Jared and Jessa Part I

New Chapter!

Jared and Jessa Part I

Jared sat at a big table in the back of Il Caprice.  He was a Pasadena native and had been coming to this restaurant with his family since he was a kid.  He was there with his mother and father, his sister Madison, her husband Allen, and their four-year-old son Tommy.  He looked around at all of the people seated around him who were smiling and laughing with one another.  Jared felt like such an outsider.  That is how he felt most of the time, despite the fact that his whole family had gathered that night just for him.

 “Are we getting dessert?” asked Tommy.  “I want dessert!”

“Ssh, ssh,” replied Madison.  She looked up at Jared.  “What do you say, Uncle Jerry?  Indulge your sweet tooth?”

Jared shook his head.  “No, I---,” he started to say, but before he could finish, the faint sound of the birthday song started creeping up from behind him.  Soon, the whole restaurant joined in the singing.  The smiling waitress placed a round chocolate cake in front of him with exactly thirty lit candles on top.  Madison reached into her purse and pulled out one more.

“Thirty-one for good luck,” she said as she lit it and placed it beside the others.  “Now, make a wish!”

Jared closed his eyes and really thought for a few seconds.  He blew out the candles and everybody cheered.  After dinner, Jared and his family walked out to the street.

“I want to go to Uncle Jerry’s house!” Tommy shouted.

“Not tonight, little man,” replied Allen.

“Next time,” Jared offered, but Tommy was already enthralled with a spinning pinwheel in the closed storefront of the toy store next to the restaurant.

“What are your plans now?  Going to meet some of the guys from work for a drink?” asked Ruth, Jared’s mom.

“No, not tonight,” he answered with a yawn.

“How about grabbing a beer with your old man?” asked his dad.

Jared shook his head.  “No, thanks.  I’m just going to call it a night.”

“BORING,” teased Madison.  She winked at him as she reached out to give him a hug.  “I love you, baby brother.”

“Thanks for everything, Maddy.  Love you too.”

“And I love you, Uncle Jerry!” Tommy exclaimed, wrapping his arms tightly around Jared’s right leg.

He reached down and tousled Tommy’s dirty blonde hair.  “Goodnight, little man.”

Jared hugged the rest of the family before all of them dispersed into different directions down the streets of Old Town.  Jared sat in his car on Central Avenue fiddling with the buttons on his XM Radio.  He settled on a talk show with a pleasant-sounding woman giving advice to someone.

“Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results,” she said.  Jared’s mind started to wander and his eyes drifted to a little dive bar close to his apartments.  It had always looked intriguing to him, but he had never gone in.  “So if you want something you’ve never had,” the woman continued, “you’ve got to do something you’ve never done.  It’s really very simple…”

Just then, as if something was guiding his hand, Jared found himself parallel parking in front of the bar.  He got out of his car and walked inside.  The place smelled like cigarettes even though smoking had been banned in bars and restaurants for years.  It didn’t seem like cops or much of anyone else stopped by that often, so they probably didn’t have anything to worry about.  There was a jukebox in the back.  A blinking neon sign that read, “Bada Bing!” with the silhouette of a naked woman hung above it.  A couple drunk barflies sat at the far end of the bar laughing and slapping each other on the backs.

Jared took a seat.

“What can I get you, stranger?” asked the bartender.

“Whiskey, neat.”  Jared pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at it.  No missed calls.  He didn’t know why he even checked anymore.  Habit.  The bartender set his drink in front of him.  “Thank you,” Jared said.

After a few sips, the door opened loudly.  Jared looked and saw a woman enter.  She was beautiful with thick, long brown hair that reached down to her waist.  She wore a long black skirt and she walked with purpose.  Jared looked back down at his glass.

“What can I get you?” asked the bartender.

Despite all of the empty seats at the bar, the woman sat right next to Jared.  “Rum and cranberry please.”

“Rum and…”

“Cranberry,” she repeated and then started digging through her large leather purse.  

“Does that even taste good?” Jared asked before he could stop the words from coming out of his mouth.

