Survival Skills by Jean Ryan

Author:Jean Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories, Greyhound, Environmental, Canada goose, Lake Tahoe, Archaeology, Plastic Surgery, Romance, Love, Lesbian, GLT, Vegan, California, Birds, Deception, LIterarary, desire, relationships, animal kingdom
Publisher: Ashland Creek Press
Published: 2012-11-30T16:00:00+00:00

Remediation

I kid you not. This thing looked like it had been in a furnace.”

Joyce unscrews the top of her orange thermos. Sunlight flashes across the rings on her swollen fingers as she pours herself more Baileys Irish Cream.

“She wanted to know what it needed. I told her it needed water. She said, ‘But it looks sick. Isn’t there something I can spray on it?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘water.’”

Joyce leans back in the deck chair and laughs. Her hair―a sweeping gold crest—doesn’t move.

I’ve had three gin and tonics myself, and I’m feeling great. I love to make Joyce laugh. “Most of them come in too late,” I add. “They come in carrying these corpses and want to know how to fix them.”

Joyce peels the cellophane strip off a fresh pack of Virginia Slims and shakes her head. “Well, I can’t talk. I have to buy fake plants.”

“Which is perfectly fine!” I say, throwing up my hands. “I wish more of our customers would buy vinyl. Believe me, it’s not easy selling plants to some of these people. Yesterday one of our regulars—the Grave Digger, we call him—bought a gorgeous red dahlia. I could hear it screaming as he carried it out.”

This brings on another bout of Joyce’s wheezing laughter, which ends with a mild coughing attack. “Stop it, Molly,” she says, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Right now. You’re killing me.”

Doug comes out on the deck then, shoots us a look on his way to the grill. In one hand he has a plate of raw chicken, in the other a pair of tongs.

Doug doesn’t like Joyce. Maybe because she makes a lot more money than he does. Maybe because she has a federal job with a pension and paid holidays. Maybe because she paid for my abortion when I was twenty-two, with two babies, and Doug was out of work, and the last thing I wanted in this world was another child. Maybe he dislikes Joyce simply because she is no longer beautiful.

“I’m going to go set the table,” I tell her, getting to my feet. “You stay put. Relax.”

“You’re a doll,” she says, beaming up at me. At fifty-three, she still has striking cheekbones, especially when she smiles, which is often. Good skin, too. Of course, she works at it, buys expensive moisturizers and makeup. Her blue eyes she accentuates with a lavish amount of mascara and liner. Her nose is small and slightly crooked, with a crease at the bridge. Her mouth is nicely shaped, and her teeth are tidy: You’d never know that most of them were ruined in a God-awful accident many years ago, when her head plowed through the windshield of her red Camaro.

Doug comes back inside as I am putting silverware on the table. “We’re going to eat in half an hour,” he says. “You two going to be ready?”

“Sure.”

“Where did you take her today?”

“Napa Valley. We went wine-tasting.”

“Bet she loved that.”

Ignoring the smirk on his face, I buff a knife blade with my shirttail and set it back down.

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