University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 2016 In the Wake of the End of the World: Stories Cayla M. Fralick University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Fiction Commons Recommended Citation Fralick, C. M.(2016). In the Wake of the End of the World: Stories. (Master's thesis). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ etd/3372 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. In the Wake of the End of the World: Stories by Cayla M. Fralick Bachelor of Arts University of South Carolina, 2012 _________________________________________ Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2016 Accepted by: David Bajo, Director of Thesis Elise Blackwell, Reader Heidi Rae Cooley, Reader Catherine Keyser, Reader Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Abstract This collection of short stories came about from my growth as a passionate but imperfect feminist, reflecting on the place I call home—how the South and its politics shape us and how I learned to shape myself. ii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii The Tornado Girls ............................................................................................................... 1 Elizabeth’s Children ............................................................................................................ 8 90 ....................................................................................................................................... 24 Other Birdsongs ................................................................................................................. 37 Lila ..................................................................................................................................... 53 Robin’s Egg, Midnight Blue .............................................................................................. 64 Old Haven Road ................................................................................................................ 80 All Things Duly Veiled ..................................................................................................... 87 Wild Randy O’Cain ......................................................................................................... 110 In the Wake of the End of the World .............................................................................. 131 Gospel Tents .................................................................................................................... 143 Running in Place, With Feeling ....................................................................................... 167 Works Cited.....................................................................................................................188 iii The Tornado Girls The sky was getting darker a few counties over as the girls waited for Ms. Pearl to pick them up after school. It was the end of their first week of fourth grade and there was summer clinging to the deep green trees and other students’ skin, but not to the girls’ conversations. Naomi, Adia, and Caroline had all ended up in the same class again, by no orchestration that they could figure, none of their mothers marching into the school to make the request, because their mothers weren’t the kind to march. They were sure they’d ended up together by their powers. Powers they could feel getting stronger. Ms. Pearl’s big grey Cadillac lumbered through the car-rider line and the girls piled in when she pulled up, all three in the backseat. They buckled their seatbelts and hugged their book bags to their blooming chests and stopped whispering their plans. They sat quiet as Ms. Pearl inched along with the queue of cars, gospel on the radio low in the background. They saw her lift her eyes to them in the rearview mirror. Y’all aren’t even gonna ask about the Friday treat? Ms. Pearl questioned from the front seat. What, y’all too old to be excited about that now? You get to fourth grade and suddenly you gotta pretend you not excited for sweets? The girls contested and said, yes we are, Ms. Pearl! And each offered their guesses, but only to amuse her. Cinnamon raisin bread? Oatmeal crème pies? 1 No, lemon squares? They had other things on their mind. Good guesses, Ms. Pearl said, but you’re just going to have to find out when we get there, now, and then she laughed big and warm from the front seat as she drove them away from the school, away from those boys, toward the darkening sky. The girls loved Ms. Pearl and Ms. Pearl loved them like they were her own. But these girls loved each other in a way Ms. Pearl could see; a kind of love she wanted to think would wrap them up safe. She could see it in the way they never argued, the way they took blame for each other instead of trying to place it. Ever since they were little bitties, they’d been like that. Ever since Ms. Pearl met their mothers in the AA meetings she once conducted and ran out of her church’s basement. You get yourselves on your feet, she’d said to the women, the only ones there, and I will be here whenever you need. And they did and she was. All days during the summer except Sundays, all afternoons during the school year for the last six years. All that time together with those girls, so little time with those women, who never stayed around when they’d come to pick up their daughters, ready to get home, she guessed, from long days of work. From the big road, she turned onto hers, the red-clay one that stretched through the pines and beside the creek. She put her car in park when she pulled up to her house and the girls all but jumped out, running with their bags across the dirt-spotted yard and to the door they knew Ms. Pearl kept unlocked. They slipped inside and Ms. Pearl limped along behind, fast as she could go with the knee that’d been giving her more and more trouble. Rain had started falling and once under the carport, she watched it dot the pond for a second before following the girls inside. 2 Chocolate pie! Naomi said, going to the drawer for a knife and the cabinet for some Tupperware. Caroline grabbed napkins and three bottles of water. She put them in a Piggly Wiggly bag she found under the sink. Adia had gone to the linen closet in the hallway for blankets and a flashlight. When Ms. Pearl saw them piling those things on her kitchen table and Naomi cutting into the pie, she said: You little skinny minnies acting like you own the place! Look at you! We’re going to the fort, Ms. Pearl, Caroline said. We need that candle. The big fat one. And matches, Adia said. Well hold on, now, Ms. Pearl said. Y’all aren’t going to the fort in this rain. But it has a roof, Naomi said. She flopped a chunk of pie into the container. Please, Ms. Pearl? The three of them stood next to one another and looked up with the same expression, the same dark brown eyes. They knew that if they stared hard enough, Ms. Pearl would say alright, would probably even go find a coat, an umbrella. Spells always worked on her. Ms. Pearl stared back out the window for a minute, her brow crinkled like when she stood over a recipe or scribbled on a crossword puzzle or tried to make the remote work. She turned back to the girls and said, okay, but Adia, your mama’s gonna be here a little bit early, remember? So don’t make me come out there and get you. You be in here before five, you hear? 3 Yes ma’am, the three of them echoed. Naomi made two more generous cuts of pie. Ms. Pearl, Adia said, what about that candle? * They ran through the large backyard, past the pond, garbage bags over their heads with a hole torn open for their faces and arms, the only raincoats Ms. Pearl could offer. They turned by the tree with the hollow-bottom and kicked through the wet leaves until they came to the plywood hut they’d built themselves on a hundred degree day in June the previous summer. Inside, there was just enough room for the three of them to sit cross-legged on the dirt-packed floor. Caroline spread one blanket on the ground before they all got in, and hung the afghan blanket for a door. She slipped the crocheted yarn over the two nails on the top corners of the entrance and they all ducked in. What little bit of light there was outside spilled in through the holes and sprinkled them all with dots of it while the rain drummed on the flat wood roof. Naomi waited for Adia to light the candle before she passed around the Tupperware. Later, Adia said when Naomi offered her a fork. Spells first. Caroline pulled out the purple composition notebook and tilted it down to the candlelight. She was the writer; her cursive looked the oldest. We need something big, Adia said. To teach them a lesson. Naomi picked at the skin around her nails and said, but not to hurt them, right? 4 Adia looked at Naomi and Caroline with the low light of the candle playing on their faces and shrugged. Do you want to be called those names for the rest of the year? The rest of next year? Naomi thought about it. Caroline did too with her pen poised for Adia’s instruction. They all thought about the boys on the playground this week, Jeremy and his pointed and missing teeth that made his face look like some animal, Quinton who’d thrown the rocks. Gabe who’d just stood there. All of them different this year than last, like they’d switched bodies with older, angrier boys. They all agreed: no. They didn’t want that. But it was harder to agree on the right spell. They tossed around ideas, considered what was most practical, what was most funny, what was most likely to do the trick. It was Naomi who brought up the one that made them all look at each other like, this could work. Adia came up with the right words.