Back On Track At 44,000 Words

I am finally back from Montreal, and back to blogging after a two-day hiatus. I see that Indigo has completed their novel (congratulations!) and the rest of you are well on your way. How are we feeling going into this last part? Good, I hope!

Here's an excerpt of a discussion between Ellie and Olivia, upon hearing of Bigsley's return. You will be pleased to know that I finally found a place for Robert O. (or Roberto), who is based off of the Mr. Collins character.

The gossip around the office spread like wildfire, or perhaps a fart in a jar that has been opened: Todd Bigsley was coming back. It was common knowledge at Globetrotting Gurlz headquarters that Ellie and Bigsley had been something of an item, and that when he left, it had most likely had something to do with her. If anything, this increased her street—or “office”—cred, since no one had previously believed her to be interesting enough to gossip about. She had preferred it this way.

Ellie is perhaps not in possession of the flashiest of personalities, nor was she the performer of much attention-seeking drama. She is even-keeled, subtly smart, and interesting in her own way. While her looks could get anyone’s attention from a mile away, her personality—to the untrained eye—wouldn’t be picked out of a line-up. Olivia, with all of her feminist bravado, was like an old pair of beat-up red combat boots. Ellie was more like a pair of sensible black flats; classic, understated, and could go with anything. She preferred to blend in, and only matter to the people that matter to her.

When Bigsley had left, she initially felt like she was in her own private hell. But when she returned to work on Monday, she realized that in fact it wasn’t a private hell at all; it was public. And this made it about one million times worse. The thought of others talking about her and speculating as to what must have happened—when she herself didn’t know—made her sick to her stomach. She had been bruised for weeks after, since she had been forced to move around with her eyes firmly glued to the ground. This tactic had resulted in several painful incidents of bumping into things and tripping, but it had the advantage of allowing her to not look anyone in the eye.

“I’m fine, really!” Ellie had attempted to dismiss Olivia, who was interrogating her on her feelings regarding the return of Bigsley.

“So what you’re trying to say is that you don’t have any strong feelings now that he’s coming back,” Olivia asked incredulously.

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she backpedalled. “If I had to describe how I feel—”

“Which you do,” Olivia interjected.

“—I would say that I am more nervous about what everyone else is going to say. I really dread others’ remarks.”

“And your feelings on Bigsley?”

“None to speak of.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Stop asking me questions if you’re just going to disregard my answers.”

“Stop answering questions with answers that you know that I’ll disregard. Come on, Eleanor. Do you really mean to tell me that you haven’t been dreaming about his Conan O’Brien-esque good looks?”

“Don’t you think that the term ‘Conan O’Brien-esque good looks’ is a bit of a paradox?”

“Yes. Yes I do.”

“And he doesn’t look like Conan, anyway. He looks like… Ron Weasley. But more attractive, and certainly older.”

“Like how he looked in the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two?”

“No, obviously not. Stop insulting him. But at least he looked better than old Harry.”

“Agreed. But really, do you honestly mean to tell me that you aren’t even a little excited about old Ron Weasley coming back?”
“Is it that hard for you to use his real name?”

“No, but I don’t want to.”

“If your tactic is to annoy me to the point where I tell you about my rekindled passion for Todd, it is incredibly misguided.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been properly guided.”

“Certainly not.”

“But it was worth a shot, right?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, there’s always more fish in the sea. Why, just last week you had that fantastic date with Robert O.!”

That may have been more convincing if Olivia could have gotten through it without laughing.

“Oh, please don’t remind me. I feel like vomiting every time I think about how awful that encounter was. Please, don’t call it a date. It doesn’t count as a date when they sit beside you in the cafeteria and you’re too polite to tell them to leave.”

“He gave you flowers, didn’t he? That sounds date-like.”

“No, he gave me flower. As in one. And again, it doesn’t count when they take it out of the waistband of their acid-washed jorts.”

“I suspect that you’re right. Did you ever find out what the ‘O’ stands for?”

“No, but that seems to be the only thing that I don’t know about him after what must have been the worst twenty minutes of my life. He brought a book of sermons. And asked if he could read them to me. That’s when I hit my limit. I had to cut and run.”

“You didn’t hit your limit when you saw his mullet? Or when he told you that he is in a Rebecca Black cover band, called ‘The Becky White Experience’? Or perhaps when he told you about his obsession with Cathy comics? Or even further, when he showed you the tattoo that he has of Cathy, shouting ‘CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! CHOCOLATE! ACK!!’”

“Please don’t act like I was ever interested. And really, I don’t see what you have to laugh about. After I told him that I was in a relationship, he seemed to take a fancy to you. Don’t think that he didn’t see you running away after he took out the book of sermons.”

“I actually had started to back away as I was making my way over to the table, and I heard him talk about how he had studied at the Department of Social and Political Thought at York University. We all know that that particular department is a haven for insufferable postmodern assholes who do things like wear capes all of the time. The sermons obviously quickened my pace to a run, but even before that, there was no way that I was sitting down with you. I’m sorry for not having your back and intervening, but honestly, that was the scariest thing that I have ever seen.”

“It didn’t really pay off, I’m afraid. He said that he liked your eating-while-running initiative. He said that he leads a very ascetic lifestyle, and that you might fit right in.”

“Please tell me that you’re kidding.”

“Unfortunately, no. Just like all of those times that we made fun of the ‘My Children Are My Life!’ staffers, and we could never really tell if the other person was making up a hilarious tale or if it was tragically based on real life. Especially when they had that songwriting contest to see who could write the most pathetic song about how obsessed they are with their children. Remember when we listened to the winner? With lyrics like ‘Does it have lead or BPA; if the answer’s yes we say ‘no way’; Will it be their favourite toy?; Will it bring them luck or enjoy?’ [note: Manta, to understand what this is referring to, you will need to read this excerpt from Jackie's blog] We almost had to stop making fun of them after that, because it just wasn’t fun anymore. Well, almost. We didn’t quite stop. But I think that Robert O. might have reached that level.”

“I think that you may be right,” Olivia agreed. “Can we make fun of his Cathy tattoo a little more though?”

“Yeah. I’m not quite ready to let that one go either.”

Sorry to basically post everything that I wrote today, but I had to include this for good measure. Olivia ran into Darcy at The Boo!-bie Brew, his favourite coffee shop, on purpose. He has informed her that her essay on Cimmerian Shade will be published in the next issue, because Atoosa liked it.

Darcy smiled at her, and she wondered what was she doing to get two smiles from him, when he was one of the most severe people that she had ever met. She thought of a terrible excerpt of Twilight, where main asshole Bella Swan described how she wasn’t hungry, because her “stomach was already full — of butterflies.” She thought of this because she was hungry, but the thought of Meyer’s terrible prose made her lose her appetite.

But suddenly his smile faded; she instinctively turned behind her, wondering what might have caused the rapid darkening of his face. There he was: Fernando. Driving an expensive black convertible, blasting what was unmistakably the ‘Mommy Rap’ about BPA and “luck or enjoy.” She wasn’t sure if he was doing so ironically or not. Considering her hatred of hipsters, she wasn’t sure which option she would have despised the most.

Fernando must have noticed them as well; if he had been enjoying the song (yes, he had been), he certainly wasn’t anymore. Chelsea must have observed the change that came across his face, as she turned to look at the pair quizzically.

“I guess there’s little point in hiding my… dislike for that man,” Darcy said, narrowing his eyes in disgust.

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”