Short Fiction... (I warned you)

I am sitting at a restaraunt in Manhattan. My hands are sweaty and nervous, folded neatly in my lap over a linen napkin. I am willing them to stay there so that I will not be biting my nails when my mother arrives. Any minute now a porter will open the glass gold-gilded doors for her and the maitre'd will take her perfectly manicured hand into his own gloved one and he will kiss it, speaking something in french into her ear which will make her laugh, and then she will glide over to the table and her chair will be pulled out for her and a napkin will be spread into her lap and she will sit down and smile at me as though it hasn't been three months since we've last spoken.

She sent me a whopping six letters--two of them obviously transcribed by her secretary because they were typed. "I'm so sorry you're upset with me, darling." "It really is the best decision for you, dear." Each letter was two paragraphs or less, and not one of them addressed what I wrote to her or how miserable I am or what a jerk Sister Luisa is or the lame curriculum. My mother does not have time to raise a daughter or write a real letter. She's not possibly human.

When she sits down at the table, after she smiles at me, she will look me up and down and find something bad to say. She will tell me that my hair is too short and that I shouldn't wear bangs. I won't care because I'm going to dye it purple as soon as I get back to Florida. I am also getting a fake ID and a tattoo. Maybe when the stupid nuns put me on probation she will take me out of St. Theresa's School for the Wicked . Maybe it will be fun to hang out with Niki and Theona cleaning the cafeteria after class and winking at the dishwashers, later bumming smokes from them for smoking in the bathrooms at night. Maybe I'll have sex with all of them and then she'll be sorry she ever sent me away. Maybe tonight I'll tell her that my lonliness has made me a lesbian and me and my room-mate get it on every night--that would really piss her off.

And there she is, being kissed on her hands. She is so beautiful, like Grace Kelley. She ages so well--her legs still look like a young woman's, but her face has the coldness of a woman in her 50's. She hasn't many wrinkles at all. My heart is beating faster as she glides over toward me. I don't stand up. "Liz, darling. It's so good to see you dear," she says as she stands behind me and puts her hands on my shoulders and leans down to kiss my cheek, which she then cups with her tastefully jeweled hands and tilts so that she can look into my eyes. "You look more like my daughter every day," she says and I just stare at her without saying a word and then she lets go and slides around the table where a waitress pulls out her chair for her and settles her in.

She sips her wine and even asks the waitress to pour a glass for me, which is done without question. It is gross and bitter but I don't make a face as I chug the whole thing. I stare right into her eyes, which are unflinching, showing no surprise. She is on point tonight.

"You'd look much better without bangs, dear. Who gave you that awful haircut anyways? I hope you didn't tip them well. We can get that fix tomor--"

"I like it," I say.

"Well, then. I guess it suits you," she says. Her therapist must have briefed her on control, letting-go, moving with the flow, in the past few weeks. "It's...chic."

"Yep."

The menus are in french. I'm getting a B+ in french. I don't know what everything is, but I know how to pronounce it. Chevre is goat, lapin is rabbit, boeuf is the safest--beef. I order ...

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stay tuned for more. I have to figure out something defiant that she orders and what the whole point of this story is and where its going and why its important. Why did her mom send her to boarding school? Why does she hate it so much? Why does she want to be closer to her mom even when she disdains her? Why does she want to see her mother be vulnerable? These mother-daughter things are so worn out, what can I do that is new and different in this story? That is special? How long is it going to have to be? At what point will I end it? What do I want people to think about after they read it? I have a history of making anti-heroes--people always die in my stories for no real reason and then the living character feels like a dweeb for being so mean and wasteful during the time they shared together. How can I end this story without a death (the easy way out)? How can I give dimension to the characters in five to ten pages?