Killing Curiosity

To my reader,

     Do you mind if I tell you a story?  You love stories?  Then let's get to it.

     He stood in the back corner of the cafe, his thumb hovering over the send button.
     "Just do it, man," he muttered. He pushed it and lifted the phone to his ear while the number dialed out.
     As the phone rang, he rehearsed in an absent-minded murmur. "Hey, Kati. This is Jim. Yeah, I know it's been a while. Well, I was wondering if you'd like to have lunch today, just the two of us. I was thinking maybe the cafe on Baker Street." He glanced up at the bustling costumers flowing in and out of the small business. He turned away from them again so the phone wouldn't pick up as much noise.
     Maybe there was a better way. Like taking it in smaller steps. What if she said no immediately? He'd have blown his shot.
     The ringer stopped and Kati said, "Hey!"
     He opened his mouth to return her upbeat greeting, but her sweet voice continued.
     "This is Kati. You know what to do!"
     Panic welled inside him. Why hadn't he thought of this? Was it right to ask her out over a message? A friend he hadn't even seen for nearly a year?
     The beep whined in his ear.
     "Uh, hey. Kati. I was just wondering-" what had he planned on again? "-how you've been lately." Jim stared at his sneakers. His dirty running shoes. On a date. Yes, great planning.
     A toilet flushed behind closed doors. What was he doing standing right outside the restrooms? He moved several feet away, then realized the message was still recording.
     "Yeah, uh, it's been awhile. Feel free to call back. Thanks. Bye." Jim hung up and stared at his phone. Suddenly he wished the floor would swallow him. He hadn't said his name.
     As he debated calling back to leave another message, the guy from the bathroom stepped out and passed by. "Jimmy!" he said and clapped him on the shoulder.
     Jim looked up, stuffing his phone in his pocket, and recognized Randy from his history class. "Hey, man." Jim sincerely hoped Randy had washed his hands. "How've things been?"
     Randy's touch fell from his shoulder. "I'm doing alright and so is the fam, except my mom was talking to my aunt yesterday, and apparently she's having a rough time."
     "Sorry to hear that."
     "Yeah, she's getting sick from stress, I think. There are these yappy dogs next door at their new place. They moved to get away from these other mean shepherds, well that, and to downsize."
     Jim nodded, wishing he wasn't trapped between two empty tables.
     "There's still a lot of unpacking they gotta get done, but my cousin's grandpa just got sick - not my grandpa, the one on her dad's side - and Kay's taking it hard. Her mom, I mean my aunt, is running back and forth between her grandpa's house and their new one."
     He felt for his phone in his pocket, wondering if Kati would call back and save him from the conversation, or if he'd rather put off talking to her until he had more courage.
     "Then the city was doing some work on the sewer system, and a line busted. Their backyard is a big puddle now, and they gotta deal with that too."
     "That stinks."
     "Yeah." Randy buried a hand in his pocket. "How you been doing?"
     "I'm fine."
     "That's good. Listen." Randy pulled out his phone and checked the time. "I gotta get going, but it was good talking to you." He gave Jim one last clap on the arm and left the cafe.
     Jim leaned against the wall between the two-person tables. Finally.
     His phone vibrated against his fingers. He pulled it out and answered without looking at the caller ID, or else he might lose the will if it was Kati. "Hello?"
     "Jimmy?"
     He pushed off from the wall and began to pace along the tables. "Kati, how are you?"
     She let out a rush of breath. "I'm so glad it's you. You have a minute?"
     "Sure. Is something wrong?" He braced himself with one arm against the back of a chair.
     "My mom's always running around even though she's completely stressed out. And she's always complaining about the barking or our stinking sewage-pit of a backyard. I'm so worried about her, and then there's Geegee."
     He kept pace with her outpour, but his mind was torn between listening and figuring out where he'd heard it all before. "Geegee?" was all he could think to ask.
     "My grandpa. He used to take me to the zoo a million times every summer because I loved it so much. I wanted to take him this year, but now," and she squeaked out, "now I don't know if I'll get the chance."
     Then it clicked.
     Kati was Randy's cousin?
     In the silence, a toilet flushed.
     "Jimmy? Where are you?" she asked. "I thought I heard a toilet again." She paused. "Jimmy?"
     "Yeah, I'm here. I mean, I'm at the corner cafe trying to get away from noise. Kind of failing, huh?"
     "Yeah." She half laughed, but it wasn't her beautiful fountain of pure joy. He missed the sound.
     Standing up straight, he took a deep breath and asked, "Do you wanna come over? Either to talk or just get away for an hour?" His heart pounded so hard, he thought he wouldn't be able to hear her reply.
     The seconds crawled.
     "Yeah," she said. "Yeah, that would be nice. The cafe on Baker?"
     He could barely get out the "Yeah."
     "Okay, be there in ten."
     They hung up.
     Jim did a fist-pumping victory dance, then leaned against the wall with his arms folded as a disapproving mother and her child passed by.
     It wasn't a date, but he and Kati would reconnect. And that was one step closer to his hopes of a future with her.

     What inspired this short?  A daydream?  An experience?  A friend's experience?  Nope.  It was my recent thoughts on backstory.
     As I was working on my novel, I got lost and frustrated trying to convey the whole backstory of a character.  Then I had a marvelous thought.
     I don't need to write in all of his backstory.  I only need to include some of it.
     While thinking up an analogy for how a reader feels when wading through a sea of backstory, the inspiration came.  It's like someone coming up to me and telling me about a recent event in their life, but telling me about everything little detail that led up to it.   All the information that Randy gave Jim was connected to Kati's story, but it wasn't necessary to it.  Kati gave the facts; Randy buried them in frill.
     I don't want to confuse my reader with frill.  If I, the writer, am getting lost trying to keep up, how would the reader feel?  Even while writing this short, I was having trouble keeping up with Randy's monologue.  Kati's simple outpouring to Jim, however, was much easier to write.  I'm sure it's reflected in how it reads too.
     How do I intent to simplify the backstory of my character?  Instead of writing,  "The accident happened at Baker and 21st Street at nine o'clock on June 3rd.  While he was digging for his phone, he ran a red light, totaling his car and killing another person,"  I'll write,  "He was distracted and so missed the red light among the stream of brake lights that shone through the drizzle."  See how dull and confusing one example is, while the other is simply beautiful?
     The second also gives the opportunity for elaboration later on.  What was he distracted about?  How bad was the accident?  What were the consequences?  We humans want to know everything when we don't and wish we didn't when we do.  We read the first example and grow bored because there's no mystery.  We read the second, and we're intrigued because information is withheld.
     Curiosity killed the cat?  Alternately, curiosity is killed when there is no mystery.

Keeping the mystery (and avoiding murder),

Janelle