by MB Caschetta
“I’m down here.”
Miss Dale was sitting beside the raised wooden front path, down in the sandy lawn where she’d apparently fallen.
“I’ve hurt my foot.” She pulled aside her robe to show her ankle. “I came out to scare away a deer.” Miss Dale pointed across to a gnarled pine tree trunk. “I think I’ve killed it.”
Imogene walked over in the darkness, where the baby deer lay scarcely breathing on a pile of pine needles. Imogene inspected the blood on the doe’s face. “Just scratched up.”
“Are you sure?” Miss Dale struggled to get a better look.
“She’ll be fine,” said Imogene. “Let’s take care of you first.”
Imogene hoisted Miss Dale onto the wooden plank, climbed up herself, and tried to walk with her, but it was cumbersome. She picked Miss Dale up off her feet and carried her toward the house.
“I think it was that cat, Miss Dale,” Imogene said, facing her toward the garbage can, where a small orange stray was hissing and spitting, crouched by the side of the house.
“Don’t look at the cat!” Miss Dale howled. “It’s feral. It will attack. Where’s Picasso? Picasso, get in the house. Is Picasso in the house?”
Imogene brought her in through the front screen door. Picasso, safely inside, growled at Imogene until she put her cargo down on the couch.
“Enough, now, mongrel!” Miss Dale scolded. “This Picasso hates other animals like the real Picasso hated people.”
“You shouldn’t go out in the pitch dark like that,” Imogene said. “Old woman like yourself, prowling around. Why didn’t you call me?”
Miss Dale’s foot was swelling, showing a big purple bruise.
“Phone the fire chief to come get that animal, or we’ll be up all night.”
“Don’t worry about the doe,” Imogene scolded. “Let’s get you some ice.”
Returning with a basin of ice water, she pressed a washcloth to the bruise. “You have to be more careful. Or you’ll break your bones.” She held out a hand to help Miss Dale sit up. “Put your foot in here.”
“Helpless,” Miss Dale said. “After all these years, I’ve become a helpless old woman.”
“Nonsense.”
The cold water on her ankle made her flinch.
Imogene steadied herself, preparing to bathe Miss Dale’s leg up to the calf.
“I’m going to tell you a secret,” Miss Dale said, trying not to shudder. “When I first saw you in Cherry’s, I was surprised.”
“How come?” She pressed gently. “Does this hurt?”
“From a distance I thought you were a different kind of woman.”
“Different how?”
“Frankly, you appeared to be the kind of woman from whom you’d expect nothing”—she paused—“by which I mean, a flat chest.”
Imogene’s laughter startled the dog, who barked twice and sat back down.
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Miss Dale continued. “You’re rugged. The dirty blond hair, the boyish tan, the broad shoulders: it all distracts from your womanly figure.”
Imogene was embarrassed, but pleasantly so. “Miss Dale, I didn’t think you noticed those things.”
“One more thing,” Miss Dale added. “You have the legs of a worker.”
Imogene wrapped up Miss Dale’s ankle. “Is that good?”
“Very,” said Miss Dale.
“Okay, then. To bed with more ice.” When Imogene returned from readying Miss Dale’s room, a towel with ice on the bedstand, Picasso was snoring lightly. Imogene put a finger to her mouth. On the couch, Miss Dale was out like a light.
Imogene lifted her easily into her arms, carefully stepping over the dog, and carried her to bed.
*
Gathering rope, a knife, and a pair of rubber gloves from the kitchen, Imogene went quietly down the walkway, stopping twice to look up at the sky filled with chips of light that stretched out over the island. Before she cleaned Miss Dale’s house the next morning, she would bring her neatly addressed postcards down to the ocean and set them sailing into the surf.
In the darkness, kneeling down, she felt around the doe’s soft coat until she found the crushed bones of its breastplate and a punctured lung, maybe.
She watched fear rise in its gleaming eyes.
“It’s okay.” Imogene thought about all the animals that had come and gone on her father’s farm. She’d watched her father nurse them like a mother, or end their suffering with a quick flick of his wrist.
“Hold still,” Imogene said.
Acknowledgments
Victoria Barrett must be a gift to me from God, for whom I must say thank you. I am so pleased to publish my second book so beautifully with Engine Books. My gratitude also goes to Christopher Schelling, who loved these stories from the get-go; he is a champion of writers, a fierce advocate, and a true believer in literature. I am enormously indebted to Helen Eisenbach for being a great friend and an amazing editor. Her insightful handiwork can be seen on every page and her talent is undeniable. Diane Bartoli gave the book its title, and Maureen O’Neal was right when everyone else was wrong. I worked on many of these stories during a residency at the MacDowell Colony in 1999, and I also owe a debt of gratitude to the W.K. Rose Fellowship, for allowing me to quit my job and write full time for an entire year. Marti Gabriel was there for support through every word. I am grateful to Risa Denenberg for inspiring so many of my stories by telling me hers, as well as to all my sisters from the many writing groups I had throughout the ‘90s in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Most of all, thanks and love go to Meryl Cohn for being courted way back when with the early versions of these stories—they may not be much, but they’re all I had—and for eventually marrying me on the first day it was legal to do so in Massachusetts. You are a wonderful partner in literature and love and an ever-supportive participant in the miracle that is the slowly unfolding short story—which, luckily for me, appears to take a lifetime.
Earlier versions of these stories appeared in the following publications:
“Hands of God” was published in Bloom Magazine in 2004.
“Sorry Mrs. Robinson” was published in The Red Rock Review in 2002.
“Pretend I’m Your Friend” was published in Thieves Jargon in 2008.
