 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Genre: Chick-Lit/Romance
Words Count: 1,640
Rating: PG
Summary: Dear Universe is the story of six characters whose lives interlace in unexpected ways over the
course of a decade, enabling them to give each other strength, courage, and love in light of betrayal and
tragedy. Also, it's a comedy.
In this scene, Eleni (Laney For Short) attempted to make the fourteen-hour journey north to attend a radio
interview with her prodigy daughter, Emma. However, the roads ice over, Laney spins out of control and is
rescued by Thomas Mulgrew, a powerful attorney who is secretly battling cancer.
Status: First chapter written, with a skeletal rough draft of the entire story.
The Sun Country Conoco Truck Stop blazed from its cold, cracked tarmac like something out of Close
Encounters. The place smelled of motor oil, burnt coffee, and old grease. The windows, though rimmed with
frost, had the kind of beckoning glow you see in Norman Rockwell paintings of people sitting at a soda
fountain sharing a malt and listening to Buddy Holly on the jukebox.
Thomas slid into the booth across from Laney. The waitress, middle-aged and sporting a pink knit cap over
woolly curls, brought coffee and kept sneaking curious glances at Laney’s cat-slippered feet.
“What can I getcha?” she asked.
Thomas said, “She went off the road about fifteen miles back. Can you tell us if there’s a working tow
service?”
“In this weather?” She lifted one sardonic eyebrow as if to suggest only a couple of idiots would be out
tonight. “Son, this place is froze up tight til morning. Y’all just better settle in.”
Laney said, “Are you sure there isn’t some industrial strength snowplow? Maybe a Zamboni?”
The waitress softened. “Sorry, Sweetie. You can call, but that storm’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
Maybe you’d like something else?”
“Tylenol,” Laney said.
At the same time, Thomas said, “We’ll have pie.”
“Pie?” Laney asked.
“Since we’re stranded,” he said. “I saw one under the glass on the counter. You’re not averse to pie, are
you, Laney For Short?”
He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
The waitress said, “We got pecan pie. That all right?”
“Perfect,” Thomas said.
“My favorite,” Laney said.
“Good deal,” the waitress said, and she left them.
In the awkward silence that followed, Thomas studied the frazzled young woman in the booth opposite him.
She wore a frayed blue robe with a faint oblong stain on its collar. She’d twisted her thick auburn hair into a
knot at the base of her neck. Deep purplish circles shadowed her eyes, and he guessed she’d been awake at
the wheel a long while when she’d spun spectacularly from the road.
Which he had witnessed. He’d seen the streak of headlights, the wild jaunt over the shoulder and down the
culvert, and still, he couldn’t believe the Jeep hadn’t flipped. Badly shaken, he’d pulled the Volvo to the
shoulder and felt the wash of relief when she opened the door to answer him.
Though the thought of his appointment loomed over, he felt good sitting across from her, effective—heroic,
in a way—and he hadn’t felt that in... ever.
“I do have other shoes,” Laney said.
“Beg pardon?”
“Shoes,” she said, waggling her felined feet. “They’re made of glass.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Do you also have an entourage of talking white mice?”
“I did, but…” She pointed to her slippers. “They ate them.”
“Tragic.”
She shrugged as if to say What can you do? He watched as she dumped loads of sugar and cream into her
coffee. His was black and bitter and made him wince, but he was grateful for its warmth.
“So,” he said. “How is it you happen to be in Oklahoma at night in your pajamas in the middle of an ice
storm?”
“Ah, that.” She enfolded the mug in her hands. “My daughter attends a school in Ely, Illinois, and she’s doing
this radio show…”
“Wait,” he said. “You have a daughter?”
“I do. She’ll be thirteen in May.”
“You have a teenage daughter?”
“Not technically…”
“It’s not an emergency? You getting to her?”
“No, no,” she singsonged, waving her spoon. “It’s actually a matter of routine.”
Thomas raised his eyebrows. “That’s part of the telling?”
“It is.”
“Then let’s have it.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, when the waitress returned with a
generous wedge of pecan pie and two forks.
“Y’all enjoy,” she said, and as she left, she winked at him.
Thomas passed a fork to Laney and took the other. She tapped her tines to his and said, “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” he echoed, and thought that renting a car rather than waiting out the storm in Chicago might have
been one of the best decisions he’d ever made.
Laney launched the story as she always did: “My daughter Emma is brilliant.”
And as always, her throat tightened, and she had to pause to catch her breath. Usually, people used this
moment’s pause as a conversational springboard. They filled the gap with stories about the brilliance of their
own child, or more often, Laney noticed with a twinge of sadness, their various shortcomings.
