Short Story

The final week's assignment was to write a short story between 750 and 1,000 words. To my mind, that's barely enough words to set up a story and describe a character, but that was the requirement.

Here's my story. The first part bears a marked similarity to the character sketch found here because it's the same character, just better developed than in the earlier, shorter sketch.

***Warning: there are two strong curse words in the first part in the story.***

I started life all over again when I was forty-seven years old.

I know what you’re thinking—and you’re right. It is a strange thing for a responsible adult to do, but at the time, it seemed like the only thing to do.

The events leading to my rebirth were unexpected. I was relatively happily married, gainfully employed as a computer programmer, successful and respected. But after a seriously bad day at work, I came home and found my husband, an attorney, packing a suitcase. A large suitcase.

“Unexpected trip?” I asked.

“No. I’m leaving you, Charlotte.”

“Leaving me?”

“Yes. I’m leaving you and filing for divorce.”

My knees gave out and I sank onto the bed, staring at him. We’d made love just the night before—for the first time in a long time. “But…why?”

“Because I’ve fallen in love with someone else. Someone who makes me happy.”

“I thought we were happy, Jack.”  I thought I made him happy is what I meant.

“For a long time we were. And I haven’t been unhappy, Charlotte. But I want…something more.”

“You want to marry your mistress.” It was a shot in the dark—I wasn’t absolutely certain he had a mistress, but in the past year or so I’d begun to suspect he did. There had been a few too many “business dinners,” although seemingly no more overnight trips than usual. But what else could “something more” mean?

“Yes and no. I do plan to marry the woman I’ve fallen in love with, but technically, she isn’t my mistress.”

I didn’t care about technicalities. All I could think of was the previous night. “You sorry bastard! If you don’t love me anymore, what was last night? A farewell fuck?” I’d never said that word in my life, but nothing else fit.

To his credit, he seemed chagrined. “Of course not. I do care for you, Charlotte—”

“You have a strange way of showing it.” Anger suddenly deserted me. Tears quickly followed in its wake, but I was determined not to cry in front of him. “You also don’t have grounds for divorce.”

“Grounds haven’t been required for…” He waved a hand. Jack was a corporate defense attorney, not a divorce attorney. “For years. Now divorce is just a mutual decision to end a marriage.”

I could have pointed out that we hadn’t decided anything—he had—but I had no desire to be married to a man who didn’t want to be married to me.

“You can have the house, and I’ll be generous with the alimony. You’ll need an attorney to handle the divorce. Jim Shallcross, Charlie Becker, and Mo Solomon are all good. So are Maggie Crutcher and Liz Kielewski.”

I didn’t say anything—couldn’t say anything—and he resumed packing. Five minutes later, he closed his suitcase. “I’ll arrange to have the rest of my things moved later this week. Get a good attorney to handle the divorce for you.” He paused long enough to kiss the top of my head on his way out. “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

And that marked the end of our marriage. Twenty-two years together, and the rotten man had ended it with five minutes of conversation and an apology.


Two months later, I was no longer Mrs. Jackson Alexander Morris, III. I’d been Charlotte Morris for twenty-two years, Charlotte Emily Pratt for twenty-five years before that, but now I wasn’t certain who I was. Now that Jack was gone, I didn’t feel like Charlotte Morris any more, but I no longer felt like Charlotte Pratt, either.

I thought about that at night, alone in the house we’d shared for the past fifteen years. Jack had chosen the house shortly after he’d made partner, and I’d decorated it. It was a big house, in a prestigious neighborhood surrounding a golf course. I’d liked it well enough when we’d been married, but now it didn’t feel right. Too many memories, perhaps. Or maybe the fact that it wasn’t the house I would have chosen, then or now.
Two weeks later, before I had decided who I was, or whether I should sell the house and buy another, the second event leading to my rebirth occurred. I was fired.

It was as much of a shock as Jack’s announcement had been. I’d had a glowing yearly evaluation only a month before, and my boss, Tim Chen, had hinted that a promotion was in the works. Now he informed me that the company was “downsizing” and my position as Manager of Development was being eliminated. Like Jack, Tim promised a generous severance package. And like my reprehensible ex-husband, Tim ended the interview with “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

In the space of two and a half months, I’d gone from being married, employed, and successful to being an unemployed divorcée who, apparently, was not a success at anything.

