It had been almost five years since I’d returned to my hometown, if I could call it that. I’d grown up there, gone to school, paid five bucks to have my first kiss, and learned to drive there. But any attachment I’d felt to the town had been lost when I’d gone off to university, met my boyfriend, travelled the country and found work.
The only reason I was returning was my parents. They still lived in the white plaster-wall shack by the oval, refusing to move to the retirement village I’d picked out near my workplace. “We’re sick of driving for hours to visit you,” my mother had complained over the phone. “How about you visit us for once?” So that’s how I found myself outside a field of weeds at eight in the evening with my stomach rumbling like a dinosaur.
It wasn’t that I had a taste for weeds. Half a decade ago, there had been a fast food joint here. Buck’s Burgers, I still had a few memories of the place: Meeting up with my study group every Thursday, ordering a bowl of fries as we procrastinated over our assignments. Watching the sporty guys scoff down burgers after a gym session, maybe even talking to them- though they rarely said anything back. I even remember this one girl who came to eat at Buck’s every single day. We called her Fat Nancy, and she was voted least likely to succeed in our senior yearbook.
Staring at the field of weeds, I wonder what happened to Buck and his burger joint. I wonder whether the sporty guys ever became body-builders or professional footballers. I wonder whether Fat Nancy ever did anything with her life.
Behind me, I hear a car pull onto the curb. A middle-aged woman glares at me for a second, then rolls down her window.
“Are you alright, honey?”
“Fine, thanks,” I smile. I suppose I must look pretty weird, standing by an empty lot in the dark of night. I wave a hand towards the weeds and add, “They used to sell burgers here.”
“That place went bankrupt years ago. There’s another food joint though, I could give you directions?” After driving for over three hours without a bite to eat, I’m more than willing to accept help from a stranger. So I let her draw me a map.
Five minutes later, I’m greeted with a stark contrast to the ruins of Buck’s Burgers. Following the scribbles on the lady’s napkin map, I had expected to arrive at the newsagents. But it seems that a lot more has changed in five years than I’d originally thought.
The building is lit up like a Christmas tree, with a big neon sign over the door flashing Beastly Burgers. Through the wide windows I see a packed house; tables full of families, couples and friends, all stuffing their faces with burgers big enough for Henry VIII.
Pop music enters my ears as I exit the car and dodge happy customers with takeaway bags. When I pass through the doors, my stomach growls like thunder. The whole place smells of deep-fried batter and fatty mayonnaise.
Now I know why Buck’s Burgers went out of business.
“How may I help you?” The cashier grins. I haven’t even had a chance to read the menu before there are two families lined up behind me.
“Chef’s special…” I hand her a fifty. “Whatever that is.”
“Coming right up.” The girl gives me my change and a table number, then calls out next! What she doesn’t realise is that there’s no table for me to actually place my number on. I can’t believe my little hometown, the one I was so eager to escape from, has become such a busy place.
I experience both relief and disbelief when someone calls my name. It’s my high school crush: the footballer who gave me my first kiss, and who was voted most likely to succeed. He’s grown a beard and lost some muscle definition, but with that quarter-pounder in his hands, it’s definitely him. He pulls out a chair for me, which I accept since it’s the only free seat around.
“I never thought you’d come back here!”
“Neither did I.” He seems to want more of an explanation, so I add, “I’m visiting my parents.”
“Oh, yeah.” He takes a bite of his burger, sauce dripping unflatteringly from his chin. Between chews he winks and says, “I know all about parents.”
“You know my parents?”
“No. I mean, I still live with mine. Can’t get rid of them.”
It takes all my willpower not to laugh. Here is the senior class’ most likely to succeed, stuck into a quarter-pounder with sauce on his beard, and still living at home. It’s not that I expected him to be a world-famous footballer in five years, but he was meant to have become something. Apparently year books are extremely unreliable predictors of the future.
What happens next confirms this tenfold and blows my mind.
“You ordered the chef’s special.” The voice is female, coming from behind me. “So I thought I’d deliver it myself.”
