Pat Bertram's Blog, page 192

Becoming Dance

Of all the strange places my recent life has taken me, this has to be the strangest. I am sitting in lobby of a convalescent home, waiting for my father to wake from a nap. He’s only here for five days to get intravenous antibiotics to help treat a bout of pneumonia, but the few hours I’ve spent visiting him have made me realize how incredibly lucky I am.

I can walk with a straight back and easy gait. I can breathe unassisted. And oh! I feel so very young. I know this is a temporary condition. If I live long enough, I’ll be as old and decrepit as these folks, but for now, I’m thankful for what youth I have left, for the joy that now comes at increasingly frequent intervals, for the capacity to taste what I eat and drink, for the ability to write and laugh and dance.

Strangely, not only do I feel good, people often mention that I look good, too. Some even say that stress becomes me. The wonder is that I can deal at all with the horrendous stresses of my life — an ailing, aging father and an insane and insanely drunk brother who has spent the past several hours bellowing at me. I am blessed to have wonderful and patient friends who will listen to my horror stories, sometimes for the second and third time, and who will offer hugs when I need them. I have this blog, of course. But mostly I have dancing.

We all need vacations from ourselves and our problems, but when we go on trips, we take ourselves with us. When we dance, especially choreographed dances, we leave ourselves at home. We become the music, the motion, and something else — part of a dancing whole. As the teacher keeps reminding us, we need to do everything in unison — one body, one mind, one soul. When it works, when we know the dance and are in perfect sync, it’s magic. For just one moment, we become more than we are. We become Dance.

Of course, after dance, we become just ourselves with all our attendant problems, but we still have the memory of that moment of freedom to sustain us, and hopefully we’ll still have it even when we’re too old to dance at all.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: dance, dancing, importance of dancing, stress and dancing, stress and friends, stress and hugs

I Wish . . .

It feels as if I have lost control of my life, as if the winds of life — or change — are in the air, and bits of me are floating off into the ether.

I wish I could concoct a powerful witches brew and — poof. Everything would be fine.

Or that I knew a wizard who could cast a joyous spell.

I wish I were as strong as everyone thinks I am.

I wish I had money enough and time to give everyone what they need and make things right.

I wish . . . oh, so many things. But mostly, I guess, I hope I will eventually rise

out of the horror or my life into a new day.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: wishes, wishing

Chaos to the Nth Degree

My chaotic and unreal life continues. I’ve written before about my out-of-control abusive brother, and readers have given me much advice, which mostly centered around calling the cops. My few dealings with the cops when they came in answer to neighbor’s complaints led me to believe there was nothing they could or would do, so I never called. My inability to follow this course of action bothered many people, but the truth is, as horrific as he is, I couldn’t see throwing him on the street for strangers to deal with.

But as it turns out, there is nothing I could have done, anyway.

My sister came to help with our 97-year-old father who is failing. He’s been in the hospital for the past two weeks, and is currently in a convalescent hospital for a short stay to get over a bout with pneumonia. When he gets home, he will need someone here all the time, and obviously, I couldn’t do it alone.

It took her a single night to get fed up with our demented, delusional, dissociative and very nasty brother. She called the cops. They came out but did nothing, simply told her he could be evicted but that neither of us could do it since we too are guests. And of course, my father is dealing with his age and health issues, and only wants me to keep his son away from him.

She spent yesterday and this morning trying to line up people who would be willing to get him back to Colorado, and once he was there, to chauffer him around and help him get all the benefits to which he is entitled. Of course, he wouldn’t go along with that. He claims to want to go back to Colorado, but seems unable to make the mental leap. He screams that he wants help, but won’t tell me what he wants me to do, and when I ask, he shrieks “Get me a beer, bitch.” As I said, not a nice man, at least this personality of his isn’t. He has one vulnerable, almost shy personality that seems to have all but disappeared during the past few months.

