2013
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
living room. Beth took a long swallow from her glass, set her sights on me. “Babette Embrey. You stop slouching and join the festivities. Fiona has her first baby only once. No wallflowers allowed!” She smiled, made light of it. I smiled back. “Best friends since fourth grade, Miss Beth. I’m no party animal.” “But you haven’t had any cake, sweetie. Is that honoring Fiona?” “I honor my own way. Excuse me, going to the little girl’s room.” Fiona looked up at me as I passed, gave me her take-it-easy face. In the bathroom, I pinned my ear to the door before I sat down. Beth was still at it. “You think she’d lay off the health kick for a day. The cake’s for you, Fiona, and she’s not joining in? What’s that about? And what’s with the fem look? One day Rambo, next day, sex goddess?” Fiona’s voice slowed down, the way it did when she got irritated. “Okay, Beth. First, Babs hardly eats sweets at all. And second, she’s half hottie, half tomboy, always has been. You’ve been around long enough to know that. “Tomboy? Is that what you call it?” Matter of fact, that is what Fiona called me. On our first ski trip together, junior year at Cape Fear High, I’d made it halfway down the slope at Snowshoe Mountain a good minute ahead of her, stood off the trail among some trees. She’d seen me from a distance and labored to slow down, plowed hard into me, pinned me to a tree. We locked for a few moments before we both cracked up, could not stop laughing, even when a crowd of boys came catcalling by. “You freaking tomboy!” she’d shouted. “You teach me to ski, hear? I need to keep up with you.” “All right, head start this time. I count to thirty and last one to the bottom gives the other a foot rub. One . . . two . . .” Her eyes widened, and she grinned as she took off. I counted to forty-five, watched her every second of the way as I closed the distance. Having her tight against me woke something up in me I’d had at the back of my mind for a long time. Seeing her work down the slope, I was sure for the first time. I went slow.
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stewing, sorting out how I fit in here. Whether I fit in at all. I scanned the living room. Looked like a battlefield. Shredded tissue. Onesies stacked like field dressings. A rattle peeked from under some tissue like a ticking grenade. A baby bouncer dangled in the kitchen doorjamb, ready to launch Fiona’s baby into her future. Blankies draped the armrests of two wing chairs and the back of the fancy sofa I’d plunked my butt onto. I laid myself down cheek to cushion, ogled the last piece of Fiona’s cake from ground level. It sat plump and yellow in its tray on the coffee table. Birthday cake never appealed to me, but I looked at it differently now. A sloping carpet of white icing covered it like snow, and Babette the tomboy whooshed down on her skis, mouth open to the cold air, not caring where the path led, as long as Fiona was there. Moist crumbs and a bubbling of bright drippings spread at the bottom, like drifting snow. A familiar titter floated from the dining room and I raised my head. Fiona’s delicate laugh had held true since fourth grade, hovered in the house like wind chimes. I listened around the wall to Marla groan, politely of course. Beth Nielsen had rolled out the same joke she’d told at Fiona’s wedding. Bill Clinton and Tiger Woods on the golf course, swapping sexcapades, something like that. I looked back at the mess. Did my sweet mother go through this? She’d never mentioned a shower. Would my father have allowed it? He of the starched fatigues, six stripes, the high and tight cut? He’d offer no reliable information on that, even if Collection of the artist
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When I returned to the living room, the trio had moved to the dining room to honor Fiona’s bun in the oven the way close-knit Southern ladies do. Around the table. Except for little old Babs, camped on the sofa, listening to the Veronicas on my iPhone, Marked Occurrence (acrylic and oil on canvas, 48x66) by Robert Tynes