I've made a lot of changes to my story this month for my novel writing class. Here's my most recent assignment.
Randy loved to watch the muddy brown waters of the Mississippi River. When he and Ava were first married, they took a trip to the coast, to the place where the river meets the Gulf of Mexico. She had seemed so beautiful to him then. Full, like a ripe plum. He loved to take parts of her between his fingers and squeeze as if he were expecting juice.
Their honeymoon had been short, as the wedding was rushed and somewhat unexpected. Ava’s pastor had insisted that the only way she could disobey her father’s command to move back to Tellico Plains was to transfer her headship from her father to a husband. Randy took pity on her. They had slept together outside of wedlock and he knew she’d never be able to marry another man. Besides, they got along well enough, and she seemed to think him worldly and wise. Everything was new to her, and he felt so strong and smart teaching her things. Her church put together a hasty, quiet wedding one weekend. Randy hadn’t been able to take much time off of work. Now, they had a week to spend together. To take in, at a leisurely place, the warm weather and the music. It was Ava’s first vacation.
“Where do you want me to put these?” Randy was holding Ava’s new yellow suitcases.
“Over there, by the dresser. I wanna unpack before we go out.”
Randy dropped the luggage on the floor. “Unpack? Baby, nobody unpacks on vacation.”
“Then why do they have the dresser?”
“That’s just to put the TV on.”
Ava nodded. She turned on the lamp by the bed and clapped her hands together. “Randy, they have Bibles here. Isn’t that wonderful? What a good way to witness to strangers.”
Randy closed the door and turned on the air conditioner. “People don’t read those. It seems to me like a stupid idea to put them in here. Nobody but Rock Raccoon has ever been saved by Gideon’s Bible.”
“Rocky Raccoon?”
Randy sighed. “I’ll play you the song sometime.”
Ava turned on the fluorescent light in the bathroom. It flickered before casting a pale blue sheen on the tub and toilet.
“Look at these!” Ava said. She walked out of the bathroom carrying two small bottles. “It’s shampoo. They give you your own shampoo here.”
Randy grinned and thickened his Southern accent, teasing her. “Yep. It’s fancy. We’ll wash our hair with it later and smell real purty.”
Ava cradled the small bottles. “Not these. Don’t use these. I wanna take them home.”
“We have shampoo there.”
“I know.” She slipped the bottles into the purse Randy had bought her at Walmart. “But these are cute. Maybe I’ll give them to somebody.”
“Baby, they have these shampoos at every hotel. If you use these tonight, they’ll bring you new ones in the morning.”
Randy stripped off his damp T-shirt and lay down onto the bed. He reached into Ava’s purse, ignoring the pained look on her face. He pulled out the bottles, breaking one of the seals.
“You’ll see. Tomorrow there’ll be two new ones just like these.”
Ava’s father had been very strict. When she was growing up, the only time they were allowed to leave her home town, Tellico Plains, was for occasional revivals at other churches. Her family would sleep in their car or at other people’s houses. When the mosquitoes weren’t too bad, they’d sleep outside in tents.
Ava had moved to Nashville soon after her mother’s funeral. She was twenty years old then. She had left without telling her father, boarding a greyhound bus early one morning. She stayed with a pastor who arranged for her to get a job at the Christian bookstore.
As soon as she saved up enough money, Ava got a place of her own. She wrote to her father then, telling him that she was safe and still going to church. She was following the ways of the Lord, she told him, just in a new city. He began driving to her small apartment every weekend, threatening to take her home by force.
Once, he came to her place when she wasn’t home. He kicked a hole in the door and banged his wiry fists on the wall. The neighbors called the police and it took several officers to restrain him. A tall man with no meat on him, he fought with all the viciousness of a praying mantis. The police held his face away from them, as if they were afraid he might spit. They put him in jail for two days and Ava did not visit him. He stopped coming to Nashville for a while then.
Randy didn’t know how Ava had gotten the courage to leave her father. She was a shy mystery to him. Round green eyes and a tight ass.
Ava put on her polka dotted blouse and a long, loose skirt. Randy had wanted her to start wearing tighter clothes, shorter skirts, so that other people could see what he got to see. She had refused, saying it was unseemly and invited men to think impure thoughts.
Randy looked his wife up and down and slid his hands onto her hips.
“Ready to go to the beach?” she said.
The air was full of ocean sweat. Ava could taste it when she licked her lips. And the beach smelled of fish left out in the sun too long. Randy and Ava held sticky hands and walked along the dull grey sand.
“Look at that!” Randy said. He took a few steps into the water not bothering to take off his shoes. “Ava, do you see that?”
Ava squinted and shaded her eyes with one hand. “What are we looking at?”
“You don’t see that? It’s a puffer fish. Pretty close to the shore. They’re supposed to live farther out, right?”
Ava shrugged. She slipped off her sandals and pulled her skirt up to one side, stepping out to where Randy was standing.
