Girl in Story

NOTE: I have updated/expanded the story.

Minor swearing.

Talk Dirty



I have just slipped on my beautiful red silk dress, and the beautiful red silk skirt has just settled down around my legs when the telephone rings.

I've got one of those old-fashioned cradle phones with the curly cord because of course that's vintage. I pick it up, I twist the cord around my finger and I say, "Nick?"

I say, "Nick, you had better not be canceling on me."

A voice on the phone coughs and then speaks. It's male, but too old, and I picture it coming from a throat full of cigarette smoke and a stomach full of megasized fast food burgers dripping ketchup.

The voice, it says, "Ms. Elliot?"

"Yes?"

"This is officer Daus with the NYPD. Are you acquainted with a man named Nick Carthright?"

I say, "Yes."

"I'm sorry for your loss, but Mr. Carthright died at approximately seven-oh-nine this evening. He died from a bullet wound to the head, and we're looking at a probable suicide. We would like to ask you a few questions, if you could come down to the station."

I say, "Does this mean I'm a suspect? You said it was suicide."

"No miss," Officer Daus says. "You're not a suspect. We'd just like to ask you a few questions, is all."

"Can I come down tomorrow?" I ask, looking down at my dress. "The grief is just too much for me."

"Yes miss, just come on down tomorrow morning," he says. I can tell that he's new at his job. It doesn't matter where you work, if you're new, you always get the shit assignments.

He coughs again and says, "I'm very sorry for your loss."

I set the phone back in its cradle and look at myself in the mirror. Of course, I'm beautiful, I'm gorgeous and I had a date before he shot himself.

I sit back down at my vanity, one of those pretentious, vain vanities with the big mirror and organza skirt. I pick up a cartridge of lipstick, paint, smudge and blot. I smile at my reflection.

I painted my nails this morning, toenails too, even though they won't be visible with my shoes on and everything. I painted them in this grungy blackish green color from Revlon's Dark Pleasures series called Talk Dirty. The color, it's hideous, but the name made it worthwhile. I love the names they give nail polish.

Glitter called Pearl Harbor.
Black called Black on Black.
Pink called Italian Love Affair.

My favorite is a vivid primary red called I'm Not Really a Waitress.

That sounds like an amusing job, making up those names for nail polish, but then you would know that your creativity and cleverness were being wasted on vain people. People who paint their keratin protein.

It's always fascinated me, how people will color their fingernails even though it's just protein, and whiten their teeth even though they're just an extension of the skeleton, and dye their hair even though, technically, hair is just dead cells. We bleach our dead cells, curl them or straighten them. We run our fingers through each other's dead cells. We sweep them into a fancy up-do, like a French twist or a bun with chopsticks, and honestly, why do people put eating utensils in their hair?

I finish my makeup and of course, I'm beautiful, I'm gorgeous and I'm about to take myself out on a date.

It's not that I'm a bad person, a bitter heartless ice-bitch, but it's bumming me out that now I have to pay for my own dinner.

I try to shake it off and I slip on my perfect silhouette heels, because there's really no point in getting upset over this.

There's really no point in getting upset over anything.

It's not like anybody can really suffer.

The way I see it is, it started with the Constitution and then with all of it's 27 Amendments. With the Civil Rights Act and the National Highway Act, with all of our laws and ordinances and zones and regulations, we've childproof capped our lives. We've padded all the sharp corners and created a comfy, safe-for-ages-three-and-up world. We've eliminated pain and suffering. Sure we can still shoot each other and break each other's hearts, but that isn't really pain. That isn't really suffering, and without suffering, there's no room for growth. Without something to fight against, we can't get any stronger.

So I say, bring on Global Warming. Sign me up for Nuclear Fallout. Take the childproof cap off my life.

I step out the door and when I hold out my hand for a cab, one stops right away, because of course I'm beautiful, I'm gorgeous and I don't have a date with me.

I slide into the cab, careful not to wrinkle my beautiful red silk dress, and the beautiful red silk skirt has just settled down around my legs when the cab driver turns to me.

He looks me up and down and he says, "Where can I take you, miss?"

"Le Vieux Vin," I say.

"Sure thing, miss," he says, and I turn to look out the window so he won't talk to me anymore.

"You meeting your boyfriend there? He must be one lucky guy," he says anyway.

I don't even sigh. I look out the window, with my hands resting benignly on my lap. The cab driver coughs and keeps driving. We arrive at the restaurant and it's one giant French cliché, with the wine and the waiters, and then I'm sitting at the clichéd table Nick reserved and I'm waiting for my clichéd filet mignon, and even though I know I can't really suffer, I'm getting pissed off at Nick Carthright.

It would have been common courtesy for him to wait until after our date to kill himself. No one commits suicide before midnight these days, anyway. It's like arriving to a party early.

I had only known Nick about a week. He probably asked me out just so that when he killed himself, he would have more mourners. Everyone is so melodramatic, nowadays. Really, Nick had just used me.

Sometimes it seems like I have this look about me that says, I'm user friendly.

No really, go ahead. Use me.

But maybe it seems that way to everyone. Maybe we're all acutely aware of when we're being used, but then, when we use someone else, we retain this detached obliviousness that makes the human race so especially special. It makes me wonder how we can stand to be around each other. How we actually go out of our way to be around each other by writing personal ads and going to gyms and hosting cocktail parties.

