"Daylilies" by our WIP contest winner, Angie Curneal Palsak
fiction
Daylilies
by Angie Curneal Palsak
It’s August—the ground is dry, the air humid. The hotel parking lot is cracked and crumbling. I nearly trip over a chunk of concrete that’s broken loose from one of the landscaping islands floating in the middle of the long-faded blacktop. Maybe I should have just let myself get taken down. A broken nose would probably excuse me from this godforsaken professional development workshop I have been forced to come into town for.
Upon closer inspection, these little islands of misery, all unkempt, are nothing more than highway daylilies gone wild. Poor things: their season is over. Once glorious orange blooms, now dry and withered, litter the ground. Nothing remains but stalk and stamen. I pass more of these little patches of green, trying to estimate at what angle I would need to land to just sprain, but not break my arm.
Not having the guts to throw myself down on the pavement, I slowly drag my rolling suitcase through the automated doors of the hotel lobby. The wine bottles inside clink as I pull up before the front desk. The air conditioning is on full blast and goose pimples my arms.
The receptionist moves slowly, as though she’s doing me a huge favor by handing me the room key before three. If she really wanted to do me a favor, she could’ve said there wasn’t any reservation in the system for me, Nancy. Nancy Drew. Now that would’ve been doing me a favor. (And yes, that’s really my name. It’s what happens when you marry Bill Drew.)
I make my way to the elevator observing the people. This hotel isn’t that bad, but it’s not that nice either. It seems to be a stop-gap, a place people stay when they can’t make it to where they are really trying to go. There’s nothing nearby. To go somewhere I would have to get back on the highway. So, I decide right then that I’m in for the night.
I get to my room, bolt the door, and crank the air conditioning up. I’m still chilled—for now. Soon enough, the menopausal inferno will rise and I’ll be lowering it. But for now, I just feel cold and worn out.
I change into my floral pajamas. I hate them, but they were the last thing my mother bought me before she died. I’m afraid to let them go. Loose bottoms and a short-sleeved top, they look like something a sick person in a nursing home would wear. They’re the only pair that fit me anymore.
The phone rings. It’s Bill.
He asks how the drive was, if I remembered my charger, tells me about a gigantic woodpecker he saw drilling away on the roof to our garage. Asks me if I’ve eaten, if I’m going anywhere, how’s the room.
I answer the questions. We hang up.
I stretch out on the bed, open up a new bag of Lays and then crack open the wine, pouring it into the little plastic cup that was tucked inside the ice bucket. I click through the channels and end up watching some show about two women who ran someone over. Or maybe just one did. I can’t quite tell yet. They’re in worse trouble than me and that makes me feel better. I kick my legs wide open and fling my arms back on my stack of pillows, finally feeling a bit more relaxed. I realize I am sticking to the left side of the queen-sized bed. I scoot over so I’m in the middle. I’m so used to having just one side after twenty-some years of marriage. I fluff up the pillows, slosh a little wine on them, shrug and settle back in. This is kind of nice.
In time, the bag of chips is gone and the first bottle of wine is close. I move to the desk in my room to complete a required pre-workshop self-assessment. It’s one of those damn personality tests. The first question already stumps me, I can’t decide between C or D. So I just choose A.
1 . When faced with a stressful situation, I usually:
A. Make a plan and take action
B. Talk it through with someone I trust
C. Shut down and avoid dealing with it
D. Try to distract myself until it passes
Choosing A is easy. As is B. So, I just keep that up, circling A-B-B-A over and over again. I begin to hum “Dancing Queen” and try not to think about tomorrow’s class. Which, of course, is impossible.
Stacey, my boss, is calling this class “an opportunity for growth”. It is a required part of my P.I.P, my Performance Improvement Plan. If I didn’t comply and come out here, I would instantly lose my job. So, I think it is more of a Punishment in Progress. All of my coworkers must think so too because no one asked where I was going. They all knew this is a trip no one wants to take. I’m the cautionary tale they’re glad isn’t theirs.
I mean it sounds like absolute hell. It’s called “Unlocking the Keys to Meaningful Workplace Engagement”. It’s one of those stupid escape rooms: “Your mission: Restore team morale and unlock the door to collective success.” It takes place here in one of the hotel’s windowless conference rooms. It starts at eight with a “Fuel Your Potential” continental breakfast. Then, we will be divided into groups based on our personality assessments. I already dread the moment when my teammates discover that they are solving a mystery with Nancy Drew.
