Feminism in a Man's World

I get emails regularly from the incendiary folks at Move On, loaded with them ole fightin' words. I am in awe of the indignation they can summon. Sometimes, it's justified. Others, well, I know there are two sides to every story, and they aren't giving the other folks a chance to get a word in edgewise. That's okay, it's their email.

However, one crossed my path this week that got me thinking. Since I've been down for the count all week with several types of unpleasantness that a lady never mentions in public (the flu, omg, kill me now!), I've been thinking when I wasn't sleeping or otherwise engaged. This email from Move On involved a federal judge in Nebraska, I believe, named Kopf, who wrote a pretty stupid blog about women lawyers and women in general in male professions. I mean, you can be a nitwit, but keep it to yourself.

However, he made one point that had my husband and me disagreeing. His diatribe included an example of a young, attractive female lawyer with "brilliant" attached to her name, who showed up in court regularly wearing short skirts up to "there," and emphasis on her ample bust in her upper body clothing. In other words, she got everyone's attention, but maybe not for the right reasons. What a shame to be thought brilliant as a lawyer, then reduced to a sex object because of one's dress.

My husband thought the judge was beyond sexist. I'm sure he is. But so are about 90% of the male lawyers I know. That's just the way it was.  To establish my bona fides on this topic, let me take you back to the dark ages when I started law school, equipped with the knowledge that my newly minted diploma from a women's college where women ran the show would serve me well. I expected to see women flooding the halls of my newest school. This was the start of something good happening for women in professions formerly restricted to men. (I couldn't attend the University of Virginia in my day, because women weren't allowed to even apply.) I'd been recruited by another prestigious law school for their first class to admit women, but I turned them down to go to my chosen university because I knew they'd started turning out women lawyers in the roaring Twenties.

Imagine my horror when I found out there'd been exactly one to two women in the classes preceding mine. And out of the 100 admitted in my first year, exactly ten were women. All top of their undergrad class. The men included lots of Vietnam air force pilot types who'd been riffed from the service as the war wound down. Imagine my lack of surprise when I took my seat in my first class that lovely fall day, and the man who sat next to me stated loudly "You know, you're taking a spot where a man should be." Only he wasn't that nice about it.

I come from a long line of strong women. Believe me, it was going to take more than that to scare me. However, by the end of the first week, five women were gone. Let's skip forward three years, I've passed the bar I took before I'd graduated, and I'm going to court with my first criminal client. I wanted trial experience, and firms back then didn't let newbies in the courtroom for years and years. A friend and I figured we were more competent than most, we could handle it. We hung out a shingle.

The judge glanced down at me, dressed in my conservative dark suit, Aigner pumps with matching briefcase my parents gave me for graduation, and announced in an off-handed manner, "Young lady, that's where the lawyer sits. Secretaries sit in the back behind the bar."

I politely told him I was the lawyer for the defendant, and he couldn't have been nicer to me from that moment on. I didn't make a big deal about it, because he had never seen me before in his courtroom, and he was invariably polite and helpful to me from that day forward. Judge Tucker was a true gentleman, albeit an old-fashioned one. I had grandfathers like him, I knew the type and knew he wasn't being mean when he told me I couldn't sit at counsel's table.

But you know what? I never dressed to emphasize my "assets," such as they were. Being tall helped when standing in side counsel in front of the judge's high bench, but that was my only physical plus in the courtroom. Never in a million years would I have worn a short skirt or a low-cut blouse to court. Kill me now at the very idea.

If you want to be seen as a professional, dress professionally. Being Southern, I was raised to know that you bought a good suit, a silk blouse, real leather accessories, and only gold or silver jewelry, all discreet and tasteful. Pearls if felt you needed their courage that day in court.  I never had a problem with being seen as anything other than a lawyer, one who wore heels and lipstick, but a lawyer first and a woman second.

So when young women now wear tight, sexy clothes to argue a case before a jury or a judge, I'm not taking their side when they get slammed as sex objects. Sorry. I worked too hard to pave the way for them, and the law is still a landmine of old world thinking in many ways.

I think my disagreement on the topic surprised my husband ( who is a staunch defender of women, being the father of two girls), but he sees my point. I'm just not going to take up cudgels for women with poor taste in clothes and the stupidity to fail to recognize they're not in the courtroom to flirt or make men drool.

Avoiding doing taxes. . .

It's amazing what-all I can find to divert my energy from pulling together our taxes. Well, maybe not amazing, just very telling.

I have carefully read a New York magazine article about a NY cop who joined S&M (and worse, much much worse) chatrooms, where he met men of similar tastes with whom he emailed detailed descriptions about killing and torturing certain women, including his wife. His wife found the emails, promptly loaded herself and her baby on a plane for her parents' home in Colorado, and called the police. The legal issue is: can a person be criminally charged and convicted for thinking and discussing repellent, illegal activity on which no action is ever taken? Accessory before the fact comes to mind as the pertinent legal charge, but if there's no "fact" to follow the "before" part, have the thought-control police acted prematurely? I'm all for setting the scene and arresting the parties as they begin their illegal behavior (sting operations are common, after all), but what if no action has ever been taken and no set date has arisen for the fulfillment of the pre-planning? What if it's all wishful thinking?

Oh Lordy, I'm sounding like a lawyer. But it's a dilemma for our society - can and should we be convicted for our evil thoughts? I tend to the side that God knows what's in your heart, and She'll handle it at the appropriate time. On the other hand (again, my lawyerly side showing its two-sides-to-every issue training), shouldn't the sickos be put out of action well before they can act? Reminds me of the Philip Dick story (and movie starring Tom Cruise) where you could be convicted before you committed any crime that the computer said you might, sometime in the amorphous future.

Catherine Deneuve was featured in another article, photographed in her 70 year-old glory, wearing a black lace teddy, black stockings, and shock of all shocks, a large tattoo in the middle of her back, between her shoulder blades. Catherine Deneuve with a tat? OMGOMGOMG. I feel as if I've missed the cool-older (ahem, cough) lady memo.