Actually, there are about seven billion people on the planet, which makes it kind of tongue-in-cheek that the most universal emotion is loneliness. Really, everyone is looking for a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a best friend forever, or at least someone who gets them better than their Tivo.

"Excuse me, miss?"

I look up, and see a man standing by my chair and for a moment I'm certain it's Nick, but then the man's face ratchets into focus and I recognize that he's a stranger.

"Are you waiting for someone?" he asks me.

"No."

"Really? A beautiful girl like you?"

I smile.

"It looks like I've been stood up, and I hate to eat dinner alone. Would you mind if I joined you this evening?"

Even though this stranger is only going to use me, it doesn’t bother me because I know I can’t really suffer.

I smile again and he smiles back, because of course, I'm beautiful, I'm gorgeous and it looks like I won't have to pay for my own dinner after all.

Frabes

I hate your speaker. Which is a good thing, whether it was intentional or not. It's certainly better than having a flat character that the reader doesn't feel anything for at all.

Her indifference (which borders on unbelievable, as it were) is also a good thing. Personally, I'm a little tired of overtly dramatic characters, so it's refreshing.

My main criticism is that the ending falls flat. I'd suggest reworking it so it's not so abrupt.

All in all, though, nicely done.

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A Kind of Truth

Butch

Well i really enjoyed this, its different.
However i agree with frabes the ending is abrupt and maybe you should think about re-writing it.
but i did enjoy it, good work

valeca

I quite liked this. And I loved the character, but for the same reasons Frabes hates her. She came across as developed early on, which made the rest easy to read. I wonder if this development has anything to do with your forum name.

There were a couple of stumbling blocks that tripped me up, too.

Quote:

"This is officer Daus with the NYPD. Are you acquainted with a man named Nick Carthright?" I see this as fairly redundant, but I say, "Yes."

I didn't really see the redundancy with his question for two reasons. The officer wouldn't have been aware of her thoughts and, although you show us her rather lethargic reaction to the death later on, it seemed a bit over-the-topish for the moment. Maybe irony would be an alternative to look at. "Nick, if you're calling to cancel our date, you'd better have a really good reason!"

Quote:

The way I see it is, it started with the Constitution and then with all of it's 27 Amendments.

Right here the whole feel of the piece changed. And I lost interest. The ending doesn't fit with the beginning and it ends up feeling like two different stories were mashed together at this point. I feel...let down. There was a great build up to something, and in the end, it didn't materialize. Maybe it's because the character has a distinct lack of passion in the early parts, then suddenly launches into a passionate speech about the follies of humanity in the western world.

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"...make your own nature, not the advice of others, your guide in life." --Pythia, Oracle of Apollo at Delphi

I'm here.

Charlie_Eleanor

Really enjoyed this. Well done. Would like to see it expanded as well.

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penguinsfly03

I liked some parts more then others, it seemed like near the end it got a bit political. Global warming and the Constitution really surprised me. I thought she was going to go a different path with all that no suffering stuff, but I liked to read it.

Girl in Story

I really appreciate the critique. Thank you all very much. I'm not sure if this is how you post revisions to stories, but I thought I would let you know (if you care) that I have edited my original post on this thread.

I expanded a little on the story, and if you have the time and inclination to read it, I'm curious to know if the addition made it better or worse.

Joelle

I have to say I really didn't like it in the beginning..I thought the narrator was stiff and emotionless. But as the story went on I really started enjoying it, and I actually do like the narrator.
I hadn't read your first draft so I can't say if it's better now though.

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When he was with her, the music never stopped.

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joelle-writing

kaytea111

i like it alot, cant wait 2 read more!

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Girl in Story

Thank you.

pualdo

it's nice sometimes to read about shamelessly vain and nihilistic people.

Girl in Story

I'm going to try entering this story in a writing contest (I know, masochistic) but I don't want to use the working title. Does anyone have any ideas for what I could call the story?

Sigg

I really like the writing style but I really didn't like the story. Everytime it went down one path, that path abruptly ended and all of a sudden we were on some other road. It was like an ADD impaired main character, not to mention the fact that the most pressing thought she had when she found out that the guy she was dating killed himself was that she would have to pay for her own dinner. Then the story flies into this unexpected and somewhat naive rant about our society being too sheltered or something.

Like I said though I do like your writing style a lot, it's very natural and easy to read. In all fairness, I did get a very good feel for the main character.

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Changeling

I like characters distance and your style of communicating her attitude to the world is good overall and exuisite in parts. I'm also intrigued as to how she came to be like this - but I don't find it convincing that its her knowledge of the constitution that has made her this way.
My favorite bit was her talking about all the names of nail polish, probably because beauty is integral to her character (more than say, politics), going in depth about shallow things and i was suspicious that she had something to do with her boyfriends death - there was a feel of American Psycho with her finding meaning in surfaces.
She is a character perhaps not to be "liked" but admired for her ruthless honesty about what she thinks and unapologetically stating it. This admiration is nicely offset with her blanking the cab driver which made me think, ooh what an ignorant wee *&$%.
Overall i loved it stylistically and would have kept reading - but i think the society and political stuff weakens it and should either be rewritten or left out to keep it as powerful and cool as the rest.
Good stuff.

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We are all in the gutter, but some of us are gazing at the stars. (Wilde)