Milk Candy Review

You are queen of misted sunglasses on the night of the Perseids that are about to dive behind the braids pinned like a Heidi crown on your head. You are queen of silk slip luxuriating on grass, insect-less because they’re all, almost all, scorched. This morning you read your teenage letters to your cousin that her sisters handed you back, and you’re upset that you remembered almost everything about your side of the story. You are queen of the pink potted orchid that needs water only once a week but seems doubtful about a next bloom. You are queen of wishing for the bare details of your life to have been shared with your sister and cousins and to have ended differently, or to have gone from cracking seaweed on the beach to sharing a rollercoaster that doesn’t buckle and drops its most loved passenger. You are queen of pauper peas, so green and little. You are queen of sleeping through the Perseid meteor shower on the cheapest, but comfortable Ikea mattress, with a glow on.

***

Jacqueline Schaalje has published poetry and short fiction, most recently in Five South, Wildfire Words, and The Ocotillo Review. She won the 2022 Florida Review Editor’s Prize and has been a finalist in a few other competitions. She is a translation editor at MAYDAY Magazine.

We recently published Drevlow’s amazing “Friends, Family, Neighbors, & Co-Workers All Shocked.”

Here, we ask him two questions about his story:

1) I adore the voice in this! So powerfully oblivious and yet also so powerfully aware. How closely do you think this narrator is really looking at their own motivations here?
I think one of the reasons I watch as much Dateline and true crime as I do (for better or worse) is that my very complicated brother killed himself when he was 18 and I can remember all the people who came out of the woodwork then—to tell their stories, to become a part of the story, to weave this story of my brother that didn’t seem at all true to me because I was on the inside of it. At the time, I was very cynical and kind of bitter toward these people, because in my mind, they were all somehow complicit in my brother being alienated and treated like a weirdo. I come from a small town and an even smaller school, where literally everybody knows each other and knows their stories—at least the outward stories. And at the time, I would go through my mind and think of the teacher who had been condescending, the preacher who had thoughts about suicide and sexuality, the friend who stopped being his friend. They don’t know who my brother was! Only I know truly who my brother was!
But 35 years later and after a lot of Datelines, I’ve become a lot more forgiving. This is one of my defenses for watching these types of shows and all the clear ethical implications of them. If nothing else, these shows reveal that everybody’s complicated, everybody’s hypocritical, that as the cliche goes—nobody comes out a winner in any of these things. Even for the ones who are doing it to insert themselves as part of the story or distorting the story to make themselves seem more important, I think a lot of them feel like they are doing it for the right reasons. They are the ones to help tell the full story, keep the story alive, or they are “speaking for the victim and the victim’s family”—even if their real motivations might be a little sketchy. 
Mostly my story “Friend, Family, Neighbors, Co-Workers All Shocked” is trying to show both sides of the coin here—the way that with my brother and the narratives that people came up with has a lot of sides, including my own motives which were sometimes selfish and sketchy in their own way. Nothing’s binary or black or white. It’s all complicated, we’re all self-serving, but we also all try to have some sort of moral code for the good of the people even if this moral code is often highly suspect. Even if knowing all that means knowing that the true story of my brother got lost in the process.

2) And I love how it speaks to the viewer too — so much of reality (“reality”) documented in this true-crime format can be taken at face value, but everyone watching comes into it with their own beliefs and prejudices. Here, you’re really calling those beliefs into questions. Just how much of the narrative we’re given can we trust? What do you think?
Yeah, before I get done with my teaching career, I’d really like to teach a class on the rhetoric of true crime. It’s always really interesting to watch multiple versions of the same crime—whether it’s Dateline v 48 Hours v 20/20 v Snapped v whatever documentary they have come up with. And these days there are a ton of documentaries coming out about cases that I’ve already seen on Dateline or one of the other shows or vice versa. I think the one that really sticks out was Making a Murderer where the documentary series was clearly all about trying to show that Steven Avery might not be guilty and even if he was, that the criminal justice system had to bear some of the blame. And with that, they really vilified the police and the prosecution and showed how sketchy and kind of slimy they were (depending on your perspective). Then the Dateline version basically just focused on what a monster Avery was and how his defense was pretty weak. I remember I got into an argument with a friend online (which was a dumb idea in the first place for obvious reasons), but he was from a nearby Wisconsin town from Avery and he was pointing out how biased and distorted it was, and my whole argument was: Of course. All these shows are arguments—are narratives—and narratives mean editing certain things out, piecing together other things that make it sound like they were connected. Narratives, by nature, are always going to be distorted. But on the other hand, small towns and small town criminal justice figures are also just as biased and distorted in the narratives they use for treating people the way they do—especially poor people on the outskirts of the community (as I know firsthand from growing up in a small Wisconsin town myself).
Which of course, doesn’t take into account how much worse it is for people of color, especially women of color, who usually don’t even get shown on true crime shows, because the “narrative” about them from police officers, lawyers, and judges are just too damn morally and ethically heartbreaking to make for “entertaining” TV.

