A Bit of Preloved by Paula R C Readman, icy coffee

 Preloved! The word screamed at me from across the road as a banner fluttered above the window of a vintage clothing shop opposite to where I sat drinking coffee— the bitterness of the flat white only added to the sour taste in my mouth. I couldn’t believe the situation I was in after five wonderful years of marriage.

Preloved!

After five years of a loving relationship, I discovered I was married to a screaming banshee. A recent business trip had me away from home much longer than I expected, and it turned out to be far more difficult than I hoped as I searched for a good supplier to restock my shop. The moment I arrived home, an explosion of verbal abuse instead of a happy wife confronted me; it broke my heart, but no amount of sweet-talking could pacify Sabrina.

‘You are a liar and a cheat, Jethro! I’m tired of waiting at home while you fly off around the world. Oh, you say you have to travel for business reasons, but I’m not as dumb as you think I am. Well, enough is enough. I will wait no more. I want out.’

And, just like that, she left.

Preloved!

A marriage needs trust to survive. Hadn’t I video-called her every night to let her know how much I loved her while I sat eating fast food in the bedroom of the bed and breakfast accommodation?

The sun glinted off my wedding ring as I reached for my coffee cup— a reminder that, at least I had something worth selling. After knowing Sabrina for less than six months, I foolishly told my friends I was in love and I wanted to marry her. They said love is blind and quoted the adage: Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Blinded to the point of distraction by Sabrina’s beauty, I failed to see her faults and proved my friends were right.

The rings had cost a small fortune, along with the wedding. Our wedding day had been all about what Sabrina wanted, which should’ve been a red flag to me. Well, at least, the house had been what I wanted; I bought it before I met Sabrina. Still, she had walked away with it, along with the car and our savings— no, the savings that I had put aside to expand the business and to support our dreams. I tugged the ring off my finger and slipped it into my pocket.

A gush of wind raced down the alley, rattling the cables holding up the banner that read, ‘Fifty percent off all preloved clothes.’

‘If only the judge had awarded my now ex just fifty percent of everything, I wouldn’t have such a sour taste left in my mouth,’ I muttered into my coffee cup.

After leaving the courthouse alone, I hurried across the road seeking somewhere to sit and contemplate the worst morning of my life and to escape the gazes and bitter comments from my wife’s entourage.

Preloved!

The fluttering banner outside a vintage shop kept distracting me from my thoughts. Sighing, I wondered why I had wasted so much time and energy trying to keep Sabrina happy rather than focusing on what would make us both happy. Not once did she offer to find a job or help me build the business. For a woman who loved spending a fortune on clothes, with money she hadn’t earned— I was surprised when she showed no interest in my line of work.

Preloved!

Sabrina always said she wouldn’t be seen dead wearing someone else’s cast off and would only wear branded clothing. Lucky for me, she didn’t know how much my business turnover was, because in her eyes, it was as worthless as a charity shop to her. Having made a decision, I set my cold coffee down and stood. Now that I'm preloved, it's the perfect time to sell my vintage clothing business, and make a fresh start.

About the author 

 

Paula R. C. Readman is a prolific writer and has penned six books and over a hundred short stories. She lives in an Essex village with her husband, Russell. Blog: https://colourswordspaper.blog or just Google Paula R C Readman, and something’s bound to pop up. 

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Delphine by Liz Cox, kir royale

 Delphine drew the ecru lace curtain away from the window, so she could watch him as he strode down the boulevard. He had a spring in his step and wore his hat at the jaunty angle she loved so much. It was four o’clock in the afternoon and she accepted he had to leave. She accepted many things. She knew he lived in the better part of the city, in an elegant apartment with a wrought iron balcony and heavy draped curtains overlooking the Champs Elysées. She knew because she had followed him. She closed her eyes to shut out the memory of him strolling in the park with his beautiful wife Lisette and two charming children. She dropped the curtain and sighed, pulling the rose silk peignoir he had bought for her across her body.

She had met Jean-Paul one stormy November evening in her brother’s restaurant where she was a cashier. He had doffed his elegant hat and then handed it to her to place in the cloakroom along with his cashmere overcoat. His smile lit his deep brown eyes from within. She smiled as she remembered stroking the soft material as she hung his coat carefully on a hanger. He was with a group of male friends and as they ate and drank, he kept looking over at her and smiling. She had blushed at the time and cast her eyes down to her ledger. When the party left, as he collected his coat and hat from the waitress, he had made a bow to her where she sat behind the office window. The window was mullioned and distorted his features making his smile crooked. She saw the men gathered outside the restaurant shouting their goodbyes, but his face was obscured by the misted gold script on the window advertising Le Pichet d’Or.

