Hit and Run: fiction

Cooper is graduating. Her blog is one of my favorite places to lose myself in. It has many wonderful things. When she had a new template a day, I was in blog heaven. The content is uniquely Cooper.

I spent all evening writing Gay‘s meme but didn’t feel comfortable with it. I feel much more comfortable in fiction.

Wow, yes I have changed.

This is a true writing exercise. I’m using a new laptop, the fourth in the Savannah series and have no idea how to do anything. I gave myself forty minutes to write it. It’s based on the title which I was going to use to write a post about my commenting style.

Cinco de Mayo was also Bone‘s fourth bloggivesaray.

When writing drives me crazy,and it does often, I bitch to Bone. I’m always just about to give up, because it’s the hardest thing I have ever done. Becoming linear while remaining me. Bitching to Bone would make a great book title. I guess I have become used to his screenname, though…

I have watched Bone evolve as a writer, and have consistently been amazed. Happy bloggiversary Bone!
I was in Philadelphia when I wrote this so I hadn’t seen The Times baby boomer Magazine issue.

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She felt less than. As if her life was stuck somewhere on an endless 33 RPM loop rather than downloadable.

That was strange as she was too young to really remember 33 RPM records. Her father had hundreds of them, all jazz. She had thought that was strange as her father seemed to disdain music. But maybe he once had liked music. Nah, after his death she found out that he had been holding the warped records for somebody, name unknown since she had been born

She had no idea why she was thinking about this as she took a shower. The shower was the only truly good thing about the hotel. Not great but good. She was feeling old. Used. Despondent. She thought a shower would help but it only made her feel worse.

She wondered why she was here. She knew but at home she had a great shower. That seemed to be the only important thing. The suite didn’t have a window that could be opened. She felt confined.

Usually she thought: Another city, another hotel room. Another opportunity to have fun; to remake herself. Sometimes they made her feel like Eloise playing grownup. This city, and so the hotel, made her feel as if every nerve in her body was exposed.

When she looked into the mirror she felt worse. Good bones had taken her this far; Botox and other procedures helped. But her neck; necks didn’t lie. Nor did the age spots that seemed to come overnight. They could be rid of. More would come. Skin was beginning to sag in places….No, she couldn’t let herself think about this. Not now.

She didn’t hear him come into the suite, but she felt his presence. How many hims had there been through the years? She lost count a long time ago. He was separated. His wife fell into the friend of a friend of an acquaintance category

If you liked Alec Baldwin and he did, he was good looking. He worked in many cities, and she would meet him in most. He kissed her neck, and she involuntarily jerked. He pretended not to notice as he asked:
“Did you see the condo?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you like it?”
“No, it’s everything I’m not looking for. You know that. It has no natural light. The bathrooms are small and not worth fixing.”
“The location is perfect, and the rooms are large.”
“Perfect for what? How many nights a week are you planning to spend there?
“You know I travel.”
“I know your wife and kids live twenty minutes away.”
He sighed.
“We’ve been through this before. You know I’m separated. That I’m dedicated to you.”
“I know it’s not a legal separation. You might as well be married.”

Her girlfriends made fun of her “legally separated” rule she had broken just for him.

He stared at her:
“you’re not getting any younger.”
“You would know Mr. with Viagria I come.”
“That’s nasty, crude. When you did become so nasty?”
“Waiting for you.”

She sat at the vanity and took out a Virginia Slim. Like everybody he hated smoking.
“It’s Cinco de Mayo.”
“We can celebrate all weekend.”
“You are a fool. You don’t even remember.”

She blew a perfect smoke ring into his face. He flinched. They had met at a Cinco de Mayo party three years ago. She had broken every rule and slept with him that night. He hadn’t needed any help that night. They had good times, but she couldn’t understand why she was so willing to meet him in different cities. She had loved hotels then. She loved exploring the cities, then coming back to the hotel room to wait for him.

