Susan (1310 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: crap:fiction
Rating: 2 on 29 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <fickle.muse.at.gmail.com> (View user info) at 2005-09-04 05:43:40 EDT
(This is the prequel to "Roam" - (http://www.ubersite.com/m/70332). I wanted to know why this woman was wandering the world alone, and she finally told me.)
She sat at the desk, just like she did every day. She rearranged the order of the colored Post It pads, the way she did every day. She took a couple of phone calls, looked at pictures of fortune tellers on the internet for some reason she couldn't quite remember. Quite possibly she'd started by looking up something legitimate and gotten sidetracked. It tended to happen a lot these days.
She was making a paperclip chain when the phone offered its internal ring tone. She looked at it for a couple of minutes, eyebrow raised. If it was important they'd call back, and she didn't want to forget her very elaborate color pattern. One red, two green, one yellow, two red, one green, two yellow, one red, two green. And so on.
The phone burbled again. It sounded disgustingly happy to be interrupting her very important work. She snatched it up and held it between her ear and her shoulder, hands restlessly sorting paperclips. "Susan."
"Hi, Susan. Steve here. Can you come up to my office, please?"
"I'm kind of swamped -"
"Yes, we've heard." His voice was dry and impatient. "Just get up here."
II
Susan juggled the cardboard box, her handbag, her car keys, and the bottle of wine she'd bought on her way home. She managed to get one thing stacked on top of the other for long enough to unlock the front door and stumbled through, overbalanced, the delicately balanced box tumbling to the floor and vomiting its contents over the hallway. Her handbag lay stranded in the middle of a drift of papers and plaques and quirky little ornaments and she blinked at it dully before leaving it there.
She managed to keep hold of the wine, though. Priorities.
"Susan? Is that you?" Janet appeared at the top of the stairs, hovering like a mother hen. She looked worried, but then again, Susan's sister looked worried a lot just lately.
Susan waved the bottle of wine over her head like a prize as she all but waltzed up the stairs. "Celebrate with me, my dear, for I am freed from the shackles of corporate slavery."
Janet frowned. "You were fired?"
"Well, if you want to get all pedantic about the details." Susan set the wine on the counter and bent down to scoop her son into her arms. He crowed with delight and hit her on the head with his toy car. "Mum-mum!" Susan settled him on her hip and searched through the kitchen drawers with her free hand for the corkscrew.
Janet was still frowning. "Well, what are you going to do? Will they give you a reference?"
Susan plunked Dylan on the counter beside the wine bottle. He watched, fascinated, as she drew the cork and poured two glasses. "Yes. Yes, they will. Perhaps not glowing, but in return for my not claiming compassionate leave, they'll write something good enough to get me stocking shelves at Target."
"You're better than that."
"Apparently not. Let's drink to Target."
"Susan! This isn't funny, you know. Graham and I are happy for you and Dylan to stay here until you get on your feet, but you need to take some responsibility! What about the insurance money? That'll get you a nice place over in Silver Sands, and you could sell your old apartment. You can put Dylan in daycare and start getting you life back together."
"I'm not touching the insurance money." Susan's voice was soft, a warning, and the room filled with tension before she offered a brittlebright smile and downed her glass of wine.
"Susan..." Janet sounded defeated and sad, and it hurt to hear her like that. "It's been a year, love. This isn't fair to anyone. You have half a million dollars and you insist on living in our back room with Dylan. Mark wouldn't have wanted this."
"Oh, I know." Susan laughed, sharp and acidic, halfway through her second glass and steaming along nicely. She set Dylan on the floor and shooed him toward the TV. He went, waddling, his balance uncertain, holding his toy car and making "vroom vroom" noises contentedly.
"Then again, I doubt Mark was particularly fond of the idea of being minced by a conveyor belt, so let's leave him out of it."
Janet winced. "Don't."
Susan grabbed the bottle by the neck and headed for the back deck. "The wine and I would like some alone time."
III
Blue-grey smoke feathered into the evening as Susan exhaled. Delicious, cigarettes were. Sharp and sweet, filling her mouth and mind with clarity. Kind of. She knocked the wine bottle over making a clumsy grab for it and watched as the last few drops sank into the untreated pine planking. "Damn thing was empty anyway," she reassured herself.
She could hear dishes clanking together as Janet served dinner. She heard their kids laughing, Dylan shouting loud and happy, Graham's low good-humored rumble of a voice as he set the table. And if she turned her head, just so, she could watch them like a movie. In there was all golden light and warmth and steam rising from plates, Mum and Dad and three kids. An onlooker would never know one of the kids wasn't theirs.
And out here... out here was cold and blue-grey and smelled of cigarettes and spilled wine. And this is me, she thought. This is where I am and I don't fit.
When Janet came outside an hour later, she found an empty wine bottle and five crushed cigarette butts. And Susan was gone.
