Week #4
Lucy is a character I want to detail in a variety of stories, many of which will feature her friend Britt. I’m not confident I have their character’s nailed down, which is why I need to do so. They’re somewhat important.
This story is the first, and it might be a standout. After a full night of racking my brain for ideas, I slammed these thousand words down in an hour. So it’s coming from a rather visceral place that you can probably read into. I haven’t edited it, and I likely won’t? because of course I need to be willing to crap this stuff out and never look back. So here’s to that. *clinks licorice tea glass against monitor, spiliing tea on my keyboard*
When
Lucy was a kid, her neighbors asked her to catsit for 2 weeks while
they were out town. Every day when she came home from school, even
though she had homework to get to, she would go straight into the
living room to pet the cat. Her mom would seize the opportunity to
ask her how her day went, and she would give a brief summary before
bringing up her homework and excusing herself. For the first week
this was the case. But finals were next week, and she needed to make
use of all the time available to her, so over the weekend, Lucy
locked herself in her room to study.
The
goings were rough, and the word problems were tough, but Lucy
carefully staved off distractions. She put her phone on silent and
her laptop on airplane mode, and even then she found herself
rereading sentences until they stuck. But she was as in the zone as
she could be, and that’s what counted.
Then
her mom called up to remind her about the cat. The call ripped her
from her state of zen. She realized there were responsibilities at
conflict here. But her work took greater precedence, so she called
back down to her mother and said she couldn’t come at the moment. Her
mom’s cry of “awww,” was cut off by Lucy closing the door. She
resumed her study. It took her about an hour to reenter her zen
state, but once she had things went swimmingly. She finished
reviewing her Geography flash cards at 8:00 PM, but she still had 3
subjects to go that Saturday evening.
And
her mom called up to remind her about the cat. It needed it’s food
and water changed, not to mention some attention. This frustrated
Lucy greatly, but she knew it was getting late, and she was better
off finishing that chore before continuing into the night. She ran
down the stairs to the living room and grabbed the bowls from the
corner. Her mom greeted her with delight, thanking her for being
responsible. Lucy silently cleaned and refilled the bowls in the
kitchen, then brought them back for the cat. Her mom said, “I think
you’d better give him some pets before you run back off again. He
misses you.”
Lucy
stared at her, then at the cat, who was already busy chowing down his
food. “Wish I could mom, but I gotta get back to work.” She
headed back upstairs, somewhat abject, and got to getting back to
work.
THE
NEXT DAY, SUNDAY MORNING
Lucy
woke with her face in a textbook, and her mom poking her shoulder.
“Hey you,” she remarked, “The cat’s downstairs if you want a
good wake-up from him…”
Lucy
blinked at her, half-processing. “That- That was a plenty good
*yawn* wake-up right there, mom. I gotta find where I left off.”
Lucy had intended to pull an all-nighter. She’d lost a lot of ground
overnight, and she wasn’t even sure how much yet. That made her
grouchy enough as is, not to mention the uncomfortable, unsatisfying
desk-sleep she’d gotten.
Her
mother frowned at her. “Alright, well don’t deprive yourself of
sleep and snuggles just for this.” She left Lucy alone, thank god.
Lucy
buckled down. She cracked open boxes of cereal to eat raw, as
substitutes for meals. She peed in the crappy, tiny upstairs bathroom
instead of the one downstairs she usually used. And she focused all
her efforts on staying in the zen zone of her room.
But
her mom called up to remind her about the cat. Lucy snapped to look
at the clock, it was somehow 6 PM. Her mom called “Hey sweetie, I
think the cat wants some love!”
“Love!?
It wants, love??” She shouted back.
“Yeah,
is that too much to ask?” Coerced her mother.
“Yeah!!!
Right now it is!”
“Well
that’s too bad! Come down hear and show him some attention.”
Lucy’s
eyes widened in frustration. She closed her laptop, snatched it up,
and stormed down the stairs with it under her arm. As she entered the
living room, her mother once again greeted her with delight. Lucy
once again said nothing. She looked around the room for the cat, and
found it cowering underneath the pedals of the exercise bike. She
dropped her laptop on the couch, went over to the cat, and sat
criss-cross applesauce next to it, facing away from her mom. The cat
slinked away.
Her
mother spoke up. “Boy a real grumpus, aren’t we?”
Lucy’s
mouth tightened. “Yeah. Now’s not a good time for this, I think.”
“What?
Of course it is. Here, if you turn around you can watch TV with me
while you pet him.”
Lucy
turned around and saw the Big Bang Theory was on. That was the last
straw.
“Mom,
I’m busy!”
“Oh
come on, you’re always busy. I’ve seen you all of five minutes
today.”
Lucy
stared at her mom, overcome with the feeling that she was being
extremely selfish. She decided to get up and leave. As if reading her
mind, her mom asked her if she could perform a favor. Lucy asked
what. She said the neighbors were posting online about missing their
precious cat.
“…And?”
said Lucy.
“Can
you take a picture of him, for me to send them?”
“Why
can’t you take a picture mom?” she asked
“Well,
you’re better with technology…”
Lucy
stared at her mom, sitting on the couch with iPad outstretched in a
trap. She looked back at the cat and realized he’d escaped to the
opposite corner of the room. He was in the jumpy sort of mood that
would make this job very difficult. She got up, took the iPad, and
set about trying to take a picture of him. The light was low, and the
iPad’s camera sucked, so her mom rephrased that goal to a good
picture of him.
After
a while of giving angling advice from the peanut gallery, which made
Lucy fume, her mother got up to help corral him into a good spot in
the center of the room. Their combined efforts were enough to get
some acceptable products, ready for shipping to the lonely set of
parents who’d missed their fur-baby. But it took a half-hour which
felt to Lucy like an epoch.
She
passed the iPad back to her mom, who admitted she could go upstairs
now. Lucy rebutted “I’d go upstairs anyway, thanks. I told
you I was busy mom!”
“Well,
thanks for sacrificing your precious
time.” thanked her mother.