Southern Inquisition

Leda May sat with her hands in her lap. She didn't know how much the chair beneath her butt cost the Pine Valley Country Club, but she was sure it wasn't cheap. She clasped one hand over the other. Now wasn't the time to indulge in nail biting.

Her husband Elrod settled his large frame into the seat next to hers. He didn't appear to be the least bit nervous. Not like Leda. Her nerves probably looked like a downed power line, all jumpy and sparky.

The membership committee entered the room and positioned themselves in a neat semi-circle facing Leda and Elrod. An inquisition committee couldn't have emitted more threatening vibes. The primmest of the prim spat her question at Elrod. "So, Mr.…" She looked down at something in her hand. "…Smelly, how long have you lived in our fair community?"

Leda cringed. Elrod's family name always produced a snigger from the less refined. She hated the name when it was mispronounced. "Smel-lay," Leda corrected the woman. Elrod jabbed her for her effort.

"Leda has lived here all her life, but I've only been here about four years."

"Really? I don't remember you, Mrs. Smel-lay." Her over-exaggerated pronunciation could have sawed a two-by-four in half.

"Thirty-six years," she beamed.

The Prim One uttered her thinly veiled accusation. "I don't recall having seen you before today."

"Surely, you have. I've lived in Worthington all my life." Leda squinted at the blurry speaking blob. The voice sounded familiar, but she couldn't see the woman without her glasses. Elrod had urged her to leave them in her pocket, as he had explained to her that appearances meant everything.

"Oh, I see," the woman simpered.

But Leda didn't think that she did.

The interrogation continued. "How many children do you have?"

She relaxed. This was a comfortable topic for her.

"Two." Elrod answered for them. This was their agreement before the meeting. He would be their mouthpiece.

"Oakridge or Sheldon?"

Eldon shifted in his seat. Six pairs of penetrating eyes stabbed her husband. A crime show would have called it multiple stab wounds. He seemed speechless as the blood drained from his face. It was gross to behold.

The quiet was embarrassing. Leda jumped into the fray. Feigned ignorance might be the best offense. "Pardon?"

"What school?"

The clocked ticked louder than a beating kettledrum as the committee waited for her reply. She knew they knew her children did not attend one of the elite private schools in town.

Leda exhaled a barrage of words. "J.S. Templeton. They're both honor students. They're in the gifted program. Heather is in All City Choir, and Jordan is on the football team…"

"I see," the woman interrupted her.

Leda bit back the rest of her babbling. Did the woman look as pointy as she sounded? She scrounged in her pocket for her glasses. The entire committee stood just as she found the wayward spectacles. The Prim One issued their verdict without discussion. "We appreciate your interest in Pine Valley. But unfortunately, we have no openings available for new membership at this time…"

Elrod rose from his seat. "That's not what Jim told me…"

Leda's eyes focused and settled on the Prim One. "Oh, it's you." She beamed. This might turn out right after all. "How was your trip to the beach?"

Fire flamed up the woman's neck. "My trip to the beach?" she stammered.

"It was such a wonderful week for a beach vacation. The weather was perfect. It's a shame we didn't get acquainted while we were there. But maybe we can now. Your husband is such a nice man…"

Another member of the committee found his voice. "Alice, what is this woman talking about?' A vein popped in the man's cheek as he hurled his question at her.

"Myrtle Beach. Last week. She and her husband make such a handsome couple. You know him, right? He's such a nice man."

"Mrs. Smelly," the man sputtered. Her teeth ground to stifle another correction. The man continued, his anger mounting by the microsecond. "I am her husband."

Leda's eyes grew three times their normal size. "Oops."

The Prim One lost her aplomb. "She's lying. I swear it."

Leda lost her cool. She'd had enough of these people and their condescension. "Why would I lie about that? Our money spends just as well at Myrtle Beach as yours does."

Alice's husband left the room, leaving fiery patches of anger in his wake. The remaining members of the committee turned inquisitive eyes on Alice. She trembled so much that only snatches of incoherency tumbled from her lips.

One of the other women addressed Leda and Elrod. "We apologize for the inconvenience, but I think perhaps we should reschedule this interview for another time." She turned to Alice. "The committee has some things it needs to discuss."

Leda and Elrod left with their dignity intact.

