Friday's Whims of the Time Traveler 17.1: May 9th, 2010
"Caramel Kisses" is an unfinished novel I began to write back in 2009 and stopped working on in 2010. The two main characters - Adriana Maguire Reynard and Emma Burking - would ultimately be revised for my later completed novella, "The Liffey Is Half-Asleep," in 2011. Several elements of "Liffey" can be found in their original forms in "Caramel Kisses," such as the characters' names, the haiku scene, and Adriana's penchant for writing.
Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing.
She sat by herself in the small coffee shop, reading the San Francisco Chronicle and sipping from a clear cup. I fumbled with my drink and ignored the chocolate leaking in between my fingers because the lid had loosened and it wouldn’t cooperate with my trembling grip. The skin around my joints fused together, warm and sticky and brown and oh God she was beautiful. She was beautiful and I wondered why she was sitting by herself in that coffee shop, reading that editorial in the Chronicle.
She had been reading the same rant for the past five minutes. Either she was a slow reader or she was lost in her own thoughts and that act was a façade, it was a façade, damn her, she was acting, she was pretending she could focus but she couldn’t and it was eating her up from inside just like looking at her was eating me up oh God Jesus she was so beautiful. Her eyes and hands were beautiful. The way she drank her iced mocha was beautiful. The way she turned a page was beautiful. Everything she did was so fucking beautiful.
I had to slow down. I had to relax. She didn’t see me staring, she was too caught up in tiny black print or maybe the words rattling inside her own head, like the keys of a typewriter, hammering away. I found a napkin, took a pen out of the breast pocket in my blazer, the one I always carried with me. Snap, there was the point, there was the ink. I was writing haikus on a brown napkin in a local coffee shop. This was new.
I was focusing too much on the pattern of the poem. She didn’t notice me but our tables were so close together. She didn’t look at me, but I was looking at her and they were playing Michael Jackson music in the background, damn it, “The Way You Make Me Feel,” you think they could have played that any other time, maybe before I walked in here, Hell, maybe even before the pasty eccentric croaked on his bed. Okay, maybe that was harsh, but oh God I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was and how strict haikus were and who in their right mind thought dictating how many syllables could be in each line was a form of art.
Cold November air
Wraps me in this strange embrace
Eyes across the room
No, no, no. This was ridiculous. She had finally turned the page, crackling newsprint, rustling out its banter. Don’t write about her hair, I told myself. Don’t write about her hair, damn it, its auburn hue, the wavy tresses spilling around her jaw line, gathering in clumps on her collarbone. Gathering in coils looping round and round, in spirals, in circular movements.
Desperate to grasp
Fingers in those auburn rings
Ever cheap delight
Damn it! I couldn’t help myself. Next I would write about her eyes, I was sure, those chocolate caramel eyes, chocolate like the hot chocolate leaving streaks on my knuckles. Lukewarm feeling on my hand. Warm, warm in my chest. Oh God, I thought, please make this stop. She didn’t move. She just read like there wasn’t a single fucking care in the world and I couldn’t –
Waiting for a spark
Fire in an amber light
Embers never die
I had to stop thinking about the pattern, damn it. I had to stop thinking about the pattern and the rhythm and just focus on the words. 5-7-5 was insignificant to the poem itself, 5-7-5 didn’t matter, what mattered was her, and I just wanted to get closer so badly as she drained that clear plastic cup and moved to the back of that newspaper to get the final scraps of the day. 5-7-5 – no! It didn’t matter!
San Francisco Chronicle, you were taunting me. You were taunting me by how close you were to her. You were taunting me for how simple it was for you to feel the warmth of her fingertips, the gaze of her eyes, scanning each orifice and organ you had to offer. You dying bastard, you didn’t deserve her, you black and white dying bastard, fading into the residue of the 20th and 21st centuries. Fuck you and your opportunity to be read by her. If only I had been a newspaper.
Words in black and white
Glances are paper-thin, they’re
See-through in the sun
Better, much better. Now channel it further. I’m a playwright, I’m a storyteller. I can at least tell a good story in seventeen words at a time, right? She rolled her shoulders, let the hind legs of her chair take the weight of the floor, the grooves of that wooden floor. If I had gotten closer, I could have smelled the coffee, smelled the mocha in her cup and on her lips and cheeks and eyes, that Elven queen, that Roman goddess, oh God stop taunting me.
Trace the outlines, and
You can read the emotions
In a stranger’s eyes
I could breathe easier now. She wasn’t so agonizing to look at anymore. My chest still felt swollen, throbbing, like a bruise or a sprain. And yet I couldn’t seem to wish it away. As if I either couldn’t wish it away hard enough or I just didn’t want to wish it away. A weird, stubborn pain. How appropriate.
She was done with the paper now, and with her cup. One in the blue bin, one in the black. I felt black and blue myself. Hardened bruises, black and blue. They wouldn’t go away oh God she wouldn’t go away.
Parting is such sweet
Sorrow, claimed the solemn bard
And yet
She wouldn’t approach the doorway. She seemed lost. Chocolate caramel eyes swimming in silence, in confusion. The café’s ambrosia separated us but she was closer to my table than ever before.
And yet
Oh God she was coming toward me. For the first time, her eyes were on me. On my shoulders, on my Pink Floyd T-shirt. On my face. My pen flickered. I had blackened this napkin so much. I just needed to write this last line.
She spoke to me in a light but rich accent, like chocolate caramel in her mouth. She was British. Oh God she was British she was a beautiful Brit she was British.
“Excuse me.”
