09/07/2023
LITTLE RAE OF SUNSHINE
A short story
Dudley feared his marriage to Rae was in serious trouble. For the past three years, he felt his wife drifting away.
One night, with Rae sleeping on the couch, Dudley hit his knees,alone in the bedroom, and tenderly prayed for God to help him heal his withering marriage.
The following morning, Dudley’s boss gave him a special assignment. Dudley worked as a security guard and, on that day, the governor planned to visit the local hospital. So, Dudley’s boss sent him to the hospital to provide extra security for the occasion.
As Dudley walked the halls of the hospital to do a routine scan of the perimeter, he passed a room with a little, blonde haired girl sitting on the bed. All alone in the room, the girl seemed to be lost in concentration, as she ran a tiny brush through the hair of a Barbie doll that was sitting on the bed in front of her.
Dudley was stricken by the sight of the girl because she looked astonishingly similar to pictures he had seen of Rae, from when she was a child.
Dudley lingered in the doorway of the girl’s suite. Looking up from her doll, the girl said, “Hello.”
“Hello to you,” Dudley said in return. “Sorry if I startled you. It’s just that you remind me of another girl I know. She liked playing with Barbies too.”
“I collect them,” the girl boasted. “I have two of this one. My grandparents bought them for me yesterday. I play with one of them and the other one I am going to keep in its box for my collection.”
“That’s wonderful,” said Dudley. “What’s your name?”
“My mom says I am not supposed to tell strangers my name,” the girl replied, once again brushing her doll’s hair.
“Well, that’s good advice,” Dudley said. “My name is Dudley.”
The girl covered her mouth with her hand and giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Dudley asked.
“Dudley is a funny name,” the girl answered, continuing to giggle.
“Yeah,” Dudley admitted, “I really should come up with a nickname… something like Butch or Bruiser; a tough guy nickname.”
“Nooo,” the girl responded, with an amused growl, “you don’t look like a Bruiser. You look like a Dudley.”
“Ah, who am I kidding?” Dudley said, chuckling, “You’re right.”
“Well, okay,” the girl continued, “since we’re not strangers anymore, I can tell you that my name is Rae.”
Dudley’s face flushed ghostly pale. He realized in that moment that this girl did not simply resemble Rae, but she was the precise image, from the shape of her eyebrows to the shape of her smile; even the way she said that drawn out “nooo” with a growl, when she was being silly. Everything was spot on, including her name.
“Since we’re not strangers anymore,” Rae said, “can I have a dollar?”
Now, Dudley was certain, without a doubt, that this was the little girl version of his wife.
“Why do you need a dollar?” Dudley asked, trying to stifle the shocked shaking of his voice.
“I’m saving up to buy a video game,” Rae replied. “I have twenty dollars, but the game costs forty.”
Dudley removed his backpack, which he used to tote his personal belongings, from his shoulders, sat it on the floor beside Rae’s bed, and fished his wallet from one of the side pockets.
“Here,” he said, as he reached a twenty-dollar bill to Rae, “now you have enough for your game.”
“Wow!” Rae’s face lit up with glee, “a whole twenty dollars! Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. Ironically, I am probably going to have to explain to my wife what I spent it on.”
“Hey,” Rae chirped, “would you like to have some Spaghetti-Ohs and ham?”
“Spaghetti-Ohs and ham?” Dudley asked, surprised.
“Yep,” said Rae. “I like Spaghetti-Ohs and ham. I have some if you want some.”
“No thank you,” Dudley politely replied.
“You said you know another girl who likes Barbies. What is her name? Where does she go to school?”
“Oh, she doesn’t go to school,” Dudley said. “Actually, I was talking about my wife. She used to have a big Barbie collection. She started collecting them when she was a little girl.”
“Why doesn’t she have them anymore?” Rae asked.
“Well… we needed money, so she had to sell them,” Dudley confessed. “Hey, Rae, let me ask you something. Let’s say Barbie was mad at Ken. What are some things Ken could do to make her happy… to make her not mad at him anymore?”
“Hmmm,” Rae responded, holding her finger to her lips and staring up at the ceiling in deep thought. “I don’t know. What did Ken do to make her mad?”
“Well, let’s say Ken quit his job and developed a drinking problem.”
“Oh, that’s pretty bad,” Rae said. “He would have to get another job and stop drinking.”
“He did,” Dudley confirmed. “But Barbie is still mad at him. What do you think he can do to make her not mad at him anymore?”
Rae tapped her finger against her lips, cyphering the situation, then she said, “He needs to treat her like a princess every day, and he needs to feed her ice cream, and he needs to take her to Disney World.”
“Really?” Dudley asked. “That’s it?”
“Yep,” Rae answered, “I figure that will do it.”
“Hmmm… thanks.” Dudley said. “I have to be downstairs in like five minutes, so I gotta go. But it’s been nice talking to you, Rae. You are a charming girl. Has anyone ever called you Little Rae of Sunshine?”
“Oh my goodness!” she growled. “I get called that all the time. I hate it.”
“I thought so,” Dudley said with a smirk. “Bye, bye, Rae.”
Dudley’s legs were so weak, he could barely walk down the hallway. Over and over in his mind, he kept saying, “This isn’t real. This isn’t real.” But Dudley received a reminder that indeed the girl was not merely a figment of his imagination, when he heard her call to him from outside her door.
“Dudley, you forgot your backpack!”
He returned to her room and fetched his backpack. “Thanks,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” she replied. “I will see you later.”
Pondering the poignancy of her salutation, Dudley said, “Yes, I will see you later.”
With that, he was gone, off to guard the governor.
When lunchtime rolled around, Dudley unzipped his backpack to retrieve his sandwich, and there, inside the backpack, was Rae’s extra Barbie doll; the one she kept in its packaging for her collection. Dudley rushed back upstairs to return the doll, but when he arrived at her room, no one was there. There was no record of a girl occupying that room and the nurses on that floor could not remember seeing her. It was as if the girl never existed. Yet the doll Dudley held in his hands was very much real.
That evening, when Dudley returned home, his wife sat stretched out on the sofa, watching a movie. Her face glowed with delight, when Dudley presented her with a pineapple sundae.
“Oh my goodness, what a lovely surprise!” she exclaimed.
“I brought home dinner too,” Dudley boasted, “Spaghetti-Ohs and ham.”
Rae cast a puzzled expression.
“I’m kidding,” Dudley said. “I bought your favorite, Chinese food.”
“Wow, I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
“I got something else for you.”
Dudley handed Rae the doll. Her breath escaped her, and for a moment, Dudley thought she was going to cry.
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “This doll has to be like 30 years old. This is the first Barbie doll I ever owned, and it’s in perfect condition. Where did you find this?”
“I have an inside connection,” Dudley said with a smile. “That’s the least I can do for my princess. And, I have been thinking. We need to go on a trip. We never get to go anywhere. What better place is there for a princess to go than Disney World?”
“Nooo,” she growled, “are you serious? We can’t afford a trip to Disney World?”
“Rae, this is America. When has not being able to afford something ever stopped anybody from doing it?”
Rae sat up on the sofa, eating her sundae and rocking back and forth in thought.
“Bring me the laptop,” she said. “Let’s take a look at some of the packages they offer at Disney World and maybe start planning.”
Dudley grabbed the laptop and sat on the sofa beside her. For the rest of the evening, all the way up until midnight, they lounged next to each other, surfing the web and watching movies, with his arm around her and her head resting on his shoulder.
