Writings

She had just finished setting her table and covering her couches when the doorbell rang, and she rushed to get it.

Estelle, cigarette jutting from one corner of her mouth, motioned with a pair of gold shopping bags from Nordstrom’s. “Hello, darling,” she said. “I’d kiss you, but I’ve my hands full, here.”

Candi hid her reaction to Estelle’s new hair—she had chopped off her blond locks and dyed them strawberry red. “Come in.”

“They let me out early since I finished making two dresses last night—what’s with all this? Paper?” She strode in and set her bags on the floor, took the cigarette out of her mouth and let out a long drag. “Oh, dear. Don’t tell me you’re going the whole way of that non-woven fad. What is this?” She touched the hem of Candi’s paper dress and glanced around the room, “just something I saw hanging in the window? One of those party kits. Ugh.”

“It’s all the rage, and I wanted to do the house up special for today.”

Estelle rolled her eyes. “Well, it’s—fine, I guess. Matching toilet paper too?”

“And matching dresses. You’ve got to put on your dress.” Candi went to the coat tree. “I got one for each of you.”

Estelle rammed the butt back in her mouth and it reminded Candi of an angry horse. “You don’t expect me to wear that.”

“Be festive.” Candi smiled pleasantly. “We need to re-forge our bond as friends and this is a great way to do it. Imagine how stunning the photos will be.”

Estelle heaved a sigh, reached out to take the dress, and vanished down the hallway. “God, sheets and duvet covers too?”

Candi picked up the Nordstrom bags and brought them into the kitchen to unpack them. Everything was going according to plan.

Sonnie arrived, balancing a cake on her palms and toting a case of beer in her backpack; when Candi went to kiss the girl’s freckled cheek, she could smell the alcohol. “Early start?”

“Oh, always.” She frowned and tossed her long brown hair over one shoulder. The headband around her forehead slipped back into place. “I love what you’ve done to this house. Paper is the way to go. Less waste, takes the pressure off being consumers in a way that promotes the darker side of capitalism.”

“No concern for the trees, darling?” Estelle called from the back room.

“Nah!” Sonnie yelled back. “You know, I’m all for saving the trees, but this is about the human condition, and I just think this promotes less…human factor waste, which in turn makes us all better people so that we do have the energy to care for the environment, you know? We can’t care about things if we’re too exhausted, you get what I’m sayin’?” Sonnie put her things on the kitchen counter.

“How’s Randy?” Candi asked.

“Oh, he’s soooo last year. I divorced him and then had this great trip to Las Vegas and I found the one, I mean the one.” She leaned out of the kitchen and looked at Candi and rammed an olive in her mouth. “So now I’m married to Alex and we did it right there. In a drive-through, you know?” She swallowed. “Less waste on flowers and stuff. He’s a kinda Jack Kerouac type. A little weird, but interesting. Especially when he’s lit out of his mind.”

Linda entered. “Sorry I’m late, we had a little trouble with the sitter,” she said, and leaned in to kiss Candi’s cheek. “Ahhh, once you start having children your life is never the same. But I suppose that’s my lot in life, no?” Her eyes opened wide, and Candi could see a few smudges of coral lipstick on her friend’s front teeth. “Oh, my!” She eyed the paper sunflowers Candi had set in a vase. “I love this! Everything matches!”

Estelle returned to the kitchen in her dress. “I can’t believe you’re making me wear this.”

“Wow!” Sonnie at last pushed her glasses up onto her head. “You match the couch!”

“You guys both have them too.” Candi went to dole out their dresses.

“Piff,” sniffed Estelle. “The new paper revolution. So we can spare all of those Asians from unsafe working conditions. What happens to the seamstresses in this country when paper completely takes over?” Estelle uncovered the white cake trimmed with silver candy buttons. “Besides, now every poor person in the country will be able to have fabulous parties like the rich and you know, we rich have earned it.” She laughed and turned back to the sink to wash her hands.

“Wasn’t that so sweet!” Linda said, surveying the carpet under her feet. “And look at how much vacuuming you’re going to have to do with all this confetti everywhere! For us? That’s a lot of work, no? Oh, you’re the best, Candi. I can’t believe we ever turned our backs on you.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Sonnie popped open a beer. “Go put your dress on and then I’ll go.”

“I love the non-wovens for kids,” Linda was yelling out the open door to the bedroom where she was changing. “They spill all kinds of things on them and you simply throw them away. And the little girls’ ones now even come with the cutest handbags!”

“I have those, too,” Candi said. “I even got the paper shower curtain.”

“We’re going to make a better world by doing this, you know?” Sonnie touched Estelle’s arm. “Every person’s participation is where it’s at.”

“Tell me that when I’m out of work and you’re supporting me,” Estelle said. “The seamstress union has already been building evasive action plans to stop the spread of this blight.”

