Rose & Thorn Journal - Fall 2009
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Sandra V. Dias started writing when she was a little girl and learned how to spell her name, though she hopes her writing has improved since then. Her work can also be found in Mirror Dance. She lives in Texas with her ridiculously adorable giant lab. When she's not writing, she reads obsessively, plays with her dog, works, draws, daydreams, and dances. She is also a member of Panther City's finest writing group, Writer's Ink.
Sandra V. Dias
"Did you know we start dying the moment we're born? Decaying every second we take a breath?"
I gasped, shocked, but not as shocked as the mother of the five-year-old who sat in the mall Santa's lap. The mother yanked the now crying boy from his lap, gave Santa a ferocious glare, and stalked off.
The elf shoes gave me trouble, but I made it to Santa's side in record time. His bleary eyes caught mine. I grimaced, then turned away from the smell of alcohol as he said, "You sure are one sexy elf, Lib." He tried to paw me.
I discretely slapped away his hand and hissed, "And you sure are about to be an unemployed Santa. Did you drink on your break, Bill?"
He shrugged and then hiccupped. "I hate kids."
"Then what the hell are you doing here?"
"I need money for the rum."
"Who are you, Jack Sparrow? Stop scaring the kids! One more slip and I'm telling Michael."
Bill's unfocused eyes were suddenly much more focused. "You wouldn't, Lib."
"If it prevented you from traumatizing any more children, guaranteeing years of fees in therapy, yeah, I think I would."
He threw me a wounded look. "I see what our childhood friendship means to you."
I raised an eyebrow at him and avoided meeting the eyes of the impatient parents who still waited in line. "What's with you? You don't normally come to work drunk."
We both ignored the children trying to surge forward in the line toward Santa, their loud whines heard everywhere.
His shoulders slumped. "It's Mandy. She left me."
"What? Just last night you guys were all over each other at happy hour. It was enough to make everyone at the table gag into their napkins."
"Yeah, well, looks like I'm joining your club of lonely and bitter."
"Okay, I'm telling Michael just because you deserve it. And you know that Justin left me lonely and bitter. It's part of my identity now."
Incredulous, Bill stared at me. "I think you need the rum more than I do."
Before I could think of a suitable response to such nonsense, an impatient father cleared his throat. He clutched the hand of a seven-year-old girl. The girl tried to drag her father closer to Santa.
"I WANT TO SIT ON SANTA'S LAP RIGHT NOW, DADDY, RIGHT NOW! MAKE THE STUPID ELF STOP TALKING!"
Both Bill and I winced, and the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. "Look, kid, Santa isn't even real."
Everyone, including Bill, gawked at me open-mouthed. Apparently, I wasn't as quiet as I thought I was.
"Oops," I whispered.
"Oops, indeed," came a foreboding gruff voice from behind me.
Slow with dread, I turned, already aware of who stood there.
Michael. He glowered at me.
"This is your last shift. And have you been drinking, Bill? You two are out of here by five. Leave your costumes with Cindy."
He was gone before I could throw out a feeble excuse.
After harrowing hours with greedy children, Bill and I stood in front of Luke's Bar and Grill. Miserable, I shuffled my feet toward the entrance. Crap, how the hell was I going to afford rent this month?
"Now I'll never get Mandy back."
"At least you'll have a place to mope that doesn't involve a shelter and unwashed bodies. Besides, Mandy's boring to a ridiculous level. Remember the Barbie doll collection she wouldn't let you touch? That's gotta be a sign of mental instability."
I yanked open the door and ignored the hostess' offer to seat us. I threw myself into a booth, and Bill sort of slumped onto the opposite side.
I stared with rude intent at a nearby waitress, knowing my gaze pickled on the back of her neck. Aware that I was being unforgivably rude, I couldn’t bring myself to care. She skipped a polite older woman who only tried to get a refill of soda and hurried to our table, eyeing me as if I might attack her. If she hadn’t of come right then, I just might’ve.
She didn't bother smiling, and instead, went straight to the point. Fine by me.
