A flea market on a balmy July day...

(via)

A terrible migraine possessed my body yesterday, so I didn't get around to a 5 word story considering I was in the fetal position most of the day. So thankful for my physical therapist who moved my C2 joint back into place, restoring me to normalcy.

So, 5 word Thursday this week and I got some fantastic words, and a terrific setting. I ended up using three of my lists, because my brain automatically connected them all to this story.

swoon

troops

sweatpants

hormones

skunk

saucepan

garden

yacht

flea

tortoise

ladybugs
mercy
sunshine
espresso
truth

Setting: flea market on a balmy July day

So here we go:

Meggie bit her lip and studied Mom’s face as Mom studied the mirror. It was gaudy as sin, but there was something about it that seemed like it could be something more. 

Mom cocked her head and twisted her face. Come on, Meggie thought, and forced herself not to bounce on her toes. Mom was patient. Cautious. A tortoise or a slow simmering saucepan. Where as Meggie was a firecracker. Explosive and impulsive. She squinted in the hot July sunshine and wished Mom had stopped for espressos before they got here. The sauna like air was putting her to sleep.

Mom eyed the man behind the booth. “Would you go fifty?”

The man studied Mom, who still wore a scowl on her face. “Sixty five,” he said.

Mom sighed.

“Sixty," he said. "And that’s the lowest I’ll go.”

“Done,” Mom said.

The man came out and scrawled ‘sold’ across the eighty dollar price tag. 

Mom turned to her. “It’s perfect. We can paint it - maybe turquoise? Then distress it, and have Daddy hang it above your bed.”

Meggie smiled and did a happy dance. Not all sixteen year olds loved scouring for junk at the flea market with their mom on a Saturday morning, but it was Meggie's favorite thing. Even if the twins were in tow and whining every five minutes because they were either hot or hungry. Or both, as the case with Davey often was. Meggie glanced over to where he stood peering over a booth cluttered with old brass pieces that could be parts of a yacht or a horse plow for all Meggie knew.

“Well, no gnomes,” Mom said as she fished for her keys. 

That had been the goal today. Garden gnomes mom could spray paint and use as pieces for her own version of lawn chess. Just another one of Mom's wacky ideas. But the truth was Mom was the most creative person Meggie knew, and her ideas always turned out much better in real life than in Meggie’s head. She and Dad had long ago learned to trust Mom’s wacky creative brain. 

“All right Megs,” Mom said. “Round up the troops and I’ll go get the van so we can get this loaded.”

Meggie scooped up Molly and called for Davey, who was no longer peering over the table of junk, but talking to someone.

Andy Jameson.

Oh my gosh. Adorable, plays-the-guitar-during-youth-worship, laughs-at-corny-jokes, hero-to-his-little-sister Andy Jameson was talking to her five year old brother. Horror hit Meggie like a tornado.

Andy Jameson was right there, and he was going to see her in her sweatpants.

Why did she even wear sweatpants? It had to be like eighty degrees out already. She’d had on shorts, but a morning fight between Molly and grape juice where the purple liquid came out the victor meant her shorts were at home soaking in stain remover and she had grabbed the first bottoms she found.

And of course those had been sweatpants. Darn you dirty laundry!

Andy bent down to eye level with Davey and smiled. Sweet mercy. His maroon FSU shirt pulled against his biceps. Meggie's hormones surged and she felt for sure she would pass out as the musky hunkiness of Andy Jameson wafted through the humid air. Heaven help her. He practically sweated testosterone. She was going to become with child just being within five yards of Andy and his arm muscles.

Andy grinned and if this stall had a fainting chair in it she would have swooned and collapsed right into it. He stood. Oh gosh, he was going to leave. She had her chance to talk to Andy Jameson and was going to lose it. But no, now he was perusing the piles of junk with Davey. What should she do? Wait until he left? Then maybe watch where he went and think of something to say?

Oh for goodness sake. Here she was thinking of following him around and stalking him like that skunk on Looney Tunes. She had her opportunity.

She also had on no makeup, and was wearing nothing more than sweatpants, and a tank top covered with Molly's ladybug stickers. Maybe, like Mom and the mirror, he could see past the current gaudiness and envision her dressed up.

And in his bedroom.

Oh good heavens. Meggie crossed to the stall and stood behind Davey. “See anything you like, buddy?”

Davey turned, and so did Andy. “Hey Megs,” he said. “How are you?”

Impregnated with your child, she wanted to tell him. Instead she flashed a smile and willed her estrogen to float through the humidity and rattle his brain into falling in love with her. Come on pheromones! Do your thing!