After we broached the subject of getting him back to Colorado, he slashed the tires on my sister’s car. (He claims he didn’t do it, and is outraged that we accused him, so either someone else did it, or he had a complete psychotic break.) She was so angry, she locked him out of the garage where he is camped, and he broke down the door to get back in. She called 911 again, told them he needs to be taken in on a 5151, which is the code for having him detained and evaluated for 72 hours at a mental facility. It took her at least thirty minutes to get them to agree to send a deputy to “assess” the situation, and another hour for the deputy to come out. (Interestingly, the deputy already knew part of the situation because he was one I had spoken to before.) My sister showed him her tires, the broken window (brother had broken the outside of a double-pane window about six months ago and the inside of that same window just a week or so ago), the broken door, the obscenities on the garage wall (all directed at me, I might add), and in the end, nothing was accomplished. According to the deputy, our brother wasn’t a danger to himself or to us, and so the system could do nothing. Even if our sibling got us so upset that we wanted to kill him, that wasn’t considered a threat, though, with a straight face, the cop warned us against such an action. Then, like the previous cop, he suggested we get my brother evicted. When we admitted we were guests here, he said there was nothing we could do. “Well, there is one thing,” he said, then hesitated. “What?” I asked. “You could let him badly hurt you,” he responded.” Yeah, right, like I’m going to on purpose let him hurt me in order to get him out of here so he doesn’t hurt me.

As for the tires, he said she could file a complaint, and both she and my brother would have to show up in court. I explained that he wouldn’t show up, and the cop said the courts would swear out a warrant, and if they found him, would simply set a new date. I said he already had warrants for not showing up for court dates, and the cop shrugged. (He’d come wearing a bullet proof vest, which made his shrug very stiff.) Apparently, if my brother is ever arrested again, the old charges and the new charge would be combined and a new court date set. This could go on for years until he racks up more than $500,000 in warrants. (He’s only up to perhaps $10,000.)

So, here we are, barricaded in, the doorbell muted, while our brother roams around outside the house, like some sort of insane Wee Willie Winkie, “rapping at the window, crying through the lock.”

I had always held the thought of calling the cops as a mental safety net, knowing there was something I could do when he went totally out of control, but that mental safety net disappeared when the cop drove away.

The one interesting aspect of the conversation is that the cop said he never had guests. Never. His brother wanted to stay with him, and he refused. In this state, there is no way to get rid of guests who outstay their welcome, even if you’re a cop.

[For those of you who are following Ms. Cicy's Nightmare, don't be surprised if you see a truncated version of this post in the story.]

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: 5151, 72 hours in a mental facility, calling the cops, delusional, demented, dissociative personalilty disorder

MS. CICY’S NIGHTMARE — Chapter 1e

Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare is a fictional work in progress set at a dance studio where I take classes. All the characters have real life counterparts (except perhaps me as the narrator. I’m not sure how real I am). I have everyone’s permission to use their names. Here’s hoping I end up with as many friends at the end of the project as I have now. If you’ve missed any of the story to date, you can find it here: Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare

***

“I don’t have any secrets,” Royann said. Royann is our lady in red — not only does she love the color, she is passionate, simulating, impetuous. Her zest for life keeps her on the move and keeps a huge smile on her animated face. But now, beneath her relentless optimism, I sensed a strain, as if she did indeed, have a secret she was keeping even from herself. Or perhaps the strain came from continued dealings with an ex-husband who had divorced her after forty-two years and seven children. He’d hidden their considerable assets so she ended up with only her social security and small pension, and he was trying to take those from her, too. Royann seems radiantly happy now that she’s remarried, and yet there is that telltale strain.

The exotic notes and strong percussion of Arabic music sounded in the studio. Cicy stretched with us then moved to the center of the floor and led us in a series of steps — figure eights with our hips, common motion, hip lifts, rond de jambes. Afterward, we practiced the dance we knew, the one we’d performed on stage.

As we danced, I thought how much I would miss Jan when she was gone, then I paused midstep. What the hell was wrong with me? I wasn’t going to kill Jan for real. It was a story, a game.

Ms. Cicy stopped the music. “You’re not together. When you dance in a group, Pat, the group has to act like one person. Let’s start again.”