I don’t know. I guess in a way, being here is better than being back in Drury. This thing is still fresh and hasn’t been forgotten yet. I can still feel Stacey’s tight-lipped disappointment when I pass her in the hallway. My co-workers are all annoyed by me. They’ve all been tasked with double-checking my work. I have to show them the schedules I make and the audits I run. I’m pretty much just a dead man walking. It’s like my brain’s been lobotomized or my head just fell off, kind of like those daylilies down there in the parking lot.
I guess I don’t blame my co-workers for thinking I’m some sort of loser just riding the wave until I can retire. It’s not like they know any better. I’ve worked there the longest. None of them, even Stacey, were there when I was good. When I dressed cute and was Advisor of the Year and even coached the girls’ swim team. That Nancy is just a ghost. One award on a plaque that no one bothers to dust, much less read.
And it’s not any better at home. I mean, my husband thinks I’m having some sort of nervous breakdown or something. No matter how normal I try to act, I still can’t quite shake off Bill’s worried looks. I had to tell him what happened, especially when he came home and found me bawling in the bathtub. And now all he does is keep an eye on me like he’s my dad or something. He’s constantly watching me, at the kitchen table, peeking at me from behind the cereal box as I sit, staring down at my empty bowl, wearing my baggy black office pants and my threadbare bathrobe at the same time, half-way dressed for work and half-way dressed to stay home.
I pause and listen to another plane roar over the hotel.
For hours, I thought it was thunder. Then I finally looked out the window and saw the low-flying jumbo jets, wheels out, getting ready to land. That’s when it hit me: I’m just minutes from O’Hare.
I get up from the desk and pull the curtains back. It’s dark now. The window reflects my face in the glass, half-lit by the desk lamp. I don’t like seeing my face anymore. I have my grandmother’s jowls.
Another jet passes overhead. From my window, I can see the tiny cabin lights and swear I see little heads and shoulders. They look like the Little People in my old Fisher Price toy airplane I had when I was a kid. I wonder who’s relieved to be home, who’s just connecting to somewhere else, and who wishes they could turn around and go back to wherever they came from.
I reach for another refill of the wine, but now we’re empty. On to Bottle #2. I twist the cap, fill my little cup, and sit on the edge of the bed. Time for sipping is over. I grab the flyer for tomorrow’s workshop off my desk. I know they’re going to make me talk about it. About the student I failed. The scholarship I cost him. The lie I told. I take a big swallow of the wine. His name was Damon Jones. Nineteen. His mother dead. Living with his grandma. Hard-working. Smart. A little too smart. He actually caught my mistake, but I didn’t listen.
“Umm, uh, Mrs. Drew, don’t I need Phys 202 for graduation?” he paused, not signing the form.
I grabbed the form back from him, looked at the classes I enrolled him in and then cross-checked that with all the classes and AP credits he had on his transcript while cross-referencing that with the Michigan Community College Graduation Requirements and the A.S. Biology Transfer Advising Guide to Western Michigan University.
“Nope, says right here Phys 201, which you are in now, satisfies our A.S. graduation requirements as well as the Michigan Transfer Agreement, as well as the Biology major prerequisites for Western.” I turned all my pages around as well as my computer screen and showed him everything. One eye on my clock on the wall, all I could think about was my Stouffer’s frozen entrée and how I wanted to be the first in line to heat it up.
He looked at everything, blurry eyed from staying up all night studying for some trig test and then just signed the form. He left and I ran like hell to the kitchenette, just beating Katie to the microwave by one nano second.
That Stouffer’s lasagna cost him graduation and a full-ride transfer scholarship he desperately needed and had earned.
Oh, but that’s not all.
I reach for the bottle.
Then came the cover-up.
I remember the filing room. The moment I forged his name on the form that would get me out of this mess, tucking it into his file. Sweating through this big, ugly brown sweater I wore almost every day, half-hiding, half-showcasing the new gut I’d earned from the meds. And the wine. All the cheap-ass wine. The very same sweater I had to peel off hours later because it felt like it was strangling me while I hacked into my bosses’ voicemail. (Yes, I did that too.) Had to erase the messages. His grandma had called Stacey, begging her to do something about me, just like she threatened she would in several of the messages she left for me.
I take another big gulp as I stare at the television. Now muted. The show with the two guilty girls is still on. Must be some sort of marathon. I sip and watch as they bury a body at night. The screen fades to black and I see myself sitting on the bed, my PJ top half unbuttoned showcasing the rolls of fat burgeoning over the elastic waist band of my pull-on pants. I see the greasy hair and the semi-arthritic hands clutching the precious plastic cup of wine. I look away just as the screen flashes into a commercial break and stare at the floor, rubbing my head.
