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until a nurse’s hand adjusting the IV drip. I slid my eyes up her arm to her breasts, her slender neck, her face looking down at me. Looking down with such tenderness. She buoyed my spirits each day. We became friends. More than that, really. You could say I lived for her.

I fill up and check the receipt: 9.6 gallons…$22.31... Thank you. And at the bottom: Tell them. What the hell? I don’t like that. Don’t like anyone telling me what to do. I work for myself, fixing computers. My own boss. Don’t have to put up with George any more. Georgie boy. Wanted to be called Mr. Fredrick to remind us who was in charge. I crumple the receipt, but then smooth it out and put it in my pocket.

Another hour and I head east to Bakersfield, swing around the end of the Sierra, and go north on 395, destination Death Valley, minus 282 feet. I know this number. I’m good at numbers, anything to do with numbers. Actually, I’m kind of a math whiz. I talked to my nurse about math. And computers. She admired me for knowing about that stuff. One of the things that attracted me to her. But it was mostly her beauty. Sexiness, really. God, she was sexy.

The limousine was going fast. It must have been. Damn fast. Spun me around the other direction. I don’t remember if my air bags deployed. Probably.

At Olancha I turn east on 190 and climb into the Panamint Range. You can see both the highest and lowest points in the contiguous states at the same time. Cool. As I descend into the valley, roadcuts expose the frozen violence of deformed rocks. In some places there are large imbedded diamonds. That is strange. My nurse—her name was Alicia, did I mention her before? Alicia—wore diamond earrings. Small ones. Perfect for her fine features. Her breasts were small, but her scrubs had side ties that gave her a nice shape. Someday soon I will see her without her uniform, without anything, naked before me, looking at me with such longing, holding her arms out to me. Neither of us will speak. I will look at her, then embrace her.

The limousine’s headlights were still on, but it was late-morning. The fog had burned off. Not a factor. Pretty sure. I remember the lights bearing down on me. For some reason I wasn’t afraid.

I arrive at the valley floor, get out of the car, and gaze at the alluvial fans spreading gracefully from the mountains. This is a majestic place. I come here every year. Sometimes I wish I had become a geologist. Could spend more time outdoors, not hunched over someone’s computer. Someone I don’t know, don’t care about. There’s something strange on one of the mountains. I get my binoculars, focus in. Words are chiseled in the stone: Tell them. I take the gas receipt from my pocket. It’s still there, at the bottom: Tell them. Tell them what? For god’s sake, what? I already told them. There were two other cars. I didn’t hit the girl until I was hit. I yell out: “Goddamn it. Get off my back!”

“Mr. Roberts.”

I sense Alicia is near.

“Mr. Roberts.”

A blurry hand is on the IV pole. I see her arm.

“Mr. Roberts.”

Her face now. I’m so happy to see her. We’ve become very close, almost lovers.

“Mr. Roberts, let’s raise your bed. Time for pills. Upsy-daisy.”

Stephen Bakalyar had diverse writing careers as a chemist: In marketing he wrote brochures, newsletters, and advertising copy. In research he published papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Now he writes poetry and short stories from his home in Sonoma, California.

THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR

By Mary Rudy

nextdoor

Pencil Drawing by Ashley Edwards
http://nchsart.blogspot.com/

The little girl come by every day after school. Pulled off her backpack, dragged it behind her—bonk, bonk, bonk—all the way up to the fifth floor. Never took the elevator. You know how kids are. I’d stand at my peephole, watch her pop out the stairwell and skip across the hall. Pound on the old man’s door. “Grandpa, it’s me, Debbie. Let me in.”

She was a cute little thing. Freckles and wavy hair. Lanky like kids can be. I always thought she should of had a more special name but, it weren’t up to me.

Walls was thin in that building. I’d hear her go in and old man Roberts would open up a can of something and she’d snack and chatter and then straight to the piano. It was a regular routine them two had. She’d bang the keys and sing along. He’d tell her how her grandma used to play like an angel. A regular angel. “Still got all her music here…”

“I’m going to play like an angel someday, Grandpa. I promise. I’ll play Stardust for you.”

And, you know, as time went by she got so she could pick out a tune pretty good. Guess no one ever thought to get lessons for her. But I’ll be damned if she didn’t learn a song or two anyway. Nothing fancy but you could tell she had potential.