“Don’t give me that working class hero crap,” Sonnie said. “You’d have no problem living on your husband’s salary, you get what I’m sayin’?”

“Why, we do just fine, even with the kids,” Linda said. “Yes! So Candi, will you have to keep working?”

“Yeah.” Sonnie had already drained half the beer. “When do we get to meet this guy?”

Candi blushed with excitement. “A little bit later. After we have cake.”

Estelle set a platter of cheese and crackers on the coffee table; Candi thought she saw the end of her cigarette ash drop into the middle of the plate and remembered a party long ago, when they had found Estelle’s earring in the cheese dip. “He’s not worth his salt if you have to keep working.” She took the cigarette out of her mouth and blew a long column of smoke. “I mean, God, darling, I only keep sewing because I…like it. I simply wouldn’t know what to do with myself otherwise. Charity work? Puh-leeze.”

“I’m sure he’ll treat you the way he’s supposed to,” Linda said. “Especially when you have children, because it’s the proper thing to do and it makes them cater to you no matter how much you…let yourself go, right?”

Candi moved to the kitchen and decided to have herself some wine…for her big moment of brilliance, she wanted to shine even brighter. “He’s nice,” she said. “He’s perfect for me. Just what I was looking for.”

Estelle set a hand on the sleeve of Candi’s paper dress, then withdrew her hand with a sneer of disgust when she felt the paper wrinkle under her touch. “Welcome back to the club, darling,” she said, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray. “It’s great to have you…included.”
~~
The women were slicing cake. Linda wasn’t even bothering to clean some frosting that had fallen on her dress, and was half-soused on wine spritzers. She didn’t get soused much, because of her parents and their alcoholism, and when she did get soused, it still wasn’t what Sonnie or Candi or Estelle would have considered all that bad. “Oh, I’m so glad we’re resolving this issue today.”

“About the letters.” Estelle lit up a cigarette. She’d only eaten the frosting off her cake.

“Oh, we should just let it go, you know? We’re all friends now.” Sonnie knocked back the last four swallows of her seventh beer. She was cross-legged on the floor and weaving a bit back and forth. She had her olive-green bug glasses back on her eyes again.

“No, we should talk about it,” Linda said. “Now she’s turned her life around and that’s what’s really important here.”

“I think I deserve an apology,” Candi said. “You couldn’t call me? You couldn’t talk with me? You had to write letters?”

The triumverate slid glances at one another.

“Darling, come now, we were concerned.” Estelle gestured with her hand, and her plastic bracelets clinked with one another. “We just thought—things were a little too sensitive to discuss.” Sensitive came out shenshitive with a hiccup punctuating the discuss.

Candi felt that old branding in her heart, scar tissue that had popped open again, a reinfected wound. “Sensitive. Concerned.” She stood up and reached for the feel of the two front door keys in her pocket; one of the problems with paper dresses was the pockets ripped easily. Yes, both keys were still there. She looked at Linda. “Look at your own ugliness. You’re such a downer, Candi?” She looked at Estelle. “Perhaps he would finally buy you some decent clothes, Candi?” She glanced at Sonnie, who was studying the impression her boots were leaving in the shag carpet. “You just need a man to fit into the circuit, Candi?”

There was a long silence. Estelle hiccupped. Linda’s spritzer tipped and emptied on the rug. Sonnie set her drained beer bottle back on the counter. In her mind, Candi heard flames. Flames licking, burning, singing, singeing. She saw paper tablecloths pop and spark. She saw plastic melt.

Linda was first to speak. “Candi, if you’d like me to apologize, I will.”

Candi saw Estelle shoot Linda a nasty glare.

Sonnie opened another beer and leaned back against the couch. “Oh, whatever, you know?” she said, resigned. “I’m guess I’m cool with apologizing.”

“This isn’t what we’d discussed.” Estelle narrowed her eyes at Sonnie, then looked back at Candi and forced a smile. “Darling, we did what was best for you. Admit it.”

Candi heaved a deep sigh. “Perhaps,” she said, “it would be best to let Ken decide. I’ll summon him.” She rose from her position on the couch, and the paper cover and her paper dress crinkled. She went to the back room, and she heard the women’s voices recede the further she got down the hall, but she could hear Estelle hiss, I don’t see why we should have to get some dope’s approval. She should be able to make decisions on her own.
Ken was right where she’d left him, and when she tugged on his arm he seemed reluctant to follow. After she gave him a solid pull, he did.

“I give you,” she said, squeezing through the door to the living room, “my fiancé, Kenneth Grand.”

The women burst into laughter.

“He’s cardboard!” cried Estelle. He’s came out Heeezzzh.

