An add-on to this vignette by pfpc.

Granted, things have not been going so well between them. Previously smooth conversations were marred, she feels, with his stubborn refusal to acknowledge the hurt she is causing. Why does he keep asking personal questions only to act betrayed when she tells him the truth? Always the truth. The truth is never pretty. Of course, he had known all this when he took her in at 16 years old, his sister’s offspring. Her mother felt obliged to move to Casablanca to be with Farid, leaving a daughter (who wasn’t great in school and had started costing her more money than anticipated) and a bunch of unpaid medical bills to her older brother. The niece-now-sort-of-daughter had quickly started to frustrate him with her absolute dedication to not lying, not even to be polite. “You have to phrase this differently!”, his battle cry of despair, her stamping her 17-year-old feet and screaming that she didn’t know how. The letter to his sister was requited with “She’s been tested. It’s an illness, she can’t do anything about it.”

He threw the letter out. There would have to be some rules from now on.

They meet at dusk behind the red brick building that resembles a shed more than a house. Yes, it has been made of stone; but it carries its age on its surface. Like a canvas stretched too thin and now wrinkled and worn out, a number of bricks have come loose, have fallen out, have cracked. The door hangs crooked on its hinges. This is where the pastor used to take them to feed them on Jesus Christ and Mrs. Jennings’ homemade biscuits. The gray church building next to the garden home, that villa of grand disappointments. Or how else could you characterize the building in which Mrs. Jennings broke first the pastor’s heart and then his resolve? In 200 years of history not one of god’s professional servants had left the parish in a hurry, except in 1983. In the church annals, reports of far more than one pastor describe them dying from tuberculosis, from influenza, more than one probably deceased with syphilis, but at least they all had tried. Mrs. Jennings remained where she was, married Doctor Caine, and then the 90s happened.

Raised on PopTarts, soy milk (from before there was Whole Foods!) and the burden of having to succeed at something, the parish’s youths rebel in the ways they have at their disposal: drugs, rock’n’roll, class dropping and illegitimate relations with neighboring daughters or sons. More than one dream of inappropriate behavior involving the High School teacher Mrs. Langley, more than one joint shared together with bacteria on the paper and clamoring for excitement. A spatter of religious folks remained under the auspices of Mrs. Caine (née Jennings) and her weekly Bible club, but being agnostic had long lost its promise of novelty. The church building had started losing it as well: flowers, hymn books, seat cushions slowly disappeared and might now be seen in the river or at Marcus Foster’ slumber parties (infamous for their rounds of spin the bottle after tequila shots).

So they meet in the garden and maybe Carl starts throwing pebbles at the church window. Possibly Marcus scratches his ears for too long. Nina draws a human in the mud with her sneakers. Gus is the one they are waiting for, with the rackets and a ball and the plan. He waves from across the road and throws one ball at Carl who is a slow catch. “You suck at this,” Nina tells him, and his ears turn crimson. Marcus snatches a racket from Gus’ arms and tests its tension. “Ready?” Gus inquires. Nina stomps ahead without replying.

The church door is still heavy, maybe even more so with less use. No candles. Nobody praying for health, a raise, a wife, a kid. Nobody asking for world peace, or the ability to defend himself against all those intruders of the modern world. Nina’s steps are loud in the nave. She turns around. “I am so fucking ready, Gus.” He points towards the left wing, towards the wall with an inscription right next to the confession boxes. Lord have mercy on us. The four stand in line, looking towards the words. Rackets. Balls. Space. Time. “Let’s play squash,” Carl says and the ball hits “mercy” right in the typeface.