Around four the old man would tell her, “Best get to that homework now before your mama gets here.”

It’d be real quiet then till her mama arrived. She’d saunter out the elevator smoking a cigarette. Never knocked on the door. Just lifted the mat and let herself in with the hidden key.

“Come on, Debbie. Time to go. See you tomorrow, Dad.”

They’d trudge on out the door. “Debbie, put that thing on your back where it belongs. ‘Stead of pulling it around like an old dead cat.”

Debbie’d put it on her back and say, “I’ll take the stairs, Mama.”

“You’ll do no such a thing. I got better things to do than wait around for you to drag your sorry butt down five flights of stairs.”

Funny how that little gal never gave up. Every day she’d say the same thing and every day her mama’d say no and they’d get in the elevator and disappear.

Then one day it was different. Instead of saying see you tomorrow, her mama said, “Well, thanks, Dad. You can have your life back now.”

Old man Roberts said, “It ain’t no trouble. I like having her here.”

Debbie said, “I don’t want to go home after school. I want to come here.”

Debbie’s mama said, “You’re a big girl now. You can go home, get your homework done, start dinner. Stop being a burden.”

“But, Mama…”

“Don’t But, Mama me. I got better things to do than drive all the way over here after work when you’re big enough to go straight home after school and take care of yourself.”

Wasn’t long after that when he done it. Who would of guessed he had a gun in there. I’d never even heard one before. Didn’t know what it was but I knew it weren’t good. Bam. Thunk. Like a car backfiring but sure as hell there was no car in there. Called the cops right away but it was too late.

Last time I seen Debbie was a week or so later. Come by with her mama to take care of things.

“Let’s go, Debbie. Ain’t nothing here we need.”

“What about the piano, Mama? Can’t we keep the piano?”

“What do we need with an old piano?”

“I could play it.”

“You don’t know how to play and we don’t have room and I can sell it for good money.”

“But I promised Grandpa I’d learn to play.”

“Well, you shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep. Lucky for you, it don’t matter anymore.”

Debbie’s mama strutted over to the elevator and Debbie said, “I’m taking the stairs.” I couldn’t see her eyes but I could hear her voice. It weren’t a child’s voice no more. Her mama must of heard it, too.

Soon as them elevator doors closed, Debbie looked around, lifted the mat and let herself back into the old man’s apartment. When she come back out she was stuffing music books into her backpack. Put the key back under the mat. Bonk, bonk, bonk, and out the front door.

Mary Rudy lives in San Rafael, California with her husband and two dogs. Besides writing she enjoys gardening, cooking, and playing the piano. Her work has been published in Writer's Digest, Pisgah Review, Coe Review and various anthologies.

A FAMILY COMEDY

By Denise Turner

familycomedy

Carol Burnett saves us from ourselves. She sweeps on to the stage, this red-headed queen, possessing the power to lift us from the bowels of hell. Dean kicks off his cowboy boots as soon as she comes on. He stretches out along the couch and loses himself in the skits. He forgets about the Good Book and God's wrath and all of my transgressions. He forgets that his lower back is in pain, that the bills are coming due, that some fool broke into the garage and tried to steal his air compressor. When Carol Burnett's wide blue eyes flicker across the screen, my stepfather forgets it all. He chuckles, soft at first and then open-mouthed guffaws escape, making the blubber around his waist jiggle up and down.

Carol's magic reaches all the unreachable parts of my mother. She does not drift away from us tonight. She doesn't stare into the seams of her pants, but raises her head to watch Tim Conway shuffle across the stage wearing his crazy Old Man wig. The audience roars. My mother's eyes twinkle. A smile breaks the frozen surface of her face. Tonight, just for tonight, she is back.

When the rest of the show's cast is trying to maintain composure, it's Harvey Korman who will always bust a gut. He's doing this now, biting his lip, squinting his eyes, trying to stifle his laughter over Conway, but it's too late for me. Giggles rise from my belly. The sound reminds me of a girl I used to know before Dean came along. A girl who smelled of apple-butter. A child who did cartwheels on the lawn, never knowing that her skin was drenched in sin. It's this girl I feel now. Resurrected. Her laughter bounces in my mouth. I forget who I've become. I forget which parts of me are gone. I am free and in my freedom I abandon my week-long plan to set the shed on fire.

