August, 2012 Winners

The judges put their heads together, read all the entries in the August Fiction in Five Contest, and came up with the following results:

First Place: A Change of Heart

by Diana Stottlemyer. Diana graduated in May, 2012 with a double major in English and Biblical Studies from Grove City college.   A few months after graduation, she left her home in small town America to work at a children’s home in Belize.  Diana is a lover of stories and the people that they capture.

A Change of Heart

Anne paused on the arch of the bridge that spanned Lehman River.  The droughts of the summer left it low, but the water still reflected trees and wildflowers along the banks in a way worthy of a painting.

She continued her brisk walk toward campus.  First day of class, senior year.  She heaved open the door of the Student Union to complete the first task on her schedule: reclaim her mailbox key.  As she shifted forward in line, her mind drifted back over the last year.  Depression worked like a rip tide—it started slowly, subtly, then she realized too late that it had swept her away, and she could do nothing to fight against its power.  After a long healing process, she was stable and learning how to fully live once again.

Surfacing from her musings, she noticed the tall man in front of her.  So much time had passed—should she say hello, or pretend she hadn’t seen him?  We were such good friends.  This is ridiculous.

“Hi, Noah.”

At the sound of her voice, he turned, conflicted surprise on his face.

She feared an awkward pause.  “How are you doing?  Good summer?”

“I’m—fine.  Yeah, summer was good.  I helped Grandpap on the farm again, and you know those milk cows—stubborn as ever.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t know, but I’ll take your word for it.”  She laughed, and the tension loosened.  “Is this weird for you too?”

The year before, he confessed his interest, and she refused him.  The depth of his feelings took her by surprise, and she was in the midst of her own struggles.

“Noah—can’t we get a cup of coffee?  Just two old friends, catching up?”

After a short internal debate, he agreed.  A smile tugged at Anne’s mouth as she crossed the courtyard to her first class.

Later that afternoon, she arrived at the coffee shop, early, as she intended, and sat down at a small table with her mug of black coffee, strangely nervous.  Within a few minutes, Noah arrived, joining her with a mug of his own.

“Black?” she asked, gesturing toward his cup.

He merely raised his eyebrows in response.

She exhaled, suddenly completely at ease, as she always was in his presence.

“So—tell me about life,” she started.

When Anne next looked at the clock, two and a half hours had passed.  They exchanged goodbyes, and she turned her feet toward her apartment, her mind spinning.

She instantly headed for the kitchen.  Cooking was one of those activities she turned to when she needed to clear her mind.  Emma, her roommate and best friend, emerged from the next room at the clanks coming from the kitchen.  She leaned over the bar, resting her chin on her hand, and stared at Anne’s quick movements.

“Two questions: what are you making, and what’s wrong?”

Anne didn’t pause or look up from her work.  “Cinnamon streusel quick bread.  And nothing.”

“Liar.”

“I had coffee with Noah today.  I’m confused.  Em, I think I’ve changed my mind.  There was never any definite reason to say no before.  I wasn’t exactly myself then, and I—just don’t remember why I didn’t want to be with him in the first place.”

“So, you like Noah?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Anne groaned.  It had always been difficult for her to sort out her feelings, particularly when it came to men.  She rummaged around in the basket of spices, looking for the cinnamon, and avoided Emma’s patient yet prying eyes.  She finally pulled out a bottle and added some to her mixture.  A few minutes later, she slid the pan in the oven and turned to face her friend.

Anne sighed in surrender.  “Yes, I like Noah.  Whatever was holding me back before is gone.  But you know how reserved he is—he’ll never say anything to me again.  And I don’t know if he even feels the same way.”  She paused.  “I feel crazy.”

Emma smiled.  “I enjoy seeing you like this.  What are you going to do?”

“I know this idea will sound terribly cliché, but it’s the English major in me.  Remember in Pride and Prejudice when Elizabeth changes her mind?  I just need to find a copy in the library.”

Anne walked to the library, found the book, and the passage.  I feel like I should be writing this with a quill pen, she thought.  Jane Austen would be proud.

She pulled a small card and a pen from her purse.

