Wednesday's Words on a Friday

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along and read it.

This month the words are supplied by me and can be found right here.

This week's words are:

1. pitiless
2. circumstance
3. coffee
4. black
5. shimmer
6. bottles

and/or:

1. reminded
2. sluice
3. blazing
4. fragment
5. routine
6. compartment

Here is my story:

The pitiless glare Bruce levelled at Andrea had her cringing back into the corner of the sofa. She managed to stammer, “I didn’t know he was in town. How could I possibly have known?”

“So you’d have me believe this is circumstance? You haven’t been communicating with any of the old crowd at all?”

“No,” Andrea whined. “Not even once. But I don’t think he noticed me, he was with another officer, a woman who went into Curly Cuts as I was coming out. I turned away the second I saw him, probably he didn’t even see me, but I was all jittery by then and just had a few drinks to calm down.”

“A few?” yelled Bruce. “You got back here all glassy-eyed and staggering. How you managed the car I’ll never know!”

A blazing argument erupted over who should have done what and how it wasn’t fair for Bruce to expect her to suddenly be friends with people she’d been avoiding for the last few years. “I never wanted to leave the city in the first place,” she shouted. “This is all your fault anyway, this hare-brained scheme between you and what’s his name! All over a bit of ground with a little Bed and Breakfast shed on it!”

Bruce barely controlled himself, stating “that bit of ground is sitting on top of a seam of rare copper coloured granite. It’s worth billions if it can be mined and I want my share!” He immediately regretted telling Andrea so much, she hadn’t known about the granite, only that the land was worth quite a bit to a certain developer who had paid Bruce a fat advance to get those Retreat people to sell to him. He turned away, saying he would make a pot of  coffee and suggested Andrea wash the tear-stained make-up off her face.

“We’ll talk more when you’ve settled down,” he said. “You can tell me if you learned anything in that Hairdresser place. Right now I’m going to make us that pot of coffee.” 

Walking into the kitchen, he glanced at several tiny bottles on the window ledge, each holding a shimmering fragment of copper granite. They reminded him of why they were here, and how everything seemed to be against him lately. People turning up to stay at the Retreat, Detective Stanley Grace turning up out of the blue and Stephanie…well, Stephanie presented a whole new slew of problems now. Bruce’s mission had been to somehow get the owner to sell him The Scenic Retreat and the land, then there could have been a convenient accident with her and that Saunders couple. They were old, a nice kitchen fire or something similar would have done the job.

Bruce poured himself a cup of black coffee, then one for Andrea, adding plenty of sugar to hers, just as she liked it, thankful the sweetness would hide the taste of the sedative he also dropped in there. He hid the rest of the sedatives in a secret compartment at the back of a drawer and carried the coffees into the living room where Andrea sat slumped in a wing chair, staring vacantly at the fireplace, her tired face now cleaned of make-up. He decided any discussion could wait until tomorrow. His plans for a new routine for Stephanie’s medications, he had to make sure her mind remained clouded even through possible sleepovers at The Retreat. He wondered if he should mention that Stephanie had begun to talk again and seemed to be remembering things.