Now I really must do something about the taxes. Huge sigh. Maybe after I bake some chocolate chip cookies. . . .

Whole lotta Love...

I trekked to RIR (Richmond International Raceway) to buy tix for the April race, and look what I found. A very cool LOVE made of tires, helmets, and old fenders from wrecked cars. Had to park and hop out for a picture.

However, I was five minutes late - who closes down a box office at 5 p.m.?

December 1, 1945

In all the office renovations, I found a pile of old pictures I've never seen before. Thankfully, whoever took this picture labeled it and gave a date - December 1, 1941, at the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. The man in the darker uniform is my father, and the woman to his right  is one of his lifelong friends, Betty White, while the next woman to his right is Annette Davis, another lifelong friend. They all grew up together in the army, dated, married other people, but through the years stayed in touch. The man to my dad's left, who didn't make it into the picture, is Jack Featherstone, another boyhood buddy, who was killed in WW II in Europe. My dad served in the Philippines, where he was born.  His VPI roommate was killed on the beaches of Normany. What's amazing about this picture is that all these young cadets, West Pointers and VPI, would enlist in the military right after Pearl Harbor, which was just days away, and they don't know what's coming.

Do any of us? 

More about the shelves. . .

They cover most of the wall space ( three doors and two windows notwithstanding), and all I can say is, FINALLY! After years of storing books in shelved closets (what was I thinking, that books are sugly wetsisters to be hidden?), all my old friends are now easily at hand. I want to start rereading them immediately. This is the upside to an office renovation. The downside is the unceasing weeding through files and files and boxes and boxes of . . .stuff. Why did I think I needed twenty highlighters? And a gross of post-its? If I survive the cleanup, I'm going to lock the door and camp out in here. I love, no, adore, the feeling of being swathed in WORDS. Can't wait to get back to work.

The bedroom closets are going to have to wait.

Movie Trivia and not so trivial

Has anyone seen "Winter's Tale?" Looking for a bit of a romantic flick, my Beloved and I bundled up and trekked through the icy temperatures to see it. I wish I could say I loved it. It's visually beautiful, Lady Sybil from Downtown Abbey (Jessica Findlay Brown) was stunning, and the premise, that there's a miracle for everyone if you can find it, is charming. Will Smith as Lucifer ("Lou" to his top henchman, Russell Crowe) steals the movie.

But my stars - who decided to cut Colin Farrell's hair in such an odd manner? It doesn't seem "period" nor is it attractive. Just odd. Distractingly odd. It was all I could see, and since he's in every scene, I wanted to grab a pair of shears and fix the floppy bangs. Rats. I really wanted to love this movie, and I feel trivial and petty complaining about something so minor, but cinema IS a visual medium.

On another note, Richard LeParmentia passed away at the age of 66, far too young. He was the Empire officer in the 1977 "Star Wars" film who mocked Lord Vader for  his "sad devotion to that ancient Jedi religion." He got an almost-strangling as payment for his lippiness, as Vader rumbles that he finds his "lack of faith . . . disturbing."  One of those seminal movie moments.  So sorry to hear about his passing.

We're heading to Roanoke for a play penned by another Hollins MFA candidate in play writing. BEN AND RITA will be performed at the Mill Mountain Theater. If it's half as good as Decision Height, we're in for a wonderful night of original theater.

And the snows came...

This has been an interesting winter. "Interesting," one of those words that could mean anything from yuck to run screaming into the fire. And since the ice gods are clearly not done with us yet, I'm about ready to drive anywhere warm. Unfortunately, the sunny weather hideaways that are my go-to places are covered with ice and snow, just like us. What is the deal with snow south of the Mason-Dixon line? Holy Moley.

I should have been writing like a fiend, but instead I cleaned and watched the Olympics. Go Jordan Brown! Emptying files, paying attention to the TV with half my brain, deciding what to toss with the other half (not the brain, the files), I found some old talks I've given about writing. I surprised myself with how astute I could be when I'm trying to convey words of wisdom, earned in the writing school of hard knocks and a million, zillion rewrites.

While some aspects of my writing have evolved, others are constant. Character, for one. Always know what your characters fear losing the most, and take it away from the get-go. The bigger the stakes, the more vested the reader will be in reading to see if the hero/heroine can survive the loss, and even conquer it.  Or not. I rewatched LIMBO at five this morning (the high winds and sleet woke me up), and it's still a stellar movie. (John Sayles, director) The Joe Gastineaux character (David Straithairn) lost a crew at sea, and it was his fault. He has nightmares about it. But he's rebuilding his life, doing a little fishing for the first time since the disaster, falling for a lounge singer with moxie.  Now he has risked the lives of his new girlfriend and her fragile daughter, and they could all die because of his culpability in the past. Wow. He lost it all once before, and now he's about to lose what's even more precious because it took all he had to move forward after his boat sank.

Watch it. It's haunting and totally different. Came out in 1999.

The Beatles live on. . . sorta

Many, many years ago (I won't say the exact number, it's too, um, many), I and a friend wanted to see the Beatles perform live. Lo and behold, a concert date in Kansas City appeared. My friend and I were wild to go. Alas, Kansas City was a ways from Ft. Leavenworth, where our fathers were stationed, and we were too young to go by bus all on our own.

Every girl should have a hero, and I have always thought of my dad that way, ever since he volunteered to drive us to Kansas City. My thirteenth year had been rough - I was a real pill and practically impossible to live with, and I knew it - so I was surprised at the offer. But he didn't back out, and so my friend and I got to see the Beatles live, although we couldn't hear much music because of the wall of screams. Screams to which we contributed in vocal-chord rending magnitude. My dad sat in the parking lot and waited for us, then drove us home, voiceless and limp with ecstasy at having seen our idols in the flesh. I have never forgotten it.

I watched Paul and Ringo on the Grammys, and while it was nice, it wasn't the same. Paul looks as if he's had a bit too much of the plastic-face syndrome, and Ringo looks like Ringo, but they aren't the Beatles without George Harrison and John Lennon. I can't watch them without feeling as if I'm betraying that adolescent ideal. I want to remember the thrill of their young, boyish faces and sly grins as they transitioned from song to song, knowing the wall of noise surrounding them made their lyrics unintelligible. They smiled through two hours of futile music, an image I'll carry with me forever.

