Friday's Whims of the Time Traveler 18.1: 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.
Caramel Kisses: Chapter Four
by Belinda Roddie
Her name was Emma. Just Emma, not Emily. Her father called her Em, but she wasn’t very fond of it. I expected her to say Watson was her last name. It wasn’t. It was Burking. Slightly more original, I thought.
She wanted to know where she could find Ghirardelli Square. I smiled at this. Whether one was a tourist or not, the square had a consistent charm about it. It was nestled in the more colorful part of San Francisco, where you could see blues, reds, greens, yellows, and pinks all in the same place. It wasn’t quite the same in the city’s other districts – those were mostly gray and green, and the occasional neon glare from the select number of night owl hang-outs. I told her, I know where it is, Hell, I’ll even take you there. I’ll take you to Ghirardelli Square and I’ll show you around and I’ll even buy you a sundae. You can’t go to the square without having a sundae. I thought about recommending the one with the chocolate chip cookie bottom.
“Oh, no, that’s all right,” she said to me. “You don’t have to buy me anything.” And she giggled and blushed, and I thought she looked so youthful and so innocent that I almost felt guilty staring at her.
Emma was twenty years old, English-born but an American citizen. She told me that her father had moved with her to Washington when she was thirteen – a fresh-faced English girl who didn’t quite get that saying, “Blow me!” didn’t have the same connotation in the states as it did back home. I half-expected her to be a college student, frequenting some prestigious private university up north where the Space Needle glistened like you could pluck it out of the view and use it to sew a tear in a piece of clothing. And I was almost correct – she had been a college student, but had graduated early, just six months before. And now she was here, looking for a job opportunity in the state that still suffering a double-digit unemployment rate. A job opportunity, she hoped out loud, that would involve baking. Oh, how she loved to bake.
Oh, Emma, I thought to myself as I led her across the sidewalks that outstretched like the exposed graying fingers of a dying man. You intelligent girl, I thought. You are beautiful and intelligent and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were hiding a halo under that auburn hair. Where are your wings, tucked away in your jacket? Is that laughter I heard the sound of bells, or trumpets? Hark! The herald angel sings, she is here, she is right next to me, sweet Jesus, she is here.
We moved through the rivulets of people crowded in the cold air of Fisherman’s Wharf, fish moving upstream amidst the deep fog that swallowed up the edges of the city landscape. The sailboats scattered across the bay were mostly docked, bobbing up and down in the green waters, tethered to a misty shore. I led Emma across that shore, brought her to a small tower that overlooked the bay, the fog drifting by our faces, working its way into our mouths and our noses, gray against those caramel eyes that grew warm as if by convection.
“You could see Alcatraz better if the fog weren’t so heavy,” I told her. I pointed toward the hazy silhouette, a shadow across the water. “Tourists flock there all the time. They celebrated seventy-five years there.”
“Seventy-five years of hardened criminals?” Emma asked, and she arched an eyebrow in such a way that I couldn’t help but smile at her expression.
We found Ghirardelli Square in the sparse sunlight as the clouds parted slightly, a sliver of warmth across our shoulders, coaxing us to stop and bask in it. But the smells of caramel and chocolate and chopped nuts overpowered us, and we stood in that sunlight only momentarily as we waited in that usual tourist line-up, waiting to get the sweet taste in our mouths.
I paid for her cookie sundae, anyway. She protested, but I didn’t care. It was the most I could do for her, besides marching her around the city like a tour guide. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “I always pay for my friends. It’s a nice habit.” And I wasn’t lying, because I had consistently paid for each outing I had gone to with my sister, and many more with my college friends. I had gotten five hundred dollar allowances and they were paying out of their lint-filled pockets for the rent. I had always had it easier.
We sat down at an outside table, the heat of the thinning sun scattering as the fog moved in gray wisps above our heads. Emma ate slowly, the long spoon dancing across her lips only so much at a time. In between mouthfuls, she said, “I wanted to come here to buy some Ghirardelli chocolate for my father. He’s always wanted to try it.”
I swallowed the melting ice cream on my tongue. “Oh, I’m sorry, was doing this uncalled for?”
“Oh, no, no, no! I’m flattered. Really.”
“By what?”
