Sunday, September 29, 2013

Tuesday Tales - Hard






Welcome to this weeks Tuesday Tales.  This week we are writing to the word prompt hard.  This is a first draft, unedited, so please excuse the mistakes.


“It's so hard accepting that my husband ran off with a twenty-five year old. I did everything right, always being there for him, and all for absolutely nothing,” Erika said holding back her tears.
“He’s the fool.  People will mistake his girlfriend for his daughter.  He is never going to be able to keep up with her.  Besides, she is so full of herself and nothing to look at.
Erika laughed. Sophia always had a way of saying the right words to make her feel better. But the truth be told, his girlfriend was gorgeous. She didn't have a trace grays or a single wrinkle of her round face.  She was plump in all the right places.  Erika didn’t hate her, she was just envious of her youth.

“The only thing that still hurts is the fact that he made me look stupid in front of my friends, neighbors and most importantly, my children.  I don’t think I can ever forgive him for humiliating me in front of the kids when he brought his girlfriend to the last family get together,” which he should have never been invited to.
“I don’t blame you.  That was real low.  He had no place being at your family party.   He should have never been invited and never made an excuse not to go.

“And he’s the kind of excuses, but that’s all passé now. and I’m going to start anew and rebuild my life.”
Sophia stood and held her hand out.  Erika took her hand stood. “How about I pack my backpack for old-time sake and come with you for a few days to help you get the store up and running.”
“Thanks, but I have a handle on it.  I’ll be okay.”
“Sweetie, you are taking on a big project that needs a lot of work.  How the hell are you going to paint the store and get all the merchandise unpacked?”
“Just as easy as I got it packed.  You saw the store, it’s bigger, more showcases and just so quaint.  The painting should be a snap...I have no doubt.”
“I know you’ll have no problem getting it up and running on your own.  It’s just that...I wish I had our confidence and determination.”
 “But why?  You have it all Sophia.”
“And so did you.  But as you well know, things change.  I’ve changed, Brian changed. I guess deep down in the subconscious of my mind, I wish I had the freedom and adventure you have awaiting you.”
“What are you trying to tell me?  Are you having problems with Brian?”
“No, nothing like that.”  Forcing a smile she said, “I’m going to miss you.  I’m going to miss these girl talks.  We’ve been through a lot the past twenty-five years.  We’ve gone from changing diapers, through the challenging teen years, before sending the kids off to college.”
“Boy is that an understatement.”  Erika couldn’t help but laugh.  Everything she said was so true.  Time flew by in a blink of an eye.
“I have to admit I’m a tad bit jealous of your new beginning.”

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Monday, September 16, 2013

Tuesday Tales - Glass



   

Welcome to this week's Tuesday Tales to the word prompt Glass.  This is an excerpt from my WIP from Me to You.  Please excuse the errors, for this is a first draft.  This week will show the relationship between two best friends.

Walking down the hall, she made it a point to stop by each of the kid’s rooms.  It seemed like only yesterday that she pointed their rooms and put together cribs. In each room, she packed the things they left behind, finding a part of their childhood. In Richie’s room she found a few tests from high school with marks of twenty and thirty sat behind the radiator.  He knew he would have been punished him for weeks and lectured about how important an education was.
Those were the days that had flashed before her eyes were now over.  What she wouldn’t give to be picking up Barbie accessories
and action figure paraphernalia off the floor

 having her kids back with her again.
“Erika, are you up there?”
     “Yeah, come on up,” Erika yelled down to Sophia, not moving from Gail’s room. 
     Erika knew this was Sophia’s final attempt to talk her out of leaving. The past few months she pleaded with her to reconsider, but her mind was made up.  She sold her house and the movers were coming to pick up the rest of the boxes shortly.
     “There you are,” Sophia greeted her with a hug. “I still can’t believe your leaving.”
     “Yeah, neither can I.  It seems as if it were only yesterday that I moved in here.”
     “I know.  I vividly remember that day.”
     “It was snowing...”
     “Snowing?  It was a blizzard. I remember standing by the window watching the movers carrying your things in, and you yelling at the movers to treat your barrister bookcases as if they were infants.”
    
