Loud Enough to Hear

by Mikki Aronoff

Alice adjusts her teeth, judders with her walker from her room at Shady Manor to George’s two doors down, her mind flashing back to school, how still in her blue gym suit bloomers she’d pedal fast on her Schwinn, books jumping out of the handlebar basket, legs stretching for home and ma’s pot roast, and how that weekend she and her friends would play spin the bottle and post office in someone’s basement. As her knuckles knock a slow larkish rhythm, she ponders her neighbor’s pros and cons: his chicken legs, the slow shed of his hair, the way he remembers what cards have been played in social hall games like War and Go Fish. Recognizing a coquettish cue when one’s loud enough to hear, George creaks open the door. He’s leaning rakishly on his cane, wobbling a tad, a half-chewed piece of lettuce falling out of his mouth. Alice tilts her head back, smiles open-mouthed like Gloria Swanson. What’s not to love? she shrugs, looking up at his face, her knobby fingers tugging and snapping the elastic on his pants.

6S

Mikki Aronoff's work appears in New World Writing, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Tiny Molecules, HAD, Bending Genres, Milk Candy Review, Gone Lawn, Mslexia, The Dribble Drabble Review, 100 word story, The Citron Review, Atlas and Alice, Six Sentences, trampset, jmww, The Offing, and elsewhere. She’s received Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction nominations.