Longing For December - Shelia Burket (best short novels of all time .txt) 📗

an amazing healing power.
“How’s Grant?” Savanna asks. He’s an idiot”, they laugh. “Same ole, same ole…”I love him, he’s a loveable idiot”, again they both laugh as they clear the table. “A man?” Savanna asks sarcastically. “Yeah pretty much”, she was quick to answer. “Ya gotta love e’m”, Harmony says over her shoulder as she piles the dishes in the sink. “I guess”, Savanna squints and wrinkles her nose. “Do you want some ice tea?” That sounds good” Savanna searches through the cabinet chaos for a box of teabags. Finally, she finds it, way in the back. Opening the oven door again, she grabs a small pan off the top rack. She fills the pan with water and counts out nine teabags, she‘s not quite sure why nine, but anyway nine. She measures less than a full cup of sugar in a coffee cup and waits for the water of floating teabags to come to a boil.” Look in that cabinet over the microwave for my orange pitcher”, she asks Harmony. “This one?” Yeah, it’s seen better days, but it’ll serve it’s purpose.” Savanna pours two glasses full of ice and slices a lemon. “Your tea is the best!” Harmony brags with a smile. “It’s not to sweet”, she adds. Normally she drank her tea with no sugar at all, but she could actually enjoy Savanna’s tea, because it didn’t put you into a sugar coma. They grab their glasses and head for the living room.First Harmony then Savanna. They sit sipping their tea with lemon and enjoy sharing stories and laughing.
Savanna heads for the kitchen for a refill with both glasses in hand. Heading back with full glasses of tea in hand Savanna’s foot catches a bag of garbage that she meant to take out earlier. In horror, Harmony sees Savanna plunge forward into a wooden end table catching the corner with her mouth. “Oh my God, Savanna are you okay?” Harmony screams, jumping up. “No!” I think I knocked my teeth out!” Savanna cries. Grabbing her mouth with both hands standing on her knees. Harmony grabs a dish towel from the kitchen, she hands it to Savanna. Blood ran down between her fingers she places the dish towel over her mouth removing it periodically to try to speak. Blood dripping profusely each time she removed the rag. “We’ve got to go to the E.R.” Harmony shrieks. Savanna rushes to the bathroom to see how many teeth she had knocked out. Quickly she removes the towel for a peek at the damage. IN complete disbelief she gasps. “Oh my God!” No! No! No! No!!! Frantically she shakes the rag hoping for a piece of her lip. To her disappointment she had all teeth intact. “Oh God, please help me!” she stomped and cried. It was her lip instead it had split in half, her bottom lip looked as if a chunk was completely missing. Dish towel over her mouth clinched tightly she and Harmony headed for the E.R. tea glasses in hand. Come hell or high water she was drinking that darn tea. It was obviously impossible. She held the towel to her mouth as she buckles herself in. “I want a drink so bad”, she sobs, trying out of the corner of her mouth. The taste of blood was in her mouth, drinking was like trying to drink with Novocain, ‘very drippy’. “Why did this happen to me?” I try to be good to everyone”,” I don’t understand”. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people‘, Harmony reassures her. Setting in the E.R. Savanna nervously awaited the dreaded prognosis. Sure that she would need plastic surgery. “Hi, Miss Oliver, the nurse smiles” My name is Melody, let me take a look sweetie. “Dr. Jones will be in to see you in a few minutes”, she says in a southern accent. “We need to clean you up honey so we can get you numbed up and fix that lip right up”. “Someone from plastic surgery is going to come down and take a look at you, but Dr. Jones is really good, I’m pretty sure she’ll be able to take care of it for you.” “You’ll be fine honey, don’t worry. Ten stitches later and teeth print in the table “Iron tooth sticks, Beaver too, as the running joke.” Strangely enough she fell so hard she didn’t feel a thing! Her entire body weight went into the corner of the table. “Ouch!” Reluctantly Savanna accepted a date with Harmony’s prodding from a cute doctor from the E.R. She was hesitant, yet she agreed. It might be nice to get out for the evening. “I can’t really eat”, she said painfully. “Well coffee then…o.k.? “Maybe a movie?” “O.k., you win”, she tries to smile. “A date with the bride of Frankenstein!” she sighs. He extends his hand and smiles. “Thank you Dr. Jones.” “Michael, he winks. “Thank you Michael”, she gives a half smile. It felt good to have a man’s attention, stitches and all. They agreed to go out Saturday night.
