I finished NaNo WriMo with Cat's Paw Mountain two days early, at 53,000 words.
I wish I could remember everything I wrote, but I am confidant there were complete sentences in the text... somewhere. :)
It makes me happy to know I have a rough draft of this one, one I've been trying to get down on paper for quite some time. There is another like this one that's been waiting in the wings much longer. I wonder if that will be this November's.
It's another historical piece, so the time to start researching is now.
Speaking of historical pieces, "The Anchoress" is trudging along extremely well. Hit the half-way mark on the second draft, and I plan to wrap it up by the summer (at the latest).
As more chapters finalize, they will appear on the WordPress site for Anchoress. The ones I am not so happy about, will remain tucked away on the Word document until they they tell me 2+2 is 5.
Or that there are 4 lights.
Either way. :)
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The Empty Playground
A closer look at Lavender. She is a small nod to my dad. There were lavender bushes planted outside my old home in VA. This was while I was in high school. There were also cherry blossom trees planted down the street of my neighborhood. I miss those a lot.
I love how personal writing can be sometimes. I try not to always make it personal, I feel like I stray into non-fiction realms at that point. But occasionally, I love having something that I can connect to. I love being able to share that connection with readers, too. It feels like another way of having a conversation.
***
Lavender woke up before her parents, and moved through the silent house. She finished packing, she took a shower, shaved her legs, and resisted the urge to scratch the invigorating facial mask she rubbed over her cheeks, chin, and forehead. While the mask dried, she checked her email, and then washed away the exfoliating beads and melon extract from her face. Lavender tugged on a pair of track shortsShe went for the stairs, and heard her parents mumbling and giggling behind their bedroom door. Lavender rolled her eyes, and went down the stairs. The second he saw her, Nemo sprang from his mat by the TV.
“Hey, boy,” she ruffled his ears, and made sure she scratched him under his collar. “You wanna go for a walk before our super boring trip? Huh? Yeah!” Lavender excited him, and he gave a happy bark. Her sarcastic joy was stripped away for a legitimate laugh. “Sh. Sh. Sh. Let’s not bug them.” She attached the leash to his collar and led him out the front door.
The mornings and evenings were the only times Lavender could run comfortably in the summer. She did not run as many races or charity events in the summer, simply because she was tired of the heat stroke. She more than made up for it with events like the Warrior Dash in the autumn, and a few of the 5Ks and 8Ks in the spring. Mornings and evenings to herself were cherished, Lavender had always been such a private person. The only friend whoever joined her on these routine runs was at her side, jogging with her on four paws with his big pink tongue lagging out of his mouth.
The street was lined with cherry blossom trees that panned their pink and white colors by. An evening rain made the asphalt shimmer, but those dark clouds had since moved on and left a velvet dark blue sky in its wake. The sun was about to peek over the rooftops and the trees, and in no time Lavender’s parents would be arguing about how they got up too late and now they had to deal with traffic.
Lavender understood that these trips were family tradition, that she would probably make the trip to Cat’s Paw Mountain with her own children someday, or maybe some unforeseen partner, but right now Lavender was not sentimental. She wanted to spend the last couple weeks of summer with her friends. They were all off on so many adventures. Janey was in Australia, doing a walkabout with her pen pal. Lily was fulfilling a dream she’d had since Freshman year; she was traveling around Europe, staying in hostels, visiting places Lavender had yet to see. The only chance she had to see any of them was now, but her parents were insistent. They had already had one fight about it… and since then Lavender had officially written them and the rest of the trip off.
She knew it was important to them. A part of her was resentful that it was not as exciting anymore, that it had lost its value. That thought hurt more than any other. She remembered, when she was little, loving Cat’s Paw Mountain. Now it was just a boring camp site, with a boring diner attached to an old, boring lodge, that she would be serving boring food at because her boring parents had made some boring deal with the boring owners. Sure, it was a way to earn money, but what would she even buy? A new iPod to take with her on her runs? Maybe. A new pair of shoes…? Those she needed, she gave in on that argument with Sam, but the whole point of summer was to relax and repair before the school year. Not take dumb orders from the people who remembered her when she “was only this high”.
Lavender’s jog ended at the elementary school not far from her house. The woods lined a big field that boasted a basketball court and a playground. The basketball rims were old and rusty, bent and ready to fall off. The asphalt was cracked and weeds grew through the stones and chipping paint. The playground was one of those old, wooden structures that gave kids more splinters than enjoyment, and it had one of those big metal slides that cooked under a hot sun, just waiting to burn some unsuspecting child’s legs. The sandbox had not been played in, so not a single grain was out of place. There were some leaves and twigs scattered across the top, a sign of failed maintenance, or maybe just the passage of time. If Lavender did not know better, she would have sworn this playground had been here for years, waiting to be played with again. It was not that the place had gone untouched; it was that the place seemed forgotten. Like it had seen years of children playing pirates, cowboys, cops and robbers, Knights of the Round Table only… to see them move on and grow up.
The thought was deep and soul shaking. Nemo’s bark brought her out of her reverie though, and Lavender offered him an uncertain smile.
“You want to head back?”
He wagged his tail, and took a seat at her feet. His mouth shut, but then opened again to keep panting. His tongue hung over the side of his teeth and he looked up at her with unconditional love. She dropped to one knee in front of him and stroked him with excited, devoted pets. He caved to the affection, and rolled on his back. Lavender rubbed his belly, and then clapped her hands.
“Let’s go, boy! Let’s go!”
They were off, running back to the house as fast as they could as the sun started to rise, and cast shadows over the abandoned playground. Lavender had worked up a shimmering sweat and ravenous appetite by the time she came back. David was loading the car, and Sam was inside making sandwiches for the trip. Lavender let Nemo off his leash and he went straight for his water bowl. He whined and pawed at the dish upon discovering it was empty. Lavender eyed the sandwiches warily. Sam was a good cook, but what was the point? They could just stop somewhere.
“You know, there are plenty of McDonald’s and stuff along the way right?”
“You know your father. Once he gets started on the road, he only stops for two things. Gas and bathrooms.” Lavender rolled her eyes and received a sour look from Sam. “Runner like you still eating that crud?”
Lavender shrugged, indignant. “I like that crud,” she grabbed an apple and went to leave the kitchen but Sam stopped her.
“Give me kisses,” she pointed at her cheek.
“Gross,” but Lavender did come back and pecked Sam on the cheek before making a second attempt at the stairs leading to her bedroom sanctuary. At that moment, David returned, out of breath and excited.
“
Hey there, kiddo! Ready for an awesome two weeks?”
Lavender continued up the stairs, and David called after her:
“We’re out in twenty minutes, baby. Try to be ready by then.”
Her door slammed, David clasped his hands over his heart. He staggered, and his back struck the wall. He gasped and reached for Sam as he slowly sank to the floor. Nemo barked and ran over. He jumped on David, pawed at his shoulders, and started kissing him all over his face as his tail wagged.
“Nemo, no!” David laughed, and Sam could not keep herself from giggling, and shook her head as she spread some mayo over bread slices.
“You two better play nice. You know she’s already in a sour mood.”
“Pfft,” David hooked Nemo’s head in a playful headlock, and Nemo thumped to the floor. He rubbed Nemo’s belly, and cast a defiant look up the stairs. “I’m not making any promises. That girl is bound and determined to not have a good trip.”
“Well, being mean won’t help that will it.”
David opened his hands and perked up with a defensive outcry: “Who’s being mean? She’s slamming doors, I am loading the car, I am letting my lovely, beautiful ladies prepare themselves as they see fit, and alas.”
Sam pouted. “Alas.”
Nemo sprang off the ground as David jumped to his feet, and took the water dish with him. As he filled it with water, Nemo started jumping around like a puppy again. His tail sawed the air, and the nails on his paws clicked against the linoleum floor. Once David set the water down, Nemo bound over and took in one happy lap after the next.
Sam had paused in her work, lost in thought so deeply that David could not help but notice. He did not want to intrude, but he did not want to leave her alone either. His hands slid around her waist, and his arms followed. The embrace was warm and brought Sam back. She set her knife down and leaned against him, and David nestled into her gold-red hair as he laid his cheek on her shoulder.
“What’s on your mind Samantha?”
“I had a dream last night.”
He left a kiss on her shoulder, and turned her to face him. Her fingers hooked idly into his belt loop, and he saw a blush across her cheeks. Maybe that was sunburn. She loved to lay in the sun when the days became warmer and longer. The morning sunlight streaming through her hair and along her neck never failed to amaze him. He fell in love with her over and over again every morning.
“Tell me.”
“I had a baby.”
A sly smile appeared. “Did you?”
She was embarrassed. “I did.”
“What was he like?”
“He was a little girl.”
“A little girl! How about that...”
“She would break your heart.”
“That must come from her mother.”
“I wish you could see her.”
“Maybe I will some day,” he looked for her reaction of dread and panic, the one that had crossed her face the previous night. He did not find such a look, only a bashful smile and those exotic jade eyes.
“Maybe,” she kissed his cheek, and then reached around him to end the moment with one abrupt smack to his butt. “Come on. Let’s get ready to go. I don’t want to get caught in traffic this time. You get cranky.”
“The hell I do!”
But only a few hours later, the family had hit bumper-to-bumper traffic, and David was irritable. Little suggestions were met with snapped answers, and the radio could not be touched or be changed, much like the air conditioning. Lavender had finished one of the bottles of water four miles ago, but of course, with the traffic, that was more like half an hour ago. Still, that half hour felt more like thirty days than minutes. She knew she was not going to win the battle for the boosted AC, not without Sam’s help. Would Sam be a suitable ally? If she was uncomfortable with her nettled husband, she did not show it.
Sam’s feet were propped on the glove compartment. Her painted toes wiggled in time with the music playing on the radio. A thin, faux gold band was wrapped around one of her toes, and glinted in the summer sun plaguing the car. Any time David grumbled about that driver, or growled about how he should have done this or that to get them ready faster, Sam would just nod enough to acknowledge him, but beyond that she did nothing to attract his attention. She let the road take the brunt of his verbal and emotional assault.
“It’s hot,” Lavender groaned. “Let’s turn up the AC.”
“It’ll eat up the gas.”
“Dad, it doesn’t work like that – ”
“The AC’s fine,” David snapped, and Sam, who up until now had been fanning herself with one of her magazines, stopped. Her hand slid across the back of his shoulders.
“Our exit is coming up in a couple miles. Maybe just a little bit of AC and we can put the windows down when we head up the mountain.”
“Fine! Fine!” David snapped the dial over, and then settled back in his seat with a snarl. “You want the AC? There’s the AC!”
Lavender sighed. “Thanks for taking one for the team there, David.”
He was about to round on her, but Sam encouraged her massage, and leaned over the emergency break to devote a kiss to his neck and ear.
“Thank you, honey,” she whispered, and he calmed down enough to save his retaliation against Lavender. There was a loud sound beside Lavender as Nemo’s mouth dropped open, and he issued a rattling yawn that bordered a moan. Lavender pulled her iPod from the backpack between them.
“That’s not such a bad idea,” she muttered, but Nemo said nothing, he was already festooned in a deep, uninterrupted sleep. Lavender inserted the plugs in her ear and turned them until they were comfortable. The white wire trailed down into a slim iPod. It was branded with a couple stickers, one from each of her friends that were off traveling this summer. The ones she missed more than anything, now that Lavender was faced with a sea of crawling cars. She was glad the exit they needed was coming up. The traffic was rubbing everyone wrong, but that did not mean Lavender had to continue being a part of it. As the music came on, Lavender closed her eyes.
I love how personal writing can be sometimes. I try not to always make it personal, I feel like I stray into non-fiction realms at that point. But occasionally, I love having something that I can connect to. I love being able to share that connection with readers, too. It feels like another way of having a conversation.
***
Lavender woke up before her parents, and moved through the silent house. She finished packing, she took a shower, shaved her legs, and resisted the urge to scratch the invigorating facial mask she rubbed over her cheeks, chin, and forehead. While the mask dried, she checked her email, and then washed away the exfoliating beads and melon extract from her face. Lavender tugged on a pair of track shortsShe went for the stairs, and heard her parents mumbling and giggling behind their bedroom door. Lavender rolled her eyes, and went down the stairs. The second he saw her, Nemo sprang from his mat by the TV.
“Hey, boy,” she ruffled his ears, and made sure she scratched him under his collar. “You wanna go for a walk before our super boring trip? Huh? Yeah!” Lavender excited him, and he gave a happy bark. Her sarcastic joy was stripped away for a legitimate laugh. “Sh. Sh. Sh. Let’s not bug them.” She attached the leash to his collar and led him out the front door.
The mornings and evenings were the only times Lavender could run comfortably in the summer. She did not run as many races or charity events in the summer, simply because she was tired of the heat stroke. She more than made up for it with events like the Warrior Dash in the autumn, and a few of the 5Ks and 8Ks in the spring. Mornings and evenings to herself were cherished, Lavender had always been such a private person. The only friend whoever joined her on these routine runs was at her side, jogging with her on four paws with his big pink tongue lagging out of his mouth.
The street was lined with cherry blossom trees that panned their pink and white colors by. An evening rain made the asphalt shimmer, but those dark clouds had since moved on and left a velvet dark blue sky in its wake. The sun was about to peek over the rooftops and the trees, and in no time Lavender’s parents would be arguing about how they got up too late and now they had to deal with traffic.
Lavender understood that these trips were family tradition, that she would probably make the trip to Cat’s Paw Mountain with her own children someday, or maybe some unforeseen partner, but right now Lavender was not sentimental. She wanted to spend the last couple weeks of summer with her friends. They were all off on so many adventures. Janey was in Australia, doing a walkabout with her pen pal. Lily was fulfilling a dream she’d had since Freshman year; she was traveling around Europe, staying in hostels, visiting places Lavender had yet to see. The only chance she had to see any of them was now, but her parents were insistent. They had already had one fight about it… and since then Lavender had officially written them and the rest of the trip off.
She knew it was important to them. A part of her was resentful that it was not as exciting anymore, that it had lost its value. That thought hurt more than any other. She remembered, when she was little, loving Cat’s Paw Mountain. Now it was just a boring camp site, with a boring diner attached to an old, boring lodge, that she would be serving boring food at because her boring parents had made some boring deal with the boring owners. Sure, it was a way to earn money, but what would she even buy? A new iPod to take with her on her runs? Maybe. A new pair of shoes…? Those she needed, she gave in on that argument with Sam, but the whole point of summer was to relax and repair before the school year. Not take dumb orders from the people who remembered her when she “was only this high”.
Lavender’s jog ended at the elementary school not far from her house. The woods lined a big field that boasted a basketball court and a playground. The basketball rims were old and rusty, bent and ready to fall off. The asphalt was cracked and weeds grew through the stones and chipping paint. The playground was one of those old, wooden structures that gave kids more splinters than enjoyment, and it had one of those big metal slides that cooked under a hot sun, just waiting to burn some unsuspecting child’s legs. The sandbox had not been played in, so not a single grain was out of place. There were some leaves and twigs scattered across the top, a sign of failed maintenance, or maybe just the passage of time. If Lavender did not know better, she would have sworn this playground had been here for years, waiting to be played with again. It was not that the place had gone untouched; it was that the place seemed forgotten. Like it had seen years of children playing pirates, cowboys, cops and robbers, Knights of the Round Table only… to see them move on and grow up.
