Nice review, Mare. The candle thing is a little innuendo concerning erections. With the candles in place, it looks like the gnomes have a huge phallus. I’ll take a look at your 2nd paragraph suggestion.
Short Story / Neon Fire (Analysis)
It had been raining all morning. Water fell down the sand-blasted red brick facades and burst from the tops of clogged copper downspouts. It pooled where masons had misplaced their levels, rushed in rapids toward heavy, cast-iron grates. Less than a year before the street had been part of a burned out neighborhood, a patchwork of vacant lots and fallen down houses, gangs on the corner, burned out cars, but now it was picture perfect, nineteenth century, a place to eat and drink and shop if you had the money. The rain was doing what no contractor could, washing the city clean of winter, washing away the last of construction debris and broken lives. James and his girlfriend had gone there for candles. The rain wouldn’t stop.
His girlfriend had asked him to come live in Boston. They had met in New York, at a gallery full of celebrities and artists. She was, without question, the most beautiful girl in the room, so beautiful, in fact, that James didn’t give her a second thought. He was a writer and preferred to remain in the background, women like her were meant for the lights; they were, in some ways, the light itself. When he found he was standing beside her in front of a large canvas filled with burning girl-scouts falling out of a purple sky, he asked her out, sure that she would turn him down, convinced there was no risk because there was no hope. She said yes. She told him later that week as they lay in bed it was because he seemed fearless. He was still in shock, convinced he might be delirious, her body actually felt hot. Sometimes when they cuddled he’d find little patches of sweat. They slept without blankets. He assumed any day he would get a call from her somewhere out there in the world lamenting the course of careers and how much she would miss him. Perhaps he could fly out to the coast sometime? But they lasted the fall, and then the winter. Now she was living in Boston.
He didn’t know anyone in Boston. He didn’t like the city. He didn’t like how people had on their Patagonian rain gear with hoods pulled tight. He didn’t like the big umbrellas, red and green against the white shop-fronts, their deadly tips bobbing along, pointed ribs rushing past at eye level. One or two touched his cheek. After getting jabbed he resorted to beating them down with his forearm. People seemed surprised; others frowned from inside their pinched, Patagonian hoods. The rain poured down and his girlfriend ran ahead, holding her face to the sky. She was wearing the jacket he’d bought her in Paris. They had gone to Paris one weekend on a whim—her whim--James had liked Paris. She’d been trying all morning to get him to run in the rain alongside her.
“It’s what lovers do,” she said, skipping and holding her hands out wide, gathering rain in her palms. Desperately happy. James remembered reading the phrase somewhere.
It was spring but James did not feel like spring, he felt more like fall. The rain poured heavy and cold, like rain far out on the ocean, water on water, alone and in no sight of land. The rain had already soaked through his jacket. It fell, dripping from his beard. He had not worn a hat. The Starbucks he’d bought had dwindled from hot to warm to same as the rain. Earlier in the day he thought it was cute, his girlfriend acting so happy, dancing and smiling at strangers, seeing their faces light up. They passed cafés and restaurants full of couples holding wine glasses and tearing at loaves of bread. Sometimes James enjoyed how people watched them. People watched them walk by in the rain, a couple in love. She was affectionate in public. It made him uncomfortable but he bore it as a challenge. Why should he care what others thought? She stopped at a cast-iron street lamp, catching her breath. She hung from the dark green pole, looking up at the soaking gray clouds. Water poured over her eyes. People passed by in their bright colored parkas and looked at the beautiful girl with no hood in the rain. James grabbed her arm to keep moving. He was cold now, and hungry. It was fine to run in the rain and be in love, but he would have preferred it was summer.
“Someone forgot to cue the heat lamps,” he muttered.
A game they played, life was a movie; they were the stars.
“I love the rain. Don’t you love the rain?”
“I’d rather watch.”
His girlfriend frowned and batted her eyes. Water fell down off her perfect lashes, ran down her cheeks and alongside her nose and over her gorgeous mouth.
“Here it is,” she said, leading him into a shop called ‘Cindy’s’. Out of the rain she opened her jacket, running her hands back over her thick, dark hair. Her sopping wet t-shirt stretched tight across every curve. Beads of water clung to her skin.
“My shoes are squishy,” she said, putting her arms around to be hugged. James was amazed that her clothes still felt warm.
“We need candles,” she said. She said it the way another women might say we need condoms. She had the talent for knowing where someone’s personal space began and how to hover just at the edge, giving even a stranger the sense they had been intimate. For James, this meant riding up on her tip-toes and placing a hand on his chest, whispering into his shoulder. She stayed there, up on her toes, leaning against him.
“And a towel,” he said, hands at his side.
“Don’t be a fuddy-duddy, help me pick some.”
