If Kisses Cured Cancer by T.S. Hawken

Author:T.S. Hawken
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-6482558-1-9
Publisher: Seahawk Press
Published: 2018-03-26T00:00:00+00:00

Thirty Four

Matt rolls down the street, counting letterbox numbers so he can find the right place. Joy lives in the new estate in town, where every house looks the same. Covenants dictate the homes’ colour schemes, styling and even choice of plants. The only differentiation between buildings is the colour of their front doors and the shape of the letterboxes. When this area was first subdivided, nobody in the ‘old town’ wanted to live there. They called it ‘the ghetto’. However, over the space of five years all of the city dwellers built new kit homes in the estate and property values had soared. Land, which had once been a potato farm, had now become prime, half-acre slices of suburban living. Since the pricing increase, locals changed their nickname of the area to ‘mortgage hill,’ because none of them could afford to buy there without going into major debt.

Matt spots the golden numbers he’s looking for and pulls up to the curb. Joy comes out the front door before Matt can even get out of the car. She’s wearing a red knee-length dress and black heels. Her legs are sheathed in black crochet stockings. They look long and slender. Matt exits the wagon as she approaches. She tucks a loose strand of hair behind her tiny ear and looks up demurely at Matt.

‘My god, you look… stunning,’ he manages to say, feeling inadequate in his trusty black jeans and red tee.

‘I’ll take that as a compliment, Mr Writer,’ Joy smiles and presses in close to kiss Matt on the lips. Their mouths remain joined for a long moment, as they sigh into each other.

‘We’d better get moving,’ Matt says, pulling away unwillingly. ‘Our booking is for seven o’clock. We were lucky to get in considering it’s Valentine’s Day.’

‘It’s Valentine’s Day?’ Joy frowns, looking sincere in her ignorance of the date.

Matt opens the door for Joy, revealing the bunch of flowers propped up on her seat. She stares down at them, like a deer in headlights. Matt’s stomach churns. He’s done the wrong thing. It’s the first time he’s ever seen her looking indecisive. He starts talking, to fill in the silence descending between them.

‘A funny story about those,’ Matt stammers. ‘The old man whose garden they came from, Bill, wrote a letter to the newspaper telling people to stop stealing his flowers when they went past. I saw it and wrote a fake reply, saying that I proposed to my fiancé with some roses I’d taken.’

Joy snaps her head towards Matt with murder in her eyes.

‘Oh! No! I’m not proposing. I mean, it was just a lark. I wrote in the letter he should start charging people for the flowers. So he did, and people from all over started visiting his garden.’

Matt bends down and picks up the flowers. Joy steps back, looking at Matt like he’s holding a loaded gun.

‘He told me today that he had been clinging to the flowers in the garden after his wife died, but now he’s glad that people are sharing in their beauty, or something.

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