Read in 2010

Chili Queen by Sandra Dallas

The Lolita Effect by Gigi ???

Buster Midnight's Cafe by Sandra Dallas

Good Night Nobody by Jennifer Weiner

The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty

The Lost Quilter by Jennifer Chiaverini

Winding Ways Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

Bitter is the new Black by Jen Lancaster

Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Density of Souls by Christopher Rice

Irma by Robert Trambauer

The Persian Pickle Club by Sandra Dallas

Alice's Tulips by Sandra Dallas

The Diary of Mattie Spencer by Sandra Dallas

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

Breathless by Dean Koontz

Relentless by Dean Koontz
One Day by David Nichols
A Child Called "It" by Dave Pelzer
Scarpetta by Patricia Cornwell
New Mercies by Sandra Dallas
Tallgrass by Sandra Dallas
A Lifetime of Secrets by Frank Warren
Naked by David Sedaris
When Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris
Dress your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Disdainful

As Aislin was tossing her phone into her purse, she noticed a young boy staring at her. He wasn’t really a boy, but he had the smooth features of youth. Judging from his concert tee shirt and polished loafers, he was college age and struggling with the disparity between upper crust upbringing and his working class friends. Their eyes locked for a brief moment before he looked away. She tried to get his attention again, but he avoided looking up by playing with sugar packets.

“I lied,” Aislin said when the disdainful waitress returned with a carafe of coffee. “I’d like a cheeseburger and fries, only I want you to take them to that kid over there.” Aislin pointed at the kid.

“You sure about that?”

“Are you sure you want a tip?”

She disappeared and Aislin returned to the stacks of black and whites. She remained ensconced in the frozen images, trying to construct a story from the pictures, until the kid sauntered up to the table. He tapped a nervous finger on the table.

Mid-day shower

Aislin and her cowboy ran through the rain, his white shirt soaked through to show a collection of star tattoos peppered across his small shoulders. Aislin’s heels clacked against the pavement with yesterday’s newspaper held above her head in place of an umbrella; hair matted to the sides of her face. She looked to the sky with eyes closed and smiled at her mid-day shower.

She stepped inside the gallery and shook the rain out of her hair as Alfred would shake off a bath, eliciting a peel of laughter from Duke. It was more of a guffaw than a giggle, which surprised Aislin. His every movement seemed premeditated and measured, while his laugh was loud and boisterous. Puddled rainwater gathered at their feet as they waited for a staff member to appear. Red dots marked the placards next to each of her pieces. A sold out show. She’d even raised her prices hoping that some wouldn’t sell.

rediscovered

Aislin pulled loose, chapped skin off her lips with her teeth. It was a nervous habit lost since childhood, and rediscovered in the last week. She'd avoided driving past the house where it had happened. She was now emboldened, however, by her night with Lex--somehow fortified by a healthy sexual connection--and the time seemed right to confront the ghosts of misery past.

The rambling Victorian sat on the corner in front of the high school like a sentinel to adolescent pain and education. In the decade that had passed some had torn down the large oak in the side yard where kids had once huddled sneaking a few illicit drags of nicotine before class. The lawn boasted new landscaping and the porch swing had received copious layers of new paint.

Aislin recalled the weekend that Gideon had asked her and her mother to stay. It was sort of a trail to see if they could all live together before the vows were final. Gideon had decorated Aislin's room with comic book posters, a mini fridge stocked with Mountain Dew and sweet snacks, a bed laden with downy comforts, and a drafting board with enough supplies to write, draw, and ink ten comic books.

photo: Ixiii

Widow

Nana Keira hadn't moved in 15 years. The ranch house was a shadow of its former glory. The yard was where lawn ornaments came to die. Each year Nana would get a new trinket for her yard and each summer it was either stolen or destroyed.

Keira when Aislin walked in. The first grandchild and the family's last hope, she was a welcome sight. The other grandchildren were either in prison or on too many drugs to remember this lonely woman. A stock widow, she worshiped her husband’s memory as a martyr might worship a statue.

Normally, Keira was the image of grandmotherly perfection. Today, however, her hair had a weird blue-white glow like snow under a full moon.

Photo: snul

Reversal

Waking Aislin from a hard sleep, Nora crawled in bed and nestled into her arms. The roles were reversed; Mother was scared, and the child wore a brave face and offered comfort.

Nora’s agoraphobia had started slow with a bit of anxiety while grocery shopping. It was magnified by Nora’s position as an in-take nurse in the local emergency room. She’d seen the pain humans inflicted upon each other. She refused to be vulnerable and refused to leave the house. She still worked full-time at the hospital. However, that was the extent of her excursions outside the house. A cousin—who was struggling to make ends meet—earned extra cash for an assortment of chores she was unable to perform.

