I promised Larissa I’d look into it. Byron turned out to be an astrophysics major at Johns Hopkins. That meant he was smart enough to know better, but you know those JHU boys. They can find a cat that’s in two places at once but they can’t keep their own shoes tied. He placed a wanted ad for an atomic force microscope on Craigslist and I had my in. I followed up, and Tuesday night we met at a diner on Route 40 outside Baltimore. We said 8:30, but the bus took its sweet time and I scoped the side door of the diner first, so by the time I rolled in it was closer to nine.

Better to keep Byron hungry, I figured. I didn’t react when the hostess asked if I wanted a table for one, just made a beeline for the back. Found him at a two-top reading a book, head shaved and beard waxed. Woof.

I sat down across from him and kept my shades on.

“What’s that you’re reading?” I asked instead of saying hello.

He closed the book, holding his place with one finger, and revealed the cover: A Brief History of Time. His smile was shy.

“Ah. Did you know Stephen Hawking travels with an entourage?” I asked. “His grad students, every nurse on the planet, friends, family, paparazzi, you name it.” Another nervous smile.

“What’s your name anyway?” Like I didn’t already know. “Your ad didn’t say.”

“Byron.” He spoke softly with a British accent. Yorkshire, if my ear didn’t lie. The smile was growing. “Yours?” he asked.

“Sergei.” I couldn’t risk the truth. “So, you’re enjoying your book?”

He glanced at the cover like he’d never seen it before, then nodded. “Do you have it?” he asked, glancing under the table. “I mean, did you bring it?”

“The microscope? Sure, it’s in my trunk.”

Luckily the waitress appeared and took me off the hook.

“What can I get you, gentlemen?” Her pen and pad looked new. I signaled Byron to go first.

“Steak and eggs, please. Steak bloody, eggs scrambled.”

I snorted. “Don’t be a cliché, man.”

He grinned at the waitress. “And a glass of grapefruit juice.”

“And you, sir?”

“Me?” I leaned back in my chair, didn’t bother opening the tome of a menu. “I’ll have one egg, soft-boiled so the guts ooze out, two pieces of toast the color of Beyoncé’s skin, and coffee blacker than a moonless night. You got all that, Sunny?” I read her name off the tag on her left breast.

“Sure,” she said.

“See, it’s all in the delivery,” I told Byron, who was admiring Sunny’s retreat. I leaned across the table and got close enough for a kiss, put one hand on top of his, A Brief History of Time resting comfortably underneath, like we were taking an oath. He had perfect lips. I raised my shades. “Why don’t you read me something from old Hawking here?” He still had one finger on his page.

“What—now?” Byron snatched his hand out from underneath mine and glanced around the place like I’d just asked him to blow me.

“Why not?” The diner was hopping and nobody was paying any attention to us. “Just pick up where you left off.”

He flipped open and started reading. “Quantum mechanics predicts a number of different outcomes—” I had to admit his mangled accent was cute. I wondered if that’s why Larissa let things go so far.

Sunny delivered our food, and my yolk was dry.

“I asked for soft boiled,” I told her.

“Go file a complaint with the cook, sir.” I raised my shades but she’d already moved on to another table.

Byron dog-eared his book and set it aside before he lifted the five-inch serrated knife that accompanied his meal. Perfect. I tore a chunk out of my toast and dipped it in my coffee while he methodically diced his meat into perfect half-inch segments. Larissa mentioned he was anal.

“It’s entanglement I can’t abide,” I said apropos of nothing as he chewed his first bite. He raised his eyebrows. “You’re telling me some Japanese girl takes a shit halfway around the world, and I get a panic attack because of it? No effing way.” I raised my shades again and he laughed with his mouth full.

“That’s not how entanglement works,” he said when he’d swallowed.

“Oh, really?” We ate in silence after that. I ignored the egg. After he finished everything on his plate, he downed his grapefruit juice in one gulp. Time to get the show on the road. “Your ad said 40K,” I reminded him.

“I need to see the equipment first.”

“Like I said, it’s in my trunk. Let’s talk financials. You got the dough?”

“I can have my father do a bank transfer.”

“I take PayPal.” I tossed a couple of twenties on the table to keep Sunny happy. “You want to go see the scope?” Byron didn’t notice me palm the steak knife.

He nodded vigorously and shoved his book under his arm as he stood up. He was over six feet, taller than me.

“Thanks for the meal,” he said.

“Sure thing.” I half smiled.

“Have a nice night, gentlemen,” Sunny called as we pushed in our chairs.

“This way,” I showed Byron to the side exit. “I’m parked around back.”

When I steered Byron into the dark crevasse at the back of the building, he didn’t resist. It was almost like he wanted to. Larissa said he was easy.

“I’ve got the microscope right here,” I said, burying the steak knife in his gut. Teach him to fuck with my sister and break her heart. I left him lying face down, his blood seeping out onto the cement.

While I waited for the bus, I called Larissa and filled her in.

“I told you not to kill him, you psycho,” Larissa screamed. I hung up on her and opened to Byron’s page.

