The Untitled Leap -- Chapter 1

Mary told her it was like baseball.

“I can't sit down and watch it any more. I've got to be moving. I have to listen to it.”

She told her it was about a rhythm that got in her head, that even though no game was the same, even though there was no clock and always surprises, there was a pace, a motion, and when that game was on in the background, nothing, it seemed, could ever go wrong.

She told her this while she cradled the phone in her hand, the TV set on with the game in full flower, but no code was broken, as she was talking on the phone. She was imparting important information.

“Why is that man crouching?” her friend asked, her eyes on her TV at home.

Mary paused a minute, digesting the simplicity of the question.

“He's the catcher.”

The batter hit the ball back into the net. Silence.

“Do you know about foul balls?” Mary asked. “Do you know about three strikes?” “Okay,” she said,  “We'll have to start from the very beginning.”

Mary had met her friend, Laura,  twenty years ago in Berkeley, in a church basement on a Sunday morning, at one of those meetings that you go to, because if you didn't, you'd be face down in a box of doughnuts at best. Yes, she was there, because she had been humbled by doughnuts, and the only difference between that day and a year ago was that now she had no illusions about it. So she sat on a cold, metal chair holding a styrofoam cup of weak ass coffee that did nothing to hold back the headache that haunted her. She sat in that chair as a tiny woman with long, curly hair stood up and introduced herself, and proceeded to speak.

If you asked Mary today, she couldn't tell you any of the words that Laura said.

“My head hurt too much,” she'd say.  “'I could hardly stand sitting there.”

She said, “I thought about walking out, but instead at the end of the meeting, I walked up and talked to her.”

She said, “it felt like I didn't even know that I was doing it.”

She said, “I just meant to say that I liked what she said.”

She said, “I never talk to anyone at those meetings.”

She said, “I never talk to anyone.”

But Laura thanked her. Then she looked her in the eyes and  said, “I was going to walk around the lake and look at the geese. Do you want to come?”

Mary closed her eyes, felt the pain in her head, and said yes.

Now, on the telephone, she told her friend, “Maybe this isn't such a good idea."

She said, “It might not be a project that you want to undertake.”

She thought of what she would like to do if she had a terminal disease. Learn how to speak Italian.  Play the mandolin. Walk every day. See every possible bird she could. Watch them fly. Learning the A, B, Cs of baseball would not be high on her list. If she thought about it truly, the rhythm in her head that comforted her came from years of fandom. It seemed instantaneous to her now, but it was no quick fix.

She could hear her friend tiring.

“What if we talked tomorrow?” she said.

Comments

[Timothy Hallinan]

Wendy --

This is a total knockout. You've managed so much in such a short piece: the two women on the phone, sharing one ball game, the emotional refuge in rules about strikes and balls, the gradual revelation of what the situation is.

You're off to a tremendous start. Having read everything that was posted today, by all the writers who have accepted the challenge, I'm absolutely knocked out by the quality.

Can't wait for the next installment.

Tim

[Lisa Kenney]

I'm glad I came back -- this piece is fantastic. I mentioned it at Tim's place, but am so inspired that you trust the reader as much as you do. I love the rhythm and I'm intrigued more than I can say about the possibilities. This is wonderful.

[steve]

Wendy,

This is what my blogger friend Peter calls a "slow read." You've got to read it slowly to absorb it, but it's worth slowing down for. The repetition of "She said" works to break up what would be a jumbled monologue and underscores the tentativeness of Mary's effort to make contact with Laura. And Laura's reassuring answer had begun this long friendship.

The use of baseball, "America's pastime," seems right, but still unusual for the two women.

Every time I reread it I find something new. I'll be checking in next week.

Steve

[Usman]

The writing is beautiful and succinct. The friendship comes through and somehow I am sure though not certain that Mary and Laura come from different backgrounds.

[Timothy Hallinan]

Wendy --

Hope you're doing great with the second chapter. The first one is truly wonderful.

So happy holidays, and keep those fingers on the keys.

Tim

[Timothy Hallinan]

Can't find a link for comments on the second chapter, so I'm posting here. You're on the beam, and I want to know much, much more about these two women. And sooner than next week, although I guess I'll have to wait.

I think the shared experience of television is a real inspiration -- an electronic playground where characters from your story can stand on the sidelines and watch the "real" stories unfold. And it gives them a frame of reference when they bridge their isolation via telephone.

It's interesting to me that the story so far is almost entirely without visual content. We don't know what the rooms look like or what the characters look like. We bring our own personal set of visual referents to the television programs they talk about, but obviously we have none for the world of your story. We don't know whether these are rich rooms or poor rooms, whether they're houses or apartments. What we've got are two voices, a telephone line, a past eating disorder and a present case of cancer, and an undercurrent of compassion.

It's extremely interesting.

Tim

[wendy]

thanks, Tim. sorry about the closed comments. I thought I had opened it, but hadn't. I appreciate what you have to say.

[Jennifer]

Wendy, you have such a beautiful writing style. It's understated and direct and poetic, and I have always admired this kind of writing but have never been able to imitate it. So when I encounter it now, I just sit back and savor it. You can say in a handful of paragraphs what it would take me twenty pages to say.

I've read this piece about four times, and it's like a gem you want to hold up to the light and turn very, very slowly. I think Tim is right about there being a lot of open space that the reader can fill, and that's part of the charm for me.

I loved this bit of dialogue:

“Do you know about foul balls?” Mary asked. “Do you know about three strikes?” “Okay,” she said, “We'll have to start from the very beginning.”

And this:

"She thought of what she would like to do if she had a terminal disease. Learn how to speak Italian. Play the mandolin. Walk every day. See every possible bird she could. Watch them fly."

I don't know exactly what to say about it, except that it just really fills me with a sense of impending loss and the desire to make life as beautiful as possible. Will rush to read more.