|
|
|
In addition to teaching, Anita Page worked as a
freelance feature writer and book reviewer for a regional newspaper in upstate
New York. Her short stories have appeared in Ball State University Forum,
Heresies, and Jewish Horizons. She has also published articles in
educational journals. She's currently seeking an agent for her first novel, a
dark cozy set in the Catskill Mountains. Blaze Of Glory by Anita Page
Wanda, the attendant, shifted the chairs so that the sisters would get the sun before it moved behind the linden tree at the edge of the terrace. Then she handed Mary Louise, the skinny one, cigarettes and matches.
Mary Louise flipped open the matchbook. "Can you spare it? There's only one left in here."
Wanda dug in her pocket for a full matchbook and gave it to her, muttering, "You ever hear the word 'please'?"
"She knows it. She just don't like to use it." Mary Catherine, her face as wrinkled as a dried apple doll, smiled at Wanda who walked away shaking her head.
When they were children Mary Louise had been the sweet one and Mary Catherine the sour one. Now there was no one left on earth to be surprised at how the sisters had reinvented themselves.
"I was just remembering.…" Mary Catherine said.
"The henhouse. I know, I know." Mary Louise tilted her head and blew smoke rings, a trick she'd learned seventy years earlier. Their conversation didn't change much from day to day.
"That was one beautiful fire." Mary Catherine looked off into the distance as if visualizing it. "Didn't take but ten minutes for the whole thing.…"
"What would you expect with all that straw?" Mary Louise appeared distracted as she slipped the almost empty matchbook into the pocket of her thick sweater. "Those feathers stank something awful."
"Papa's shed, though." Mary Catherine shook her head. "I thought it was never going to go up."
"Slow to start." Mary Louise shook the last cigarette from the pack and lit it with the glowing tip of her first one. Then, leaning heavily on her cane, she walked a short distance to a small trash barrel. After she was settled back in her chair she said, "But when the turpentine caught, that was a beauty."
"Now the house––"
"We don't talk about the house." Mary Louise glared at her sister. "As you know."
"Mama never got over that. When the baby––"
"Not one more word," Mary Louise hissed.
They sat in silence until Wanda appeared, announcing it was time to go in. She took the matchbook from Mary Louise and held out her hand for the cigarettes.
"I finished the pack and threw it out with the empty matchbook. You want to strip-search me?" Mary Louise struggled to her feet.
"Not on your best day, lady." Wanda put a hand under Mary Catherine's elbow and helped her from the chair.
Later, watching TV in their room, Mary Catherine said, "It won't work. You know they got a sprinkler system."
"I go down to the kitchen tonight…"––Mary Louise dangled the almost empty matchbook between two fat fingers, her eyes on the TV––"...blow out the pilot on that gas stove, and their sprinkler system won't be worth a damn." She looked at Mary Catherine. "What's left for us here, sister? Let's go out in a blaze of glory.”
THE END Anita Page © 2007 |