"We're looking for somebody," Tommy said.
Estrella slid his gaze over to Will. "Means you're looking for somebody, right?"
Will nodded. "Girl named Mary Donegan."
"Mary, yeah." Estrella sparked his lighter and drew on the cigarette. "Kid. Been here coupla months. Got that innocent sheen, at least for a little while yet. Tough."
"Tough [She been here long?]?"
"[Longer than she wanted to.] Figured she'd make enough, get outta the hole. They all think that, they first come here. Holes're deep though." He swirled his glass and watched the ice spin. "Not working tonight."
"Have you got a number, some way I can reach her?" Will asked.
"Supposed to be here tomorrow, you fellas come back. I'll let her know she's got some admirers."
"I'm not an admirer. I'm a friend of her mother's."
"Whoa now. Sounds like you might wanna take one a my girls away."
"Just want to talk with her."
Estrella shook his head. "Mothers don't generally approve, daughters taking their clothes off for money. So I gotta assume, you looking out for this girl on Mom's behalf, you're gonna talk her out of it. You might be a friend of Tommy's and all, but I got a business to worry about."
"I'm trying to find out if she's okay."
Estrella blew smoke toward the ceiling. The purple neon turned the cloud opaque.
"Is she?" Will asked.
"Is she what?"
"Okay."
"Depends on your definition. She's stripping for money. Some of these girls, all they want's enough they can buy implants. The real goal-oriented ones got their eye on Vegas, work the Spearmint, maybe get into porn. Some of them do it for baby formula. Some for tuition. This girl Mary, I don't know. Didn't ask, don't care." Estrella tipped the cigarette into his drink, letting the ash hiss in the melted remains. "We done here?"
--Benwah
I like the scene, but the information about strippers wasn't requested or wanted. The question supposedly being answered in the last paragraph is Is she okay? Most of the response is to the unasked Why do girls work here? The earlier question, Tough? meaning In what way is she tough? was answered by saying she figured she'd make enough and get out. But they all figure that, so how does it make Mary any tougher than anyone else? If the guy is going to feed us information about strippers, it'll feel more natural if he's asked about them. Since Will isn't interested in strippers in general, it's going to sound like an info dump unless you come up with a character who is interested, or Will doesn't let on what he's there for and pretends to be someone who's interested.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Estrella has an awkward speech pattern. He seems to say too much at the same times as not enough.
I really like the scene, but I was having a little trouble with the speech pattern too. Just a few too many dropped words and blunt beginnings of sentances. I think if you did a little less of that, and saved it for carefully chosen moments, it would be more effective, and the reader would still hear Estrella's speech pattern the way I think you want it to come across.
Maybe it's just me but "Estrella" sounds like a girl's name and I couldn't get into the scene because I had to keep reminding myself it's a guy. But like I said, probably it's just me.
I loved the tone of this, but I think EE's suggestions are helpful.
I like the tension in the scene, but I think the dialog veers from the point you want to make at the beginning. The "Tough" bit threw me off, but it might just be due to being out of context. I also agree the info dump needs to be removed, but this reads really well other than that.
I also wanted to add that Estrella bugged me, too. I figure it must be a last name, though.
Yeah, Estrella strikes me as a girl's name and that did throw me off a bit. The first line where his eyes slid to Will and he repeated about looking for somebody didn't work for me. Maybe if you italicize the 'you're' it would help. If that were emphasized, I would understand the sentence better. But I also might get it in context that he's turning the sentence around on Will.
Nice exchange, especially with EE's tightening.
Post a Comment