Thanks for taking the time. I was working on a revision and had come to the same conclusion regarding the flashbacks. Hopefully I’ll get back onto this project soon.
Short Story / Tremulosity??
Tremulous.
That was the only word that would enter Bryans mind. Tremulous. He wasn’t sure that it was the correct word (it probably wasn’t even close), but it sounded right – like a lone, tiny leaf – the last leaf on the tree, hanging on for dear life against the the constant flap and flow of a powerhouse wind, unsure of exactly how many seconds it can continue to ride the very branch that gave it life. Tremulous, that’s how Bryan felt staring at the phone.
Melissa had given him the number almost a month ago now and it had sat, undisturbed, in the middle of the otherwise deserted coffee table, right where Bryan had discarded it, immediately after writing it down. He felt it there, every time he entered the room, staring, judging, eyeballing him as he watched Jon Stewart and The Office. It called out to him, spoke in whispers as he tried to relax, shifting in his usually comfortable wingback, listening to old vinyl L.P.’s. It dogged his nights and followed him through his days, haunted his writing and left him daydreaming through script meetings. He heard the echoes of it at the Starbucks on the corner – using a tall vanilla latte as an excuse to hide out. He found himself avoiding home, avoiding the constant nagging of that little slip of paper that dared him to make one simple phone call.
Melissa had called on a Sunday, their one day off from the studio. They were good friends, spent a lot of time together during the work week, but had a long-standing tradition of non communicado on Sundays. Bryan was first worried, then slightly annoyed when he saw her number on the caller I.D.. She opened the conversation with some vague “shop talk” about a scene that was already in the bag and then quickly segued into the real reason she was calling. It was a setup.
“She’s really a lovely girl, Bry.”
“That always means that there’s something fundamentally wrong with them, doesn’t it? Is it like that girl Tera? Remember? The closet fruitcake evangelist? The one that got up and started preaching Revelations and distributing anti-semitic pamphlets… in the middle of dinner… at Goldbergs?”
“Yeah, yeah. I didn’t know she was a flake. She was a cousin of a friend of a friend. You’re going to hold that over my head forever?”
“Yes. Yes I am. I used to be Jewish, y’know!”
“You converted just long enough to get married and tell one off-color Rabbi joke.”
“Touché.”
“What about Amy? She was cute.”
“Very cute, until she got wasted, fell 3 feet from my deck and tried to sue me. Now honestly, what’s the matter with this one? Hare lip? Morbidly obese? – Is she a 400 pounder?”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Really? What could possibly be the cosmic flaw this time Mel? I.Q. of 36? Daddy issues? Leprosy?”
“You’re the one with the low I.Q., Bryan. Maybe if you weren’t so wrapped up in your bullshit Hollywood life you’d be able to date a normal person…”
“I don’t want a normal person.”
“I know, you want Wonder Woman, thigh-high boots and all. Lucy is not coming back. You need to move on, and for some masochistic reason, I feel the need to help you. Gina is a funny, intelligent and very beautiful woman. Besides, after she meets you she’ll probably never want to see you again… ever.”
“True.”
“So what are you so afraid of?”
“Gloria Swanson.”
“What?”
“In Sunset Boulevard. If this Gina is so great, why isn’t she taken?”
“What does that mean? Gloria Swanson?”
“How do I always have to explain these references to another screenwriter? What are you? Thirteen? Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard… She was a clingy, manipulative, psychopathic harpie, who eventually kills William Holden because he tries to leave her.”
“So you’re afraid that you’ll be sucked into a relationship?”
“No, dumbass. I’m afraid you’ll hook me up with another nutjob who may finish the job this time.”
“You are a prick, and I’m hanging up. Now, would you just call her? Please? If she kills you, I’ll take total responsibility.”
“Nice. That makes me much more comfortable with the idea. I’ve gotta go, somebody’s at the door. Goodbye Mel.”
“Up yours, Drama Queen.” Click.
That’s how it had started. After a few more phone calls, a couple of coffee breaks and one questionable Sushi dinner, Bryan had finally relenteded just to get out of the restaurant and on his way home to the relative safety of his own commode.
