Short Stories

Choose a story from the list on your right ... and please do let me know what you think ...

You Can Be Anything You Want To Be

     'So, you're really doing this?' questioned the no-nonsense voice on the other end of Melanie's mobile telephone.
     'Yep.'
     'And you're sure?' the voice continued, a little softer than before.
     'Sure as I've ever been.'  She paused before adding, 'Jen ... thanks ... for always being there.'
     'What?  Don't be silly.  What did you decide on in the end?'
     Melanie's mind wandered back to last year's flight home to Christchurch when the tiny seed of a teenage fantasy first began to sprout.  She had been returning to the "garden city" after a fairly successful day of back to back meetings in Auckland.  Someone in a hurry to disembark had left their book in the pocket at the back of the seat in front of her.  The owner was probably right that minute searching frantically through her carry-on, desperate to see the hero reunited with his long-lost love before her connecting flight landed and she was forced back into her own humdrum life.
     Although Melanie had been unable to finish reading the book during the short flight, she had read enough to feel comforted by its pleasant predictability.  
     The hero's name was Harry Jacobs.  Strong and tall and undoubtedly good-looking, he fought his allocated battles with pride, integrity and a sickeningly cheerful disposition.  As she read, Melanie had found herself wondering what his children would be like, for or course he would have some - after he realised the patient, kindhearted waitress was his one true love and they settled down to raise a family together.
     The airplane's descent had brought her head out of the clouds and her feet back onto solid earth, and she had happily left the book exactly where she had found it for the next lucky passenger to discover. 
     But as she strolled down the long corridor to the arrivals lounge and prepared to hug the emptiness that awaited her, Melanie's thoughts had returned to Mr Jacobs.  Where would he fly to next?  Somwhere romantic like Paris, or icy like Invercargill?  Would he make it all the way there, she wondered, or would he be trashed mid-flight, along with the plastic wine glasses?  Was he screaming out from inside the pages, 'Please take me with you, I don't know where I'm going and I'm scared!'  Or did he relish the freedom of being an orphan rag, caring not whose gentle hands cradled his pages to the next unknown destination.
     She liked the way it sounds, the way it feels.  Jacobs.  She glanced around.   No one was watching.  She tried it out.  Jacobs.  Her lips lightly kissed the air as the middle of her tongue connected with the front of her palate, before deferring to the back.  Lips smacked and the big finish came with a hiss but no roar, just behind her front teeth.
     A few days into the following week, she had received an invitation to her high school reunion, sent by - wouldn't you know it - Sarah Danes.  Sarah Danes had moved from the city to join their form one class when her father was promoted to manager at the local branch of the Bank of New Zealand.  Sarah had quickly established herself as one of the popular kids.  She was feminine, blonde and my-daddy-loves-me confident.  Her long tanned limbs and steady eye guaranteed her a date for the formal and a place on the top grade netball team.  But there was more to Sarah than sugar and spice.  She would privately, cleverly put down those who were different - the fat kid, the one wearing glasses, the shy one.  Sarah put herself first.  She was best dressed, first in line and showed no hesitation in taking the last chocolate biscuit.  When she stood on your toe while in line at the canteen she would say 'Sorry' but move neither her foot nor her smile.  Sarah was a bitch.  And Melanie could do with a dose of bitchy.
     'So what did you decide on?  Jen repeated.
     Melanie paused for a moment, took a slow, deep breath and quietly exhaled.  'Sarah.  Sarah Jacobs.'
     'Sarah Jacobs?  Great.  Well, tell her to give me a call later on.  And hey ...'
     'Yes Jen?'
     'Goodbye Melanie.'

(c) 2010 Stephanie Davidson

*    This is the prologue to my new novel, What Sarah Jacobs Won't Tell Her Children.   Check it out.

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