Skittles
by Kim Chinquee
For their son's first birthday, she made a cake and orange frosting. The boy had seemed fascinated with pumpkins, with her hair and with the clown they saw at the mall juggling carrots--the son had laughed so hard at that clown--the mother didn't think that maybe he was just high on Skittles, but it didn't matter, the theme for his one-year party would be orange. They'd even make the artichokes orange. The kid wouldn't know any of this until later, after seeing the video and learning that at the party the mother left the father because she smelled her best friend's Coco on him. She hates that smell. She lives with the son still and although he's a teen now, he isn't supposed to see the tape. But she's out with her fifty-second boyfriend. The boy and his friends found the video in a box when they were trying to find the case of the mother's hidden vodka. The boys watch the video, eating popcorn. They tell the son his father is a stud and after the boy goes to his room, they press pause, fast forward and rewind, adding salt to whatever they can find and toasting.
Kim Chinquee's work has appeared in Conjunctions, Noon, Denver Quarterly, elimae, Quick Fiction, Mississippi Review, Fiction International, and in several other journals. She has just been awarded a Pushcart Prize. She teaches creative writing at Central Michigan University.