The first few days, the tiny slip of paper held no interest to him at all. He forgot it entirely. Then, a week after the Sushi incident (as Bryan would refer to it) a 30-second blip gave life, and a voice to the inanimate scrap of pulp. Double Jeopardy had left a nebbish Mormon nuclear physicist in the lead. Bryan was slowly nodding off, his third scotch & soda evaporating in his hand, when the Life insurance commercial came on. It was the usual pre-primetime type of infomercial. A traditional American family cavorted in slow-mo happiness as a steady midwestern voice blathered on about term-life and the importance of coverage. Then, out of nowhere, like a sudden pounding heartbeat, there she was. Lucy. It had to be. The long auburn curls, the smoky eyes and those lips – like some ripe exotic fruit, ready to burst with sweet, red juices at any moment. The girl on the TV, his Lucy, twirled around and around in a field teeming with flowers – bluebells and white daisies, some other flowers, yellow and red – a softly wavering sea of kaleidoscopic heaven. It swayed softly with her every movement. It moved for Lucy; with Lucy. Lucy with the deep amber soul; the symphony of curves; the softest, tiniest wrists Bryan had ever touched.
Then she was gone. As quickly and mysteriously as she had appeared, she flickered away, leaving a big green logo and a screen full of writing too small to read. Bryan was on his knees, palms on the screen in supplication to the gods of the airwaves, begging without words for her to come back, to reappear with that genius smile, beaming for him and him alone.
He stayed on that station for 14 hours waiting for that commercial to play again. He parked himself in front of the TV with every spare moment. Flipping, ever flipping. Frantic and oblivious to everything and everyone else. Eventually he gave in to the realization that he was not going to see it again and it may have been a figment of his drunken imagination at that.
The next few days were unsettled. No sleep, little food, no conversation and unable to work. Bryan spent an eternity inside his head, reliving every minute of his life with Lucy. Replaying a thousand instances of affection, a hundred episodes of absolute bliss. Ten beautiful months full of tranquility and warmth, the kind of surety and unconditional love a sleeping baby finds in his mothers arms. She was inspiration, she was Life, she was Lucy. The only person he ever really loved, in that silver screen, romance novel, Shakespearean sonnet way that only Pinot Grigio and Van Morrison seem to replicate.
Lucy was everywhere. He saw her in the corners of his vision, in every reflection on every window, in every woman walking carefree down a crowded street.
She was his soul-mate, something he had always presumed was nothing more than a cheap literary convention.
She came late to the game, following three weddings, three ugly divorces, dozens of other failed ‘romances’. Then, at 40, eminently successful in career, woefully pathetic in every other avenue of Life, he stumbled across Lucy. She was an elementary school teacher, a dancer, worked with the mentally challenged and was a bit part actress “on the side”. She was amazing. There was nothing in this world that Lucy felt was outside of her ken. She could, would and did do anything and everything. She was only 30 and had lived a full lifetime beyond Bryan. She had been a troubled teen, drugs and alcohol, rehabbed by 20, travelled most of the world by 25, seen things and done things that most only imagine or see on Discovery Channel. She’d swam with sharks off the coast of Peru, danced atop a volcano in Bali, climbed Egyptian pyramids and outrun the bulls in Pamplona. There were no regrets for a girl like Lucy.