Photo: zafdingo

Robin

Marc’s commute across Chicagoland with usually spent chatting with Lin, discussing his latest failed foray in dating or the frustration of being a student affairs professional at the University. Although Marc was usually able to wear all the hats his job required, this week had taken a larger toll. The idiocy of undergraduates was astounding. It seemed the high IQ was directly proportional low common sense and self esteem, as if the rules of basic human interaction didn’t apply to smart kids.

Robin Grayson, a third year, pre-law student, had disappeared from campus on Monday afternoon. It wasn’t unusual for students to take off for a few days; however, Robin didn’t show up for a date with his girlfriend, missed several days of classes, and left a cryptic note with his roommate. The National Merit Scholar has prone to making bad decisions, but he had perfect attendance and never missed an opportunity to argue with his Political Science professor.

After an alcohol poisoning, Robin was required to meet with Marc weekly to discuss the choices he was making. Like a scene pulled from Good Will Hunting, Robin was silent for the first session. The second session was a diatribe about Nietzsche and nihilists. It was in the third visit that Marc was able to kick the door open. He’d never forget the physical and emotional regression he witnessed that day, although he’d seen it happen once before.

Marc stroked the cell phone in his hand. He wanted to call her, ask her advice about the boy, yet his intuition told him not to dial the phone. The vision that he couldn’t shake was that Robin and Lin were two magnets drawn to each other and if he spoke to Lin the poles would shift and Robin would be repelled and never found.

Photo: Ouylle

contact sheets

Soon a large family was sat at the table next to her. The youngest daughter prattled on and on about another customer's pea coat and how he must be from England or in-touch with his feminine side. Occasionally, the girl would tried to take sly glances at the contact sheets spread across the table. The three year-old bounced in his seat whining for Aislin’s drawing case, a vintage Scooby-Do lunch pail. Aislin tried to focus on her apple pie, but to no avail. She dug her cell out of her knapsack, dialed Marc, and was sent directly to his voice mail.

Photo: Kalendis

Accident

I was fourteen when the accident happened. I was riding my new road bike. So proud of my shiny bike, I let go of the handlebars smugly enjoying the balance. In that instant, Jonas and his dad backed out of their driveway for Jonas’ first driving lesson. The next instant, I was lying on the curb bleeding and shaking. Jonas was distraught; his first time driving he’d nearly killed someone before he’d made it out of the driveway. His parents rushed around me checking my head, bringing me water, and waiting with me for the ambulance. Jonas and I locked eyes before I was put into the ambulance. The matter of our relationship was decided in that moment.

Photo: muszka

Gold Digger

“I don’t think your secretary likes me,” Aislin said, setting her camera bag on the client sofa in Lex’s office. The office was obsessively neat. Books arranged by the Library of Congress Cataloging system. Legal pads were stacked perfectly parallel with the desk edge. The décor seemed to come straight from an exclusive, east coast country club: deep leather chairs, mahogany paneling, and pleated plaid curtains.

“Elaine is harmless,” Lex said.

“Yeah, right.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’s like Grandmommy Dearest,” Aislin said, plopping down in the leather club chair facing Lex’s desk.
“How did you find her?”

“When I was hired, I was issued a secretary. Teresa was a holdover from the previous deputy DA who was afraid to fire her. Teresa was a single mother with a large chip on her shoulder and was dying for an easy meal ticket. I was able to document several of her blunders and fired her. Teresa sued and lost.”

“And Elaine?”

“I interviewed a dozen people and hated them all. Elaine’s husband had been a small town lawyer in Northern Iowa. As a recent widow, she wanted a job to occupy her time. I liked her sassy attitude, so I hired her.” Lex shrugged as if the question were answered.

“She’s a gold digger.”

“I beg your pardon. Elaine is not after me.”

“That’s not what I mean.” Aislin reconsidered her argument. “You’re a prosecutor, so you’re aware of victim blaming.”

“Of course. What’s your point?” Lex was getting agitated. He didn’t like being cross-examined.

“Victims are quick to blame other victims. You’d never put a rape survivor on a jury of a rape trial, am I right?”

Lex nodded.

“One victim never believes another victim because no one could feel as much as pain as the first victim.”

“What does that have to do with Elaine?”

“She’s a gold digger and thinks I am too.”

