Featured Author: Michelle Cacho-Negrete

April 2021 | Best of Net nominee, nonfiction

Grace in Four Parts

 

I

My mother enrolled me in a tap-dance class when I was five; I hated it. The little outfits hung awkwardly on me, the sequins always falling off.  The shoes hurt my feet. My steps were uncoordinated and always three beats behind everyone else’s.  I couldn’t twirl without stumbling.  Everyone else got that lovely tap sound as they danced across the floor. “She’s very pretty with those blonde curls,” the teacher told my mother.  “But she has no grace.”

 

II

Grace was my only friend in sixth grade. I was hers. We sat alone at our lunch table. We laughed together. If one of us had money we bought a candy bar to share. We exchanged books. One day I invited her home after school.  My mother bought cookies. Her parents didn’t want her to go, but she came anyway. We were happy walking home as I told her about my games and chemistry set, but when we got to our apartment my mother sent Grace home. I didn’t understand. My mother said, “I’m sure she is a lovely girl, but she’s colored. She belongs with her own kind.”  “She is my kind: we read the same books, laugh at the same things, like the same cookies,” I insisted, but my mother walked away.. Grace’s mother told her that she couldn’t have anything to do with me. The rest of the year I sat alone at lunch; no Grace.

 

III

My grace period for paying my student loan was up.  The credit mafia made threatening calls, sent threatening letters, even knocked at my door. “But I pay everything I can at the end of the month. I’m supporting two kids,” I told the man on the phone. “Sometimes I give you ten dollars, sometimes twenty-five but I always pay” The man scoffed; “Your money problems aren’t ours.” A friend who was a lawyer worked out a credit plan with them, but I was broke halfway through every month and lost any line of credit for seven years.

“Grace period is over,” they repeated to my lawyer.  “No grace left.”

 

IV

“Forgiveness is an act of grace,” My husband told me when he broke my jaw after a disagreement about nothing important, something I can’t even remember.  “Just let it go. I’ll never do it again,” he insisted.  Then he repeated, “Forgiveness is an act of grace.”

I laughed and told him, “Everyone knows I have no grace.”

 

Michelle Cacho-Negrete

Michelle Cacho-Negrete is a retired social worker who lives in Portland Maine. She is the author of Stealing: Life in America. She has 80+ publications, 4 of which are among the most notable, 5 in anthologies, 1 won Best of The Net and another won the Hope Award.

Connor Doyle

April 2021 | visual art

still lives, holy sites

 

Connor Doyle

Connor Doyle is a photographer and filmmaker based in the Chicagoland area. Graduating from Hampshire College’s Film/Photo program in 2016, Doyle’s work focuses on the idiosyncratic details of daily life in Northern Illinois, specifically his native Wheaton, IL. Though often trivial, his subjects capture the formal beauty and potency of these everyday sites, urging his viewers to reflect on the significance of their lived experiences. Connor’s work has been published in the Prairie Light Review, the Hole In The Head Review, the Burningword Literary Journal, and the Parliament Literary Journal. You can visit his website at https://connordoylephotographyfilmmaker.cargo.site

Carter Ayles

April 2021 | visual art

Neighborhood Detail 4

Carter Ayles

Carter Ayles is a photographer based in Savannah GA. He is currently finishing his BFA in Documentary photography at Savannah College of Art and Design. His work centers around the cyclical relationship between self and space and how our world is affected by human life. To see more of his work check out his instagram @c.ayles.art.

 

Fonly

April 2021 | nonfiction

—which shouldn’t need translation—this button (faded, pale green with white lettering) dates back to the ‘80s, when I was a student at San Diego State University, and Aesop’s Tables, in the corner of a strip mall just off campus, was where an assortment of left-wing literati and hangers-on gathered over glasses of Retsina and plates of hummus, pita, and olives until the restaurant got booted to make way for new construction, and the owners had these buttons made up so we could commiserate and rail at social injustice.
—the seminar leader passed out small gray buttons with white lettering, all caps, no apostrophe, to stress the futility of wishful thinking in lieu of action or acceptance—“fonly I’d married Bert instead of Bart, fonly I’d started saving when I was 20—her topic was fundraising (fonly someone would donate a million dollars) and she also handed out toe tags to remind people to look alive, and though I don’t remember anything she said, the button is a talisman.

