Amy's Blog

Twenty word love stories.

2012-01-13T14:50:00.000-08:00

Can you tell a love story in 20 words? Here's how I did it. Leave your love story in the comments!

Sam the marine went to war. He wrote to Francine every day. Each letter ended, “Until the day I die.” Tragically, he kept his word.

Eustace sat in the front row for Dr. Conrad’s lecture on Aristotle. By Seneca, Dr. Conrad’s ethics faltered. By Sartre, Eustace was existential for two.

He saw her every day at the train station for fourteen years. She wore a diamond ring. When her finger was finally bare, his wasn’t.

She speaks Farsi. He speaks Bengali. She eats saffron. He eats curry. He sees her brown eyes; she, his gentle hands. Time to learn English.

Another short story.

2012-01-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

In this story, the characters are hiding a secret. Can you tell what it is? Say so in your comments!

An Honest Woman

Candy, my favorite cousin, lived in terror of rattlesnakes. She had only ever seen one her entire life, when she was a little girl. She spotted it right before it bit her dog’s paw. Grandma always said that Candy was such a little thing she never could have carried that dog all the way home by herself, that angels had watched over her to give her strength. I was never able to reconcile this theory of divine intervention with the fact that Woofer died in agony anyway, an hour later, in the middle of the kitchen floor. That was why Candy never let me run ahead on the dirt path. She always went first when we went on our long walks together. We lived on the edge of Saratoga, Wyoming, and only had to walk about ten minutes before we were over the ridge and in the middle of the desert.

“Candy, do bachelorettes tell a lot of lies?” I asked. Candy was my best resource for decoding the adult conversations in our family.

Candy wrinkled her nose. “Why would you ask a thing like that, Ellen?”

“Because Uncle Jasper asked Ned when he was going to make an honest woman of you.”

She laughed, moving her hand as if to sweep the hair out of her eyes, though it was all gathered in a golden bundle at the nape of her neck. “No, Honey. Jasper’s talking about something else.”

“What?”

She looked at me sideways and asked, “How old are you?”

“Nine,”

“Well, I suppose you’re old enough to know that that Jasper was really talking about sex.”

She said it like it wasn’t even a swear. “So when a man makes a woman honest, he’s really having -- with her?”

“Well... no.” She smiled at me sheepishly, squinting at the horizon, which was just drawing the sun into twilight. “It means that he finally marries her after doing it with her.”

“So you and Ned do it?”

“Yes, we do.” She said this solemnly, like she was in church confession.

“Isn’t that a sin?”

“According to some people. But I think it’s just something people do, Ellen. Like cooking and gossiping. We just do it.”

“But it’s in the Bible, isn’t it? That it’s a sin!”

“I don’t know. I’ve never read the whole thing. Besides, people have different feelings about what the Bible means. Some people think sex is shameful, I disagree. That’s all.”

I thought about my prudish Aunt Sidney. “Why would they think it was bad if it isn’t?”

She sighed, pulled me into her bony side with a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know. Because people don’t want a bunch of babies being born without daddies.”

That meant bastards. I knew something about this. Eddie Pierce was a bastard. He was a boy in my school who beat up first graders until the principal expelled him and he had to be held back for a year. He was shorter than almost everyone else in our grade but we all avoided him just the same for fear of getting whooped. “Babies without daddies turn out bad, like Eddie Pierce.”

“Eddie Pierce turned out bad because the whole town treats him and his mother like a couple of lepers,” Candy said angrily.

“Mom’s nice to them.” This statement said volumes. My mother was so shy she only left the house late at night to go grocery shopping when no one else was there. She once shocked me by walking right up to Eddie’s mother at the produce section and saying, “How you doing, Lucy?” Ms. Pierce was so surprised someone had talked to her she just stared at my mother as we walked past. I was just as surprised, but for a different reason. My mother rarely spoke to anyone outside our immediate family, which was just me and my dad. That was why the thought of not having a father horrified me. With no daddy I would never get to leave the house, and I would have to watch Twilight Zone on the sly because Mom complained I would get nightmares. Dad always stood up for me, saying I was as likely to get nightmares from her cleaning fetish as from Ray Bradbury. I didn’t know what was supposed to be scary about a dust mop, which is what I thought a fetish was.

As I watched Candy poke at a big bunch of sagebrush to check for snakes, a frightening thought occurred to me. “Candy, will people treat you like a leopard if they find out about you and Ned?”

She winked at me. “I think I’ll be OK as long as I keep taking my pills that keep me from having a baby.” She watched me for a second, enjoying my astonishment, then added, “I probably don’t have to tell you not to share any of this with your grandmother.”

I shook my head emphatically. Once, when I was in my “say anything” phase, I’d walked right up to Grandma and screamed “Sex!” right in her face. She slapped my wrist five times and sent me into her bedroom while all the other cousins got to play in the sprinklers. “I won’t say anything,” I said.

“I know you won’t. To anyone, really. Certainly not to anyone who goes to our church, OK?”

“Because it’s a sin?”

“I said I don’t really think it is a sin, remember?”

“Because you and Ned are getting married some day?” I asked.

Candy laughed at me then. She kicked at a little rock in the middle of the path, and sent it right into the roots of some sagebrush to our side. She paused, watching the brush, waiting for the shake of a rattle. “I would never feel like Ned was rightfully mine.”

“Why not?”

She studied me a moment, very seriously, as if about to say something important. She must have changed her mind, though, because suddenly she smiled, and conspiratorially, out of the corner of her mouth, said, “Because he’s too short.”

