“Out of Sight” is one of those fully-realized pieces in my story/character universe for which, for some reason, I can’t seem to find a place. It was a chapter in an unpublished novel that I drafted, and I decided that it worked as a stand-alone story, so I published part of it in a literary journal; then published the whole work as a Kindle short story. Meanwhile, though, I took elements of that unpublished work and incorporated them into two other published works, my novel You Don’t Think She Is and my serialized novel Meeting Dennis Wilson.
The part of me that wants to adhere to canon asks myself where “Out of Sight” fits into the timeline of those two (and other) works, but as far as my storyline goes, canon has been pretty much shot long ago. So I’m left with this stray story about which I’m uncertain in so many ways: does it fit the timeline, or the stories that I’ve published, or, or, or, or, or.
I’ve just decided that the best way to answer these questions is just to leave it out there, and let readers decide. If they like it and it works for them, then that’s enough.
Here’s an excerpt (the opening page-or-so of the story, actually).
As soon as I saw the bag, I knew that it was serious.
No, actually, when I saw the bag, the first thing I thought was “What in the hell is that??!!” It was sitting at my place on the kitchen table when I got home from school the Tuesday after the breakup: one of those big, plastic-handled heavy-duty white paper shopping bags that they sold out of racks for a dime a piece at department stores like the Bon Ton, Wanamakers, Gimbels, Penney’s…
…or Woodward and Lothrup.
Christy’s Dad always took her and Kathy and their Mom to Woody’s when they went down to visit him in DC.
So… it was something from Christy.
Maybe a gift. Or, seeing as the bag was stuffed so full it was almost round, several gifts.
How nice.
I approached the bag hesitantly, almost sneaking up on it. I felt like I didn’t want to get too close… I mean, what if it went off?
Closer… didn’t see any wires… closer… right on top of it now… I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to see what was inside, but I stood next to it and peeked in the top.
O.K…. I saw grey twill… which would be… a sweatshirt… and… the maroon bill of a Phillies cap… my Phillies cap… or rather the one I gave to Christy… the one that she wore like it was hers but it was mine and she knew it and she wanted to know it… except now it seemed like it was mine again and she wanted me to know it.
I stood next to the table, exhaled, and I swear, just as I was thinking “When did she leave this?” the Omniscient Voice Of Mom rang out from some unseen corner of the house.
“Christy dropped that bag on the porch after school, Brian.”
O.K. I’d kind of pictured her just tossing it out the window of the bug onto our driveway as she cruised by, so that’s good, anyway…
Max Harrick Shenk, writer 
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