Work In Progress

By Mandy Haynes

Have you ever finished a book and wondered, "What made the author think of that?" Or wondered if there was a chapter in the original manuscript that didn't make it through the final edits? Maybe you'd like to get a sneak peek at what an author is currently working on. Work In Progress includes fifty-nine excerpts from some talented authors' work

• Language: English
• Publisher: three dogs write press
• Release date: Jan 4, 2022
• ISBN: 9781733467582

Book preview

On Shinbone

Laura McHale Holland

I returned to Shinbone last week, but like countless nooks and crannies in the world, the lane isn't what it used to be. The attic apartment I rented—bartered for, actually—was gussied up and turned into a condominium, walled off from the rest of the house and on sale for $1.2 million, all 475 square feet of it. I don't even want to know how much per square foot that is.

My landlady, Mary, took me in, no written application or references required, in the spring of 1974. She's long gone now, bless her beautiful soul, and whoever buys that attic will be credit checked and underwritten for longer than old Rumplestiltskin's nap, that is unless they pay cash, which hard as it is for us 99 percenters to fathom, is a thing.

It's hard to say what drew me to Shinbone after all these years— just an urge that kept pestering like a hungry cat, I suppose. I stayed at Eloise's place near the foot of the hill where Shinbone ends. Eloise's former place, I should say.

There's a sign where Shinbone meets 29th Street now that says NO OUTLET. Back in 1974, folks were more flexible about the meaning of outlet. Members of Shinbone Friends, formed because no neighborhood nearby would claim Shinbone as its own, would never have let such a sign stand. Most everyone who lived along thetwo-and-a-half blocks of unpaved freedom belonged to that group— old timers, young families, misfits and transients, some more active than others.

Eloise's cottage is now an Airbnb that cost me a pretty penny for a two-night stay. The interior is all hard lines in black and white with chrome accents. I doubt it looked anything like that when Eloise lived there. I can't say for sure because Eloise never invited me inside, perhaps because she, a former prima ballerina turned dance teacher, could tell from the get-go that I had no talent for graceful contortions. I was more of an arts and crafts person, dilettante might be the right word for it, teaching myself calligraphy from an instruction book I picked up at one of Dot's sidewalk sales. You could say Dot, all auburn curls and wiry energy, was an entrepreneur before anybody used that word.

Now, Eloise might not have been fond of me, but she was gracious in the way divas have as she walked her miniature poodle, Coco, up and down the lane, asking anyone and everyone—stranger and friend alike—if they had seen her runaway daughter. It didn't matter how many times she'd asked before; if she managed to corner you, she'd ask again, Have you seen my Julianna? while pulling out a crinkled photo of a beauty with thick chestnut hair and grey eyes, just like Eloise's.

She pestered everyone. Except for Mary, my landlady. Whenever they encountered one another—which was often since only the remains of a farmstead converted into a community center buffeted the ill will flowing between them— Eloise looked up as though admiring clouds passing above, and Mary peered at her feet, which were clad in those black lace-up boots women born at the tail end of the 19th century used to wear.

I asked Captain about this. A band-tailed pigeon with one natural and one wire foot, Captain lived high up in an oak tree behind Jeb Waller's Victorian at 3346 Shinbone Lane, situated directly across from my attic window at Mary's. Captain spent most of his time in Jeb's garage workshop. While Jeb fixed old toasters, bicycles, radios, basically anything and everything, a lost art nowadays, their conversations ranged from jazz greats like Betty Carter appearing at Keystone Corner to lowering of the U.S. maximum speed limit to 55 mph, to the Dada art movement in 1920s Paris, to heiress Patricia-Hearst standing guard with an M1 carbine rifle while her kidnappers robbed a bank. And to my eternal wonder they let me, a newcomer, join their conversations. This took a little getting used to because Captain's voice, gravelly like the songwriter Tom Waits, bypassed the ears and came straight into the mind.

I never could grasp the logic behind what Captain chose to divulge. He would, for example, detail ongoing feuds between neighbors over tree pruning and placement of garbage cans, but when I asked what went down between Mary and Eloise, he plugged that line of inquiry with, If they wanted you to know, they would tell you.

How could I argue with that?

Even now, I question nothing from that time, for I left far more than my heart on the Shinbone Lane of yore.

I excerpted On Shinbone from a novel in progress that centers on Shinbone Lane, a fictional street in San Francisco. I lived in that city for twenty-nine years, many of them just a heartbeat away from the 29th Street hill, which is mighty steep, and I situated Shinbone at the top. The story begins in the mid-1970s, a time when I landed in San Francisco, but beyond that, the story doesn't follow my life experiences. I like to put characters together, figure out why I care about them, and then let imagination and heart take the lead. In weaving fiction, I mix the ordinary and the fabulous. I can't say why. That just seems to be my bent. When I started the book, I mentioned to my husband I was locating the story on a fictional lane and was trying to think of a good name for it. Shinbone, he quipped. Call it Shinbone! I was leaning toward something like Parsnip or Buckeye, but the more I thought about Shinbone, the more I liked it. Plus it gave me an intriguing challenge: coming up with a tale about how the lane got that name. I'm still working that out.