I clamped my hand over my mouth to hold in my laughter. Candy giggled in a high register as she took my hand, swinging it back and forth. At this point, I thought I could say anything to her. “Jasper said if you and Ned don’t marry soon, all your children will be buck-toothed and retarded because you’re so old.”

“Ellen, you should know by now not to listen to a word Jasper says.”

“Why not?”

“Because, hon, he’s an imbecile.”

For a long time after this conversation, I thought “imbecile” meant the same thing as “heavy drinker.”

That winter, Candy’s mother, my Aunt Sidney, came down with a bad case of cancer. It was in her left breast, which the doctors removed. She had to go through chemotherapy and then radiation. I watched as Aunt Sidney’s freckles, which my Dad liked to tease her about, turned a grayish color. Her hair thinned until she and Candy had to drive to Denver to pick out a wig. They came back with a concoction of orange doll hair, the closest there was to Sidney’s true color, which spun in Shirley Temple curls away from her exhausted face.

At night when I lay in bed praying for her, I wondered if God had visited this sickness on Candy’s mother to punish her for doing it without being married.

Sidney had been sick a while before it was my mother’s turn to cook for them. She sent a lovely ham over with my father and me, and told us to give Candy her love.

Candy met us at the door. Because Candy’s father had reason to work at the refinery even longer hours now, she’d moved back in with her mother and was taking care of her like she was a little baby. Candy, with deep worry lines on her forehead, finally looked her age. “What are you all doing here?” She asked us as she opened the door for us.

“We brought you some dinner, Can-Can.” My father said this quietly so as not to wake up Aunt Sidney, if she was sleeping. It seemed like she was always sleeping.

“Well, that sure will taste delicious.” She led us into the dark of the house, through the living room where stray sunlight cast weird shadows on Aunt Sidney, asleep in her green easy chair. We walked into the kitchen, which seemed a sanctuary with yellow light pouring in through the south facing window, and white dishes drying in the rack by the sink.

I stood behind my father’s chair and watched Candy as they had their conversation, a session comprised of the same phrases repeated by cousins, aunts and uncles, evolved over months of heartache. “How is she...treatment is worse than the disease...she’s strong...damn doctors don’t seem to know anything...Ned has been a godsend.” Through it all Candy held both hands around the tin foil package of ham, patting it gently. I worried vaguely that Candy might have caught cancer from her mother, for her eyes floated over deep purple circles in her skin. Her hair was greasy, and held together in a lonely looking ponytail on top of her head.

She focused on me toward the end of the litany with Dad. “Mom is begging me to marry Ned.” She said this in a far off voice as she looked at me without really focusing. It was spooky.

Dad paused for a moment, wove his fingers in and out of each other as he measured his answer. “Well, I’m sure she just wants to know that you’re going to be OK.”

Candy nodded, her eyes still on me. I dropped mine to the floor, a choke growing in my throat. “We’ll have to hustle to have the wedding in time,” she said.

“Don’t talk like that, Candy.” I said.

“Ned has been so kind. He carries Mom down the stairs to the doctors. I didn’t know he could be so kind.” She hung her head.

“He’s a good man, Candy, and in this town, there aren’t too many.”

“Maybe I should have taken that job in Denver when I had the chance.”

“But you didn’t, and here you are in Encampment. He’s almost part of the family as it is.”

Candy looked away.

A couple weeks later, at Grandma’s 75th birthday party, Ned pulled Candy into the center of the room and announced their engagement. Candy stood next to him in her pink halter-top, her shoulders bent inward. I stood near the table where the cold cuts were laid out, eating olives. My father wheeled Aunt Sidney into the center of the room, and she clapped her hands together and kissed Ned and Candy on the cheeks. Her wig shifted as she leaned up, and Candy set it right again, then adjusted a pillow while Sidney beamed up at Ned. Before any of the other girl cousins could, I rushed up to Candy and asked if I could be the flower girl. She took my hand and explained, “Hon, you’re too old. But I’m making you one of my bridesmaids.”

I had never dreamed such an honor would be conferred upon me.

There was no time to be wasted. That evening, I had to stand still a long time while Grandma took measurements for my dress. The colors were pale green and pale yellow, and I was one of the fortunate ladies to be assigned green. The fabric was a light woven cotton, and the dress had an empire waist. Grandma slipped the measuring tape around my sprouting breasts, rolling her eyes as I blushed. “That ain’t nothing,” she said, and ran two fingers over the small bump. “See? That’s just you, Ellen.” She fixed her gray-brown eyes on mine and added sternly, “But don’t you let no one else touch that ‘till you’re married.”

“Or what?”

“Or you’ll make God mad.”

Thank goodness Candy was finally marrying Ned.

Grandma and the aunts sewed for two weeks straight to get everything ready. Aunt Bea’s house was filled with frayed cotton remnants and buzzing sewing machines. Grandma was in charge of Candy’s dress, which she pieced together from carefully cut pieces of bone colored satin. Candy was noticeably absent from the preparations, for she had to watch over Aunt Sidney, who couldn’t take anymore miracles of modern medicine. Now when people asked Candy how she was, she responded quietly, “She’s resting.” No one reminded Candy how strong her mother was anymore.

Uncle Jasper declared loudly, at the rehearsal dinner, which wasn’t much different from the barbecues we always had at his house, that Candy and Ned must have set some kind of record for the longest courtship and the shortest engagement. Everyone laughed, especially Aunt Sidney, who wore bright pink blusher and fuschia lipstick. I stood next to her, proud to be the one who pushed her here and there in her wheelchair, and I didn’t even mind the sour smell that seemed to come from deep inside her. Everyone laughed loudly and told a lot of jokes, and I was almost fooled, but I knew something was wrong because Mom agreed to come with us to the gathering.

