To Look for America
This is a continuation of Bree MacGuinness, but I have included the first post along with the continuation because I have made a few small changes to the first post. Enjoy!
Bree MacGuinness made her way down her gravel driveway in high heels with a pile of books on her head just in time to catch her father’s truck parking in front of their house. The books went crashing to the ground as she ran to greet him. He looked tired but he gave her a wide smile, picked her up and spun her around in the air before setting her down to get a good look at her. His face got cloudy, but he kept smiling.
“How’s my baby girl?” he asked.
“Good, Papa,” she said.
“Good,” he said and put his arm around her shoulder to lead her back to the house. When they came to her books she scooped them up hurriedly and held them against her chest.
“How was work?”
“Exhausting as usual,” he said sighing. “But I’m home now.”
He opened the door for her and she walked into the living room where the smells of apple pie and fried chicken wafted through the house. Her father went straight to the kitchen where her mother was reading a book and waiting for dinner to finish cooking, but Bree went to her room and quickly kicked off her shoes. She leaned back in her bed and looked at all of the posters decorating her walls: Audrey Hepburn, Billie Holiday, Paloma Faith, Bernadette Peters, Michelle Pfeiffer, Rosy the Riveter. And she had a poster of Elvis after her mother let slip her concern for all the posters of women Bree had in her room and her grandmother dug it up from basement for Bree’s birthday. It was signed to her mother from the person who gave it to her, but Bree liked it all the same.
She felt under her pillow for the form letter from the Miss America contest just to make sure it was still there. But before she could pull it out and read it again, she heard her mother call her from the kitchen and she bounded from her room to where dinner was waiting for her hungry stomach.
Her father was already sitting in the dining room with his head in his hands. He ran his large hands over his weary face before placing them in his lap. With the waning light, the creases in his face looked deeper and he looked older. His gray eyes were dull when he caught her gaze, even though he smiled.
“How was school? Did you learn anything?”
“Good. And I didn’t learn anything worth repeating. I have a history test tomorrow, though.”
“About what?”
“The industrial revolution.”
Her mother walked in with dishes full of steaming hot food. Bree could tell her mother still carried her waitress instinct and skill that she had had when she was still working. Her mother remained young, and the only thing giving away her age were the very slight crow’s feet next to her eyes. She sat down on the opposite end of the table from her husband and smiled.
“Well, dig in,” she said. “I made this special.”
Bree chuckled and waited for her father to take his portion. But there was something wrong with the family dynamic this evening. Her father’s cares didn’t seem to have been left at the door and her mother seemed a little more stiff. She watched her parents carefully as she placed food on her plate. Afraid to ask what was wrong, she kept quiet and reserved as her mother nervously recounted her day.
When her mother had finished and the tension had gotten too heavy, Bree found her courage and asked:
“What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean, love?” her mother asked.
“There seems to be a huge elephant in the room and I feel really uncomfortable with something so big left unsaid.”
Her mother and father exchanged a glance. He opened his mouth to say something but her mother was quicker to reply:
“Nothing to worry about, dear. How was your day?”
Author’s comments on post 368: It’s probably foolish of me to start another story, but my mind keeps coming up blank when I think of intermediary posts and I have to have these or else I will get bored. So, we’ll see how far this goes. I have a hunch of what direction it will take, but you will be as surprised as I.
This entry was posted on Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 5:00 pm and is filed under End of Childhood, Fiction Prose, Realistic Fiction, Short Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.