Newly Revised Story

Happy New Year, everyone!  It's been a while since I've posted anything here, but I am happy to report I am making headway on the collection of short stories and poems I've been working on for the last year.  I'm almost done with the revisions and after that just comes the editing phase.  I am so lucky to have friends helping me with that part.  Thanks, guys!!  I couldn't do this without you!

Anyway, Here's the latest story I've revised.  I'm really happy with how it's turned out!  Let me know what you think!

Want

            I sat staring at my phone intently as if willing it to ring with my mind.  It was just so like Andrew to avoid a problem so long as it wasn’t his.  I picked it up off the table and pushed the button to illuminate the screen.  The empty status bar only seemed to mock me.  I slammed it back down on the table and looked out the window of the restaurant. 

“That’s no way to treat a phone,” said a familiar voice as it approached.  I looked up and saw Jack. 

I rolled my eyes.  “Please don’t call C.P.P.S. on me,” I replied.

“C.P.P.S.?” he asked.

“Cell Phone Protective Services.”

Jack laughed assuring me, “Don’t worry, I won’t...this time.  Just try to be nicer in the future.  Mind if I have a seat?”

Before I could answer he was directly in front of me, inside my private booth next to the restaurant’s kitchen.  I liked sitting there because it was never hard to get a servers’ attention since they HAD to eventually go back there for something.  And I could make sure they didn’t do any funny stuff to my food.  I worked in a kitchen once and I knew all about doing funny stuff to people’s food.

“So, what’s up, mama?” Jack asked.  I couldn’t believe the sheer audacity of this man.  We had broken up a year ago, but his larger-than-life ego couldn’t grasp the fact that a smart, attractive girl in this world no longer wanted to be with him.  He acted as if he were the one who broke up with me.  It was kind of cute and pathetic, really.  “Wait, let me guess,” he said.  “Your subordinate is being insubordinate.”

Annoyed, I answered, “It’s really none of your business, Jack.”           

“Fine, fine.  Have it your way, Nikki.  You just looked like you might need a friend and I thought maybe I still fell into that category.”  He started to get up.  “I’ll see you around, I guess.”

Rolling my eyes for the second time I said, “Wait, Jack.  I’ll talk.”  He settled back into the booth.  “It’s just hard you know.”

He nodded.  “I know, so tell me about it.”

I exhaled loudly before saying, “Where to begin?  Okay, so I met this guy Andrew at work months ago and we really hit it off.”

“Sounds familiar...” said Jack.

“And it’s like we have this explosive chemistry that seemed to come out of nowhere.”

“Also very familiar...”

“Nevermind.  You’re my ex, Jack.  I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this.  It’s weird.”

“No it’s not.  Please, continue.  You met months ago and...”

“And we hit it off great.  I mean, we have absolutely nothing in common except for where we work and the city we live in, but the’s intensely sharp and makes me laugh more than---.”  I stopped myself there.

“...more than me?” Jack asked looking wounded for the first time since the conversation started.

“Well, more than anyone ever,” I answered.

“Okay, stop.  I can’t continue to sit here and listen to how great this guy is, Nik.  Just tell me what the problem is.”

I nodded.  “The problem is I think he’s interested in someone else now.  It’s this new girl Sylvie.” 

“Yikes.”

“Right?  I mean, who since 1955 is named Sylvie anyway?”  We both laughed, but then I stopped and looked at him.  “I’m scared, Jack.  I’ve never seen him act this way around anyone since...since...”

“You.”

“Yeah.”  I picked up my phone knowing full well no one had tried to contact me, just some nervous tick. 

“Have you tried talking to him?”

“Ha!” I scoffed.  “You know I can’t do that shit.”

Jack shook his head in disapproval.  “That’s something I never got about you.”

“What is?”

“You never tell people how you feel.  Instead you wait for them to guess no matter how many times they may guess wrong.”

Suddenly I knew we weren’t talking about Andrew and I anymore. 

“Hey, I tell people how I feel,” I said in my defense.

“No you don’t, Nikki.  What you do is tiptoe around how you feel until someone is forced to drag it out of you.”

“Look, if you have something say, Jack, just say it.”  I was surprised at how heated this had become.  Jack stood up.

