Dropping the Ball: A New Year’s Eve (Short) Story

Ah, the holidays. The perfect fodder for fiction. My writers' group is off until January, but I thought I'd continue our short story tradition with 500 words of fiction inspired by the holidays.

Dropping the Ball: A New Year’s Eve (Short) Story

By Kristen Berry


There’s never a good time to break up with someone. There’s no hour of the day or section of the calendar during which the news hurts less. There are bad times to break up with someone, however. Like around the other person’s birthday. Or Valentine’s Day. Or perhaps, worst of all, during the holidays. Because unlike one single, emotionally-charged day, the holidays are a barrage of them. That’s why I decided to break up with Frank in January, once all the bright, shiny decorations, holiday cards and party invitations were put away.

Frank had celebrated New Year’s with his best friend, Colin, since they were undergrads at NYU. That year Frank and I doubled with Colin and his girlfriend, Delia, a WASP-y girl whose every sentence ended with a question mark. It irritated and amused me equally; I found myself asking her questions regularly just to hear her do it, like a child that picks at a scab though it hurts.

“So, how’s the job going, Delia?” I asked as we hovered near the buffet, me loading my plate with small exotic-looking appetizers as Delia watched, holding a glass of champagne in one hand while absent-mindedly running her hand through her blonde hair with the other. I was pretty sure 80% of the hair wasn’t hers.

“It’s going great?” She replied. “I actually just got promoted? I’m a floor manager now?”

“Wow, Delia. That’s great. Congratulations.”

“Thank you?”

Suddenly there was a chirp of feedback from the stage. All of the emcee’s sentences ended with exclamation points. I thought he and Delia would make an excellent couple.

“Okay everyone! The clock’s winding down! If you’re not already with him or her, I suggest you find your date and get ready to pucker up!”

Delia and I wove through the maze of couples until we found Frank and Colin.

“There you are babe,” Frank said, wrapping an arm around me and pressing his lips to the crown of my head. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d found another man to kiss at midnight.”

The irony of his words cut me. I looked at Frank and wondered how much I’d miss him when he was gone.

“Okay everybody, it’s that time! 10! 9! 8...”

The electric crackle of anticipation filled the air. All around me women clutched their dates’ arms eagerly, and the men chanted the countdown with the same glee they might their college fight song.

“… 3! 2! 1! Happy New Year!”

As the balloons and confetti rained down from above, Colin grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me full on the mouth as both our lovers watched.

Even now, eight years later, I still tell Colin it was the cruelest way anyone could announce a breakup. He argues that the pain was sharp but quick, like ripping off a friend’s Band-Aid unexpectedly so he wouldn’t have to do it himself.

Office Fantasy - A Short Story

We've all thought about it . . . how fantastic would it be to walk into your boss' office and tell him exactly what you thought of him?

That was the inspiration for this story. The writing prompt for this assignment was to begin a story with the sentence, "Alice tried to remember who had given her the key."

Enjoy!

Office Fantasy
By Kristen Berry

Alice tried to remember who had given her the key. She had taken careful notes in the beginning, but, as always, she had begun to cry before she escorted the first person out of the building. By the time the last key was handed to her, her sob-induced hiccups caused her hand to shake until her notes became illegible.

“Cheer up Alice, your job is safe,” Robert had said bitterly as he left. “If they didn’t have you, who’d be around to show us the door?”

Alice pushed aside her ledger and box of keys just as a new email announced itself on her computer. It was from the partners, declaring the latest batch of layoffs to the staff.

“Take heart,” the email said in closing, “Deveaux Public Relations is as strong as ever!”

The partners always hid in their offices on the days of the firings, sending out trite, insincere emails from their comfortable confines while Alice, the H.R. director, was left to do the dirty work.

“Hey Jackie,” Alice called out of her office, wiping away the last of her tears with the back of her hand. “Do you have plans for lunch?”

Jackie looked pained, as though she suddenly wished she had chosen another route to wherever she was headed.

“Um, sorry Alice,” Jackie said. “I’ve got . . . a lunch meeting. Sorry.”

