This blog is so worth reading. . .

Check out bellejar.ca for a spot on dissection of the theft and publication of nude pics of some famous women, including Jennifer Lawrence.  This must stop. As a society, we must rise in outrage and stop people who think all women are fair game.

The leaves are falling. . .

I found another notepad with my dad's name on it just yesterday. He must have had hundreds, all "gifts" from charities he supported. (And he supported a ton of them.) I use them for jotting down phone numbers from the message option on the phone, just as he did. After he passed on, I threw away bags full of these pads, until some gained a reprieve. They're still useful to me, but I wonder how he could have possibly used them all in his lifetime. He loved little 3 x 5 cards, tucked in his front pocket on his shirt (all his shirts had to have this pocket or they were returned immediately), and small notepads he could use for reminders. Once, I gave him a small notebook to use beside his computer, handy for jotting down things he wanted to remember, including passwords, but he found it difficult to remember to use it. Once again, the 3 x 5 cards came to the rescue.

I discovered my older daughter was doing the same thing. Tucked in a slot in her bedroom desk is a tidy pile of 3 x 5 cards, covered with passwords and reminders. Seems the 3 x 5 card gene has skipped a generation. I, however, hoard notebooks. Rows of them. All filled with pages I figure I'll  need to re-read someday. One even holds passwords. So there.

Leaves are falling, much to my disgust. Autumn simply has to hold off a while longer. We're just not ready to rake and pull on sweatshirts. Once, though, autumn was the highlight of my year.  When I was a girl in Kansas, Fall meant the beginning of the fox hunting season, my big thrill. Since there weren't a lot of foxes where I lived, the hunt would put out a drag, or scent, for the hounds to follow, which meant a fun ride at full tilt. I was never prouder than when I was awarded my "FLH" buttons to sew onto my jacket. My little roan half-quarterhorse, half-thoroughbred, normally a well-behaved mare, would thunder over logs and leap streams as if she were seventeen hands instead of fifteen. Once, I almost passed the Master of hunt, when she got the bit in her teeth and decided she was going to lead this parade. I ended up jerking her in circles to try to slow down our certain expulsion from the hunt.  She hippity-hopped and she bucked and I almost went over her head, until she calmed down. Thank goodness. That day was more fun than I'd ever had.

The writing is coming. Bathroom renovation is almost complete, so the sound of workers' radios and drills and hammers and whatall is just about silenced. A few more bits to go, a re-do by the plumber of the hot and cold handle in the shower, and we've survived the bathroom re-do from hell.  I don't think I'll ever do this again.

Strong Greaved Achilles and helmet-haired McDonnell

I'm re-reading the Lattimore translation of the Illiad - and it's wonderful. When I read it in school, it was work. Now, I'm caught up in the language, the imagery, the violence.  Still a heck of a read. It's a textbook of how to make characters come alive. Use a tag with a name - like strong-greaved Achilles- and keep it going until you can't think of the character or see his name without the extra descriptor. The descriptor gives a visual image that is many instances is almost cinematic.

A friend recommended TYRANT on FX. We could only start with the fourth episode, but boy howdy. Nothing like it on TV that I know of. I'm going to have to hunt down the first three, but I have an idea what's happened so far. RAY DONOVAN is going slowly - I don't have much time for TV, but Season 1 is so original, I wish I'd written the character.

I miss comedies of the old days, like The Dick Van Dyke Show. Network TV then hired the best writers. I've always thought comedy is harder to write than anything else in the world.  I'm beginning to believe only tortured souls can write truly great comedy. Jonathan Winters, Robin Williams, RIP.  I find writing humor to be nothing but torture. Sometimes I can catch a quirky phrase that sounds at least amusing, but that's as far as my talent goes.

Our former governor continues to deny any wrong doing in his acceptance of money and gifts from a corporate bigwig. The whole story is so sordid and embarrassing, I don't know how he can get on the stand to testify. I'd have accepted a plea deal for a hundred years in prison, if it would have spared my children and wife this public humiliation. I can't imagine how his wife has retained her sanity, unless she really is crazy already. Totally possible.

Paring down

I just re-read HUNTING BADGER by Tony Hillerman. I remember the first time through, I was shocked at the large print and short page count. As I do with Hillerman, I read for story. This time, though, I read it for technique.

What I discovered made me rethink my own craft. Hillerman has distilled each scene, each conversation, down to its essence. There's no fluff, no "pretties" to distract from the story.  Yet each character retains his/her distinctive voice. Jim Chee never sounds like Leaphorn.  I found I really liked it, because the story is fairly complicated for such a short word count. Personally, I'm really fond of all my digressions and side stories, but none of them are that spectacular that they can't be eliminated. Any distractions need to be central to the mystery, or they're history.

I miss these masters of mystery, Tony Hillerman, Dick Francis. At least we have their bibliography, and they'll never go out of print.

Changes

Since I'm playing with another Tal Jefferson book idea, I needed to refresh my memory on its locale. Hitting the Web, I pulled up pictures of the real town on which I based Wynnton, and looked around, courtesy of Google. (Personally, I hate the fact Google has my house in its data base.) I couldn't believe how the streets I thought I knew well have changed over these past years.

The houses I am using are no longer residences. What was once a very neighborly street is now all business in these old, lovely homes. Pickup trucks park in the side yard. Large signs by the driveway announce the business name and address. Houses once painted a brilliant white to ward off the summer sun are now tans and beiges, reds and blues.

I remember all those neighbors so clearly. Mrs. DeShazo with her curved spine, club foot, and tiny stature, always impeccably dressed, wearing lipstick, and the sweetest woman on earth. Mrs. Smith, worrying about her husband's arthritis. Mrs. Ritchie, her house filled with luminous art painted by her Spanish son-in-law. Mrs. Amos, housing her granddaughter and her son, wealthy as Croesus but not flaunting it a bit.  Visiting each other was a ritual not to be missed. Front porch swings on hot summer nights, lemonade in the garden, a tuna stuffed tomato for lunch with all the neighbor ladies happy to attend a hastily arranged party. I know they are no longer with us in person, but they will always live in my memories. Their white houses with huge old shade trees, now cut down for parking areas, will survive in my mind as well.

The owners may change, but the stories these women told, their personalities, their faces, are with me still.

Where have the readers gone?

I read some horrifying statistics today. I'm generalizing here, but the article said that only one-third of high school graduates pick up a book after graduation, for the rest of their lives. College grads were even worse! Something like twenty-eight per cent deign to read a book after receiving their sheepskins.  There was a further breakdown, but oh my stars, did I feel discouraged. With so few young people reading, the publishing market is bound to cater to those sacred few. I just didn't see the trend as clearly as I do now. The aisles between YA books always have more people than any other section, even the ones with cookbooks and devotionals, so mercy me, I hope those few stay faithful to the printed word.

