Relationships and Road Trips working draft excerpt
prefatory matter: meet Jillian and Starla, sisters who live and work in Gilroy, California. Just a little teaser. Enjoy.
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“Wow, Sis, it’s been a while since you’ve gone gah-gah for someone.” Starla commented over dinner one night. She poked at her salad, loaded up her fork, and shoved the mixture into her mouth.
“Yeah, it’s been a while.” She agreed, crunching her greens and washing it down with the Sonoma Shiraz. She reached for another piece of Starla’s homemade sourdough garlic bread and dabbed at the vinaigrette pooled at the bottom of her bowl.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was so good-looking?” chided Jillian, “I mean, you were in the group for two months before asking me to join.”
“You think I was trying to go out with him?” said Starla, “Sorry babes, he’s not my type. Remember I prefer darker skinned men.”
Jillian chewed thoughtfully before answering
“You think he’s my type? I don’t think I even know what my ‘type’ is.” She wiped the crumbs off her hands, “Compared to Marco they’re opposites, looks-wise, at least.”
Starla coughed and screwed up her face as if she tasted something bitter,
“Don’t compare Griffin to that asshole, sis. Griffin’s what you should have been going out with all along.”
Jillian got up and put their bowls in the sink. She hated it when Starla rubbed the fact that she went out with a criminal as her first big boyfriend/lover experience. It didn’t help that when she met Marco, she was an academically sheltered 29 year-old vergin. For all she knew, Griffin could be a serial killer. She sat back down at the table and sipped her wine.
“What’s so special about him?” she asked Starla, hoping she wouldn’t hear another snide comment about Marco.
“I like him because he seems to be dealing with his grief. At least we have each other, he’s all alone.”
“You mean no family? Wow, that’s sad. At least we have aunts and uncles and cousins”
“He mentioned being an only child and so were his parents.”
“I wonder if he’s got friends.” Jillian finished her wine as she thought, “See, this is what I mean. We don’t really know him.”
Starla snorted, tilting her wine glass in Jillian’s direction,
“You think too much, Jillian,” Said Starla. She raised her wine glass as if making a toast,“Here’s to finding out if Griffin is good in bed.”
Jillian’s mouth fell open and her cheeks reddened, but when her eyes met Starla’s, they both broke out in loud, wicked peals of laughter.
Later that night, when Jillian got into bed, her hand began to twirl a strand of blonde hair and she reminisced. She hoped Starla was right about Griffin. She needed her sister to be right more than she was willing to admit.
She twirled her hair, allowing herself to entertain the chance that dating again could push aside some of the left over anxiety related to her violent and humiliating months while dating Marco Mendola. She hoped she could finally be able to trust a man enough to take another chance. She finally fell asleep, her hand falling on the pillow, the long, blond strand of hair abandoned.
In the Spirit of Revisions #3
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