44 Kansas Street....Chapter 3

Chapter 3........The Hymn.........

She was standing in front of a full-length mirror looking at her newly tanned body. It was golden ebony brown from suns' soft kisses. She had always liked her body; no shame in that but had not befriended a glanced at it in a long time. She wasn’t too bad after two kids and half a century behind her. Her butt still had lift, roundness and some firmness to it. She’d been an athlete all her life and her muscles remembered even if rarely used. Her stomach was almost flat, not 19 flat but not bad for an old heifer. Her breasts were still ok not as pert, not huge but perfectly imperfect. (He use to love them and say they were more than enough)

“I’m in my closet Ruby” “out loud out loud out loud”. not now she thought.

She was slipping. Time to eat.

Ebbie Rose was finally going down to the restaurant for dinner. Tah Daah! She twirled. She was going to try and be people.

Wearing a silkscreened yellow and green flowered chiffon sixties styled ruffled maxi dress, she slips into the dining room. She felt slightly human. She chose a corner booth far from the maddening crowd, she smiled to herself. The waiter approached, it’s the same one from earlier today, he smiles a warm welcome and she sits back. He knows her needs. She liked that. She orders the salmon special with a black truffle salad to start and a beautiful Napa Valley Cabernet, 2012 to be exact. Two sips under her palate, she surveys the room. There were only two other tables occupied and thanks God its off season or maybe just too early for the real vacationers, any which way she would be left alone.

She hadn’t expected fifty to come and go like this. Yes she wanted some time away, no big party but she didn’t expect to be running away from her life or loves. Truth was she thought this milestone would be a celebration of her. Truth, there was that word again. The wine was good and she was getting mellow. Yum, the truth serum of life.

Jeff had come into her life, like a knight in shining armor. He was a pilot. At 6’1” 28 years he was a stunner, he was handsome in a rustic way, smooth silky and boy did he laugh. His joy was her joy, he was a gentle man with manners and a strong sense of right and wrong. She admired his sense of loyalty. It was a whirlwind romance he flew she wrote. At that time she was a columnist for a local newspaper called The Kansas Review. She was happy he was happy they were both happy. What happened?

"Her eyes open like a guppy in a casket", rang in her head.

"Not now"! she reprimanded.

Her food was coming and it was beautiful, she ate like a woman who had been starved of nourishment. She remembered the late night feasts after sex, the food always tasted better. It tasted like that now. "Maybe I should have more breakdowns" she thought and giggled. Truth was... the sex had been a no brainer and no fun for the past 5 years. It had become a chore she didn’t want to do. He had become no fun in out of bed. Somewhere along the way he had become a stodgy old man who no longer laughed, at least not with her. Instead he growled. Truth was she didn’t like him much and she hadn’t for a long time. By now half the bottle was gone and there was another half to go." That'll do pig, that'll do". Mummers and sighs.

Ebbie Rose languished over a two hour dinner, in her food, her company and her tenuous peace. By the time she retired to bed it was a welcomed and well earned slumber. The sun, sea, food and wine had done it's job. She was no longer hiding.....or so she thought.

The dream was not letting go.

Hot she thinks spinning around with compass lost. She was hot, too hot, skin hot, head hot, breath hot, burning.

She calls, Sara are you fucking him? Click. I stink. “Think Out loud” she says as she dials again. Saliva the size of marbles begins erupting from her mouth she wretches but nothing comes. No time for this crazy metamorphosis shit she thinks, it bubbles out; she has a question to ask. I’m rabid she giggles. Click. Calls again, “I asked you a question “, what now? Ears won't stop ringing; she slams her hand repeatedly into her head. Stop she screams, cause she had to hear what she already knew. “Bitch“ it moans from my head to my heart “ I asked you a question.” She knew. Just like she knew she was six month pregnant with demon spawn and had to get rid of it. Deep, deep, crack beloved.

