Mr. Evans

Mr. Evans favorite fantasy was the one where there's a knock at his door. Young, prim men in suits and ascots inform him that he is the last heir of a Welsh line of royalty and he must return to Wales to claim his inheritance and the family castle. He boards an ocean liner. His is a first class cabin. They disembark in Cardiff, spending the night in a plush, expensive hotel. The next day they travel by coach through wide, green countryside to an enormous white stone castle.

He is escorted inside to be greeted by his household staff who call him Sir, and sometimes Milord. They bring his coffee in bed at 8:00, lemonade on the terrace at 11:00, tea at 3:00 in the study, French wine in the formal dining room at 6:00, brandy in the men's lounge at 7:00 and a nightcap at 10:00 just before bed. A vivid fantasy life is the only way to survive the factory.

Clank-clank-whine - "Your coffee, Sir. Would you like your daily newspaper?"
Press-pop-push - "Your lemonade, Milord. Will you be taking your midday turn in the garden?"
Clack-lackity-clack - "Your tea, Sir. Would you prefer roast or lamb for supper today?"

Clank-clank-whine - "Your wine, Milord. The roast is prepared with potatoes au gratin. May I serve you?"
Press-pop-push - "Your brandy, Sir. May I light the candles in the chandelier for you?"
Clack-lackity-clack - "Your nightcap, Sir. May I help you on with your nightclothes?"

Clank-clank-whine - "Your coffee, Sir. Are you feeling well?"
Press-pop-push - "Your lemonade, Milord. Would you like to read you mail?"
Clack-lackity-clack - "Your tea, Sir. Would you prefer spotted dick or cod for supper today?"

Clank-clank-whine - "Your wine, Milord. The cod fried just as you like it. May I serve you?"
Press-pop-push - "Your brandy, Sir. Would you like to put your feet up on the devan?"
Clack-lackity-clack - "Your nightcap, Sir. May I bring you anything else?"

The Escape

The jaunty whistling grew louder like a nearing train. And just as deadly, she thought as he burst into the kitchen.

"I bought Heather a hat!" His face was blazing, his barrel-chest puffed out in pride as he presented the crumpled and dirty white hat to the room. Arlene could smell the tell-tale sickly-sweet scent wafting in waves from his mouth, clothes and skin.

Here we go.

"Bill, did you spend your paycheck on that hat? I need to buy diapers and milk." Time slowed as the words left her mouth. She felt her skin try to crawl inside to avoid the torrent she knew would come.

His eyes squinted nearly shut and his face turned the purple color she had come to dread. He threw the hat emphatically to the floor and raised the hand that had held it.

"Arlene, I swear to Gawd, can't you just let me enjoy one single thing?" His hand stayed aloft as he stomped on the hat.

"There! Now we don't have diapers, don't have milk and Heather don't have a new hat. You happy?"

Heather's timid face peered around the doorway. Arlene stepped back and to her left to bring Bill's gaze from her eldest daughter. "Is there any money left?"

The hand landed. Arlene fell against the sink with a thud. It had happened so many times before, she thought she shouldn't be surprised anymore, but everytime it hurt the same.

"No! There's no money left, banshee! Maybe if you ever did any work there would be!"

There's no money. I'll have to go empty-handed. So be it. "Of course, dear, you're right. Go put your feet up, I'll fix dinner."

"Damn straight you will and get me a gawddamn beer while you're at it.

After he downed his beer and a double-serving of boxed macaroni and cheese with hotdog pieces, Bill fell loudly to sleep. Not, however, before he could yell to Arlene that his dinner tasted like the ass-end of a skunk.

Arlene fed Allison, Hattie, Katie and Paul, got them cleaned up and put to bed, all the while aware of his rhythmic snoring. They were so quiet on nights like these. They seemed to know that to be a normal loud and enthusiastic child would be to invite danger, so they were silent and subdued. Thank god for that.

She told Heather the plan in a whisper as she packed two suitcases.

"All I need you to do is watch Bill. I ground up a pill and put it in his beer to make his sleep. Just watch him while I get the others into the car."

"What do I do if he wakes up?"

"I don't think he'll wake up, honey. Take this suitcase. Be very quiet. I'll bring down Allison and Paul first. I can trust them to stay in the car while I go get the others. Take that suitcase and get in the car after I bring Katie. Then I'll run back for Hattie and we'll go."

Heather held the suitcase but didn't move. Arlene knelt in front of her daughter and took her small shoulders in the palms of her hands.

"Baby, if he wakes we'll tell him that Allison and Paul have a fever and need to go to the doctor, we didn't want to wake him, so we thought we'd take them along. But he won't wake up. This time we'll get away and he'll never touch you ever again."

Arlene turned back to her silent packing. Heather watched her for a minute, then spoke again, softly. "What will it be like at the shelter?"

Arlene felt tears coming. "I don't know, baby. Probly loud. Probly horrible, but better than here. I promise to figure this all out. I promise no more stepdads. I'm so so sorry. I'll make it up to you. But right now we just have to escape. Can you be strong and help me?"

"Yes, momma. Don't worry."

Arlene closed the suitcase and latched it with a small click. She touched her battered cheek gently, thinking the bruise may help her plead her case at the shelter. She turned to Heather.

"Okay. We're ready. Go on, my brave soldier girl. Take up your post."

Duckling

“I want you to audition for me.”

“Sure you do.” She sets a plate in front of him. ”Here's your hash browns. Sorry they were cold the first time.” She turns.

“Wait. I'm serious.” He pulls a silver card case from his jacket pocket and makes a flourish of pulling out a card and handing it to her between two fingers. “Alan Cooper.”

“Thanks.” She says insincerely as she takes the card and walks back to the kitchen.

“We got another one, Leo.” She flashes the card two-fingered, like they do, eyebrow raised copying the smarmy smile.

