Lisa Beech Hartz
I stand barefoot in the kitchen and let the cool seep in. The Mexican tile marking every square foot of this too-big house. I never meant to be this lonely. I count the bottles to see how many are missing. There’s a bruise on my right wrist purpling and a dull ache wrapped around my head. Bill came in late again. I was watching an old movie. The day had been long and empty. I wandered around the Safeway trying to come up with a question to ask somebody. All the signs a one-way conversation. Always ripe and ready! Stock up sale! Taste the difference! Bill came through the sliding glass from the carport like nothing. Big eyed and blameless. 6 bottles = 20 percent off on Tuesday! I’m having a party, I told the cashier. Huh, she said, and rang it all up. The crackers and cheese. The olives and pickles I didn’t need. It’s the little slips that give it away. How often he says her name. Lorraine got pre-approved. Lorraine’s inspection went A-okay. Ran into Lorraine on Main today. From my kitchen window I can see Mexico, Cerro San José, that indigo mountain haloed with clouds. A purgatory of scrub in between. He had to have this house on Border Road. A showcase with no one to show. A model home with no plan to build. I drive to town a few times a week. I don’t know when I started pocketing things. A plastic box of amber beads. A picture postcard of the Copper Queen Mine: Let the adventure begin! A brass votive with stars etched around the rim. The movie starred Joan Fontaine and she was too much in love, her specialty. She’d have given Cary Grant anything. Mornings are for resolutions and regrets. Bill came through the door so serene. I said something sharp, I can’t remember what. Mimi, he said, that’s enough for tonight. And he went to bed. I’m not sure what I did next. There are cracker crumbs on the counter and my smudgy glass. I was in the chill of the produce section. I’d forgotten what I’d come for. Ma’am, he said, that belongs in your cart. His nametag said: I’m Mike! Oh, my, I said. Sorry, Mike. I pulled the orange from my pocket. Laid it gently in my cart like an egg in a nest. Joan Fontaine screamed but the car didn’t plunge as she expected. She’d run out of trust. Coffee waiting and my favorite cup. That bright sun slanting. The light back home in Clearwater so much more forgiving. Should I peel the orange? Breathe in that zest? Should I slice it thin? Let the sun pour through it like stained glass?
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Lisa Beech Hartz directs Seven Cities Writers Project which brings writing workshops to under resourced communities. She currently guides workshops for men and women in two city jails. Flash fiction is among her writers’ favorite approaches to creative expression. “Border Road” is taken from a working manuscript of flash stories set in the high desert Arizona town of Bisbee. Lisa is the author of four collections of poetry including the forthcoming The Body Taken (UMass Press/2017).