September Flash tale #1 - "Repossible"

Walgreens

Scottsville, KY

Waiting in line to pick up a prescription, Elizabeth is tempted to keep holding her daughter’s hand. To stop the girl wandering through the automatic doors and into some maniac’s car.

The divorced mother-of-one feels a stiffness in her chest, a return of a feeling where there isn’t enough space to take a deep enough breath. Because children are hard work; they are all of the time, every waking (and sleeping!) moment.

Elizabeth glances around her, ostensibly taking in the goods that the drugstore offers, but really looking at the people. As is common, Elizabeth can be confident that her checking account is healthier than anyone else’s here. She is a wealthy woman, she doesn’t need to work, but for a moment, she resents her daughter’s very existence. There must come a time, an age, when you don’t have to watch your child anymore. Isn’t there a point at which mother can get her own life back?

Elizabeth sniffs at the idea. Preposterous. At fifteen, Lacey is still as naïve as she was a decade before. Elizabeth can’t afford to let the girl out of her sight.

Which, of course, is precisely why she has just hired a nanny.

Melissa Jane, offering her services…where? For the moment, Elizabeth can’t remember. A website, perhaps. Or word-of-mouth. At first glance, the young woman hadn’t seemed like a good fit. The graphic print T-shirt, and jeans.

Come on.

You don’t go to a business meeting, a job interview, dressed like that. Elizabeth had made an effort in her navy blouse and dress pants. Now, she looks up at the security monitor behind the pharmacist and can see the fall highlights in her hair, courtesy of Spoke and Weal in Nashville.

In stark comparison, did this twenty-something woman sporting the casual ponytail of reddish-brown hair look responsible? Did she seem as though she could take some of the weight off Elizabeth’s shoulders?

Get real.

At the coffee shop where they met, she had joked with Lacey, told her to call her ‘MJ’. When Lacey had asked about MJ’s perfume, the woman had pulled a small bottle from her pocketbook and sprayed the air between them, resulting in blinks and giggles, while Elizabeth had covered her eyes and coughed.

Well, really. Was she really asking so much? The job of nanny for a fifteen-year-old surely wasn’t that onerous; to be with Lacey when she gets home from school, to supervise homework, mealtimes, and…yes, to make sure the teenager doesn’t go off with some maniac.

But there was something about Melissa Jane. Something in her tone that seemed to overcome all of Elizabeth’s misgivings. And perhaps it came down to what had Melissa Jane said back at the Beautiful You café:

“Keeping track of teenagers is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.”

Of course, no one in her household would be allowed to eat Jell-O, but Melissa Jane’s words rang true. Many parents worry about where their older children get up to on their phones and in their cars. But Elizabeth worries about what goes on in her daughter’s mind; such a dreamer, away in her own private realm.

“She’s always been this way,” Elizabeth complained, looking at her daughter and daring her to disagree. “I try to tell Lacey about the dangers of the world, but I swear, it’s like talking to a fence post.”

At that, Melissa Jane had given Elizabeth a knowing smile. “You want a few things taken off your plate. You want a chance to relax, safe in the knowledge that someone else is taking responsibility.”

Elizabeth could have cried with relief. Finally, someone had heard her!

After Elizabeth had shaken hands with the new nanny, they had driven 7 miles along highway 98 to Scottsville so that Elizabeth could pick up her Clonazepam, which is when the day had gone from stressful to strange.

“Welcome to Walgreens!” called the cashier when Elizabeth, Lacy, and the nanny had entered the drugstore. So far so normal, but wasn’t there something odd about the way a customer in the cosmetics aisle had looked at Elizabeth? The old woman barely seemed to notice the nanny, smiled politely at Lacey, and then she beamed at Elizabeth. Beamed. As if Elizabeth was the cutest, most adorable thing she’d ever seen.

Absurd, to read all of that into a silly old woman’s expression. But it had been enough to stop Elizabeth in her tracks, and there had been a moment where she had somehow felt deserving of the smile.

No, not the smile. The beam.

