Third Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2005)
Fiction
— Third Place
B.A. Goodjohn's
poetry and short stories have appeared in The Texas Review, The Cortland
Review, Wind Magazine, Literary Pot Pourri, Flashquake and other journals.
Her short story “Cubed” is due for publication in Blue Cubicle
Press’s 2005 anthology.
Low
Country Boil
By B.A. Goodjohn
Margaret looked out of the kitchen window, through the storm screens,
past the buddleia to the high-sloping lawn beyond. A deer nosed through
the trees at the very end of the yard followed by two fawns, still spotted,
still shaky, both stumbling through the long grass. She turned off the
tap as the water hit the half-way mark in the sink. A marble double sink.
Newly installed that spring. The deer scattered as Mark nosed the Dodge
down the drive. He was still so horny. She checked her reflection in the
glass and smoothed back her hair.
She picked up the grocery bag of vegetables from the counter and upended it into the rack over the second sink. First, she prepared the potatoes, a pound of reds, each the size of an egg. She slid them into the cool water, rubbed their delicate skins clean, then dropped them one by one into the pot that boiled on the stove top.
When she heard the front door open, she stopped, a final potato in hand. She heard Mark drop his briefcase in the hallway beyond the open kitchen door and walk towards the bathroom, his footsteps muffled across the carpeted hallway. Margaret listened to him piss, flush, then run the basin tap. She dropped the potato into the bubbling water.
She smelt him from the kitchen door. A spicy note, peppery yet floral, like steak cooking on a barbeque in a garden, a garden choked with sweet honeysuckle. He kissed her neck and her skin buzzed.
"Hmmm, something Southern for dinner?" he asked, spinning the lid of the Old Bay Seasoning. He turned to the mail in the letter rack and slit open each envelope with a vegetable knife.
"Low Country Boil," she answered, retrieving and cutting off the top and bottom of an onion from the rack and slipping off its fine paper skin.
"When is dinner?"
She steadied the onion on the cutting board and pressed the Sabatier's blade firmly through its white flesh. Tears stung her eyes. These Spanish bastards were evil.
"Awhile," she said, turning to enjoy a second kiss. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach his lips.
He smiled. "I'm bushed. The gym was crazy. Mind if I shower and catch a nap before we eat?"
Margaret turned back to the chopping board. "No worries. I'll wake you when it's time." She roughly chopped the onion then pulled a single corn cob from the rack. It was tightly wrapped, its dry brown silks limp against the pale outer sheath. Her mother had taught her the signs to watch for. This one was ready. She stripped down the tight husk, rubbed off the golden silks that clung to the yellow corn, then snapped the plump cob free from its stump. She dropped the cob into the sink.
Mark slid the mail that needed attention into his drawer and crammed the rest, the unwanted junk that arrived in their lives every day, into the bin under the sink. As he bent down, she saw the first signs of thinning in this curly brown hair. A sweet circle of pink. A corn circle on her man's crown. He stood up, kissed her neck again, then returned to the bathroom. She could hear the water hammering on the tiles, and Mark whistling a tune. Dixie Chicks, she thought, or maybe something she hadn't heard before?
She opened
the fridge and pulled out a plastic bag containing two paper-wrapped parcels:
a quarter pound of shrimp and two shiny links of Kielabasa sausage. She
rinsed the shrimp under the tap and left them to drain. In the bottom
of the grocery bag was the open letter. Not delivered to the mailbox with
all the bills and circulars by the nice mailman with the broken glasses,
but slipped under the front door and waiting on the mat for her when she
had returned home from Kroger.
