Vignette--Stella's - Writers Forum

Kittie · 08-18-2003, 10:08 PM

I found this little piece from about four years ago. I'd love a few comments on it.
Oh yeah, I'm thinking of including this within a longer short story. The styles are very different. The story I'm thinking of including it in is rather... run-on thinking? I can't remember the phrase... I think it's the style that was used in "As I Lay Dying." Freethought... free... something. Anyway, I have several "moments" within the larger picture I guess that are more concrete, like this.

Nostalgic streetlamps flooded the sidewalks and porch in front of Stella*s with enough light to block out all but the strongest stars. Anne had ordered cinnamon tea again and was busy emptying sugar packets into it. She leaned against the wall underneath the awning and I stretched my legs opposite her, resting against the railing. Anne tucked her hair behind her ear and readjusted her legs.

“I think that coffee barista was flirting with me,” I commented. Anne looked up, raising her eyebrows. “The one with the dark eyes and bed hair... he smiled at me.”

Anne’s closed mouth curved up a bit, “I’m sure he was... flirting with you.”

“He’s very good-looking. I think he should ask for my phone number.”

Anne nodded, “I like his eyes.”

I sipped my mocha and winced, “He shouldn’t be ringing people up... he should be making coffee. That other girl is terrible... taste this.” I offered my mug to Anne across the table. She shook her head and stirred another packet of sugar into her tea, “Coffee upsets my stomach. I don’t know how people can drink it.”

The black mug covered Anne’s nose as she sipped hot cinnamon tea. I stirred my own mug of coffee, watching the ever-present cluster of people across the street waiting for their car to be brought round. The Budapest Bistro always managed to bustle with activity, even at eleven.

“You know,” I said. “I just had a thought.”

Anne smirked at me, “A thought, eh? What would that be?”

I ignored her subtle dig, “Do you realize that I could just... leave?” Anne just stared at me for a moment. I shrugged and looked across the deck, people talking quietly, sipping italian soda and eating gooey pastry.

“I get so frustrated sometimes... being dependent on my parents for food and shelter and things like that. I want to be completely independent. And I think I could be if I really wanted to.”

Anne nodded, “I understand what you mean. But how could you? I mean, how would you be able to just... leave?”

I looked into the window we were sitting next to but the blue velvet curtain had already been drawn, providing the backdrop for whoever performed inside. In the winter, me and Anne would spend our Saturday nights in there, listening to various guitar players, jazz artists, and even piano bums. “I have the money... I could buy a ticket to somewhere... ride a train or something. Even a plane if I wanted to, really.”

“Yes, but what would you do when you got there?”

“Oh, I don’t know... look for an apartment... get a job... that kind of stuff. I would have enough to get started at least... it would just be a matter of doing,” I studied the awning carefully, observing the perfectly identical half circles that hung down from a perfectly straight bar.

“How much do you have?”

“Hmm??”

“How much money do you have?” Anne asked.

“Oh, I dunno... somewhere around $1900 saved up. Plus I have a couple paychecks that I haven’t cashed yet. Funny... I could cash them tomorrow, or deposit them... and take off. I am eighteen,” I pondered aloud. Over my shoulder, I noticed a table of five or six high schoolers with their happy, indifferent faces and expensive leather bags and shoes. They laughed loudly and I wondered at whose expense the joke had been made.

Anne nodded again, “Yeah, you could. But don’t do it, Lindsay. Just wait for college... it’s only a couple months away, you know. Don’t leave. It wouldn’t be good.”

“Oh, I know I won’t leave. I know I’ll continue to save my money like I’m supposed to, but the idea just came to me. And, for once, this crazy idea is a real possibility to me.”

Anne fiddled with the pen she had tucked behind her ear. At a table in the far corner were two twenty-somethings playing chess. Not far from them sat a couple talking quietly over shared cheesecake and in the other corner sat a black man engrossed in a leather bound book while he dipped into a bag of Doritos, oblivious of anything else. Behind Anne, a thin man in a black sweater and slacks smoked a cigarette, absorbed in the Denver Post in front of him. Down near the sidewalk and off the deck, a middle-aged woman sat at a metal picnic table with a little girl in light blue overalls swinging her legs and holding the leash of a black cocker spaniel.

“But why?” Anne shook her head, ignoring her tea.

I shrugged, “Well, I have the money... no matter how much my parents worry about this money and there being enough for college, it is my money. And I could potentially do anything I wanted to with it. And if that meant buying a ticket to Europe, that’s what it would mean.”

Anne jiggled the pen again, “Yes, but you don’t need to just leave... you’ll be leaving in just two months. It wouldn’t be such a great idea to leave now and blow college.”

“What if college turns out to be one big waste of time, though?” I asked. “What if... I mean... we’re on the edge of the biggest change of our entire lives. And I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with all of that. Not only that, we’ll be so far apart and how will I ever find new friends?”

“Oh, we’ll call each other I’m sure. We’ll email. We’ll write and someday the letters will all be compiled, after we’ve died, and put into a giant volume of young correspondence between two infamous writers and it’ll be a glimpse into genius, I’m sure.”

I nodded, smiling at the thought of our letters being found and regarded as a great treasure. But the realization of complete freedom that I really did wield still hung in the better part of my mind. A light had suddenly been turned on inside... and I now had possibilities opened to me that I had never before even glimpsed. I drank the rest of my mocha and listened to the drone of conversation that surrounded me.

Anne giggled a little at the horoscopes in the Onion. “Which one’s funny?” I asked.

“Virgo,” she said. “ ‘You will be gripped by the delusional suspicion that all of your closest friends on TV are actually just actors in some far-off studio.’ I think most of those girls behind you must have early September birthdays.”

amie · 08-20-2003, 12:36 PM

Kittie...
I think you have a start of something interesting here. This story could go about a million different directions, and as you're deciding that, you might want to have an idea of what sort of audience you're directing it to. Right now, I'm leaning more toward the young adult readers of the world or even after school special (nothing wrong with either of these), but I think you could definitely go into the adult fiction world quite easily.

The only thing I found to be troublesome as I read was your repetition by the narrator of the idea that her new idea was actually a possibility and she could do anything with it. Perhaps instead of stating it so many times, just signify that the narrator is thinking about it, or about freedom in general.

That's it for me...the story is looking good

cheers!
amie

**Penelope** · 08-20-2003, 02:38 PM

what always 'gets' me about conversation is that I know, from experience, that people rarely say what they are thinking. The advantage of writing is that the writer can inject thoughts into both characters. I would have liked to see more of that in this piece. It's a good read. Are these people worth knowing more about?