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Rules | Entry Summaries | First Round Rankings | Elimination Round!

"So, are you married?" he asked, walking back to the other side of his counter.

She leaned up against the top of the counter with her hip, her proximity so close now that she could clearly see the label of the candle burning brightly. The label displayed clearly what she knew would have been just as magnificent to the senses as if it were right in front of her. Peach Cobbler.

"What has Mom told you?"

"Your mom, shame on her," he said in an affected deeper-than-usual voice, "has not been in for ages. I see her from time to time, but we never seem to have the time to stop and swap stories. That's how life goes. Once I asked how you were, and she said you were good and that you were betrothed. But I don't see a ring." He pointed to her left hand.

Again, she blushed.

"No, I can't seem to keep men in my life for more than five years, apparently." She had no problem being candid around Don. He was just one of those people that so many found so easy to talk to that he probably had the pleasure of hearing almost everyone's sob story who visited his store.

"I was engaged last year, but we just had too many differences. He decided to tell me, during the planning stages of our wedding, that he really didn't see himself having kids. That he thought at one point he wanted to and then all of a sudden realized it would impede his goals."

"Which were?" asked Don, elbows resting on the high counter.

"That's the thing! He didn't even really have any!" She laughed and shook her head.

"But that's the honest-to-God's truth. I wish it weren't, but I lived it. It is! It was. At some point, I felt as if I were more of his mother than his partner."

"Oh, boy," said Don. "That's quite a doozy of a tale. What did he do, anyway?"

"He was a salesman for a cell phone company who dreamed of being a famous musician."

"Let me guess. He was a drummer."

"How did you know?" she asked, incredulous.

"Oh, I used to be in a band myself when I was a lot younger. Let me just tell you I had a feeling. Are you up for a joke?"

"Of course, Don, always."

"What do you call the drummer without a girlfriend?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"I don't know. Screwed?"

"Ha. Close! Homeless."*

"That's a good one!"

"So how long are you in town?" he asked.

"Just long enough to visit with my mom and maybe see some sights while I'm here. You know, parks where Dad and I used to play. I'm kind of in a nostalgic stage in my life, where I am not sure how exactly to keep it moving forward. Professionally, yes, I will always be able to do that, but I am thirty-eight, have no children, want them, of course, but have no viable candidate for a Mrs. Jill Summerfield."

Leaning as close to her as possible, while at the same time still giving her a sense of personal space, Don whispered, "There's your problem right there. You expect someone to take your name. A guy's not gonna do that, especially not one down around here, not that you are looking for one from around our neck of the woods, but—" Suddenly, the door chime sounded, alerting the owner and his visitor to another presence. It was an older gentleman and his wife, regular customers come to see what, if any, new scents awaited their eyes, noses, truly. Don waved to them.

"I tell you what, Don," Jill said in a confident tone, "we can continue this conversation later, since, after all, you have a business to run and I will be here for a few days, but let me ask, just for argument's sake—I am a lawyer, after all—what would it hurt for a man to give up his last name for a woman's in its place? We do it without thinking sometimes and then no one can ever find us afterwards. ‘Well, I don't know what happened to her; I knew her when she used to be.'"

"Yes," he said, "but then you get to form new friends who will remember you always, or at least until you get divorced and remarried and can do it all again." Don's grin spread from cheek to cheek.

"Never lose that sense of humor," Jill said.

"I don't plan to," he replied. "Say, I'll go ahead and leave you alone for a while so you can actually look around the store and perhaps add to my coffers just a bit." He leaned in close so only she could hear, "Who knows, I may cut you a discount."
She patted him on the shoulder and thanked him for his kindness, if not for his chauvinistic attitude, and walked away from the counter. The couple who had recently entered now approached the counter, seeing that the opportunity was ripe for their own chance to visit.

The smells of the candles as she held them in her hands brought back so many memories of her life as a young girl in these parts. Mornings just like these. Some things had remained the same in all the years she had been away; some things had obviously changed. Their were more traffic lights, for example, but not many. If she could have somehow traveled back in time, she would have, would have changed the fate of her father, would have kept turning back time to make sure that that event never happened, would have always remained a little girl because everyone likes little girls and there is nothing quite like being hugged by your daddy. But she did not have a time machine and she knew that it was time to wake up and face life's realities. Things only get more difficult as you get older. More difficult and more complicated, she realized. Would she ever find someone to replace her ex-fiance, whom she invested so much time and energy and love and, well, money even? She remembered her dad being the optimist in the family, her mom the realist-sometimes-bordering-on-pessimist. Right then, she knew, she only wanted to make her dad proud. She wished he could see her.

