All That Other Stuff

 Hello everybody, here we are again at the end of another year - and what a year. Our Round Robin Blog for December 2020 is similar to that of 2019, so here is another short story for you to, I hope, enjoy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ellie Harding rested her chin on her hand and stared out of the window across the valley, relaxing as she always did at the sight of the tall spire of the parish church surrounded by mellow stone cottages nestling under their Cotswold stone roofs.

         Her daughter-in-law, Lori, came in from the garden balancing a wicker laundry basket on her hip.

“I will be so glad when Christmas is over.” Lori heaved a dramatic sigh. “It’s nothing but rush and fuss, and no one is ever satisfied. One week left, and I still have to mail cards, shop, clean, and for what? Just one day. And as for peace and goodwill, will you listen to that lot?”

Sounds of discontent burst from the living room where twelve-year-old Matthew and eight-year-old twins, Molly and Hannah, were arguing over television programs.

“And not only that,” Lori continued, “David is due home from Singapore on December 22^nd, and,” she paused for breath, “Mother and Dad are arriving the same day.”

“As David has been away for almost six months, isn’t that rather inconsiderate of them?” Ellie murmured. She tried to keep the tone of censure out of her voice and her brow puckered as an additional thought sprang into her mind. “I thought your parents were spending Christmas in Germany with your Aunt Sophie.”

Lori snapped a tea towel, making it sound like a flag in a strong wind. She folded it in half, smoothed it out with the flat of her hand, folded it again and added it to the growing pile of clean laundry on the kitchen counter.

“They were, but Mother fell out with Aunt Sophie over goodness-knows-what and decided that she and Dad would come here,” Lori explained. “Oh, Ellie, what am I going to do?”

“We’ll have a cup of tea, dear.” Ellie, a staunch supporter of that particular beverage’s restorative properties, thoughtfully put the kettle on. As it began to boil, her eyes began to sparkle with mischief.

“Park everybody,” she said suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Lori asked, plainly puzzled.

“I’ll take the children,” Ellie said. “That should give you time for everything you need to do. Book your parents into a hotel, and yourself and David into another. That will give you one day to yourselves, and on Christmas Eve, you can all come to my house.”

Lori’s eyes opened wide. “But I couldn’t…”

“Yes, you could. Don’t think about it, dear, just do it.”

Between them, Ellie and Lori helped the children pack and loaded them and their backpacks into Ellie’s battered blue Audi. Matthew sat silently beside her on the drive out of town, plainly not in agreement with the plan.

“What are we going to do at your house, Gran?” Molly asked. “You don’t even have a TV.”

“I’m sure we can find something to do,” Ellie replied, keeping her eyes on the narrow, two-lane road where she had to stop for a flock of sheep passing from one pasture to another.

“We could do a nativity play,” Hannah said as she watched the woolly bodies crowd either side of the car.

“There’s only three of us, and we already did that at school.” Matthew sounded glum at the prospect.

“Yes, but did you design and make your costumes?” Ellie asked.

“Well, no,” Matthew admitted. “We just used the ones from last year.”

“Ooh, Gran, can I make a crown with sparkles on it?” Despite being restrained by her seat belt, Hannah bounced on the back seat with excitement.

“I’m sure we could arrange that, dear. You three will be the Wise Men, and everyone else can be shepherds.”

“And you have to be the angel, Gran,” chorused Molly and Hannah in unison.

“Can we invite friends from school?” Matthew asked.

“I don’t see why not.” Ellie drove through her gateway, minus its gate, and pulled up in front of a solidly built ivy-covered stone house. “Who would you like to invite?”

“Well, Jamal, because he was new at school this term and doesn’t know many kids yet and Oliver because he doesn’t have a dad.”

“And can we invite other people too?” the twins chorused.

“Yes, you can,” Ellie assured them. “Two friends each. The more, the merrier, don’t you think?”

“Then I’ll ask Yasmeen and Adeera,” Hannah said. “I hope their parents will let them come.”