The following week a formal invitation arrived in the mail. Leda May and Elrod Smelè declined the Pine Valley Country Club's gracious offer of free membership, preferring the companionship of the Mountain Ridge Square Dance Association.

(c) Denise Moncrief 2010

Flashback

A flash of lightning rent the sky outside my window, illuminating my room for a moment before dark descended once again. The weatherman forecast clear skies. Guess he was wrong again. I could hear raindrops smacking against the glass panes.

I tossed in bed, twisting the covers into knots, wondering when the phone would ring. Would the police deliver the bad news? Or would the hospital call? Or my husband? Who would tell me what I didn’t want to hear?

I cried. I couldn’t help it. My imagination took me in directions I didn’t want to go. His car hydroplaning. His car running into a tree. His car twisting around a telephone pole. No, his car in a ditch. His car with the water over the roof. Why did I let him join the millions of other teenage boys who drive?

A voice jolted me awake. “Mom, wake up." My youngest son gazed at me, a look of consternation on his face. “Were you having the dream again?”

“Yes, and I’ll keep having the dream until… I don’t dream anymore.”

He smiled, a bittersweet smile. “You know I’m extra careful.”

We both glanced toward the framed photo on my nightstand—the picture of my oldest son, the one I lost.

(c) Denise Moncrief 2011

Give and Take

The wind off the Gulf whipped streaks of color around Chelsea’s face. Too listless to lift her hand, she let her hair fly about her. Her eyes trailed a fast food cup as it floated downstream, pulled toward the open sea with the straw still captured in the claws of its lid. Looking down into the bilge, she shivered and pulled the hood of her sweater over her head. It seemed a futile action. What did it matter if she froze, right here on the edge of the river?

She cried some more even though she thought she was past that.

How could life have turned so vicious? She dumped her dreams somewhere in Tennessee. Hope vanished in Alabama. Sanity took a hiatus in Mississippi. And now? She couldn’t remember how she arrived in New Orleans. Yet here she stood on the edge of her final solution.

The river smelt like death. “The river giveth and the river taketh away,” she muttered. The hag on Jackson Square had screamed her prophecy into Chelsea’s ear, and she had absorbed the old crone’s truth. The river promised her release from the pain lacerating her heart. “Just close your eyes and take a step…”

A firm hand grasped her wrist. Startled by the unexpected touch, her leg stalled in mid-air. Looking up into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen, she backed away from her decision. Her knees buckled. The man’s uncanny resemblance to Mark pulled the last smidgen of sanity from her.

“Why?” she screamed and pounded his chest. “Why did you leave me?”

“It had to be.” Mark’s mouth moved, but his words didn’t match the motion, like a film off track with the audio.

“You left me. You have no right to come back. Not when I’m about to—”

The Natchez blasted its warning, her paddle churning the dark water in her wake. Chelsea’s muscles tightened at the assault on her eardrums. An answering blast from a tanker shook the airwaves around them. Her backbone stiffened into a rigid ribbon down her back.

Mark’s mouth formed another excuse in the midst of the cacophony. “I couldn’t stay.”

She shook her head and tugged. His grip remained firm. Just as during his life, he imprisoned her. Mark owned her. Even in death, he controlled her.

“Let me finish what I started,” she pleaded.

“I’m sorry, Chels,” he smiled, mockery dancing in the depths of his eyes, the sea of blue drowning her without a drop of water. She hated it when he called her Chels. “You have to live with this.”

“No. I can’t.” The thought petrified her.

“You have no choice.”

A surge of hatred darkened her soul. She did it once; she could do it again. A step to the right. Another. His fingers burrowed into her wrist. “But I do,” she countered with narrowed eyes. One glance at the river confirmed her judgment. Yes, the choice was hers.

“You had no right to take my baby from me.” With her last ounce of strength, she plunged into him, sending them both headfirst into oblivion. To her dismay she emerged, her lungs gasping for oxygen. Bouncing up and down in an awkward dog paddle, her willful body struggled for continued existence, despite her firm resolve to give up the fight.

Death cheated her again.

Mark didn’t surface for a horrid moment or two. Once again she thought she’d forced his absence from her life. A hand and then a head shot out of the water. Horror washed over her as a stranger grabbed a piece of driftwood.

