Gold Encrusted

8 AM, January 18, 2011.

Mocha was barking to be let back in and I finally arose from bed yet it wasn’t my house I was in. The hallway was painted blue directly across from my bedroom door, blue like the sea as children would color it. I saw two different doggies in the house in separate bedrooms, they were not mine. Then I saw movement in the closet, a wiggle under something and you emerged from underneath blankets or silk sheets and you were beautiful as if costumed for a play, a harlequin of glittering golden powdered seashells angled diagonally across your chin, up to the tip of your cheekbone, returning to your neck with a loosely strung ivory chiffon ribboned bow like a frilly boa necklace against your cotton shirt: a gift. Your body felt thin and lithe as if seventeen-years-old. I pulled you into the light pouring from the window, the sunlight streaming on you, validating your presence, and we held each other, cradled in arms, I kissed your lips and we stood and stood and stood and I kept asking you, staring at you, to make sure it was you with the sunlight against your face highlighting the shell glitter sparking even as your eyes focused over my shoulder, non committal.

From those ashes scattered in Key West into my arms, a radiant youthful you bathed in sunlight on a new dawning day.

January 3, 2011. Happy Birthday Carole, we're still going strong, together.

Creative non-fiction, circa mid-1990's, a work in progress my sister and I began, but could not finish together. Please note, apparently meta links to IMC and HCA change the formatting and I can't figure it out. Still relevant today, in Florida, the beat goes on.

Excerpt from Three Attention Deficit Sisters and the Mafia

by Hope Marcus and Carole Marcus

“I don’t know yet, but it’s more than gobbledygook. Think manna from the farm into my arms. Passports, receipts from Panamanian companies, DynCorp, Florida medical clinics — HMO’s, some guy’s Florida driver’s license, still valid.”

I picked up a piece of paper, held it on the edge. “Absolutely nasty, pitch them. They even smell moldy.”

“Leslie, look at them, open your eyes!”

“Look at what? There’s nothing to see! You and your trash treasures.”

Carolee’s hands went to work, rearranging the pieces, making a jigsaw puzzle with parts missing. Torn squares, rectangles, jagged edges, a few legible words and a smattering of numbers. Two airline tickets, Miami to Mexico, Mexico to Miami, Aeromexico, sections of them, enough to tell. An ID card from an HMO. Photos angled from the side, the front, plus a passport. Another social security card. Different numbers, the same name — doubles in Spanish.

My sister turned to me, her eyes wide orbs. I didn’t know what to make of things.

“Holy moley, can’t you see? For the past twenty-one years I’ve been staring across the table at Lou, reading his newspapers, the Miami Herald delivered to our door. Medicare fraud, think IMC and all those clinics, even the newest, HCA. Just you wait. And tickets to Mexico, next stop Columbia, to buy what? Hello Leslie, wake up. These names are headliners!”

Front pages? I nearly drowned on a diet soda, ran to the kitchen sink, choking. Carolee trailed after me.

“You’re so off base, if you think for one lousy minute I’m falling for this, you don’t expect me to believe … .” My sister threw me one of her primal stares, like a guided missile homing in, smart bombs aiming straight for me, her eyes converging into one enormous penetrable, oy ve mia, hallelujah sister.

“You’ve got balls, cojones.” I said.

She pulled her shoulders back, stuck out her chest and strutted out of the kitchen, back to the couch spread with her finds. “I’ve got boobs, potency, and these," she said, pointing to the papers. "Chutzpah, cojones, and these!"