Mostly I just come out of all of these thinking it’s scary the way everything works—the way these true crime shows will vilify police one episode and then make them out to be heroes in another episode. Same with the defense attorneys and the prosecution. And of course the victims vs. the suspects. It’s interesting to see different versions to see how they decide who the “good guys” are versus the “bad guys.” And what scares me the most is that it’s these same narratives that police and lawyers are using in court to try to convince the jury to find one way or the other. A jury who is basically like the audience of Dateline, a jury who is probably made up of a lot of people who watch Dateline, influenced by Dateline in the way their mind works, susceptible to the same narratives, the same rhetoric, and the same gaps in the story that get withheld. I guess it’s the paradox that gets me. The same way that the Datelines of the world play with the facts and distort the truth to create a false narrative to entertain–that’s actually what makes them a good case study in how our judicial system works, except with lawyers and judges as producers and hosts and jury members as the viewers trying to sort out all the false narratives and rhetorical fallacies to figure out the facts. As someone who writes stories and teaches rhetoric, that’s why this all is so interesting to me and also so disturbing with its real life implications.

Today I’m the friend getting interviewed on Dateline because nobody in the family will actually do the interview.

Today I can tell you what was going on in the minds of the family members and my childhood best friend Amy, the one who… you know… went missing. 

And though I hadn’t spoken to her in seven years, I can still wipe my tears with the best of them. Just ask me to pull out our fourth grade year book or confirmation photos.

Or rather, today I am the second cousin.

No, today I’m co-worker.

Today I can say, That’s just how Trudy was. She’d give you the shirt off her back. She was the belle of the ball. She’d light up the room. She was a good Christian woman. She didn’t have an enemy in the world.

She never would’ve left her kids like that.

Today I can say that the Brad I know would’ve never done something so evil to Trudy. He was a good god-fearing man. He was the gentle giant. He used to cry when he saw stray cats. He loved Trudy more than anything in the world save his kids.

Today I can tell you this for sure: he never would’ve done that in front of his kids. 

I can say: he was just the most polite quiet neighbor you’ll meet.

Or: he was straight evil, I knew it from the start.

Or: he always waved when I’d walk by with my Rufus.

Or: you never can tell, can ya.

Or: oh I could tell something wasn’t quite right, I’ve watched them y’all’s show a time or two.

Or:

Today I can tell you what my aunt Maggie told me about her cousin Ginny who talked to her best friend Molly who used to cut her hair. 

I can tell you what their yearbook quote was and who they were voted most likely to be.

I can sit and talk and talk and swoon a little at Keith Morrison’s eyes and convince myself that I’m doing this all to keep the memory of my best friend from fourth grade alive. 

I’ll tell you this, I’ll tell you: that was me, you never would’ve caught me dead looking like that while behaving like that all the while the whole town knows good and well the way you been parading around this way and that way and thinking nobody’d ever dream of doing that to you.

I’ll tell you this, I’ll tell you I might not know much, but I know this much is true. 

Good people don’t do evil things like that to people they love. 

Good people don’t wind up dead/murdered/murdering/raping/molesting/raped/molested/kidnapped/etc etc unless they had it coming.

I know because today I’m a good person, just you ask anybody around here.

***

Drevlow runs BULL and writes books about mostly the same bull stuff. He lives in Statesboro, GA with his nonfiction wife and three trash dogs. You can stalk him online at thedrevlow-olsonshow.com or on twitter, insta, face, bsky, & threads @thedrevlow.

A locket shaped like a book, metal pages empty, tarnished black ovals where someone—my parents?—should have been.

The All New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook, published 1962. In that same book, shoved between Jerusalem Artichokes and French-Fried Asparagus, a recipe card. Title in my mother’s cursive: “Green Walnut Preserves.” The rest, blank.

The satin heels I wore to prom, coffined in tissue paper.

My father’s funeral program, October 1988.