The thought was deep and soul shaking. Nemo’s bark brought her out of her reverie though, and Lavender offered him an uncertain smile.
“You want to head back?”
He wagged his tail, and took a seat at her feet. His mouth shut, but then opened again to keep panting. His tongue hung over the side of his teeth and he looked up at her with unconditional love. She dropped to one knee in front of him and stroked him with excited, devoted pets. He caved to the affection, and rolled on his back. Lavender rubbed his belly, and then clapped her hands.
“Let’s go, boy! Let’s go!”
They were off, running back to the house as fast as they could as the sun started to rise, and cast shadows over the abandoned playground. Lavender had worked up a shimmering sweat and ravenous appetite by the time she came back. David was loading the car, and Sam was inside making sandwiches for the trip. Lavender let Nemo off his leash and he went straight for his water bowl. He whined and pawed at the dish upon discovering it was empty. Lavender eyed the sandwiches warily. Sam was a good cook, but what was the point? They could just stop somewhere.
“You know, there are plenty of McDonald’s and stuff along the way right?”
“You know your father. Once he gets started on the road, he only stops for two things. Gas and bathrooms.” Lavender rolled her eyes and received a sour look from Sam. “Runner like you still eating that crud?”
Lavender shrugged, indignant. “I like that crud,” she grabbed an apple and went to leave the kitchen but Sam stopped her.
“Give me kisses,” she pointed at her cheek.
“Gross,” but Lavender did come back and pecked Sam on the cheek before making a second attempt at the stairs leading to her bedroom sanctuary. At that moment, David returned, out of breath and excited.
“
Hey there, kiddo! Ready for an awesome two weeks?”
Lavender continued up the stairs, and David called after her:
“We’re out in twenty minutes, baby. Try to be ready by then.”
Her door slammed, David clasped his hands over his heart. He staggered, and his back struck the wall. He gasped and reached for Sam as he slowly sank to the floor. Nemo barked and ran over. He jumped on David, pawed at his shoulders, and started kissing him all over his face as his tail wagged.
“Nemo, no!” David laughed, and Sam could not keep herself from giggling, and shook her head as she spread some mayo over bread slices.
“You two better play nice. You know she’s already in a sour mood.”
“Pfft,” David hooked Nemo’s head in a playful headlock, and Nemo thumped to the floor. He rubbed Nemo’s belly, and cast a defiant look up the stairs. “I’m not making any promises. That girl is bound and determined to not have a good trip.”
“Well, being mean won’t help that will it.”
David opened his hands and perked up with a defensive outcry: “Who’s being mean? She’s slamming doors, I am loading the car, I am letting my lovely, beautiful ladies prepare themselves as they see fit, and alas.”
Sam pouted. “Alas.”
Nemo sprang off the ground as David jumped to his feet, and took the water dish with him. As he filled it with water, Nemo started jumping around like a puppy again. His tail sawed the air, and the nails on his paws clicked against the linoleum floor. Once David set the water down, Nemo bound over and took in one happy lap after the next.
Sam had paused in her work, lost in thought so deeply that David could not help but notice. He did not want to intrude, but he did not want to leave her alone either. His hands slid around her waist, and his arms followed. The embrace was warm and brought Sam back. She set her knife down and leaned against him, and David nestled into her gold-red hair as he laid his cheek on her shoulder.
“What’s on your mind Samantha?”
“I had a dream last night.”
He left a kiss on her shoulder, and turned her to face him. Her fingers hooked idly into his belt loop, and he saw a blush across her cheeks. Maybe that was sunburn. She loved to lay in the sun when the days became warmer and longer. The morning sunlight streaming through her hair and along her neck never failed to amaze him. He fell in love with her over and over again every morning.
“Tell me.”
“I had a baby.”
A sly smile appeared. “Did you?”
She was embarrassed. “I did.”
“What was he like?”
“He was a little girl.”
“A little girl! How about that...”
“She would break your heart.”
“That must come from her mother.”
“I wish you could see her.”
“Maybe I will some day,” he looked for her reaction of dread and panic, the one that had crossed her face the previous night. He did not find such a look, only a bashful smile and those exotic jade eyes.
“Maybe,” she kissed his cheek, and then reached around him to end the moment with one abrupt smack to his butt. “Come on. Let’s get ready to go. I don’t want to get caught in traffic this time. You get cranky.”
“The hell I do!”
But only a few hours later, the family had hit bumper-to-bumper traffic, and David was irritable. Little suggestions were met with snapped answers, and the radio could not be touched or be changed, much like the air conditioning. Lavender had finished one of the bottles of water four miles ago, but of course, with the traffic, that was more like half an hour ago. Still, that half hour felt more like thirty days than minutes. She knew she was not going to win the battle for the boosted AC, not without Sam’s help. Would Sam be a suitable ally? If she was uncomfortable with her nettled husband, she did not show it.
Sam’s feet were propped on the glove compartment. Her painted toes wiggled in time with the music playing on the radio. A thin, faux gold band was wrapped around one of her toes, and glinted in the summer sun plaguing the car. Any time David grumbled about that driver, or growled about how he should have done this or that to get them ready faster, Sam would just nod enough to acknowledge him, but beyond that she did nothing to attract his attention. She let the road take the brunt of his verbal and emotional assault.
“It’s hot,” Lavender groaned. “Let’s turn up the AC.”
“It’ll eat up the gas.”
“Dad, it doesn’t work like that – ”
“The AC’s fine,” David snapped, and Sam, who up until now had been fanning herself with one of her magazines, stopped. Her hand slid across the back of his shoulders.
“Our exit is coming up in a couple miles. Maybe just a little bit of AC and we can put the windows down when we head up the mountain.”
“Fine! Fine!” David snapped the dial over, and then settled back in his seat with a snarl. “You want the AC? There’s the AC!”
Lavender sighed. “Thanks for taking one for the team there, David.”
He was about to round on her, but Sam encouraged her massage, and leaned over the emergency break to devote a kiss to his neck and ear.
“Thank you, honey,” she whispered, and he calmed down enough to save his retaliation against Lavender. There was a loud sound beside Lavender as Nemo’s mouth dropped open, and he issued a rattling yawn that bordered a moan. Lavender pulled her iPod from the backpack between them.
“That’s not such a bad idea,” she muttered, but Nemo said nothing, he was already festooned in a deep, uninterrupted sleep. Lavender inserted the plugs in her ear and turned them until they were comfortable. The white wire trailed down into a slim iPod. It was branded with a couple stickers, one from each of her friends that were off traveling this summer. The ones she missed more than anything, now that Lavender was faced with a sea of crawling cars. She was glad the exit they needed was coming up. The traffic was rubbing everyone wrong, but that did not mean Lavender had to continue being a part of it. As the music came on, Lavender closed her eyes.
The Man with the Golden Touch
Warren Midas may be the Writer Favorite of this story. I dig him, and he does not put up much a fight when he's being written. Hard to tell from just one chapter, but we'll see how he measures up in the long run!
***
“Warren, right?”
“Yeah! Jeff?”
Two men in exceptional suits officially met for the first time at a coffee shop near Union Station. They had exchanged emails, held conference call interviews, and when Warren finally came out to New York for the last interview with Wagner, Hobbs, and King Law Firm; Jeff Duke was unavailable to meet him. His attractive personal assistant had explained he was currently in court, and Warren told her she could make it up to him over dinner that night. Finally getting to meet Jeff King was the end of what had been a difficult chapter in Warren’s life.
Some divorces ended in paperwork, a mess of mediation, and in a way, Warren’s divorce had followed this path. Only, when Warren slept around, and when his wife stole money from him, it became much more complicated. The child support was more than she needed, but she insisted it was for “schooling and the child’s general well-being”. Warren knew, if anything, his son would see half of what he promised the ex-wife. Once the divorce had finalized, and once Warren was offered the job, he left as fast as he could, and had been living in a nice hotel for the last two weeks. The room service and luxury was nice, but Warren was ready for his own place, his own desk, and the next chapter.
Jeff motioned to one of the chair, and a pleasing smile peeled across his face. “Please, sit. It’s great to finally meet you.”
“You too, Jeff. This is great.”
“Hey, you eaten yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Good! They make their own marshmallows here. You wouldn’t believe it! They’re the size of your head, Warren! The size of your head!”
Warren laughed and silenced his cell phone. “Yeah? Guess I’ll try that.” Jeff looked exactly how he sounded. He was tall, well-dressed without being too flashy, and he was all smiles and jokes. There was a mischievous spark behind his blue eyes, and he kept a white beard well-groomed. He had to be pushing his sixties, but he behaved as if his twenty-first birthday was just around the corner.
A pretty waitress came to their table in a little red apron and tucked in green shirt. Her dirty blonde hair was swept back into a messy bun, and she smiled. “Gentlemen, can I interest you in something to drink?” Warren was instantly smitten. Over the last few years, he had developed a weak spot for blonds.
“Absolutely,” Warren folded his hands across his knee. “Now, my boss here says you’ve got marshmallows the size of your head.”
Jeff burst into laughter. “You can hear the Boston in him. Mahrshmallows.”
The waitress blushed, and made a square with her thumbs and forefingers. “They’re about that big, sir.”
“That is big.”
Jeff grinned. “Told you!”
She giggled. “Yes, it is, sir.”
Warren smiled. He was feeling on top of his game, now that the divorce was finished. He had thrown out every suit he had worn at those damn court attendances. He had chopped his hair short, started growing a beard, and bought new clothes. Inserting such renewing symbolism into his life left him fulfilled, and ready to tackle the next step in his life, even little steps like a fling with a pretty waitress.
“I’ll take one of those.”
“Just on the side, sir?”
“Just on the side. I’ll have a cup of coffee, and if you don’t mind, one of those apples you’ve got on the counter there.”
The waitress smiled and looked down at her notepad. “Yes, sir.”
He caught her gaze, and they smiled at each other. He held the menu out to her. “Thank you, kiddo. I appreciate that. Jeff, you drinking anything?”
“Just another coffee for me, please. I still got a couple more to go before I meet my quota.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, gentlemen,” she smiled, and left them.
“So,” Warren turned back to Jeff, who had started flipping through the screens on his cell phone, “when do I get to meet the famous Jason Warwick?”
“Should be coming in soon. Won’t have him too long, he’s got court today.”
The door swung open, and a well-dressed man strode through. His hair was slicked back, he was clean shaven, and his suit was pressed and crisp looking. He smoothed his tie down as approached the table, and held out his hand.
“You must be Warren Midas. Jeff’s been going on and on about you.”
“Didn’t know I was that interesting,” Warren took his hand, and gave it a firm shake. The gold watch on the man’s wrist jingled against his cufflink. “Jason, right?”
“The one and only. Nice to meet you.”
“You, too. Eaten yet? We’re about to have a marshmallow the size of our head.”
Jeff jumped in. “Can Jason eat? You should see this guy! He’s the stomach that walks like a man.”
“Hell, Jeff,” Jason pat his stomach, “I haven’t even put my briefcase down yet. Give me a minute.”
The three situated themselves around the table, and started discussing the job, how everyone knew each other, the gym everyone went to after work, the Christmas party, the birthday parties, the office 5K for High Fives, whose proceeds went to support pediatric research. At one point the pretty waitress returned to take Jeff’s order, made eyes at Warren, and then skipped off to add another cup of coffee to her tray. Warren leaned back in his chair to watch her. He liked the way she rubbed the top of her foot behind her leg. She reminded him of someone, someone who was definitely not his wife, and that had to be one of the reasons he could hardly keep his eyes off her.
“What do you say, Warren? We head out to the office after our coffee, let Jason show you around the place.”
Warren recovered from his bad case of wandering eye and took a moment to register Jeff’s suggestion. He leaned back over the table once more and gave them both a grand smile. “Sounds great. Didn’t get to see too much while I was interviewing.”
“Perfect,” Jeff was satisfied, and sat back in his chair as the waitress returned. He threw his hands up, and let out a celebratory: “And perfection! She has my joe, what-d-ya-know.”
“There you go, Mr. King.” The waitress set the cup of coffee in front of him. “And one coffee for you, sir,” she set the next one in front of Jason.
Jeff put his hand longingly over his heart. “I thought we’d never see you again!”
The waitress gave him a guilty, but devious smile. “I guess I wanted to take a little extra time on this one,” and she set the marshmallow and coffee in front of Warren. The marshmallow was bigger than a deck of cards. Not as big as Warren’s head, but still big enough for the waitress to scrawl her name and number across the top with chocolate piping. Jason and Jeff leaned over to see what had Warren’s eyes transfixed. Their eyes widened and jaws dropped. The waitress was cool, and to Warren, inviting. He grinned and rubbed his lips, before glancing her way.
“That does look good,” he touched the chocolate name on the marshmallow, and beamed up at her, “Sue. Thank you.”
“Is there anything else I can get for you, gentlemen?”
Jeff started laughing again, and Jason pointed at the marshmallow. “Yeah, I’ll get one of those, please!”
They had their coffee, but Warren might as well have been on another planet. On this planet, there were beautiful blond haired waitresses that brought him marshmallows whenever he desired them. They were perky, funny, and wrote everything in chocolate. They never tried to take his money; they never made their children the source of a greedy lie to get more of that said money after taking almost everything he had. They were fair, and they were nice, and – he only realized this as he bit into the scarlet red apple Sue had brought him – they only served him the finest, shiniest apples. He saved her number to his cell phone, and left her an encouraging tip before following the others into the street.
Warren, for the first time in years, felt like he was on top of the world. He was walking down the streets of New York, free as a bird, in a new suit, ready to check out his new office. Jeff kept going on about how “highly recommended” he was by his previous firm, that “all that crap” with the wife would blow over in no time, the “important thing to do now” was to keep moving, keeping growing, and to not “ever, ever stop, not till you’ve reached the top!” he always said. The office had decorations leftover from someone’s birthday. There were still bits of confetti hidden here and there among cubicles and near flower pots. All three marched up the carpet stairs to the next floor of the firm, and Warren was brought to his office.
The impressive office suite revealed the sprawl of New York to him as windows stretched all around a wide desk. There was a couch and some cushioned chairs for receiving whatever the legal system threw at him. Dual monitor screens on his desk were the high definition offspring of the large, flat screen mounted on the wall on the other end of the room. Warren was reduced to uncontrollable giggles, though, when he saw that a vending machine was waiting for him with a card attached to it.
“Look at that! I can’t believe he actually did it.”
Jeff clapped Warren on the back, but Jason was lost in the moment, and not in the sweet, nostalgia-building way. There was a joke here, and he just didn’t get it. In fact:
“I don’t get it,” he grunted.
Jeff rolled his fingers around in his pocket for some change. “His old boss called us. Said that Warren drank so much Coke it’d be easier on our finances if we just bought him his own machine. Didn’t cost that much, and even if it did,” he dropped a couple quarters into the machine, “the fact there’s a Coke machine right by my office instead of in the employee kitchen more than makes up for it.”
Jason smirked, but still was not on board with the joke. He hefted his briefcase in his hand, and shot a pointed gaze down at it. “Why don’t we leave Warren for a bit. Let him get settled in.”
Jeff offered the briefcase an uncomfortable look, but put on a good smile for Jason as he hooked his arm around his shoulders and made for the door. “Sounds like a plan. Warren, you let us know if you need anything. Don’t be a stranger now!”