They met during a casting call for an Indie film that Bryan was consulting on, as a favor to an old College buddy. He was reading with actresses to play Delia, the protagonists wicked wife who gets killed in the first act, after a tremendous amount of potentially scene-stealing dialogue while berating and abusing her husband. The film was set in a Kansas dustbowl town and Delia was meant to play as a man-eating bitch in the guise of a desert flower. After two full days of auditions, having read the same lines against something like 120 different actresses, Bryan was about as bored off his ass as he had ever been. Enter Lucy Ames. Average height, a nice curvy figure, not quite hourglass – her hips were just barely wider than her shoulders and her bosoms were ample, as the saying goes. Despite the fullness of her form, she was obviously fit and well muscled, with the graceful, confident movements of a lifelong dancer. Her feet were dainty and her hands were small, with slender arms tapering to finely boned wrists that belied a girlishness that she would never outgrow. She wore a simple flowered sundress, exactly as you would imagine a small town farmgirl would wear. Her hair was a chestnut brown, naturally curly, tied up in some kind of bunyip behind her perfectly proportioned skull. Wisps of brown fell around her delicate neck and framed her soft face. Like her body, it was a contradiction in beauty. Her face was full and smooth, and Bryan expected her to smell of fresh peaches and sweet cream. She had powerful cheekbones and a megawatt smile set between a pair of the fullest, roundest lips ever laid on a woman. Her eyes were deep and brown, rimmed with gold, which shone like the sun peering through clouds when she grinned from ear to ear. Bryan was immediately and visibly shaken. He stumbled standing up and stammered when introduced to her. He found himself instinctually playing the gentleman when they sat, pulling the chair from the table, standing at attention until she was settled. He stared vacuously as she discussed her credits with the Director.
“OK Ms. Ames, you have the lines? Ready to rock n’ roll? Bryan?”
Bryan was still staring having, as close as he could explain, an out-of-body experience.
“Bryan? BRYAN!”
“What? Oh… ahh… sorry. We ready?” Bryan made a show of taking his glasses off and rubbing his eyes in mocked exhaustion to cover his gaffe.
“You’ll have to excuse Bryan, he’s read these same lines three or four hundred times in the last few days. I’m sure he’d be a little more excited if he’d written them himself.”
“What is that Phil? A crack?” Bryan lifted a sly grin towards the girl. “ I’m sure I can work up a little enthusiasm for Ms…Ames is it?”
“Lucy.” She had a voice like the coo of a meadowlark, soft and full, just like the rest of her.
“Well, let’s get the show on the road.”
Bryan felt back in control of his senses, and was trying to play it cool with this lovely young woman seated so close to him that his head was floating in the faintest air of her Sunflower perfume. She did not, in fact, smell like peaches. Instead, she exuded an air of summer – warm breezes carrying the softly sweet melody of a dozen varied wildflowers, fresh cut green grass and the slightest hint of rich, healthy earth, freshly gardened. Bryan was enchanted.
”Are you sure you’re alright Mr. St.James?” There it was again, that voice, cinnamon dripping honey into the deepest recesses of his brain.
“BRYAN!” Phil was out of his seat and reaching for Bryans script.
“Wha? Huh? Oh, ah sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
“Maybe you should go get some coffee, Bry”
“Sorry.” Bryan set his script down on the table and stumbled toward the door turning back to drink in one last glimpse of Ms. Lucy Ames.
“I hope you’re feeling better.” She drawled.
“Uh yeah, thanks. Good luck.” Phil ushered him out the door and shut it behind him, closing him off from the greatest moment of Passion he had ever known.
Bryan St. James had never been a ladies man. In his childhood he was small, awkward, weak – an easy target for the boys and, at best, a subject of piteous adoration for the girls. He was no more interesting to them than a puppy, a baby or an injured bird, just an excuse to pretend at Motherhood. In his teens he was scrawny, tall, even more awkward and covered with the boiling red curse of pubescent acne. It wasn’t until College that he had his first “girlfriend”, and several of those before he got beyond heavy petting or became any more involved than as a friend who kissed with tongue.