That night, I sat in the house that didn’t feel like mine and thought about what to do with my life. About who I had been, who I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do. Thought about where I was, and where I wanted to go. I made a list of things I was good at and things I didn’t do well. I wasn’t sure where marriage belonged on the list. I’d been good at it for a number of years, but in the end, I hadn’t been good enough.

The result of all that thinking—it took the better part of a month—was my resurrection. Charlotte Emily Pratt Morris, a formerly married and employed computer game designer living in Kansas City, became Eleanor Elizabeth Newly, a divorced, self-employed website designer who lived in a pretty little cottage on Oval Lake near the town of Littleton, in Clinch County, Georgia.

Character Portrait

This task was to create a 250-300-word self-portrait of one of your characters, or to describe them through the eyes of another character (a narrator). I chose the latter method.

I chose to elaborate on the character of Will Masterson, who was developed here. He's described by an older rancher who lives nearby.

Will Masterson is a good man. His life hasn’t been easy, losing his mother when he was not much more than a toddler and his paternal grandmother a decade later, but his granny brought him up properly and instilled in him a respect for family and a love of the land. His father, Hank, and his older brother, Charlie, didn’t have either, and did their best to gamble away everything. Will’s father and brother mortgaged the Rocking M to get a stake for a big poker game, then lost their shirts and would have lost the ranch, if Will and me hadn’t barged in and told the other participants that Hank and Charlie did not own the ranch they’d staked on the final hand. Hank and Charlie didn’t learn their lesson: they continued gambling with money they didn’t have and eventually were killed in a dark alley. Will has worked hard to pay off that damned mortgage since before he was old enough to shave.

Will’s wife, Shelby, was a bitch, plain and simple. She could look a person in the face and lie to them; she repeatedly broke her marriage vows, and when she left, she stole a bundle of money from Will. He’s never said how much, but it must’ve been nearly all the ranch’s reserves. The past few years, he’s worked harder than ever, his determination to keep the ranch his great-great-great-grandfather and great-great-great-uncle homesteaded driving him like a locomotive.

My wife says Will needs a helpmeet, but she tends to think people belong in pairs. In Will’s case, she might be right. An understanding, supportive wife could make a world of difference in his life—and if she had a little money to help with the mortgage payment each month, so much the better. 

Creating Characters

This task was to create a character using a method you don't normally use. (The four methods for creating characters are imaginary, autobiographical, biographical, and mixed.) I usually create my characters from my imagination, but this one is biographical---based on a partially overheard conversation in a restaurant last week when I was at a conference.

My inclination was to write in first person, which would be a total departure from my usual method, but the instructions were to write 300-500 word character sketch in third person. So that's what I did.

Here's my character sketch. If this becomes the start of a novel, I'll call it Starting Over.

Charlotte Morris started life all over again when she was forty-seven years old.

The events leading to her rebirth were unexpected. She was relatively happily married, gainfully employed as a computer programmer, successful and respected. But after a seriously bad day at work, she came home and found her husband, an attorney, packing a suitcase. A large suitcase.

“Unexpected trip?” she asked.

“No. I’m leaving you, Charlotte.”

“Leaving me?” Surely he couldn’t mean…

“Yes. I’m leaving you and filing for divorce.”

Her knees gave out, and she sank onto the bed, staring at him. They’d made love just the night before—for the first time in a very long time. “But…why?”

“Because I’ve fallen in love with someone else. Someone who makes me happy.”

“I thought we were happy, Jack.”

“For a long time we were. And I haven’t been unhappy, Charlotte. But I want…something more.”

“You want to marry your mistress.” It was a shot in the dark—she wasn’t absolutely certain he had a mistress, but in the past year or so she’d begun to suspect he did. There had been a few too many “business dinners,” although no more overnight trips than usual.

“Yes and no. I do plan to marry the woman I’ve fallen in love with, but technically, she isn’t my mistress.”

She didn’t care about technicalities and legal mumbo-jumbo. All she could think of was the previous night. “You sorry bastard! If you don’t love me anymore, what was last night? A farewell fuck?” She’d never said that word in her life, but nothing else fit.

To his credit, he seemed chagrined. “Of course not. I do care for you, Charlotte—”

“You have a strange way of showing it.” Anger suddenly deserted her. Tears quickly followed in its wake, but she was determined not to cry in front of him. “You also don’t have grounds for divorce.”

“Grounds haven’t been required for…for years.“ Jack was a corporate defense attorney, not a divorce attorney. “Now divorce is just a mutual decision to end a marriage.”