The shop was one of those adorable post and beam affairs, loaded with rough wood shelves and displays. On an old wooden table beside a pot-belly stove a video display showed how real candles were made. James watched as kind old women dipped wicks in wax and hung them to dry. Around him were pastel candles, candles in jars and candles bound in plaid ribbons, soap like Easter eggs piled in baskets, crude wooden toys and hand painted gnomes. One pair of gnomes was designed to hold dinner candles, their little hands placed in front, their heads to one side as if peering around. The store had tastefully not placed the candles.
“No comment?” she said.
“I’m still thinking,” James answered.
A line of tall blue tins held long wood matches. Some of the other candles were lit. Inside the old wood stove a neon fire burned behind the glass door, flickering blue and stuttering orange, the pattern repeating over and over—robotic. James bent down to touch the glass, letting his fingers linger a moment to see if they might be warmed.
“Smell this one,” she said.
He turned up his nose.
“Then this one, softer, vanilla?”
Outside he could hear the rain falling. It fell over paint crusted windows, dripped off scraped sills and blurred the people outside hurrying by beneath their inconsiderate umbrellas. James studied the technique painters had used to make brand new windows look like they’d already seen a century. He studied the gray light outside in the city. A puddle of water had formed on the floor by his feet. He continued to stand by the stove as if there really was a fire, the shop beginning to warm his sodden coat. He noticed the girl at the counter, watching. She watched them the way that a man might watch. She smiled, watching, and played with a delicate gold chain at her neck. Her eye color matched her auburn hair. Something about her was dark, smoldering, James knew she’d be wild in bed.
“We should go,” he said.
“Not yet.”
“All right.”
She picked up another candle, blue with a white tip. The salesgirl came out from behind the counter. Her hair was cut short and she had on low-cut jeans and bright red shoes with flat heels. James could picture her slipping them on when she first got to work. She had what people called an athletic body. Somewhere behind the counter a pair of soggy sneakers slowly dried, stinking and damp.
“Can I help?”
The sound of her voice was soft, though not quite as soft and full of confidence as James girlfriend’s; the salesgirl needed the candles and wood and the glowing fire.
“Which is it?” James asked.
“Do you have any peppermint?” his girlfriend said.
“Not right now, only at Christmas.”
“Anything left in back?”
“This is all we have.”
The salesgirl stood by them now, a hand at her side and the other resting upon a shelf full of egg-shaped candles. His girlfriend picked one up, thick and yellow, bringing it close to her face, rolling it lightly against her cheek. Her dark wet hair fell down over her arm. She let the bright yellow wax glance her red lips.
“Lemon,” she whispered, looking at James.
The girl stepped back, leaning against the counter, crossing her legs with elbows bent, and resting her arms on the glass. James looked down at her shoes.
“We have cinnamon,” she said.
His girlfriend sighed.
Another couple, standing beside a pyramid of glycerin soaps wrapped in plain brown paper, asked for assistance. The man and the woman had on their parkas, pale blue, the color of mountain streams near tree lines bursting from melting snow. The woman was Nordic blonde; the man more sandy brown. James watched as the salesgirl walked down the aisle. His girlfriend put down the yellow candle and picked up another deep burgundy, taller and twisted like taffy.
“What do you think?” James asked her, indicating the other couple, “325i or Subaru Outback?”
“Be nice,” she said, smiling now at the Nordic woman.
“Kids will bring on the Volvo.”
“I like Volvo’s,” his girlfriend said.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing. They’re good cars.”
James reached up and took down one of the blue tins full of the matches.
“We have cinnamon,” his girlfriend said, mocking the salesgirl’s voice, holding the burgundy candle just as she had the other. The yellow one sat on the shelf behind.
“Just ‘cause you can doesn’t mean you should,” James said.
He was angry. He did not know why he was angry. There he was with a beautiful woman in an upscale store and money in his pocket.
“I’m sorry, she said, putting the candle back down. “You don’t look happy. I want you to be happy. I want this to be our happiest weekend ever.”
James looked out at the rain.
“I want you to be madly in love with me.”
He glanced at her quickly, then looked outside again.
“I can change. Haven’t I changed?”
“I don’t want you to be someone else.”
“But I want to be. Isn’t that enough?”
James turned back to look at her.
“You are you and I am me.”
She was giving him the look, the one that meant she was clueless. She was not unintelligent, but she had never known rejection.
“We should go now,” James said.
“Then we’ll go,” she said. She leaned in to kiss him. He let his lips brush past hers, not wanting to look in her eyes.
“I’ll take this one,” she said, pulling away, announcing to no one in particular they were ready to leave. James heard the salesgirl excuse herself from the other couple. He looked their way and smiled, apologetically. The couple smiled as well. They understood. He saw how the blonde woman stood closer now to her husband, touching his arm, leaning in to speak instead of standing apart and wandering the store like most women.
