The judges reviewed the stories, did some wrangling back and forth, and made their decisions. The following writers were honored in the October Fiction in Five contest:
First Place: Dream House
by Heather Adams. Heather is a lawyer practicing in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Geoff, and their son, Davis. She has published essays and short stories.
Dream House
Last night, re-reading one of my favorite novels, I took the book’s ending as confirmation that my plan would succeed: “Finally, she could hope for a better tomorrow. A future free of the dark shadows of her past.” I tried to keep myself from nodding since that would only invite an interrogation. This morning, he left on a business trip and it was finally time.
I have been working toward this, building up paperwork in a safety deposit box in a nearby town to which he never goes. My first stop is to retrieve the documents, making sure that I have the driver’s license with my new name and the bank account information, reflecting the money that I have been saving. I trade in my car, grabbing the keys from the salesman as soon as he holds out his hand. I drive the whole way without stopping, and after the first hundred miles, I force myself to stop checking the rearview mirror.
For a while, I thought that if I managed to get away, I would go south, somewhere warmer. But that is too risky; it’s what he would expect. So here I am, in a small town near Cincinnati, looking up at a modest, ranch-style house. It is brown from top to bottom, unlike anything I’ve seen on the Parade of Homes in Greenwich, where until this morning, I lived with him.
I smile at Donna, the real estate agent who has been faxing listings to a UPS store for me to pick up. Email would have been risky; he insists on knowing my password and reads my messages every chance he gets.
“Ready?” she asks, holding out her arm in a flourish that seems oddly out of place, but which I like anyway. “The house is move-in ready. You won’t need to do a thing.” Donna is beautiful in an aging Barbie sort of way. Her lip gloss is bright pink. She is wearing a wispy mohair blue sweater and tight cream pants, the legs tucked into high-heeled boots. I imagine describing her to my best friend, Sabrina, to lighten things up after our last conversation.
“Why won’t you tell me where you’re going? Do you at least know someone there?” Sabrina looked incredulous.
“Nobody. I don’t know anyone there.”
She touched my arm. “I know you need to do something. Believe me. This can’t continue. But do you have to run away? What about the police? You could get some kind of restraining order.”
“Look, I’ve thought about all the options. I researched everything. There’s not much they can do.” I fought back panic.
“You’ve really thought this through? All the options?”
I nodded, crying, and pressed my forehead into her shoulder.
Now I follow Donna down the front walk, clutching the paper-clipped stack of faxes, snow-covered leaves crunching under my feet.
“Any husband coming to help us on this house search?”
“No, it’s just me. Never married,” I say, maybe a little too cheerfully. I’m going for relaxed, but I sound chirpy. Still, what I say to Donna is the truth. I am thankful for the absence of official legal entanglements.
“Cute little thing like you?” She appraises me as she opens the front door. “Have you ever thought about highlights?”
I pause, and then realize that she thinks a new hairstyle might help me find a man. “Uh, that might be nice. Seems like a lot of upkeep though.”
“Not at all. Take a good magazine with you and the hour flies by. I can give you the name of a good salon.”
I peek around Donna, trying to see the inside of the house.
“I’m sorry. I always talk too much. You need to check out all the work that’s been done here.”
We go inside and I close the door behind me. To my right is the living room, where Donna has knelt down to touch the carpet. It is the dingy color of boiled potatoes, woven in a trellis pattern. In the hallway, the same carpet is covered with plastic for protection from foot traffic.
“Brand-new.” Donna concludes, wiping her hands on her knees as she stands. “I’ve got a guy who could put some shelves for you right there,” she says, pointing toward the fireplace. It is placed just off-center, making the room feel slightly lopsided.
“That’s a good idea. Thanks.”
“No problem. Let’s see what’s over here.” We cross the hallway to find the master bedroom. “Right here at the front of the house–on such a nice, quiet street too.”
The bathroom has a small shower, tiled in yellow. The hinges on the shower door are slightly rusted, but the faucets are shiny chrome and the porcelain sink has been scrubbed clean of stains.
