Poisoned

Poisoned

by Angie Arcangioli

100 words for Chuck Wendig's prompt based on 3 words out of the five (enzyme, ivy, blister Bishop, lollipop) for his #fridayflash fiction challenge: see it here at his Terrible Minds blog.  This time the winner gets a copy of his Irregular Creatures short stories. 

"I only licked it once. Why did I get a blister on my tongue?” Jake’s tongue was ruby-red.

“You know, it’s the enzyme.”  Carlton’s wireframes slipped down his unctuous nose.

“What enzyme?”

“Oh, c’mon, don’t act stupid, Jake, you’re the biology major.”

“You mean you made the lollipop with poison ivy extract, and you’re testing it on me?”  Jake felt a surge in his bowels like the runs would hit him faster than the blister.  He ran, sat, shat and listened to Carlton’s wicked laughter.

“The greasy creep,” Jake hissed.  He made this for Audrey, I have to warn her.”

Reality Show Flare #fridayflash fiction

Reality Show Flare
by Angie Arcangioli
891 words for Chuck Wendig's prompt based on a photo  check out his Terribleminds blog to see it

Crafton laughed. 

“I’m gonna kill every one of you fuckers.  All you done since we got on this stupid island is laugh at me.  You think I’m the loser.  Well you’re wrong.  You're the losers.”

No one budged.  They were mesmerized by the flame of the torch that shot over them and the agonising cameraman whose abdomen was charred black by its flame.  Crafton had planned it well.

The guy was sick, really sick.  Audrey thought.  She hadn’t laughed at him, even when he’d tried to hit on her.  She thought he was just another geek.  But he was sick, like shut-him-up and melt-the-key sick.

They didn’t deserve this, they’d been chosen by the producers, she’d driven eight hours and stood in line another four for the audition.  She sang, danced, and waited for the verdict like the others.  Thousands had been interviewed.  How could they have picked this creep?  She tried not to look at him but he was engulfed by power. Clark Kent turned Superman.  What had been his trick?

“You are the one that started it.”  He swung the torch towards Jake, the cutest guy Audrey had ever met in her life.  Jake’s hair caught fire.

“No.”

He tried to jerk away but the duct tape that imprisoned his arms and legs to the lawn chair immobilized him.  They were all taped to something, mostly lawn chairs in a circle. Crafton said it was a game he’d invented.  Thus to humour him, and stop the ranting temper tantrum he’d thrown, Mr. Sandman the director, had abided.  Until it was Sandman’s turn. 

Audrey cringed, closed her eyes when she smelt the bittersweet scent of burned flesh.  She did not want to look at Jake, now snivelling.  He’d reminded her of Brad Pitt and she wanted to keep the image.  He’d be marred for life.  If they ever escaped, his acting career was limited to scarface.

The humid tropical air steamed around them.  Vapour rising from the wet grass blurred into  a terrible orange aura around Crafton.  It was the color of power, ambition.  That is what her yoga teacher had said.  It came from the third chakra.

“You, Mr. Bigshot,” the geek with the torch yelled at Mr. Sandman, “you planned to eliminate me from the beginning.  Well now it’s your turn.”  He pointed the flare at Mr. Sandman who screamed.  Crafton giggled, it was a sick sound.

Audrey closed her eyes, willed herself to the safe spot she went to while meditating.  The swing hanging from the sycamore’s branch rocked. Her mother sang a lulluby.  She thought she was too old to love it but it soothed her.  She drifted into the memory and let go.  She was rocking, singing.  The rhythm of the swing sped then slowed, a metronome on her piano.  Mamma sang, she rocked.

“And you bitch, what are you singing about?”

Audrey opened here eyes. 

“It was a song my mother sang to me when I was unhappy.” 

Calm engulfed her, she felt right, everything felt right.  She would die, killed by a freak with a flare on the set of a reality show she was starring in with nine others on a tropical beach far from Mamma and the swing in the sycamore tree.

She closed her eyes and sang,” Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock.”

“Shut up.”  She heard it from far away.  She was three, maybe four and the Labrador licked her toes every time the swing shot forward.

