Armstrong
by Bill Bailey
 

The Dinner Party

It's a Family Addiction
by Robert Baucom

 

Megan Liscomb

First Boy
by Denise Brown
Third Place Winner, Fiction

 
Face
by Rachel Busnardo
 
The House on a Hill

The house sat snugly between its neighbors, like any other house might, but in Emma Bailey’s mind it loomed larger than all others. First there was a small patch of green, vivid in the waning afternoon sun. Yellow flowers, weeds, floated above the rest, popping in contrast to the shy white fence behind them. Behind the fence there was sky and between the white fence and blue sky were the naked gray limbs of winter trees. Behind the fence and under the trees was the stately yellow Victorian house where Emma Bailey had just returned home for the first time in nearly a year for her father’s annual Winter Solstice dinner party. The sight of the house was at first overwhelming. Briefly, Emma considered asking the cab driver to take her back to the airport. Equal parts joy and dread compelled her to enter.

Emma, weary with jetlag, sat in the breakfast nook while her younger sister Cat made coffee, talked too loud and slammed cabinet doors. The other guests were due to arrive in less than an hour.

A set of unique, hand-printed tarot style cards hung in the kitchen, over the breakfast table where her anticipation fought fatigue. Emma stared at the cards as if she could will them to reveal a new meaning. She only remembered her father’s words. “Pauline could quit teaching and live off those things.” He would say, shaking his head as he examined them for the hundredth time over his morning coffee. He had hopes for an exhibition of the cards, greedy hopes for a chance to prove to himself his set was the best one. He had only seen two other sets but he believed there to be many more, possibly hundreds. Each one was a story, broken down into several images and characters, laid out under a frame as if telling a fortune. His set was an obscure assemblage of fate: The Piano-Forte, Moonlight on the Moor, The Villian Paramour, The Gown, The Feast and The House on a Hill.

At another dinner party, years ago, Pauline had said the card sets were her life’s passion and Emma thought she understood perfectly. It was noble and it made sense to devote one’s life to making exquisite gifts. “I love them so much I print each one only once and then I destroy the plate.” Pauline laughed although it was unclear at what.

At what seemed an appropriate moment, Emma shyly laughed as well, darting a furtive glance at a man at the opposite end of the table. “Thank God I don’t love anything that much.”

He could not hear her words but his eyes had glittered in response.

Pauline had laughed and said something witty or wise that Emma had later written down in her diary. She could not remember what it was.

Cat put a cup of coffee on the breakfast table on top of a dog-eared copy of Northanger Abbey, splashing a little on the cover. “You’re not even listening to me, you bitch.”

“Nice to see you too.”

The Gown

When Emma was a little girl, Pauline gave her a book of famous old paintings. One of the color plates showed a Renaissance wedding portrait, the woman wearing a green dress and resting a pale hand on her rotund belly. From then on, Emma had imagined that if she got married, she too would wear green. She had never liked white.

As Emma dressed for the party, she thought of dressing for her imaginary wedding. She would have to put more makeup under her eyes to cover those dark circles. She would require a dab of perfume at the nape of her neck. She lingered a long time over her hair, teasing its flat, smooth strands into voluptuous dark waves. If the image faded before she finished dressing her excitement remained.

Emma looked intently into the mirror when she finished dressing. A haunted house, she mused. A magic mirror. Her mother’s wide eyes and thin lips in her father’s round face in a familiar gilt frame was an image that spoke more of home than the bay bridge, tollbooths and the endlessly looping freeways.

Guests were arriving, chatting and opening doors. There was laughter and the rustling sounds of coats being taken off and hung up. The scent of garlic, curry, butter and meat entered with them. Her father called her name from downstairs. Her pulse quickened yet she remained at the mirror, deriving a false sense of calm from her own placid reflection. The ghost of a little girl searching herself for the spirit of a mother on the longest and most haunted night of the year.

The Villian Paramour

“So how are you, young lady? We haven’t seen you in a long time.” Guy Leon grinned like a Cheshire Cat.

“Great.” As Emma took a step back from the crowd to be nearer to her interlocuter, her glass caught the last sunbeams of the day. Like a votive candle it cast a warm glow over her hands, neck and face.

“So glad you still remember us little people.”

“Only the smallest.”

“Say something sexy in French for me.”

She rolled her eyes at his pleading puppy dog look and gave in. It was still instinctive for her to please him, just a little. “Pas ce soir. J’ai mal a la tete.”

“Whatever that was, I’m excited.”

“It means not tonight, I have a headache.”

“Damn, that is sexy.” He must have gotten those lines around his eyes while she was away. He had never looked so old before.

“I know.”

He gazed at her for a moment rich with tenderness and desire. “We’ve missed you.”

“How is Sophia?”

“She has a cold.” His wife always seemed to have a cold when Mr. Bailey was having a party. “What’s the matter with you tonight? You’re not yourself.”

