In the office kitchen, all lashes and cheekbones, gift-wrapped cozy in your cashmere sweater, peeling an orange like a surgeon, sectioning each sliver, the way you segment our time, a juicy burst here and there, little pink hearts dotting your calendar.
Sprinting through sheets of icy rain, your tiny shriek, shaking out your umbrella, my knee against yours under the cafe table, fingers laced until you shake them apart to flag the waiter.
In my cubicle, polishing your nails while I type your stack of invoices, daydreaming of the night we shimmied off our prairie dresses, vamped around clubs in black Spandex, gyrating to Like a Virgin, licking the margarita salt off your lip, pretending not to see you tuck your phone number into his jeans.
At your bridal shower, passing out deviled eggs while you flaunt his grandmother’s engagement ring, gush about the multi-tiered cake, the honeymoon in St. John.
Outside the limousine, you press his ex-girlfriend’s earring into my palm, found yesterday under his bed, beside his hunting rifle, the exact model owned by the man you still call daddy, despite his drunken visits to your princess bedroom so many years ago.
At the church, catching you wince as the old man steers you down the aisle. Stare down at his steel-pointed cowboy boots—forgive you everything.
About the Author
Phyllis Rittner writes poetry, flash fiction, and creative non-fiction from her home in Watertown, MA. Her work can be found in Fictive Dream, Gyroscope Review, Emerge Literary Journal, Portrait of New England, Wrong Turn Lit (Best Microfiction nominee), and others. She can be reached on Facebook.