"What'll you have?"
"Straight gin. You?"
I directed my question at Bill, who stared out of the window with forlorn fascination at a passing couple who held hands and cooed falsities at each other. Confusing chemical reactions with love. Poor bastards. I could already see them nursing broken hearts. Her clutching a pint of ice cream, and him clutching a pint of beer, already planning which girl he'd bang to get over it. Wow, life bites.
"Um, did you want anything?" The waitress’s impatience broke through my happy musings.
I said, "He'll have rum."
He started and turned from the window. "No, no rum. I don't ever want to drink rum again. I'll take the gin, too."
The waitress flounced away.
"Sucks when you don't have your own ship to commandeer, huh, Jack?"
"What?"
"Never mind, go back to debating on whether to drive by Mandy's house to see if her lights are on and she's home."
That made him stare at me. "How'd you know I was thinking of doing that?"
"You do that with every break up."
He sighed and went back to staring out the window with longing. I went back to shooting pitying looks at the couple and their temporary happiness.
"Why don't we see what Justin's doing?"
Now it was my turn to shoot him a surprised expression. "What?"
"Justin. The guy that left you embittered?"
"Never heard of him."
"Lib."
"Why the hell would we want to do that?"
"Maybe you could throw eggs at his apartment window."
"That's ridicu—" I started to say, but an image of eggs splattering the windows he was obsessed with keeping clean to the point of perfection, no easy task in New York City, filled me with a bright blinding joy.
"After the first round?"
"Sounds good."
Five rounds later, we staggered onto the subway, and three wrong stops after that, we stood outside his apartment.
We clung to each other for support. Like those playing cards one builds into a triangle tower in between poker games.
"Shit," I stage-whispered, scaring a passing man, "we forgot the eggs.”
"No damn eggs? How the eggs did we hell the forget?"
It took me a moment to unravel that one, but when I did, it sent me into a fit of laughter.
"Eggs," I gasped out between giggles, clinging to his arm so I didn't sprawl on the sidewalk.
My amusement was contagious because he was chuckling, drawing the attention of people around us.
"Lib, Bill, is that really you?"
I froze, the laughter dying on my lips. I croaked out, “Justin?”
"Wow, it's been forever. What are you guys doing around this part of town?" Justin stood by the stairs leading to his apartment building. His arms were loaded with grocery bags.
"Um," I managed. The only thing that kept me from bolting was Bill's arm around my waist.
"We were just visiting an old friend that lives around here," Bill stepped in smoothly.
Justin nodded, a skeptical expression on his face. He said, "Oh yeah? That's nice. So who are you visiting?"
Finding my voice, I replied, "Um, you wouldn't know them."
He nodded again. An awkward silence followed.
"Well, we'd better get going. Lib gets frisky in this weather." Bill gave my butt a light slap.
Justin blinked at that, while I tried to turn my dropped jaw into a pretend yawn.
"You guys are together now? After all these years?"
Bill and I agreed with quick nods, and I tried to look as couplish as possible. I took a moment to ruffle Bill's hair with affection, knowing how much that annoyed him.
He shot me a glare, and then a strange light entered his eyes. "Yeah, we just can't keep our hands off each other, you know?"
Then before I could do more than gasp, his lips pressed against mine. His tongue slipped inside my mouth to find my tongue, and they danced a tango. Aware that Justin was watching, I reminded myself to shut my eyes.
And then something strange happened. I felt a tight coiling in my stomach and a sudden heat that filled my body from head to toe, and I knew it wasn't the gin causing it either.
Bill must've felt it, too, because he pulled his face back and met my gaze. His eyes reflected a mixture of the same surprise and fire I felt.
Justin coughed. "Hey now, children and elderly live around here, you guys might wanna tone it down."
"Yeah, sure thing," I mumbled, only mildly aware that Justin existed.
Bill tugged me down the street away from Justin, toward the nearest subway station. I threw Justin a dismissive wave and found myself leaning on Bill still, but this time it was more than gin that pressed us together.
