50
fiction
French Lessons
L
Laurel stared out the window. It was the perfect day: cloudless azure sky, bright sun, just a tinge of warmth in the air to hint that spring was on its way out and summer was approaching. The neighborhood kids were off on holiday—though, for the life of her, she couldn’t have told you which one it was. They seemed to have so many of them these days. And then there was Marjorie Lazuli from next door, a slip of an old woman who walked her Chihuahua at the exact same time, three times a day, every day. She was somewhat the neighborhood novelty— in part because she wore a different shade of lipstick every day of the week, and one could tell what day it was simply by looking at her carefully done lips. Further adding to the mystique was the fact that she spoke with a French accent, though no one knew just where in France she was from. The dog was equally an oddity, as Mrs. Lazuli dressed him in a bowtie and tiny blue beret. His name was Guillaume. They were both out this afternoon, on their second walk of the day. Laurel looked at her watch. Two o’clock, just as always. But unlike always, she was at loose ends. She had been for the past week, ever since that phone call. The phone call that reminded her just how risky this had all been.
words Liesel Schmidt image Nejron Photo/Shutterstock
She turned away from the window and padded across the kitchen floor to the table where she had her laptop set up. She’d started her own business a year ago, leaving the company she’d worked with since she was twenty years old to do something of her own, something that she could
DOSOUTHMAGAZINE.COM
