Girl in Pieces [Draft One] • Chapter One
My plan to figure this book out? Non-existent yet. But I'm posting it anyway...
Okay writer and reader people.
I’m doing this. Posting Chapter One of my thriller-supposedly-in-progress, Girl In Pieces. I have no idea to figure this out yet. Me, the planner. The plotter.
I have outlines. I have notes. And I’ve been stuck at chapter 10 for too long, so I’m going to try something different here.
And I’ve decided to approach Substack here without a plan. (Again, this is crazy talk.) So tonight, I thought — hey what if I just post Chapter One and see what happens.
Here’s the thing, though. If you hate it, I don’t want to know. If you love it, I don’t really want to know that either. If you’re interested in following along as I figure it all out, well, that, I’d love to know.
Because even if I share it, it’s not yours yet. I learned when I published my first three, when it went out into the world, it wasn’t mine anymore. It belonged to the readers, and however they felt about what they read.
This book… still mine. You can’t have it yet. I still have to write this book with the door shut. (Stephen King’s On Writing. Go read it if you haven’t. Or get the audio - it’s better.) I haven’t hit editing phase, I haven’t woven in tiny hints of details that fill out the shape of the story later. There are layers to add, change, feel.
But I want to finish this book. I want to get so entangled in the book that the words fly off my fingers. I love that feeling. I miss that feeling.
And there’s this tiny, little Influence principle called Commitment and Consistency. It means we want to keep doing and being what we say we are. So I’m saying… I’m someone who’s currently working on her book. I’m going to share this book messy bit by messy bit. It will absolutely change. I’ll have plenty of darlings to kill.
But, for now… I’m working on my book. And that, my friends, is a win.
Here’s Chapter One of Girl in Pieces. Unedited. Unrefined…
Chapter One
Tuesday, February 17, 2016
The grave wasn’t fresh anymore.
In the months since it had been dug, a few stubborn weeds had fought to the surface and claimed churned dirt and remnants of dead flowers.
Nicole Rhoades stood at the edge of the grave and resisted the urge to kick up the dirt.
“Nic, why didn’t you wait for me?” The clipped words spoken behind her had the distinct ability to be whiny and biting at the same time.
Nic pulled in the icy air through her nose. The burn was a welcome distraction from that unending ache in her chest that felt suspiciously like sadness.
“I had to double park.” Whine. Chomp. “I can’t stay long."
“You didn’t have to come at all, Mom.” Nic turned her head slightly, just enough to see her mother’s perfectly coiffed blonde hair. It was Wednesday. Hair day.
“And let my baby do this alone? I had to move my appointment a half hour earlier, I almost missed it, but it was the least I could do for you."
The standing appointment with her hairdresser was the only consistent relationship in Sharon's life. So in the scheme of motherly sacrifices, it was a hefty one.
"Why you wanted to come here I’ll never know. You don't owe him this."
The compulsion that had sent Nic into Bay Area traffic for two hours to get to the cemetery in Colma wasn't about what she owed him.
Nic wasn’t entirely sure what being here was about.
Another snort from his ex-wife. "His flowers are dead. His bitch of a wife can't even be bothered to keep them fresh."
"Mother."
"It's a good thing I came." She dropped a bouquet of lilies onto the headstone. "Even a sonofabitch should have fresh flowers on his grave."
Words of wisdom.
"Wasn't he allergic to lilies?" Nic had a vivid childhood memory of a party, flowers delivered. Sneezing fits minutes before her father's boss was set to arrive. Angry exchanges between her parents. Flowers tossed outside, vase and all, on the sidewalk. The good old days.
Her mother reached over to pat the cold headstone. “Choke on those, darling.”
“Mother.”
“Don’t you ‘Mother’ me.” She aimed a long, red nail at her. “I’m here for you.”
Nic tapped her hand against her leg. Her mother was exhausting on a good day. Today wasn’t a good day.
"And I appreciate that.” If you couldn’t beat her—and God knew Nic had tried—revel with her in her self-absorption. “Thank you for being here. I know it’s not where you want to be. But you can go now. I'll be fine." After a few bottles of wine.
Her father was dead.
He had been dead, in fact, for six months, but no one had bothered to tell her.
If she hadn’t called, she still wouldn’t know.
He’s dead, Nicole.
His wife hadn’t hidden her utter lack of concern for Nic’s feelings. She hadn’t cared about the ocean-sized bucket of unhealed wounds she had upended.
