Preparation Is Key
Kat Meads
Although Sheila Markham had no plans for the afternoon or evening, she set to work preparing should events take a turn. She did not linger over the diary in which she daily wrote neither verbosely nor spontaneously. It was her practice to try out thoughts in her head, repeating the keepers aloud in an exalted, animated voice and only then committing to the permanency of the blue-lined page those that had survived both thought and elocution tests. Today she did not take her morning apple juice onto the minuscule balcony that overlooked a cacophonous freeway and remain there until she had succeeded in hearing not waves of traffic but waves of ocean—also a regular custom. She parted early with her fuzzy bedroom slippers and the non-condemning robe that allowed her flesh to puddle and bulge without stricture. On the bed she laid out a navy pants suit and cream-colored organdy blouse, a construct that resembled, even to Sheila’s eye, an outfit awaiting a wearer who awaited inflation. Beneath that tableau she placed her favorite pair of navy pumps, toes facing outward—all awaiting her freshly showered return. Her face and hair would take the longest to prepare and after toweling off she rushed neither process. For her lips she chose a color between party pink and coral, a soft brown mascara for her lashes. Although in the abstract she disliked the smell and feel of hairspray, its grip was needed to achieve the swept-back style that best suited the contours of her face. At least once Sheila Markham had been told that her best feature was her face, reliably eschewing expressions of judgment for expressions of expectation. Pleased with the results of her grooming efforts, Sheila settled in a chair across from her apartment’s front door, a plump, velour pillow at her back, crossed her ankles and waited. Whoever might appear at Sheila Markham’s door would not find her at loose ends or unprepared for company. Whoever appeared would find a creature flushed with anticipation and looking her very best.
Kat Meads‘s most recent titles are the novelette While Visiting Babette (2025) and the essay collection These Particular Women (2023). She lives in California. (katmeads.com)
Table of Contents for Flaw and Favor