“Laurianne’s Choice,” a short story by Ian Colford

Jan 082011
 

Herewith a lovely story by Ian Colford, a Canadian short story writer who happens to be a librarian at Dalhousie University next door to the University of King’s College in Halifax where my son Jacob goes to school. Ian is the author of a short story collection, Evidence, published in 2008 and shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed, Raddall Atlantic Fiction, and ReLit awards. This is the first new piece of fiction on NC in the New Year, an auspicious beginning. Enjoy.

dg

 

Laurianne’s Choice

by Ian Colford

 

I hadn’t seen her since last winter. But I had heard the rumours. So I was not surprised that Laurianne looked tired, maybe even ill. The change was dramatic. After our drinks came I asked why it had taken her so long to return my calls. She explained that she had become involved with someone.

She met Peter Raffin at the home of her best friend Megan. Peter was manager of the large speciality bookstore where Megan worked, and Megan had invited Laurianne for dinner along with a group of her co-workers, ten guests in all. Megan introduced Laurianne and Peter to each other and then left them alone. Peter began flirting with her immediately. He said she had beautiful skin, hair, and lips. It was a warm evening in midsummer. She’d worn a flimsy halter top with spaghetti straps and she enjoyed feeling that his eyes were roaming over her body. He was a year or two older than her. Laurianne guessed he was thirty.

The small room was crowded and after only a few minutes he had manoeuvred her into a corner. Nobody seemed to notice them. They discussed things that didn’t matter but couldn’t take their eyes off one another. Laurianne noticed his hands and imagined them on her skin, and as if he’d read her mind he lifted one hand and gently caressed her shoulder, then let his fingers linger on her upper arm. When Megan announced that she was serving dinner Peter gave Laurianne an earnest look and whispered that they didn’t have to stay, that he would take her to a restaurant. In response she crept by him and found a place at the table between two women.

The food was marvellous and the conversation lively and absorbing, but Laurianne could not concentrate. Her attention drifted and she fell silent, conscious of Peter at the other end of the table. Though undeniably intelligent and witty, the two women bored her. For some reason tonight Megan’s jokes seemed mean-spirited, her laughter uncouth. But the worst of it was seeing how much Peter enjoyed talking with the attractive young woman on his right and the bearded man on his left. He smiled and laughed and not once did he glance her way. Laurianne knew he was married. How obvious it was: in his upright posture, in the way he held his wineglass not by the stem, but cradled in his hand by the bowl, in the way his eyes flitted cautiously toward the young woman’s breasts and stayed there, held rapt by the deep shadow of her cleavage. She wondered where his wife could be on a night such as this, and then, with faint horror, studied the women seated around the table. But no, he had cornered her, pointedly ignored all the other guests for her sake. And when she recalled that everyone here was either a friend of Megan’s or a co-worker, she breathed easier knowing his wife was not present.

After dinner there was time for more drinks and conversation. Laurianne toyed with the idea of leaving early, before anything could happen, but instead found herself mapping a path through the room so she could get to the spot closest to Peter before anyone else. As it turned out, the girl who had sat next to him at dinner was married to the man with the beard. When Peter settled into the sofa Laurianne curled up on the floor at his feet. Again there was laughter and conversation, but Laurianne was distracted by Peter’s hand, which tentatively explored her neck and back, alternately massaging and caressing. She shifted closer to him, pressed her breast against his leg, and they remained like this through drinks and coffee.

It was after midnight when the party broke up. As she stood in the doorway saying goodbye to Megan a breathless panic swept over her because she couldn’t see Peter. Then, emerging from the hallway where the bathroom was, he caught her eye. A tacit understanding passed between them. She would wait for him outside.

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“Quality Time on the Bay of Silence, Sestri Levante,” from Natalia Sarkissian in Italy

Jan 032011
 

Dear DG,

Not too long ago, during a lull in the month-long rains that frizzed our hair, soaked our shoes and dampened our moods, one Saturday this fall I found myself in Sestri Levante, a town not far from Genoa, reading a book, enjoying the sun. Sometimes, when you relax in the sun reading a book you’re not much invested in, a loud voice, a sharp slap, or an acute whine attracts your attention. Attention attracted, you stare. Then you fish for paper, you dig for your cellphone, and you write and snap pictures, recording the play:

 

 


 

14:20

“Fede, Zitto! Shut up. You want a smack?” asks his mother, a round woman in her mid forties. Dressed in black stretch pants and a black sweatshirt, she sprawls on the beach ringing the Bay of Silence, a sandy crescent on the Eastern side of the peninsula of Sestri Levante. An unseasonably hot sun shines over the terracotta roofs of the pink-and-yellow ex-fishermen’s homes that stand as a backdrop to the water.

The woman in black is in Sestri on a day trip with shopping and picnicking her twin objectives. Piles of bags from Sottovento (a clothing shop), Top 2000 (a shoe store), Tosi (a bakery specializing in pizza and focaccia), Marco’s (a fruit vendor), as well as her accent (Milanese), attest to her transient status. Next to her, sharing her towel, lies her husband, also in black. Nearby, Fede in jeans, a sweatshirt, a cap and a bandana, digs in the sand with his red shovel. His older brother, outfitted in an identical manner, buries his own feet in the sand.

The four glisten like sunning beetles on fine white granules.

“But Mamma, why? Why can she go in the water?” Fede asks, squinting, pointing toward the horizon.

“Because her ball rolled in.” The woman sighs, not looking up from Chi? gossip magazine.  She’s reading a back issue about the American émigré showgirl, Heather Parisi, who recently gave birth to twins at age fifty.

“No it didn’t,” says Fede, flipping his shovel, flinging sand on his father, “she doesn’t have a ball.”

“Watch it, stupido,” says his father. He raises himself to an elbow, spits out some granules and brushes off his shoulders.

“I’m not stupido,” says Fede.

“Oh,” says Fede’s mother, lowering her magazine, shading her eyes with her hand. “You mean that lady.”

“Yes, mamma, that lady.”

“Because she wants to go for a swim.”

“Me too. I’m boiling!”

“Shut up Fede! I’ll ring you like a bell if you don’t stop nagging. Have a tangerine?” She fishes one out of the bag of fruit, but Fede doesn’t take it.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Fede,” says his father. “It’s Autumn. Take your bandana off if you want, or roll up your pants.”

“Zitto, Giorgio! Shut up, will you? I’m handling this,” the woman says, peeling the tangerine, burying the peel in a shallow hole in the sand, and chewing. “Besides. There’s a breeze. Without his bandana he’ll get sick. You want him to get sick?”

“Can’t I take off my jeans and my sweatshirt? Like those kids?” Fede points to some boys playing soccer.

“Absolutely not. It’s Autumn. The summer’s long over.” Tilting her head, his mother frowns.

“These tangerines were a rip off.” She spits out a seed. “Look Fede. Those kids are foreign. See? Their red hair? Besides you can’t run around in your underpants.”

“Why, mamma, why?”

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