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This is a bit odd for me, as it is a short story, and I'm not inclined to write those. It's also a realistic, married-people story, which I am also not inclined to write. Critique much appreciated, as I'm really trying to put myself through the wringer with revisions and such these days.

Also, I would rate this PG, so anyone under 12 probably shouldn't read it. There's nothing graphic, but I sort of pride myself on sticking in one hell of an innuendo.

And last but not least, the I Spy list! These things are intentional, and if you can, I'd especially like feedback on them. Can you spot:
-racism
-role reversal
-aforementioned innuendo
-a transition in representation



It was the necklace the tipped her off- that fine thing, out of place and furtively worn. Karen saw it and knew- this was the woman her husband was sleeping with. She had been aware of it for a long time- perhaps as long as Frank had been cheating, perhaps longer. The knowledge had moved through her like morse code, occupying even the smallest spaces between them.

Now she had a face. The woman was latina, younger than Karen herself was. She wore the harried look of the working class; animal eyes and hair pulled back tight in that all-American ponytail. She was pretty, Karen noted, as she herself would never be.

Karen walked up to the woman and said curtly, "I believe we have something to discuss. You're sleeping with my husband."

Yet even as she said it, the anger drained out of her and Karen knew, with a certainty that she could not explain, that the other woman had incomparably less than she did. Frank might find the woman attractive, might even confide in her, but it was Karen who did his laundry, Karen who saw him off to work. The affair had been quite lengthy, and yet Frank showed no lack of interest in his wife. What secrets could be whispered that would possibly compare with the bone-deep familiarity that comes with marriage? It was a trespass on land that Karen owned, no more. The girl had nothing.

Yet, perhaps not hearing the softening in Karen's tone, the girl began to cry hysterically, sobbing, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," over and over again. It was this that lead Karen to recognize her.

Several months earlier, she and Frank had taken a trip to Mexico. On their first morning, the two of them had strolled from their hotel to a nice little cafe for breakfast. When their orders had arrived, Frank found himself faced not with the herbal tea he had ordered, but with a cup of rich, dark coffee.

He signaled to the waitress and when she arrived he explained the problem to her. She shook her head. He tried again, louder this time, but of course this made him no more comprehensible. He became more and more agitated; pointing, and them adding arm gestures, and of course getting louder and louder.

At some point, the waitress had broken down and started to sob, in Spanish. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I don't understand, please stop yelling.

Then Frank had given up, and throwing his hands up in the air, he had cried out in a quavering voice, "They hate me! They all hate me!"

Karen, as she did now, had laid a hand upon the girl's arm and said, "I'm so sorry."

Sorry. The stuff on the list comes from spending too long in English class.

The innuendo is the bit about morse code. Perhaps I should make that clearer.

The role reversal is the reference to Frank as land, because men usually aren't referred to as land.

The racism is when he's yelling in the cafe. It's really what he's yelling- it's not about waitstaff in general, it's about Mexico.

And the last is when Karen stops calling the nameless latina a woman and starts calling her a girl.

I'm not what connects the two parts. Maybe it's that Karen is really more like her husband than she realizes... I don't know. I think this started out as a novel with a backstory and all, but then I called my own bluff as trying to put of finishing writing anything, and... this was born.