How I Got the Girl

How I Got the Girl
© Edmund Gee
March 2012

I walked into the Creative Writing class, only hoping to learn some magic tricks about writing. My boss insisted I attend. Even my mother said I talked better than I could write.

Hazel, some secretary on the second floor, walked up to me, chomping on a liverwurst sandwich one day proclaiming something about commas. As she chewed, bits of sandwich blew out of her mouth, like dandelion seeds. “Edmund, you need to learn to separate series items with commas …” She snapped the newsletter with her free hand, turned, and walked away, tossing the newsletter into a waste can.

“…I, I what have to put commas where?” I stammered as a warm sweat beaded on my forehead.

Ok, the business I worked for was paying for the class.

So this is the story of how I got the girl. It was a dark and stormy Friday afternoon…

“Edmund, you’ve got some good ideas about running this business and offering up solutions as to how to fix some of the problems facing us.” My boss, Jimmy, said as I looked through the window watching the storm clouds gathering, the ropes on the flagpole banging wildly.

I looked up at him from where I was sitting at the computer. “Thanks, Sir.”

That’s when he told me that I would start managing and writing for the company’s newsletter, ‘The Forwarding Times.’
After several hectic editions of the newsletter, gathering input from other employees, usually receiving their newsletter input in the form of scrawled, hard to read hand-written notes.  My own articles were, according to my boss, my fellow employees, and my mother were flat sounding, dryly technical, and without commas in the right places.

It was a sunny day. I swiveled my chair, and propped my feet upon the window sill, enjoying the refreshing springtime. Discouraged, tapping my fingers on the desk, and clasping my hands over my head I thought for a moment. And then I said grumbling aloud to no one in particular, “They want a technical guy to write pretty-sounding articles… can’t be done…”

But Jimmy heard.

“I heard that mumbling.” He said. “And, yes it can be done!”

Quickly I swiveled myself to face the computer. I looked up at him, my forehead wrinkled and my mind full of words that confused my day. “I don’t think I can write. Got ideas. But the words; the writing. Ruins my day trying to put my thoughts and other people’s articles into good, clear reading.”

“We can send you to school; during the day; on company time; we’ll pay for your tuition.”

There wasn’t much to think about. It was either a yes or no answer. Simple. I swiveled the chair towards Jimmy and said, “Ok. Yeah.”

Two weeks later I drove up to the Westcott Technical School, found a parking space and boldly walked towards room 117, the daunting start of my literary career.

There were among my classmates an even split between males and females, some very young and some very old. I fell into the middle group, the group who had been to college but needed a complimentary boost to their degrees. Mine of course, would be technical writing. Oh! What I didn’t know!

Every three months I would attend a new class following a previous class, a previous class all filled with learning English and how to use it many ways.

There was English 1 followed by Writing Fundamentals 2, a class specializing in reading various forms of technically-written subjects, and then there was the Document Writing class.

But then the class that seemed to build upon everything I had learned. It was the Creative Writing class. I didn’t think in terms of being a creative writer. But at least by the time I took this class I was writing great sentences.

The class instruction form I held said that a Jennifer Smart was the instructor, a Master’s Degree in English, qualified and quantified. She would be the teacher, the Overlord.

As Jennifer Smart walked into the class, I was talking to another student, named Guy. Suddenly the room was quiet and all of us looked to the front of the room. I don’t know if anyone else was this… but I was awestruck. She was the most beautiful teacher I had ever laid my eyes upon. She had my attention.

Without much ado she took roll call and wrote this on the white board:

Describe my coffee cup sitting at the edge of my desk – without using the term coffee cup/mug.

Her voice cooed from her lips, the sounds of a dove, the harmony of a violin, the cheeriness of a bed of fresh spring flowers. She said, “You have five minutes to describe the coffee cup.” And then she pointed toward the cup in question.
How could she, I thought, as I picked up my pen and tried to think of how a coffee cup looks. Continuing in my swirling thought was, I would rather describe her.

Smiling, Jennifer Smart walked over to her cup and took a drink of whatever was steaming inside, coffee or tea, I had supposed.

So I applied pen to paper and wrote:

“There is steam rising from hot coffee or tea. The object is cylindrical and hollow with a bottom yet no top.  It is a container of liquids. Although many office workers use these objects to hold items such as pencils and pens! Its coloring is girly. The background is a light pink with a pattern of yellow flowers.”

And then my mind could not think of anything else to describe the coffee cup.

And that’s when Jennifer Smart picked up the cup and tipped it to her lips.

And with fresh inspiration I continued to write:

“This beautiful container of liquids, or pencils and pens, is held by a feminine hand, delicately gripping the handle. The handle is a rounded appendage attached to the side, on the outside of the container. The hand is graceful and its fingernails are applied with a pink-red nail polish. The hand is wonderfully attached to a graceful arm.

The lips of the face that sipped the liquid from the container are full of life, a cupid’s bow well defined. And like switching on a powerful light, the lips form a smile that brightens the face with as much energy as the sun itself. The lips that sip from the container are tinted a happy, rosy color.

The eyes of the face are brown and deep. They are alive and sparkling. Mysterious, the eyes have a certain anticipation of elusiveness. 

The nose of the face is soft and slightly turned up, but not snobbishly so.

And then the hair of the face; it falls with a shiny brunette-ness framing the face. It cascades like a water fall splashing and curling.  It dances with effervescent lightness.”

The following day when everyone returned to Jennifer Smart’s Creative Writing class we were entertained, hearing her read some of the articles. She prefaced the readings with, “I’m not going to read all of the descriptive imagery writings, but the ones I do read will be kept anonymous.”

Some of the descriptions were hilarious while some sounded like they were writing about alien space ships. Mine, of course, was vastly different from all of the others. But, I was correct. She did hold the cup and drink, making her a legitimate part of the cup!

As Jennifer Smart dismissed the class, she looked me straight in the eye and said, “Please sit down with me for a few minutes.”

And I thought, huh oh, I’m going to get a tongue lashing, or something, looking side to side for lurking, muscular boyfriend.

As she shuffled through the papers, I think she was trying to think of something to say. “Ahh. Here’s your paper.” She said, her perky brown eyes boring holes through my head.

She pushed it in front of me and then looked again at me. “You’re bold.” She declared. “Not one of the other students realized I was part of the assignment. You’re good, Edmund. Good with detail. Are these descriptions from a technical point of view or are they from your heart?”

“Descriptions of the cup, err, I mean container? Or you?”

“Me.”

“From my heart. “ I replied.

“I’ve only been teaching here for five years and you seem to be one of the brightest students ever.” Jennifer said, her eyes twinkling, her smile producing a blushing glow over her whole face. Her heart and soul seemed as if she was like a search light, searching, searching for, searching for a place to limelight.

I reached over her desk and brought her coffee cup between us. I looked inside of the cup and declared, “Your cup is empty. Would you care to accompany me to Busters Coffee Shop, just down the street, and share a full cup of coffee with me?”