“Yes, and Susan Howell and Dawn Fry,” Molly added. Hannah nodded her agreement.

Ellie parked the car, and the children poured out of it and in through the front door. They hung their coats on pegs in the hallway and deposited their backpacks at the foot of the stairs.

“We’ll have hot chocolate with marshmallows,” Ellie said as she headed to the large kitchen at the back of the house. “While I make it, you can start designing your costumes.”

She took sheets of paper and coloured pencils from a drawer and put them in the table’s centre. In no time, the girls sketched outfits for the shepherds while Matthew, now warming up to the idea, designed crowns for the Three Wise Men.

Over the next couple of days, Ellie produced lengths of fabric, sheets of art paper, fancy buttons, glue and glitter, rolls of florists’ wire and strands of ribbon. On a brisk afternoon walk, with a light wind gusting from the south-west blowing the clouds inland over the hills, they collected sheep’s wool from the barbed wire fencing around their field.

“This will make the beards for the Wise Men,” Ellie said as she held out a plastic bag for the children to fill with the wool.

“How?” asked Matthew.

“We’ll cut lengths of cotton fabric and stick the wool to it, leaving a gap for your mouths,” Ellie said. “Then we’ll cut a length of elastic so that it fits your heads, sew the ends to each side of the fabric, and you can just slip them on.”

“That sounds pretty easy,” Matthew said. “I say, Gran, can I be in charge of the costumes?”

“You certainly can, dear,” Ellie agreed.

Her angel wings fitting filled an entire afternoon with the children measuring wire and fabric and calculating the best way to affix them to Ellie’s back.

“Donny Williams sat on Carrie Davis’s wings in class and broke them,” Hannah told her.

“Yes, and she cried,” Molly added.

“Well, after all this work, we’ll have to make sure we hang my wings where no one can sit on them,” Ellie said.

Together they draped and stitched the fabric and, once all the costumes were made, Ellie sat the children around the table again and helped them write their invitations. Molly and Hannah decorated theirs with sparkles, sure the recipients would be pleased with them.

Their invitations were hand-delivered and, when Christmas Eve finally arrived, so did the rest of the family and all the guests, including Yasmeen and Adeera’s parents. After a happy and noisy reunion with their father, Matthew, Molly, and Hannah helped everyone into their costumes. Ellie couldn’t help but notice that Lori’s parents, Margaret and Richard, looked somewhat bemused to find themselves clad in tunics made from old bedsheets and cinched around the waist with frayed scarlet cords from thrift store velvet curtains. When everyone was dressed, Ellie clapped her hands which made her wings wobble frantically.

“Quiet everyone,” she said. “Now, who can tell me what the Three Wise Men did?”

“Oh, Gran, I know, I know!” Hannah’s hand shot up as if she were answering questions in school. “They followed the star.”

“Indeed, they did.” Ellie nodded sagely. “Now come this way.”

She took everyone outside and then clapped her hands again. From the dark at the bottom of the garden, a bright white light appeared amongst the old and gnarled apple trees. Its silvery glow illuminated the whole area. She watched the children’s eyes open wide in wonder and smiled as they stopped, in total astonishment, at the edge of the lawn.

There, its legs folded neatly beneath it, sat a camel. With a graceful movement of its long neck, it turned its head, looking at them from beneath long lashes with liquid-dark eyes. A small tubby man, sporting a large moustache and wearing a red fez, stood beside it.

“This is Fred,” Ellie said. “And this,” she patted the camel’s neck, “is Harun.”

Margaret sniffed. “Don’t expect me to get on that filthy beast.”

Ellie hid a smile as she heard Richard say, “Don’t worry, dear, only the Wise Men rode camels. You’re a shepherd. Here, hang on to your crook.”

Fred helped the children onto the saddle, showing them where to put their feet and where to hold on as Harun stood up. His spongy feet made no sound as he lurched and swayed across the winter-damp grass.

“Mother, how on earth did you manage that?” David asked as he caught up with her.