Donna gestures toward the kitchen at the back of the house. I push from my mind familiar images of a La Cornue range and limestone countertops with a hand-painted backsplash. Here, the floor is brownish-orange vinyl with creases meant to resemble stones. The black stove looks new though, and the microwave has blue packing tape around the edges. In between the cabinets, there is a large window, and in the corner, space for a small table that I can cover with a colorful tablecloth.
“They’ve done a nice job fixing this place up. What do you think?”
“I think I’ll go for it.”
Donna smiles and offers to drive me back to her office to draw up the paperwork.
Later, when it is mine, I sit in my car, parked on the street in front of the house. I have read about moments like these. In novels, the main character looks forward to picking lemons from the flowering tree in the yard, buying a rocking chair for the porch, or taking a bath in the perfectly restored claw foot tub. I look up at my house, which has none of these things. But there is something. I call it freedom.
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Second Place: The House
by Carol Folkert. Carole is a devoted family person married to her best friend and is the mother of their seven children who are the constant source for writing material. She got her first degree in Theatre Arts and vocal music and her second degree in education. She left the stage and the school system to raise her family and when she went looking for something creative to do with her life, she found it at home in front of the glorified typewriter. And it is there that she actually found herself. She continues to raise her family with all their shenanigans and writes in her spare time.
The House
She paused with her hand on the latch. She felt the chill beneath her fingers that went straight through to the knobby, twisted bones in her hand. Then boldly she threw open the gate and stepped inside. She jumped just slightly as it closed with a snap behind her. The impact made the entire length of the fence wobble against the force. As she watched it regain its silent composure, she noted how odd it was that there was a fence around this decrepit old mansion. A “No Trespassing” sign was as unnecessary as this poor excuse for a fence surrounding the house that no one wanted nor dared venture into. Who did it want to keep out anyway? She had long since concluded the more likely question was “who was it keeping in?”
For as long as she could remember she herself had avoided going anywhere near the house at all cost and the entire town had regarded it with an uneasiness that turned into apathy. She knew she hated it because of the rumors that she had been teased with the entirety of her childhood. True, she had been orphaned and had been raised in the foster system until she turned eighteen, but she had had serious doubts about the legitimacy of actually being discovered abandoned on this very house’s doorstep and on Halloween of all nights. The town children had been relentless and wicked and had constantly chanted, “Even the ghosts of the dead didn’t want her!”
And now, on her birthday and Halloween, with a quiet determination, she stood looking at a house that was, quite honestly, a reflection of her own self. There they were, complete mirror images of each other and of what the last eighty years had done to both living alone and disregarded. Her own body had begun to cave in on her tiny frame just as the second story and attic threatened to do the same to this once hopeful abode. The porch beams bowed and leaned ever so slightly to the east ready to buckle from the sheer weight and the enormous burden it carried. She knew what that felt like as she glanced at her frail, little legs sticking out beneath her frayed woolen coat. The house groaned and ached with age.
On closer look, the once vibrant paint was cracked and peeled. She put her hand to her face and ran her old fingers over the deep creases that showed the same results on her own surface. And the bitter October breeze blew the silver cobwebs that clung to the rafters and stretched across the shutters causing her to impulsively smooth back her own wispy gray hair. She smiled to herself, “we are not so different, you and I.”
With only a slight hesitation she joined the parade of cobblestones beneath her feet and carefully began her way up the path leading to the fragile staircase. Above the noise of the brittle grass crunching beneath her feet, she could hear the wind whistling hauntingly through the empty house. It was lonely and she knew all about that as well. Closer now, she stopped and again watched the old house for another moment. The window panes, like the house’s eyes to the outside world, just like her own bifocals, had become dim and yellow with age. The curtains waved invitingly to her through the broken glass, beckoning her to continue her journey. She chuckled softy as she noticed one of the curtains was an old embroidered tablecloth, quite different from the other more delicate window coverings. She whispered, “What secret are you hiding and keeping from everyone else?” With no response from the somewhat defiant building, she made her way to the entrance.