Laura McHale Holland has loved the musicality of language since she was a tot. It is this lifelong passion for words carefully crafted to enchant, evoke and entertain that drives her creative work. As a proud member of the independent-author revolution, Laura writes stories true and untrue in multiple forms—from flash fiction to novels, memoirs to short plays—and in all of her work she looks for hope in unlikely places. She has won gold medals in the National Indie Excellence Awards and Next Generation Indie Book Awards, and was a finalist for INDIES Book of the Year. In addition, four of her short plays have been produced in Northern California, where she lives with her husband and two goofy little mutts.

www.lauramchaleholland.com.

Johnnie Come Lately: a novel

Kathleen M. Rodgers

Johnnie’s Journal

December, 1979

Portion, Texas

Dear Mama, I’m up here at Soldiers Park, hoping you might come swaying by with the breeze. Most of the leaves have dropped and it’s getting cold. I asked the old soldier, the one you talk to from time to time, if you’d happened by here lately, but he just stands high on his pedestal, armed and ready, and gives me the silent treatment.

He’s not about to give up your secrets—the secrets you pour into him from this bench. Dark things hidden behind bronze eyes that only seem to come alive for you. He won’t tell me what you two talk about, or why you up and left in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner. One minute Aunt Beryl was talking about it being the sixteenth anniversary of President Kennedy’s death, the next you were out the door so fast you knocked over your iced tea. When you didn’t come back, me and Grandpa Grubbs drove here to the war memorial, thinking we might find you talking to your statue. By the time we got home, Aunt Beryl had already packed up and left for Salt Flat.

This is the longest you’ve been gone in a while. It’s been three weeks now. Tonight, I thought if I put my words on paper, somehowthey would find their way to you. Like when I was little and wrote letters to Santa. Somehow I knew when Grandpa and I mailed them at the post office, they would find their way to the North Pole.

Something’s wrong with me. I tried to tell you at Thanksgiving, but you twisted off. Granny Opal keeps asking why her cakes disappear. Don’t I know her business could suffer if she can’t fill her customers’ orders? How can I tell her that sometimes I cram down a whole cake at one time and then stick my finger down my throat? I’ve been doing this since Clovis died last summer … when I got so sick on those donuts. None of my friends know. I keep it hidden from everyone. Like you, I’m good at keeping secrets.

Today, after school, I ate all the leftover stew Granny saved for supper. I lied and told her I fed it to a stray dog that came by the house while she was out.

She winked and said, Maybe that stray dog has a sweet tooth, too? I about died. We ended up eating cornbread and beans. Then I grabbed my notebook and jogged to the park. I may be fifteen, but I still need you. And I need you to tell me why you said such hateful things when I was younger. One time you called me sausage legs, and I hid in the playhouse and wished I could disappear. I cried so much, my throat hurt for days. But I’m skinny now, Mama, just like you, and my legs don’t rub together when I walk. It’s starting to get dark, so I better head back to the house before Granny sends out a search party. Before I forget ….

This past Sunday after church, Grandpa and I hiked down the path to the lake to hang the old Christmas wreath. The ribbon is so faded it’s pink. A cardinal was perched on the dock, singing his heart out.

Grandpa Grubbs stopped dead in his tracks and said, Looky there, young lady. It’s your Uncle Johnny. He’s come back to sing you a Christmas carol.

I hear it might snow.

Johnnie

PS: In case you’re lost, we still live at 8 Lakeside Drive.

The novel opens with a journal entry penned by protagonist Johnnie Kitchen when she was a teenager. I’ve always loved reading novels that include entries from diaries and letters. While the majority of the novel is told in third person, single viewpoint, the journal entries sprinkled throughout the narrative give the reader insight into Johnnie’s mind and heart. While Chapter One opens years later when Johnnie is in her early forties, the reader never forgets that first journal entry that helps drive the narrative in her quest to know what happened to her mama. A male cardinal plays a role throughout the story and adds an element of magical realism to the tale.

Would life have been different for Johnnie if she’d been named after a woman rather than her dead uncle? Or if her mama hadn’t been quite so beautiful or flighty? The grandparents who raised her were loving, but they didn’t understand the turmoil roiling within her. And they had so many, many secrets. Why did her mama leave? Would she ever return? How did her Uncle Johnny really die? Who was her father?

Now Johnnie Kitchen is a 43-year-old woman with three beautiful children, two of them grown.