No one in the family understood Mom. Some of them, like Aunt Bea, took it personally that she never came to gatherings. Some of them, like Jasper, said things like, “Well, you know, she’s a good woman,” even though he never said things like that about anyone else. I had learned by their example to be concerned about my mother, and a little ashamed. But when I was home with her and Dad, I forgot to be worried. Mom was a woman who didn’t like to go out. That is how my father had explained it to me. It wasn’t that she didn’t like people, she just didn’t need them as much as most others did. Lots of folks in our family seemed to think she was like a prisoner, but if she was, Mom seemed to like her cage. Besides, my mother understood things no one else knew. If I watched Mom closely as she listened to the conversations around us, I would sometimes get a hint of the secrets that hung in the air around people.

Mom sat in the corner, away from everyone. The family went over one at a time to welcome her and say how nice it was to see her. She had her brown cardigan on, and her ample hair was gathered into a tight French knot. Candy watched from far off each time someone sat next to Mom, and every time they got up again, Mom would look over at Candy, raising her eyebrows. Finally, Candy moved her feet away from her mother’s wheelchair, and bent her long frame to kiss my mother’s cheek. I wandered over to them smoothly, careful to be invisible, and listened to snatches of their conversation.

“If your mother knew about him, she might feel different,” Mom muttered.

“How do you know?”

“Those eyes.”

Candy studied my mother a moment in disbelief, then shook her head. “I can’t. She loves Ned.”

“Do you?”

“Mom wants this so bad.”

Mom’s mouth never moved out of its thin, straight line. Finally Candy went back to her place by Ned, and Mom sat watching Aunt Sidney, her eyes barely leaving her, even when Ned stood on a fruit box to give his speech.

Ned was always standing on things. He owned a bar outside of town, and he had the floor behind the bar raised on a plywood platform so that he looked taller. No one in the family ever mentioned it to him, though, because it seemed to make him mad. He would say darkly, “I can’t afford to have no trouble. If I look giant, no one would dare break a glass.” It didn’t matter what he stood on. He had the short limbs and broad back made for the tight tunnels of bauxite mines where his ancestors had worked for generations. Ned opened up the bar for the miners so that the heaviest thing he would have to lift would be a case of beer. He made a good living, though, people often reminded Candy.

As he began his speech, Ned wrapped one beefy hand around Candy’s frail wrist. She stood next to him, her head bowed, ruddy patches streaking along her cheeks. Ned was jolly and a little drunk as he said, “They say good things come to those who wait, and I can tell you folks I sure as hell waited a long time. But it was worth it, because Candy is the best thing that has ever happened to me.” Everyone made obliging sounds of approval, and some people clapped. Ned patted down the noise with both hands, and Candy shifted her weight so she stood behind him. “Now I know some of you are saying it’s too late for children, but I just want you to know we’re sure as hell going to try.” Now everyone laughed and clapped. My cousin Wayne, who was only fifteen but drunk anyway, screamed a cat call over the tops of everyone’s heads. This startled Mom, who shifted in her chair and pulled her cardigan closer around her. Now her eyes rested on Candy, who was hiding her face under the back of her hand, acting embarrassed, shaking her head. Then, Ned got all quiet, and his mossy eyes grew misty. He pulled Candy closer to him so that they were facing each other. Candy’s gaze wandered up his arm, across his shoulder, then rested on his face. She smiled tentatively at him as he took both her hands and said solemnly, “I am so proud to finally make Candy my wife. She’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen,” (murmurs of approval, humming of tender feelings,) “and I can’t imagine anyone else mothering my children.” With this, he kissed her tenderly on the cheek while she looked at my Mom, smiling tautly. Then he picked up a beer and held it high over his head. “Now be sure to eat and drink everything up! We don’t want to leave Jasper with all this beer!” Everyone laughed and clapped, except my mother, and we all went back to the festivities.

I woke up extra early on the day of the wedding. I was too excited to sleep, and wanted to take my bath and fix my hair in a French braid before my mother had a chance to pull at it with her horsehair brush. I put on my bridesmaid’s dress, which billowed out like a sheet on a clothesline if I spun around fast enough. I waited until the last minute, while Mom was yelling at Dad about how they needed to come back before the reception for the potato salad or they might kill off the wedding party. Mom pulled on her light blue dress, which still fit her after ten years (she was fond of saying) and kicked into her white patent leather pumps. She called, “Ellen, I don’t want to see you rough housing in that dress. No grass stains. Your grandmother would have my head.”

We clambered into Dad’s Mercury and headed for the church. I met up with the cousins at the back, and we all waited for Candy to come out of the rectory, where the Aunts were buzzing over her. Aunt Sidney had already been carried to the front of the church, and she was sitting next to my father, who wrapped her in one long arm while she leaned against him. Mother stationed herself in the back, and Uncle Jasper sat in the pew directly ahead of her. Mom was looking over at the groom’s side of the church, which was populated mostly by the men who attended Ned’s bar. I followed Mom’s steady gaze, and was surprised to see Eddie the schoolyard bully sitting next to his mother, Ms. Pierce. Eddie was miraculous in a navy, v-neck sweater and a red tie. His hair was slicked back and he looked nervous, hardly at all like the bully he was. His mother was wearing a wide brimmed hat that hid half her face. They were sitting a couple pews behind Ned’s parents, both small, stout people, who sat in the front pew, looking straight ahead at the crucifix and the white lilies on the altar.