“The only thing I have to say is, tell this guy how you feel.  If he’s everything you say he is, he’ll be flattered.”  Jack paused before adding, “Just for once stop being afraid to make a mess, Nik.  Messes can be nice to clean up with another person if they’re willing.”

Just as quickly as Jack had appeared he was gone.  I knew he was right.  I was afraid to make a mess with Andrew or anyone I really liked and I didn’t know why.  I think it had something to do with not wanting to be vulnerable.  Lord knows that’s never worked out in my favor before.  I looked at my phone, surrendering to the fact that Andrew simply wasn’t going to call no matter how hard I stared at it.

“Just give it up,” I said out loud to no one.

I wanted to be mad at Andrew and that skank Sylvie.  I picked up the phone to call him, but stopped myself.  Instead I took a deep breath and pulled out a few dollar bills from my purse to leave on the table.  I resolved that I would call Andrew eventually when I knew exactly what I wanted from him and how best I could ask him for those things.  If he was everything I wanted him to be, he would listen.

New Poem!

I wrote this in college and it was published in a collection of poems written by students.  It is over ten years old, but I still love it and I feel as though I could have written it yesterday.  I did do a few revisions.  I hope you'll like it.

There in his Room

By: Leslie Li Hikida

He mumbles as he leaves the bedroom

and I lose him somewhere between

hallway and kitchen. 

I take a drag from the cigarette I’m holding,

wondering what he’s just said under such

measured breaths.

Perhaps he’s said he adores me,

that I make him happy,

and that he hates to see me go.

Or perhaps he’s said he detests me,

that he can’t wait for me to leave,

and that he wishes I were anywhere but here.

Either way, for the moment I am content,

there in his room, with he in the kitchen,

and I on my back.

[Yet another] New Blog!!

I'm now busy making these...

...and I've started a blog for them!  www.littlehibachi.blogspot.com  Check it out!

Sugar for Freedom

Sugar for Freedom

By: Leslie Li Hikida

            “I didn’t love you.  I know that now.”

            “Then why did you say you did?”

            Danielle looked up from the cup of coffee she held in her hands.  She gazed into Mike’s green eyes for the answer, but nothing came.  Her mind was as lucid as it had been the day she told him it was over.  She knew better than to say that though.  Mike was a man who often required more of more. 

            “I guess in some selfish way I thought saying it would make you love me more,” she admitted not fully thinking her answer through.  She lifted her gaze to a red painting on the wall.  She felt safer staring there because the painting could not judge her the way Mike’s eyes always did.

            “You were right.  It made me love you an infinitesimal amount more.”

            “And I needed that.  Can’t you see?”

            “And you think I didn’t need love?” he asked, visibly hurt by her words.

            “No, of course not, and that is why I told you in the end.  I wanted you to know that I was not in love with you and that I was sorry for it...for all of it.”

            Mike’s eyebrows knitted in a painful way, pleading more than asking, “Don’t you feel guilty?  For how long you let it go on for, the charade that we were a couple in love?”

            “Honestly?” she asked suddenly meeting his eyes again.  “No, I don’t.  I know that I probably should, but I don’t.”

            He wasn’t satisfied.  He wouldn’t be satisfied until she told him that she was dirt and he was everything.  He needed to know that she had been on the brink of suicide just as he had been the day they broke up. 

            “Well, you should, Dani,” he said point blank.  “You lied.”

            “It wasn’t intentional, Mike.  I did the best I could.”

            The calm in her voice was making him crazy inside.  Just for once he wanted her to get angry, show some emotion, throw something, do anything that would show that she felt as strongly about the situation as he did.

            “I still think you’re wrong,” he said. 

            Danielle was getting tired and felt as though they were competing in a race.  It was like every time she thought they were nearing the finish line she would look up and see someone holding up a sign announcing that they still had one more lap to go.  Running in this same circular track was wearing her out.  She needed it to be over.

            “Do you at least think about me?” he asked.

            Danielle smiled for the first time and answered, “You know I do.  Everything reminds me of you, Mike.”

            He looked away.  “But it’s different now, isn’t it?”

            “It is.”  Danielle took in the last bit of coffee in her cup and delighted in the rush of sugar that had settled at the bottom of the ceramic mug.

