Character-Driven Short Story

Another assignment I did last semester for creative writing.

Based on my actual friend Shelby/times with Shelby.
Pics are of her.

Not the Car

Shelby never wears anything but dresses and skirts, and her elegant feet are always trapped vertically and contorted in her beloved high heels. She prefers to drive in heels. She does everything in heels. She has a habit of constantly tapping the heel of her shoe whenever she is on tile, confirming with each tiny ding that these shoes were far more expensive than yours. Her platinum blonde hair is never up, just down, rolling to her chest in soft waves, or jetting straight down her back, depending on her mood.

She stands tapping her heels at the Starbucks counter inside Barnes and Noble. I’m there too. I’m Shelby’s friend. Against all odds, I might add, because Shelby is everything I’m not. I’ve been at Barnes and Noble waiting for her to show up. By the looks she’s getting, I guess I’m not the only one happy to see her. She’s too busy chatting up the barista as he makes her latte that she’s forgotten she’s tapping her heels again. I consider telling her to stop, but I suddenly don’t feel worthy of approaching her. I’m saving the table. Her boyfriend Sean stands next to her in his white suit, the one she told him would match her dress perfectly for this outing. Standing next to Shelby, even in Barnes and Noble, makes you feel like you’ve been invited to a dinner party and forgotten to dress up.

She continues to talk to the barista. She talks with every stranger like this, perfectly timing a perfect conversation, oblivious to her ability to make his day just by discussing a book.

“I love that author,” she says to him, “His commentaries on existentialism fascinate me.”

But no one, not even her boyfriend Sean in all his white-suited glory has the heart to tell her. But everyone knows that no one is really listening to her, only trying to look down the v-neck of her dress. This tall barista succeeds easily.

You don’t have to go into Shelby’s closet to know that she spends an awful lot of time and money on her undergarments. She’s the kind of girl who not only lives at Victoria’s Secret, but Victoria herself probably whispered her secret into Shelby’s ear. Because it’s obvious that Shelby knows something that we don’t. Namely, how to glide through life on torturous shoes and still smile without getting red lipstick on her teeth.

I’m still waiting for her so I watch the barista guy smile like he has a clue what she’s talking about. But my guess is—he’s really thinking about what’s underneath her dress and rhinestone bra. Several images probably cross his mind but none will include a 143 IQ. But that is what’s hidden under Shelby’s sparkly lingerie, pink dresses and gold jewelry.

Shelby was named after the car that her dad was obsessed with when she was born. And like the GT Mustang, she has been an object of lust in the eyes of all men. Those fortunate enough to get behind the wheel are often too rich for their own good. Just like Sean. She’s kept him around for eight months because he’s a good accessory.

Shelby and I played Barbies as kids. She played the brand new, evening-gown blonde. I played the brunette whose hair had been scissored to the skull and whose face had teeth marks from the dog. As a consolation prize, she gave me a Ken doll. After all, hers didn’t need one. Even then she explained to me, “Barbie never needed Ken.”

“But who was going to stand next to her in a matching outfit each time she saved the world?” I wondered. Sean is her Ken doll at the bottom of the toy box. She doesn’t care for him. She’s even, on occasion, tried to hook me up with him, much to my repulsion. But his tie matches her Prada bag, so she’ll dig him out when there’s a party.

At the end of the day, she would much rather be with someone like the guy at Starbucks. Someone into music, who wears square glasses and has an antiestablishment plan to revive the hippie culture. That’s Shelby’s dream guy, the one she talks about when I’m sleeping over and we’ve run out of things to say while staring at her ceiling in bed. That’s always been Shelby’s dream guy. They never made a Ken doll with shabby hair and a tye-dye t-shirt.

I bet right now she’s imagining Mr. Barista in tye-dye. She is imagining him and her running off to Africa to cure AIDS orphans. She has this obvious, contagious, love for humanity.

So Shelby talks to everyone. And she thinks everyone takes her seriously. She thinks she can tell them she’s on the Dean’s List at medical school and they’ll believe her. Worst of all, she thinks the renegade latte boy has pure intentions. So she flirts at the counter, tapping her high heel on the tile floor. But the latte boy only sees a Mustang GT with Sean, the lucky owner.

Shelby leaves behind a cloud of exhaust that he must choke on while he watches her peel out his sight.

Shelby doesn’t realize that she is a classic. She doesn’t know she’s a ’65 model with standard Koni shock and an engine painted black. All she knows is how much she’s worth.

But Shelby is not the car. Shelby is the intelligent nursing intern. She is the friend who drives to the airport at 2am, without complaining, to pick me up. She is the daughter who stuck around to help her mom and dad. She is the brain surgeon who settled for being a trophy girlfriend.

But to me, most importantly, she is the friend that grasped my hand and whimpered as she got her sexy tattoos. She is the little girl who didn’t want her evening-gown Barbie to get married. She is the friend whom I have seen without any makeup.

And I know that even though she doesn’t mind being the car, she is, most definitely, not the car.

A Lie Is Like

Ok so I just wanted to tell a funny story that happened yesterday when I was in Vegas with my parents.

We were going to a clinic on Tuesday morning, so after checking out of the Mandalay Bay Hotel :), we had breakfast at a McDonalds. It was only 7am or so, and the only other people in there besides the 3 of us were 2 old men. One was considerably older.

I went to the bathroom after ordering and when I came out and began to sit with my parents, I hear the considerably older man say "....and she has on a negligee and is all horny. and this guy is like 'oh no i'm (bad word!)"

And I am just like oh my gosh.
AWKWARD.
slash weird.