“Well tape it to the wall, baby girl, with the rest.”

She finds a spot on the wall of “entertainment” business cards and tucks the new one in. She's a little surprised to see that it says 'The Merradona', but that logo is everywhere. It wouldn't be hard to replicate.

“Order up!” Leonard's voice portrays a line cook's mixture of frenetic activity and monotonous ‘That's the seventy-third over-easy I've fried today’ boredom.

He sees Paulie scrutinizing the card and waves his spatula in her direction, “Don't you get any ideas, tart. I don't need to be bailing your skank ass out of jail after you turn “dancer” for one of those pimps in sheep's clothing and get a coke habit.”

Paulie smiles sweetly over her shoulder, “You mean you'd come bail me out? I didn't know I meant that much to you.” She smacks him on the butt with her free hand as she passes, grabs the plate and heads out of the kitchen.

She sees after she delivers the eggs that Mr. Cooper’s booth is now empty.

Shit. If he walked his tab I swear...

But there on the table is a crisp $100 dollar bill with another business card with the words, “I wasn't kidding,” written on it.

She puts the card in her apron pocket and takes the Benjamin to the register. She calculates the bill and pulls a $93.50 tip out of the register drawer.

Delia Burch

Delia stepped quickly from the train onto the crowded platform in the hope of loosing her pursuer in the throng. She didn’t know why he hadn’t just arrested her outright, but he seemed bent upon remaining undercover, watching her every move from beneath the brim if his hat but not taking any action – yet.

Carrying her red bonnet in her hand, she received berating looks for her uncovered hair and her unladylike roughness as she pushed through the crowd. She willingly tossed decorum to the wind so that the old man who pursued her would not be able to follow her progress by watching her bobbing red bonnet in its slow retreat.

Delia no longer knew who her allies were nor where to find aid. In London she had only two choices. She could either seek a reconciliation with her late father’s estranged elder sister, Lady Nora Burch, or seek instead a reintroduction to the man whose proposal of marriage she had refused two years before, Mr. Charles Maddock. Neither option appealed to her but she was desperate. Who should she approach?

Choose the next step on Delia's path:
Approach Lady Nora Burch - go to Step 1A
Approach Mr. Charles Maddock - go to Step 1B

To follow the path you have chosen for Delia click "continue reading" below.

Alabama Just Desserts

Agnes brushed the red dirt off her dress, put her hat back on and stepped back onto the road. She knew it was Bobby Beechum who had run her off the road with his dad's enormous white Chevy. He’d been a bully since birth and she was sure he would die young and go straight to hell, just like Gran always said.

Now she’d have to sneak into the house before her father could see her and charge her with “rolling around in the hay,” his favorite accusation anytime Agnes looked disheveled. Agnes had never rolled around in anything with anyone, ever, but her father was sure that it was only a matter of time. Based on the behavior of her schoolmates, Bobby among them, she couldn’t really blame him.

“Merciful Lord, girl! What happened to you?!” Thankfully, it was Gran’s voice that greeted her in a holler as she tried to sneak through the back door. Gran was sitting in her usual chair shucking corn.

“Bobby Beechum almost ran me over with his car. I had to jump off the road into the ditch.”

“Lord, that boy is gonna die young and go straight to hell.”

“I know, Gran.” Agnes walked through the kitchen sweet with baking smells. “I’m gonna go change before Daddy sees me.”

“Good girl. Come down after you’re done. I just pulled a pound cake out the oven.”

Agnes opened her bedroom door and found her best friend sitting on her yellow comforter, arms folded and eyes watery. The window she’d climbed through since they became blood sisters at six years old was wide open letting in the Appalachian breeze.

“Sal! What’s wrong?” Agnes knew Sally Hicky well enough to know that watery eyes meant something was terribly wrong. Sally was one of the toughest girls Agnes had ever known and if they hadn’t been best friends, she would have been terrified of her. Sally had three older brothers and no time for cry-babys. She was always telling Agnes to, “Buck Up, Buttercup!”

“We’re moving.” Sally’s voice was unusually high-pitched and wavering.

The Candlestick Maker and the Devil

The candlestick maker was the Devil’s best friend. How, you ask, could that be? How could a human, a man, a candlestick maker, living in the newly minted town of Austin, TX in the mid-1800’s A.D. be the best friend of the most fiendish immortal supernatural being to ever plague the universe? Well, I will tell you.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are the most fiendish immortal supernatural being ever to plague the universe. You really don’t have very many friends, now do you? Even among your hellish legions, thought you are greatly feared, you are not especially liked. And you know, because you share with them an evil spirit, that if your demon horde ever had the chance, they would kill you and feast on your entrails. Even for a fiend that is a lonely existence, especially for eternity. So, about the time human types appeared on the scene, some 400,000 years ago, the Devil, who had had quite enough of being alone, decided to befriend a single human. He would keep his earthly friend for the span of that human's life and when he died (obviously passing in the ranks of the Devil's hellish legions), the Devil would find a new friend. In 1840, the Devil’s earthly counterpart was Frederick Grey, the candlestick maker.

Murph and Mo

Murph and Mo could have been brothers; broad shouldered, black-haired, brown-eyed brothers. They held their head at the same angle. Their hands were the same size. Neither needed many words to get a point across on the rare occasion when they had a point to get across. Both men’s eyes held the same heavy vacancy, although for very different reasons.

Mo drove, Murph sat in the passenger seat; both of them just tall enough to touch the ceiling of the car with the crown of their head if they sat up straight, which they never did. Murph was the leader of their pack of two, which suited Mo perfectly. Their friendship was as effortless as the mindless turning of the wheels beneath them. Like Cain and Abel, they might have had a chance. But everyone, no matter what god they believe in, knows the end to that story.