Caught Up at 20,000 Words

It's hard to believe that I'm 40% done my book. Time is kind of flying by, but it is also kind of not. I wrote 3,000 words today to make up for the fact that I only wrote 1,000 yesterday. It went pretty well; the plot is moving along nicely. This long (sorry) excerpt was taken from a pretty long scene on the yacht party to celebrate the last night of the retreat. I'm really glad that I added the retreat to the story, since I found it to be really rich in potential.

He quickly moved towards the dance floor where several other couples had already begun some kind of line dancing, set to the tune of Rednex’s classic jam, “Cotton Eye Joe.” She put down her cocktail and her vegetable samosa (reluctantly), and assuming that Darcy had meant for her to follow, took her place beside him on the floor. Olivia did not know the dance that everyone else seemed to have learned beforehand, nor did she want to, but she supposed that it would be more pleasant to be near Darcy less, and this line dancing seemed to be the key.

Olivia fell into step with the others, self-conscious of how ridiculous they all must have looked, and with the all too reasonable worry that she would trip over her feet (or someone else’s) and take down the entire row. Fortunately, this novel is too witty and subtle to make use of excessive physical humour, so that will not happen. However, if the inevitable movie adaptation of this tour de force ends up starring Amanda Bynes or Hilary Duff, all bets are off.

Darcy also seemed to be focused on his feet, and had not spoken a word to Olivia since they had begun dancing. This annoyed her; why ask someone to dance, only to ignore them? And why had he asked her to dance, anyway? Was this his way of “falling on a grenade,” or, as Urban Dictionary would explain it, “falling on a grenade is the selfless act of skull fucking a troll so that your roommate can get his nob shined by her slightly more appealing friend, only to boot the troll to the curb once you have confirmation that the roommate has ‘sealed the deal.’” If that was his intention, she wasn’t having any of it. She had no intention to “cock block” Ellie; she was an enabler, if nothing else. She didn’t need Darcy’s sympathy dance; she was perfectly happy to hang out with her “friends” all night, and to people watch. The party just got kicked into high gear, when some particularly intoxicated sports and fashion writers began a lively game of “seven minutes in heaven.” The political writers at Last Word On Britain had just finished their limbo contest (a particularly short and bespectacled man who seemed to be wearing DILF-brand by Dawson Bleery beige corduroy slacks and a completely unbuttoned red and punk hibiscus Hawaiian shirt had just been crowned the winner), and now seemed to be engaging in some kind of beer-throwing competition. There was initially some disagreement about the rules, as the writers came from different parts of Britain and were thus accustomed to different regulations and conventions, but eventually the arguing subsided and the competition was fierce, to say the least.

As the song transitioned to “Moon River” by Frank Sinatra, the jovial dancing became slow and romantic. Olivia reluctantly accepted Darcy’s hand in her hand, and his other hand at her waist. There were many things that she wished to say to Darcy in that moment, but after the verbal beating that she had given him earlier, she felt pretty lucky to have a job at the moment; she thought it best not to push her luck any further than she had so many times during the retreat.

“I really love this song,” Olivia said dreamily, hoping that perhaps Darcy would say something in response. Sadly for her, all she got was a stiff nod in response.

“I think that it’s your turn to say something,” Olivia added rudely.

“Do you make it a rule to converse during dancing? Does it have to be perfectly alternating to suit you?”

“No, I prefer to act antisocial and angry. I find that it’s the best way to ingratiate myself to others, and it really makes my partner feel at ease.”

“Two drifters, off to see the world; there’s such a lot of world to see.
 We’re after the same rainbow’s end, waiting ’round the bend, my huckleberry friend, moon river, and me...”

“Have you… been enjoying the retreat?” Darcy asked shyly, interrupting Olivia’s enjoyment of the music. But Darcy interrupting Olivia’s enjoyment was hardly new now, was it?

“Oh, yes,” Olivia responded. “It was nice to get out of the city and spend time with friends.” What a lie that was; she thought herself such an idiot as she listened to herself say that. She loved the city; she was convinced that she would never get sick of it. And furthermore, everyone knew that she only really had one friend, and that was her cousin, who had no choice in whether she was going to be her friend or not.

“I didn’t see you at yoga this morning.”

“I opted to sleep in instead,” Olivia replied tersely. “I don’t like to start my mornings by watching a grown woman yoga instructor cry about the beauty of our poses. I mean, at my gym there are mirrors on the walls, and I have seen what I look like when I’m doing yoga. It might bring tears to someone’s eyes, but believe me, they are not tears of joy.”

At that moment, their lively conversation was broken up by the shrill shrieks of a woman wearing a white gown. Apparently the beer-throwing competition had quickly derailed, and her leather jacket had been caught in the crossfire. Needless to say, everyone at the party was simultaneously judging her for being an uppity city bitch. A little beer on your clothing is just the price one has to pay to the party gods—amirite?

“Tell me, do you travel to Portobello Road often, Olivia?” Darcy asked as the dance resumed following the outburst.

