Free The Chrome Suite by Sandra Birdsell

article alerting the public to an advancement in the technology of television. A British invention. A television set that emits odours to match the image.
    The shop door opens and Adele Miller, hair bound up in a green scarf, skips down the stairs and walks over to the car. She sees egg splattered across the sign and shakes her fist at it. A gypsy, Margaret thinks of the woman with her green turban and large hoop earrings. Adele shoos the children towards the car and climbs into the front seat beside Mel, and the older woman goes back up the stairs. Margaret feels betrayed. Mel neglected to tell her that Adele would be going with them. She feels a surge of irritation and is about to cut her farewell short when Bill North’s half-ton pulls into the curb beside her. The door slams shut and he walks towards her. “Reg in?” She nods. His presence, in the worn jeans and the wide leather belt which clanks with his tools as he walks by, passes through her.
    Sunlight flashes in the car windows as Josh Miller’s green Oldsmobile backs away from the curb. Margaret waves goodbye. Jill raises her hand, fingers fluttering, and then points at her head. See this, her exaggerated gesture says, I am wearing my hat. Just as you told me. As the car sweeps by Jill smiles at Margaret and it isn’tthe same toothy bright smile Margaret is accustomed to seeing, but something else. A trick of light, or one of those rare occasions when the idea is a breath of panic inside Margaret’s chest: Do I really know these people, my children?
    She hears Bill talking to Reginald inside the store. His voice, which is strangely flat and neutral-sounding, neither friendly nor brusque, has become coded with messages, she believes. Messages meant for her. She ponders at length the messages she hears in a single line of greeting. Margaret knows exactly when it was that Bill, who had always been Bunny’s boyfriend and was now her husband, suddenly became Bill. It was last winter when they’d come over to play cards that she’d noticed Bill, the man. He’d complained about having a stiff shoulder and Margaret led him upstairs to the bathroom as though he were one of the children. The lamp beside her bed had been left burning. Bill paused in the doorway of Margaret’s bedroom and looked inside it. “Just as I pictured,” he said.
    What has he pictured? she’d wondered as she searched through the medicine cabinet for the liniment. Her mind sorted through the casual disorder of Bunny’s rooms and she thought that his comment had to be a favourable comparison. Later, she would take what he’d said a step further. At a certain moment, Margaret thought, perhaps as he crawled across a rooftop or drove past the house, or lay beside Bunny in bed, a damp Mindy wedged between them, Bill had imagined not just her bedroom but her inside the room. He sat on the toilet seat, with his back to her, and dropped his shirt off his shoulders. “It’s the witch’s kiss,” he said, and indicated the aching spot in his shoulder. Margaret turned from the medicine cabinet to face him and her heart lurched. She stood paralyzed, bottle of liniment in hand, thinking, So much hair, broad back. Not a boy but a strong-looking muscular man whose physical presence filled the entire room. He grew wary, waiting for her to smooth liniment across his shoulder. Waiting for her touch, she thought. She felt his careful attentivenessand her skin prickled with desire. She concentrated on her outstretched hands, the slight tremble as they moved down against his skin, and she tried not to think of the texture of it or the roughness of his hair against her warm palms.
    “I think Jill is having a bad dream,” she said when she rejoined Bunny and Timothy downstairs around the new chrome suite. She could still feel the warm imprint of Bill’s hand on her breast. She was flushed with excitement over having dared to step over the line. The lie, she hoped, covered the change in her. They would