Noah,
PR4034 .P72 1995.  Page 247.
I have full faith you’ll know what you need to do.
Anne

Not exactly the most elaborate declaration of love, but it would do the trick.  She left the note with Noah’s roommate and returned to her apartment.

The smell coming from the oven when she walked through the door offered the first hint something was wrong.  After she pulled her bread from the oven, she cut a slice and coughed at the spicy burn in the back of her throat.

Cumin.  How had that happened?  She looked in the spice basket.  Sure enough—the bottle of cumin sat beside the cinnamon.  The bottles were identical.

She slid the cumin-laced bread into the trashcan in frustration and sat down to wait.  Noah knew how to find her.  She was antsy and nervous, replaying and questioning her actions.  About an hour later, her phone rang.

“Anne.  It’s Noah.  I’m in the lobby of your apartment.  We need to talk.”

Anne’s stomach twisted.  “I’ll be right down.”

Emma laughed.  “I thought I’d never see the day—”

Noah’s warm smile silently answered Anne’s misgivings.  His arm slipped around her when she reached his side, pulling her into a reassuring hug.  “I liked your note—very creative.”

Anne smiled up at him.  “Good.”

“Want to walk along the river?  The sunset is particularly beautiful this evening.”  With that, he took her hand, and they walked out into the twilight.

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Second Place,   There’s No Place Like Home

by Maren Tirabassi. Maren is a liturgical writer. Most recently she edited Gifts in Open Hands – More Resources for the Global Community (June, 2011, Pilgrim Press).  Maren teaches the writing of memoir and poetry in a wide range of settings from high school to senior center, correctional facility to ESL class. In her own writing, she is beginning to explore the rhythms of fiction.

There’s No Place Like Home

Her arms reached over her head and around in the smooth sweep of breast stroke, her stroke of relaxation in the river back home — long ago, far away home. Streetlights on this private keyhole drive turned off at ten. The cool water of the pool reminded her of home, but not the artificial turquoise. At night only ripples were pricked out in reflected light. Jeannine turned at the end, her dive easy, barely breaking the surface in her last lap. She soaked in the Jacuzzi without noisy jets. Who would hear? No one. Certainly not Larry McCormack. She showered him out of her thoughts and headed upstairs, past the weight room, down the hall – treadmills and reclining bikes on the right, exercise room with its white on black schedule of weekly Pilates, Zumba, boot camp on the left.

Jeannine focused ahead. She didn’t like the mirrors in the dark, even if the shadows were her own dark shape. “Emergency Exit” identified the door to the stairway to the roof. Her nest was this stairwell — old mats, yoga bolsters, a basket of heavy-hands, a boxing bag of ancient provenance. She set her Smartphone for four, when the cleaner arrived, the most dangerous time. She’d lie in her cocoon till the significantly senior handball regulars trickled in at five-fifteen and Pete put on Willie Nelson, the “Milk Cow Blues” CD for them. Jeannine would wait for cut eight, “Wake me when it’s over.” and hit the locker room as if she’d been on the early morning treadmill.

Jeannine was six when Eve Bunting’s Fly Away Home was published and it had been her favorite picture book. When she brought it to show and tell, her teacher asked whether it was a happy or sad book. Jeannine didn’t know the answer. The homeless father and son live in the airport, moving from terminal to terminal, washing in the restrooms, eating sometimes in fast food joints and sometimes from trashed remnants of meals as people race for their flights. The boy spots a brown bird with a hurt wing trapped in the airport escaping detection in high steel girders. One day the sliding door opens and the boy calls longingly – “fly away home.”

Older, Jeannine discovered Konigsberg’s From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, with Claudia and Jamie who run away to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Even older, was Sondheim’s TV musical Evening Primrose about a poet who sleeps in a department store, then transforms into a mannequin. Like a creepy Cordoroy.

Of course, she wasn’t homeless like that! Jeannine had her job in the children’s room of the local library. She loved her job. Then Larry McCormack City Councilor and self-appointed Big-Daddy Budget-Cut began his campaign to slice her hours week by week. He wanted her to leave on her own. He needed her to leave on her own. The whole Match.Com thing would just disappear and his wife would never know.