User Reviews
Submitted by rorrim (user info) at 2007-04-19 05:36:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 story
+2 pic
+2 retaliatory
Insufficient rating options here....
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-19 05:10:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-09-06 17:52:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-09-05 22:58:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You are a goddess. And I'm not just talking about your username.
Submitted by mrwolf (user info) at 2005-09-05 11:17:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2005-09-04 14:10:00 (#)
Ranking: 2
tehcaes mentioned it, but I love how well drawn out your characters are. Very realistic and easy to imagine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
agreed.
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2005-09-05 10:18:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Delicious, cigarettes were."""
Thanks, Yoda.
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2005-09-05 07:06:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Brilliant.
Submitted by Barnymeinhoff (user info) at 2005-09-05 05:24:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by FWFIV (user info) at 2005-09-05 00:00:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really like the order in which these were given to us
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2005-09-04 22:53:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Here's to conveyor belts and unexpected changes of plan.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-09-04 19:12:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BattlePope (user info) at 2005-09-04 17:54:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
didnt read the post... but the picture deserves a fucking +2
Submitted by mastershake (user info) at 2005-09-04 14:43:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:18:31 (#)
Ranking: 0
OH NOES
SQUATTAIL DOESN'T LIKE ME
THE OUCHINESS OF IT ALL
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wasn't going to rate this, but this comment alone +2.
THE OUCHINESS OF IT ALL...that shall be the catch phrase.
Submitted by DonovanMD (user info) at 2005-09-04 14:10:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
tehcaes mentioned it, but I love how well drawn out your characters are. Very realistic and easy to imagine.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-09-04 11:26:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
My review of "Roam":
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-07-10 09:16:27 (#)
Ranking: 2
Is that a B52's reference I see? If not, it's definitely the chick from that group that did the song. What's her name? Kate Pierson? I used to be in love with her.
This was great Lyn. It draws the reader in. Into a world of grief and pain. It leaves me with questions, but they are the kind of questions my imagination can answer in any number of ways. I wish you would do more of this.
Now, to tell you the truth (and why would I lie?), I liked it better not knowing what happened to her. But, since you deemed it necessary to tell us, all I can say is that I enjoy reading anything you write. This is well written, but I found it to be a prequel that now demands resolution on the other end. The other end of "Roam", that is.
This is not a +2 on its own. On its own it's rather overdone. To me, its kind of like the feeling I get when I sit down to meatloaf for dinner for the third time in a week. I love meatloaf, but something a little different might have been nice.
Just remember how much I love everything you write when you read this.
Oh, and why did you tease me by opening a PH user if you're not going to use her?
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2005-09-04 11:24:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I read this and then backed up to read Roam. SEND MORE GOOD STUFF!!
Sorry my critique wasn't more literary, but I was very impressed
with your writing, and when I'm impressed, I get emotional. MORE!!
Submitted by thecaes (user info) at 2005-09-04 08:24:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Awesome, as usual. I love your fiction, you have such a visceral way of presenting the characters.
Submitted by fluff (user info) at 2005-09-04 07:45:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Strange. But it changed my mood I just was in. That's nice.
Submitted by c1ndy (user info) at 2005-09-04 07:45:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
cool... I'm off to read the other one because I don't remember it.
And thanks for the sympathy +2s yesterday Circe- BartBart banned the kid, but not before he gave all my posts at least 2 -2s!
Submitted by Beer_bong (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:42:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I just got Jack 5 offsuit four hands in a row.
Fuck.
Submitted by Beer_bong (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:35:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking Miho, little fucker said she was illiterate. That was I get for trusting a 11 year-old with the clap.
I'm very high, and my bed is 6 feet too far away. I think I'll just camp here tonight, and try for the summit, er, mattress tommorrow.
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:34:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://stuff.ubersite.com/1124546617529172/1/pig.jpg
just making sure you know what you are getting yourself into beerbong, you could have a weird flirting/courtship charade with a woman on the internet who can at least PRETEND she doesn't look like she's perpetually holding her breath and washes her face with sandpaper every morning
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:30:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I know - it's written on every bathroom wall in Thailand. In thirteen languages.
With diagrams.
It's very sexually intriguing.
Submitted by Beer_bong (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:27:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You can ask around, incompetant sex is my middle name.
Submitted by Beer_bong (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:26:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh good god, my gall bladder is tingling with excitement.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:21:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
BB - Okay - you be the Rottweiler, I'll be the labrador, and we'll hump on the front lawn incompetently until someone shows up with a bucket of water to ruin our forbidden trans-breed lovin'.
And we'll both wear clown masks because I can't think of anything sexier.
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:18:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
OH NOES
SQUATTAIL DOESN'T LIKE ME
THE OUCHINESS OF IT ALL
Submitted by Beer_bong (user info) at 2005-09-04 06:16:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
http://www.ubersite.com/m/74498#1569373
Submitted by professorfuckface (user info) at 2005-09-04 05:49:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
ok you can shut the fuck up now