“When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.”

“I said shut up, bitch.”

She opened her eyes and saw a dark figure standing behind Crafton.  A green light pulsed through the orange glow.  It was the other cameraman, he was filming everything.  What a dork.  Audrey thought, she sang but did not close her eyes.

“And down will come baby, cradle and all.”

The cameraman slammed Crafton in the head with a boom mic.  The flare fell in the middle of the grouped lawn chairs.  He filmed Crafton crash to the ground, unconscious.  He filmed the flame scorch two girls.  They screamed as their sarongs turned to ash, glued to their legs.  He filmed while they wailed in pain, zoomed on their tears.

“Baby is drowsing, cozy and fair,
 mother sits near, in her rocking chair,
 forward and back,” 

Audrey was out of reach of the flame.  She watched Mr. Sandman roll his chair with his arms that were free but seared from the molten duct tape.

“Do something, you idiot,” Sandman shrieked.

The cameraman zoomed in on Crafton, who opened his eyes. 

Audrey closed hers and sang, “The cradle she swings 
and though baby sleeps, he hears what she sings...”

“Do what?  Isn’t this planned?”

Audrey laughed, sang, “From the high rooftops, down to the sea...”

“No you idiot,”  Sandman squawked.

Audrey opened her eyes again.  The flame burned, boiled the grass.  Steam rose.

“Kill him, or he’ll kill us.”

“But this is great, we’ll be on Oprah.”  He zoomed on Audrey.

“No one's as dear, as baby to me
, wee little fingers, eyes wide and bright, 
now sound asleep, until morning light.” 

Audrey stopped, rejuvenated.  Stillness filled her mind when the LED on the bulky camera went red and slammed through Crafton's skull. 

Italian Apocalypse - #FridayFlash Fiction for Chuck Wendig

Chuck Wendig announced a prize for his latest flash fiction — an Uncharted Apocalypse.  I'd love to win a copy of his book, 250 Things You Should Know About Writing — everyone likes to win.  ( I couldn't find the link, Chuck.)  But that is not why I participate in his Flash Fiction Challenges — to win.  It's the exercise in writing a story with a thousand word limit.  This time it seemed like a chapter,  it felt good to edit repeated words, and give tension.  I don't know how to classify this — a metaphor of a memoir.  What is that?  See translation for foreign words

Italian Apocalypse
By Angie Brooksby Arcangioli

999 words

#FridayFlash Fiction Challenge 15 July 2011

The courthouse courtyard of Florence on July 13, 2011

Italy is a complicated place.  Mountains of bureaucracy sprout from nothing like giant beanstalks.  These mountains grow higher and higher when one starts to scale them.

I decided to sell my garage.  A buyer appeared and agreed on the price but only after harassing me endlessly over petty things.  I was forced to tell him to go to hell, it was a guttural explication.  He became my sheep, I his shepherd. We wandered blindly uphill. 

He presented me a paper to sign that was too officious so I balked, he stopped, we stared.  He called his notary, the race of Italian demi-gods who sit a step below the politicians in a sumptuous garden hidden somewhere on the mountain’s top.  They say it is filled with bimbos. 

The notary gave us grappa to calm our nerves and warm our hearts when an icy wind blew between us.  A sum was exchanged, a paper signed.  We climbed a hill but the mountain that sprouted underfoot took us by surprise.  We should have expected it. I was sceptical to begin with, and now completely lost at on the mountain. 

The determined sheep nudged gently for fear that the wolf in me might return.  I built it a shelter where it could wait the flash storm, typical of mountains and commenced the ascent.  I hacked through a forest of paper forms and swam across murky ponds.

Hundreds of crucified babbled about long lines and contracts and closed offices. When I passed under their crosses, they pushed their paperwork on my shoulders insisting I carry it higher.  A man flogged Jesus in front of a group that sang, “We will remember you.”  Then they turned downhill because he died, the flogger followed him and they sang, “You will be a saint.”

Don Quixote hobbled by when I stopped to remove a woman from a cross, she could not work because there are no day-cares in Italy. No one cared about her doctorate at Cambridge.  She thanked me, then followed the steps of the man from la Manche.