Reading is one of the great pleasures in life. Cliché, yes, indubitably. I can't imagine a life without books in some form or another. So I feel sorry for those who never want to go near a novel again for as long as they live. Then again, who am I to judge? There's certainly great storytelling on the TV (I just started in on RAY DONOVAN on cable), but some of the best TV drama comes from novels. LONGMIRE, anyone?

I'm mailing copies of OUTLANDER to friends who are too young for its first iteration in 1991. I know they'll be caught up in the series now airing on Showtime (I think), and will want to see what's been left out in the necessarily truncated TV version.

A Cup of Cold Water

We were having dinner the other night at a Chinese restaurant we've frequented for over thirty years.  No kidding. It's not in the best part of town, but the food is great and the place holds great sentiment for us. Our first date. Last Saturday, we were out with family, enjoying ourselves, when a thin black man came into the restaurant.

The day had been a hot one. He asked the hostess for a cup of water. I heard her, across the room, tell him they had no cups to go. He stood there, looking forlorn, as she tried to get him to leave, asking again for a cup of water.  I glanced at our large table, filled with food, and lost it.

Loudly, I shouted across the room that I'd pay for the water. Once more, she insisted they had no cups. I glanced at the bar and asked of they had bottled water. They did. Again, I said I'd pay for it. A bottle of water was produced, and the man turned to thank me. I nodded.

My Beloved pointed out they probably, given the economics of the area, have people asking for water all day long. Maybe. But when we, as a society, refuse people water, we deserve what we get. And it won't be good.

I won't be back to that old favorite restaurant, ever again.

Books from our childhood

I read an interesting analysis of the Narnia books by someone who reread them as an adult, comparing her contemporary reaction with her youthful memories of the books. Though the rereading was colored by her rosy feelings from years before, she couldn't overlook the sexism and other issues she found as an adult. I felt sorry for her. Something wonderful was now tainted.

 Though I'm often nostalgic, I wouldn't relive the past for a zillion wonderful reviews. Memories, though, are mine, therefore hands off to everyone else. Yet I've been tempted to pull out old favorites and give them another look, wondering if my young eyes were wrong the first time they read the words on a page.  Miss Flora McFlimsy has never failed to charm me, no matter how old I am. Rumer Godden's Mouse House swims in the same magic.  But these are books for young children, not the books I gobbled up as I became a voracious reader.

My mother insisted on summer reading lists (before schools required them), so I was fed a delicious diet of Newbery Award winners.  I cannot praise my mother enough for insisting I read quality books.  Behind her back, with my allowance savings, I indulged in the secret delight of Nancy Drew books, purchased at the post exchange on outings with my father.  I can still see my mother rolling her eyes and sighing when I fell under the thrall of the dauntless girl detective in her powder blue convertible. (It was a convertible, wasn't it?)

I'd never reread those Nancy Drews, but I have kept my stash of Newberys. Hittie, Her First One Hundred Years. Roller Skates. Caddie Woodlawn.  Oh my, the memories. The interesting thing is, I can see how these books shaped me as a writer. The thrill of the clue in the old clock, the independent girl sleuth, and the veritable plethora of wonderful writing that comprised the award-winning books gave me a firm foundation as a mystery writer. I don't need to reread them to see if I was hoodwinked as a child reader.

I wasn't. To all those wonderful writers, I am eternally grateful.

Where has it gone?

I declare, time is speeding up the older I get. I have no idea where this summer has flown. Having anticipated the hot, muggy days of a Southern July, I woke up this morning and realized it's almost over. Not only July, but summer too. Makes me grumpy. Like the morning after Christmas, when all the anticipation has dissolved into the mist of OMG, January is next. . .

Major renovations going on at our house - a new bathroom for one - and guests have taken up some of my time. Mostly though, I have no excuse for being so remiss in keeping this blog going. As I watch a Nascar race on TV (and I don't even sit through all of them, now), I think about discussing the alarming trend among drivers to have a baby with the current girl friend, and ignore the minor detail of a wedding first. Or even after the baby arrives. Denny Hamlin, you were raised better than that. Kyle Larson, well, you're only 21, but I'm sure someone informed you that the decent thing to do is to put a ring on it. Penske's new powerhouse engines have me tickled pink (as does Joey Logano's new found zip), Dale's great year -all of it is good.

What I'm holding my breath over is Rob Kauffman's new alliance with Roush, Hendricks, Gibbs, Petty, and Childress. Ostensibly, it's to pool resources to get better deals on parts, equipment, and hotel rooms for crew during race weekends, but I have to wonder - is it really about the new TV contract Nascar just signed? Big bucks there. Now that Nascar has said it will communicate with the alliance only through its lawyers, I think I'm right.

I'm hearing more alarming trends have arrived in the standard book contract offered by traditional publishers. For one thing, a second book (always an option in days gone by) must be submitted as a completed manuscript before it will be considered for a contract. Oh, and they (the pubs), won't look at it until sales figures are in for the first book. Scary, scary. And if they turn it down and the author takes the book to another house, the first publisher gets to make an offer with priority standing if the second house says it wants the book. All very convoluted, but if you're a published author,  you know what I mean. Bad, bad times in traditional publishing for writers. Then again, we've always been at the bottom of the profit barrel, but I never expected contracts to become so heinous. I wonder how long it will take for an uprising? Antitrust laws seem to be a good place to start. 

I'll try to be more attentive to this blog, I promise.

Summer Slacker

No, it's not the beach, though I can be tempted. Or the pool.  Or weeks and weeks of travel.The eternal issue for me as a writer is the siren song of the garden.  During the winter, I'm tempted to tackle the big house issues, like closets and attic, but the temptation isn't overwhelming. Summer, however, pulls me into the yard like a piece of  death-by-chocolate cake. My very own triple layer cake, with one fork.  I see where the beds need work, plants that long to be moved to other spots, bushes crying out for a trim. If I don't get in a bit of outdoors with my snips or a shovel, I'm one unhappy writer.

Nature doesn't play a big role in my writing. I don't use plants or fauna unless they're clues. Place can be a character and often is.  I love to use atmosphere based on location. Think of a moss-draped tree hiding a house, barely covered with remnants of white paint. The possibilities are infinite and often can be based on clichés. But don't clichés carry kernels of truth that everyone recognizes?

I'm going to make my fanny stick to my desk chair this coming week, even though there's a rose bush that needs spraying. It'll have to fight the buggies by itself for a few days, at least.

