A Prairie Life

A Prairie Life Lucille Guðnason sat beside me in the back of Jimmy Walker's roadster as we whirled through the dips and curves of a prairie life. She squealed with excitement as she plucked the petals from a daisy and threw one after another out the side window. "She loves me," she shrieked with exaggerated pleasure in a falsetto voice. Then she would toss another petal out the window, and in her deepest voice, add, "She loves me not." I watched her with young, blue eyes, as if I were waiting for the verdict. She caught the depth of my gaze, and a dark veil fell like a shadow over her face. "Quit," she whispered to me in a soft reprimand. "We're going. I'm not talking about it anymore." I dropped my eyes and stared into to my lap. I felt small in her presence. Then, with a forced giggle, she threw her head back and bucked her hips upwards, as the car roared over a hill and soared into flight. When the front tires crashed to the swollen asphalt, Lucille lurched forward and moaned as her nose flattened against the back of the front seat. A trickle of blood found its way down her chin and smeared her white blouse. She pulled a knot of tissues from her bag and held it tightly against her nose, turning it over once or twice until the bleeding stopped. I tried to help her settle back into the seat, but she pushed me away. "Damn it to hell," she growled, "I'm fine. Just leave me alone." I wanted to turn away, turn away and look out across the fields of wheat that rippled in shades of harvest gold all the way to the horizon. I couldn't, and instead, I picked her daisy up from the floor and cradled it in my hands in front of her. There were only four or five petals remaining, and I tied to calculate the odds of Lucille's love for me, but she snatched it away and threw the flower into the bright sunlight. "I never loved you," she whispered, "and I never will." I looked away, then back into her eyes. "You're crying," I said softly. "Don't be sad." "I'm not," she hissed back to me. "I'm angry." "At me?" "Yes, at you, at me, at all of this." "It'll be all right, you know," I said without truly believing my words. "It's just a small thing, and then it will be done." "It's not a small thing. Small to you, maybe, but not small to me." "We decided," I began. "No," she groaned. "We didn't decide. You decided. You wanted this, not me." "There was no other way." "Not in your mind. Not in your selfish muddle of a mind. All you see is what's best for you." "That's not true," I said quietly. Lucille's eyes lit up in a rage. "It is true," she blurted. "The only one who matters is you. Can't you see? I'm not doing this for me. I'm doing this for you." I sat back and said nothing. We had reached the town line, and the roadster slowed as Jimmy turned down a side street and up a long hill. A white clapboard house loomed above us, and then in an instant, we had pulled into the gravel drive and stopped by a side door. Afterwards, Lucille sat on a stone bench, some distance from the house, near where an old tire was tied by a rotting green rope to an ancient oak tree. It swung and twisted, ever so slightly, in the evening breeze. Lucille was smoking cigarettes and watching the sun set, a bright yellow glow surrounded by eerie white clouds slowly turning grey. I watched her for a few minutes, considered calling to her, but didn't. Instead, I leaned against the car by Jimmy, kicked at the gravel, and wondered aloud, "How long you think she'll sit there? I gotta get back before dark." Copyright © Kennedy James, 2010. All rights reserved.