The scene that follows the previous installment of my short story, Her Life, is too long and talky to post here. So I'm skipping ahead to the next scene.
All night long the bar in the low-ceilinged room upstairs at Coleman’s had been packed. Finally, only a few minutes before last call, it was beginning to clear out. Bone-weary, sad, hot, and irritable, Kathy leaned on the bar with her chin on her fists and stared across the room and out through the open terrace doors. The umbrellaed tables outside were empty. All except one. And at that one sat three college girls celebrating one of their birthdays with a fourth round of Cajun martinis. Kathy accused them of blocking the breeze.
“Margarita, babe.”
“Shit!”
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Kara brayed. She stood behind Stephen, her arms around his shoulders, her breasts flattened against his back, and leered at her sister. “Daiquiri for me.” She got a kick out of having Kathy wait on her. Kara must have dragged Stephen in here just to annoy her. Stephen hated Coleman’s. All the fish nets and plastic starfish, the tourist kids picking out lobsters they’d be too grossed out to eat from the tanks downstairs—That’s us, he liked to say, All us locals, we’re on the menu. Fucking catch of the day’s what we are. Fucking lobsters in a pot. No other reason to exist 'cept to make their vacations fun. Worth a post card. "Come see the colorful locals in their native habitat, fawning all over us for fucking minium wage."
“Don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“I’m not.”
“Figured I’d turn up, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Have a way of doing that, don’t I?”
“Doesn’t he look great?” Kara sat herself down on the stool next to Stephen, turned toward him, with her legs crossed and her chin cupped hin her hand and her elbow resting on her knee, so that she leaned forward, her tits practically spilling out her blouse. She tucked her foot under his leg and rubbed it up and down along the back of his calf. Catching Kathy’s glaring eye, she said, “I’m not going to share.”
Stephen said, “Could look at me, you know. Been over a year.”
“I remember what you look like,” Kathy replied.
“Couldn’t get me out of your mind, that it? Dreaming about me the whole time? Orgasms waking you up at night, visions of my handsome face make you sit up screaming my name?”
“That was me,” Kara said.
“Good to see you again, Kath.” He flashed his Aren’t I Devastating grin. Usually it bought him no arguments. Kathy said, “Wish I could say the same.”
“Oh man! I’m hurt. I’m truly hurt!”
“Kathy,” Kara said, “Our drinks.”
What could she do? They were customers. Customers said fetch, she fetched.
I can't remember if you're workshopping this story or just posting it as you get deeper into it, but if it's the former: What's really making this story crackle is the dialogue.
Something in the little exchange in this part, in fact, is the first time anything in it has hit my ear a little slantwise. I know Stephen's just turned up, but would he use the word "orgasm" in this context? He doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would be careful to use a respectful-cum-clinical term like that, especially when there's that hum of hostility underneath.
God, I hate myself for using workshopping as a verb.
Posted by: velvet goldmine | Sunday, July 23, 2006 at 02:57 PM
VG,
Good point. I think he'd be watching his language a bit in the situation. But you're right, there's a great awkwardness in the phrasing that sounds like my fault not his. I'll work on it.
By the way, we went to Marion's. Got a chicken pot pie for dinner one night. Delicious. Had a bumbleberry pie for dessert. Also delicious.
Posted by: Lance | Monday, July 24, 2006 at 10:48 AM
Are you still considering making changes to this story? Not that you aren't free to change whatever you want, whenever you want. But usually at some point, a writer declares him or herself finished. The End.
I'm no clearer as to the story's sequencing, but it is true the dialogue here is so good that the before and after hardly matter here. Still, to pull the thing together, at some point, you need to give the reader a sense of: beginning, middle, end, even if you're playing with time; showing how surreal it can be, etc. So: More, sir. Please can we have some more?
Posted by: grasshopper | Monday, July 24, 2006 at 05:40 PM
You know, I realize that I asked you to go to Marion's, but please forgive me for saying: you bastard.
Like grasshopper (mmmm....grasshopper pie!), I'm a little hazy on the chronology of the story, but it's certainly been damn interesting so far.
Posted by: velvet goldmine | Monday, July 24, 2006 at 08:36 PM