Hmmmm...Nails and Pearls

 I have this small sterling whatever sitting on my dressers, and today it fell over. I realized I've been collecting small  nails (I have no idea why) and pearls in it. The pearls belong to a bracelet I'd worn for years.  Unfortunately, they've seen better days. Why I dropped the bracelet in there and added nails seems like a detail for a novel. Somewhere, I'll be able to use it.

Red Shoes and the Inexplicable

I don't know where I got this fetish for red shoes. Heaven knows, I grew up wearing sensible oxfords black patent leather Mary Janes for church.  Once, I begged for a pair of penny loafers, but my sensible mother shot that one down. Anyone as active as I was, needed shoes that would stay on her feet, and loafers wouldn't cut it. I would come home from first grade, stopping at a grassy slope to slide down several times, with grass stains all over the back of my skirt. (In those days, girls had to wear skirts to school.) My mother finally had it, and informed me in no uncertain terms that I'd get spanked the next time I pulled that stunt and ruined another dress.

Anyway, I looked in my closet and stared at my rather embarrassingly vast shoe collection, and once again, I chose a pair of red ones.  I have no idea how red shoes became embedded in my consciousness as the basic shoe color, but I've given up fighting it. Besides, they make me feel happy. So red shoes it is.

When life changes, what do you do?

I've been planning to write my thoughts about Marty Smith's ESPN article on Casey Atwood, the Nascar driver who washed out pretty quickly after being hailed as a wunderkind. Though Atwood doesn't have to work, has a lovely wife and two darling daughters, Casey just wants another shot at driving Sprint cup. That's it. His only ambition, at least according to the article, in life is that. All I can think is: how sad. Then I decided to reserve my heavy stones for the truly heinous. (And why are those girls in Nigeria still in the hands of the Boko Hareem? And why isn't there a huge outcry in Pakistan for the pregnant woman murdered by her family for marrying for love?)

Nascar will roll on with or without the multitudes who think they deserve a shot. Or two. Or three. The true measure of a man or woman, is what does (s)he do if (s)he can't have what (s)he think s(s) he wants? In publishing, people go the Indie route, write for themselves, or quit writing totally. I find it less stressful and more fun in the Indie world, myself, after having been traditionally published. No waiting two years for a book to be produced. No ending up with a title you don't like, a cover you hate. Controlling one's own destiny has always been my goal. While I know there're times to shift gears and take another road (been there, done that), I can only hope I've done so with grace and good manners. Change isn't easy. I know. I grew up in the army. Ask me how many friends I have from my youth. Yeah, doesn't happen when you move all the time.

I will always write. I have done so since childhood. The stories in my head won't leave me alone, so I have to get them into a tangible form. Maybe it's a side effect from having a peripatetic childhood, but the characters are always be alive to me once I get rolling with a story. So no matter what happens in the publishing world, I'm here for the duration.

Monica Lewinsky in Vanity Fair

First of all, let me say I'm loath to use Ms. Lewinsky's name in the title of this blog post, because her name is getting bandied about too much these days. The Vanity Fair article made her fair game, once again, although I don't really think she ever got off the target board, not for the past 16 years.  And when VF landed in my mailbox, I admit I grabbed it first so I could read her piece.

She is clearly an intelligent woman. Her reality appears to be grounded and well-reasoned. Her victimization at the hands of Mr. Starr (the special prosecutor), Bill Clinton and the Dems, political pundits and satirists, feminists and columnists ( the list could go on and on and on...),didn't destroy her, but it almost did. And it made her very cautious. Who can blame her?  Why her punishment for the Clinton affair has carried a term longer than child murderers receive (case in point: today's paper reported that a woman who killed her six month old baby got three years in prison. Big whoop.) is rooted in gender and politics and sex, which she has discerned.
Why didn't women stick up for her when she was a twenty-something swept into the charisma of Bill Clinton? Where were the feminists to defend her? Why did another woman, Linda Tripp, betray her? Was it because she seemed so open, so vulnerable, so pretty? The ravening dogs attacked because they could. Was it because it involved oral sex, one of those naughty things you didn't talk about sixteen years ago?  Yes, I think she was pretty then, and she's more beautiful now at forty. Women are their own worst enemies sometimes (though events in Nigeria would say otherwise).  Was she a stalker? I doubt it. A narcissistic loony toon? Oh, Hillary. Grow up. You have been diminished in my eyes by using that label.

Powerful men. Young, pretty women. The two have been entwined forever. Give the woman a break, and let it go. I hope Ms. Lewinsky runs for political office and wins. Big time. She's been through the fire and lived to tell the tale. She'd be awesome.

The Vampire Recipe, Part 2

Sorry it's taken this long - helping daughter #2 move into a new house. And other excuses, none of them very relevant.  Anyway, here's the ending. Comments appreciated.

 A lamp beside the sofa clicked on, as did a hum from outside.  Before she could position herself to jump past him through the front door, he slipped inside, carrying more wood in one arm and a shotgun in the other.

He shrugged at her questioning stare.  “It’s loaded to bring down as many of them as I can, just in case.  They’re weaker, if they came looking for your chocolates.  Can’t stop them, not yet, but give it time, and I can.”

“I don’t think so.”

Stacking the wood in the fireplace, Barrett remained silent.  Working methodically, he pretended he hadn’t heard her.

“Look, I get it.  You know they want me to cook up the chocolates.  Let me do it.  Lure them into a trap.  Use me for bait.”  The idea came to her as she was speaking.

“No.”  He didn’t turn around as he struck a match.  “They’ll take you before I can stop them.”

“What’s the one way you can be sure they’ll all die?” Grandpere never said a word about killing them, only that she had a duty to provide their protective chocolates.

That got his attention.  Turning to her, he seemed to be weighing his answer. 

“You may as well tell me.  I’m the only person in this room who knows what you do.”  Sitting on the sofa, she tucked her legs under her and drew one of the blankets over her lap.  It hid the bloodstain on the knees of her jeans.

Rising, he left the fire alone to kneel before her and take her hands in his.  “Give me the secret ingredient.  Let me make the chocolates.  I’ll get them when they come to your kitchen.”

“How?  How will you kill them?”

Looking into the growing flames in the fireplace, he shook his head.  “Fire.  Fire’s the only way to make sure, when they’re vulnerable.  It’ll mean burning down your business, but . . . .”

 “What about the other shops around mine?”

“I’ll make sure the fire department is nearby.  Several fire trucks.”

“How will you get out?  Alive, I mean.”  She couldn’t imagine the violence it would take to start a fire of such magnitude it would destroy the creatures who’d scared her grandpere for his entire life. He had to be planning on a bomb.

