HouseoftheRisingSun

sample, first draft, excerpt

Kendall works for my father. So does Steve, who is short and fat and wears thick glasses. There are others, too, crews of men that appear only at work sites and in our driveway on paydays. But Kendall and Steve spend their days in the shop: the barn out behind the house.

I love the shop. In the spring the barn doors are left open to the greening trees and the wet air. The yawn of the wide doors beckons me and even though I've been warned not to, I go in: there is a long work bench covered with hard tools and everything is frosted with fine yellow sawdust and I take a deep breath: I love this smell.

I will be long gone when the barn is shuttered: housing will stall and my father will make the mistake of hiring his friend, a drunk who will pass out and freeze to death face down on hard white snow on his own back stoop. Before he dies, the friend will use up all my father's credit at the local lumber supply. My father is a craftsman, not a businessman. When his business caves in on itself, he will go to bed for two months and be lost in thoughts that circle and loop endlessly. He will rise only to shit and urinate; if he eats, it is only in the dead of night, in a blackened house. Then one day he will get on his motorcycle and leave. He will turn up years later in California, living toothless in the desert.

But I don't know this right now. Right now I only know that it is spring and I feel juicy and happy. I don't care that I'm supposed to stay out of the shop. I don't care at all about short fat Steve who has a wife who looks just like him. No, today I am interested in Kendall. He lives in a bread truck that he drives back and forth to work and parks in our driveway. He's balding and has a long beard and he smiles a lot.

I try my hand at flirting with him: I lean on the work table and press my arms together while I we talk. He is telling me about the treehouse he built in Florida. He plans to build another one here. I ask him if it isn't cold in the bread truck at night. I ask him how old he is: 38, he says. He smiles and makes his eyes big and I can't tell if he is flirting back or making fun.

You leave Kendall alone, my father says from his end of the table, poking his pointer finger in my direction while the rest of his meaty hand remains curled around his fork. I've been talking about the treehouse. I can't help but respond: Why? I ask, feigning innocence. I want him to say the words.
Just stay out of the shop, he repeats.

My parents have a barbeque for the employees. I drink sugary wine coolers that make my heart race and I fidget inside the house until I see Kendall's silver bread truck easing up the hill. I go out to greet him. I'm not going into the shop, I reason to myself. I stand at the foot of the few steps up into the truck. Can I come in?

Kendall lights a joint for us and we smoke it standing in his shadowy truck. I can't really see anything, it's dark, I can't see where he sleeps or cooks or eats. He kisses me and his mouth is gentle and unsure. His fingertips, though, tough and calloused, are not unsure at all. He pinches my nipples, hard, through my t-shirt. I mew and twist away, I think. Or maybe I lean in to his touch.

Then I am back in the house and talking with my stepmother in the kitchen. She doesn't like me, even though I try to be nice to her and to her sons. I arrived in her house, an interloper, fully formed and unimpressed. My father is gentle to me, harsh towards her sons. But now I am telling her:
I think maybe Kendall flirted with me.
Oh, that's just Kendall, she says, with a wave of her hand. He's made passes at me, too, she says.

Oh.

Sue Williams

Good Morning Webby Universe!

Listen: (my husband says that I say "listen" all the time, and that furthermore, it's offensive. What say you?) this blog is going to be the web-home for my book. I want to leave pieces of it here for you all to peruse and I want to go on about the joys of writing and publishing (duh, I only just realized I was going to have to learn the business end of things. I thought all I had to do was WRITE.) and I plan to give lots of slinky linky love to my fellow travellers.
So let's start this party, shall we?

I want to love up on Sue Williams today. Her website is here: (haven't puzzled out the actual linkage part yet, it seems to have changed in the six years since I started blogging here at Typepad! Imagine that!)
http://www.nomorepink.com/
I stumbled upon her site (don't we all spend hours lost in the time-sucking rabbit hole of the web?) when I was looking for Sue William Silverman, who will get a deserved linky-love day, even though I already owned her (the latter, not the former) book. Complicated, huh? No wonder I always have a headache. Anyway. Sue Williams' art just reached right into my chest. I am hoping fervently that she will do the cover art for my book, because it just *fits*. She and I had a couple of email exchanges but then the writing stalled and time passed and so forth...and I'm wondering if I'll even get that kind of editorial control, to design my own cover. We'll see. But in the meantime, you should go check out her site. Then come back and tell me how she moved YOU.

Titular

So, considering titles.
Considering the fact that sometimes I'd rather knit than write.
Considering the fact that when you write every day, and then
you don't, it feels kind of like when you run every day
and then you don't.
Shitty.
Considering that when I walk outside
preferably in the snow
preferably with the dog
things are available to me
that aren't, when I'm sitting in bed
writing like a PrinCess.
...{EDITED}...
Here are some of the possibilities:
Collect Call
Working Girl
The Sky Does Fall
Learning to Speak
Feel free to opine or offer suggestions! :-)