“I have this really bad hangnail, see it? Plus I stubbed my toe when I had my shoes off at the airport, and don’t even get me started on how bloated I am from that airplane food.”

His jaw twitched. “You aren’t being very kind to your old friend tonight.”

It would be so easy, Emma mused, to fall back into their old pattern of loving, fighting and loving again. Even the painful parts would be easy from familiarity. Worse than easy, it was almost inevitable that within a week he would be in her bed again, or even worse, in the backseat of his car, kissing her shoulder and whispering that he would love her forever. Emma would hear him with a thrill of pleasure and later wonder how he could possibly be so insensitive. She almost looked forward to it though the thought gave her vertigo. She had to pull herself back from the edge.

“Kindness?” Emma laughed, recalling a private joke between them. “You can go to your other girlfriends for kindness. Jesus, do you even remember which one I am?”

“Amy, right? And you know what, I would, but Uma’s been so moody lately and Angelina keeps saying something about a restraining order…I know she doesn’t mean it.”

Before Emma could twist her smirk into a reply, Cat approached, slurring slightly and tugging at Emma’s arm. “Em, Dad wants your help at the bar. You won’t believe this, but he thinks maybe I’ve been sneaking drinks.”

“Is that my bracelet?”

Cat slipped it up her sleeve. “I refuse to answer such absurd allegations!”

“I’ll be there in a minute Kitty, the grown-ups are talking.”

He smiled. “We have a lot of catching up to do, Emma. You’ll have to come visit me soon.” He abruptly broke away from her side and began to cross the room.

Emma nodded and smiled cooly. She had hoped to be the one to walk away but it was impossible to call him back.

He turned to her again after a few brisk steps. “Oh, I almost forgot. I just heard your father say your old friend Peter is on his way.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.” A cruel smile. “With his fiance.”

The Feast

Mr. Bailey measured the success of any dinner party held in his home by the degree to which guests were forced out of the dining room by space constraints. He observed the assembled party in his living room, holding plates over their knees, with great satisfaction. His neighbors and colleagues mingled with old friends and new friends, friends of his daughters and their families. He also derived great satisfaction from seeing his daughters enjoy the party. Catherine was in high spirits, sharing a chair at the dining room table with her best friend.

Emma had seemed lively earlier, passing out cocktails and glasses of wine. Now, however, she was perched on the arm of a chair in the corner of the living room, quietly picking at her plate as the elderly woman who lived up the street prattled on about the edible flowers in her garden. “Nasturtiums too, of course. There’s some in the salad I brought. They’re a little peppery. Have one.”

He pulled Emma aside. “Are you enjoying the party, dear?”

“Mm-hmm.” She chewed the orange flower vigourously. “It’s very nice. But these potatoes,” she gestured at her plate, “could use some poppies, no? Who brought them?”

“I don’t know. Are you really having a good time? You look a little down.”

“You’d be feeling bad too if your opium habit got disrupted. You heard me father, I’m an opium addict.”

“Why aren’t you sitting with old Pete? Did the girlfriend get scared by your beauty and chase you away?”

“Fiance, and she’s very nice. Really, really nice. I just wanted a little quiet, for the come-down, you know.”

“When you’re young, those things don’t last. You two were always such good friends. Those things, they don’t last.”

Emma shrugged in exasperation. “Sometimes they do.”

“Come back to the party. If you’re quick you can get a seat at the table. I think there’s a few people up for seconds.”

The Piano-Forte

After dessert, the Bailey family had a lapsed tradition of entertaining their remaining guests. The girls no longer sang duets at the piano nor did they tapdance on the kitchen’s scratched linoleum floor. Mr. Bailey no longer told his ghost stories now that he himself was haunted. Mrs. Bailey had passed years ago, taking that tradition with her. Naturally, Emma had not expected to see Cat directing the assembled party into the garage where she had set up her synthesizer, laptop and two battered microphones. “What’s going on?”

“We’re taking back the night.”

“Huh?”

“Come on Em, for old time’s sake.” Cat handed her a binder. “This is my song list.” Cat, frustrated with her old bandmates, had started a one-woman karaoke band. “The first gig didn’t go so good, just a couple of stoner chicks trying to sing Journey. But I think once word gets around it’s gonna be really fun. I’ve got some songs you can’t karaoke anywhere else.”

“Did Dad put you up to this?”

“Does it matter?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Please.” Cat whined. “It’ll make him happy. He could use a little happiness. Seriously, he’s been a real dick since you’ve been gone.”

Emma gulped what was left of her glass of wine and poured another. “Might as well make some bad decisions.”

She grasped the microphone in one hand and her wine glass in the other and sang a song by Feist that was a bit too big for her. The song she sang was romantic and sensual, timeless and obscure. It dipped above and below Emma’s limited range as a singer but the tenderness and grace of her delivery excused some of her transgressions. More and more guests trickled in to watch her, despite her faltering.