Warren was alone in his office. Atlanta was far behind him. He had his pockets in his hands, and in one of those pockets, he was rolling his cell phone over and over again. He set it down on his desk, and went to the windows that overlooked the city that sprawled in front of him. The cars were small and slid by like toys on an automated track. The people looked even smaller, as if a plane he was on had just stopped to give him time to observe the world beneath him. He could see the beginnings of the big green patch among the tall gray buildings better known as Central Park. The steel and stone spires reached for the sun that was heading for noon. This was home, this was a kingdom he could call him, and he planned to live like a king.
***
“Warren, right?”
“Yeah! Jeff?”
Two men in exceptional suits officially met for the first time at a coffee shop near Union Station. They had exchanged emails, held conference call interviews, and when Warren finally came out to New York for the last interview with Wagner, Hobbs, and King Law Firm; Jeff Duke was unavailable to meet him. His attractive personal assistant had explained he was currently in court, and Warren told her she could make it up to him over dinner that night. Finally getting to meet Jeff King was the end of what had been a difficult chapter in Warren’s life.
Some divorces ended in paperwork, a mess of mediation, and in a way, Warren’s divorce had followed this path. Only, when Warren slept around, and when his wife stole money from him, it became much more complicated. The child support was more than she needed, but she insisted it was for “schooling and the child’s general well-being”. Warren knew, if anything, his son would see half of what he promised the ex-wife. Once the divorce had finalized, and once Warren was offered the job, he left as fast as he could, and had been living in a nice hotel for the last two weeks. The room service and luxury was nice, but Warren was ready for his own place, his own desk, and the next chapter.
Jeff motioned to one of the chair, and a pleasing smile peeled across his face. “Please, sit. It’s great to finally meet you.”
“You too, Jeff. This is great.”
“Hey, you eaten yet?”
“No, not yet.”
“Good! They make their own marshmallows here. You wouldn’t believe it! They’re the size of your head, Warren! The size of your head!”
Warren laughed and silenced his cell phone. “Yeah? Guess I’ll try that.” Jeff looked exactly how he sounded. He was tall, well-dressed without being too flashy, and he was all smiles and jokes. There was a mischievous spark behind his blue eyes, and he kept a white beard well-groomed. He had to be pushing his sixties, but he behaved as if his twenty-first birthday was just around the corner.
A pretty waitress came to their table in a little red apron and tucked in green shirt. Her dirty blonde hair was swept back into a messy bun, and she smiled. “Gentlemen, can I interest you in something to drink?” Warren was instantly smitten. Over the last few years, he had developed a weak spot for blonds.
“Absolutely,” Warren folded his hands across his knee. “Now, my boss here says you’ve got marshmallows the size of your head.”
Jeff burst into laughter. “You can hear the Boston in him. Mahrshmallows.”
The waitress blushed, and made a square with her thumbs and forefingers. “They’re about that big, sir.”
“That is big.”
Jeff grinned. “Told you!”
She giggled. “Yes, it is, sir.”
Warren smiled. He was feeling on top of his game, now that the divorce was finished. He had thrown out every suit he had worn at those damn court attendances. He had chopped his hair short, started growing a beard, and bought new clothes. Inserting such renewing symbolism into his life left him fulfilled, and ready to tackle the next step in his life, even little steps like a fling with a pretty waitress.
“I’ll take one of those.”
“Just on the side, sir?”
“Just on the side. I’ll have a cup of coffee, and if you don’t mind, one of those apples you’ve got on the counter there.”
The waitress smiled and looked down at her notepad. “Yes, sir.”
He caught her gaze, and they smiled at each other. He held the menu out to her. “Thank you, kiddo. I appreciate that. Jeff, you drinking anything?”
“Just another coffee for me, please. I still got a couple more to go before I meet my quota.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, gentlemen,” she smiled, and left them.
“So,” Warren turned back to Jeff, who had started flipping through the screens on his cell phone, “when do I get to meet the famous Jason Warwick?”
“Should be coming in soon. Won’t have him too long, he’s got court today.”
The door swung open, and a well-dressed man strode through. His hair was slicked back, he was clean shaven, and his suit was pressed and crisp looking. He smoothed his tie down as approached the table, and held out his hand.
“You must be Warren Midas. Jeff’s been going on and on about you.”
“Didn’t know I was that interesting,” Warren took his hand, and gave it a firm shake. The gold watch on the man’s wrist jingled against his cufflink. “Jason, right?”
“The one and only. Nice to meet you.”
“You, too. Eaten yet? We’re about to have a marshmallow the size of our head.”
Jeff jumped in. “Can Jason eat? You should see this guy! He’s the stomach that walks like a man.”
“Hell, Jeff,” Jason pat his stomach, “I haven’t even put my briefcase down yet. Give me a minute.”
The three situated themselves around the table, and started discussing the job, how everyone knew each other, the gym everyone went to after work, the Christmas party, the birthday parties, the office 5K for High Fives, whose proceeds went to support pediatric research. At one point the pretty waitress returned to take Jeff’s order, made eyes at Warren, and then skipped off to add another cup of coffee to her tray. Warren leaned back in his chair to watch her. He liked the way she rubbed the top of her foot behind her leg. She reminded him of someone, someone who was definitely not his wife, and that had to be one of the reasons he could hardly keep his eyes off her.
“What do you say, Warren? We head out to the office after our coffee, let Jason show you around the place.”
Warren recovered from his bad case of wandering eye and took a moment to register Jeff’s suggestion. He leaned back over the table once more and gave them both a grand smile. “Sounds great. Didn’t get to see too much while I was interviewing.”
“Perfect,” Jeff was satisfied, and sat back in his chair as the waitress returned. He threw his hands up, and let out a celebratory: “And perfection! She has my joe, what-d-ya-know.”
“There you go, Mr. King.” The waitress set the cup of coffee in front of him. “And one coffee for you, sir,” she set the next one in front of Jason.
Jeff put his hand longingly over his heart. “I thought we’d never see you again!”
The waitress gave him a guilty, but devious smile. “I guess I wanted to take a little extra time on this one,” and she set the marshmallow and coffee in front of Warren. The marshmallow was bigger than a deck of cards. Not as big as Warren’s head, but still big enough for the waitress to scrawl her name and number across the top with chocolate piping. Jason and Jeff leaned over to see what had Warren’s eyes transfixed. Their eyes widened and jaws dropped. The waitress was cool, and to Warren, inviting. He grinned and rubbed his lips, before glancing her way.
“That does look good,” he touched the chocolate name on the marshmallow, and beamed up at her, “Sue. Thank you.”
“Is there anything else I can get for you, gentlemen?”
Jeff started laughing again, and Jason pointed at the marshmallow. “Yeah, I’ll get one of those, please!”
They had their coffee, but Warren might as well have been on another planet. On this planet, there were beautiful blond haired waitresses that brought him marshmallows whenever he desired them. They were perky, funny, and wrote everything in chocolate. They never tried to take his money; they never made their children the source of a greedy lie to get more of that said money after taking almost everything he had. They were fair, and they were nice, and – he only realized this as he bit into the scarlet red apple Sue had brought him – they only served him the finest, shiniest apples. He saved her number to his cell phone, and left her an encouraging tip before following the others into the street.
Warren, for the first time in years, felt like he was on top of the world. He was walking down the streets of New York, free as a bird, in a new suit, ready to check out his new office. Jeff kept going on about how “highly recommended” he was by his previous firm, that “all that crap” with the wife would blow over in no time, the “important thing to do now” was to keep moving, keeping growing, and to not “ever, ever stop, not till you’ve reached the top!” he always said. The office had decorations leftover from someone’s birthday. There were still bits of confetti hidden here and there among cubicles and near flower pots. All three marched up the carpet stairs to the next floor of the firm, and Warren was brought to his office.
The impressive office suite revealed the sprawl of New York to him as windows stretched all around a wide desk. There was a couch and some cushioned chairs for receiving whatever the legal system threw at him. Dual monitor screens on his desk were the high definition offspring of the large, flat screen mounted on the wall on the other end of the room. Warren was reduced to uncontrollable giggles, though, when he saw that a vending machine was waiting for him with a card attached to it.
“Look at that! I can’t believe he actually did it.”
Jeff clapped Warren on the back, but Jason was lost in the moment, and not in the sweet, nostalgia-building way. There was a joke here, and he just didn’t get it. In fact:
“I don’t get it,” he grunted.
Jeff rolled his fingers around in his pocket for some change. “His old boss called us. Said that Warren drank so much Coke it’d be easier on our finances if we just bought him his own machine. Didn’t cost that much, and even if it did,” he dropped a couple quarters into the machine, “the fact there’s a Coke machine right by my office instead of in the employee kitchen more than makes up for it.”
Jason smirked, but still was not on board with the joke. He hefted his briefcase in his hand, and shot a pointed gaze down at it. “Why don’t we leave Warren for a bit. Let him get settled in.”
Jeff offered the briefcase an uncomfortable look, but put on a good smile for Jason as he hooked his arm around his shoulders and made for the door. “Sounds like a plan. Warren, you let us know if you need anything. Don’t be a stranger now!”
Warren was alone in his office. Atlanta was far behind him. He had his pockets in his hands, and in one of those pockets, he was rolling his cell phone over and over again. He set it down on his desk, and went to the windows that overlooked the city that sprawled in front of him. The cars were small and slid by like toys on an automated track. The people looked even smaller, as if a plane he was on had just stopped to give him time to observe the world beneath him. He could see the beginnings of the big green patch among the tall gray buildings better known as Central Park. The steel and stone spires reached for the sun that was heading for noon. This was home, this was a kingdom he could call him, and he planned to live like a king.
No Tinkerbell Necessary!
My favorite part about this is the last image. I really liked writing that. I hope you like reading it!
***
The kitchen was chaos, and Eleanor was in a panic. Jason was rushing in and out, gathering papers and files to bring back to his briefcase, only to forget them again and leave. The boys, Leo and Frank, were coming in and out for various reasons. They would drop off their book bag, or forget their homework and rush off to get it, and every time they swept in and out they always asked: Is the food ready now?
This was the worst part of her day; the mornings on weekdays. Jason never cooked, and since they took after their father in so many ways, neither did the kids. It was as Jason’s personality had split in two and formed the high schoolers Eleanor had appease on a daily basis. Leo took after his father’s quiet side. He was passive aggressive, sneaky, and manipulative. Eleanor never knew when he was coming around a corner, and he had a slow burning temper that, at its peak, was as devastating and quick as a rattle snake lunging from its tight coil. Frank inherited his father’s athletic side. He played soccer and basketball in school. Unlike his brother, his temper was short, and Eleanor had already endured two visits to the guidance councilor and head coach about Frank’s “in game meltdowns”.
Leo had helped himself to an apple from the fruit basket in the center of the kitchen table. He munched and crunched, while Frank rolled a soccer ball back and forth under the table. Eleanor spun away from the oven’s steam and the heat to spoon eggs out on two plates. The pan was tossed into the sink, and she raced back for the bacon popping away in the deep skillet. Tiny oil bullets shot from the pan and singed her wrist, but the stinging was ignored as she threw the strips of bacon on the plates with the eggs. The skillet dropped back on the stove, and Eleanor killed the burner.
“Here you go, boys,” Eleanor went to the kitchen table, and set the plates down.
Leo sighed, “I’ll just grab something at school,” and stood to get his things. He tossed the apple core in the trash can as he left the kitchen. Eleanor watched him go, and smoothed back a strand of frizzy sandy hair.
A surge of hope ran through her, maybe Frank would interact. “Ready for your game tonight, Frank?”
“Sure,” he was up, scrounging for silverware. “Why are these all dirty?”
“The dishwasher’s backed up with food bits. You guys should really rinse your plates out when you’re done.”
Frank snorted, and came back to the table just as Jason stepped back into the kitchen. He was in a hurry. His jacket was draped over his arm, and his burgundy tie was loose around his neck. He used to be fit, but late nights at the office meant Chinese take-out and too much soda. “There’s my champ,” he winked at Frank, and made a line for the coffee pot. He shook it, and frowned at Eleanor. “No joe?”
Eleanor was at a loss. “Thought you were meeting up with your boss for breakfast this morning.”
Jason dropped the pot heavily on its base. “That’s right. Cup would be good for the road though. Maybe next time just put some on?”
Eleanor bit her lip. “I can make some really quick… if you want.”
“Forget it,” he shook some cereal into a bowl he nabbed from the cupboard, “I’ll just get some at the gas station.” He opened the drawer for a spoon, but when he found he turned it over in his hands, and inspected a couple more before holding them up for Eleanor. “Why are these all dirty?”
“The dishwasher. Remember? We called – ”
“Right, right, right,” he tossed the silverware back in the drawer, shut it, and cleaned off the spoon that remained in his hands. He sat down with his cereal, and began shoveling spoonful after spoonful in. Eleanor was about to say something, but Frank excused himself with an abrupt shove of his chair. He was texting at full speed, as he grabbed his bookbag off the back of his chair.
“Later, dad,” he said over his shoulder, and was gone from the kitchen before Eleanor could muster a farewell. She sighed, and focused on Jason again, but he was also deeply involved in his cell phone. Eleanor prepared a bowl of cereal, and cleaned one of the spoons in the sink.
“I had the strangest dream last night…”
“Mm-hm,” Jason glared at the screen his thumb was surfing.
“It got me thinking.”
“Right,” Jason shifted in his seat, pushed some gelled hair back from his face and started to answer a text that had just chimed in.
“Maybe, you know,” she tore off a paper towel and rubbed it around the spoon, “we could take the boys and go camping for a weekend. You think that’d be fun?”
Jason chuckled, and poked his phone. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he stood up, left his half-eaten bowl of cereal, and dragged his briefcase off the counter. He went for the door leading to the driveway. “I’ll be home late, don’t wait up,” he spun on his heel and was out the door with the phone to his ear.
Eleanor stood in the empty kitchen, the spoon in her hand, and with no other sound or person to keep her company except for Jason revving his engine outside. There was a flash of red beyond the kitchen door as the car reversed down the driveway for the open street. The roaring sound became a buzz that faded into the distance.
Eleanor’s head dropped. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she hurled her spoon into the sink. She wanted to tear the house down. She wanted to rip the cabinets up, and bang the pots and pans against one another. She wanted to open a can of paint, and drench the walls with greens, blues, and polkadots. Maybe then she would at least not have to look at grey, taupe, and off-white-mother-of-pearl-sandy-beach –
Upstairs, a baby started to cry. Eleanor’s tight, teary face uncoiled and the last tears fell from her cheeks. She released the lip of the sink, and brought her shaking hands together. Eleanor took deep breath, and rubbed away her tears as she climbed the stairs. The averted tantrum left Eleanor exhausted, as if she had just run a marathon. Her legs felt heavy; maybe she had slipped on a pair of armor leggings without knowing it. Wouldn’t that be something!
Eleanor cleared the landing, and crept down the hall. The baby cried on, the sound grew louder with every step. With the gentlest push, Eleanor eased open the door to the nursery, and stepped inside. This room was the spoils of battle, one that Eleanor had chosen very carefully. There were things she released into Jason’s control, the things she knew she could part with and only temporarily miss. However, there were some things that Eleanor clung to. These were the things she knew she needed. One of those things had been to decorate the nursery for her very first baby.