To be continued . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: Ms. Cicy's Nightmare, real life characters, work in progress

MS. CICY’S NIGHTMARE — Chapter 1d

Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare is a fictional work in progress set at a dance studio where I take classes. All the characters have real life counterparts (except perhaps me as the narrator. I’m not sure how real I am). I have everyone’s permission to use their names. Here’s hoping I end up with as many friends at the end of the project as I have now. If you’ve missed any of the story to date, you can find it here: Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare

***

Although I took six classes from Ms. Cicy, I shared only one class with Jan, Arabic dancing. On Tuesday ballet class came first at 10:00am, and Arabic followed immediately after. While some of us were taking ballet, Jan had a different class with a different teacher, and she arrived at Ms. Cicy’s studio — The Apple Valley Academy of Dance — immediately after her other class, already dressed in her belly dance skirt.

Samm usually took ballet, but she missed class occasionally due to other obligations, and the morning I took Jan’s photo was one of those occasions. A few others whom you have not yet met (I’m trying not to commit the unforgivable authorly sin of introducing too many characters at once, and I am failing miserably) came when their schedules permitted, but I’d never missed a Tuesday class. I don’t know what I hoped for — maybe grace or strength. I was too old to ever become a ballerina and I didn’t have a ballet body or even ballet feet. Ms. Cicy had to keep reminding me to point my toes, and when I stood on the balls of my feet, my heels barely lifted off the ground. Regardless of my shortcomings as a ballerina, I approached the class with all the dedication I could muster. I’d even made myself a black ballet skirt to put myself in the proper frame of mind and body.

After stowing my camera in my dance bag, I unwrapped my ballet skirt from around my waist and donned my orange and turquoise Arabic practice skirt. I stood at the barre and waited for class to begin. Samm found her place at the barre behind me.

“When did all this happen?” she asked.

I turned to face her. “When did what happen?”

“I don’t know how it all started with Jan. Was it your idea?”

Corkey had been silent during the picture taking and the between-class bustle, but now she spoke, sounding surprised at Samm’s question. “You were there. It started a couple of months ago when we all went to see the Trocks.” By “Trocks” she meant Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, a glorious and gloriously funny all male ballet troupe. “When we were at lunch before the show, someone mentioned that Pat was a writer. Jan suggested she write a book about us and even volunteered to be the victim.”

“Oh.” Samm slid one slim leg behind her in a deep lunge and stretched her body forward. “I sat at the other end of the table that day, so I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know either,” Marilyn said. Marilyn was a quietly cheerful woman who seemed to take everything in stride despite the major losses she had suffered. Or maybe the loss of her husband and best friend had taught her to take things as they came. Either way, she was easy to talk to and easy to be around. “My son and grandson met me that day, and I ate with them.” Her greenish eyes twinkled with pixyish delight. “Maybe we should all tell Pat a secret that will come out during the story.”

Samm continued to stretch, and Corkey drew tendus on the floor with her properly pointed feet. Their so obvious non-response to Marilyn’s suggestion made me wonder what secrets they were hiding. Was it my obligation as a writer to pry out those secrets, or did my obligation as a friend demand that I leave them alone?

To be continued . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: Ms. Cicy's Nightmare, real life characters, work in progress

MS. CICY’S NIGHTMARE — Chapter 1c

Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare is a fictional work in progress set at a dance studio where I take classes. All the characters have real life counterparts (except perhaps me as the narrator. I’m not sure how real I am). I have everyone’s permission to use their names. Here’s hoping I end up with as many friends at the end of the project as I have now. If you’ve missed any of the story to date, you can find it here: Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare

***

Samm, a lithe woman of unknown years (unknown to me, that is) with wonderfully flawless dark skin, entered the dance studio. She was the type of woman who could randomly pull two or three unmatched items out of her closet and look as if she’d spent hours dressing herself for a Vogue photo shoot. That day she wore her purple practice skirt, which wrapped twice around her hips (mine barely wrapped once, if you must know), a maroon scarf tied into a turban-like affair, and a bluish-purple long-sleeved shirt with the tails tied at her waist. It wasn’t only her age Samm was quiet about, but her earlier years, too. Perhaps she had been a model at one time. Or maybe she had reason to be secretive — a woman with a sordid past.

