Your Smile On Fire

...from the song Xavia

December 2007 - Posts

  • chapter seven

         Okay, so I'm looking for a good part of my novel to share here... okay, chapter seven. (My chapters are kinda short, as far as chapters go.) Oh, and the story is about a girl who lives in this small Texas town and desperately wants to get out, especially after her best friend moves to Chicago and the guy she used to have a crush on gets a scholarship to a university out in California.

        

         Seven thirty sharp is dinner time in my house. I set the table, Mom sets out the food, and Dad comes home from work to take a shower.

         It’s all very old fashioned.                          

         “So Kris,” Dad says to me over his plate of chicken in something-sauce, “how’s things?”

         “Fine I guess.”

         “I heard your friend Becca’s moving,” he prods.

         I nod. “Yeah.”

         “That must be hard,” he says.

         I shrug, “She’s doing fine.” In general, my rule in dealing with Dad has always been: use the fewest words possible. Our relationship is amicable at best, but by no means anything great and wonderful like you see on Seventh Heaven or those cheap Lifetime movies Becca and I watch. We may live like this is Leave It to Beaver, but it isn’t.

         “How are you holding up?” he asks. Holding up. Like he’s a freaking psychologist or something.

         “Fine I guess.”

         He doesn’t say anything else. Just goes back to the chicken.

         And then Mom has to step in. Here’s the thing about my Dad rule: it works fine so long as certain people don’t interfere. And “certain people” means Mom. “Kris!” she says suddenly. So suddenly, in fact, that the milk I’m drinking spills.

            “What?” I choke out.

            “Why don’t you talk to your father?”

            “I am,” I say irritably.

            “Don’t take that tone with me young lady. You know very well what I mean.” Which is true. I do know what she means.

            She means I never answer him with anything more than a (very) few words.

            She means I am perfectly civil to him, but really

            She means I don’t give him the time of day.

            All assumptions are true. They are facts. And I don’t feel like arguing with her so I get up, dump the leftover food that is on my plate into the garbage, and lock myself in my room.

     

            Through the door, I hear them talking.

            “I swear,” my mom’s saying, “that girl has some learning to do!”

            “Kerry, ease up,” Dad says. “She’s seventeen; give her some time.”

            I can almost hear my mom rolling her eyes at this. “Seventeen my butt! What does that have to do with anything, Charles?”

             “I’m just saying that when I was her age I was awful. Ten times worse than her. And you know it.”

             “Christ, Charles, quit making excuses for her.”

             “It’s not an excuse.” Another pause, “I just think she needs some time. She’ll come around.”

             See, this is the odd thing about my parents. Dad’s the one I’m rotten to, yet he’s the one sticking up for me.

             That says something about something, I’m sure. I just can’t figure out what.

     

             I want to apologize to Dad.

             Really I do.

             But the thing is, I always do. But then I go up to him and start talking and he does another infuriating thing that gets me upset again.

             Like this morning. When I wake up, Dad’s already at the shop, so I walk up there. My shoes make this empty, hollow, thud sound as they hit the dust, but I ignore it like I always have.

             Then I get to his shop, push open the glass door that says, in big red letters, Charles Car Fixins! Like it’s a cheap barbecue place or something.

             “Dad?” I say, looking around. The glass door swings open into his shoddily furnished office, where his computer, desk, and two chairs sit. Nothing else. Just those three things and a picture of him and mom when they were younger. “Dad?” I call again, opening the door to the actual work garage and poking my head in.

             “Kris! Hold on! I’ll be just a few minutes!” He has to yell this over some machine whirring at high, high decibels. I swear, it’s a wonder he’s not deaf by now.

             I take a seat in one of the chairs, crossing my legs over each other, then uncrossing them and folding my arms. Then unfolding my arms and sighing. Lordy, even being in here makes me nervous.

             Finally, after what feels like eternity but has only been five minutes (I’ve been watching the clock on the wall) he comes in from the work garage. “So,” he takes a seat behind his desk. “What’s up?”

             I start to open my mouth – really I do. But then his cell phone rings and he holds up one finger in the universal just one minute sign.