We made out on the subway, too, making sure to shock as many people as possible with our display. A strange feeling filled my chest, and I realized I didn't care if a pint of ice cream might or might not await me because if we could stand each other for this many years and still care, then there was no one with a better chance of making it than us.
Christmas Eggs
"Did you know we start dying the moment we're born? Decaying every second we take a breath?"
I gasped, shocked, but not as shocked as the mother of the five-year-old who sat in the mall Santa's lap. The mother yanked the now crying boy from his lap, gave Santa a ferocious glare, and stalked off.
The elf shoes gave me trouble, but I made it to Santa's side in record time. His bleary eyes caught mine. I grimaced, then turned away from the smell of alcohol as he said, "You sure are one sexy elf, Lib." He tried to paw me.
I discretely slapped away his hand and hissed, "And you sure are about to be an unemployed Santa. Did you drink on your break, Bill?"
He shrugged and then hiccupped. "I hate kids."
"Then what the hell are you doing here?"
"I need money for the rum."
"Who are you, Jack Sparrow? Stop scaring the kids! One more slip and I'm telling Michael."
Bill's unfocused eyes were suddenly much more focused. "You wouldn't, Lib."
"If it prevented you from traumatizing any more children, guaranteeing years of fees in therapy, yeah, I think I would."
He threw me a wounded look. "I see what our childhood friendship means to you."
I raised an eyebrow at him and avoided meeting the eyes of the impatient parents who still waited in line. "What's with you? You don't normally come to work drunk."
We both ignored the children trying to surge forward in the line toward Santa, their loud whines heard everywhere.
His shoulders slumped. "It's Mandy. She left me."
"What? Just last night you guys were all over each other at happy hour. It was enough to make everyone at the table gag into their napkins."
"Yeah, well, looks like I'm joining your club of lonely and bitter."
"Okay, I'm telling Michael just because you deserve it. And you know that Justin left me lonely and bitter. It's part of my identity now."
Incredulous, Bill stared at me. "I think you need the rum more than I do."
Before I could think of a suitable response to such nonsense, an impatient father cleared his throat. He clutched the hand of a seven-year-old girl. The girl tried to drag her father closer to Santa.
"I WANT TO SIT ON SANTA'S LAP RIGHT NOW, DADDY, RIGHT NOW! MAKE THE STUPID ELF STOP TALKING!"
Both Bill and I winced, and the words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. "Look, kid, Santa isn't even real."
Everyone, including Bill, gawked at me open-mouthed. Apparently, I wasn't as quiet as I thought I was.
"Oops," I whispered.
"Oops, indeed," came a foreboding gruff voice from behind me.
Slow with dread, I turned, already aware of who stood there.
Michael. He glowered at me.
"This is your last shift. And have you been drinking, Bill? You two are out of here by five. Leave your costumes with Cindy."
He was gone before I could throw out a feeble excuse.
After harrowing hours with greedy children, Bill and I stood in front of Luke's Bar and Grill. Miserable, I shuffled my feet toward the entrance. Crap, how the hell was I going to afford rent this month?
"Now I'll never get Mandy back."
"At least you'll have a place to mope that doesn't involve a shelter and unwashed bodies. Besides, Mandy's boring to a ridiculous level. Remember the Barbie doll collection she wouldn't let you touch? That's gotta be a sign of mental instability."
I yanked open the door and ignored the hostess' offer to seat us. I threw myself into a booth, and Bill sort of slumped onto the opposite side.
I stared with rude intent at a nearby waitress, knowing my gaze pickled on the back of her neck. Aware that I was being unforgivably rude, I couldn’t bring myself to care. She skipped a polite older woman who only tried to get a refill of soda and hurried to our table, eyeing me as if I might attack her. If she hadn’t of come right then, I just might’ve.
She didn't bother smiling, and instead, went straight to the point. Fine by me.
"What'll you have?"
"Straight gin. You?"
