Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 128, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 781 & 782, September/October 2006

There’s a Girl for Me by Tom Tetzlaff

Tom Tetzlaff, a doctor from Reno, Nevada, is the author of many nonfiction works in the medical field, including textbook chapters and journal articles. His fiction debut in our Department of First Stories comes on the heels of his completion of a mystery novel, which we hope will soon see print.

I saw her stroll from the ladies’ underwear store, and I said to myself, now there’s a girl for me.

Tall, lanky-thin, hair black and shiny like a mink coat. The flip of her curls bounced off her shoulders; the shopping bags swung in cadence with her certain stride.

She is coming my way. I know I shouldn’t stare, but I can’t help it — that’s who I am.

I’ll call her Barbara. I like to name the women I watch after old girlfriends. She reminds me of Barbara.

She wasn’t my first love, but I loved her deep and true.

It was in college — wild days of Jim Beam, sloe gin, hot jazz, and easy virtue. I was a straggler. I actually studied my freshman year — a country bumpkin trying for the American Dream.

My new Barbara stops where I am seated and looks right at me. There is no recognition of shame in her large brown eyes.

She speaks: “Excuse me — is this seat taken?”

I can’t respond. I am frozen and mute. I can only blink “no”. She drops her Macy’s and Victoria’s Secret bags next to me, pirouettes, and plops down with a big sigh.

I wonder if I can look in her bag without her noticing, but I am afraid to look. Is she staring at me, at my deformity? This is a brave girl to sit by a bizarre stranger in a deserted mall.

Barbara was brave, too. Or at least I thought so then. She had a red Ford convertible and drove like an enchanted witch, hair flopping like a horse’s tail, big brown eyes wide with excited fear, her lips red, hair wind-stuck to her teeth as she concentrated on the curves in the road ahead.

She taught me a lot: how to drive, how to drink whiskey, and how to suck pot deep into my soul. How to lose yourself in another’s pleasure.

My new Barbara is talking to me, so I listen. I struggle and must appear interested. But I never know if I am doing it right.

Oh God, she’s asking me about what she bought. She shows me the lace nightie. Yes, yes, I think it is very nice, but I don’t think Victoria should be selling her secrets in public. I say this, but she doesn’t hear me. I am mute.

It doesn’t seem to bother her. She puts the garment away and tells me about her boyfriend. He has a sissy name like Robert, or Ronald, or Thomas. I just know that no one used their given names in my neighborhood. He would be Bob, or Ron, or Tom, a real man’s name.

She says he doesn’t want kids. She thinks he will change. What do I think? She says he wants to leave her. Do I think he will stay if she wears these?

How can I answer that? How can anyone know what is in the future? Just look at me.

Barbara didn’t want our child. I was from family, and it was good. But she had wounds I could not see, wounds that smoldered in her womb and could not heal.

In her mind, my baby was still her uncle’s child.

She smoked more, drank more, and drove off a cliff one dark and rainy night. The police tried to blame it on me. It wasn’t my fault. Really it wasn’t.

I want to tell my new Barbara that life is danger, that life is joy and no one knows what is around that wet and slippery curve ahead.

But I am mute.

I try hard to talk and a single grunt escapes from deep in my throat, my first sound in months. Elated, I want to tell her more, but a young man with too-pale skin, red and blotchy with excitement, comes to her side and tells her what he bought. He uses big sweeping gestures and singsong words. She tries to kiss him but he turns a beef-patty cheek to her.

I want to tell her that he is as shallow as a river skiff, but I am mute.

I hear them coming to get me, to take me away in my prison chair.

“Grandpa, are you okay? Who’s your new friend?” Janny turns to talk to my new Barbara. “I hope he didn’t scare you. He drools, and his eyes water like that since his stroke.”

My new Barbara looks at me and smiles. She says that I was great company and that we had a nice chat.

They move behind to push my wheelchair away. My new Barbara leans over and kisses me on my salty cheek. I blink a fond goodbye, but she does not know.

She turns and strides away swinging her Macy’s bag. Robert or Ronald or Thomas quicksteps after her. And as they turn my chair I see she has left her secret bag next to me. Yes, you are my type, I want to yell.

Copyright © 2006 by Tom Tetzlaff