Maybe it's nostalgia for another day and age, when "I Want to Hold Your Hand" was the number one song, instead of "You Never Take Me Downtown Anymore." Or whatever the heck that filthy song is called.

Creativity

It's not something you can teach, but you can certainly learn how to encourage creativity. I heard a news report that kids now can't stand silence - something has to be running in the background all the time. My first thought was that they couldn't stand to be alone with their thoughts. Then it came to me, that if you aren't alone with your thoughts, how can you think creatively?

Several writers I know write entire novels to a single song, playing repeatedly as they type. I tried it once, and found I was imagining the story behind the song, not the song that attracted me. Unfortunately, it wasn't the story I wanted to stick with for four hundred pages. The silence that surrounds me when I'm alone at my desk is like gold. I can't write without it.

That doesn't mean I can't write in the midst of chaos. Sometimes, the wildness around me forces me to go deeper into the quiet place in my head, and the story still comes. But those times are few and far between, I've discovered, and I much prefer the silver quietude that is so precious, I crave it.
I imagine it's visuals that draw artists and photographers. One of my children takes incredible photos - usually black and whites. I don't see what she sees as she takes out her camera, but I'm usually blown away by the end product, finally recognizing what pulled her into the picture. I love how my other daughter imagines structures, merging the practical with the aesthetic. She can create whole buildings, complete with inner lives and histories, visually.  They're talents I don't possess, but I know their source.

A rich inner life, the freedom to explore it, and the nerve to go there, are what take you down that creative path. Taking that first step into the unknown can be scary and exhilarating at the same time. Every first page of a new book makes me wonder if I'm going to belly flop off the high dive, or get in a perfect swan. The flops have been many. The perfect dive, I'm still working on. 

It's the silence that gets me there. The silence as deep as swimming underwater, holding your breath, until you have to rise to the surface and breath, or you'll die. You take that big gulp of air, and dive again into the deep, working harder with each descent to get it right.

Princess Mousey

My youngest, known as Princess Mousey because of her ability to pick out the mouse on every page of GOODNIGHT MOON, turns 26 on the 24th. I can't believe she's that old! It seems like yesterday that she popped out so quickly, she landed on her head. Yes, you read that right. You've never seen so many people scramble so fast to grab a baby off the floor. I had no idea that contraction was going to be so effective, LOL I was just doing my thing, pacing the floor, trying to hurry things up.  Guess I succeeded.

The good news is, she's smart, funny, and a great daughter, sister and niece. Happy birthday, Princess Mousey!


Writers and Voice

So I'm back to watching American Idol. After being away for a few years, I'm pleasantly surprised. The judges, Keith Urban, Jennifer Lopez, and Harry Connick, Jr., are all insightful and unfailingly polite and kind. .   even to try-outers who don't deserve it. What I really like is how they try to help those who need a push in another direction.

What I've noticed, too, is how much they're swayed by a distinctive style, be it in the choice of outfit, how the hopefuls present themselves, and how they perform a song. Jennifer Lopez said tonight she was impressed with one try-outer's rendition of a familiar song, making it her own. They look for a unique package, one that's not mundane or "safe." Hmmm, makes me think of writers, and how they present themselves.

With us, it's called "voice." It's something that comes from deep within you, and you can either fight it (which never works), or you can throw it down and see where it takes you. Can you imagine Elmore Leonard writing in a style different from the one we have read for a long time now? Or Lee Child? There's that elusive quality that goes beyond good writing and great storytelling into the ephemeral that makes a writer stand out.

Not every writer with this unique quality will appeal to everyone. I'm going to quit reading a book now (which shall remain nameless, because it's well-reviewed and clearly a labor of love), because I can't stand the author's voice. Just rubs me the wrong way. The good news is, I'm not apathetic. The bad news is, I'm quitting on the book. Something I never do, by the way. But I have to give the author props for rising above the ho-hum.

So many books are workmanlike. Well crafted. Solid story. But they don't have that spark, that voice that tells me this author knows exactly who she is as a writer and isn't afraid to show it.

A Coup for the Duke

I've never done this before, but for some reason I felt like I should put up the first chapter of the new romance. Let me know what you think!