She could have pointed out that they hadn’t decided anything—he had—but she had no desire to be married to a man who didn’t want to be married to her.

“You can have the house, and I’ll be generous with the alimony. You’ll need an attorney to handle the divorce. Jim Shallcross, Charlie Becker, and Mo Solomon are all good. So are Maggie Crutcher and Liz Kielewski.”

She didn’t say anything—couldn’t say anything—and he resumed packing. Five minutes later, he closed his suitcase. “I’ll arrange to have the rest of my things moved later this week. Get a good attorney to handle the divorce for you.” He paused long enough to kiss the top of her head on his way out. “I’m sorry, Charlotte.”

And that marked the end of their marriage. Twenty-two years together, and the sorry bastard had ended it with five minutes of conversation and an apology.

New Character Development

This task was to look at story ideas you'd written in your notebook and choose one, then develop one character for it.

My character, Duncan Tremaine, is a former professional basketball player. After the deaths of his brother and sister-in-law five months ago left him to raise their four-year-old daughter, Duncan retired and moved from Boston to a small Georgia town that needed a high school basketball coach and history teacher. There, he is raising his niece, who is more interested in art and ballet than sports.

Here's the opening scene.

Duncan Tremaine was out of his league, out of his depth, and so far out of his comfort zone that he wasn’t even on the same continent. A confirmed jock who was also a confirmed bachelor should not be standing in the middle of the little girls’ department at the city’s largest department store. Or even its smallest one.

But Duncan was.

He was also, in addition to all the other outs, going out of his mind. His four-year-old niece, Lizzie, had been in the dressing room for more than fifteen minutes trying on a dress—a fancy, frilly dress—and the sales clerks, knowing a clueless male when they saw one, had scattered to the four winds. Or, at least, to the far reaches of the store.

Duncan was trying to decide whether it was less of a social infraction to invade the dressing room area, stand at the entrance and bellow for Lizzie to come out, or accost some poor, unsuspecting female and ask her to check on the little girl. The latter seemed the best choice, except that—natch—there were no females, unsuspecting or otherwise, in sight.

He checked his watch. Checked the dressing room doorway—no Lizzie. Looked around, just in case a sales clerk had wandered into view.

At the sound of a woman’s voice saying, “Come on, Droopy, just pick a pair. They’re gym shoes, not the crown jewels,” his head whipped around in time to see a slender blonde across the aisle in the shoe department yank up her son’s baggy, drooping jeans, despite the fact the boy towered over her.

Duncan muffled a laugh. In the three months he’d been a high school history teacher and basketball coach, he couldn’t count the number of times he’d wanted to do the same thing to the kids at school.

“Not gym shoes, Aunt Jul, basketball shoes.” The boy mimed a jump shot, and even just goofing around, the height of his jump was remarkable.

“They’re shoes, you wear them to run around the gym. That makes them gym shoes in my book.”

Hallelujah! Duncan thought, walking toward the pair. And wondering if the City Fathers had declared today Take Your Niece or Nephew Shopping Day. For him, however, for the past five months—and the next twelve or so years—every time he needed to go to the store was Take Your Niece Shopping Day.

“Aunt Jul, that’s like saying Freeds and Capezios are the same.”

“Bite your tongue, Charlie. You know better. Or you should.”

“I’m just sayin'. It’s a…whatchamacallit. A simile—I mean, an analogy.”

Duncan didn’t know what Freeds or Capezios were—some kind of fancy, high-priced ladies’ shoes, no doubt—but the kid had made his point.

The woman reached up and cupped the kid’s cheek. “I’m really proud of you for making the varsity team.”

The boy bent over until he was eye level with her. “But…?”

Oh, yeah. There was definitely a but—a big but—at the end of that sentence. Duncan glanced back toward the dressing rooms to see if Lizzie had finally emerged.

The woman hesitated, as if debating whether to answer. “But I almost wish you hadn’t because unless the games are on Mondays or Tuesdays, I won’t be able to watch you play until after the first of the year.”

Duncan wondered what the woman did that she only had two free evenings a week. And what was going to change the first of the year. A nurse on the three-to-midnight shift at the hospital, perhaps. Or maybe she worked the dinner shift at a restaurant.

“See me warm the bench, more like,” the teen said with a grin as he straightened. “But”—he pointed back and forth between himself and the woman—“the same goes, Twinkletoes.”

“It’s not the same thing, honey.”