As she approached, the overgrown garden in the backyard came into view. The fall frost hadn’t completely frozen its bounty yet and she flashbacked to the stories from her miserable childhood. People had claimed to have discovered bodies buried there. One kid, on a dare, insisted that he dug up NINE toes. It was the stuff nightmares were made of back then. She had listened with rapt terror because, of course, they implied those body parts had been the remains of her parents. The town had come undone so the sheriff reluctantly dug up the garden himself only to discover rows of potatoes. He admitted that in the dark, under the full moon, with imaginations running wild, new potatoes could quite possibly have resembled toes. But the kids didn’t believe it and continued to torment her and make her life unbearable. And now she was standing almost ten yards from what had come to be known as her family’s graveyard and she shuddered not entirely convinced one way or the other.
The sun slipped beneath the tree line and dark clouds took its place. It was getting colder by the minute and she pulled her coat tighter around her neck and climbed tentatively up the first stair, then the second, then the third and finally walked onto the porch. The weathered floor boards, warped with age, creaked as she made her way towards the front door. As she reached for the brass doorknob her foot caught on something below the leaves that had collected there. She bent down and pushed the damp leaves away to reveal what appeared to be a small rug. She stood up and quickly covered her mouth with her hand to stifle the gasp as she stared at the words printed on the faded door mat, “WELCOME HOME” it said.
The apprehension in her shoulders relaxed; and the fear that resonated in every fiber of her being, released. She gently patted the door which creaked almost affectionately as it opened from her touch. She put one foot over the threshold and then the other. She turned to look at the view of her town from inside the once vacant house.
They both smiled as she closed the door.
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Third Place: Bravado
byHolly Helscher. Holly grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, although has lived in Louisville and Tucson due to various job transfers. Two years ago she transferred back to Cincinnati and thinks she’ll stay there a while. She has a Bachelor’s in English literature and a Master’s in community counseling from the University of Cincinnati. She followed those up with a doctorate in metaphysics from the American Institute of Holistic Theology. When asked about that field of study she says, “It’s amazing how many ways a person can find wholeness. The world is full of miracles if we expand our thinking.” She spent ten years working for an emergency shelter for homeless women and children where she learned education was their key to gaining independence. She went into education herself where she has served many roles for the past twenty years. She’s currently the Vice President for Academics for a small college system. Although she’s written her entire life, she’s only been writing professionally for six years. Her story Binge Reading appears in an anthology entitled Flashlight Memories which came out this year. In 2008 she was a runner up in Women on Writing’s fall personal essay contest with The Desert Was in My Closet. She has had other freelance articles appear newspapers and ezines. She has written a middle grade novel and a memoir, both of which are in the editing process. Her husband is retired and she plans on eventually following suit and picking up a second career writing. Between that, her son, stepchildren, and grandchildren she believes she’ll be busier than ever.
Bravado
“I’m a future teacher of the year,” Natalie thought to herself. She was a parade of one marching off to her first teaching practicum. Soda pop bubbles of anticipation traveled under her skin as she imagined herself the star in a Hallmark after-school special. Finally, she could hope for a better tomorrow. A future free of the dark shadows of her past.
The pumpkin cupcake trees sparkled with fairy dust through sun-splashed mist. A helicopter seed landed on her nose and bounced to the sidewalk. Natalie giggled then twirled. Three months ago she’d packed up her belongings and lived among boxes anxious to leave for her senior year in college.
“I’ll sleep in a gutter before I come back,” she’d told her mother in her last week at home.
“I want to live like a normal person.”
Her mother sipped Coke and whiskey from a short glass that reminded Natalie of a paperweight. “You do live like a normal person,” her mother replied.
“What’s normal about you falling asleep in a chair every night with your lowball? Or peeking through curtains like the neighborhood is some reality show?”
Her mother puffed out a silent haze of smoke.
“For God’s sake,” Natalie continued. “This isn’t even a normal conversation. I can’t even jackhammer sense into you.”
