November Falls: A Collection of Community Based Short Stories

By Zimbell House Publishing

November Falls features nine short stories about community that may just surprise you.

Which will be your favorite?

Featured Contributors:
Aimee Bingham Osinski
Asma Al Jailani
Chris Espenshade
Don Noel
Katherine DeGilio
Leslie D. Soule
Lora Kempka
Steve Carr
Tyson West

• Language: English
• Publisher: Zimbell House Publishing
• Release date: Feb 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643900056

Zimbell House Publishing

Zimbell House Publishing is an independent publishing company that wishes to partner with new voices to help them become Quality Authors.Our goal is to partner with our authors to help publish & promote quality work that readers will want to read again and again, and refer to their friends.

Book preview

Around Here

Aimee Bingham Osinski

November Falls is a small, out of the way town at the edge of Washtenaw and Jackson counties in Michigan. It is picturesque, but don’t call it a town. People who’ve lived there forever emphasize village, because ‘town’ is too big. Main Street is filled with beautiful old brick buildings featuring the original 19th-century architecture of the founding and early growth of the village. Many of the last names found in the school yearbook are the same last names of the documents held by the historical society. Nobody comes here, and nobody leaves.

Everly Mayer is sixteen-years-old, and her family can trace its roots to the German settlers who found their way to November Falls in the 1880s. It was one of the last areas to be settled in the region. The ground was boggy and had been an oak forest, so it was full of oak tree stumps. Land was easy to get but hard to work. Everly’s ancestors, her family boasted, had that good German work ethic that made November Falls the perfect place to build their dreams. Her grandparents often retell the story told to them by their own grandparents about the village name, which confused new-comers.

The village was platted to John Gordon in November 1826. He named it November Falls not because of a waterfall, though most people see the River Raisin dam and believe it has something to do with it. No sir. Falls was for all the trees he was going to have to cut down in order to make it livable. November Falls was for the felled oak forest.

Everly is a sophomore at the local high school when the village is hit with what seems like devastating news. The tiny paper breaks the story, but not really. News broke on Facebook nearly a week prior. The last of the Gordon family is pulling up stakes and leaving November Falls. It would be a village without its founding family. And to Everly’s grandparents, it was a reason to mourn. The village they loved was changing and not for the better. The purchaser, the paper reported, was a development company known for big houses on small lots that all looked the same. A representative for the company gave the paper a quote that sent shivers down the collective spine of the village.

We expect the first phase of the project to be complete by next Fall. November Falls will add fifty new families who will bring vibrancy and fresh ideas to the community.

Thursday was ‘family night’ on the farm. Everly went to equestrian practice right after school, stopped by the paper box, picked up the November Falls Enterprise, ran home for a quick shower and then headed to her grandparents’ house with the paper. Because of practice, supper was at six-thirty rather than six. She and her cousin James were always the last to arrive because of their sports schedules. Everly rushed through the doors, gave her grandmother a quick hug and set the paper on the kitchen table. She immediately headed to the china cabinet and called to her younger cousins, who were wrestling around in the living room to help her set the table.

James came through about five minutes after Everly and asked how she’d done on the chemistry test. He was struggling. His sturdy farmer’s build and handsome face made him a popular football player. However, his inability to stay eligible because of grades was a source of anxiety.

See if Mr. Ross will give you a retake, you know, for football. I’ll help you this weekend if he will.

Retakes for athletes were common practice. In November Falls, it was Church, family, and sports. Especially football.

Thanks, cuz, he said smiling with a slap on her back.

No problem. Go get those little wild monsters and tell them to set the table for me, will ya?

When everyone was seated, and grace had been said, her grandmother started to complain about the developments she’d read in the paper. Grandmother had Facebook but only shared motivational quotes with minions in the background, flag pride photos, and videos of cute animals. She didn’t understand how to navigate well enough to find local news sources. The sale of the Gordon farm was news to her, and her feathers were ruffled.

Vibrancy and fresh ideas, she said almost spitting her words on the table, we do just fine as we are. We don’t need any fresh ideas.

Grandma, James said with a confident smile, I’ll make the new city boys my tackling dummy in practice! It’ll be funny.

Their grandfather chimed in irritated, They’ll build their houses where it’s plainly country and then complain about country things like tractors on the road, dust in the air during harvest, animal noises and smells. I hear it all the time at the auction. These yuppies move in because they want the country life, then all they do is complain about the country life.