 

 My submission to the Yeah Write Super Challenge, Round 2. The prompts were “File a complaint” and this photo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My entry for the Yeah Write Super Challenge #2. The prompt was envy and a funeral. I made it to Round 2!

 

The bus shrugs to the curb as Evan dives for an oil-slick rainbow oozing on the asphalt.

“Get up from there.” I tug his wrist and we shuffle up the trio of steps onto the bus. I fuss with the Ventra.

“Can I do it, Mommy?”

I let him. The driver frowns as he lurches back into traffic.

Evan finds a seat behind a girl about his age, her pretty auburn hair done in braids twisted into buns. The man she’s with could be either her father or her grandfather. He’s got silver hair, a crisp white beard, and a black three-piece suit. I sink into the plastic seat behind him.

Evan leans forward between them and cranks right up.

“I’m five,” he tells her. “It’s my birthday.” The girl turns and I see she’s been crying; twin streaks run down her face. Evan doesn’t notice. “We’re going to the aquarium to see the sharks.”

“Happy birthday,” she says.

The gentleman aims his granite glare at Evan.

“I’m going to a funeral.” She’s almost whispering.

The gentleman lays a hand on her shoulder. “Quiet, Sophia.”

I make my voice oil-slick bright. “Evan, sit back please.” He wails when I yank his bony wrist. Then, softer, to the gentleman. “I’m so sorry.”

Our window is splattered with grime.

Across the aisle, a young man shoots daggers at me through his shaggy hair.

Evan fidgets with the broken emergency release lever dangling from our windowsill. The sky is a sack of rocks.

“Sit still.” My fingers leave rosy prints on his arm. I can feel the young man’s hot eyes on my hand.

“Mommy, what’s a funeral?”

“Shhh.”

I watch the girl, graceful and still as a Degas. Did the gentleman braid her hair? Her part looks cut with a cleaver. I imagine him spiraling her buns, pinning them into place, all the while she’s weeping. Not because it hurts. Evan won’t let me get a comb through his unruly curls.

I wonder who died.

The gentleman reaches over her perfect head and draws the sagging cord to signal a stop, and they rise, his fingers gently intertwined with hers. She looks back longingly at Evan as she trudges to the exit, the hem of a black dress sticking out beneath her pink coat. The gentleman takes the angel’s elbow as they descend the three steps to the street.

The driver lurches into motion and the two of them vanish.

The young man across the aisle pulls my sleeve.

“Ma’am. Your son.” His voice trails off as he leans forward. Evan’s seat is empty. The man holds Evan’s wrist lightly as he helps him off the floor and back to me.

“Evan—” I don’t recognize my voice. “You’ve gotten yourself all dirty.” His knees are filthy and he’s clutching a man’s leather satchel. Black.

“Look what I found.” He hands it to me, the leather creamy soft and worn, much older than it looks. He climbs over me into his seat. “It’s my birthday,” he announces to the young man.

“Happy birthday, then.” The man grins and reaches over to ruffle Evan’s curls.

I turn the gold latch on the bag.

“We’re gonna see the sharks.”

“That sounds great. I wish I could come with you.”

“You can!” Evan nearly leaps over me, but I press him back down with my palm on his chest.

“Stay in your seat.”

The young man shakes his head, more at me than at Evan. “I have to get to work. Have fun, though.” He retreats into his phone.

“Look, Mommy. He has a phone.” Evan kneels on the seat, rocking back and forth.

“You’ll have one too, when you’re an adult.”

“How long will it be til I’m an adult?”

“A long time.”

I lift the flap on the satchel as the driver’s bass travels the cavern of the bus. “Museum campus, next stop.”

Evan is smiling again. “That’s our stop, Mommy.”

“Go ahead and ring the bell.”

Inside the bag, nestled among a ream of files and slips of paper, is a girl’s diary. The sort with a padlock and a bit of poetry on the cover. I tuck it back in and close the satchel. It fits perfectly under my arm.

The bus driver nods at us as Evan drags me by two fingers to the exit.

“We’re gonna see the sharks!” Evan beams up at the driver.

“Have fun now, you hear?” His chocolate brown eyes have an unmistakable glister.

“Thank you, sir.” My smile is sudden and wide. Evan’s wrist bones jut into my fingers as we descend. Outside, the sky has brightened. I give his hand a little squeeze as we wait for the light to change. “Happy birthday, Ev.” The bag under my arm has a comforting weight.

 

 

 

“A lady’s gotta carry a pistol,” my grandmomma used to say. Grandmomma used to say lots of yimmer-yammer ‘fore she passed on, God bless her. After she died, daddy got her all set up real nice over on the hill there up behind the house. I got her a real marble, inlaid headstone so everybody knows it’s her they’re kneeling on, just like grandmomma wanted.

When she was livin’, grandmomma used to share lots of her gems up there in her kitchen. She’d have me sittin at her table, a glass of sweet tea or lemonade on a doily by my wrist faster than I could say gotchya, and she’d be fixin’ a sandwich more like than not. Sandwiches were her specialty.

