Oklahoma '86
by
Jordan Faber
Oklahoma. 1986. Warmth permeates through the Firebird’s dirt dusted windshield. Bambi’s mall-hair: misted with Aqua Net, sun-dappled. Dewey’s moustache: over styled, handlebar. She wears a black taffeta dress. Bare knees pulled in against her chest, the toes of her lilac high heels press against the glove box. The tip of her right heel dips inside a blasting air vent. “Gilligan’s Island, that’s us. I thought this would just be a three-hour thing. But here we are, still dating . . . still surviving.”
“You’re right.”
She tastes every morsel of his acquiescence, reaches out, presses her hand against his blue-jeaned knee to pick up some crumbs.
He feeds her silence.
“I’m hungry,” she whispers.
“McDonald’s?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“Commitment.”
Her utterance sunbakes on the dashboard space between them. He twists his moustache between his calloused thumb and index finger.
Bambi heaves in a mouthful of recirculating air. “Your mother’s blank stare icicles over everything. The turkey is going to get frostbite. The mashed potatoes are going to turn to snow clouds. The gravy boat is going to sink, Titanic-like.”
“Just say,” he shakes a hand through his shaggy mullet. “Just tell them that we’re engaged.”
The direction he’s given her is flat and beige but tinged with gold. In nature, it is their landscape, threaded with swaying amber prairie grass. Open, the possibilities lingering on infinitesimal—it has taken four years of torrential rains for this statement to grow.
“Just say,” she repeats plaintively, “maybe I will.”
Tulsa. 6:02pm. “The Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” by Talking Heads blares from a kitchen boombox. A non-indigenous bird, the golden pheasant, swoops in primary colors across bone china. A cornucopia overflows with plastic fruit at the center of a glitter speckled Formica table. Gold-plated flatware gleams. Ironed napkins smell of starch. Ice bobs in crystal goblets replete with Coca-Cola.
Knots form in Bambi’s stomach; monarch butterflies could be fluttering from her dry throat, and she wouldn’t know.
“We’re engaged,” she releases the prisoned words with tersity.
“Where’s the ring?” Dewey’s mother gulps her Cola.
A sparkling silence spills over the table staining its crushed velvet cloth.
“Come on,” his mother throws her cotton napkin to the vinyl-marble flooring.
Globs of rhinestone costume jewelry heap in glittering piles inside Dewey’s mother’s jewelry box; the couple is left alone to shop.
“The ocean,” Dewey swings his hand over the sea of stones. “Pick your pearl.”
Bambi fishes out a cubic zirconia ring, holds it to the dim light of the faux-crystal chandelier of his parents’ daffodil-wallpapered room.
“Not that one,” he tosses it back and plucks up an emerald ring like a stipe of seaweed from a sandy bed of sediment.
“It’s real,” he murmurs in her ear.
“Not just saying?”
“Not just saying,” he slides the ring up her finger into the ebbing flotsam and jetsam of their forever.
“You’re right.”
She tastes every morsel of his acquiescence, reaches out, presses her hand against his blue-jeaned knee to pick up some crumbs.
He feeds her silence.
“I’m hungry,” she whispers.
“McDonald’s?”
“No.”
“What do you want?”
“Commitment.”
Her utterance sunbakes on the dashboard space between them. He twists his moustache between his calloused thumb and index finger.
Bambi heaves in a mouthful of recirculating air. “Your mother’s blank stare icicles over everything. The turkey is going to get frostbite. The mashed potatoes are going to turn to snow clouds. The gravy boat is going to sink, Titanic-like.”
“Just say,” he shakes a hand through his shaggy mullet. “Just tell them that we’re engaged.”
The direction he’s given her is flat and beige but tinged with gold. In nature, it is their landscape, threaded with swaying amber prairie grass. Open, the possibilities lingering on infinitesimal—it has taken four years of torrential rains for this statement to grow.
“Just say,” she repeats plaintively, “maybe I will.”
Tulsa. 6:02pm. “The Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” by Talking Heads blares from a kitchen boombox. A non-indigenous bird, the golden pheasant, swoops in primary colors across bone china. A cornucopia overflows with plastic fruit at the center of a glitter speckled Formica table. Gold-plated flatware gleams. Ironed napkins smell of starch. Ice bobs in crystal goblets replete with Coca-Cola.
Knots form in Bambi’s stomach; monarch butterflies could be fluttering from her dry throat, and she wouldn’t know.
“We’re engaged,” she releases the prisoned words with tersity.
“Where’s the ring?” Dewey’s mother gulps her Cola.
A sparkling silence spills over the table staining its crushed velvet cloth.
“Come on,” his mother throws her cotton napkin to the vinyl-marble flooring.
Globs of rhinestone costume jewelry heap in glittering piles inside Dewey’s mother’s jewelry box; the couple is left alone to shop.
“The ocean,” Dewey swings his hand over the sea of stones. “Pick your pearl.”
Bambi fishes out a cubic zirconia ring, holds it to the dim light of the faux-crystal chandelier of his parents’ daffodil-wallpapered room.
“Not that one,” he tosses it back and plucks up an emerald ring like a stipe of seaweed from a sandy bed of sediment.
“It’s real,” he murmurs in her ear.
“Not just saying?”
“Not just saying,” he slides the ring up her finger into the ebbing flotsam and jetsam of their forever.
NUNUM
Blending Flash Fiction & Art