—I don’t recall the origin of this one with the universal no (non/nyet/nein) symbol, a circle with a diagonal red line through it, and though I’m not inclined toward whining and wailing, this is one of just three buttons I’ve kept out of hundreds—a collection from decades of progressive activism: Bread Not Roses, Draft beer not boys, This is what a feminist looks like, Voice for Choice, U.S. Out of Nicaragua, Jane Wyman was Right—and now I find a timeless thread running through these residual relics: shit happens, we can’t wish it away, and there’s no use grumbling.

Alice Lowe

Alice Lowe is proud to have her third published piece in Burningword. Her flash prose has also appeared this past year in Hobart, JMWW, Door Is a Jar, Sleet, Anti-Heroin Chic, and Headlight Review. She’s had citations in Best American Essays and nominations for Pushcart Prizes and Best of the Net. Alice writes about life and literature, food and family in San Diego, California and at www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com.

Circus Act

April 2021 | fiction

You have just appeared beneath my office door arch, crunching the remnants of a cherry Jolly Rancher with your even, professionally whitened teeth and bearing your usual dissonance: senior partner swagger and practiced “aw shucks” expression.  I have greeted you with a cheerful (but not overly familiar) “Hi Brad.  What can I do for you?”

Here’s what will happen next.  You will say, “Hey, did you see that e-mail about the trivia game?”  I will look at you blankly, pretending that I hadn’t opened it an hour ago and envisioned this entire conversation going down immediately thereafter.  I will say, “No, I must have missed it; I’ve been working on a brief that’s due tomorrow.”  You will say, “No worries.  I’ll give you the rundown.  We’re asking folks to participate in a trivia game night next Thursday.  We’re going to film it and put it up on Facebook and the firm website.  It’ll be catnip for potential summer associates.  We’ll look like the ‘cool’ firm.  Hell, we are the ‘cool’ firm.”

I will say, “I’m terrible at trivia,” which will be a true statement.  You will say, “Oh, that doesn’t matter.  It’s all in good fun.”  I will demur further and say, “Oh, I really don’t think I look great on camera; besides, I’m shy about stuff like that.”  You, not wanting to risk a harassment suit, will not comment on whether I look great on camera, and will only say, “The best way to overcome shyness is to get yourself out there!”  I will say, “Have you asked Adam?  He lives for this sort of thing.  He even looks like Ken Jennings.”  You will say, “Not to take anything away from Adam, but we need you, Lakeisha Simpson,” and give me a winning smile.

Upon hearing my name, my expression will morph from neutral to beaming.  I will say, “Well, in that case, sign me up!”  You will say, “I knew I could count on you, Lakeisha.”  You will turn around, whistling, and head directly to the office of Tom Cheng, the only Asian associate.  Dionne, my secretary, will have heard the entire conversation and shake her head in sympathy.  I will consider sending Tom a “heads up” e-mail.  I will not follow through.  I will crave a Jolly Rancher.

I will tell myself that I should join a circus as a sideshow attraction because I’m a magician; didn’t I just read your mind?  Not to mention contortionist; didn’t I squeeze myself into that tiny box you built for me?  And don’t forget fire-breather; if all my rage escapes my incandescent lungs and rushes past my large, lush lips in a molten exhale, my laptop will be incinerated.  (Ever the pragmatist, I will keep my mouth closed–after all, I still have a brief due tomorrow.)

As for you, there are other positions available.  I know you fancy yourself as ringmaster, although you are far better suited as clown.  Whatever works.  Let’s join the circus together.

Colette Parris

Colette Parris is a Caribbean-American graduate of Harvard College (where she received a bachelor’s degree in English) and Harvard Law School. An attorney by day, she recently returned to her literary roots after a long hiatus. Her flash fiction can be found in Lunch Ticket. She lives in Westchester County, New York with her husband and daughter.