“A cardboard cut-out from a liquor store? Oh, Candi, yo, you got us on this one!” Even Sonnie was laughing.

“Oh, darling, what short of joke ish this?” Estelle dropped her cigarette and bent to pick it up. “I mean, a joke…ish a joke, but come…come on!”

“Does it really look like the real guy?” Linda barked. Her mouth slid into a smeary smile; she had some lipstick on her teeth.

Candi looked at each of the faces, struck by how suddenly ugly they were, how Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake they looked, how cold and aware they were, how everything they’d written in their letters they had meant and they weren’t sorry for a damn word of it, and then there was another kind of heat, the heat not of embarrassment but of pure anger. It spread to the tips of her fingers, and she looked at Ken, into his constantly compassionate eyes, and she looked at the horrid drunken sots breathing before her.

Just then, Linda knocked over a tall paperboard house with a pointed roof, spilling fireplace matches all over the floor. “Oh, goodness! I’m sorry.” She got up. “I should probably go before I wreck the joint! That was a wonderful laugh, Candi. Really.” She went into the kitchen and picked up one of Estelle’s Nordstrom bags, now empty and being used for leftovers.

“I suppose the joke’s on us and we deserve it,” Sonnie said. She went into her back pack for beer number eight and rummaged a bottle opener out of her pocket.

Linda slung her bag of leftovers on her lower arm. She went to the door and pulled on the knob.

“Hey, I can’t—I can’t open this door.” Linda put down her bag, laughing. She tried the doorknob once more. She grabbed it and pulled; nothing. She jiggled it. Nothing. She shimmied it and wrapped her fingers around it and yanked with all her might. “Candi? Seriously—the door’s jammed.”

Sonnie looked up from her current project of wrapping the leftover petit-fours in tinfoil.

“No it isn’t.” Candi dangled a gold key in front of her, then tucked it safely into the pocket of her paper dress. “It’s just a special lock. I’m the only one who can let you out.”

“What’s going on?” Sonnie came into the living room.

“She won’t let me out,” Linda said, pressing her lips together and knitting her brow.

Sonnie knocked back a long swallow of beer and shrugged, tossing her long hair back over one shoulder. “No big deal, you know? Candi’s got other doors in this house. Just go out the back, right, Candi? We apologized. Come on, this is a silly joke.”

“No, and it’s not a joke.” Candi smiled. “I had special locks installed. You see, I’ve been waiting for this day. This day when we can ‘talk’ about those cruel letters.”

Linda started to cry. “Oh, now, honey, Estelle is right. Those were for your own good. Look at what happened! You learned shorthand and to type eighty words a minute…we did you a favor. Don’t you see that?”

“What I see is three cruel bitches,” she said. “Three cruel bitches who have the nerve to come over here and throw me a bridal shower only because I now have risen to your standards. With cardboard, no less!”

Linda rushed past Sonnie and Candi, trying the back kitchen door. Locked. “I’ll break the glass windows!” she shrilled.

“No you won’t,” Candi said. “Because you won’t be able to get through the old security grates, will you? So try it.”

She sauntered to the table, humming to herself, London Bridge is Falling Down, and she fingered a book of matches.

“What are you doing?” Estelle got up off the couch. She clutched the collar of the pink dress, perhaps making to rip it. “What are you doing?”

“Do you like your paper dresses?” Candi asked. She struck a match, and held it in the air, very close to Ken’s creased hand. “Do you like them a lot?”

“Don’t do this, Candi, come on,” Sonnie said. “Don’t!”

Linda glanced nervously up at the curtains, rustling in the breeze from the slightly cracked-open window.

Candi pressed her lips together and smiled. “Ken really is the perfect match, isn’t he?” She moved the match closer to him, ever closer. “He’s quite hot.”

Linda shrank back against the wall, looking wide-eyed at the tablecloth, the paper sunflowers, the paper lamps.

Candi set the burning match against Ken. The flames nibbled through his arm.

Estelle glanced at her feet and at the confetti that was strewn all over the rug and pressed under her heels. Sonnie looked hopelessly down at the hem of her paper dress.
The flames reached Ken’s chest and poofed into a ravenous orange flower.

Linda screamed.

And Candi just giggled, and blew out the match.

Kristi Petersen Schoonover’s “King of Bull” took 1st place in Toasted Cheese’s 2007 “Dead of Winter Contest”, and her short fiction has been featured in The Adirondack Review, Barbaric Yawp, The Illuminata, Chick Flicks, Afternoon, The Circle, Citizen Culture, I Like Monkeys, New Witch Magazine, MudRock: Stories & Tales, Waxing & Waning, The Wheel, and a host of others, including Susurrus Press’ I Am This Meat anthology. She is pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing at Goddard College in Vermont.
Her website is www.kristipetersen.net

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