But it gets better. The older old guy then starts lecturing the other guy. My parents and I are basically forced to listen. And we're trying not to laugh. My dad whispers, "I guess there's some drama going on this morning..."
From what I could gather, the younger old guy wants to buy a boat, and his wife is against it. His buying the boat could end the marriage. So he's thinking of just buying it and hiding it so she won't know. (Genius plan, by the way. If it's a bathtub boat.)

But the older guy, in his scratchy, old man voice, starts telling him why it's bad to lie.
However, he does so to the tune of ridiculous comparisons and every cliche in the book.

Example: He says, "A lie is like a (insert stupid inanimate object here) (insert far-fetched connection here.)"

Some of my favorites were: "A lie is like a stop sign. You can look at it and stop, or you can choose to ignore it and go out into the intersection and get t-boned!"

"A lie is like a bear trap. You can play on it, but eventually it's gonna slam shut on your leg."

and the ever-relevant: "a lie is like a boat with no water under it." I can't remember how he explained it but it was absurd.

His cliches were equally entertaining:
"Once you tell one lie you have to tell another."
"When you tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said."
"The truth will find you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it will find you!"
"When you tell a lie, you dig yourself a little deeper."

Unfortunately, we had to leave before his lecture was over and we didn't find out if this other guy had changed his mind.

But when we got in the car, my parents and I were just rolling our eyes and laughing at that guy.

My dad started mocking him and in an old man's voice was saying, "You gotta rob Peter to pay Paul. A lie is like a cell phone. If you flip it open, you gotta answer it....unless you hang up. But lying is like hanging up because you can't face the truth."

It was funny.


Oh and we had a lovely 1 1/2 days in Las Vegas. It was not crowded at all---yay bad economy :)
We got to shop and look at the cool hotels. The 3 of us never really hang out. When I was a kid I always wanted to be an only child. :) I mean now, of course I couldn't live without the other kids but it was cool to pretend for a while.

Latest Writing

Ok so my writing instructor for my independent study is helping me make a lot of summaries and excerpts to send to magazines.

NOTE- it's not the whole story, obviously. It is an excerpt, and then a summary.



I can't think of a title yet, so if any of you can think of anything, let me know. Feedback is needed as well. Thanks!






He pressed her up against the locker and kissed her once more before the bell rang, grabbing a handful of her spiraling brown hair. They pulled apart in time for the crowds that came bursting out of their classroom doors. Soon, they were walking separate directions, caught in the sea of all the other members of Walsh High School. After school, she pulled him aside.
“Ander,” she whispered harshly, “that was close. We can’t make out in the halls. I’m going out with Jameson.”
“You’ll be in science class tomorrow, right?”
She smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
When science class rolled around the next day, Daphne smiled at Ander at her desk. When the other students filed in, they broke their gaze.
“Daphne?”
She looked up. “Yes Mr. Garrison?”
“Can you please read page twenty-two?”
She nodded. Twenty two. His age. “Mr. Garrison” was still much easier to say than Ander, even after two months, she decided.

“I should have never taken a job in a small town,” he tells himself continuously. As the new Physics teacher, twenty-two year old Ander Garrison from New Jersey was not prepared for the Southern-Baptists, Neo-Nazis and scandalous affairs in Trembles, Alabama. Nor was he prepared for a student with the intelligence and beauty of senior, Daphne Borrows. After witnessing Daphne’s abusive relationship with her quarterback boyfriend, Ander’s advice and comfort turn to something more.

Daphne has never seen anyone like Ander before. His blonde hair and crystal blue eyes are something only the movies have. In his classroom and in his arms, Daphne finds a trust she’s never experienced. Something about Ander is pure and genuine.

The two begin a secret, fearful affair in a town where secrets are deadly.

Does love have laws? Can a school, a town, prohibit an adult student from dating a teacher? Can a man’s love cost him his job? His reputation?

Justified?

Riding public transportation for a semester+ has given me a lot of grief, despite it's convenience.

Normally, the light rail is a marvelous place for people watching. Sometimes, though, I am outraged by what I see.

Well...one particular thing outrages me.

Sometimes the light rail is PACKED. During rush hour and such. And there are people who have to stand in the aisles and hang on to the bars and handles and such.

Standing isn't what bothers me. At least not in and of itself.

What bothers me is that on the packed light rail, men are sitting while women are standing.
In my world, that would never happen.
In my world, every man would give up his seat until there were no more women standing.

I will always teach my sons to do this.

No, I don't think women are weak and need to be seated. I just think that the principle of the matter is that women having "equality" has taken them off their pedestal. Christian men--you CANNOT let this happen!

A little hope came back to me the other day.

A young, 8 foot tall muscular guy with tattoos and a bandanna was standing and holding the handle above him. A girl around my age was standing in front of him, holding onto a handle too.
The guy leans forward to the guys in the seat. He says, "Hey, can I ask you guys something kinda crazy?"
They look up.
He says, "can one of you give your seat to this young lady? She has a foot cast on."

A GIRL in a FOOT CAST and she was standing.
One guy did stand up and apologize and let her have his seat.
So that was cool.

But the girl seemed so surprised--too surprised. That was discouraging because women in our culture have adapted to being treated "equally."

Women SHOULD be treated differently! I wish people would stop thinking chivalry is sexist. Women contribute to this idea. We as women need to EXPECT to be put on a pedestal.

Men: be chivalrous.
Women: expect and embrace chivalry.
Parents: teach your sons chivalry and teach your daughters what to expect.

As the hot guy on the light rail proved, there are still people out there doing the right thing.