“I do. I find it to be the best place to find air-cushioned soles.”

“Blur are one of the least understood bands of our time, I have always argued.”

To find out that Darcy and her shared a passion for the oft-underrated band Blur was incredibly annoying to Olivia. It made her warm to him for only a second, which was something that she just wasn’t prepared to do. How dare he share her opinion on something that virtually no one else shares? What was he playing at?

“You dream maker, you heartbreaker. Wherever you’re going, I’m going your way.”

“I noticed when we ran into one another that you seem to know my boyfriend, Fernando Wickham. How is it that you two know each other, by the way?”

“Ah yes, Fernando Wickham,” Darcy sighed. “He is the kind of man that has no trouble making friends, but has considerably more difficulty in keeping them.”

“He has been so unfortunate as to lose your friendship, Mr. Darcy.”

“I want to warn you about Wickham. He… isn’t exactly a great man, Olivia. Please, rethink this.”

“He would probably say the same about you,” Olivia retorted.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I think you know what I mean. And by the way, who are you to tell me how I should be conducting my love life? Last time I checked, it couldn’t concern you less.”

Darcy gave her a long, hard look; she could almost see the battle going on between his mind and his mouth, deciding if it would be wise to say what he so obviously wanted so say.

“My apologies,” he finally stammered. They continued dancing, but no further conversation followed. Olivia now realized how foolish it was to have wished for conversation; when the topic had veered towards Fernando (and she had no idea how this had happened), it seemed that neither party had an capacity to even put of a front of civility.

As the song ended, desiring to be in Darcy’s presence no longer, Olivia thanked him for the dance and practically ran to the bathrooms. On her way she passed a group of women from Mode who had started some kind of drinking game called “Balls,” where the objective appeared to be to bounce a ball into a cup four times, and to hand out drinks based on the number of times that you successfully sunk one of the balls. She was pleased to discover this little game, as it provided an explanation as to why she had been hearing shouts of “Balls to the wall!” “Balls out!” and “Balls deep!” throughout the night. Well, sort of.

The night did not look like it was going to get any better, and this was the time that she normally would have given up and gone home. But sadly, the nature of a yacht party is that you must wait until the boat docks before leaving (or you should, anyway). While Olivia was lamenting this fact, she noticed that she was far from alone in her desire to get back to the marina. Some of the mothers, now worried that their children were crying out for them because they missed them, were beginning to frantically jump off the boat in an effort to swim to shore. Several of the employees were making bets with each other as to when their DILF-brand by Dawson Bleery khakis (whose shape wasn’t doing them any favours when they were dry, let alone when they were wet) would weigh them down and they would give up and accept the ropes that had been sent out to retrieve them. The mothers seemed to be surprisingly motivated, and one had even made it to shore.

Another trashed individual had fallen into the water after a particularly ill-advised reenactment of the “King of the world!” scene from Titanic. Olivia would have been the last to argue that the epic tearjerker wasn’t moving, or that Leonardo DiCaprio’s understated yet passionate turn as Jack Dawson wasn’t one of the finest offerings of modern cinema; and it was exactly her high opinion of the film that made her less than enchanted when a sans-pants travel writer who had drawn cat whiskers on his face screamed the classic line before tumbling into the water. When he was rescued, he began asking any woman that passed by if they were interested in recreating the handprint-in-car scene. Surprisingly, there were some takers.

Needless to say, the yacht’s captain, Captain Sparrow, who was sporting a stylish nautical-themed Pashmina afghan, decided that it would be best if they went back earlier than planned. Even though many would not have been sad to have a few less mommy bloggers polluting the internet (and Captain Sparrow was definitely of that opinion), he had thought that it would be best to not have any passengers die while under his watch. The yacht (appropriately named I’m On A Boat) quickly turned around, although Captain Sparrow admitted to Olivia that he was disappointed that they had not found The Black Pearl. Olivia may not have known what that was, but she could easily sympathize with him in his lamentating wonderings of why the “rum [was] always gone.” Although, judging by his scent, the rum had gone down his throat, and his question could have easily been answered. She was momentarily put off by the fact that a man who was quite obviously drunk had commandeered the boat, but all was soon forgiven when he produced another bottle of rum and offered to share it with her.

As the revelers disembarked from I’m On A Boat, Olivia took one last good, hard look at the motherfucking boat. She wanted to go home. Back to the city of London, back to the privacy of her flat on Studley Road, but most importantly, back to Fernando. Time apart from him had only emphasized to her how much she was starting to enjoy the time that she was able to spend with him. He always found a way to make her laugh, whether it was with a well-timed joke at Darcy’s expense, or a spot-on Darcy impersonation. His voice made her swoon, with his heavy Spanish cum English accent, where he pronounced things like “Manchester City” as “Manchester Thity.” She also loved the way that his DILF-brand dress pants that he wore for important meetings perfectly cupped the curve of his bum, and the look in his brown eyes that was always so sharp that she could have grated cheese off of them to make a nice polenta lasagna.