As she sang, she scanned the room for a missing face. Peter was not there. He was somewhere else with a very nice girl who had never believed in anything with him more foolish than the holiness of love. He was with a very nice girl somewhere who had never been a Ninja Turtle with him, who had never sprinkled loose glitter on his head and tried to fly. She was a very nice girl, but she had probably never seen him eat a bug or cry over a skinned knee. For a moment, Emma managed to pity her but the song ended. After all, Peter had hardly said more than two words together to Emma that evening.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Cat teased.

“Nah, just the singing part.”

Emma squeezed through the crowd.

“Who’s next?” Cat shouted. “Come pick a song!”

As Emma slipped through the crush Guy Leon caught her arm. “Can I talk to you somewhere a little quieter?”

“I’d rather you didn’t.” She replied, wrenching her arm away.

After the music, some gifts were exchanged. From Cat to her father: a tie printed with a portrait of Karl Marx. From Emma to Peter: a mix cd and a miniature Eiffel Tower. From Cat to Emma: a handmade neon scarf. From Mr. Bailey to his daughters: an imposing stack of hardcover books and a note promising the fun gifts would arrive on Christmas. From Pauline to Emma: a framed set of two cards, the wax-wings and the swallows. “Wax-wings, that you may fly close to the sun and swallows that you may always have a home to return to.” From Emma to Cat: a set of French-language day of the week underwear and a Hello Kitty watch. From Guy Leon to Emma: in the morning she would find he had slipped in the pocket of her cardigan a small tin containing an antique cameo pendant buried beneath purple petals and a butterfly wing, wrapped in a note. Hastily scrawled on a paper napkin it read, “You stopped answering my emails and you don’t return my calls, but I want you to know I am here for you always Emma Moonsparkle Bailey. Like it or not, I will love you ‘til the day I die. Xoxo, Guy.” Emma would crumple the note in her hand, crushed with a rage born of regret and longing despite all Guy Leon had put her through. “It’s Moonshadow.” She would whisper. “My middle name is Moonshadow.”

Moonlight on the Moor

Where Mr. Bailey sat at his kitchen table, the cards were hanging directly over his head. He was alone with a glass of whiskey, watching ice melt and studying the wood grain of the table. Somebody had been looking at old photographs and left the album open in the front of the chair next to his. He glanced at it for a second. He had found if he looked at pictures only briefly they seemed alive, in motion. His wife Jane was alive, was pregnant with Catherine. She was sitting on the sofa with Emma. Emma’s hair was blond and curly still. She was five years old and would not play with the baby doll he’d given her for her birthday. Instead, she was writing her name with a crayon all over a storybook. Sleeping Beauty. Emma, she wrote, Emma Emma Emma.

She looked so much like Jane now. It was a shame Peter wasn’t marrying Emma instead of that quiet little nameless girl. It was a shame she hadn’t had a boyfriend for a long time. He had hoped to have grandchildren by his age, to dote on and spoil. Perhaps she was a lesbian. There was something strange about her. No, it wasn’t that, couldn’t be that. He recalled her long-standing harmless flirtation with his young colleague Guy Leon. Guy was an attractive young man, intelligent and witty, maybe not so young for Emma though, Mr. Bailey considered. Married too. He always forgot that woman. It was a shame.

There was just nobody good enough for her.

Emma went downstairs with the intention of slipping quietly out the kitchen door. It was just past midnight. Her father startled her as much as she startled him. “Where are you going? I thought you were tired.”

“I was just going out for a walk.”

“It’s late.”

“Not in Paris.”

“What time is it there?”

“I don’t know, early?”

He gave her an indulgent smile. “Be careful. Don’t stay out too late.”

Emma heaved an exaggerated sigh. There was definitely something strange about her. “Okay.” She said with an edge to her voice. As she put on her coat, Mr. Bailey wondered if he could even expect her to come home.

“I love you.” He said, as she walked out the door.

“Love you too.” She snapped.

It was an overcast, moonless night. Christmas lights twinkled in the oak trees as if celebrating the absence of snow. Emma listened to her i-pod as she walked, music playing in only one ear, the other side of her earbuds dangling down the front of her coat. Her knee ached slightly but she ignored it, continued walking. The wind blew cold against her cheek. She buried her hands deep in her pockets and rubbed them softly against the lining to warm them. A cat stalked down the sidewalk in the other direction across the street from her.

Emma walked up the hill until she reached Indian Rock at the top. It was a large rock formation about forty or fifty feet high; she did not know why it was called “Indian” and she pondered that old question again as she approached its dark form. Shallow steps had been carved into one side to allow people to climb it. Emma scrambled up the side in the dark, anxiously feeling her way. She was afraid of running into someone homeless or half-crazy but still she climbed. From the top of Indian Rock she could see all the way across the bay, the city skyline and the Golden Gate stretching to Marin on one side of the sky and streetlights and rooftops on the other. Emma sat, feeling blank, wishing that the sun might never come up, that she might always be above everything and alone.


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The Hurricane
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The Dinner Party
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Coyote Shivers
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