"Don," she said after she opened her eyes, "you have a good day and I hope to see you before I leave. I'll buy one of these before I head back, I promise," she said, holding a butternut creme candle.

"I sure hope so." He winked and then looked as if he had remembered something all of a sudden. "Have you seen your mom yet?"

"No, she's working all day today at the hospital, but we're meeting later tonight."

"You be sure to tell her I said ‘hi', won't ya?"

"I'll do it," she said and gave a quick nod for emphasis.

With that, Jill turned to open the door and exited. She did not, however, notice the older man walking down the sidewalk away from her, his hair sticking out in all directions, his jacket torn on one elbow, and a cough coming from somewhere deep in his chest could be heard from many yards away. She turned right, as he continued to walk left, she east, he west, and she failed to notice him stop, turn, and study whom he believed to be his daughter.


Lunch. What to do for lunch, she thought. She definitely did not want to return to her hotel just yet. She figured she would be spending enough time there as it were already later in the day. She had high hopes of a nap and then another shower before it was all said and done.

As she walked away from Don Wallace's shop, her stomach turned over one time, groaning its song for food. Italian sounded good to her, so she walked three blocks, a light breeze blowing her amber hair back, sunglasses protecting her eyes from some debris that had been kicked up because of it. Malzone's. She had not eaten there for years, but somehow it called to her from beyond time. It was the hangout when she was in high school and she was hopeful it would still be there when she arrived.

Crossing the street and rounding the corner, she could see it now not far off. With its Italian flag proudly displayed in the window, there Malzone's sat on display for all the world to see, for those to discover authentic Italian food or for those whom had already reached enlightenment and would return for more. Again, she thought, some things just do not ever change. She wondered if she would run into anyone she knew from her younger days. It was Wednesday, after all, and she surmised that the chance of seeing someone she recognized was slim. But the way the day was going, who could tell?

Stepping into Malzone's, she was immediately taken back to a place of yesteryear. The sweet smell of the sauce and also the fresh scent of newly-baked French bread wafted through the entire place. Certain scents instantly trigger memories; and while we cannot remember each and every situation in which those scents were present, we do stop to wonder where in our past we encountered a particular odor. She was no different. She froze, remembering times on Friday nights with her friends after football games. She missed all of them, though she had lost touch with almost every one of them. The only time she ran into anyone from her high school days was when she would visit her mom and they would go to the town's hamburger and French fry joint, where a girl with whom she did not fraternize too much in school, though each was aware of the other and liked one another well enough, had been working ever since high school. She was the manager, yes, but Jill wondered if she ever regretted not going to college or, in her opinion, making something of her life.

The girl at the counter had her back turned, talking to someone Jill could not see. There was some commotion in the back, and she swore that she knew that voice that she could not see.

The girl turned, her long black hair swirling to catch up with the rest of her face. She looked frustrated, but she was pleasant toward her. These days, she thought, it was so difficult to find good people who worked customer service roles. But this young, twenty-something girl looked promising.

"Hello," she said. "What can I get you?"

There were very few people in the Italian restaurant, as she got there before the noon rush, apparently.

"I'd like the personal-sized Italian sausage and mushroom. Easy cheese and extra marinara, please. Crust as close to burned, if you can." Jill smiled.

"Of course. Would you like something to drink?"

"Oh, yes, sorry. Small soft drink. You still do free refills, right?"

"Absolutely, ma'am," the girl replied politely.

How she did not like to hear that designation! On the one hand, it was a sign of respect from someone significantly younger than you, usually; on the other, it was a sure sign that you were old.

Before the girl could get her cup, however, a voice exploded from the back. This time Jill heard a loud bang and then something else that sounded like something fell off a wall or shelf and reverberated loudly on the floor. She wondered what on earth was going on in the back. And if it would delay her lunch. She had worked up an appetite during the course of the morning. Probably all of the walking that she had done. She did not like to drive unless necessary and did everything in her power to stay physically fit. But everyone, she rationalized, had to splurge sometimes and there was no way she was going to pass up an opportunity to eat at Malzone's after traveling all this way to see her mom. Before the day was over, she thought, she might even pay her a visit at the hospital. She decided, though, that she did not want to disrupt her work, but still reserved a visit as an option later in the day.

