“And what about Lauren?”
“Oh. Lauren. I just have a bad feeling about that husband. I don’t know. The words don’t really make sense, do they? But they seemed to fly off the table, waiting for glue. I know it’s strange.”
“Nothing is strange,” I reassure. Or almost nothing. I’m going to the café for lunch. Maybe I’ll find Ethel or Marianne. We could make plans for a rose garden.
Camilla Lee was the winner of Redbook magazine’s short-short fiction contest for unpublished authors. She had a humor column in a local newspaper, and has published several personal essays, one in “They Only Laughed Later,” an anthology of the experiences of expatriate women. She has a book of personal essays: Life Stories, from Reno to the Azores.
She and her husband and children have lived in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo. She now lives on the seacoast in Narragansett, Rhode Island, USA.
Camilla’s quiet humor and her observant eye make all these characters real and familiar. And her simple sentences laced with such wit ( between the isobars my mind also wanders). Love reading her short stories. Thank you for publishing this….. I’ll see you there but not in the garden club!
Loved the story Camilla. Thanks. Izzy
Great short story! Love the setting and characters. They were all very well developed. I could smell the lilacs!
Brilliant! Perfect! Spot on! More!
Perfect!! LEE’s timing is spot on. She never lingers too long nor hammers hard on the surprises. Didn’t want the story to end…more PLEASE from this gifted, wry, insightful writer!
I can hear your voice, Camilla. Glad you can write so positively about community living. Hope you are going to stay in your big, old house. Enjoyed this story.
Wonderful story by Camilla Lee. She has a seemingly effortless style, a slightly wicked sense of humor, and spot on-observations about people, in this case, the inhabitants of a retirement home.Would love to read more of her work!