“Elaine was one of the first people to believe in me. When I came to Newton, I couldn’t even get the cops to talk to me. Everyone saw me as a silver spoon hotshot out to make a name for myself. Never mind the five years I worked as a junior prosecutor in Des Moines.”

“Your secretary believes in money, not you.”

Motivational Speakers

I prefer to embrace life rather than listen to someone tell me how to embrace my inner self, suck my toes, and gaze into my navel.

Photo: monosolo

Tarnish

Madison burned for a smoke. The day had worn off the tarnish, rubbed her so that the wounds looked shiny and new.

She ran her hands through her already tousled hair and mahogany curls fell back into her face to soak up the salty remnants of her last wave of grief.

It seemed no one cared about her happiness, overlooking each small injury they inflicted, and pushing her on down the path. Everyone wanted her to be sucessful so that they could go along for the ride on her coattails.

"Maddy you've got talent and a gift and you'll have a profound impact on those who read your work."

Encouragement felt like pressure. If you don't publish, you are a failure. If you can't find the words to set the world alight, I won't love you anymore.

Again she pulled the hair out of her face. Talents and gifts aside she, felt herself die--not in a tangible way that can be easily explained or described in some long monologue constructed for cathartic heroin. It was her heart that perished. That small part of herself Maddy had held back all these years, held in faith, died that day.

I can't write about love anymore. I can't write about something I no longer believe in. I can't write these stories about hope, because I've lost my voice. I've lost my hope. I've lost my love. I lost... I am lost...

Maddy cried into her shaking hands.

I'm broken in some irrepairable way. All the king's horses and all the king's men can't put this back together again.

Off the Wagon

Aislin faced the bar ordered a vodka tonic--the drink no bar could get wrong--and stared at the neon domestic beer signs casting the patrons in an eerie red glow. Familiar faces from high school telling familiar stories, each marked by bad marriages and multiple kids. Lining the wall were NASCAR plaques, famous pictures of baseball's history, and small placards denoting fried delacasies served in red plastic baskets.

The bartender looked like an ex-boyfriend and probably was. Aislin had been popular with the opposite sex in the days before college--a lucky combination of five miles a day and large Irish baby feeding breasts. Furthermore, Aislin hypothesized that most men fantacized about red heads, although her red locks were now the result of monthly salon appointments.

Duke drank his Guinness like a drunk recently off the wagon. In two swallows the pint was gone.

"I'm sorry," Aislin said.

"Do you apologize for everything?"

"I suppose I do. I'm Irish Catholic, guilt is all I know. What's your excuse?"

Duke stared into his glass as if the answer was hidden in the foam at the bottom, started to talk, but Aislin interrupted him. "You know I never hear confession when alcohol is involved. Let's just enjoy our beverages and take in the atmosphere."

Dysfunctional

"What's the deal with your family?" Duke asked.

Aislin peered down at her hands, picked at something under one of her nails, and tucked her hands back into her coat pockets. "You mean the fact that they're crazy?"

"Whenever you run into any of them it seems like you can't wait to leave."

"It took me awhile to realize just how dysfunctional my family was."

"Every family has it's own quirks, but they're still a family."

"I thought it was normal for every kid to spend Saturdays at the dog track with grandpa; all moms had panic attacks at the mall; secret grow rooms in the basement; moonshine in the garage. My first childhood memory was of my uncles getting high while babysitting me. I was three. Three, for god's sake!

"When I asked where my dad was, I was told that he was a bad drunk and ran away. My mom acted like this was the most evil thing a person could do. Yet, I've watched every one in my extended family turn to the bottle and run away from responsibility. I learned it was okay unless you were my father, in which case you were an evil, evil man worthy of the wrath of god.

"There was never any cough syrup in the house, instead I was handed a shot of Jamison and told it would put hair on my chest. A bad tooth called for a shot of vodka. For a headache, the prescription was a bong hit and a nap."

Hiberation

It was fall and the world had begun to hibernate. The aspen’s shed their green in favour of more vibrant shades of yellow. Frost clung to the trees as a lover wraps himself around his beloved.

The high mountain bed and breakfast was nearly empty in the mud season—the stretch of time between summer tourism and winter sports. The owners’ days were spent doing some late fall hiking before snow closed their favourite trails.

The weekend was intended as Aislin’s mini vacation away from her family and a celebration of Gabe’s successful first show away from the college stage.

Aislin was curled up on the porch swing, editing her latest fiction piece, sipping a mug of jasmine tea, and awaiting Gabe’s arrival. Theirs had been a hidden-but-not-so-secret relationship. They’d tried to keep their attractions and nights together a secret, but their friends always knew. They’d see his car at her apartment or watch as they orbited around each other at parties.