Larry would smile at hearings and say, to an age-appropriate crowd, that grandparent volunteers were what the library needed. Children live far from their own extended families. Elders are lonely and disenfranchised by the divorce-fractured younger generations. Bring them together! He demonstrated by reading Ratzlaff’s new book all about the porcupine who was losing his quills and thought nobody would love him anymore. (Get some Rogaine, Larry. Get couples counseling.) Jeannine was young, new in town, with a hot-off-the-printer online library science degree. Very suspect that. Larry McCormack was a family therapist. Who would contradict him?

But Jeannine had friends on the library board and they wouldn’t let her be dismissed. His strategy was to cut her salary so much …

The pay had never stretched to designer coffee, but she had to have librarian-clothes, which meant L.L Bean, and a car … and rent. She’d solved the problem herself without camping in that car. She just took her extended gym membership benefits very seriously. But she was alone. Jeannine shook herself. She had resources. How many kids’ books could she find on alone?

“Are you the yoga fairy?”

Jeannine jumped – she must have overslept. She woke her Smartphone. No, it was three and, yes, this was a little boy, looking down at her.

She sputtered something.

“Are you?” he was maybe eight, barefoot in pajamas with a flashlight. It was as if she had fallen asleep in the Tri-town Sports Club and woke in a suburban hallway, meeting a kid headed to the bathroom. “Or are you a swimming fairy? I see you swimming a lot!”

“You see me?”

“Mom and I sleep in the child-care room. It’s comfy in there. She said maybe you’d like to come, too. I mean you don’t have to. The man in the big closet in the exercise room – he likes to be alone. Mom says he’s safe – don’t worry. He lifts weights. When I get bigger he’ll help me build my pects! You like the jac … whatever … and he likes the sauna. That’s why you don’t see him much.”

“I don’t see him at all.”

“Well, everybody’s careful.”

“You and your mom live in the playroom?”

“Yep. We made it really nice. Of course, I keep my school stuff in the men’s locker room. Guys don’t snoop.”

Yes, they do, she thought.

“What do you do when the cleaners come?” She was curious in spite of herself.

“My mom is the cleaner!”

He waited.

“Oh … yes. It is beautiful and very clean here.” Of course there were other jobs that didn’t stretch to rent.

He plopped down cross-legged. “Want to read me a bedtime story?”

He pulled out a much-loved book. “Fly Away Home. I got it at the library. I stay there too, afternoons, but you don’t see me. Do you want to read it?”

Fly Away Home. Jeannine looked up her stairwell. She looked down at the young face. “I’m already there.”

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Third Place, Waiting for the River

by Camas Baugh, who has been teaching high school English and graphics design for the last eight years. Prior to teaching, she worked as a graphics designer, writer, editor, and photographer. She earned her undergraduate degree in creative nonfiction writing and literature from The Evergreen State College and her Master’s Degree in Teaching from the University of Phoenix. She is passionate about food, international travel, music and surfing. Currently, Camas is taking a sabbatical from teaching to pursue writing full time; she is working on her first feature length screenplay and a travel blog.

Waiting For the River

Jenny yawned.

“I didn’t sleep at all last night.” She draped her foot over the side of her plastic lounge. Jenny enjoyed the warmth of the sand brushing her toes. “Hand me the spray bottle, please.”

Aurie handed the bottle to Jenny. “You never sleep. What was it this time?”

Jenny raised her sunglasses just long enough to mist her bronzed face. The rhythm of the small, breaking waves would have been relaxing; unfortunately, the occasional squeal of playing children reminded her that the first day of school was quickly approaching.

Jenny sipped her soda and sighed. “I don’t want to go back.”

Brushing her silky, black hair aside, Aurie picked up the spray bottle and misted her face as well. “Still worrying about Blaine? You’re making way too big of a deal about it.” Aurie had been working on a recipe to get them together for months.

Jenny shot a look at Aurie. “Are you kidding? It was horrible!”

Aurie stifled a giggle. “Come on, drama queen. It wasn’t that bad.”

“Ugh. Forget it.” Jenny cringed and flashed back to the debacle with Blaine at the end of the last school year.