Ellie patted the hand he slipped into the crook of her elbow.

“Oh, a phone call here and favour there,” she said casually. She clapped her hands once more, and the light in the trees winked out before appearing again further away in the paddock next to her garden.

“It’s over Mr. Donovan’s stable now.” Molly couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice as she pointed over the hedge to the next door neighbour's property.

“And there’s a light in there, too,” added Hannah. 

Mr. Donovan himself opened the gate set in the hedge and welcomed them all.

The little procession came to a halt outside the stable. Harun obligingly collapsed his legs, and the children all but fell off him in their haste to peer in at the stable door. The sweet smell of hay assaulted their nostrils, and they heard the rustling of straw as they looked in on a cow contentedly chewing her cud, a donkey who flicked his long, fuzzy ears at them, and a ewe with twin lambs. A young woman wearing a blue robe smiled a welcome and invited them to sit on some straw bales placed in readiness for the visitors. Beside her, a tall, bearded man wearing a brown cloak welcomed everyone. Between them, laid in a wooden crib, a baby kicked its feet and gurgled happily.

“Oh, Gran, this is magic,” Molly whispered. She went to the crib and knelt beside it, staring down at the baby as if she couldn’t quite believe it was there. Hannah, Matthew, and their friends were more interested in the animals.

“Well, Ellie, I think you have surpassed yourself,” Richard said, still looking around and taking in every little detail with an expression of wonderment on his face. Even Margaret seemed suitably impressed.

“This is so cool, Gran.” Hannah looked up from the lamb she cuddled while Matthew and Jamal petted the donkey.

Matthew’s eyes opened wide as a thought struck him. “Christmas isn’t about what things we get, or what food we have. It’s all the…the other stuff, isn’t it, Gran?” His pre-teen voice had a croak in it.

Ellie nodded. “That’s right, Matthew.” Her voice was soft. “It’s all that other stuff. Christmas is for loving and caring, sharing and,” she looked at Lori, “peace and goodwill.”

 

THE END

I'm looking forward to reading my fellow Round Robin bloggers' Christmas posts. I hope you'll join me and check in with:

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/

Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/

Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-29F

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/

Margaret Fieland http://margaretfieland.wordpress.com

Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/

Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

 

 November was busy with National Novel Writing Month. This year I set myself a 50,000 word target and I made it. I have only 10,000 or so words to add to it to have a new contemporary western romance in the bag. I'll be posting a new short story later this month, but just as a sample, here's my short story from last Christmas. Enjoy!

PORTER COLLIER'S CHRISTMAS ANGEL

  by Victoria Chatham

 

“Of course you’re coming home for dinner, Porter. It’s Christmas Day.”

Porter Collier moved the phone away from his ear and sighed.

“I heard that,” his mother said.

Porter removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose to stave off the inevitable headache resulting from a conversation with his mother.

“Mother, Christmas is just another day. An expensive one for many people, which is why I prefer to stay here and work to make sure that I, and subsequently you and Aunt Min, can look forward to a prosperous New Year.”

“Don’t be so snippy,” his mother sniffed, “and it’s unfair to bring your aunt into this.”

Porter replaced his spectacles, knowing that he could not escape the mandatory dinner. “I have to go. I’ll see you later.”

He replaced the receiver in its cradle on his desk and stared gloomily out of his third-floor office window. Christmas was his least favourite time of year. He wished he could avoid it all. His mother, with every reason to not like the season, insisted on celebrating it.

Suddenly restless, he got to his feet, grabbed his jacket and headed for the main office. He knew he wasn’t the only one of his staff with issues on the whole Holly, Jolly, Jingle-jingle holiday. Even today, there might be someone with whom he could chat over a coffee.

He paused at the entrance to the central hub of his company, the workspace usually inhabited by more than thirty IT specialists. Today the desks were empty with not a soul in sight. About to leave, a sudden movement caught his eye. He peered through the glass pane, and his forehead creased into a frown as a blonde head emerged from beneath a desk, followed by a petite, decidedly feminine form.

