Below is more NaNoWriMo'ing. Yes, I know I have under 13 days to write 48,000 words, but I keep reminding myself that penning any old crap is not only forgiveable but encouraged. Those who are not so into watching someone take and explore a brain dump should visit a more interesting site for the time being (and probably the time hereafter). My suggestions:
- The "blog" of "unnecessary" quotation marks
- Vintage Projects
- Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About (old, but a classic)
- Squalor Survivors (a site I only visited for 10 seconds once, but it looked promising - let me know if I should go back)
Jane pitched another wad of yellow legal paper toward where a wastebasket should be. It made her feel more like a hot shot Midwestern executive and less like a deliberately jilted lover, or at least less like a deliberately jilted lover who, despite pages of deliberation on her part, still ended up jilted 15 degrees to the right of where she meant to land.
She meant to land where Alice meant to land, where countless others meant to land, but Colin - like most men - was daft with the telepathy.
Now he was off with another American... Karen? Corinna? The one with the obscenely long shins and big daisy barrettes who, mark Alice's words last night, was just going to take forever to unstick from his bespoke trousers. Flash-eyed Alice, who couldn't walk into the sun now without holding a hand straight out and sucking in her breath.
"Hell on a lolly stick, Jane. Is this 41, is it?"
Jane never saw any of the spots that made Alice bristle like a cornered hedgehog in a sunhat, but she knew about noticing time. Damnit, she'd spent at least eight months on Colin, was yawning in her mouth by the second week, and now she was relieved he was gone, and all of this, she knew, was no way to go about anything.
Jane, born Jennifer and reinvented no later than 19 years later, balled up a fresh wad and failed to bounce it through the ceiling fan. She stared at where it sat on the floor. She could die right now and no one would know what she'd been doing. The paper, like every other one dotted across the rug, was blank.
"If she were here, Alice, she'd tell you herself. It's the very best thing."
Mr. Bramford Lane, until lately of Ipswich, upon hearing the wifely voice in full speech in the kitchen decided to step back into the corridor and perhaps spend several minutes looking meaningfully at the framed photographs instead.
The country home was leased for the rest of April, and it was - the last male Lane of a very long line of very male Lanes would've admitted - completely gorgeous. Monet at his most enviable. Did Monet ever visit the Pyrénées? Didn't matter. The view was worth whatever discussion was taking place in the other room.
He thought of the card he sent to his daughter back in Angleterre this morning. It was one he'd bought from the posh Alps hotel somewhere along their winter journey. Without thinking, he folded his arms deeper into the worn cardigan he'd only just been about to hang over the kitchen chair.
"Saturday 16th
"Back here again in that superb countryside, there's no lift today but the forecast for the week is good. We got up yesterday at 3:45 a.m. and were on the ferry at 6:15 a.m and drove 550 miles towing a glider and got here at 7 p.m. Staying in a hilarious hotel - an ancient and dilapidated chateau that hasn't been painted since 1903! Home next Sunday - Love Dad."
Bramford allowed himself a moment of self-pity. Katherine would tune out when he started mentioning times and distances, and that's what he wanted her to do, just like he wanted her to leave any phone messages down the road at the hotel, where the staff understood the situation. Katherine didn't approve of Colin. She would've Googled the house address and found out it belonged to Colin's property agents here. Katherine did so much internet research on Colin that their just being in Cordes would make her suspicious, but he'd deal with that when they returned. (If they returned.) Bright, their girl, but always looking at the farthest star instead of the sun boiling over her head.
But she hadn't come screaming through the Chunnel so far, and that was a blessing.
"Oh yes, Alice, oh yes - she is an American, and so was Jane. And we both warned you about Jane. Skipping steps is what it is. Oh, stop using that word!"
This is a henhouse, thought Bramford. And I must nest here and pretend to lay eggs.
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