{"id":1371,"date":"2006-04-28T20:35:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-28T20:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/04\/novel-novel-scenes\/"},"modified":"2006-04-28T20:35:00","modified_gmt":"2006-04-28T20:35:00","slug":"novel-novel-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/04\/novel-novel-scenes\/","title":{"rendered":"Novel Novel Scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"

More novel excerpts. I have changed the main character’s name from Nat to Emmy because it was confusing to people, given that my son’s name is Nat. I also changed the estranged husband’s name from Todd to Eric, for reasons I cannot disclose except here’s a hint: I have a thing for Eric Clapton.<\/span><\/p>\n

As she opened the waiting room door Emmy thought, see this is why you don\u2019t get involved with your kids\u2019 specialists. You don\u2019t shit where you eat.<\/span> <\/p>\n

Jim was standing behind the desk, sorting mail. He looked up at her. \u201cHey,\u201d he said, friendly enough. Well, thank goodness he could be a professional.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHi. Go ahead, Nick, take off your sweatshirt.\u201d
\u201cYes,\u201d said Nick.
\u201cSeems happy,\u201d Jim remarked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, sure. I think he likes coming here,\u201d Emmy said, taking a seat. She glanced at the magazines but they were all the same as last time. She really should have brought a book.
\u201cYou don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emmy just looked at him. She had tried to block their date from her mind. Her experience with Eric had left her feeling mixed up about where she stood with Jim, and whether she should even be considering dating him at all. \u201cI\u2019m fine.\u201d
\u201cI don\u2019t think so,\u201d Jim persisted. \u201cNick, go in and play with the play-doh for five minutes while I talk to your mom.\u201d
\u201cPlay-doh, yes.\u201d Nick ran into the room.
\u201cI hope he doesn\u2019t eat it,\u201d said Emmy. Nick had always loved the salty flavor of Play-doh.
\u201cIt\u2019s non-toxic anyway. What kid doesn\u2019t eat Play-doh?\u201d He came over and sat right next to her again. Just smelling his soap smell made Emmy want to bury her head in his shoulder. How could she like him so much physically, when they hardly got along? \u201cYou seem so forlorn. What is it?\u201d
\u201cJim, it\u2019s hardly the time for a heart-to-heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gave a self-conscious cough, slapped his knees and stood up. \u201cSuit yourself.\u201d He walked away. Then, \u201cNick! Whoa, looks like you like orange, huh Buddy?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim brought down the Beginning Drawing<\/span> book that was something he had brought to the office on a whim, as something to fill the vast bookcase that took up one wall. He had found all but the very first lessons to be elusive to him; his skill was definitely in the oral and verbal rather than the tactile or artistic realms.<\/p>\n

But something about the way that Nick had opened every can of orange Play-doh and pressed his fingernails into the flattened mushy discs, the same pattern every time, gave Jim an idea. <\/p>\n

\u201cNick. No Legos today. Today, art.\u201d
Nick did not respond, but kept indenting the Play-doh with his thumb and then index fingernails.
Jim leaned over and put his hand on Nick\u2019s, to stop him so that he would attend to him. \u201cNick.\u201d
Nick looked up and then away. \u201cYes. Art. Okay.\u201d
\u201cGood, you heard me. I think you like art.\u201d
\u201cYou like art.\u201d
Ah-hah, <\/span>thought Jim. An immediate response, though echolalic, indicated some passion. \u201cSo we can work the Play-doh for a while and then maybe take a look at the is drawing book and get out the paints.\u201d
Nick snapped his head up from the Play-doh. \u201cPaints, yes. Yes.\u201d
\u201cYou like paint?\u201d
\u201cYou like paint.\u201d
\u201cThen let\u2019s paint.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim brought out large white paper, brushes, and paints. He opened the Beginning Drawing<\/span> book, and pointed out the steps of forming basic bodies with the most basic shapes. He would point to a shape and ask Nick to tell him what shape it was, and then have Nick first draw it with a pencil, and then he got to draw it with the brush in the color of his choice. Nick had no problem doing everything Jim requested, and had a remarkably steady grasp of the pencil and the brush, far better than his shaky handwriting indicated.<\/p>\n