Outside the world is turning white. The mountains have almost disappeared. The storm will seal us in; this we know. It will bury everything, steal all, choke the light from our withering world. But tonight we do not care. Because Carol Burnett is here, and tonight she is doing Mrs. Wiggins. That silly secretary doesn't understand the intercom system. Conway calls her name over and over again. Misses-Uh-Wiggins? Misses-Uh-Wiggins? But she only fans her polished nails and looks around.

And we are howling.

Doubled over.

Tears spilling out from our eyes.

Denise Turner's work has appeared The Sun, Skirt Magazine, Progenitor and elsewhere. Her short memoir, "The Dark," received the Writers Studio Award for Creative Nonfiction in 2008. She is currently working on a book-length memoir.

THE BOOK GROUP

By Francine Garson

gotbooks

Balancing a boxed apple pie, a copy of Revolutionary Road, a tote bag filled with more books, and a way-too-heavy shoulder bag, I jab my thumb into Shelly’s doorbell.

“C’mon in,” someone calls.

I manage to turn the doorknob without dropping anything, and walk into the brightly lit foyer. Rita, the other baker for this month’s book group meeting, is carefully arranging her homemade butterscotch brownies on a glass platter in the dining room.

“Hi everyone,” I say.

I am greeted with smiles, waves, and some “Hi, Lisa’s.

“Coats are in the TV room,” says Shelly, holding a coffeepot in one hand and a fistful of spoons in the other.

I drop my bags next to one of the overstuffed chairs in the living room and with a “Sorry I’m late,” wade through the group of women congregating in the dining room. Still wearing my quilted jacket, I remove my crumb-topped, albeit store-bought, pie from its box and place it on the empty cake dish already on the table.

Slipping off my jacket, I head toward the TV room and add it to the pile of other mostly black coats covering the couch. A sure sign of late fall in New Jersey.

Making my way into the now-empty dining room, I pour myself a cup of coffee, walk into the living room, and position myself in my previously claimed chair. The loud pre-book discussion chatter that I had heard from the dining room becomes a soft buzz, then silence. A very short-lived silence.

“Omigod! Lisa, you look great. Did you lose weight? How much? How’d you do it? How long did it take?”

Five pairs of eyes stare at me. At my face, my thighs, my chest, and stomach. Five women speak. Their voices come from underwater, and I have trouble understanding them. I feel my lips protrude as I push a small gust of air from my mouth.

I force myself to smile. And to answer. “I lost fifteen pounds in about two months. I just started making better choices about what I eat. Healthier and lower calorie. That’s about it.”

“Right, you weren’t here last month. We haven’t seen you,” Rita says.

“But it has to be more than just making better choices. We all try to do that,” Audrey says, holding one of Rita’s butterscotch brownies.

“Lisa, you were never fat, or even overweight. But now you look great,” Joanne says.

“What’s your secret?” Rita asks.

“There is no secret,” I lie.

“Jenny Craig? Nutri-System?” Shelly guesses.

“No,” I answer. That’s true.

“Lipo? A lover?” Beth gets a huge laugh.

“No,” I say. True. “I’m just eating differently. And once you start, it becomes a lifestyle.” Also true.

The conversation moves to Weight Watchers, Atkins, and the Zone diet. Pilates, yoga, spin classes, and weight training. Middle age spread and menopause. Anorexia and bulimia. Rita doesn’t like her thighs, and Beth doesn’t like her belly.

“I don’t like my nose,” Audrey bursts out.

Even I laugh at that one.

Happily out of the limelight, I listen as the talk continues, punctuated with chuckles, giggles, and guffaws. I look around the room at the women I have known for ten years. Shelly, Rita, Audrey, Joanne, and Beth. A high school English teacher, a retired attorney, a college administrator, a realtor, and a stay-at-home mom. Each month we share food, stories, and our love for books. We’re not friends, but we are a group.

As the discussion finally moves to Revolutionary Road, I realize how much I will miss these women when my weekly sessions of chemotherapy begin to affect a lot more than my weight.

A former college administrator, Francine Garson has published a short memoir on worklifegroup.com. Her fiction has received recognition from several contests. Francine lives in New Jersey with an even-tempered husband and a moody cat. Her almost grown children occasionally return home for food and clean laundry.