Who was that?

Porter pushed the door open a little and heard indistinct muttering. He pushed the door all the way open and walked in.

“Can I help?” he asked.

The girl looked up, regarding him with a pair of cornflower blue eyes. Porter’s breath caught in his throat. He prided himself on knowing all his staff but had never seen this girl before.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I just dropped my phone.”

“Is it okay?”

“I think so. At least the screen isn’t cracked.”

“Well, if you have any problems with it, let the office manager know. There’s usually a couple of spare phones around if you need one.”

“Great, thanks for the tip.” She grinned at him. “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at home with your family?”

“Shouldn’t you?” he said, his voice rasping a little.

She laughed at that. “Touché. Have you worked here for long?”

Porter cleared his throat. She had no clue as to his identity, and maybe that was a good thing.  “A few years now.”

“You must like it then.”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” he said, nodding his head. “How about you?”

“I’ve only been here a couple of months and love the flexibility of it. It’s awesome being able to come and work at midnight if I can’t sleep or on a weekend if I have a sudden breakthrough in fixing a problem.”

“Are you fixing problems today?” He would find things to do if that were the case and stay with her.

There was that grin again, the grin that transformed her into a cheeky, adorable pixie. “No, I’m only killing time until I go and take my girls out.”

That remark gave Porter cause to pause before curiosity overwhelmed him. “Forgive me for saying so, but you seem very young to have children.”

The grin turned into a laugh. “There’s nothing to forgive, and it’s not kids, it’s dogs. Mollie and Sheba. Would you like to come with us?”

Porter was inexplicably drawn to this girl and didn’t want to part company with her. He’d never had a pet of any kind but would walk a dinosaur to stay with her. “Do you think they’d mind?”

“I can’t imagine that they would, but I’ll warn you they’re a bit different.” She busied herself with stashing things in her purse, then took her coat from the back of her chair and shrugged it on.

“Different how?” Porter asked as he caught her collar and helped settle the coat into place on her shoulders. He couldn’t help noticing the garment was somewhat threadbare.

“They’re both old,” she said, “and some would say they’re not attractive dogs, so it’s not likely they’ll be adopted even though the shelter does its best. I like to visit them and take them for walks.”

“On Christmas Day,” Porter mused.

“On any day. Come on, there’s only one car in the lot, and it’s mine.”

Her small stature belied the speed of her walk and Porter had to hurry to keep up with her. The car was a Chevrolet Malibu that had seen better days. As she unlocked it, a thought struck him.

“Before I drive off with a stranger, shouldn’t I at least know your name?”

Again that laugh. “You’ll be quite safe with me, I promise. I’m Juliet Pym. And you?”

Porter thought fast. If he told her his real name, she might be embarrassed and drive off alone. He couldn’t let that happen. “It’s Brad, Brad Carpenter.”

He offered his hand across the hood of her car, and she took it. Her fingers, soft and warm, curled around his. She might as well have thrown chains around his heart.

“Then hop in, Mr. Carpenter, and I’ll take you away on my magic carpet.”

She put the key in the ignition, and the engine fired on the first turn. The bodywork might be a bit iffy, but there was nothing wrong with the motor. She headed out of town, taking streets Porter didn’t recognize. He opened the window, smelled salt in the air and knew they were heading towards the coast. The buildings they passed were older, run-down strip malls and single storey homes in a part of town that he didn’t know existed. Then she turned in to a dusty parking lot in front of a long, low building with a sign above the door advertising the Costa Animal Shelter.

Beyond the crumbling adobe brick wall, a cacophony of barking assaulted Porter’s ears.

“How many dogs do they have here?”

“At the moment about sixty, give or take. Monica updates the website every day, so chances are one or two might have been adopted out or fostered. Come on.”

She breezed through the double doors into a tiled lobby with a long reception desk at the back of it. Behind the counter, an open door revealed a yard shaded by olive trees.

Juliet rang the bell on the counter. “Yo, Monica,” she called. “I’ve come for my girls, and I’ve brought a friend.”