She has a handsome, hardworking husband who adores her, and they live in the historic North Texas town of Portion in a charming bungalow. But she never finished college and her only creative outlet is a journal of letters addressed to both the living and the dead. Although she has conquered the bulimia that almost killed her, Johnnie can never let down her guard, lest the old demons return. Or perhaps they never went away to begin with. For Johnnie has secrets of her own, and her worst fear is that the life she’s always wanted—the one where she gets to pursue her own dreams—will never begin. Not until her ghosts, both living and dead, reveal themselves.

Kathleen M. Rodgers is a novelist whose work has appeared in Family Circle Magazine, Military Times, and in several anthologies. A professional writer for more than forty- five years, her novels have garnered many awards and favorable reviews from readers. She’s been featured in USA Today, The Associated Press, and Military Times. The Flying Cutterbucks is her fourth novel and is the April 2021 Book of the Month for The International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Guys Reading Nation. It released June 2020 from Wyatt-MacKenzie and isrepresented by Diane Nine, President of Nine Speakers, Inc.

Johnnie Come Lately can be found in hardcover large print in libraries across the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The audio edition is narrated by Grammy® Award-winning vocalist and Broadway acStory behind this excerpt .

Papa Jewel’s Chosen One

Mandy Haynes

I was peeling potatoes when Cherie came running through the back door into my kitchen, slamming the slab of solid oak into the counter in the process. The loud thud made me jump and almost reconsider my refusal to use a vegetable peeler - but just for a second. Even if I had cut my thumb off I wouldn’t be caught dead using one. Vernie Robicheaux had given me the handcrafted knife in exchange for homegrown tomatoes out of my garden. He kept it sharp as a razor with a wet stone he carried in his pocket, using the blade as an excuse to visit ever since his sweet wife, Fern, died just three days shy of her eighty-ninth birthday.

The panicked look in Cherie's eyes could only mean one thing. Her great-aunt wasn’t where she thought she should be. Poor Lil, I sighed, thinking about how much she missed her privacy. She’d probably decided to take a walk to the market, which she was perfectly capable of doing without an escort.

Thank god you’re home! Cherie gasped, grabbing onto the edge of the antique pie safe that came with the house, one of several pieces of old furniture I’d grown to love, but didn’t use for their intended purpose. The pie safe hid old CD’s and a few cassettes, the buffet in the dining room held bottles of liquor and wine, and the beautiful vanity in the spare bedroom served as a desk.

The curio cabinet was my favorite re-purposed piece. I'd turned it into an indoor bird house for Poe, a curmudgeonly old crow who'd lost a wing in the war against my neighbor’s cats.

I put down the knife and took a jelly jar from the shelf above the sink. How long has she been gone? I asked.

Cherie bent over double trying to catch her breath as I poured her a glass of tap water.

Well, I stayed with her until late last night. It was after midnight, and she was sound asleep, so probably not too long. She took the glass from my hand and gulped down a big swallow. We both checked the time displayed on the microwave, it was nine o’clock on the dot. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping. It was a beautiful Friday, and I was making a dish for St. Anne’s fundraiser. I couldn’t believe there was anything bad going on.

Well, that’s good, right? I smiled at my friend. Cherie could be a little over-the-top at times, especially when it came to her great-aunt, but her excitability was one of the things I loved about her.

She shook her head. Wren, listen, it’s bad. She’s been off her medication for about two weeks …

You know what I think about that, I shrugged and fought to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Keeping Lil on mind-numbing pills had more to do with everyone else’s comfort than it had to do with Lil’s mental health, if not something worse.

And she’s been listening to that damn Tom Waits CD nonstop.

Well, crap. That was never good.

I, for one, disagreed the new medications that had been prescribed to Lil. It was true that she’d been a little forgetful lately, but she was somewhere in her eighties after all. As far as I could see she hadn’t changed in any other way – she was completely self-sufficient if not a tad bit more scatterbrained than when I first met her. Lil had always been different, shoot I was a spaz and I hadn’t hit my thirties yet. Marie, Cherie’s mother, tried to make it sound like Lil was senile. I had my own thoughts on why Marie wanted everyone to think her aunt was batty, and it had less to do with the safety of her aunt, and more to do with deed to Papa Jewel’s property in Houma. Property that was worth a lot of money. Papa Jewel, Marie’s great-grandfather, had left everything to Lil.

I tried to stay out of Lil’s business, but when she’s obsessing over-Tom Waits that meant something was brewing.

I put the stopper in the sink and filled it with cold water. Just give me a minute, Cher, and we’ll go find her.

I put the peeled potatoes into the water and washed my hands. My potato salad would have to wait. Last time Lil up and disappeared we found her buck naked—well, not completely naked if you counted the turquoise jewelry around her neck, fingers, and wrists—standing in all her glory on the courthouse steps. Reciting a poem I’d never heard before or since, looking like a character from a Shakespearean play or a boozy dream.

Luckily it had been three a.m. on a Tuesday, so no one was around to witness the event.