I think it might be nice, Everly said slowly, to get to know some different people.

Each year, Everly felt more and more suffocated. Everyone knew her, her parents, and her grandparents. There was safety in that. Rebecca Wright’s dad was crushed in a factory accident. The village took care of the kids when their mother couldn’t. Ladies took turns coming over doing the laundry and cleaning, there was a meal train for two months, so all the kids had dinner, the football team mowed the lawn, and people even made sure the family car had timely oil changes. That part felt nice. But Everly didn’t like the fact that her AP English class dismissed Kerouac as weird. The fact that in every mock election the kids overwhelming voted the same way. Or the fact that leaving was seen as turning your back on the village that raised you. The only people who could leave without being called snotty ingrates were people who enlisted in the military. The village loved its soldiers.

Did you get into Grandma’s wine? You’re talking crazy. If you want to meet new people, I’ll take you to Ann Arbor, and you can make friends with some of those cross-dressing weirdos and see how much you like different, James said.

The rest of the table laughed. Everly stuck her fork into her mashed potatoes and kept silent. She tried to please; got good grades, stayed out of trouble, and did everything a good girl in November Falls was supposed to do. But she knew the time was coming for her to either let everyone down or continue to do what everyone else expected. Everly wanted to go away to college. She didn’t want to marry some boy from the village, she didn’t want to pop out a few kids and start running the church potluck. She wanted to see the world. Become something. Leave the village and only come back for holidays. She wanted to escape.

THE FOLLOWING SPRING, ground broke on phase one of Gordon Estates. People on the November Falls Facebook page tried to organize and fight the development. But ultimately, they were no match for the company lawyers. The codification of the village was against them. Land could be developed for residential use. The law was written long before the development company moved their trailers and porta-potties into the village. By the time the school year ended, the first homes completed were hitting the market. As summer nights grew long and hot, and the football players spent their days drinking cheap beer at fishing holes, new faces began appearing around the village.

Everly was stealing away to the library every chance she got. Her parents wouldn’t have minded so much that she was going to the library, but they would have minded the hours of ACT prep and research on colleges, scholarships, and financial-aid she was doing. They’d taught her everything she needed to know to survive in November Falls. She could cook, she could ride a horse ...  heck, she was even a pretty good shot, if she ever wanted to hunt. Everly knew her parents would be proud if she went off to a big University. She also knew that they believed it was a waste of money. It was evident at dinner conversations when so and so’s kid came home, tail between his legs, realizing he didn’t like college after all. Trade school was the way to do it if you were smart and frugal.

For Everly, going to college wasn’t just about the potential career, it was about seeing things and meeting people she’d never meet in November Falls. She wanted more experience in the world than this place would give her. Everly’s fear was that she, just like so many other kids in her village, wouldn’t be able to handle college. The change would be too much, and she’d come home a failure with a lot of debt. If going away was sink or swim, she’d just have to learn to swim.

Everly walked into the library, after helping run vacation bible school at the church on a sweltering Tuesday in July. The air felt like pea soup, thick and oppressive. The slight breeze did nothing to cool her off. It just brought whiffs of farm to settle in her nostrils. Manure was normal. It was summer in the country. But manure and the humid, hot air was like, a fart in the shower, as James said. Everly was feeling cranky. The seven-year-old Branham boy was wild and had knocked over a display on which she’d spent hours working. He and one of his little wild friends decided to wrestle rather than participate in the planned activity. VBS was outside, and it was too hot for all of that. She wanted to grab them by their limbs and knock some sense into them. But, beating children at Vacation Bible School was definitely a no-no. As she pulled the door to the library open, the immediate cool of the air conditioning felt wonderful.

The checkout, reference, and children’s librarian desk sat directly in front of the front doors because the person manning the desk did everything. It was a village library, after all, not a big city library with a big city staff. That Tuesday, just like every other Tuesday, Mrs. Johnson was manning the desk. She looked up from scanning books for checkout and waved at Everly.

Everly, I printed a list of scholarships for you to take a look at, she said, motioning her to the desk.