Storming out of the a door about three paces to the right of the counter came a woman wearing a pearl necklace, thin, green designer sweater and black slacks, with sharp-looking Jimmy Choo Roman-style sandals. The woman's head was shaking back and forth in disgust and she was looking at the floor, cigarette dangling from her left hand, ashes ready to fall to the floor in a millisecond. Jill had noted earlier that there was a bit of taint to the pleasing smell of marinara and fresh bread, though it was just a trace. And now it was more than a trace.

The woman's head was framed with the most wild, puffed up, and out, hairdo Jill had ever seen. It bordered on the ridiculous. Truthfully, it crossed the border of ridiculous and made straightaway for the absurd. But the instant she saw the woman's face, a mask of animal fats and various dusts that constitute makeups, and the crimson red lipstick that lined her ultra-thick lips, she knew it was none other than Sally Rae. Sally Rae Dalbo, to be precise.

Many years ago, Sally Rae had married Anthony Dalbo, a hotheaded young man with a reputation for braggadocio, in some ways reaffirming the stereotype of the fighting Italian. He was a tough guy, though there was also a soft side to him, one that many girls found charming. In fact, he could talk his way out of tricky situations just as easily as he could fight his way out of tight ones. In high school, Jill remembered him as a jock, muscles very well-defined. He had moved to their town while a junior in high school and had come all the way with his family from upstate New York. She wondered what he looked like these days; it had been a long time ago since she last saw him. As she looked at Sally, waiting for her to make eye contact, she could not help but feel sorry for her, knowing in some small way that the stress emanating from her face was a result of her marriage to Anthony. One other significant fact she remembered was that he never could stay with one girl for too long a time, and somehow the girls with whom he palled around never seemed to mind one iota.

The woman's eyes looked up into hers. The ashes fell to the floor, like stardust falling down through the heavens, softly and silently exploding upon hitting the floor.

Jill looked at her and smiled, unsure of what exactly to say. She knew from her mom's stories that Sally and Anthony's marriage was not one that most people would want to find themselves in and certainly far from happy. What do you say to someone you know is in a bad place in her life?

"Hello," she said. "Sally, how have you been?"

"Well look who is back from the Wild West," Sally said, rearing her head back and laughing, eyes locked on Jill.

"Oh, there's nothing too wild about South Dakota, Sally. Nothing too wild at all, trust me." At least my part in it, she thought.

"It was just a joke, dear. I get to hear about you sometimes when your mom comes in. It's rare these days, and it's usually only for our spaghetti, but we all want to know how you're doing." Sally spoke with a definitively southern accent, like the southern belles out of old movies, but her smoking habit markedly took away from the allure and mystique of her vernacular style.

"I'm doing great, actually. The career is going well. We just won a huge case not long before I came down here. Actually, we settled, but sometimes that's as much of a win as having a verdict go your way."

"Do tell," Sally said, something else obviously on her mind. Her eyes were breaking contact with Jill's now. "Why don't you get your drink and we can talk for a bit?"

"Sounds great," Jill said, taking her cup from the counter. Walking over to the fountain drink dispenser, she could not help but think that all she wanted was a peaceful lunch, time to collect her thoughts, take in the town in which she grew up, without distractions from anyone in her past. Apparently, she decided, that this was just too much to ask. And, in any event, talking to Sally must have been like talking to a tabloid reporter, for she was the one who was always good, masterful even, at acquiring the juicy gossip in the town. Jill's mom had once told her, on a tip from Sally, that Judge Murtaugh had been having sexual relations with a college boy from another town and had been doing so for the better part of a year before anyone was wise to it. It caused quite a shock in the town when it made front-page news, but Sally knew about it months before it broke. How and why, Jill did not ask her mom, but she was not at all surprised at the source.

"Great," she said. "Let me go grab another cancer stick; that's what I call them these days. Honey, I can't afford to quit smoking. It's about the only thing that keeps me sane. That goddamn, excuse my language, dear, that goddamned husband of mine causes me so much stress, I tell you that I would leave him if I could." Jill wondered what was stopping her; she did not see a leash and collar attached to her neck. A very nice diamond necklace, yes. A collar, no.

Jill pressed the button on the dispenser and subsequently heard the ‘whoosh' of the syrup and carbonated water stream down into her cup.

Sally walked to the back room quickly and returned more quickly than she had left. "But I shouldn't bother you with my troubles. I want to hear about how you've been. How is life treating you?"