Lil swore up and down that she knew exactly what she was doing and if anyone saw her and got offended that was their problem. She couldn’t understand why her niece had been so upset. And even though I’d been shocked at the sight of her standing there naked as a baby bird, after we got Lil back home and dressed, I realized that she wasn't out of her mind. She was just having fun – something that was hard for her to do since she’d been moved from her cabin in the swamp to the big house once owned by her parents in the Garden District.

So what if Lil wanted to run around in her birthday suit like a pagan moon goddess at three in the morning. But right now, it was late morning and sunny. There would be an audience and Marie would never live it down. She would make Lil’s life miserable.

Cherie must’ve known what I was thinking because she grabbed my wrist and said, Lil’s bra wasn’t hanging on the back of her bedroom door, so that’s a plus. We both laughed in spite of ourselves.

Did you check the closet? I asked.

"I couldn’t bring myself to. The minute I saw her prescription bottles still in the bag from the pharmacy and heard 2:19 playing on the stereo, set to repeat, I came to get you."

Well, let me grab my keys and we’ll go look in the closet together.

If the old top hat with the hawk and owl feathers stuck in the snake-skin band wasn’t sitting on the shelf in Lil’s closet, it meant Lil probably wasn’t out reciting poetry to the trees.

There was something about Tom Waits playing on repeat that could bring out a little … extra in Lil. If the hat wasn't there someone was going to be airing their dirty laundry and letting loose the skeletons from their closets. Getting an unexpected visit from Lil wearing Papa Jewel’s hat, the hat of one of Louisiana’s most renowned Vodoun Priests, had that effect on people. They spilled their guts. Things they’d never dare tell the Catholic Priest in confession, they’d offer up to Lil even though she didn’t ask. She just stood there. Stock still and staring, on front porches or front lawns, scaring the truth out of whoever happened to get a visit.

She was, after all, Papa Jewel’s chosen one for a reason.

There were too many people living in this parish with secrets that were better off not being known. If Lil didn’t watch out, they’d have her locked up in a loony bin.

Let’s go, I said as I pushed Cherie towards the door. Hopefully, she’ll be back home by the time we get there, if not maybe we’ll find some clues and get to her before someone calls the law.

The memory of Dickie Pickle, handcuffed and and crying for Lil’s forgiveness after he confessed to robbing his own liquor store and framing his brother-in-law, almost made me laugh. But then I remembered I was talking about someone calling the law on Lil, and by law I meant the men with straight jackets. The thought caused the laugh to turn into a lump in my throat so big I could hardly swallow.

I wasn’t related to Lil by blood, but she was the closest thing to family I’d had in a long time and I couldn’t let that happen to her.

Papa Jewel’s Chosen One sort of found me. I was driving to one of the new Vanderbilt satellite clinics where I worked as a pediatric cardiac sonographer. I spent my time divided between the big house and three of our satellite clinics, so I had lots of hours on the interstate. I didn’t mind – I loved listening to Tom Waites or John Prine first thing in the morning and thinking up stories. One morning a line from a song I’d heard a hundred times grabbed hold of me and I was standing on the front porch of a little cabin out in the swamps of Louisiana. The funny thing is the song had NOTHING to do with the swamps, or a cabin anywhere for that matter. It was like Tom Waites hypnotized me and handed me a gift. Eulalie, otherwise known as Lil, was born by the time I pulled into the parking lot of our Franklin clinic.

Six years ago I took the first couple of chapters of Papa Jewel’s Chosen One to New Orleans with me over Halloween and had it blessed by an honest to god Voodoo Priest while we danced on Dumaine and drank liquor straight from the bottles as they were passed around. The pages still smell like clean sweat, gin, tequila, rum, and the sweet scent of Florida Water.

Mandy Haynes has spent hours on barstools and riding in vans listening to outrageous tales from some of the best songwriters and storytellers in Nashville, Tennessee. She traded a stressful career as a pediatric cardiac sonographer for a the life of a beach bum and now lives on Amelia Island with her three dogs, one turtle, and a grateful liver. She is a freelance writer for Amelia Islander Magazine, Editor-in-Chief of Reading Nation Magazine, Executive Director of The International Pulpwood Queen and Timber Guy Book Club, and author of two short story collections. Walking the Wrong Way Home was a finalist for the Tartt Fiction Award, and Sharp as a Serpent’s Tooth Eva and Other Stories.

www.mandyhaynes.com

www.threedogswritepress.com

www.readingnationmagazine.com

www.thepulpwoodqueens.com

The Insistence of Memory

Tom Shachtman

Sue-Ellen Blair McNaughton lay on the cracked leather sofa in her apartment-share in Brooklyn, trying to will her iPhone to beep with an incoming message from Jake, her boyfriend of thirty-one months. From him in the last thirteen days Ell had not had a single beep, ping, ring, or musical trill.

His ghosting throbbed through her like a hangover.

