Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and mature content.
Chapter 19: Somewhere
Jess shifted in the chair and pushed hair out of her face. She had learned to take care of her hair on her own in the time since she had complained about her mom's inadequate hairdressing skills to Davey's robot.
She had recently turned 17, though you wouldn't know it unless you asked.
She was working at the café that Garrett had met Charlie at, though that coincidence was unknown to both Garrett and herself. The pay wasn't awful. It would be revelatory anywhere other than San Francisco, but she loved her city. The coworkers were nice enough. She could hardly complain.
A customer was trying to get her attention.
"Excuse me, this latte was supposed to be cold!" he said, not looking as though he truly cared about being excused.
"Our lattes come hot unless you specify otherwise, because we brew the—" Jess started to say, knowing she had warned the man that it would be hot when he was first ordering.
"I don't give two rats' asses what you brew!" the man barked. "I need this cold!"
"I can remake it for you, but in the future—"
"I don't have time for you to remake it," he said in a low muttered tone, turning towards the door. "I need to go. You stupid fucking—"
Then the man muttered a word Jess was not expecting. A hateful word, with the R sound fully present at the end as surely as there was an N at the top.
Jess didn't have to do anything, even if she wanted to. Identity biofilters installed in the cafe had already added his facial recognition profile to a third-party ban list management service within 5 seconds of the slur. Sonic cannons began to whine as they powered up, warning him to leave, but he was already hightailing it out the door.
The manager of the café came over to her.
"Jesus, Jess, I'm so sorry," he said. "Some people... they just..."
"It's fine," Jess said. She was thinking about something Garrett had told her years ago.
Someone had said something bigoted to her the first month she went back to school, and Garrett had been around to offer thoughts in his own way.
Her mother and father had been going to a movie together when Garrett had been over one day and first heard about the incident.
"People in San Francisco just suck sometimes, I'm sorry," he had said as if he was expecting resistance, but Jess was wholly agreeing with him.
"Is it better other places?" Jess had asked.
"Absolutely," Garrett said. "This place prides itself on liberal talking points but nobody actually cares about the people. My hometown Cleveland? SF would pale in comparison to the openmindedness you find there."
"Cleveland?" Jess asked sincerely. "I thought that was a kind of rough city."
"Absolutely, and that's part of my point," Garrett said, on a roll now. "In an underdog city like Cleveland you're just not going to see as much bigotry. Everyone is too busy looking after themselves to worry about hating on someone else for no reason. Besides that, everyone is in it together! It's a much different vibe."
"Wow," Jess said then, truly not expecting this. "So you saw less bigotry in Cleveland than in SF?"
"Well, I'm just a typical white guy," Garrett said. "But my friend Valerie back in Cleveland had a ton of marginalized friends, probably still does, and any of them that had been to a coastal city agreed."
"You're not typical," Jess had said, knowing Garrett knew it.
"Jess?" the manager said, breaking Jess from her reverie for a moment as she was wishing she lived somewhere like that. "You can go home early today if you want. That was awful."
"I wish I had had the chance to confront him instead of the sonic cannons ushering him out right away," Jess said. "But I'm good to keep working, thanks."
"I don't think he was sticking around, sonic cannons or not. Are you sure?"
"Yeah," she said. She wanted to be resilient more than anything else, but she also had to admit that close to half the reason she was going to work the remainder of her shift was because she needed the money.
"Well, okay," the manager said, and returned to the back. Jess returned to her memories.
Garrett had always been there for her. His babysitting sessions were moments of tranquility. He always knew what to say.
Once when she was 15, when school was no longer something she was dipping her toe back into, she was groped at the bleachers by a boy whose face she didn't see.
She couldn't wait for the next sitting with Garrett, and told him all about it tearfully when he arrived.
"Whoever this fucko is, he doesn't control a single thing about you," Garrett had said. "That's not to say you can't be hurt by this, but it's not because he has power over you. It's just because he did something messed up."
"I know," Jess said, but it was still nice to hear, and Garrett knew that, which was why he continued.
"Nothing about you has changed fundamentally because of this," he said. "You are still who you were. Just with a superficial added trauma."
Before Garrett probably would've hesitated to use a word like "superficial" here, but he was acquainted with Jess enough at that point to know that she would find reassurance in the dismissive tone rather than offense.
It was two pm now, so it was the end of her shift. She hung her apron up and grabbed her backpack, saying a couple words to the manager as she left.
Outside, on the pavement, there was a frog. Not a particularly beautiful frog, but a cute one. She looked at it askance at first as if even the wildlife was against her, but then with an entirely neutral look. She stared at it for a long moment until it twitched and started hopping away.
