in the walls, and the slow drip of the faucet that could never be turned off or fixed properly and drove Leslie crazy when she lay awake at night listening. That was Joe's idea of adult life.
In the end, Joe left. Not for another woman. That would have been too predictable. He left because he was bored. He said that to her one night after dinner. "I'm bored. I want to have a life somewhere else, do something else."
He made this pronouncement at the oak trestle table he had picked out from Pottery Barn two years ago to match the sideboard and rustic light fixtures he had chosen from Restoration Hardware. Stunned, she sat there for at least an hour after he left the dining room, wondering what the hell just happened. Somewhere in the wall behind her an animal began to scratch, ceaselessly chewing at the insulation, the wiring, the wood. Leslie got up and in a fury banged her fist against the wall until the soft edge of her hand was numb, and the animal fell silent. It took a week for her fingers to stop aching and the bruise to fade.
Joe moved out, filed for divorce and took a sabbatical from his teaching post at the university. He went to Mexico and left her with the house she didn't want. They hadn't heard from him since, except a postcard to Margery, her name misspelled, showing a photo of a sugar skull from The Day of the Dead. Leslie sincerely hoped he ended up decapitated at the hands of a drug cartel. But since the alimony and support cheques were still deposited regularly into her account, she doubted that had happened. She could dream, couldn't she?
In the back seat Margery slept, her mouth slightly open and her head thrown back. She could be dead too and Leslie wouldn't know it. She might think Margery was just sleeping, but her little girl could be dead.
Leslie gripped the steering wheel tighter; she glanced in the rearview mirror. Margery slumped in the same position. Oh God, what if she's dead, what will I do? I never wanted her. It's my fault.
Leslie stood at the side of the road screaming. Motorists stopped along the shoulder, spraying gravel, their white faces staring at the crazy woman. Margery's limp body lifted from the car by a good Samaritan while she clung to her child's hand, trying to will her back. I didn't mean it, please give her back. Leslie jerked the wheel of the car to jostle some life into Margery, she had to know, please give her back.
In the rearview mirror Leslie saw Margery open her eyes, stare blindly for a minute and then shift position, settling her thumb in her mouth again.
Thank God, thank God. The road ahead stuttered through Leslie's grateful tears.
They stopped for lunch in a small town off the highway. Leslie woke Margery up, pushing the sweat-curled hair off her little round brow, marveling for a minute at the perfection of the lashes and lip line.
"No, I want to sleep." Margery protested.
When Leslie lifted her out of the back seat, Margery purposely made her limbs heavy and limp. Leslie set her down. She was too heavy to carry for long. Margery shuffled her feet on the asphalt of the parking lot. "Where are we? When are we going home?"
"We're having lunch, Margery, here in this nice restaurant."
With a fierce smear of her hand Margery pushed her curls off her forehead. They stood up wet and jagged. The new pin feathers of an unlovely chick.
"I don't want lunch here, I want to go home."
Margery twisted away when Leslie tried to take her arm. "It smells funny. Don't touch my arm."
A woman in matching green capris and shirt was getting out of her car. A small frown appeared on her face as she watched Leslie and Margery. Even from a quick glance Leslie recognized her as one of those women who think they have a way with children, especially other people's children. Smiling briefly in the woman's direction, Leslie carefully put a hand on Margery's shoulder. That woman was in denial. Children were unpredictable. With one touch her daughter might have a meltdown or snuggle lovingly into her side. A child's response had nothing to do with you and everything to do with them.
Margery screamed and stomped her foot, pushing her mother's hand. Leslie fought the urge to smack her.
"Come on, Margery. Maybe they will have ice cream." She marched ahead, not caring now about the woman. She held the door open for Margery. Please God make her come, let her just come in the damn café. Margery ran to where her mother waited and took her hand. Leslie knew she was not forgiven, yet, but was just the better part of a bad deal.
The café tried to look homey, with dusty ruffled curtains and a parade of wooden geese wearing blue kerchiefs on the wall, but the woman behind the counter had a milky eye. A fat bluebottle fly sat on an oozing piece of cherry pie under a scratched plastic dome.
