For those just tuning in, this challenge is about taking a story idea from bare bones idea into a fully fledged story by writing consistently every week day for fifteen minutes. The sentence I end with on one day, is the sentence I start with on the following. Part one was Bob’s story and has nothing whatsoever to do with the story below. Part Two follows a character named Penelope. I have a few basic sentences to act as road marks on her journey. I am loosely calling that an outline. We will see where she ends up by the time the story is done. For now, we start Part two of the 2025 Fifteen Minute Writing Challenge.
Day 170: Again, Ellie sounded surprised by Penelope’s refusal.
Again, Ellie sounded surprised by Penelope’s refusal. There was a moment of silence on the phone and Penelope could practically hear Ellie recalibrating her thoughts. Part of her wanted to hang up, but once she stopped thinking about the past hurts, she found her curiosity rising. There had to be a reason Ellie was calling.
“I suppose there is a lot going on right now,” Ellie said slowly.
“There certainly is,” Penelope replied.
“I just thought your schedule would have opened up since the whole Trinity thing.”
Penelope frowned into the phone. “What Trinity thing?”
“Well you heard about the party?”
“Her birthday party?” Penelope asked.
“Yeah, that one. Total bust.”
“But her birthday isn’t for a few more weeks,” Penelope said. The date the restaurant was booked was actually on Trinity’s birthday if she remembered correctly. “And I wasn’t invited in the first place.”
“You weren’t?” Ellie said. “That is so rude and so like her. I certainly would have invited you. Not that it matters anymore.”
Penelope decided not to mention that Ellie hadn’t invited her to one of her birthday parties since they were six. “Why doesn’t it matter any more?”
“Because the party was cancelled,” Ellie said. “It is a huge scandal. Loads of important people that Trinity expected decided they weren’t going to come. I was at the house when the rejections started to come in and Trinity almost lost her mind. She seemed to believe that Trevor Howard would be coming and that this was the moment they would become some sort of power couple.”
“Okay,” Penelope said when Ellie paused for breath. It was only a momentary pause as she seemed delighted to share more scandal and gossip.
“But Trevor rejected the invitation and said he couldn’t make it. It turns out that his family was only coming because they were connected to your mother’s family and once they heard you weren’t coming, they didn’t want to come either. And that was bad enough but then, they heard you weren’t even invited and not only did they not show up but others thought it was just rude and they cancelled as well, even if they had earlier said they would show. Suddenly everyone had a change in plans.”
Ellie laughed. The sound was familiar and even thought Ellie seemed to be inviting her to join in laughing at Trinity’s expense this time, Penelope found herself frowning at the phone, somehow feeling contaminated by the phone call.
“That must have been rough,” Penelope found herself saying.
“Oh you have no idea,” Ellie said. “Trinity threw a fit. Started hurling things around the room. They were already thinking about cancelling before the whole investigation thing.”
Penelope swallowed hard.
Ten til Midnight 