Biff and Mary: Chapter Eleven

Welcome to the next chapter of Biff and Mary! 

(please click here for all previous chapters)

Today's installment will include our usual shallow-but-lovable characters, extraneous description, and unnecessary and unfortunate alliteration. It will also serve as an example of  an ill-advised authorial decision to build an entire chapter out of one very brief moment -- but hopefully with a bit of humor as well.  ;)

Hope you enjoy! 

Chapter Eleven:  In Which There Are Screams, Stumbles, and Stubbornly Stuck Posteriors

It occurred to Mary that she had never heard quite such an exceedingly high-pitched tone emanate from Biff’s roguishly handsome lips before. 

The sound that escaped her beloved as Poopsie’s perfectly white, perfectly sharp canines punctured the pad of his thumb reminded her briefly of the piercingly shrill sounds of the first grade playground at Mayfield Elementary, when she and the other six-year-old girls made a game of trying to shriek as loudly as they could. She’d won most of those squealing contests, she recalled, but hearing Biff now she wondered whether she’d overestimated her own elocutionary talents.

As the sound of Biff’s involuntary scream faded, Mary shook herself out of her shock and dismay enough to stumble two steps backward with her suddenly ferocious pup. Regrettably, one of her many unpacked boxes sat approximately one and one half steps behind her and thus the result of her movement caused her to fall unceremoniously backward, and her backside wedged firmly inside the now-broken top of the box, cushioned by the various sheets, towels and fripperies within. She had barely a moment to be grateful that she’d landed in the linens box, rather than the one containing her grandmother’s crystal, before Poopsie darted from her arms.  Mary let out her own startled scream, immediately realizing that it didn’t even come close to the high pitch and duration of Biff’s, but deciding that perhaps it didn’t matter, considering her precious pup’s peril and the precariously perched position of her posterior.

What did matter, she soon realized, was that the moment she tripped, Biff intuitively moved toward her to attempt to break her fall, and Poopsie elected to continue her proactive efforts to protect Mary from the intruder by charging toward Biff’s feet with a ferocious and determined little snarl, clamping onto the hem of his fashionably expensive relaxed vintage blue jeans from Banana Republic.  Much to Mary’s chagrin, Biff instinctively shook her off, and her little Poopsie took flight across the misty green ceramic tiled foyer floor, spinning around in a blur of pastel pink fluff until she came to a stop in the corner by the door, her landing cushioned by the small pile of newspapers Mary had placed there prior to taking them out to the recycling bin.

The brief, sudden silence that ensued was broken by all three of them simultaneously, with Poopsie’s yelp of surprise overshadowed at once by Biff’s horrified exclamation of “Good Heavens! Is she all right?” and Mary’s equally horrified shriek of “Poopsie! My baby!” 

Hastily dropping Mary’s hand, Biff started toward the stunned dog, inadvertently dumping Mary back into the box of linens, where her bottom settled more firmly in amongst the pale yellow 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and plush towels.

Biff stopped in his tracks, however, apparently thinking better of once again approaching the protective pup. He glanced back at Mary, who had by then managed to tip the box onto its side and was clumsily trying to scramble out, arms waving wildly, her plum-colored pedal pusher clad legs scissoring swiftly as her two and one-half-inch cork heels struggled to find purchase on the tiled floor.  Biff glanced at the little pink dog, then back to pink-faced Mary, then the dog, finally settling on Mary and hurrying back to her.

Once Biff had freed her from the box, Mary silently collected a decidedly more sedate Poopsie from the corner and brought her through the house to the back door. She settled her out in the fenced-in yard with several toys, bones and murmured endearments before turning back to her beloved, bitten Biff with concern and apologies.

“No, Mary, it was my fault. I never thought…”

“It’s all right Biff. I assure you, she has never…”

“I hope I didn’t hurt the poor little…”

“No, no…she’s okay, it’s just she’s so light, barely weighs anything really, and she just hasn’t been eating well lately…maybe that’s why she’s so out of sorts…”

“I’m so relieved I didn’t hurt her – “

“Oh, Biff!” Mary interrupted, suddenly burying her face in her perfectly manicured hands as she burst into tears.

Biff’s mouth dropped open, shocked and stymied by this new turn in an already tumultuous course of unanticipated and disconcerting events.

“Mary…?”

Mary wiped at her eyes with one of the Bounty lunch napkins from the pile she’d gathered to dab at Biff’s pierced thumb, hiccuping as she tried to control her emotions. The realization that her morning makeup application was likely completely ruined by now did nothing to improve her current outlook.

“I just…I was so looking forward to having you here, letting you meet my precious Poopsie at last, and I just knew the two of you would love each other, and now it’s all…it’s all just…just ruined!”  She drew in a shaky, hiccuping breath, and then his arms were around her and thoughts of Poopsie fled her mind in a flash.

“Hush, darling,” Biff murmured into her hair. “Nothing is ruined…well, perhaps my jeans are rather tattered at the moment, as well as Manuel's rush manicure from earlier this morning…though it’s just one digit, I suppose…but still, I wouldn’t say that anything is so terribly ruined…”

Mary hiccuped again, but reveled nonetheless in the warm, masculine embrace of her beau, who smelled appropriately musky and citrusy and woodsy from his Burberry Sport cologne, which suited him perfectly, of course. Mary inhaled and sighed loudly, the sort of sigh one sighs when basking in the love of a good, manly-smelling man, and tilted her head back just enough to gaze lovingly into his eyes, pointedly ignoring the remains of the blemish, visible due to the recent smudging of the Revlon Cover-It-Up Concealer in Light/Medium that he’d applied this morning. She closed her eyes and felt his warm, minty-fresh Scope breath just before his lips met hers…

…to be continued…

Will Biff and Mary’s romantic moment prevail, or will their comedy of errors continue?

Will Poopsie persist in her petulance?

Will boxes be unpacked and satchels opened?
Tune in next time! :)




Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net.