sjsprWriting

Melanie Rhodes

A Short Story in the Making

Bright lights and gusts of wind flowed in from the open window. Blonde strands of hair brushed against her rosy cheek, sweeping away with the breeze and landing on the glasses that framed her face. Her right cheek, heated by tender contact, laid against her arm and her wilted body rested on the cool, wooden surface. Her other arm dangled freely off the table, and every now and then, her eyelashes fluttered . Everything was at peace. Until it wasn’t.

Abruptly, she awoke. Her drooping arm snapped up and her bent pinky jammed against the edge of her desk. Rosy became crimson as the blood rushed to her face and flushed away almost immediately. “SHIT,” she yelled, as she brought her fingers to her lips, only to find a trail of dry drool staining her chin. Dry eye crust confined one of her eyelids together and she fought to pull them apart. Shaking off the pain, she ran her swollen fingers through her messy, matted hair, pulling and yanking as she yawned. Looking down at her latest resume draft, she slid off her glasses and pinched her fingers together on the bridge of her nose, between her tired eyes.

BOOM. A door shut behind her and she stumbled to pile her mortgage reports on top of her resume, but it was too late. “Why are you still out here? Oh what’s that?” and before she could even turn around, her resume was in her sister’s hands.

“Stacy, give that back!” she hissed, and quickly, she was on her feet fighting with her younger sister.

“Skills? Successful leader in volunteer organizations? Manages multiple budgets? Blog founder and author? Uhh Melanie... you’re a goddamn PTA mom who pays for groceries,” she stated, “Is this a resume? Brad won’t like this.”

Melanie rolled her eyes and grasped once more for the paper, this time, successfully. “Just keep your mouth shut, Stace,” she mumbled and a whiff of her own breath brought her to a state of shock. She turned and rushed up the stairs, leaving Stacy behind, and began banging on the three first doors to the right of the staircase. “Wake up kids!” she nagged, right before entering through the double doors that marked the main bedroom and, by association, her favorite bathroom.

Brad sat at the edge of the bed buttoning his shirt. “Where’d you go last night, Mels? It was your turn,” he interrogated as he stood and zipped up his pants.

“I fell asleep at my desk, love. And NO ONE woke me up,” Melanie emphasized. Her eyes cut to the naked woman in Brad’s bed and daggers shot out of her eyes. She could tell it was Nattalya by the dark pixie cut and the bird nest tattoo on the small of her back. “You sure as hell didn’t miss me,” she accused, slipping into the bathroom and grabbing her toothbrush.

“What the fuck was I supposed to do, Mel? It’s Wednesday.” She rolled her eyes dramatically into the bathroom mirror so that he could see. “Buck up, girl. The boys need to be driven to soccer practice,” he ordered and kissed her on the cheek. “And tell your sisters I need my blue suit dry cleaned, will you, doll? See you later.” And with that, he was gone, and she was almost alone. Dragging her tired body into the recently remodeled shower, Melanie treated herself to a scathing hot cleaning.

Melanie never got any alone time in this huge, weighted house. Someone’s kid was always crying. Some job needed to be completed. Someone was always hungry, and as the eldest of all of her sisters, Melanie ran this home. Brad expected her to be on top of everything, but everyone knew she wasn’t even his favorite. It was obvious, seeing the way he treated her. Her sisters, they were younger, skinnier, perkier. They had more children. More free time. More sex appeal. All she had to offer was her everything, and that was never enough. If she could only show him how good she could be for him. If only he'd let her get a job and help with bills around the house, they seemed to be coming more frequently nowadays. She craved more of his attention. A wonderful world would be one where she got her husband to herself, she decided.

As blunt as a reminder of her reality could be, Nattalya stirred in bed and let out a morning groan. “Brad? Baby?” she said, shuffling under the sheets. Melanie escaped through the bedroom door and went to get ready for her day. She was able to avoid her sisters, Stacy and Nattalya, by piling all of the kids into her minivan and driving the oldest six kids to school. Stacy’s four, Julian, Erica, Morgan, and Sienna, joined Melanie’s youngest, Michi, in the back two rows, and Bryant, hers and eldest of them all, accompanied her in the front. The kids where background music to her thoughts and, somehow, she made it through her rounds peacefully and naively.

It was on her way back home that she noticed a “Now Hiring” sign crookedly hanging on a tinted black door...