Organ music permeated the air, and the priest came out of his dressing room. My gut wrenched, and I repeated to myself all the things I was supposed to do as a bridesmaid. Walk slowly up the aisle, stand in a straight line along the left side, sit in the third chair from the right. I got in my place behind my cousin Andrea, who was three years older than I, and beautiful, but snotty.

Candy finally came in. Her dress was long and elegant, practically seamless as it hugged her torso closely and then fluted out to a full skirt around her legs. Her hair was gathered into a bun, and her veil rested on a little pillbox of pearls and tiny flowers. Her hands were shaking, and she didn’t look at any of us, though everyone was smiling at her and trying to catch her eye.

Suddenly we were off, marching down the aisle. I followed my grandmother’s strict instructions, and paused in the middle of each step, humming under my breath to the music, “Duh da da daaaaaa. Duh da da daaaaaa.” Everyone watching seemed joyful, excited, relieved. I positioned myself in front of my chair and turned to watch Candy’s progress toward the front of the church. She was trembling, a smile fixed on her painted lips, small beads of perspiration glistening at her throat. Aunt Sidney had to sit down before everyone else. Though she looked exhausted, she was happy and at peace. In fact, half of the church was watching Aunt Sidney instead of Candy, all except for the groom. Ned, red-faced and smiling foolishly in his tuxedo, gazed at Candy as she approached. When Candy finally came even with him and the music stopped on its last soaring notes, I realized something was different. Ned and Candy were exactly the same height. As the priest started droning out the ceremony, I looked discreetly at their feet.

Candy wore white satin ballet slippers, with no sole at all. Ned wore patent leather loafers, which must have had a two-inch stacked heel on them. And I could see that the back of his heel emerged from his shoe, but I didn’t know what that meant until one of the bridesmaids, my cousin Mary, whispered, “Ned’s wearing lifts.” There was giggling and shushing, and a sidelong glance from the priest, so our faces assumed their regular church impenetrability as the ceremony commenced.

I kept my eye on Candy, hoping she would look my way. But she didn’t. She looked straight at the priest’s mouth as he spoke, leaning toward him a little as if trying to memorize every word he said. She mushed her lips together, over and over, like ladies do right after they put on lipstick. Ned stood straight up, his hands still clasped in front of him. I wondered how my mother and father had looked when they got married. I glanced toward the back of the church where my mother sat, one hand on the pew in front of her, half-standing so she could see over Jasper. Mom was fanning herself with her slender pocket book and had taken off her hat to show the sheen on her pretty hair. No one was looking at her, and I could tell that suited her just fine.

I wasn’t even paying attention to what the priest was saying until he came to, “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

I turned to look toward the front of the church, and was surprised to see that Candy was staring right at me. The priest was looking at Candy, as if confused, and Ned’s eyes were closed. I drew in my breath. Candy raised her eyebrows, questioningly, and I wondered, “Does she want me to say something?”

The priest followed Candy’s gaze and looked at me, too. I glanced around the church, and noticed that lots of people were looking at me, some of them very sternly. Grandma’s eyebrows were knit together and she stuck out her lower lip. I was sure to get my hands slapped this time, though I didn’t know what I had done. My father was wide-eyed, shaking his head. Next to him, Aunt Sidney was merely curious, the skin between her eyes wrinkled quizzically. Since chemotherapy had robbed her of her eyebrows, there were few expressions left to her.

I looked back at the front of the church. Ned had turned to look at his parents, and caught the vicious eye of Eddy Pierce. Ned’s face turned fire-engine red, and sweat trickled from under his hairline. One thick hand was fingering the bottom button on his tuxedo jacket. Then Ned turned to look at me, his eyes so mad-dog wild I thought he might possess the power to put a curse on me and all my children and grandchildren. Then I noticed something that was powerful enough to interrupt even this frightening impression. Ned’s gaze seemed oddly level with mine.

That was when I realized I was standing up.

I don’t know when I stood, or why, but I was indeed standing in the middle of a wedding ceremony, and everyone was waiting for me to say something.

I cleared my throat.

The priest’s gray eyes widened in disbelief as I said in a half-whisper, “You can’t tell now, but Ned is shorter than Candy.”

A murmur cascaded away from me and down the aisles as I heard people whispering, “What did she say,” and “What kind of reason is that?” The murmur turned to chorus, which suddenly bloomed into cacophony. In the midst of the chaos, deep in the bridegroom’s section, there was an oasis of tranquility, and at the center of it were Ms. Pierce and her son, Eddie, the schoolyard toughie. I watched as Eddy’s mom looked back at my mother, whose hands were covering her mouth. When Ms. Pierce turned back toward the front, her face was bright pink and her eyes were watering. She hid her grin with a long white glove.

At first, the ruckus I had caused sent a delicious thrill of power through me, but the more I stood there watching the congregation combust, the more embarrassed I felt. I didn’t know what else to do, so I sat back down. My cousin Andrea looked at me, jaw dropped, shaking her head at me in complete stupefaction. I saw that Ned’s face was screwed tight shut, and he was staring at his feet. Candy was still looking at me, her eyes watering from the effort of not busting into laughter during the low point of her intended’s life. As her gaze passed from me to the crowd behind her, and finally to the calm spot in the middle of the groom’s section, the enormity of her situation seem to dawn on her. She turned ashen.

The priest looked from me, to Candy, to Ned. He threw up his hands and said, “Quite honestly, I don’t know what to say. No one has ever done that before.”

I heard the whispering suddenly die off, and saw that, incredibly, my Aunt Sidney was standing, pressing down on her husband’s shoulder for support. She yelled, “Candy,” more loudly than I would have thought possible.

Candy looked at her mother sheepishly.

