A Polka Dot Dress

Cherry

By Ewan

Wed, 18 Dec 2019
  • 2698 reads
8 comments
 

Jean and I met at the no-tell motel. The kind where there are always more cars on the lot than rooms occupied. She arrived wearing the polka-dot dress. I hadn’t asked her to put it on. But then I’d worn a suit and a tie. My suit fit me well, good tailoring can do that. For a second I thought maybe it wasn’t the same dress, just like my suit wasn’t the suit, but it was. I knew it was. I wondered how Jean could possibly have done that, worn a twenty-year-old dress and have it fit. Like the dress, Jean, me and what we did had all happened the day before yesterday.

Our vehicles were parked at either end of the motel’s parking lot. Jean had a Japanese compact, my Beamer was far from new and not quite old enough to be a classic. As she walked towards me, the wind blew up and the dress clung to her legs. I felt it. The same thing I’d felt before I caught the Greyhound to the Marine Depot, when I hoped she’d last worn that dress. She had crows feet, when I got close up. Some powder on her face and what they used to call rouge on her lips, rather than the acrylic paint people had been wearing since it began to matter more how you looked on a selfie than in real life.

Yeah, it was all clumsy. We both leaned in and bailed out at the last second. No-one’s lips made contact with anything. Jean laughed, I caught sight of her crooked eye-tooth and my heart broke. She linked her arm through mine and steered us toward her automobile. We stopped when the coughing broke out. It took me a half-minute to get it under control.

‘I’ve got...’ we both started to speak. I doubted Jean was going to say what I was.

‘You first.’ She looked up at me out of the corner of her eye. I decided I wouldn’t tell her. Not today, maybe never. I shrugged.

She pulled me along to the compact. There was someone in the passenger seat. A girl, about 19 years old. Jean opened the door. The girl got out. She held out a hand.

‘Pleased ta meetcha...’

‘This is John, he… we used to know each other.’ Jean turned to me.

‘This is Joan.’

Joan smiled, she had braces. I wanted to tell her to keep the crooked eye-tooth.

I knew then I’d never tell either of them.

 

 

Certificate U
Story
Miscellaneous

Comments

Submitted by drew_gummerson on

I like this a lot. But what was he going to tell her? Am I being thick? I think there's enough going on without a mysterious other. Last line, 'It'd always remind me of her mother.'  Because that's the story. 

 

Submitted by Ewan on

but since you know that Jean is Joan's mother, I don't need to write that as the last line. I was thinking of writing more, maybe even having 'John' tell them whatever 'it' is, (bet it's something to do with that coughing fit), but you know, that's the point of things like this, leaving the holes for the reader to fill with whatever they like.

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Submitted by drew_gummerson on

But you don't know he is the father? And neither does he? And we don't know she has a daughter either until the mention of the eye-tooth? Like I said, probably reading it wrong.... and I'm not a fan of holes, letting on that there's something we need to know that we couldn't. You see, I don't like Lost... anyway. I liked it! 
 

 

 

Submitted by Ewan on

don't we know? "This is John, he...we used to know each other." Joan is about 19, John has been away for 20 years.
Yes, I know people don't like holes, but I do like clues, rather than telling everything.
Anyway, glad you liked it enough to read it and think about it, that's a great thing to do for anyone's writing.

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Submitted by drew_gummerson on

Yeah. Exactly. We guess he's the father right at the end. Which is why the extra mystery of what he had to tell is unnecessary in such a short piece. But you know what I was thinking... the first line I would have as , 'The day I lost my dick was the last day I saw Jean.' Then the baby becomes more poignant. And there's the clue to his mystery. We don't know what happened. 
 

Sorry. It was just a thought.

 

Submitted by Ewan on

I see where you're coming from. Hmmm. I admit I was thinking of rewriting the scene twice more, once each from the other characters' point of view.  Thanks again!

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Submitted by drew_gummerson on

I once tried to get taken on by a 'super agent'. I'd read in the press, she'd got a first time author £1 million in book details. This is the agent for me, I thought. 
 

So, I had a book finished. I sent it off. 
 

What I didn't know was that you went through all these interns first. 
 

I went through 7 as it was passed up the chain. 
 

Don't kill off your main character, one wrote. 
 

So I changed it.

 

This whole speech is boring, another wrote. 
 

So I cut it.

 

Eventually I got to the super agent. 
 

You know the answer. 
 

It wasn't for her. But she was nice and she passed it a colleague and he passed to. 
 

And I never did get my £1 million deal. 
 

And the moral is. Everyone's got advice. It probably won't get you anywhere. 
 

(coda. The final intern who sent me the final goodbye slipped in a handwritten note. If it was down to them. They would have published me / taken me on.)

 

((Now there's the super agent you need, I thought.)

 

Submitted by Ewan on

a heart-warming story. I'm reminded of what William Goldman said about Hollywood and what constituted 'box-office'; 'Nobody knows Anything'.
I think the manuscript(s) of Gibbous House I sent out to agents and publishers are holding up the short leg of interns' desks to this day. Thank goodness for Unbound.
 

Author Page at the 'Zon