By Chella Courington
Alpenglow
Amy, the recent hire, who was, of all things, an economist, had just started on her third glass when a loud knock brought silence over us. The door opened and revealed a delivery guy in a red and white shirt with a tower of pizzas.
“Looks like the inciting incident in a bad porno movie,” Amy said, her smile crooked and adorable. I paid him and carried the pies to the cherry table. The women, mostly teachers celebrating Friday and freedom from school, turned back to the charming females around them while I spread the boxes, making way for each and every guest to find what she wanted.
They ate their pizza. Some used their right hand, folding each slice like a New Yorker then gobbling it down. Another treated it like a piece of meat, cutting it with a knife before picking it up with a fork. Amy fingered her pizza, stripping asparagus bits from the top before pulling off strands of mozzarella as she worked her way down to the crust.
“Anyone ready for decaf?” I asked, counted fingers, and left for the kitchen.
“I’ll help,” Amy said.
I looked at her Joni Mitchell t-shirt, newly filled wine glass, and cowboy boots, wondering if the red spot next to Joni’s hair was tomato sauce or cabernet.
“Mugs,” I said and pointed to the cupboard then moved to the coffeemaker, adding ground coffee and water.
“How many?” Amy asked.
“Five. How are you settling in?”
“Comme ci, comme ça.”
“Any problem finding a place?” I asked.
“I got a new one-bedroom at Vaughn Lakes,” Amy said.
“Is that the complex with gorgeous pools?”
“Do you swim?” Amy asked.
“I like the water, but mostly float.”
Leaning against the counter, her jeans just tight enough, Amy looked like a swimmer. About 5’10” with long arms and a slim figure, she appeared younger than I. Only a trace of gray and her wrinkles seemed more from mirth than worry. Her neck was smooth and uncreased, not yet leathery from too much sun.
“You have a spot,” I said, dampening a towel and handing it to her.
Looking down, she inspected her shirt. “I do,” she said.
I watched as she slowly rubbed in circles, red turning to faint pink.
I felt my sweatshirt cling to my skin and opened the window above the sink. The coffee’s finishing hiss called me back.
After Amy filled the blue pitcher with milk, I placed it on the tray and added a plate of biscotti.
“What else can I do?” she asked.
“Do you mind serving?” Pouring the coffee, I tried to hit that mark where either black or white can still be a full cup.
Amy rearranged them for balance, glancing up at me—pausing for what could have been an eternity before she walked out of the kitchen to the table.
I observed her leave, hips sliding with the tray’s weight. And I was wet, drenched in a way that rarely ever happened. An overripe fruit suddenly burst. With cold water, I splashed my face. Outside, the setting sun covered the mountains in pale gold.
Phalaenopsis
Jenny doesn’t remember when she quit listening to Ana, smiling now and then as Ana recalls another of her nude dreams. In her flannel PJs, she leans against the cupboard door, never dropping a syllable. Like a bird’s nest, her grayish-blonde hair is sprigged when she wakes. Last Christmas, Jenny gave her a satin pillowcase, but Ana rarely uses it.
“Did you listen to what I just told you?” she asks.
Jenny smiles. “Definitely,” and she hands her two glasses of filtered water. “Would you put these on the table?” The sun cuts through the kitchen window, warming Jenny’s pale shoulders beneath the red and black plaid bathrobe. After five years, she has learned how to appear engaged when Ana goes on about her dreams. Every morning a new narrative that must be spoken before anything else.
Jenny hears the rise and fall of Ana’s voice. The changes in volume, the shift in tone. The way she lisps where an s and z sound like th in thunder, her tongue catching between her teeth. Cute, even sexy, when they first met at a yard sale. Ana chattered about Sienna Dinnerware on the lawn—salad plates and saucers fringed in green, camouflaged by blades of crabgrass. But now? Her words are mostly white noise.
Jenny takes her cereal to the table while Ana spreads peanut butter on an English muffin. They sit across from each other, a pink moth orchid in the center.
“She looks sad,” Jenny says, reaching out to the lowest bloom, rubbing a petal between her right index finger and thumb. Gently to avoid damage.
“It’s just a flower,” Ana says.
Jenny remembers how her mother tossed a plant as soon as the bloom was off. When she was thirteen, her mother sent her to Miss Howard’s School for Girls in Waycross, Georgia.
“She’s been with us as long as we’ve been together,” Jenny says, poking her finger in the soil to see if she were dry and pouring just enough water into the clay pot to humidify the roots.
“So has the couch,” Ana says, wiping peanut butter from her lips.
“I never liked that couch,” Jenny says.
“I’ve never been good with flowers,” Ana says
Sliding her hand around the sides of the cool pot, Jenny knows the orchid and how easily she can be traumatized if left untended. Mealy bugs spread their cottony mass over her buds and stems and suck her sap, leaving a sticky path in the wake. Jenny lifts the plant.
Ana takes their plates to the sink. “Orchids are too much trouble,” she says.
Jenny listens to the retreat of Ana’s footsteps and moves the orchid near the window so morning sun can shine through the blooms, turning them into a spectacle of light.
Blossoms fall to the dusty floor.
Chella Courington is a cis, bisexual woman born and raised in Southern Appalachia in a storytelling family who taught her how to value the word. Courington’s creative publications include one novel, one novella, several chapbooks of poetry and fiction, and poems and stories in journals and anthologies. Her fiction and poetry have been nominated for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best New Poetry, and Best Short Fiction. With teaching as her livelihood, she moved from Montgomery, Alabama, to Santa Barbara, California, in the U.S. 20 years ago, giving her the space and distance to understand her past.