*Charades*

Ok, so here's the story: I started with an idea. An idea for a story--sorry, wrong word...novel? yea, I'll go with that--for a novel with a pretty great plot line. The details were missing, but the plot line was there and solid. But you can't write anything without some details, can you? And the details weren't there because it was set in the Victorian Era and, well, I don't live in the Victorian Era and never have.

I started to research that time period, but, because the magic of the internet has decided to cease to exist, I couldn't anything good. My first few chapters sound like pieces of...crap(with a few momentarily spots of brilliance{yea, I sound full of myself}).

So, a new novel was born. One with a similar plot line but more vague, unfinished. But the details are all there(well, most of them). That's the important part. And so I began and here it is in all it's wordy glory, The First Chapter:


It’s too late. She’s made up her mind. I’m going to have to go to that stupid party. There is no way around it. I knew it would come to this, but I give one last feeble attempt to convince her otherwise. My voice comes out a strained sound, just above a whisper, “But Mom, why in the world are you forcing me to go to a party? Shouldn’t you be doing the opposite, trying to keep me from having any fun? Even though that’s basically what you’re doing by forcing me to go.”

I mumble the last sentence under my breath. She hears it—I can always tell—but goes on as if I’ve said nothing.

“Piper, that’s enough. You’re being ridiculous,” she replies. “Your sister is going. You can go as well.”

“But she has nothing else to do. That’s what her life is. Her thought process basically goes like this: partying, me, friends, me, pretty, me, money, me. Besides, I don’t want to go with her. Going is bad enough, but with her?”

I’m lying. I’ve found I do that a lot lately. The truth is, I am completely, and totally, one hundred percent jealous of Anna. She’s the most popular girl in school—and a year older than me. I have maybe two good friends—at the most. She gets invited to everything. I get invited to nothing. She’s absolutely beautiful and looks just like mom. I look nothing like either of them. There is no resemblance at all between my mother and I. the difference is almost abnormal, a total anomaly. My mother and sister are fully gorgeous, like angels. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sprouted wings and flew off to heaven.

They have perfect, tanned complexions. Their noses are small and straight, and their faces are heart-shaped. Their full lips are perfectly shaped and just the right shade of almost-scarlet, fitting in perfectly with the roses in their cheeks. Long, wavy, chocolate-brown hair falls in cascades over their shoulders, twisting and turning at just the right spots, always perfectly messy. Perfectly in place. Never a strand hanging in the wrong spot. How can curly hair look that perfect?

My hair could never look like that. It’s a ridiculous mess of blonde, inflexibly straight and utterly screwed up. I can never get it to do what I want it to do; I can’t pin it, put it up in a bun, braid it, pigtail it, or even keep it down without it looking pitiful. The lank strands fall where they may, and I cant do anything about it.

None of our other features are remotely alike either. My nose is nowhere near small and my lips form a thin, rose-colored line, breaking up my face, dividing chin from upper lip. My face is long and ovular and my cheeks are never rosy. My entire face is pale as can be. A ghost. That’s what I’ve been frequently called since I move to this sunny, little hell-hole people like to call South Carolina. I could attempt to tan, but no sun would ever bring color to my face. I will always be pale. Always. I can’t even get through a day of school without someone telling me I look sick or telling me that I’m pale—as if I didn’t already know. My eyes are the same way. Not a day passes that I don’t get a comment on them. They are a bright, luminescent green—almost like an emerald, hard and solid—nothing like the delicate, cerulean eyes of my mother and sister.

The only other person I’ve seen with eyes like mine is Miss Abby, my tutor. Her real name is Abigail ­­____—she actually wants me to call her Miss Abby. Weird, right? She used to be my nanny, but when I got older, and didn’t need a nanny anymore, she took her place as my tutor. My family has always had that kind of money. My dad is a lawyer and my mom is a real-estate agent. The perfect example of a Pawley’s mom—it’s too bad we’re about fifteen miles north of Pawley’s Island.

I’ve always secretly wished to look and be like my mom. I put on this façade that I can’t stand her or the rest of my family—the rebellious teen act—but just like it is with my sister, I really do aspire to be like her. I don't hate her at all. But nothing about us is the same. Nothing. We aren’t even the same size or body-type. She’s a size two. Skinny as can be, but yet still not small. She’s not because she’s tall. About five foot seven. Not small at all, but she just looks so tiny compared to me. I’m already up to five-nine and still growing. I wouldn’t call myself a monster, but I am tall. I wouldn’t call myself fat either; I’m just…not a size two. My hips are larger, and my legs are longer. My body is disproportionate. I’ve learned to live with it…to an extent.

The differences don’t stop there. They go deeper. If you compare our personalities, it’s even worse. We are farther from each other in that aspect than we are in any other. Her happy demeanor follows her everywhere. She’s one of those people you can’t help but love. I’m nothing like that. Sometimes, I try to be, but my miserable attempt at appearing cheerful doesn’t work. It doesn’t fool anybody. Everyone can see right through my charade. They know I’m not the happiest person.

I’m not depressed. I just have a lot of trouble calling this place home. It never feels right, the word ‘home’. When I say it in my mind, it’s like that one puzzle piece that never fits, no matter how hard you cram it. When I say it out loud, I have even more trouble. I try to refrain from using that word in reference to my…current living situation. Living is South Carolina is not the jolly experience it’s cracked up to be. It’s hot, humid, and has mosquitoes that eat you alive.

