Beginning Promises
by: Lizabeth Scott
Nicole twirled in her new dress. If she went fast enough the skirt blew up like an icing mountain on top of a cupcake, and her eyes would spin around in her head. Nicole giggled; she loved it when that happened. She closed her eyes and looked up, the sun warmed her face, and went round and round until her legs felt jiggly, and she fell down.
“Nicolette! Get up off that grass right this instant. You’ll ruin your dress.”
Nicole looked down, curious how grass could ruin her twirling dress. She shrugged her shoulders; it looked the same to her. She wished it were a different color, like pink or orange, but her grandmother said black was tra-dit-ional.
“Nicolette! It is rude to ignore someone.”
“Yes, Grandmother.” Nicole rose slowly from her seat on the grass to her new black patent leather shoes that squeaked when they rubbed together.
“Come along, quickly. Now, you must be quiet inside. Not a sound, child. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Grandmother.” Nicole took her grandmother’s hand and together they walked into the big building between two rows of really long wooden couches that were filled with people. Nicole looked up at many different faces staring back at her as she and her grandmother walked by. Some of the people were crying. Others were shaking their heads. Nicole wondered if they were looking at her ruined twirling dress and were as upset as her grandmother.
When they got to the end of the couches, her grandmother stopped in front of two big boxes that had flowers on top. Nicole stood on her tiptoes to see how the flowers were stuck on top. She wondered if maybe they grew out of a hole in the top of the box. She looked up to ask her grandmother just that, but her grandmother was crying. Why did the flowers make her grandmother sad? Or maybe it was the boxes.
Nicole looked closely at the hand holding hers. Why would anyone need to wear gloves in the summertime? Thin white gloves too; they weren’t very warm. Her grandmother had insisted she wear some too, but Nicole had ruined them by throwing rocks in the lake behind her grandparents’ house.
After standing in front of the flower boxes for a long time, Nicole’s grandmother led her to the first wooden couch to sit beside her grandfather. Nicole smiled at him, and he rewarded her with a piece of peppermint candy. Before she could unwrap it and pop it in her mouth, her grandmother snatched it up, dropped it in her pocketbook, and snapped it closed.
“Don’t give her candy in church. Do you want her to have sticky hands and a dirty face? What would people think?”
Nicole tipped her head and wondered how her grandmother could whisper and smile yet sound so mean. She frowned at the black pocketbook; if her grandmother had wanted a peppermint, she should’ve asked grandfather for a piece of her own. She didn’t have to take hers.
Nicole started to swing her legs back and forth. Her grandmother laid her hand on her knee, frowned, and shook her head. Nicole guessed they didn’t allow that either.
Nicole sat between her grandparents while two people sang songs. She didn’t know those songs, and they didn’t sound very happy. She liked it when her mommy made up silly songs; every night her mommy would sing, “Go to sleep, go to sleep, don’t you worry ‘bout your smelly feet.” They would laugh until Daddy would come in and kiss her goodnight.
It had been a long time since Mommy sang to her or Daddy tucked her in and told her to sleep tight and not let the beddy bugs bite. Grandmother said they’d gone to heaven. Nicole hoped they’d get back soon. She missed them.
She missed her doggy Penney too. Penney was short for Jonathan Christopher Penney-Gill. Her mommy had read a story to her about him. Her daddy laughed and said that was a boy’s name, and her doggy was a girl. But Nicole didn’t care, she just liked the name. She and Penney had come to stay with her grandparents. Grandmother didn’t like Penney and made her stay outside in the backyard. She said Penney was fleefested, whatever that meant.
Nicole missed Penney sleeping at the foot of her bed. Some nights when she missed her mommy and daddy a whole lot, Grandfather would sneak Penney into her bedroom.
Nicole started to squirm on the hard wooden couch. They’d been there for such a long time. She scooted down, and her grandmother tapped her on the shoulder and whispered again in her mean/nice voice, “Sit up straight, child.”
Music started playing and everybody stood up. A bunch of men rolled the flower boxes out, and she and her grandparents walked right behind them. The men stuffed the boxes in the biggest black cars Nicole had ever seen. Standing on her tiptoes and peering around her grandmother, Nicole watched until they closed the big black doors.
Nicole jumped and giggled when bells started ringing from the top of the building. Her grandmother squeezed her hand and bent down close to Nicole’s ear like she was going to tell her a secret, “Quiet child, this is not the time for laughter.”
Nicole pursed her little rose colored lips; her mommy always said that laughter was the best medicine. If all these people were sad, then they needed to laugh so they’d feel better.