Aislin recalled the first time she’d felt their relationship solidify into something nearly tangible. She recalled the day it rained. A string of moments strung like pearls—watching him read Charles Schultz in the literature section of the bookstore, running through the torrents to a sheltering restaurant, and intimate moments in a low-rent hotel room. Each pearl a moment to be stroked and held in her mind.

Photo: midnight00

Mercury

I stirred in the night and reached for Jonas only to have my hand mired in mucus. I reached for the bedside lamp with my clean hand and discovered that his pillow was covered with snot and phlegm and vomit. His night clothes left a trail from the bed to the door.

            

“Jonny!”

            

“Here,” he called from the hallway where he lay swaddled in heavy quilts. He rocked and shivered despite the warmth of the night and a dormitory’s worth of bedclothes.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he stammered while reaching for my hand.

“Hold still, baby,” I cooed before dashing back to my nightstand for the thermometer. My bedside table had become a mini triage kit and medicine cabinet: Vicks Vapo Rub, soft Puffs Plus, various pain killers and fever reducers, thermometer, albuterol and steroid inhalers, and a thermometer buried under latex gloves.

“Jonny, please don’t bite this one. We don’t need to add mercury poisoning to the list of ailments,” I said as he accepted the glass thermometer under his tongue. He’d broken the last digital thermometer between chattering teeth.

            

In the bathroom I scrubbed my hands clean with antibiotic soap and scalding water not to appease my state of mind but his. I was drying my hands when I heard him wretch and vomit.

            

“I gagged. I’m so sorry,” he said.

The thermometer now swam in puddle of bile and blood. I bent to retrieve it.

“Don’t touch it!” he tried to scream but it came out hoarse and cracked. “Don’t touch the blood!”

“We’re going to the hospital.”

“I’m naked.”

Back in the bedroom again, I pulled on a hooded sweatshirt to cover the fact that I was without a bra and gathered sweats for Jonas. I dropped the sweats beside Jonas and wet a towel in the bathroom.

Back in the hallway, I knelt beside the heap of blankets and wiped his face. I could feel his fever as it warmed the cool towel. His eyes fixed me with a gaze that would have brought me to my knees if I weren’t already there: green eyes full of pain, innocence, and apology.

“Can you stand?” I asked turning from his eye line.

He nodded and stood shedding the layers of warmth. I hadn’t seen him naked in weeks and it took all my courage not to recoil. He looked like a skeleton sheathed in a fine veil of white gossamer fabric marred by deep purple Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions. A deep violet and crimson lesion stretched across his hip bone clearly visible on his emaciated frame. He grabbed my shoulder while I helped him into his sweat pants careful not to let the waistband irritate the cancerous lesions. 

Photo: u-shy

Title

"What’s the title?"

"Res Ipsa Loquitur."

"The thing speaks for itself."

"Someone paid attention in law school."

Riley shook his head briefly but violently as if incredulous then dismissing the feeling.

"I hang this piece at every show in lieu of an artist’s statement."

Photo: yellowcaseartist

Rumpled

Aislin rumpled his hair and motioned for him to look at her show. She felt like an older sister that refused to let her brother grow up. The exhibit seemed to loom in the silence. Duke patrolled the frames, looking at one with a discerning eye. He would stand back at first then slowly moving into the canvas and scrutinize each pen and brush stroke.

“Where’d you go last night?” a masculine voice asked startling her. “You disappeared before I could say hello.”

“Uh… I’m sorry,” Aislin said, turning to face the man. “And who are you?”

“I’m the owner of this place.” He waved his hand around, and then offered his hand to her. His firm handshake and an expectant gaze held Aislin in place. Thick, blonde curls framed his round, ruddy face and a goatee ringed his thin lips.

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

Aislin studied his grey eyes and placid features. She reached for the most obvious explanation. “Did we go to school together?”

“I was a freshman when you were a senior.”

Aislin shifted her eyes. He remembered her name in headlines, not the girl she’d once been.

“We were in Art Club together. You also student directed a play I did lights for.”

Aislin remembered a chubby kid in thick glasses and compulsively clad in flannel shirts. Her memory was far from the man in front of her. The flannel had been replaced by a tailored button-down that highlighted his eyes, the colour of a tarnished nickel. “I’m Robert Kane.”

“I’m sorry—”

“It’s okay. You didn’t really talk to underclassmen, but I remember you.”

