Six Women

By Karen Truesdell Riehl

The Chester Writers Club of Chester, California, was established thirteen years ago by six women who met in a local community college writing class. They meet the last Thursday of each month at noon. Their ages range from 42 to 93. Each month a member is chosen to bring her latest writing sample to read aloud for criticism and suggestions. Although they promise never to be too negative, to offer only constructive criticism to keep inhibited writers from becoming discouraged, when someone becomes overly enthusiastic, “for the author’s own good,” a brief shouting- match often follows, after which someone goes home early.

Sheri, 42 years old and single, fell in love 20 years ago with an abusive man who beat her up during their five-year marriage. She left him after his violent temper led to the loss of their unborn child.

Glenda, 48 years old and single, is the least popular with the other club members. As a child the love of her life was her dog Brandy, who died tragically answering her call by leaping out of a second story window. She was unable to make friends throughout her childhood. She gave up trying to find Mr. Wonderful, finding happiness as a volunteer at an animal rescue.

Annie, 66 years old and married, couldn't read by 4th grade and was bullied by her classmates. Her teachers and parents feared she was simply of low intelligence and might have to be placed in a special needs class. Instead, she was sent to live with her grandmother in the country, where she would get instruction from a reading tutor. There she met Fergus, only six years older than Annie, who taught her to read. They only spent one summer together as friends, but she never forgot how he changed her life.

Molly, 49 years old and happily married, was molested by Phil, a friend of the family, when she was 12 and babysitting his three-year-old daughter. Molly didn't tell her parents. The family remained friends, so she had to fend off Phil's unwelcome groping and advances repeatedly throughout her adulthood.

Barb, 72 years old and single, fell in love at 16 with her high school journalism teacher. When he denied being the father of her unborn child and abortion was not an option, she was sent to live with her great aunt until the baby was born. While there she discovered family secrets that helped her overcome her sense of shame.

Greta, 93 years old, has vivid memories of growing up on a farm in North Dakota in the 1920's, leaving school, becoming pregnant, getting married and following her husband to live on a military base during World War Two.

"Karen Truesdell Riehl offers a short story of some aspect of each of the six book club member’s lives that was instrumental in forming that woman’s character. Each of their backgrounds is unique from the others, yet they are all tales familiar to women in one way or another. Through the common threads of hardship and pain, readers gain insight into the lives of the women of the book club — and possibly even of their own." Patricia Reding for Readers' Favorite

"This deceptively short volume packs a lot within its pages -- and it's all very, very good. Six Women is most highly recommended." Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Truesdell Riehl
• Release date: Jun 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310656682

Karen Truesdell Riehl

Karen Truesdell Riehl's writing achievements are remarkable, given the award-winning author's lifelong battle with dyslexia. She was unable to read until the age of ten. Her published works now include a 2015 San Diego Book Awards winner, Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany. Her other books include a memoir, Love and Madness: My Private Years with George C. Scott, telling of her 30-year hidden liaison with the international film star, six novels, eight plays and a radio comedy series, The Quibbles, available from ArtAge Publications at http://www.seniortheatre.com/product/the-quibbles-radio-shows/. Her children's play, Alice in Cyberland, was an award winner in the National Southwest Writers Contest. Helga was an elementary school librarian, a 1948 German immigrant, when the author met her in 1977. Asked about her experience during the war, Helga quietly revealed she had been a "Jugend," a member of Hitler's child army.Ten-year-old Helga was forced to join the Hitler Youth weekly meetings. Lies and treats were used to build her allegiance to the Fuhrer. As the war drew nearer to her home in Berlin, Helga was sent away to a Youth Training Camp. Her slow disillusionment and harrowing escape home, is a coming-of-age story of a young girl's survival of Nazi mind control. Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany was a 2015 San Diego Book Awards winner. In the romance novel, Hello Again, a finalist in the 2015 San Diego Book Awards, Shannon Taggert falls in love with Nate, a graduate student teaching assistant. But there's another woman in Nate's life, Tally, the daughter of Walter, his mentor and benefactor. Before meeting Shannon, as Walter lay dying, Nate promised to marry his daughter. The Ghosts of Fort Ord was inspired by the author's month-long stay near the remains of the abandoned military base. After having lived for several years in Terre Haute, Indiana, the author was inspired to write a story about scandals in a fictional small town, Freedom's Sins. Saturday Night Dance Club, was inspired by a true story of four couples, from the 1900's to 1930's, touched by the Great War, organized crime, the Depression and the threat of another war, finding sanctuary in their weekly dance club. Drawing from her personal experience, Karen wrote Bad Girl: A Play. The Safe Haven Home for Unwed Mothers provides shelter from a judgmental society, but reveals its hypocrisy as well. The young women from all levels of society, rich and poor, share only their shame. Many overnight weekend getaways on the famous Queen Mary produced her latest novel, The Ghosts of the Queen Mary. Karen loves to hear from readers of her books. Twitter: https://twitter.com/karenisriehl Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/karen.riehl.52 Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/KarenTruesdellRiehl