The tall, powerfully built man in deerskins stared at the polished brass knocker and hesitated.  The large townhouse presented its aristocratic face to the quiet street.  Few carriages would be about at this hour of the morning, for their owners generally slept late.  Freshly washed windows sparkled, the gray stones solid and unmarred by the harshness of a London winter rose three stories high.  Spring was wending its magic path here, in the wealthy section of London.  He glimpsed fresh hothouse flowers in a vase through one of the windows, a harbinger of those nature would force from the earth.  Straightening his shoulders, the man raised his arm and with one blunt finger touched the gleaming knocker on the front door. Nothing had changed about his London home, at least not outwardly.  Only he knew the sheer act of will that had forced him to come this far.
 His tanned hand, black tattoos across the wrist exposed at the end of the fringed sleeve, hesitated only briefly.  He dropped the brass handle with a solid push.
Valentine, the Duke of Devore, was home.
Stooping to pick up his sack, he hoisted the beaded and fringed deerskin to his shoulders.  It held all that remained of his life fur trapping in America, all that linked him to the freedom of the past five years.  His fingers tightened on the straps.
Felders answered the door, his hooked nose lifting just the right amount as he stared, eyeball to eyeball, with the tall, sun-darkened stranger with black hair sweeping his shoulders.  Trade beads in red and blue swirls and lines adorned his leathered shoulders, catching the weak London sun.  Felders’ eyebrows matched the angle of his nostrils as he gave the beggar a second glance. 
“If you require food, inquire at the rear entrance.  Cook will see to your needs.”  The large door began to swing shut.
Valentine jammed an arm between it and the jamb.  “Tell the Duchess the Duke has returned,” he snapped in clipped tones.  “And have someone get my chamber ready immediately.” Thrusting his pack into Felder’s stomach, he watched in satisfaction as the butler’s jaw fell.
“Your Grace?”  Felders never uttered a word in less than a stentorian tone, but these two sounded close to a mousey squeak.  “It can’t be.”
“Sorry to say, it is.  A bath too.  As quickly as you can arrange it.”  Valentine strode past the butler, his easy grace emphasized by his long, lithe figure.  But there was a bulk now to the shoulders, muscles in the arms, a powerful tilt to his head that hadn’t been there when he’d sailed for the Americas.  He paused inside for a second to glance at the London house he hadn’t allowed himself to think about for five years.  His mother had held court here all his life.  The memories weren’t pleasant, for she’d never loved him.  He wasn’t Simon, his elder brother, and she’d never let him forget it.
 His life was in America.  Not here.
The black and white tiles of the entrance way sparkled with new wax.  The wallpaper shone with gilt highlights.  Silver sconces held expensive beeswax candles.  Crepe didn’t shroud the ornate French mirror, Valentine noticed.  Mourning for his dead elder brother would have ended months ago, long before he received the letter at the trading post informing him that he must return to England to assume the ducal mantle.  He forced down the feeling of panic the news had engendered.
Housemaids scurried by the front hall, hands to their lips, eyes wide, some clutching aprons to their cheeks as if they feared a savage had been loosed among them.
“I don’t bite. I may lift a scalp or two, however, if I don’t get something to eat,” Valentine growled.  He flashed white teeth in a grimace that passed for a smile.  His teasing fell on ears which hadn’t heard his voice in so long, they still didn’t believe it was he. 
“Wickens, have cook prepare a tray to take up to his Grace’s chambers.  Trevor, set the fire in his rooms, Mary, carry up his Grace’s, um, luggage.”  Felders passed the deerskin bag to the youngest maid.  “I’ll tell her Grace you’re home.”
“No need.”  The Dowager Duchess, Lydia, descended the staircase, one pale hand on the banister the only sign she felt any shock at all at seeing her only surviving child.  Her silk morning gown rustled as everyone in the grand foyer held their breaths to see how mother would greet son. Many of the servants remembered clearly the days when she would have ignored him as if he were a floor beneath her feet.  A particularly dirty floor.
Valentine swept her a perfectly correct bow, the fringe on his sleeve fluttering with the gesture.  “Madam, my compliments.”
Floating to where he stood rooted, she presented him with one faintly powdered cheek.  “Don’t you know a civilized man never makes an appearance before noon? Or has your time among the savages robbed you of all your training in etiquette?”  A faint smile crossed her lips, more than Valentine had ever seen her bestow on him before.  As a child, he’d never been able to please her.  When he was an adolescent, she’d done all she could to make his life miserable.  He’d fought back the only way he could, with words aimed to hurt her and her favorite, Simon.
Valentine reined in the old urge to lash out at the woman who’d birthed him and who’d had no use for him until now, when the ducal heir was most unexpectedly dead.  “I can only hope,” he mocked.  “My time among the savages, as you call them, was most elucidating.”
One plucked eyebrow rose as his mother allowed him a score for that remark.  “Well, well, not so changed after all.”
“You would be amazed.”
The duchess turned to Felders.  “His Grace will have luncheon in my room.  Send for Mr. Weston’s assistant, and let me know when he arrives.”  She turned to Valentine.  “Shall we talk? I’m sure Cook will have your tray ready as soon as we leave everyone to get on with their work.  After you bathe, of course. You’ll need a new wardrobe, fashions have changed since you left us.”
With that subtle admonition, the dowager duchess cracked her invisible whip over her gawking servants.  The action that rippled from her command reminded Valentine of the Algonquin organizing for battle.   Valentine trailed her up the stairs, feeling the cold marble through the thin soles of his moccasins. Everything about the house bespoke of power, good taste, and an ancient bloodline.  Of which he was the last.  His mother may have possessed the coin that paid for the power and good taste, but she needed him to maintain the image of the ducal duchess.
Once into the dowager duchess’ powder blue and silver bedroom, Valentine waited until his mother had seated herself at her dressing table.  This room had been forbidden him as a child. Often, he’d wonder what games she played with Simon, as their laughter rode under the door into the hallway, where he lay on the floor, trying to peek through the crack into the magic world where he wasn’t allowed.  He’d braved crossing her several times, sneaking in when she was out, avoiding the servants who would tattle on him if they’d seen him touching her silver mirror, the azure silk of her bed hangings.  Had his father ever felt welcome in that room?  He’d wondered often, for his father the duke avoided his wife as assiduously as she, he. 
     Val almost touched the silken bed hangings, now a soft sea green with persimmon colored tassels.  She’d changed much since he’d left five years ago.  He wondered if the alterations were all on the surface.
Waving aside her maid, Lady Lydia picked up a gilt-backed brush and began to stroke her blonde hair.  He wondered if silver strands would show upon closer inspection.  She’d been young, seventeen, when Simon was born.  He’d come along six years later and she’d never spared him a glance from that moment forward.  Now she had to pay attention to him, damn her.
Her back was as straight as if she wore her stays under her dressing gown, her eyes in the mirror watching his face.  He schooled himself to show no emotion.
“Leave us,” Lydia commanded her maid.  The woman curtsied and backed from the room as if ordered from the presence of Prince George.  Valentine was aware her eyes never left him for an instant. What did the woman think, that he was going to strike his mother with a tomahawk?  Turning his back to the fire leaping in the grate, he graced the lady’s maid, Roberts he thought he remembered was her name, with his fiercest stare.  She squeaked, turned, and skipped from the bedroom.
“Honestly, Valentine, stop torturing the servants.  You haven’t been home ten seconds and you’re already behaving like a schoolboy.”
The smile that answered her didn’t come from a schoolboy.  “Just giving them what they expect.  There’d be nothing to discuss below stairs if I didn’t set everyone quaking.”
“Well, stop it.”  Lydia set the gilt-backed brush firmly on the dressing table.  Her still-beautiful green eyes surveyed her younger son mercilessly.  Spine as straight as a lodge pole, her figure still curvy, she was an impressive-looking woman, Valentine realized dispassionately.  Before he’d escaped to America, he’d seen as little as he could of his mother, who preferred the company of her husband and his heir.  America had been a relief that Valentine hadn’t known he’d craved until he was there.  Valentine refused to acknowledge her order.
“You took your time returning.”  Her voice soft as silk, she could have been discussing the weather, but Valentine could see the censure in her eyes.  Censure and dislike, after all this time.
“Many pardons, dearest mama.  Your missive, however, took several months to reach the trading post, and I didn’t receive it until many more months after that.”
“It really was quite thoughtless of you to go so far away.  Wouldn’t Italy have suited you better?”  Her green eyes ran from his moccasins to his head.  “At least you’d have returned better dressed.”
He refused to quake at the disdain he heard.  His shirt had been made by one of the supreme bead stitchers in the tribe, and he wore it with pride.  His history among the Algonquin could be read by those who knew how in the patterns of porcupine quill and colored glass.
“No, the American Indians with whom I’ve been living were more to my liking.”  He refused to say more about the tribe with which he’d become a blood brother, a respected warrior.
“At least you’ve filled out, become more of a ... man.  Weston shouldn’t have to pad your shoulders.” Pleased with her observation, she turned once more to her mirror and began to twist up a curl, which she pinned with studied accuracy. “We’ll have to hold a ball.  Something small and tasteful, not too elaborate.  It’d look as though you were celebrating Simon’s demise.  But large enough to show the ton you’ve come back, and you’re now the Duke of Devore.
Inwardly, Valentine shook with distaste at the thought of a ball.  He hated the social affairs that had sustained every waking hour of his father, then his brother.  Their neglect of the family properties was legendary, but their toilette and social standing had never suffered from lack of attention.  Or money.  The duchess’ money.
“The only reason I returned at all, mama, is to see if I can retrieve the Devore lands from complete and total ruin.  I know your estate supported father and Simon.  But I intend to act as the Duke of Devore should.  I’ll return to Hammersly tomorrow and have a talk with the estate agent.”  He thought he sounded calm, business-like.  He knew he’d inflame her with his plans, but he couldn’t hide them.  He still needed her, probably as much as she needed him.  They both knew it, and hated it.
“A waste of time, mon petit fils.”  A dab of rouge on the tip of one finger gently caressed the duchess’ lips.  “He’s here now.  I brought him to London when I didn’t hear from you, in the event the title would have to go to your imbecile of a cousin.”
Valentine’s eyes glinted.  “Then I’ll see him now.”
The duchess’ shrewd gaze slipped from her mirror to her son.  “I’d recommend dressing a bit more conventionally.  You’ll frighten the poor man into quitting.” 

