Friday's Whims of the Time Traveler 14.1: Spring 2011
Deleted Scenes
by Belinda Roddie
FADE IN: August. “You are going to be my Princess Charming. And I am going to be your Snow White.”
That’s what you said to me over the white film around the brim of your cup. I stirred the whipped cream in my hot chocolate until it nearly turned orange. Whisked ember gratitude in Styrofoam. Asiago bagel with cream cheese. Simple aromas caught in the cliff of my throat.
You were going to be trouble for me. So much trouble. You were dressed in purple again, sequins. I couldn’t get enough of it. Couldn’t get enough of the way your smile spiked the air and made me drunk on oxygen, heaving, slippery hands against slippery wood, the mosaic of freelance well-wishers dripping from the tell-tale walls.
“Have you ever loved a man?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Questions. Cheap discourse. A silver dollar you found in your pocket, waiting to be squandered. The conversation was only over when you said it was over.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN: November. We drank two cups of Amaretto each, straight, and didn’t mind the sweetness. I wanted to make you a special drink that I had scraped from a nineteen seventies bartending book. I felt like one legit vintage, film noir boozehound, nipping hooch instead of getting shit-faced. All I needed was the fedora and the zoot suit.
I offered you a Brandy Alexander. One with actually good brandy. You shook your head. You wagged a finger. You had painted your nails cerulean tonight.
“I don’t want a Brandy Alexander.”
“Why not?”
“Um. The name itself betrays it.”
“What?”
“I mean it has brandy in it. I hate brandy.”
The way you wrinkled your nose made my chest convulse. It was the clichéd heart-in-a-vice method. It always worked. I cracked open a bottle of New Amsterdam gin, cold from the early winter vacuum, and made you a drink that my little old school booklet called an Alexander II instead. And you kissed the glass lip with a tongue touched with cacao crème and a lovesick aftertaste.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN: December. Topiary reindeer. Under the wet suburban drizzle, I felt like we had stepped into a poorly produced Christmas special or a deleted scene from a film in which pleasing gardens are transformed into brothels for Stepford Wives. Ho, ho, ho.
You wore a red beaded scarf, pulled all the way up to your chin. The one I got you for your half-birthday in September. My little brother pulled on the sleeve of my sweater from last year’s crocheted batch and tried to say Rudolph. But he couldn’t say his r’s right, so all I heard was, “Woodolf! Woodolf!” and I couldn’t help smiling at that. I think you smiled, too. I clearly saw the dimple you hated having on your right cheek.
We stood by the gate for a long time together. Your face nuzzled against my shoulder. My brother’s chin pressed against my hip. My eyes glazed over and ignoring those green antlers and garishly leafy hooves that could probably sprout yellow roses in the spring. Their necks bristling with thorns.
It took me back to evenings by evergreen, ribbons tied around fingers and carols plunked out from my father’s twelve-string guitar with the broken tuning peg wrapped in last year’s tinsel. And my mother would sing “Silent Night” while her wide doe eyes darted to and fro, listening for frantic bells and hooves promenading on white stained shingles. And it was all so far from bake sales with store bought cupcakes and hybrid cars and festive hedges that would grow distorted in the foggy frost.
“I love you,” I heard you murmur to me, your mouth muffled against the wooly fabric. Your silver hoop earring dug into my chest. Damp eyes drying on my sleeve.
I already knew you loved me. But I didn’t ride a white stallion, and I had too dry of lips to give true love’s kiss. Somehow, I thought you’d care.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN: The ides of March. We were at the café. You looked so pale under the ceiling lamps as you held your drink with both hands. Like you were scared you’d drop it and spill brown guilt all over the already brown floor.
I was breathing, breathing, with steam in between breathing. Steam from my cocoa. Steam from my cheeks. Steam far away from a window and a hot mattress at night.
“I was Daddy’s little girl. I could have any man I ever wanted. Any man I wanted.”
I thought you were saying it to me, but you were whispering it to the cold coffee in your cup. Caffeinated insanity with extra foam. I couldn’t drink anything. Couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t feel anything. Not numb. Not hollow. Just distorted.
I knew what you were like when the mascara oozed in puddles around your nose. I didn’t know how badly the handprints still stung on your back. We were stark, discolored, in this space. Trapped in a tiny town with secondhand people. I squeezed your hand. It would be better if we were hidden away.