 Leaving the nailed complainers, who discussed hypothetical outcomes, I climbed to a hesitant camp built by an engineer and a technician. They conversed about the mountain.  Sunlight drenched us, relief filled my soul when the summit winked — the men had evoked it.   But their fire dwindled, they had to leave, go higher.  I should wait, they would call for me.  Then they said, “You can not sell the garage.”

A cloud blew in from nowhere, surrounding us like milk.  The two men abandoned me and took their tents.  It was cold.  I wired the notary and the sheep, “the sale is off.” 

The sale was suspended but I did not know why nor when I would know more.   The sheep brayed through a megaphone.  When he materialized, he saw my bewilderment, and offered spirits.  He nudged me. I left again to climb.

I found them in the cloud in a place made of documents and charts.  The engineer measured things and dictated to a gum-chewing secretary who filled out forms and answered angry calls from owners like myself.  The technician stoked a fire.  Pieces of blackened documents alighted on the freezing mountain eddies, carrying words, half phrases — out of sight.  I read one just before the gluttonous fog swallowed us again.

“Io sotto scritta, Cretina come sono, nata a New York, residente a parigi, con la presente vi communico…” *  But that is me burning — I thought.  My life was whisking away above the clouds before I could finish this one last thing.  I knew the climax was near.

The secretary answered the telephone, “Pronto?”  Pause. “No one knew.  You are not alone.  There are fourteen building infractions.  We are preparing our case, the documents are ready,” she said while feeding a shredder piles of yellowed papers.

“Can I use the toilet?”  I asked. 

She handed me a spiral bound photocopy of building codes and pointed.

“What’s this for?”  I asked.

“To wipe your ass, honey.”

 When I relieved my needs, someone handed me coffee then the notary called, my garage was safe.  There would only be a 5000 Euro fine because the door was problematic. 

“But I didn’t put the door on!”  I yelled to nobody.

“Door on, dooron on on,” the mountain echoed.

The cloud dissipated.

“Stop yelling, you’ll wake her up.”  She yelled.

“You’re yelling, not me.”

            “What?”  She screamed above the boom, not looking at me.

“The printer’s freaking out, again.”  The technician was furious.

“Don’t worry, Honey, tomorrow is Ferragosto.”  

Everyone relaxed. 

I looked at my watch, it was August 14^th.  Tomorrow the entire country stops, the courts go on vacation for six weeks, closed. No issue.  The cities are empty, only thieves stay in town to drill through security door locks.

“Can someone help me, I have to sell my garage?”

No one answered. It was already vacation.  The mere notion of it had sent the makeshift office into tilt. Only the coffee machine worked, pumping out Nespresso’s like bullets.

“Have a coffee,” offered the engineer.

I took it, slugged it and said,  “I have to run, the summit is closing.”

He laughed.

I ran, stumbling on the rocks beyond the timberline.

Higher, I went.  Higher and higher, the vortex of steam crossing from the other valley caressed the apex.  Crows guffawed.

Higher.

I was there.  I was there, I am here.  I had reached the apex, my garage could be sold.  The sheep had to know.  I dialled his number.

The rumble sounded, the mountain coughed.  It spat blood. Hot, boiling, steaming,  molten rock.

“It’s going.”  The chorus sounded, politicians and notaries and bimbos ran left and right.

BAUM!

A dusty discharge of documents filled the air.  Fire, lava, ash exploded from underfoot, a laughing man among it.  He held the keys to my garage, he said he’d never leave.  He had the right, I could not sell because he squat.

“Io sotto scritta, Cretina come sono, nata a New York, residente a parigi, con la presente vi communico…
I hereby undersign, cretin that I am, born in NY, resident of Paris, with the present document intend to...

Rambogram- flash fiction for Chuck Wendig's weekly challenge

Here is my fourth flash fiction short for Chuck Wendig's friday challenge of July 8th.  This time the prompt was a bizarre photo that he called the "Lady and the Swordsman."  Being the visually stimulated person that I am, defect of twenty years working as a professional painter, my mind started racing and I thought of an article I read years ago in some newspaper about a Rambogram.  Here I tried to create the story through dialogue.  Clic on the link to Chuck's blog to check out the photo before you read this, if you feel like it.

