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| LOUISA HOWEROW's short fiction has found a home in various publications, most recently Banyan Review, EOTU, The Hiss Quarterly, Cafe Irreal and Hobart Pulp. And, now in insolent rudder. |
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| "home renovations" He noticed her first. A small woman in a short flowered skirt, sitting astride a red, hard-sided suitcase. He hesitated, stepped toward her. "You made it." She nodded and tried to lift the suitcase, but the effort caused her to teeter slightly to the side. He put his hand on hers, ready to help, but she stood dumbly, gripping the handle even harder. "The pickup's out back," he said. They moved forward, the woman's eyes on the ground, the man's on her. "I found us a place. Near town," he said. They drove up Third, left on Main, neither one of them speaking. He stopped the pickup in front of a bungalow set back from the road. The woman craned her neck and let out a small gasp. The trim around the darkened windows was yellow and blistered, and the roof sagged precariously over the porch. Buttercups and orange tiger lilies filled the ditch between the road and the house, but the front yard lay bare, except for plantains breaking through the rocky ground, their rosette leaves gray with dust. * * * He took a tissue out of his pocket, spit on it and rubbed the dust off the window in small methodical circles. He pressed his face to the glass, motioned her to follow suit. The walls were covered in wallpaper -- vertical stripes of pink roses and light green vines. Near the ceiling, a paper strip had become unstuck; its blank beige underside furled over a column of roses. "It's got three bedrooms," he said. The woman looked at him expectantly. A smudge of dirt marked her forehead and chin. "What you planning to do with three bedrooms?" He wanted to say, I thought that's what you wanted. Start a family and all. Instead he said, "One for me, one for you and one for the dog." She lit a cigarette and slumped down on the porch step. "Got it all figured out, eh? Now that's something." She began to laugh, but the laugh came out like a wheeze. "Smoking will do you in." "Don't start with me, Mark-boy." "No way, girl." "You got us a place lined up for the night?" "Here." Before she could say anything, he hurried on to tell her that the keys were at Charlie's and there were cots, pans and grub to last them till morning. "How much does Charlie know about me?" "Some." He doesn't know you've finished with husband number three, or how I found you passed out in the snow, or how you make me feel. She touched his cheek, as if she understood what he had not said aloud. "You get the keys; I'll wait here." * * * The inside of the house smelled of smoke and pine. Mark set up the cots in the living room, and she placed her suitcase by the door. For supper he fried potatoes in an iron skillet. When the potatoes were tender and glistening, he scraped them to the side and broke four eggs into the pan. They ate on the back steps. There were no other houses to block their view. The setting sun had stripped the blue from sky and the hills were the color of darkened silver. * * * He got up in the middle of the night to pull his cot alongside hers. The blanket he had wrapped around himself kept sliding up exposing his feet, so he had not been able to feel warm, or fall asleep. "Mark? You awake?" "Mmmm," he said. "How long we going to stay here?" "Long enough to get this house fixed up." "That'll take time." "I got nothing better to do." Through the broken screen, a whip-poor-will called out. "Me neither." His nose was runny, and he was acutely aware that except for the woman lying in the cot next to him, he was alone. He put his hand on Belle's back to make sure she was really there. ### |
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