Instantly a sturdy figure darkened the doorway. As the woman came into the office, Porter took in her muscular brown arms and tanned face. A red bandana corralled her mop of long, curly toffee-coloured hair. As she set eyes on Porter, she smiled, revealing a set of healthy white teeth.

“This is Brad,” Juliet said. “He’s going to walk the girls with me today.”

“No problem. Just sign Mollie and Sheba out before you leave. You know where the leashes are. Nice to meet you, Brad. You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got half a dozen puppies on the go out here.”

She waved and ducked back out the door.

“Hello, to you too, Monica,” Porter said to her retreating back.

Juliet laughed. “There’s usually at least four on staff. As it’s Christmas Day, Monica lets the others go home after the morning feeding and cleaning routine.”

“I take it she’s the owner?”

Juliet took two leashes from a rack on the wall and walked along a corridor with kennels on each side. “Yes, and lives onsite here. She bought the property when she left the military. She’s one tough cookie, let me tell you. Here we are.”

Porter heard the dog before he saw it. A snuffling and snorting came from behind the security screen covering the lower half of the chain-link gate, then whining and scratching.

“It’s okay, Mollie,” Juliet said. “I can’t wait to see you either. Just give me a minute here.”

She set the screen against the wall and opened the gate. A brindle and white body came barreling out right into Juliet’s open arms. Porter stepped back. He hadn’t known what to expect, certainly not this awkward, misaligned creature with a broad, scarred head, gaping jaws, and misshapen front legs.

“Good grief, what is it? And why hasn’t it got any ears?”

“I told you she was different,” Juliet said. “This is Mollie, who is mostly pit bull. The likely reason for her ears to have been cropped would be if she came from a fighting ring. Her front legs have both been broken and healed on their own, which is why she is so bandy. But look at her, she’s all smiles and happiness despite everything that may have happened to her.”

Juliet bent down and cuddled the dog, getting a slurpy tongue all over her face in return. She clipped a leash onto Mollie’s collar and handed it to Porter. Mollie looked up at him expectantly, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. He slowly sank into a crouch, touched when the dog put its paw on his arm. He reached out and rubbed behind Mollie’s battered ear.

“Who could have done such a thing to you, hmm?” he queried softly.

In answer, Mollie reached up and swiped her tongue across his face.

“It looks like you have made a friend,” Juliet said.

Porter looked up. She came towards him, holding the leash of a rough-haired, sad-looking dog. While Mollie bounced up and down, her tail wagging, this dog stood beside Juliet, quietly waiting for what might come next.

“What’s her story?” Porter asked.

“Sheba was orphaned,” Juliet told him.

“Orphaned?” Porter raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, her person passed away. She’s still mourning. No one has seen her wag her tail since she came to us, and she’s been here six months already.”

“What about Mollie? How long has she been in the shelter?”

“Eighteen months.” Juliet sighed. “I wish people could see how beautiful these dogs are, inside and out. Anyway, shall we go? It’s only a couple of blocks to the beach.”

On their way through the office, Juliet stopped and filled in the book on the counter, leaving the date, her name, the dogs’ names, and the time she checked them out.

“Security,” she said in answer to Porter’s unspoken question.

They headed towards the beach, Mollie knowing where she was going and charging ahead as much as she was able. Sheba shuffled along between them. Porter looked at the dog’s low-slung head and the slouch of her shoulders.

“She looks like a German Shepherd,” he said.

“Mm, Shepherd Labrador mix, Monica thinks,” Juliet agreed. “Here we are. You can let Mollie off the leash. She’s got an excellent recall response and never goes far, so we don’t need to worry.”

“What about Sheba?”

“I think she wants to make sure nothing happens to us so she won’t go too far, either.”

Juliet unclipped Sheba’s leash, and the dog wandered a few feet ahead of them, frequently looking over her shoulder to see where they were.

“I see what you mean,” Porter said after watching her for a few moments. “That’s plain sad. You said they were old, so how old are they?”