The phone pinged, jarring her. A text, and not from Jake, since it was in Spanish. From her dear great-grandfather Popo; to communicate better with him she had taken Spanish in college and spent her junior year in Barcelona. Poco, ahora, por favor, was his message. She was Poco to his Popo.

You do not slough off a summons from a ninety-six-year-old who is one of the few people in your life—belay that, the only one!—who never criticizes you. His VA nursing home was only a half hour away on the B local. She could get to Atlantic Bay Terraces at the perfect time, an hour before dinner started; the interim would allow a leisurely but not too lengthy visit.

The third floor was for residents able to do some self-care but not enough to live independently. That was Popo! But the nameplate on Apartment 343 now read ‘Pedro Villahermosa.’

Popo, you changed your name? She kissed his leathery cheek.

I’m born Villahermosa, y’know, he said in the Mexican Spanish of his childhood, laced with American slang. My father make it Herman when we go to Florida, and I go from Pedro to Peter. Now I change it back, so I’ll die with my right name on.

You’re not planning on dying any time soon, are you?

No, little one. Still here and still OK.

He liked to say so, despite his left arm not moving much, and his left eye not seeing much from behind the sunglasses. The room’s main decoration was still the framed poster of Salvador Dali’s La Persistencia de la Memoria that she had bought for him at the Dali museum in Figueres. He often called it The Insistence of Memory, a title that also appealed to her. Its melting clocks, scorched landscape, inverted human body parts, and surreal quality spoke to them both: an image that once seen could not be unseen.

Dali’s dreamscape was not, however, that of Ell’s own persistent/ insistent dream, the one so distinct and often- repeated that to her it was The Dream. Hers was more frighteningly lifelike. Just the thought of it made her shudder.

Still chasing the aides? she asked.

They like it when I sing to them.

I’ll bet. Popo, you worry me with this ‘getting ready to die’ stuff. Is that why you wanted me to come?

"No, I think maybe you have a problem. I follow Jake on Twitter, and for a couple weeks now he don’t say ‘we did this’ or ‘we did that.’ So I wonder what’s up."

Ell shook her head, bemused that her older-than-old Popo would be so with it as to follow her boyfriend on Twitter and so sensitive as to infer trouble for her from Jake’s lack of coupledom references.

This why you never bring this Jake to see me? Popo asked.

You’re right, I never brought him. Maybe I was telling myself – well, belay that, it doesn’t matter what I told myself — I think I’ve been dumped.

Not hundred percent sure?

Yeah, after thirteen days, I’m sure—I just don’t like admitting it.

Say it. Say, ‘I’ve been dumped!’ So what? Happened to my sister when she’s your age. Bawled her eyes out. She’s so down, my mother says, ‘Men are like busses — you miss one, just wait, becauseanother’ll be along in a few minutes.’ You’re twenty-five, my little one. Not too thin, not too fat. You got the blue eyes, and the sunlight hair, and the really good brain, and you know how to laugh—there’ll be plenty of busses.

What a flatterer! No wonder the ladies like you.

I’m gonna live to be a hundred and dance at your wedding. Indicating that she should close the door to the hall, he fetched a bottle of tequila from inside the bedside cabinet.

After pouring some into two very small paper cups, of the sort used to deliver daily doses of pills, he whispered, "Arriba!

Abajo! El centro!"

Y pa’dentro!

They drained the cups. She then flushed them down the toilet.

How you doing with that kids book? I make everybody here read it, he said, reaching into the cabinet to fetch out his inscribed copy of Dog-GONE-It!.

An illustrated alphabet book for young children, its entries were spelled to accentuate their pronunciation and were accompanied by humorous definitions, such as two that were cited admiringly by reviewers, ‘G is for GROV-eh-LING’ and ‘T is for TUMM-ee that likes to be scratched.’ Published by Berlucci Imprints, a small press, it had been politely reviewed as gently hilarious. Ell was happy to have it in print but considered it a minor opus. It had done little for her bank account, or for her confidence in being able to make a career of writing.

Everybody here likes it, so I have to explain to them you use the pen-name Sukie Blair—

That was Jake’s idea. He thought it wasn’t a serious enough project for my grown-up name.

Maybe you change it back later. My grandpa would be proud of you—he did some writing too, y’know. I remember when we went back to Mexico to visit … Belay that! – You doing a second book?

"A follow-up. About cats. CAT-Ah-Log! Pitched it to the publisher, and … still waiting for an answer. And I don’t have a clue what it’ll say."

Cats, y’see … Well dogs, they want to be like us, like humans; but cats, they just want to be cats. To them, they’re perfect.

I’m stealing that idea, Popo.

You will put in big cats? Lions, jaguars?

Like the one that mauled you?

Oh, Nama didn’t mean to—she was my baby.

Maybe it’s time you told me that whole story, Ell said, the tequila’s buzz emboldening her. I know only parts of it from Mom.