“I take my chances. That’s what I do.  Tell me how they know the blood chocolates are ready.  I’ll make them.”

She thought of her grandpere’s arms, scissored with scars.  His legs.   His torso. He’d cooked the chocolates too long.

 “You don’t have the one crucial ingredient.”

“Tell me what it is, and I’ll make sure it’s never manufactured again.”

Her smile didn’t reassure herself or him.

“It’s my blood.  My family line carries the immunity they crave. So you’ll have to kill me to end the blood chocolates.  But I think you already knew that.”

* * * * *

Barrett stared at her as if memorizing her face.  “It was the only answer.  We didn’t know for sure it was the family line, since there’re other vamps around the world who seem to have immunities we can’t crack.”

“What took you so long? Why are you just getting to Wrightsville?”

He looked away.  “We didn’t know about your grandfather or your family, not until recently when a flurry of killings that started out in the serial murders section got transferred to me.  They were all vamp murders, disguised to look like serial killings.  This clan’s clever.  Until today and your friend.”

“If you knew they were in Wrightsville, why didn’t you try to stop them?”  She wanted to be able to blame someone, anyone for Allis’s death.

“I’m not clairvoyant, if that’s what you’re implying. I was following a hunch.  Wrightsville hasn’t had a vamp killing in hundreds of years.”

 “Until me, my family has always done its duty.”  Why hadn’t she believed her grandpere’s tales?  “I must do mine now.  It’s the only way.”

 “Dammit.”  Sitting beside her, Barrett lifted the afghan covering her feet and began rubbing the sole of her feet with slow, practiced circles.  “He had no right to keep you in the dark.”

“Who, grandpere?”  She felt herself relaxing under his ministrations despite her fervent hopes she’d grow to hate this man who seemed to know a hell of a lot more than she did about her own family.

“No, my boss.  My late boss.  He should have taken you in when it was clear there’d been a shift in the dynamics.  It’s a clear indicator of, um, unrest.  That’s a good enough word.  Didn’t take me twenty-four hours to find you, he should have done it when your grandfather died.”

“Why would he?  And who is he, exactly?”

Barrett sighed, shutting his eyes. “Head of Paranormal Activities at the FBI.  It’s coordinated with the military, and we share offices and intel. We’ve systemically run a boatload of weird shit to ground and eliminated it in the bigger, urban areas, where we thought they hunted exclusively. Then Will, head of my division, got himself killed. Lunch for the beasties.  Got tired of riding the desk and his laptop, wanted a little excitement to wake him up.  He didn’t wake up, not after the master vamp in a tiny fish camp town in South Carolina finished him off.”

He sounded more bitter than angry, Langie decided.

 “Who’s in charge now?”

“Three guesses.”  He lifted one eyebrow and nodded in the affirmative.

“Can you stop them?”  She was afraid to hear his answer.

“Yes. If you’ll let me do what I do, and stay out of your kitchen.  Let me see your arms.”

She knew why he asked.  She’d seen her grandpere’s arms just that once, and wondered as a child why he was ribboned with scars.  Rolling back the sleeves of her sweater, she brandished her clear skin.

“They can smell your blood.  It’s like the most expensive perfume.  There’s a way to duplicate the scent.  At least, that’s what my techies tell me.  We fool them into thinking they’re getting their magic candy.”  His smile lacked humor.

“And if they aren’t fooled?  Then what?”  She had a vague idea that Allis would be just the start of a campaign to get her to do their bidding. Naw, nothing vague about it.

“We punt.”  Taking his jacket off, he slung it over a chair and bent to strike a match to the kindling in the stone-faced fireplace.

“Merciful heavens.”

“That’s about the extent of it.”  A wry smile, and his face transformed.  “You in?”

“Do I have any choice?”

“Sure.  Get out of Dodge.  Drive until the wheels fall off.  Don’t use your real name, get a new identity, and get blood transfusions every chance you get.  Don’t donate blood.  Pray they don’t find you.”

Swallowing hard, Langie tried to envision life somewhere else.  “What, no plastic surgery?”

Barrett thought a minute. “Might not be a bad idea. Change your looks, wear tons of strong perfume.”

“I was kidding.”  She couldn’t run. No way.  If she helped him, maybe they’d win.  Allis’s death surrounded her like a blanket smothering her face.  “Those bastards have to pay for what they did. Not just to Allis, but to my grandfather. To my family.”

A black hue swept through his eyes.  “Let’s get started, then.  I have my kit in the car, I’ll be back.”

He hurried through the door to the outside as if afraid she’d try to slip out with him, slamming it shut behind him so quickly he almost caught his shirt tail. 

Kit?  What the heck what he have in mind?  What did she know about him, anyway?  He hadn’t shown her any ID, she hadn’t asked for it, to be honest, but still. . . .  For all she knew, he was one of them. Her stomach roiled.  He’d recognized her by the scent of her blood in the bite mark she’d made on her hand.

God, how stupid could she be?  If he was one of them, though, he’d have killed her by now. Or at the very least, forced her to make some blood chocolates.  Only she knew the process took a long time – days and days of preparation, then they had to age sufficiently for their efficacy to kick in.

Shutting the door and locking it behind him once again, Barrett dropped a large metal briefcase on the sofa beside her.  “Didn’t see anything out there. We may be safe, but I’m not going to count on it.”

Swallowing hard, Langie edged towards the fireplace and its brass poker.  “So why’d you light the fire? I thought you didn’t want any signs we’re here.”

“It’s only a couple of hours until dawn.  They’ll have to find their nests, go to ground.  We have today to figure this out, then it’s war.  I know how they operate.”  Bent over the box, he began setting up a laptop and a case of syringes on the coffee table.  “Got an internet card, I can analyze your blood with this contraption here and send the info to Washington.  It shouldn’t take long for us to have an answer, they’ve been working on one for the others.”

“You mean the other humans forced to give the vamps what they want?”

He nodded. “It’s mutation of some sort that’s hardwired into your DNA.  Every new generation gets ferreted out by the bloodsuckers.  Allis bought you some time. Not much, but a little.”  He fiddled with the laptop and brought up a screen. “Now we’re cookin’, no pun intended.  I’m connected with the lab in Texas.”

Despite the nice fire crackling away, Langie shivered.

He didn’t raise his eyes from the computer’s screen.  His dark hair, longish at the nape of his neck, curled over the collar of his black shirt.  Dark clothes, dark man, she thought.  Why was he hiding in this cabin if he was one of the good guys?  Where was his white stallion?  Why hadn’t he spirited her away to the castle with FBI agents guarding the moat to keep her safe?

“I need a sample. You’re the one with the magic potion.”  He shrugged.  “It won’t hurt. At least, not much.”  Flicking the end of a syringe, he gestured for her to give him her arm.

