In grade school, Joyce was the good little girl with the starched white blouse sitting in front of the room. But in her mind, she was like Tonya who sat in the back whispering with the bad boys.
In high school, Joyce was the girl with the ponytail who tutored in math and blushed when one of the boys made a crude joke. But she longed to grab hold of Anthony Terrelli’s waist and speed down the highway on his Harley.
Soon after high school, she married a good man who drove a Honda Accord with the windows closed. She followed him where his employment led, all the while imagining leaving a note saying, “Off to see the wizard.”
Three children followed, and she dutifully treated their skinned knees and helped them with their homework while she fantasized slipping out of the house as the family slept to dance naked in the rain.
Ovarian cancer took her life at fifty-five. Cassandra, her oldest daughter, gave the eulogy praising her mother as her role model, declaring how she had lived a full and satisfying life.
Wayne Scheer has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net. He’s published hundred of stories, poems and essays in print and online, including Revealing Moments, a collection of flash stories, available at http://issuu.com/pearnoir/docs/revealing_moments. A short film has also been produced based on his short story, “Zen and the Art of House Painting.”
Wayne lives in Atlanta with his wife and can be contacted at wvscheer@aol.com.
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