Here's a story I've been working on for a while now. Those of you who attended Duke TIP session 1's talent show will recognize the beginning; this is the rest of the story. (I sound like Paul Harvey.) The ending still needs work. Comments are welcome.
Mary Ella both looked forward to and dreaded when her friends came over to play Scrabble once a week. She began every Wednesday morning by washing dishes from the night before, usually just a couple of plates and the Corning Ware bowl she baked the casserole in. She scratched at the cheese stuck on the inside of the bowl; it never came out in the dishwasher if she didn’t scrape it first. She hated cleaning the house top to bottom, but if she didn’t do it, her friend Ruby would think she did nothing but watch TV soap operas all day, which wasn’t true; Mary Ella never cared for that dramatic filth. She thought those women needed to learn a little self-control before jumping into bed with every man who said she was beautiful or that he loved her. Those women didn’t know what love was.
When the dishes were done, she wiped off the mahogany dining table before spraying it with Pledge to make it shine and smell like lemons. She and Clyde had been married 47 years, and they knew that love was about staying true to each other during all the ups and downs of the relationship. They had been through a lot together–like when Clyde’s brother Jesse died in Vietnam, or the time their oldest daughter Gloria decided to drop out of Okalona High School three months before graduation, or when twenty-five of their tomato plants got wiped out by a blight. They had gotten through those times, so Mary Ella knew they could handle anything life decided to throw at them.
“I, for one, am glad we stayed together,” she said aloud. “Lord knows I need someone to keep me company as I get older.” She stopped, afraid Clyde had heard her from the living room. She had to remind herself not to talk out loud anymore since Clyde had retired from the lumber mill last month and stayed in the house all the time. The newspaper rustled a little and then everything went quiet again.
She wiped her damp dishtowel across the vinyl seat cushions. She didn’t consider them yet to have reached old age, they were just 65, after all, and had all their original teeth still. That was why she and the other women played Scrabble instead of Bridge or some other old-lady card game. Or heaven forbid, dominoes. Eighty-year-old grandmothers at Marshall County Nursing Home played that and she certainly didn’t want to be lumped in the same category with them. She kept active; she went to aerobics class every Tuesday and Thursday to keep herself fit. An active body ensures an active mind, she thought. That was why she never had time to clean, but Ruby didn’t understand. She had been widowed since before any of them had kids and said she could never bring herself to remarry; she loved Jim too much. Now Mary Ella thought that was taking things too far. Jim had been dead more than thirty years and she still couldn’t move on? Mary Ella wondered what she would do if Clyde died. She would be sad, but she saw no reason in mourning for the rest of her life.