Alice sighed, thinking of the days before she had become the office pariah. Though everyone knew she had no hand in deciding who stayed and who went, Alice was the harbinger of this news. And precisely because she had no say in the matter, she was a safe scapegoat for their resentment.

But not any more.

Alice gathered her box of keys and ledger and walked down the hall. She marched into the office without knocking. Bill Bishop, senior partner, was leaning over the phone on his desk, two account executives leaning forward from the other side, as a voice droned from the phone’s speaker.

Alice lifted the box and turned it over, spilling the dozens of keys onto Bill’s desk. The two account executives jumped backward. Bill regarded Alice as though she had sprouted horns.

“What . . . hello?” the voice from the speaker squawked.

“There is a way to do things,” Alice said, her voice quavering, “and there is a way not to do things. This is not the way to do things, Bill. Why don’t you consider that maybe, after working for you for however many years they’ve been here, maybe they at least deserve a face-to-face conversation and a handshake from you at the end. Maybe they deserve at least that much.”

Alice opened her ledger and pulled the pages from the spiral spine in fistfuls, shredding them and scattering them over the desk. Bill stared up at Alice, his blue eyes simmering with contempt.

The voice from the speaker continued to chirp.

“Take my advice or not, I don’t care,” Alice said. “But it’s your mess now, not mine.”

Runaway Train - A Short Story

Last week my writers group meeting ended with an assignment: a 500-word story that must contain three elements - a bowl of goldfish, a man in black and a train.

I love writing prompts; it's so interesting to see how a group of people interpret the idea-generating keywords individually in each of their stories. Take a look at the blog list on the right to see what the other members of Writers by the Woods came up with.

Here is my take on the assignment:

Runaway Train
By Kristen Berry

It had been another hasty escape, which was why I found myself on the last train out of Chicago with a fishbowl on my lap. It had been frighteningly easy to smuggle it onboard, with only a trench coat thrown on top. Each time the train veered, water splashed against the fabric, soaking it with murky, fishy water. I repeatedly lifted the coat to make sure Coltrane hadn’t flopped to the floor. I’d left Jeremy a thousand times before, but I’d shown him that I was serious this time; I’d taken the fish with me.

“Is that a goldfish in your lap?” The man across the aisle asked, amused.

“No,” I replied briskly. But when he continued eyeing the odd bulge under the coat, I sighed and unveiled it.

“What’s his name?” The man asked. He was a generically handsome business traveler. He smiled at me the way the guys at the diners I worked at often did, like they thought if they tipped me enough I might go home with them.

“Coltrane,” I said.

“Odd name for a fish. How’d you come to that?”

“It’s the only thing we had in common. Jazz.”

“You and who?”

“Me and the man I’m leaving.”

The man nodded, as if this made perfect sense.

“Going to Ann Arbor?”

“Detroit.”

“You should stop with me in Ann Arbor for dinner. I know a great place.”

“It’ll be two in the morning when we get there.”

The man smiled. “I’ll take you to the train station in the morning.” He said this like I should’ve jumped at the chance, as if a woman like me should’ve been flattered instead of insulted.

I sighed and tapped a fingernail against the fishbowl. Coltrane came immediately to me, his mouth opening and closing in a silent warning.

“So this man of yours,” the man said, “why are you leaving him?”

“He’s a friend of Tina.”

“What?”

“A meth head. He’s a meth head.”

“Oh,” the man replied. I’d hoped this revelation would disgust him, but he only seemed more intrigued. “What’s your addiction?” he asked.

“Assholes, apparently.” I re-covered Coltrane with the coat and turned to the darkness passing outside my window.

My mother would’ve been thrilled if I showed up back in town with a man like that. She didn’t realize that assholes came in all kinds. Sometimes they were hopeless stoners like Jeremy who wore caution signs on their foreheads, but they could also be like this guy, professional types in $300 shoes who asked you to bed before asking your name. The train was speeding toward a thousand I-told-you-sos, but I didn’t care; at least I’d be away from him.

But when the train reached the station, Jeremy was standing there, waiting for me. He must have pushed the old Lincoln like hell to beat the train. My traitorous heart was happy to see him, but he was dressed all in black, like a bad omen.