Herself and Molly Olliver: And Other Stories

By Arnold Rabin

In a collection of ten stories, Arnold Rabin shares insight into the behavior, motivations, longings, and fears of diverse characters that include Molly Olliver, a lonely woman with compulsive fears who pursues the man she believes is following her.

Mrs. H is a teacher who unexpectedly reunites with a former C student. After her encounter leads to a discussion with her husband, they both begin to wonder if their marriage also falls within the C range. As her fingers dance across the piano keys, Bertha Moran finally finds a devoted lover when she is overcome by the passion of Chopins Grande Valse Brilliant. Margaret Lady is at the end of her days, angry at the years and insulted by the condescending care provided her. Now with a pistol in her possession, will she be able to end life on her own terms or continue to be trapped in her own version of hell?

Herself and Molly Olliver tells ten stories that illustrate the struggles and joys of people searching for love and understanding within the complexity of human relationships.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532048050

Arnold Rabin

Arnold Rabin spent the early years of his professional life as a network TV writer-producer-director. Additionally, he has written ten plays, ten short stories, a grammar book for adults, two childrens books, and a novel. His awards include a citation from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and a creative writing grant from the National Endowment. He lives with his wife in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

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Copyright © 2018 Arnold Rabin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4806-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4805-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018906431

iUniverse rev. date: 06/12/2018

Author’s Note

I cannot write a story—they must write themselves. Suddenly an image, a phrase—spoken or even none of these when the complete story is suddenly there. A Childish Thing came suddenly complete; so too May I use the Familiar Form with no foreknowledge when I sat at the typewriter(yes I used a typewriter before the computer—and even for a long time after we had computers) the stories were there. Herself and Molly Olliver was born from the sight of a lonely woman in a self service restaurant who was taking her tray to her table and something in my head named her Molly Olliver. Vera Barton’s Tea Party was the first story written after I gave up my life as television writer/producer/director. I panicked about whether I had made a mistake since I was now relying on my wife’s teaching salary and on some shakey belief that I could make it as a free lance writer within five years. I was driving my wife to her school when she said, "I’ll be late coming home today. I have to go to Betty Barton’s tea party and instantly Betty Barton became Vera Barton and the story was born on my way back to my house.

Sometimes it is only half a story that comes—I stop. I do not force. I’ve often said I am not the writer—television documentaries were one thing—the stories and plays I have written since leaving television are born of faith and miracle.

To my wife, Sydell, who imagined this collection, who persisted in realizing it, and who, in all manner of ways, has made my life possible.

Contents

Herself and Molly Olliver

From The Massachusetts Review

Within the C Range

From Antietam Review

Tell Herminio I Love Him

From The Iconoclast and Folio

May I use the familiar form?

From Chicago Review

A Visit to the Duck Pond

Brahms Second, in Color

From New England Review

Vera Barton’s Tea Party

From Brushfire

A Childish Thing

From descant

The Astragarten Rose

There are still white flowers

Herself and Molly Olliver

From The Massachusetts Review

Molly Olliver held her supper tray in her hand and looked around the cafeteria.

By the steps was a table, and Molly Olliver started towards it, but then she remembered that the steps led down to the men’s room. There was one by the window, but people stared at her when she sat by the window, they would pretend they were reading the menu, but they were staring at her, noticing all those things she knew everyone noticed, how crookedly thin and flat she was, her large teeth protruding—the whole fantastic of her like some grotesque dream from which another woman, terrified, might wake herself. Couldn’t there just be a table for one off somewhere—not everybody didn’t want to be alone!

Then Molly Olliver saw a table that seated two being vacated and she walked quickly towards it. And Molly Olliver stood looking at her tray until the busboy had cleared the table and then she took off her blue tweed coat and placed it on the other empty chair even though there was a hangerhook just above the chair. And then Molly Olliver opened her pocketbook and from her snap-close glass case, she removed her new rimless glasses, carefully setting the ear piece under her hair. And Molly Olliver shifted the dishes from the tray to the table and she sat down.

The apple juice was sweet and light and Molly Olliver sipped again, and then she put down the glass so gently that it was silently and straightened in her seat, and for an instant Molly Olliver enjoyed the only one joy of her physical being, she sensed the delicate thinness of her own fingers, and delighting like a duchess who also knows the delicate thinness of her own fingers, Molly Olliver, scarcely touching the pale glass of apple juice, lifted it to her lips and sipped once more.

His great big fat big hands picked up her coat from the empty chair and hung it on the hangerhook just above the chair and he sat down opposite her with a cup of coffee and a hard roll, and Molly Olliver held her fork tightly till the delicate thinness of her fingers was gone. She did not want to look at him, yet she did look at him, and then she was afraid that he might realize she was looking at him and so she tried to look away, and then she was afraid it was obvious she was looking away and so she tried to look down at her plate, but from the corner of her eye she saw his great big fat big hands tearing at the roll, and now Molly Olliver found suddenly that she could not look anywhere nor could she think of anything, nor could she feel anything, hear or see anything. And Molly Olliver believed she was going to faint, and then she was afraid that she might faint for if she did faint he would certainly touch her and then she would die. If he touched her with his great big fat hands, Molly Olliver knew she would die.

But now she was aware he was watching her as she sat there not eating and not drinking and Molly Olliver knew she could not sit there like this much longer and so she decided she would slip off her glasses as an indicating gesture that she was finished, put them in her pocketbook, and so start herself going in a decisive way, when suddenly it occurred to her he might think she was self-conscious about her glasses, he might thing she was trying to make herself more attractive to him, he might even think she was making an overture to him. And while Molly Olliver realized that the last thing in the world she should do was speak to him, she felt she had to speak to him, she had to say something so he wouldn’t misunderstand. Then Molly Olliver stopped herself. She must not enter into conversation with him, for this would undoubtedly be even more of an overture, no matter what she said, no matter how dull or conventional her remark. But then Molly Olliver reasoned if she spoke as she started to rise, she could avoid any abruptness there might be to her action and at the same time correct whatever wrong inferences he might otherwise make.

And so Molly Olliver took off her glasses and at the same time said, I hope you enjoy your coffee, but as the last word was spoken she saw that he had finished his coffee so that her remark hadn’t made sense and instantly she was convinced she had done wrong, because certainly now he could do nothing but misinterpret her speaking to him. Why would anybody tell anyone else to enjoy something that was already finished unless the remark was intended to serve some ulterior purpose! And Molly Olliver wished that she had not gotten up to leave, because she saw that he too was ready to leave. If only she had waited a minute