BEFORE THE BEGINNING — three sentences (or more) about something that happened before the plot of my current project
“Really, my dear”, he said, leaning back in his chair with a indulgent smile a father might give a four year old begging for a trip to the sweet shop,“You do know that London has even less interest in domestic columns such as yours, and most papers already have the position filled.”
“Really, Mr. Edwards”, she enunciated pointedly, “That sounds ideal, since I have even less interest in writing about stain removal and child rearing than I did two years ago.”
His treacley smile dropped as his eyes rested on the suitcase next to her chair. “I believe it is customary to give some notice before leaving employment, Miss Frazil.”
“I believe it is customary to pay one’s journalists within a reasonable time frame, Sir.” She was pushing him. She always did this. It wasn’t a safe choice. She couldn’t help it.
He tilted his head in mock sympathy, rising from his chair, coming round the desk and perching himself on the edge of it in a way that she might read as casual if he hadn’t adopted the same posture more times that she could count on her own desk, or corner table, rather, that was easily blocked, if one wanted to sit much too close, to brace one’s leg against hers in a way than no one else in the newsroom could see, to pat her shoulder in what would look like a fatherly way and drop one’s voice so that whispered words of obscenity might look like good humored advice to anyone that might glance their way.
“To pay journalists? Yes. To pay part time columnists? Well, hard times, and needs must, you know?”
She stood abruptly nearly knocking the chair over and bent to pick up the suitcase that, she realized, he’d picked up a second before her. His other hand was at her shoulder, “Of course I know it must be hard, with your father in the state that he’s in, to leave. Used to be quite brilliant, one of Oxford’s finest. Shame, what age can do to a mind like that. And to lose his only daughter so soon after battle fatigue took his son.” She held herself rigidly. She would be damned if she would allow him to feel her shaking beneath his hand.
He raised a hand to caress her cheek and she flinched away from him just as he crooned, “Oxford is home, Dorothea. You’ll come back.”
She pried the suitcase from his hand and as she left his office whispered, “Not while you live.”