Mother and daughter sat across from each other in a tufted vinyl booth. The seats were sticky, but Leslie didn't have the energy to wipe them off with a napkin. One had a little tear in the cushion and Margery stuck her finger in it, wiggling the tear open even wider. Leslie took a menu from the metal holder on the table.
Pulling a piece of grimy fluff from the hole in the seat, Margery asked, "Where's Daddy?"
"Mexico."
Margery tossed the fluff to the floor under the table and worried at the tear again without looking up at her mother.
"I want him to come home. Now."
"Well that's not going to happen." Leslie opened her menu. "Please stop pulling at that, Margery." Margery pulled her hand away and inspected her palm as if she were reading her future.
"Do you want a grilled cheese?" Leslie asked, trying to sound normal, like an adult.
Margery made a fist and glared up at her mother. "I want to see Daddy."
"Margery, Daddy is far away. He will be home soon, and then I am sure he will come to see you." Pot pie, fish and chips, meat loaf. Leslie read the smeary typing on the plastic page of the menu over and over to herself. Apple pie, just like Mother used to make.
"How is he going to know where we are if we aren't at home? I want to go home." Margery started to cry loud sucking sobs that made her gasp and choke.
Leslie put her head down on the cool surface of the Formica table. She smelled sour rag and ketchup. If she could just go to sleep now and wake up later, much later.
"Can I take your order?"
Leslie raised her head. The woman with the milky eye stood, pen in hand, at the table. The waitress smiled at Margery.
"Don't cry, sweetie. Why don't I get you a nice milkshake?"
Margery looked up at the woman and started to shriek. After tears, red-faced embarrassment, a fiercely whispered lecture on behaviour, an uneaten grilled cheese sandwich, and a half-eaten patty melt, they were back in the car again, pulling away from the little town and onto the highway. Margery stared out the window sullenly.
"The bird wasn't dead mama. I don't want it to be dead. It was sleeping," said Margery in a soft voice from the back seat.
"What did you say?" Leslie didn't turn her head. She was still back at the café explaining to the waitress and the woman about the divorce, about the trip, about how tired they both were.
Margery's voice, sharp with excitement, broke through her reverie. "Look, mama, that raccoon's sleeping by the road." She sat upright in her seat, pressing her face against the window's glass.
Earlier while Margery slept, Leslie saw roadkill all along the highway. She found it darkly humorous to pass signs that said Beaver Kill, Deer Kill as she drove past dead animals in various stages of decay. Black with rot or so fresh their fur rippled in the wake of the car, all of them were surrounded by birds, plucking at the broken bodies.
Margery's hand patted at her shoulder. "Can we stop and play with the raccoon?"
"Margery, it's like the bird. It's gone to heaven."
"It's asleep," Margery's voice rose. "I want you to stop."
"We can't stop."
"Look there's another bird, a big bird." Margery twisted in her seat to see out the back window. "Mama, it's going to fly away. I want to stop and watch."
Leslie looked at the side mirror and saw a dead crow on the shoulder. The bird was smashed almost flat to the ground with one wing sticking up. Leslie sighed. Margery could keep this up for hours. Asking to stop, asking for the animals to play, asking for her mother to make it happen. Leslie's head hurt, vibrating on the verge of tears. Maybe this was hell.
In a voice stripped of its motherly lilt she said, "Margery, it's dead. It's gone to heaven where it will see lots of other birds and be happy. Now sit back in your seat."
Surprisingly Margery sat back. It was quiet for a few more miles, and then Leslie heard Margery's voice again, low and thoughtful.
"Mama, do you want Daddy to be dead?"
Leslie looked into the rearview mirror. Margery met her eyes.
"Of course not, Margery, never. I would never want your father to be dead."
Margery didn't say anything for a moment, but she didn't take her eyes off Leslie.
"Mama, do you want me to be dead? Do you dream I'm dead?"
Leslie pulled the car over to the shoulder. She switched it off and turned in her seat. She reached around and put a hand on her daughter's knee. She could feel the bone there, hard and round, like a stone beneath the soft skin.
