Free QUEENIE BABY: On Assignment by Christina A. Burke

piece of jerky.
    The large, eat-in kitchen was almost organized by comparison. Unfortunately, the theme for this room was teddy bears. A teddy bear border ran the length of the kitchen, teddy bear pictures hung on every square inch of wall space, and teddy bear figurines littered the windowsill.  
    My sister looked up when I came in. “Can you hand me some salt?"
    “Sure,” I said, reaching for a salt shaker shaped like—you guessed it—a teddy bear.
    “So how’s it going with Rick,” she asked with a coy smile.  
    I looked over her shoulder into the bowl. “What’s that?” I asked changing the subject.
    “Potato salad. And stop changing the subject.” She looked up at me. “What happened to you?” she asked taking in my muddy shirt.
    “Sally knocked me down,” I replied.
    She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I swear I don’t know how you get from point A to point B without falling down. Wash your hands and help me get finished up.”
    “Your dog attacked me,” I insisted scrubbing my hands. “I didn’t trip.” Sally decided to trot up to me just at that moment and look up at me with big sad puppy dog eyes.
    My sister and I looked down at her. “Yeah sure,” my sister said. “That dog attacked you. She’s scared of everything.”
    I gave Sally’s head a pat. She was cute. She cowered and peed all over the floor. My sister gave me an evil look and handed me a bunch of paper towels. “Why did you pet her? You know she can’t control herself.”  
    Geez! “Why can’t you have a normal dog that doesn’t pee every time someone looks at it?” Sally wagged her tail. She was happy to be the topic of conversation.
    “Oh,” my sister said sarcastically, “and your dog is the epitome of self-control.”
    “Well, he doesn’t pee all over everything!”
    “Yeah, he’s just vindictive and he bites!” she said.
    “Maybe a little vindictive,” I agreed, “but definitely not a biter.”
    “He bit me!” she cried.
    “Yeah, but you deserved it. You tried to take food away from him.”
    My sister gave me an exasperated look. “Uh, my food, remember?”
    “That he took because you forgot to give him a goodie after he went outside.” It was all quite reasonable.
    “Argh!” my sister cried in frustration.
    “Maybe we should just agree to disagree,” I suggested. She threw a spoonful of potato salad at me. I ducked and it splattered against the wall. She nailed a smiling teddy bear right between the eyes.  
    “Mommy!” yelled Tiffany imperiously from the doorway. “We don’t throw food.”
    My sister paused in mid-throw and looked over at our audience of children. “You’re right, Tiff,” she said regaining control. “Aunt Diana and I were just having some fun.”
    “Sounded like you two were fightin’,” said Jason, ever observant. I shooed the kids back into the living room and then turned back to the sink to wash my hands again.  
    “You so get on my last nerve,” my sister whispered.
    “Ditto!” I whispered back. “And why are you trying to fix me up with my old boyfriend? It didn’t work then and it isn’t going to work now.”
    She turned to me and said, “It didn’t work then because you didn’t try to make it work. Rick is a great guy and you never gave him a fair chance.”
    “He didn’t want me to go to college. He didn’t want me to sing. All he wanted was for me to support him while he did what he wanted to do with his life. He never gave me a chance.” It was all true. Rick had been controlling in high school. He had his life planned out and expected me to lockstep with him. Sure, he cared about me, and in many ways he built his life around me, but he never asked me what I wanted out of life.
    I looked at my sister, but she wasn’t looking at me. I spun around. Rick was standing in the kitchen doorway. “I never knew you felt that way,” he said quietly. “You never said anything.”
    “I guess I didn’t know how at eighteen,” I said.