Thomas waited, his fork poised above the slice of pie, while Laney struggled to continue.
“I know,” she said. “Most parents think that their children are brilliant, and of course they are, but Emma’s…
different. A prodigy.”
He nodded. “Musical, mathematical? Linguistic?”
“All of the above,” Laney said. “She taught herself Japanese at seven years old. She skipped third grade. She
has this amazing knack for patterns and calculations, which she says helps her understand music…”
“So she’s a Super Genius?”
“Total brainiac.” Laney nattered at the pie crust with her fork. “In seventh grade, Duke University does this
administration of the SATs for gifted students. It’s called the Talent Find. Emma took the test and scored a
1420, which is, like, phenomenal…”
“Here.” He nudged the pie toward her. “You get the tippy part.”
Laney cocked her head to the side. “How’d you know I like that part best?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Good point,” she said.
He grinned. “Pun intended?”
She squawked a pitiful, goosy laugh, and for a moment, she felt like a silly teenager again, sitting in a booth at
the Food Court with Garrett Turnbull, trying desperately to be cool and tall and svelte like Jenny Courbillon,
but managing to be the goofy best friend, who was there with ice cream and bad puns when Jenny squashed
his heart at junior prom.
“God,” Laney said. “I’m sorry. I’m really bad at this.”
“At what? Getting stranded by a winter storm? Because I’d say you’re spot on.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said. “So, 1420 on the SATs…”
“Right, so, toward the middle of that year, the school counselor called and said that, unfortunately, Maynor
Middle School could no longer offer a rigorous education for Emma,” she said. Excitement jangled in her
nerves like electricity, because he sounded like he actually wanted to hear her story. And she was having an
actual conversation with a man. “However,” Laney went on, gesturing with her fork, “She had a friend who
teaches at the Cygnus Upper School—this very prestigious prep school—and if we hurried, we could get her
in by the fall semester—”
“—But the school’s in Oklahoma?”
“Ely, Illinois,” she said. “Muskogee is the halfway point. It’s fourteen hours, one way.”
“And how often have you made this drive?”
“Five times, if you count the first trip with the smallish moving van—”
“Absolutely count the first trip with smallish moving van.”
“Then, five.”
“Wow,” he said. Thomas shoveled a bite of pie into his mouth.
“Yeah, at this part in the story, most people get this glazed look in their eyes and back away slowly, as if I’m
one of those parents,” she said. “Like one of those fanatical pageant moms who spend seventeen thousand
dollars on taffeta dresses and twirling lessons. I mean, I don’t blame them. The ratio of the Upper School’s
tuition to my salary is enough to make me think I should seek psychiatric evaluation. So I say, ‘It’s not that
bad, and it’s only for four years.’”
“But when you say it out loud, four years tends to sound like a small forever,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Exactly, yes! Meanwhile, I think that I’ve sent my daughter away for school, and even
though it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, she’s away from her family and friends, and that’s gotta be damaging
on some level, and so I worry constantly if I’ve made the right choice.”
Thomas held up his fork. “No, no. Don’t think that,” he said. “It’s common where I come from for parents to
ship their kids off to school, and we turn out more or less all right. Thing is, I went off to school when I was
eight, but not once did my father drive the three hours to Lambrecht Academy.” His lips flattened to a pale
line.
“Never?”
He picked up his mug and swirled his coffee. “Not once,” he said, and Laney could tell he didn’t wish to
elaborate.
“So, okay,” Laney said. “What about you? What are you doing driving south in the middle of Oklahoma during
a freak ice storm?”
His left eye twitched, and he set down his mug. “Look, can you excuse me a minute?”
“Sure,” she said. “No problem.”
Thomas slipped from the booth and went to the counter. He whispered a question to the waitress, and after
he ducked away, she shot Laney a kind of maternal May Day look, as if to say, What are you doing? You’re
screwing it up, and now he’ll probably bolt out the door to try his luck with the weather.
Laney drooped against the vinyl and thought of Emma sleeping sweetly in her bed. She wouldn’t even know
something was wrong until she awoke in the morning. Laney would call the Sandersons to let them know not
to worry. As for the radio show, she did a quick mental calculation. The show started at 11:30. If Laney
managed to get on the road by seven, she could still make it. She could sleep after.
She cast a worried look in the direction Thomas had gone. She fished her cell phone from her purse. As she
suspected, zero service in rural Oklahoma, and it was only half past two. Seven a.m. seemed a long way away.
So what do you think?
Submit a review to let me know.