Roland, her brother, had left her to close that night, as her sister-in-law was unwell. The rain was lashing down, and the street was awash. She thought she detected one or two early snowflakes in the light of the streetlamp. Struggling with her umbrella, she pulled down the blinds and locked the door. She looked over her shoulder, eyes sharp, on the lookout for danger. A figure stepped out of the shadows. Delphine flattened herself against the damp wall and froze. It was midnight, not the time or place for a woman to be out on her own in this quarter of Paris.

‘What do you want? She cried. ‘I have no money. Go away before I call for the gendarme.’ 

He stepped out of the alley and placed himself under the gas lamp, so she could see his face. She breathed a tentative sigh of relief but still dug her fingernails into the brickwork. She was aware that she could be in danger. He tipped his homburg, and as he did so, she recognised the customer who had smiled at her throughout the evening.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just wanted to talk to you.’

Delphine wiped her hands on her serviceable navy winter coat then pulled her worn-out hat over her ears against the cold and wet. She caught their reflection in the window of the boulangerie across the road. A drab young woman in an old-fashioned hat standing next to a tall exquisitely dressed man with dark wet hair curling over his collar. She turned away, unable to acknowledge the picture they made.

‘I’m sorry but I must go home, it’s getting late,’ she whispered. He caught her hand as she began to walk down the wet pavement. She tried to twist from his grip.

Liz writes short stories and poetry and is just finishing her first novel. She lives in North Yorkshire and at the time of writing is looking out at the sheep and their new lambs in the field behind her house.

‘Let go! I tell you, let go!’ She scoured the street hoping to see a gendarme or at least another human being as she tried to shake herself free.

He dropped his hand and stood there meekly before her in the street, as the rain soaked into his overcoat and down his neck.

‘Don’t go. Please come and have a drink with me,’ he pleaded. ‘Come out of this weather, I know a small bar around the corner which will still be open.’ He gently took her elbow.

Delphine did not know why she was allowing this man to propel her along against her wishes. She dragged her feet along the pavement. She had encountered countless men like this one, young, wealthy, out for a good time in her poor arrondissement before going back to their wealthy families. Men who picked up women and discarded them on a whim. But something about this man was compelling.

She hesitated, as he pushed open the door. People knew her in this area, what would her brother think? She had a reputation to uphold. She was known for her morality in this part of the city where women would do anything to survive.

‘No, I cannot,’ she said firmly. ‘I’m sorry but I must go home.’ 

He released her arm and bowed.

‘I really would like to get to know you. Can we meet somewhere in the daylight? Tomorrow perhaps? I don’t want to cause you any harm.’

The soft golden light through the window of the bar illuminated his features. Delphine thought him handsome in a coarse kind of way which belied his obvious wealth. His eyes smiled down at her as they stood under a streetlight, a beam fractured into a million shards by the persistent rain.

‘I will meet you tomorrow morning at 10 by the Notre Dame. I will wait for you there. I will be at the market.’ Delphine turned and hurried away leaving the young man standing in the street.

When she reached the safety of her apartment, she leaned against the door, shutting out the night. What had she done? Secretly, she realised that something was carrying her along a trajectory out of her control. She could just not go tomorrow, but she knew she would. She went to her window and looked out at the dark and dismal night. Had he followed her? There was a movement on the corner of the street, and she craned her neck to see what it was. She even opened the window. It was only two tom cats fighting over the overflowing rubbish bin from the nearby café.

Next morning when she rose, the sun was streaming through the tiny square windowpanes making fleeting patterns around her room. It was sunny. She would go to the market. Or would she? As if in a dream, she washed, splashing the chilly water from the jug to the basin. She pulled on her clothes, trying to rub a dirty mark off her best dress. It was already 9.30, if she were going, she would have to leave now.

He was there when she arrived, examining the caged birds in the market. Hiding behind a stall so he wouldn’t see her, she watched him. He was looking at his watch, raising it on its ornate gold chain every few seconds, then dropping it back into his waistcoat pocket. She checked her appearance in the bright café window opposite, smoothing down her skirt and tucking a stray curl under her hat. He had discarded the coat from last night and was wearing a smart check suit and carried a cane with what looked like a silver hound’s head on the top. She looked again at her own reflection. Now was the time to turn back.

