Yraid

By Kay Hemlock Brown

A lonely young graduate begins to look around her, with a view to relating to her neighbors. She first needs to relate to her parents, whose marriage is ending. And she has only her tenuous relationship with her former college roommate, to steer her through the world of new ideas.

"Yraid", as you must have figured out, is just "Diary" spelled backwards. This has no deep significance, except that this is the first story I ever wrote in the First Person, and I thought it was like writing a journal. I could not think of a cleverer title, that's all.

Added later: It is now 2022, and I feel that Yraid is one of my better stories :) Some things are a little complicated; for instance if I make a remark about something I believe, readers could be forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that I, the author, believes that. Generally speaking, I avoid putting in the lips of a character some wild belief to which I as the author don't subscribe.

All the characters in the story are--to my 2022 mind--impossibly innocent and naive! There are innocent and naive people in the world, and they have to be cherished. I hope you read the book before you read this long description!

The author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kay Hemlock Brown
• Release date: Jul 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005827083

Kay Hemlock Brown

Kay Hemlock Brown grew up in Western Pennsylvania, and was a part-time instructor at a small university in the northeast. She has been writing since she was in high school, and loves classical music, ballet, gymnastics, figure skating, the martial arts, tennis, and science fiction. (To be honest, she is an indifferent performer in any of these areas.) Presently she is a freelance writer.She also likes dogs, cats and birds, and hates spiders. Kay has been adopted by several pets (who belong to a friend), and she has become a slave to them! Okay, that's enough information for the present.

Book preview

Yraid

by Kay Hemlock Brown

Copyright © Kay Hemlock Brown, 2020

Published at Smashwords, Smashwords.com

ISBN :  9781005827083

16 FEB 2021

Cover design copyright © 2020 by Kay Hemlock Brown

Cover art copyright © 2020 by Gina de Luna

Table of Contents

1 a little about me

2 a little more

3 Roosters

4 watching pets

5 Saturdays with mom

6 m/a criteria

7 reading

8 writing

9 voyeur

10

11 umbrella

12 Leslie

13 parapluie returns

14

15 thanksgiving

16 uv

17 molly visits!

18 phone

19 visit

20 ramble

21 an invitation

22 practice

23 cookies

24 electronics

25 surprise

26 trouble

27 a glimpse of dad

28 picking up andy

29 asparagus stalks

30 debriefing

Afterword

1 a little about me

I had never had a serious relationship.

All through high school, I felt that my classmates were too immature. I knew too much about them to think anything else.

When I got to college, well, I still thought the other students were immature. But now, I wanted to have a relationship with someone, but with whom? I studied all the kids I saw, desperately hoping that one would come up to my—actually quite low—standards of maturity, and be moderately attractive. But my hopes were dashed; the attractive ones were immature, and the moderately mature ones were unattractive, and I began to realize that I had to lower my standards even further.

I had roommates, of course. My senior year, it so happened that my roommate and I were both anxious not to stumble into a romance, or whatever you call it, just because we were, well, roommates. Roomies, is what it was called; I heard the word being used in the hallways.

We always kept our clothes on, anxious about too much skin being seen, which might influence our, well, feelings for each other. She always looked just a little grim; I know I looked a bit grim myself.

Well, four years ground on, and just after graduation, my roomie approached me, a little cautiously, I thought.

Would you write to me once you go home? she asked, with a smile.

I said, oh, OK—snail-mail or e-mail?

Either one. Snail is better, she said, and handed me a little piece of paper.

Then she smiled, and I tried to smile back. I should have offered her my own address, but it didn’t cross my mind.

It was a good year, she said, serious as always. We’d been together only one year; the previous years I had roomed with several losers—well, I’m not in a position to point the finger, I suppose; I had always assumed that I was a loser too, but these girls had struck me as being absolute winners in the loser category—and this girl was the only roomie with whom I had been neutral in my assessment.

Soon afterwards, she had left without a backward glance.

—:—:—

2 a little more

OK, a little about myself.

I’m absolutely average.

I wasn’t very good at anything, but I was good enough to get C’s in most subjects, and higher grades in a lot of subjects. This is what happens when you attend a school that worries about students sticking it out for four years. They think that unless they give you A’s, you’re going to transfer. Meanwhile, they teach quite sophisticated material, but they never test you on it. Some teachers never even give you a chance to show that you’ve remembered any of it.

So anyway, I’m average at math, but I made mostly B’s. I’m average at English, but I made mostly A’s. History, Economics, Art, everything was a B. (Music was a C, because they expected too much. Can you believe it?)

The last time I looked in the mirror was when I was just about to go into Grade 9. I looked pretty grim even then; owlish eyes, a mouth that went straight across, a jaw that was too long, eyebrows that were just this side of being actually shaggy, medium wavy hair, medium ears, grey eyes …

Oh, it’s too disgusting.

At least I’m not short; that would have been enough for me to shoot myself. And I was slim.

It struck me that I had the body type to be a witch, if they would only take me.

I must take a few minutes to describe my parents. They were both slim, about the same height; I’d say something like five and three-quarters feet. My father looked permanently dyspeptic, and my mother looked grim. My father worked various jobs, finally as a librarian. My mother was an accountant. They were both accountants, one kept track of books, and the other kept track of money.

When I was about fifteen or sixteen, I got the strong impression that my father was secretly in love with some other woman. Shortly afterwards, I got the equally strong impression that my mother knew, but not who the woman was. I also knew that they had not discussed it. They never discussed much of anything at all. Why they had ever got married, I do not know, and honestly don’t care.

Anyway, my mother was waiting for my father to make his move, which I thought was a losing strategy. My father had never made a move in his life (well, almost never). So they waited and waited. Finally, when I graduated, my mother took me aside, and told me that she was leaving my father.

Why? I asked.

She just shrugged. You can live with me, or with your … paternal ancestor.

OK?

Tell me now; I have to negotiate with him.

What for?

She made a sound of annoyance. Fine. I’ll work around that.

I never got to know the details of the arrangement, but I stayed with my mother in the house briefly; my father got an apartment in town.

—:—:—

3 Roosters

Well, now that I was a graduate, I was determined to get a job. My number one criterion for a job was: I wanted one where they would Just Leave Me Alone.

I registered with an employment agency, and they set me up with a temps company, who immediately sent me out as a greeter for a restaurant.

That was weird. I would have thought that, once the people met me, they would never put me in a place where me being grim would be a liability. Anyway, I greeted people, took them out to a table, handed them menus, and told them that a server would be with them shortly. They usually thanked me gravely, and that was that. Of course, there were no tips involved, nothing like that.

I kept that job for three years, and I made enough money to get an apartment, and eat fairly well.

I’m a failed author, you know. I have written a couple of books, but I think they’re hopeless. I just can’t write convincingly about attractive people with nice personalities; it just doesn’t work. So I have decided to write about sad people with no personalities, namely myself and my parents.

—:—:—

4 watching pets

OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming. (I never watched TV very much; I just couldn’t stand watching the antics of impossibly attractive, impossibly shallow people. But I have picked up a few phrases here and there. Come on down. That sort of thing.)

One thing about my life is that it is filled with a sort of sameness. The same things keep happening, and nothing changes for long stretches of time. Luckily, I’m used to this, so I can pay complete attention to being grim in a very consistent way. I welcome the customers, and walk them to the table that I