When he was 26, had sold his first script and become a young up-and-comer in Hollywood circles, Bryan finally hit his stride with dating. He had been working out with a trainer, eating well at resteraunts, took ‘spa meetings’, everything that goes along with being a Hollywood player. With his new found wealth and fame, the women began to seek him out, aspiring writers, lonely producers, hangers-on and actresses angling for parts. Pam, his first wife, had been a 21 year-old ingenue when they met. He easily fell for the bottle-blond starlet who dazzled him with her body and courted him around town, showing him off to the Beautiful People and making him feel popular, successful and desirable for the first time in his life. It ended 9 months later when he realized that she was only using him for production clout and she realized that she was quite taken with her pro-wrestler bodybuilding co-star. The second time around, Bryan had been determined to learn from his mistakes and find someone more cerebral, artistic, instead of another talking head. What he ended up with was a brunette version of Pam, but a better actress. This one lasted a full year before he realized that she was cheating and making him into a laughingstock. Finally, a few years and possibly a hundred ‘girlfriends’ later, Bryan thought he had found real love and companionship. Josephine LaFontaine was a fellow writer, had traveled the world, written 7 books, had a Masters degree in Literature, and yet still ate at McDonalds, wore ratty fuzzy slippers and a bathrobe whenever she was at home and laughed at Adam Sandler films. Josie was great, they were great friends, enjoyed every minute together, as friends. The physical end of the relationship had fizzled and they rarely shared intimate moments. By their first anniversary it was fairly evident that they would not continue as man and wife. They split up, amicably, and remained in constant contact until the divorce was final. A few weeks later she disappeared. Bryan worried, searched, and eventually resigned himself to the fact that she was not coming back. He found out months later from a friend of a friend that she had gone to France with her lover, the lover that Bryan had known as her best friend… Marnie.
“Mr. St.James?” The voice. That magnificent velvet-smooth purr.
Bryan was sitting on the floor outside of Phil’s office, lost in a mental montage of lost loves, broken hearts and betrayals. He was brooding, cowering in the hallway and pouting about his past. The sound of her voice and the tender caress of her perfume wiped it all out of his mind, as if Hercules had unleashed the Alpheus and Peneus rivers and flooded the bullshit away.
“Oh, Ms. Ames. How did it go?” Bryan stumbled to his feet and stood respectfully and clumsily against the wall.
“I don’t think I was what he’s looking for.”
“I hope it wasn’t that I threw you off or anything. I’m such an ass. I, uh…” He had lost the ability to speak. He shrugged and feigned a smack to his forehead.
“Oh no. Don’t be silly, he said my performance was great, but that he wanted someone more ‘rangy and catlike’, which I take to mean toothpick skinny.”
“I think you’re gorgeous” Bryan almost threw his hand over his mouth in horror at having blurted it out.
“Well thank you.” A deep rose glow suddenly imbued her face and neck. A 30 year-old woman who blushed. Again Bryan was rocked to his foundation.
“Where have you been all my life?” Bryan turned almost mechanically and thumped his forehead into the wall. “Idiot!”
“You’re quite shy for a Hollywood type, aren’t you?” She reached out and touched his shoulder ever so slightly with the very tips of her fingers. Bryan was electrified by her touch. He shuddered slightly from the shock of her touch. He had never felt his heart pounding like it was at that moment. He began to fear that he was going to have a heart attack and then he imagined himself collapsing in her arms and dying with his cheek against her breast, soft, with only the cotton of her sundress between them. He was deeply pleased at that thought and realized that it was th efirst time he had imagined dying happy. A smile crept onto his face and he felt lightheaded. He swooned, the way that you read about women in tight corsets doing it in Victorian romance novels with very important sounding titles.
“Mr. St.James, are you alright? Maybe I should get someone, Mr. Alcroft maybe?”
“No, no. I’m alright. Just a little light headed. Sorry about the… you know… before. I don’t usually say things that stupid to pretty girls, or well any girls… I mean women… I think maybe I need to go home.”
“Where do you live?”
” One of those big old monstrosities off Mullholland.” He stumbled back away from her, trying to regain his footing and smooth his hair.
“Maybe I could call your wife?”
Bryan laughed, too hard perhaps, and Lucy Ames gave him a slightly quizzical look of apprehension.
“Umm, I’m divorced. Thrice over. I’ll be alright, really.” People were walking past them down the hall, casting curious glances and leaning slightly to listen in as they passed.
“Let’s get out of here. I’ll walk you to your car.” Bryan worked up the nerve and placed his hand ever-so-gently on the outside of her elbow to lead her down the hallway in a gentlemanly manner. She pointed her elbow outward to allow him to place his hand on the inside of her arm. Now Bryan was blushing. And Sweating.
The afternoon sun was high and blinding as they stepped out onto the front steps of the studio building and, being distracted by his new friend, Bryan tripped down the stairs, landing on his knees and tearing a hole through his pants and one of his kneecaps. He yelped in pain and swore as he stood against the rail and then lifted his leg to inspect the damage.