“Yeah, it is. And some of the games are on Tuesdays.”

Now that he was closer, Duncan recognized the boy as the freshman with the incredible jump shot who’d made the varsity team. Charlie Marsden or Casden or Something-den. Tryouts ended yesterday, practice didn’t start until Monday, and learning the boys’ names was still on Duncan’s to-do list.

He looked over his shoulder to see if Lizzie had reappeared, but she hadn’t, so he interrupted, opting for an error-free greeting. “Well, if it isn’t the newest player on Dunrath High’s basketball team.”

Charlie jumped like he’d been poked with a cattle prod, then grinned. “Hey, Coach!”

The boy’s manners were better than most. Instead of launching into a conversation about basketball, he made introductions. “Aunt Jul, this is Coach Tremaine. Duncan Tremaine. Coach, this is my aunt, Julia Willoughby.”

Up close, the woman was smaller than she’d appeared. Maybe five-four and slim as a willow, she had the most regally erect posture Duncan had ever seen. With a smile, she extended a slender hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tremaine. I’ve heard a great deal about you this week.”

“I imagine you have.” Duncan gently clasped her hand and shook it. She looked like she’d blow away in a stiff breeze, but her grip was firm. “You’ll probably hear more in the coming months.” She obviously had a good—and close—relationship with her nephew, and Duncan wanted that kind of relationship with his players and their parents, or other significant relatives.

“I imagine so.”

Without further ado he made his request. “Miss Willoughby, I wonder if I might ask a favor. My niece, Lizzie, has been in the dressing room for about twenty minutes, and I’m worried about her. The sales clerks have all disappeared. Would you go in there and check on her?”

“Yes, of course. How old is Lizzie?”

“She’s four.”

“Oh my. I’d be worried, too, in your shoes.” To the boy, she said, “Stay right here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

As she turned to leave, she inquired, “Do you and Lizzie have a secret word or phrase? So she’ll know it’s okay to talk to me.”

“Yes. It’s ‘Purple popsicles and lima beans are icky.’”

“I quite agree. Especially together.” She made a face, and the boy laughed. After a moment’s hesitation, she suggested, “Perhaps you can help Charlie find basketball shoes while I’m gone.”

Although he’d planned to go with her, Duncan stayed where he was. Basketball shoes he knew; frilly dresses were as alien as Martians.

More About the Girl in the Striped Knit Cap

Ellen Wilder’s hair was the bane of her existence. She didn’t count bad hair days, she counted good ones. And she was lucky to get two, maybe three, of those a month. She’d tried every product her friends recommended to tame her wildly curly mop, but nothing seemed to work. Her aunt’s often-voiced opinion was that Ellie was too impatient, that she didn’t that she didn’t take the time necessary to make the most of her hair. But since Aunt Catherine spent a good ninety minutes preparing herself to leave the house—time Ellie didn’t have to spare, and wouldn’t use primping even if she did—Ellie gave that particular bit of advice the same attention she gave the rest of her aunt’s admonitions: She ignored it.

From time to time, Ellie had given serious thought to cutting her hair, but she’d never succumbed to the impulse. In the South, the length of a woman’s hair was sometimes viewed as an indicator of her femininity, and with her beanpole figure, Ellie figured she needed any advantage her dusky shoulder-length curls, wild or not, gave her.

Thinking longingly of short, wash-and-wear hairstyles, she glanced at her watch, yelped, then gave up on her hair and grabbed her toothbrush. Her boss had been at his desk at 6:50 a.m. yesterday, and she wanted to get there before he did. At the rate he was going, though, soon she’d have to start sleeping at the office if she wanted to win the get-there-first battle.

For her, it was a matter of pride. He, however, didn’t have a clue that they were engaged in an ongoing war.

It was probably the few things Ethan Montague didn’t know.

Today, she thought, straightening the cuffs of her coral blouse, he would discover another.

Yesterday her diagnosis of an extremely aggressive cancer had been confirmed by a second doctor. Monday she started chemotherapy and radiation. This morning, she had to tell her boss, then her mother and Aunt Catherine tonight. Ellie strongly suspected that the corporate mogul was going to take the news better than the two former beauty queens, despite the fact that he was likely to lose his administrative assistant and translator for the duration.

After a final look in the mirror, Ellie buttoned her grey suit jacket, then turned off the light. In a week or so, she would not have hair to worry about.

It was a daunting, and rather frightening, realization.