“What’re you going to do with it? And why do you have a zillion more of those long needles in there?” She gestured at the box.

“Run it thru this scanner on this,” he held up a disk. 

Silence surrounded them as she eyed the needle, until a soft cry sent her heart thumping peanut butter. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

“No, what?”  Cocking his head, he glanced at the door. “What did you hear?”

“I’m not sure. The wind on the roof? We’re surrounded by pines.  Could be needles falling.”

Rising, she pulled the afghan around her shoulders and walked to the door, pressing her ear to the wood. Her hearing, always acute, sharpened even more.  “There it goes again.”

This time she heard it more clearly. “A voice. I hear someone calling my name. Come here, listen!”

“Impossible.  You’re hallucinating.”

“Langie.”  A woman’s voice penetrated the logs.  “Langie, open up, I need you.”

“God!  Did you hear that? It’s Allis!  Open the door!”  Fumbling with the locks, Langie tried to get them to work, but they resisted her tugging and jerking. “What’s wrong with them, I can’t get them to open?”

“That’s because I used magic.”  Laughing, Barrett rocked back on his heels and watched Langie gape at him. “Kidding, what did you think?”

“I think I want you to open this door. There’s someone out there calling me.  My God, it is  Allis.”

“Can’t be.  Come here, let me get the sample.”  He gestured with his hand for her to turn around, and she felt a tug in her muscles so hard she almost fell to the floor. If she’d been made of steel bones and metal muscles, the magnet pulling her outside couldn’t have exerted a stronger pull.

Fear gave her the courage to grab the door handle and hang on.  “Stop it,” she cried.  “Open the door for Allis!”

Rushing to her side, Barrett locked her in his arms. “They’ll take you before you can blink.”

She’d never felt worse in her life.  If she didn’t find Allis, she’d die.

“I have to go!  Can’t you feel it?  It’s going to rip me apart.  My God, help me!”  She could feel her organs straining at her muscles, her skin stretching taut as a drum.

“Water, it’s the only way.  Let go, Langie, hang onto me.” 

The power pulling her would have smashed her through the wood logs if Barrett hadn’t grabbed her up in his arms and run with her into a back room.  Locking the door behind them while he held her, he dropped her in an old-fashioned porcelain tub and cranked the handles.  Cold water poured over her feet as Barrett forced her body to stay in the tub.  The pain inside her crescendoed until she thought she’d explode with it.  The water rose slowly, soaking her legs, then her hips, and finally, up to her chest, making breathing easier.

As the cold water poured over the edge of the tub, soaking Barrett as well, he turned off the taps.

“Now take a deep breath and submerge yourself.  Stay under the water as long as you can before you take your next breath.  The water will block their calling you.”

The water seeped away the pain slowly. She’d kill herself before she would take any more of this agony.  Gulping in a big chunk of air, she slid her head under the water again and again.  Barrett’s arms never left her shoulder and stomach, forcing her deeper. 

Only as the top of her head disappeared into the cold water did the pain ease up.  She could feel the fire inside her slowly dying.  Was this how it felt when you passed away, she wondered?  Was it from the fire into the ice? 

* * * * *

“We’ve got to get away from here.  They’re calling to your blood.”

“As if I didn’t know.”  Pale with pain, Langie kept her hands snapped tight against her ears.  “Now I know how the sirens got the upper hand.”

“Can you stand it long enough to get in the Jeep?  I’ll drive like a bat out of hell away from here.”  He was soaked to the skin as well and shivering almost as violently as she.

“If you can’t get me free, just kill me.”  She meant every word. “And don’t let the bastards find me before the bugs do.”

“Charming image, but I get the point. Okay, let’s get you out of here.”  Locking his arms under hers, he helped her sit up in the full tub.  After she stood, sluicing water, he lifted her into his arms and hurried to the front door. 

Trembling against him, Langie concentrated on breathing.  If she could focus on something else, maybe the pain would ease up a sec.  So she chose the hair at the bottom of his neck, where it veeed into his chest. Counting one, two, three, four. Over and over again as she stared at each and every hair. 

“Ready?”

She nodded. “I’m freezing.”

“It’s going to get colder.”

The wind struck her like icy needles through her wet clothing as he opened the door.  She wondered how he managed the locks while holding her, but she was too cold to care. She blamed her frozen senses for dulling the smell thrown in her face as he hesitated on the cabin’s threshold.  When it hit her, she almost retched.

“What’s that God-awful stink?”

Silent, he pivoted three hundred and sixty degrees, as if checking every corner of the surrounding forest for enemies. "Them."

"Let’s get out of here,” she mumbled through stiff lips.

Wrenching open the Jeep’s door, he tossed her inside.  “Put on your seatbelt. It’s going to get rough.”

Fumbling with fingers made clumsy with the sub-zero temperature, she couldn’t help staring around the Jeep, searching the shadows for any signs of whatever had found the cabin. “Where is it?  The one that found us?”

“Went for reinforcement,s is my bet.”  Gunning the engine, Barrett popped the clutch.  “Hang on.”

Fishtailing, the Jeep sprang from its parking spot like a cat shocked with a cattle prod.  Gray and black shadows rippled across the windshield so quickly they made Langie feel dizzy.  She didn’t know how he could drive, the shadows in front of them were as dark as the tinted glass in a mobster’s limo.

Shifting gears, Barrett kept his foot solidly on the gas.  A shaky wobble, then Jeep righted itself.

“Pothole, don’t worry,” he reassured her. “I think we’ve outrun them.” 

“I don’t think so.”

He didn’t know what she knew.  That the vamps could bring her to them if she wouldn’t come voluntarily.  She should have told him escape was impossible, but she’d hoped her grandfather had made a mistake.  The vamps always came to him, he’d said, but tradition promised she could be summoned.

Whomp.  The Jeep shimmied as if it had been whacked with a giant sledgehammer.

When she’d tried to escape from the cabin, they must have used their power to call her.  Another whomp, and the Jeep slowed down. She felt the power jerking her like a marionette’s strings.

Spinning, the Jeep did a one-eighty, facing the direction they’d come, the engine whining as Barrett kept his foot on the gas and they went nowhere.

“What the hell?” He jerked the clutch and tried to force the Jeep to move.

“That’s what this is.  Hell.  Stay out of the way.  If I can appease them, maybe they’ll leave you alone.”  Unclicking the belt, she slid from the front seat before he could stop her.

The black shadows swarmed her like locusts on green corn.  She thought of the sunny beach, the blue blue of the sky, the sound of the front door bell at the chocolate shop. But the images wouldn't stay in her head.

