Prompt: A Business Meeting (300 words or less)

On a frigid day, a late morning in mid-January on Sixth Avenue near Fourteenth Street, Stella paused at the SeXXX shop where, in the window, three blow-up dolls wearing white fishnet stockings and red Santa hats were positioned around a pink tinsel tree decorated with nipple clamps and topped off with a vibrator in lieu of a star. Stella could not linger, however. Late for a meeting, she had to rush, practically run, which was why she didn’t notice the wide crack in the pavement where one of her four-inch spiked heels got caught, and fell flat on her face.

“Talk about lousy luck,” she told me. “A bump on my forehead and a scraped knee. Not even the lowest bottom-feeding lawyer would take this case. One broken finger, was that too much to ask?”

I commiserated with her misfortune. It was a dream of hers, to sue to the city. Then I asked if she got to her meeting on time.

“Yeah, I did. But John sent me home. He didn’t want me there looking like a wreck,” she said. “My stockings were torn up. My hair was a mess.” Then she yawned. “Must be the excitement wearing me out. I’m going to take a nap. I’ll call you later. Maybe we can grab dinner.”

“I can’t tonight,” I told her. “How’s tomorrow?”

“Sounds good,” Stella said.

While Stella napped, the small bump on her forehead bled backward, into her brain, and she died.

I was listed as next of kin. When the doctor called, I said, “No.” I said “no” in a way in which you would have expected a polite “thank you” to follow.

I said no, and then I said nothing.