Manifest, March 31, 2023

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This Show Case features five pieces submitted in response to our thirty-ninth Writing Prompt: Manifest. You can see responses to each prompt in the drop down menu for the Show Case page. Try an item. They are all delicious. We hope they stimulate your mind, spirit, and urge to write. Maybe they will motivate you to submit a piece for our next prompt, which you can find on the Show Case home page.

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In No Condition, part 2

by Mimi Speike

Ah! Here comes Closette. Bunny’s on her way down, ready to resume her duties, right Clo? We get to hear her dazzling mezzo-soprano (another reason the Beale girls despise her) after all.

Uh, guess not.

* * *

“Please excuse Lady Sidney tonight, Doctor Dee. She is not up to it.”

“Pity. I do enjoy our duets. Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose.” 

“I’m afraid not. She is in no condition.” The lady’s maid reaches for Bunny’s harp, to return it upstairs. 

Sly swats Dee. “You don’t trust me with your violin,” he hisses. “I must have that harp, on which I am equally adept.”

Dee frowns. He has another idea. “Closette! May I retain the harp? Rose will accompany me.” 

The small daughter of the cook — beautifully attired, naturally — has been put to work tonight collecting empty glassware set aside in odd places, and returning it to the kitchen. Bunny, looking forward to the day she has her own babies to spoil, fusses over the child. Rose had begged for instruction on the harp, which is relatively easy to play after only a few lessons. She can pluck out a simple tune. 

Dee explains his intention to Closette. Rose must rotate her apron back to front, mimicking Delly’s bedecking. Rose is wearing a garland of babies-breath in her hair. Delly’s bonnet will be changed out for a similar sprig. Delly has her taupe legs and feet. Rose has her light brown shoes and hose.

A hilarious presentation — he’d seen the potential immediately — is too good to pass up. Bunny cannot miss her thrilled protégé making her musical debut in a spectacular setting. The child will be expecting to spot her best friend¹ among the delighted onlookers. To disappoint her would be an act of crushing cruelty.

* * *

Sly is annoyed. He confronts Dee. “What about me? This Rose can’t possibly be a better harpist than I am. I played professionally at one time, I told you that.”² 

“I thought you played the violin.”

“The harp as well. You don’t believe me? Hand it here.” 

“Patience, my friend. You’ll have your turn, after Rose. The child will adore my mischief, as will her mama, who always sends me home with a basket for my ravening brood, goodies of a devisement beyond the skill of my Jane, a fine woman, but no great shakes as a cook. I have one maid-of-all-work. I dare not tax her in excess of my current demands, she’s on the verge of bolting now. This is why Kelley and I parted ways. He demanded a rise in pay. Impossible! I paid him better than I pay myself.”

* * *

A curious foursome threads through the crowded room toward a stage set up directly below a mezzanine on which a dozen musicians are installed. They mount the platform. Dee is handed his violin. Rose curtsies, and takes her seat. The harp has been deposited beside it. Sly, upright on his hind legs, one paw on his stomach, the other behind his back, imitates a gentleman’s most gracious bow. Delly has stage-fright. She’s overwhelmed to find herself in a situation she never could have imagined. 

Dee begins with a leisurely piece, ‘Hush, my babe, lie still and slumber’. Rose runs her fingers across the strings when he gives her a nod, producing a glissando, an impressive sound; happily, deceptively easy to achieve. The harp’s gentle voice is forgiving; and the lower tension strings on a small model are easy on small fingers. A continuous slide does not require the hands held just so — Bunny is forever reminding her, don’t let your knuckles collapse — and it always elicits a big reaction. When she produces her signature flourish, the wait-staff pause in their duties to manifest their approval of one of their own showing the toffs what she’s capable of. She was born into drudgery, but better is in store for her, not one of them doubts it.

Dee sidles into a complex air offering few opportunities for her showmanship. It’s his turn to shine. She sets her harp down and relocates to the edge of the stage, where a tray of sweets is held forth for her to select from. She chooses one confection for herself, and one for Delly. They settle side by side to enjoy their treats. A bemused bystander provides each of them with a cup of gin punch. 

* * *

Upstairs, Bunny is fuming. Damn Phillip. Damn her father. She will sing. Her resolve waxes, then wanes. She’s furious and fearful at the same time. John Wickerson, thrown into the Marshalsea, for the crime of wanting to marry her! Two years earlier, he’d been walked off the property, arms roped behind him, she’s seen it from her bedroom window. She’s never been told what happened to him. 

She has the answer. She’d overheard her Uncle Beale questioning her father: Wickerson, what’s come of him? —  Just released from the Marshalsea, sent back to his people in Staffordshire with a purse sufficient to start him in a small business, an equal sum forthcoming at the end of five years if he causes no more trouble.