“This way, child.” Her grandmother walked right up to one of those long black cars. This car wasn’t like the ones they stuffed the flower boxes in. This one had seats in the back, soft cushy seats.
“Stop bouncing on the seats, Nicole. You might damage the leather.”
Grandmother didn’t whisper this time, but she still sounded mean. “Yes, Grandmother.”
“Cover your knees, dear.”
Nicole tilted her head and looked up at her grandmother; clueless as to her meaning, she shrugged and put her hands over her knees.
“No, dear,” her grandmother sighed and put a hand to her chest. “Pull your dress down to cover your knees. A proper lady never shows her knees. You want to be a proper lady now, don’t you, Nicole?”
Nicole had no idea what a proper lady was, so how was she supposed to know if she wanted to be one? Since she didn’t have an answer, she just shrugged her shoulders again.
Her grandmother sighed loudly this time and then spoke over Nicole’s head to her grandfather. “We have our work cut out with this one. They allowed the child to run wild, no doubt. No manners, I say. Absolutely none.”
Nicole yawned and remembered to cover her mouth like her grandmother said she should. Sometimes when she yawned her mommy would let her take a nap. She leaned over onto her grandfather’s arm and closed her eyes. Her grandfather smelled like the pipe he smoked outside on the veranda in the evenings when grandmother was reading.
“Wake up, child. We’re here.”
Nicole blinked awake and rubbed her eyes. She scooted out of the car and walked with her grandparents in a big, green, grassy field. The field had a bunch of different type of flowers planted all over. Nicole thought some of the flowers they walked by didn’t look real.
The same people that were in the big building came to the field with them. Nicole and her grandparents took a seat in front of those two flower boxes. The same man opened a book and started to read. Nicole didn’t understand what he said. The words were too big and didn’t sound like any of her story books.
The man stopped talking, and those people walked by and said how sorry they were. Some hugged her grandmother and her, and some shook their hands. They all said how sorry they were. Nicole wondered what they had done to be so sorry about.
When all the people had left, Nicole stood between her grandparents beside the flower boxes. Nobody said anything, and Nicole didn’t know why they had to stare at the boxes. Finally her grandmother took her by the hand to leave. Nicole turned back and watched a man turn a wheel. One of the flower boxes started going down into the ground.
Nicole pointed behind her and asked, “Grandmother, what are they doing?”
“They’re burying them dear.”
“Why are they burying those flower boxes?”
Her grandmother sighed and looked at her grandfather who wiped at his eyes with a snowy white handkerchief. “Come Nicole, it’s time to go home.”
Nicole looked over her shoulder until they were back in the big black car and she could no longer see the flower boxes. She didn’t understand why they wanted to bury such beautiful flower boxes.
“Knees, Nicole.”
Nicole pulled the hem of her twirly dress down, “Yes, Grandmother.”
Three Months Later
Nicole sat curled up on the window seat in her bedroom gazing out over the lake. She missed her mommy and daddy and wondered if they would ever come home. She was beginning to forget what her life had been like before coming to live with her grandparents.
She missed Penney now, too. Her grandmother said Penney ran away from home. She probably left because of all of grandmothers’ rules. Sometimes she wished she could have run away with Penney.
Nicole sat up a little straighter when she heard a noise. She smiled and held her hand to the window pane as if she was saying hello to the little boy next door. She giggled as she watched him run around in circles with his doggy yapping at his heels. She didn’t mind being alone on the second floor because she had a perfect view of the boy’s yard.
Nicole waited each day for the boy to run outside. Some days his brothers came with him, and they would play soccer or baseball. She could sit and watch him play for hours.
“Nicolette.”
Nicole jumped when her grandmother called to her from the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes, Grandmother?”
“Come, child. It’s time to go to my circle meeting.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Nicole took one last look at the little boy next door and smiled as she watched his doggy lick his face. Penney used to do that to her.
Nicole brushed her skirt into place and started down the stairs to join her grandmother but looked at her hand on the banister and stopped. She quickly went back to her room, picked up her pair of white cotton gloves and pulled them on as she slowly and quietly descended the stairs.
A NOTE FROM LIZ,
I hope you were moved by the sad beginning of Nicole’s story and that you need to find out how her story unfolds. Well, you can!
This story does contain hot, steamy, scenes and is written for mature readers 18+.
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Hey Liz, it's Tim. I'm posting as anon so you won't think Valerie is doing it (her name came up since she put together the hop).
ReplyDeleteI really like your prologue. Makes me want to know what happens to that poor girl. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Tim. I'm glad I got my story hop linked right! I hope V is feeling better!
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