Madeline’s Bio:

Madeline Mora-Summonte has written poetry, personal essays and book reviews, but her first love is fiction in all its forms, from flash to novels.  Her work has appeared in over 20 publications, including Highlights for Children, Storyhouse, and Every Day Fiction. Her story, “The Empty Nest,” will be included in W. W. Norton's upcoming Hint Fiction Anthology. She attends mystery author Blaize Clement's weekly writing workshop, where the talent and creativity of the group continues to amaze her. Madeline is currently busy writing and revising her women's fiction manuscript. She lives with her husband/best friend in Florida.

You can visit her website at www.MadelineMora-Summonte.com.

Poster Child

By Madeline Mora-Summonte

 

Megan leans on the gumball machine, absently trailing her fingertips over the scars lacing her wrists. The old man guarding the shopping carts looks over her small, thin body, her baggy jeans and layered t-shirts, her ratty hair pulled in a ponytail. He turns back to greeting the customers, to waving at those leaving. She’s no threat. She can’t shoplift anything out here at the entrance.

She imagines leaning into him, whispering into his brown-spotted, old man’s ear the things she’s done, things worse than shoplifting. She shoves her fists into her front pockets and looks across at the wall.

The posters litter the space between a soda machine and an ice machine. Two coin-operated kiddie rides—a peeling yellow fire truck and a blue tugboat awash in red graffiti—hunch beneath the curling, crinkled papers. A chubby boy stained with chocolate rides the fire truck, his face wide and happy as siren noises slide from his lips. His mother chats on her cell.

“Look at us,” Megan whispers, but the woman’s glance is on the clouds building in the distance. The posters are nothing more than wallpaper.

“Look at us." But the words are lost as the big wide doors swoosh open and close. Hot, sticky, humid air rushes in. Megan squints at the posters, but it’s hopeless since she lost her glasses. She waits for the boy and his mother to leave before wading across the steady stream of customers.

She searches the faces. The posters are black and white but beneath the fading ink the faces are pink-cheeked and red and ebony, the eyes are blue and green and brown. She tries to smooth a poster’s yellowed wrinkled corner but it’s brittle beneath her fingers and it crumbles. A little boy with missing front teeth grins down at her as if to say don’t worry, it’s okay. She touches his face. Did those teeth ever get a chance to grow in? Or is that smile forever frozen somewhere miles away from where that first tooth was lost?

How many were taken? How many had to leave? How many just left? Megan strains on her toes. Her last school photo. That’s the one they would’ve used. But here are so many school photos, so many similar poses, so much shiny hair and smooth skin. How much of that pretty hair is now dirty or shaved off altogether? How much of that perfect skin is now tattooed or scarred?

People move behind her, laughing, talking, pulling along whiny children wearing karate uniforms or tutus. She should hurry. The old man will approach her soon. But still she looks for that gawky girl wearing glasses.

How many others search for their own younger, prettier, more innocent face? What do they do when they find it? She knows what she’d do. She’d weep, relieved she was not forgotten, relieved she was still wanted. She’d call home—please Mommy, please Daddy, I’m sorry I was so awful, I’m sorry about the drugs and the drinking, I’m sorry about the car I crashed, the money I stole, I’m sorry I ran away, please come get me, please let me come home, please.

Megan fingers the change in her pocket. She knows the number. What she doesn’t know is if she’s been forgiven. How many boards, in how many stores, in how many towns? She has yet to see her own face.

The old man clangs the carts together. She looks one more time at the strange, yet familiar, faces. Hers is not among them.

She turns around and is caught by the old man’s glance. She hurries out of the store, pulling her sleeves down over her wrists, her scars a mountain range she is unable to scale.

***