By the end of the session, Nick had drawn and painted a house, a snowman, a cat, and a clown, using basic shapes and naming them all clearly. His lines were crisp and true and he always chose his colors in the same pattern: orange, red, green; orange, red, green. <\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s hang them here to dry, Nick. It\u2019s just about time to go home.\u201d
Nick jumped up from his chair. \u201cYes. Go home.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside in the waiting room, Jim walked over to Emmy. \u201cA fantastic session today,\u201d he said. \u201cDoes he paint much at home?\u201d
\u201cYou know, only just now, because we tried it when he was little, you know, when they\u2019re like three or four and you get them finger paints \u2013 \u201c
\u201cA lot of neurologically atypical kids are squeamish about messy wet stuff like finger paints.\u201d
Emmy nodded. \u201cThat\u2019s what I discovered. I tried brushes with him, too, but he just looked right through them. After a while, I gave up, you know?\u201d
\u201cA hazard of the disability. Sometimes these kids aren\u2019t into things developmentally until years passed the time.\u201d
\u201cYeah. But I found out the other day kind of by accident that at school he had been thrilled with painting, particularly orange paint. So I bought him some, right away, and he\u2019s been painting in his room every day after school.\u201d
\u201cReally? Independently?\u201d
Emmy nodded, smiling. Pride shone from her eyes. \u201cIt\u2019s the first thing he has ever liked that I can understand. You know, not much I can do with wiggling string or squeezing air with my hand.\u201d
\u201cI know what you mean. This is fantastic. We can really do a lot with this.\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s great to hear.\u201d Emmy smiled warmly at him, and with that, all the bad feeling from the other night dissipated.<\/p>\n

Henry knew that he had a few more minutes until Mom came back with Nick from therapy. Little Thing 2 was watching Dinotopia<\/span>, a really bizarre long movie, so he\u2019s be okay and would leave Henry alone for a while. He deserved a little break. He had worked all day in school, aced his math test, did okay in French, and even got out of breath in gym. Then, onto Taylor\u2019s office, to Xerox like a million things and staple them. Then, home to watch the brat. Yeah, now it was his time. He dug out a joint and lit up, with his window cracked a little bit.
He coughed and felt the slow heaviness settle on his brain, stroking his thoughts until they each stood separately like a shining beautiful thing. He thought about Sylvie, now in the privacy of his room, and how she had stood up in front of the class today presenting her report on a figure in 20th century American history. Sylvie had picked Amelia Earhardt. Not that original, but he knew that Sylvie had wanted to choose a woman; who could blame her? She had looked luminous; he had just learned that Wordmaster word. Usually he hated spelling but luminous reminded him of pearls, flower petals, ice on a lake in the cold sunshine. Sylvie.<\/p>\n

He closed his eyes, seeing Sylvie, and dragged on the joint a bit more, until his thoughts were too muddy to look at anything clearly. He could hear the noise from the movie coming up through the floor and he could practically see the dinosaurs marching in front of him.
Suddenly, his head started hurting like a hammer had come down on his skull. He stood up, clutching his forehead. As soon as his feet hit the floor, his lunch traveled upwards, seizing him by the throat. Covering his mouth, but knowing it was futile, he tried to run to the bathroom. But he could not move his feet quickly enough. It was like they were blocks of cement. Panicking, he reached for the desk chair to pull himself along, but the chair flipped over and he fell on his back. The vomit started coming up, out of his mouth, all over his shirt and the floor. He could smell the acrid aroma
\nand this made more vomit heave upwards. He closed his eyes to all the pain and disgusting odor around him.<\/p>\n

The joint fell from between his fingers, next to his bedspread which dragged on the floor. The end of the joint glowed, a tiny dot of orange, turning the hem of the bedspread gray, then black as its heat spread across the white cotton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More novel excerpts. I have changed the main character’s name from Nat to Emmy because it was confusing to people, given that my son’s name is Nat. I also changed the estranged husband’s name from Todd to Eric, for reasons I cannot disclose except here’s a hint: I have a thing for Eric Clapton. As […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-m7","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}