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Authors: Amanda Eyre Ward
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isn’t it?” she said. “My baby girl.”
ELEVEN
from the desk of
AGNES FOWLER
Dear Louise,
Thank you for your Christmas card. And I hope you have a rockin’ holiday season as well. I don’t know how you know my father, but I suppose I should inform you that he is no longer with us. In other words, he is dead.
It happened about six months ago, Louise. It was a sunny afternoon, so I was walking home from school. I had just finished my Intro to James Joyce exam, and while I still didn’t think I understood what the hey Finnegans Wake was all about, I had written an OK essay on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
The point is, I was feeling relaxed.
My father and I lived together. I suppose I should have moved out, but I was the light of his life, as he always said. I guess I liked being the light of someone’s life.
On that June afternoon, I was thinking that maybe I would drag him out to dinner. He had become an inventor after the lumberyard closed, as I’m sure you know, and he spent entirely too much time alone in the basement. I was thinking the Bridge for pizza, or Piñata’s in the mall.
I don’t know why I remember, but I do: the sun had warmed the stones leading up to the front door. I took off my sandals and stood for a minute, feeling the heat on my toes and heels. I put my shoes back on to walk to the front door. My father did not approve of bare feet.
Well, there’s no point in going into the depressing details. My father was in the basement. It looked as if he was asleep, his head down on his workbench. From the frame on his desk, my mother’s picture gazed at him. A massive stroke, they told me.
So, this wasn’t the most rockin’ holiday season, if you really want to know. I was going to get a tree and a turkey, the same as every year, but I just didn’t have it in me. I drank too much wine, watched hours of Christmas-themed television, and went to bed. One good thing about the television is that it doesn’t take a vacation. It doesn’t go to Disney World, like my supervisor Frances, or to Seattle to visit its brother, like Sally Beesley, the Reference Librarian. It stays right where you put it, ready to go.
Please don’t send any flowers, Louise. I’ve finally gotten rid of all the flowers and the Tupperware containers.
Best to you,
Agnes Fowler
TWELVE
I T WAS THE day we were leaving for New Orleans. I sat smoking outside the senior hallway, watching the tennis team practice. The tennis team was symbolic of what I hated about Holt: all blond ponytails and earnestness. My mother was obsessed with tennis, and Madeline was on the middle school team. “My serve!” cried Kitty Jacobs, trotting prettily along in her shorts. I was terrible at tennis. I was a cheerleader, which consisted of smoking cigarettes and clapping. When my father deemed the $38 for my cheerleader skirt and sweater excessive, I could have used my own money, but I quit instead.
“I’ve got it!” cried the British exchange student, her skirt rising up as she reached for the ball.
I stood, ground out my cigarette with my toe, took a last look around, and left.
Stealing the Oldsmobile wasn’t hard. When I got home, my mother was in bed, and the keys were in her purse. I stood in her bedroom doorway, watching her sleep. She was my mother, and I loved her, but I loved my sisters more, and I had to choose.
I drove to school slowly, trying to burn my town into my memory. Madeline was waiting at the middle school. The other girls on the tennis team sat on the large rock outside the school giggling. Madeline stood a few feet from them, looking down, kicking at her racket. When I pulled in, she ran to the car. Nobody said goodbye to her; none of the tennis girls even turned. And wasn’t she just as beautiful? Wasn’t her ponytail perfect, and wasn’t the way she tied her windbreaker around her waist just right? Madeline should have been the center of the circle of giggling girls, and I promised myself that in
ELEVEN
from the desk of
AGNES FOWLER
Dear Louise,
Thank you for your Christmas card. And I hope you have a rockin’ holiday season as well. I don’t know how you know my father, but I suppose I should inform you that he is no longer with us. In other words, he is dead.
It happened about six months ago, Louise. It was a sunny afternoon, so I was walking home from school. I had just finished my Intro to James Joyce exam, and while I still didn’t think I understood what the hey Finnegans Wake was all about, I had written an OK essay on Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
The point is, I was feeling relaxed.
My father and I lived together. I suppose I should have moved out, but I was the light of his life, as he always said. I guess I liked being the light of someone’s life.
On that June afternoon, I was thinking that maybe I would drag him out to dinner. He had become an inventor after the lumberyard closed, as I’m sure you know, and he spent entirely too much time alone in the basement. I was thinking the Bridge for pizza, or Piñata’s in the mall.
I don’t know why I remember, but I do: the sun had warmed the stones leading up to the front door. I took off my sandals and stood for a minute, feeling the heat on my toes and heels. I put my shoes back on to walk to the front door. My father did not approve of bare feet.
Well, there’s no point in going into the depressing details. My father was in the basement. It looked as if he was asleep, his head down on his workbench. From the frame on his desk, my mother’s picture gazed at him. A massive stroke, they told me.
So, this wasn’t the most rockin’ holiday season, if you really want to know. I was going to get a tree and a turkey, the same as every year, but I just didn’t have it in me. I drank too much wine, watched hours of Christmas-themed television, and went to bed. One good thing about the television is that it doesn’t take a vacation. It doesn’t go to Disney World, like my supervisor Frances, or to Seattle to visit its brother, like Sally Beesley, the Reference Librarian. It stays right where you put it, ready to go.
Please don’t send any flowers, Louise. I’ve finally gotten rid of all the flowers and the Tupperware containers.
Best to you,
Agnes Fowler
TWELVE
I T WAS THE day we were leaving for New Orleans. I sat smoking outside the senior hallway, watching the tennis team practice. The tennis team was symbolic of what I hated about Holt: all blond ponytails and earnestness. My mother was obsessed with tennis, and Madeline was on the middle school team. “My serve!” cried Kitty Jacobs, trotting prettily along in her shorts. I was terrible at tennis. I was a cheerleader, which consisted of smoking cigarettes and clapping. When my father deemed the $38 for my cheerleader skirt and sweater excessive, I could have used my own money, but I quit instead.
“I’ve got it!” cried the British exchange student, her skirt rising up as she reached for the ball.
I stood, ground out my cigarette with my toe, took a last look around, and left.
Stealing the Oldsmobile wasn’t hard. When I got home, my mother was in bed, and the keys were in her purse. I stood in her bedroom doorway, watching her sleep. She was my mother, and I loved her, but I loved my sisters more, and I had to choose.
I drove to school slowly, trying to burn my town into my memory. Madeline was waiting at the middle school. The other girls on the tennis team sat on the large rock outside the school giggling. Madeline stood a few feet from them, looking down, kicking at her racket. When I pulled in, she ran to the car. Nobody said goodbye to her; none of the tennis girls even turned. And wasn’t she just as beautiful? Wasn’t her ponytail perfect, and wasn’t the way she tied her windbreaker around her waist just right? Madeline should have been the center of the circle of giggling girls, and I promised myself that in
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