Dear ,
Do you ever play with your writing? I mean, simply do something without the pressure of finishing—and just for the joy of trying?
I haven’t played with my writing in a long time, but I wanted to share an older piece with you that was a bit of fool-around-fun. The dialog that starts with the idea of selling things and borrowing money and what might be done with the proceeds is based on an actual conversation I overheard at a restaurant (minor details changed). You can make this stuff up, but why work so hard when life offers you such juicy possibilities?
* * *
“I could make it work. I know I could.”
George tilted his head, thinking hard now, calculating the worth of the Dodge sitting in the restaurant parking lot.
She picked up a packet of foil-wrapped butter and slowly pulled back neat corners. The butter was too warm, so when she went to gather it on her knife, it slipped onto her black lycra pants.
Traci swiped at it, only pressing the mistake further into stretch-cloth. She sighed and reached for another gold packet. But now he grabbed her hand and stopped it, pushing her palm flat to the table before she could get her fingers around the new pat of butter. His own meaty fingers toyed with her wedding ring.
“If I sell the Dodge and your ring, plus everything that’s in the apartment, and we borrow some money, I could make it work. I always wanted a ranch. How hard can it be to raise cattle? Come on, Traci, you know I can do it. You know it.”
She looked down at her unbuttered bread, then off beyond him, to the exit sign at the back of the room. If she could just look straight into his grey eyes. Or excuse herself to the bathroom. Or something. Her hair caught the light so that instead of looking like the vivid red she’d asked for at the beauty shop, it morphed into an odd dark pink that looked unreal.
The waiter came now. He set down a broad-noodled alfredo with peas, for her, and an oversized steak for George, who stabbed his fork into it before she even picked up her own fork. Her bread was still unbuttered too, and would stay that way for the meantime, since George must have taken the last portions while she was looking at the exit sign.
And now it was suddenly too late. She hadn’t looked George straight in the eyes, and her food was waiting, and George was chewing fast and hard.
* * *
On this sunny morning, I wish you a little bit of play. In your writing. Or in your life. Which, often, comes to the same thing.
As Always,
L.L.