The Start Of Something

4: the smallest letter

♫ Moonshadow – Cat Stevens ♫

Smoke followed the breeze through the open window as Queenie wrenched two batteries from the ringing alarm. When she took her hands away from her ears, Marion could still hear the shrill pitch of the incessant beeping accompanied by a voice that asserted in calm yet horrifyingly loud tones, "Warning! Warning! Fire! Fire! Warning! Warning!"

"I forgot that our enchiladas overflowed the other night," Queenie explained sheepishly, retrieving a pepperoni pizza from the oven with a flourish of smoke. Marion waved her hand dismissively and took a long pull from her glass of wine, which she could have sworn had adopted the unpleasant aroma of burned cheese and beans.

"It's fine. I don't do any oven-related activities in our house so I can't say that I'd do any better."

"You're lucky. I would love to have an aunt who enjoys cooking for large groups of people. David is willing to do his sharing of cooking but it can be...lackluster."

"I feel like he boils all his vegetables."

"That might be rude if it weren't true."

"Ha!" She refilled Queenie's glass as they took the pizza to the living room, where the first Die Hard movie was already queued up. "Ready?"

"Uh, just wait for a few more minutes. Someone else is coming."

"Dude, what? You said it would just be you and me."

"I know, but Georgia—"

"Oh, you're kidding."

"What? Marion, if you're—"

"Nothing. It's fine."

The look of guilt cleared too quickly from Queenie's face and she brightened, reaching for a slice of pizza. "Great! I knew you'd be cool about it, Marion. Next time it really will just be us."

"Cool." Even the pizza tasted like burned cheese, although it was, if anything, slightly underdone. "You don't have to feel bad for her, you know—she can make her own friends."

Queenie didn't look up as she took a sip of wine, a much longer sip than seemed necessary for the amount of wine that she actually drank. "She is making friends. That's why I invited her." She patted Marion on the knee and stood again. "I'm going to put in another pizza; I didn't realize how hungry I was and I don't want to short Georgia."

Marion stared at the screen, a frozen still of a plane in flight. The film was grainy and old, and she could already hear the first few lines of the film in her mind. She and Queenie were guilty of rewatching all of the Die Hard movies, even the second and third ones, during their movie nights. She glanced back at the kitchen as the doorbell rang. The clattering from the other room told her that either Queenie was legitimately struggling to slide a frozen pizza onto a baking sheet and put it in the oven, or she expected Marion to get the door.

"Marion!" Her voice came from the kitchen, her usual kind tone laced with an edge of pandering.

"I know," she sighed, standing and setting her wine on the glass coffee table. Were they all going to sit on this couch together, shoulder to shoulder? The couch wasn't really made for three people; Queenie even said they'd been thinking of upgrading since Angie was getting bigger.

When she opened the door, she had enough time to register the bright smile on Georgia's face before it slipped away. She'd always read in books whenever someone was shocked or displeased that, 'the blood drained from their face,' but she'd never actually seen it happen until this moment.

"Oh," Georgia shifted her purse, fingers wrapping around the strap. "Hey." She smiled, but it wasn't as sure. Oh, thought Marion, I get a different smile. "I didn't know...I can go—actually yeah, I've got some stuff to do at home anyway. Queenie will understand."