Debra Goelz writing as Brittanie Charmintine
Distracted by her husband's chewing, Madeline barely tastes her own fried chicken dinner. He smacks when he chews, and the little muscle at the connection from his jawbone to his skull flutters in a vaguely reptilian way. It is just the two of them sitting at the table. But sometimes being with Troy is lonelier than being alone.
They eat on the back deck, the planks, which have been warmed by the summer heat, smell like broken trees disintegrating into the forest floor. Madeline's dad built the deck forty years ago, and it showed every bit of its age.
Speckles wags his tail and waits at Troy's feet like a refugee, keeping vigil for the inevitable food drop.
Using his own fork, Troy scoops another helping of mashed potatoes from the pot, which sits on the table on a hand-woven mat made by their youngest daughter, Jenny, when she was five. Now Jenny and all her siblings are grown and gone. But Madeline is still here, living with Troy and Speckles and a plethora of children's crafts gathering dust in shadowed corners.
"I used a different kind of oil for the chicken," Madeline says when she thinks the silence has gotten too loud. "It's canola."
"Yeah," says Troy. "It's good, Mad."
"Thanks," she says.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
"It's crunchier," he says.
"I noticed," Madeline cannot help saying back.
Troy picks up his corn and begins eating down the individual rows like a lawnmower at a golf course. Madeleine purses her lips. He eats corn with great precision even though the rest of his eating is chaos. His lips glisten with butter. Madeline daubs her own lips with the thin white paper napkin.
She exhales and tries to come up with another topic of conversation. Perhaps she could tell him about the O'Malley's divorce. But he never really liked the O'Malley's. Maybe she should tell him about Jenny. Talking about the kids always seemed to fill suppertime conversation, but Jenny had specifically asked her not to tell Dad yet. "You know how he gets," she said.
"Weather's nice," Madeline says. That had to be safe.
"The plants are dying," he observes.
Madeline looks out at the garden. The calla lilies are limp and dry; the long grasses look like they would be good tumbleweed material. But there is a drought, and they aren't supposed to water. The trees are still green. And past the meadow, in the glade, is the old swing, hanging from the highest branch of the hundred-year-old oak. The swing creaks vaguely in the breeze.
As is always the case, the swing reminds her of her first encounter with Troy.
That day, a lifetime ago, the sun filtered through the trees in rapturous filaments of light—the way the path to heaven is often depicted in movies. The birds zipped through the branches of the oak trees building nests. Maddie wore an old robin's egg blue silk dress of her mother's she'd found in the attic years before. At the time, she thought it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, though it fit her like a parachute.
She wore no shoes because she loved the tickly feel of the feathery grass and the loamy soil beneath her feet. The air smelled like summer and freedom. Her parents had gone to church and would be gone for at least another hour, leaving twelve-year-old Maddie to pretend in the garden, though everyone knew she was too old for such activities.
She should've been listening to records or gossiping with friends on the phone, but the place she liked best was her imagination, because it never disappointed her. Still, she knew enough to keep her hobby a secret. If anyone found out, she'd be the laughingstock of the entire middle school.
Madeline built each of her dolls a throne of leaves and dandelions, which she sprinkled with glitter. She sat them in a circle facing one another. They wore modest crowns of tiny blue forget-me-nots.
She fed the dolls their old favorites—twigs, bark, dandelion stems, pebbles, sprigs of weeds, sticky strands from a spider's web. While they ate their banquet, Maddie nibbled the edge of a peanut butter and honey sandwich, which she had cut carefully into four equal quarters. She offered the crusts to her guests as it was the polite thing to do.
A twig cracked from nearby. Maddie's heart beat fast as a hummingbird's wings. She prayed it was an animal that had caused the noise; she didn't want anyone seeing her playing with dolls, but her fears were substantiated when a moment later, Troy Lovely wandered into her private glade.
Troy was the cutest boy in the school. All the girls thought so, even Maddie did if she was being totally honest. Her friends would ask her to tell Troy they liked him, but she said she didn't know Troy at all. Yeah, they were next-door neighbors, but he never spoke to her. "As a matter of fact," she'd told her friends, "he runs away whenever he sees me." This hurt her feelings, but she didn't tell them that.
So besides this being the most awkward moment in Maddie's short life, it was also the most extraordinary.