Jill would have rather she continued to discuss her own woes so as to be spared the fate of talking about her own. "Oh," she said nonchalantly, "life has a way of moving forward. I was engaged and then not engaged. And I'm doing okay right now. Happy to be independent, really. I can come and go as I please and no one asks me for any explanation. I like that. I miss the companionship sometimes, but you just know when it's right to move on."

"Girl, you have got that right. I should have moved my ass on years ago, pardon my language." She took a puff on her cigarette and blew the smoke upward and away from Jill.

"I'm kind of a goal-oriented type of individual and he, well, he was not that interested in a career." She realized that she had a tendency to couch his life in these terms. "Well, maybe that's not altogether true, but in my opinion he wasn't interested in a realistic career. But I know we all have dreams, and I may have been too hard on him, but I think we both made the best move." Jill sipped from the straw in her lemon-lime soda. Her eyes moved to the window over Sally's shoulder and she could see trees, leaves just beginning to take shape, moving in the light breeze. What little grass she could see across the street was deep green, as if it had just taken in more than its share of water and sunlight and wanted to reflect to the world it was healthy and verdant. The blue of the sky reminded her of oceans she once visited when she and her parents would go on trips in the summertime. Before the plane crash.

"Jill?" Sally asked.

"Oh, sorry, I'm sorry, did you say something?" She had allowed herself to become hypnotized by the beautiful day beyond the confines of Malzone's walls.

"What brings you home?" Sally asked again.

"I'm visiting my mom. It's been a while since I've seen her. About a couple of years now. The last time I saw her she came out to see me."

"We don't get to see your mom in here as much," Sally said.

"Ever since she decided to try one of my contemporary diets, she's cut out a lot of the foods that she used to eat," Jill admitted. "Especially pizza." She laughed.

"Your model form of exercise and diet routine must have rubbed off on her. The last time I saw her, she looked as if she had lost a lot of weight. She looked great. I wish I could stop these things," she said looking at her smokes, "but I decided many years ago that this was what I liked to do and if it aggravates my husband just a little bit, then by God, I'm going to keep on doing it!" The volume of her voice increased to such a level that it drew a look from the girl running the counter. How many off-colored remarks that young girl must have heard in her time here, thought Jill.

"So, that's basically my story," Jill laughed. "My life really isn't that interesting."

"Ma'am," said the girl behind the counter. "Your pizza is ready."

Jill got up, leaving a smoking Sally behind momentarily. The pizza looked just as she had remembered them looking the last time she ordered one. It was perfect. Her stomach rumbled again, as if exclaiming that it needed food and needed food right that moment.

"Honey, I don't have anywhere in particular to be right now," Sally said, watching Jill sit back down with her food. "Would you mind if I told you a little bit about my own situation with Anthony just to get a girl's perspective on it? I just got off the phone with him, and I know that he's with someone else right now. I mean, it's not a secret. He leaves the daily running of the business these days to his wife while he meets his secret admirer, she said while using her fingers to denote quotation marks, "at our home. I even heard her this time. She had the audacity to talk while she knew he was talking to me!"

Jill was unsure of whether or not she should bite into her pizza or just leave it alone, risking that it would grow cold and then become inedible. She never was one for cold pizza. Something did not seem right, however, about eating while someone was unloading such jarring information on you. She folded her arms on the edge of the table and sat closer, in spite of the stink of the smoke, to listen to Sally's tale.

Sally Rae Brown had been courting Anthony Dalbo ever since her high school days. His parents owned and operated Malzone's. They still owned but left the operations to their son and daughter-in-law. Jill was well aware of their relationship, he three years older than they. Sally was never one of Jill's favorite pals or anything, but they did know each other enough to say hello and were always on good terms with one another. Oddly enough, even her good friends would be ones with whom she would lose contact over the years; her best friend from high school was now an expatriate living in Paris. Jill always felt as if she gave Sally the cold shoulder too many times, largely because she was not interested in running with her and her crowd, but Sally never seemed to acknowledge it. Had the roles been reversed, Jill knew how she herself would have behaved toward such a person.

When word of Anthony and Sally's wedding reached Jill after she had long left her hometown, she was not surprised and was very happy for them. She thought that they would end up together, so it was good to see the formal announcement, or at least hear of it by way of her mom. But Jill also remembered Anthony being a lady's man in high school and she, too, remembered many a fight between the young lovers. It would stand to reason, obviously, that life should carry on this way post-marriage.