 

Freezing air, colder than the bottom of a winter lake, held her in its clawed grasp. Was this death, she wondered, or a different version of hell.  In the long run, it didn't matter.

 

She was lost. No one would find her, no one living, that is, when the vampires were finished with her. The truth was as bitter as myrrh in her mouth.

 

She forced one word out, a whisper, before she let herself be taken. "Barrett."

 

He never heard her.

 

 

 

The Vampire Recipe

I've been playing with this story for years now, and it's probably going to get a new life with new monsters one of these days. But for now, I really would like comments on how it stands today. I'll post the second half of it tomorrow.  If I remember...

 

The Vampire Recipe

By Tracy Dunham

 

 

            Five o’clock closing time.  Finally.  Fall’s somber skies wrapped the old chocolate shop with a gray pall that no amount of sugar or cocoa could shake off.  Untying her pink apron, Allis hurried to the front door to pull down the shade with its red “Fresh Chocolates Tomorrow” sign. Langie would be in later to stir up a fresh batch of her creative creations, but Allis was done.  Sales today hadn’t been worth the effort to tally, but still, she put the money and receipts in the bank envelope and locked it in the drawer for Langie to pick up when she came in.

Business would pick up closer to Christmas.  This lull seemed linked to the lowering skies and bitter winds, early this year.  Normally, the bad weather waited until January to swoop in.

            Zipping up her down coat, Allis hesitated as she thought she heard a knock.  Probably just trash hitting the glass door she decided as she dug her gloves from her pockets.  Again, louder this time.  A definite rap against the glass, sending shivers down her back.  At this rate, the idiot’s hand would shatter the glass, and that would really tick off her boss.

            “Hold your horses,” she shouted, hunting for the key to the deadbolt in the cash drawer. 

            The rapping crescendoed into a frantic beating, sending the pulled canvas shade bouncing.  Fumbling with the key in her gloved hands, Allis shouted “Cut it out.  We’re closed.  Come back tomorrow.”

            Glass shards screamed through the air around her like an ice sheet sliding off a glacier. Heart pounding, Allis scrambled backwards, falling on her bottom.  Eyes shut, hands in front of her face to protect herself from the shattered door, she wished she’d left five minutes early.   

            “Don’t hurt me!  The cash is in the middle drawer behind the counter.  Take it and leave me alone,” she cried, peeping through her gloves to see three large men dressed in black.

            She’d expected them to wear masks, but their faces, cold and hard as that of the worst hardened criminal, stared at her with what she could only interpret as contempt. 

            “Where are the blood chocolates?”  The man who growled was shorter than the other two, but a dark power cloaked him. 

            “What?”  Allis thought she’d heard him wrong.  “Like I said, take the money, just leave me alone. I won’t tell anyone I saw your faces. Please.”  Her throat clogged with fear, she could barely get the words out.

            “Blood chocolates, or the town is forfeit. You know the contract.”  Swooping beside her, he knelt in the sea of shattered glass and tipped her face with one cold finger under her chin.  “I don’t know you.  Where is the chocolate maker?”

            “Langie?  She’ll . . . .”  Allis’s voice froze in her throat as the speaker touched her lips.

            “The man.  The old man.”  He removed his hand from her throat.

            “You mean Langie’s grandfather?  Dead.  Last year.  Langie took over.”

            “Is she of the blood?”

            Allis couldn’t imagine what on earth he was talking about. Nothing in her head was working correctly, and she couldn’t breathe.  Even the small cuts from the shattered glass door that dotted her exposed skin were nothing compared to the panic that thrummed through her blood.  She’d seen them.  She’d heard them speak.  She was a dead woman.

            Hanging at the back of the three was the smallest man of all.  Lifting his face from the shadows, he stared at her until she thought she was going to faint.

            “Take her.  Leave her to be a message to the chocolate maker.  This Langie will know we mean business.”

            By the time Langie arrived to make her evening’s batch of tomorrow’s business, Allis sprawled, bloodless and rag-dolled, on a bed of crushed glass.

            Her throat ripped into a gaping hole. 

* * * * *

            Fist to her mouth to stifle a scream, Evalangie Delacroix knew she’d never be able to stand knowing she’d been the cause of her best friend’s murder.  Ten years.  It’d been ten years since they’d shown up.  Her grandfather warned her they’d never leave the town alone, but Langie hadn’t believed him.  After all, his generation lived in a past that bore the burdens of superstitions and omens no one considered the slightest bit credible if they had any sense at all.  On his deathbed he’d made her swear she’d cook the blood chocolates and store them in case they came back.  To make him happy, she’d raised her hand to God, never believing for a second she’d have to make good on her promise.

            Even before he neared death, he’d told her tales about the bloodkillers who’d arrived to partake of their family recipe.  In return, they never bothered the good folk of Wrightsville County.  Not a soul lost his mortal life to the vampires.  Now, she’d broken her sacred vow to a dying man, and because no blood chocolates reposed in her store room, Allis was dead.

            The fist in her mouth tasted of her own blood.  She’d bitten through her skin to keep from screaming. Allis.  How could this pale, limp figure be Allis?

            “If you’ll step outside, I’ll see to her.”  A male voice, deep and commanding her, cracked through the horror in her head.

            Twirling, Langie jerked her cell phone out of her pocket and fumbled to open it.  She had 911 on speed dial.  Eyes blurry from tears, she couldn’t see clearly enough to even try to hit the right numbers. 

            “I was too late to save her, I’m so sorry.”  His height overshadowed her.  Wrapping her hands in his, he stopped her call.

            Langie wished she’d turned on the overhead lights, but then she’d have seen Allis even more clearly.  Better that she hadn’t. But the shadows prevented her from seeing his face clearly.  All she knew was, she’d never met this man before.

            “For the love of God, will you call the police?  Who are you, what the hell did you mean, you could have saved her?”  Langie stripped off her winter coat and spread it over Allis’ bloodless body.  Trembling, she knelt on the glass-covered floor and closed Allis’ blank eyes.

            “Are you Evalangie Delacroix?  Granddaughter of Pericles Delacroix?”

            Then he did the most extraordinary thing.  Raising her bitten hand to his nose, he sniffed her skin like a hunting dog. 

            “No need to tell me. You’re one of his kin.  Did you make the blood chocolates?”

            Words were beyond her.  How did he know about the blood chocolates? She could only shake her head in the negative.

            “Good.  Tell me how many were here?” 

            Dressed in a short leather jacket with a long dark scarf wrapped around his throat, he leaned in so closely she could smell his breath.  Coffee.  Sugar. Once more, all she was capable of was a small shake of her head.

            “Did you see them?” he demanded once again.