Mrs. Johnson had taken a strong interest in Everly many years ago when Everly was just a little girl doing the summer reading programs and events the library held for children. Mrs. Johnson was an outsider who’d earned her member-ship as a part of the village working her entire career as the head librarian. She was more educated than most with a Master’s degree. Mrs. Johnson loved children who loved books, and Everly was one of those children. By the time Everly was eight, Mrs. Johnson was helping her pick out books and encouraging her to explore new worlds. Today, she was doing the same thing, and the new world was university life. Mrs. Johnson was convinced Everly would get a full ride somewhere, and was trying to help her in every way she could.

As Everly started walking toward the desk, she was bumped hard from the side.

Oh, sorry, I uh, wasn’t paying attention, said an unfamiliar kid about her age.

He wasn’t from November Falls, and even if Everly didn’t know everyone, she’d know that. He was tall and very thin with hair the color of caramel, shorter on the sides, long and wavy on top. He wore tight jeans, too long in the crotch, converse shoes and a sleeveless Jack Daniels tee. Basically, he was wearing a sign that said, Farmer boys, come beat me up. Well that and the fact that he was in the library and not fishing, riding a dirt bike, or playing video games with a group of friends, signaled to Everly that he was not like the boys she knew.

Oh, Tolstoy, you should get the audiobook. It’s a lot to digest, Everly said, I’m still not sure I got it.

He laughed. Two dimples appeared, and she noticed a little gap between his front two teeth. His eyes couldn’t decide if they wanted to be bright green, gold or blue. Each time she looked into them they seemed a different color.

It’s my second time trying to read Anna Karenina, he shook his head, I don’t know, these Russian authors and their literary gymnastics, you know?

They make me feel stupid, she agreed.

Everly looked up to see the librarian frantically motioning to her to keep talking to him. She started to feel the heat rise in her cheeks. Mrs. Johnson gave her the thumbs up and an approving nod.

So, he said slowly, do you want to maybe ... discuss it, he asked lofting the book in the air when he said, it.

Um ... sure, why not?

The two sat down at a table where the teen young adult books were. It was more acceptable to talk quietly there than in the adult section of the library. But they didn’t discuss Tolstoy at all. Instead, they got to know each other. His name was Ben. He’d grown up in Chicago. His Dad was a doctor at the University of Chicago hospital and had taken a job at the University of Michigan. To Ben’s dismay, it meant moving to the country and finishing high school in a new town. He was one of the Gordon Estate families, and he was bored to death. So, he’d been reading a lot. Ben wanted to homeschool his last two years and not deal with trying to fit into a new school, but his parents didn’t feel like it was healthy for him not to be around kids his own age.

There are a bunch of homeschool kids here. Some sort of weird religious group. The little girls only wear long dresses and skirts, even when they ride their bikes.

Yikes.

Yup. My Mom says they’re evangelical Catholics, whatever that means. You know Domino’s Pizza? Well, that guy was from Ann Arbor. He was one, and I guess he poured a lot of money into it here before Ann Arbor refused to give his Law School its own zip code. He moved to Florida or something, but they’re still around, and they like November Falls. At least to live, not to actually be a part of the community or anything. They basically run and hide from people who don’t practice their religion.

Weird.

It is. If you haven’t noticed, everyone knows everyone around here. But we don’t know them. That’s how they want it.

So ... you seriously know everyone in town?

Yup, all my life.

He shook his head, and at the same moment, his phone dinged.

It’s my Mom, Ben said sounding disappointed, She’s outside waiting. Can I get your number and maybe we can hang out again?

Everly felt the heat rise in her cheeks again. She’d gone to homecoming with a group of people. She went to prom with a football player she’d known since their days competing in the pedal pull—kiddie tractor pull—at the fair. Never had she been asked to hang out with a boy in that way. There were the girls that wore short-shorts and lots of makeup. They were the girls that dated seniors as freshman. But Everly was not one of those girls. And with James as her cousin, nobody would dare try to date, date her. Everly was off limits because he knew what boys wanted. It was fine for HIM to want it of girls, nobody was allowed to want it of her. Obviously, Everly’s feelings and what she wanted didn’t matter. The important thing in his mind was that she was safe from boys like him. His uncontested position in school made her only worthy of friendship.

After exchanging numbers and saying goodbye, Everly walked up to Mrs. Johnson, who had a huge grin. Mrs. Johnson leaned down and whispered, "he’s