A letter my younger brother sent from summer camp in western New York, August 1988. From its folds, a curlicue of paper, soft with smeared graphite, falls to my feet. My brother always enclosed sketches. Birds, mostly: chickadees and yellowthroats. My mother pinned them to the cork board in the kitchen. Sometimes I’d catch her there, feather duster or garbage bag or limp rag in hand, eyes roving over the strokes of my brother’s pencil.

More sketches. I call to ask if he wants them.

“I don’t want any of her junk,” he replies.

That summer it had been my job to reply to his letters. My mother only learned English as a teenager; her grammar mistakes embarrassed her. “When you write him,” she enjoined, “don’t mention the news.” The sour smell of my father’s skin, the hard plastic of the kidney-shaped basin by his bedside. “I want him to have his camp.”

I gashed my drafts with red crosshatch, excising tumors until the page was blank. None made it to the mailbox. My mother has to break the news on the drive back from camp. We park at a rest stop. I sit up front. In the rearview mirror I watch my brother’s face curdle, his birds recast as evidence of exclusion from familial crisis, the first of many grievances to come. In a few years he will throw a platter at my mother and shout that he hates her. But now we pass the rest of the trip in silence. My mother drives the speed limit exactly, brakes before every turn—the slightest jostle could crack us apart.

***

Catherine Swanner is a writer in Michigan. She studied history at Rutgers University, and works as a UX researcher. Find her online: catherineswanner.com

We recently published Holly Pelesky’s charming “Working Class Date Suggestions.”

Here, we ask her two questions about her story:

1) I love these dates. These are wonderful dates. I want to go on these dates. Have you gone on any of them? I also want to go on these dates! The only one I’ve had with a romantic partner is Dan did break open his aloe vera plant to rub its goo onto my sunburn once. Although I haven’t gone on the rest of these dates as romantic dates with a potential partner, I do have a friend who is up for anything who has indulged me in some of these details. She and I have this enormous respect for each other that I would like to have with a partner one day; she is a catalyst for me to dream of the biggest love. 

2) Though we never really meet the characters here, we get a sense of their fondness for each other through the description of the dates they could go on. Do you think they will last? (I hope they will last!)  Oh they will definitely last. To me this is a construction of a very close couple, one who admires and desires each other. These two people live in the world together. They are not threatened by what it could bring their way. 

Let’s eat banana splits at the Dairy Queen that used to be an Amigos and let’s quarrel over whose better at quarters and challenge the other to a game, not because it matters at all but because we want to watch each other’s hands work.

Let’s dangle our feet in the pool while a quiet rain begins and we’ll riff off each other’s thoughts and birth deeper and more considerate ones together, the water whooshing between our toes as we swirl patterns into the water, the quiet rain landing on our skin delicate as sleep.

Let’s roll up a joint of Gouda and see how it inhales.

Let’s go to a diner and eat greasy eggs and suck down cokes and talk about what your tattoos mean, whose been to jail, what we never got caught for, the stupid drugs we did, the shady characters we knew and were and then let’s forgive ourselves and get tattoos that mean nothing and everything.

Or we could just eat quesadillas and watch sour cream drip down each other’s face.

Let’s meet at the coffee shop, share a scone, and make up stories about every person who walks in, shared in hushed excitement.

Let’s get high and listen intently to song lyrics while holding hands, commentate on the secret desires of these characters, our secret desires revealing themselves through the stories we tell each other.

Let’s go sit on the river bottom and watch the foam float by us while the moon brightens and the sun dims, wondering whether the motorboats speeding by are owned or stolen, crafting the particulars of how we’d pull off a boat heist.

But if you can’t swim, you should get in my car instead, turn up the music. We’ll sing along to every song—let’s see how far we make it until we run out of gas.

You’ll need a life vest if you were serious about the boat heist.

Let’s get high and write postcards to everyone we love, lick stamps and slyly leave some on each other without us noticing until we take our clothes off and there they are, little 51 cent I love yous, little you send mes.

Let’s lie naked together and listen to songs until they course through our bloodstreams, touch each other in just that way until our bloodstreams feel like just one, coursing through us both.

Let’s break open your aloe plant and smear the goo on our sunburns, it’s so cold, my skin is electric underneath your fingertips.

Let’s get corndogs and strawberry limeades and dip our feet into the river. I know it’s rising and there’s a flood warning but think what it would feel like to watch the banks fill to the brim like that next to me, both of us all hopped up on pheromones—everything more and more and more.