The woman looked at him, a little startled by his question.  “Yeah, it is actually.”  The bartender set the drink in front of her.  “Want to try it?” she asked.

Jared shrugged and took a sip.  “Hmmm...not bad,” he said, sliding the glass back to her side.

“Yeah, I used to get rum and Cokes, but the Coke kept me up late at night, so it’s rum and cranberries for me now.”

“I see.”

“Plus,” she continued.  “The cranberry juice is good for U.T.I.’s.”  Jared looked at her.  She covered her mouth with her hand.  “Jesus, Jessa.  Learn to shut up for once.  I’m sorry,” she apologized.  “I tend to over-share with strangers sometimes.”

Jared smiled and replied, “That’s all right.  I don’t mind.”  

She smiled back.  “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Jared.  Yours?”

“Jessa.”

“I like that,” he said almost inaudibly.

“What?”

He cleared his throat.  “I said, ‘I like that.’  It’s pretty.”  He could see Jessa blushing.  After a few moments of awkward silence, Jared asked, “Do you mind if I over-share something with you?”

“Absolutely not,” Jessa replied, tipping her head back to consume the last of her cocktail.

“Today is my 30th birthday,” he said.  

“Oh, well, happy birthday!  The next round is on me.”

“That’s not the part I wanted to share,” he continued.  

“What is it then?” she asked, waving the bartender over.

Jared looked her dead in the eyes.  “I haven’t slept with anyone in almost two years.”

Jessa’s eyebrow raised with curiosity.  “Well,” she replied, “I guess we better order a couple more rounds.”

Jared felt delicious chills run up and down his spine.  He couldn’t believe the dumb wish he had  made on his birthday cake earlier that night was actually coming true.

Getting to know you/me.

I recently got a new MacBook Air because the last MacBook I had for 6 or 7 years died on me suddenly and tragically.  It will be missed!

Work has slowed down for me a tiny bit, so I am in full sequel-writing mode.  My morning ritual is now waking up, taking my probiotic supplement, doing a 20-minute meditation, eating breakfast, and then going to my favourite coffee spot and having a couple cups while I bang on this contraption.  I love it.

My next book will be a sequel to my first book The Awful Truth of Loving.  I have a tentative name for the book I'm pretty sure I'm going to use, but I don't want to share it just yet in case it changes.  But, yes, it is the name to a song that influenced the book like the first one was.

The biggest lesson I've had to learn about writing is that the first draft is just going to suck.  I used to stop myself from writing because I would see things that my favourite singers, movie/TV writers, authors, etc. would put out and it would be pure gold!  How did they come up with that?? I would ask myself while shamefully closing my laptop vowing to never attempt to write anything again.

Then I realized that writing doesn't work that way.  At least not for me.  It's not going to come out fully-formed and perfect.  It's going to be messy and covered in goop like a newborn baby.  And I'm going to have to clean off the goop and labor and stay vigilant while it cries and shits until, eventually, it can walk on its own.  Too far with the baby analogy?  Okay.  Basically, it's going to take time and patience and loads of re-writes.  I'm sure for some more prolific writers it is much easier and to them I say, "Go F yourself!  You are not normal."   

I am also learning to enjoy the process of writing.  When I write my books now I am no longer pretending that I have all of the answers figured out.  I am just getting to know the characters as if they are the ones telling me who they are and what they've been through.  It is loosely based on my own life and experiences, but then a little magic comes in to fill in the rest of the blanks.  It really feels like channeling to me sometimes.

I am starting to see that this next book is going to be somewhat more personal and darker than TATOL.  I take that as a sign that I am growing as a writer and letting myself be more vulnerable.  It scares me a little because I don't like sharing my feelings all the time, but as I'm writing, this is what is coming out.  And so, I just have to go with it.

Here is the start of a chapter I wrote this morning.

“I am a human being, capable of doing terrible things.”