Fifty years ago, plus! I run this pet supply store, y’see, and I’m stocking some exotic animals—I know what they need, they know what I need. Kept some in the backyard in Rockaway; y’know the whole yard was cages – your great-grandmother, my Nancy, she hated that.

I’ll bet.

We were near the airport – y’know, Idlewild that became JFK— and it’s handy when they catch animals being smuggled—iguanas and spider monkeys and all—and they call me to take’em off their hands. I’m selling’em to zoos and collectors, but those deals take time, y’see, so I put‘em in the back yard. Nama, she’s maybe six months. We like each other. Can’t find a buyer, so she just grows, y’see, but to me she’s still my baby, and one day – well, she just takes a swipe at me with that claw. And, y’know, it was pretty bad.

You’re saying it was your fault?

Sure. After that, the Feds came and took her away, and the rest of the exotics. I go down to Mexico to heal inside and out—a curandera can do that, y’see. I get better, except for the eye.

And the arm.

"Well, no, the arm was from the war, that torpedo in Okinawa. Anyways, after I come back from Mexico, Nancy says ‘No more of this or I’m outta here.’ I say ‘Sure,’ and Nancy stays. We have plenty of business at the pet store.

Twenty years on, I turn seventy-five and I sell the business and the building. Then Nancy takes sick and I bring her here—they take spouses, not just vets, ‘y’know—that’s many years ago now."

Thank you for telling me. I wondered about it. But how did you get into dealing exotic animals in the first place?

I was always good with animals. My dreams told me I should do it—dreams wouldn’t let me alone.

That notion hit her in the gut, since The Dream would not leave her alone.

I bet you got dreams, too—all writers got dreams, right?

Sure. But just now my dreams have me confused.

Scary and terrific, huh? All at the same time?

How do you know this?

Your Popo, he’s lived a little, Poco. Maybe you’re not listening enough to your dreams. They’re telling you something – don’t be deaf to your dreams!

He laughed at his joke, a jest Ell did not quite comprehend, laughed so forcefully that he began to cough, alarming her. He motioned for her not to panic, and shortly his coughing fit did subside. He then looked quite tired, which they both took as reason for her to say adios.

This novel-in-progress is about a young woman writer, recently dumped by her long-term boyfriend, and with her writing projects stalled, as she investigates both a terrifying dream that haunts her, and her family’s past, which includes a remarkable female ancestor and that ancestor’s dream, which resonates with Ell’s own.

Tom Shachtman has written or co-authored forty books, mostly non-fiction, including a trilogy about the Revolutionary War, the third volume of which, THE FOUNDING FORTUNES, was published in 2020 (St. Martin’s Press), as was his satiric novel, THE MEMOIR OF THE MINOTAUR (Madville Publishing). His earlier books include a trilogy of short novels about sea lions, published in English, French, and German; a groundbreaking sociological study, RUMSPRINGA: TO BE OR NOT TO BE AMISH; and the award-winning science history, ABSOLUTE ZERO AND THE CONQUEST OF COLD, which became a two-part Nova documentary. He has also written documentaries for ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and for British and French television.

News on a Sunday Afternoon

Kathryn Brown Ramsperger

Have you heard the shocking news, Cecely? asked the old woman. She sat lapping up her strawberry ice milk. Her granddaughter sat at the opposite end of the oblong kitchen table. She did not look up from her dish.

Mr. Gibson is coming, the woman continued, then hesitated, as though she were expecting an answer, or at least a reaction, from Cecely. It did not come, and Mrs. Amelia Bishop clicked her tongue against the few remaining teeth in her mouth.

Don’t you remember who he is? Cecely? Cecely? Answer me, girl!

Cecely ventured to look up, then began playing with the orange worry beads in her lap. Her brown oxfords grated the chair rail. No, Granny. I most certainly don’t remember.

Amelia Bishop clicked her tongue again, twice. She rolled her eyes. Cecely, child, who lives next door?

Cecely put down the worry beads and looked up at her grandmother with focus now. Which side?

Young lady, I do believe as the Lord made me, your mama brings you over here to perplex me. Little golden-haired girl that you are, people would believe you to be easy to care for . . . to please. But here you sit, spiting me with those big blue eyes, puckering that cute littlebow mouth, not taking a smidgeon of interest in your old granny. You aren’t listening to me, even though you know I’m the one with the experience, the one with the know-how that I can transfer on to you. This that I’m telling you can be of great importance to you later in life. Now, think, girl, on which side does Lorelei Gibson reside?

Cecely picked up the worry beads again and placed them around her hair like a halo. The left? she asked. She rose and managed to take the china to the sink without spilling any ice milk, and her grandmother followed close behind her with the spoons and napkins. She glanced over her shoulder at her grandmother. Am I right?

I should hope so, Cecely Martin, her grandmother said. I also hope you will stay away from that old house when you visit me. Now be careful with pieces of the family china. You being my only granddaughter, you’ll inherit it all someday. You take my advice, and you’ll be a better safer person.

