Run Home

The prompt was: You must start the story with the ending and end it with the beginning.

*********

A something white was whizzing towards her. Bee couldn’t quite make out what it was, and she squinted against the glare of the sun to distinguish the shape. It was roundish and moving fast. She held out a hand towards it, and her fingers stretched to wrap around the –

Fuzz. No, not fuzz. Fuzzy. White and black dots squirmed over one another. The black dots wriggled away, and the white spread into patches surrounding test tubes, wires, and machines that went beep. There was a curtain to her right, and Bee could hear “The Price is Riiiiiight. Thomas Wow, come on down!” from her neighbor’s TV. She grabbed her pillow and tugged it over her head. It muffled the noise and dulled the light, but bursts of pain spasmed through her head. Bee rolled over and was face to face with – well, a face – that she had never seen before. She jerked the pillow away. The face smiled at her. “You’re awake.”

Bee sat up. “Is that your medical opinion?”

“No, I’m not a doctor. I’m Chase. We met last night outside Schmucker’s Diner.”

“I’m Bee.”

“I know.”

“I don’t remember going to the diner,” Bee grabbed her head. It was pulsing, and she could feel a baseball-sized lump under her hair. “Actually, I don’t remember last night at all. Did I go to a party I don’t know about?”

Chase adjusted his baseball cap. “I couldn’t say. You stumbled out of the diner, fell into my arms, said, ‘I’m Bee. You’re beautiful,’ and passed out. A waitress inside called an ambulance, and you were brought here.”

Bee’s eyes widened and her hand froze. She coughed. “Well, it was either alcohol, or true love.”

“Must’ve been some party,” a dry voice wheezed through the curtain. “Hee. Hee.”

“It wasn’t alcohol. Your tox screen was negative for drugs and alcohol,” a thin man, with grey hair and a moustache, stepped into the room. Blue-grey eyes smiled at her behind wire-rimmed glasses. He picked up Bee’s clipboard. “We haven’t ruled out true love yet though. There isn’t really a test for it, a-haaaa, a-haaaa, a-haaa. But boy, wouldn’t hospitals be popular then? ‘Yeah, Doc, test us for diabetes, HIV, and true love.’ A-haaaa.”

When the doctor laughed, he held his hand over his chest and tilted back. The “haaa,” was dragged out and high pitched, so that the full laugh sounded as though he were just discovering how funny he was. Bee looked at Chase. Chase was staring at the doctor, his mouth open and his brow knitted. Bee looked back at the doctor. “Uhh . . . who are you?”

“Oh, sorry, Miss Miller. I’m Doctor Broad. How are you feeling today?”

“I once tripped over my stuffed dinosaur and knocked out a tooth on a Lite Bright when I was seven. This feels worse.”

Chase smirked. Doctor Broad smiled and held a flashlight up to Bee’s eyes. “You have a mild concussion. You might be feeling a little sensitivity to light and noise. It also explains your drunken-like behavior. A concussion can sometimes cause headache, dizziness, ringing in the ears, nausea or vomiting, and slurred speech. I’ll prescribe some pain medication for the pain. We don’t know yet what the full damage was. I’m going to ask you a series of questions to get an idea of the damage.”

“Excellent.” I’m great with state capitals.”

“What is your full name?”

“I’ll admit to Bee Miller.”

The doctor glanced down at the clipboard. “Ah. Fair enough. Birthday?” The doctor was moving the flashlight from eyeball to eyeball.

“April 24, 1982.”

“Excellent birthday. Taurus. We are a fine group of people, if I do say so myself. A-haaaa. And our current president, Miss Miller?”

“George W. Bush.”

“What year did Columbus discover America?”

“1442. No. 1462? 14-something-2. I never could remember. Ask me any state capital, I’m golden, but dates? Lousy.”

“You look live you’ve done just fine in the date department though. A-haaaa.” Dr. Broad looked at Chase. Chase’s cheeks burned. Dr. Broad turned back to Bee. “Where were you last night?”

“I hear I was at Schmucker’s Diner picking up men.” It was Bee’s turn to feel her cheeks burn.

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember amazing blueberry pie, and whipped cream. Bad coffee, and someone named . . . Louis.”

Chase leaned forward. “You were alone when you . . . ran into me. What did Louis look like?”

Bee shook her head. “I don’t remember.”