            Langie shook her head. Her brains felt as if they’d explode if she kept looking at Allis.

            “Look, you can’t help her. We’ve got to go.  They may be watching.” Touching her shoulder, he forced her to look at his face. Anger, concern, but mostly determination emanated from him in waves of heat.  She felt his power as if it were a blanket wrapped around her.

            “No!”  She couldn’t leave Allis alone.  This was all her fault.  “I have to make the chocolates.  In case they come back!  I promised my grandfather.”

            “That’s why you have to get out of here now.  They’ll be back, count on it.  Without your blood chocolates, they’ll lose their immunity to the only things that we can use to kill them.”

            “And if they don’t get them, they’ll kill us all.  That’s what my grandfather said.  I didn’t believe him, but now . . .” She couldn’t look at Allis without crying even harder, so she stared at the stranger.  His dark eyes.  His dark skin.  He’d come from somewhere sunny. Somewhere else where she wished she were right now.

            The sun hadn’t shone in Wrightsville for a month now.  Her skin felt sluggish and gray.

            “You believe in them?  In vampires?  I don’t.” Stunned, she stopped for a second, aware of what she was saying. “I didn’t.  But her throat.  Allis’ throat.  What would do this?  Who?  It has to be vampires.”

            “Come with me now, you’re in shock.  You need protection.”

            “Me?”  Staring at him, she realized she was biting her hand again.  “But I can stop them. It doesn’t matter what they are, they’ll stop killing if they eat the chocolates.”

            He shook her by the shoulders as if she were a child who wasn’t listening to an important warning.  “You can’t.  Don’t you see, you’re no match for whoever did this?  Believe me, Ms. Delacroix, you need to get yourself out of here. Now.”

            “You’re hurting me!”  Somewhere deep inside her, she was grateful for the ache in her shoulders, her arms.  At least she felt something other than freezing cold.

            Sirens, faint but growing closer, sounded in the street.  “Come now.  You’ll be safe with me.”  Throwing his coat over her shoulders, he hustled her through the shattered door.

            “But I have to stay. I have to tell them it’s my fault, I didn’t make any blood chocolates in case they came.”  Wailing with guilt, Langie let him pull her away from her chocolate shop. “Grandpere made me swear.  I broke an oath to the dying.  I deserve to pay.” 

There, she’d said it.  The bare truth.  Scary as it was, she’d have to forfeit the rest of her life to placate and appease the beasts her grandfather said roamed the earth with impunity because of her family’s secret recipe for blood chocolates. If she didn’t . . . she couldn’t dwell on the consequences. Her heart beating so hard she thought she’d faint, she clutched the stranger’s sleeve, swaying.

“Oh, hell with it.”  Without a by-your-leave, he hoisted her over his shoulder as if she weighed nothing. 

“Let me down!  What’re you doing?”  Kidnapped, she was being kidnapped.  Probably he was taking her so he could kill her, just as he’d killed Allis, and she’d been standing there over Allis’ body, talking to him.  Screaming, she tried to claw at his face, but her hands disappeared inside his too-long sleeves.

“Saving your life, you nitwit.  I’m a vampire killer, believe me, you don’t want to hang around here.  They’ll be back.”

 Her shivering wouldn’t stop. “They won’t kill me.  All they want is their chocolate.”

“And I’m making sure you don’t cook any.  Quit fighting, get in and buckle up.”  Swinging open the door to a battered Jeep, he dropped her in the passenger’s seat.

She didn’t know why, but she believed him.  

“Look, I still don’t believe in vamps, not really. I have to talk to the police, so whoever you are. . .”

“Barrett Allen.  Not buyin’ it, so be a good girl and hold on for the ride.”  He hopped into the driver’s seat as Langie jerked on the door handle.

“Child locks.  Buckle up and sit tight. I’m taking you someplace safe, where they won’t find you.”

She could have sworn he was amused at her antics.  “It’s a federal crime to kidnap anyone.”

“Have at it.  Oh, one problem.  I work for the Feds.  Officially.”

“Liar.”  But one more glance at his face, and she knew he was telling the truth.

Driving fast, he navigated the small streets of Wrightsville as if he’d grown up there.  Red and orange maple leaves fluttered like burning moths in the gutters as he accelerated.  Langie watched them swirl into a death spiral as they passed, wondering how frightened Allis had been at the end.  Had she known what was going to happen?  Was she in horrible pain?

“Don’t think about it.”  He reached out for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze.

“I can’t help it.  She was my friend. I needed a break, and she offered to give me a couple of hours off a few days a week.”  The lump in Langie’s throat hurt so badly she couldn’t breathe.

“They don’t care who they hurt.  What they want is all that matters to them.  Your grandfather didn’t explain them to you, did he?”  Jerking the wheel, he sent the truck lurching to the gutter on the opposite side of the street as a cat darted away from the front wheels.  “Watch out, kitty, they’ll drink anything warm and alive.”

Shivering, Langie shut her eyes, but all she saw was Allis’ pale face and blank eyes.  Better to keep them open.  Turning in her seat so she could see her kidnapper more clearly, she noticed for the first time that, on an objective level, Barrett Allen was handsome.  Too dark for her taste, but Allis liked dark men.  No, she couldn’t think of Allis in the present tense anymore.

“The police will know it’s my coat over Allis.  They’ll think I killed her.  We have to go back, so I can explain.”

“No need to explain anything to them.  They’ll burn her corpse so it can’t be made undead.  They might be a bit rusty, but they know the protocol.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”  Maybe if she kicked at Barrett, she’d be able to wrest control of the truck away from him.  Wiggling closer, she tried to decide where it would hurt the most that she could reach.

“Wrightsville’s finest.  They’ve been waiting for this moment since your grandfather died.  I’m surprised he didn’t tell you the whole story.”

“He was dying.  He didn’t have time.”  Scooting back into her original position, she figured she’d hear his delusional stories and decide what to do when the truck slowed down.  He had to run out of gas sometime. “What should he have told me?”

Another sharp curve threw Langie to the extent of her seatbelt’s reach, close to his right shoulder.  Jerking herself upright, she wondered if the heat burning through her skin came from delayed reaction to Allis’ murder, or being near Barrett.

“Later. You need protection.  When they realize you aren’t making their little treats, they’ll come lookin’.  And it won’t be pretty.”

She tried a reasonable tone of voice.  “So I’ll bake them some chocolates, they’ll go away, and everyone will be safe.”

“Until they show up again.  Or, just to play a little game, what if they decide to take you with them?  Keep you chained to the stove, so to speak?  Baking those goodies until you’re dead?”

“Then they’re out of luck.  When I die, so do the chocolates.  No one else in my family left to take over.” 