“Best as we can tell, Mollie is ten, maybe eleven and Sheba a little older. The next-door neighbour said she was fully grown when she and her owner moved in and then lived in that house for ten years, so she might be twelve or thirteen.”

“And people don’t want older dogs?”

Juliet shook her head. “There’s always the risk of medical problems and then the expense of medications and end of life arrangements. Most people want at least a few years of fun with a dog before they have to deal with that, and some never do. They give their dogs up anyway or dump them.”

Porter shook his head. “I can’t even begin to understand how people can do that.”

Juliet shrugged. “Me neither, but it happens. Some of the reasons make me sad, some make me mad, but I’ve learnt to ignore that and concentrate on the dogs to make them as happy as I can.”

“Mollie’s certainly happy,” Porter said, nodding to where Mollie wrestled with a long strand of kelp that had washed ashore.

Juliet laughed and then whistled and Mollie hustled towards them, dragging her prize with her. They walked in silence for a while, their feet leaving prints in the wet sand and the breeze coming off the ocean misting them with salt-laden spray.

“So tell me,” Juliet began, “why were you in the office today?”

“I don’t like Christmas,” Porter said bluntly. “I treat it like any other day.”

“May I ask why?”

Porter stopped walking and stared towards the horizon where the blanket-blue bowl of the sky masked the birth of white-tipped waves that rolled across the ocean’s surface.

“Eight years ago today,” he said, watching the surf tumble onto the shore like a visitor on the doorstep, “my father didn’t wake up. Every Christmas since, Mom tries to make it a regular, everyday celebration, just like she always did when he was alive. But it’s not.”

“I’m so sorry.” Juliet slipped her hand into his. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Porter looked down at their entwined fingers. “I should be used to it by now, but I’m not.”

“No.” Juliet shook her head. “Grieving takes as much time as it needs. I lost both my parents when I was eight, and my grandma brought me up, but she’s gone now. I haven’t got anyone to love, so I love the critters at the shelter instead.”

“And you’re happy?” Porter stopped walking and looked down at her.

“Yes,” Juliet said without hesitation. “But then, happiness is a choice, don’t you think?”

“I can’t say I’ve ever considered it.” He looked into Juliet’s eyes and saw a glow there, a glow enhanced by her wind-blown pink cheeks. She looked fresh and innocent and made him feel old and careworn. “Were you born wise, or did that come with the territory?”

Her shoulders rose and fell in a movement that seemed as natural to her as blinking. “A bit of both, I think. I certainly had my fair share of counsellors.”

“And now you have the dogs.”

She nodded in agreement and stopped to watch them.

“That’s my mom before dad died,” Porter said, nodding towards Mollie, who, with the kelp clamped between her jaws, ran in exuberant circles. “and that’s what she’s like now.” He pointed towards Sheba, who stood with her face into the wind, her nose twitching as if searching for a familiar scent.

A tremor ran through Juliet’s hand and Porter turned to her. “Are you cold?”

“A little bit,” she admitted. Porter slipped his jacket off and slung it around her shoulders, surreptitiously checking his watch as he did so.

Juliet did not miss the motion. “Have you got to be somewhere?”

“No,” he began, but then hesitated. “Uh, make that a yes. But just a minute.”

He pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket, hit a number on his speed dial and waited for the call to connect.

“Hi, Mom,” he said. “Would you mind if I bring guests for dinner? One two-legged, and two four-legged?” He paused and listened. Juliet waved a hand in front of his face, mouthing “you can’t do that,” but Porter took no notice, only catching her hand and kissing her fingers. “Okay, we’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Brad, I cannot intrude on your family Christmas,” Juliet insisted.

“Tell me you have somewhere better to be,” Porter said and grinned at her. “By the way, will Monica let you bring the dogs?”

“Probably,” Juliet said. She whistled for Mollie, who lolloped towards her like a drunken sailor, and clipped the leashes onto the dogs’ collars for the short walk back to the shelter.