Rambogram

962 words

By Angie Brooksby Arcangioli

Flash Fiction Challenge 8 July 2011

“I’m delivering a telegram,” Dave managed to say while slobbering on the boutique window his cheek was crammed against. “Telegram,” he repeated. “Ouch, that hurt.”

They jammed his arms up high between his shoulder blades and someone held his hair so tight he could feel the knuckles whitening in their grip.

“Shut up, man,” the guy behind him said.

“You got him, Bambi?” another one said.

“This is a big mistake. You’re making a mistake. It’s all wrong,” he complained as black grease smeared across the window and his thoughts flew to Candy when the masked lady wearing a fur stole appeared. She placed a white glove in the upheld hand of the mannequin, the ugliest one he’d ever laid eyes on.  What the hell were they thinking when they put that fencing helmet on it?  The lady smiled and watched him from behind the glass.

“You makin’ the mistake buddy, you’re under arrest,” the man said when he tightened the plastic things around his wrists then brought his arms down and flung him around.

Dave’s heart jumped when he saw an entire SWAT team pointing guns down his throat. 

“Smug bitch,” he whimpered when he felt a bee sting his shoulder then his knees bent and he peed himself as he crashed to the ground.

…

“Your eyes are beautiful, Candy,” Dave said.  Her smile bright.

“Thanks Dave, you’re free to go.” 

“Go where?”

“Home, or if you want we can go for a drink but you must change first.”

Dave sat up.

“Take it easy, “ Candy said and touched his burning shoulder, “ they shot you with…”

“Shot me?  I’m shot?  Who shot me?”  His head spun and his vision blurred. He let himself fall back to the cot.

A man dressed in black walked towards them and asked Candy to sign a paper on a clipboard.  He remembered he’d been arrested.  He was in some kind of clinic or maybe it was a hospital.  Voices and hard heeled shoes banged around his foggy head.  He was in a police station; the man talking to Candy was a police officer.

“Yes sir, I am responsible,” she said.

“What you did Miss Lark is grave. You will need to hire a lawyer if he wants to press charges.”

“Yes sir,” Candy responded and the man walked away.

Another officer asked him, “Need something sir,  water, a coffee?”

Dave’s head seemed unattached.

“A coffee, black, jet black.”

“Right away sir.” 

He walked away and Candy’s face filled the room. He could smell her lipstick. The unbecoming pink triggered his memory and his brain ticked to.  Instantly he was awake.

“Who was I supposed to deliver the telegram to?”  he asked sitting up.

“I see the drug wore off,” Candy said, “they told me it would happen like that,  you’re eyes would open, you’d be groggy then suddenly wide awake.”

“Where you there? why didn’t you tell them I was delivering a telegram?” 

“Promise if I tell you, you won’t get mad.”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you because you’re going to be on the news tonight.”

“Oh shit, no.”

“Polly asked me to have you deliver the telegram to Jim and she insisted on the Rambogram.  She knew that you needed money to buy me the diamond ring and you’d complained that you were sick of dressing up like the French maid because you had to shave your legs and the Rambogram was the most expensive so she ordered it and wrote that we are getting hooked and you wanted Jim to be best man.  Me and Polly were going to jump out at the last minute and drop our fur coats and you guys would get such a thrill when you saw our get-ups. Remember those strawberry flavored panties.  I couldn’t wait to see your face.  Isn’t that just so cool?”

“I can’t believe it,”  Dave mouthed.

“Oh yeah and I was in the shop window with a mask on and wearing the fur and Polly was hiding behind the curtain.  You were so sexy. And then some old lady called the police.  She was freaking out like you were some thief or Rambo in person. Oh you were hot, with that ripped tank top and your abs showing.  You should have seen the way people got so scared and hid behind cars.”

“Candy… what?” he tried to say but she interrupted him, she was talking eighty miles an hour, he’d never seen her like that, this bimbo wasn’t his betrothed, she was someone else.

