The Final Scene

by Steph Nelson

She doesn’t even move carefully, babying old hips or knees like a proper seventy-something-year-old might. She swaggers. Seventy is the new fifty, apparently.

All the characters’ clothes are stuck in the fifties, but Grace always looks more modern. Today she wears a knee-length oatmeal-colored jersey dress with Birkenstocks. This stops Brooke for a minute and she has a totally useless thought: Are Birkenstocks really back to haunt us from the nineties?

Favorite stories are full of friends to visit when you have nobody else.

What Brady calls Mina’s “second-hand anxiety” lays delicate fingers on her heart. God, is anyone going to bring those groceries in? It’s not yours to worry about, Brady would say, and he’d be right. But still, those bags, sitting on the porch—it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard.

If Brooke didn’t know any better, she’d think he believes her. That she’s trying to serve him, take care of him. The confidence of a less-than-mediocre white man.

“Give me what I want, or I’ll make you come so hard and fast you’ll wonder if you’ve ever gotten off before,” she whispers, pulling away. “That’s the dumbest threat I’ve ever heard.”

She rushes to Derek’s side, shouting, “Brooke’s insane!” He smiles. “I like that about her.” Then he grimaces in pain.