Monica agreed to them taking the dogs but insisted they be back by nine o’clock for the final night check.

“We’ll probably be earlier than that,” Juliet said as she turned towards the door and joined Porter. They bundled the dogs into the back seat and Porter slid into the passenger seat. “You’ll have to give me directions.”

“Go back to the office, and I’ll direct you from there.”

Juliet did as he asked and then followed his instructions as they passed the heritage building housing IT Inc’s business premises. She followed his directions, glancing at him curiously as they headed towards a more upmarket side of town. She began to frown as they turned into an avenue lined with fan palms. Ahead of them were a set of closed gates with a security station in the centre.

“You live here?” she breathed, ducking her head to peer at the estate-style houses beyond the gate.

“No, my mother does. Can you open your window, please?”

She did as he asked and he leaned across her and waved at the security guard. “Hi, Frank. We’re just on the way to see Mom.”

“Do you want me to call her for you, Mr. Collier?”

“No, thanks,” Porter responded, “She knows we’re coming.”

Juliet sat still, staring straight ahead of her.

“Um, you can drive on now,” Porter said. “The gate’s open.”

“Yes, I see that,” Juliet snapped and put her foot down. The car shot forward, slamming Porter back in his seat and shifting the dogs. Mollie huffed, and Sheba’s wet nose connected with his neck.

Porter could barely contain a chuckle at the furious expression on her tight little face. “Mom’s house is the next drive on the right.”

Juliet swung into it with a maneuver that might have impressed a movie stunt-driver but brought a shout of laughter from Porter. She slammed to a stop and turned to face him, anger sparking electric-blue in her eyes. She took a deep breath as if struggling to form words, and then, “ohmygodyouaremyboss,” rolled out of her perfect little mouth on a single exhale.

“I’m sorry,” Porter said, “but if I had told you who I was back in the office, would you have invited me to go for a walk with you and the dogs?”

“No, of course not,” she stammered.

“And so we would not have had a perfect day, at least it’s been perfect for me. How about you?”

Juliet dropped her head but put her hand over his. “The best in a long time,” she whispered.

“Come on,” Porter said. “Mom and Aunt Min are waiting for us.”

Porter opened the back door of the car and Mollie and Sheba hopped out. Sheba looked around, her nose twitching and then she headed up the front steps with Mollie and Porter in her wake. As they approached the front door, it swung open and Sheba stopped, pricked her ears and sniffed the air.

“Well, hello, sweet girl,” Porter’s mother said. “And how are you?”

Sheba pushed her nose into Mrs. Collier’s outstretched hand and wagged her tail, leaving Juliet speechless. Porter grinned at her, then leaned in and kissed his mother on the cheek. “Thanks for having us all, Mom.”

Mollie charged through the open doorway. They heard her claws skittering on the tiled floor and then another voice yelled, “what the hell is that thing?”

Porter held out his hand to Juliet.

“Come on,” he said. “Now they have met the dogs it’s time for my mother and my aunt to meet my Christmas Angel.”

 

Our Round Robin Blog for October 17, 2020 asks: What is/are your favorite book(s) of all time in your favorite genre(s) including children’s books, non-fiction books or magazines?

 

Hmm. Let me see. Have you got time? This is so difficult to answer. There are so many good books out there. Going into a bookstore is an adventure. I never know what I will come across. Never mind the title and story, what will the pages be like to smell or touch?

As Helene Hanff says in 84 Charing Cross Road of one of the books she received, ‘I’m almost afraid to handle such soft vellum and heavy cream-coloured pages. Being used to the dead-white paper and stiff cardboardy covers of American books, I never knew a book could be such a joy to the touch.’

Like Helene, I still have books that are a joy to touch. An old, first edition copy Kipling’s Thy Servant a Dog, an illustrated copy of The Wind in the Willows and Nicolas Bentley’s Tales from Shakespeare, are just a few that I pull out from time to time not only to read but to smell and touch.