I directed my question at Bill, who stared out of the window with forlorn fascination at a passing couple who held hands and cooed falsities at each other. Confusing chemical reactions with love. Poor bastards. I could already see them nursing broken hearts. Her clutching a pint of ice cream, and him clutching a pint of beer, already planning which girl he'd bang to get over it. Wow, life bites.
"Um, did you want anything?" The waitress’s impatience broke through my happy musings.
I said, "He'll have rum."
He started and turned from the window. "No, no rum. I don't ever want to drink rum again. I'll take the gin, too."
The waitress flounced away.
"Sucks when you don't have your own ship to commandeer, huh, Jack?"
"What?"
"Never mind, go back to debating on whether to drive by Mandy's house to see if her lights are on and she's home."
That made him stare at me. "How'd you know I was thinking of doing that?"
"You do that with every break up."
He sighed and went back to staring out the window with longing. I went back to shooting pitying looks at the couple and their temporary happiness.
"Why don't we see what Justin's doing?"
Now it was my turn to shoot him a surprised expression. "What?"
"Justin. The guy that left you embittered?"
"Never heard of him."
"Lib."
"Why the hell would we want to do that?"
"Maybe you could throw eggs at his apartment window."
"That's ridicu—" I started to say, but an image of eggs splattering the windows he was obsessed with keeping clean to the point of perfection, no easy task in New York City, filled me with a bright blinding joy.
"After the first round?"
"Sounds good."
Five rounds later, we staggered onto the subway, and three wrong stops after that, we stood outside his apartment.
We clung to each other for support. Like those playing cards one builds into a triangle tower in between poker games.
"Shit," I stage-whispered, scaring a passing man, "we forgot the eggs.”
"No damn eggs? How the eggs did we hell the forget?"
It took me a moment to unravel that one, but when I did, it sent me into a fit of laughter.
"Eggs," I gasped out between giggles, clinging to his arm so I didn't sprawl on the sidewalk.
My amusement was contagious because he was chuckling, drawing the attention of people around us.
"Lib, Bill, is that really you?"
I froze, the laughter dying on my lips. I croaked out, “Justin?”
"Wow, it's been forever. What are you guys doing around this part of town?" Justin stood by the stairs leading to his apartment building. His arms were loaded with grocery bags.
"Um," I managed. The only thing that kept me from bolting was Bill's arm around my waist.
"We were just visiting an old friend that lives around here," Bill stepped in smoothly.
Justin nodded, a skeptical expression on his face. He said, "Oh yeah? That's nice. So who are you visiting?"
Finding my voice, I replied, "Um, you wouldn't know them."
He nodded again. An awkward silence followed.
"Well, we'd better get going. Lib gets frisky in this weather." Bill gave my butt a light slap.
Justin blinked at that, while I tried to turn my dropped jaw into a pretend yawn.
"You guys are together now? After all these years?"
Bill and I agreed with quick nods, and I tried to look as couplish as possible. I took a moment to ruffle Bill's hair with affection, knowing how much that annoyed him.
He shot me a glare, and then a strange light entered his eyes. "Yeah, we just can't keep our hands off each other, you know?"
Then before I could do more than gasp, his lips pressed against mine. His tongue slipped inside my mouth to find my tongue, and they danced a tango. Aware that Justin was watching, I reminded myself to shut my eyes.
And then something strange happened. I felt a tight coiling in my stomach and a sudden heat that filled my body from head to toe, and I knew it wasn't the gin causing it either.
Bill must've felt it, too, because he pulled his face back and met my gaze. His eyes reflected a mixture of the same surprise and fire I felt.
Justin coughed. "Hey now, children and elderly live around here, you guys might wanna tone it down."
"Yeah, sure thing," I mumbled, only mildly aware that Justin existed.
Bill tugged me down the street away from Justin, toward the nearest subway station. I threw Justin a dismissive wave and found myself leaning on Bill still, but this time it was more than gin that pressed us together.
We made out on the subway, too, making sure to shock as many people as possible with our display. A strange feeling filled my chest, and I realized I didn't care if a pint of ice cream might or might not await me because if we could stand each other for this many years and still care, then there was no one with a better chance of making it than us.