Blaine was shooting a basket at the community center when Jenny first fell in love with him. The glistening sun on his chocolate skin and the graceful way he moved made her swoon. He was known around the area for his way with animals. She once watched from a distance as he gently pulled quill after quill from the jaw of a puppy who had brazenly confronted a porcupine. Jenny was amazed at how he sweetly whispered to the puppy, keeping it calm during the painful procedure. Even though they’d had almost identical schedules throughout high school, Jenny was unable to find the courage to approach him until late last year when Aurie finally pushed her to take action.

Jenny and Aurie were sitting at lunch one day when Aurie blurted out, “Jenny, you have to deal with this. You need to play the cards you have. You can’t keep waiting for the river.”

Setting her Milk Cow ice cream bar down, Jenny furrowed her brow and said, “What does that even mean?”

Aurie sighed. “You really need to play poker with me. It means that if you wait for fate to make things happen, you probably won’t win. You’re cute, you’re smart and you’re fun. That’s a great hand! But you need to place a bet now, or you’re going to get left out of the game. Why don’t you just write him a note?”

“Like a love note? That’s so cheesy.”

“Um, Jenny. You’re not capable of telling him in person – remember when that guy at the mall asked for your name? Talk about cheesy.” Aurie started giggling.

Jenny laughed. “I wish you would let that go. I wasn’t expecting him to talk to me. I choked.”

Aurie almost spit out her cola. Struggling to talk through her laughter, she said, “Hi…my name is Jennifer…Jenny…Jen…crap. You actually threw your head to the side and said ‘crap’ out loud!”

Both girls collapsed in giggles. “Ohhhhh,” Jenny breathed. “That was so embarrassing! I can’t talk to cute guys”

Aurie wiped the tears from her eyes and composed herself. “You’re too hard on yourself. Seriously, it wasn’t that bad. Why don’t you make him some brownies and write him a note. Ask if he’d like to see a movie with you sometime. That combination would be The Nuts. Oh, sorry. It would be an unbeatable hand.”

“I don’t know. I guess I could try.” Jenny looked across the cafeteria at Blaine. She didn’t want to regret not saying something, and she knew that if she waited, she’d spend her senior year of high school watching him take someone else to homecoming and prom. She couldn’t live with that.

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

Jenny and Aurie decided that she should give the note and brownies to Blaine on the last day of school; that way, if he rejected her, she would have the summer to get over it. Aurie came over that weekend to help Jenny bake. As Jenny assembled the ingredients, Aurie read over the recipe.

“It says you need to combine two cups of sugar, one cup of flour, a half-teaspoon of baking soda, and two packages of cocoa powder.”

Jenny turned and looked at Aurie. “Two packages or two packets?”

Aurie looked again at the recipe. “It says two packages.”

Shrugging, Jenny added the cocoa. “It seems like a lot, but I’m sure it will be fine, right?”

“Oh, totally. I got this recipe online.”

The girls finished baking and plating the brownies, and Jenny taped the note to the top of the cellophane. The next day, Jenny nervously carried the plate to school.

“Just go do it, Jenny.”

Jenny sighed and approached Blaine in the school cafeteria.

Sheepishly, Jenny offered the plate and said, “Hey, Blaine.”

“Hi, Jenny.”

She handed him the plate and said softly, “I made these for you. They’re brownies.”

“Thanks,” he said, unwrapping the plate and taking a bite.

Blaine’s face turned bright red. He inhaled and coughed. He spat chewed brownie and saliva all over the checkered floor.

“What did you…”

Mortified, Jenny turned on her heel and ran. She hadn’t tasted the brownies before she’d plated them.

“Hey!” Aurie interrupted Jenny’s painful memory. Suddenly, she was back at the beach, toes in the sand.

“Aurie, I can’t go back. I practically poisoned him.”

“I told you it wasn’t that bad. It was just a little too much cocoa powder. You should have seen his face when you ran. He looked like he felt ashamed for hurting your feelings.”

Just then, Blaine’s shadow fell across Jenny’s legs. “I was ashamed,” he said, handing a rose to Jenny. “Forgive me?”

Her recipe finally complete, Aurie set her sunglasses down. “I’m going for a swim,” she said as she smiled and walked away.

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Honorable Mention, Mr. Pryer’s First Day of School, by Ruth Snyder. You can read this story in the 3rd Annual Fiction in Five Anthology, coming out in July, 2013.