“The SWAT team came and a guy they called Bambi squished your face against the window display, oh you looked just like my little nephew when he makes funny faces, then they shot you with some drugged dart and you collapsed and that is when you peed yourself. There were tons of people, a huge crowd and the TV crews. They’d lined off the area so fast. Everything happened in a blink of an eye.  Oh my Boogly-Boo, let me kiss your shoulder and the boo-boo will go away.”

She leant towards him puckering her lips with her eyes closed tight, aiming for his sore shoulder but he dodged her and stood up to accept the coffee from the officer.

“Dave, what’s got in to you?” Candy asked.

He glanced at her sideways as he sipped the black liquid that tasted like heaven, normally he hated coffee but he felt reborn when the boiling ebony liquid burned his throat.

He threw the plastic cup in the trash walked through the door and his voice trailed behind him, “Forget the ring, Candy, forget everything, it was all a big mistake, I was wrong.  We’re not getting married.”

Safety First, Friday Flash Fiction Challenge

Chuck Wendig announced the #fridayflash  Fiction Challenge for 1 July 2011, this time the prompt was: The Fourth of July.   I wrote two but am posting only this one.

Safety First

995 words

By Angie Brooksby Arcangioli

Flash Fiction Challenge 1 July 2011

Ding !

The no-smoking light went off.  Jake lit up without thinking, he’d waited anxiously for the signal, idling himself with a newspaper he found on a chair before boarding the plane to Vegas.  He flipped open and closed his new flint lighter, fondling the smooth metal and admired the long flame.

The article that caught Jake’s attention spoke of the helmet law. Shit like this pissed him off  like when they made him pack his gun in the check-on luggage.  He wasn’t going to shoot anyone, why didn’t they let him keep it in his pocket?

“Hey Rosy, did you read this?”  He pushed the article onto his wife’s lap, but she was busy trying to calm the kids across the isle in the no-smoking side of the plane. 

“I told you to put that under the seat in front of you.”  She scolded their ten year-old boy who handled the bottle rockets they were transporting to their cousins.  Fireworks were expensive in Vegas. 

“Put it back in the paper bag and shove it under that seat.” 

He frowned but did as she told.

“Damn, they never listen.”  She turned to Jake.  “What’d you say?”

“They gonna make us wear helmets.”

“Who?”

“Just read it, will ya?”  He tapped the newspaper on her lap and lit the Salem menthol she pulled from her leopard pattern cigarette holder.  She put on her reading glasses then concentrated on the newspaper.

“Is Uncle Jimmy gonna light the dynamite?”  The son asked. 

“Hell yes.”  Jake answered. He was looking forward to seeing his brother, it had been since July 4^th last year, an entire year.  Damn, time flew.  He snapped open the lighter and admired the flame.

“Can I light a stick, Pa?” 

“No son, that’s dangerous.  Remember what your teacher said: safety first,” Jake responded while lighting a cigarette in the tall blue flame next to the burnt butt in his mouth. Flying made him nervous. 

“Helmets,”  Rosy complained.  “Do you remember the last time I put one on? A wasp got stuck in my hair under it and stung me five times before you could find a place to pull over and then when you took off the helmet it stung me again.”

“Oh yeah, that was nuts.”

Ding!

The fasten seat belt light went on as the captain’s voice announced, “This is Captain White,  please fasten your seatbelts, we are starting our descent to Las Vegas.”

A loud noise rocked the plane. 

“What was that?” Rosy worried. 

“No fear M’am,” The stewardess said with a twang as she offered to light Rosy’s cigarette then handed her the box of matches as a souvenir. “That’s the sound of the landing wheels coming out of the plane.”

The airplane landed with a thump.   Everyone stood up to remove objects from the overhead compartments while the plane taxied to the airport buildings.  The stewardess thanked each passenger before they descended the steps into the dessert air.  Rosy handed Jake’s boy his baseball bat when he exited, it wouldn’t fit under the seat or in the overhead.  Jake, wife and kids crossed the tarmac to Uncle Jimmy’s Chevy pickup that was easy to spot among the others because his German Shepard was barking like crazy.