“My poor John,” Bunny’s sobbing hysterically, “in that hellhole! That’s it. I’m going down there!”

“Don’t Bunny. Don’t! It can’t help John. It can only hurt you.”

“My father, you mean.”

“Your father, your mother, they only wanted the best for you.”

“The best! I am wed to a man who proclaims his passion for another in verse. I was awarded — father paid dearly for the triumph — the most coveted bachelor at court (an exaggeration, but not by much). Who lusts after another. No wonder my cousins twit me. A fine joke, eh?”

“Bunny! Please!” Georgina has been arguing for two hours against an inadvisable action.

“Not another word. Not another blessed word. I’ve made up my mind.” 

“You’re tipsy, my darling. You’ll regret it in the morning.”

“I’ll regret it in the morning if I don’t do it. Tomorrow my better sense will reassert itself. I may never find the courage to air my true feelings again.”

Bunny checks her appearance in a mirror, does a bit of repair work, and is out the door. Minutes later, Ursula Walsingham raps impatiently and enters without waiting for admittance. Spying Georgina, she demands, “Where is she?” This is a suite of six rooms, the finest in the house. Sir Francis and his wife had surrendered their own apartment to the newlyweds. The woman is not going rampage through them, hunting down a truant as if she were a five-year-old. 

She screams, “No more nonsense out of you, my girl!” Receiving no reply, she tells Gigi, “Just in case My Lady Sidney is interested in what her mother has to say about her disgraceful behavior, she’s to get herself downstairs, now! Doctor Dee is on stage at this very moment, with her harp, but no her. With the cook’s brat, if you please. And,” she mutters, “with a cat that, I swear to God, just called me a stupid slut.” 

* * *

1. It was Rose who’d given Frances the name ‘Bunny’. She’d apprehended a resemblance between rabbits in a hutch and a soft-eyed, expressionless face, emblematic of one sweet-natured, so unlike the females in the kitchen, yelling their heads off. 
2. This would have been during his year with ‘Nipsy’ Rawshorne.

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Mutual Manifest Attraction

by John Correll

Elizabeth first encountered John in San Francisco when she accompanied her uncle on a business trip. 

Ever since her brother went to UC Berkeley, she’d wanted to visit the city. But her stupidity and her father’s hunting knife foiled her plans when Peter graduated. She remained in Great Falls, Virginia, instead. She spent her entire dull existence outside the Beltway — except for holidays. 

Then with high school graduation over and a few months before her first year at university, uncle Eli took pity on her. He needed to oversee his new acquisition in California, and she could play the accidental tourist.

On her first day in SF, she left her uncle in his new office and headed for the elevator. In front of the doors, a man in a suit kept hitting the down button. She slowed and admired his tall, athletic, broad-shouldered figure, his straight nose, square chin, and dark sympathetic eyes. He was youthful, as if he had recently graduated from university. He gave up hitting the button, shrugged, and presented her with a perfect smile, but why? She had done everything not to be noticed by men. Her boyish haircut, chubby cheeks, baggy trousers, and glasses flashed the message, leave me alone.

She blushed as he watched her while the doors stayed closed. Two minutes of awkward silence passed. He checked her out, looked away, checked again, and forgot to look away. She did likewise. A bell burst their flirtation as the doors slid open. Startled and embarrassed, they walked in together, shoulder to shoulder; then they reached for the first-floor button, but their hands collided and paused, stuck together. His long, solid, graceful fingers pressed warmly against hers. 

She didn’t move. “After you,” she said. He smiled, concentrating on her eyes as if trying to decipher what she looked like without glasses.

“No, after you,” he said in a firm and gentle voice. She shook her head, and they both reached together and managed to hit the door open button instead. 

Laughing, he gently lifted her hand without pressing. “Perhaps we should dance.” She broke into a red-faced smile and dropped her head. “I figured a beautiful smile hid there, somewhere,” he said.

He pressed the first floor. “Sorry, I’m being forward. I’m John from IT.” He looked at her as if expecting her to say her job back.

“Oh, I don’t work here.”

“Lucky you. We’re going through a merger, so I’ll join you soon. I mean in not working here.” His eyes twinkled as if he didn’t care about being unemployed. “I’ve only been here a month. So my CV is still up to date.”

“Sorry. My uncle works here, and I hope to see San Francisco.” She stared at him, and he looked at her like he adored her. She rubbed her wrist to remind herself why she preferred anonymity. But she returned his gaze and found him more than attractive.

“Alcatraz, Fisherman’s Wharf, Golden Gate Bridge, that sort of stuff?” he asked.

“The art museum first.”

“SFMOMA?” The floor jolted, and the door opened. She nodded again and walked out. After about twenty paces, she turned around and found him standing by the elevator. He looked at his watch as if he might go back in. 