Samm watched me take the photo of Jan in her death pose below the barre, then asked, “how are you going to get Jan into that exact position when she’s killed?”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I admitted.

“Maybe she was trying to reach the barre so she could die dancing,” Samm said.

Jan gave a little laugh. “That’s too true to be funny.” Then, more seriously, she added, “Dying while dancing is how I’d like to go out. I just wouldn’t want to die on stage with all those people watching like a friend of mine did.”

“Dying to Dance would be a good name for the book,” I said. “Or maybe Sashaying with Death. Or Death en Croix.”

“Why does it have to be death.” Cicy said with a moue of distaste. Ms. Cicy is our teacher, a 77-year-old with the body of a woman half her age and the legs of a teenager. When she dances, you can almost see the years melt away, and she is young again.

“Maybe we could call it Ms. Cicy’s something,” I said

“Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare.” Cicy giggled, sounding about seventeen. “Maybe you don’t really kill Jan. Maybe I wake up and find that I dreamt the whole thing.”

“Great title,” I said, hoping the teacher wouldn’t notice I didn’t comment on her idea about Jan’s death being a dream. It’s a time honored ending, of course, but I thought if I were going to go through the trouble of killing Jan, it should be for real.

Glee lit Cicy’s beautiful dark eyes. “I could be the murderess. I have experience.”

I felt my jaw drop. Cicy had experience with murder? It seemed impossible that anyone who danced with such expressive moves — moves that spoke of life — could have a history of violence.

“It was a murder weekend,” Cicy explained. “I was the murderess, a princess from a foreign country. I even wore a tiara.”

I blew out a breath of relief, glad I didn’t have to alter my impression of the dance teacher, at least not yet. “But why would you want to murder Jan?”

Cicy exchanged glances with Jan, who had risen and was smoothing her skirt. “Maybe she stole my choreography.”

I understood the need to protect one’s work any way one could, yet in truth, Cicy routinely gave us her choreography. Every step she taught gifted us with her work.

Still, such an irrational theft, as minor as it might seem to the danceless, could be a killing offense, especially if Jan were to give Cicy’s work to a rival instructor. (I’ve lost track of how many dance classes Jan took. Three or four from Ms. Cicy, and at least a couple more from other teachers. In the dance world, such promiscuousness could be motive enough for wanting someone dead.)

I am new to dance, but even I had experienced the deep emotions dredged up by dancing. In just a few short months, dancing had become a need, a pilgrimage, a soul quest.

“Do you know how long it will be before the cops get here,” I asked Jan, thinking how disappointed I would feel if class had to be cancelled.

“A long time. Maybe a couple of hours.”

That seemed excessive to me, but I figured Jan should know since her husband is a retired criminologist.

I looked around the dance studio. The place wasn’t large, perhaps fifteen feet wide by sixty feet long. Mirrors lined one long wall and a barre stretched across the opposite wall. A small nook at the back of the studio had been furnished as a miniscule waiting room, and a corner had been cordoned off with a counter and cabinet for an office. Pictures and posters hung on the walls, but other than that, the studio was empty.

“If we have to stay here for a couple of hours waiting for the cops, we might as well have a class,” I said. “The floor will be mostly bare since Jan’s body won’t take up much room, we’d be dressed for the occasion, and our minds would not yet have processed the truth. I like the idea of a group of aging women dancing in the face of death.”

By this time, the rest of the class had arrived. All eight women stared at me with various shades of disbelief, but I shrugged off their attitude. This was my story, my murder, and I could choreograph it any way I wished.

Jan shook her head with mock sadness. “I am truly hurt that no one will mourn me.”

“Of course, we’ll mourn you,” I told her. “But it will have to wait until after class.”

Jan smiled, but I don’t think she thought my comment funny.