Natalie shook away the memory and scooped up a handful of leaves. She threw them in the air and they cascaded around her like confetti. “My real life starts today,” she said to herself. “I’ll be the next Maria Montessori. They’ll write about me for decades, maybe even centuries.”
Natalie reached the steps of Roosevelt City School. She took a deep breath and skipped up the stairs. With each step she cataloged the zoo of art supplies traveling in her backpack. Art pad, fingerpaints, colored pencils, and crayons. Plus a performance recording of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe.
Thirty minutes later Natalie stood in front of twenty eleven-year olds staring at her like she was a sack of marbles and they were the glass shooters. She knew she had to engage them before spitballs flew.
She held up her ipod. “Class, I’ll play part of a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. It’s called The Fall of the House of Usher. Listen to the description about the house and then illustrate what you hear. You can use any materials you have or feel free to use what I’ve brought.” She waved at her cornucopia of art materials displayed on a toast-colored tablecloth patterned with potatoes, pumpkins and squash.
When the segment finished, a moppet of frenzied red hair raced up to the table. Her nametag identified her as Gina. She had blue eyes so large they reminded Natalie of Garfield the cat. Gina’s yellow Keds were a lightening strike against her ebony outfit.Gina fingered a box of Crayolas.
“Would you like to use those?” Natalie asked.
“Maybe.” She picked them up. “I don’t understand illustrate.”
“It means to draw a picture.”
“Of what? I don’t see anything to draw.”
“Do you want to hear the passage again?” Natalie reached for the ipod.
“What’s a passage?”
“A passage is a section from a book or story.”
Gina flipped open the crayon box. She studied the colored tips as if they were encrypted and she held the key. “It was junk about a stupid house. It wasn’t even a story. What do you want me to draw?”
“A picture of the words that described the house.”
“Words are things to write, not draw. What do you want me to draw?”
Natalie walked around the table and crouched beside Gina. Being at eye level with children was supposed to normalize a situation. She was all about normal, wasn’t she? “I want you to draw what you see in your head when you hear the words about the house,” Natalie explained.
“I don’t see anything. But I see my house everyday. I can draw that.”
It struck Natalie she was on the kid carousel of logic. She wasn’t sure how to jump off, let alone how to bring Gina with her.
Natalie knew no Hallmark after-school special was without a problem to solve. It was at the heart of dancing her way to fame and fortune. The soda bubbles fizzed as she considered how to solve her first challenge.
She stood and glanced around the room. An idea feathered through her.
Natalie reached under the table for her backpack. She fished out her sketchpad and flashed some pencil lines across a page. “What about this?” she asked and turned the sketch toward Gina. “This is how I think the house looks. Remember the crack?” She traced the line down the middle of the house drawing.
Not waiting for Gina’s response, Natalie ripped a page out of the pad and slid it in front of Gina. “Now you try.”
Gina stared through the blank page to the floor. Her lower lip started to quiver like an overdrawn bowstring. Two little drops dangled from her eyelashes. “I don’t understand,” she said crunching her blank paper into a mutated origami ball. “Now you won’t be happy with me.” The dangling droplets gave way. Natalie caught each one and tucked them into her rending heart.
A century of an hour later, Natalie trudged back to her dorm. Bristle brushes scoured away all thoughts of movies and awards. Usher’s mansion of gloom settled over her as Gina’s last sentence ticker-taped through her. Natalie was gravity itself unable to move past her failure to help the one.
Gina’s two tiny tears widened the fissure in Natalie’s heart. She crossed the street and stood before a dented, green barrel. She inhaled the scent of singed leaves like a five-star meal, then frowned.
“You’re missing an ingredient,” she said and reached into her pocket. “If it weren’t for Poe, I might have been a teacher.”
She tossed her ipod toward the barrel and walked away.
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Honorable Mention (to be published in the Third Annual Fiction Anthology due out in July, 2013) :
Center for Writing Excellence 
Loved your story, Holly. Lovely pace and building of tension.
Thank you. That is so nice of you!
Heather’s story is very good! Bonnie McM