             “Hello, Charles Anderson here.” He takes a pen and starts jotting numbers down. “Uh huh, yeah… sure… of course.”

             So here I sit, twiddling my thumbs, resting my head in my hands, waiting for him to finish. I watch the clock as it ticks on. Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes.

             This is crap.

             I wave bye to him and leave, making sure to give the door a nice hard SLAM behind me.

             Did I mention he infuriates me? Because he does.

     

         Okay. There it is. Any opinions?

  • officially happy dancing

         I. Finished. My. Novel.

     

         And now I have to start my next one. Which means finding another good topic, another main character, another imaginary world just the same as our real world. It's going to be hard to top Kris and Johnson though, hard to top Ash Creek. Hard to top what I think might actually be... good. Or at least not sucky?

         Wow. Did I just say that? About my own work?

         Either I've got an inflated ego or I'm getting better. Bets, anybody? Bets?

    Posted Dec 03 2007, 10:59 PM by jordynt with 3 comment(s)
    Filed under:
  • in which i go from topic to topic like mad (from us four to boundaries to wanting to get out)

         Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Oh, sorry. I'm awake, really I am. I've just got to quit staying up until midnight writing.

        

         In other news, I love this quote, and maybe I've wrote it in my blog before, but I've been thinking about it lot lately so it bears repeating.

         The word friends doesn't seem to stretch big enough to describe how we feel about each other. We forget where one of us starts and the other one stops.

    --THE SECOND SUMMER OF THE SISTERHOOD

         I was looking a while back for a quote that could describe the relationship between us four. (Us four: me, my sister, and our two cousins [Lance Tankman and Reese's Pieces]) And I couldn't find one. But then I started reading the second 'traveling pants' book again and that quote leaped out at me. Because it describes us kind of perfectly - even when the four of us don't see each other for months it's still just like it always was when we get together. Like no time at all has passed. We immediately sink back into those old roles - I'm the "little mother", Reese's is "the baby", Lance Tankman is "the boy", and TayTay is... well, she's TayTay.

         And I miss them so much sometimes that it aches. I've been thinking of them an especial lot lately because of things that are going on, and I've been thinking that our lives are so different. So different that I don't even know how to relate to some of the things they go through, and I know they haven't been able to relate to some things I've gone through. There are some things that can't be explained, things that mere words don't do justice too. Feelings that you will never know until you experience them. Certain things that happen in life, they are beyond explanation. Too sad or too horrible. Too extreme. I think most people get that - there are certain boundaries in life, lines you don't cross.

         And you don't think about them. I mean, do you really have to remind yourself not to stick your hand IN THE FIRE? For most of us, the answer is no. Our hand in the fire will get burnt. It will hurt. We will be in pain. We don't like pain. So we don't do it. But then there are those times the normal boundaries, for whatever reason, get passed. Lines get stepped over. And that's when words fall short. Because some things just AREN'T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN.

         Okay, sorry. I started talking about one thing (us four) and wound up talking about people sticking their hands in fire. My mind works in strange ways. But how did I get on that topic? Oh yeah... experiences you can't really understand until you go through them.

     

         Actually I was thinking about something else when I wrote that. I was thinking of this girl I knew back home. We'll call her Rainbow Fish. Anyways, I've known RF since kindergarten when we had the same wonderful teacher. We were never best friends, but we've known each other since we were five and, up until the time I moved away, had always hung out with more or less the same group of people. So we knew each other pretty well. And as far back as I can remember she was always saying she wanted to move away. Specifically she wanted to live in California. She was always looking forward to the time when she could go to college and get out of our little town. I was just the opposite. I loved our town and couldn't for the life of me figure out why someone would want to leave so badly, or what that would even feel like.

         And then I moved here. To this place everyone loves. To this place where the sun's always shining and the beach is thirty minutes away. And I know I'm a total anomaly, but I finally understand that feeling, that itch to get out. It's a weird feeling. Kind of antsy, a little restless, and also sorta sad. But I understand it.    

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Oct. 15 [going to work soon] [two school essays due; majorly nervous about both] [remember when i wrote that short story where the girl said "majorly" every other WORD practically? ha]