exercise #4: an object

[olaf47]

Exercise 4: An ObjectThis is another descriptive exercise. We ask you to pick an object that is of some importance to one of your characters. (Preferably of one of the characters about whom you have already written. It will be more beneficial to you if you continue to work on a specific piece with a specific set of characters than if you bounce

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[olaf47]

She loved her hair, really, she did, and she misses it a little, but not too much. It’s hard to miss it when she sees how happy it makes Elle-and how happy it made Patrick, for that matter. As soon as he mentioned Elle being afraid of losing her hair, A.J. told Ed she was cutting it all off. He thought it was brilliant and talked out some way it would work beautifully with Kansas and Quentin, but she didn't really listen. She was too busy trying to ignore the way Patrick was looking at her--like she was the only thing in the world. She pulls a face at him to make him stop, and he laughs, and they're called to make-up. He doesn't say anything until the end of the day, in the parking lot, where he pulls her into a tight hug until she gasps, "I can't really breathe."

A.J.’s there when they made the wig. It wasn’t just her hair-the need more than that to make a wig-but it was mostly hers. She gets to watch and learn about the process and tries to stay out of the way.

It feels real in her hands-a real head of hair, and she supposes it was once, not too long ago. She almost drives over to give it to Elle that night before she realizes it’s probably past the girl’s bedtime. She waits until the morning instead; the wig spends the night on its mannequin head on her dresser. She just looks at it for a while, imagines it on Elle, wonders how it’ll ever stay on; the little girl runs so wild, even now.

The next day Elle loves the wig immediately. It’s nice to see her response of utter joy instead of the teary-eyed appreciation of adults. She makes A.J. put it on immediately, but it takes longer than it should because Elle’s so excited she’s squirming.

When they finally get it on, Elle giggles and twirls in front of the mirror and says, “Now I’m beautiful like you.”

“Oh Elbow,” A.J. runs her hand through the wig and it feels real, “You’ve always been, and will always be, gorgeous.”

The wig scares him a little. It’s amazing, and Elle loves it, picks it every day, but it scares him. It makes him think things he shouldn’t. Seeing his child climbing on A.J. with matching hair makes him think words like mother, but he knows that to think that he must also think divorce, and that scares him.

The wig brings up too many feelings. It makes him think of A.J.’s smile and cracking eyes the first time they met. It makes him think of running his fingers through it when he was supposed to be Quentin and she was supposed to be Kansas. But she smiled like A.J. then, perfume or shampoo or whatever, and he was glad he didn’t have any lines he was supposed to have memorized, because all he could think about was burying his head in her neck and inhaling.

And the wig makes him think of everything he loves about A.J. Because she’s beautiful, obviously, but perhaps there’s more in the way she marched across the parking lot and announced to Ed that she had to cut her hair. She cares so deeply it surprises him. It makes him want to lay her under him and show her how much he cars too. And that’s what’s scary, how it is more than her beauty, how it would be more than sex, and maybe it’s stupid that one little wig can make him think that much, can scare him that much, but it does.

Every day he hopes Elle picks a different wig.