He turned around and saw her. A huge smile broke out on his face, and he hurried towards her.

‘You came,’ he said, catching her hands in his.

She freed her hands and stepped back from him.

‘I’m sorry. I’m too eager to see you.’ He fell in beside her as she began to walk towards the cathedral.

‘My name is Jean-Paul,’ he said, ‘Will you tell me yours? I already know your brother is Roland.’

‘I’m Delphine,’ she replied.

They walked along in silence through the heavy oak door and into the cool interior of the church. Delphine looked up at the magnificent Rose window just as the sun streamed through illuminating them in a strange blue glow. She genuflected to the altar and slipped into a pew at the back of the building. Jean-Paul followed her.

They sat gazing at the beautiful displays of white lilies illuminated by the soft candlelight of the wall sconces. This time when Jean-Paul reached for her hand she did not withdraw it. She had made her decision for good or ill.

 

She dropped the curtain across the window and turned back into the room. The fire still glowed softly in the grate and as she cleared away the wine glasses from the table the cutglass sparkled like diamonds, but with a red stain. She loved her Jean-Paul and although difficult, she would never regret her decision. 

 

About the author 

Liz writes short stories and poetry and is just finishing her first novel. She lives in North Yorkshire and at the time of writing is looking out at the sheep and their new lambs in the field behind her house

 

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Forgiveness by Barry Garelick, cappucino

In the fall of 1970, during my senior year at the University of Michigan, I convinced myself that I would have a better chance being a writer than a mathematician. I dropped out and figured I would work at any job I could get to support myself. The only job I could get was unloading telephone books from a truck into the cars of people who were to deliver them. The job was to last three days—I quit after the first. During that first day, around the time when my arms became like rubber and I could hardly even lift one phone book, I had a flash of insight and decided to return to school and get my degree. Then I would become a writer.

In the summer of 1971, after taking my last math final, I vowed to never set foot in another math classroom in my life, telling myself that if I ever did I would puke. That fall, I told my parents I was moving to San Francisco. I had made it clear I wasn’t going back to school for a masters. “What are your plans?” my father asked.

“I just told you”

“What about a job?” he asked.

“I’ll find work,” was my reply. I explained that my intent was to work at whatever, so I could write at night and make it as a writer. This seemed as plausible and realistic as anything else I could be doing or that anyone else was doing.

“But what are your plans?” he asked.

“Those are my plans,” I said.

At that time it looked like the war in Viet Nam would never end and it seemed that countercultural values would stay forever. The war did end eventually and countercultural values seemed to fall by the wayside when the majority of the counterculture that wasn’t drafted went to grad school. And when they entered the work force, the final death knell was struck.

Over the course of the next thirty plus years, the world was to change many more times, and I along with it. Eventually I made my peace with the mathematics I thought I had left behind. Ironically my start on this journey back came about through a girl I had left behind—a dark haired girl with whom I kept up a correspondence and occasional passionate visit for two years after I had left school. She got accepted to graduate school at Stanford and moved out to the west coast. It took all of about two weeks for us to discover there wasn’t much behind our romance and we broke up—or at least I thought we had.  She called me one morning, very sad about the break-up and asked me to please come to a housewarming party she and her housemates were throwing in Palo Alto. She was crying, so I said yes.

The party was rather dull; the handful of people who showed up camped out in private spaces within the party boundaries and avoided talking with one another. In the meantime, I was dedicated to stay broken up with my ex-girlfriend which became evident to her when all the guests had gone and I asked “Where am I going to sleep?”

She seemed taken aback by this while at the same time pretending to take it in stride. She disappeared for five minutes and when she came back, she told me I could sleep in one of her housemates’ room which was the only one that had two beds in it.

I was alone for a few minutes in her housemate’s room relieved at how things had worked out. “That was easier than I expected,” I thought as I stood, clad in my boxer shorts, in front of a large bookcase. I caught sight of the book “Men of Mathematics” by Eric Temple Bell. Bell was a mathematician who had written a number of books for lay people. On the front inside cover was an inscription that started “To my darling granddaughter…” and was signed “Eric Temple Bell”.