Anderson felt sick.  He wanted to call Ramona and tell her the deal was off.  He couldn’t be a father.  He had never been sure that he ever wanted kids, so why on earth would he have one now?  Is 7 months too late to have an abortion?  The fact that he didn’t know the answer to that question only validated his idea that he simply was not ready for fatherhood.  What could he possibly know about being a father anyway?  It’s not like he ever had a shining example of what one was.

* * *

“Mom!” Anderson called to his mother as he burst through the back door of his childhood home.  He dropped his backpack by the sofa and frantically looked around.  “Mom!  Where are you?  I have something to tell you!”

“Anderson, hush!” scolded his mother as she came down the stairs.  “Your father is sleeping.  He was working all night.”

“Mom, I’ve got to tell you about school today,” Anderson continued with excitement.

“What on earth is it?”  She took a seat on the sofa as Anderson jumped in front of her.

“We won.”

“You won what?”

Anderson looked disappointed.  “You don’t remember?  Today was the school’s battle of the bands and WE WON!!”

“Anderson!!” called a booming voice from upstairs.  Both Anderson and his mother looked up in fear.  “Get up here!”

Anderson looked at his mother.  She couldn’t protect him.  She nodded for him to do as he was told.  Anderson picked up his backpack and headed up the stairs, each step filling his stomach with worry.  He thought he might throw up.

Just as he was about to put his hand on the doorknob to his parents’ bedroom, his father yelled again, startling him so much his hands shook.  He forced himself to go inside.  

The door creaked open.  It was pitch dark in their room, the windows had been covered in black fabric to keep out the daylight.  It smelled like stale cigarettes.  Anderson’s father worked the graveyard shift at a gas station down the street.  He slept during the day while everyone was awake and was awake all night while everybody slept.

“H-h-hi, Dad,” Anderson stammered.  “You w-w-wanted to see me?”

“Come here,” his father said as if it were a threat. 

Anderson swallowed hard, tears already stinging his eyes.  Once he was beside his father in bed, he smelled alcohol.  It was always there.  For a moment his father didn’t move.  His breathing was deep and measured.  Anderson started to relax, thinking his dad had fallen back to sleep as he sometimes did in the middle of one of his rampages.  Just as Anderson was about to turn to leave, he was grabbed tightly by the  collar of his t-shirt.

“Please, Dad!” Anderson squealed involuntarily.  “Don’t.”

Anderson’s father sat up.  He looked like a monster in the dim daylight coming from the hallway.

“Don’t you tell me what to do, boy,” his father said, angry spit flying from his lips.  “Now, what in the hell is so goddamn important that you had to come in the house screaming like a retard?”  Anderson looked away, too late to stop the tears from flowing down his reddened cheeks.  “Are you crying?  You fucking pussy!  Answer me!!”

“Battle...bands,” was all Anderson could manage to say.

“What did you say?”

“My band won the school’s battle of the bands today.”  Anderson pleaded, “Please let me go.  I’ll be quiet.”

Before Anderson knew it, he was thrown to the floor.  His arm burned from sliding against the shag carpeted floor.  

“You’re damn right you’ll be quiet,” his father said.  “Or I’ll make sure you stay quiet and I know you don’t want that, you crying sissy.  Now, get the fuck out and let me sleep, goddamn it.” 

Anderson scrambled to his feet with his backpack and headed out of the room.  “And close the goddamn door!!”

Anderson wiped his face with his hands and turned to close the bedroom door behind him.  He was thirteen years old.

Waiting on a Heartbeat

New Chapter

“Waiting on a Heartbeat.”

Melissa knew she should have eaten something that morning...or at least in the afternoon.  That was usually how it started.  It was the first turn of the lock that kept her monster securely in its cage.  Having slept only a few hours the night before, she would wake up feeling slightly off. A heaviness would settle in her throat and chest and by lunchtime finding her appetite still missing in action, she would settle for a handful of peanuts from Craft Service and a sip of water.  Perhaps another cup of coffee.  Turn, click...turn, click, click.