She painted the room herself. There was a big tree painted on one of the walls, and its leaves were blowing in the wind as the sun set across green hills. The sky was painted in several hues of yellow, red, violet, and blue. There were wild flours dotting the hills that stretched all around the walls of the nursery, and butterflies infinitely roamed that open, painted sky. There was a toy corner, a mixture of some tummy time toys and stuffed animals, and by the window there was an old stereo she had tuned to an oldies station. Books from Eleanor’s youth huddled tightly together on a little pink shelf close to the crib Eleanor had built. The wooden frame and rails were polished. A ladybug mobile hung from the top, and inside, pulling herself up from a pale blue blanket, was Wendy.
Wendy was one year old, healthy baby, sensitive to noise and bad moods. She had her mother’s big blue eyes, and her father’s dark hair. The soft locks reminded Eleanor of juggling veils and those feathers you could buy in plastic bags from party stores. Her face was red from crying, and her feet kicked inside of a light yellow jumper. The instant mommy and baby saw each other, their tears subsided, and their racing hearts calmed.
“Is that you squawking, Wendy bird?”
Wendy gibbered, and sniffed over and over again as she tried to catch her breath. She had already been crying so hard that she was having trouble calming down enough to do so. Her cries renewed, and Eleanor chuckled.
“Ohhh,” she drew Wendy up from the crib and lay her against her shoulder. “Ohhh, it’s okay. Get it out, sweetheart. Get it out, it’s okay. It’s okay, mamma’s here. She’s right here.” Wendy babbled into Eleanor’s shirt, and rubbed her head back and forth. Her whole body conformed to Eleanor’s chest and shoulder. “I know,” Eleanor smiled and delivered several kisses around Wendy’s red cheek and tiny ear. “I know, I know.” The morning was forgotten for the moment. In here, this was where Eleanor felt safe, loved, and herself again. The connection between her and Wendy was remarkable, and inspired jealousy in Jason. His work kept him out of the house so much that Wendy often reacted to him the way she would to strangers. She became shy; she would gawk at him, and button her lips together.
He always expressed his resentment to the marriage councilor that was not working, and Eleanor never said anything. Perhaps she would have been sad that she and Jason had drifted so drastically apart, but Wendy illuminated her world too brightly. Work had enveloped her husband. Ambition, climbing the ladder, and focusing on engineering his career into the peak of perfection had become Jason’s priority, while Wendy was hers. Their divorce was inevitable, but this was the furthest thought from Eleanor’s mind, especially while she played with her Wendybird in the glowing morning sun pouring through the nursery window.
***
The kitchen was chaos, and Eleanor was in a panic. Jason was rushing in and out, gathering papers and files to bring back to his briefcase, only to forget them again and leave. The boys, Leo and Frank, were coming in and out for various reasons. They would drop off their book bag, or forget their homework and rush off to get it, and every time they swept in and out they always asked: Is the food ready now?
This was the worst part of her day; the mornings on weekdays. Jason never cooked, and since they took after their father in so many ways, neither did the kids. It was as Jason’s personality had split in two and formed the high schoolers Eleanor had appease on a daily basis. Leo took after his father’s quiet side. He was passive aggressive, sneaky, and manipulative. Eleanor never knew when he was coming around a corner, and he had a slow burning temper that, at its peak, was as devastating and quick as a rattle snake lunging from its tight coil. Frank inherited his father’s athletic side. He played soccer and basketball in school. Unlike his brother, his temper was short, and Eleanor had already endured two visits to the guidance councilor and head coach about Frank’s “in game meltdowns”.
Leo had helped himself to an apple from the fruit basket in the center of the kitchen table. He munched and crunched, while Frank rolled a soccer ball back and forth under the table. Eleanor spun away from the oven’s steam and the heat to spoon eggs out on two plates. The pan was tossed into the sink, and she raced back for the bacon popping away in the deep skillet. Tiny oil bullets shot from the pan and singed her wrist, but the stinging was ignored as she threw the strips of bacon on the plates with the eggs. The skillet dropped back on the stove, and Eleanor killed the burner.
“Here you go, boys,” Eleanor went to the kitchen table, and set the plates down.
Leo sighed, “I’ll just grab something at school,” and stood to get his things. He tossed the apple core in the trash can as he left the kitchen. Eleanor watched him go, and smoothed back a strand of frizzy sandy hair.
A surge of hope ran through her, maybe Frank would interact. “Ready for your game tonight, Frank?”
“Sure,” he was up, scrounging for silverware. “Why are these all dirty?”
“The dishwasher’s backed up with food bits. You guys should really rinse your plates out when you’re done.”
Frank snorted, and came back to the table just as Jason stepped back into the kitchen. He was in a hurry. His jacket was draped over his arm, and his burgundy tie was loose around his neck. He used to be fit, but late nights at the office meant Chinese take-out and too much soda. “There’s my champ,” he winked at Frank, and made a line for the coffee pot. He shook it, and frowned at Eleanor. “No joe?”
Eleanor was at a loss. “Thought you were meeting up with your boss for breakfast this morning.”
Jason dropped the pot heavily on its base. “That’s right. Cup would be good for the road though. Maybe next time just put some on?”
Eleanor bit her lip. “I can make some really quick… if you want.”
“Forget it,” he shook some cereal into a bowl he nabbed from the cupboard, “I’ll just get some at the gas station.” He opened the drawer for a spoon, but when he found he turned it over in his hands, and inspected a couple more before holding them up for Eleanor. “Why are these all dirty?”
“The dishwasher. Remember? We called – ”
“Right, right, right,” he tossed the silverware back in the drawer, shut it, and cleaned off the spoon that remained in his hands. He sat down with his cereal, and began shoveling spoonful after spoonful in. Eleanor was about to say something, but Frank excused himself with an abrupt shove of his chair. He was texting at full speed, as he grabbed his bookbag off the back of his chair.
“Later, dad,” he said over his shoulder, and was gone from the kitchen before Eleanor could muster a farewell. She sighed, and focused on Jason again, but he was also deeply involved in his cell phone. Eleanor prepared a bowl of cereal, and cleaned one of the spoons in the sink.
“I had the strangest dream last night…”
“Mm-hm,” Jason glared at the screen his thumb was surfing.
“It got me thinking.”
“Right,” Jason shifted in his seat, pushed some gelled hair back from his face and started to answer a text that had just chimed in.
“Maybe, you know,” she tore off a paper towel and rubbed it around the spoon, “we could take the boys and go camping for a weekend. You think that’d be fun?”
Jason chuckled, and poked his phone. “I’m sure it’s fine,” he stood up, left his half-eaten bowl of cereal, and dragged his briefcase off the counter. He went for the door leading to the driveway. “I’ll be home late, don’t wait up,” he spun on his heel and was out the door with the phone to his ear.
Eleanor stood in the empty kitchen, the spoon in her hand, and with no other sound or person to keep her company except for Jason revving his engine outside. There was a flash of red beyond the kitchen door as the car reversed down the driveway for the open street. The roaring sound became a buzz that faded into the distance.
Eleanor’s head dropped. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she hurled her spoon into the sink. She wanted to tear the house down. She wanted to rip the cabinets up, and bang the pots and pans against one another. She wanted to open a can of paint, and drench the walls with greens, blues, and polkadots. Maybe then she would at least not have to look at grey, taupe, and off-white-mother-of-pearl-sandy-beach –
Upstairs, a baby started to cry. Eleanor’s tight, teary face uncoiled and the last tears fell from her cheeks. She released the lip of the sink, and brought her shaking hands together. Eleanor took deep breath, and rubbed away her tears as she climbed the stairs. The averted tantrum left Eleanor exhausted, as if she had just run a marathon. Her legs felt heavy; maybe she had slipped on a pair of armor leggings without knowing it. Wouldn’t that be something!
Eleanor cleared the landing, and crept down the hall. The baby cried on, the sound grew louder with every step. With the gentlest push, Eleanor eased open the door to the nursery, and stepped inside. This room was the spoils of battle, one that Eleanor had chosen very carefully. There were things she released into Jason’s control, the things she knew she could part with and only temporarily miss. However, there were some things that Eleanor clung to. These were the things she knew she needed. One of those things had been to decorate the nursery for her very first baby.
She painted the room herself. There was a big tree painted on one of the walls, and its leaves were blowing in the wind as the sun set across green hills. The sky was painted in several hues of yellow, red, violet, and blue. There were wild flours dotting the hills that stretched all around the walls of the nursery, and butterflies infinitely roamed that open, painted sky. There was a toy corner, a mixture of some tummy time toys and stuffed animals, and by the window there was an old stereo she had tuned to an oldies station. Books from Eleanor’s youth huddled tightly together on a little pink shelf close to the crib Eleanor had built. The wooden frame and rails were polished. A ladybug mobile hung from the top, and inside, pulling herself up from a pale blue blanket, was Wendy.
Wendy was one year old, healthy baby, sensitive to noise and bad moods. She had her mother’s big blue eyes, and her father’s dark hair. The soft locks reminded Eleanor of juggling veils and those feathers you could buy in plastic bags from party stores. Her face was red from crying, and her feet kicked inside of a light yellow jumper. The instant mommy and baby saw each other, their tears subsided, and their racing hearts calmed.
“Is that you squawking, Wendy bird?”
Wendy gibbered, and sniffed over and over again as she tried to catch her breath. She had already been crying so hard that she was having trouble calming down enough to do so. Her cries renewed, and Eleanor chuckled.
“Ohhh,” she drew Wendy up from the crib and lay her against her shoulder. “Ohhh, it’s okay. Get it out, sweetheart. Get it out, it’s okay. It’s okay, mamma’s here. She’s right here.” Wendy babbled into Eleanor’s shirt, and rubbed her head back and forth. Her whole body conformed to Eleanor’s chest and shoulder. “I know,” Eleanor smiled and delivered several kisses around Wendy’s red cheek and tiny ear. “I know, I know.” The morning was forgotten for the moment. In here, this was where Eleanor felt safe, loved, and herself again. The connection between her and Wendy was remarkable, and inspired jealousy in Jason. His work kept him out of the house so much that Wendy often reacted to him the way she would to strangers. She became shy; she would gawk at him, and button her lips together.
He always expressed his resentment to the marriage councilor that was not working, and Eleanor never said anything. Perhaps she would have been sad that she and Jason had drifted so drastically apart, but Wendy illuminated her world too brightly. Work had enveloped her husband. Ambition, climbing the ladder, and focusing on engineering his career into the peak of perfection had become Jason’s priority, while Wendy was hers. Their divorce was inevitable, but this was the furthest thought from Eleanor’s mind, especially while she played with her Wendybird in the glowing morning sun pouring through the nursery window.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
David and Sam
Upstairs, the drier rumbled. Jeans thumped and rolled over shirts. Socks went off to the mysterious place socks go when they enter a drier as a pair, unaware that only one would really return. Febreeze was in the air, and wandered down the vacuumed, narrow staircase to meet a wall of heavenlier aroma; the smell of onions caramelizing in a deep pan. Aside from the little droplets of oil jumping across the lip of the stove, the kitchen was otherwise clean. Sure, there were onion skins and red pepper seeds floating around a used cutting board, but the counters were wiped, the dishwasher was running, and the linoleum floor was void of any crumbs or other radicals that would discomfort bare feet.
Sam, the lady of the house, was immersed in her newest book. Much to her husband’s chagrin, she had already bent the spine. If it were his book, he would be much more careful with it. He only ever voiced these little opinions because he loved the way she teased him. She understood this, and anticipated his reaction just as much as the next sentence. The steamy love affair between the Comte Velieu and the chambermaid, Lovinne, was just getting good. All those looks across the room, all those moments of held breath and discretion, were about to give way to an insatiable, wanton rendez-vous in the stables.
David entered the kitchen. He was a tall man, a bit thick, someone who was healthy without all of the obsession. Just a few nights ago they had tackled a whole plate of nachos while their teenage daughter, Lavender, was out with her friends. David’s hair was dark, but salted, and his eyes were as green as the spring onion Sam had yet to put up. He had peculiar habits that she liked. He never closed any doors. The first time she had heard about him was when she was dating one of his room mates. They complained that he left the fridge opened – “All night, dude!” – and that he never shut the cabinets, and he always forgot to close the door when he “got it on”. Sam liked to think it was because David, unconsciously, never denied himself anything. That he always left room for possibility and option, and no metaphoric door would ever be closed to him.
And, very soon after they met, Sam became one of those possibilities. Ever since that moment, they had been inseparable. He called her his “dream girl”.
“Well,” he opened the fridge, but the juice, milk, and Sprite held little interest for him, “everything is clean, and we won’t even be here to appreciate it.”
He bumped her with his hip in an extravagant attempt to reach the cupboard. He searched for the ideal cup, and only then did he abandon the cupboard for the sink. Sam reached up without looking, and shut the cupboard as he switched on the faucet.
“It’s so we can come back to a nice home,” Sam said as she turned a page.
David opened the freezer and started rummaging for ice. He dropped the cubes into the cup, and wiped up any little droplets with the socks on his feet. “Where’s Lavender?”
“She’s out jogging with Nemo.”
David looked Sam up and down. She was wearing her college hoodie over a pair of track shorts. More than likely, everything else was in the drier. David loved it when Sam did her laundry, especially when Lavender was out. “You don’t say.” He dropped a cube of ice down the back of her sweater, and Sam reeled.
“David, not when I’m cooking, come on, dude!” Sam giggled and broke away from the counter. She dropped her book to claw inside the hoodie for the icy assault. David swept in, and grabbed her fallen book off the counter.
“Cooking? Or swoooooning?”
“You’re a dick, and I want that back.”
David cracked the book open, and flicked away a red pepper seed pressed to the paper. “Lovinne – really, her name is Lovin’? – pressed her body to his. She had waited so long for this, just as long as he had; their passion had been so instantaneous. He had only touched her hand, only long enough to tell her she had filled his cup enough with sweet wine, but that had been enough. The rest of the dinner was a blur. Lovin’ had forgotten herself several times, and Velieu – I’ll call him David – had drifted off in conversations, only to find himself watching her. Wanting Lovin’. Now, they were together, sheltered from the storm, and warm. David peeled away Lovin’s wet clothes, and she tugged his heavy jacket from his shoulders. He found her – Hey, this isn’t so bad, after all!”
“Give that back,” she struggled with him as he retreated into the living room. “I’ll kick your ass,” she tackled him, and they collapsed on the couch together. David burst into laughter and held the book out at arm’s length. Sam lay on his chest, still laughing as he pressed on through the prose.
“He found her almost naked in front of him…I thought he already took off her clothes.”
“Hmm,” Sam turned, her long, rusty blonde hair fell over his chin and neck. “Just keep reading.”
David nestled into the couch some more. He blew some of Sam’s stray locks out of his mouth, and they chuckled before he continued. This time, his voice was hushed and soft behind her ear.
“A damp chemise covered her. He loosened the strings that kept her body from him. The count felt as though he had come to the end of a long journey. He was parched with want of her, and began to suckle the water from her skin. His hand crept beneath her neckline,” David unzipped the front of Sam’s hoodie, and found one of her breasts. The tender skin swelled as he squeezed, and his fingers cuddled around the nipple he could not see. “He found breasts that could not compare to my Sam’s…”
“Shut up,” Sam giggled, “it does not say that.”
“Lovin’ said: I’ve waited too long for you, David. Take me. Take me.”
Sam’s head turned and she kissed him. David dropped the book off the couch and cupped her hips. He pressed a hand to her chest and eased her back with a gentle push. Sam sat on his lap with a questioning look. He touched her stomach, he looked at her shy breasts hidden behind the zipper-toothed curtain of her hoodie, and watched her messy hair coil around her slender shoulders. He heaved a happy sigh.