So what if I inherit the china? Cecely gazed around the kitchen. The refrigerator rumbled in its accustomed corner; the everyday glasses on top clattered against each other. The room was a cream color now; the once yellow walls had been grease-washed, and fingerprints covered the area around the table. The linoleum revealed exposed pieces of dark wood beneath. The room was large, and Cecely shivered as she walked back into the parlor. The parlor was colder than the kitchen. Even with gas heating, the old house harbored cold, claiming it for its own.

She sat on the love seat to wait for her grandmother to follow. She did not come. The girl heard banging from the kitchen, which meant her grandmother was angry. She began to wonder who the notorious Mr. Gibson could be. Perhaps he was a blackmailer, or maybe even a radio personality. Her grandmother had told her what radio rogues those people were, only she called them disc jockeys. They were hooligans with lots of members of the opposite sex hanging around to catch a glimpse of their sunglassed faces and leather jackets.

Cecely fingered the worry beads, arranging them in different designs on the red velveteen of her seat. A cat face. A bunny that looked more like a fox. A ballet slipper. How she wished they had money for ballet lessons. After a time, she lay down. Sounds of plates and silverware made her sleepy. She hung the worry beads on the stem of the marigolds on the mahogany coffee table. The orange of thebeads almost matched their burnished flower petals. If they didn’t match that exact orange, they most certainly blended with the mahogany of the table.

She slept. She dreamed of the circus. She was talking to a clown when her grandmother woke her. You shouldn’t have been sleeping with the screen unlatched on the porch door, Cecely! You never know what might enter an innocent home these days. You lazy little thing, it’s time for your mother to come.

It's four o'clock? Cecely straightened her dress and put the headband back on her head. You never told me about Mr. Gibson.

Never you mind if you don't remember. Just don't go near that house. Her grandmother sucked her little finger and reached up to scratch her permed hair with her other hand. I thought you'd like to hear about the time I killed the snake when I was a little girl barely older than yourself.

Cecely braided and unbraided her hair. I think I'll take a walk.

No! Her grandmother jumped to grab her wrist with a rapidity Cecely had never witnessed in her. "Your mama'll be here in no time, and'll be blaming me if you go off on one of your endless jaunts. Listen to my story.

I got my very first pony when I was twelve, Mrs. Bishop displayed her dentureless grin and put her legs over one side of the armed chair. "Mabel wanted that pony, but it was mine. I called her Dorcas. She was a white mare, and Daddy sprayed her bridle with gold so I could pretend to be a princess. It was fun to have her as my playmate in the summer. When winter came, I rode her in to town. We were trudging the third mile to town to get groceries on the twentythird of October. I talked to Dorcas all the way about the apples I would pick when I got home that day. Daddy allowed me to keep ten apples every day I picked in his orchard. Nine for me. One for Dorcas.

"Dorcas was a good horse; she never bucked. So I knew something was wrong when she got all skiddish. She reared up with all her might. She did it to protect me, but I fell right off because she surprised me. Dorcas attempted to smash the rattler between her hooves, but she only hit its tail. The thing was still alive, and it was advancing toward me. I stepped mighty quick, let me tell you. I picked up a sharp rock beside me. As I stepped to pick it up, the snake slithered closer, and I dashed its ugly head just as it coiled to strike.

"Have you ever seen how quick a snake can coil to bite? I got it, though. Just at the right minute, do you hear? But when I went home instead of going straight to town, Daddy got the belt after me because I hadn’t brought the eggs and milk. He didn’t let me keep the apples I picked for a week, and he . . . Look, there’s you mother . . .

Anyway, he took the gold bridle. Dorcas died the next year.

Cecely wanted to know why Dorcas had died, but Amelia Martin was walking bow-legged up the stepping stones to the porch. She wore her Sunday dress with grey speckled designs on a rose background. The color was splashed onto her otherwise colorless body. She did not smile as she walked into the room. She shivered, then collapsed on the seat beside Cecely. The air around her seemed to suck the breath from her throat; she fumbled in her purse for another cough drop so she could speak without her usual rasp. When she spoke, Cecely had to lean close to catch her words.

Guess you’ll be coming with me, Cecely. She grasped her daughter’s hand, and they began walking toward the screen door, heels clicking in time, together.

You could at least say ‘so long!’ Mrs. Bishop cried. I’ve kept the little one all day long. Let me tell you, it hasn’t been easy. She almost went down the street, and you know Old Man Gibson’s returning today.

Mr. Gibson? Amelia straightened, and her bow legs came closer together. Why didn’t you tell me before?

I just now told you, Amelia. Besides, you weren’t the person taking care of Cecely today.

Why’d he come back?