Book preview

Six Women

Karen Truesdell Riehl

Six Women is a remarkable and compelling read that will richly reward the reader.

Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Also by Karen Truesdell Riehl

Helga: Growing Up in Hitler's Germany (San Diego Book Awards winner)

Love and Madness: My Private Years with George C. Scott

Dancing Bears and Messy Pigs: A Children's Play

Hello Again (San Diego Book Awards Finalist)

Deception's Sins: A Roger Sundbee Mystery

Saturday Night Dance Club

Ghosts of the Queen Mary

The Ghosts of Fort Ord

Two Plays for Children

Bad Girls: A Play

Freedom's Sins

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Copyright 2016 Karen Truesdell Riehl

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Six Women is a work of fiction. Certain actual locations are mentioned, but all persons and events are in the imagination of the writer.

Cover design by Ronnell D. Porter

DEDICATION

To Richard

Table of Contents

THE CHESTER WRITERS CLUB

GLENDA

SHERI

ANNIE

MOLLY

BARB

GRETA

SIX MONTHS AFTER GRETA’S DEATH

About the Author

THE CHESTER WRITERS CLUB

The Chester Writers Club of Chester, California meets at noon on the last Thursday of each month. The club was formed when six women met during a writing class at the local community college. Their ages range from 93 to 42. They are at varying writing levels.

Each month a member is chosen to bring her latest writing to read aloud for criticism and suggestions. Listeners promise never to be too negative, but to offer only constructive criticism to avoid discouraging inhibited writers. Often, however, a member of the club becomes overly enthusiastic in her critique, explaining that it's for the author’s own good. After a brief shouting match, someone goes home early.

The ladies rotate as hostess, preparing and serving light lunches. The menu must include salad, no bread, a small dessert of nothing too fattening, and tea. Other restrictions are required by personal preference: no salt, no cheese, no milk products, and nothing blue. Annie got sick on blueberries once as a child. And nothing with seeds. Sheri had a horror of getting one stuck in her teeth and never being able to get it out…ever. She swears her grandmother died of a seed lodged in her teeth.

Sheri's forty-two years old, 5' 4", slim, with blond hair and blue eyes. She's self-published six books, all about how to have a happy marriage.

Annie is sixty-six years old, married, a mother of three, grandmother of six. She's tall, thin, with brown hair touched up to hide the gray. She works out once a week to keep the fat off her hips. She reads everything and continues to try to get her work published.

Molly's married, forty-nine, independent and smart. She has blue eyes and graying dark brown hair. She's also nearsighted and too proud to wear glasses.

Barb is sixty-nine years old with brown hair and gray eyes. She's boney thin and wears little, if any, makeup. When friends suggest a new hairstyle or brand of lipstick she always answers, No thanks. I don't like to stand out in a crowd. That's for you pretty ones. She loves the writing group and everyone in it. The feeling is mutual. She's also the best writer in the group. They keep telling her to try to find an agent.

Ninety-three-year-old Greta is smart, warm, popular, and tiny, at less than 5 feet tall and 97 pounds. She has great stories of growing up on a farm in North Dakota. Her best are about how it was during World War II. The ladies call her their walking history book. She's also the one who keeps their spirits up when they feel down. She credits The Chester Writers Club for getting her through a lot of tough times.

Glenda is sixty-six, single, and has mousey brown short hair. She's slightly overweight, has terrible posture and feels ill at ease most of the time. She's also the least popular member of the club. When Molly looked out the window and saw Glenda rushing up the sidewalk late to their January meeting, she announced to the others in the room, Here she comes with her insipid smile. She makes me uncomfortable. She’s s-o-o nice. She always sounds like she’s begging or apologizing for something.

