Sunday
means another sample from the upcoming book….
Obsession
She crumpled the paper. The bill
went into the back pocket of her torn black jeans as she stared angrily at the
house. Mr. Wonderful was occasionally visible through the curtains that
twitched in the breeze through the open window. Mark was doing his number in
there for the millionth time and the bills still didn’t get paid. Now the power
company had decided it was time for them to get paid or the lights and
everything would go off.
Midnight to eight at the plant six
nights a week, waitressing the seventh and all this too. Lately, all Janet felt
was anger toward everyone and everything in sight. Her head pounded. She was so
sick of living this way. Her eyes tracked back across the dusty, dead lawn,
back toward the paint-peeled house. A piece of broken gutter lay in the half-dead
bushes where it had fallen about a month ago.
Loose shingles flapped, threatening to escape as their brethren
had. There was a plan to fix them, but
that hadn’t happened either. The city had even been out yesterday, citing them
for one thing, then another. Can’t offend the neighbors in the fancy-pantsy
suburbs.
Through the open window, the noise
of the clacking computer keys drifted across the yard to her. Why he had to
have the computer make a noise like an old style typewriter she didn’t know. He
had been wonderful in the beginning. What had been so cute way back when was
now annoying. There he sat, in all his beer-belly glory, poking along at yet
another story. With only one sale in twenty years of trying, and that one was
years ago, you would have thought he’d have figured out the situation. Instead,
she was left to be sole provider and parent as he sent his dreams out on paper.
The years passed, the stories and projects came back quicker than they went
out, but he kept trying. If he had spent half that energy and time getting a
job that actually paid money, they could have been rich.
Instead, they were waiting for
Lottery Liberation Day…..
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