Emma smiled. Her teeth were so white, so straight. There went the dental stereotypes. “Well, by your showing me around and buying me some dessert. And just the fact that you’re incredibly charming.”
Charming. That was a word that hadn’t really been used on me. Amicable, maybe. Generous. Generic terms, terms you’d find in a sociology or psychology textbook. But charming, that was a good word, a literary word. I stirred my sundae and let the caramel collect on the edge of my spoon, too lost in my own world with that Elven princess sitting across from me.
Emma Burking, she was really something. I had only been with her for seven minutes shy of an hour and a half, but she was really something. That accent, soft, round. So pure. Those eyes, melted candy staring back at me, glistening in those whites. I sucked the hardened caramel off my spoon and let the stainless steel settle in my mouth as I looked at her. She was staring off above my head, watching the street and the cars. I suddenly grew jealous of the city for being so tantalizing, for being so intriguing. Damn you, San Francisco, and your multicultural beauty. Your diverse array of colors, greens and blues and reds and grays. So many different shades of gray. Stop upstaging me.
“You haven’t told me your name yet.”
“What?” The spoon was still between my teeth. I drew it out, cleared my throat. “Excuse me. What?”
She was looking at me now, looking at the swelling colors in my swelling cheeks. “You’ve been showing me around and I never got your name.”
“Oh.” My lips felt sticky from all the sugar. “It’s Adriana.”
“That’s a great name. I like it.”
“Thanks.”
We walked together silently. There were so many questions I wanted to ask her as we approached the candy store counter, watching her stack up three boxes of the stuff, milk chocolate and dark chocolate and bittersweet. My mouth tasted bittersweet, even, as I rolled my tongue across my teeth. It was a funny aftertaste. “What do you do for a living, Emma Burking?” I wanted to ask. “Do you have any siblings, Emma Burking? How about friends? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you even straight? Please tell me if you’re straight, Emma Burking. Please, so I can somewhat muffle this purring engine in my chest, this swollen pain, this pounding motor.”
I helped Emma carry the chocolates. She was going to take a Muni back to the ferry building. Ferry to where? Corte Madera. So close! She didn’t have a job, not yet – her father sent her hefty checks. Oh, Emma! I learned so much about you and yet so little. Couldn’t you give me something more substantial, something grittier, something I could taste on my lips?
“Thanks for showing me around, Adriana,” she said to me while we waited on a corner of Market Street.
“You’re welcome.”
“I had a lot of fun. We should see each other again.”
“Yes, we should.”
“Where do you live?”
I told her I lived in Sausalito and gave her my e-mail address. I watched her punch my phone number into a Blackberry, flashy ebony in her hand. The fog was heavier around us now, chilled and brisk. I felt my features frosting over and saw the freckles on Emma’s nose stand out in the mist. Even her freckles grabbed my attention. I was done for.
“I’ll call you,” she told me, and she smiled again. Everything about her captivated me. I felt my ribs rattle from my heart beating so fast.
“Sure. I look forward to it.” And instantly formality kicked in like a boot to the mouth, and I extended a hand for her to shake. “A pleasure, Miss Emma Burking.”
She laughed. I could tell she thought it was cute. Her eyes glowed in her skull as she shook my hand and exaggerated her accent for me. “Oh, absolutely splendid, Miss Adriana Reynard.”
Miss Adriana Reynard was shaking hands with Miss Emma Burking. This was something I did not expect. I could imagine telling my coworkers about it, and my family. That cynical, cynical family. I wanted to see their mouths drop when I told them. I wanted to hear their breath get caught in their throats when I chatted about today on the phone with them. That would show them, at least temporarily, before they reverted back to their hermit-like states reminiscing on more optimistic times.
I watched Emma leave, her silhouette disappearing into the white chambers of that Muni. It taunted me. That Muni could have her, San Francisco could have her, and Corte Madera could have her. But not me. I could only have her for those two hours, two hours of walking together, exchanging tidbits and matter-of-fact descriptions. I had given her my automated biography. She had taken it in quickly, nodding.
I wondered if she was satisfied with it. Then I turned on my heel and left with the fumes of car exhaust trailing behind me, the taste of carbon monoxide mixing with the chocolate caramel flavor still lingering in my mouth.
The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since May 9th, 2010.
Because of its influence on my later writing, I figured that this story, though incomplete, was worth sharing.
