THE STORY INTENSIVE-LESSON 3–CHARACTER

Hello, this week is all about character. We did some hard work that paid off. I get to live in my character when I'm writing, when I'm on my daily walk, as I prepare lunch, even in the pool this afternoon. But, I have to tell you, this short story came from a dream, at least some parts of it. I am enjoying these exercises in writing and I always want to kow what you are thinking.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE

                I walk in the jam packed cafe feeling nervous. It’s nearly lunchtime. In line, I order a double latte, decaf, one cream, one sugar, keeping in mind I’m still breastfeeding baby Bruno. The barista smiles and repeats my order loudly above the crowd’s noise making sure to offer me their daily special. Turkey, lettuce and tomato on rye bread, mayo or Dijon, which I kindly refuse. I find a table in the back part of the restaurant so I can watch as people come in.

As entertainment, I sip my coffee slowly while eaves dropping on my “coffee mates”. Mom hates it when I do that, but even when I explain my delight in objectively observing people, she still dismisses it as an unhealthy thing to be doing. I see no harm in it. Even Oprah says to be vigilant in strange places. I’ve been doing this for years now and become a master at noticing, without being noticed.

In this instance, as I sip, I look up just so and discover someone observing me. I’m not quite sure, so I wait a little, fiddling with my cellphone to keep her suspicions at bay. I look again and I then notice how beautifully polished this woman is. Her face is symmetrically perfect as far as I can see. Her light blue eyes remind me of Cooper’s powder blue “blanky”. Oh and the soft blue dress she’s wearing invites anyone, male or female for a longer look. Just a glance around me and I know we are all admiring Miss Vogue. I don’t even want to see her legs at this point or her Stiletto shoes. They must be long and muscular where they need to be. I’m praying she won’t get up and leave, it will just floor me if she does.

Right about now, would be a fantastic time for Tyler to get here, so I can be the one to surprise him for a change. The clock says twelve fifteen. My coffee is still warm, but if he doesn’t get here soon, I’ll have to order something to eat. So, I make my way casually to the ladies room. In there, I look over my make-up in the mirror while pondering on that sugary pink gloss Miss Vogue efficiently painted on her lips earlier. Would the effect be the same on mine? I already know I couldn’t pull off that whole pure immaculate look even in a lifetime of trying. I can hear mom revealing to me what I already know, your lips are full enough, and you don’t want to attract attention to them or yourself, right sweetie.

Before I know what I can do with myself, Miss Vogue enters the ladies room, I can see her in the mirror but she can’t see me. That’s when I dash and lock myself quickly in the stall behind me. Feeling caught, I flush the toilet, pull on the toilet sheet roll and wait so she knows I had a legitimate reason to be here. The room is quiet but for a few fogged out sounds of music and conversations.

I then hear her talking to her phone, like she’s giving it an order. “Call Big Boy” I wrap my hand on my mouth for fear of bursting in laughter right then and there relieved to learn that Miss vogue has a little kinky side to her. “Right, she whispers softly, I’ll be coming out of the ladies room. “ And “mwah”, she kisses the air and hangs up. I get up and out of my stall quick enough to see only the back of her blond highlighted hair, cut in a line so straight, you’d think her cutting edge hairdresser used some kind of laser beam over her back. You know the kind a carpenter uses to level his cuts.

I smile at the picture I see of the carpenter in the glamourous beauty salon in my mind’s eye while I wait the expected time lapse to go back to my table.

What I’ve never understood is how I made it to my table standing. Though I felt like the scene before me brought me to my knees. It took all I had to grab my handbag and get out, unnoticed from them. The dumbfounded look I glanced in the man’s dark eyes was familiar. The jerk in my wrist still hurts as I pulled away from the strength his hand gripped on me. I had missed that sure grip for three whole years. Not that my husband had ever been physically violent with me in all the years we’d been together. It’s just that his hands had always been loving even when strong.

                              Now, I sit in my parked car with an ache inside that almost kills me. Our son Cooper is four, Bruno, three months old, our make-up baby as Tyler lovingly referred to him. My phone keeps giving out loud vibrating buzzes every minute. Still I can’t answer it when I see Tyler’s name light up on the phone screen. I want to give in here. I feel I could do it. Drive straight in the big red brick wall in front of me in the parking lot. It looks too easy. So that is when I let dad’s warm voice come to me in a resounding plea. Onward now, roll them sleeves up my darling, we need to get Cooper a new blanky.

  

Peggy Elms, writer.

September 25, 2017

THE STORY INTENSIVE-LESSON 2-WHAT STARTS A STORY?

Here I am again with another Assignment from THE STORY INTENSIVE. We had different choices for this one. I chose to start off with this sentence offered by the class. So hope you enjoy the read.