To be continued here: Chapter 1d

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: Ms. Cicy's Nightmare, real life characters, work in progress

MS. CICY’S NIGHTMARE — Chapter 1b

Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare is a fictional work in progress. All the characters have real life counterparts (except perhaps me as the narrator. I’m not sure how real I am). I have everyone’s permission to use their names. Here’s hoping I end up with as many friends at the end of the project as I have now. If you’ve missed any of the story to date, you can find it here: Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare

***

Before belly dance class one day, I asked Jan how she wanted to be killed. Since she’d initiated this lethal game, I thought it only fair that she got to choose the means of her demise. So much fairer than the way life works, wouldn’t you say? I mean, few among us get to choose our own end. Life, the greatest murderer of all times, chooses how we expire, whether we will it or not.

Jan laughed at my question and said she didn’t care.

Death is often messy — and smelly — with blood and body wastes polluting the scene, and I did not want to have to deal with such realities. Besides, the murder was to take place at Ms. Cicy’s dance studio, and I didn’t want to be haunted forever after by the scent of a gruesome end for Jan. It would put a damper on the pure joy of dancing, and I couldn’t allow that to happen.

So . . . no blood, body wastes, smells, or any unpleasantness. It would be a nice gentle murder befitting our nice, gentle victim. Poison, perhaps, or a blow on the head. Neither of those means of murder would be particularly gentle on Jan, of course, but then it’s not her sensibilities I’m worried about. After all, she’d be dead and beyond such matters.

I continued to fret over motives. It seemed inconceivable that anyone would want Jan dead, but I kept on with my preparations. One day I brought my camera to class so I could take a photo of her would-be corpse lying on the studio’s wooden dance floor. When Jan walked into the studio, dressed in her green and beige silk belly dance practice skirt, I asked if she’d play dead for me. I expected to have to take several shots to get the pose I wanted, but she sank to the floor as gracefully as she did everything else, and lay in the ideal pose.

Right then I knew I could kill Jan. She was just too damn perfect.

To be continued . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: Ms. Cicy's Nightmare, real life characters, work in progress

If You Like the Movie “Enemy” . . .

If you liked the movie Enemy, you might enjoy my novel, More Deaths Than One. Both stories are about doppelgangers of a sort. In Enemy, Adam sees his other self in “reel life” while In More Deaths Than One, Bob sees himself in real life.

Insomniac Bob Stark has returned from eighteen years in SE Asia and is sitting in a coffee shop in the middle of the night reading the current newspaper when he sees an obituary for his mother, a woman he buried twenty-two years previously. He goes to her funeral and watches the service from the shadows of a lilac bush.

Clustered with their backs to him stood a man, a woman, and six children ranging in age from about two years old to about sixteen. The obituary had mentioned six grandchildren, Bob recalled. Were these six his brother’s offspring, by an ex-wife, perhaps?

One of the children, a pudgy little boy, reached out and yanked the pigtails of the taller, skinnier girl slouching next to him. She slapped him. The next moment they were rolling on the ground and pummeling each other.

The woman turned around. “Stop it, you two.”

Bob sucked in his breath. Lorena Jones, his college girlfriend? What was she doing here? How did she know these people? He certainly hadn’t introduced her to them.

Feeling dizzy, he studied her while she scolded the children. Deep lines and red splotches marred her once satiny smooth face, and her body appeared bloated, as if she had not bothered to lose the extra weight from her last pregnancy or two. Despite those changes, she looked remarkably like her college picture he still carried in his wallet along with the Dear John letter that had ended their relationship.

Lorena nudged the man next to her. “Robert Stark, don’t just stand there. Do something.”

The man she called Robert Stark turned around to admonish the children.

Bob stared. The other Robert Stark seemed to have aged a bit faster than he, seemed more used, but the resemblance could not be denied. He was looking at himself.

