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527 Words
ITuesday
“Happy birthday to me,” Justine Anabeth Duchane told her reflection. She stood in front of the bathroom mirror. The face staring back was looking more and more like her mother’s every day. The hair was being brushed back in a ponytail, her mom preferred the chestnut hair down. There was no gray yet. She was also trying hard not to feel old. Night after night of counting cracks on the ceiling or watching talk shows, reruns and infomercials were taking their toll, however. It had also gotten her some great, dusty, exercise equipment.
So this was thirty. Where had her life gone? Justine had a masters in poli sci from URose. She had planned on…she couldn’t remember anymore. Now she just wrote a column for the Rose Times. The Decline of the American Empire: How Liberals Are Destroying America. Writing in Connecticut she used a pen name. If anyone cares she was in decent shape and tall for her gender, five foot ten inches.
Duchane never painted her fingernails or wore makeup. For a long time, her attitude to all that was Screw it. Her pony tail that landed between her shoulders. The fact that she bothered to shave her legs and armpits anymore was a mystery to her. Men were intimidated by the only republican woman at a liberal paper and her life didn’t lend itself to dating. She also wore a fake engagement ring to keep the assholes away.
The columnist went into the bedroom and opened a drawer of the oak dresser. Her room was the beige color it had been when she’d rented the townhome. On went a pair of granny panties and off went the towel. Then a matching teal b*a. On went a nice pair of slacks and solid green turtleneck. On her dresser was picture of her family after high school graduation. There was deodorant, which she put on before tucking her shirt. No perfume to be found, none needed. There was a painting of a John Adams’ inauguration on the opposite wall, next to her closet.
Over the bed was a framed picture of the Washington memorial. American politics were her true religion. The bed was a full. It had been bought by her parents. The sheets were gray and comforter as well. The towel was picked up off the bed and tossed in the hamper in her clean bathroom, then she killed the light. The most feminine thing about Justine Anabeth Duchane was her toes. No one saw them. She sat on the foot of the bed and pulled on black flats. The otherwise unadorned bedroom’s light was flicked off as well.
Everything in the rest of the apartment was neat and clean and nothing was out of place. You’d think she dusted and vacuumed every day. Justine had had breakfast already. She went through the small living room to the front door. That light had never been turned on, sunlight and all. The front door was locked and she started her blue, 1985 Volkswagen Jetta. Only fourteen more payments and it’s mine. There was traffic in the radio forecast. “Damn.
- Writer