The day we moved here, when I was in second grade, was the worst eighteen hours of my life. We spent forever loading up the moving van and then we drove all the way from New York. That’s a lot of time to be cramped in a tiny Honda with a bunchy of bags and suitcases. The worst experience of my eight-year-old life.

New York. That’s the place I call home. That’s where my family is. My real family. That’s where we left them behind. This family here is different. Not the same. Fake.

People ask me how I remember what it was like…I was just eight, but I remember everything. Like how we used to sit in the living room after dinner and tell stories. Stories of school. Stories of work. Made-up stories. Ghost stories. Just stories. We would laugh, scream, and cry together. Whatever we did, it was always together, as a family. As a whole. It was always real. Here, nothing’s real. We never sit after dinner and tell stories. We never talk like we used to. We never do anything together. We aren’t a family. I know it sounds lame coming from a seventeen-year-old, but it’s true. I miss the ridiculous stories. I miss talking to them. I miss my family.

I look up into my mother’s sky blue eyes. They are searching mine, trying to fathom my thoughts. She’s caring. That’s important. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, but I know she’s caring about me. That’s all that matters right now.

“There will always be another Saturday to go to Felicia’s house or hole-up in your room—whatever you’re planning,” she says. “This weekend your are going to go to this party.”

What is wrong with her?

“Fine,” I say, groaning. I shouldn’t cop an attitude with her. It will just make everything worse, but the frustration and resentment is building up inside of me. My blood's boiling. My skin prickles and my lips purse. I can’t just do nothing. I can’t be forced to go against my own will.

“But—”

“But nothing!” she says, raising her voice and cutting me off. “This is final. Conversation over!”

I hate it when she does this. I can’t handle the pressure. A person yelling never helps calm me down. It does the exact opposite. Shouting just makes me upset. And once I cry, I can’t just cut it out. As soon as the first tear drops, a hundred more will follow. My eyes sting with the burn of oncoming tears. They threaten to flood over the ledge, to run down my face in a pouring river, falling fast. I have to close my eyes to hold them back; my eyelids act as a dam, keeping the tears inside.

Thomas Sutton, my father, walks around the corner. I know it’s him even with my eyes closed. The way he steps, placing one foot after the other in a steady pattern. The way his presence feels. I can just feel him standing there. He has a commanding quality about him. Walking in, he stops the tears from bubbling up. I am free to open my eyes and take in the sight of him. He is tall and broad shouldered—a football players build. His hair is the perfect shade of sandy brown, matching his tanned, olive skin. Despite his rough looks, he has laugh lines etched into his face. The laugh lines that come from many years of his joyous character. He is very well known for his lively personality in and out of the courtroom. His kind nature is what I prize most about having him for a father.

“Now, what’s going on here?” he asks jokingly, as if he hasn’t heard every word from the other room. He’s trying to break the tension. It works. He doesn’t have to put much effort into it. He easily cuts through the strain in the air.

He has this effect on my mother. Before the words are even out of his mouth, she puts on this would-be charming smile and swoons over him. It’s like he’s her drug-dealer and she’s in some serious need of crack. Maybe that’s not the best way to describe it, but going to a school like Waccamaw—where there are a bunch of druggies—drug references are the first to come to mind.

But, anyway, you get the picture. It’s disgusting. Public displays of affection are not on the top of my ‘favorite things list’. When my mom is done falling all over my father, he looks at me with sympathetic eyes.

“You know, honey,” he says to my mom. “Maybe you shouldn’t force Piper to go to this party. She obviously doesn’t want to go…”

“No. I want her to be more social,” she says. “I want her to be more like Anna, and go out with her friends.”

Typical.

“But none of those people are even my friends!” I say, practically shouting. “And why can’t I, just for once, be like myself instead of Anna?”

“You don’t want to be more like yourself if yourself is a hermit. You’ll end up alone with tons of cats.”

“No. I do want to be myself. And I am not a hermit! Just because I don’t decide to act fake like all of you, doesn’t mean I’m an unsociable hermit!”

I see it. The look on her face. A look like I’ve just slapped her. I knew that it would hurt her. It just…came out. I didn’t mean it. Okay, so I did, but I didn’t mean to say it.

“Piper, please. Stop shouting,” my father says, consolingly. Then he turns to my mother. “Sweetie, maybe Piper can go and if she feels like leaving, she can. It doesn’t matter if she stays.”

I roll my eyes. My father sees it.

“I don’t care if you go for an hour, or a second. Just go. It will make your mother happy and it will stop all this god-damn arguing.”

There he goes again. Making peace. Why does he have to be so good at it?

“All right, but I am going to leave. I know I will,” I say.

“That’s fine with me,” he says.

Here, my mother joins the conversation again, “Fine. I just wish she’d be more sociable.”

There’s my cue to roll my eyes again, so I do. He sees it, again. He grins, and, of course, starts to laugh. He’s done it again and so proud of himself. He can’t help but laugh. And when he does, I’m reminded of just how much I love that sound.


That's it. How is it?

P.S. Emilea: You will be happy to know, I only edited this 1 1/2 times(it may need just a little bit more though) I did the whole thing once just for typos(errors in spelling, accidental letters--and numbers--etc.) Then, I did it again actually editing the content.(I count this collectively as once)
Then, I did the 3rd and 4th paragraphs once more because they were stubbornly adverb-filled(and still kind of are)

P.P.S. Caroline: Definitely not as good as yours but still hoping it's good. Is it? I'm dying to know. Was I mistaken in posting it for all the world to see? Was I right in doing it?

Questions? Comments? Concerns?
Comments especially. please.
luvya
♥Heather