ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 151
Fiction Winner
Temporary Blindness
Nicole Chambers groped for the bedroom doorknob, straining to
recognize the footsteps in the other room. "Are you in the kitchen, Mom?"
entering the hallway, she began, "Who-oh!"
"Sorry," murmured her half-brother, Joey. He was all of twenty-two,
but he had the grin of a mischievous child. Nicole giggled a little at the
memory.
Lingering a minute at his side, she asked, "Where is everybody?"
"In the family room, settingupforthereception. Wait." He laid a hand
on her arm. "Will you be okay? I'm only going to be a minute." She knew he
meant he'd help if she needed it.
Shaking her head, Nicole said, "No, I'm all right. I-"
She broke off as she realized what would happen if she walked into the
dining room alone. Her mother would fly to her side, chattering a thousand
little inanities. Craig, her stepfather, would call to her mother to "leave her
alone. She's fine," (which she was). Her relatives, or whoever would be
conversing, would stop suddenly, and then begin again, only this time it
would be a forced imitation of spontaneity.
"On second thought," she said aloud, "I'll wait."
"Great. Hold that thought," Joey said, and she heard the bathroom
door close.
Nicole felt for the study doorframe and leaned against it. Temporary
blindness. The buzz words, as Joey's fiancee Marilyn had dubbed the condition. Nicole sighed with ennui. It wasn't so much the darkness that was
bothering her as the awful treatment she had been getting ever since the
accident. People meant well, she knew, and she gave them credit for that,
but still ...
"Nicki?" Marilyn's pumps clicked against the tile of the kitchen, and
then scraped across the carpet. "Have you seen Joey?" Marilyn didn't gasp
or apologize for her use of the verb, as her mother might have. Nicole smiled.
"He's in the bathroom," she said. "What's the problem?"
"Nothing... much," Marilyn answered, and sighed. "Everyone's running around as if the wedding was tomorrow."
"The wedding's Thrusday," Nicole recalled, trying to see the point.
"So? We've got four whole days," Marilyn insisted.
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