Out on the dusty street a population of stray dogs reminds Matthew of rabies and frothy mouths. As he sips his drinks, no ice, he observes the rural surroundings and wonders why he even took the bus. Nothing here. No ladies to impress. Some alcohol to consume. Mostly time to read and think. A nightmare, basically. One of the dogs casually walks up to Matthew’s table and stares at him. “Haven’t I seen you before?” Matthew asks. His own language sounds strangely unfamiliar if spoken aloud. “I think I have. Well, I am leaving tomorrow. I am taking a stinky bus back to the city and from there to a beach. Or to a much colder country. I haven’t decided. I will definitely never return to this hellhole.” The dog barks, just once.

“Why won’t we see each other again?” its eyes seem to say. Its tail tucked beneath its legs. The snout pouty. “I am a world-class traveler, my canine friend,” Matthew says and refrains from touching the animal. Sandflies feed on dogs. Sandflies cause nasty illnesses. Matthew has no time for infections. “But don’t you worry, some naive young lady from Central Europe will come, fall in love with you and import you to her home where your sandfly population might cause her organs to swell. Now go.” The dog remains standing and watching, until Matthew sighs and is the one to leave.

Be still my heart, Ada wrote on her notepad. In sober, clean handwriting. Her heart had nothing to be un-still about, not since she had packed her bags and left Marcus and his silly-ass rabbit book collection behind. “This one is called Mr. Rabbit, how awesome is that?” was the last coherent sentence he had had a chance to utter in innocence before Ada had cut him off. Him and his books and paintings and records and telephone number and most definitely the accusing look in his eyes. How could she, he had howled, and didn’t she think he had considered breaking up with her before as well? But didn’t she know he had stuck it out with her and her instant scribbling on that damned notepad because he had committed to this. Yes, she had heard right, committed and if you moved your toothbrush over to somebody else’s bathroom and left pieces of paper flying around you signed a contract. Had she not, he had yelled, had she not herself opened her bra right here in their living room and asked him to pull down his pants?

Ada shook her head in the museum’s store and attracted unwanted attention from the store clerk. Be still Marcus, she wrote on the notepad and immediately scratched out the name. What for did she even think of him? Ada was here to absorb the arts. She enjoyed getting lost in the Tate Modern, searching the escalator and watching the river from the museum café. This was not the Tate Modern, unfortunately, this was her hometown’s museum of the arts, a sorry little collection of modern pieces interspersed with a few items by “talented” high schoolers. Ada wandered into the main hall and stood in front of the oversized portrayal of a naked hunter and his pet monkey. I understand everything, Ada wrote. Some blonde kid with an annoying voice snatched her notepad away from her and started running. “I know your mother, you asshole!” she yelled after him, defeated. She was shushed and silently reprimanded by the boy’s mother, who apparently felt no parental obligation to retrieve Ada’s property at all.

Fuck this.

Ada took out her magic marker and started writing on the stark-white museum wall.

“Could you hold this for a minute?” Lisa says and almost throws her bag at Julian. He has no choice but to catch it, and just in time. “What’s your plan?” he would like to know. Lisa shakes her head. “You are not allowed to always ask me these things. You are not my boss.” Julian is sure she simply misunderstood. “I was only wondering what you are doing. I am not saying I will comment on it in any way.” Lisa punishes him with a stern look. Her tiny wrinkles around her mouth grow more prominent with every month they spend together. “Is it too much to ask you to hold this bag for a second and let me go get it done?” she asks and starts walking away. Julian is exasperated in his defeat as he shoulders the bag and returns to the coffee shop, where he will be waiting for her for three hours. And never dare say a word about that either.

