I haven’t posted much fiction, but there was a great writing prompt in Writer’s Digest this month, so I decided to tackle it. The prompt went like this:
A Date Derailed: You have just been abandoned by your date. Tell the story. Start with: “No matter what I do…” Additionally, implement the idiomatic expression, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
No matter what I do, I always manage to do it with an exceptional lack of grace. This morning for instance, I spilled milk all over the side of my cereal bowl. Yesterday I forgot to call my mother on her birthday. And just now I managed to completely ruin all my chances of ever getting anywhere with Patricia Marie Scoll. I’m pretty easily satisfied. She was pretty, not exceptionally, but enough. She was witty—no genius, but she could make coffee without asking how. A great smile. A great smile. A great smile. How can I ever hope to change my ways for the better? It’s not that I’m rude or crass or honest or gross or excessive or over-the-top or any of those things. I just. I always fuck up.
She told me I had nice eyes. Big, colorful, exposing eyes. I told her I liked her dress. Dark, elegant, ladylike.
I told her I didn’t like steak, she told me she loved it.
She ordered diet Pepsi. Me, water.
She held her fork in her left hand, mine in my right.
She sipped on her drink. I gulped.
She was still, cool, calm, collected. My foot was constantly tapping like a rabbit under the table.
Sweat was collecting on my brow. My anxiousness was developing into a time bomb. I could feel myself tick tick tick tick ticking. It was only a matter of time.
My father was always a bit compulsive. He had to fold the laundry a certain way, walk to the car a certain way, eat a certain way, watch tv a certain way, feed the dog a certain way, sleep a certain way, keep his secrets in a certain way. They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But what if there never was a tree to begin with? Just a straggly little bush that always wished it was a tree. It tried to control its world and make everything happen a certain way so that when push came to shove it wasn’t the one being shoved.
He always took forever to park the car. He would pull in, then out, in, then out, trying to make it a perfect fit. He was quiet and concentrated. If we tried to rush him he wouldn’t have any of it. His look of concentration would turn to fury and a tantrum would begin to boil somewhere beneath the seams of his tightly tucked t-shirt. He would explode and everyone felt awkward. My mother would sometimes explode too, and there I was in the backseat wishing I had a bomb shelter to run to but having nothing more than a seat belt and a stuffed puppy to hold close to my chest.
When the waiter came with a dessert menu I said we were fine. Patricia gave me a quick look as if to say, “No no no, please.” But I persisted, “We’re fine,” I said. I wanted to express control and in so doing I managed to completely disregard her desires. She was more than mildly upset. This was yet another fuckup on top of not holding the door long enough, having it come crashing into her ankle. Pulling her chair out but then tripping her as she sat down. Asking her what her opinion was on politics then telling her I had none but that most people were always wrong when it came to politics. Acting smart when I wasn’t.
“Do you think you take after your mother?” she asked me as the waiter walked away with the dessert menu.
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.”
“I suppose so,” I replied. “But definitely not after my father.”
“Oh no?” she replied curiously. “What is he like?”
“He’s obsessive compulsive. He’s in this little world of his own where nothing happens but what he allows, and if it does he sends out a hazmat team to clear the mess.”
“And you’re nothing like him?”
“I don’t think so,” I almost snapped.
“I could see how you might be a little OCD.” She was just making conversation of course a bit perturbed by my exceptional lack of grace, and my shrinking self esteem was turning me to the defensive. The sweat wasn’t just collecting on my brow I could feel a drop running down the side of my head towards my cheek.
“I think it’s fucked up that you would make such an assumption, you hardly know me,” I said angrily, regretting it immediately. She wasn’t in the least surprised, she might have smiled a bit. She stood up slowly and put her jacket over her long sparkling dress and picked up her handbag from the table. She reached for her wine and finished it off before walking out the door.
“I hope you can handle the bill,” she said, walking away like a fawn from the drinking hole.
815 words
Every story of fiction has at least a small bit of fact in it. I didn’t think I would like this, again, but I did, again.
What a great writer and Cassandra’s comment of ‘a small bit of fact’ I see only too well.
This writer I would read more of!
LOVE that last line.
I’m a little late finding this article, but I loved it.
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