TITLE: Of Oak and Dragons
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
EMOTION: Teasing friends
Lee is avoiding a persistent lawyer and the delivery of certain legal papers. Her roommate, Eva, has more faith in the lawyer’s intentions and she pushes Lee to meet the man.
“That lawyer called again looking for you. Left another message,” she said after a moment of silence.
I pinched my forehead between my thumb and forefinger, trying to rub away the tension. At least my stomach had settled down. “Yeah, I heard it. Kinda snippy. Maybe he’ll stop and crawl back to the hole he came from.”
Eva barked a short laugh and turned to the newspaper on the table. “You should call him back,” she said.
I blew a rude noise at her. The newspaper didn’t even rattle.
“Ok, whateverrr,” she said.
Let it go, Eva, I thought. I fiddled with my bottle cap and waited. I didn’t have to wait long.
Like we hadn’t had this conversation many times already.
“You know you’re being rude,” she said. “Give the guy a call. He’s gonna have a coronary trying to find you.”
“Oh, yeah, meet with a perv.”
She shrugged one shoulder, sipped her coffee. “Fine by me. Don’t call then.”
“I don’t need to talk to him.”
“Fine.”
“I don’t even know who he is.”
“Fine.”
“He’s a con man.”
“Fine.”
“He’ll give up.”
“Fine.”
“Cool accent, though,” I said.
“Fi…” The sound like air escaping from a punctured tire made me grin.
Eva raised the newspaper up to bury her face.
I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Crap, I gotta go. I’ve got a new Roman plaque to catalog.”
“Old,” she said around a sip of coffee.
“What?” I half-turned back to her, my inner clock ticking.
I think you did a great job setting the mood of the scene with your dialogue. The only thing that tripped me up was the repetition of the word "fine". I think in that situation, Eva might just say it once and then ignore Lee while she sips on her coffee.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the repetition of "fine" was a bit much. I'd either ignore it or change it around a bit. "Hmmm" "Whatever". I didn't get the end, but that's probably because I'm missing information from the story. From the dialogue, I got a good sense of who there are.
ReplyDeleteOkay-- I loved the fine, and the way he trips her with it at the end. I was less a fan of the "blew a rude noise at her." and "barked a short laugh" They pulled me out of the scene a little bit.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to agree with Amelia. The "Fines" actually worked for me. When the trip up comes it makes it more pronounced.
ReplyDeleteAlso the "barked" was out of place. That's not usually a verb associated with a female character unless she is 60, been smoking all her life, and has a voice as rough as a chainsaw.
I liked the 'fines'. In fact, I can picture the two, each trying to get in the last word, almost as if repeating the last word . . . stop, stop, quit, quit, i mean it, i mean it. There's a sense of familiarity between the characters, a friendship that will last. Great job.
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ReplyDeleteI thought this worked well.
ReplyDeleteI liked the 'fines,' and could do without the 'barked' comment and the raspberry, as well as "like we hadn't had this conversation many times already.' It seemed extraneous.
The ending seemed liked it could go in the same direction as the "fines' only using the word 'old' and that seemed a bit much, but that may not even be where you're going. So, overall, it worked for me.
I liked this, it sounds exactly like two friends having a minor spat over something.
ReplyDeleteThe fines worked for me, too.
I like this. Definitely accomplishes the teasing friends feeling. The repetition of "fine" works for me, but it would probably also work to mix it up with "Mmhmm" or "Sure." I like how leaving out any dialogue tags during that sequence makes the pace feel quick and fun.
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