“It’s cold. You shouldn’t stay.” Her mother sniffed.
“Mom, really. Go.” For the love of God, go.
“Why isn’t Richard here with you?”
“He was busy.” And he didn’t know she was there. Minor detail.
“Now that man is a keeper. A good provider. When are you two setting a date?” Her mother rubbed her arms. “He’ll give you the life you should have. Get you out of that old house, that job in the city.”
“I like my house and my job.”
“June weddings are really ideal.”
It was as if Nic hadn’t said a word. “Mom, enough.” Nic’s exhausted tone was filled with years of never being put first. Or second. Not even top ten. The hard lump in her throat threatened messy emotions and watery eyes, and Nic refused to cry in front of her mother. “Please. I would like some time alone.”
Her mother sniffed. “Fine. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go wait in the car. Take your time, but we’ll have a late lunch at that place I like and they get busy.”
She didn’t wait for confirmation or argument but picked her away delicately across the grass in her heels. In Sharon’s world, lunch and the ensuing discussion of what a bastard her father had been was already inked in the day’s schedule.
Minutes later, a car door slammed. Nicole closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. That battle was later.
This one, now.
She stood in a cemetery over her father’s dead body. The man who she’d seen as tall as God when she was younger. Now, she half expected to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer hanging out over yonder on the next gravestone, wielding her ever trusty stake and throwing out witty one liners.
“I know, I know,” she muttered to her father. “So inappropriate. I can’t even get your death right, can I? Never serious enough. Religious enough. Good enough. I was never quite the daughter you wanted me to be, was I? But I came. I’m here. Doesn’t that count for something?”
He didn’t rise from the grave to throw a “Don’t bet your ass on it” response. No need for Buffy after all.
Why had she come again?
She’d hung up the phone after managing to get her father’s wife to give up the grave location, grabbed her car keys and aimed her car toward his final resting place before she could stop to think. What had she thought she’d feel standing here?
He was dead. He was never going to be the father she wanted, either. Mutual dissatisfaction.
The buzz in her back pocket startled her. She grabbed her phone, saw Richard’s name. Lifted the phone. “Hi.”
“Nicole, where are you?” The words were brisk, annoyed. “We have to leave in a half hour.”
Oh, shit.
Guilt punched her chest with the power of a UFC fighter. “Richard...”
“Do not tell me you are going to be late. We’ve had this on the calendar for a month, Nicole. I reminded you last night. Bethany is expecting you to be there.”
Nic held the phone away to look at the time. It was 1:14. She was supposed to be at Richard’s daughter’s school by 2:00 pm. In Walnut Creek, which was 45 minutes away without traffic—even though who really knew, since such a day never existed in the Bay Area. If she broke a few dozen speed laws, she might make it only a lot late.
“I’m leaving now.” She glanced down at her jeans, the ones with holes in the knees. Her What’s Up, Doc t-shirt. It was laundry day.
Which would be the worst offense? Not showing up on time or showing up dressed like this?
“Then you’ll be here in fifteen?”
There was that answer. “I’m not at home, I’ll--”
“Where are you?”
“—have to meet you there.”
“This isn’t about taking photos for that Instagram account, is it?”
Irritation flared over the guilt. “No, it’s not. I’ll tell you tonight.”
“Fine. Just hurry.” He ended the call.
Nic stared at the screen of her phone, then dropped her hand to look at her father’s headstone. “Your daughter, disappointing men wherever she goes. I know. You’re not surprised. Good talk, Dad.”
The stark gray stone against the bright, happy pink of the lilies caught her eye. She had to leave, but first... She pulled out her phone, framed the shot. Took a few dozen photos while Richard’s words echoed in her head.
She was a terrible human being. She shouldn’t be allowed around children.
Or grown ups.
Nic took one last glance at her father’s name etched there for all time. As his final statement to the world of who he was and what had mattered most to him.
Roger Rhoades. Beloved husband, friend and respected member of the community.
Nope. The grave wasn’t fresh, but the years of disappointment between them kept on making dates on the calendar.
She ignored the steel-toed boot sized kick to her chest and turned to leave. “Wait.” She grabbed the lilies from the ground. “You’re welcome, you jackass.”
She headed toward her mother’s car, stopping to set the lilies on another grave along the way.
She wanted the last goddamn word for once.
Girl In Pieces [ Draft One ]
Follow along with this book.
I’m definitely interested in following along this writing journey with you!