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THE COLORING BOOK
by Nathan Leslie 
copyright © 2001

Ludlow Press Short Fiction

The Coloring Book

On Fridays Mr. Sherman handles fingerprinting.  He takes their fingers one at a time and presses them onto the inked glass, presses them carefully onto the paper, tells them to relax and let him guide their fingers.  Each finger has a different fingerprint spiral or swirl, and he likes the small talk.  He re-inks the glass, presses more fingers into the ink.  He jokes that he gets paid to muck around in the mud.  They wash their fingers with grapefruit scented pumice soap and leave greasy paper towels in the trashcan. 

Mrs. Sherman works at the gift-wrap and bridal registry booth in a big shopping center.  All day women and men ask her to wrap boxes of clothes, stainless steel knives, necklaces, lacy scarves.  The women pinch little smiles and watch her form.  The men look bored, stare at their feet and drum their fingers on the counter.  The women make sure she wraps their gifts just so. 

Each night they eat dinner together, something simple—fish and baked potatoes, turkey burgers and salads, Kraft macaroni and spinach.  They have no energy to cook elaborate meals.  They watch television while they eat, and sometimes they read magazines.  Each night they go for a walk, and on the way back they stop in and see how their tenant, Veeta, is doing.  Veeta lives in their one bedroom basement apartment.  She cleans people’s houses for a living.  She cleans twelve hours a day to support her brother, who is jobless and refuses to file for unemployment.  She says he doesn’t want to be a leech.  The Shermans suspect he is embarrassed about his English.

Veeta gets home around ten, and sometimes the Shermans give her leftovers, and sometimes she eats them, and sometimes they play cards with her.  She doesn’t have many friends, she says.  The Shermans tell her they are getting too old for friendship.  Mr. Sherman tells Veeta that he is technically a forensics expert.  He doesn’t tell her that the men in the force look down on him.  He doesn’t tell her that most of the other forensics guys are dolts, and that he doesn’t have many friends.  This isn’t how he imagined his life to be.  The friends from his youth have all long-since moved from the area.  Mrs. Sherman says it is difficult just to be content with life, and Veeta nods and shifts her tongue in her mouth.

One night when they get back from their walk, Veeta’s door is open.  They knock anyway.  They hear a soft scratching sound from inside.  They knock again, and they hear Veeta tell them to come in.  The light is concentrated on Veeta’s table in the middle of the room.  Her bed is obscured in the shadows.  They look carefully and see that Veeta is coloring in a coloring book.  She doesn’t look up.  Veeta smiles anyway.  Veeta has a luminous smile.

“Is everything okay, Veeta?”  Mrs. Sherman asks.

“Oh yes,” she says.  “I found this coloring book today in the parking lot.  It was just sitting there.  I never could see how somebody could like coloring that much.  But I’m starting too, you know?”

“It passes the time I guess,” Mrs. Sherman says.  “Whatever passes the time.”

“Yes,” Veeta says.  “But that’s not what I mean exactly.  No, I guess I never saw how kids could like it.  Coloring.  I never spent much time around kids.  I’ve always wanted children.”

She is still young and attractive, Mrs. Sherman thinks.  She could easily meet a young man.  Mr. Sherman feels sorry for her.

“How come you don’t have children,” Veeta asks Mrs. Sherman.

What should she say to such a question?  Mrs. Sherman feels like bolting from the room like a character in some melodramatic romance.  How can she convey to Veeta the years of disappointment, the antiseptic medical rooms, the hushed dinners with her husband.

“It’s not really a polite question,” Mrs. Sherman says.  “Is it?”

Mr. Sherman stands next to her.  His shadow looms over the table where Veeta holds the green crayon in her hand like a rare flower.  He nods and his thumb and forefinger rub together as if by their own will.  Mrs. Sherman can see flecks of crayon on Veeta’s fingernails.  Veeta lifts her head to apologize, but Mrs. Sherman cuts the air with the back of her hand.

“It’s fine.  It’s fine,” she says.

“I’m so sorry,” Veeta says.  “I didn’t mean anything by--”

“It’s fine,” Mrs. Sherman says.  “You’re just our tenant.  You don’t have to mean anything by it.”  Mr. Sherman clears his throat and has nothing to say.  Veeta says she should really go to sleep.  She has to wake up early.  Mrs. Sherman nods and they leave and walk upstairs to their bedroom through the light outside and the shadows within.             

Nathan Leslie's fiction and poetry has appeared in over thirty publications including Amherst Review, Wascana Review, Poetry Motel, Connections, The Crab Creek Review, The Higginsville Reader, Fodderwing, The Sulphur River Literary Review, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Daybreak.  He won the 2000 Katherine Anne Fiction Prize.  He currently teaches writing at Towson University, and UMBC. Email: NathanL@erols.com

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