Although some of the themes of the movie and my book are similar — identity, individuality, irony — my story is much easier to understand, though still surprising. Best of all, you don’t have to deal with spiders, real or symbolic.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: Enemy, More Deaths Than One, More Deaths Than One excerpt, spiders

My New (Temporary) Relationship

A couple of weeks ago my car broke down, and for a week, the mechanic kept promising to fix it, but all sorts of emergencies got in the way, and he had to take care of those cars first. Emergencies? My car is the only one I have, and during the time it wasn’t working, my 97-year-old father had to go to the emergency room, doctors, and again to the hospital to take care of a medical crisis. How much more of an emergency could there possibly have been? Still, they did fix the car. For a couple of days, anyway.

Two or three days ago, the accelerator cable got stuck when I was out doing errands, and I had to drive back to the house at 5 miles per hour in second gear. I called the mechanic, thinking I’d try to make it to the repair shop, but he said to go home and he would come out and look at the car. I got back to the house, and waited. And waited. And waited. He never came. Never called.

The next day I called him again, and he said he’d stop by after he finished for the day. Again, I waited. And waited. Made sure I had my phone by me so he could call if he couldn’t make it. Never came. Never called.

So this morning I called him again, and asked if he had forgotten me. He admitted that he had. He promised to come by in an hour or two, and said he’d call when he was on his way. So I made sure I had my phone. And I waited. And waited. He never came. Never called.

Finally I left to go to check on my father (luckily the hospital is within walking distance), and on my way, it occurred to me that this little contretemps with the mechanic seemed remarkably like a relationship, always waiting for him to stop by or call.

I know all relationships aren’t like that, but enough of them are to make me glad that my foray into online dating didn’t work out. I can just see me, sitting by the phone or the door the rest of my life, waiting for calls that never come, for visits that never materialize. Ouch.

Luckily, this particular relationship is a finite situation. One day the car will be fixed and I’ll have my life back. And that will be the end of waiting for men folk who so easily forget that I am alive.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: mechanic, waiting, waiting for calls, waiting for men

MS. CICY’S NIGHTMARE — Chapter 1a

Ms. Cicy’s Nightmare is a fictional work in progress. All the characters have real life counterparts (except perhaps me as the narrator. I’m not sure how real I am). I have everyone’s permission to use their names. Here’s hoping I end up with as many friends at the end of the project as I have now.

***

I didn’t want to kill Jan — it was her idea. I’ve literarily killed hundreds of thousands of people, so it shouldn’t have been difficult to murder one dainty older woman, but the truth is I couldn’t think of a single reason to kill her. She is charming, kind, with a smile for everyone, and the ghost of her youthful beauty is still apparent on her lovely face.

It’s not that I object to killing, you understand. I could easily kill my verbally abusive alcoholic brother, and as a matter of fact, I almost did so today. He broke my bedroom window and screamed obscenities at me while I cleaned up the glass. At one point, I hefted a platter-sized piece of glass and considered Frisbeeing it at his neck, but it seemed like too much trouble. There would not only be the glass to clean up, but all the blood and his dead carcass. So not worth it!

Besides, there’d be no mystery to his death — anyone who heard that relentless verbal assault would understand my need to kill him. The only mystery would be if I could get away with the crime.

Killing someone no one would ever have a reason to kill, like Jan — now, that would be a true mystery. And a challenge.

I blogged about the possibility of murdering Jan, of course. I blog about everything. Blogging is my outlet, my support, my discipline. Readers expressed the opinion that killing off one’s friends is a good way of losing those friends, and I had to agree. Alive, Jan is so much sweeter in all ways than she ever would be dead. Besides, I enjoy dancing with Jan, both in the classroom and onstage. (Okay, so our class danced together on stage only once, but it was special for all that.)

The day after I decided not to kill Jan, several of us dancing classmates went to lunch together. When we turned to leave, I accidentally swung my dance bag and narrowly missed hitting Corkey, a tanned, elegant blonde a couple of years older and a couple of inches shorter than me.

Corkey deadpanned, “I’m not the one who volunteered to be the murder victim.”

That cracked me up, and right then I decided I had to follow through with the project. I mean, really — how could I not use such a perfect line?

To be continued . . .

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.

Tagged: Ms. Cicy's Nightmare, real life characters, work in progress