It was not until Lucille turned off the interstate onto surface roads and began to make calls that the rumor about her began to harden to a consistency that supported weight and to take a shape that resembled reliable intelligence. The first call, to her brother, was filled with demurrals, but he noticed the way she breathed, as if holding deep within her being something whose escape she could not permit. He suspected, he said when phoning her sister ten minutes later, that this thing was truth. Her sister had just hung up with her. “There was no relaxation of her manner,” she said, “despite her insistence that she felt ‘floaty’ — something about a tincture.” Her sister had to hang up because her boyfriend was on the other line—Lucille’s boyfriend, not her own. “She made a point of maintaining the friendliest tone,” he said, “but I know what that means. That’s her version of an eye for an eye. It scared me so much that I am standing outside now waiting for her to pull up. I think I know what she’s going to say. I hope I’m wrong.” Lucille’s sister let out a noise. “I hope you are too,” she said. Lucille’s sister called her brother back and found him still convinced that the thing held deep was truth. “All I can say is that I wouldn’t want to be that guy,” he said. The line hummed with all variety of perturbation.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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