This week in Creative Writing we incorporated the theme of marriage into our short stories. We spent a little time getting to know Jane Austen, a famous British author from Hampshire and how she incorporated the theme of marriage into her work Pride and Prejudice. After being introduced to the structure of short story writing our students got to work writing pieces of fiction that ended in either a marriage or a proposal of marriage. It's safe to say that all of them are hopeless romantics!
The work presented Sunday evening was a work by Alexandra Arsene entitled Of the many Contradictions and is a story which demonstrates a high quality of structure, energy and language. Please enjoy reading Alexandra's work below...
Hearing the ripping of silk was not how Charlotte Saunders imagined her day to start. The navy blue dress she wore on that particular spring day did not survive the long stride that she had taken. Thus, she found herself in the middle of the city’s busiest boulevard, with the back of her skirt ripped, underwear revealed and being glanced at with shock and humour by fellow pedestrians. A part of her wanted to cry, but her ego overcame any such notion.
It was when she was trying to hide behind a cafe’s petunia pots that she saw him. Eyes wide, cheeks stained red, whilst gripping a cup of coffee for dear life, she found the tall man, nevertheless, the most handsome individual she had ever laid eyes on. Not that she would ever let him know that.
He attempted to smile, but his strained dimples gave him away. She only realized she had been frowning at him when he thrust a long coat in her arms. Instantly, she was appalled.
“Found a nice charity case, haven’t you?” she bit out.
He drew his head back, wondering if she was serious.
“By God, woman, I’m trying to help you! Don’t think I like seeing horror images like that on the street! Have a good day, why don’t you?”
The door was slammed shut with as much force as the hit that her ego had taken. Gorgeous Stranger, she told herself, deserved to be shot, but she tried not to trouble her mind with thoughts of him, because she believed that they would never meet again.
How wrong she had been, Charlotte realized on her third day at her new job. That day, she met her boss, Grant Stone, also known as ‘Stranger-who-had-witnessed-her-humiliated-and-insulted-her’. She, of course, had started a revolt and yelled at him. He, on the other hand, though startled by her ways, found her quite refreshing, like a breath of fresh air after years of not having felt freedom.
So the little boy inside him did the only thing he could think of: he would to take to pestering her constantly.
“See who’s waiting for me, will you, pumpkin?”
She would scowl at him in a not so ladylike fashion. “I was already going to do that and stop calling me pet names, you chauvinist!”
Working in the same company, let alone in the same building entailed a difficult, but intimate working relationship, but they worked like that. Come rain or fire, the company did reach the fame Grant’s father had always dreamed of. Hidden under all those layers of coldness, Charlotte felt proud, because she worked along-side the senior of the Stone family a doubtlessly hard working, worthy man. She had worked for him, of course, not for Grant. The young man was the one who could make her feel humiliated by just looking at her. Surprisingly, his father had told her once that he was an asset to the company.
“An asset?” she said to Grant’s father, “I think you could drop the last two letters,” she muttered to herself.
And still, despite the rivalry between them and all the embarrassing moments he seemed to catch her in (he would still smile crookedly at her for a particular incident in the men’s bathroom), Grant flirted with her. She had seen it in his eyes, every time he came around and tried to annoy her. She’d seen that sparkle in those green orbs and the way his voice surrounded her like smoke. Was it part of his game, though?
A bunch of roses was placed in front of Charlotte. She looked up from her papers and smiled at her favourite flowers. Grant revelled in her gesture.
“I’m waiting for my cousin to show up tomorrow, so make sure you cancel all of my appointments,” he told her.
Her smile disappeared, changing into that usual distant look that she always had around him. Professionally, she nodded to him and opened the agenda. She would have thought they were done, that he would proceed to taking his coat and briefcase and head over to his expensive car. He did none of that, but instead, sat across from her at her desk and evaluated her. He would always have this blank look on his face, trying to see right through you, analyzing you.
“What are you doing?”
“Figuring you out,” he replied.
She almost choked on the air. “What do I look like, a puzzle?”
As usual, he narrowed his eyes at her tone. He would always find it offensive and throw an insult at her. Today he did not fail to deliver.
“You don’t make a very appealing one.”
She slammed the agenda on the desk which separated them. “As if you would be one to criticize beauty.” A long moment of silence ensued. “Are you saying that I’m ugly?” She glared at him.
The smirk on his face could not have been wider, so he continued with a more platonic conversation. “Well, from an objective point of view, I don’t see many men around you. Why is that, princess?”
Again, name calling was the order of the day.
“I can get men!” she quickly defended, then paused to hear a little voice in her head go ‘I can, can’t I?’
Charlotte began pondering her relationships with male figures. More specifically, she was constantly haunted by the image of her father. She reckoned men were an unnecessary evil. After all, she had seen her father walk out on her mother and her after years of a hapless, mismatched marriage. So why would she think that there was anything good in the male species? That and, to her, relationships were the loss of freedom, the end of individuality.
“I bet that you are not capable of seducing a man.”
It was like him, she mused, to launch bets like this and then laugh as she would childishly ignore him. This time was different, however, as the strong woman inside her decided to stand up to the imposing man at her desk.
“Loser must do whatever challenge the winner comes up with.”
His right eyebrow quirked up; he looked at her surprised. “Very well, then. We’re on.”
And yet, there was some hidden panic in those eyes as he stood up and said his goodbye for the evening. She followed suit, like a robot, and went home wondering what she had gotten herself into.