“We’ll need matches,” James said,a bit too loud, grabbing a blue and gold tin from the shelf. Vines wound up the sides of the can to the word “Matches” stamped at the top. He waited to hear a director yell Cut. He wanted to play the game. He wanted to hear the word so he could start breathing again. He wanted to be back outside in the rain, or in the woods in a hut melting bees wax. He was glad they were going back to the apartment. He looked once more at the flickering neon fire.
”Take two,” she said from up front by the register. The salesgirl wrapped the big yellow candle in tissue paper and put it into a square yellow box. She folded the top with her red painted nails. James walked up with the two blue tins full of matches. The salesgirl put the tall containers into a glossy red paper bag with red handles, placing the candle box in beside them.
“Lemon,” James said to the girl.
He would never have said such a thing if alone. The salesgirl blushed and could not look up. “Thank you for shopping with us,” she said, stealing a glance.
“It’s a great little shop,” his girlfriend said. “I’ll be sure to tell all my friends.”
“Thanks, I’ll let Cindy know.”
“I love your hair. It really fits you face.”
“Oh, thanks, I love yours, too.
They turned to leave and the salesgirl slumped back to the wall, running a hand through her hair. She took in a deep breath and looked about as if she might have misplaced something. The Nordic woman was holding up soaps to the light. James caught the eye of the salesgirl, closing the shop door behind them. He could hear the small set of sleigh bells jingling inside; the door latch clicked in the rain. His girlfriend zipped up her jacket.
Outside in a down pour they hailed a cab. James no longer cared about the rain. Back at the apartment they could make coffee and sit on the couch and look out at the harbor. He could look at the boats in the rain. He could use the new matches. They’d be alone. Perhaps he could try and explain.
They stood in the rain and James felt the cool wet seep toward his shoulders and drip once more down the small of his back. The warmth of the little shop was fading. He tried to remember the salesgirl walking, tried to remember her smile. A cab pulled up, careful to slow and not splash the deep pools in the brand new cobblestone street. Inside the cab it was damp and musty, there were puddles on the thick rubber floor mats.
“Where to?” the man asked. He had one of those south Boston accents and needed a shave. Tobacco stained the corner of his mouth.
“East India Row,” James’ girlfriend said.
Now the man turned full to look.
“Please, just drive.”
She leaned back in the seat and snuggled up against James, looking up to be kissed.
“I don’t like when you do that,” James said.
“Sometimes I just need my space.”
“No, I mean back at the shop.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“When did you learn you could?”
“Could what?”
“Own the room, make everyone else feel second rate. Was it a party? Some first day of summer?”
“Is that how you feel?”
She leaned in closer, using the voice that was sex itself. “Its springtime and we’re in love, remember?”
He knew he should smile.
“Aren’t we in love? Or am I just one of your stories?”
“Probably just a vignette,” James said, not even thinking.
She pushed back and slid to the other side of the car. The rain poured down. The windows rippled and blurred. The water pattered like so many fingers outside on the roof. The big, heavy wipers slapped back and forth and James saw the cabbie glance up at the mirror.
“I didn’t mean that,” James said, looking away from the mirror.
“Oh, but you did,” she said, staring out the rain. “What day is today?”
James remained silent.
“Thursday,” the cabbie offered.
“What date?”
“May seventh,” he said, adjusting himself and grabbing the wheel with both of his hands. She continued to look out the window. James watched the umbrellas fly past.
“Can you turn up the heat a little?” he asked the driver.
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Hoffmane21 reviewed Version 1 -
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putting her arms around to be hugged. -this sounds off, I’d say just go with putting her arms out.
Do we ever get to know this “girlfriends” name? She seems so unreal without one. It is hard to relate. Just his girlfriend, or she… (Read 60% as of now, and don’t recall a name given to her.)
“I can change. Haven’t I changed?”
“I don’t want you to be someone else.”
“But I want to be. Isn’t that enough?” – got confused as to who was talking here… Who wants to change? James?
”Take two,” she said from up front by the register. -the salesgirl or the girlfriend?
“Its springtime and we’re -It’s
I don’t quite get what was going on in the store. Add a little more detail to what the girlfriend does to make everybody feel second rate. Felt to me like she was just shopping, like any other person. Well, save the part about her saying “I like your hair…”
I think it could use a little mroe detail about what is going on with these 2. I kept having to guess, and it isn’t always a bad thing, but keep us on track.
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marebarr reviewed Version 1 -
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Nice. Pulls me in right away. Smooth flow.
2nd paragraph “and preferred to remain in the background.” end it there. then new sentence “Women like her…” I really like the “they were in some ways the light itself. That is good. I like his vulnerability – part of what makes it readable.
The feeling of rain in the city – how sickening it can be even in good times – you captured that.
Development of character is great – she a bit of a showoff. I am always grateful for restraint in descriptions of beautiful woman – we all can picture her taking off her coat – thanks for not elaborating further.