     Valentine’s face betrayed none of his annoyance.  “Convention is the least of my concerns.  I’m sure he’s being adequately compensated to tolerate my presence as I am.”
     Pivoting silently on his deerskin moccasins, he crossed to the door with an effortless grace that had the duchess raising one eyebrow.
“He is.  Remember you’re the Duke of Devore now.  Please behave as such.”
“As if I could ever be allowed to forget.”  With a bow that reminded the duchess that he hadn’t forgotten his etiquette lessons, Valentine withdrew from her presence.   The chill in the corridor cooled his back, hot from the crackling fire in the grate. He’d forgotten how hot she kept her chambers.
 Shivering, he told himself it was the damp English spring that seeped into his bones with an oppression he couldn’t shake.
Winter snows in the mountains of America hadn’t been this cold.  Hardened to outdoor changes in climate, he’d seldom noted whether it was hot, damp, humid, or dry.  Now though, he longed for his buffalo robe and a bowl of hot pemmican stew as if it were the heart of a killing winter and his lodge the only place safe for anything without fur for covering and a hole in which to hide. 
His mother had never touched him.  Not a finger to his face to ascertain that it was truly he.  Not a peck on the cheek.  No embrace.  No smile of recognition.
He was the Duke of Devore, and that was all that mattered to the Dowager Duchess.  He couldn’t wait to see what she had planned for him. Because he was going to enjoy thwarting her more than he’d loved fur trapping in America. 

New Year's Day and a Bad Book

Technically, it's the 2nd, but I'm still on a roll, so it's the 1st in my world. We dragged ourselves  out from under the covers early so we could continue our annual tradition of attending an auction. Yes, we spend the day bidding on other people's unwanted items. As if we don't have enough stuff already.

It's always fun, even when we don't buy much, just from the people-watching aspect. Characters abound, from the guy in the work-worn overalls spending  BIG money on objects like a six foot bronze Indian figure, to the rodeo queen type goading her DH to bid on a four karat diamond ring.  I restrained myself, but barely. The check we wrote wasn't outrageous, she said sheepishly. It's just part of our family tradition.

On another note, I never throw books in the trash. I figure there's a book for every reader, so who am I to judge? Let me tell you, Fern Michaels did herself no favors by selling her 1999 book to Zebra for a reprint. They renamed it Christmas at Tanglewood (I think, I've tried to scrub it from my memory), with a shiny Christmasy cover, and I fell for it.  Not only was it horribly dated, with a few feeble sentences to try to bring it into the 21st century, but it had nothing to do with Christmas except the setting. And worst of all, it was a bad romance. Cardboard cliched characters. Just awful.

However, I learned a good lesson. I am NOT going to do any re-dos of my older books unless I am sure they're current and among my best work.

Oh, there's another auction this Saturday. . .maybe I can put off getting the Santas back in the attic. Right now they're massed on the living room sofa, planning a revolt.

This time of the year

December is a busy month at our house. My daughter has a birthday, and my dad's was on the 20th. I was going to post yesterday about what would have been his 92nd birthday, but we got busy doing things we've done in the past on that day. It happened by accident - we found ourselves driving around looking at the houses lit with a zillion lights and full of Christmas décor, remembering how we did it on his birthday in the recent past. We talked about his dog, Leroy, who passed away suddenly this year, and how the Beagle, and Rebel, the Golden Retriever, were vying for his affection in the next realm. It was a good time. Then we drove by his old house and were so pleased to see it decked out with lights and looking very festive. My dad disliked decorating for Christmas, and we would have to hang decorations in spite of him.