"She has wrecked our marriage, Jill! Wrecked it!" She said ‘wrecked' in that way that only a southern female can say such a word. It was soft and smooth and harsh all at once.

Jill maintained her focus on Sally, though her mind and stomach said to take a bite.

"He says he's getting bored. We've been married eighteen years! I mean, I know I'm not the same person I was that many years ago, physically and emotionally. We differ on so many things that I never thought we would differ on, ever. Politics and religion. Those are the obvious ones. He's turned more conservative Republican; I've become more liberal. I'm interested in attending church services; he wants nothing to do with it. Jill, even our taste in dogs has changed. I know it's silly, but I wanted a Yorkie, and he will only have a dog that weighs over seventy-five pounds, something like a German Shepherd or a Rottweiler. But you know, but I still love him." She puckered her lips tightly around the cigarette and inhaled.

"It sounds to me like you were meant to be together, maybe. Have you tried counseling?" she asked.

Jill mustered enough courage to take a bite of the pizza.

"He screwed the therapist," she replied, her face expressionless, save the frown and the knitted eyebrows.

Almost choking on her portion, Jill suddenly reached for her beverage and took a long drink, coughing after it had all gone down.

"I'm sorry, honey, I shouldn't have told you about that. I wasn't trying to kill you with the knowledge, trust me." Sally sat back in her chair and blew another puff up and away. The smoke disappeared in the air, but its heavy scent remained.

"Wow. I don't know what to say," Jill said, knowing that she should have said something comforting at that moment but what could one say? Sorry? That's too bad? Nothing seemed to be enough. It was awful news.

Sally looked at her intently. "But that's not all," she said.

"Not all? Isn't that enough?" She had to laugh. In spite of herself, she had to laugh.

Sally smiled. She could not get too upset, given that anyone would have thought she should have left such a debilitating situation long ago.

"I probably shouldn't tell you. I should just leave you to your lunch and let you enjoy your time back home. Besides, it's going to be the mad rush in here pretty soon, and I need to help MacKenzie get the salad bar ready. She's good, but one person can't do it all. Anthony has had his sights on her ever since she applied for a job. Oh, how he loved interviewing her in his office with his door shut. He hasn't done anything, probably because he knows that her parents would kill him. Her dad is a police officer in town, so that helps to block his overflowing testosterone just a bit." She got up to leave.

"No, no, you can tell me. You've told me this much already," Jill said. Besides, she wanted to hear the story now. There was a rule somewhere, though with whom it originated is unknown, but the rule clearly stated that once someone said he was going to tell you something, he must follow through—anything short of that was unacceptable. Jill was operating by this rule.

Sally sat back down, slowly, and extinguished her cigarette in the flimsy gold ashtray on the tabletop.

"He wants to have a threesome," she said, leaning in close, her voice hushed.

"Really?" Jill was shocked, but that was all that came out of her mouth.

"Really. And I'll tell you something, I'm tempted to just do it so that maybe he can get past this little boy phase of his where he's got to have everything in sight. Maybe it will fulfill a fantasy and then he can get on with his life."

"Or he will want to add to the marriage by one," Jill said, trying to instill her sense of humor in the discussion. Her lawyerly mind reacted to the fact that this was the kind of thing that brought disgruntled women large sums of money from a divorce settlement. But Sally was different in that she truly did love this man, in spite of, what she considered, grave character flaws. A threesome, she thought. She had thought of this concept before, of what it might mean for her—not that she would ever admit it, at least—but she never truly fantasized about it. The talk of it, however, triggered something in her that she wanted to keep to herself for fear of total embarrassment.

"He's told me how he wants to do it and when and where. I could tell you, if you'd like."

Jill wondered what kind of cosmic joke she had stepped into by coming to Malzone's. This should have been just a routine lunch. Just an enjoying time spent alone, reminiscing about old times and indulging in a guilty pleasure.

"Well, I've heard this much already," Jill said uncomfortably. "It's up to you what you want to tell me. I wish I had some good advice for you."

"What do you do when you love someone and want to be with them? I've thought about it many times, about how I should maintain my self-respect and get out, but you know, Jill, he treats me like gold. He buys me everything I want and need. He takes me out to dinner frequently. He never raises his voice at me. He's so mild mannered, it's disturbing."

Jill thought to herself she knew the reason why his stress levels were so low.

"Just once, I wish he would raise his voice or hand to me. That way, I could hate him. Anyway, I'll tell you what I was going to, and then I'll let you get on with your meal."