Novel Treatments / the gods of rockwell chap 3
Susanna pushed the shopping cart down the frozen food aisle, and stopped to pick up the last ingredient on her list. She opened the freezer door, and heard Mrs. Gurdy’s high pitched gossip rant roll down the aisle. She was a round woman that Susanna frequently pictured rolling around town spewing out the ongoings of everyone’s boring lives, never stopping to actually live one of her own. “Is that Susanna? My god, she looks so unkempt, and so thin, my God, didn’t she…” Mrs. Gurdy lowered her volume. Susanna began to shiver while pretending to search for something in the freezer until she past. Mrs. Gurdy and the nodding woman stopped walking, and Susanna quickly turned to push her cart away. Her heart was beating and she began to sweat, phasing from fright to flight, and ramming right into Derby. “Susanna! Hi! How are you! What are you doing here? Well, I mean of course I know why you’re here. There isn’t too many reasons why someone would find themselves her, well actually probably just one. How are you?” Derby mentally slapped himself in the face, as Susanna motioned for him to keep going, whispering, “I need to get away from Mrs. Gurdy right now.”
Derby obediently followed Susanna, quickly glancing at Mrs. Gurdy, who was staring and pointing at both of them. She stopped pointing to wave at him, and Derby waved with a smile that faded as he saw her continue to mumble to the nodding woman.
Susanna shook her head, wiping sweat from her upper lip, as she pulled into the express line. She then leaned close enough to Derby make him nervous with sweat, and explained, “There could not be worse timing than right now for me to run into that woman, and have to suffer the reminder that women like that even exist. I don’t even care what she thinks about me. It’s just who she is. There is no defending her, and there is no place for sympathy for her. I just hate how she can affect me so much. I wish I could just block her out, but everything about her is so amplified when I see her. I know, I must sound crazy to you.” Derby nodded and stared at Susanna, following her hand gestures, and looked away every time she glanced at him.
He cleared his throat, straightened his posture, took a deep breath, and replied, “Well, I don’t think anyone really likes her. They listen to her to be nice, and sometimes gets to know something new about someone in town that they don’t really care about, but I guess are interested in knowing about. I mean, this is a boring place Susanna. They are just trying to convince themselves that their lives aren’t. You are from New York, so you naturally see things differently, but for people who grew up here, this is all they know.”
Susanna’s face reddened, put her hand on her forehead lifted up toward the ceiling. “Oh God! It is so ridiculous. I can’t even comprehend it. I don’t know how we all ended up this way. What went wrong here?” Her voice began to carry over to the other lines.
Derby’s face turned to concern, wrinkling his brow, put his hand on Susanna’s shoulder that raise and fell with each breath she was obviously struggling to take. “Are you ok Susanna. You look a little overworked, or overwhelmed, or stressed, or something.”
She noticed the seriousness in Derby’s voice and began to place the groceries on the counter. “Yeah, I am very stressed. Sorry. I don’t want to talk about it. “
Derby watched Susanna shrug off what had come over her, and swallow what ever had caused it. He wished she could talk to him about it, and ask him to take care of it for her. She placed money on the counter, turned to Derby, and asked quietly, “So you grew up here. Are you like them? Do you do what everyone does here to make life interesting?”
Derby nervously look at Susanna’s eyes inquisitively staring at him, noticing for the first time, the orange veins that run through her green irises. He looked down as he explained, “I don’t like the people here either Susanna, but I have to take care of my mom, and you know there are things to make this place just as good as anywhere else. I have the all the pleasures that men throughout history have worked for, good health, good food, a good job that I enjoy, and free time to read and do as I like. And I mean I haven’t found a girl to settle down with, but there is time for that I guess. And there are a few ok people, like you. I can talk to you.”
Susanna calmed down, and waited for Derby to pay for his bacon, lettuce, and tomatoe. She wondered if he forgot about the bread because of her, and asked, “Did you take your bike here? I can give you a ride, and put the bike on the back of the truck.”
