Junebug rummaged through her closet for a warmer sweater, and the need to be prissy overcame her. She wanted to look hot and sophisticated. She found her lantern sleeved, black cashmere sweater reserved for the most special of occasions in the bottom of her cedar trunk.
She slipped the sweater over her head and watched her transformation in the mirror. The black boatneck of the sweater softened her face and its length smoothed her curves. Tonight she’d be the heat source of the house, even if she was by herself. She carefully chose the dark red lipstick. It offset her long white hair.
Junebug fixed her face with powders and mascara; it was a peculiar kind of evening. Junebug wanted to look flawless. She felt a sense of occasion in this lonely snowstorm. She could hear the silence outside build with the fall of every snowflake.
Junebug lit the gas stove in the corner; the room seemed to have gotten colder. Even the dogs noticed, as they curled up in tight balls away from the doors and wadded up the rugs against the cold. They moved toward the stove as soon as it bloomed.
Junebug wanted candles and ambiance. She played “Clair de Lune” and a Rachmaninoff tune in a loop in the background. Besides “Clair de Lune,” the “Moonlight Sonata” was the fanciest piece of music she knew the name of, but she wasn’t in the mood for the dirge-like Sonata; it was too heavy. She kept her back straight, her head high, and made her hips sway when she walked through the house to the movement of the music. She was feminine, though she rarely showed it.
She lit some frankincense because she loved the smell. She imagined it was how a holy place would smell. Tonight she transcended holy and laughed as she made her eyelashes grow long and black. What a shame to waste such sexiness alone in her home with the dogs and the snow. She blushed a bit at her excess and admired herself in her mirror, not bad for a woman in her late seventies.
Junebug’s windows rattled with the wind, cold and mean. She put an extra layer of duct tape around the plastic that covered them, and they crinkled. The fire in the corner stove on the floor flickered then recovered. Junebug moved closer to it and felt the cold move over ears that wanted earrings.
She remembered Aunt Hattie’s blue rhinestone clip-ons that matched the big rhinestone brooch, how stunning against the soft black of the sweater and her hair, she thought as she put them on. The clip-on earrings were surprisingly comfortable to wear. They brought out the sparkle of her eyes.
“Stop barking! Settle down!” said Junebug at the signal that something was in her driveway. The dogs whined but obeyed her command.
When she opened the front door to her house, it sucked out most of the heat. “Braley?” The wind and snow answered as three deer ran across the moonlit blanketed driveway. She slammed the door behind her and laughed. She was glad no one was there.
Junebug sashayed over to her china cabinet for a long-stemmed cut crystal wine glass and blew the dust from its bowl. It wasn’t everyday she had occasion to use such a fine thing like she did tonight.
Under the kitchen sink she found the quart jar of cherries and moonshine her friend Braley had brought her last week. Tonight was the perfect occasion to crack its seal and relish the warmth of the shine and pungent cherries, each one a potent shot by itself, three went down easy. She took a deep, slow, long sip. It warmed her til her cheeks flushed.
The plastic on the windows crinkled, the fire in the furnace flickered, and the room got colder still. Junebug’s black cashmere sweater was soft and warm against her pale skin. The moonshine warmed her from within. The dogs moved closer to the flickering fire and against each other to share heat. “Clair de Lune” softly played in the background and the room still smelled of Frankincense.
The snow outside dipped branches to her porch and snuffed out the pilot lights. Within the walls of Junebug’s house, candles burned and the fire flickered out. Junebug crawled under the handmade blankets on the couch and sipped the warming liquid Braley sent until her eyes closed. The dogs climbed up on the couch beside her for warmth when the snow snuffed the fire.
“Clair de Lune” and a Rachmaninoff tune played in a loop in the background when Braley found her. She was dressed in fancy jewelry and her very best. Except for the moonshine on the table and the dogs, nobody would have believed it was Junebug that he found. Junebug never dressed up like that, especially in a snowstorm. It just wasn’t practical.
Devonne Brown writes fiction, flash fiction, hyperbolic nonfiction, and a smattering of poetry. She is the mother of twin men, and harbors cats and antiques. She curates a blog, https://www.athesaurus.com, a collection of essays, poetry, short stories, and flash fiction. She has written two books under the name D.L. Brown: Norris Tales, the Adventures of an Awful Housecat, and Norris Tales II, Still an Awful House Cat. Both are anthologies and short stories that revolve around family tyrant Norris.
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**Featured image credit: Szafran Roman Biernacki—Pexels
***Devonne Brown image taken from her site.