He had talked her into quitting her job. Her job had stopped being fun sometime ago. She didn’t need the money. He didn’t realize she was going to quit soon anyway. Maybe he did. She let him pay for the hotel rooms, for her clothes, her monthly condo expenses. After a lifetime of being independent even when married, she was finally the kind of woman she abhored and didn’t think existed anymore. She was a goddamn kept woman.

He smiled.
“I’m going to order room service.”
“I want to go out.”
“Room service is so much better.”

She had never felt so much contempt for a person before. She laughed:
“You want me to live in a city I don’t even like, so you can be with me, but not be seen with me.”
“It’s not that, Carly. I’m proud of you. But my kids go out. We can run into them anywhere.”
“Or your wife. Are you planning on running from the condo to the house to the condo. Don’t you think it weird that of all the cities you spend time in, you want me to move here?”
“It’s my home. When Lynne gets used to us….”
“Excuse me? You’ve been separated for three and a half years, and Lynne has to get used to us?”
“She’s fragile. Not like you. You’re strong. Independent. I love that about you.”
“I’m not that strong.”
She walked out of the bathroom, threw on some clothes, packed her overnight bag, and walked out. She was so quick he just stood there. He was so sure she would be back, he didn’t run after her.

The streets were filled with eager kids. A bouncer was trying to talk some girls into going to a club. He told them how much they would love it. How it was filled with classy kids. She remembered being their age. Bouncers didn’t try to talk kids into going to clubs. They had lists of people they called to make things happen. She had been on some lists.

Or ropes opened or they didn’t. She knew Marc, the doorman at Studio. They had worked together at a job he took off his official life story. It would make him a year or two older than the age he had always given. But the ropes always quickly opened for her and her friends.

There were times she wished that part of her life had never happened. It filled her with too many expectations. There was always a new and better man somewhere. There was always an even better tomorrow.

She walked into a street filled with restaurants. All were busy. None looked booked. She walked into the one with the best looking tables, menu and most expensive food. She asked for a table on the street and ordered oysters then Ahi with a half bottle of champagne. She saw his daughter. She was way past tipsy, and putting the moves on a boy who looked bored.

She paid with the credit card he had given her, and took a cab to the train station.

Tomorrow was going to be the first day…she was giving up men forever.

When she got home she shredded his credit cards, packed the few clothes he kept there, some other things and called Fed Ex to pick them up, in the morning She called the bank and had them stop the checks she had sent on the account he set up for her. She was old enough to still find the things you could do in the middle of the night amazing.

Then she took a long, long shower.

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Studio 54 would have been 30 on April 26. I was uh around the same age as Marc Benecke, the doorman.
Posting doesn’t usually make me anxious anymore. This one does. I would rather be who I am than in an unhappy marrriage or relationship. So would most of my friends

But then we’re called selfish, unwilling to compromise, and other things When I was younger I did believe the next man was going to be the perfect one. Maybe that was vain and naive. No maybe’s about it.

Then came a time when I envied the girls who had sat in the dorms in college and who didn’t have ropes open for them at clubs or were called to come to a certain club, not a disco, and sit near the window.

I wasn’t “deserving” of all that. I didn’t work hard to have it happen. It just did. I never thought about the day when the club–and I need a name for it, in my book–would close.

I never thought about tomorrow.

I didn’t really know how to write when I began to blog, and was amazed that people read my blog. I owe bloggers everything. Bloggers taught me to believe in myself.

It brought me to a point where I could actually begin a book and continue it. This story isn’t in it. I think my memoir in the form of fiction, might have to be two books. 17-25, and 25-40, It is the single hardest thing I have ever done.

The title refers to how I leave a comment and don’t go back to the blog to see what the blogger has said. I guess that not very blog like. It could be easy to blame ADHD and other things like that but the truth is I become immersed in writing and forget to. I apologize to anybody who might be hurt by that, think it’s not bloglike or whatever.

I have never ever loved anything the way I love writing, now. Except when it’s all I have been doing and then I bitch about it