Now it was 5:15 p.m. on a frigidly cold soundstage and she was beginning to have those dark thoughts again, thoughts someone who should be on a healthy dose of Prozac shouldn’t have.  She could hear creaking of the big, metal door in her mind.  The monster was out and wanted to play.

If I did it in the bathtub it wouldn’t make too much of a mess for the landlady to clean up.  But what about the cats?  I’ll leave their food dishes overflowing and fill every bowl I own with water for them.  I could leave the door open a crack, so they could get out too and then someone is more likely to find my body before it gets too rotted and smelly…

Melissa shook her head, knowing what she had just thought was crazy.  She didn’t want to die, but this was how it got to be sometimes.  Her thoughts would come on too fast, too dark until she had no choice but to placate them, fantasize her own demise justy for a little while.  And as awful as it was, these thoughts were no stranger to her for her monster had lived with her for as long as she could remember.

* * *

It was cold for a winter’s day in Fresno.  Melissa was in Mrs. Browns first grade class.  She had come in from the cold with three big maple leaves covered in frosty ice crystals.  They looked like they were encrusted in diamonds and she couldn’t wait to show her best friends Kimery and Kendra at recess.  Melissa was no longer allowed to sit next to either for the girls anymore.

“Your daughter talks too much in class,” Mrs. Brown told Melissa’s mother at their first parent/teacher conference.  “She has a hard time paying attention.”

Now Melissa sat next to Doug and another boy named Marshall who had a braided rattail on the back of his head and dirt caked under his fingernails.  

Melissa did her best to sit quietly while they practiced writing capital and lowercase letters on tan, lined recycled paper with yellow No. 2 pencils.  But she could hear her two best friends giggling throughout class and wondered why she was the one who had to be separated. When it was time for recess, Melissa ran to get her coat and the sparkly leaves from her cubbie.  To her disappointment, when she pulled the leaves from the shelf she found that all of the frost had melted.  

“Melissa, throw those soggy leaves in the waste basket,” ordered Mrs. Brown.  She did as she was told.  “Now go outside until the bell rings.”

Melissa put on her coat with the mittens connected through each sleeve by a long piece of yarn.  Once she was outside she scanned the playground for Kimery and Kendra.  They weren’t by their usual spot on the jungle gym.  As Melissa wandered around the browned grass she looked around and felt as though everyone she saw was playing with someone, as if the whole school could be put into pairs of two, everyone except her.  Good thing I have Kimery and Kendra, she thought.

“There they are!” she said to herself as she spotted the two girls behind the playground ramada.  She picked up her pace, knowing she had already missed too much of the day’s gossip.

“Aren’t you so glad Melissa isn’t sitting next to us anymore, Kimery?” Kendra asked.  “She’s so loud and she looks like she never brushes her hair.”

“Yeah,” Kimery agreed before looking up and seeing Melissa standing not that far away.  “I mean, I like Melissa.  She’s our best friend.”

Kendra saw Melissa too and immediately changed her attitude.  “Hey, Melissa,” she said.  “We were looking for you.  Did you hear anything we just said?”

Melissa pushed the sting of tears back from her eyes while shaking her head.  “No, I...I was coming to tell you guys about…”

Kimery and Kendra both laughed.  “You’re so silly, Melissa,” Kendra said.  “Come over here and let us fix your hair.”

Not wanting to be an outcast, Melissa obediently sat down on the frozen ground.

* * *

Melissa’s cell phone vibrated in her puffy jacket pocket.  She pulled it out and read.

Ryan:  I know deep in my heart there is someone out there you were meant to be with. It just isn’t me.  I don’t want to stand in your way of finding that happiness anymore.  I’m rooting for you, Melissa.

Ryan was a guy she had been seeing on and off for the last four years.  She should have known by now that things just weren’t meant to be with him, but just like the little girl who heard those girls in first grade say how they really felt about her, she was so quick to come back into the fold once it seemed like they liked her again.

And then they met...

 (Another early, early, early draft of a chapter from my next novel.)

