Artwork © Judith A. Lawrence

 

On Account of a Pimple

As she begins applying eyebrow pencil she sees a mean pimple has popped out in the space between her eyes. Not the sort of pimple makeup will cover. She’s been wanting to get back at him ever since he dumped her. Planned on going very GLAM to his hollow-weenie party. Show him a thing or three. She starts crying. That makes the pimple redder.

How can she show up now when he’ll have some new bitch on his arm showing her off? Lookee! Lookee!
She should have poisoned him. A sprinkle of rat poison in a blueberry scone and no one would have been the wiser.

“Live and learn,” she says. Her cat Igor purrs rubbing her leg.

Last Halloween when they were still a couple she’d gone to his party as a Harlequin. There was a mask for that costume but where…

She rummages around her crowded closet and locates a box marked Halloween. Voila! And there’s the shiny black Harlequin mask with its upward dip at the nose. She tries it on at the mirror. Perfect! Pimple gone in a flash.

But she can’t show up as a Harlequin again, that same costume would look pitiful, like she was trying to rub him, from last year— a sort of begging device.

No way.

She’ll deliberately arrive late. Wearing her mother’s mink. This will be her year to shine.

Finishing hair and makeup, she puts on the coat and steps outside getting in the car.

Totally naked under the mink. When he opens his door she will step in the house wearing 6 inch shiny black heels, screaming Happy Halloween!

After everyone screams back, the mink will slide from her shoulders. The red actors blood streaming down her breasts.

 

Susan Isla Tepper presented her darkly comic play Clandestine in an Equity Premiere Staged-reading, hosted by SHOPTALK, on June 10 at EAG Guild Hall Theatre, NYC. Her latest Novel Hair of a Fallen Angel was published by Spuyten Duyvil Books. A twenty-year writer, she’s written 12 published books of fiction and poetry and 7 stage plays. Honors include 21 Pushcart Prize Nominations. Her play The Crooked Heart concerning artist Jackson Pollock premiered on October 25, 2022 at the Irish Repertory Theatre in NYC. Adapted from an earlier novel, it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Susan is a Brand Ambassador for The Galway Review. A Youtube music video for her latest novel can be found here.

Judith A. Lawrence is a poet/writer/painter originally from Philadelphia, PA. She was the Director of the River Poets Writers Group in Lambertville, NJ from 2006- 2010. Additionally, Judith was Editor and Publisher of Lilly Press/River Poets Journal, a print literary magazine from 2008-2019. Her publications include: a Memoir Point of Comfort, a short story collection Uncharted Territories, a romance novelette The Metamorphoses of Connie Toscano, a poetry collection Remembrance, a mystery/thriller The Lafourche River Murder and a comedic chronicle on IRS training titled The IRS Chronicles. She is currently working on a book of quotes, The Philosopher Goat. Judith now resides in Florida.