A Writer (In Name Only) - Short Story 2

 

2/52

July '23

1315 Words

A Writer (In Name Only)

I told her I write things. I knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. 

 

Oh, she said, beaming, I read things.

 

I don't know why I said it. It was one of those things that just come out, like saying butter is on sale at the grocery.

 

It was a party and I knew next to no one. It was a birthday party for a friend of a friend and I decided to tag along as I didn't have much else to do and my friend said there was going to be a scrumptious sit down dinner prepared by an actual chef and a birthday cake and ice cream and no presents or cards were expected and I thought well why not.

 

My escort had disappeared, off somewhere chatting with the birthday girl I suppose, and I not knowing what to do hovered around the hors d oeuvres table. There were the usual appetizers, little crackers with smoked salmon and cucumbers and trays of veggies and dips and plates of fruit, grapes, strawberries, cherries.

 

I popped a cherry into my mouth, the flesh sweet and tart. I looked around for what to do with the pit. There were no garbage bins nor bowls for things like seeds. I wondered if the plate of cherries looked untouched for that reason, that the other guests had the wherewithal to realize beforehand that disposal of the pit would be problematic. In other words, to think before acting.

 

I thought about putting the pit back on the plate with the cherries. Impolite if not gross. I thought about puckering my lips and spitting the little tooth breaker onto the gravel driveway and mixing it in amongst the stones with the tip of my shoe, being mid summer it was an outdoor party, but there were a group of people standing next to me, holding drinks, conversing, and decided that that would be crass. 

 

Our birthday host had a rather large flower garden with little pathways curling through the blossoms. I ambled over to the garden pretending to admire the flowers. Actually there was no pretending for there was a delightful array of colours and leaves and plants of all sizes and shapes for the eye and nose to take in. The garden bordered on the professional. I took a quick look at the gathered and bent over in false adoration of a red poppy whose flower resembled a carnation. The pit dropped into the soil and I pressed on it with my foot.

 

There were several canopies spread out across the lawn. Most had small collections of people sitting under the canopies. The day was hot but overcast. The sun wasn't the problem, it was the humidity and people fanned themselves and wiped their brows with napkins. I took occupation beneath a canopy choosing one that had several chairs all unoccupied. A woman sat down in a chair next to me. I had a memory of a book, an image of a character riding the New York Subway, where, at a subway stop a passenger enters the train, empty but for him. The passenger sits directly next to him. He is mortified.

 

The conversation began as many do. 

Do I know you, I've seen you around, you look familiar?

Not sure what to reply I said, you look familiar too. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't.

You're not from town are you?

No, I live just out side town, twenty minutes away.

The library, she blurted. I've seen you in the library.

That was likely, the library almost being a second home.

Chit chat went on from there, aimless talk about people we may both know and places and things.

  

I learned she was nearing retirement but terrified about it. I worry about what to do, she said. How will I fill my time. I read a lot but one can only read so much.

 

I told her I was retired and had not that problem. There is always something to do and besides after a period of adjustment you fall into the making of your own routine. You answer to your own call and there is no rush to do or accomplish. You can just be yourself. You can try new things. It can be quite freeing, quite wonderful. And that's when I said I've started writing stories. And she, like a match made in heaven, said, I read stories.

 

I should have put one and two together her being a patron of the library.

I knew what was coming but still it took me by surprise. Are you any good? Have you published anything?

Yes, no, maybe, I don't know. Christ, I stammered, I'm a dabbler not a real writer. As if that explained the unexplainable.

A whirlwind of questions followed. Do you write fiction? What genre? How long have you been a novelist? Can I read one of your stories?

Well I'm not inclined to carry around any of my stories and anyway I'm not really a writer and I'm certainly not a novelist. Far from it, it's mostly a hobby, something to keep my brain ....

Saved. Hallelujah. Not by the call to dinner but by a handful of people joining us under the canopy. People of all different sizes and shapes and colours, much like the flower garden but with the uniting factor we all were well planted in grade school at the time the first Kennedy was assassinated.

 

The newcomers discuss the horrid weather, diets, their health. I assumed everybody knew one another for no introductions were made.

 

Across the lawn comes a man and he is supported by a walker and there are clear plastic oxygen tubes wrapped around him with an outlet ending at his nose. You think the lawn is rather flat until you see someone trying to navigate it with a walker. It bounced along and became stuck and he freed it and kept going. I considered helping him but that was the extent of my helpfulness. He made it to our circle without mishap and sat down at one of the empty chairs, the first half of the movement slow and controlled and deliberate, the second half a free fall.

 

He wheezed. I'm Gilcrest, the birthday girl's brother. They did not look alike. His hands still had a firm grip on his walker. They seemed stuck there. He huffed and puffed and wheezed again and his head hung forward and his face pale as a mushroom. We all looked at him expectantly.

I'm older by two years, turned eighty-two two weeks ago. His voice was tenor interspersed with high pitched cracks and whistles. It could have been the wayward voice of a thirteen year old. He entertained us with stories of their family pre-war including several none of us knew about the birthday girl. He told us what it was like growing up on a farm in the depression and then later, work and marriage, and the trials of life that haunt people and families, suicides and death, illness and accidents, regrets and taking the wrong turns that one only knows when one looks back in hindsight. He was very generous and sincere and we were attentive and captive and we all nodded and shook our heads at the right moments. I'm sure, he said in conclusion, that every one of you have had your fair share of tragedy, all families do.

There was a lull, perhaps thoughtful, or perhaps embarrassed and sheepish, recalling memories of our own family histories.

 

Gilcrest, came a sultry voice from across the circle, a tall woman, all angles, legs crossed, elegantly dressed, leaning forward with a gleam in her eyes bright and probing, Gilcrest, she said, swirling the ice in her glass, you should write a book.

And beside me, aloud, not nearly as sultry, you're a writer.