Words Count: 1,640
Rating: PG
Summary: Dear Universe is the story of six characters whose lives interlace in unexpected ways over the
course of a decade, enabling them to give each other strength, courage, and love in light of betrayal and
tragedy. Also, it's a comedy.
In this scene, Eleni (Laney For Short) attempted to make the fourteen-hour journey north to attend a radio
interview with her prodigy daughter, Emma. However, the roads ice over, Laney spins out of control and is
rescued by Thomas Mulgrew, a powerful attorney who is secretly battling cancer.
Status: First chapter written, with a skeletal rough draft of the entire story.
The Sun Country Conoco Truck Stop blazed from its cold, cracked tarmac like something out of Close
Encounters. The place smelled of motor oil, burnt coffee, and old grease. The windows, though rimmed with
frost, had the kind of beckoning glow you see in Norman Rockwell paintings of people sitting at a soda
fountain sharing a malt and listening to Buddy Holly on the jukebox.
Thomas slid into the booth across from Laney. The waitress, middle-aged and sporting a pink knit cap over
woolly curls, brought coffee and kept sneaking curious glances at Laney’s cat-slippered feet.
“What can I getcha?” she asked.
Thomas said, “She went off the road about fifteen miles back. Can you tell us if there’s a working tow
service?”
“In this weather?” She lifted one sardonic eyebrow as if to suggest only a couple of idiots would be out
tonight. “Son, this place is froze up tight til morning. Y’all just better settle in.”
Laney said, “Are you sure there isn’t some industrial strength snowplow? Maybe a Zamboni?”
The waitress softened. “Sorry, Sweetie. You can call, but that storm’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
Maybe you’d like something else?”
“Tylenol,” Laney said.
At the same time, Thomas said, “We’ll have pie.”
“Pie?” Laney asked.
“Since we’re stranded,” he said. “I saw one under the glass on the counter. You’re not averse to pie, are
you, Laney For Short?”
He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile.
The waitress said, “We got pecan pie. That all right?”
“Perfect,” Thomas said.
“My favorite,” Laney said.
“Good deal,” the waitress said, and she left them.
In the awkward silence that followed, Thomas studied the frazzled young woman in the booth opposite him.
She wore a frayed blue robe with a faint oblong stain on its collar. She’d twisted her thick auburn hair into a
knot at the base of her neck. Deep purplish circles shadowed her eyes, and he guessed she’d been awake at
the wheel a long while when she’d spun spectacularly from the road.
Which he had witnessed. He’d seen the streak of headlights, the wild jaunt over the shoulder and down the
culvert, and still, he couldn’t believe the Jeep hadn’t flipped. Badly shaken, he’d pulled the Volvo to the
shoulder and felt the wash of relief when she opened the door to answer him.
Though the thought of his appointment loomed over, he felt good sitting across from her, effective—heroic,
in a way—and he hadn’t felt that in... ever.
“I do have other shoes,” Laney said.
“Beg pardon?”
“Shoes,” she said, waggling her felined feet. “They’re made of glass.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Do you also have an entourage of talking white mice?”
“I did, but…” She pointed to her slippers. “They ate them.”
“Tragic.”
She shrugged as if to say What can you do? He watched as she dumped loads of sugar and cream into her
coffee. His was black and bitter and made him wince, but he was grateful for its warmth.
“So,” he said. “How is it you happen to be in Oklahoma at night in your pajamas in the middle of an ice
storm?”
“Ah, that.” She enfolded the mug in her hands. “My daughter attends a school in Ely, Illinois, and she’s doing
this radio show…”
“Wait,” he said. “You have a daughter?”
“I do. She’ll be thirteen in May.”
“You have a teenage daughter?”
“Not technically…”
“It’s not an emergency? You getting to her?”
“No, no,” she singsonged, waving her spoon. “It’s actually a matter of routine.”
Thomas raised his eyebrows. “That’s part of the telling?”
“It is.”
“Then let’s have it.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, when the waitress returned with a
generous wedge of pecan pie and two forks.
“Y’all enjoy,” she said, and as she left, she winked at him.
Thomas passed a fork to Laney and took the other. She tapped her tines to his and said, “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” he echoed, and thought that renting a car rather than waiting out the storm in Chicago might have
been one of the best decisions he’d ever made.
Laney launched the story as she always did: “My daughter Emma is brilliant.”
And as always, her throat tightened, and she had to pause to catch her breath. Usually, people used this
moment’s pause as a conversational springboard. They filled the gap with stories about the brilliance of their
own child, or more often, Laney noticed with a twinge of sadness, their various shortcomings.