“Happy Fourth of July,” Uncle Jimmy roared hugging everyone. 

Jake carried two suitcases.  “Damn, Rosy, what’d you put in here?  Someone should invent a suitcase with wheels. My arms are falling off.”

Uncle Jimmy helped fit the luggage in the truck bed around the cases of dynamite that he proudly uncovered the then cushioned with wool blankets to make seats for the kids. 

“First stop, ice cream and root beer floats.”  Uncle Jimmy announced their yearly ritual.

Jake unpacked his gun then helped Rosy and the kids climb in the bed of the truck with the dog that licked everyone in the face. He mounted into the cab next to his brother.  Uncle Jimmy left the parking lot and soon was speeding South towards the ice cream parlour.

“I scream you scream we all scream for ice cream,” Rosie and the kids sang accompanied by the wildly barking dog.

The truck bounced up and down jostling everyone.

“Hey Bro, you know we gonna have to start wearing helmets?  I read it in the newspaper,”  Jake yelled over the din.

“What?”  Jimmy hollered turning his head towards Jake who played with the lighter. 

“Hey, look out,”  Jake shouted pulling the wheel to avoid a roadrunner crossing the highway.

The truck swerved and missed the bird.  Everyone screamed with laughter.

“Watch this, the kids will love it.  Grab the wheel, Jake.”  Uncle Jimmy was already snaking out the open driver’s side window while the truck sped down the deserted highway in fourth gear.  He was halfway out when Jake took command of the pickup.

“I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,”  The kids yelled. 

Jake looked in the rear view mirror to see Rosy’s skirt whipping around her butt that was plastered to the glass of the cab.  Flashes of her panties distracted him from the road -- they were his favourite.  His brother hung out the window backwards and shot the gun.  Pop, pop, pop.  The kids wailed.

The straight road was boring so Jake watched his lighter, flipping it open and closed.  His hand jerked when Jimmy’s foot slipped and kicked the lighter to the floor of the cab.

“Damn,” Jake yelled, reaching between his feet, the straw lining in the truck’s seat was  aflame. He jumped to the passenger’s side letting go of the wheel and closed his eyes as he banged his head on the dash.  When he opened his eyes, Jimmy stood next to him. 

“Man, that was cool.” 

Fire blackened the overturned truck next to a big hole in the dirt.

“Can we do it again Pa?”  His son asked. 

“What’s wrong with the dog?”  Rosy asked. 

“She’s dead.”

First Delusion - a YA flash fiction for Chuck Wendig's weekly challenge

Chuck Wendig of Terribleminds is an inspiration, he issued the Friday flash fiction challenge of April 15th.  This time around he gave five random words - Figure, Dusk, Flirt, Mobile Phone and Wig - to create a story with a 1000 word limit.

Check out the links to the Paris tango schedule at the end.

tango on the Seine photo by Brooksby 2007

First Delusion

999 words

by Angie Arcangioli

Three knocks on the door broke the laughter.  Chloe ran to open it wide and gasped when she saw him, the anticipation of meeting her father’s best friend was like waiting for Christmas.  He was here for the Paris Tango festival all the way from Buenos Aires. 

“Hello, you must be Chloe.” His deep voice echoed as he stepped inside. Chloe’s father budged past her and hugged Rex.  Rex was not his given name. The tangueros called him that because beautiful women wrecked their lives to fight for his devotion.

Rex hugged her father back and they laughed. 

“How long has it been?” Carlos asked.

“Sofia, the love of my life.  You’re younger every time I see you. ” Rex jested, dropping Carlos to hug her mother with such enthusiasm that he lifted her, swinging her around. She laughed heartily.

“You never change.”  Chloe saw her mother’s face lighten and Rex winked at her.

They moved to the room filled with singing people where her uncle played the bandoneon.  Chloe watched Rex as he warmly greeted every one with a kiss, a slap, some words.  He had something special for all.  He was unlike any Parisian, warm and bubbly.  Rex kept his eyes on Chloe; she was engulfed by his charisma.  He circled the room stopping at the chair next to hers. 

