𝐏𝐈𝐀𝐍𝐎 | 𝑹𝑬𝑮𝑰𝑵𝑨

REGINA // FREEWRITE I

//very short, very small, very boring

The Lohrmans at the grocer's had sold them four bad peaches, and one good one. Those were the facts. The hard flesh fell from the pit, from around the shriveled grey hole-ridden shape, and into Regina's palm before she tossed each piece into the pan with a thunk. She alternated between weilding the small knife carefully and tearing at the fruit with her thumbs. The kitchen light cast a thick yellow haze over the stove.

From behind her, at the kitchen table, her family debated what the four bad peaches meant. For here, something so small as a hole or a head-nod could mean anger, gunfire, or a stricken ex-lover. The Lohrmans got most of their fruit from an Irish Catholic in Jersey, perhaps he was to blame for it. But Mrs. Tolstonog began,

"I don't know what I ever could've done to that woman, it must be a slight in some way."

"She'd find something, Mama," Serafina said with her eyes at her newly-polished red nails. Apparently it was in. So were the beaded barettes in her bobbed hair, the mascara about her already thick lashes, the tantalizing square neckline of her reddish dress. She moved like a bird, like a tiny and elegant bird, leaning back in her chair, kicking her ankles upon one-another, clinking the ice in her glass where it melted at the bottom into the remains of vodka and half an olive.

Regina, away from the women at the table: "Nudnik."

"Exactly." Her older sister had a refinement in her voice that came from too many romance novels and the satisfaction of watching one come true for herself. "She would bother one all day just to keep talking about them. Oh, perhaps then the good one's for you, chéri. You'll never do her any wrong." Serafina twisted her willowy frame in the kitchen chair to face her sister. "She loves you, why is that?"

Unamused, digging the knife around the third peach, "Hell 'f I know." Regina twisted it open, and the soft spots became more pronounced as both halves made contact with the counter. How could it have rotted in places while it was so hard in the middle? She scoffed to herself. With each thin slice barely a trickle of juice came upon her fingers. "She is s...strange."

She knew vaguely that Mrs. Lohrman had taken kindly to her, but she couldn't place when or why. She could, however, guess why she might have a bit of hate in her heart for the rest of them-

The door banged open, but closed soft. They heard the drop of the key, and a hat, and the uneven patter of happy footsteps through the living room, and coming to a stop there in the doorway. Regina did not turn even now to her brother. Were one to look, her face carried a twinge of disappointment, of exasperration.

"Misha, we were just discussing what makes our sister so likeable to older neighborhood women," Sera began, and her mother gave a short huff, Ridiculous. "She's the owner of the one good peach. It was meant for her."

Mikhail paused, hanging on the doorway with a few curled fingers. The curls of his hair brushed his lashes, the top buttons of his shirt were undone for the heat. It was only June. He considered, laughed, and let go, launching himself now toward Regina. "Is this true?"

"She says."

He pressed a kiss to her cheek and inspected her marring of the fruit with the look of one who has been presented with the answer to a secret he has not known was secret in the first place. "Those the bad ones?"

"Mm." She raised her eyes to his. You idiot, this is just a warning. Everything always means something here. Our mother is right.

The pieces came in diagonal shapes with too many sides, they didn't look nice. She threw the last of them into the pan. What did her brother have to prove, anyway? He had never been like this before, never. She thought of the Lohrman girl and her heart crushed.