We all had a stake in it: we all had something to win and something to lose.

Our family isn’t the tightest knit family like the ones you see on TV. So sitting in the waiting room is a beautiful family picture I am dying to snap as soon as I step in. My brothers, they both look so groomed and perfect. Blake sitting alone, again, still manages to flaunt his signature Armani dark blue suit though his features are a bit more wrinkled than usual, and when I look closely the circles are darker under his big brown eyes, that don’t look so big right now either. No tie for him, he’s the casual would-be-millionaire and shows it. I don’t know if his patent leather shoes are shinier than his golden wedding band. Derek, the youngest of my brothers. Two whole years exactly, –mom had them on the same date two years apart, she couldn’t have mastered something so unusual, if she’d tried– Derek makes a point to remind Blake as he pinches the small overlap his stomachs pushes from his shirt stretching because he’s sitting down. But looking at Derek sporting his new leather jacket, I recall the story behind it. He told us, –fakely-shying away from his owenership in being the one wanting so bad to buy it– because his wife begged him to buy it in Italy. He’d went on: it was almost like stealing it, so I bought it to make her happy. -Yeah, right, I told myself, you just loved that Derek-‘’the ladies go wild at the bank when he walks in and he’s wearing his Levi’s dark blue 517 boot cut jeans and white shirt under it, my sister-in-law coos with the biggest of grins, unsuspecting why they give him this much attention. I don’t even want to go there. I am jealous of his still slim silhouette. For Christ’s sake he’s fifty-four and look like a freaking teen-ager. Tell me how that can be fair. When I’ve been dieting all my life. Losing 20 pounds, gaining 25. Losing 25 and gaining 30. It’s a never ending cycle.

You’d look at our family pictures and swore we were the happiest of families alive. To tell you the truth, we are a far cry from the Braverman family on the TV show: Parenthood. I enjoyed watching the show so much, I’d fantasize about being Crosby’s wife as dysfunctional as they were, they still had each other’s backs. I can’t believe my brothers are here.

Then I am quickly reminded of why they are, when Derek gets up to greet me distracted by a beep from his iwatch as he asks me how long all this is going to take. I have a busy schedule today.  don’t you always?

They’ve come to ”cash in” as they say in those misleading lottery commercials. But boy, oh boy are they in for the surprise of their well-tailored, shiny patent leather shoe, groomed, adultery filled lives.

I’ll even snap a picture of their surprised faces.

Peggy Elms 09-11-17

Writer

THE STORY INTENSIVE-LESSON 1-FREEWRITING

Hello there you beautiful people,

It has been a while since I've been here. I missed coming here and sharing my writing. I admit to being shy about the results yet, I am learning in THE STORY INTENSIVE that sharing is part of growing as a writer. So here I go. My first lesson is a I don't remember exercise in freewriting.

Thank you for stopping by, leave a word or two about your thoughts will you, I'd love to hear some input.

I don’t  remember…

                I don’t remember walking home from the school bus the day Samantha slapped me across the face for no apparent reason I knew of. I don’t remember if I cried or if any of my friends witnessed this unpleasant scene.

                I don’t remember my first day in first grade. There was no kinder garden then. They started having kinder garden classes the year after I started second grade and cried the whole first day.

                I don’t remember why I wrote a love note to Jackson in fourth grade when my heart was set on his best friend Isaac.

                I don’t remember if my father was with my mom, Nathan and I while we moved in our brand new home in 1967. I don’t remember seeing mom packing our special picnic lunch of potato salad, baloney sandwiches and a homemade Boston cream pie, she had prepared. So in the end we had one third each of a delicious enough apple pie our new neighbor dropped off to welcome us in the neighborhood. What a treat.

                I don’t remember preparing my lunch of baloney sandwiches every day. But I know for a fact my mother never did. She was always dead tired by the time she got home late from her work in the factory and would go to bed right after we watched the Flying nun at seven thirty.

                I don’t remember how they put Uncle John in the ambulance the night he got really sick and his kidneys failed. It took forever for him to come home from the hospital. I don’t remember my parents giving me a straight answer when I asked about his return. Can’t have been much of an answer or I’m sure I wouldn’t have kept on asking. I don’t remember where I hid the silver dollar I would have wrapped with my favorite wrapping paper I kept neatly in the bottom drawer of my dresser . I picked this happy one in my mind believing it would cheer him up and remind him I was waiting impatiently at home for him to come back and be all better.

                I don’t remember when Safka our fourth and last pet dog left for a new home. Mom didn’t either when I asked her. Dad hadn’t the faintest idea either. So maybe she just ran away.

Terrebonne, 3 September 2017

Peggy Elms, writer