I swing around and there is Fat Nancy holding my meal. Except she’s notthe same chubby, shy girl who was voted least likely to succeed. She wears her white costume with her shoulders back, hair brushed and cheeks glowing. She’s so confident, so happy having built a business that is clearly the most popular in town. Perhaps beyond the town.
What really puts me in my place is that she doesn’t even recognize me. She puts my burger on the table -a masterpiece of chicken, lettuce and mayonnaise that makes my senses swoon- says to tell her if there are any problems, and then struts back to her kitchen.
My dinner companion laughs at my shocked expression. “Bet you didn’t expect that from the least likely to succeed, eh?” I blush, sorry that I ever thought anything bad of Fat Nancy.
No. Her name is Nancy.
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125,037 Literary Works • 672,924 Reviews
Hey Dracula, it's outvaders here. It's a pretty nice Review Day today. Oh wait. I'm really late to the party.
I know this work has long been out of the Green Room already, but I've been meaning to review this for some time. As I travelled, I did get to save this short to my phone, but what I did not get was a chance to review this. I'm know I'm late in the game, but I'm pushing through with the review anyway. Let's get right into the news.
At first, I thought this was lacking, but I was able to appreciate it after the second reading. Suffice it to say, this is pretty good. It honestly did not evoke much emotion in me, but I think you got your message across clearly and nicely. I'll hold on the cons first, so I'll list first the things I appreciate about this story.
-The first thing I noticed and liked about this story is the depth of the main character. She's unnamed, but there is a lot to her. In three paragraphs, you detail her history in the town, what she did after she left the town, her relationship with her parents, her youthful memories in Buck's Burgers, and briefly, her relationship with Nancy. I know it doesn't sound much, when you run through the story, you'll see that there are many aspects to her. It also goes into detail too, like the fact that she paid five bucks for her first kiss, which stands out to me a lot. This is why I was able to register her as an actual, living human being.
-Your settings here are pretty detailed, and it works very well to your advantage, They're not detailed in the sense that they're long and baroque, but they do well to help me form a clear image of the world on my own, places and mood and all. Take the paragraph where you introduce the Beastly Burgers for example. It focuses only on key aspects of the setting, like its bright lighting and the happy customers it produces. It describes only these parts of these settings to direct the imagination of the readers, and then their brains fill in the rest. With that, we understand: this restaurant is a very popular and upbeat burger place.
-The thing I appreciate the most in this story is how you utilize the football guy to grind into the reader's mind how successful Nancy is. He, along with the past Nancy, is like a basis for comparison. Juxtapose this sorry guy to this beaming, confident-looking chef, and the latter would automatically seem more superior in comparison. However, if you throw in the fact that this guy was a pretty hot footballer who was once thought to be the most successful, and that Nancy was once a fat loser, then it would seem as if Nancy got really far from where she previously was. If not for that football guy acting like a baseline for success, then Nancy's success might mean less than it should.
Though this short is pretty good, it is not without a few flaws.
It bugs me that it is not clear whether Nancy is the proprietor of the burger place, or if she is just an employee of that restaurant. Although the main character said that Nancy owned this business, the story is heavily introspected and it could just be her misconception. There is no solid evidence to back it up either. If it turns out that she is just an employee there, then she isn't successful then. The reason why I feel like that is because in my eyes, being just an employee isn't successful, or at least isn't the most successful you can be. I guess we can consider her happy customers and mouth-watering culinary expertise as success, but the owner of that business would even be more successful. The owner has a higher income, control over the restaurant's Benjamins, the say in major business decisions, and most of all, the power to fire employees. Nancy would completely at the mercy of the boss if she was just an employee.
It can be argued that I gauge success in a worldly way and that she is successful because she got to live out her dream (or something like that). Yeah, I'm pretty cynical like that, and yeah, that is possible. However, it's also possible that it could be the other way around. There's no concrete evidence on that being Nancy's dream job, and who's to say that her beaming impression on the main character was just a facade? I know I sound crazy but I want to be a hundred percent clear about things. I just want my doubts to be put to rest.
You might not agree with my view on things, but I had to share this since it bugged my reading experience.
