When You See Her

When You See HerRed Adept Publishing, LLC104 Bugenfield CourtGarner, NC 27529https://RedAdeptPublishing.com/Copyright © 2023 by Barbara Boehm Miller. All rights reserved.Cover Art by Streetlight GraphicsNo part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental. Table of ContentsTitle PageCopyright PageDedicationThe Red Adept Publishing AppThat NightNight and DayJust the Sound of Her VoiceCarniesWhat I Had Really WantedJared Comes to CallThe Worst Night of Jared’s LifeAnd Then It Was MorningThe LocomotionGulf TownScratchyThe Next SeasonThe Long SeasonPunksRed River FallsPatawauneeHinkle Hates BloodLeavingSweet EmmyGigi the GreatThe WeddingMrs. SchendelEpilogueAcknowledgmentsSign up for Barbara Boehm Miller's Mailing ListFurther Reading: Glory BishopAbout the AuthorAbout the Publisher For Bill The Red Adept Publishing AppRead free short fiction, get our authors’ favorite recipes, enjoy author interviews, read cool listicles, and more!You’ll be kept informed of special sales, new releases, and upcoming new books and notified of contests and giveaways. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.—Ralph Waldo Emerson That NightAutumn Valley, Wisconsin1976The small cast-iron frying pan felt heavy in my hand, like a stone about to drop in the sudden silence of the kitchen. Only the sound of cicadas sawing their wings together, calling out for companionship, could be heard through the open screen door. The kitchen where I stood was the most familiar place in the world to me. Indeed, I could have described, in great detail, every notch and bump of the peeling linoleum, every surface and angle of the gas-burning stove, and every line and swirl of the wood-grain table. Time seemed to have stopped. In the normal course of events, I would have been washing the dinner dishes. The smell of fried chicken and the fainter, homey scent of cookies baked hours ago lingered in the air. It was still light outside because days went on forever in summer. I had to leave. I knew that. I pretended for another moment, though, as if nothing had happened. I placed the skillet in the sink of dirty dishes. For a long time, I had wanted to leave the claustrophobic confines of home. However, weighing as much as I did—probably about five hundred pounds, by my estimate—the idea of going to college, having a job, or getting married had seemed impossible without losing an exorbitant, outrageous amount of weight. Every diet had failed, making any other plans beside the point. Those past efforts had been nothing more than an unnecessary waste of time. Now, I was going to simply walk out the door and not come back. How had it never occurred to me, before it was too late, that such an act had always been in my power?First, though, I had to find the phone number Mr.—I couldn’t even remember what he called himself—had given me. The other man, the bald one, was named Jim. The two of them had visited the house only three days ago to get a look at me and ask me about working as the fat lady in the carnival sideshow. Decent people didn’t run away with the carnival, so I had told them “no,” of course. Still, the idea of escaping my house and leaving behind my brother, Jared, and the encased drudgery of my life had been appealing enough to prevent me from crumpling the scrap of paper on which Mr. Whoever had written a telephone number to call if I changed my mind before the show left town. Such a tiny piece of paper—easy to lose, impossible to replace—and there it was, folded in tight squares under the silverware tray. “Thank God,” I said, pulling open the utility drawer, mashing my hands over the tools to find a pencil to dial the phone, since my fingers couldn’t fit in the holes of the rotary dial. The sight of my reflection in the window, the whole breadth of my bulk, so wide that the glass wasn’t large enough to fit my entire image, caught my eye. Leaving would mean navigating a new world, one that had not been outfitted with a strong bench and reinforced furniture and a bed to accommodate my size. The pulsing twitch of my eye appeared as a red smear that spread across my field of vision. Picking up the receiver, I couldn’t remember the last time I had called someone other than Mrs. Schendel. Possibly, in my seventeen years, I had never used the telephone to contact anyone else. My mouth felt dry and creaky, like it would after eating an entire sleeve of salty crackers with no water. I had to slap my own face hard. The paper shook in my hand as I inserted the pencil into the rotary dial, moving with care and deliberation from number to number. The line rang. Rang again and again. Each peal sounded longer, more extravagant than the one before it. Sweat, hot and itchy, beaded on my lip and dripped down from under my arms. I should have pushed the table bench closer to the telephone so I could have sat to relieve the ache spreading through my hips and knees, but maybe if any part of my body were allowed to relax, then some creeping inertia would conspire to keep me trapped in the house. Stuffing the phone between my neck and shoulder to grip my hands together, I prayed—not to God precisely but to whomever it was who had created me and given me my life. Something had to happen. Someone had to save me. “Hello.” The sound of a woman’s voice on the other end of the line startled me so