Dr. Broad clicked the flashlight. “You have acute memory loss. It should return to you with time. You might try retracing your steps; that should speed the process up.”

“I can leave then?”

“Sure. You’ll need to take it easy for a while, and come back in for a follow-up. In the meantime, I’ll have the nurse bring in your things, and I’ll sign you out and write up that prescription.”

Chase stood up. “I’ll leave you to change.”

“Ooooh. Open the curtain before you go, Doc. Public television sucks,” the voice wheezed. “Hee. Hee.”

The doctor smiled. “You can change in the restroom. And lock the door – he’ll try to fool you, but he’s not actually bed-ridden. A-haaaaa. A-haaaa.”

“Kill joy.”

********

Bee locked the door to the restroom. She studied her belongings. She had a red and white jersey shirt, long jean shorts, and black and white sneakers. She sighed. “Well, I could’ve gone just about anywhere in this.”

As she pulled the shirt over her head, she breathed in the scent of aloe and coconut. “Suntan lotion. I must’ve been at an outdoor event.”

She pushed her hand into her pocket and discovered a thick tab of paper. She pulled it out. It was a faded orange color, wrinkled, and had numbers along the side. Across the front in bold ran the words “Keep This Ticket.” Bee shrugged and tucked it back into her pocket. She then dug through her purse. Her wallet was there, driver’s license, credit cards, frequent customer card to the local coffee shop. There was also a deck of playing cards, a dirty spoon, seven green pens, a nail file, a spare shoelace, a ping pong ball, and a collapsible cup. What she did not have was her cell phone or car keys. She sat down on the bed. “How am I getting home?”

*******

Bee walked into a lobby full of people. There was a mother holding a squirming boy in her lap, another boy playing with a truck in the corner. The boy in the mother’s lap was stretching for a bag of Teddy Grahams his mother was tugging open. Next to her, an elderly woman sat busy at her knitting. A larger man stared up at the TV, corn chips falling onto his shirt. Closest to her was a young girl, legs crossed on the seat. She flipped through a fashion magazine, glancing up for an instant to watch a commercial.

Bee sat down. She set her purse on the floor beside her and hugged her knees. She had a flash of the restaurant. Frank Sinatra staring down at her, Buddy Holly’s voice bouncing around the restaurant. Squeaky vinyl seats, black bow ties. The coffee was black, and bitter, and she watch packet after packet of sugar disappear into the abyss of her mug.

“Are you alright?”

Bee looked up. Chase was standing in front of her. She stood up. “Y-yes, I am. Thank you for all of your help. I don’t remember exactly what you’ve done, but I know at the very least you got me here, so, thank you.” She pulled her hair behind her ear.

Chase smiled. “It was my pleasure. I’m glad you’re alright – except for the whole loss of memory thing.”

“I am, thank you.”

Chase and Bee stood in silence. Bee stared at the floor, combing a section of her hair through her hands as though it were the tail of something soft and cuddly that had curled up around her neck. Chase coughed. Bee looked up. "Well, thank you again. I - I should get home."

Chase nodded. "I'll walk you out."

Bee shook her head. "Oh, no. You don't have to do that. I can walk just fine."

"And will you be walking home?"

Bee bit her lip. "No, I'll be walking to the diner. It's the last place I remember at all from last night, so I’m going to go and see if I can remember anything else.”

"Ah."

"Right.,” Bee bent down and picked up her purse. When she stood up, she held her hand out. “Bye, then.”

Chase looked out the window. "It's roughly five miles to the diner, y'know. That's a long walk with recent head trauma.”

He looked at her and took her hand. "I think you should let me give you a ride."

******

I'm a good driver, I promise. The five - no, six - accidents I've been in weren't even my fault . . . mostly," Chase offered a helmet to Bee.

"I am going to assume, for the sake of sanity, that you are joking about that," Bee took the helmet. She pulled it onto her head and fastened the clip.

Chase started his motorcycle. "Sure, for the sake of sanity," he held out a hand and gave her a crooked smile.

Bee took his hand. He gripped her hand as she swung a leg over. The engine revved, and she wrapped her arms around Chase's chest. She leaned forward and said in his ear, "Well, worst case scenario, you've already proven you can get me to the hospital."