She raced back. “Excuse me, but do you know how to get to the museum?” She knew, but she wanted to hear him talk.

He smiled and scratched his temple. “Right out the doors, then four blocks, left and two, no three.” He looked at his watch and then at her. “I’ve got time. Why don’t I show you?”

He didn’t go back to work. They laughed and puzzled about modern art, ate Thai for lunch, and feasted on passion’s everlasting feral kisses in the park. He slipped off her glasses and stared into her eyes. She concentrated on getting his handsome face in focus. “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. I could admire them forever.” She snapped her eyes shut, and he kissed her eyelids, nose, and mouth. Then he kissed her chin, neck, and shoulder. “You’re beautiful,” he added, tickling her and forcing her eyes open.

“Shut up and give my glasses back,” she said.

The next day she met him for lunch, and she made an excuse about forgetting her jacket at the hotel, but once there she didn’t leave. She tossed him on the bed and unbuttoned his shirt. He got the clue, and she made love to a man for the first time. She laughed when she recalled her best friend’s warning, “I bet you’ll have lots of sex.” Then she did it again and again, each time better. They would have stayed all night and forgotten dinner, but her uncle called her away.

And the following afternoon, they enjoyed the pleasure of clean hotel sheets, room service champagne, and touching deeply. They hid under the covers until her uncle texted her to meet him in his office staff room. 

John joined her, and they chatted on the sofa as she waited. He reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a card, but an annoying young woman in a suit stopped him. She grabbed his arm.

“John, I need a word with you,” she demanded.

“Jenny, this is Elizabeth. We’re waiting for her uncle. Can I come to your office in about ten?”

“No. We need to talk now. It’s important.” She dragged him to the opposite end of the room and whispered to him. Then, they both looked at her. Elizabeth smiled and waved, and John waved back, but Jenny shook his arm and spoke in his ear. He shook his head, looking like she’d told him his father had just died. 

Then her uncle shouted her name from the door, but she didn’t respond. She wrote her number on a slip of paper instead and slipped it on her seat. She watched John’s reaction as her uncle stepped towards her. John’s eyes followed him in defiance and awe, but his face grew pale.

That evening she flew to LA for another important meeting of her uncle’s. And John didn’t call. She couldn’t believe he didn’t find her number. That horrid Jenny must have poisoned him with fears that she was the niece of his new boss, that she would never be in a relationship with a man who wasn’t rich and Jewish, and that she was only seventeen and going to Princeton on the opposite side of the country. 

Weeks passed into months, and she couldn’t forget him. Her quick, beautiful experience to be reminisced and stashed away for lonely moments haunted her. And after two years full of lonely, she ached. She tried to socialize, but her peers at Princeton didn’t compare. Then she discovered he had called, despite his angst and Jenny’s warnings.

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Noble Fantasy

by S.L. Randall

Manifest Destiny

Magnifico?

I don’t think so …

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Monetizing Platitudes

by GD Deckard

Roy’s bestselling novel, “Death: The Final Frontier,” earned him an invitation to speak at a local meeting of those Mourning All Dead. MAD, as the group was known, met mostly at car crash sites. The sad group respectfully parted to allow Roy access to the memorial mound of memento items piled on the ground around a badly damaged tree. The local Goodwill would be getting fewer donations this week.

“Let me tell you a story from my childhood,” Roy began. He caught the eyes of those around him who had paid him a hefty speaking fee. They were forlorn eyes seeking connection to the deceased. He knew they just wanted to feel good about themselves. “My father was strict. Orville Devine had principles.” He paused to let the name sink in.

“Orville Devine?” murmured some around him. “The evangelist!”

Others were quick on the uptake. “Orville Devine the famous evangelist!” they murmured back.

Roy smiled broadly and shook a white offering can with bold red letters. The word “DONATE” danced before the now mesmerized group. “Dad told me, ‘Son, when you accept something, the other person must always feel they receive value in return.’ Knowing Dad as I did, I learned at an early age that value received is a flexible concept.”

Bending to the nearest person, he intoned solemnly, “True understanding manifests only when your outward actions are in harmony with your inner spirit.” He handed her the can.

As the can was being passed around, Roy nodded at each and spoke platitudes. “Sacrifice today for a better tomorrow; good things come to those who give; what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger; everything happens for a reason; give the good with the bad; whatever will be, will be;  it doesn’t matter who scores, as long as the team wins.”

When the can returned to him, Roy held it aloft. “Sometimes bad things lead to good things.” The crowd was pleased. Roy had made these people feel good. “This too shall pass,” he added.

end

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I Wish to See

by S.T. Ranscht

Photo credit: Zoltan Tasi-HTpAIzZRHvw-unsplash

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