Fiction : Julie Sokolow
The minivan was gliding down the road bordered by a wooden fence that separated the farm from the cemetery. Donald didn’t like that the two were so close together. The times he had visited graves, he thought he smelled corn and manure and the times he visited the farm, he thought he smelled rotting flowers. Sometimes he thought it was all in his head, but it still bothered him.
Donald pulled into a stone parking lot off the intersection. A woman with a puckered face was smoking and leaning on the hood of a black Lexus.
“Hi, Madeline,” Donald said.
Madeline stared at Donald as he fumbled with a ring of keys. She flicked her cigarette and followed him through the blue door of the cottage.
“I’m too old for this, Donald,” she said, stretching out on the divan and slipping off her loafers. “These men don’t understand that I’m too old for that kind of dependency.”
When Madeline had first started coming to Donald, she was married to an older man who had just retired. She said she had anxiety because her husband slept late, gained weight, and requested that she inspect his body for lumps on a weekly basis. She had said then that she was too old for that kind of dependency.
“I never had children because I never had the maternal instinct. Now these grown men expect something of me and it makes me feel like I’m a bad mother. I let them wrap their hairy arms around me while I think about abandoning them,” she said.
Donald slumped down in his chair and sniffled. He had plugged every outlet with scented air fresheners, but the cottage still smelled like a dentist’s office. It still smelled as foreign as it had when the realtor first showed it to him.
“Even you, Donald. You’re not…engaging. You depend on me to fill the air.”
“You called me a tyrant.”
“You’re supposed to be! You’re a psychologist for Christ’s sake.”
Donald looked at the certificates in frames on his wall. He thought the way the lamp light bounced off the glass made them look fake. Madeline turned on her side and curled her feet against the divan. When she had first come in, she said that only an amateur would have a table and chairs. Now every time Donald looked at the divan, he felt like someone somewhere was laughing at him.
“It’s no use talking to you, Donald. I’d probably be better off talking to your wife. We both have to put up with you men and your laziness.”
Donald walked to his desk and opened the top drawer.
“You’re not leaving me now, are you?” Madeline asked, pouting and grinning.
Donald pulled a rolodex out and thumbed through the cards.
“What an ancient device! Are you calling the hospital?” Madeline said and laughed. She grew silent and crept up behind Donald.
Donald scribbled the name, Gertrude Flanders, on a post-it note. He had been seated at the same table as Flanders at a local conference. She had called his psychodynamic approach “outdated” and had given him her number telling him where to refer his “complex” patients. Donald hadn’t imagined he would be so relieved to take up the offer.
“What are you doing?” Madeline asked.
Donald handed her the note and lined up the pencils on his desk. He thought if he looked at Madeline she might tug the suspenders off his chest and snap them back at him.
“You can’t just dispose of me, Donald,” she said and ripped the note in half.
A cigarette shook between Madeline’s fingers as she inched a match to its tip. She sucked on the filter and blew out smoke in violent spurts. Flurries of ash fell into the stainless steel trashcan Jane had bought for Donald’s office.
“I told you not to smoke in here,” Donald said.
He thought that if Madeline hadn’t been his patient, he’d prescribe her a look in the mirror after a month without therapy and smoking.
The rotary dial phone on Donald’s desk rang and Donald picked up the receiver. He watched Madeline glare at him as Jane talked over the speaker.
“Edith was running cross country with her gym class and now they can’t find her,” Jane said, like the school had lost Edith on purpose.
“Who are you talking to?” Madeline asked and flung her cigarette into the trashcan.
Donald put his finger up to his lips.
“My psychologist is shushing me. That’s real healthy, Donald,” she said and threw her arms in the air.
“Are you even listening?” Jane yelled.
Donald handed the phone to Madeline and walked out of the office. He hopped into the minivan and reversed without glancing in the rearview mirror.
The minivan rolled past Indian Hill Elementary. On the playground, a kid climbing monkey bars kicked a heavyset boy who walked by. A group of girls pointed and yelled at the fallen boy as he brushed mulch off his knees. None of the kids had red hair. Donald thought that if he had been a redhead as a kid he would have run away too.
Donald merged onto the parkway and pulled down the visor. Sedans shot by and he wondered if they were avoiding the minivan like they might avoid a truck. He thought he could imagine Jane in a stainless steel eighteen-wheeler running sedans off the road.
The muffled reverberations of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” sounded from the glove compartment. Donald smiled. He thought the ringtone somehow trivialized the situation. He thought it was funny that Jane had to wait on the other end, listening to each drawn-out ring, hoping that he’d pick up just so she could deliver a mouthful of insults. He bobbed his head and hummed as the ringtone kept going off and on.
A tiny figure with flailing legs was moving alongside the trees. As Donald drove, he saw that it was Edith with hair bouncing as her backpack swung out in front of her. Donald pulled over and threw his suit jacket in the backseat. He jumped out of the car and started running.
His waistband tickled his stomach as his tie lapped at his cheeks. He ran behind Edith and pulled his suspenders down off his shoulders. Edith looked up at Donald with red strands pasted to her freckles as he jogged up beside her. Sweat glistened in the corners of her mouth as she smiled up at him. Donald looked back at the minivan’s hazard lights blinking and thought the flashes might be Morse code cheerleading for him to keep running.
“Where are we going?” Donald said through dry gasps.
Edith looked down at the compass sliding around in her oily palm.
“Indian Hill,” she said.
“What’s there?”
“Tepees and Indians with feathers and a bonfire on the hilltop.”
“Really?”
“I don’t know,” she said and ran faster.
Donald wondered if the phone was still ringing in the glove compartment. He wondered if maybe Jane had called to say that she and Madeline had hit it off and that he shouldn’t bother coming home for dinner. Sweat was seeping through his shirt along his beltline and his stomach swung back and forth like it was chuckling. He looked at Edith squinting in the sunlight and kept running.
Julie Sokolow is a Chancellor’s Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh, musician, and writer of drama and prose. Her work has appeared in The Original magazine and on Pittsburgh’s radio station WYEP. Her debut album Something About Violins was
released on the label Western Vinyl. Currently, she is developing a screenplay out of her collection of short stories set in the surreal New Jersey suburbs.