Sponsor a story at EDF - Your message can reach thousands of readers for just $4
Tom and I huddle close together in the bus stop shelter. Damp icy air, murky gray clouds. I hold out my hand to catch my first-ever snowflake. A real blizzard will churn across the state tonight. We expect a foot of snow and a deep freeze. Missouri winters are brutal. Coming from Florida where I never even wore a jacket, I have no doubt I’m about to experience a frosty death. I shiver, wish I had a winter coat, but after filling the propane tank and car repairs my parents are tapped out.
“Lulu, put this on.” Tom tucks his heavy wool jacket over my shoulders.
It’s warm from his body and I cover my face with it, inhale. “What about you?” I ask. My lovely boyfriend shrugs, hands in pockets. His tee-shirt won’t keep out the cold. The snow picks up and begins to come down serious. I wrap my arms around him to keep half of him warm.
“Wish I could buy you a coat,” he says. Tom is the best, but more broke you can’t imagine. No jobs for teens in this town. His parents are splitting, it’s high drama, wah-wah-wah all day about money. We’re poor. It sucks.
The snow falls thickly, frosting his hair. He grabs my hand. “Let’s get something to eat.” He can eat every half-hour and my stomach’s empty too.
I dig into my pocket. Eleven pennies and a dime, plus four quarters for laundry. “Uh, a donut?” Downtown shops are fancy, don’t tolerate broke high school kids coming in to get out of the weather.
He laughs and shows me two dollar bills. “Tiffenee’s Grill. It’s warm and cheap. We’ll share pancakes.”
He pulls me around the corner and down a side street. Snowflakes float soft onto my face. We’re jogging to keep warm when he stops at a lime-green door. Jet Rag, the store’s called. In smudged windows, worn-out mannequins are wearing pilly Christmas sweaters, hideous with reindeer antlers, Santas and jingle bells. Did I say hideous? “My mom shops here,” Tom says. “Maybe . . .”
The place smells funky. Old, sour, unwashed. It’s even colder than outside – I can see Tom’s breath. I don’t care because the first thing I see is – omigod – a hand-lettered sign: “COATS 4 SALE $3” and I dive into the rack, searching for anything in size 2. Or at least in that ballpark. I try on a down coat, puffy and red. Makes me look like a pillow with feet. An embroidered denim jacket – cool but hardly blizzard-proof. A stained trench coat hangs to my ankles.
“What about this one, Lu?” Tom holds up a gray wool coat, double-breasted, with nipped-in waist and flared skirt. Four fat black buttons. I put it on and gasp. It’s vintage, warm, perfect. He kisses my forehead. “You look like Audrey Hepburn.”
We hand over all our worldly cash. Even the pennies but it doesn’t matter. I’m aglow with the thrill of the buy, the way I look and feel in the soft heathery tweed. From pitifully freezing to posh and warm, for three bucks.
I hand him his jacket, he slips it on. Outside, falling snow makes a whispery sound, turning the world a shushed white. I twirl, humming. Happy.
“Where to now, my elfin waif?” he asks.
My stomach rumbles. “A hot meal.”
He raises an eyebrow. I laugh and show him the piece of paper I found in the pocket of my beautiful new coat. A picture of Andrew Jackson on one side, the White House on the other. “Take me to Tiffenee’s, darling. For breakfast.”
Karen Pullen’s short stories have appeared in Spinetingler and Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Her mystery novel COLD FEET will be published by Five Star Cengage in 2013. She lives in Pittsboro, North Carolina.
GD Star Rating
loading...
loading...
Did you like this story?
A new and interesting story is posted every day.
A new and interesting story is posted every day.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed! (what is rss)
Don’t miss another story! Subscribe to Every Day Fiction via RSS.- Share on Facebook
15 Responses to “SNOW DAY • by Karen Pullen”
Comments
« WAITING ROOM • by Olivia Berrier | Home | FINISHED BUSINESS • by Jennifer Foster »
February 10th, 2012 at 2:00 am
I am afraid there just isn’t enough context to make sense of the ending, and without that there’s no way to tell if buying breakfast was an extravagance or not. Just how much money did she find? Only someone familiar with the local currency would know.
February 10th, 2012 at 4:43 am
Heartwarming on a cold day. Punctuation looks good. Jackson makes it a twenty.
February 10th, 2012 at 5:15 am
Oh, I so love this. I’m always finding money in old jackets and cardigans. Very sweet story and well-told. It’s darn cold this morning in Northern Ontario so this story was all the more poignant. Cheers.
February 10th, 2012 at 6:01 am
I found this charming and I liked the warm finish.
The use of present-tense and the short, verb-less sentences gave it a distinct, close, and immediate voice, yet — for me — also somehow made it more difficult to fully immerse myself into the story. This is probably just a personal taste thing.
February 10th, 2012 at 7:04 am
Loved it! Masterful writing in a sure voice.
February 10th, 2012 at 7:47 am
@1 The sideways currency reference might require a bit of looking up (I typed “jackson currency” into Google and the first hit was US twenty dollar bill), but I don’t think it demands familiarity any more than, say, mentioning local geography or the exchange rate (for all we know, twenty dollars couldn’t even buy a donut in their local economy *smile*). But one can gather from the context that she found money, almost certainly a pleasant surprise after spending one’s last pennies!
Definitely a subjective call, though. A niggle’s a niggle, and the author can decide whether the unconventional reveal is worth losing some readers a little.
February 10th, 2012 at 9:19 am
The brevity, staccato style of this piece made it a bit disjointed.
An engaging read, however, so I couldn’t ask for more.
February 10th, 2012 at 9:48 am
Yeah, poverty sucks but this sweet couple found some warmth & happiness anyway. I loved this story.
February 10th, 2012 at 10:29 am
this story was soul-satisfying. finding a coat like that, oh wow! breakfast at tiffany’s, pardon, tiffanee’s, and the link to audrey hepburn, congratulations! fun to read, fun to think about after.
February 10th, 2012 at 12:27 pm
Cute story, loved the voice, and once I googled Andrew Jackson, it all made perfect sense
February 10th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
wry, sly, sweet story about kids on the rocks who support each other on a bad day and then get a break. clean clear prose, true emotion, upbeat ending. More from this author!
February 11th, 2012 at 3:22 am
Ahhh, young love. Will keep you warm every time. A perfect ending to such a sweet story. Loved it!
February 11th, 2012 at 5:29 am
Oh I loved when she put that coat on
February 11th, 2012 at 10:00 am
Lovely story. I really liked that Tiffanee’s tied in with the Audrey Hwpburn reference earliie. Five stars.
February 20th, 2012 at 10:26 pm
WON-DER-FUL. I loved it!