Erika laughed.  “Those stain glass barristers 

were my grandmother’s. and I plan on taking them 

to my grave if need be.”
     Sophia eyes watered. It broke her heart leaving her best friend of twenty-five years, however, things had changed and it was time to move on.
     Sophia pushed her shoulder length brown hair behind her ears and wiped her tears with her monogrammed hanky, removing half her make-up in the process.    
“I still can’t believe your moving.”  Sophia slid her fingers along the wait band of her tan linen pants.  “What can I do to change your mind?”
     “We’ve been over this time and time again. Like I told you, it’s time for me to move on.”
     “Are you absolutely sure you are reading to start over again?”  Sophia asked her eyes watering again.
     “It’ll be a challenge that will keep my mind busy.  I’m definitely ready for change.”
     “You have to promise me if things don’t work out, you’ll come back home.”
     “That’s a promise.  You can come visit me whenever you need to get away.”
     “I’m going to be taking you up on that offer sooner than you think.”
     Taking one last look, Erika walked down the stairs into the living room with Sophia quietly following behind.  She walked over to the fireplace, sat on the edge and shook her head with a silly smirk on her face.

     “I’ll never forget the night of the blackout shortly after I moved in,” she began.  “That was the first time we actually sat down and bonded.”
     “That’s right.  Our husband’s were working and when the lights went out, you came outside with a box of candles. You offered them to the neighbors and walked across the street when you saw me.”
     “I asked you if you needed candles, but you said you’d rather sit outside and wait for the lights to go back on.”
“I introduced myself and asked you if you’d like a beer.”
     I said no thank you.  I’m a martini kind of gal.”
“That’s when you offered to make me if I’d like to come across the street and you’d make me an apple martini, which I said yes.”
“We drank and sat on this ledge until the next morning talking about our childhoods and our husbands...”
“And we shared secrets and dreams,” Sophia finished for her as she sat down next to Erika on the ledge.”
“This fireplace has been our meeting place to solve many problems that have occurred throughout the years.”
“I wish it could have solved your problems.”


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Monday, September 02, 2013

Tuesday Tales - Building





Welcome to this week's Tuesday Tales to the word prompt building.  This is the opening scene in my new contemporary novel called From Me to You. This is a draft so please pardon if there are a few errors.   


Boxes sat in the middle of the vacant room on the newly refinished hardwood floors.  The decision to pick up and move had been evident for the past few months.  Erika sat down on the old red beer cooler and wondered if she made the right decision in leaving everything behind.  Deep down she realized she had, no other choice.  She needed to leave the past behind in order to move forward.

Standing, she walked to the garden window, parted the curtains and admired her garden.
For the first time in twenty years, all the flowers were blooming at once. Maybe that was a sign for things to come.  Erika took this as a sign that everything would be all right.  Not knowing what the future held in the next twenty-four hours made her heart palpitate. 

Starting over again was going to be the hardest.  She never expected to be starting over at this stage in her life.  Now, twenty years later she traded in her size two jeans for a size ten, questioning if men would still find her attractive.

She dressed in a denim skirt, the one her daughter insisted was too short for her fort-five year old mom, which consisted of a denim skirt, black stretch T-shirt that hugged her plump breasts along with a pair of denim flats. Year ago she ditched the stilettos bringing her back to her original height of five foot three when lower back pains settled in and opted for either sneakers, flats or flip flops.

Erika walked through the house one last time, leaving all the memories behind when she shut the front door.  It was hard to believe that this stage of her life was ending, with perimenopause in full swing and starting over just hours away. 

She ran her fingers along the oak banister, the last project done to complete all the work in the house, which took nearly twenty-two years to complete. The mortgage was paid, the kids were on their own and she should had been on easy street. It was suppose to be Richie and her riding off into the sunset without having any worries. 

Erika walked into the bedroom she shared with Richie for the past twenty-five years, walking aimlessly around the empty room except for the few boxes labeled Richie’s, which she was going to dump off in front of the luxurious apartment building he had purchased an apartment in.  These boxes consisted of the things he left behind when he packed and left in less than half an hour. Finding the cards and letters he had hidden under the chest in the back of the closet from his girlfriend felt like a dagger deep in her heart.

If only she had seen the warning signs and didn’t lose her identity somewhere along the way. How did she let herself fall into the routine of putting everyone ahead of herself, especially now with the kids grown with life’s of their own?  And how didn’t she see the warning signs when he changed his style of making love to her?  She was just thrilled that they still had an active sex life. 



When the girls all got together, they would complain about how they could care less if they had sex or not.  Erika always advised them to at least have the sympathy sex in order to keep their husband’s from straying.  How ironic it turned out to be her husband who strayed and left her for a younger woman.

 
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