Two by Timothy Raymond

How to Make Do

Paint one of the rooms red, a deep red like wine. Wander there, in and out, when you can no longer hear the children from next door laughing. Feel like you’re inside of someone else. You want a house with character, but you have to make do with what you have.

Peel apples and put the skin in the garbage disposal. Run it a few times until the kitchen smells like red delicious. You put a fan in there to spread the smell into the other rooms of the house. On your errands across town, sit in the car without the radio. Sit like you’re pretty. Sit like when you were a girl. Imagine that there are people coming to see you at your house when you’re away. Believe it as best as you can. Drive to the bookstore and pretend the clerks behind the counter are gossiping about you.

You go home with the ice cream cone that you bought. Love the vanilla. Try to save it for when you get inside. Turn the air-conditioner on in the car to avoid melting the ice cream.

Take it outside to the back porch after you arrive at home. Sit in a lawn chair while you wait for the children next door to go into their backyard to play croquet. Hope that they come soon.

Watch the sky as you wait. Watch it until it turns the color of the cat you lost when you were seven.

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She Worries

She takes a pill when she worries. But then she worries when she has stopped worrying. That is, she worries that she is not the kind of person to worry over important things in her life. In her mind, people who worry are maybe just on top of things.

So she doesn't take the pill the next time she worries, only to find that she is weary with her worry.