Thomas waited, his fork poised above the slice of pie, while Laney struggled to continue.
“I know,” she said. “Most parents think that their children are brilliant, and of course they are, but Emma’s…
different. A prodigy.”
He nodded. “Musical, mathematical? Linguistic?”
“All of the above,” Laney said. “She taught herself Japanese at seven years old. She skipped third grade. She
has this amazing knack for patterns and calculations, which she says helps her understand music…”
“So she’s a Super Genius?”
“Total brainiac.” Laney nattered at the pie crust with her fork. “In seventh grade, Duke University does this
administration of the SATs for gifted students. It’s called the Talent Find. Emma took the test and scored a
1420, which is, like, phenomenal…”
“Here.” He nudged the pie toward her. “You get the tippy part.”
Laney cocked her head to the side. “How’d you know I like that part best?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Good point,” she said.
He grinned. “Pun intended?”
She squawked a pitiful, goosy laugh, and for a moment, she felt like a silly teenager again, sitting in a booth at
the Food Court with Garrett Turnbull, trying desperately to be cool and tall and svelte like Jenny Courbillon,
but managing to be the goofy best friend, who was there with ice cream and bad puns when Jenny squashed
his heart at junior prom.
“God,” Laney said. “I’m sorry. I’m really bad at this.”
“At what? Getting stranded by a winter storm? Because I’d say you’re spot on.”
“Oh.” She laughed. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” he said. “So, 1420 on the SATs…”
“Right, so, toward the middle of that year, the school counselor called and said that, unfortunately, Maynor
Middle School could no longer offer a rigorous education for Emma,” she said. Excitement jangled in her
nerves like electricity, because he sounded like he actually wanted to hear her story. And she was having an
actual conversation with a man. “However,” Laney went on, gesturing with her fork, “She had a friend who
teaches at the Cygnus Upper School—this very prestigious prep school—and if we hurried, we could get her
in by the fall semester—”
“—But the school’s in Oklahoma?”
“Ely, Illinois,” she said. “Muskogee is the halfway point. It’s fourteen hours, one way.”
“And how often have you made this drive?”
“Five times, if you count the first trip with the smallish moving van—”
“Absolutely count the first trip with smallish moving van.”
“Then, five.”
“Wow,” he said. Thomas shoveled a bite of pie into his mouth.
“Yeah, at this part in the story, most people get this glazed look in their eyes and back away slowly, as if I’m
one of those parents,” she said. “Like one of those fanatical pageant moms who spend seventeen thousand
dollars on taffeta dresses and twirling lessons. I mean, I don’t blame them. The ratio of the Upper School’s
tuition to my salary is enough to make me think I should seek psychiatric evaluation. So I say, ‘It’s not that
bad, and it’s only for four years.’”
“But when you say it out loud, four years tends to sound like a small forever,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Exactly, yes! Meanwhile, I think that I’ve sent my daughter away for school, and even
though it’s the opportunity of a lifetime, she’s away from her family and friends, and that’s gotta be damaging
on some level, and so I worry constantly if I’ve made the right choice.”
Thomas held up his fork. “No, no. Don’t think that,” he said. “It’s common where I come from for parents to
ship their kids off to school, and we turn out more or less all right. Thing is, I went off to school when I was
eight, but not once did my father drive the three hours to Lambrecht Academy.” His lips flattened to a pale
line.
“Never?”
He picked up his mug and swirled his coffee. “Not once,” he said, and Laney could tell he didn’t wish to
elaborate.
“So, okay,” Laney said. “What about you? What are you doing driving south in the middle of Oklahoma during
a freak ice storm?”
His left eye twitched, and he set down his mug. “Look, can you excuse me a minute?”
“Sure,” she said. “No problem.”
Thomas slipped from the booth and went to the counter. He whispered a question to the waitress, and after
he ducked away, she shot Laney a kind of maternal May Day look, as if to say, What are you doing? You’re
screwing it up, and now he’ll probably bolt out the door to try his luck with the weather.
Laney drooped against the vinyl and thought of Emma sleeping sweetly in her bed. She wouldn’t even know
something was wrong until she awoke in the morning. Laney would call the Sandersons to let them know not
to worry. As for the radio show, she did a quick mental calculation. The show started at 11:30. If Laney
managed to get on the road by seven, she could still make it. She could sleep after.
She cast a worried look in the direction Thomas had gone. She fished her cell phone from her purse. As she
suspected, zero service in rural Oklahoma, and it was only half past two. Seven a.m. seemed a long way away.
So what do you think?
Submit a review to let me know.