He’s come back to his wife. After all this time. After all he’s done. Mrs. Bishop turned on the television. The voice of a television evangelist blared out, making their dialogue more difficult. You don’t know the worst of what he did. He not only threw things at her that night, he ran off with that young thing—a common—prostitute. You should have seen her in that purple dress as short as a shirt. She had bleached hair and a New York accent. Now ten years later, he’s come back to Mrs. Gibson, and she’s taking him back. She’s even telling her neighbors. She’s ruined the neighborhood. It’s not safe to take a walk in now. Mrs. Bishop leaned her head back then brought it forward in a knowing nod, then turned it toward the television screen. Theconversation was over as far as she was concerned.

Sounds like the typical dirty old man story to me, Amelia said and turned her eyes toward the ceiling.

Go on home, Mrs. Bishop said. There’s more, but I can’t tell you in front of the child.

Cecely braided and unbraided her hair, following her mother’s gaze toward the ceiling. It had soft drink stains in one corner. Her mother grabbed her hand and took her to the dusty, brown two-door car, which she’d parked with one tire jutting over the curb on the semiresidential street.

Mrs. Bishop continued to watch the television screen. As the car sped away, she did not look up.

***

After the program ended, she sauntered to the kitchen. She took the silver service, which she had gotten from the cabinet earlier to polish and placed it on the coffee table in the living room. She made coffee in the pot her son had given her for Christmas years before, and carefully placed china and silver tea spoons beside the silver. She touched her face, feeling for the wrinkles on her forehead.

In her bedroom, she snatched off her apron and her soiled dress that did not quite button at the waist. She scrubbed her body until the skin began to peel, then covered it with cocoa butter and honeysuckle talc. She put in her dentures. She looked in the small mirror above her dresser and put on lipstick and blush, then one dark line on each eye lid. Then she touched her face again, as though making sure it was still there. The wrinkles stayed, resolute and deep. Adorning her best dress and her pearls, a gift from her late husband the day they were wed, she turned, pivoted, twirled as best she could in front of the mirror. But the light was dimming. She couldn’t see anything but the form of a woman, her belly sticking out a bit too far, in a flared dress. She shouldn’t have given her girdle to the Goodwill people.

Patting her hair in place, Mrs. Bishop walked to the screen door and opened it with precision. She glanced next door. The porch light was on. Fireflies and moths dotted the misty light it spread and fell on the tint in Mrs. Bishop’s new perm. Her eyes glistened as she saw the man and woman come down the porch steps. She noticed they werenot holding hands. She moved right quick to sit on her love seat. She fingered the beads at her throat.

When the knock came, she started as if in surprise. She limped to the door. Well, look who you’ve brought. It’s been a long time. She fingered her beads and looked past the two in front of her across the street.

Come on in and sit down, she grinned. That’s the same dress you wore last year about this time, Lorelei. It surely does bring back memories . . . Mr. Gibson, how have you been? How have you done?

Mr. Gibson cleared his throat and cracked his knuckles. Oh, a little of most things. I haven’t had much time for anything but work. I’ve collected a few butterflies, and I make my own apple cider. Most of the time, I’m working. I was a postal clerk in St. Louis, you know. That’s all over. I’ve officially retired. Come back home.

Lorilei Gibson smiled and put her hand on her husband’s knee. Mrs. Bishop touched his other knee with her own. Tell me what a postal clerk does. My word, he must keep awful busy. Her attempt at another grin looked more like a smirk.

No, not really. It’s just those long hours with nothing to come home to but a butterfly collection. It gets tiresome.

Oh my, I’m sure it does. Well, Lorilei, are you glad to have him home, or is he still restricting your freedoms?

Mrs. Gibson opened and closed the latch on her handbag. Oh, it’s different now. We’re older. Mr. Gibson will have more time for me, and I shall try to be more understanding. She picked up the worry beads, then set them back on a flimsy marigold stem. They fell to the coffee table.

Well, I have coffee here I’ve made especially for you, Mrs. Bishop said. She poured coffee into the delicate china cups. Black for you, Lorilei, and I remember you take only cream, Mr. Gibson. I’ve also made some shortbread cookies for our little welcome home party. I hope you’ll like them, Mr. Gibson. They are an old family recipe. She put her little finger in her mouth and bit the nail to the quick.

Before I join you both, I believe I’ll go wash my hands, Mrs. Gibson said. She walked with an unbalanced gait to the bathroom shutting the door behind her.

Mrs. Bishop and Mr. Gibson were silent. Mrs. Bishop rose and walked around the room, adjusting her dress, then the mirror framed inantique glass over the cold, blackened fireplace. She returned to the coffee table and put her right hand over the silver coffee pot with a loving touch.

Won’t you have some more? You’ve already finished, and she’s not back yet.

Ken Gibson shifted before saying, No thank you. A bit too hot for coffee today. It’s been a long time.

I could make a pitcher of tea.

He was silent, gazing out the window at the coming dusk.

What good is it your coming back at this late stage, Ken? After we’re all completely worthless? Mrs. Bishop moved closer all the same.

"Mighty fine