fiction

June’s eyes darkened as they walked through the door to the tiny store. Lauren did her best to unclench her jaw, but even her considerable patience had been shredded by her daughter’s bad mood. Jasmine scented the air inside the shop, just lightly enough not to be cloying, and she soldiered forward to one of the racks that held dresses. June’s clipped tones from the previous stores echoed in her head. “Too short. Too long. No. Definite no.” Shopping with a grumpy teenager was worse than she remembered.

“I think I’m going to look at the earrings,” Lauren said. “Why don’t you look around and see if there’s anything you’d like to try on before we call it a day.”

“This is barely a store. There’s not going to be anything here,” June hissed.

Lauren paused for a moment to feel grateful her daughter still had the manners not to insult the shop within earshot of the woman straightening scarves next to the register. The gratitude only soothed her for a second.

“Just look. I don’t think you have time to ship anything before you leave tomorrow.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t even go,” June said.

“What? You’ve been talking about flying home for the winter formal for weeks,” Lauren reminded her.

“I’m still confused as to why you’re not coming with me,” June grumbled, thumbing through a small rack of short dresses.

Unbidden, the memory of shopping for June’s first homecoming dress unfurled through Lauren’s mind. Emerald green sequins, June had insisted on sequins, and the green looked incredible with her eyes. Of course, no teenager in the history of dress shopping would ever consider that they looked “incredible” in anything at all. Sequins were a “definite no” for this shopping adventure, thankfully, since Lauren didn’t see anything sparkling in the dresses in front of June.

“I’m not coming because we’ve spent a small fortune flying back and forth the last eight months, and I don’t think any of your dapper young friends care to see me before hopping into a party bus and making their way to a school dance,” Lauren said.

June groaned. “Who uses words like dapper anymore?”

“Your mother, when she’s trying not to bop you over the head with a hanger, I guess,” Lauren said.

“I thought you were looking at earrings,” June grumbled.

Lauren wandered to the back of the store. She needed a new pair of earrings like she needed another argument with her daughter, but it gave her somewhere to reign in her irritation. As she browsed dainty hoops and delicately beaded shapes, she listened for the hangers moving against the rack. At least June was trying to look for something instead of walking out.

“They’re made by a woman on a little island just north of here.”

“I know that island,” Lauren said, wondering which of her neighbors handcrafted jewelry in their spare time. She hadn’t recalled anyone mentioning it.

“We try to stock local goods whenever possible,” the shopkeeper sighed. “It’s harder than it seems.”

Lauren nodded, recognizing the pang of guilt about the amount of online shopping they did from their little cottage. Of course, good jeans weren’t as easy to source locally as artsy earrings and scented candles. She held a pair of earrings up to the light, appreciating the tiny opal beads lining the hoops. Guilt shopping would get her every time.

“Mom?”

Lauren detected a slight thawing in June’s voice and took a breath before turning around.

“I’m going to try these two on,” she said, holding up a satin slip dress the color of storm clouds and a tiny concoction of tulle layers that looked short enough to be considered a long shirt.

Lauren nodded, knowing better than to say a single thing about either of the dresses June held. If she’d learned nothing over the past few years, it was that her opinion was only needed when June asked, and not always even then.

“The fitting room is unlocked.”

“Thanks.” June turned on her heel, allowing a smile to play at the corners of her mouth.

“We don’t stock many cocktail dresses,” the woman said, her tone apologetic.

“We don’t buy many,” Lauren shrugged. There’d been a time when she had, though, and some days she missed it. The specter of their life in California loomed larger some days than others, especially on days like today when the cold air bit at her neck through her scarf. Even trickier than the weather, her argument with Charlie lingered uncomfortably in her mind. She would never tell June, could barely admit it to herself that the reason she wasn’t getting a plan to San Francisco was because she was almost unsettled enough to make it a one-way trip.

prompt: Use this dialogue: Who uses words like dapper anymore?

I found this site, which offered this prompt: Start with this, “It’s all perfectly clear now.”

“It’s all perfectly clear now,” Lauren said.

The phone call ended shortly after she agreed to the clarity of the explanation. New Jersey would be closing shop for the day soon, and her questions sounded redundant even in her own ears. She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose, because nothing seemed any more clear than it had when she picked up the phone to call her father’s attorneys. The details of the educational trust tangled together, backtracking on themselves and becoming more weighted with every question Lauren asked about applying it to her daughter’s potential boarding school.

Not that she wanted June to go away to school yet, anyway, Lauren reminded herself. She opened her eyes and stared at the notes she’d started to write, crossing out certain words and circling others. Her father’s pre-mortem wishes, like most else about his post-mortem legacy, seemed overly complicated, a puzzle to solve instead of a gift to her sixteen year old. Whether or not the money could be used for pre-college study seemed to be straightforward enough, but he’d added preferences about which areas of the country were permitted. The geographical stipulations possibly ended with high school graduation and possibly didn’t, depending on grades and what June’s post-high school plans might be.

It didn’t help that Lauren hadn’t truly slept in days, in not weeks. Her father’s death hadn’t shocked her in the least; she’d known for years he lived on borrowed time after a life spent cultivating every bad habit one could find between Atlantic City and Las Vegas and back again. What shocked her were the breadcrumbs he’d left for her to follow, emails, phone calls, and even a hand-delivered letter from his lawyer’s office, all containing new twists and addendums to a will she had been surprised he’d even created in the first place. Her grief teased at her, leaving her to wonder whether he was engaging her in one final puzzle or flipping her a seriously severe proverbial bird.

Scowling at her notes one more time, a copy of the trust agreement in pages across her desk, Lauren swept it all onto the floor. She’d be the one to pick up the pages, but she was used to doing that. Tears threatened but she squeezed her eyes shut before they could consider falling onto her cheeks. She didn’t need the money to send her daughter to school anyway. Lauren let herself admit, for just a second, that she wanted June to feel closer to her grandfather, even if only when tuition was due. If anything at all was crystal clear, it was that her relationship with her own father never had been, and apparently never would be.