Runner Up: Dawn Wingfield
Aurora, Colorado
Congratulations, Dawn!
Dawn’s Bio:
Dawn Wingfield lives and writes in Colorado. Her short stories have appeared online, in numerous US magazines, and in the UK's Accent Press Sexy Shorts anthologies.
Lucky
By Dawn Wingfield
For me, working at Valu-King is a way of bringing in extra cash to help pay off my car and tuition expenses. But for Laurie Mae, bagging groceries is the career of a lifetime. She may be a little slow in the head, but there is nothing slow about her pudgy, starfish hands.
Laurie Mae teaches me to bag, coming over to my checkout one Saturday when I'm in a panic. Pickle jars, diapers, frozen food, eggs and loaves of bread are rushing mercilessly toward me. I'm jamming everything into plastic bags.
“I asked for paper!” the customer barks. “What are you doing, putting cleaning products in with meat ?”
And suddenly, there is Laurie Mae.
“No problem.” She briskly shakes open a paper sack and efficiently transfers the groceries I'd shoved willy-nilly into plastic bags.
“See?” she says, tucking boxes of waffles and pizzas into one sack and demonstrating how air freshener and Windex get a sack of their own.
Laurie Mae has an extra chromosome. Her face is round, her eyes slanted and guileless. She likes Britney Spears and pink jewelry. She's in love with Ray, the guy who works in the meat department.
We talk about all sorts of things during our breaks, Laurie Mae and I. Fashion, food, parents, Britney Spears love life. But I don't feel like talking today. I start crying, unable to eat the jelly donut Laurie Mae has fetched me from the bakery.
“It's okay,” she says.
“I know.” I blow my nose. “It just hurts right now.”
It occurs to me that this is probably how life works. Just when everything seems to be flowing along fine, someone you love tells you they don't love you.
“You know,” Laurie Mae says, “I know it won't ever work out with me and Ray. He's a regular person.”
“Oh, Laurie Mae.”
She shrugs, taking a bite of chocolate donut.
“I'm a regular person and I love you,” I say.
“Why, Suzanne!” She beams, her teeth smeared with chocolate. “I am very lucky to know you!”
I thought that when I made that last payment I'd drive with Scott up to the mountains. I'd imagined us making love somewhere with just the columbines for company. But I find myself ringing on Laurie Mae's door the Sunday after I mail off the last, triumphant check.
A woman I guess is her mom opens the door. “Yes?”
“Hi, I'm a friend of—”
“Suzanne!” Laurie Mae appears behind her mom. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought we could go out,” I say.
“Oh, boy—I am so lucky!” She pulls on her jacket, while her mom watches us, smiling as if nothing will ever surprise her again.
As we drive off, I glance over at Laurie Mae. Her moon face is tipped back, and she's laughing, even though there's nothing she can't tell me about pain.
“We are!” I say. “We are really lucky!”***