Stephanie

Flash fiction

STEPHANIE

Stephanie stood on Stonington Point looking seaward to 

Long Island Sound. The breeze blew her hair and eddies 

swirled around the stone dock as she thought about the 

man from two years ago.  He had blond curls, strong 

hands, and dressed simply: brown khaki pants and a 

blue tee shirt. A ferry from Fisher's Island brought him. 

They'd talked together while Stephanie showed him 

about her antique shop inside the Velvet Mill Mall. 

They'd laughed, and looked into each other's eyes. 

Stephanie hoped he would romance her. He asked if the 

town featured a bed and breakfast. She told him the 

mall closed at six p.m. 

They could rendezvous outside 

the mall and go for a drink. Afterward, 

he’d take her to his room, and it would be glorious.

She sold him an old pinwheel and brushed a finger 

across the top of his hand, but he hadn't returned as 

promised, and after a two-hour wait, she drove home to 

Darlene Street.

****

Stephanie turned her back to the breeze and made her 

way along the stone dock. Once past DuBois Beach, she 

headed along Water Street, back to her antique stall. 

She spent the remainder of her afternoon dreaming, 

dusting, and conversing politely with several men who 

annoyed her regularly.

Little had changed in the two years since the man stood 

her up. She’d written a check, a down payment for a 

duplex, sealing it in an envelope, then taking it for a 

balmy stroll while tramping wet leaves along Darlene 

Street, where she posted it in the maildrop.

Her mother, Madge, napped poorly that day. "Who's 

there?" she asked as Stephanie slipped back inside.

"Is that you, Steph?"

"It's me, Mama. I had a cigarette."

She hastened to the kitchen and snatched the cigarette 

pack to hide in her purse. 

Madge appeared a moment later, a stinky bathrobe, toe 

corns, and snoopy slippers. Her eyes shifted from the 

purse, lingering on her daughter's heavy breasts, then 

moved to Stephanie's face.

"Hmmph, there's no sleep for me since Walter passed. I 

thought I'd be provided for."

She limped across the kitchen and peered out a window, 

past a chain-link fence to the tramp's house. A flake of 

mucus fell from her nose.

"I know, I know," said Stephanie.

****

In the evening, Stephanie drove Madge and Aunty Bunny 

to bingo night, a ten-minute trip from Darlene Street to 

the Christian Ladies Auxiliary in Westerly, Rhode Island. 

Stephanie knew Madge and Aunty Bunny would take 

hours to cover their rounds, so she headed home. It was 

rather a long stretch of road to her new duplex in 

Mystic. She didn't mind; the farther from Darlene 

Street, the better. 

Arriving home, she sat at a window, waiting for Madge 

and Aunty Bunny to finish their rounds. Across the 

street, the textile mill's second shift lunch whistle blew. 

She moved the curtain a little, watching the workers 

filing, mustering under a streetlamp with fluttering 

moths. 

She leaned forward, but the man with blond curls and 

strong hands did not come, nor would he ever.

Other men were there and women, too, sitting on the 

curb, cracking open Quonset hut lunch pails and steamy 

thermoses. 

Stephanie went to the living room, reaching for the 

clothing she'd ordered online, brown khaki pants and a 

blue tee shirt. She laid them out, then stuffed them 

with ticky-tack. Smiling wistfully at her suitor, she 

reached to adjust a button. 

"I'd do anything for anybody if they'd only let me," she 

murmured. 

The phone rang, and she slid the bar, Madge speaking 

over background noise, over Bunny's wheezing 

emphysema.

"It's time you picked us up. You filthy b***h."