Aug 12 2007
Off Planet (Part 1)
“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.” Her eyes welled as she pulled a tissue from a pastel pink box.
Keith winced at the stock phrase, but was glad he had elicited that reaction. Shelley was pretty and treated him like a person. He was saddened by the thought that her life was so devoid of joy and considerate people that he had made her day on a whim. To see someone so outwardly confident buoyed by such a simple gesture made him wonder exactly who she was.
It was a simple cup of coffee. He walked by The Gourmet Bean coffee shop every day on his way to work, and occasionally stopped in for a to-go cup. That morning he had decided to grab an extra for Shelley. Jumbo mocha latte, lots of cream and sugar. He liked that The Gourmet Bean didn’t try to disguise their sizes. If you didn’t want very much, you ordered a small. If you wanted the most caffeine they offered in one cup, which was what Keith felt he needed to get going that morning, you ordered a frazzler.
He knew a lot about her from one phone conversation overheard at work.
“Yeah, he called the cops and told them I was hitting him. I told the cop, ‘He’s lying. I didn’t touch him. He doesn’t have a mark on him.’
The cop looked at me and said, ‘We can’t assume anything when we respond.’
‘Dude, if I hit him, he wouldn’t have called you because he’d be dead. ‘
The cop said, ‘Well, you two really shouldn’t stay in the same house tonight.’
I said, ‘Fine with me, but I’m taking my daughter.’
He said, ‘Ma’am, I have to ask him if that’s okay.’
I was like, ‘Excuse me?’
And he said, ‘Well, I can’t allow you to take your daughter when your husband said you hit him.’
So I walked over to Nick and said, ‘Don’t tell them not to let me take her.’
He told the cop, ‘It’s okay, she can take her.’
After that, I just told him I wanted him out of my life, except for our daughter.”
Based on that conversation, Keith figured she was tough. Something about his act of kindness had melted that exterior. He was uncomfortable and wasn’t sure what to say.
“Well, I’m glad you like it,” he said.
She set the cup on her desk and finished wiping away her tears. She wadded the tissue and tossed it into her wastebasket. “It’s very nice. Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Keith walked away with a smile on his face.
Later that morning, he still felt tired and needed a little more caffeine. He took his frazzler cup and, still floating high on the intrinsic rewards from earlier, strolled into the kitchen. As he entered the doorway, he saw Shelley standing at the sink, her back to him. He watched her as he approached the coffeemaker.
He noticed a pouring motion from the corner of his eye and heard liquid running into the sink. A quick sideways glance revealed Shelley pouring out her jumbo mocha latte. Judging from the amount coming out of the cup, she hadn’t drunk a drop.
“That son of a bitch,” she muttered under her breath.
Keith hoped she wouldn’t notice him. The insulated aluminum carafe clanged against the coffeemaker when he set it down.
“Oh, Keith,” Shelley said. “I didn’t see you there.”
“You know, if you don’t like coffee, you can just say so. You don’t have to cuss me.”
“Oh, no, it’s not that. I mean, I don’t like coffee, but I wasn’t talking about you.”
That was good to hear. “That’s good to hear,” he said. “Are you okay?”
She withdrew the sink sprayer and started rinsing the stainless steel basin. “No. I’m not. My ex-husband’s turning my daughter against me.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.” That was a lie. He’d overheard other conversations, too.
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard me complaining about him.”
Keith grabbed six sugar packets and two creamer packets and shook their contents down. He ripped them open carefully to avoid spilling. “What’s he doing that’s so bad?” Keith asked two seconds before he realized it was nosy.
“Well, he does special things for her now that he’s married to that rich woman. He takes her off-planet a lot. In fact, she’s on Mars with him right now.”
Keith always had wanted to visit another world, but forever found himself just a paycheck away from leaving Earth.
“Geez, off-planet, huh? That’s pretty cool.”
She shoved the sink sprayer into its hole and shot him a cold, hard look. “Yeah, I know. Thanks.”
Keith lowered his eyes and stirred his coffee, now the perfect shade of taupe. He glanced back up.
Shelly relaxed her brow and grinned. “Sorry. Just a little testy right now.”
“That’s okay.”
“It isn’t just that. My daughter understands I can’t afford cool stuff like that. It’s when he acts like he’s doing me a favor by taking her at all. He agreed to share custody. I’ll gladly take full custody, but don’t act like you’re doing me a favor when you take her.”
Keith had nothing to relate to this. He had no children nor even a wife of his own, and neither of his parents had remarried. His father had come out of the closet and the government had sequestered his mother. His memory of that never would fade.
“But it’s ridiculous, Mom,” Keith had told her. “Why didn’t you just follow the law?”
“That law is stupid. Besides, I didn’t have anybody to come home to at night, anyway. You kids were gone and your dad… well, switched teams.”
He felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up. Shelley stood there, one eyebrow turned up quizically. “Where’d you go?”
“Oh, sorry,” Keith said. “I was just thinking about something else for a minute.”
“You went zonesville on me.”
“Yeah. It’s my mom.” What was he doing? He’d never said more than five words to this woman, and now he’d decided to tell her about his sequestered mother?
“Gah. Everybody has to have one,” Shelley said. “Unless you’re a clone.” She absently turned the empty Gourmet Bean cup in her hand. “What I wouldn’t give to be one.”
Keith took a cautious sip from his cup. “Not me. My mom was great, but she’s off-planet now.”
“Business or leisure?” Shelley asked.
“Neither. She got three strikes under the overtly obese law.”
Shelley stepped over to a garbage receptacle and set the cup onto a loading tray. As she pulled her hand away the cup disappeared with a sucking sound. “How’s her weight loss coming?”
“She’s not losing.”
“Wow. Why not?”
“She said she likes it up there on Prodigia.” Keith said. “It was her lifelong dream to leave Earth, and in a weird way, she got what she wanted.”
“That law is arcane,” Shelley said.
“Tell me about it.” He pulled the cup back to his lips for another careful sip.
“I will. Over dinner tonight.”
Keith involuntarily gulped a mouthful of hot coffee. He wheezed. “It burns, it burns!”
He sprinted to the water cooler. Ignoring the cups, he leaned down and opened his mouth under the spigot, then pushed the lever.
Cool water rushed into his left eye and ear. “Dammit!” Finally he got his mouth in the right spot.
Shelley laughed. “If you don’t want to go, you can just say so. You don’t have to cuss me.”
(to be continued)
This is fiction, right? It was that Mars thing that totally gave it away.
Six packets of sugar? Wow, that really is a bit of a frazzler.
My favourite word in here was ‘Prodigia’. Great place name for where you send obese folks.
Do you know where this is going yet, or are you sort of surfing? Good start though.
Intersting moment when they mention off-planet. Ya….I know…it’s in the title. But I had forgotten by the time I got there in the story and had to quickly revamp my sense of place.
Not to much to say at this point…other than that I’m liking the ideas and the set-up.
Thanks for the feedback, fellas.
I have written a good chunk of the second chapter, but I’m still not sure where it’s going. To space, one would think.
Maybe.
The part you mention, Moksha, the sudden use of “off-planet,” is part of what I like about this chapter. The reader sees it as just another story set in present day, until… well, you know, Mars.
People with the ability to travel to different worlds still have problems like we here in the present. What these particular characters are going to do, and whether space travel becomes a part of it, we’ll just have to see.
I’m not sure how long this one will be, because I’m dedicating myself to getting to bed earlier these days, and my lunch hours might not afford many opportunities to write.
Like Moksha said, I had to re-trace my thought processes when I hit the first mention of space travel to Mars.
Actually, the bigger surprise for me was in the opening dialogue during the recount of the story. I had to go back to read it again, because my brain is wired to assume that any sort of violent attack or domestic complaint is attibutable to the male of the situation. I had to actually go back and re-read the first part to get it clear in my head. I’m guessing that was part of your intent, and it worked well.
I’ll be interested to see what happens.
I have my own version. Keith has a huge inheritance that no one knows about and sweeps Shelley off her feet on the rebound. He then solves the entire “Mars” situation simply by offering to take Shelley’s daughter to Saturn, which would obviously be more interesting with all the moons and stuff. But…that’s not enough for Shelley…oh no. Without telling anyone else of her sinister plan, she pretends to “make nice” with her ex, and they invite him along on their Saturn vacation. That’s where it all turns ugly, because she shoots the ex with a make-shift crossbow that she fabricated from various common household clothing items and other things. Keith freaks out and although he doesn’t want to be an accomplice, he’s left to decide if he wants to help, or turn against Shelley only to leave her daughter with no parent.
Of course, it would need to be a little longer. Maybe a side-trip to Venus where she actually sleeps with the Ex a time or two for old times’ sake while Keith takes the daughter to the local tourist attractions, just to make the reader aware of how deep her evil runs.
I like it. Keith is a sucker for a damsell sp? (shows you how much I read huh?) in distress, and falls for her only to later discover that she truly is pure evil and deserved everything bad she had coming to her.
It even has a moral to it. Don’t EVER eavesdrop on office conversations and assume you know the whole story!
Agree exactly with the beginning of Charles’ comments.
You’ve got some great dialogue going here and it’s very easy to picture the scene.
In all honesty, and I can only say this cuz we’re buds, you started to lose me at Mars- and that’s only because I don’t believe in outer space ;-) but I persevered and I’m ok with it now. You go, boy.
Interesting beginning…..
At first, I though ‘Off Planet’ might be figurative. But I guess the mention of Mars and Prodigia put that theory to rest.