Derby nodded, worried about what would accidently fly out if he opened his mouth to reply. Susanna put their bags in the back as Derby walked his bike over, and she watched him hook it onto the truck. Susanna always thought Derby had such a manly quality about him, he was big boned, and bulky. She pictured him cut a tree down with an ax with ease, and was charmed by the tenderness that oozed out of him with almost everything he said. He was thirty-five, and lived at home to take care of his mother. She had a stroke seven years ago, right before Susanna moved there. He did do his best to live out a normal enriching life, even though he was tied down with his mother who did demand a lot of his time. Susanna felt shameful whenever she thought of this, knowing that she fled the responsibility of being there for her mother, her sisters, her friends. She was so sure at the time, that everyone should have the right to do what they wanted with their own life. It was her indutible philosophy that all anyone should ask anyone else for, is to make themselves happy. Susanna saw everyone in her life as a threat to her happiness, so she fled when she realized she was pregnant. She knew that her mother would make her have an abortion, and use it as an excuse to fall into a long deep depression. Susanna knew her mother wasn’t well mentally, but grew to resent her deeply. When her mother stayed in bed for weeks, she would tell Susanna that it was because of something she did. When she found out Susanna lost her virginity, she stayed in bed for two months. When Susanna started to wear makeup, and when she began to wear formfitting shirts she stayed in bed two weeks each. Susanna would never look in the mirror while her mother was around, or else she’d get slapped in the face. As an adult, Susanna knew her mother had a terrible time with aging, and losing the beauty she felt was her only tool in getting anything out of life. Susanna looked just like her, and it pained her mother to look at what she will never be again.
Susanna snapped back into the present just in time to brake before smashing into the garbage truck in front of them. She turned to Derby, who was obviously terrified, and said, “Sorry, I dazed out for a second. Listen, do you want to come over for dinner tonight? Come at six, but I rarely hear my bell, so just come on in, I will be somewhere in the house.”
They pulled in front of Derby’s place, and he nodded to accept her invitation, unsure if she actually asked him, or if he imagined it. Needing to confirm, he coolly asked, “Six?”
“Yep, on the dot.” She smiled, became engulfed in guilt, and pulled his thick neck back into the car. She wrapped her arms around him as far as they could reach, and buried her head in his flannel jacket. He apprehensively held her, and slightly jumped when she began to say, “Thanks, Its just nice to know a guy like you. You’re a real good guy.”
He took his bike off the back, wondering what all of this was actually about.
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About halfway through you switch point of view with no warning, which is jarring.
I found it somewhat unbelievable that she reached over and hugged him at the end. Their relationship didn’t seem to have enough time to develop that far.
Your dialog needs to be set off better – it gets confusing trying to figure out who’s talking. Every time someone else starts talking,you need to start a new paragraph
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You are a good writer. The characters seem authentic and dialog is well deployed. Here are my humble comments:
The part I enjoyed most was the exposition on Susanna’s relationship with her mother. That’s the part that made me want to read more.
The dialog could use a few more contractions.
The word “aisle” is unnecessarily used in both the first and second sentence. I recommend getting rid of one of the occurrences.
Awkward, “She pictured him cut a tree down with an ax with ease…”
“Thanks, Its just nice to…” should be “it’s”
Again, I think you have an engaging story here. Good work. Keep it up.
I read another chapter of this story a couple hours ago. My biggest concern though, as there were strong elements coming out of it, was that it read like a back story and not an actual story for the reader to get involved in. This chapter, though there are many edits to be made, reads much better.
What made this chapter better than the other, though this one is briefer, is the dialogue between the mother and Derby. The characters became real as opposed to passing thoughts from an internal monologue. I hope to see more of this in further chapters.
Also, I think from this chapter you are finally flushing out the true issues of the story. I commend you and encourge further developments of these elements – controling mother, respect for Derby’s traditionalism, the inner hate towards small town life, even a potential romance in the works with Derby. Keep it up and keep writing. Good job here.
Edits:
She then leaned close enough to Derby make him nervous hey with sweat, and explained (fix this line)
Susanna’s face reddened, put her hand on her forehead lifted up toward the ceiling (fix this line)
Derby’s face turned to concern, wrinkling his brow, put his hand on Susanna’s (again, fix this line. remove the comma and add an “ing” to the put(t), or break this up into two seperate sentences. Same as the previous correction.)
She was so sure at the time, that everyone should have the right to do what they wanted with their own life. It was her indutible philosophy that all anyone should ask anyone else for, is to make themselves happy. (crux of the story?)
She smiled, became engulfed in guilt, and pulled his thick neck back into the car. (What?)
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