Caramel Kisses: Chapter Four
by Belinda Roddie
Her name was Emma. Just Emma, not Emily. Her father called her Em, but she wasn’t very fond of it. I expected her to say Watson was her last name. It wasn’t. It was Burking. Slightly more original, I thought.
She wanted to know where she could find Ghirardelli Square. I smiled at this. Whether one was a tourist or not, the square had a consistent charm about it. It was nestled in the more colorful part of San Francisco, where you could see blues, reds, greens, yellows, and pinks all in the same place. It wasn’t quite the same in the city’s other districts – those were mostly gray and green, and the occasional neon glare from the select number of night owl hang-outs. I told her, I know where it is, Hell, I’ll even take you there. I’ll take you to Ghirardelli Square and I’ll show you around and I’ll even buy you a sundae. You can’t go to the square without having a sundae. I thought about recommending the one with the chocolate chip cookie bottom.
“Oh, no, that’s all right,” she said to me. “You don’t have to buy me anything.” And she giggled and blushed, and I thought she looked so youthful and so innocent that I almost felt guilty staring at her.
Emma was twenty years old, English-born but an American citizen. She told me that her father had moved with her to Washington when she was thirteen – a fresh-faced English girl who didn’t quite get that saying, “Blow me!” didn’t have the same connotation in the states as it did back home. I half-expected her to be a college student, frequenting some prestigious private university up north where the Space Needle glistened like you could pluck it out of the view and use it to sew a tear in a piece of clothing. And I was almost correct – she had been a college student, but had graduated early, just six months before. And now she was here, looking for a job opportunity in the state that still suffering a double-digit unemployment rate. A job opportunity, she hoped out loud, that would involve baking. Oh, how she loved to bake.
Oh, Emma, I thought to myself as I led her across the sidewalks that outstretched like the exposed graying fingers of a dying man. You intelligent girl, I thought. You are beautiful and intelligent and I wouldn’t be surprised if you were hiding a halo under that auburn hair. Where are your wings, tucked away in your jacket? Is that laughter I heard the sound of bells, or trumpets? Hark! The herald angel sings, she is here, she is right next to me, sweet Jesus, she is here.
We moved through the rivulets of people crowded in the cold air of Fisherman’s Wharf, fish moving upstream amidst the deep fog that swallowed up the edges of the city landscape. The sailboats scattered across the bay were mostly docked, bobbing up and down in the green waters, tethered to a misty shore. I led Emma across that shore, brought her to a small tower that overlooked the bay, the fog drifting by our faces, working its way into our mouths and our noses, gray against those caramel eyes that grew warm as if by convection.
“You could see Alcatraz better if the fog weren’t so heavy,” I told her. I pointed toward the hazy silhouette, a shadow across the water. “Tourists flock there all the time. They celebrated seventy-five years there.”
“Seventy-five years of hardened criminals?” Emma asked, and she arched an eyebrow in such a way that I couldn’t help but smile at her expression.
We found Ghirardelli Square in the sparse sunlight as the clouds parted slightly, a sliver of warmth across our shoulders, coaxing us to stop and bask in it. But the smells of caramel and chocolate and chopped nuts overpowered us, and we stood in that sunlight only momentarily as we waited in that usual tourist line-up, waiting to get the sweet taste in our mouths.
I paid for her cookie sundae, anyway. She protested, but I didn’t care. It was the most I could do for her, besides marching her around the city like a tour guide. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “I always pay for my friends. It’s a nice habit.” And I wasn’t lying, because I had consistently paid for each outing I had gone to with my sister, and many more with my college friends. I had gotten five hundred dollar allowances and they were paying out of their lint-filled pockets for the rent. I had always had it easier.
We sat down at an outside table, the heat of the thinning sun scattering as the fog moved in gray wisps above our heads. Emma ate slowly, the long spoon dancing across her lips only so much at a time. In between mouthfuls, she said, “I wanted to come here to buy some Ghirardelli chocolate for my father. He’s always wanted to try it.”
I swallowed the melting ice cream on my tongue. “Oh, I’m sorry, was doing this uncalled for?”
“Oh, no, no, no! I’m flattered. Really.”
“By what?”
