“Come with me, babe,” she said, smoothing the greasy hair at the edge of my face. Her finger brushed a zit in the midst of my stubble and it hurt, man, like she’d stabbed a needle deep in my skin. People tell you a lot of shit about being a teenager but never that it’s going to hurt, physically. She’d beckoned me outside my school building, while I was waiting for a bus that never comes on time. She pulled up alongside the curb where the rich moms park to get their rich kids. The top was down on her white convertible, her red hair hidden by a hat that scooped it into a bundle at the back of her neck. I leaned over the side of her car. She smelled like roses. Everyone was watching….
Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam’s fiction and poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in magazines such as The Toast, Room, Hobart, SmokeLong Quarterly, and PRISM International. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast program and curates the annual Art & Words Show in Fort Worth, Texas. She lives with her partner and two literarily-named cats: Gimli and Don Quixote. You can visit her on Twitter @BonnieJoStuffle or through her website: bonniejostufflebeam.com. Bonnie is represented by Ann Collette of Rees Literary.
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About Eckleburg
The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review is a print and digital literary journal. We offer original fiction — short stories, short short stories, hybrid—poetry and nonfiction. We also curate The Eckleburg Gallery — visual artwork and intermedia — as well The Groove including first released, original music by The Size Queens. Our archives include emerging and established writers, poets, artists, musicians and performers such as Rick Moody, Cris Mazza, Eurydice, Steve Almond, Stephen Dixon, Moira Egan, David Wagoner, Zach Galifianakis and many more. We run annual print issues, The Eckleburg Reading Series (DC, Baltimore, Chicago, New York….), as well as, the annual Gertrude Stein Award in Fiction with a first prize of $1000 and print publication.