I don’t understand this sentence ” The store had tastefully not placed the candles” I tried to read it again and still don’t get it.
“Take two” is great, just great humor.
“back at the apartment” might work better if you wrote “He hoped that, once back at the apartment”. For a second I thought we were back there. And it is intense now – we are waiting to see what happens – we have all been in the uncomfortable, life changing moment – where the lid is about to be lifted off of something, never to be put back on.
Oh, this is wonderful – submit it.
stickvaughn reviewed Version 1 -
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What a pleasure to read a story on Urbis where I can get into the mood and atmosphere, and not have to worry about sentence structure in every line. Your sensory details are EXCEPTIONAL, and my favorite part of the story. In fact (and you may not like this) I like the rain drops on door latches, and the robotic fake fire light more than I cared about the relationship.
Here are my thoughts in the order I had them on my read through:
-—---—---—---—--
“The rain wouldn’t stop.”—Nice. Would it work as the opening line?
“He didn’t like the big umbrellas, … his cheek.”—I like this image, but I had to re-read it 3 or 4 times before I got it. I had a hard time figuring out what “ribs” was referring to. At one point I actually thought the ribs of the passers-by were poking him in the face. (“He’s a midget? And they’re all starving?”) Funny, considering that what you’re really telling me is that he’s TALL.
“whim—her whim--James had liked Paris” -- That should be separate sentences: “her whim. James had….”
“putting her arms around to be hugged”—Putting her arms around what? Him? Or putting her arms OUT to be hugged?
“We need candles, … condoms”—Ha!
“James studied the technique … new windows ….”—I like how James seems to pride himself on seeing through artifice. Great way to show that.
She smiled, watching, … she’d be wild in bed. —James must be wearing one of those body sprays that make women flock to you in mobs.
“… James girlfriend’s”—Does she not have a name by now? Not a complaint. You may be doing that on purpose. I just noticed its absence here.
“Just ‘cause you can doesn’t mean you should,”—I don’t know what he’s talking about here, or why he’s angry.
“I want you to be madly in love with me.”—Don’t know who said this. The actions in the lines before and after it are performed by James. But either of them could be saying this. Then, of course, because I don’t know who said this first line, I’m lost in the exchange that follows. I don’t know either of the characters well enough yet to guess at who is saying what from the context. If it is James that says that first line then all of this “James looked out … then looked outside again,” could be one paragraph. I’m concerned about understanding this exchange, because it seems critical to understanding the characters.
“…to hear a director yell Cut”—Nice. James feels he’s “acting”.
“Take two,”—Ha! VERY nice.
“Please, just drive.” Don’t know who says this. Girlfriend? She doesn’t like the cabby?
“When did you learn you could?”—How often outside of scripted dialogue do people really ask questions that they know the other person won’t understand yet?
“Probably just a vignette,”—Ouch. This really made me dislike James. Especially because he says it without thinking. Nobody says that to Holly Golightly (That’s who I’m picturing as “Girlfriend.”)
Love the ending. It didn’t need to go any further. The story bookends that critical moment of change in the relationship and stops before getting to the messy part.
-—---—---—---—--
Great piece. I have one concern that you should only address if you agree with me. I loved “girlfriend.” In fact I may have liked her too much. She’s so sympathetic, and fun. I’m not saying I’d like to be with her ALL the time (which is probably the conclusion that James finally came to), but for James this childish, carefree behavior has gotten old. For the reader, it’s still refreshing and likable. So when James starts eying up other girls and acting like a Jerk, we hate him. Not saying that’s bad. Just hope it’s what you intended.
Excellent piece. Thanks for posting it.
DLCW reviewed Version 1 -
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It was a great story it sucks that the guy became a jerk at the end but thats how guys are sometimes. One question why does the girlfriend not have a name that seems odd since she seems like a main character. Wording and imagary are good. Felt like I was right there with them.
FrakKevin reviewed Version 1 -
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This is a weird romance story. It’s kind of one sided. But you cant really tell if they like each other that much. I didnt really notice her treating everybody the way she did until he mentioned it in the cab. Mainly because you didnt do it in an over dramatic way which is cool. I thought it was a little immature how she mocked the cashier. You also did a good job making the reader feel awkward at the register. Only thing I had a hard time with is keeping up with who was talking. But in the end I got the point and really liked this..
gracelaurence reviewed Version 1 -
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First off, I love the detail and the way you were able to paint a picture with each sentence. However In my opinion there were a few too many random facts thrown in at the beginning that distracted from the story and makes the reader a bit confused. Another thing I would suggest would be to let us know more of what he is thinking. When he get angry at his girlfriend we should have an inkling of why. I felt as if I needed to know more about his thought process so that the story would seem more real and easier to relate to. Having said that I did like it over all. Your character was strong and could be very touchable once you beef it up a bit.
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