jenn, pt i, aka what's in the box?
"what do you mean it's gone?
we've searched for hours! it has to be here! "
there's a brief moment of the ceiling fan spinning, a few calls from the local poles rang out in the silence held between them.
"i said they're in a box, and i don't remember which one. it's around here somewhere, we need to be patient and it will turn up."
a few numbers appeared on the colorful screen across the way. increasing in sum and equal in loudness, the familiar song that plays again and again against the forecast of clouds and rain and --
"i think i tagged it with one of the stickers you bought from jenn."
jenn, often short for jennifer, whose mom thought it better to keep it short for her own sake.
jenn, the girl she met back at the craft table of one of those spring into summer workshops hosted by the franklin keller library.
jenn? the one who brushed up against her often, apologizing for being an air headed, two-steps removed from a foxtrot or ballroom spin.
jenn! with her brunette bangs that sometimes covered those soft grey eyes, falling against a charcoal black dye job in the back against her neck.
"jenn? you mean the one with the grey striped cat holding a sandwich? that sticker?"
sandwich? sticker? grey? cat? it was all blurring together and in the moment the way she saw how jenn looked in her mind, a custom shade of rose lip, reflected on her own face.
"i don't remember you buying her stickers, i have a couple she practically begged me to pay her for when we met up for lunch."
lunch. right! lunch. that's an afternoon she both wanted to remember and couldn't bear to forget. an ordinary meal time chat, in the sun, in her everyday dress she got from the local thrift with
jenn.
jenn!
she can't stop herself from thinking about
"jenn."
s. maiden - jenn, pt i -- original story
