To dare, to dream

I have always said I wanted to be a writer, and my mother would always say, "Well then write, and you will be." I am more a nonfiction writer than anything, finding it difficult to make up my own stories when I can tell someone else's. But HP's novel has inspired me. I've never tried to write fiction, but I thought I'd give it a go. Nonfiction takes a lot of observing and interviewing and research that I don't have the time or place for right now, but I feel I should be using my free time to hone my narrative skills. So I decided to start my own novel. I don't think I'll publish it in the public domain as I go, as HP has graciously done (I love reading her new entries). But I decided to share my first page. I kind of know where it's going -- the main conflicts, some basic character development. I've tried to learn from HP -- drawing on real life, real people, real events to shape my dialogue, plotline, and characters.
Here's hoping you like the first few paragraphs. I'm not editing as I go, so forgive the occasional typo, dangling modifier, etc. The working title is The Temp.

The bank thermometer at State and Chicago read 39 degrees. Nothing unusual about that, Martha thought, shivering inside her too-thin coat and moving quickly lest she get too wet in the light but perpetual drizzle that had been plaguing the city’s residents for days. Not unusual except, perhaps, that it was May 29. It had been a beautiful spring, but for the drawn-out march towards warmer weather. The daffodils had begun to bloom about a month before, only to lose their pale papery heads to a day of merciless hail and pouring rain. The trees in the park pinked up a week later, optimistic about the rain, longer days of sun, and slowly warming temperatures. Shortly thereafter, the bulbs lining Michigan Avenue burst open in show of bold color. When Martha complained about still needing a coat in early May, her mother, in her Pollyana positivism, replied that it was “God's way of putting the flowers in the cooler!”. Cooler, indeed, thought Martha, pulling her cheerfully green coat tighter against her while shooting a bitter look at the bank thermometer. Escaping the wind blowing in from the Lake, Martha quickly descended the steps to the red line.

Not ten minutes later, Martha ascended an almost identical flight of slippery cement stairs back to the sidewalk but reemerged in the hubbub of Chicago’s downtown Loop. To the west was Daley Plaza, resplendent on its south side with a garden of multi-colored tulips. A fountain nearby had been turned on recently, perhaps premature given the recent front of rain and cold weather, but nonetheless cheerful next to the trove of blooms. The garden and fountain were dwarfed, however, by the Picasso’s famous red fox – several blocks north of Chagall’s blue wall in Bank One Plaza. To the east was Marshall Field’s. The mannequins in the store window were clad in white string bikinis, with shiny gold circles holding the barely-there suits together at the sternum and hips. Looking at the thin make-believe models in their summer garb gave Martha goosebumps – even if they couldn’t feel the cold.

Martha made her way west several blocks, passing city hall en route to her destination. She always loved seeing the couples, often members of Chicago's growing Hispanic population, going in to or coming out from getting married at the justice of peace. The women usually wore dresses or suit pants, but they always seemed to have a bouquet of flowers to signify their bridal status. Martha looked down at her left hand and righted her own wedding band, a hundred-year-old pair of rings passed down on her husband’s side from his great-grandmother to his aunt and then to her. It was believed that the rings had been bought in Swedetown, at Erikson’s Jewelers in Andersonville, here in Chicago when Tom’s grandmother, then a child of eight, immigrated with her family to America from Sweden. Martha had often wanted to go up there on the El with Tom to see if the jeweler could fix the tiny clasp intended to conjoin the two bands, but there simply hadn’t been a time go yet. It seemed important to her, somehow, to have them work on the ring – as though the same jeweler who sold the ring a century ago would be the one to inspect it and recognize it as his handiwork.

Eyeing the oncoming 36 bus, Martha stood back from the crosswalk on LaSalle even though she could make the light to avoid being splashed. She had left home with plenty of time to spare and could wait the extra minute or two to insure she arrived at her new job assignment looking presentable. A block down the street at Randolph and Wells, Martha pulled out a yellow form from her purse and double-checked the address. The address matched, and Martha remembered the agency woman mentioning the Dunkin Donuts on the ground floor.