Guetapens
Dime Show Review
Second place winners don’t get much press.
Yet, when a Florida student misspelled schwarmerei* and placed second in the 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee, the local press - with excessive, unbridled enthusiasm* - ran with the feel-good story. Before anyone could spell supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, the megapolis known as the Orlando area learned the tricky spelling of the winning word.
Guetapens.**
Perhaps tricky for the judges as well. The spelling bee aficionado stood by the microphone a few longish seconds before the judges - perhaps caught in an ambush** of guetapens e’s and a’s - officially proclaimed the finalist as the first place winner.
As a writer, I embraced the potential use of the French word guetapens, yet to this day, remain a phobic spell-checker of the unusual word.
“Guetapens” appeared online at Dime Show Review (9/14/2017) and also, the Dime Show Review print anthology (Vol. 2, Issue 3. (12/17/2017).
I received the acceptance while on a road trip to Mount Rushmore. Grateful then and grateful now, I thank you, editor Kae Sable.
Trigger warning for the highly protective mother voice aka my ancestral maternal line whispering over each other in my ear.
Thank you for reading.
Guetapens
She nearly ripped off my eyelashes with one good yank of the daisy top sheet. “What in the world is going on here?” my mother says.
The neighbor’s daughter slips off the side of the bed and into her jeans. “Hey, Miss Patsy,” she says, pulling the hem of her camisole to meet the waist.
“Go home, Sondra.” Mama tosses my field of daisies across the room. “Just go on home. I’ll speak to your mother later.”
“Yes ma’am,” she says and slips out the door.
I rub the sting from my eyes. “Mama. What are you doing?”
“Mr. Innocent. All nestled up, face tucked in the sheets like a newborn baby.” She clatters open the blinds and turns on me. “Get up out of that bed and help me toss this mattress on the curb.” She reaches for the glass of water perched on the bedside table and baptizes my good looks with one good fling.
I jump from the bed. “Mama, have you gone crazy?”
“I told you not to fool with that girl, any girl for that matter. You’re going to make it out of this town if it kills me and it just might at this rate. Now grab hold.”
‘What am I supposed to sleep on?”
“You should’ve thought about that before. I’m done talking. Get up!”
I throw on my shirt, patting myself dry as the cotton slides the length of my chest. “You’re killing me, Mama. You know that? With a capital K,” and I grab hold.
She was right. But then, Mama was always right. All girls wanted around these parts was to get their hooks into some guy, have a kid and sit on the front porch rocking away watching the wood rot, but man oh man, I did so enjoy messing with the bait. I put my shoulder into the mattress and told Mama to stand clear. The dull ache radiates within my right shoulder, separated during football practice my junior year, a quick pop and lock fix, but enough to set my fear and send the college scouts running.
Nothing looked lonelier than a Sealey out on the curb, other than perhaps a screwed high school running back with his arm bound in a sling, sitting on a bench out front of the ER, waiting for his mother to pick him up. I rub the pain away and count back upheavals. This was the third mattress in as many months, sitting out on this very curb.
I knew the drill. I’d sleep it out on the couch, knowing full well before I headed out to school in a couple of months, a new mattress would magically appear with brand new daisy sheets, as if nothing had ever happened. Mama wanted her baby well rested for his first year of college.
“Well, that’s that,” she said, dusting off her hands. “Shouldn’t you be studying your spelling?”
“Seriously? No. I won the scholarship. You sat there and watched me win, Mama. I don’t need to practice anymore.”
She gives her head a little shake. “Well, I think you should. You just never know, best to be ready, for some sort of pop quiz.” She walks back toward the house and calls over her shoulder. “Those who giveth can certainly taketh away.”
The whole spelling bee deal had been a fluke of sorts, though I’d always been a good speller. Letters drop like Scrabble tiles in my head when I spell. Pretty fair reader to boot and my English teacher knew it, though I tried to keep my literate side under wraps. She kept at me to enter the Scripps-lite local deal for high school seniors with no chance in hell for a college scholarship so late in the game, but in the end, extra tutor time sneaking glances at her long legs helped make my d-e-c-i-s-i-o-n.
I found myself the day before Mama’s morning wake-up call competing in the last round of the bee finals with a kid from a high school across town. His name was Marshall and he looked ready to win. I was ready to let him. I had plans to meet up with Sondra in a couple of hours.
Marshall repeated the word back to the pronouncer. “Guetapens.” I sighed inside my head as prompted beforehand not to display any sort of emotion. I sneaked a glance at the clock. Simple words like this, we’d be here all day.
“Definition please?”
“Guetapens means ambush or trap.” I looked at my shoes. Yep, I thought. Exactly what I was beginning to think of this whole shindig.
“Language of origin?”
“French.”
“Are there any alternate pronunciations?”
“Just the one.”
“Part of speech?” Marshall asked.
“Noun.”
“Could you please repeat the word?”
For Chissakes, I thought.
“Guetapens.”
Marshall looked out in the crowd, waiting for his tiles to drop.
“Guetapens. G-u-e-t-a-p-a-n-s. Guetapens.”
Ding.
“What?” Marshall shook his head in disbelief at the error bell and hangdogged it back beside me.
I looked at my mother, as close to a stand as a chair will allow and stepped up to the podium. It might cost Mama another mattress, but I thought how Sondra might congratulate me if I put a fork in guetapens and won this thing.
C-o-r-r-e-c-t on all counts.
Fun story and I learned a new word!