That evening her father threw a welcome party for Rex, it was years since he last visited Paris.  Everyone talked about the days before Chloe was born, a few couples danced in the big hall.

Chloe was fourteen; her figure was flowering gracefully into puberty.  She learnt to dance Argentine tango for fun in the house during parties but fencing was her passion.  The lead and follow of tango aided her footwork in competitions. She was regional champion in her age group and was nicknamed the tanguera. 

“I hear you’ve quit tango for fencing!  How many guys have you eliminated?”  Rex teased.

Chloe said nothing she was too shy and unaccustomed to such flirtatious attention.

“Oh come on, leave her alone. You’re too old for her.”  Chloe’s uncle chuckled. 

Everyone wanted Rex’s consideration but fell quiet when he told stories of Buenos Aires and the wealthy divorced women that flew there to dance with he and the other tangueros.  They asked him for his schedule, when could they see him while he was in Paris.  Everyone wanted a piece of Rex, he was captivating, his allure irresistible.

He moved his face close to Chloe’s and touched her hand.   The room was silent.

“When will I get to dance with you, my rose bud, tomorrow evening? I will be at the arenas on the quais de Seine, you must come.” Everyone laughed but Chloe; she turned pink.

Chloe’s father was behind Rex.

 “Rex, get real. You’ve already broken too many hearts.” Laughter filled the room again.

Chloe had heard stories about Rex and she was flustered, she knew at that moment that she wanted him to hold her.  It was a yearning inside her that was new, adrenalin rushed in her veins. She secretly decided she would go to the Seine to dance with him.

“Chloe, it’s getting late, remember you have a match tomorrow.” Her mother said softly in her ear.

“I can’t decide who is more beautiful, the mother or the daughter.” His eyes glittered.  He looked at Chloe and her mother smiling maliciously.

People began to leave and Chloe escorted some to the door kissing each person on the cheek as French children do.  Rex was the last.

“Remember, tomorrow at the Seine, nine o’clock sharp.” Rex joked and let her kiss him.

Chloe went to her bedroom. She had a plan.  She skyped her best friend. 

“Hi Isabelle. What are you doing tomorrow, I need help?”

“So did Rex come?” Isabelle snickered.  She knew all about him.

“Tomorrow night I have to go to the Seine, Rex will be there, he asked me to dance with him.  I need you to cover for me, I told my parents that we are going to a movie together, okay?”

“I’m stuck tomorrow. I wanted to come with you. What about your match?” Isabelle whined.

“It doesn’t matter, but if they call, tell them I’ll call back then call me, I’ll skip the match, I need a wig.” Chloe hung up before Isabelle could speak then jumped in bed.

The next day she rode her bicycle to the wig shop on rue Vaugirard and bought a brown bob shape cut.  It was discreet and she would blend in.

After dinner, her parents wished her a good evening with Isabelle. She left stashing the wig and her dance shoes in a scarf then ran to the bus to go the Seine before dusk.

The long June shadows from the dancing crowd pulsated. Rex glided over the pavement with a girl in his arms.  The crowd was huge. Chloe recognized many people but the wig and big shaded glasses hid her.

She waited on the steps of the arena for a long time. Her heart beating wildly; then joined the crowd.  She approached Rex and took his hand. 

“Oh my beauty, I’ve waited for you all night, dance this one with me.”

When the music ended Chloe lifted her glasses and grinned at Rex.  His face clouded.

“What are you doing here Chloe, you must go home.  This is no place for a kid.” 

Tears welled in Chloe’s eyes, she expected a loving embrace not anger. Rex took his mobile from his pocket, phoned her father and then escorted her to the taxi stand ranting at her stupidity.  She refused to look at him and entered the taxi crying.

“Chloe, go home, go back to your épée forget tango.”  He slammed the door to the taxi.

The taxi stopped in front of her house, her mother waited on the doorstep. She ran into her mother’s arms sobbing,

“Rex says those things to all the women. He’s just a flirt.”




A.E. Arcangioli, © 16 April 2011


Paris tango agenda - Quais de Seine

video tango on the Seine