Charlie McNamara

So I promised a long time ago to share some of the fruits of my creative writing class that I took earlier this summer. Well, there were a lot of bits and pieces, but nothing that goes together well and actually starts a story, so I thought I would just introduce you to a character, share one random scene and leave it at that. -adam

Charlie stood. At about six foot two he stood taller than the average guy but not tall enough to get noticed. His coffee brown hair began each morning thoughtfully messed until the stress of the day caused it to become truly disheveled. Gray had evaded him through the years, though now in his early thirties he secretly wished for it, hoping it would add a distinguished angle to his boyish attractiveness. His teeth were perfect despite his mom’s warnings that they were sure to fall out if he continued to drink so much pop as a teenager. Not so for Charlie. His grin had become the most intoxicating of his many charms. His shoulders were broad and his body fit, but not muscular. His fingernails were nonexistent. As long as he could remember he gnawed at them from edge to edge, often till they bled. It was perhaps the only visible flaw to his exterior, and while it embarrassed him, Charlie carried himself with such a comfortable confidence that one would never even suspect that he had reason to bite his nails. Charlie greeted men with a firm handshake and shoulder pat while most women, even strangers, were welcomed with a hug.

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“I don’t get it.” Quinn said curtly.
Charlie cocked his head like a confused puppy. One way, then the other.
She shook her head and rubbed her temples. She mumbled her annoyance but Charlie couldn’t make it out. They had stopped for coffee and decided to sit outside. Charlie always wanted to sit outside. He pretended not to notice that she was less than comfortable on the outdoor patio furniture.
Quinn looked up quickly and set her styrofoam coffee cup on the table hard enough that a few drops spilled out of the lid. She started in about how she didn’t understand how a Harvard MBA could wind up at an ad agency in the Midwest and how Charlie was so intelligent and graduated near the top of his class and could have gone anywhere in the country and made so much more money.
Charlie perked up in time to remind her that he actually could have gone anywhere in the world. “Remember the gig in London I told you about?”
Quinn tossed her wadded up paper napkin at him, got up and snatched her keys off the table.
“Okay, okay,” he said as he caught up with her. “Lots of reasons. Can we sit back down though? I really don’t want to go back to the office yet.”
“Fine, go,” she said as she sat on the edge of the wraught iron chair and pressed her elbows into the table.
Charlie seemed very sincere as he convinced Quinn that there were lots of great reasons to live here. Quality of life, he said, the cheap beer and even the clean air.
“Since when do you give a crap about the air?”
“Oh, you didn’t get the memo? I’m going green.” He smiled.
Quinn rolled her gigantic brown eyes, got up again and marched back into the coffee shop and right into the ladies room.