Emma smiled. Her teeth were so white, so straight. There went the dental stereotypes. “Well, by your showing me around and buying me some dessert. And just the fact that you’re incredibly charming.”
Charming. That was a word that hadn’t really been used on me. Amicable, maybe. Generous. Generic terms, terms you’d find in a sociology or psychology textbook. But charming, that was a good word, a literary word. I stirred my sundae and let the caramel collect on the edge of my spoon, too lost in my own world with that Elven princess sitting across from me.
Emma Burking, she was really something. I had only been with her for seven minutes shy of an hour and a half, but she was really something. That accent, soft, round. So pure. Those eyes, melted candy staring back at me, glistening in those whites. I sucked the hardened caramel off my spoon and let the stainless steel settle in my mouth as I looked at her. She was staring off above my head, watching the street and the cars. I suddenly grew jealous of the city for being so tantalizing, for being so intriguing. Damn you, San Francisco, and your multicultural beauty. Your diverse array of colors, greens and blues and reds and grays. So many different shades of gray. Stop upstaging me.
“You haven’t told me your name yet.”
“What?” The spoon was still between my teeth. I drew it out, cleared my throat. “Excuse me. What?”
She was looking at me now, looking at the swelling colors in my swelling cheeks. “You’ve been showing me around and I never got your name.”
“Oh.” My lips felt sticky from all the sugar. “It’s Adriana.”
“That’s a great name. I like it.”
“Thanks.”
We walked together silently. There were so many questions I wanted to ask her as we approached the candy store counter, watching her stack up three boxes of the stuff, milk chocolate and dark chocolate and bittersweet. My mouth tasted bittersweet, even, as I rolled my tongue across my teeth. It was a funny aftertaste. “What do you do for a living, Emma Burking?” I wanted to ask. “Do you have any siblings, Emma Burking? How about friends? Do you have a boyfriend? Are you even straight? Please tell me if you’re straight, Emma Burking. Please, so I can somewhat muffle this purring engine in my chest, this swollen pain, this pounding motor.”
I helped Emma carry the chocolates. She was going to take a Muni back to the ferry building. Ferry to where? Corte Madera. So close! She didn’t have a job, not yet – her father sent her hefty checks. Oh, Emma! I learned so much about you and yet so little. Couldn’t you give me something more substantial, something grittier, something I could taste on my lips?
“Thanks for showing me around, Adriana,” she said to me while we waited on a corner of Market Street.
“You’re welcome.”
“I had a lot of fun. We should see each other again.”
“Yes, we should.”
“Where do you live?”
I told her I lived in Sausalito and gave her my e-mail address. I watched her punch my phone number into a Blackberry, flashy ebony in her hand. The fog was heavier around us now, chilled and brisk. I felt my features frosting over and saw the freckles on Emma’s nose stand out in the mist. Even her freckles grabbed my attention. I was done for.
“I’ll call you,” she told me, and she smiled again. Everything about her captivated me. I felt my ribs rattle from my heart beating so fast.
“Sure. I look forward to it.” And instantly formality kicked in like a boot to the mouth, and I extended a hand for her to shake. “A pleasure, Miss Emma Burking.”
She laughed. I could tell she thought it was cute. Her eyes glowed in her skull as she shook my hand and exaggerated her accent for me. “Oh, absolutely splendid, Miss Adriana Reynard.”
Miss Adriana Reynard was shaking hands with Miss Emma Burking. This was something I did not expect. I could imagine telling my coworkers about it, and my family. That cynical, cynical family. I wanted to see their mouths drop when I told them. I wanted to hear their breath get caught in their throats when I chatted about today on the phone with them. That would show them, at least temporarily, before they reverted back to their hermit-like states reminiscing on more optimistic times.
I watched Emma leave, her silhouette disappearing into the white chambers of that Muni. It taunted me. That Muni could have her, San Francisco could have her, and Corte Madera could have her. But not me. I could only have her for those two hours, two hours of walking together, exchanging tidbits and matter-of-fact descriptions. I had given her my automated biography. She had taken it in quickly, nodding.
I wondered if she was satisfied with it. Then I turned on my heel and left with the fumes of car exhaust trailing behind me, the taste of carbon monoxide mixing with the chocolate caramel flavor still lingering in my mouth.
The work you see here has not been edited nor altered since May 9th, 2010.
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