“Who are you? Where is Mark?”

The man sputtered his answer. “Give me your hand.” She didn’t want to touch him. She’d rather sink. “The current is too strong,” he argued, spitting river water out of his mouth. “You’ll drown.”

“I deserve to die.”

“No one deserves to die—”

“I killed him…”

Once again the stranger reached for her, trying his best to save the un-savable. “I know,” he yelled over the approaching storm. The fog over her mind lifted, and she recognized the cop—the one that had been following her for days. "But no one deserves to die like this." His eyes glistened with entreaty, a hopeful gleam that snagged her soul.

The will to live coursed through her. After wiping the hair from her eyes, she grabbed his hand.


(c) Denise Moncrief 2010

Wishing Makes It So

I try to focus, peering through the clouds drifting over the fuzzy dreamscape. “Where am I?” I ask the man on the cloud next to mine.

“This is the land of wish fulfillment,” he proclaims as his jeweled headpiece shifts.

“How did I get here?” I ask.

“You made a wish, didn’t you?” he answers.

“Am I dreaming?” If my subconscious is manufacturing this scenario, I need to make some adjustments. Surely, this man should be better looking. All the men in my dreams are gorgeous. Tall. Tanned and ripped.

“No, you are not dreaming. I’m not a figment of your limited imagination.” He sneers and rolls his eyes—one green eye and one blue eye—very distracting. And that piercing in his lower lip reminds me of the waiter at TGI Friday’s last night. That’s it. I had one too many sweet potato fries. Overindulgence explains the surreal state.

Okay, I know what’s happening here. My psyche is playing another horrid mind game. “How many wishes do I get?” I ask with a knowing smirk.

“Wishes? What do I look like? A genie in a bottle? You don’t get three wishes. You only get one wish, and you’ve already wished it.”

I feel cheated. “What did I wish?”

“Don’t you remember?” he snaps.

My nose tilts upward. I don’t like his attitude. How am I supposed to know what’s going on? Isn’t this smarmy, little twerp invading my lullaby land? He should tell me how the deal works without the fuss.

“If I remembered…” I begin my rant and stop. Right before I fell asleep, didn’t I wish I could retract those awful words I uttered so many years ago? I ponder my self-revelation, tapping my pointer finger on my chin.

“You see, you do remember. Now, I’m going to grant your wish,” he says with a hyena-like laugh. I expect him to wave a wand or blow magic dust in my face, but he doesn’t. His raucous cackling sends shivers of dread down my spine.

“Wait!” I yell.

“Not changing your mind, are you?” He growls with disgust, inspecting me as if he’s seen my type.

Hope skitters across my heart. “Can I?”

“Look, lady, I have twenty cases to oversee tonight. I don’t have time for your self-doubt. This isn’t the land of indecision. This is the land of wish fulfillment. It’s too late to take your wish back.”

“Before you do this, you should know that I didn’t know my wish would come true. I was ignorant of the process. Surely, you should cut me some slack. I am a beginner at this—”

He beams with impish delight. “Hah. Ignorance is no excuse. Wishing makes it so.”

“I wish—”

He shakes one gnarly finger at me. “Ah, ah, ah. No more wishing. One wish per customer,” he barks before I can wish him out of my dream.

My mind gropes for an exit strategy. “But I didn’t mean it. I was mad, and I spoke those words in the heat of the moment.”

“Just as you spoke those silly words on impulse so many years ago? Hum?” Condescension slithers from him and wraps around me.

“What?” I sputter, attempting to shake off his disdain.

“Don’t you remember telling your husband he should beef up like John Cena?” I wince. My conscience stings. Whatever possessed me to say such a thing? Now after years of early mornings and late nights at the gym, I want my husband to spend more time at home with me. Is that too much to ask?

I retreat from my belligerent position. Bluster will not sway this pseudo-genie to reverse my blunder. “Will this send me back in time?”

“Of course not. You should be so lucky.”

Before I can blink, I face the consequences of my impetuous wish. Reality slaps me in the face. Disbelief slams me in the gut. I awake to find my nightmare is more than a nightmare. My husband no longer resembles a pro wrestler. The man sleeping next to me looks like… Oh, wait …He is the science geek from my tenth grade biology class.

(c) Denise Moncrief 2010


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