Because she was the most adorable thing. She was the sweetest, cutest, girl. Elizabeth had felt a smile tug at her lips. She wanted to beam back at the nice old lady, who was taller than her, because pretty much everybody was. She wanted to be a sweet and simple girl!

The moment passed. Elizabeth blinked. She glared at the old woman; probably senile.

Elizabeth had stridden past, pulling on Lacey’s hand, the teen always managing to be distracted by something, staring at the range of homeopathic remedies as if she were planning to cook up some kind of spell. Elizabeth didn’t stop until she found the line for picking up prescriptions at the back of the store.

She took her place behind a man wearing grimy overalls. “Lacey, you sit down with Miss Melissa, stay out of trouble.” Elizabeth points at a pair of red plastic chairs.

“Yes, ma’am,” Lacey replies. She sits down with her hands folded neatly on her lap. No sign of a smart phone, which makes sense, because Elizabeth has refused to let her daughter have one. Because she’s not responsible. Because she would lose it the second she owned one.

Lacey says something to the nanny, speaking too softly for Elizabeth to hear.

The nanny smiles at Lacey. “Any minute now. And call me MJ, remember?”

“She can call you ‘Miss Melissa’,” barks Elizabeth.

“Next in line?”

Elizabeth finds herself at the head of the line. She approaches the pharmacist, armed with her phone. “Picking up for Grady.” She recites her date of birth and the first line of her address.

She watches with a mixture of irritation and anxiety as the pharmacist, a buxom Black woman with braided hair, looks at her with the same expression as the old lady from before.

“Hey there, sugar,” the clerk says. “You picking up for Mommy?”

Elizabeth opens her mouth to reply, to cut the woman in half, but her voice comes up empty, and she watches, horrified, as the clerk smiles at her. As she beams.

Elizabeth smiles back. She can’t help it; her facial expression must be on autopilot. When she smiles, she can feel everything shift – from the hair on her head, to her thickening underwear, all the way down to the disappearing heels on her footwear.

“Where’s your mommy?” asks the pharmacist, who seems much taller than her, looking past her at the line.

Elizabeth turns her head to look at the other customers, and for a dizzying moment she’s sure that her own mother will be standing right there, but of course she’s not, she lives out of state, she…

Elizabeth frowns. Where does Mommy live? Why isn’t she here right now? And what on earth is Elizabeth doing, standing in front of the drugstore lady? Is she playing a game? Is she pretending to be a grown-up?

The other people are looking around as well because they’re not Mommy, they’re just people, but they’re helping to look for Mommy.

And then Elizabeth looks over at the woman and the teenager sitting in the red chairs. And she remembers.

There’s Lacey. There’s the nanny. Elizabeth blushes at her own confusion. What’s wrong with her? What has just gone through her mind? Again, a physical and emotional change flashes through her, from head to foot. She’s not adorable, she’s not simple. She is not someone to be beamed at.

Elizabeth clears her throat, looks directly at the pharmacist, who isn’t as tall as she had seemed a moment ago.

“Picking up for Bradley,” she says, taking care to speak with her usual crisp enunciation. She reaches inside her bag for her driver’s license. Let’s get organized. Let’s get this show on the-

Her bag is gone. She has nothing. And her navy blouse is now white a T-shirt. She looks down with mounting horror to find the letters A, B, and C decorating her chest, with brightly colored fruit hanging from the letters.

An apple, a banana, a cherry.

A…B…C…she strokes the letters, the smile from before tugging at her lips, as she feels a warm sense of pride. She knows her letters. She’s a smart cookie. And there’s a song about letters, isn’t there. She could sing it right now, let everyone know just how good and smart she is.

Stop it.

She looks back up at the pharmacist. “This isn’t my…”

“Where’s your mommy?” the pharmacist asks again, now sounding concerned.

“No!” Elizabeth grips her phone. She’ll make a call. Who? Anyone. Anyone who can make this stop.

But the object in her hand isn’t a phone.

Elizabeth cries out in surprise and drops the stroller toy to the floor. She stares at her empty hand as if she doesn’t recognize her own body.

“Oopsy,” says a mild voice. Elizabeth turns to see the nanny’s smiling face. “You dropped Cloudy!”

