After the Ball
A Flash Fiction by Mikki Aronoff
“I cut off my toe for that schmuck.” Griselda lifts the hairdryer hood from her head, rolls a three-year-old copy of People Magazine into a truncheon. “I bled for him!” Her words growl and ping like gravel thrown onto graves by teens pranking in the cemetery at midnight, hormone-driven to madness, desecration their expression. And Griselda’s. Just this morning she’d removed the invitation from her keepsake box, shredded and burned it and then flung the ashes into the commode. It took six yanks of the chain to finally flush them down.
“Well, at least you lost some weight,” offers Grinzella, always placating, always serving, always scraping — her plate, the floor with her forehead as she humbles her way through life. Grinzella measures her meat with a ruler, then weighs it on a postage scale, just as mother, perfectly proportioned, instructed. “I starved myself for him,” she adds. “I returned desserts to the kitchen for a week!” Ramón is teasing Grinzella’s hair, a good foot above her scalp. “You need the height,” he says, spraying the vertical beehive. He cautions her to sleep in a chair for a few days to keep it unmussed.
Grunhilda is in the corner of the salon, leafing through a stack of old Sunsets and House Beautifuls with her left hand as Suzi is painting the nails on the right a bright Firehouse Red, layering yellow and orange flames on top. Grunhilda is, for the seventh time, remodeling her part of their mother’s estate and is looking for ideas. She needs to make more memories. She favors the open plan concept but hears it may be going out of style. “What about me?” she shouts over to her sisters. I had my hymen re-stitched!” She gives Griselda a sideways glance. “I bled for him, too.” Retribution is Grunhilda’s style. She will invite the prince to her boudoir tonight, dazzle him with her dance moves, give him the clap for choosing Ashpet over her.
Perfectly coiffed and polished, the three sisters leave for home, smirking at their late-night plans. Griselda will unearth her toe, tuck it into a velvet-lined box and send it by messenger to the castle. Then she will blog about it. Grinzella will sculpt herself into her La-Z-Boy, tie a napkin around her neck, and tuck into the croquembouche she petitioned from Cook earlier that day. She will pluck the sweet globes off one by one and pop them into her mouth. Grunhilda will pour a glass of champagne, draw herself a bubble bath, and pleasure herself as the prince surely cannot.
Author: Mikki Aronoff advocates for animals and scribbles away in New Mexico. Her work has been long-listed for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, Best American Short Stories, and Best Microfiction.
Wowsa, love the voice in this one. Booyah!
As always, Mikki hits a home run!