At the Summer Night Picnic
Today’s flash fiction revolves around a little bit of gossip that goes awry at a summer night picnic. Keep reading, join today’s dialogue, and don’t forget to check out this week’s writing share!
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At the Summer Night Picnic
The night was sticky and hot. The mustard potato salad on my plate was already warm. The mosquitos were starting to eat me alive since the citronella candles had burned out a while ago. And after an hour of trying to casually scour the Smiths’ enormous backyard, I still hadn’t seen the one reason I decided to come.
Ten steps away from tossing my plate away so I could go say goodbye to the Smiths, who so graciously host Springfield’s mid-summer picnic every year, I heard Mean Girls 2.0 talking about me, loudly, with no shame whatsoever. A few spiked lemonades in and they weren’t even trying to whisper anymore.
Jolie, Melanie, and Kylie (Yes, those are their real names.) — the three meanest girls from high school, currently on track to outpace their mothers for Springfield’s worst gossips, always adding their own flare and drama to anything trivial happening in town while keeping everything worth talking about hush-hush. And tonight, their sights were set on me.
“Can you believe she missed her own niece’s baptism this afternoon, to—”
“— hook up with Mayor Johnson’s wife,” Melanie finished Jolie’s sentence with a mischievous smirk. “Yeah, I know, it’s so scandalous.”
“And not the first time either, according to my source at the hotel,” Kylie added, lifting her chin in triumph before taking a sip of her drink.
Melanie and Jolie looked at Kylie with theatrically shocked expressions before contorting their shocked mouths into fake smiles that landed on me as I passed their picnic table.
They had some nerve, spreading casual yet obscene lies about me, one of the only people trying to become the next OBGYN in town, whom they would be just as eager to pester with their hypochondriatic tendencies once Doc Smith retires in a few years. Besides, my sister already forgave me for not being there anyway, so why couldn’t they just let it go?
I wanted to shout at them: I was studying for my medical boards next week with a couple friends in the conference room, for God’s sake! NOT sleeping with the mayor’s wife!! She was ONLY there as a LICENSED PHYSICIAN, to help me study, me and Jake study. And you damn well know it, Kylie.
But I didn’t shout. Instead, I shook my head back and forth and mumbled for them to get a life after they were out of earshot. Then promptly tripped over an empty beer bottle, mere inches from getting tangled in the glowing LED lights that were hanging a bit too low, when a forearm reached out to grab me mid-trip.
Jake Winslet. The reason I had decided to come. The reason I am doing a lot of things these days, it seems.
He chuckled as I righted myself and stared down at the sad pile of warm mustard potato salad that was now in the dirt instead of on my plate.
“It’s okay. We can get you some more,” he said with a grin.
I smiled back at him, but it didn’t last long as my attention was soon averted from his bright blue eyes to the bright yellow smear on his white buttoned-down shirt.
I grabbed a semi-used napkin from the closest table nearby, dipped it in whatever drink he was holding, then used it to dab at the stain on his shirt, only managing to make it worse. Much, much worse. Now instead of a single waning lopsided sun, it looked like a pastel sunset with multiple waning suns with prominent peppercorn flaked centers, and made Jake smell like a brewery.
“Oh, Jake. I’m so, so, so sorry,” I blurted, still dabbing at his chest, like someone who had lost control of her own limbs, as well as her mind.
“It’s fine, Ainsley. I swear, it’s fine.”
His hands hovered over mine, slowing them to a halt, prompting me to look up at him and dive into his pool-hued eyes again.
“I didn’t really like this shirt anyway. Already ordered a new one.” He gave me a wink, then a playful smirk, because we both knew the shirt he was wearing was a brand-new shirt. A brand-new shirt Kylie had delivered for him last week. It was a bit too snug in the shoulders, but he wore it anyway to appease her for a little while longer. She had intended for him to wear it to his post-boards celebration, but he didn’t particularly care for being dressed like a doll, especially in clothes that weren’t really his style and didn’t really fit, by someone who only cared about appearances.
Damnit, Jake, why do you have to be married to Kylie, one of the Mean Girls 2.0 right now, when I… when you… when we…
Someone started shouting, interrupting my sinful train of thoughts.
It was Mean Girls 2.0 queen bee herself, Kylie.
“No, Melanie, don’t!”
There was a hollow echo of plastic as Kylie’s cup toppled over onto the table, empty.
“Please, please, Mel, don’t say anything!”
Kylie was frantic now, scrambling after Melanie, who was beelining straight toward me and Jake.
…
For the time being, out of respect for Jake, let’s just say that there was something that didn’t stay hush-hush for very long after that at the summer picnic last night. Something that would change the entire trajectory of my whole life, a lot of people’s lives, and that…
Okay, okay, I’ll just say it…
Everyone was about to learn who was really sleeping with the mayor’s wife just then, and it most certainly was not me.
Today’s Dialogue
When was the last time gossip attracted your attention, and what was it about? It’s okay, you can be honest here. It’s a safe space to spill the beans.
© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC. The above work is a piece of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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