This is the new first scene I've written for my current project. Thoughts?
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"Please! I'm begging! I'll give you fifty dollars!"
It is nine twenty-two in the morning on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 in the back hallway at P.J. Mort & Co. Take note, this is a moment to remember. This is the moment that I, Tammy Joyce, set a new level in raw, naked human desperation.
The petite woman with who I am pleading casts an evil stare up at me over her incongruously enormous belly, swollen as it is with seven-months worth of expanded uterus and a baby that, I am told, already has developed the ability to taste! (As if anyone would want to be able to taste in the womb. I'd prefer not to think about it, thank you very much.)
"One-hundred, then!" I say. I bite my lip and try to make my eyes go puppy-dog, but she's not budging. It's time for a different approach. "What's your name?"
"Uh..."
"I'm Misty," I say. "Misty Brent." I have no idea where I got this name from, but it sounds sufficiently pathetic, right? It's probably been lurking in the same part of my brain from which I draw this perfect immitation of every trailer-trash accent I've ever heard my father lampoon. MEE-sty BRAY-ent. "You are...?"
"Sandra..." She barely opens her mouth, but it's enough. It's my in.
"Sandra, darlin'," I say. "I need this. You have no idea what it's gonna be like for me an' Buttercup if I can't at least hold this up long enough to save just one more month." Buttercup? I have no idea where this story came from, either, but she seems to soften. "Robbie'll likely kill us both." I look her straight in her beady eyes and sigh. "So you can see it's not for me. It's just my little girl I'm worryin' for."
There's a long pause, and then she says, without looking at me: "Make it two-hundred, and I'll do it."
"Oh, Sandra," I say, and hug her like she really has just saved my life. "You have no idea what this will do for me." And, I think to myself, she really doesn't.
She pushes me away and watches as I pull the money from my pocket, two-hundred dollars in crisp bills just taken from the bank last night. They leave my hands feeling empty and cold, my mind reeling over all the groceries I won't be able to buy. I don't need to remind myself that George will (must!) reimburse me for it A.S.A.P. All of it.
She takes the bills and my offered cup, and five minutes later I am back in my own examination room, clutching a cup full of someone else's pee and trying not to be too pleased with myself. This is, after all, a new low, and not something to be celebrated, though I can't help it feeling like a victory over something vast and unnamed.
Or more specifically, something blonde and named Helen.
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The one-sentence novel summary:
A runaway bride and her new fiancé pretend she’s pregnant to force a shotgun wedding in her old hometown.
What do you think?
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1,652 / 50,000
Apr 23, 2008 - 16 45
LOL!
This made me laugh, I loved it. I see the beginnings of a delicious and utterly crazy novel at hand.
But I must admit, at the very beginning I thought the narrator was a male (hey, Tammy can be a male name...sometimes...) and that he was begging a prostitute.....that was cleared up after I realized Sandra was pregnant.
Good job!!
50,070 / 50,000
May 3, 2008 - 10 07
Hehehe, this made me burst out laughing at the end! I like this scene, although I was a little confused as to where they were until she handed over the cup.