“What?” Sam asked.
“I want to have a baby with you…”
Sam’s eyes widened. “What?”
The door opened, and Lavender came in with Nemo, an energetic, golden retriever who had, until recently, never chewed on furniture or shoes or anything else someone could deem valuable. Lavender was wearing her school shirt and a pair of work-out capris with a blue stripe down the side of each leg. Her sneakers were old; she had started complaining about her feet aching, so that would mean a new pair of shoes in no time. Nemo barked and rushed into the living room to greet Sam and David just as Lavender left the foyer. She dropped her iPod as Sam zipped up her hoodie and sprang off David’s lap.
Lavender made a face, and took a sudden interest in a painting hanging on the wall nearby. “The onions are burning.”
David peeked his head over the couch. “Good timing, honey! As always.”
“You guys are gross,” Lavender retrieved her iPod before the dog could start mouthing on it. “I’ll be in my room. Let me know when the pizza gets here,” she stomped upstairs just as a resounding “Damn!” came from the kitchen. David rubbed his face, and crept into the kitchen. Nemo was gulping down water from his dish as Sam killed the burner on the gas stove, and removed the onions.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Sam whispered to herself as she ran the charred onions under the faucet. There was a loud hiss as water met oil, and coils of fat steam bloomed for the ceiling, and fogged the window over the sink. David leaned against the fridge and watched.
“We don’t have to order pizza, you know. We could ruin her life forever by ordering Kung Pow Wok if you want.”
Sam tittered, but she was stressed, and not just because Lavender interrupted them. The conversation had dislodged her from their sensual moment on the couch. “Were we ever shits like that when we were Vinnie’s age?”
“You kidding? I was probably worse than you were.” He gingerly began gathering the take-out menus from one of the drawers, but shot the occasional glance over his shoulder. Sam was strong in most situations, but circumstances like this required a delicate touch. “Hey, we don’t have to… you know… talk about this now.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I just thought… a baby would be good.”
Sam ran the garbage disposal, and David’s nerves were rattled. He had already put himself in a vulnerable place with the whole baby subject, but the loud noise and Sam’s attitude shift was doing little to encourage the conversation he wanted to have with her. Sam shut off the disposal, and ran a hand through her messy hair.
“I don’t want you to be upset,” she said in a tense voice that begged for conversational insurance. Luckily, David had several policies in place for just such an occasion.
“I’m the man of steel.” He turned off the faucet, guided the pan out of her other hand, and gently turned her to face him. “Try me.”
“David…”
“Really, it’s okay.” He nudged her chin up, and flinched when he saw tears in her eyes. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s just onions and a conversation. Come on, talk to me.”
“I don’t think… now’s a good time.”
“We can talk about it later.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah! Yeah, absolutely.”
“Did I ruin our trip?”
“What? That’s impossible, we haven’t even left yet!”
“Shut up,” she tapped the back of her hand against his stomach, “you know what I mean.”
“You. Vinnie. Nemo. You make the trip great. Look, I wouldn’t want you to give me an answer you don’t mean, anyway.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure! Just do me one favor.”
Sam nodded, but she was wary.
“Think about it. Just bring it up again when you’re ready to talk about it.”
Sam smiled. “I can do that.”
“Little boy with that smile… and with my amazing good looks. Not so bad, right?” David held her as she bowed her head to his shoulder and chuckled. He stroked his fingers through her hair and let his eyes stare into the distance beyond the wall. Maybe she was right. Maybe now really was not the time to bring a new baby into the house. The addition had to be right for both of them, he knew that, but he wanted more than anything for Sam to reach that point soon. A number of things could have been holding Sam back, but he did not want to go into them. Not now. He pat her on the back, and kissed her forehead. “Let’s order some food, get some rest. We got a big trip ahead of us tomorrow.”
Sam, the lady of the house, was immersed in her newest book. Much to her husband’s chagrin, she had already bent the spine. If it were his book, he would be much more careful with it. He only ever voiced these little opinions because he loved the way she teased him. She understood this, and anticipated his reaction just as much as the next sentence. The steamy love affair between the Comte Velieu and the chambermaid, Lovinne, was just getting good. All those looks across the room, all those moments of held breath and discretion, were about to give way to an insatiable, wanton rendez-vous in the stables.
David entered the kitchen. He was a tall man, a bit thick, someone who was healthy without all of the obsession. Just a few nights ago they had tackled a whole plate of nachos while their teenage daughter, Lavender, was out with her friends. David’s hair was dark, but salted, and his eyes were as green as the spring onion Sam had yet to put up. He had peculiar habits that she liked. He never closed any doors. The first time she had heard about him was when she was dating one of his room mates. They complained that he left the fridge opened – “All night, dude!” – and that he never shut the cabinets, and he always forgot to close the door when he “got it on”. Sam liked to think it was because David, unconsciously, never denied himself anything. That he always left room for possibility and option, and no metaphoric door would ever be closed to him.
And, very soon after they met, Sam became one of those possibilities. Ever since that moment, they had been inseparable. He called her his “dream girl”.
“Well,” he opened the fridge, but the juice, milk, and Sprite held little interest for him, “everything is clean, and we won’t even be here to appreciate it.”
He bumped her with his hip in an extravagant attempt to reach the cupboard. He searched for the ideal cup, and only then did he abandon the cupboard for the sink. Sam reached up without looking, and shut the cupboard as he switched on the faucet.
“It’s so we can come back to a nice home,” Sam said as she turned a page.
David opened the freezer and started rummaging for ice. He dropped the cubes into the cup, and wiped up any little droplets with the socks on his feet. “Where’s Lavender?”
“She’s out jogging with Nemo.”
David looked Sam up and down. She was wearing her college hoodie over a pair of track shorts. More than likely, everything else was in the drier. David loved it when Sam did her laundry, especially when Lavender was out. “You don’t say.” He dropped a cube of ice down the back of her sweater, and Sam reeled.
“David, not when I’m cooking, come on, dude!” Sam giggled and broke away from the counter. She dropped her book to claw inside the hoodie for the icy assault. David swept in, and grabbed her fallen book off the counter.
“Cooking? Or swoooooning?”
“You’re a dick, and I want that back.”
David cracked the book open, and flicked away a red pepper seed pressed to the paper. “Lovinne – really, her name is Lovin’? – pressed her body to his. She had waited so long for this, just as long as he had; their passion had been so instantaneous. He had only touched her hand, only long enough to tell her she had filled his cup enough with sweet wine, but that had been enough. The rest of the dinner was a blur. Lovin’ had forgotten herself several times, and Velieu – I’ll call him David – had drifted off in conversations, only to find himself watching her. Wanting Lovin’. Now, they were together, sheltered from the storm, and warm. David peeled away Lovin’s wet clothes, and she tugged his heavy jacket from his shoulders. He found her – Hey, this isn’t so bad, after all!”
“Give that back,” she struggled with him as he retreated into the living room. “I’ll kick your ass,” she tackled him, and they collapsed on the couch together. David burst into laughter and held the book out at arm’s length. Sam lay on his chest, still laughing as he pressed on through the prose.
“He found her almost naked in front of him…I thought he already took off her clothes.”
“Hmm,” Sam turned, her long, rusty blonde hair fell over his chin and neck. “Just keep reading.”
David nestled into the couch some more. He blew some of Sam’s stray locks out of his mouth, and they chuckled before he continued. This time, his voice was hushed and soft behind her ear.
“A damp chemise covered her. He loosened the strings that kept her body from him. The count felt as though he had come to the end of a long journey. He was parched with want of her, and began to suckle the water from her skin. His hand crept beneath her neckline,” David unzipped the front of Sam’s hoodie, and found one of her breasts. The tender skin swelled as he squeezed, and his fingers cuddled around the nipple he could not see. “He found breasts that could not compare to my Sam’s…”
“Shut up,” Sam giggled, “it does not say that.”
“Lovin’ said: I’ve waited too long for you, David. Take me. Take me.”
Sam’s head turned and she kissed him. David dropped the book off the couch and cupped her hips. He pressed a hand to her chest and eased her back with a gentle push. Sam sat on his lap with a questioning look. He touched her stomach, he looked at her shy breasts hidden behind the zipper-toothed curtain of her hoodie, and watched her messy hair coil around her slender shoulders. He heaved a happy sigh.
“What?” Sam asked.
“I want to have a baby with you…”
Sam’s eyes widened. “What?”
The door opened, and Lavender came in with Nemo, an energetic, golden retriever who had, until recently, never chewed on furniture or shoes or anything else someone could deem valuable. Lavender was wearing her school shirt and a pair of work-out capris with a blue stripe down the side of each leg. Her sneakers were old; she had started complaining about her feet aching, so that would mean a new pair of shoes in no time. Nemo barked and rushed into the living room to greet Sam and David just as Lavender left the foyer. She dropped her iPod as Sam zipped up her hoodie and sprang off David’s lap.
Lavender made a face, and took a sudden interest in a painting hanging on the wall nearby. “The onions are burning.”
David peeked his head over the couch. “Good timing, honey! As always.”
“You guys are gross,” Lavender retrieved her iPod before the dog could start mouthing on it. “I’ll be in my room. Let me know when the pizza gets here,” she stomped upstairs just as a resounding “Damn!” came from the kitchen. David rubbed his face, and crept into the kitchen. Nemo was gulping down water from his dish as Sam killed the burner on the gas stove, and removed the onions.
“Shit, shit, shit,” Sam whispered to herself as she ran the charred onions under the faucet. There was a loud hiss as water met oil, and coils of fat steam bloomed for the ceiling, and fogged the window over the sink. David leaned against the fridge and watched.
“We don’t have to order pizza, you know. We could ruin her life forever by ordering Kung Pow Wok if you want.”
Sam tittered, but she was stressed, and not just because Lavender interrupted them. The conversation had dislodged her from their sensual moment on the couch. “Were we ever shits like that when we were Vinnie’s age?”
“You kidding? I was probably worse than you were.” He gingerly began gathering the take-out menus from one of the drawers, but shot the occasional glance over his shoulder. Sam was strong in most situations, but circumstances like this required a delicate touch. “Hey, we don’t have to… you know… talk about this now.”
“No, it’s fine.”
“I just thought… a baby would be good.”
Sam ran the garbage disposal, and David’s nerves were rattled. He had already put himself in a vulnerable place with the whole baby subject, but the loud noise and Sam’s attitude shift was doing little to encourage the conversation he wanted to have with her. Sam shut off the disposal, and ran a hand through her messy hair.
“I don’t want you to be upset,” she said in a tense voice that begged for conversational insurance. Luckily, David had several policies in place for just such an occasion.
“I’m the man of steel.” He turned off the faucet, guided the pan out of her other hand, and gently turned her to face him. “Try me.”
“David…”
“Really, it’s okay.” He nudged her chin up, and flinched when he saw tears in her eyes. “Hey, hey, hey, it’s just onions and a conversation. Come on, talk to me.”
“I don’t think… now’s a good time.”
“We can talk about it later.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah! Yeah, absolutely.”
“Did I ruin our trip?”
“What? That’s impossible, we haven’t even left yet!”
“Shut up,” she tapped the back of her hand against his stomach, “you know what I mean.”
“You. Vinnie. Nemo. You make the trip great. Look, I wouldn’t want you to give me an answer you don’t mean, anyway.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure! Just do me one favor.”
Sam nodded, but she was wary.
“Think about it. Just bring it up again when you’re ready to talk about it.”
Sam smiled. “I can do that.”
“Little boy with that smile… and with my amazing good looks. Not so bad, right?” David held her as she bowed her head to his shoulder and chuckled. He stroked his fingers through her hair and let his eyes stare into the distance beyond the wall. Maybe she was right. Maybe now really was not the time to bring a new baby into the house. The addition had to be right for both of them, he knew that, but he wanted more than anything for Sam to reach that point soon. A number of things could have been holding Sam back, but he did not want to go into them. Not now. He pat her on the back, and kissed her forehead. “Let’s order some food, get some rest. We got a big trip ahead of us tomorrow.”
Monday, November 1, 2010
NaNo WriMo: Round Two
It's another year with NaNo WriMo!
So, The Anchoress will have to get comfortable over at WordPress, where this newest installment will later go. Feel free to check out last year's NaNo WriMo project as it continues down the trail to eventual publication (fingers crossed)!
The NaNo Project will eventually be getting its own WordPress page as well. For now, I'll be posting the first few installments here on Blogger.
Cat's Paw Mountain is another idea I've been laboring over, only this one's been in the slow cooker for a few years now. I had a dream a very long time ago, and over the years I've been poking and prodding it with writing prompt in an attempt to get it to leave my mental nest. I'm fed up with this story just lounging around without a job though, so this month it's getting the kick... to paper!
Or screen.
You know what I mean.
Keeping it contemporary this go around. Be interesting to see where this goes. The first year was awesome, but I wasn't working 11am - 8pm, and I wasn't trying to close on a house, either. Oh, and plan a wedding party cook-out. And move into said house I am trying to close on.
You know...
It's best not to linger on these things. Let's go to the circus.
All the lonely people,
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?
All Luke King heard from the changing room was muffled music, the stamping of elephant feet, and the reactions from an audience he could not see. They were laughing at clowns he had snorted coke with only an hour before the show. The thought amused Luke King. He sat in a chair in front of a dusty mirror and tied his salty hair behind his head. He sat there a little longer, and drank a lukewarm beer that used to be cold. There was a pool of condensation on the bottom of the can, the entire refreshing chill had washed away, but at least he could mess with his own brain for the time being. Madame Butterfly was to blame for that one.
She was the pretty thing tangled up in the cot behind him. The trapeze artist had to be in her thirties, a matriarch of the traveling circus. All those years of swinging, flipping, and stretching had left her body tight, probably stronger than Luke. Her hair was short, and gelled back, but now that she’d been napping on a pillow probably bent and crooked. Her make up was still intact. Little gems lined her eyes and her cheeks glittered with artificial, colorful shine. Still, from the moment he saw her, he had a real reaction to her. The circus train pulled into a station outside of Alexandria, right at the lip of the D.C. border, and he had been there to meet the ring master and finalize the part time contract. She was the first thing he saw, and he thought about her all day and all night.
“You keep looking at me like that, King, you’ll never forget me.” Madame Butterfly smiled in her sleep, and King concentrated on his beer.
“Think we’re a little beyond that point, darlin’.” He spoke around a mouthful of beer as he reached for his cigarettes.
“Can I have one?”
“Sure, you gotta get up though. You’re on in ‘bout half an hour.”
She sat up from the cot, so slow and luxurious, and he watched her reflection in his mirror. Her arms rolled over her head, and her bare breasts were taught with the stretch. Not bad for a woman who claimed to have a kid in the clown car out there in the big tent. She stood from the bed, and nestled her naked hip against the lip of the table jutting out from the mirror. After riddling with his cigarettes, she finally found the one she liked, and planted it between her grinning lips.
“So, you’re sayin’ you’ll never forget me, huh?”
“Could be, yeah.”
“That’s what I thought. Got any big plans?”
Luke King frowned, something about that question left a weirdness in his gut. “Like what?”
“You know… movies, Hollywood. Some big re-emergence like… I dunno, Liam Neeson or something. Or Frank Langella.”
“Frank who?”
