What Happened To
Laura
by Robert Garner
McBrearty
I’m in a
coffee shop on a spring afternoon when a man at a
table near the creamers picks up his smart phone
and says in a loud voice, “John? Doug
here. Laura is back. She’s pissed
off. She’s a really pissed off person…I
don’t know what she’s pissed off about…Yeah,
that’s right…I’m taking her into
the doctor today…It’s a hard call, they
might…That’s good, that’s good...She’s
real angry, she’s real brutal, she’s
real cutting…Yeah, that’s right…I
don’t know if I’m going to have to
hospitalize her or not…It’s brutal, it’s
real brutal, I’ll call you after we see the
doctor…Okay, thanks, right…That’s
good.”
Doug signs off. But
he’s back on a moment later. “Bob?
Doug here. Laura came back…Well, she’s
pissed off, she’s real pissed off…That’s
good, that’s good…Well, she’s real
pissed off…We’re going to see the
doctor in about twenty minutes…Obviously…Excellent…Good
idea…I’ll hide everything…”
He hangs up. We
all look up from our tables to meet his widened
eyes. A tall man rises up. He points a
finger at Doug’s chest. “I want to
know what’s wrong with Laura,” he says.
A woman in a
leather jacket turns from the pastry display. “Maybe
she has good reasons to be pissed off.”
We nod. “Yeah,”
we say as one, “we want to know what’s
wrong with Laura.”
Doug’s
eyes twitch. His brow crinkles in alarm.
“I don’t
want to Laura to get screwed over,” the
woman in the leather jacket says.
“Talk to
us, Doug,” the tall man says. “Make
it easy for everybody.”
The barista, a
young man with dragon tattoos on his forearms,
comes out from behind the bar and sets a steamy
cup in front of the man. It looks loaded
with all the hard stuff, maybe a double mocha. He
breathes over the man. “Maybe this will
loosen your lips,” he says.
Doug shrinks
back in his seat, hand on his phone. We lean
in on him.
“It’s
Laura I’m concerned about,” the woman
says.
“Of
course you are,” we say. “We all are.”
Previously
published at Big Muddy literary journal and won
the Wilda Hearne Flash Fiction Award.
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