Quite apart from their tactile properties, what about the content? Horses have always been a passion of mine, so from my childhood reading my favourite book is Anna Sewell’s classic Black Beauty. I don’t know how many times I have read it. Close behind it is Rumer Godden’s The Dark Horse, set in 1930’s India and based on a true story.

Reading came first and foremost in my family and I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have books around me. My mother collected Mazo de la Roche’s Jalna books while my dad was a fan of the Brother Cadfael books. I discovered Regency romance with the publication of Georgette Heyer’s Frederica in 1965 and have been a fan of that genre ever since. Frederica remains a firm favourite as I still find it as fresh and funny as the first time I read it.

I enjoy reading thrillers too, and at one time owned all the Dick Francis racing thrillers. Out of all his titles Smokescreen, set in South Africa, was my favourite. More recently I’ve become a fan of   Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novels and am working my way through his titles. There’s the law and then there’s justice and I can’t help liking Reacher’s sometime rough take on that.

Non-fiction is not at the top of my list, but I have recently become reacquainted with Stevie Cameron’s Blue Trust: the Author, the Lawyer, the Wife, and Her Money, which reads like a novel and is the story of tax lawyer Bruce Verchere who included amongst his clients the author Arthur Hailey. I found this an intriguing as any thriller, loaned it to a friend and never saw it again. If I really enjoy a book, I will read it again and again, so I am very happy to have this one back in my collection.

As far as magazines are concerned, any edition of National Geographic will keep me happy. I think the most iconic cover for me, and for many people, is the image of the young Afghan girl with green eyes. I don’t often buy magazines, but if I am going to indulge these days I will always buy the Hello! Magazine, either the U.K. or Canadian edition. If I am visiting the U.K., I will always bring back with me a copy of The Lady Magazine which has been in continuous publication since 1885 and was a
favourite of my grandmother’s.

I’m off now to check on my fellow bloggers’ favourites and don’t mind betting that several will end up on my wish list.

 

Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-26c
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

Subtlety or Intuition?

                     

Most novels have an easily understood point to make to the reader, do your stories ever have more subtle or intuitive themes?

This month’s topic is something of a tricky question. Writers, especially newbie writers, quite frequently worry how much of themselves they are revealing in their writing. It therefore follows that to write subtle or intuitive themes would suggest the author has those qualities and is writing from their own point of view or at the very least understands them in order to introduce them in their writing. 

Looking at all my stories, the heart of them concerns love, loyalty, and fidelity between my characters whether they are already married, as with Lord and Lady Buxton in The Buxton Chronicles, or become married which is the theme of all my Regency stories, Brides of Banff Springs and even my contemporary western romance, Loving That Cowboy.

During the Regency era in which I set most of my novels, women were not only expected to get married, but expected it of themselves with few exceptions, Jane Austen being one of them. Aristocratic families married not so much for love as economics. How does one enlarge one’s estate and holdings? Marry the heir or heiress next door. While that might sound cold it was just the way of things amongst the upper class. Once an heir arrived to complete the happy or not union, the lord was free to take a mistress (if he ever gave one up) and his lady, discreetly of course, took lovers while everyone turned a blind eye to their extra-marital shenanigans. Or, as in the case of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire who, later in her marriage to the emotionally distant Duke, was forced to accept his mistress Lady Elizabeth Foster into a ménage à trois which delighted the gossip-mongers of the day.

While love and marriage is not so much a subtle theme, it is nonetheless at the heart of most romances. The ‘aha’ moment of when the characters finally admit they have fallen in love is what romance readers look forward. If the characters are not married by the end of the book then you darn well know that a wedding will take place soon after. It’s the Happy Ever After that seals the romantic deal.

Subtlety is the art of making use of clever or indirect methods to achieve something while intuition is the ability of immediate understanding. If all our characters or story themes were based on intuition, would we ever have a story? A subtle approach offers much more scope for both characters and plot, and hopefully a happy ever after result for the reader.

I wonder what my fellow bloggers have to say on the subject? Hop on over to their blogs to find out.

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-22c
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com