Sheri nodded. She’s smarmy. I don’t trust her. It’s like she’s sitting there taking notes on our conversations. It was a giant mistake to invite Glenda to join the club. She's a downer! She sits in the corner with a weird look on her face, like she’s expecting either God or the devil to walk through the door.

And she has no sense of humor, Annie chimed in. She doesn’t know when something is funny. After someone has told a joke and we’re all laughing, she waits a minute and tells a stupid, unfunny joke, then stands there waiting for us to laugh.

She could win the grand prize for being Miss Jerkess of the 21st century, Sheri added. Something has to be done or we’ll all either go nuts or have to disband the club without telling her.

Annie laughed. Can’t you just see her sitting, waiting for hours? Nobody shows up and she calls to apologize for having the wrong day?

Everyone but Greta laughed. No one had the courage to tell Glenda how they felt. They finally took the easy way out and lied. They told her they decided to disband the club, but they only changed the day of their monthly meetings.

For a few months they got together in Molly's basement, until a ceiling pipe sprung a leak. When Molly discovered the source of the dripping, her bathroom toilet on the floor above, they moved to the public library's backroom.

The ladies were fine with their decision to ban Glenda until Sheri arrived late to the April meeting, looking shaky and pale.

I have some very bad news. It’s about Glenda.

Expecting a juicy piece of gossip, Annie demanded, Don’t just stand, there for God’s sake. Tell us!

Sheri loved the drama of it, having once dreamed of becoming an actress. She sat down, took a sip of water from the bottle she always carried with her, and slowly enunciated each word as if she were reading lines from a Tennessee Williams play.

There was a carh accident last evening at 8:10. Glenda’s carh collided with a black Honda at the cohner of Rochester and Union. She was taken by ambulance to Chester General Hospital.

Oh, my God! Is she alive?

What a question, Molly. Of course she’s alive, Greta said, and then turned to Sheri. She is alive, isn’t she?

Sheri nodded.

How bad are her injuries?

I don’t know.

But she is alive?

I guess so.

You guess so? the ladies gasped in unison.

I don’t know. The article didn’t say. Sheri was beginning to wish she hadn’t said anything, disappointed that the bearer of bad news had not been treated with more deference.

We really haven’t been very nice to her. I feel awful about it, Barb said, biting her lip.

Let’s all stop whimpering and pretending we really care, Annie chided them.

Well, I do care, Greta said. I’m going to see for myself how she is.

The 93-year-old struggled to her feet and moved in slow, steady steps towards the door.

Molly piped up, I'll drive!

This is silly, Sheri yelled after Greta. We can’t all traipse into the hospital.

I don’t know why not, Greta yelled over her shoulder. It shows we care.

GLENDA

I had no intention of opening my eyes or saying a word to let the ladies know I was awake as I lay in bed at Chester General Hospital. I was having a fine time listening to the kind words they were saying about me. There haven’t been many times in my life that anyone cared if I lived or died, and I wanted to savor that feeling.

One of those times was when I was six years old and lost sight of my parents during a walk in the woods. While Mother went to pee in the bushes, Daddy let go of my hand so he could walk away and take pictures. I got tired of waiting for them to return. So I decided to walk farther down the trail and jump out from behind a tree when they came looking for me. But standing in the bushes and waiting was no fun either, so when I saw a path leading in another direction, I followed it. It wasn’t long before I began to feel lonely and heard strange sounds. I wished I had my jacket and something to eat. It was getting dark. I wanted to turn back to look for Mother and Daddy, but I couldn’t remember the way. I tried to be brave, but I began to cry. When I heard them call my name I no longer wanted to surprise them. I ran toward the sounds of their voices and almost bumped into them running for me. Daddy picked me up. They both kissed me and hugged me tight. But, best of all, when we got home, there was ice cream and chocolate cake for dinner! Since that day, the memory of Daddy picking me up and hugging me, and the two of them kissing me, has been locked in my heart.

I often wish I could have stayed a little girl, where it was all kisses and hugs. Throughout the years I’ve wondered why people don’t like me. I try to be friendly. I try never to complain. I admire lovely things. I don’t keep my nose in the air. I try to stay out of the way, unless someone needs a helping hand, when I’m the first to volunteer. But people still don’t like me. I know. I can feel