Story Slam #1

(From one of the early Slams at the Bubble House. See http://twoxpats.blogspot.com/2010/03/story-slam.html for details.)

#1
words: Chaise Longue, Slurping, Tan

I pointed out the mistake in the poem.
"Look," I said to Connie, "She spelled chaise lounge wrong. Twice."
I expected her to laugh, like we always did, at the crazy poet who couldn't spell, even on her final drafts. Sometimes we rejected stories after one or two lines.
"It's so nice," Connie would say, "to work with someone who understands these things."
We worked in her kitchen. I would come in and say hello and go to the hall where the wicker laundry basket was filled with submissions. We went through them together, and I wrote the rejection letters:

"Dear X,
Thank you for thinking of us.
Unfortunately, this doesn't quite suit..."

We were on the same page. But today, she looked at me like I was slurping the bright orange Sunkist I'd made the mistake of bringing in with me. She looked at me, regal and tan from working in her garden.
"It's chaise longue," she said. "It's French."

#2
"So this is it" was the theme or beginning. This one didn't really work, so I kind of folded some of the details into the next one.

#3
First line: "I cleaned my mirror with a sponge"

I cleaned my mirror with a sponge. I cleaned everything, scrubbed the inside of the microwave and polished the faucets, trying to erase all trace of him. Eddie hadn't touched the mirror, but he had looked in it, probably.

He went in the bathroom after, and I lay there and thought about how I had done it, I had crossed a line I'd never meant to cross. Last night, we were in somebody's basement with the white Christmas lights duct-taped to the ceiling and the screen door that almost blew away in Eddie's hand when he opened it to let us out into the stars reflected in the lake.

That was before, and this is forever after. And no matter how many ways I try to clean my after apartment, this is it.

#4
Theme: Duality in a high school cafeteria

Our high school had a dress code, because it was semi-private, but not really. My town paid for it, and all I got for their money was me in khakis or corduroy. I kept my shirt tucked in around teachers -- I didn't want to have to stay there in uncomfortable clothes any longer than I had to, so I was careful to avoid the teachers who were too happy with the detention slips.

The cafeteria was on school grounds, so theoretically school rules applied. But those same teachers with the stacks of slips were the ones whose breath reeked of coffee in the afternoons. They needed their coffee and I needed to feel some air on my skin. So I was two ways. Mr. Button-Down Khaki and Mr. Shirt Untucked, Mr. Making Out in the Janitor Closet with Janie Frederick, who took off her sweater as soon as we got in there and kept it off until the bell.

The dress code was supposed to make us ready to dress in a business-appropriate manner for our future jobs, but all it did was make me narrow my job search to places where I could wear jeans and t-shirts and drink coffee all day.