Last year I finally found the courage to do some creative writing classes. I love writing and always have done, but I’ve never had the balls to share my work with others. I received great feedback and a lot of good pointers on style and structure. I stayed in touch with two of my fellow class mates and we occasionally set each other assignments. This one was to write a 700 word piece using the prompt “and then he shut the door”. Here we go…I’ve never posted any fiction on here before:
Patrick Shaughnessy balanced the paper bag of fresh bagels on his arm as he shut the door to the apartment. They were still warm and soft and the sweating slightly in their wrapper. He felt slightly sweaty too in the September early morning sun.
He walked into the kitchen and placed them on the small Bistro dining table he and his girlfriend, Mona Green, had dragged back from the flea market a few weeks ago.
Next to them he placed the bunch of cala lilies he’d got from the guy down on Prospect Heights. He didn’t know where Mona kept the vases and he also knew he’d make a terrible job of arranging them anyway. Best leave it to the boss, he thought to himself, smiling.
Hastily he wrote the anniversary card he’d been carrying round all week, hidden in his jacket pocket. He placed this near the bagels and flowers and added the final touch: It was an old illustrated edition of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ that he’d found in The Pranga Bookstore. The fact that the store was in Carroll Gardens he considered to be a good omen.
Mona had been reading a copy of it the first time they’d met.
It was 1998 and he was not long out of college when he took a short lunch break in Battery Park. He liked the quiet solitude looking over the water to the Statue. It was such a contrast from his hectic job on Wall Street.
He noticed her first and then the book. She sat, completely absorbed, in her reading material pausing occasionally to sip from her Starbucks. He liked the way she sat with such poise and confidence, reading her book and not noticing the surroundings.
He noticed her long, unruly dark hair; which she kept winding round her fingers as she read.
He noticed her huge, sparkling green eyes as they darted back and forth across the pages of her book.
And he noticed her wide and generous smile as she looked up from her book and finally noticed him.
She had agreed to meet him later that evening at an Irish bar he favoured in Williamsburg. He smiled as he recalled her first introduction to Guinness. She proclaimed it ‘disgusting’ then drank two pints.
They had begun dating, exclusively, soon after. Mona kept telling him that it could only ever be a bit of fun as a nice Jewish girl like her couldn’t possibly be with a Catholic.
For a year they had kept it a secret from her parents, who even now barely spoke to her. She’d left the family home and moved in with him which just further fuelled their disapproval and disappointment.
Her elder sister Rebbekah passed on family news and had also tried, in vain, to get the family back together. And although Patrick understood (heck, his parents weren’t exactly thrilled either but had joked weakly that at least she wasn’t Protestant) he had been hurt by their attitude.
It just made him more determined to show them, and others, how much Mona meant to him and how he wanted to look after her and make a life together.
So he had decided that today, on their third anniversary, to ask her to marry him.
He had bought the ring in August in Tiffany’s. The turquoise box was now safely in his pocket where the card had been.
He planned to go back to the Irish bar tonight and ask her then.
She would be back soon from her night shift at the Lennox Hill hospital. She would be tired and fed up and probably grouchy. He hoped the flowers, bagels and present would cheer her up.
He eyed the clock. 7.45. He’d better hurry if he was to make the Subway in time to be at his desk for 8.30. The Brooklyn to Wall St commute was such a mission.
He hastily scrawled her a note:
11-9-01- Happy Anniversary! Meet me at our bench in Battery Park 6pm. Love you lots, P x
He grabbed his bag and jacket and then he shut the door.
yousaythatnow 
I like this. May I offer a couple of suggestions? I’m no writer but there’s a couple of things I think would improve it.
Sure…just for some background this was constrained by a 700 word limit and unedited since. Literally wrote in one sitting and sent to two women I write with. If I was to revisit it, which I may, I’m happy to take direction!
Constraints understood. I think the ‘and he shut the door’ should be kept for the end. You use it right at the start when he goes into the apartment. Perhaps (as I think about it) that was your intent, to ‘bookend’ the story between the phrase used twice. But the last one hits with such emotion given the note we just read that the first one doesn’t carry the same weight. Before I got the end and saw the final ‘ and he shut the door’ I thought the story very weakly linked to the title (especially as in the preface ‘and he shut the door’ was said to be the prompt. So I’d change that to something else.
Secondly is the overuse of the word ‘notice’ (and variants) in the middle section. If it was intent, again, sorry(!), but I’d grab a thesaurus and change them. He noticed, he observed, he witnessed, he watched, etc.
For some reason, this won’t let me reply to your reply (!). Valid points, thanks. Yes I hadn’t meant to use “shut the door” earlier, so good spot! And agree the language could be more varied to avoid repetition. I hadn’t touched this since its conception last Autumn. But may go back and tweak. It’s always easier to edit someone else’s work than to spot these things straight away yourself. Thanks x :o)