“Candy, do you want to marry Ned?” Candy stared at her mother with her mouth open as if this question had never once occurred to her. Ned had composed himself, and looked at Candy, too. She turned to him, her mouth still open, but no words came from her lips. Aunt Sidney asked, “Well? Do you or don’t you?” But Candy continued to stare as if in a state of catatonia. The church had grown completely silent, and everyone was staring. So Aunt Sidney said, “Well then the mother of the bride is calling off this wedding until further notice!” Then she hit her husband in the shoulder with her ceremony program until he got the picture, scooped her up and carried her down the aisle, out of the church.

I had the great misfortune of glancing briefly at my grandmother, who frowned right at me and said, “Ellen Mae Healy, look at what you’ve done!”

I was so terribly ashamed of myself that I sat with my hands in my lap and my eyes on the floor trying not to cry. I heard a heavy-footed gate run out the side door, and didn’t have to look to know it was Ned leaving in his extra tall loafers with lifts. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of white rush down the aisle and out the front. I wondered if Candy would ever speak to me again, and I hoped that Ned would leave town forever, which is what I would do if I were him.

I sat listening to the congregation disperse. I turned to look at Mom, who stood solemnly, her expression grave. She glanced at Eddy and his mother, then she glanced at me, then she made the sign of the cross. I could see her mouthing the words, In the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost. She looked at me one more time, then walked out the front door. I’d been watching her to try and discern how much trouble I was in, but I’d gotten not even a whisper of a hint.

Soon all the other bridesmaids got up and left, and I was alone in the church, running through the commandments in my mind to see if what I had done constituted a mortal sin. I wondered if I needed to confess to the priest about it, since he saw the whole thing happen and he already knew about it anyway. One thing was certain. I had single handedly condemned my favorite cousin to eternal damnation. She would never get married now. She would never make things right between her and Ned. She would never be an honest woman.

In front of my lowered gaze appeared a pair of filthy sneakers. My blood turned to watery tomato juice as I realized these were not the feet of any of my loafer-wearing boy cousins. I desperately looked around the church for help, but everyone had left.

I was alone with the bully Eddie Pierce.

The wrath of the heavens was upon me.

“That sure took balls,” he said.

I shrugged.

“My mom laughed at the whole thing. So did I.”

‘I don’t think it’s one bit funny,” I managed to whimper.

“I do. It was hilarious.” He said this with such vehemence I found myself looking him full in the face without fear of consequences. His mossy green eyes fixed steadily on me. “Your Aunt Candy is a slut.”

I was about to stand to defend my cousin, but a voice came from behind me. “Eddie! Don’t you talk like that!” His mother’s tone was stern, warning. He kicked the foot of my pew a couple times before he slouched over to her.

They started walking away, but then Ms. Pierce turned and said to me, “You did the right thing little girl, even if it seems like the wrong thing. Like us coming to this wedding. Most people would think it was wrong and mean spirited, but there are some things a man shouldn’t be allowed to forget.” She fixed her brown eyes on me, holding her chin up as if that were a hard thing to do. We looked at each other like that a long time before she finally turned away from me and led Eddie out of the church.

For years after, I thought she’d meant it was important for people to remember how tall they are. But she was talking about something else altogether.

A short story, for a change.

2011-12-27T15:10:00.000-08:00

Came across this piece I wrote in graduate school in New York. Thought you might enjoy it.

Blind

“Look at that man.” Bertram pointed across the subway car.

Fat in mismatched clothes, the man twirled a plastic tube of Avon lotion like a wand. He said in a Queens squeak, “Hand creams. High quality. Ten dollars.” His expression changed from grimace to smile to frown as he rocked back and forth.

“He looks crazy,” Helena agreed. The man was wearing brown pants and a hot pink tee shirt, much too small for him. She remembered the design from the seventies, but time had been unkind to it. Farrah Faucet, her face cracked, her hair streaked like alien’s tentacles, smiled maniacally, her torso painfully warped by the man’s enormous paunch. Helena shuddered, and smoothed the green wool of her pleated skirt, amazed by what some people thought looked good on them.

Bertram, handsome in brown leather, said, “I would never let myself go like that.”

She nodded, patted his firm arm.

She thought of the poached salmon with tarragon she was planning for that evening. She would light the candles while Bertram put Bach on the stereo, and they would sit across from each other over their Venetian tablecloth. Bertram would say how her cooking reminded him of home. She never told him, but Bertram’s mother had scrawled recipes on cards with gold foil edges and sent them tied in a blue silk ribbon. Helena had ironed the ribbon flat again, and sent it wrapped around an anniversary gift to her parents, who still used paper bows. It was useless. They were paper bow people and there was no changing them.

The crazy man dropped the plastic tube into his Sax Fifth shopping bag and picked up another, identical to the last. She wondered how he got that bag, if he sifted through garbage at Midtown apartment buildings, or if rich women brought donations to his shelter.

The train shrieked into the next station. Helena watched colors and patterns scrambling for a seat. Fluorescent light flickered over blank features - subway faces - she mused, careful not to be caught looking, embarrassed by chance eye contact. She snuck a look at Bertram’s patrician profile. She had gotten everything she had wanted when she came to New York. It was the perfect city for her, for them, the perfect setting for the life she wanted.

A pretty brunette passed him by, gave him a smile with knowing brown eyes.

“I got tickets to As You Like It,” Helena said. She had planned to tell him that evening over dinner, but she wanted to please him now.

His eyes skirted over her as he fidgeted with a cufflink. “Shaw, right?”

She let it pass. He hated to be corrected. “It’s been sold out for months.”

“How did you manage that?”

“I spotted them in the classifieds,” she said proudly.