Irrigation

After a very wet spring, Brigid enjoyed the sun on her forearms. Cheery yellow daisies and purple thistles painted large swaths of the median. Billowy clouds stacks up along the horizon—the bottoms dark with vibrant white tops—mirroring the mountains diminishing in the rearview. They passed a patchwork of cornfields, soybeans, and hay occasionally interrupted by a deep green irrigation circle.

Stripper

“He’s about to be homeless and he’s dating a former stripper from Atlanta that hasn’t figured out that he’s racist.”

“You can take the stripper out of the bar, but she’s still a stripper. She’ll always find a reason to take off her clothes.”

Law School

"What’s the title?"

"Res Ipsa Loquitur."

"The thing speaks for itself."

"Someone paid attention in law school."

Riley shook his head briefly but violently as if incredulous then dismissing the feeling.

"I hang this piece at every show in lieu of an artist’s statement."

Photo: eivaj

Wall Drug

Signs poked up from the cornfields advertising small chain restaurants Brigid had never heard of and billboards beckoning tourists to Pioneer Village stretched I-80 from the western border of Nebraska to the Missouri river. The contrived pressure to visit this manufactured destination was akin only to Wall Drug in South Dakota.

Photo: saintgreen86

Choas

"I don't want to be your chaos and I can't conform to your insane rulebook. I can't eat maple and brown sugar oatmeal every Saturday for the rest of my life. I don't lay my clothes out a week in advance. I don't want a Palm Pilot to run my life. I hate that I own a cell phone. I hate that I'm attached to world every minute via email. I love my chaos."

Lex glanced around as if the perfect response was adrift on the cold night air, somehow tangible like the plumes of smoky, white breath filling the air between them.

"I don’t want to be your pierced, alternative, artistic, girlfriend that you drag to dinner parties as an attraction or conversation piece. I'm not a sideshow freak."

Aislin met Lex's eyes as they flashed with an appology and faded into regret.

"You'll just turn into another thing I have to survive."

Prison

They stopped in Sterling, Colorado for gas and a toilet/sniff break for the furry one. Brigid sneered at the hulking prison just off the interstate. She understood the industrial utility of the structure, but thought the state could at least make the outside of the building pleasing for the rest of the world rather than emphasizing the presence of this marginalized population in a marginal place.

Photo: joaoloureiro

Liquid Fingers

The sun had put on work clothes and was headed for a day tending to the Iowa crops. The eastern horizon blazed pink and orange was the work day began. Brigid could feel the sun's approach in her veins like a tidal pull calling the ocean up the beach. As the tide rose, her foot grew heavier on the gas pedal urging the BMW over 100 mph. She wanted to be home before daylight's liquid fingers stroked the earth.


Photo: Justin14100

Fire

Lex pressed his palms into the tiles,

let his head drop,

allowed the water to run

down his shoulders and back.

Showerhead massaged tense muscles.

He thought about the woman

asleep down the hall:

vibrant yet reserved. 

Maybe the restraint

was a good thing. 

If he were to live to the fullest

he may spontaneously combust,

but this girl would set the world on fire.

The early hour and hot water

conspired against Lex. 

Blood pressure dropped,

inhibiting oxygen flow to the brain.

World blurred into steamy drifts of clouds.

Nausea washed over him,

undulating in his stomach. 

Sundress

I fiddled with the hem of my favorite sundress. Red and covered with yellow and white daisies, the dress had shrunk and grown softer through the summer until it was more tactile than modest. 

Photo: DeProfundis-Art

After a very wet spring, Brigid enjoyed the sun on her forearms. Cheery yellow daisies and purple thistles painted large swaths of the median. Billowy clouds stacks up along the horizon—the bottoms dark with vibrant white tops—mirroring the mountains diminishing in the rearview. They passed a patchwork of cornfields, soybeans, and hay occasionally interrupted by a deep green irrigation circle.

Photo: leelloor

Beckoning

He curled his long, lean frame around her: his forehead pressed to hers, noses touching, lips only millimeters apart, and breath in sync. It was the most intimate sex she’d enjoyed—two bodies and two souls singing to each other with no words but the gentle strokes of limbs, heated kisses, and gasping breaths. Yet the morning light peeking around the quilted window shade told her that their time together would soon come to an end as the world beckoned. The offer of a cereal breakfast was refused as she couldn’t allow herself to be further seduced by his charm and tender caresses.

Photo: silendriel

Broken but Undamaged

Lola lacked the yearning to:

seek another soul,

share intimate details,

frolic as if each day were

made of blessings and insights.

Built of desirous flesh,

Lola sought comfort in

compatible carnal constructions:

lipstick, thigh highs, leather,

and the gentle snap of a

riding crop.