I found a picture of our house from 1958-1961, on Okinawa. My mother had a Japanese artist build and paint a huge plywood  Santa (with Japanese eyes) on a sleigh, complete with reindeer, to anchor on top of the roof. A typhoon swept through one Christmas and threw the whole kit and caboodle down the street. I remember my dad chasing it in the lashing rain as it went end over tea kettle. As I remember, that was the year the scrawny Christmas tree wasn't up to mother's standards, so my dad had to drill holes and glue in branches from another tree, then wire them to other branches so they'd hold the ornaments. Looking back, I can see why my dad wasn't overly fond of decorating for the holidays, LOL.

Christmas is so fast this year, I don't have a handle on it. I've resolved to be less stressed and realize it'll happen with or without my fussing about it. After all, the important thing is that we're all together and feeling very grateful to be so. And no one has to chase a plywood Santa down the street in the pouring rain.

I haven't run away...

Not yet, at any rate. Life has been, hectic, is the polite way to phrase it, I think. I have other, more pithy descriptions, but I'll rein myself in. It is, after all, getting to be that time when Santa is making her list. Don't need to add to the "naughty" column(s).

I'm so unprepared for Christmas, it's almost funny. Now, however, I understand last minute online shopping (with free shipping, too!). I made a foray to the mall, gritting my teeth and praying for a parking spot, only to find plenty of vacant spots. No festive crowds spending money, either! What gives? Has everyone else discovered the magic of online? I think I see a trend here.  (Sometimes I'm not the sharpest crayon in the box.) And honestly, there wasn't much available to make me whip out my credit card, either. A sweater here, some stocking stuffers there, but not the Big Gift array I was expecting.

And when did Barnes and Noble turn into a massive toy store? Just try to find a book! The helpful sales person assured me she could order the ones on my list, and a lightbulb exploded over my head. No thanks, I countered, I'll get them myself online. I didn't add they'd probably be cheaper.

By the way, bought the Trace Adkins Celtic Christmas album. Just a joy, is all I can say. Classic carols with cool arrangements. Helps a bit with the wishy-washy Christmas spirit deficit.

 Hope you all are feeling merrier than I, and that you have a lovely Christmas.

Sedaris

I've been ruminating over the David Sedaris kind of book for a while now. While I enjoyed his reading new stories, and I loved NAKED, I sat down and read his other works all in a row recently. His writer's voice is distinctive, his style charming and self-deprecating, but after reading his New Yorker piece about his sister's recent suicide, I can't help but wonder at the price paid for his acerbic wit and razor-like dissection of his family's foibles. It's one thing to tell tales on yourself, and quite another to hold your family up to ridicule.

Perhaps it's the Southerner in me, but waving dirty laundry from your family's wash seems quite tacky. Even trashy. Definitely not the behavior one expects from a boy raised in Raleigh.  The consequences within the family must be scary. Perhaps that's the plan - keep everyone riled up, and there's more fodder for the writer. I feel sorry for them all. And there's no way in heck I'll keep paying for Sedaris work.  So awful to be related to him. I feel sorry for them all.


Chartless

Emily Dickenson's poem has stuck with me since childhood. "I never saw a moor, I never saw the sea, yet know I now what heather is and what a wave must be. I never talked with God, nor visited in heaven, yet sure am I of the spot as if a chart were given."  At least, that 's the way I remember it.

My dad loved maps. After he passed on, I found hundreds of maps and charts stuffed in drawers. He'd studied electrical engineering at VPI (as it was known way back when), but he once said he would have loved to be a geographer.  He taught me to read maps when I was a kid, a handy tool to have when you're lost. But I never feel lost when I have a map or chart, or even a good compass.

The GPS in the car is insane, and seems determined to make me turn left into concrete barriers or drive through gang-laden neighborhoods on a three hour detour to Sears. I don't trust it for one second. Google maps on the smart phone is better, but who can hear the tiny voice whispering turns after you've already passed them?

I like to navigate by gut instinct, landmarks, and the compass if no maps are handy. Sometimes, if I'm heading southwest, I know I'll get home eventually. Like Emily Dickenson, I don't have to see some things to just know they're there.

Like my family's love. My love for them. No maps needed.

But I do like a good atlas.

Halloween 2013 Story

I don't know what happened, but this story disappeared overnight and I didn't realize it. Gremlins, perhaps? Anyway, this is my Gothic story for the year . . .


Stolen

            “Lily’s fat,” Annabeth, Lily’s mother, remarked to Julia, Lily’s grandmother. The conversation never varied much. Lily’s shortcomings graced a good one-half of the mother/daughter conversations that took place when the older women gathered for Saturday coffee. Lily’s weight was the newest topic, a subject they didn’t hide from Lily, who hunched on the back porch and could hear them jabbering through the kitchen window. The fact that her mother and grandmother could eat anything and did, without gaining an ounce, gave Lily scant comfort.

They were right, and Lily knew it. She knew it only too well, because Maridon Strange, who was named after her mother Mary and her father Don, a fact that Lily found absurd, told her that Todd Lucas had invited her to the fall dance.  Lily wanted to strangle the bitch, and Maridon knew it. Maridon told everyone flat out that Lily wasn’t even in the running with Todd, the boy Lily had known and loved all her life, because over the summer Lily had put on the pounds.

She’d bloomed from a gawky, skinny girl into a busty freshman who couldn’t get through a door without bruising her hips. The fact that all her clothes were so tight she literally popped buttons didn’t help.

Papa told her it would be all right, that girls like her were painted by the best Renaissance artists like Reuben and Titian, and that her red hair would have made her the perfect model. That she’d be the one slamming the door in Todd Lucas’ face when he realized what a real woman looked like.

