Straight No Chaser

How to Write a Compelling Story

1. i can't do the poem thing because i only have two poems in my portfolio, and neither one is exceedingly great. and this, this journal, is my most viewed item. if you want to read something decent, though, that's not overexposed and that doesn't require a significant time investment, try "Invalid Item" . if nothing else it'll put you in the mood for halloween. i still haven't taken grim's suggestion, to add a scene at the end. but i am contemplating it.

2. i know he's fantastic. i too am dazzled by his talent. i hope you're telling him, too, and not just me, because he deserves to hear it, and i already know.

3. the finding neverland score is heartbreakingly beautiful. almost smarmily so. they must be kidding. are they kidding, with the strings and the sweetness, four boys but no mermaids and all those chromatics? i'm going to die young, because this score is going to break my heart, because i can't consume it, because it's just music. this is why i tend to see a good movie at least twice, once for the score, so it can break my heart.

4. insert marcusian murmurings here. still humming. not many hours after we parted ways, he got on a plane, and now he's in my hometown, which is disconcerting; fewer than twenty miles from my parents, where i should be. he'll come back, sunday night. and then.

5. "my name be nibs-a-cutthroat! feared by man and greatly desired by the ladies!" for your information, i am an arsenal of useless movie trivia. and i've seen "liar liar" approximately 1,352,001 times. "welcome aboard, nibs." unrelated, the two. but the nibs thing makes me laugh every single time. i like the sound of my laugh. it makes me happy, and it makes other people laugh more. i got that from my dad. his laugh is completely ridiculous and could not be worsely suited to his appearance. hence people laugh at him, when he laughs. they sort of laugh with me, i think.

**********

He uses the rhinestone pen to head off a list in his notebook, Baby Names, and writes Marcus at the top. She takes the pen and, beneath it, adds Sharon.

"Shannon, Aaron," she says when she catches sight of his frown. "Sha-aaron. Sharon."

He shuts the notebook and kisses her cheek. "Sharon, huh? So this'll be interesting. Why didn't you tell me we were having a middle-aged Jewish woman?"

She socks him, hard, in the stomach. "Why didn't you tell me we were having a gladiator?"

*

It feels like it, sometimes. The little kicks from those first few days, sporadic and insignificant, have multiplied and intensified, so that she never gets a break. One of many reasons for this growing resentment.

"Fuck you," she tells her abdomen experimentally, nastily. The parasite twists and jabs at her, indignant, she supposes. She checks over both shoulders--no Aaron, he's off pelting birds with pebbles, collecting headless carcasses with which to nourish this little weed--before snarling, even more nastily, "You are an unwanted mistake."

It starts to rain, and she starts to cry.

*

"I love you," she tells her abdomen desperately, tenderly. She covers it with desperate hands--somehow, impossibly, she's still small enough--and follows the movements with the pads of her palms, an apology. "I love you. I mean it, and if you don't believe me, we've still got four months together, and I'll prove it. And then, when you're here, everything, Daddy and I, we'll find a way to get you someplace wonderful, and you will have everything. More music, I know you like music, because you dance to Mommy and Daddy's music, and you'll have lots of it to choose from...there will be other kids for you to play with...school, and we'll teach you some things ourselves..."

Rain beats heavily on her wild curls, her shaking hands.

"Daddy's a fabulous writer. He's going to teach you how to write from your heart. Wit and intuition. Mommy does what she can. Diction and syntax, blah blah. Anyway, between the two of us, you'll get an original bedtime story every night. Probably. A good story needs both. Intuition and convention. And you have to know where to begin, and where to end, and what to put in, and what to leave out. And you need a climax. Like with sex." She pauses. "Daddy will teach you about sex, one day. Mommy's still taking the crash course, herself."

Aaron's wet blond head appears behind a wall of falling water, ducking toward her through the brush. "You okay?" he calls.

She gives her belly a final pat and stands, taking the hand he extends to her, following him to the shelter.

*

Since the outburst, he doesn't like to leave her alone for long. It's not that he doesn't trust her, exactly, because he does, but it's disconcerting to know that she's anything but consistently elated. More than that, even. It's his baby, and it hurts him, the same way it hurts when she won't choke down five bites of the dinner he spent two hours chasing down.

Twice in the past week he's caught her retching violently into the ocean. "Morning sickness returns," she told him dryly, the first time, and the second, she was too green and miserable to offer any sort of explanation, and she spent most of that day sleeping. He doesn't know much about pregnancy, but what little he does know makes this troublesome: it's too late for the hormone surges that kept her nauseous for those first few months, too early for her to be truly uncomfortable. They're a bit more than halfway there; she should be happy and horny and glowing. Instead, she's moody, and he is grim.

"What were you doing out there?" he asks, forced-casual, watching her towel-dry a headful of curls come alive. Sproing, sproing. If they have a girl, she will have curls a bit looser than Shannon's, probably a sandy brown.

"Getting wet," she says vaguely, giving her head a final shake.

"I'm not a doctor," he reminds her gravely, pulling her into his arms. "You can't get sick."

She yawns. "I'm fine." Her eyes drift shut.

He tries to sleep too. Tries. Smells her strawberry shampoo. Mentally catalogues her calorie intake for the day. Listens to the rain's tattoo on the roof. Finally drifts off hours later, minutes before her eyes pop open.

*

No blood, but she's terrified. No pain, either; that would be the worst, contractions this early--not pain, but vertigo, tugging her center of gravity this way and that, spinning the shelter in circles around her like a theme park ride, turning a sleeping Aaron all garish shades of yellow and purple. She squeezes his hand, hard, says his name, watches him stir and awaken, tells him something's wrong.

Her fault, of course, for the evil thoughts. She acknowledges this, and then promptly passes out.