-The very last line of this story comes off as weird and out of character. The way the last line is phrased sounds like she just got humbled really hard, but it doesn't connect quite well. In the beginning, the character seems like she wasn't close with Nancy, in the sense that she didn't interact much with her other than the "Fat Nancy" thing. Her immediately strong reaction also would make more sense if she was impoverished or riddled with problems, but her life seems pretty okay. She's got a lover and a job. She doesn't seem to be in a low point in her life either, judging from her tone in the story. In that case, I'd expect her reaction at most to be like "oh yeah, she's successful, that's good on her." It just doesn't fit right.
-One last thing before I go. In the second sentence of the second to the last paragraph, you tried to do something -something like this- that you've probably seen in a novel or something. Unfortunately, that ain't the way to do it. You don't use an hyphen (-) or an en-dash (–) to do that. Instead, you use an em-dash — this thing that I just used. You can look it up here if you want to learn more: http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/em-dash.html
Anyways, that's the end of the review. Despite these flaws I pointed out, it still stands solid for me, so I'm still gonna give it my like. I'll sign out now, since it's late and I got to go do some other fancy stuff. Have a good day.
-outvaders
Thank you for such a detailed review! Nancy does own the burger place. I originally thought of calling it 'Nancy's Burger Palace' or something with her name in it, but then that would take away the surprise of seeing her there later on. I'll try and figure something out.
I loved the humor in this story. The way that your narrator talks is very fun to read! I also like that it feels real, like your old friend is telling you about her trip to see her parents. I do have to wonder a little about the person telling the story, though. I'd like to have gotten to know her better. Anyway, I enjoyed this story a lot and the way you told it was clever. Have a nice day!
Thank you
This wasn't actually what I expected when it started reading. I thought there was going to be a story between the speaker and her family, but I like what it turned to be instead. Although the story wasn't an emotional and didn't have a very deep meaning, it still strikes a cord with people. Since this is meant to be rather short, I don't have comments on adding things or length, but I have a suggestion for here:
"It wasn’t that I had a taste for weeds." Starts off your next paragraph, but it seems misplaced since it doesn't continue with the thought and subject of the next paragraph so I'd put it together with "So that’s how I found myself outside a field of weeds at eight in the evening with my stomach rumbling like a dinosaur."
You could word it like this maybe: So that’s how I found myself outside a field of weeds at eight in the evening with my stomach rumbling like a dinosaur--but it wasn’t that I had a taste for weeds.
Ya know something like that.
Ewwww... lol! You definitely got your point across.
I loved this ending. It really summed up the piece, and even though it left me wanting to read a bit more about what happened to the people once they grew up fully, it was satisfying.
The message is great. We shouldn't make fun of people or judge them when we ourselves have our own faults--sometimes even worse than the people we make fun of.
Great message. Great short. Great start of the day.
~Ruby <3
Thanks!
Dracula
Hi I am Ishan212 and I'm here to review your short story.
Your story was based in a background, which is rather unfamilier to me. I'll talk about it later.
But first, I need to tell you , your story called 'Fried Expectations' attracted my attention due to its promo, not it's title.
Writing about a lady who visits her hometown after years is not what we get to read everyday.
The protagonist of your story, returns to her hometown after a lot of years, discovering the place has changed a loty, reaches a burger joint,with the help of a napkin map,then meets her old buddies and siscovers something what she did not expect.
One thing I want to ask
Does anyone use napkin maps in the twenty first century. GPS, Google Maps etc. are these all unusable??
Another thing that striked me was your footballer's lines which said he wants to get rid of his parents. Is it normal for people to talk like that? I mean, we in India can never even think of such disastrous ideas.!!
And please tell me what an yearbook is ???
And why do these people talk about voting? What type of voting is it?
Your story tells us that life can notvbe predicted.
Fat Nancy becomes the owner of the best resturant of the place and an emerging football star does not do anything in life.
Well, a fabulous piece of short story.
Thanks
Keep Writing!!!!
Ishan212
Thanks for the review! A yearbook is a thing some schools at the end of the year. It has all the students' pictures in it and memories from the year. Though schools don't really do it anymore, some used to let students vote on who was 'prettiest' 'smartest' 'most likely to become president' etc etc.