"Wow, Teddy, you're getting thin!" my grandmother exclaims as I walk to the door to greet her. She embraces me then holds me at arm's length to examine me carefully.
"Yeah, Nana, I've been going to these dance classes," I reply with a small smile as my uncle gives me an awkward hug. He doesn't usually show much affection towards me, but I guess since Nana's here, he didn't want to let her in on how distant the entire family is from each other.
I grab Nana by the arm and help her to the table where my aunt and I had just finished setting up for dinner. Our neighbor, Mari, is already sitting there, waiting patiently for her food.
"Shut up, you don't even do anything in the class. Don't lie to your grandmother. We all know it's the depression that's eating at you!" She laughs and winks at me as she says this. I know she's joking, but I can't help but be hurt by the reality of those words.
I push the bad feeling away and give her a nudge, " Well, maybe I'd do more if you taught some better dancing! But really, Nana," I turn my attention back to my grandma, "I've been a lot more active since I left Arizona." She seems convinced by my smile and sits comfortably next to Mari.
"So, who are you, young lady?" She directs the question to Mari, who smiles widely, glad that the attention is on her. She's not the only one. I'd much rather the conversation be about her than me. I knew Mari would tell Nana all about herself. Not only that she lives next door and is a dance instructor, but she'd probably slip half of her life story in there somehow. I wasn't going to sit through that conversation again.
I excuse myself politely before heading back to the kitchen where my aunt is sitting at the counter, staring intently at her phone. She doesn't bother to look up at me as I walk in, so I just take the pot of spaghetti back out to the dining room.
As I walk back into the room, I see that my uncle is now sitting at the end of the table. He looks up as I set the spaghetti down in front of him. I sit in front of Nana now and smile at her, aware that Mari's chatter has finally gotten on her nerves.
"Teddy, please let your grandmother know that she has no need to pay me anything at all for today." My uncle interrupts Mari mid-sentence with this comment. I look at him confused then back at Nana.
"Well, of course not," I say shaking my head at her. "I already told you I'd give you gas money," I add, turning back to reassure my uncle that I hadn't forgotten the promise I made. After all, it was my idea for my grandmother to come visit me for a while. She was my mother's mother, and no one else in the household was directly related to her except for myself.
"That's ridiculous!" Nana objects. I'm surprised to see the sincere anger burning in her eyes as she looks at my uncle. "Jerry, how can you expect her to give you money? She's 16 for God's sake!"
"This is none of your business, Evilyn. When Thomas and Teddilyn moved in, they agreed to providing money for any financial complication." I guess he was no longer trying to make this family seem 'normal'. I didn't think it'd last long. He usually doesn't care. It just wasn't his way of being. He and my father had been raised under strict conditions, and they carried that with them until this day. If only Uncle Jerry would have such a harsh attitude towards his own children. Which reminded me, I had no idea where the little brats were. I hadn't seen them all day.
"Where's Tiff and Mandy?" I asked, surprised at how easily that simple question could change the subject. I hadn't even realized how much tension there was in the room.
"They're with my sister." My aunt's voice chimes in from behind me. She saunters into the room, an obviously fake smile plastered across her face. This woman was something else. I could just picture the annoyed face she'd made when I had let her know Nana was coming. Now she put on a whole show about how excited she'd been that Nana would be staying with us. She gave her a big hug and kiss before sitting down. "Sorry I took so long, I was just cleaning up. Teddy just left me in there to do all the dirty work." She laughs and starts serving the spaghetti. Of course, her little comments never failed to annoy me. She always made herself seem so innocent, the victim in every situation. I wonder how she'd respond if I told everyone that she had been engulfed in the contents of her cellphone when I walked into the kitchen, that she had no intention of cleaning up because she knew that I'd do it later tonight.
The remaining minutes were spent in silence until my uncle slid his chair back, creating a painful sound as the legs of the chair scraped against the wooden floor. My aunt did the same, being the loyal wife she is, and followed my uncle into the kitchen.
Once they were gone, my grandmother and I exchange a silly look across the table. I laugh, glad that nothing's changed in the past year since I moved away. Mari quickly stands up, taking away the lovely feeling I felt as I looked into Nana's eyes.
"I forgot I have a class at 8!" She yells out, bringing her hand up to her forehead. "Thanks for dinner, hon. I'll see you in class tomorrow." She gives me a quick hug before running out the door. I was glad she was gone. Mari was a great person, the only person I really enjoyed being with around here, but at times I just couldn't handle her company. She talked so much, a little too much. Regardless, she was the only person that really made me feel 'okay' nowadays.
"So, I'm guessing you don't want to stay very long." I look up at Nana apologetically. It was selfish of me to ask Nana Evilyn to come for a visit. I just wanted to see her face. I needed to spend some time with her. I was in desperate need of her warm arms to be wrapped around me.
She smiles, the sweetest smile I have ever seen. "I'll stay as long as you need me to stay. Now, how about we clean up."
Hello.
I found this drab, without any reason to really hold me past a few paragraphs, and dialogue that was very unrealistic (especially the line about depression).
Beginnings need to have a hook of some sort. Something that grabs our attention and makes us wonder what's going to happen next. You don't have a lot of time to hook readers or editors; make sure you hint at the conflict immediately to grab our attention and not have us skim over everything. This article explains it more.
It doesn't help the few paragraphs I read were confusing. I had originally thought Teddy was going towards the door to her grandmother's place, and the neighbour in question was the grandmother's neighbour. Then you move on to say she's outside of her grandmother's state, which makes me think that this is Teddy's place. Please clarify this in your first few paragraphs so we can get an idea what is going on.
Finally, this line:
This is such a hurtful, shocking and rude line. For it to be casually thrown into a conversation as a joke turned me right off, and I have absolutely no sympathy for the character who said it.
Depression is normally something kept very private. Those who know about depressions tend not to spread it around unless they're worried about the person's life, and it's the person themselves letting others know they're depressed, if they say anything at all.
That line also rocketed the piece far into "unrealistic" territory, which I had to force myself to read past and I didn't get much farther. It's just so against the grain of what you do around a depressed person that I pity Teddy to no end, having a woman so rude as a neighbour and dance instructor.
If you want to include depression in your stories, please research the social ramifications of it outside of clinical definitions. Tumblr is a fairly great source for both personal accounts and depression information. If you asked on YWS, I'm sure you could get a lot of feedback.
Hope this helps. PM me if you have any questions.
~Rosey
Just an addition: tumblr has both great personal accounts and a lot of dumb information on depression. Cross check your sources, but don't discount the dumb posts, either. That also shows the social opinion on depression and is still valid research.
Hey, I quite liked this piece - enough to keep me reading to the end!
As a first chapter to a novel, it does keep you going, with the 'dysfuntional family' theme running through, and Teddy's alienation to those around him/her, as well as the 'depression' statement.
Overall, I can't really fault this piece; the gritty atmosphere and tension really reminded me of my own family problems which I can relate to with the protaganist. The only criticism I have is a few grammatical errors here and there, but that's nothing major, so it's all good.
Welcome to YWS and keep up the good work, I wanna read more from you
Thank you so much! This comment is enough to keep me motivated to continue writing. As for the grammatical errors, I apologize, but you'll have to look forward to a lot of those. xP I'm currently working on the second chapter and hope it holds your attention as well as this did. I'm glad you can relate to the protagonist. I tried to make her as real a character as possible.