Elizabeth blinks stupidly. “I…huh?”

Melissa Jane beams at Elizabeth. “You dropped Cloudy,” she says again. And then she says to the teenage girl beside her, “Pick up your baby sister’s toy, honey.”

Elizabeth watches in stunned silence as Lacey crouches down and scoops up the toy.

“Here you go,” Lacey says, offering it to Elizabeth. “Here you go, Libby.”

The nickname is as ridiculous as the fact that Elizabeth’s daughter towers over her.

She looks down at the object in her hands. A plush cloud with a handle that’s begging to be pulled. Elizabeth does so and is rewarded with a vibration that is at once a novelty and a repetition. That’s what Cloudy does.

“Oh,” moans Elizabeth, the stiffness returning to her chest, her lungs refusing to take in enough oxygen. She looks up at Lacey and the nanny. “What’s happening?”

It’s Melissa Jane who supplies the answer. She crouches in front of Elizabeth and says, “Make your eyes all fierce, Libby, like you got a big mad.” She shows with a fierce expression of her own, and it’s enough to make Elizabeth feel on the verge of tears.

But when she narrows her eyes, the world comes back. She resumes her normal height, and she gasps as the stroller toy turns back into her phone.

The nanny nods. “There. Just for a moment.” She points at the monitor behind the pharmacist and then says brightly, “Show me your happy face, Libby, give me that pretty smile!”

Elizabeth isn’t in the mood for smiling, but she does relax her eyes, and she watches the monitor as she changes once more into someone else.

No, not someone else. Just a much younger form. Her lettered T-shirt returns, and her expensive highlights change into fluffy pigtails.

“That’s what everyone sees now,” Melissa Jane says. “It’s a glamor, but it’s really enough, and it’s what you’ll feel, when we say the magic word.”

Elizabeth stares at the nanny, who as it turns out, is something much more. She should offer money, she should make legal threats. She knows the judges, she has resources and friends in the highest of places.

But she doesn’t do any of those things. Instead, she gazes at Melissa Jane and says simply, “Magic word?”

MJ nods. “I’m going to let your daughter…I mean your big sister say them. This is all her idea, after all. She shows a lot of talent.” She smiles at Lacey and then gives Elizabeth a neutral look. “She just wanted you to let her grow up, but you wouldn’t budge.” MJ shrugs. “And here we are.”

Elizabeth shakes her head as her daughter bends down and whispers into her hear, “It’s okay, Momma. It’ll just a be a tickle and then you’ll feel all better.”

She should run. But she’s rooted to the floor.

“No, please. I’m the responsible one. I’m the parent. I have to take care of you!”

Lacey’s words enter her ear, and as advertised, they do tickle.

Elizabeth decides that she will ignore them. She clutches the toy between her little hands, as if she can turn it back into a phone with sheer willpower. “But I’m the res…I’m the…” She looks almost cross-eyed as she searches for the correct word. “Imma respossible!”

Melissa Jane pats the pigtailed toddler on the head and nods. “Repossible. Aren’t you precious.”

Elizabeth squeaks with rage. But when she tries the trick from before - to look angry, to look fierce - nothing happens. Because the tickles are everywhere, and she forgets about looking angry, she forgets all about narrowing her eyes, because there’s so much to see as the tickles simplify her brain and let her see the world with fresh, innocent eyes.

She looks down at Cloudy. She loves her Cloudy. She presses the crinkling raindrop and the squeaking sun. Yes, it’s all utterly familiar and reassuring. She smiles open-mouthed; she should put Cloudy in her mouth, she should suck on it and be the most adorable and innocent of little girls.

Kacey nods at the pharmacist. “Picking up for Bradley.” A prescription for her baby sister’s constipation. Libby will be glad of her thick diaper tonight, but that’s okay, that’s normal, she’s just a baby, and she takes her big sister’s hand and waddles out of the drugstore.

THE END

Elizabeth hires a nanny for her teenage daughter, but Melissa Jane insists that Elizabeth isn't the mommy, she's the baby sister. - Byron