NaNoWriMo 2009
Novel Title:
Practical Strangeness
Current Word Count
I really want one of the black t-shirt this year. Writing Machine FTW!
Teaser 1:
“You’re late.”
Clementine drops her bag on the desk assigned for her, one easily spotted by its assortment of international snow globes. “I’m sorry. Getting off took a bit longer than I anticipated. It’s always like that when I renew the wires. I had to--oh, good! They put in napkins!”
The young man at the desk across from her makes a sour face. “How fortunate that you can cite pleasing yourself as a reason for being late to your job.”
“I also had to get breakfast! Please…” Clementine rolls her eyes. “Don’t be such a Wyatt.”
“A what?”
“Wyatt. A Wy-att.” As she sits down, she pulls out a small stack of comic books from her messenger bag. “God, I’m so behind in this series. Thankfully, they held the issues for me. A reward of store loyalty!”
“Oh,” the man says flatly, “I forgot you still read that crap.”
“It’s not crap. It is art. If you spent less time watching those matches on TV and got some culture into you, Rodrigo, maybe you’d learn to understand that.”
Rodrigo Thomas frowns, wondering how Clementine can even find room to prop her feet up, let alone have space for any actual work on her desk. How he loathes her obvious and total disregard for the workplace! His contempt has nothing to do with Clementine being considered one of the best Runners in the company (as some suggest). Rodrigo just has a strong sense of professionalism handed down to him from his father and grandfather. A person like Clementine has a way of disrupting that sense like a magnet to a computer screen. Her lack of awareness of some sense of a dress code, her informal way of speaking to supervisors; it had been such a peaceful three weeks with her on Phone Duty. She dressed differently, more modestly. She was quiet, more polite--even to him!
“You should short out more often,” Rodrigo mutters. “If not for the good of the company, then at least for the good of your co-workers.”
“Just as soon as you take a hit off an exhaust pipe.” Clementine flips a page in her comic book. “You know, for the good of mankind.”
Rodrigo merely glares at her, trying to think of something scathing. He thinks of calling her a tramp but quickly abandons it on the grounds that she must get called that often enough. Not by anyone here, of course--they all seem to love her immensely here--but certainly somewhere, someone at some point must have yelled it into Clementine’s face. Someone with considerable clout.
Teaser 2:
The flowers go in the back seat, the smell of them making Marion feel better. He still feels annoyed, still feels a deep need to call up Rosemary’s fashion house and shout obscenities, but the smell of the lilies does help to make those feelings less intense.
And then he pulls up to his home--up to his beautiful, three-story brownstone (five, if one counts the basement and the attic)--and the sight of two women bickering in front of his house sends his mood crashing back down. Swiftly, Marion puts the parking brake. He yanks the key out of the ignition so hard he is almost certain he has broken it. (He checks and, miraculously, it’s still in one piece.) Both of them are standing on his stoop, ignorant of his arrival. One of the women, the one shouting in German, is the hired sitter; petite, matronly, with her brunette hair pulled into in a loosening bun. The other one is taller, slimmer, her curves in the right places; auburn curls, red hooded jacket, black pleated skirt, red sneakers. There are black headphones around her shoulders, its white cable leading down into a jacket pocket. She has a large, brown box in her hands--one she keeps out of the hands of the sitter--and as Marion gets out of the car, he hears--
“Listen! Please, I don’t speak German! I have a very important package for Mr. Marion Newbury and if he’s not here, I need you to tell me where he is? I can’t just give you this package; that would be a violation of my rules!”
But the sitter just continues yelling in German and reaching for the package, which the taller, slimmer woman (a Runner, obviously, if she is bringing him a package) continues to deftly keep out of reach. Marion knows the sitter speaks English. He also knows that she is telling the Runner that she looks too much like a whore to have any real business with the master of the house. Though he knows it’s only a matter of time before the sitter goes inside to fetch the broom, Marion hangs back a bit, the writer in him curious enough to temper his stress.
“Listen, lady--! HEY! ¡Escucha! ¿Entiendes español? Huh? ¿Es-pa-ñol?!”
The sitter makes another swipe for the package, perhaps to knock it out of the Runner’s hands. Anyone else, at such a strike, would have gone stumbling and falling onto sidewalk, but Marion watches the Runner’s footwork. Something about her agility, about the fluidity in her movements, makes his observational instinct perk. The sitter looks almost disappointed, but stands at the top of the stoop, hands on her hips. The Runner looks deeply irritated.
“¡Hija de la gran puta!” she shouts at the sitter in fluent Spanish. “I’m just trying to do my job! You’re screwing up my whole schedule, lady! I just want to deliver this package and be done with it!”
“Hey!” The two women suddenly stop as Marion finally steps in. “I’m Marion Newbury. What is going on here?”