            The sudden sweetness symbolized the freedom and independence she felt living her life without Mike.  Sugar normally dissolves in coffee and yet somehow this time it did not.  It had withstood the heat and bitterness of everything submerging it to greet her at the end of this long and drawn out conversation.

            “I guess I should go,” said Mike and then he waited for her protest.

            “Yes,” she said because she wasn’t going to play this little game anymore.

            As he stood up, Danielle closed her soft brown eyes.  She wanted to remember this moment, the moment when she finally let him go.  As Danielle walked across the parking lot to her car, it started to snow.  She looked up and watched it fall all around, each snowflake reflecting sweet, tiny grains of sugar.  

Tragic Beauty

By: Leslie Li Hikida

You and I are just the same. 

Living in a world we wish would change. 

Reaching out our hands to touch the ground

when sharp, cold metal is all we’ve found.

We are treasured by those who can see it

and invisible to those who will never be it. 

Trying to speak as our words get lost

and all that is left in our hearts is frost. 

We know we’re beautiful within and without. 

Wouldn’t it be tragic if no one ever found out?

Drawing Conclusions

By: Leslie Li Hikida

            The clouds pulled back to wash warm sunlight over Megan’s face.  Her cheeks blushed and she felt some familiar heat, the heat she used to feel when Jeremy would look into her eyes, back when she was still welcome in his arms.  It would erase any worries and all her uncertainties could be lost, but now that he was gone – no – now that he had left, this brief moment of sunlit heat was all she had left to remind her.

            The breeze picked up and felt like Jeremy’s fingertips along her spine reminding her of the times when he would let her know of his presence by running a finger down her back.  It sent chills through her and she tried hard to remember that it was her goal now to forget everything about Jeremy.

            Megan looked up from the crack in the sidewalk she had been staring at and something caught her eye.  It was a little boy smiling.  His smile reached through her heart right to her center where the memory of the beginning of her and Jeremy’s relationship lived, back when they were still so innocent and untouched by hurt and sorrow.

            The little boy saw how solemn she looked and turned to run away.  Megan was anything but surprised.  She was used to these kind of quick, abrupt exits from her life.  She sat, fighting so hard to keep all of her thoughts away that she didn’t realize the clouds had covered the sun again and everything was now cast in a blue hue.  A tiny raindrop hit the sidewalk beside her feet, then one on her leg, then another on her arm, her face.  They represented the tears she had shed.  Every one was a prayer and a hope that he would come back and equally a fear that he would not.  It had been so long and even so, these memories were so vivid and real Megan wondered if she could reach out and touch them.

            Megan stood up and swore on every cloud in the stormy sky, on every jagged and sharpened edge of her broken heart that she was better than this.  Yes, maybe Jeremy was gone, but she was still here and that had to mean something.  The tablecloth had been pulled out from their table so swiftly that all the dishes were now shattered on the floor.  She would have to pick up every last piece, one by one.  She must clean up the mess he had made and show him – no – show herself that she did not need his gaze, his touch, any of these fallen tears.  She would fit the fragments back together and save them in her pockets for someone who deserved them, for someone who could give her the same in return.  Jeremy wasn’t the only one who would love her.

Happy Monday!

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

By: Leslie Li Hikida

            Sandy sat on the couch diligently trying to split up the DVD collection she and Paul had acquired over the last fourteen years of their relationship.  There are so many she has to strain to remember whether it was she wanted to have “Memento” and then laughed at the irony of that thought.

            The back door suddenly opened and Paul came in.  He dropped his keys on the kitchen counter, loudly disrupting the task she was trying to accomplish.

            Sandy looked up and asked, “Do you want ‘Memento’ as you know...a memento?”

            “Are you really doing this right now?” he asked, visibly uneasy about the situation.

            “Yeah, I am actually.  My mom is coming to help me move tomorrow and I want her to see that we’re at least making some progress.”

            Paul nodded sullenly and paced back and forth for a minute.  Suddenly he turned to her and said, “But do have to do that right...now?  I mean, she’s coming tomorrow and it’s only 3:30 in the afternoon.  Can’t we talk about splitting up stuff...later?”

            Sandy’s eyes started to well up with tears.  “No, we can’t wait any more,” she said quietly.  “I know it hurts you, but we have to.”