Suddenly, I’m back in my office, refreshing the local weather report, praying for a snow day. That’s when they appeared: Stacey, the HR head honcho, and Dr. Fitz, the college president. No knock. Stacey leaned against the wall while the other two laid it out: the forgery, the tampering, the consequences. After they left, I didn’t move. Just stared at the floor, same as now.
Outside my door, the advising office went silent. Then some whispers followed by some increased foot traffic past my office, curious eyes peeking in, pretending not to look. I didn’t know it then, but the snow I’d been hoping for had started to fall quietly behind me. It piled up hour after hour as I continued to sit there and the others left. I heard them talking about the snow, but I didn’t have the energy to turn around and look out my window. Besides, I was already buried.
Just as I am now, but under the thick haze of cheap wine. I place my cup on the nightstand and flop back on my nest of white pillows. They are so fluffy that I feel like I am floating. I lie there, staring at the stucco ceiling, the fire alarm, and the sprinkler head with the warning not to hang my clothes from it. The ceiling spins just a bit as a tidal wave of wine sloshes inside me. My eyes feel so heavy. I cover one eye with my hand as I squint at the stucco, zeroing in on the sharp points. Like little bitty shark teeth, they start retracting then extending back out. That starts to freak me out, so I cover my other eye with my other hand and sink into total darkness. The darkness is peaceful. I listen to my breathing and the rumble of the jumbo jets flying over my body.
Suddenly, something wet hits my face. I take my hands away just in time to see a drop of water fall from the sprinkler head hitting me right in the eye. Then another. And another. One by one the drops fall collecting on my cheeks. The drops increase in speed, changing into a steady flow drenching my top and seeping into the mattress.
The next thing I know is that I am at the bottom of the river. I seem to have made the mistake of taking Damon out for a spin in my new sea-green convertible. We are traveling down a curvy road by the St Joseph. Accelerating with every twist of the road, Damon uses this as just cause to present his case on how horrible convertibles are.
After reason number thirty-eight, increased risk of skin cancer, I calmly interrupt and tell him that I am going to show him one thing a convertible is great for. And that’s when I give it to him. I yank the steering wheel to the left, crossing two lanes and sweep down the embankment, heading towards the river. We mow down ducks and beavers and crash through holly bushes. Before we hurdle into the river, I scream out the answer; “A convertible offers the highest survival rate should you ever plunge into the river!”
The cold rush of water fills our mouths, knocking my glasses off. The force shoves our bodies together. As if on an elevator, we slowly sink to the bottom of the river.
We settle on the river’s sandy floor with a thump and a surge of bubbles. I look over at Damon. He is feverishly trying to undo his seat belt. My belt comes undone in one single try. I float out of the car, ignoring his cries for rescue.
The sand is hard to walk on. My feet keep getting tangled in seaweed and bushes. I find it easier to lightly bounce about. I kick some old beer cans and throw an alarm clock at a school of fish. They scatter, then surround my head, smacking me in the face with their tails. My arms windmill wildly as I run from them.
Some distance away I come across a little field of daylilies. They’re in full bloom. I reach down and lightly stroke one stem’s orange petals rippling in the current. One by one the petals curl up, dying on the stalk before falling to the sand. I touch another flower and the same thing happens; the entire bloom dies and falls away leaving just a nub that reminds me of my swollen finger joints.
I don’t want to believe that I’m the one causing the petals to die. I start poking each and every flower and yes, just like that, they all wither and fall away. Soon, all the stems are naked, gently swaying back and forth, hypnotic like hula dancers and I’m left to face the fact that yes, I’m the one who took their bloom the way.
It was me.
We’ll post an interview with Angie tomorrow. Look out for that soon.
Angie Curneal Palsak is a short story writer based in South Bend, Indiana. Her work examines the emotional weight of stuckness and the struggle to move beyond it. She has stories published in: Academy of the Heart and Mind, 10 by 10 Flash Fiction, Prosetrics, and The MacGuffin. She was recently shortlisted for The Letter Review’s quarterly short story prize, was a finalist for Short Edition’s “Money Chronicles: A Story Initiative” contest, and the winner of Unleash Press’s 2025 Works In Progress award. When not writing, she and her husband of twenty-plus years, Tibor, travel in search of live music, good food, dog-friendly breweries, celebrity graves, and amazing art. Find her at angiecpalsak.com.