But then, Papa had married Mama, and Mama had never had a fat roll hanging over the back of her brassiere in her life, not even when she was pregnant with Lily. Lily had seen the pictures, and Mama looked like she’d swallowed a pumpkin but the rest of her was normal-sized.

The worst came when she’d looked up Reuben and Titian on the internet and studied the women Papa had been describing. Time to give up, she figured, and hit the donuts with a big glass of whole milk.  Which was what she was doing while Mama and Geemaw added to her humiliation.

She told herself she didn’t care a rat’s ass for Todd Lucas, even if he had kissed her last year after his mama drove them home from the spring hop. He was already a freshman in high school while she was still in eighth grade, but he’d promised her when they were ten and eleven that he’d escort her to every dance she wanted to go to, after she’d told him she had nightmares about being the only girl in school who never got asked to a dance.

Todd had been like that his whole life, thinking of others, especially her. They never had a falling- out until he got a car. He’d turned sixteen just before school started, and his daddy had bought him a gorgeous ‘68 Camaro, dark green, already restored. Mama said it was because Todd’s father had always wanted a car like that, and he was just living his youth all over again through Todd, but Lily didn’t care. She’d wanted so much to go to the first dance of her freshman year with Todd driving that cool car.

Wasn’t going to happen, so she may as well get on with what was left of her sad, pathetic, hopeless life. She knew exactly how it would proceed down the lonely roads of the hills of western Virginia. She’d start jerking her red hair back in a scrunchy, wear sweatshirts with Virginia Tech logos she’d buy in the thrift store, and her jeans would get tighter every year. If she was lucky, she’d land a job at Wally World, drive a dirty white Corolla with a hundred dings and scrapes from its twenty years on this earth, and buy frilly polyester dresses for her stupid little dog who weighed all of five pounds.

Cramming in the last bite of donut, Lily decided she’d had enough of feeling sorry for herself. Scooping up the donut crumbs from the front of her T-shirt, Lily licked her fingers. This was going to be her last donut for the rest of her life. Until she could wear her clothes, at least.

She stood on the porch and studied her options. Papa was working on the tractor, Mama and Geemaw were still yammering away, but at least they’d moved on from her as the victim of their conversation. Her homework had been done for hours, and she still had the rest of the weekend to fill with something. She didn’t have a cell phone because the hills blocked any signal, and the computer was for Papa’s business, so she was only allowed to use it for homework, and besides, it was so slow it was impossible to play any games.

Then she thought of how she’d spent hours when she was little, building a fairy world out in the woods. With plenty of ferns and pinecones, she’d play for hours, making up stories for the little people she conjured from bark and twigs and some scraps from mama’s quilting leftovers. As long ago as it had been, the idea of just pretending pulled her like a jelly donut singing her name from the box. Even if she was fifteen.

The woods were just as dense as ever. Papa refused to sell their timber rights, even though they had some huge old hardwoods that would fetch a small fortune. Mama argued until she ran out of words that they should sell, but Papa said trees were all that kept the air clean, and he wasn’t going to choke to death on car fumes if he could help it.  Lily was on Papa’s side, but mostly because she couldn’t imagine looking out any window in their house without a view of the trees. Change was not her forte’ and she knew it.

Racing for the forest, she was grateful she didn’t split a seam in her jeans. They were tight enough to squeeze the stuffing out of her, but Mama refused to buy her any new clothes until she started to lose weight.  Without thinking, Lily kicked off her shoes, unzipped the old denims and shucked them off.  Reaching under her T-shirt, she unhooked her bra and slid it down her sleeve by the straps. Finally, she could breathe unfettered. Flopping on the forest floor, soft with pine tags and leaves just starting to fall, she stared at the blue sky peeking through the tree branches. If she didn’t blink and didn’t try to focus on any one thing, the air shimmered with motes of dust that sparkled as if the fairies were tossing silver confetti from the very tops of the oaks. She pulled into her mind the pictures of the fairies she’d concocted when she was a kid and let her imagination run with it.

Sure beat sitting around getting criticized.  So far she’d held back the tears, but now, they fell faster than she could wipe them from her cheeks. Todd would never look at her again, her Mama and Geemaw thought she was ugly, and her future held nothing but sorrow and disappointment. Weeping bitterly, Lily cried herself to sleep.

The dream was vivid and wonderful and sad all at the same time. Todd and she were married, living in a trailer behind her parents’ house.  It was a nice one with no rust and had air conditioning and everything. Todd still had that Camaro, and she’d wait on the front stoop for its rumble every evening when he came home from work.  Their two little boys fidgeted beside her, anxious for daddy to jump up the steps two at a time and scoop them up for a hug. When she looked at her legs, one foot tapping impatiently for his return, she felt the same clenching in her stomach she’d felt forever when she knew he was near. Her one true love was coming home, to her and to their boys. All was right with the world.

She popped inside the trailer to check on the crock pot dinner simmering away. Catching a glimpse of herself in the window glass, she saw that she was as thin as her mother. Nothing pinched, nothing wobbled. In fact, she was downright skinny. Too skinny. Chasing after two kids under the age of four must have run every ounce of fat off her, she mused as she corralled the boys into their chairs. They were hungry, Todd was late, so she may as well feed them before they got too cranky to go to bed without dire threats.

“Where’s daddy?” Her eldest, Will, had a tendency to whine. She’d have to get that under control sooner rather than later.

“He’s running a little late, is all. Come on, let’s eat. Dinner’s ready.” She spooned up the pot roast and potatoes, making sure everyone got the same number of carrots, or she’d never hear the end of it.

“Daddy’s going to learn me to drive when he gets home.” Her baby, Danny, loved to sit on Todd’s lap as he circled the yard in the Camaro, letting Danny’s hands rest on the steering wheel.

“Not if it gets too dark,” she warned, glad she had boys and not girls. Girls had it so much harder.

