After a headache-inducing lunch and three improving hours in the museum, Casey thought she’d faint from the strain of politeness. Every ironic remark eluded Call-Me-Frank. Her attempt at wandering off only elicited suffocating concern and his sweaty palms cupping her cheeks. At least they’d hitched onto a tour led by a fanciable young man, the kind Maurice would have had eating out of his hand in five minutes. Call-Me-Frank was standing embarrassingly close to the guide and showing off with words like “hagiography,”  “polemics,” and “problematize.”

She wanted to rip the ugly paintings off the wall and kick them in. She wanted to show off her age-inappropriate vocabulary and embarrass Call-Me-Frank into the ground. She wanted to punch people.

Uncle Maurice would have let her walk a knife-edge of cheek all day, then afterwards put her across his knee, firmly but genially. There would be ice-cream. Her father always criticized Uncle Maurice for “swanning off” to his next destination. She thought she’d suffer a month of Call-Me-Franks if it would make Uncle Maurice swan back.

She hated people. All people. They didn’t swan. They didn’t do anything at all.

Read other folks writing this week:

• Travis King
• Rafi
• rayne
• PapaTomLA
• and vanimp