“C’mon, you know what I mean. You were the best…”
“Were,” he echoed, uncomfortable.
“Yeah. Everyone remembers,” she straddled his lap, and leaned on the table, “when Luke King fought the Nazis. Or when Luke King had that big car chase under that bridge in Georgetown.”
“I got a few gigs after this…”
“Yeah? Anything I’d like?”
There were dirt racing gigs, and another circus to tour with. There was also a celebrity reality show thing he had made some sort of drunken promise too. At that moment, he knew exactly what Madame Butterfly was aiming for. He stood up, and she took the queue in an instant and hopped off his lap. That pretty face got ugly, she was indignant from her pinched brows all the way to her spread feet.
“I don’t think so,” Luke King mumbled, and took another gulp of his beer. He tucked his lower lip over his moustache and sucked away foam.
“What’s your problem?”
“You should go.”
“Go? The Hell did I do? Can’t a girl be curious?”
“First of all, you ain’t no girl, girls don’t know what they’re doing. You’re a woman who knows exactly what she’s doin’. Second of all, you’re almost up anyway, so…”
Madame Butterfly burst into laughter and found the bathrobe she had shown up in. She dropped it off her shimmering, aging body, and told him she wanted him. Now, she covered herself off, and dropped every practiced posture she had in her arsenal. She was hunched and angry.
“Oh, please! You think I’m barking up that money tree? Listen, grandpa, it’s a shrub, at most - all right? – and I’m saying that because I’m feeling kind. It’s shriveled and useless as that poor excuse for a cock. I don’t need a handout from someone like you.”
Luke King rounded on Madame Butterfly. The beer shot from his hand and scorched a path over her shoulder. The carbonated meteor struck the wall behind her. An instant tide of white foam swelled across the wall, and dripped down to the floor. Madame Butterfly shook; there was an infuriated, experienced flare in her painted eyes that Luke King recognized. Many women had given him that look. Madame Butterfly was not so unique anymore, no matter how many flips she could muster, no matter how many brats she pumped out to a life in the circus, no matter how many gems she wore on her face.
“Now, I been polite. I see you in here again, I’m liable to get rude.”
Luke King navigated the intestines of the big bellied stadium the circus had taken over. Those who had finished their performances were lingering in the halls, or on their way out for a cigarette. He never did get to start his smoke back in the dressing room Madame Butterfly was probably already wrecking. Luke King quickened his pace, thanks to the painkillers circulating his system. He had lost count of the operations, but they changed the way he walked, the way he slept, and the way he was. Maybe he had been a little too rough on her…
A helmet was thrust in his hands. His thoughts had been one long daze, it was like he had slept walk all the way to the backstage curtain. There were three other bikers around him, each next to their own growling rides. Two of them had their helmets in their lap, and they wildly discussing the routine they were about to perform. The third was silent, his arms were crossed and he stared ahead. The stage hand, a greasy kid who wanted to be a runaway all his life, pointed at Luke King’s bike.
“You’re on in twenty minutes. You ready? You better be ready if you’re going to miss rehearsal.”
“Give me my damn keys,” Luke King grumbled.
The third biker held up his gloved hand. He was zipped up in padded jacket, and his helmet’s visor was shut. The only face Luke King had to speak to was the painted skull across the helmet’s shiny dome. A pair of keys dangled from a bent knuckle, but the rider said nothing, instead, he watched Luke King for his next move. The hairs on Luke King’s neck stood on end. If they were playing poker, the skull-faced rider would know that Luke had nothing left to play with, not in his hands, and not on the table. Luke snatched the keys off the stranger, the one who had been so quiet during rehearsals, and made his way to his bike.
Luke King had several bikes, but he loved this one. He lavished the mechanism with red paint and obsessive repairs and modification, and he called her “Dorothy”. She was no ordinary machine. Taking her out was like taking a horse from its stable, a process that secured an unbreakable bond between ride and rider. As he turned the key, her rumble was healthy, and she purred all over. Luke King’s fingers melded to the handlebars, and every problem in the world was gone.
“Luke King, right?”
He opened his eyes and saw the skull-faced rider in front of him. Whoever he was, he was lean, almost emaciated. His presence made Luke King uncomfortable, not just now, but in the rehearsals Luke had even bothered attending. The rider was quiet, but not shy, and he possessed a fatal, infantile coolness, like James Dean had.
“Yep,” Luke King pulled on his helmet to give himself something to do.
“Big fan of your work.”
“There’s no accounting for taste.”
He took the glove off one of his hands, and reached for Luke King. “It’s been great working with you.”
Luke King took his hand, and prayed that the obligatory shake would send the creepy kid on his way. Instead, he was locked in a firm handshake that had Luke King forgetting what season it was. Sure, the summer had been long, golden, and sometimes overheated, but the kid felt like he strolled in from winter.
“… You too, kid.”
The riders lined up, now Luke King was one of the boys again. He had his visor down like an ancient knight ready to perform for the lords and ladies. Only these days, lords and ladies were more like brats, fat mothers, and dads with dipcups, not to mention the occasional drunk college kids. Luke King was sick to his stomach, but he blamed that on the cocaine, pain killers, and beer still figuring themselves out in his system. The ring master broke his attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the act you’ve all been waiting for. It’s the return of Luke King and his Rebel Riders!”
The engines revved, and the curtains tore to the sides to reveal the four riders. Luke King led the three around the ring. The grown ups who remembered him cheered, as the riders began to perform high ramp jumps. Their paths criss and crossed in mid-air. Luke King was already used to the feeling of his stomach being in his throat, the thrill of the jump was gone, and these days he never imagined himself jumping over firey pits or lines of school buses. He dreamed of boring drives in the country on Dorothy, he dreamed of mediocrity and simplicity, and dreamed of the day when he could leave his tapped adrenaline addiction behind him. The celebration around the riders faded as a steel-caged ball descended from the top of the tent.
“The Rebel Riders will defy death and gravity itself as ‘round and ‘round they go! Where they stops, nobody knows!”
The crowd cheered again as the ring master retreated from the light. Two clowns threw open the door leading into the spherical cage. The riders rolled inside, and the ball lifted into the air. The ball was large enough to accommodate them, but when they started riding, the available space began to dwindle. The riders sped around, over, beside, across, and under each other. Their bikes roared, and their lights cast about in a frantic, blinding frenzy as the riders dipped and wove around one another in the rising cage. One of them was cheering as high as his voice would go, Luke King was sure the other one had thrown up in his helmet before they even got in the ball. There was no other indication of the third rider, except for the skull face that would flit through the buzzing lights and then disappear again.
Luke King crashed into one of the riders. He was not sure whether his wheel caught on something in the cage, or whether the adrenal junkie had torpedoed into him, but he lost control. When one rider went, the rest of them followed. The lights flailed, and there was one eruption and the metal all around Luke King screamed. Pain found new and creative ways to enter his body. He heard bones snap, a searing burn spread across his shoulder and up his neck, his skin opened up in several places as he was raked over the metal grating. The riders were dragged across the bars and then sucked into a cyclone of flipping, grinding motorcycles.
So, The Anchoress will have to get comfortable over at WordPress, where this newest installment will later go. Feel free to check out last year's NaNo WriMo project as it continues down the trail to eventual publication (fingers crossed)!
The NaNo Project will eventually be getting its own WordPress page as well. For now, I'll be posting the first few installments here on Blogger.
Cat's Paw Mountain is another idea I've been laboring over, only this one's been in the slow cooker for a few years now. I had a dream a very long time ago, and over the years I've been poking and prodding it with writing prompt in an attempt to get it to leave my mental nest. I'm fed up with this story just lounging around without a job though, so this month it's getting the kick... to paper!
Or screen.
You know what I mean.
Keeping it contemporary this go around. Be interesting to see where this goes. The first year was awesome, but I wasn't working 11am - 8pm, and I wasn't trying to close on a house, either. Oh, and plan a wedding party cook-out. And move into said house I am trying to close on.
You know...
It's best not to linger on these things. Let's go to the circus.
All the lonely people,
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people,
Where do they all belong?
All Luke King heard from the changing room was muffled music, the stamping of elephant feet, and the reactions from an audience he could not see. They were laughing at clowns he had snorted coke with only an hour before the show. The thought amused Luke King. He sat in a chair in front of a dusty mirror and tied his salty hair behind his head. He sat there a little longer, and drank a lukewarm beer that used to be cold. There was a pool of condensation on the bottom of the can, the entire refreshing chill had washed away, but at least he could mess with his own brain for the time being. Madame Butterfly was to blame for that one.
She was the pretty thing tangled up in the cot behind him. The trapeze artist had to be in her thirties, a matriarch of the traveling circus. All those years of swinging, flipping, and stretching had left her body tight, probably stronger than Luke. Her hair was short, and gelled back, but now that she’d been napping on a pillow probably bent and crooked. Her make up was still intact. Little gems lined her eyes and her cheeks glittered with artificial, colorful shine. Still, from the moment he saw her, he had a real reaction to her. The circus train pulled into a station outside of Alexandria, right at the lip of the D.C. border, and he had been there to meet the ring master and finalize the part time contract. She was the first thing he saw, and he thought about her all day and all night.
“You keep looking at me like that, King, you’ll never forget me.” Madame Butterfly smiled in her sleep, and King concentrated on his beer.
“Think we’re a little beyond that point, darlin’.” He spoke around a mouthful of beer as he reached for his cigarettes.
“Can I have one?”
“Sure, you gotta get up though. You’re on in ‘bout half an hour.”
She sat up from the cot, so slow and luxurious, and he watched her reflection in his mirror. Her arms rolled over her head, and her bare breasts were taught with the stretch. Not bad for a woman who claimed to have a kid in the clown car out there in the big tent. She stood from the bed, and nestled her naked hip against the lip of the table jutting out from the mirror. After riddling with his cigarettes, she finally found the one she liked, and planted it between her grinning lips.
“So, you’re sayin’ you’ll never forget me, huh?”
“Could be, yeah.”
“That’s what I thought. Got any big plans?”
Luke King frowned, something about that question left a weirdness in his gut. “Like what?”
“You know… movies, Hollywood. Some big re-emergence like… I dunno, Liam Neeson or something. Or Frank Langella.”
“Frank who?”
“C’mon, you know what I mean. You were the best…”
“Were,” he echoed, uncomfortable.
“Yeah. Everyone remembers,” she straddled his lap, and leaned on the table, “when Luke King fought the Nazis. Or when Luke King had that big car chase under that bridge in Georgetown.”
“I got a few gigs after this…”
“Yeah? Anything I’d like?”
There were dirt racing gigs, and another circus to tour with. There was also a celebrity reality show thing he had made some sort of drunken promise too. At that moment, he knew exactly what Madame Butterfly was aiming for. He stood up, and she took the queue in an instant and hopped off his lap. That pretty face got ugly, she was indignant from her pinched brows all the way to her spread feet.
“I don’t think so,” Luke King mumbled, and took another gulp of his beer. He tucked his lower lip over his moustache and sucked away foam.
“What’s your problem?”
“You should go.”
“Go? The Hell did I do? Can’t a girl be curious?”
“First of all, you ain’t no girl, girls don’t know what they’re doing. You’re a woman who knows exactly what she’s doin’. Second of all, you’re almost up anyway, so…”
Madame Butterfly burst into laughter and found the bathrobe she had shown up in. She dropped it off her shimmering, aging body, and told him she wanted him. Now, she covered herself off, and dropped every practiced posture she had in her arsenal. She was hunched and angry.
“Oh, please! You think I’m barking up that money tree? Listen, grandpa, it’s a shrub, at most - all right? – and I’m saying that because I’m feeling kind. It’s shriveled and useless as that poor excuse for a cock. I don’t need a handout from someone like you.”
Luke King rounded on Madame Butterfly. The beer shot from his hand and scorched a path over her shoulder. The carbonated meteor struck the wall behind her. An instant tide of white foam swelled across the wall, and dripped down to the floor. Madame Butterfly shook; there was an infuriated, experienced flare in her painted eyes that Luke King recognized. Many women had given him that look. Madame Butterfly was not so unique anymore, no matter how many flips she could muster, no matter how many brats she pumped out to a life in the circus, no matter how many gems she wore on her face.
“Now, I been polite. I see you in here again, I’m liable to get rude.”
Luke King navigated the intestines of the big bellied stadium the circus had taken over. Those who had finished their performances were lingering in the halls, or on their way out for a cigarette. He never did get to start his smoke back in the dressing room Madame Butterfly was probably already wrecking. Luke King quickened his pace, thanks to the painkillers circulating his system. He had lost count of the operations, but they changed the way he walked, the way he slept, and the way he was. Maybe he had been a little too rough on her…
A helmet was thrust in his hands. His thoughts had been one long daze, it was like he had slept walk all the way to the backstage curtain. There were three other bikers around him, each next to their own growling rides. Two of them had their helmets in their lap, and they wildly discussing the routine they were about to perform. The third was silent, his arms were crossed and he stared ahead. The stage hand, a greasy kid who wanted to be a runaway all his life, pointed at Luke King’s bike.
“You’re on in twenty minutes. You ready? You better be ready if you’re going to miss rehearsal.”
“Give me my damn keys,” Luke King grumbled.
The third biker held up his gloved hand. He was zipped up in padded jacket, and his helmet’s visor was shut. The only face Luke King had to speak to was the painted skull across the helmet’s shiny dome. A pair of keys dangled from a bent knuckle, but the rider said nothing, instead, he watched Luke King for his next move. The hairs on Luke King’s neck stood on end. If they were playing poker, the skull-faced rider would know that Luke had nothing left to play with, not in his hands, and not on the table. Luke snatched the keys off the stranger, the one who had been so quiet during rehearsals, and made his way to his bike.
Luke King had several bikes, but he loved this one. He lavished the mechanism with red paint and obsessive repairs and modification, and he called her “Dorothy”. She was no ordinary machine. Taking her out was like taking a horse from its stable, a process that secured an unbreakable bond between ride and rider. As he turned the key, her rumble was healthy, and she purred all over. Luke King’s fingers melded to the handlebars, and every problem in the world was gone.
“Luke King, right?”
He opened his eyes and saw the skull-faced rider in front of him. Whoever he was, he was lean, almost emaciated. His presence made Luke King uncomfortable, not just now, but in the rehearsals Luke had even bothered attending. The rider was quiet, but not shy, and he possessed a fatal, infantile coolness, like James Dean had.
“Yep,” Luke King pulled on his helmet to give himself something to do.
“Big fan of your work.”
“There’s no accounting for taste.”
He took the glove off one of his hands, and reached for Luke King. “It’s been great working with you.”
Luke King took his hand, and prayed that the obligatory shake would send the creepy kid on his way. Instead, he was locked in a firm handshake that had Luke King forgetting what season it was. Sure, the summer had been long, golden, and sometimes overheated, but the kid felt like he strolled in from winter.
“… You too, kid.”
The riders lined up, now Luke King was one of the boys again. He had his visor down like an ancient knight ready to perform for the lords and ladies. Only these days, lords and ladies were more like brats, fat mothers, and dads with dipcups, not to mention the occasional drunk college kids. Luke King was sick to his stomach, but he blamed that on the cocaine, pain killers, and beer still figuring themselves out in his system. The ring master broke his attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, the act you’ve all been waiting for. It’s the return of Luke King and his Rebel Riders!”