“Remind me why we’re here?” Ramona asked, turning to her friend Andrea as they stood in a small cement-floored theatre with a small 3-foot stage a few feet in front of them.

Andrea smiled wide.  “Because you’re the bestest friend in the whole world,” she replied, “and because you don’t want me to get raped and murdered on my first date with someone I met online, which I let YOU talk me into going on by the way.”

“Oh, that’s right.  I really need to remember to keep my mouth shut sometimes.”  Both of the girls laughed.  “What’s the name of their band?”

“Turn Up.”

“Like the vegetable?” asked Ramona.

“Like ‘Turn up...the music’.  I thought it was cute...and so is he!  Look, Ramona!”  Andrea pointed to a tall gentleman with dark, curly hair standing next to the stage sipping on a cocktail, looking aloof. 

“That’s Derek?”

“Yep!  Derek!” she called out waving her arms at him.  He saw them and smiled coyly. 

“Andrea?” he said as they walked toward him. 

“Yes!  And this is my friend Ramona.”  Derek’s mind seemed to be somewhere else as he nodded and then looked over both of their heads to the crowd that was beginning to collect for the band’s show.

“Great to meet you ladies.  Come backstage,” he said suddenly taking Andrea by the hand.  Andrea looked back at Ramona and shrugged. 

She followed them into a small green room with one dingy couch and lots of cigarette smoke wafting through the air.  There were three people squeezed onto the couch drinking and laughing.  One of them seemed to recognize Ramona.

“Hey!  I know you!” said an overly enthusiastic male with long, luscious locks of blonde hair.

“Heeey,” Ramona replied, trying hard to remember his name and where she could possibly know someone like him from.

“Anderson.  Well, everyone calls me Andy.”  He stood up and shook her hand.  His hands were big, warm.  “I know Aaron and he knows your friend Liz.”

“Oh, that’s right.  I’m sorry.  I am terrible with names and faces.”

“Quite all right.  I’m just psyched to see you at our show.  How did you hear about us?”

“Well, my friend Andrea is meeting your band mate Derek from online for the first time tonight,” explained Ramona as she turned and pointed to Andrea who was already wrapped in Derek’s arms and kissing him passionately.

“Classic Derek!” Anderson said, laughing.  “Well, can I offer you something to drink?  The bar gave us some sodas and beers.

“Sure, a beer sounds amazing.”  As Anderson turned and bent down to pick out a beer from a small cooler beside the couch, pieces of his long hair fell over his face.   Ramona suddenly felt something inside of her spark.

“Here ya go, pretty girl,” said Anderson, handing her a bottle of Corona.  “Cheers.”

Ramona smiled and said, “Cheers.”

After talking to Anderson for about an hour, Andrea came to get Ramona.  “It’s almost time for them to go on,” she said.  “You can keep flirting after the show.”

“All right.  Can’t wait to hear you guys play,” said Ramona, turning to Anderson.  “I’ll see you after the show?”

“Definitely,” Anderson replied, giving her a big, warm hug and a kiss on the cheek.  Ramona caught a whiff of his hair noting he might use the same brand of shampoo as her.

During Turn Up’s loud and raucous set, Ramona was shocked to see how passionate and focused Anderson was.  She remembered the very few times she had ever seen him.  He always seemed like such a nut, but watching him sit behind his drum kit, playing with his band, completely in his element, Ramona saw something deeper inside of him and it turned her on. 

It's a new dawn. It's a new day.

Now that my latest book is published and live on Amazon, I will be starting to write the sequel to my first book, The Awful Truth of Loving.  While compiling You + Me and waiting for the copyright to come back, I wrote little bits of the sequel here and there.  I'm glad I did because it's a nice little bread crumb trail leading me down the path of the story I wanted to tell.  Not everything is fleshed out yet, not even close, but here's a taste of something you can expect to read in case you're curious:



Accidental Babies

Ramona was able to get Anderson to calm down enough to meet her in West Hollywood for coffee.  He was usually so confident and relaxed, but when she saw him walk through the door of Queens Road Café, she was surprised to see he was really nervous.