She sits up in bed sweating head and heart in a vice. Someone was screaming. She covers her face with a her two hands and breathes eventually willing herself to lie back down but the sweet sleep wouldn’t come. Her head continues:

She got out of bed, opened a bottle of tequila she’d found in the gift shop which was way too expensive and poured a drink no ice no salt no lime that was for dilitants she was a purest. Tonight was bad she couldn’t hide in the dreams.

The truth was her marriage was over. The truth was setting her free kicking and screaming. "There" she said, "The bogeyman can’t get me anymore".

Her stomach lurched, her heart contracted. She couldn’t sit still. She levitated off the chair and stalked the room from end to end corner to corner. It was a nice room. She really hadn’t seen it for the first two days. Until today, She didn’t even see it the day she booked it. Somehow she must have because it was a luxury junior suite on the beach and she had flown first class. “No job” her stomach flipped. “ Deal later, not now”. She drank more. It was her style, mid century modern with clean lines and warm colors a floor to ceiling window that opened to a balcony terrace. She opened the doors to the terrace and stepped out. The air was humid salty and warm like bathwater. She got the bottle and sat down, on impulse she went back in for her notebook. She’d gotten into the habit of walking with a notebook in college and more so after her time at The Kansas Review. It was for little things that came in her head. Jeff use to think it was cute in the beginning then, he hated it saying it was rude and weird, so she tried not to do it in his presence. She suspected he hated that she was smarter than him. So she got small. Did he think Sara was cute? She couldn’t avoid it any longer so she let the memories take her.

Jeff had been a pilot in the Air Force. He had enlisted right out of high school and by the time he left he was an expert on almost every aircraft in the service. He was a geek at heart so it came naturally. He’d become a commercial pilot at 27 and a Captain by the time Ellie came along at 35, by then he was certified to fly almost every aircraft in the airline industry. His blood lust was to fly everything. It was in every cell of his body and it made her, love him more. He was an overachiever without even trying. He was always on the fast track when he never wanted to be. Everyone who met him liked him even her parents liked him and they never liked anyone she went out with or even lived with. They wanted good for him like he was their own. That was part of her disappointment with him with them. Her parents put their faith in him career wise more than they ever did her. Yes they loved her but he was the golden child. Jeff, was kissed by the Gods and as a God, they all kissed him, worshiped him.

Ebbie trusted Jeff with her life, she trusted her kids, his kids with their lives. She still did. She wasn’t sure what happened to men as they got older as their hair began to fall out and their libido dropped and the kids came and the bills came and they straddled the ladder to be where their father had ruled the roost or compete to surpass his place on the top tier. She didn’t know because she wasn’t a man and assumed there was some primitive force that drove the young male lion to kill the leader and take over the pride. She didn’t understand what it meant to be a man and could not fault him for when he came up short. Her father had on many occasions tried to explain but she didn’t understand because she was not a man. She didn’t love him less in fact she loved him more because to her he was more of a man. She idolized him and held him on a pedestal. Yes he was her protector but as he aged he was her champion. As the stepping-stones became bigger and higher Jeff began to change. Image became more important than reality. She became a function of his life more than a companion. The kids were irksome pets best seen and not heard. The what became more important than the who he was. And she was silent. She tried many times to open the door but the questions were always silenced with a snarl. She had somewhere along the line become an idiot.

"I should write again," she thought. She missed it. Why had she given it up? Grown ups don’t chase dreams, they make a real living to provide for their family. Off the path, she skipped, to the land of when she stopped living. She couldn’t have seen that in what lay before her only in the here we are after and it was beginning to be a glimmer now. What would she write if she could write where would she be if she had continued writing? Could she write anymore? She hadn’t written anything for over 10 years. So she drank and surrendered to what she knew. Writing was never work even when she had a deadline. When it's heat rose it became more fun, it was a high unlike any other. It was better than sex, than food, than being high. It was her ultimate high. She went backwards to the things she wrote and found she was there in between the line in the rifts in the pictures and melodies of the words, she was still there. She just had to find the beginning.

Continue reading.....Posession is only nine tenths.

#serialnovel #womenstories #DianneKRamirez