"Margery, don't ever say anything like that. I love you, sweetie." She stroked her little girl's knee with trembling fingers. "I'm just tired. And that's why I'm a little cross. When we get there, we can go to the zoo one day and see all the animals playing. Would you like that?"
Margery looked out the window into the trees that lined the highway, "I dreamed you were dead, when I was sleeping."
The light was fading fast, and they still had a few hours to go. For the past two hours, Margery hadn't spoken to her again, but Leslie caught her whispers every once in a while. "There's a squirrel I want it to be sleeping, there's a dog I want it to be sleeping, there's a cat I want it to be awake now."
Leslie switched on the radio to try to cover the sibilant demands coming from the back seat, but the stations this far out were spotty and faded in and out like voices heard through heating vents in old houses. Margery's litany went on.
The hypnotic roll of the tires on the highway, the dark stands of trees along this stretch, the sinking sun all lulled Leslie into a kind of rhythm. Almost there, almost there. It was full dark now, and the headlights illuminated such a small circle ahead that Leslie started to forget there was anything else but this road and her daughter's chant. She felt the little fingers clutch at her shoulder and heard Margery's whisper in her ear.
"Mama, what is that? Is it a dog?"
Alert, Leslie looked through the windshield into the circle of light her headlights cast. Half in the road, half beside it, was a dead deer. Impossibly slender, long legs trailed into the left lane of the highway, but the deer's body and head were settled on the shoulder. The animal's throat split open as if it gaped in one last cry.
Leslie drove around the deer, swerving into the other lane and back again. Her hands clutched and released over and over on the steering wheel. "Not a dog, sweetie, it's a deer. It's a deer and it's dead."
Margery pinched her shoulder, "Stop. Now."
"Sit back in your seat." Leslie tried to keep her voice calm.
"It's not dead, you liar. I don't want it to be dead. I want it to be here." Margery's hands were over her ears, and she shook her head back and forth, "I want, I want, I want, I want."
"The deer can't come back. It's gone, Margery." Leslie tried to make herself heard over the child's high-pitched wail.
"I want, I want. Liar, liar."
Her voice filled the car. Leslie could barely focus on the road, knew she would have to pull over. Desperate to stop the girl's screaming she scanned the roadside for a turnoff, a rest area. There were no signs, no scenic views, no picnic tables. Not even a goddamn weighing station. In the black emptiness of her rearview mirror, Leslie saw a shadow detach itself from the roadside behind their car. Its head at an angle, its legs splayed but still loping towards them.
"I want, I want, I want," Margery chanted over and over. She began to bang on the glass of the car window in rhythm with her words
Something that must have once been a bird dragged itself against the windshield, leaving streaks that made it impossible to see. Leslie stopped the car in the middle of the highway. The deer caught up to them now and began to rock the car, gently at first, and then more violently. One blind eye stared into the car window on the driver's side as its smashed face came closer.
"I want, I want, I want."
Everything dead along the road before and behind them began to rise and walk toward the car. Possums, crows, dogs, deer. Animals so mangled she had no idea what they were crept out of the dark.
Leslie heard the metal of the roof popping under scrabbling hoofs. The windshield cracked; the star of the impact spread and she could no longer see what was in front of her.
"I want, I want, I want." Red with effort, Margery's face loomed in the rearview mirror, her eyes wide and empty.
"Shut up, just shut up, shut up." Leslie started the car, but the tires slipped and spun on the remains of the swarming creatures. They would spiral off the road and into a tree, into a ditch. She couldn't drive away. Where was everyone, where was everyone? Leslie jerked to a stop and hit the horn, trying to scare the roadkill away from the car. She screamed too, as if her words would have any meaning. Still they came, streaming from the bush at both sides of the road, from the ditches and empty fields.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "CVC 7 Short Fiction Anthology Series Book Seven"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Exile Editions.
Excerpted by permission of Exile Editions Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Preface by Gloria Vanderbilt,
Halli Villegas,
Iryn Tushabe,
Katherine Fawcett,
Darlene Madott,
Jane Callen,
Yakos Spiliotopoulos,
Chris Urquhart,
Norman Snider,
Linda Rogers,
Carly Vandergriendt,
Seán Virgo,
About the Winners and Finalists,