            Paul turned toward the wall silently thinking, plotting, and planning.  Sandy went back to sorting the DVD’s in two piles.

            She held up “The Notebook” and said, “This one, I know, is mine.”

            At that, Paul pounded the wall in frustration.  “Damn it, I don’t want to do this, Sandy,” he said.

            She put “The Notebook” on top of her pile and stood up.  “Well, what do you want to do then?” she asked.

            As she comes closer to him their eyes meet and the hurt is apparent between the two of them.  A tear has already started to fall from her eye.

            “Hey,” he said softly, always hating to see her cry, “do you think that maybe instead of all this good-bye stuff, maybe we could maybe say hello...again?”

            Between sobs, all Sandy could say was, “What?”

            He placed a hand on each of her shoulders.  “You know say hello for the first time again...like the first day we met.”

            “You’re crazy.”

            He took her by the hand and led her to the kitchen.  He sat her down at the kitchen table and grabbed a notepad by the telephone.  As he handed her the notebook he pulled a pen from the mug full of pens, then handed her that too.

            “You were at Epic Café on Coldwater,” he said.  “You were sitting outside on the patio writing furiously.”  She looked at him completely confused until he gestured for her to start writing.  “You were writing furiously,” he repeated, but she sat stiff as a board.  “Come on, Sandy, please.”

            As much he couldn’t stand to see her cry, Sandy could not stand to see Paul beg and so she snapped to attention and started to write on the yellow legal notepad in front of her.  He looked over her shoulder to see she’d written, “This is stupid.”

            “Then what?” she asked.

            Paul thought for a moment and then snapping his fingers, he said, “Then I came up and I was---.”  He dumped the mug full of pens on the counter.  “I was holding a hot cup of coffee.  I remember the steam because it was an unseasonably cold day in April.  Do you remember the steam, Sandy?”  Without realizing it, Sandy started to nod that she remembered.  “Good,” he said.  “And then I said---.”

            “’Hello!’” Sandy chimed in.  “The patio was packed with people and you asked me, ‘Is anyone sitting here?’”

            “And what did you say?”

            “I said, ‘No, I’m alone---.’”

            “Thank God!  And then I said---.’”

            “’Aren’t we all?’” Sandy recalled, finishing Paul’s sentence for him.  They were both getting excited.  “What happened next?”

            Paul took the seat across from her at the table.  “Then I sat with you,” he said.  “I asked you what you were writing and you said---.”

            “’The greatest story never told.’”  Sandy laughed.  “Then what?”

            Paul tilted his head back pretending to drink the rest of his invisible coffee before he slammed it down on the table.  Without saying a word he took her by the hand and led her back into the living room.  He pushed the DVD’s she had separated off the couch and sat her down.

            “Then I took you to a movie,” Paul said, taking a seat next to her. 

            “Yeah, that horrible Evil Dead movie.”

            “Right and I covered your eyes to protect you from the scenes I thought could give you nightmares.”

            “But I got them anyway,” Sandy replied.

            “Hey, at least I tried.”

            She decided to cut him some slack.  “Okay, and then what?”

            “Don’t you remember?” he asked, arching his eyebrows.

            It is clear she does not remember and so he again took her hand and led her to the bedroom.  She lightly pushed her so that she lay on her back, her legs dangling off the edge.  He lay beside her and said, “Then I charmed the pants off of you.”  He tugs at the belt loops on her jeans.  “Quite literally, I’m afraid.”

            Sandy nodded as all the memories of that night and the last fourteen years come back into her mind.  “Then what?” she asked already knowing all that came after.

            “Then we fell in love and it was easy, Sandy.  It was too easy.”  He wiped a tear from her face.  “And then we moved in together and we lived here in this house for fourteen years through earthquakes, through nightly helicopter traffic, through company downsizing, through two pets and through...”

            “Three miscarriages,” she said, finishing the sentence she knew he wasn’t able to.

            He shut his eyes tightly, letting his tears fall freely while nodding, “Yes.”

            Sandy got up off the bed and left him lying there. 

“I can’t do this anymore, Paul,” she said.

She went back to the living room.  She knelt before the couch and started to split up their DVD’s again.