At that point, the woman who belonged to the room walked in. She was surprised not only to see someone she only knew for a few hours standing in his underwear, but who asked her with wide-eyed astonishment: “Your grandfather was Eric Temple Bell?”

“Yes,” she said, and dashed out.

I have no idea what happened next but imagine that there were a few words exchanged between Bell’s granddaughter and my ex-girlfriend, and that whatever was said was not very pretty. Given her reaction at seeing me, I surmised that the arrangement hadn’t been explained to her—or at least not very fully. The granddaughter came back in, not looking very happy and told me “You can sleep in that bed,” pointing to the one I was standing next to. “And don’t get any wise ideas.”

The next morning I had breakfast with the rather somber group of housemates. They weren’t a very happy bunch to begin with, I had been told. Bell’s granddaughter wouldn’t look my way. I found out later that on top of everything else, my snoring kept her awake.  Being resolute in my blindness of her hatred of me, I asked “So what was your grandfather like?”

She was about to eat a spoonful of corn flakes but instead put her spoon down on the table with a loud thunk. She glared at me and said “He was an absolute jerk. He wouldn’t give my father the time of day his whole life, and he didn’t have time for any of us.”

I imagine that her statement made a lot more sense to me than the others at the table, since her description matched the general population of the University of Michigan Math Department. Not that they were bad people, but math professors at that time generally held undergrads on a spectrum of little regard at one end to non-existent at the other.

As an example, my Advanced Calculus professor was hired directly from Poland and although a brilliant man, spoke so very little English that his lectures were impossible to follow. I complained to the head of the math department who offered an apology in the form of “This man is so brilliant, he’ll have the chair in mathematics in a few years. Unfortunately we were in such a hurry to grab him that we neglected to notice that he didn’t speak English.” How one escapes from noticing this little detail is indeed puzzling, and I wasn’t too pleased with this explanation.

I replied that with his lectures so incomprehensible, I would be better off just reading the book rather than paying tuition and taking a class. His response: “This sounds like a wonderful opportunity for you to learn.” For those of you who know a bit about upper level math courses, the textbook was “Advanced Calculus” by R. Creighton Buck, which doesn’t lend itself to do-it-yourselfers.

I did have a friend, however—a very nice professor who had taught my class in Introduction to Real Analysis. I told him I was having problems, and he said there was a more straightforward advanced calculus course, for engineers rather than math majors. He was of the opinion that “It’s all bologna no matter how you slice it” and told me he’d put in a good word for me to be able to take the engineering-based course in lieu of the one I was in. A few days later he told me that the answer from the math department was “No.” The advanced calculus course I was in was for math majors and if I was to major in math, that was the course I was to take, no ifs, ands or buts.

Over the years since my experience as an unwelcome guest in the granddaughter’s  bedroom, I have realized that her harsh words about her grandfather made me aware of an allegiance to the subject that I didn’t know I had. I’ve also realized that she was being loyal to her father who she felt had been slighted and ignored. I too recognized my loyalty to my father, and eventually made my peace with him as well.  

I recall a visit with him about a year before he passed away. He was very old and his health was failing along with his memory. We were many years away from the conflicts and arguments that I faced when I left home after finishing college which is why, I suppose, I was amused when he said “So what are you doing these days? What are your plans?”

I told him I was planning to teach math when I retire. “I always thought you’d wind up as a writer,” he said, his mind dwelling on my rebellious days when I turned my back on math and school in general. I explained as well as I could my interest in trying to help young kids with math and how I had over the years rejuvenated my interest in the subject. Always wanting to see his kids as great he said “You mean all these years you were a mathematical genius?”

No, I’m afraid I can’t make that claim. I just like the subject. The amazement I felt at the age of seven when realizing that counting to one hundred twice is the same as counting to two hundred once was no less than when as a sophomore in college I discovered I could prove that a set of mutually non-intersecting discs in a plane is countable. Life with my father and his inconsistencies and eruption of temper was often difficult. With his passing, I forgave him his inconsistencies.

While I was at it, I also forgave the transgressions of the academic world. Although I have not ascended into the world of true mathematicians, the math world has been kind to me. I remain grateful for it providing me with the refuge that was and is so wonderfully and eternally consistent. 

 

About the author  

Barry Garelick has fiction published in Heimat, Cafe Lit, Ephemeras and Fiction on the Web. His non-fiction pieces have been published in Atlantic, and Education Next. He lives in Morro Bay, California with his wife.

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