If you’re still squeamish of water—even after that time you were almost swimming—let’s sneak a charcuterie spread into the movie theater, spread soft cheeses on pffts of bread while we watch a story unfold on a screen, slide rolled up pieces of prosciutto into open mouths, lips wet with want to discuss the plot and dialogue and acting after—you are my favorite critic.

***

Holly Pelesky writes essays, fiction and poetry. She received her MFA from the University of Nebraska. Her prose can be found in CutBank, The Normal School, and Roanoke Review, among other places. Her collection of letters to her daughter, Cleave, was published by Autofocus Books. She works as a librarian for her first job, in a college writing center for her second. She lives in Omaha with her two sons and their indoor/outdoor cat. She is not dating at the moment, but vouches for all these ideas. 

You must remember these few things if nothing else. Pay attention. You are always drifting away.

Do not leave the house without a basket of fresh pastries. Stop to pick the flowers, but not if you’re wearing a short skirt. Bring a friend when you’re headed into the forest. Or at least set your phone to share your coordinates with others. 

Trust your instincts. If that guy seems to be a wolf wearing shorts with suspenders, keep moving. Look at his feet. Is he barefoot? Does he have claw-like toenails?

You should already know not to talk to strangers. Do you not pay attention at all? Where does this willful naivety come from?

You want to believe in magic, and maybe in your experience, a fairy godmother has appeared at just the right time to turn the mice infestation into a carriage and footmen, your rags into a gown, your knotted hair into a swooping bun with wispy tendrils. Don’t count on magic to save you. If you want out, make a plan that does not involve you singing and gazing out of the window. If you are stuck in a tower (and who of us has not been stuck in a tower), don’t focus on how long your hair is, and don’t, you know, throw it over the window for any old woodsman to climb up. Aside from being dangerous, that is so bad for your scalp.

Let’s face it, you have a tendency to fall in love fast, we know this about you, so take a step back, and ponder, Do you love him, or do you love how much he loves you? And does he love you or is he smitten by your beauty and kindness and beautiful singing voice? Your tight bodice, your locks of gold/black/never brown? The enchantment doesn’t last, my friend, so be sure before you accept his hand in marriage under the cover of night, hustled away by your father, lest you find yourself alone in a drafty stone bedroom with musty smelling sheets and an animal curled around you in the four-poster bed.

Consider the stepmother. We know she’s jealous, though if we could take a moment here: ask yourself why. She’s got your father as her husband; she’s got the house—what is her problem? 

On the other hand, you should also be wary of the witches, those with the shiny red apples. Someone should have taught you—there’s poison inside.

And what about these men? Yes, they can chop down a door with two swings of an ax, setting you free from the wolf’s stomach or the witch’s oven, but just because they saved you doesn’t mean you owe them anything more than a curtsy. Of course, they also have the castle, and probably horses (we know you like horses).  But they can be moody and mysterious, secretive, giving you access to all their riches save one room. 

Why is it you must always long to see behind the locked door, when you have everything else you could ever want?

You are meant to be more than simply a house cleaner for small miners. You are more than a figure for bluebirds to perch on. You don’t have to lie and say you can do something (spin straw into gold), be something (a princess instead of a house maid) or see something (clothes on a ridiculous man) when you cannot, are not, do not. 

Take stock. You’re young, strong, possibly brave. What other things might you want despite the man, the apple, the candy on the windowsill, the secret behind the door? 

You think it ends with “happily ever after,” but life continues. Your feet start to hurt in those shoes. It gets difficult to smile. You have thoughts—dark ones, mean ones, jealous thoughts, hope for bad things to happen to happy people. You are in danger not just of aging and dying, but of feeding those thoughts so that you become the stepmother or the witch.

Do not be only good, pure, thoughtful. Be also ruthless, greedy, cunning. 

Look to the wolf. What does it do? Follow the creature’s lead. In that way, you may prosper. 

***

Aimee LaBrie’s short stories have appeared in the The Minnesota Review, Iron Horse Literary Review, StoryQuarterly, Cimarron Review, Fractured Lit, Pleiades, Beloit Fiction Journal, Permafrost Magazine, and others. Her second short story collection, Rage and Other Cages, won the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize and was published by Leapfrog Press in June 2024. In 2007, her short story collection, Wonderful Girl, was awarded the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and published by the University of North Texas Press. Her short fiction has been nominated five times for the Pushcart Prize. Aimee teaches creative writing at Rutgers University.