The engines revved, and the curtains tore to the sides to reveal the four riders. Luke King led the three around the ring. The grown ups who remembered him cheered, as the riders began to perform high ramp jumps. Their paths criss and crossed in mid-air. Luke King was already used to the feeling of his stomach being in his throat, the thrill of the jump was gone, and these days he never imagined himself jumping over firey pits or lines of school buses. He dreamed of boring drives in the country on Dorothy, he dreamed of mediocrity and simplicity, and dreamed of the day when he could leave his tapped adrenaline addiction behind him. The celebration around the riders faded as a steel-caged ball descended from the top of the tent.
“The Rebel Riders will defy death and gravity itself as ‘round and ‘round they go! Where they stops, nobody knows!”
The crowd cheered again as the ring master retreated from the light. Two clowns threw open the door leading into the spherical cage. The riders rolled inside, and the ball lifted into the air. The ball was large enough to accommodate them, but when they started riding, the available space began to dwindle. The riders sped around, over, beside, across, and under each other. Their bikes roared, and their lights cast about in a frantic, blinding frenzy as the riders dipped and wove around one another in the rising cage. One of them was cheering as high as his voice would go, Luke King was sure the other one had thrown up in his helmet before they even got in the ball. There was no other indication of the third rider, except for the skull face that would flit through the buzzing lights and then disappear again.
Luke King crashed into one of the riders. He was not sure whether his wheel caught on something in the cage, or whether the adrenal junkie had torpedoed into him, but he lost control. When one rider went, the rest of them followed. The lights flailed, and there was one eruption and the metal all around Luke King screamed. Pain found new and creative ways to enter his body. He heard bones snap, a searing burn spread across his shoulder and up his neck, his skin opened up in several places as he was raked over the metal grating. The riders were dragged across the bars and then sucked into a cyclone of flipping, grinding motorcycles.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Free Write is NSFW
It's the first free-write. Holy crap, lock up your sons and daughters, here it comes.
Again, my original intention with this whole book was to make it... I guess as close to a "found film" story as literature could get. Different documents, different perspectives, etc. Just a way to have a massive character study in the midst of the weirdness that for the most part has already gone down, but should be ramping up again... soonish.
So, we have Lope and Elias here getting a little more attention. Lope, whose name literally translates into "wolf", was always meant to be the alpha male of his "pack". The whole soldier unit was always meant to have that pack mentality, so it was fun to finally flesh out the group and their leader. Did some studying of alpha behavior in wolf packs and among dogs, and tried to translate that into Lope.
Lope according to Up.
It's not all bravado, it's behavior, deliberate and calculated.
And there's Elias. I never wanted him to be a sweet, innocent character. I wanted him to be Lope's foil. He is strong in his own way, and behaves more like a challenging alpha than a full-on top dog. A lot of alphas will punish these challenges in numerous ways for various reasons.
None of us do, Dug.
So, Elias's fantasy and viewing of Pepita is meant to be one of those various challenges that gets under Lope's skin. Not only that, but it is meant to show that Elias is not as cookie cut as initially believed. We know he is a considerate person, after seeing his behavior with Nieve and Carmen, but he was never meant to be an altar boy. He was meant to possess empathy and passion, and Pepita has a way of bringing that out in people.
The "car wash" scene from Cool Hand Luke was the inspiration for this scene.
... Also, it gave me an excuse to write sexy sex fiction, too. ;) Keep your eyes peeled, some day (insert pen-name here) will be the best thing to hit romantic literature since Fabio started conditioning his hair.
Your grandma will thank me.
The refectory was loud now that soldiers had come in for some wine and food. Others had gone back to the barracks for a smoke and some rest. As the afternoon began to edge closer to evening, the grueling exercises and tests of endurance had been called. The refectory was nice and cool compared to the rest of the jungle heat. Even at this height on Santa Marta, there was no escaping the summer. Those that had been stationed there a while and those that had just arrived in Santa Marta sat down to replenish their bellies and quench their thirst. They began playing a round of one and thirty, and soon enough the soldiers were knocking loudly on the table, but they did not dare bark at the dealer, not while Lope was dealing the cards.
He lived up to his name with his wolfish grin, big white teeth, and scruffy, dark hair around intelligent, probing light eyes. He was seated on the table, and had his foot propped on a chair. He leaned in as he dealt the cards, and like a magnet dropped into a scattered mass of needles, his platoon pressed in to see. Many of the new cadets were already involved with the group, they had taken to their new brothers instantly. But Elias was one of the hesitant few; something Lope had not missed.
“Get us some more wine, boy,” he nodded at Ludwig, the heavy cook joshing with the monks in the corner, and the soldiers shouldered Elias out before he could protest. Lope’s attention returned to the rest. His brow glistened from bearing the heat. “Good job today, for a bunch of women, that wasn’t too bad,” Lope’s face was cracked by his grin, like a brown egg ready to let out the yolk. His light eyes shone brightly. The crowd chuckled; a couple of his men playfully damned him.
“Go find yourself a woman, Lope, see how she compares!”
Lope barked with laughter. “We are here to spread our empire.”
Ludwig had shooed Elias off from the conversation, and the cadet dragged his feet into the kitchen. He plucked up a vessel of wine, and left the kitchen, nearly colliding with Ludwig. They side-stepped each other, and Elias returned with the wine.
Elias watched the cards flip, and listened to the soldiers as they tapped their knuckles on the table. He was ready to leave, when the young sub-prior, Padre Alvarelo, stepped out of the kitchen. The soldiers were uncomfortable around him, Elias noticed immediately. He was not an intimidating man, but he was the right hand of Padre Leoncio, the prior whose relationship with the Captain was shaky, at best. As he emerged, the soldiers fell into their routine of ignoring his presence. Unless Alvarelo addressed them, he was rarely acknowledged. Captain Alejandro advised them to keep any and all interaction to a minimum, to avoid any chance of altercation. Perhaps it was not the best strategy, but in the short term, it had secured a wary truce.
There were two nuns following him. They were young, probably initiates. The soldiers had settled down quickly enough to draw a curious suspicion from the nuns. Lope met their gaze, he even smiled, and his attention was accompanied by his platoon’s own fascination with their arrival. Elias followed their stares, and recognized the two nuns from his journey across the ocean. He was embarrassed once he realized his fellow soldiers were making the sisters uneasy. They scurried closer to Alvarelo’s heels, and stayed there until they had cleared the refectory.
Elias sighed as he watched them go.
“Boy!” Lope called, and Elias whipped his head about to see Lope’s arms open, his stature notched up in an impatient, demanding pose. “My wine’s getting cold!”
Elias cocked his head, and Lope pointed to an empty, wooden goblet. Unable to mask his contempt, Elias poured him a portion of wine, and took a seat with the recruits.
Jorge, the soldier with a patchy beard, turned back from watching the nuns and shook his head in mock sadness. “That’s a shame.”
“Shit,” said another soldier, the normally monosyllabic Fabian.
Lope’s doggish companion, Diego, piped up next as he poured some wine. “Wrapping up a pretty ass like that,” he said, full of regret.
“Pass me that wine,” Pietro swiped it from Diego, and the red stuff gushed into his waiting cup. “Why don't you find yourself a pretty Kogui and fuck her,” he grunted around a mouthful of wine. He had a jovial lilt to his cruelty, but viciousness lurked beneath that charming grin. The way he grabbed and guzzled the wine reminded Elias of a barbarian.
Fabian had fixed his hazel eyes on Lope across the table. “Always Pepita. If that fails.” He knew how possessive Lope could be, and considering the myriad of territorial reactions Lope had in his arsenal, such a possession always showed itself differently. It was like watching a play where the author’s style was unchanged, but the material was always new.
Lope, energized from bossing around the new recruits, had one of his more positive retorts. He snorted as he helped himself to more wine. “You wouldn’t even know what to do with her.”
A low tone oozed around the table as the soldiers smelled a challenge in the air.
Fabian was smiling. “And?” He crossed his feet on the table. His quiet demeanor, matched with this toying attitude, left Elias anxious. He did not like Fabian, not one bit.
“I come to you now,” Lope straightened, and hooked his hand at the lapel of his jacket, “as your ambassador,” he gave a dignified sniff. “If you want to explore a bitch like that, you need me. I found that pretty thing on her way to the laundry house only moments ago. Look at that kid,” he pointed at the staring Elias, who started now that he was the center of Lope’s narrative. “He doesn’t have a clue. None of these brats do. I could be talking about a dog for all they care.”
Elias shifted, and thumbed the rim of his wine cup. “I hope not.”
The table erupted, the blast of sound chased the tails of Elias’s remark, and momentarily wounded Lope’s grinning bravado.
Lope recovered. “See every couple of days the infirmary has their laundry day. Since the doctor’s got shit all to deal with, the chore usually falls on Pepita. Now see, she’s always there. She’s his nurse, so you always know where to go to find yourself an eyeful of Pepita. But to truly get a good glimpse of her, you got to find her on laundry day.” Lope had a disturbingly dreamy look to him, his cheeks were red, but Elias could not tell if this was from the wine or from the sun. The group had fallen silent, but those smiles shined from their hunched faces, and that said enough. “You get more than a checkup.
“You don’t want to get caught, she‘ll run off like a doe,” but there was nothing tender or gentle in his words, just a slimy subtext that made Elias mentally squirm. “You lay low enough though, and you’ll have something on your mind all day, all because she wears this little dress. She bends over that water, and her tits press against her dress, against this button ‘bout the size of a pearl. And I mean these are tits. They’re not breasts, it’s not some bosom. Tits.
“Then,” Lope lifted his fists, and pushed them up and down slowly. “She starts pumping her arms in the water. You know it’s just washing, but it’s Pepita doing it. So, those tits start bouncing and she gets into this rhythm. And the water’s coming up her arms, or lapping over the vat, so her dress is getting wet. You can almost see through it, and it gets better. She gets tired, because when she isn’t washing or nursing, she really is a lazy bitch, so it happens pretty quick.
“You’ll know she’s tired because she starts stretching, sweating, her skin’s shining, and she’s putting her whole body into it.”
Elias was not aware of his daze until the door to the refectory flew open to reveal Martin, another of the new recruits. He was bigger than Elias, but through all their training he boasted a beet red face. He needed only a little exertion to make his cheeks bloom red. Claudio, a fellow soldier and not the brightest in their unit, used to jeer, and accuse Martin of jerking off in the latrine. However, Martin’s secret weapon was his wit, and he was no pushover. Elias remembered an excellent retort Martin had exercised against Claudio, that Claudio’s mother had that effect on him. Even as Claudio beat him to a pulp, Martin’s bloody mouth was open and laughing. Now, he looked frightened as his new unit looked expectantly at him.
“Captain’s on mission,” he gibbered. “He just went into the cloister with that prior.”
“Hell,” Fabian grumbled, and his wine thumped onto the table. The rest of the unit was on the move. Fabian’s wine cup had tipped over, and steady burgundy stream swelled over the edge of the table, and dripped onto the ground. Lope looked Elias square in the eye through all the commotion.
“Guess you’ll just have to see for yourself someday.”
Elias stared. It was the way Lope spoke that caught him off-guard, like he had just issued a threat. Still, Elias followed the rest of the men out of the refectory. They moved through the mission, not like cattle, but like athletes on their way into an arena. Some of the crew branched off, only a few continued with Lope. Martin was one of them. Elias wondered, he hoped prematurely, if Martin was going to reduce himself to a pathetically loyal mess for Lope. Martin was witty, and he was strong, but his weakness was an ingratiating ambition. However, if he could make an impression on Lope, there was a chance he could make an impression on the Captain, and in turn, one of the Generals back in the Yucatan. Elias had a feeling that if Martin did decide to take that road, he would be leaping through hoops more than standing to receive honors.
There was a book on Elias’s bed in the barrack; there was also more training he could do. He could take a run, he could fence, and he could help in the stables. So long as the Captain did not catch him slacking as he toured the mission, there was plenty for Elias to do. But none of these options appealed to him, each met with a lackluster verve. Elias could not get the image of the woman from Lope’s story out of his head. It did not help that not far from here was the launder’s wing of the mission. The idea of spotting her nagged Elias, and he chewed the thought over with his lower lip before he decided.
He plunged through the corridors of the mission until he emerged into the cloister. The missionaries had maintained a lovely garden here, much like the doctor‘s back in the courtyard. Elias imagined they enjoyed studying the botanicals. Perhaps even the doctor helped; after all, his very vocation required him to be familiar with such vegetation, among many of his other medicinal talents. Elias reined his wandering mind in, and refocused on the launder house up ahead. Elias kept close to the ambulatory that stood with the dormitory against the afternoon sun. He had the perfect shadow, and soon found himself submerged in the cool blue umbra. Even if he could not catch a glimpse of this famous ‘Pepita’, he would at least have had the pleasure of a cool spot on a warm day.
The launder house was nothing too impressive; a wide building that squat at the end of the cloister. The windows were low enough for Elias to have a look. There were a few Tairona women gathered around a big vat of water. Their conversation was engaging and animated for those involved. As they spoke and laughed and gestured, the gold on their faces and around their wrists sparkled. There was not much light in the house, save for the sun tracing delicately through the dusty windows, but their ornaments still entranced Elias.
Such a spell did not last long. In fact, it was broken once he caught sight of another woman. She was wearing a grey dress, and there was an apron around her waist. Elias had a fantastic view of her ass. He could see where that waist ended, and where those rounds hips began. A green scarf kept her hair in a messy knot behind her head, but some curls had escaped and wound down her neck and between her shoulders. From this window, Elias only had a view of her back. Pleasant as that was, he wanted to see if Lope’s story was true. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.
Elias stepped back from the building, kept low, and moved a couple more windows down. As Elias peeked into the house, he saw the button from Lope’s story. That little, pearly sphere struggled to keep a linen neckline together as a sumptuous pair of breasts swelled against the fabric. Her arms were strong from having to pump the cloth up and down the rack in the gray water every few days. As the vat’s tide receded down her arms, her skin was laced with bubbles. Her head would cock occasionally, probably to relieve stiffness built up in the muscles of her slender neck. More curls were free, some of them traced her cheeks, and some hung low and brushed across the crest of her breast, and bobbed as her body heaved up and down on the linen. Her face was set with determination, her cheeks were rosy from the work, and her eyes were low. Elias could not see them, but he wondered what color they were.
The little things intrigued him. The petite button, the curve of her neck, the way her nose came to an attractive point, and the mystery of her eyes. Would they be big or small, wide on her face, or huddled close to her nose? Could he make her laugh? He found what attracted him.
A pang of homesickness cut him as he looked at her. She had a thick body with wide hips, like the farming girls from home. They always came into town during fairs. They boasted fleece, grains, and cattle, and they were always fleshy and tanned like Pepita. Elias swooned.
He imagined Pepita drawing him into a field,
Elias’s feet flew out from under him, and his forehead hit the wall as he went down. His whole world spun, and the daydream of sweet lovemaking was gone. He groaned. A boot hooked under his shoulder and pushed. Elias thumped over; the blue sky of the wheat field was replaced with Lope, Diego, and Pietro. They were all smirking down at him.
Lope squatted next to Elias with his elbows on his knees. His tanned fingers dangled idly. “You want to know what happens next?”
Elias shook his head vehemently.
The doors to the launder house threw open, and the Tairona women expelled a shocked swoon. Lope marched in, Pietro and Diego brought up the rear. Pietro had his arms fastened around Elias’s legs, and Diego clasped the kid’s arms tightly. They were howling with laughter as they followed Lope. Much to Elias’s dread, Lope was leading them right to Pepita.