“Alice-James’s Cuban Garlic” was published in Seattle Review in 2005 and was awarded the Seattle Review Fiction Prize.
“A Line of E.L. Doctorow” was published in the Mississippi Review in 2004 and was a runner-up for the Mississippi Review Prize.
“Wonderful You” was published in Eclectica in 2007 and was a finalist for the Iowa Review Fiction Prize.
“Marry Me Quickly” was published in The Blithe House Quarterly in 2003 and was named A Notable Online Short Story by The Million Writers Award for Fiction, sponsored by storySouth, 2003.
“First in Line” was published in Quick Fiction in 2006.
“Imogene’s Island of Fire” was published in the Harrington Quarterly in 2000.
About the Author
MB Caschetta is a recipient of the W.K. Rose Fellowship and the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award. Her novel Miracle Girls (Engine Books, 2014) received a 2015 USA Best Book Award and an Independent Publisher (IPPY) Gold Medal. Miracle Girls was also named a Lambda Literary Award Finalist and a People magazine Pick-of-the-Week, where it was hailed as “darkly beautiful.”
Ms. Magazine called her first book of stories, Lucy on the West Coast (Alyson Books), “a spectacular collection.” Since 2007, she has been the anonymous blogger behind the lit-busting literary blog, Literary Rejections On Display, which won the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writing in 2014.
Stories from this collection have appeared in Small Spiral Notebook, Mississippi Review, Del Sol Review, Red Rock Review, Bloom, Thieves Jargon, Ecclectica, and Blithe House Quarterly, among others. Select stories have been awarded The Seattle Review Fiction Prize (winner), The Mississippi Review Fiction Prize (runner-up), and The Iowa Review Fiction Prize
(finalist). MB lives in Massachusetts.
BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION questions
In “Hands of God,” what does A.J.’s realize about herself and sex when she is with Pedro in Florence? Is it clearer to the reader than it is to her? If so, why?
How would “Hands of God” be different if it were set today instead of in 1973? How would it be the same?
In “Sorry Mrs. Robinson,” is Mary-Kay Robinson a sympathetic character? What is she sorry about—is it simply a passing thought she has at a highly emotional time, or is there more to her regret?
In “Pretend I’m Your Friend,” what happened to David? Did he kill himself on purpose, or was it an accident?
How does Marie’s affair affect her decision-making after David dies? What does she claim is the reason for her attraction to S&M sex with David? What does she tell her childhood friend Susan?
In “People Say Thank You,” is Violet Stern really psychic? Or is she merely tuned into the emotions of any given situation?
Why does Violet’s mother say: “How do you expect me to keep track of who you are when you don’t even know yourself?” Is it a fair assessment of Violet’s character?
In “Alice-James’s Cuban Garlic,” we meet A.J. again about twenty years after “Hands of God.” How has she changed? Did she live up to the dreams she had as a child?
What is the significance of the painting A.J. plans to give Andy and Will as a wedding present? What does it represent to her?
How does the family function in “Alice-James’s Cuban Garlic”? Why do they vote, rather than reaching a consensus? Why does Ginny go along with it?
Is A.J. more or less of a hero in “Alice-James’s Cuban Garlic” than she was in “Hands of God?” How do the two stories speak to one another?
In “A Line of E.L. Doctorow,” which (if any) character do you root for? Do you feel differently at the beginning of the story about the protagonist than you do at the end?
In “Wonderful You,” we meet Violet (Fields) Stern again, during her summer getaway in Europe. Has her escape worked out? Is she free from her sorrow and her life? What does her traveling companion, Ricardo, mean to her?
What are Ricardo’s secrets in “Wonderful You”? Is he really in love with Violet, or are his feelings simply a function of traveling alone and feeling vulnerable and out-of-context?
At the end of “Wonderful You,” why does Ricardo kiss Violet? Why does she kiss him back?
How does Ricardo transform at the end of the story? Do you believe he will make his dreams come true? What are they?
In “What’s Not My Fault?” we meet Mary-Kay Robinson and her family again. Has she changed? Is she redeemed in the end of “What’s Not My Fault?” Do her final thoughts shed any light on whether or not she was truly sorry in “Sorry Mrs. Robinson”?
What is Mary-Kay’s experience of dying? What is Lily’s experience of her mother’s dying? What about Janet’s? How are the three women alike and how are they different?
In “Marry Me Quickly,” we get an outsider’s view of the Wojak family. How does Will see A.J., Rusty, Andy, and finally Ginny?
How does Will’s background spur him into action? Does he get to the bottom of things with his new husband’s family?
In “Marry Me Quickly” how does Andy compare to how he was described in “Alice-James’s Cuban Garlic”? The family thinks of him as an outsider because he keeps to himself, but are the other reasons he feels outside the family?
What is the relationship between Alice-James and Andy? How do we know? From whose perspective do we get the story?
Is Alice James a victim, a perpetrator, or both? Do you feel sympathy for her? Do her siblings have sympathy for her?
Does “First in Line” change your opinion of what kind of a mother Lily (Robinson) LeChance is? Were there clues in the other stories about what she might be like?
How does five-year-old Mary-Kay LeChance cope with her mother’s issues? Do you think she will be a survivor like her grandmother?
In “Imogene’s Island of Fire,” Imogene has an unrequited attraction to Leslie, the town librarian, and then to Miss Dale, the Cherry Grove dowager. How are they similar relationships? How are they different?
Imogene’s mother tells her: “Nothing out there you won’t find here.” Is that true? What does Imogene find?
How does the state of Boat Deck House and its transformation reflect Imogene’ transformation? What does it mean when Miss Dale tells Imogene, “You’re turning like a leaf”?