So Perfect by Judy Cabito, Martini, shaken not stirred

 The doorbell rang at six o’clock. Karen welcomed their guests Bob and Cynthia from Dave’s office. They aren’t a couple per se. Bob, Dave’s employee, is always willing to escort Cynthia, Dave’s secretary, if Bob needed Dave to do him a favor. Cynthia knew this, Bob knew this and Dave knew this, Dave just didn’t know that Karen knew so much.

‘Happy New Year’s Eve,’ Karen said, swinging the door wide open. She accepts a social kiss on the cheek from Bob and a chilly hand from Cynthia.

‘We the first?’ Cynthia asked, advancing toward Dave.

‘Oh heavens,’ Karen said, as she took Bob’s overcoat and scarf. ‘You’re the only ones. I thought a quiet evening with just the four of us was what we needed here.’

Earlier that day, Karen and Dave began preparations for this evening’s event. They’re a stylish young couple, appearing to enjoy marital bliss. They own all the newest electronic devices, drive the latest fuel-efficient cars, live in a modest up-and-coming neighborhood, have chic jobs, Karen a personal-shopper with a sharp-eye for detail, and Dave a market-analyst who works long hours… suspiciously long hours.

While Karen takes pride in her home’s outward appearance with its aqua blue shutters against a yellow clad-facade, trimmed in junipers, and an array of pastel powder-puff hyacinth and hydrangeas, Dave works overtime.

For every occasion Karen decorates the door, keeping an eye open for anything that would tarnish the perfect look of their perfect life. In spring their door hosts a Pink Bunny, at Halloween a jack-o’-lantern, for Thanksgiving a cornucopia, winter a wreath, and on New Year’s Eve, nothing.

Karen complained right off, ‘Wal-Mart had nothing to put on the door for our New Year’s event. It ruins everything.’ She seemed perfectly upset and went to their perfectly decorated bedroom, bedecked with a DKNY comforter and shams, Martha’s best linens, a Persian rug, and a bedside lamp dimmed to a perfect intensity. She shut the door and refused to come back out.

‘Karen,’ Dave whined at the door. ‘Not everything has to be perfect, be more flexible. Besides, we have company coming. You can’t be this way now, you must forget it, nothing will change it.’

Karen refused to open the door or speak.

At five, Dave picked up his cell phone and made calls from Karen’s list of invitees she left next to her phone. Karen heard his excuse through the door. ‘She’s ill. No… no, she’ll recover in a day or so. No… no one should be around her. Sorry about the inconvenience.’

He then set about putting the food away when Karen emerged.

‘What are you doing? We have company coming, it’s New Year’s Eve,’ she said.

Dave stuttered, ‘I, I thought… I, I called everybody. Told them you were ill.’

‘Don’t mind about that. Just put things back.’

Now as Karen leads her guests into the parlor, Bob looks hungry; Cynthia nervous, Dave suspicious, no… mortified. 

And Karen? Well, she looks perfectly prepared.

About the author

Judy Cabito writes fiction. Her stories have been published online and in print, such as CafeLit, Everyday Fiction, Gator’s Spring Gazette, Foliate Oak, Salome Magazine, and Flashquake. Some publishers still exist, some don’t. Judy lives in the Lake Tahoe area of Nevada, USA.

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Amateur Night by Judy Cabito, cola

Jacob’s arm slipped over May’s shoulder. She didn’t move. The movie, a B-rated horror flick, makes her giggle when the amateurish cloaked Dracula casts a look over the audience from the corner of his eye. Somewhere off stage, a Bela Lugosi impersonator appeared, then jumped off the stage and into the fog.

     The car window was down on her side. Came the soft sound of crickets from the marsh across the way. Cigarette smoke floated in. She looked to see where it came from. She rolled the window up. When she turned back, his lips brushed her cheek. The windshield clouded from their warm breaths, and in the condensation, he fashioned a heart.

     It was early spring along Issaquah Creek, and the night air was chilly. 

     Now she thinks back to the drive-in movie. The house is still, but the bed is half empty. From little Jacob’s crib, come whimpers. It’ll be another hour before she’ll be able to sleep.

     She tries to recall the dark, the fog and the heart. She wishes now if only she could remember their last kiss.

About the author

  Judy Cabito writes fiction; she's crazy about flash fiction, the shorter the better. She has had many stories, including short stories, published in the last twenty years. She hales from Lake Tahoe, Nevada, USA. 

Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee? Half of what you pay goes to the writers and half towards supporting the project (web site maintenance, preparing the next Best of book etc.)

Camp Fires

By Judy Cabito

cup of joe

  

She separates me from the tribe with a scorching stare. 

I look away. Try to look absorbed and unavailable, hoping the embers land on someone else, while I look for a line of defense, demarcation. To camouflage, I count the panes of glass, the ceiling tiles, the infinite specks of sparkles in the linoleum floor, then adding worth and value to each, multiplying importance and dividing that among the inert - one times everything else could equal an escape plan. I engineer the mass into a Menger Sponge and at last a host of tortuous origami swans. I make sense of the code of relativity on the blackboard and arrange the pencils by grades of lead from 1 to 10 while reciting Ptolemy’s Almagest and Descarte’s La Geometrie. Thus no time to watch the hands on the clock, multi-tasking agents, plead learned theories against passing time.

Then her voice.

It brings on a commotion and everyone shuffles around me, circling the vulnerable covered wagon. They hold their hands and scalps in prayer amid screams, smoke signals, and whirling tomahawks. Woo, woo, woo…

"Samantha?"

The weaklings look away.

“Samantha.”

“Yes.”

“Are you prepared?”

Why put me through this? What is the point? Is there time to count to a trillion or calculate the path of a snail?

“Samantha!” 

No hiding now. 

"Samantha, will you please spell cat?" 

And so begins, first grade. 

About the author

About the Author: Judy lives in the Lake Tahoe area of Nevada. She’s a student of creative writing and she writes every day, all day, because she’s retired.