Elizabeth had not called home in weeks. She was therefore not the person Delia expected when she opened the door. “Oh. Hi darling. What are you doing home? That’s a surprise!” Mother and daughter had not yet mastered the art of interacting as adults. Their hug was clumsy. Elizabeth had been crying, Delia noticed, as she led her grown child into the kitchen. “Is everything ok?” she asked there, where she had spoonfed Elizabeth cereal only 19 years ago. With a pang of regret Delia wondered if Elizabeth would ever return the favor and carefully maneuver spoonfulls of mashed potatoes into her demented mother. The answer to that would likely be no. The honest answer is hardly ever the one you would like to hear. “I am pregnant.” Delia held on to the table and navigated into a chair. “Are you sure?” The repugnant look in her daughter’s eyes stated that yes, she was pregnant, and why else would she have shown up at her childhood home? Delia saw all options clearly laid out. The honest one in this case was the sensible one, as well. Slightly inconvenient, sure, but then they had passed the millenium and nobody would have to eat pureed foods any time soon. Delia tried to vividly imagine what kind of reaction Elizabeth was hoping for. “What do you want to do? Keep it?” she blurted out. It might not have been sensitive. It was a task-oriented approach. A nod to their family’s Northern European ancestry. “I don’t know!” Elizabeth started crying again. Of course, both women knew that Elizabeth was well aware of what she wanted to do, or she wouldn’t have come home to consult Delia.

But when Elizabeth looked up at her mother with her swollen, crimson face and asked her “But could you get rid of it? Could you really?”, the honest answer was not the one Delia could choose. How does one tell one’s own daughter that yes, you could get rid of a fetus, you have and you would again in a heartbeat. Would Elizabeth not think it was then a mere accident, an unruly arrangement of circumstances that lead to her earthly existence? (And it was. The honest answer to THAT question was out then, too). “You have options, Elizabeth. I am supporting you in your choice.” The real question was not how her daughter got into this mess, because this was fairly clear. Elizabeth had given in to her biologically programmed body, and good for her. Now, if she had only had felt slightly repressed by societal or parental expectations. Maybe she would have remembered to protect her uterus from any invaders. Delia was unable to view herself as a failed mother. She had done what she could, and she carefully placed the phone in her daughter’s hand. “Just call. You’ll get an appointment right away.”

We exchanged casual greetings over the holidays for a couple of years before we agreed to just release the sexual tension and get it over with. After these highly questionable acts we lay on his bed sheets, both wishing we’d smoke so that we’d have something to do or to say to each other. But we didn’t, therefore he hid his body under the sheets and pretended not to ogle my chest. “That was fun,” he finally said and it took all I had in me not to burst out laughing. We might as well ask each other if we could call. What I did instead was say “Yeah.” And get up and put on my clothes.

For several years after that we exchanged less casual greetings over the holidays until he finally brought his wife with him to the bar and carefully led her around. She was very pretty, and when I later asked her to go back to the car with me she complied. After the highly questionable act in a freezing car where our breaths had put steamy marks on the windshield, she touched her blushed cheeks and sighed “You can never tell him.” I nodded and assured her that I would only exchange casual greetings with her in the future.

I have previously seen her, once I think. At the bank. We both got cash from the ATM. I was pretty upset with the unfortunate timing of our encounter. I couldn’t seriously approach her right after she got her pockets full of money. Even I would have believed me to be a robber or schemer. So I let it go. Then I forgot all about it. Then I saw her here, at theater rehearsal.

I was mildly interested in acting from an early age. Pursuing it as an actual past-time wasn’t really my goal. I’d term it a fascination with changing personalities I guess. So what if I starred in a high-school play and once applied to acting school (didn’t even pass the “send in your resume” stage). This means nothing. I also applied to be a waiter once, which funnily didn’t work out either. I became a teacher instead. Of mathematics and English. I am molding impressionable young minds on a daily basis now. Like that of my cousin Gus. His father has his hands full with that little kid. But I have heard he has a great teacher. Delilah. I love her name. Never met the woman, not sure I’d want to date a teacher. We are trained to ignore all bullshit and to bring across a point, come what may. That, my friends, makes bad relationship material. But is great for sex, at least if the point you want to make is pleasure. Speaking of sex; lack thereof is, of course, what brought me back to the stage and to an amateur theater group. We all know the artsy types are loose and easy-ish, potentially more so than most other hobbyists. I saw the ad, I wanted to hook up with a woman who plays a minor character just as I do, so I auditioned and I landed this role.