He said, “Not his best play, but I hear its a good production.”

Of course. She should have waited for Pygmalion.

She teased the Times from under his arm and glanced over the headlines. Recalling how annoyed he had been with their flight to Aspen, she said brightly, “They’re doing construction at JFK.”

“What a waste.”

“Delays at JFK affect the entire country.”

“Delays anywhere affect the entire country.”

Suddenly the fat man leaned into the aisle, shouting, “Mingled yarn! Mingled yarn, what is it?” He pushed his lips out, tapping his temple.

Helena’s eyes widened. “He’s making me a little nervous.”

“Just ignore him.”

She directed her gaze elsewhere, and noticed an elderly Asian woman hugging a shopping bag full of cushions. The woman’s eyes were two dark slits, and Helena realized how exposed her own gaze was in comparison.

The door at the end of the subway car opened. A South American man had come to sell cheap plastic toys. He walked slowly down the middle of the car, tugging at the pull string on a plastic fish as he murmured, “Fun toy. One dollar. Fun to play.” No one looked at him.

Bertram whispered, “Have you ever seen anyone buy that junk?”

She grinned, shaking her head, even though she had seen stout women buy them for grandchildren.

Suddenly the fat man sat up straight in his seat, clapping, saying loudly. ““The web of our life is of a mingled yarn!””

“What the hell is with that guy?” Bertram was annoyed now.

“Look at his eyes.” Helena said. Atrophied globes jiggled in their sockets.

“Yeah, so?”

The man clapped again, nodding, and called out, “Mingled yarn. You know what that’s from??

Bertram whispered, “Sheep?”

She giggled a little, but felt embarrassed. She couldn’t begin to guess why.

The train crushed into the next station. She pressed on the lily-skin just beneath her right ear to deaden the shrill of metal wheels on metal tracks. The Asian woman got off, and the car filled with dozens of high school kids on their way home for the day. Suddenly the air was electric and alive.

“Great,” said Bertram.

Several tall, black boys started a game of craps at the end of the car, taking bets from other youth who crowded around to watch. Helena noticed one slender black girl sitting on the edge of the game facing away from the havoc. She wore a blue plaid uniform. Her ankles were crossed, posture rod-like, hair pulled neatly into a twist at the back of her head. The tallest boy spread his fingers over her thighs as he leaned to whisper in her ear. Her large brown eyes darted over the car as she nodded and pulled out a small change purse. From it she pried a five dollar bill and handed it to the youth without looking at him. Fool, thought Helena. The girl’s eyes shifted toward her own, so she casually looked just past her, out the window at the soggy cement walls of the tunnel whirring by.

The fat blind man rocked, called hopefully into the chaos, “Lotions. Beautiful smell.” He twirled a tube between his thumb and forefinger, but the train lurched, and the lotion bounced out of his hands and slid across the floor of the car.

It landed near Bertram”s brown leather oxford.

“Can I have my lotion back,” asked the fat man.

Bertram kicked it, but it slid past the man to hit the metal door at the far end of the car.

The man asked, “Is it by the door?”

Helena didn’t think anyone heard.

“No one’s going to help me out, here?”

Helena looked around. People were reading the paper, or sitting with their eyes closed, or looking at some secret point right ahead of them.

The blind man sat completely still for a moment, listening. Then, with a sigh, he lowered himself painfully onto his knees and crawled to the end of the car. He was so fat that his belly scraped along the grime of the floor, dirtying Farrah Faucet’s cleavage. His hand swept over sticky debris, back and forth. Once he called out, “Hot or cold? Hot or cold?”

“Cold,” she wanted to tell him. “To your right, in the other corner,” she wanted to say.

The craps game had slowed down. The tallest youth watched the fat man’s progress as he shook the dice.

Helena squeezed Bertram’s arm, turning her aqua eyes to look at his face.

He sighed, but got up from his seat and walked to the end of the car. He stood over the man, arms crossed, watching his progress until the fat man said, “Are you going to help or what?” Bertram picked up the tube of lotion and touched the man’s shoulder with it. The man closed ponderous fingers around the tube, saying quietly, “All’s Well that Ends Well. What I was saying before? Mingled yarn? It’s from that.”

Bertram nodded at the man and strolled back to his seat. Helena was proud of her kind husband, but from the corner of her eye watched as the fat man tried to get up. He rolled his mass backward, then forward, straining against the floor, but couldn’t seem to get his feet under himself. Finally he rolled onto his belly again and crawled to his seat.

She felt relieved until she noticed a woman with shadowed eyes and no wedding band staring at Bertram from across the aisle. Helena didn’t like the way she was looking at him. Maybe she was jealous because she was old and ugly and unmarried. But her expression was mean spirited. Helena stared at her until the woman turned back to her magazine. Nasty old witch.

“Is anyone getting off at 42nd street?” It was the fat man again, whining into the chaos of the car. Helena glanced around. Everyone still had on their subway faces. A woman dressed in a green sari, half asleep, opened her eyes in the fat man’s direction, and closed them again.

“I said is anyone getting off at 42nd street?” He called again, loudly.

Helena was glad she was going all the way to 86th. She leaned her head on her husband’s shoulder, thinking she could sit like this all day.

The fat man shook his head, his lips working a rhythm until he cried, “Is no one getting off at 42nd?”She watched him as he pulled his tee shirt roughly over his belly, shaking his head, waiting in the impassive silence. The train lurched as it started to slow down, and he wriggled with anxiety. “What about you theater lovers? You getting off, maybe?” She looked at Bertram, who glanced at her from the corner of his eye and shook his head very slightly. She held her breath. Maybe the man would think they had left already. The fat man pleaded, “I just need help to the stairs. I won’t touch yous.”