Savanna sits on the front porch in the early morning as she often liked to do. She enjoyed the peacefulness of morning and the birds singing along with the sounds of nature, crickets ect. The air was slightly cool as the early morning sun tried it’s best to warm things up. Clyde lies lazily in the corner of the porch in a half shaded area with his tail swaying back and forth. She catches up on some writing as she enjoys the peace and quiet. She thinks of Ryan… then the horrible experience of the whole dating scene. She smiles as she thinks of Dr. Jones (Michael) and laughs out loud as she remembers her first blind date… Almost a year after Ryan’s death a man who was the brother of a friend from church wanted to take Savanna for dinner. Her friend Tia asked if she could set it up. Hesitant, she agreed to at least talk to him. It might be nice to get out of the house for the evening. Saturday, 12:00pm the phone rings, Hello? “Savanna?” “Yes” “This is Mike” “Hey” “I was wandering if you might wanna grab a bite to eat” “Umm… I…” “Come on, you gotta start somewhere” Haven’t you heard about the frog theory?” “Frog theory?” “You know, you’ve gotta kiss a lot of frogs to get to the handsome prince”. “Ok… are you the frog or the prince?” “Ribbit” “That’s your call” “Ribbit, rabbit!” “Ok what about six?” “Six it is!”
Twelve o’clock became two and two became four, Savanna paced as she tossed clothes left and right to the floor.” I can’t do this!” she began to stomp. “Ahhh!” she screamed. She slings the closet door open again. “Ok you! She grabs the black dress in the left corner. She sweeps her auburn hair up on her head with curls hanging down. She pulls the black spaghetti strapped dress over her hips and over her black wonder bra. She searched for her thin silver hoops and black heels. Her nails a clean french manicure from the day before, long and squared off at the ends. Her golden band now on a chain around her neck melted into her heart. She sprays a mist of wild musk and walks into it. Mom has the kids. She checks her purse for breath spray and hand lotion and nervously lights another cigarette. Head lights… she crushes her cigarette and growls to herself. One, squirt of breath spray, two, a little hand lotion, one more mist to walk through. He knocks at the door. She opens the door with a smile. She thinks to herself, he’s cute, kind of nerdy but cute. “I’m Mike” “I guessed that” “Ready?” “Yeah” “You look beautiful” “Thank you”. It felt good she thought, to hear that from a man. “You’re a computer programmer?” “Yes I am , I also do repairs.” “That’s cool”. “I do good to turn the darn thing on” she laughed. They made small talk on the way to dinner. It went well, Mike was nice but she really wasn’t ready for a relationship. He really wasn’t her type, but from time to time, they had dinner or caught a movie, they became friends. She let him know she just wasn’t ready to date seriously. She had a week to heal and prepare. She thinks back to the blind date that Tia had insisted on. Come to think of it his name was Mike. “What is it with Mike’s and Michael’s?” she huffs.
Once again, the phone rings… “Hello?” “Savanna?” “Hey there, how’s my favorite doctor?” she laughs. “How’s my prettiest patient?” “I’m healing, I’m still sucking on a straw and I have a hole in my chin”, she laughs. “I thought I took care of that?” he laughs. “Do you need anything?” “No I’m fine.” “Do you wanna come over and just hang out?” “Yes, I’d love to.” “It’s a date.” she smiles. Savanna goes to the kitchen and puts on a pot of coffee. She sits at the kitchen table and with teary eyes waits for the coffee to comfort her. The aroma fills the air and she wipes her eyes and pours a cup adding hazelnut coffee creamer. She heads to the bathroom, coffee in hand to straighten her face. “Ugh!” she washes her face and slaps on foundation, blush and reapplies eyeliner along with another coat of mascara. Her auburn hair defiantly ponytail hair by now, “oh well” she shrugs. She pulls a few curls down by her face and sprays vanilla musk from head to toe. She sips her coffee and reapplies deodorant. This time casual in a soft pink spaghetti strapped tank and her favorite broke in jeans, barefoot with cranberry painted toenails. A knock at the door rushes her to gulp down the last of her coffee and reapply some cherry flavored lip-gloss. “Hang on!” “I mean come in!” A welcome sight, Dr. Jones in a pair of Levi’s and a black button up shirt. “Very nice,” she tells herself. “I smell coffee,” he smiles. “Can I get you some?” “Black please,” he takes a step inside. “Come on in, make yourself at home.” “I have hazelnut” “Ok you got me” “I’ll try some.” “Do you wanna sit on the porch?” “Yeah, do you need help?” “No I’ve got it.” Savanna and Michael head for the porch. The conversation seems to flow. A common interest carried the conversation. He lost his wife to cancer two years ago. We became comfort buddies. It helped to share our stories of life and loss, of past love and future dreams. Michael was very handsome, in him she saw a bit of Blake and Ryan, the sweetness of both. He became a very important part of her healing in more ways than one.


December Wind

It was cold, you could see your breath, on the ground the snow was powder-like, when you walked it sprayed through the air. The wind was piercing the sun glistened on the snow like shimmering diamonds. It was bitter cold but the work was to be done, so off to the studio she went. It was small, but hers, she rented it from a nice old man that owns several businesses in town. There she paints and sketches of days gone by. It was nearly lunch-time; she began to put away her art supplies and cleans her