Congratulations to Anna on her first-time win!
We love to feature new writers’ words, so thanks for coming, Anna. We hope you come back and bring your friends!
Those of you reading at home, our contest is every second Tuesday at Blackbird Wine and Atomic Cheese (4323 NE Fremont St.)in Portland, Oregon, 6:30–8:30 p.m., FREE. Join us!
Character: A lost_____
Action: Leaving town
Setting: A favorite place
Prop: Clip-on sunglasses
Moving
by Anna S. King
Because she was finally leaving town, a wasp finally stung her. Housed between the forever-closed shutter and the wavy glass in her farmhouse bedroom, the wasps hadn’t bothered her in the years she’d lived with her father. But on the morning she was to leave, a lost one emerged, and stung her before she could shoulder the last bag.
She’d also woken up sick. It was another in a long list of circumstances that seemed to want her to suffer through another Michigan winter: the radiator in the old VW hatchback rusted out. “Maybe you should stay a few months to earn the money for a new car,” her dad suggested. “I won’t make it through another winter, Dad,” though she wasn’t able to actually say she’d die.
The moving van cost more than expected. The original friend who said they’d help drive south had backed out. She’d had to leave her apartment sooner than expected, forcing an interim stay at the creaking farmhouse, in her old room. The sore throat. The wasp.
She watched the circle rise up on her arm, and wondered if she could have an allergic reaction, as she did with bee strings. No. No throat closing, no dizziness.
“I’ll be damned if I’ll spend another day here,” she said to the torn wallpapered wall. It’d once been upholstered with her batik Indian bedspreads, a cloud of an old parachute tacked to the ceiling. Now it was just as sagging as the rest of the house.
She decided not to tell Jane, her new traveling companion, who she could hear talking to her stepmother downstairs.
Grimly she toed the body of the wasp that had fallen to the brown-painted floor when she convulsively swatted it to death. Another sign to leave, she thought, not another warning to stay.
The old stairs seemed steeper than five years ago, when she’d last taken a final bag away. She stepped carefully, knowing a fall was just waiting.
Jane and her stepmother were sipping coffee in the hand-made kitchen—Dad always certain he could make anything better, and cheaper, than any store—clutching the uneven ceramic cups, chatting. Jane had that gift of getting people to talk, even the stepmother, who usually kept her passive-aggressiveness housed in sidelong looks and slammed doors.
“I got stung by a wasp,” she announced, despite her best intentions.
“The ones upstairs?” Jane was excited. “Let me see! Oh cool, look at how red it is!”
She shrugged, reached for a cup. “It’s fine. Where’s Dad?”
“He’s checking the van.”
“Oh shit—he’s not repacking it again, is he? We have to get going!”
The van cost $50 a day. After 600 miles, it was ten cents a mile. The clock had started ticking before the wasp had emerged.
The stepmother shrugged.
“I’ll go see. Jane, get ready, ok?”
Jane, a great friend but a second choice for a long trip companion, didn’t actually know how to drive, and thought the trip would be as easy as the lines drawn on the AAA TripTik maps.
She went out the back room, thinking it might be the last time she’d hear the pump for the water well, the one that gave out every winter, forcing them to flush with buckets of water.
The van doors were open; her dad’s flannel-shirt back heaving as he tugged on the ropes that held the mattress in place, the dam keeping everything else in place.
“Dad, come on—we got this last night.”
“I’m just checking, honey,” still faced away.
“Really, it’s fine. Let’s close the doors,” she tugged at his arm.
He didn’t look up as they swung the doors shut, but as he clicked the padlock on, she should see he was struggling.
“Dad. What.”
“Are you sure, honey? Is this the right thing?”
Exasperated, she huffed, “Come on—I’ve spent just about all my money making this happen. You know I can’t stay.”
“I guess so. I hope there are more opportunities for you there.”
“There has to be,” she said.
He scuffed at the dirt, as she’d scuffed at the floor, and looked up into the browning catalpa tree.
“You know, when you were younger, this tree used to be your favorite place.”
It was one of the few good memories she’d take—climbing the low branches, reading under the umbrella-sized leaves, surrounded by the fingers of seed pods.
“Yeah. It’s okay, Dad. I’ll be okay.”
Her dad gave her an awkward side hug as Jane came out, lugging her army duffle bag.
“You ready? Let’s get going. Toss that in the back.”
The stepmother watched from the door, arms over her chest.
“Be careful on the highways,” she called out, and backed away into the house, the screen door slapping behind her.
Jane was in the cab, playing with the radio knobs, pulling down the visors.
“I guess this is it, honey,” her dad murmured, following her around to the driver’s door.
She hauled herself up, settling into the too-tall seat.
“Jane, cut it out, just leave it.”
She leaned down to her dad, gave him a kiss on his unshaven cheek. He closed the door for her, then motioned for her to open the window.
“Here, baby. I got you these. You might need them when you get near the coast. I hear it’s sunny there, ya know,” he chuckled.
He handed her a pair of oversized clip-on sunglasses. They’d never fit her glasses, of course.
“Thanks, Dad,” she said more nicely than she thought she could. “These are great.”
She made a point of putting them carefully on the dash.
“Call me when you get to hotel tonight. Don’t drive at night!” he said.
She cranked up the motor.
“Okay, Dad. I won’t. I love you.”
“I love ya honey.”
“I love you too—we gotta go now—”
© 2019 Anna S. King
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