Ramona stood up and waved him over to the table she had gotten for them.  He gave a slight nod and removed his sunglasses with orange frames.  She went in for a hug as he went in to shake her hand.  They paused and laughed nervously before deciding to just sit down.

“Hey,” Ramona said trying to over-compensate how nervous she felt by making direct eye contact.  “Thanks for meeting me.”

“Ain’t no thang,” he replied unable to make any eye contact at all.  “Uh, do they serve alcohol here?”

“I don’t think so.  It’s just a coffee shop.  They have food if you---.”

“Naw, naw, I’m not hungry...just thirsty.”

Just then, a waitress walked up to their table asking, “Can I get you anything to drink?”

Anderson looked down at the table as if this were the hardest question anyone could have asked him at that moment.

“He’ll just have a water with some lemon, thanks,” Ramona answered for him. 

The waitress left them alone again. 

“So...what do we do now?” Anderson asked after a long silence.

Ramona shrugged.  “I have no idea,” she replied.  “I’ve never had this happen before.”

“I don’t mean to sound like a dick, but...are you sure it’s---.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”  She paused.  “You’re the only one I’ve been with this year...unless this is immaculate conception, in which case God really does have fucked-up sense of humour because I’ve never been to church a day in my life.”  Anderson suddenly saw how nervous Ramona was and instinctively reached across the table for her hand.  She instinctively took it.  “I don’t want you to think I planned this, Andy.”

He finally looked at her.  “Mona, I don’t.”

Andy was the only one who called her “Mona” besides her mother, but Ramona hadn’t heard her mother call her that for nearly ten years.

It's Up!!

My collection of short stories and poems is up and available for immediate download!!  I will now share with you the foreword I wrote for the book and I will give the link to the book at the bottom of this post.  Thank all of you so very much for reading and for your support!

Foreword From the Author:

            It’s around 9:30 a.m. on a random weekday morning.  I’m at Aroma Café in Studio City and I’m doing what I’ve been doing here the last few months on random weekday mornings, which is working on the book you now hold in your hands.  Oh, and drinking coffee.  Lots of coffee.

            My first self-published book was a fiction romantic comedy of sorts, so one might wonder why I felt it necessary to venture into the realm of short stories and poems next.  The answer simply is that I love stories.  I think we all do.  Whether we hear them in our favorite songs, movies, or television shows.  Mankind has had a fascination with storytelling since the beginning of time and I am no different.

            For as long as I can remember, using my vast imagination and writing stories has been my favourite way of expressing myself.  When I was a teenager, my favourite place to be was in a coffee shop with a notebook and a pen.  I would sit and look around at different people, trying to imagine where they had just come from or where they were going to next, what it was they were working through in their lives at that moment, and like a photographer out in nature, I would often get lost in them.  I wanted to capture those moments on paper in the form of words for others to see and interpret. 

            I’ve kept a good number of the notebooks I carried with me from high school and college.  I dug into them to gather stories and poems for this collection.  A majority of them were too melodramatic for my tastes now, but a few still hold some truth for the person I am today, and those few you will find revamped, edited, and included here.

            There was also a period when I gave myself a 30-Day Challenge to complete 1 short story each day.  I completed 15, not the whole 30, but it was still enough to render some of what you’ll find here.

            These poems and short stories are not necessarily complete on their own, but rather, they are seeds I am planting in the soil that may someday grow into a greater narrative for another book I have yet to write and hopefully one that you have yet to read.

            And so it is with great pride and joy that I present to you my first collection of short stories and poems.

With many thanks and so much gratitude,

Leslie Li Hikida

Excerpt from You + Me: A Collection of Short Stories & Poems

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HKSLKHW 

In Review!

It's happening!!  My second self-published book You + Me A Collection of Short Stories & Poems has been submitted to Kindle Direct Publishing and will be available to download very soon.  I can't tell you how great this feels to have completed another piece of work that I will share with my readers.  I will post again with a link to the download page as soon as it goes live.