Then she walked to the train.
Next chapter: https://www.youngwriterssociety.com/work/Aet%20Lindling/Syboleth-ch-20-A-Different-Preset-161630
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138,283 Literary Works • 672,096 Reviews
Hey, hello!
The first sentence is fine, but the second is carrying a lot of context and feels a little awkwardly inserted. I am being told about her mother, her hair, Davey and Davey’s robot all at once, before I know what Jess is currently doing or why I should focus on her hair. I’m assuming all of this connects to an earlier chapter, but even then I think it could be made smoother.
Something like Since complaining to Davey’s robot about her mother’s hairdressing, Jess had learned to manage it herself would be cleaner, though I’m not sure this detail is strong enough to open the scene unless her independence is going to be important here.
I’m not sure what this means. Does she look younger than seventeen, act older or simply not mention her birthday? It feels as though there’s an interesting observation underneath the sentence, but I need the second half of it. You could describe what age strangers normally assume she is or what has changed so little since her birthday, since I am not sure what this is supposed to represent.
This is quite an authorial sentence because it gives readers information Jess doesn’t know and which doesn’t appear to affect the scene. If the coincidence becomes important later then it may be worth keeping, but I’d reveal it when one of the characters discovers it. At the moment it interrupts Jess’s point of view to remind us of Garrett and Charlie. I remember Garrett, though!
This is a strange basis for his confidence because he’s speaking on behalf of Valerie’s friends and doesn’t seem to know whether she still talks to them. "A ton of marginalised friends" also makes them sound like a collection being used to prove that Valerie is open-minded.
This is awkwardly structured because the sentence begins with two separate time explanations before reaching the important event. I’d also like a slightly clearer sense of what "dipping her toe back into" means. Was she returning after a long absence, attending part-time or recovering from something? That's unclear to me.
The assault itself is introduced very abruptly. That may reflect how sudden it was for Jess, but because it becomes another example in a sequence of traumatic experiences, there’s a sense of it being included mainly to demonstrate Garrett’s wisdom rather than as something that affected her in its own right.
***
Another interesting chapter with a lot to think about!
Though, the chapter contains two separate memories of bigotry and sexual assault, but both are primarily used to establish Garrett as someone who comforts Jess. That leaves Jess feeling passive in her own chapter. She experiences something upsetting, remembers Garrett’s interpretation of a previous upsetting event and then remembers another piece of advice he gave her. I’d like to see more of what Jess herself believes now. Has she outgrown any of Garrett’s advice? Would she still agree with everything he said?
I’m not completely convinced by Garrett’s dialogue, as well. The narration tells me that he always knows what to say, but his claims about Cleveland and marginalised people are broad and based largely on second-hand anecdotes, while "superficial added trauma" could sound very dismissive. This could be compelling if Garrett is meant to be well-intentioned but imperfect, which does fit how he's acted in other chapters. If he’s meant to come across as consistently insightful, I think his wording needs more care behind it.
At the moment, the chapter is mostly reflection rather than anything with action. Jess works, encounters a bigot, remembers Garrett twice and then walks to the train. What else happens? I feel like not much has moved forward here.
One day I swear I'll read this from the start! Until then, cheers!
Lipton
I take it, you would have wanted me to continue reading xd
I feel like the first sentence works well but that the second sentence could use a trim and maybe something else but a repetition of the word “hair” ^^
Oh my there are canons installed in cafés? @.@
(Also I do not understand ppl who are mean to servers)
I kinda wish you would have spent more time establishing a relationship between Jess and Garrett. Even him being her babysitter only came as a throw-away sentence. Jess was surprised when she saw him in her room that one time 3 yrs ago and it didn’t sound like they were all that close then.
Now, her recalling something that Garrett told her feels kinda unearned bc it feels like they met that one time and she made it her whole personality which is probably not what you’re going for.
Isn’t Cleveland in Ohio? All I know abt that state is that it is apparently “the worst state” (according to other Americans. Some of whom actually live in Ohio XD)
Ah, Jess is speaking my language xd
That said, even if you are playing catchup, I like how you handle the two flashbacks.
Also Jess had a staredown with a frog and won :3
This one feels a lot more complete than the last chapter, so good job on that!
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Thank you so much! You have me nailed, this would have been my next request.
I probably do need to establish the friendship between Garrett and Jess better in some way. I agree with pretty much all your critiques this time.
Something cultural you're missing here is that Cleveland is considered by many one of the worst cities to live in the US and San Francisco is considered one of the most upscale, fancy and "progressive" cities to live in.
Yess she won :3