*****

Schmucker’s Diner was the type of restaurant that hadn’t heard that times, they were a-changin’, and none of the regular customers had the heart to break it to them. The menus had been the same for twenty-five years, despite the fact that they had been out of grape jelly for the past seven. A dilapidated juke box was hunched in the doorway, the same three records playing as the day it was first put in. A rack of dusty pies creaked in circles in an ill-lit display case, and antiquated servers – all believed to have been present for the opening – hobbled around the restaurant. “Everyday” by Buddy Holly was bouncing from the juke box as Bee and Chase entered the restaurant. There was a bald man in a jean jacket sitting in a booth in the corner, reading a newspaper. A white-haired couple chewed their pancakes in silence as they aged to look more and more like one another with each sip of coffee. The only new addition to the restaurant was a shiny red ticket machine with a laminated sign that read, “Please take a ticket.” Bee pulled off a ticket. Chase looked at her. She shrugged. “The sign said.”

            A server, a gray-haired woman, lurched her way towards them, her neck and shoulders sunken into her body as though she were slowly retracting into herself. She hacked and sniffed as she reached the podium. “Garf. Huckkkk. Two today?

            Bee grimaced and stepped back. Chase caught her arm. “Yes. Two, please.”

            “This way. Huckkkkkk.”

            The woman dragged two menus from the holder and lurched over to a booth. Bee and Chase slid into the booth across from one another. The woman slapped the menus down in front of them. “Josephine will be over in a minute. Enjoy. Huckkkk. Garf.”

            She scratched her hip and hobbled away, wiping her nose with her other hand. Bee shook her head. “At least she’s not our server.”

            The music had stopped, and they could hear their server approaching from the kitchen. Her feet made a “chh chh” sound as they shuffled across the tile, and it felt like they were listening to the “chh chh chh chh” of her approach for hours. She reached the table, a sagging blob. Her bowtie sagged on her sagging chest, which drooped over her gut, hanging over a black skirt. An apron, weighed down with pens, napkins, straws, and her notebook, hung heavily over her skirt. Josephine pulled a pencil from behind her ear and looked down at Bee and Chase behind sagging eyelids. “Waddya want to drink?”

            “Soda, whatever you have,” said Chase.

            Josephine harrumphed and turned to Bee. “You?”

            “Coffee, lots of cream,” said Bee.

             “Harrumph.” Josephine tottered off.

            “Is anything coming back to you yet?” Chase said. “Do you have any idea who Louis was? Does anyone look familiar?”

             “Not yet. I think I had a male server last night. He was young.”

            “Was he Louis?”

            Bee shook her head. “No. Cliff. I found the receipt in my wallet.”

            “Maybe we should ask our server if she remembers –“

            “Anything at all?” Bee unrolled her silverware and smiled.

            Chase chuckled. “No, I was going to say if she remembers you coming in last night, or if Cliff will be coming in today.”

            Chh-chh. Chh-chh. Thunk. Joesphine had shuffled back to the table. She heaved over and set their drinks on the table. She dug into her apron and dumped a handful of creamer on the table. She turned to shuffle off again, but Bee spoke up. “Wait.”

            The server twisted, her bones creaking and squeaking like the pie display case. “Yes?”

            “Do you remember me coming in last night? I was waited on by Cliff.”

            Josephine sucked on her dentures; the squeaking sound sent chills down Bee’s spine. “Harrumph. If you’re coming in to complain, you’d best wait until he comes in and yell at him yourself. He’ll be here in fifteen minutes. You eating?”

Chase looked at Bee. “We might as well, right?”

Bee nodded. Chase looked back at Josephine. “I’d like a hamburger and fries, no tomato, please.”

Squeak. Squeak. Josephine wrote his order down, the pencil dragging along the paper as she made each slow, dented curl. She continued to suck on her dentures as she wrote. When she finished, she pointed her pencil at Bee. “You?”

Bee looked at the menu. “Oh. I- I don’t know. Just one second.”

            Josephine threw her hip to the side. She sucked on her dentures and stared at Bee. Squeak. Squeak. Harrumph. Bee shut her menu. “Blueberry pancakes with whipped cream.”

            “Harrumph,” Josephine dragged the menus off of the table and slid them into her sagging armpits. She shuffled off.