"Hey," Troy said, hiding one hand behind his back. He looked only at Maddie, as if he didn't want to embarrass her by acknowledging her juvenile pastime. He had combed his normally unruly red-blonde hair and made an effort to tuck his short-sleeved plaid shirt into his Levi's. He smelled like he'd just showered and doused himself in his dad's Old Spice.
"Hey," Maddie said, standing and moving toward the swing to get the doll circle out of his view.
"I like your dress," he said.
"This old thing," Maddie said, because she'd always wanted to use that line.
"Um, I brought you something," he said. He pulled out a tiny bouquet of forget-me-nots he'd been hiding.
"Uh, thanks," she said, taking the flowers, accidentally brushing his hand. She liked the way it was warm and a little sweaty. "Do you want to swing?"
"Sure," he said. "You first."
She was flying. The cool air rushed past her face, and her long brown hair went wild in the wind. He pushed her so high, she became weightless, and her stomach fluttered as if a crew of butterflies was in there trying to escape. They both laughed. They laughed so hard, and smiled for so long, Maddie's cheeks ached.
He pushed her harder causing the chains to bunch up. Maddie sailed into the air.
Troy jogged over to where she had landed in a pile of fallen leaves. "Oh, no, Mad! Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Maddie said, her face turned crimson. Her hair was full of leaves, and her dress was filthy. "The leaves broke my fall." She tried to sit up.
"Just lie down for a sec, and let me make sure you aren't hurt," he said.
"Are you authorized?" Maddie said, trying for funny to hide her embarrassment.
He quirked a brow. "Authorized?"
"Yeah. I mean are you a doctor?"
"No, but I will be someday, so keep still and let me make sure."
He lifted her hand and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. "Pulse seems a little fast," he said.
Maddie giggled.
"How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Four," she said. He was holding up three.
"Oh, you are very sick."
"Do you have a cure?" Maddie said. She couldn't believe how easy it was to joke with Troy.
"I do," he said, brushing her twig and leaf laden hair away from her face. Maddie's entire body heated, and the butterflies went on a rampage in her belly. Troy pressed his lips gently to hers. Maddie relaxed as Troy held her face in his hands and moved his mouth from side to side sending tingles from her lips to the tips of her fingers and down to her toes. She sighed.
He lay next to her on the leaves, and they kissed some more. Then they just lay there, side by side, his arm beneath her neck, her arm over his abdomen. She watched his chest rise and fall. They didn't speak, and even though Maddie had lived in this house all her life, for the first time she felt like she was home.
"Are you hungry?" Maddie said, as it got later and her parents would soon return.
"A little," Troy said. "Doctoring makes a man hungry."
Maddie gave Troy a quarter of the sandwich, and she took another quarter. Troy smacked his lips as he ate.
"This is the best sandwich I've ever had," he said.
Maddie watched him eat. She smiled at his gusto.
That night Maddie wrapped her dolls in her mother's old dress, put them in a box and stored them in the attic.
***
Troy is feeding Speckles a healthy chunk of chicken thigh. "Thought I'd get those old dolls of yours out of the attic today."
"Hmmm?" Madeline says. She is still partially in her daydream and partially in her present life.
"Your dolls. For our new granddaughter."
Madeline's eyes flew open. "Jenny told you?" Madeline says, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice.
"Of course, she did," Troy says. "I'm her daddy and the best damned pediatrician in the county. You feeling okay, Mad?"
"I'm fine," Madeline says. Out of habit, she reaches out and attempts to straighten Troy's cowlick. His thick, soft hair is now more gray than red-blonde, but she still loves the feel of it. "It's just a little hot out."
"Let me see," he says, taking Maddie's hand in his. He wraps fingers around her wrist. "Your pulse is a little fast. How many fingers?"
"Four," she says. He's holding up three.
"Maybe you're sick."
"Do you have a cure, Dr. Lovely?"
"Sure do," he says, leaning over the table and, ever so gently, he presses his lips to hers.
<< THE END >>
Debra Goelz is a refugee from Hollywood where she worked for 10 years. The last position she held was in accounting at the Jim Henson Company where she once puppeteered a chicken in the closing scene in Muppet Treasure Island. She's not quite sure why she was never asked to return...
Writing as Brittanie Charmintine, Debra is known for her hit novel Mermaids and the Vampires Who Love Them, and focuses her creative energy on creating romantic, fun stories.