chapter 1
fiction
HUFFINGTON
09.23.12
Janet pulled her sweater on and went up to the counter.
“It fit,” she said, “and I’m wearing it home. How much?”
Tina, now at the cash register, snapped a garter belt between her fingers. “I need the little tag,” she said. “This
isn’t like a shoe store.”
Janet inhaled to full height, had some trouble breathing out because her ribs were smashed together, and said,
sharply: “Give me the price, Tina. I will not remove this
piece of clothing now that it’s on, so I either pay for it this
way or walk out the door with it on for free.”
When she left the store, emboldened, receipt tucked into
her purse, folded twice, Janet thought of all the chicken
dishes she had not sent back even though they were either
half-raw or not what she had
ordered. Chicken Kiev instead
of chicken marsala, chicken
HE HAD ASKED HER
with mushrooms instead of
OUT AGAIN, AND
chicken à la king: her body was
made up of the wrong chickens.
AGAIN, AND TOLD
She remembered Daniel’s first
HER HE LOVED HER
ON THE FOURTH DATE, insistent kiss by the bridge
near the Greek café on that
AND BOUGHT HER
Saturday afternoon and she
FANCY CARDS INSIDE
hadn’t thought of it in years
OF WHICH HE WROTE
and she could almost smell the
LONG MESSAGES
schwarma rotating on its pole
ABOUT HER SMILE.
outside. He had asked her out
again, and again, and told her
he loved her on the fourth date,
and bought her fancy cards inside of which he wrote long messages about her smile.
By seven o’clock that night, all the shoes in Daniel’s
shoe store were either sold or back in boxes and clip-clopclip came his own up the walkway. The sky was dimming
from dark blue into black and Janet sat in the brightly lit