When I switched from third person to first person, I had to jettison a few scenes that my final narrator wasn’t/isn’t involved in. Some of them I kind of like, like this one….
“Tee?” A deep, melodious voice. Ted Shuey’s voice.
Tee slowly spun her chair around. Ted was standing there with his phone in his hand, beard drooping. Tee asked, “Yes?”
“I—well, I was just talking to Tom Holt, and he’s not sure if he wants to participate in the memorial service.” Ted looked sad, maybe a little pouty.
“Oh,” Tee said. Ted was sort of a fool if he expected anything from Tom Holt. But. “The memorial service is Courtney’s thing, not mine. You want to go tell her, right?”
“Well, she’s apparently gone home,” Ted said. “So I sent her an email.”
“Good!” Tee said. Waiting for whatever else Ted wanted.
“And—I wanted to talk to you—about Tom Holt….”
“Ah,” Tee said. Tom Holt. That was just great. “What happened now?”
Ted sat in one of the hard chair by the door and tugged at his blond beard. “Well, he’s been so rude lately. You were here when he insulted us at the meeting!”
“I was right here,” Tee said. “In this room. And I made him apologize.”
“Well, the apology didn’t come from his heart,” Ted said. “And then today—just now—he said that Devon hated me.”
“Ah,” Tee said. Well, maybe Devon did. Have feelings. Loves, hates. Actually, now that Tee thought about it—actually, in her death, Devon was being revealed to be a far more complicated person than she had ever seemed in life. Though of course Tom Holt could be making up all of Devon’s complicated feelings and no one would ever know the difference. “Well—we’ll never really know if she did or not, and now that she’s passed….” Tee shrugged.
“Well,” Ted said. “I think you should talk to him.”
“Are you filing some sort of formal complaint against Tom?”
Ted thought about that. He said, “Not yet….”
“Okay,” Tee said. She picked up a pen and made a bold X on her desk blotter. it didn’t mean anything, but it might look like she was taking action. “I’ll talk to him.”
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