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Chapter One
As deliveries went, this one was somewhere between a balloon telegram
and a bulletproof vest wrapped around a dead fish. Most gift baskets
arrived with cards bearing congratulations or condolences. Rarely were
they sent with the simple two-line message Jane Monaghan stared at, then
read, in disbelief, a second time.
A skinny delivery boy hovered in the doorway, the screen door flapping
and creaking as he shifted his weight. Jane fumbled in her handbag for a
tip. Why did she never have singles when she needed them? As she poked
through the tissues, keys and various black electronics cases in her
voluminous bag, the boy peered inside the house, curious about the women
renting the old Beninger place. He remembered the first year they came.
His mother had warned him to keep his distance and his father had
slipped him a sly wink that he'd been too young to interpret.
They weren't bad looking, neither young nor old, that gray area between
youth and invisibility. Still good for a nooner, he fantasized, using
an expression he’d heard his uncle Billy use, if he could cut one from
the herd. Especially the small, dark-haired one sprawled on the loveseat
near the fireplace. She had a nubby throw tossed over one leg but the
other was exposed – tan, taut and barely covered by denim cutoffs. Still
pretty hot, even if she looked old enough to have been his babysitter -
and after all, what boy hadn't had that fantasy?
The hot one and the boy made eye contact. Having been on the receiving
end of similar looks for close to twenty years – longer than he’d been
alive – it took Tina Ruggiero all of thirty seconds to read his mind.
“Come back in a few years, sonny. You’re not entirely hopeless but, let’s wait until that acne clears up.”
The boy’s naughty daydream evaporated, his face reddened and he
reverted to bumbling, pimply errand boy. His eyes grew watery. He even
seemed shorter, if that was possible. Jane abandoned her search for
singles, shoved a five in his direction and kicked the storm door shut.
“A day without a verbal castration is like a day without sunshine?”
“Come on,” Tina said. “He deserved it – gawking like that. Half the
people in this town think we're practicing witchcraft and the other half
think we’re gay. Not that I don't think you're all cute. I just wanted
to set the record straight.”
Jane wasn’t sure the exchange wouldn’t have the opposite effect,
convincing him she was a witch, only he’d spell it with a “b.” Which was
fitting since that's what they'd been dubbed a long time ago when they
were teens, The Bitches of Brooklyn. Were they really? Depended who you
asked.
“A new wrinkle has been added to our weekend,” Jane said.
"Oh no please, not another one. I already have a new wrinkle, that's why I cut bangs."
"I wondered what the new hairstyle was about."
Jane carried the oversized basket to the wooden dining table where
Clare Didrikson and Rachel Weiner, two of her closest friends, sat with
their morning coffees.
The table and chairs were like all the furniture in the rented house -
ancient wood or wicker upon which thousands of summer memories had been
made, or brand new, from the discount store, because who would buy good
furniture for a house through which total strangers traipsed for three
months out of every year? Or suffered from too much sun and too much
damp. Jane pulled out a chair and read the card aloud to the group.
"It's a joke," Tina said. She flung off the blanket and hopped over on
her one good ankle to join them. "Just like her to bail at the last
minute and then pull a stunt like this. She’s probably laughing her ass
off somewhere, ordering the next fruit basket with the next cryptic
message. Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes! Go to the hayfield, there’ll
be a volcanic rock that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield.
She’s always so melodramatic. Can't she just admit something better came
up?"
It was not the first time their missing friend had cancelled at the
last minute even though the dates were fixed well in advance. The four
were always understanding but there was always a trace of resentment,
too. As if the others were expected to understand that the fifth woman’s
time was more valuable than theirs.
The four women settled around the table in the weather-beaten Cape Cod
bungalow they'd rented every summer for the last six years. They met for
the same late summer weekend when husbands and partners were otherwise
engaged, either of their own accord or dispatched so the women wouldn't
feel guilty about leaving four men, one daughter, one veterinary
practice, and two businesses for much girl talk and more alcohol in an
ocean beach setting far removed from their Brooklyn beginnings.
Initially, they had played "remember when" and speculated on what had
happened to still-missing friends from the old neighborhood. That first
year Rachel brought her laptop and their old high school yearbook, and
between drinks and steamers they Googled and giggled over former
boyfriends and teachers, most of whom had lost their hair, gotten heavy,
or somehow morphed into ordinary mortals instead of the brooding
geniuses and bohemian heartthrobs they’d once seemed. After that, it was
agreed - no laptops at The Weekend.
But it wasn't all about the old days. The five women had forged new
friendships. What felt better than familiar but new - the safety net of
people who knew your background and your history, but, because of the
time spent apart, brought the freshness of anecdotes and stories you
hadn't heard a hundred times before. And they’d helped each other
professionally, with contacts and as trustworthy soundingboards.
Clare reached over to read the card for herself, looking for...what?
Some explanation hidden between the lines? Some tone or nuance conveyed
in the elegant script of an anonymous clerk in a gift shop? She chewed
on her lower lip but said nothing.
Jane tugged on the purple ribbon at the top of the basket, untying the
bow and noisily releasing the twisted cellophane. She flattened the
ribbon and wound it around four fingers as if saving it for some future
use, which wasn't likely since they'd all be home in a few days. A
hidden staple pierced one slim, unmanicured index finger and she sucked
on it while poking through the basket with her undamaged hand.
"At least she sprang for the good stuff.” Jane held up a red foil-covered brick. “Real cheese, not cheese product."
"And candy," Rachel said. "Just what we need."
Tina and Jane plundered the basket, Jane moving through the items and
inspecting ingredients. "Cream crackers, no partially hydrogenated
anything so far." Jane was co-owner of a small bakery called Sweet
Dreams and paid attention to such things. Tina wasn't so picky. Two
grunts and an arched eyebrow told her the others were less appreciative
of their missing friend's nutritional considerations. "Belgian
chocolates. Scottish cookies," Jane said, still sucking on her punctured
finger.
"Please don’t get blood on anything," Tina said. "If there are
shortbread cookies, I’ve got dibs. I don't care if they have lard in
them but I draw the line at bodily fluids.”
Despite Rachel's protestations, the chocolate would disappear first. No
chance to melt or develop that mysterious white stuff around the edges.
Then the cheese, the crackers and the fruit, one step up from
artificial and typically chosen not for taste but for their ability to
retain an unblemished appearance despite being shipped thousands of
miles. All the food would go, even the boring sucking candies, and all
that would remain was a tasteful brown basket, some purple ribbon and
the note -
Apologies for the short notice but I won't be making our little reunion this year. I've run off with one of your men.
As an award winning author, Jackie writes stories ranging from ultra-short to novel-length, varieties of which have appeared in anthologies such as Tales of Fantasy and Dragons Composed, as well as numerous periodical publications, including Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Binnacle, Mindflights Magazine, Necrotic Tissue, and Shroud. She is the author of the fantasy novel Redheart, and writing an alternate history time travel novel. She blogs professionally for English Tea Store.com, where she reviews classic science fiction and fantasy novels and pairs them with the ideal tea-sipping companion. Jackie is a member of the professional organizations Science Fiction Writers of America and Horror Writers Association. She was named honorable mention in L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future Award, and received a 2008 Darrell Award for best short story by a Mid-South author. She is the winner of the 2009 Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction for her story The Freak Museum, a post-apocalyptic tale that looks closely at perceptions and outward appearances and how they affect the way we see ourselves. Jackie was signed to Seventh Star Press in September of 2010, to publish her full Leland Dragon Series. For more information on Jackie, please visit her official website at www.jackiegamber.com