The slender black girl stood. The tall boy, who lost all her money in the game, asked, “What are you doing?”

She ignored her boyfriend and wove down the length of the car toward the man. She murmured something to him, and he nodded as he pulled a filthy bandanna from his hip pocket and wiped his face. He said, “OK, Sweetheart.”

Helena heard the whine of wheels against an inevitable ton of metal.

Bracing her stringy legs, the elegant black girl picked up the shopping bag full of lotions while the fat man struggled to his feet.

The train stopped altogether.

The girl offered the stranger her elbow, and they waited, side by side, until the doors opened.

Bertram, chortling, shook his head. “Pathetic.”

“Wanna' talk pathetic,” the fat man said over his shoulder, “Shakespeare wrote As You Like It. Moron.” Then, side by side, the tall skinny girl and the fat blind man walked into the artificial light of the station.

On taking care of yourself.

2011-12-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

I just read a very moving obituary in The Economist about a soccer player who was also a medical doctor and a social agitator. He died at the young age of 57, directly after "a dinner with friends which his weakened liver couldn't take... As a doctor and ex-midfielder, he knew he should not have done it." This man, a Brazilian soccer player known as Socrates, traded years of life for a rich meal and too many cocktails. Granted, he lived a lifetime this way, probably pushing his body too far, but I have to wonder about this attitude. The writer of the obituary grants him a pass for such behavior: "As a philosopher he sealed his death warrant with his usual wit and serenity."

The man was very admirable in his fight for democratic reform in his native Brazil. But I take issue with this prevailing attitude that an opulent, hedonistic lifestyle is a fair trade for years or decades of good health and life. I've often heard people cheerfully say that they'd rather not live if they couldn't eat steak and butter and smoke their cigarettes and swill their brandy/beer/wine/whathaveyou. Though I completely understand how unsatisfying a salad can be in lieu of prime rib, I'm still puzzled by the willingness to ignore dire warnings from doctors in favor of fleeting pleasures.

This reminds me of my feelings when I heard about the untimely death of Stieg Larsson, the author of the excellent Millennium Trilogy. When I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I was filled with admiration for a writer who's method is so completely different to my own. I felt I learned a lot from him about how to build a character. But my pleasure at reading his books is tinged with a bit of anger, because if he had taken better care of himself, there would be more than just the three books for us to read and enjoy. He had an immense gift, one I greatly envy. He could write in a way that captures the imagination of millions of people all over the world. This puts him in the company of very few writers. But he squandered this gift on three packs of cigarettes a day and habitual disregard for his body's need for rest. In short he smoked and worked himself to an early grave. I did not know him, though I wish I had because he was a courageous advocate for human rights in his work as a journalist. Still, I feel personally insulted by his neglect of his own health. How dare he treat his health so poorly when he could write so well?

I sound petulant, I know, but this is my honest reaction. I resent when the talented, the courageous, the brilliant among us let go of life so easily. We need Socrates here among us still. We need Stieg Larsson. Someone needs you, whoever you are reading this. The good, righteous people of the world need to stick around as long as possible so that they can continue to illuminate the dark side for the rest of us. Life is such a beautiful gift. Let's not treat it carelessly. Let us be reverent. Let us all take care of ourselves.

Parenthood: The anti-writing.

2011-12-14T07:55:00.000-08:00

I have small beings at my mercy. They rely on me for bodily sustenance and emotional succor. I feel an intense biological imperative to stop writing when they cry, and this can create problems for the writer on a deadline to produce a sequel for which at least several hundred people are anxiously waiting. What to do?

My only solution to date has been to flee the house at full gallop and assume a seated position in a nearby coffee shop where there is no one screaming. Doing so recalls the days of my youth when I could sit in a coffee house for hours writing self indulgently in a journal. I remind myself I am still that person before committing my fingertips to my keyboard, typing as quickly as possible before I am recalled to the home front to suck snot out of someone's nostril with a blue rubber bulb. Such is the absurdity of modern parenting.

It could be worse. I could be stuck in the Kalahari where there are no rubber bulbs. I imagine those mothers must suck snot out of their babies' noses by whatever means necessary, however revolting. They do not have publishing contracts. They do not have a nearby source of clean water, either, for that matter. So what am I complaining about?

Nothing. The truth is I'm lucky to be a writer and I'm very lucky to have sweet little children who need me very much. I'm even lucky to have gotten two hours of sleep last night because they all have colds and are miserable and cannot sleep themselves. When it all gets to be too much I just need to close my eyes and imagine walking through the sweltering desert with a clay pot full of water on my head. It's all relative.

On religion.

2011-11-13T06:30:00.001-08:00

They say you're not supposed to comment on reviews, but this is just too interesting to me. I just came across an Amazon reader review that cautions GLOW is a Christian novel. I was quite surprised by this, since Publisher's Weekly said GLOW has a "strong anti-religion theme."

In a strange way, these divergent opinions are proof that I succeeded in my project. In writing GLOW, my intention wasn't to take sides one way or the other about religion, but to show how divisive religion can be in a society under duress. Some people want to run to the pulpit, looking for comfort when tragedy strikes. Some people find tragedy to be proof that the pulpit makes nothing but empty promises. When these two types have to work together, the politics get interesting.