Max Spelling, cousin of Grant Stone, had always been a player, not only in sports, but in the game of life as well. He was a lanky man with brown hair and hazel eyes and yet, despite his not being out of the ordinary, he had amazing success when it came to women.
Shortly put, Grant hated him. He had always had a problem with Max, but the day that their rivalry truly began was when the prodigious cousin stole Grant’s first girlfriend. Long legged, blonde haired Melanie fell head over heels into Max’s webs. He remembered feeling horrible, angry, but nothing could compare to how he was about to feel on this Monday morning.
Leaning over Charlotte’s desk and grinning widely, was Max. It would have been a normal sight, had it not been for Max’s knowing smirk. He leaned closer and reached to tuck a strand of hair behind the woman’s ear. She recovered quickly from the initial shock and kept her eyes trained on the suave man in front of her, who was breaking all rules of personal space like a needle penetrating a bubble.
An easily impressed side of her was quick to be charmed by the small, yet painfully childish compliments and that glued her to seat and made her respond to his advances with a beautiful, acknowledging smile.
She saw Grant out of the corner of her eye. Max was a charming fellow, she had to admit, though a bit plain, but her thoughts were currently on the dark haired man watching them with burning eyes. She had not expected such disapproval from Grant, which made the game even more interesting. It tickled her ego to see her rival finally show more emotion because of her.
“Grant!” Max yelled as he spotted his relative. The latter walked over to them stiffly, with a clenched jaw. “How’s it going? You didn’t tell me you had such pretty ladies at your office.” That being said, he gave Charlotte an appreciative once over, that made her shift her weight from one foot to another, feeling embarrassed. She found that it was quite disturbing.
“Max!” Grant all but growled. “What are you doing here?”
“I just wanted to say hello.” He turned to Charlotte. “Hello.” She quirked her eyebrow. “Actually, Grant, I did tell you that I went on a date on Saturday. Well, I met this lovely lady at the cinema. How appropriate, wouldn’t you think?”
She saw Grant’s eyes turn to her in what she thought to be a glare. She realized, later on, that the feeling in those green pools was not hate, but pain. Then they shifted to anger within an instant.
“Get out.”
Max froze on the spot, clearly shocked by his cousin’s reaction. Charlotte herself had gone cold and she felt the need to run for her life. She saw Max open his mouth to say something, but was quick in acting on her instincts and pushing him towards the door. She knew Grant when he was angry and he was no pleasant sight.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” was the instant yell as she closed the door, trapping them both in the small office.
She dared herself to look at him, but not in the eyes. She could never look people in the eyes, be it lie or truth. Grant was no exception to that rule. If anything, he was the one who made her enforce it in the first place. She stood up to him defiantly.
“...going out with my cousin? Was it a good date?!” he snarled.
No, it hadn’t been. Max had only one thing on his mind and it was most certainly not the desire to critique the post-modern flick they saw at the repertory cinema. She found that whenever the man would come closer to her, her mind would mercilessly project images of Grant at her and her heart mourned the lack of his presence. Over the last few days, she had come to understand the attraction that she felt for Grant, and perhaps even the fondness.
“Charlie!”
He was the only one to call her that and every time he did, her heart would start thumping harder, as if she wasn’t alive enough. But his tone pained her and most importantly, her ego exploded with rage at him.
“What gives you the right to talk to me like that?! I have never, ever done anything to insult you! If it hadn’t been for your ignorance and your insults, we would have gotten along just fine! I--”
“My insults!” he hollered. “Do you not realize how you treat me? Do you not realize that every time I try to approach you, you look at me with hate and you talk to me like I am rubbish?!” It was like a slap to her cheek. She stared at him, trying to swallow the painful regret filling her. “I try to flirt with you, I compliment you, I bring you flowers! You refuse to see any of that and yet you pay attention to a tosser like Max!”
She wasn’t sure which part of that speech rendered her quiet.
“But you don’t even like me!”she found herself screaming. ”You can’t expect me to return your flirting when all we do is fight! You hate me! You’re my boss! You--”
“Marry me.”
“—always come up with an excuse to tease me and...Excuse me?!”
“I said marry me,” he repeated, this time with conviction and fire in his voice.
Her eyes went wide as the size of saucers and words would not come to her. She was suddenly unsure as to whether she was capable of speech or not. Her first instinct was to think that he was joking, but looking at Grant, she saw a warm, kindling flame burning in his eyes and his face no longer looked distant. This was the Grant that she had always wanted to see - his hidden side.
It was like asking her to jump, to practice an extreme sport that she had no liking for.
What if, she wondered, she would take the leap with him; a man who had put her in front of so many risks? She cherished adventure, but did she love it that much?
Then there was a deeper question: What about her pride, her dignity? What would people say about a relationship between them? They would call her a gold digger, no doubt. He wouldn’t care, because that was Grant, but she would be deeply hurt by that.
She had always been afraid of taking that step that her mother had taken with her father, because for them, it had ended in tragedy. For them, there was no happy ending, just a stack of papers, a group of lawyers and plenty of money included.
Charlotte knew nothing of marriage. Furthermore, she had no idea how to live around someone without feeling self conscious or thinking about the other person’s pet peeves or messy habits. Was that what marriage was? Two people so amazingly fascinated with each other that, under some masochistic spell, they decide to haunt each other for the rest of their lives?
She regarded the man in front of her with a thoughtful gaze.
“It’s...an interesting suggestion,” she finally said, and then let out the last words she would have ever dreamed of uttering. They rolled off her tongue and hit the air like drops of rain landed in the ocean: “I’ll consider it.”
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