When Dorothy walked into the grocery store, she knew it was going to be a long day. She was just lucky that today wasn’t an opening shift. The store opened at 7am in order to accommodate the widest range of work and life schedules. And yet, much didn’t really happen until around ten in the morning and only a few employees were needed to operate the store so early in the morning.
She also felt lucky that the store was relatively small and independent. It had a homier and more personal feel, which is more that she felt she could say if she happened to work at the Peachtree Street A&P.
In the break room, Lisa was drinking a cup of coffee and looking over a few papers. She saw Dorothy and smiled. She’d been a veteran employee since Dorothy was hired, and since then, they’d had a cordial relationship. She was thirty-one, too old to really be her sister and yet too young to be her mother. Dorothy got the sense that in spite of the face Lisa put on, she wasn’t happy with her lot in life. For a while she’d been engaged to a man and that had flamed out for reasons that were still unclear. She was the one that had told Dorothy about James Keene’s competition in the first place. She’d wanted to enter, but it was only open to college students.
“Good morning, Lisa,” said Dorothy.
“Morning,” Lisa replied. She smiled, but it felt forced, plastic. She handed Dorothy a cash box, piece of paper and clipboard.“Dorothy, why don’t you open Register 5? You’ll be there this morning.”
“Okay,” she said, punching in. Doing as she was told. Another day of doing what she was told, in an endless cycle of days where her most important task was to make sure prices were calculated correctly and customers were given exact change.
Dorothy’s mother would always tell her that she was only nineteen, that she still had her whole life ahead of her to figure out what she wanted to do. She was young. She wasn’t supposed to have it figured out. Her literature classes were interesting, but she was resentful of her high school classmates who got to go to colleges all over the country. In some places, the world. Who could live on campus and make college rather than a monotonous job at a grocery store the focus of their life.
It wasn’t as if Dorothy didn’t have interests. She certainly did. She liked travel, or at the very least, reading about travel. She liked books. She liked history. The problem was that no one cared. Not Lisa, not her coworkers, not the customers. The only thing that mattered was that she always had a smile on her face and always knew exactly what to say. If she quit, they would replace her the next day and probably never think about her again, nothing beyond the vague context of I used to work with Dorothy Gardiner.
The first few hours, as morning shifts usually did, passed by at a snail’s pace. Nothing Dorothy did was out of the ordinary. Stock some groceries. Ring up a few customers. Turn the channel a few times on the radio.
By 11:52, she was starting to get hungry. She was due for lunch at 12:00, and starting to think about her peanut butter and jelly and potato chips in her bag wasn’t exactly appetizing, but it would keep her from starving.
At 11:55, an officially-dressed three person camera crew walked through the door. Lisa was near the entrance, working on a floral display and greeted them.
“Can I help you?” She asked in that fake nice voice that Dorothy hated whenever anyone used.
“We’re looking for Ms. Dorothy Gardiner.”
“Dorothy? Um, might I ask why?”
Before the camera crew could respond, Dorothy caught their attention and waved. “I’m Dorothy Gardiner.”
They approached her as Lisa watched, and customers started to stare. A reporter in an aquamarine suit with crimped hair handed Dorothy a clipboard. Just before they started to explain, Lisa interjected. “What is this regarding?”
“Ms. Gardiner has won Mr. Keene’s international search to stay at his family’s estate in Scotland, of course.”
Dorothy blinked. Did the reporter really just say what Dorothy had thought she said?
End of chapter
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140,804 Literary Works • 673,688 Reviews
Hi Ellinor,
1. What did i like the most in the story Elinor is that When Dorothy walked into the grocery store, she knew it was going to be a long day. She was just lucky that today wasn’t an opening shift. The store opened at 7am in order to accommodate the widest range of work and life schedules. And yet, much didn’t really happen until around ten in the morning and only a few employees were needed to operate the store so early in the morning.
She also felt lucky that the store was relatively small and independent. It had a homier and more personal feel, which is more that she felt she could say if she happened to work at the Peachtree Street A&P.
In the break room, Lisa was drinking a cup of coffee and looking over a few papers. She saw Dorothy and smiled. She’d been a veteran employee since Dorothy was hired, and since then, they’d had a cordial relationship. She was thirty-one, too old to really be her sister and yet too young to be her mother. Dorothy got the sense that in spite of the face Lisa put on, she wasn’t happy with her lot in life. For a while she’d been engaged to a man and that had flamed out for reasons that were still unclear. She was the one that had told Dorothy about James Keene’s competition in the first place. She’d wanted to enter, but it was only open to college students. i was always thinking reading this whole entire chapter i thought Dorothy was still grocery shopping in the last chapter but when i was reading though it she was working there
2. What do i think that needs to be improved is that now i'm getting in to the chapter now Elinor it's no point of giving up because now i'm getting into the chapters even while i'm reading i hope what will i see next in this chapter
3. Write about what i think the story will continue is by we need one more character to Introduce for the new chapter of The Castle
Have fun writing!
Jay"
Hello, Stormblessed here!
I was looking around in the Green Room for something to review, and I saw the two most recent chapters of your story, so I though I'd drop in and leave a review. I read the last chapter, and I gotta say, I am very interested in what's going to happen at Mr. Keene's mansion.
Anyway, on to the review!
I think that Honora is right, in saying that some of the sentences and paragraphs are hard to read. A bit of work smoothing those out would be a huge help to this story.
Here's one of the paragraphs that especially stood out to me as needing some work.
What I've found through many years of reading, is that paragraphs like this are ok when you use them sparingly, to indicate a dramatic emotion or occurrence, but when they're used more repeatedly, it makes for choppy reading.
That's my main critique, so here's a few parts I especially liked.
I think everyone can relate to this, even if they don't work in a grocery store. Life can be very monotonous, especially during this pandemic!
Harking back to your first chapter, I really enjoyed the stories that Dorothy came up with for the other passengers on the bus. I sometimes do a similar thing, when I'm bored, so that part stood out to me!
Anyway, great job on this story! I'll head over to the next part to drop a review there as well!
Hope this helped!
Stormblessed242
Hello Elinor!!
I’m finding a few things to point out in this one unfortunately but all is well and meant with the best of intentions! It’s nothing a little bit or work can’t fix
The main thing is the flow of this piece. I found it choppy with way too many short sentences for it to run smoothly. Among others, the paragraph when it was made know what her interests were (traveling, reading, working) it was especially hard for me to read. Each sentence had a flow of either three words or three points. It made it repetitive and that’s something that’s hard to read.
Also one thing I’ve noticed in this chapter and the last two is that it has a very narrative feel to it. This makes it feel more distant rather then being with her in that very moment which could make it hard to really feel her problems on the future. Of course, this could just be your style of writing and if it’s not something you want to change then ignore this!
Anyways, enough of my nitpicks!
I really like how you’ve emphasized how ordinary she is and what a simple and plain life she leads. It gives it a very depressing feeling almost, as we can all relate to what she’s going through in one way or another. It makes me want to reach out to her and tell her she’s going to make it. It also makes me very excited to see how her life will be turned upside down or how she’s going to get out of this slump. Of course, she won! But now it makes me wonder what winning all entails...is it going to be a relaxing trip to an estate or will it twist into something as crazy as murder, drama, death!?
Anyways, I’m looking forward to figuring out what you have in store for us
Happy writing!
Honora