            Chase looked out the window. Bee took in the restaurant. Pictures of stars from days gone by hung on the walls. Smiling pictures of Clint Eastwood, Frank Sinatra, Fred Astaire. “Everyday” was playing again, and Bee hummed along with the tune. She looked at Chase out of the corner of her eye. He had blond hair that fanned out under his Atlanta Braves baseball cap. He had large blue eyes, and long eyelashes. His nose had a bend in it, and Bee decided that he had broken it defending some lady. He wore a light blue t-shirt on a frame that was what Bee liked to call “cuddly.” She could see why she had thought him sexy, and told him to his face. She put her elbows on the table and waved a hand at him. “So, Chase. What was a guy like you doing here?”

            Chase laid an arm on the table. “Well, clearly, I was here for all of the beautiful women.”

            “Of course. A man like yourself is surely attracted to the more . . . mature women.”

            “Well, sure. They have so much more experience in everything. Paying taxes, filing for social security, surviving economical crises.”

            “And they have the remarkable ability to predict the weather using only their malfunctioning organs.”

            “It is quite impressive.”

            Chh-chh. Chh-chh. Thunk. Josephine dropped their plates on the table in front of them. “Dead cow on a bun. Heart attack on a platter,” she set their plates down. She jerked a thumb towards the kitchen. “Cliff is here. I told him to come talk to you.” Chh-chh. Chh-chh.

            Bee smiled at Chase. “Oh, she is charming.”

            “Adorable,” Chase flipped the top bun off his burger and picked the tomato off.

            “You never answered my question,” Bee cut into her pancakes, stabbing a corner and swiping it through the whipped cream. “Not seriously, at least.”

            Chase squirted some ketchup onto his burger. “Oh, my sister was in town with my nieces and nephew. We stopped here for dinner before they had to drive back home.”

            “So, you have one older sister then?”

            “I actually have two older sisters. One lives in North Carolina, the other in Indiana. My mom is the only one who still lives around here.”

            “Ah, so you remembered.” A server walked up, with brown hair, thick framed glasses, and a perfectly neat bowtie. One arm was bent in front of him, like a true maître d'. The other hand was behind his back.

            Bee looked up. “Are you Cliff?”

            He pointed to his nametag. “Sure am.”

            “Do you remember me being here last night?”

            Cliff raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I do. You left your fish. Shame, the cook in the back was ready to name him Blinky and take him home.”

            Cliff pulled a plastic bag from behind his back. A lumpy goldfish was swimming upside down in circles around the bag. He set it on the table. Bee stared at the fish. She looked up at Cliff. “Great. What else can you tell me about last night? I’m having trouble remembering . . . anything.”

            Cliff pulled a chair around from a table behind him and sat at the end of the booth. “Well, you came in around 9.00 last night, alone. You put a bunch of quarters in the nickel machine and requested “Everyday” to play over and over and over again.”

            Bee closed her eyes. Cliff continued, “You ordered a slice of blueberry pie and a cup of coffee, black. You ate your pie, drank practically none of her coffee, left me a very generous tip, then stumbled out the front door. I think you took your spoon with you. Are you here for your tip back?”

            Bee waved her hands. “No, no. I’m sure you’ve earned it. Thank you.”

Cliff stood up. “Anything else?”

“Nope. You’ve returned my fish to me. That’s all I can ask.”

Cliff nodded, taking his chair as he left. Bee reached into her purse and pulled out the spoon. She set it down in front of her. “Well, that explains two things.”

Chase took a drink of his soda. “The spoon, and what else?”

            Bee pointed to the fish. “Louis. What I don’t know is where I got him.”

            Chase poked the side of the bag. Louis was still upside down, his eyes bugging out as his mouth opened and closed. “He looks like the sort of dejected creature you win in a carnival game.”

            Bee sat up and dug into her pocket. “Wait a minute.”

            “What?” Chase leaned forward.

            Bee pulled the orange ticket from her pocket. “I found this in my pocket. I think it’s a raffle ticket.”

            “Fun-o-rama is going on two blocks from here. Do you think you were there?”

            “It’s a good possibility.”

****

            Fun-o-rama was a traveling festival that appeared overnight, as though whipped out of someone’s pocket, along with some spare bits of paper, leftover popcorn, and cotton candy lint. It screamed, shouted, and taunted the town for a weekend, then was folded up and crammed back into the pocket before the weekend was over, leaving only the dirt and faded smells behind.