“Son of a bitch. This is not my day!” The throbbing pain in his leg seemed to draw him out of whatever euphoric trance he had been in since meeting Lucy Ames. He straightened himself and brushed the gravel from his jacket as he turned to face her.
“Ms. Ames, I’m afraid I must have made a terrible impression on you, carrying on like this.”
“Like what?” She was brushing his pants off and poking a finger into the hole in his pantleg trying to inspect the wound.
“Like some kind of lovelorn schoolboy, puppydogging around waiting for you to rescue me. I don’t know what’s come over me. You seem like a very lovely girl and I’ve been acting like a horses ass. Please forgive me.” He extended his hand and tried to put on his best serious adult face.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m flattered and somewhat intrigued. Bewildered? I never know which word it is I’m thinking of…” She continued to inspect the hole in his pants and was down on one knee with a napkin from her purse, dabbing at his bloody knee. “I do know this. I am taking you to get something to eat and then I am driving you home. I’m sure a bigshot like you can get someone to pick up his car.”
“Ms. Ames, I don’t think that…”
“Lucy,” she interrupted. “And you don’t need to think, just get in the car and do as you’re told Bryan.” She had finished her ministrations to his leg and stood, taking his arm as he had taken hers and led him through the parking stalls to a little mint green car that looked something like a miniature version of a 70’s muscle car.
AR Howerton
9/1/06
http://arhowerton.wordpress.com/
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cdnsurfer reviewed Version 2 -
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Kels66 reviewed Version 2 -
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You did pretty good i just have a few things to comment on.
First of all with this, “there was a term for it. Tremulous. ” You do not need to have 2 entirely seperate sentences since they are realated. They could instead be, ‘there was a term for it; tremulous. ’ or ‘there was a term for it: tremulous. Ethier way you are better off then having a one word sentence.
Next i found this to show you, “judging, eyeballing ” It should be, “judging, and eyeballing” The “and” is needed because it is part of a list and the word, “and” seperates the last word in every list from the rest to show it is the end of the list.
Another thing i would like to point out is this, ‘Then came Lucy. Average height, ” I think you could combind that so it flows better like this, ‘Then came Lucy, who Average height,” If you add the comma and the word who it flows better.
These are just my opinions and suggestions. If you do not want to use them that is your choice. Good job on the story you have a good start and could definitly be on to sometjing. I hope i helped. Keep writing and do not let anyone bring you down ever. I decided you should get an 8.
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scottdammit420 reviewed Version 2 -
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Devaki reviewed Version 2 -
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There are a lot of things I like about this piece. Your grasp of descriptive language is wonderful and vivid. You’ve got a good balance of straight narration and descriptive detail. I like your style a lot. The storyline and main character are well thought-out and interesting.
That being said, I’m not sure I like the structure of this piece. I would scrap the whole first paragraph…I don’t think it’s necessary. Also, you go from present to past and then back to present at the very end. I would break up the flashbacks throughout the piece. Expand the present-time segments. The flashback with the conversation with Melissa is perfectly done…try to do the Lucy flashbacks in shorter segments like that one.
I’d also suggest more interaction between the main character and others. The parts with dialogue and interaction are the most interesting and grabbing in this piece.
Be careful of passive verb tense. Instead of Melissa had given…Melissa gave….Instead of Melissa had called….Melissa called. Look for forms of the verb to be – that generally indicates passive tense.
There’s a lot of room here for emotion. I think if you expand and develop your characters a little more you’ll have a truly great story on your hands.
I’d love to read any revisions. Hope this is helpful.
Theory reviewed Version 2 -
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Nice to see into the heart of a man. There were a few places that I had to stop and go back to put it together, but as I read on, it came together for me. I like your descriptive style. You use words well.
pph reviewed Version 1 -
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The dialogue is particularly strong, shining out from the work with the difficult mix of believability and wit. I found Bryan’s yearning emotions for Lucy reflected pain and regret and conveyed his human weaknesses, perhaps more of this would strengthen the character? Strong and enjoyable work.
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