I held up an index finger instinctively, involuntarily. A sticky index finger with the skin decorated with peeling cocoa. Oh God you’re an idiot, I said to myself, you’re an idiot. And yet…
Parting is such sweet
Sorrow, claimed the solemn bard
And yet it brings peace
I let the pen make its cushioned landing. She was looking at the napkin now. Black, smudged handwriting. So much different from newsprint. So much less rigid. I looked up at her. I drank her face in like it was Amaretto, sweet, intoxicating, oh God she was beautiful. So beautiful. So curiously beautiful.
“Hi.”
And off we went.
Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing.
Caramel Kisses: Chapter Three
by Belinda Roddie
She had been reading the same rant for the past five minutes. Either she was a slow reader or she was lost in her own thoughts and that act was a façade, it was a façade, damn her, she was acting, she was pretending she could focus but she couldn’t and it was eating her up from inside just like looking at her was eating me up oh God Jesus she was so beautiful. Her eyes and hands were beautiful. The way she drank her iced mocha was beautiful. The way she turned a page was beautiful. Everything she did was so fucking beautiful.
I had to slow down. I had to relax. She didn’t see me staring, she was too caught up in tiny black print or maybe the words rattling inside her own head, like the keys of a typewriter, hammering away. I found a napkin, took a pen out of the breast pocket in my blazer, the one I always carried with me. Snap, there was the point, there was the ink. I was writing haikus on a brown napkin in a local coffee shop. This was new.
I was focusing too much on the pattern of the poem. She didn’t notice me but our tables were so close together. She didn’t look at me, but I was looking at her and they were playing Michael Jackson music in the background, damn it, “The Way You Make Me Feel,” you think they could have played that any other time, maybe before I walked in here, Hell, maybe even before the pasty eccentric croaked on his bed. Okay, maybe that was harsh, but oh God I couldn’t stop thinking about how beautiful she was and how strict haikus were and who in their right mind thought dictating how many syllables could be in each line was a form of art.
Cold November air
Wraps me in this strange embrace
Eyes across the room
No, no, no. This was ridiculous. She had finally turned the page, crackling newsprint, rustling out its banter. Don’t write about her hair, I told myself. Don’t write about her hair, damn it, its auburn hue, the wavy tresses spilling around her jaw line, gathering in clumps on her collarbone. Gathering in coils looping round and round, in spirals, in circular movements.
Desperate to grasp
Fingers in those auburn rings
Ever cheap delight
Damn it! I couldn’t help myself. Next I would write about her eyes, I was sure, those chocolate caramel eyes, chocolate like the hot chocolate leaving streaks on my knuckles. Lukewarm feeling on my hand. Warm, warm in my chest. Oh God, I thought, please make this stop. She didn’t move. She just read like there wasn’t a single fucking care in the world and I couldn’t –
Waiting for a spark
Fire in an amber light
Embers never die
I had to stop thinking about the pattern, damn it. I had to stop thinking about the pattern and the rhythm and just focus on the words. 5-7-5 was insignificant to the poem itself, 5-7-5 didn’t matter, what mattered was her, and I just wanted to get closer so badly as she drained that clear plastic cup and moved to the back of that newspaper to get the final scraps of the day. 5-7-5 – no! It didn’t matter!
San Francisco Chronicle, you were taunting me. You were taunting me by how close you were to her. You were taunting me for how simple it was for you to feel the warmth of her fingertips, the gaze of her eyes, scanning each orifice and organ you had to offer. You dying bastard, you didn’t deserve her, you black and white dying bastard, fading into the residue of the 20th and 21st centuries. Fuck you and your opportunity to be read by her. If only I had been a newspaper.
Words in black and white
Glances are paper-thin, they’re
See-through in the sun
Better, much better. Now channel it further. I’m a playwright, I’m a storyteller. I can at least tell a good story in seventeen words at a time, right? She rolled her shoulders, let the hind legs of her chair take the weight of the floor, the grooves of that wooden floor. If I had gotten closer, I could have smelled the coffee, smelled the mocha in her cup and on her lips and cheeks and eyes, that Elven queen, that Roman goddess, oh God stop taunting me.
Trace the outlines, and
You can read the emotions
In a stranger’s eyes
I could breathe easier now. She wasn’t so agonizing to look at anymore. My chest still felt swollen, throbbing, like a bruise or a sprain. And yet I couldn’t seem to wish it away. As if I either couldn’t wish it away hard enough or I just didn’t want to wish it away. A weird, stubborn pain. How appropriate.
She was done with the paper now, and with her cup. One in the blue bin, one in the black. I felt black and blue myself. Hardened bruises, black and blue. They wouldn’t go away oh God she wouldn’t go away.
Parting is such sweet
Sorrow, claimed the solemn bard
And yet
She wouldn’t approach the doorway. She seemed lost. Chocolate caramel eyes swimming in silence, in confusion. The café’s ambrosia separated us but she was closer to my table than ever before.
And yet
Oh God she was coming toward me. For the first time, her eyes were on me. On my shoulders, on my Pink Floyd T-shirt. On my face. My pen flickered. I had blackened this napkin so much. I just needed to write this last line.
She spoke to me in a light but rich accent, like chocolate caramel in her mouth. She was British. Oh God she was British she was a beautiful Brit she was British.
“Excuse me.”
I held up an index finger instinctively, involuntarily. A sticky index finger with the skin decorated with peeling cocoa. Oh God you’re an idiot, I said to myself, you’re an idiot. And yet…
Parting is such sweet
Sorrow, claimed the solemn bard
And yet it brings peace
I let the pen make its cushioned landing. She was looking at the napkin now. Black, smudged handwriting. So much different from newsprint. So much less rigid. I looked up at her. I drank her face in like it was Amaretto, sweet, intoxicating, oh God she was beautiful. So beautiful. So curiously beautiful.
“Hi.”
And off we went.
The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since May 9th, 2010.
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