The children picked at their food, eventually swallowing enough she wouldn’t feel guilty for putting them in their bath early.  She kept glancing at the phone on the kitchen wall, but no one called. Not Todd, not the state police. She was glad for that, but it wasn’t like Todd to not let her know if he was running late. Picking up the phone, she punched in the number for her parents, wondering if they’d heard of any accidents on the interstate that could have kept Todd snarled in traffic. I-81 was notorious for jackknifed trucks.

No one picked up. Strange, she thought, then realized it wasn’t so strange. Her parents regularly fell asleep in front of the evening news or Wheel of Fortune. She hung up.

The children fell asleep after only two Dr. Seuss books tonight. She almost wished she’d kept them up, so she’d have someone to talk with.  She couldn’t take off and leave them, not with her parents comatose after seven p.m., but she really needed to find her husband. He was never this thoughtless, not since her freshman year in high school when he’d taken another girl to the fall dance.  He’d come to his senses, of course. They’d been born to be together.

Dread built in her by the minute, until it was an avalanche she was helpless to stop.

The sound of the dinner bell wakened her. Only it wasn’t a bell, it was more like a siren, a screaming wail that stabbed through the muddle in her brain like ice picks.  Trying to put her hands over her ears, she found she couldn’t move her arms. Every inch of her was bound like a mummy. Her throat flamed with pain, her eyes felt glued together.

“Lily! Lily! We found you! Hold on, honey!”

She thought she heard her father’s voice. Papa. Why was he yelling? Where was Todd? Had something happened? Remembering Will and Danny, she tried to sit up to check on them. Maybe the trailer was on fire, but she couldn’t smell smoke. And she couldn’t move.

A strip of light fell across her face. Total darkness lay thick around her. Impossible.  She left a night light on for the kids so they could find her if they stumbled out of bed with bad dreams. Attempting another call to the boys, she found her throat hurt so much she wanted to scream, but couldn’t. What the hell was happening?

The heat of the light on her face grow stronger. Her eyes ached with the effort, but she forced a peek. Above her bloomed cracks of light, as if they were being filtered. A tree? No. Boards. Boards laid side by side with small cracks between them through which she saw the light.

“Papa?” she croaked, the effort astounding her. She tried again. “Papa?”

Sounds like feet running above her. Shattering wood. Men yelling. More sirens, for that was clearly the source of the wailing noise. The trailer must have been hit by a tornado, she reasoned when she was able to calm the pain in her head.

Then hands were lifting her, cutting away what bound her arms to her sides and strangled her throat. Through the many hands she saw her father’s face, then her mother’s, but not Todd. Not her boys. What had happened? Were they okay? She wanted to ask, but her parents were crying too hard. The men in uniform that surrounded them were still yelling at each other, darting out of her line of vision one by one, and she knew they wouldn’t be able to hear her, anyway.

“It’s okay, baby girl, it’s okay. We’ve got you. He can’t hurt you anymore.”  Papa said the words over and over. “As soon as I found your clothes in the woods, I called the police. We’ve been searching for you day and night, honey. You’re safe. It’s all going to be fine, just you wait and see. I’m just so sorry it’s taken this long.”

What was he talking about? Her mother was sobbing so hard all she could do was pat Lily’s face with both hands and rain tears on her.

“Ma’am, we need to get her to the hospital. Please, ma’am.”

Lily watched her mother collapse in a heap in Papa’s arms. What on earth had happened? Why was no one telling her where the boys and Todd were?

“Can I ride with her?”  Papa was holding her hand, even though it hurt. The medics, Lily assumed, were her lifting her onto something stiff.

“Okay,” the medic mumbled, “but stay out of our way.”

Lily sank into all-consuming hurt and pain as they carried her into the ambulance, her mind screaming for answers no one thought to give her. A policeman got into the ambulance with her father, and began asking her questions. She didn’t give a damn about what he wanted to know, could she identify the man, how had he hurt her, did she know his name.

“Todd,” she croaked. “My kids?”

“Damn that boy. I knew he was behind this,” her father burst out. “Let me out of here, I’m going to find the son of a bitch and kill him.”

“I’m going to have to arrest you if you say that again,” Lily heard the policeman admonish her father. “Now sit down and let these folks do their job.”

Lily tried to shout over them, to ask about her children, but it had taken all she had to ask where Todd was. As the medics poked and prodded her and hooked her up to machines, she drifted off into a troubled sleep where she tried to find her family, running from one end of their property to the other, through her parents’ house, the barns, the surrounding forest, and found no one at all. Just an ominous stillness, devoid of bird calls or the rustling of moles underfoot.

 

“She’s suffering from dehydration and starvation, of course, and there’s evidence of  abuse and torture. That said, she’s in remarkable shape. Lily’s a fighter, that’s why she’s still alive.”  The doctor stared at Lily, lying in the hospital bed, as he spoke to her parents.

“The issue is mental. The physical will heal. But wherever she went mentally when she was abducted, and during what happened later, is a deep, dark place. I don’t know if she’ll come up for air, but that’s not my bailiwick.”

“You mean she might stay like this? Not saying a word?”  Lily’s mother clutched her husband’s hand until her knuckles whitened.

“I mean, it’s a process. Give it time. She saved herself by going where she was safe. We just don’t know where that is and if she’s ready to leave there. There’ve been studies. . . .”

“Will the one name she said when we found her be used in court? Will that bastard Todd Lucas go to prison? That’s what I want to know.”  Lily’s Papa could barely say the name of the man he knew had kidnapped and abused his only daughter.

“I’m not a lawyer, Mr. Slater. I have no idea. I’m only concerned with Lily’s recovery.” The doctor made it sound as if he doubted Lily would ever come out of the place in her mind she’d gone to hide.

Lily didn’t hear them. She was busy getting Todd’s lunch and the children their breakfast.  Todd had gotten home at midnight, explaining a logging truck had overturned and the highway was frozen going both ways. “You need to get a cell so you can call me,” she complained. “At least when things like that happen.”

“I will, honey, I promise. Soon as we can afford it.” Kissing her on the cheek, he took the lunch bag from her hands and gave her a playful pat on the fanny. “Any way you look at it, hon, we’re wealthy. We’ve got each other.”

She couldn’t argue with that.