For the moment, the strong smell of funnel cakes and corn dogs filled the air, mixing with the salty scent of buttered popcorn as they exploded from the kernels and poured into the glass box. The roar of the rides and the screaming of children and adults alike could be heard from the entrance to the park as Bee and Chase bought their tickets. Bee was walking backwards, trying to take everything in. She bumped into a man, and spun around. “Oh, oh. I’m so sorry.”

            Chase took her hand and led her through the crowd. He leaned over and pointed up to the ferris wheel. “Perhaps we should get a view of the whole park and see if you remember anything.”

The park stretched out below them as the ferris wheel churned in its path. Bee set Louis on the seat beside her. She held onto the front bar and leaned out, absorbing all of the rides, people, and smells. “There have to be about fifteen throwing games in this place. How am I supposed to figure out which one I was at?”

            She turned to look at Chase. His knuckles were white, gripping the bars. His eyes were closed. “Are you okay?”

             “I’m fine, fine. I’m just terrified of heights, that’s all.”

            Bee smiled. “I’m afraid of thunderstorms. When I was little, I used to build a fort out of pillows and stuffed animals and hide in my closet during storms. My dad would always sit outside the doors and tell me that it was just Shango, the African god of weather. He said that when Shango made lightning, you were supposed to yell, 'Cabio Sile Shango.’ I never knew what it meant, but I would shout it at the top of my lungs every time I heard thunder.”

Bee fell into silence as a memory rushed back to her. It was dark. She could taste the cinnamon and crunch of an elephant ear on her lips, could hear the music blaring. Thunder crashed overhead, and she was running through the people, her sticky fingers fumbling before her. She tumbled up a ramp and into a round, dark room. The walls were padded, with dividers where people were supposed to stand. She flopped against a panel and closed her eyes. The ride roared, and she spun, and spun, her body pressed against the wall, the rush of the ride heavy on her chest.

“Your dad is really into mythology then?”

            Bee opened her eyes. “What? Oh, yeah. He works in a museum of natural history and specializes in African mythology. That’s where he got my name.”

            “Bee? That doesn’t sound too African.”

            Bee shook her head. “Bee’s my middle name.”

            “What’s your first name then?”

            “You have to promise not to laugh. It’s silly.”

            Chase held up a hand, “Promise,” he clenched the bar again.

            Bee sighed. “My first name is Bumba. He’s my dad’s favorite African god.”

            “What’s he god of?”

            “Oh, he created the universe. Puked it up,” Chase held back a smile. “Seriously, look it up. My dad named me after the god of barf.”

            Chase shrugged. “That’s not so terribly silly.”

            “Well, no. Not until you put it together and realize that my dad named me Bumba Bee.”

            Chase bit his lip, but a laugh escaped. Bee flicked him with the back of her hand. “You promised you wouldn’t laugh.”

            “I’m sorry. In all fairness, I’ll tell you what my mom used to call me when I was little.”

            “What?”

            “Well, my last name was Winston, and I had this yellow and red sweater I loved to wear all fall and winter, so she used to call me Winnie, as in Winnie-the-Pooh.”

            Bee smiled. She leaned over, laying her hand on top of his, and kissed him on the cheek. He opened his eyes and turned his hand over so that it was holding hers. “What was that for?”

            Bee looked back out across the park. “I forget. Maybe it’ll come back to me.”

She spotted a round ride with bold letters overtop: The Centrifuge. Across from it was a booth with a small boy hurling balls into the tent. Bee sat up and pointed halfway across the park. “Oh! It’s there. It’s over there.”

***

            Bee grabbed Chase’s hand, picking up Louis in the other. She pulled Chase along, ducking and dodging through the crowds. They arrived in front of the stand, breathless, panting. A small boy was leaning against the table, one leg off the ground, standing on his tiptoes. His tongue was sticking out, and he squinted as he aimed his ball at the fishbowls. He threw the ball, and it tinked against the brim of a bowl before bouncing onto the ground. The little boy moaned. He turned around, his head against his chest. Bee knelt down in front of him. He looked up at her, water filling his large brown eyes. “You really wanted that fish, huh?”

            “Y-y-yes. I was going to name him Sharkbait, and he was going to be my very best friend,” the boy rubbed his eyes.

            “Aww. And what’s your name?”

            “Toby.”

            “Tell you what, Toby. I have a fish right here, but I don’t think I can give him the love and attention he deserves. Do you think you could take care of him for me?” Bee held up the bag. Louis boggled at the boy. The boy looked back.