“How do you make them?”

Stiffening beside him, Langie crossed her arms on her waist and hugged herself tight.  She’d sworn over and over to her grandpere that she’d never divulge the recipe.  Never.  Not if it meant his death or hers.

“Trade secret.”

“One that keeps these vamps alive a lot longer than they should be.  How about adding a little something to kill them, while you’re at it?” 

She wanted to laugh.  “Not possible.”

“You sure?”  Clicking his headlights to their high beams, he turned onto a dirt road, cluttered with years of leaves and broken limbs, hidden between a thick copse of old grown oaks and scrub brush. 

“Look, I’m feeling better.  Thanks for getting me out of there.  I really didn’t want to have to talk to the cops about Allis, but I’m ready to go home.”

He shook his head.  “No can do. I need to keep the vamps away from you.  They’ll kill you without thinking twice.”

“No, they won’t.  They’ll never get their chocolates without me.”

“They’ll find someone else to stir up a batch.  Your family doesn’t have the market cornered.”  He swept her face quickly to gauge her reaction.

“There’s only me.  There might be others, somewhere in the world, but as far as I know, I’m it.  The recipe dies with me.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered as the headlamps illuminated an old cabin tucked behind huge American boxwoods.  “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

He parked beside the front door and switched off the ignition. Trees crowded the cabin as if trying to hide it.

“Of course I do.  My grandpere showed me how to make them.  I just haven’t done it myself, not yet.  You’re the one who doesn’t know what you’re doing.”  Unbuckling, she braced herself to run as soon as he opened the door to let her out. 

“The sad part is, I do. It’d be so much easier to kill you.  Believe me when I say, it’s been discussed.”

The flush of heat dropped so quickly she felt frozen to her seat.  “What did you say?”

Dark eyes swept her from her waist up to her face and back again.  “You heard me.  Surely you must know that if you’re dead, the vamps in this clan are vulnerable.  They’ll be destroyed, one by one, eventually.  When all the chocolate makers are gone, the vamps won’t be able to withstand us anymore.”

“But until they are, innocent people will die.  Wrightsville with turn into a ghost town.”

“Or a town of the living dead.  They were kind to your friend, they left her to die.”

So cold.  She was freezing.  Teeth chattering, she rubbed her hands over her face, trying to feel her skin.  He was right. Grandpere warned her there were things worse than death if the vamps wanted to get really ugly. 

Opening her door, Barrett reached up and took her hands in his.  “Delayed shock.  Come on, let’s get you beside the fire.  I’ll have it going in no time.”

“Where are we?” she chattered.  “I don’t know this place.”

“Trade secret.”  He almost smiled.

She let him lead her to the door, which was locked with a series of deadbolts and an alarm that looked suspiciously new and like they belonged on an apartment in a high crime neighborhood.  No one in Wrightsville used locks like those. They didn’t need to.  Kids still rode their bikes down Main Street during rush hour, such as it was, and neighbors expected neighbors to help themselves to sugar or baking soda if they ran out in the middle of baking a cake.

“There’re blankets on the sofa, wrap up while I get the generator going.  If you know how to start a fire, have at it. Or leave it for me.”

Standing in the middle of the small room, she realized the decrepit exterior was mean to deceive.  Inside, everything smelled new, with a brightly braided rug and clean hearth adding to its welcoming feel.  No mold or musty old smells marred the cozy room. Stacks of split oak rested in a neat box to one side of the hearth.  If this were a fairy tale, she’d landed in the good fairy’s house.

But Barrett Allen possessed no fairy godmother qualities.  Before she could dart for the door, she heard the many locks snick shut.  He’d made sure she couldn’t escape.  What did he intend on doing with her?  She’d made herself more than clear – it was her duty to feed the vampires to save the town.  And he’d admitted he thought she might be better off dead than making a batch of blood chocolates. 

If he’d been going to kill her, he could have done it by now.  Slitting her throat and throwing her body over Allis’ would have been easy.  She’d been a mess. Unable to think, to act. But not anymore.  Now, her thinking was shooting down the track at a hundred miles an hour. He meant to keep her from doing what she’d sworn to do.  No way could she allow him to do that.

Jerking aside the chintz curtains beside the fireplace, she stepped back.  A solid wall lay hidden behind the fabric, the logs as thick as any in the room.  Testing the door to the other side of the room, she checked out the small bathroom.  Not a window, not a vent in sight.  Fingers poking and prodding, she sought a chink, a crack, any sign the cabin possessed another way in or out.

Only the door.  The door he’d locked to keep her in. She should be very afraid, so why wasn’t she?

* * * * *

 

James R. Corbett

It's been a while, and I apologize. Between being on vacation for eleven days and all the hustle and bustle that goes with that, I've been away from the laptop for too long. In fact, I've been champing at the bit to get to work, but something else happened to put the brakes on the manuscript.

While we were gone, a long-time friend passed away unexpectedly. James Robert Corbett was one of those people you don't run into a lot in your life. I knew him for over half the years I've been on this planet. He had eclectic tastes in everything from Japanese Samurai films to food, and we discussed them a lot. But more than those details, he was a man of faith and faithfulness, both to his church and his friends.

Many years before I married my husband, I knew Jim and his wife Sandra at church. Later, my office moved into the same building they occupied, and years later when we moved out, he took over our space. (Including the deep orange/peachy paint my associate painted the walls one year when I was on vacation. OMG.) We didn't talk much while we were at work - being very busy, both of us - but I always knew if I needed help, all I had to do was knock on his door.

When my elder daughter graduated into the "college" class in Sunday School, she got Jim as her teacher. She told me once that she'd learned more from Jim than she ever had before about the Bible and prayer. Spiritual ideas came to her naturally, and Jim knew it. He encouraged her spirituality, and for that, I will ever be grateful.

We served on the Board at church together a year ago, or a bit more. In matters of progress and changing the way things had "always been done," we were allies. I, however, liked to move more quickly, while Jim took a more measured approach in general. He was probably right all along. He also undertook to handle the music and musicians, making sure contracts were signed with top notch people, as well as keeping on top of the church's maintenance. While I spearheaded the bigger issues, like new siding, Jim made sure the lights in the parking lot worked, and the doors closed properly so they could be locked without Herculean effort. We made a good team, I think.

I will always see him in a fav photo his sister once showed me of her "three amigos." Sprawled in beach chairs, looking for all the world like fishermen who'd made the Big Catch and were now enjoying elaborating on how much bigger the fish was than in real life, Jim is grinning beside his brother-in-law and nephew, much more mischievously than the other two.

 I will miss him. We all will. Good men of faith are too few on this earth.

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.?