Elias struggled more.
“Pepita!” Lope called to her in a sing-song voice. “I have another peeping tom for you.”
Before she could say anything, Diego and Pietro hefted Elias high into the air, and swung him into the vat. Elias collided with the surface. His yell was swallowed with cloudy water. He kicked fitfully in the deep vat, and reached through the surface. Fingers flailed blindly until they found the wooden edge of the vessel. He tugged himself up, and when he tried to open his eyes, they were filled with a burning tingle that instantly obscured his vision. Elias grunted and his eyes brimmed with tears to combat the stinging soaps. As the tears washed his red eyes, Pepita was revealed. He had surfaced right in front of her. He looked up, horrified that his first impression was that of a wet, confused cat. Her laughter rang through the launder house.
Her eyes were light green.
Again, my original intention with this whole book was to make it... I guess as close to a "found film" story as literature could get. Different documents, different perspectives, etc. Just a way to have a massive character study in the midst of the weirdness that for the most part has already gone down, but should be ramping up again... soonish.
So, we have Lope and Elias here getting a little more attention. Lope, whose name literally translates into "wolf", was always meant to be the alpha male of his "pack". The whole soldier unit was always meant to have that pack mentality, so it was fun to finally flesh out the group and their leader. Did some studying of alpha behavior in wolf packs and among dogs, and tried to translate that into Lope.
Lope according to Up.It's not all bravado, it's behavior, deliberate and calculated.
And there's Elias. I never wanted him to be a sweet, innocent character. I wanted him to be Lope's foil. He is strong in his own way, and behaves more like a challenging alpha than a full-on top dog. A lot of alphas will punish these challenges in numerous ways for various reasons.
None of us do, Dug. So, Elias's fantasy and viewing of Pepita is meant to be one of those various challenges that gets under Lope's skin. Not only that, but it is meant to show that Elias is not as cookie cut as initially believed. We know he is a considerate person, after seeing his behavior with Nieve and Carmen, but he was never meant to be an altar boy. He was meant to possess empathy and passion, and Pepita has a way of bringing that out in people.
The "car wash" scene from Cool Hand Luke was the inspiration for this scene.... Also, it gave me an excuse to write sexy sex fiction, too. ;) Keep your eyes peeled, some day (insert pen-name here) will be the best thing to hit romantic literature since Fabio started conditioning his hair.
Your grandma will thank me.Also, "The NaNo Project" will be moving to WordPress over the next week or two. Once this is set up, we'll get the chapters rolling again. Thanks for your support, six people! :D You're awesome, and I will see you there.
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He lived up to his name with his wolfish grin, big white teeth, and scruffy, dark hair around intelligent, probing light eyes. He was seated on the table, and had his foot propped on a chair. He leaned in as he dealt the cards, and like a magnet dropped into a scattered mass of needles, his platoon pressed in to see. Many of the new cadets were already involved with the group, they had taken to their new brothers instantly. But Elias was one of the hesitant few; something Lope had not missed.
“Get us some more wine, boy,” he nodded at Ludwig, the heavy cook joshing with the monks in the corner, and the soldiers shouldered Elias out before he could protest. Lope’s attention returned to the rest. His brow glistened from bearing the heat. “Good job today, for a bunch of women, that wasn’t too bad,” Lope’s face was cracked by his grin, like a brown egg ready to let out the yolk. His light eyes shone brightly. The crowd chuckled; a couple of his men playfully damned him.
“Go find yourself a woman, Lope, see how she compares!”
Lope barked with laughter. “We are here to spread our empire.”
Ludwig had shooed Elias off from the conversation, and the cadet dragged his feet into the kitchen. He plucked up a vessel of wine, and left the kitchen, nearly colliding with Ludwig. They side-stepped each other, and Elias returned with the wine.
Elias watched the cards flip, and listened to the soldiers as they tapped their knuckles on the table. He was ready to leave, when the young sub-prior, Padre Alvarelo, stepped out of the kitchen. The soldiers were uncomfortable around him, Elias noticed immediately. He was not an intimidating man, but he was the right hand of Padre Leoncio, the prior whose relationship with the Captain was shaky, at best. As he emerged, the soldiers fell into their routine of ignoring his presence. Unless Alvarelo addressed them, he was rarely acknowledged. Captain Alejandro advised them to keep any and all interaction to a minimum, to avoid any chance of altercation. Perhaps it was not the best strategy, but in the short term, it had secured a wary truce.
There were two nuns following him. They were young, probably initiates. The soldiers had settled down quickly enough to draw a curious suspicion from the nuns. Lope met their gaze, he even smiled, and his attention was accompanied by his platoon’s own fascination with their arrival. Elias followed their stares, and recognized the two nuns from his journey across the ocean. He was embarrassed once he realized his fellow soldiers were making the sisters uneasy. They scurried closer to Alvarelo’s heels, and stayed there until they had cleared the refectory.
Elias sighed as he watched them go.
“Boy!” Lope called, and Elias whipped his head about to see Lope’s arms open, his stature notched up in an impatient, demanding pose. “My wine’s getting cold!”
Elias cocked his head, and Lope pointed to an empty, wooden goblet. Unable to mask his contempt, Elias poured him a portion of wine, and took a seat with the recruits.
Jorge, the soldier with a patchy beard, turned back from watching the nuns and shook his head in mock sadness. “That’s a shame.”
“Shit,” said another soldier, the normally monosyllabic Fabian.
Lope’s doggish companion, Diego, piped up next as he poured some wine. “Wrapping up a pretty ass like that,” he said, full of regret.
“Pass me that wine,” Pietro swiped it from Diego, and the red stuff gushed into his waiting cup. “Why don't you find yourself a pretty Kogui and fuck her,” he grunted around a mouthful of wine. He had a jovial lilt to his cruelty, but viciousness lurked beneath that charming grin. The way he grabbed and guzzled the wine reminded Elias of a barbarian.
Fabian had fixed his hazel eyes on Lope across the table. “Always Pepita. If that fails.” He knew how possessive Lope could be, and considering the myriad of territorial reactions Lope had in his arsenal, such a possession always showed itself differently. It was like watching a play where the author’s style was unchanged, but the material was always new.
Lope, energized from bossing around the new recruits, had one of his more positive retorts. He snorted as he helped himself to more wine. “You wouldn’t even know what to do with her.”
A low tone oozed around the table as the soldiers smelled a challenge in the air.
Fabian was smiling. “And?” He crossed his feet on the table. His quiet demeanor, matched with this toying attitude, left Elias anxious. He did not like Fabian, not one bit.
“I come to you now,” Lope straightened, and hooked his hand at the lapel of his jacket, “as your ambassador,” he gave a dignified sniff. “If you want to explore a bitch like that, you need me. I found that pretty thing on her way to the laundry house only moments ago. Look at that kid,” he pointed at the staring Elias, who started now that he was the center of Lope’s narrative. “He doesn’t have a clue. None of these brats do. I could be talking about a dog for all they care.”
Elias shifted, and thumbed the rim of his wine cup. “I hope not.”
The table erupted, the blast of sound chased the tails of Elias’s remark, and momentarily wounded Lope’s grinning bravado.
Lope recovered. “See every couple of days the infirmary has their laundry day. Since the doctor’s got shit all to deal with, the chore usually falls on Pepita. Now see, she’s always there. She’s his nurse, so you always know where to go to find yourself an eyeful of Pepita. But to truly get a good glimpse of her, you got to find her on laundry day.” Lope had a disturbingly dreamy look to him, his cheeks were red, but Elias could not tell if this was from the wine or from the sun. The group had fallen silent, but those smiles shined from their hunched faces, and that said enough. “You get more than a checkup.
“You don’t want to get caught, she‘ll run off like a doe,” but there was nothing tender or gentle in his words, just a slimy subtext that made Elias mentally squirm. “You lay low enough though, and you’ll have something on your mind all day, all because she wears this little dress. She bends over that water, and her tits press against her dress, against this button ‘bout the size of a pearl. And I mean these are tits. They’re not breasts, it’s not some bosom. Tits.
“Then,” Lope lifted his fists, and pushed them up and down slowly. “She starts pumping her arms in the water. You know it’s just washing, but it’s Pepita doing it. So, those tits start bouncing and she gets into this rhythm. And the water’s coming up her arms, or lapping over the vat, so her dress is getting wet. You can almost see through it, and it gets better. She gets tired, because when she isn’t washing or nursing, she really is a lazy bitch, so it happens pretty quick.
“You’ll know she’s tired because she starts stretching, sweating, her skin’s shining, and she’s putting her whole body into it.”
Elias was not aware of his daze until the door to the refectory flew open to reveal Martin, another of the new recruits. He was bigger than Elias, but through all their training he boasted a beet red face. He needed only a little exertion to make his cheeks bloom red. Claudio, a fellow soldier and not the brightest in their unit, used to jeer, and accuse Martin of jerking off in the latrine. However, Martin’s secret weapon was his wit, and he was no pushover. Elias remembered an excellent retort Martin had exercised against Claudio, that Claudio’s mother had that effect on him. Even as Claudio beat him to a pulp, Martin’s bloody mouth was open and laughing. Now, he looked frightened as his new unit looked expectantly at him.
“Captain’s on mission,” he gibbered. “He just went into the cloister with that prior.”
“Hell,” Fabian grumbled, and his wine thumped onto the table. The rest of the unit was on the move. Fabian’s wine cup had tipped over, and steady burgundy stream swelled over the edge of the table, and dripped onto the ground. Lope looked Elias square in the eye through all the commotion.
“Guess you’ll just have to see for yourself someday.”
Elias stared. It was the way Lope spoke that caught him off-guard, like he had just issued a threat. Still, Elias followed the rest of the men out of the refectory. They moved through the mission, not like cattle, but like athletes on their way into an arena. Some of the crew branched off, only a few continued with Lope. Martin was one of them. Elias wondered, he hoped prematurely, if Martin was going to reduce himself to a pathetically loyal mess for Lope. Martin was witty, and he was strong, but his weakness was an ingratiating ambition. However, if he could make an impression on Lope, there was a chance he could make an impression on the Captain, and in turn, one of the Generals back in the Yucatan. Elias had a feeling that if Martin did decide to take that road, he would be leaping through hoops more than standing to receive honors.
There was a book on Elias’s bed in the barrack; there was also more training he could do. He could take a run, he could fence, and he could help in the stables. So long as the Captain did not catch him slacking as he toured the mission, there was plenty for Elias to do. But none of these options appealed to him, each met with a lackluster verve. Elias could not get the image of the woman from Lope’s story out of his head. It did not help that not far from here was the launder’s wing of the mission. The idea of spotting her nagged Elias, and he chewed the thought over with his lower lip before he decided.
He plunged through the corridors of the mission until he emerged into the cloister. The missionaries had maintained a lovely garden here, much like the doctor‘s back in the courtyard. Elias imagined they enjoyed studying the botanicals. Perhaps even the doctor helped; after all, his very vocation required him to be familiar with such vegetation, among many of his other medicinal talents. Elias reined his wandering mind in, and refocused on the launder house up ahead. Elias kept close to the ambulatory that stood with the dormitory against the afternoon sun. He had the perfect shadow, and soon found himself submerged in the cool blue umbra. Even if he could not catch a glimpse of this famous ‘Pepita’, he would at least have had the pleasure of a cool spot on a warm day.
The launder house was nothing too impressive; a wide building that squat at the end of the cloister. The windows were low enough for Elias to have a look. There were a few Tairona women gathered around a big vat of water. Their conversation was engaging and animated for those involved. As they spoke and laughed and gestured, the gold on their faces and around their wrists sparkled. There was not much light in the house, save for the sun tracing delicately through the dusty windows, but their ornaments still entranced Elias.
Such a spell did not last long. In fact, it was broken once he caught sight of another woman. She was wearing a grey dress, and there was an apron around her waist. Elias had a fantastic view of her ass. He could see where that waist ended, and where those rounds hips began. A green scarf kept her hair in a messy knot behind her head, but some curls had escaped and wound down her neck and between her shoulders. From this window, Elias only had a view of her back. Pleasant as that was, he wanted to see if Lope’s story was true. At least, that was what he kept telling himself.
Elias stepped back from the building, kept low, and moved a couple more windows down. As Elias peeked into the house, he saw the button from Lope’s story. That little, pearly sphere struggled to keep a linen neckline together as a sumptuous pair of breasts swelled against the fabric. Her arms were strong from having to pump the cloth up and down the rack in the gray water every few days. As the vat’s tide receded down her arms, her skin was laced with bubbles. Her head would cock occasionally, probably to relieve stiffness built up in the muscles of her slender neck. More curls were free, some of them traced her cheeks, and some hung low and brushed across the crest of her breast, and bobbed as her body heaved up and down on the linen. Her face was set with determination, her cheeks were rosy from the work, and her eyes were low. Elias could not see them, but he wondered what color they were.
The little things intrigued him. The petite button, the curve of her neck, the way her nose came to an attractive point, and the mystery of her eyes. Would they be big or small, wide on her face, or huddled close to her nose? Could he make her laugh? He found what attracted him.
A pang of homesickness cut him as he looked at her. She had a thick body with wide hips, like the farming girls from home. They always came into town during fairs. They boasted fleece, grains, and cattle, and they were always fleshy and tanned like Pepita. Elias swooned.
He imagined Pepita drawing him into a field,
fully aware of the swing of her hips,
and their hypnotism. She pulled him into the golden wheat; she rolled him onto his back,
unbuckled his belt,and straddled my lap.
I pushed her skirt up, felt the soft hair of her thighson my fingertips.
and the warmth of her skin on my prick.I went in slowly, and affected her, and she shivered as warmth spread through her.
She began to rock like the first time I saw her at the launder house.
Her head was bowed,I put my hand on her cheek,
her mouth found my thumb,
And she finally showed me her eyes.Elias’s feet flew out from under him, and his forehead hit the wall as he went down. His whole world spun, and the daydream of sweet lovemaking was gone. He groaned. A boot hooked under his shoulder and pushed. Elias thumped over; the blue sky of the wheat field was replaced with Lope, Diego, and Pietro. They were all smirking down at him.
Lope squatted next to Elias with his elbows on his knees. His tanned fingers dangled idly. “You want to know what happens next?”
Elias shook his head vehemently.
The doors to the launder house threw open, and the Tairona women expelled a shocked swoon. Lope marched in, Pietro and Diego brought up the rear. Pietro had his arms fastened around Elias’s legs, and Diego clasped the kid’s arms tightly. They were howling with laughter as they followed Lope. Much to Elias’s dread, Lope was leading them right to Pepita.
Elias struggled more.
“Pepita!” Lope called to her in a sing-song voice. “I have another peeping tom for you.”
Before she could say anything, Diego and Pietro hefted Elias high into the air, and swung him into the vat. Elias collided with the surface. His yell was swallowed with cloudy water. He kicked fitfully in the deep vat, and reached through the surface. Fingers flailed blindly until they found the wooden edge of the vessel. He tugged himself up, and when he tried to open his eyes, they were filled with a burning tingle that instantly obscured his vision. Elias grunted and his eyes brimmed with tears to combat the stinging soaps. As the tears washed his red eyes, Pepita was revealed. He had surfaced right in front of her. He looked up, horrified that his first impression was that of a wet, confused cat. Her laughter rang through the launder house.
Her eyes were light green.
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