I always brought grandmomma presents whenever I came up to visit. Nice vase of flowers, lilies like her name. Grandmomma always liked those even when she was livin’. I’d bring her those cookies she liked with the chocolate icing inside, and we’d have a talk. Really, grandmomma would be givin’ me the third degree ‘bout when I was gonna go on and finally get married, but at least her mouth’d be movin’ like it was a real conversation.

Course the first time I brought it by, she noticed my brand-new, cherry red Corvette outside. “Woo-ee! Where you gettin’ the money for that spitfire, girlie?” Grandmomma demanded, juttin’ out one hip under her apron with the little blue hearts, and clampin’ her hand down on it like she was sixteen. “You ain’t got a husband I don’t know about, do ya, darlin’?”

“Nah, Grandmomma,” I told her, gulping down my lemonade so I didn’t have to fill her in on my private business.

“I want an invitation to the weddin’, ya hear,” she laughed, sitting down across from me. “Now ya know I just want ya to be happy, darlin’. Ya know that, right?”

“Of course, Grandmomma.”

“So who’s makin’ the payment on that shiny red apple out there, girlie?”

“Me, Grandmomma.” I didn’t bother telling her I paid cash for the car. “Have some cookies, Grandmomma,” I opened the tin and pushed it over near her. She couldn’t resist.

Nobody wants a crook for a grandbaby, ‘specially if that grandbaby’s a girl. Still, round here, people prefer mayhem to the cold, hard truth. Ain’t no way I was gonna break my dear, sweet grandmomma’s heart with the news that her favorite grandbaby’s grown up and can take care of herself. I made more money in a month than daddy ever saw in one place.

Grandmomma had a lotta gems up there in her attic, but she never knew squat ‘bout makin’ rain, how a lady can make the bigwigs at a conference table blush just by shifting her thighs, how she can make the big shots fill her purse if she plays her cards right. Grandmomma would’ve wrung my neck if I’d opened up, so she died not knowin’. It’s too bad, ‘cause she woulda laughed, too. And she probably woulda liked knowin’ how right she was ‘bout the pistol thing.

I lowered my sunglasses and double-checked the street outside the bank before going in. “Pas des mechants, mes poulettes,” I whispered to the girls as I held the door open with the heel of my boot, wedged my orange BOB Revolution through the door, and made my way to the teller. She was très jolie, I had to admit, with her long brown hair and perfect lipstick, but I didn’t return her smile.

“May I help you, miss?” she asked, still smiling, giving me the benefit of the doubt, making nice.

“Bonjour,” I called over the counter, flaunting my accent. I still didn’t smile. “I need to close my account.” I showed her my license.

The teller furrowed her perfect brow. “Is there a problem?” she murmured confidentially.

“A problem? No.” Mais oui. Agathe and Édith were waking up now; their little chirps emerged from the stroller, which I jostled a bit while I debated how to tell the teller what she wanted to hear. I stooped down and pulled the leather satchel from underneath the Revolution and calmly passed it over the counter. “Here, take this. Give me all cash. Nothing smaller than hundreds, please.”

She nodded. I watched the second hand make a slow round of the clock above her pretty face. Mais oui, une problème, I thought as I recalled the past six months in the apartment with only the staff and the bébés. It wasn’t natural. “You can’t go outside alone,” David insisted. “It isn’t safe out there,” he’d coo to the girls as he’d part the blinds to peek at the street below.

Not long ago, I thought as I watched the teller’s manicured fingernails match the rhythm of the second hand, I used to enjoy David’s protectiveness. He loved me and didn’t want to share, I used to think. Merveilleux, I used to think when he had a museum shut down for the afternoon so we could wander through uninterrupted, or when he emptied out the restaurants first so we could dine privately. Oui, I used to love it.

“Just a moment while I go downstairs, miss,” the teller smiled.

The girls’ chirps turned to screeches. I clucked and jostled, jostled and clucked, but they wouldn’t settle. This was new to them, I realized, reaching into my handbag for their bottles. I shoved the plastic nipples into the girls’ open mouths and thank God, they shut up. I pulled out their twin bowls of organic crackers and plunked them on their matching trays. We were getting looks by then. I could feel the prying eyes on the back of my head and the skin on my bare hands began to crawl. I wished I’d worn gloves.

The teller returned, my bag hanging empty in her hand. “Please come with me, miss.”

“Just call me ma’am, why don’t you?” I screamed, slipping into my native drawl. My heart was pounding. The teller blinked but didn’t lose her composure. She pressed the bag into my hand and ushered me and the baby stroller through a door into a small room.

It turned out that my asshole husband had rolled my whole $50 million savings into one of his private accounts. It turned out to be a teensy clause in our fucking pre-nup. The teller smiled and handed me a tissue.

It wasn’t the bitch’s fault, so I backed the BOB out of the bank, turned on my heel, and headed for the park. At least that was free. “Ladies, don’t ever go and get married,” I called to the girls, who cooed back.