            “I-I could try. I could.”

            Bee placed the bag in his hands. “I named him Louis, but I don’t think he’d mind being called Sharkbait, if you took really good care of him.”

            Toby hugged the bag to his chest. “Haaaa!”

            He ran off. Chase placed a hand on Bee’s shoulder. “That fish is going to be dead in less than a week.”

            “Today is really all that matters to him.”

            “You rrruin my bees-i-ness, gee-ving away fish in front of my stand. Go ‘way.” The man behind the counter crossed his arms and spat at the ground. He glared at Bee.

            “Oh, no. I won the fish here, last night. I think.”

            The man snarled. “Oh, iz you. You win fish, leave keys.”

            “I what?”

            “I give you ball to throw, you throw keys instead. Thrown right in bowl, impaling fish. I give you lumpy fish, keep keys. If you drunk enough to throw keys and steal my ball, you too drunk to drive.”

            “Man, I was having a good night,” Bee reached into her purse and pulled out the ball. She set it on the counter. “Well, I’m fine now, and I’m returning your ball, so, can I have my keys back?”

            “Keys are at front office. I have cell phone though,” The man shoved a cell phone across the table. He pointed to Chase. “Keep an eye on this one. Iz trouble.”

            Chase smiled. “Oh, I know.”

            Bee stuck her tongue out at Chase. She flipped open her cell phone and wandered over to a bench across from the booth. Chase sat down next to her and waited while she listened to her voice messages. Bee pressed a few keys and held the phone near Chase. “Listen to this one.”

            A woman’s voice crackled in. “Bee, where are you?”

The voice got softer as she spoke to someone else. “She was right here. Where could she have gone?”

            “I don’t know, dear. She’s your cousin,” A man said.

            “A load of help you are,” The voice got louder, “Bee, I don’t know where you are, but I’m worried about you. You were acting . . . weird . . . when we saw you.”

The man’s voice cut in again. “We left her right here, on the bench. We were gone for a minute.”

“Bee, just – call me. I hope you’re okay.”

The message ended, and Bee snapped her phone shut. “That was my cousin and her husband. I guess I should try calling them.”

Bee dialed and waited. The phone clicked to voicemail. “Hey, Bri, it’s me. I don’t know where I was last night, or what I did, but I woke up in the hospital this morning – oh, God, you’re going to freak if you hear that. I’m okay. Really, I am. Just a bump on the head. I’m at a carnival with a really nice guy I apparently fell in love with last night, and he helped me find my fish. Call me, okay?”

Bee hung up. Chase smirked. “Y’know, with a message like that, she’s going to be more worried about you now than if you hadn’t called.”

“I said I was okay,” Bee stood up. “I just threw the rest in there to make her call me back faster.”

**

Bee and Chase stepped up to the front gate. Bee held out her raffle ticket. “Hi, yes. I’m here to see if I won the raffle, and to see if you have my keys.”

“Raffle ended last night. A man named Beasley won. What do your keys look like?” The man scratched the bald spot on the back of his head.

“Well, they’re key shaped. Fat on one end, saw-like on the other. There’s a lucky rabbit’s foot on the key chain, though I guess it’s not so lucky.”

“How many keys?”

“Uhhh,” Bee counted on her fingers. “Four.”

“Hold on.” The man turned around and dug around in a box. “Rabbit’s foot, rabbit’s foot.”

“Where to after this?” Chase said.

“Oh, I don’t know. Even if he has my keys, I still have no idea where my car is.”

The man turned around and leaned out over the counter. “What color is the rabbit’s foot?”

 “Purple.”

He bobbed his head and turned around again. “Purple, purple, purple.”

Dink. The sound drifted on the breeze past Bee’s ear, followed by the roar of cheers. Bee turned around and squinted across the street. “What is that?”

Chase looked with her. “What is what?”

Bee had a flash of kids in baseball uniforms running past her, knocking into her. Lemonade spilling from her cup and onto her shoes. She shook her head. “Is there a baseball field near here?”

Chase nodded. “Yeah, across the street. Why, did you remember something?”

“I remember lemonade.”

“Lemonade makes you think of baseball?”

“And these yours?” The man was dangling a set of keys in front of Bee’s face. The purple rabbit’s ear was a pale purple, almost pink. The fur was ratted and falling off. Bee took the keys by the key ring and held them far from face.