In America we have a separation of church and state which, I feel pretty sure, is part of why we've been such a successful nation. Our founding fathers recognized how dangerous things get when the government sponsors one religion over the other, sometimes going so far as to kill off anyone who doesn't bend the knee at the proper altar. But why should this be so? What is it about a person's private beliefs about the nature of existence, whether it was created or whether it evolved, that brings out such ire? GLOW and the rest of the series will explore the relationship between religion and political power, looking at both sides, good and bad. A society that shares one religion tends to have a unified vision that can achieve such marvels as the Great Pyramids in Egypt, but can also stoop to such lows as the Spanish Inquisition. These extremes are interesting to write about, and I hope interesting to read about too.

Just like the guy at the dinner party who bores you by asking rhetorical questions that he answers himself, books that explicitly answer the questions they pose aren't very interesting. This might be why readers have such extremely different impressions about the book, because they're expecting answers where there are none. THE SKY CHASERS asks the questions. It's up to readers to decide for themselves.

Space Exploration: Waste It or Worth It?

2011-11-11T10:53:00.000-08:00

Whenever the economy takes a dive, one of the first areas the federal government cuts is NASA's space program. As a fan of all things cosmological, I always hate hearing about NASA taking another hit. In the face of world hunger and child poverty, however, it can be hard to make the case for the necessity of exploring our solar system and beyond, considering the immense cost and the rather unsure payoff. Most of what we gain from the space program is abstract answers to questions that plague astrophysicists and practically no one else. It's tantalizing to imagine a future of colonies on Mars and other planets or moons in our solar system, but is there really a point?

What are the payoffs, really, to space exploration? Do we need tangible gains to justify it, or is knowledge its own gain? What do you think?

POLL QUESTION

2011-11-04T13:06:00.000-07:00

IF YOU COULD TRAVEL TO A DISTANT WORLD, WOULD YOU DO IT?

I find the thought of deep space travel intoxicating and fascinating. However, I've got almost no guts at all. I'm not sure I'd have the courage to leave this beautiful planet Earth, with it's blue skies and caressing winds. But I don't think I can imagine a greater adventure than to travel across the galaxy to experience an alien world.

How about you? Would you leave the earth to experience another world?

And a follow up question: What if leaving meant you could never see Earth again?

Reader Question: How do you foster creativity?

2011-10-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Amy,

I'm a seventeen year old girl, who writes constantly on her Blackberry then transferring her stories to the computer. I can not remember when I started writing-- I believe I was in 8th grade or twelve. I began writing about a girl who was a ghost hunter, then about a normal teenage girl. Eventually I began writing a Science Fiction story about humans obtaining super powers, when scientists were trying to create the perfect human. ...Do you have any advice for a girl my age? As a writer, how do you try to bring out your creativity?

Thank you,
Nicole

Dear Nicole,

Thanks for your email! First off, it sounds like you have lots of fun ideas for books, and they are just the kind of thing people like reading right now. I say keep writing as much as you can!

As far as how to foster your creativity, I think you're already doing it by writing a lot. The more I write, the more ideas I have, and the faster they come. Writing helps keep that creative, imaginative part of my brain going, and I'm sure that's true for all writers. You can't just foster creativity, though, you have to protect it, because it can be fragile. Perfectionism at the early stage is a creativity killer. You have to be non-judgmental, and just get your ideas down on paper. Also, be careful about sharing your writing with others at this early stage. I learned long ago NEVER to show ANYONE my first draft. There will be lots of clunky sentences and malformed ideas in the writing. It's best not to share your work until you've gotten those taken care of, because you are likely to get less than an encouraging response, and you'll end up feeling bad about your writing. Also, it's just not polite to ask someone to read your work if it's not as polished as you can make it. That's like giving them assigned reading that they are not likely to enjoy.

Any seasoned writer will tell you that the real writing begins at the revision stage. Your first draft is nothing more than your raw material, much like the stone a sculptor works with. After you've got a completed draft, you chisel away the scraps you don't need and polish it smooth. This process can be just as creative as the initial drafting stage, and just as fun!

Thanks for the great question Nicole!

If anyone else out there has a question for me about my work, or life in general, email me!

Fresh Fiction!

2011-10-02T20:23:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the fabulous posse at Fresh Fiction for making GLOW a Fresh Pick on October 3, 2011!

October 3, 2011

GLOW!

2011-09-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

Glow is now available in bookstores! Your friendly independent retailer, with their funky music, interesting booksellers and cozy corners ought to have a few copies on hand. Barnes and Noble is doing a lovely floor display, I'm told. I have to go check it out. I know Borders is also excited about the book, so I hope to hear they're showing it off too! And if you're the ordering kind, Amazon is stocking it, quite naturally!

Remember to write me about it after you read it. Your words may very well turn up in this blog, (anonymous and with your permission!)

Fabulous Book Trailer!

2011-09-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

Check out this great new book trailer by Carol Mesnick at Creative Commons! Thanks Carol!

FIRST bit of fan mail for GLOW!

2011-09-07T12:54:00.000-07:00

See this lovely note from Terra, after she read the first 20 pages of GLOW:

I almost never buy books brand new, one reason because I generally give them away when im done. A book is somebody's story, and stories are meant to be shared... there's something about reading a book that other people have read. Now that im completely off subject .. I just wanted to say im so looking toward to it coming out and that im actually going to go and buy a copy. I can't wait to finish it :)

How true that stories are meant to be shared. That is certainly why I write. I love the idea of words and thoughts of mine being whispered into readers' ears as they cozy up to my book in darkened bedrooms, or comfy armchairs, in towns I've never heard of, living lives I've never imagined. All those people are sharing in the experience of my book! It's a community of strangers, all turning over my thoughts in their minds. This is a magical idea, and I'm the luckiest woman in the world that I get to do this for a living. So yes, Terra, please do buy my book so I can keep writing more stories, but also, please share it, as much as you like!