Lucy and Brad

by Louise Yeiser

Last night Lucy dreamed she went on a date with Brad Pitt. When she awoke and wondered why, she remembered spending her growing-up years at odds with her big sister, Karen, who functioned as the family’s queen bee, the favorite, and could do no wrong (every family has one). “Oh, you just have to be the center of attention,” Karen would hiss during those tiny moments when the spotlight shifted off her. Lucy would hear those words whispered at the dinner table, mimed in the car on the way to school, even breathed in her ear at their older sister's wedding, when they were both far too old for such foolishness. When she awoke this morning, before she trudged downstairs in search of pre-made, hot caffeine, before her eyes were fully open or before she had dragged herself into the bathroom to gaze into the mirror, shake her head and mutter, “Charming, simply charming,” Lucy decided Karen was probably right and that she had dreamed of her date with Brad Pitt because she just had to be the center of attention. But one has nothing to do with the other and we were alone she would reason later, after her third cup of coffee, when she was taking a break from the New York Times crossword puzzle (more challenging because it was Wednesday), with both her feet up and her cat Samantha curled in her lap; but that didn’t matter because it certainly made sense at the time.

6S

Louise Yeiser, whose full catalog is here, is a Pittsburgh writer who loves 6S and Brad Pitt, but not necessarily in that order.