Alternate Endings

Today’s post is a clever variation on the round robin idea. A while ago I was chatting of FB with Jillian Chantal and Michelle Miles – both lovely ladies and fabulous writers – and we got talking about decisions made early in life can have when you’re older. Like, you decide to go to college A instead of college B, and meet the guy you end up married to. What if you’d chosen college B? Different husband? Different kids?

So from that discussion, we decided to start with a basic premise and each create an ending for it, then publish our mini-fiction alternates on the same day. You can read mine below, Jillian’s is HERE, and Michelle’s is HERE. Be sure and check out all three versions to get the full story!

My grandmother was the first bolter. She left my grandfather with four young children when she decided it was all too much for her. My mother followed suit by leaving my dad when my sister and I were young. My sister married when I was sixteen and by the time I was twenty, she’d followed the family female tradition of dumping her spouse and moving on without her children. Determined to break the pattern, I vowed never to marry and never to reproduce.

As I drove along the lonely stretch of highway leading to my college reunion, my mind wandered. I thought about the choices I’d made. The breakup with Tommy, my high school sweetheart and the subsequent breaks in relationships including the circus aerialist, the engineer and the alligator hunter all passed through my brain. Even the fact that I was going to this college reunion and not the college I initially chose and decided not to attend because of some stupid fight with my band director who wanted me to go to his alma mater made me wonder if something was wrong with me. Then it actually hit me. I was a bolter, too.

The thought stunned me. Oh God, how did I let myself become what I least wanted to be? I looked up to find headlights heading straight toward me. I’d somehow crossed the center line in the dark. I jerked the wheel to get back in my lane and avoid a head on collision. I lost control and as my car flipped over into the shallow ravine, my last coherent thought was “Let’s go back to where that didn’t happen.”

 

(Liv’s Alternate Ending)

 

“I have to go to the bathroom, Mrs. Rodriguez.”

Lilly Brown stood in front of my desk, the archetype of the Catholic school second grader; braided pigtails, apple cheeks and all. I squelched the urge to grin at her solemn expression and handed her the hall pass. “Be back as soon as you can.”

She skipped off towards the door.

“Walking, Lilly, remember?”

Slowing her pace, she tossed a grin over her shoulder and left the classroom.

Twenty five other second graders bent more or less silently over their math tests, working through double-digit addition and subtraction problems. I fought to keep my eyes off the clock over the door, its big black hands moving with appalling slowness.

“Miz Rodriquez, I have a question.”

A hand shot up in the back of the room. Marcus Sanchez always had questions. He thought he had answers, too, though only when it would stir up the most trouble. I got up and walked between the rows of desks, checking on the kids’ work to see if they would get done on time. Reaching Marcus, I bent over his dark curls, glad to have something to do besides wait for three o’clock.

I caught a whiff of chili spice, likely from the tamales he’d brought for lunch. The scent triggered other memories, and I jerked a glanced up at the clock. An hour and forty minutes. I could make it that long.

“Mrs. Rodriguez?”

Another hand went up, and after murmuring a couple more hints to Marcus, I went to see what Jake needed. Then a couple kids finished, and I had to find them an activity so they wouldn’t disrupt the others. Teaching seven and eight year olds meant keeping one eye on the ground and the other on the dyke, watching for the next hole so I could plug it before too much water leaked.

Quite a change of pace for the girl who couldn’t commit to anything.

As clichéd as it sounds, it just took meeting the right guy to keep me in place. Smarter than my old boyfriend Tommy, braver than the aerialist, and way more entertaining than the engineer, Arnie Rodriguez had me from the word ‘Go’. I took one look at his dimples and precision-cut flat top haircut and jumped in with both feet, with every intention of sticking around for the duration. Before he knew what hit him, I married Lieutenant JG Arnold Rodriguez of the US Navy Seals.

Instead of bolting, I went for a guy who’d leave me behind.

Chairs scraped and hushed giggles disrupted my internal monologue as more kids finished their tests. It was two o’clock on a Friday afternoon. Normally we’d read aloud or work on spelling with flash cards. I shushed them and went back to my desk, taking a surreptitious look at my cell phone.

No messages.

He’d been gone for three hundred eighty two days. I’d survive till his plane got in at five p.m.

Maybe.

Marcus made that farting noise young boys find so hysterical, punctuated by a rousing round of snickers. Spelling…reading…Friday…what I really wanted to do was send them all out to the playground until their mothers came to pick them up. Instead, I went with Plan B, uncovering the smart board at the front of the classroom. The kids knew what that meant.

“Finding Nemo.”

“Little Mermaid.”

“Monster’s Inc.”

Pretending to pay attention to their requests, I grabbed a DVD at random and stuck it in the player. The kids settled down in their desks, while I leaned against the front of mine, watching them become absorbed in the movie.

We weren’t ten minutes into it when someone knocked on the classroom door. Pausing the film, I went to open it. My principal, Mrs. Burr, stood outside, along with the school secretary. Both of them gave me long, sober looks. “I’ll need you to come with me,” Mrs. Burr said. “Karen’ll stay with your kids.”

“Okay, um, what’s wrong?”

She didn’t really answer me, leaving me no choice but to follow her down the hall to her office. Oh God, this was bad. In those few steps I ran through a list of every possible disaster except the most obvious: Arnie wasn’t coming home, the one thing that couldn’t happen.

It couldn’t.

I had to rest my hand on the wall before I could go into her office. I gulped some air, fighting back tears, and in that moment I had a flash of insight. Loving someone this much made you too awfully vulnerable. No wonder Mom – and every other woman in my family – left.

But being on my own made me strong. I went into the office, my worst fears confirmed in the person of a man in uniform. Gold buttons gleamed on his dark double-breasted jacket and he held his white hat at his side.

And then I noticed his very-familiar dimples.

“Hola, Mrs. Rodriguez,” he said, his smile so bright I had to blink. Or maybe my tears made it hard to see.

I fell against him and he held me up. In the background I could hear the principal, apologizing for the surprise even as she laughed and applauded the two of us.

“I told you I’d come back.” He spoke low, right in my ear, then he lifted my chin with his fingertips. My hands found the tightly trimmed hairs on the back of his head and I gripped him hard, diving into his kiss.

A soft chuckle behind me reminded me we were still in the principal’s office. I pulled back, grinning and rested my forehead on his chin.

“I caught an early flight,” he said.

“I’m glad,” I chuckled. “Your mom and sister made us tamales for supper tonight.”

“We got a little while till supper. S’pose we can think of something to do?”

“Arnie!” I swatted him, blushing. Mrs. Burr just laughed.

“You two go home,” she said. “And have a tamale for me.”

We did, eventually. But first, we spent a good long while reaffirming every reason I’d be stuck to this man as long as he’d have me.

 

So there you have it. Make sure you swing by Jilian’s post & Michelle’s post to see their takes on how the story ends. And if you’ve got other ideas, leave them in the comments!

Peace, Liv