“I think I need a luckier rabbit.”

*

            Games were underway at the four baseball diamonds making up the field. Bee and Chase wandered the sidewalk, the dink of a baseball coming into contact with a bat sounding every now and then, followed by cheers, or sympathetic, “awww’s.” Cleets crunched in gravel, and dust flew into the air as bats slid across the plate. Chase looked down at Bee. “Were you here yesterday?”

            “I think so. My cousin’s son plays Little League. They were in the finals.”

            “Oh. What team does he play for?”

            “The Roosters. It’s cute; whenever they score, they all run around crowing. And flapping their arms.”

            Chase smiled. “Do you want some ice cream?”

            “Sure.”

            Bee stared out across the field as she ate her ice cream. Chase folded his money up and secured it with a money clip. Bee pointed to the money clip. “That’s pretty.”

            Chase tucked the money into his pocket. “Thank you. It was my dad’s. He died from cancer when I was twelve. It reminds me of him.”

            “I’m sorry about your dad.”

            “He was a great guy. I don’t think my mom has ever really gotten over him, even after all these years.”

            “Is that why you’re still living here?”

            Chase nodded. “My sisters moved away as soon as they were old enough. Someone had to stick around and take care of her.”

            Bee and Chase walked over to a bench and sat down. “She’s lucky to have you.”

            Chase looked out across the field and watched a ball bounce into left field. Two boys raced after it, mitts in front of them. “She’s a brave woman, my mom. At the end, when my dad was really bad, she never cried in front of us. Sometimes, she’d get this distant look in her eyes, and she’d get really quiet, but then she’d shake her head, laugh, and tickle my sisters until they were rolling on the ground laughing.”

Chase looked down at the crumpled up napkin in his hand. “At night, though, I’d hear her crying. That’s how I knew, it was an act just for us.”

            “I think parents have to be braver than their kids, even if they are faking it. I remember, when I was little, I climbed a tree in the backyard. I got so high, I couldn’t get down. My dad climbed up after me without a thought, and he is about as afraid of heights as you are. The entire time, he just kept looking at me, telling me that it was going to be okay. If he hadn’t been telling me that, I would’ve clung to that branch forever, and lived in that tree. But he gave me the courage to let go of the branch and climb down.”

            Chase put an arm around Bee and held her close. Bee closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around him.

*********

The game had ended, and a new team was warming up on the field. The coach was throwing balls into the air and cracking them out into the field for the kids to catch. Bee and Chase stood up and climbed off of the bleachers. Chase stopped to take a drink from the fountain, and Bee watched the coach practice. Dink.

            It was late afternoon, and the air was balmy. Bee wiped sweat from her forehead and took a sip of her bittersweet lemonade. She walked back towards the bleachers where she could see her cousin and her husband sitting. She heard someone yell, “Go, Patrick. Go!”

            Bee stopped. “Nice butt.” The man turned; he was a young man, blond, with blue eyes. His eyes met hers for a moment, and he gave her a quick crooked smile before he turned back to the game.

            Kids in baseball uniforms rushed past her, knocking her elbow. Her drink spilled, and lemonade splashed around her feet. She walked back to the concession stand and wiped the lemonade off of her arms. She threw her trash away, and looked back for the man. He was at third base, waving for a boy to run towards him. Dink.

            Bee turned and looked up into the air. A something white was whizzing towards her. Bee couldn’t quite make out what it was, and she squinted against the glare of the sun to distinguish the shape. It was roundish and moving fast. She held out a hand towards it, and her fingers stretched to wrap around the form.

            Thwak. The shape connected with Chase’s outstretched hand. His fist was closed around it, the muscles flexed. Bee stared at his fist, inches from her nose, and looked into Chase’s eyes. Chase leaned in and kissed her. He stepped back, and Bee blinked. “I remember where my car is now.”

Author's Note

Please, any comments you can give, I'd be happy to hear them.

Reviews

[Robyn]

That was a great story. I especially loved Dr. Broad's lines. That's an interesting prompt, to start with the ending and end with the beginning. You did so nicely, not giving away too much to start with but enough that by the end it all makes sense. The characters came across as real and the dialogue flowed nicely and moved the story along at a good pace.

[xxlunamaxwellxx]

that was really cute.
keep it up!