FADE OUT.
by Belinda Roddie
FADE IN: August. “You are going to be my Princess Charming. And I am going to be your Snow White.”
That’s what you said to me over the white film around the brim of your cup. I stirred the whipped cream in my hot chocolate until it nearly turned orange. Whisked ember gratitude in Styrofoam. Asiago bagel with cream cheese. Simple aromas caught in the cliff of my throat.
You were going to be trouble for me. So much trouble. You were dressed in purple again, sequins. I couldn’t get enough of it. Couldn’t get enough of the way your smile spiked the air and made me drunk on oxygen, heaving, slippery hands against slippery wood, the mosaic of freelance well-wishers dripping from the tell-tale walls.
“Have you ever loved a man?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Questions. Cheap discourse. A silver dollar you found in your pocket, waiting to be squandered. The conversation was only over when you said it was over.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN: November. We drank two cups of Amaretto each, straight, and didn’t mind the sweetness. I wanted to make you a special drink that I had scraped from a nineteen seventies bartending book. I felt like one legit vintage, film noir boozehound, nipping hooch instead of getting shit-faced. All I needed was the fedora and the zoot suit.
I offered you a Brandy Alexander. One with actually good brandy. You shook your head. You wagged a finger. You had painted your nails cerulean tonight.
“I don’t want a Brandy Alexander.”
“Why not?”
“Um. The name itself betrays it.”
“What?”
“I mean it has brandy in it. I hate brandy.”
The way you wrinkled your nose made my chest convulse. It was the clichéd heart-in-a-vice method. It always worked. I cracked open a bottle of New Amsterdam gin, cold from the early winter vacuum, and made you a drink that my little old school booklet called an Alexander II instead. And you kissed the glass lip with a tongue touched with cacao crème and a lovesick aftertaste.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN: December. Topiary reindeer. Under the wet suburban drizzle, I felt like we had stepped into a poorly produced Christmas special or a deleted scene from a film in which pleasing gardens are transformed into brothels for Stepford Wives. Ho, ho, ho.
You wore a red beaded scarf, pulled all the way up to your chin. The one I got you for your half-birthday in September. My little brother pulled on the sleeve of my sweater from last year’s crocheted batch and tried to say Rudolph. But he couldn’t say his r’s right, so all I heard was, “Woodolf! Woodolf!” and I couldn’t help smiling at that. I think you smiled, too. I clearly saw the dimple you hated having on your right cheek.
We stood by the gate for a long time together. Your face nuzzled against my shoulder. My brother’s chin pressed against my hip. My eyes glazed over and ignoring those green antlers and garishly leafy hooves that could probably sprout yellow roses in the spring. Their necks bristling with thorns.
It took me back to evenings by evergreen, ribbons tied around fingers and carols plunked out from my father’s twelve-string guitar with the broken tuning peg wrapped in last year’s tinsel. And my mother would sing “Silent Night” while her wide doe eyes darted to and fro, listening for frantic bells and hooves promenading on white stained shingles. And it was all so far from bake sales with store bought cupcakes and hybrid cars and festive hedges that would grow distorted in the foggy frost.
“I love you,” I heard you murmur to me, your mouth muffled against the wooly fabric. Your silver hoop earring dug into my chest. Damp eyes drying on my sleeve.
I already knew you loved me. But I didn’t ride a white stallion, and I had too dry of lips to give true love’s kiss. Somehow, I thought you’d care.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN: The ides of March. We were at the café. You looked so pale under the ceiling lamps as you held your drink with both hands. Like you were scared you’d drop it and spill brown guilt all over the already brown floor.
I was breathing, breathing, with steam in between breathing. Steam from my cocoa. Steam from my cheeks. Steam far away from a window and a hot mattress at night.
“I was Daddy’s little girl. I could have any man I ever wanted. Any man I wanted.”
I thought you were saying it to me, but you were whispering it to the cold coffee in your cup. Caffeinated insanity with extra foam. I couldn’t drink anything. Couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t feel anything. Not numb. Not hollow. Just distorted.
I knew what you were like when the mascara oozed in puddles around your nose. I didn’t know how badly the handprints still stung on your back. We were stark, discolored, in this space. Trapped in a tiny town with secondhand people. I squeezed your hand. It would be better if we were hidden away.
FADE OUT.
The work you see here was originally written in the spring of 2011 for a creative writing workshop at my university. The final draft was finished on December 6th, 2012.
Comments
Post a Comment