The puffer fish had inflated itself. Its brown and black quills stood out against its tan body.
“Hold on.” Randy splashed out of the water and ran up the beach. He returned with a white bucket borrowed from a fisherman. “Is it still there?”
Ava had not moved and neither had the puffer fish. Randy waded out to where she was, bucket in hand.
“Be careful,” Ava said. “I hear they’re poisonous.”
“Nah, that’s crazy.”
Randy dipped the bucket into the water, careful not to move too fast. When he had caught the puffer fish, he held the bucket up so that Ava could see it more clearly. Its spaced apart eyes stared blankly, as if it were all the same to him, Gulf or bucket.
“He’s not moving,” Ava said.
“Yeah it is, look at those little fins.”
“But he’s hardly moving. Do you think something’s wrong with him?”
Randy sloshed the water around in the bucket. “I don’t know. It does look a little confused.”
“Let him go.” Ava said, running her finger along the rim of the bucket. “I don’t think he likes this.”
“What are you talking about? Look at its face. I don’t think it gives a shit.”
Ava leaned over so that her lips almost touched the water in the bucket. “Are you ok, little guy?” She squeezed Randy’s arm. “Please let him go.”
“Fine,” he said, irritated. He drew the bucket back and launched the water into the air. The puffer fish flew at an arc and then smacked the surface of the water before sinking back into the Gulf.
“Randy!” Ava dropped the hem of her skirt. It soaked up the briny water. “That was terrible.”
Randy hoisted his wife over his shoulder and carried her to the shore. She was limp on his shoulder. “It’s just a fish. Don’t be mad at me.”
He let her down, lifted her shirt and blew on her stomach, hard. She didn’t laugh and pushed his face away from her. Randy righted himself and ran his fingers through his thin blonde hair. “Now come on, Ava. It’s your first vacation. You can’t be mad at me on your first vacation.”
Ava squeezed the water out of her skirt. She let Randy pull her close.
“I’m kind of hungry,” she said softly.
“Let’s go eat.” He kissed her nose. “I heard about a great seafood restaurant.”
They ate at Big Smiley’s Fish Fry. It was noon, but they were the only customers, as there were only fans and no air conditioning.
“Shrimp’s a little expensive here,” Randy said, eyeing the menu. “It’d better be good.”
He had taken off his shoes and socks. They stank a little under the table.
Ava put down her menu. “I think I may get grilled chicken.”
“Grilled chicken? Baby, nobody goes to the coast and gets grilled chicken. You gotta have shrimp or crawdads, hell, even catfish, but not grilled chicken.”
“I just want it, that’s all.”
The waiter came to their table. “You folks know what you’re going to have?”
Randy took charge. “She’ll have a half a pound of shrimp, on ice, and I’ll have...Say, do you have any puffer fish?”
The waiter pointed, “Well, we have one in a tank over there, but you can’t eat her. She’s a pet.”
Randy and the waiter walked over to the tank. Ava did not move.
“This is Katie May,” the waiter said. he dropped a bit of food into the water. The bumpy oval body wiggled up to the surface.
“So that’s what they look like normally. I’ve always wondered.” Randy tapped the side of the tank. “Hey, blow up.” He turned to the waiter, “Stick something in there so it puffs out.”
The waiter shook his head. “Don’t wanna hurt her. They can’t do that many times in their lives, you know. Too hard on their bodies. It’ll kill them.”
Randy looked back at Ava. She was staring down into her glass, using her straw to spin her sweet tea. He headed back to the table.
“I don’t know if you can eat those,” the waiter said, following him. “We don’t serve them, anyhow.”
Randy put his arm around the back of Ava’s chair. “Could you go ask the cook?”
The waiter pause. “You mean if you can eat them or if we serve them.”
“Well, both.”
The waiter yelled back into the kitchen. “Hey Dan. Can you eat puffer fish?”
“Only if you cook it right.” Dan yelled back. He came out of the kitchen, beer bottle in hand. “But it’s a damned Russian roulette. Kill you same as feed you.”
He took a sip of his beer and continued. “I don’t see why you’d want to eat them anyways. There’s too little meat.”
He looked over at Ava, “She ok?”
Ava did not appear to be breathing. She glanced up at Dan and then down again at her drink.
“Oh, she’s just giving me a hard time ‘cause we caught a puffer fish earlier and she didn’t like it,” Randy said.
Dan shrugged.
“Who do you think serves it?” the waiter asked.
“Well, they serve it over there in Japan, but I don’t know that you can eat it here.” Dan looked up and then to the side. “Go ask Arnold, he would know.”
The waiter started to walk away from the table when Randy called out, “It’s ok, fellas. I’ll eat puffer fish later.”
He winked at Ava, she did not notice.
“Bring her a grilled chicken sandwich and I’ll take a pound of shrimp, cocktail sauce and a wedge of lemon.”
The waiter and cook nodded and walked away. Randy squeezed Ava’s leg but she still would not look at him.
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