Marian Allen's Blog, page 399

22 #StoryADayMay #recipe Resurrection Eggs

A lot of people like Bud Blossom, but my mother’s favorite of my characters is Lonnie Carter. So this one’s for you, Mom.

Lonnie and Tiny first appeared in “Lonnie, Me and the Hound of Hell,” the title story in my self-published short story collection about animals, LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL. They also appear in “Lonnie, Me and the Battle of St. Crispin’s Day” in the Southern Indiana Writers’ anthology, HOLIDAY BIZARRE.

Lonnie, Me and the Resurrection Eggs

by Marian Allen

“Come on over, Tiny,” Lonnie yelled across the street.

I beeped my car shut, made that call me sign with my other hand, and went on in the house. I just got off a long shift at the plant and I wanted a beer and a shower, not a long jaw with my best friend – and the world’s biggest fool.

The phone rang before I kicked my shoes off. I went on and answered it; not even Lonnie would believe I wasn’t home, when he’d just seen me walk in.

“Come on over, Tiny,” he said again. “I been waitin’ supper.”

I’ve known Lonnie most of my life, and there was something in his voice that told me he had a surprise up his sleeve. That’s hardly ever a good thing.

“Lemme take a quick shower and change into my home clothes. Fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. Did Mary Lee leave you any more of that potato salad?”

“I’ll bring it.”

“And the You-Know-What.”

Lonnie’s wife, Leona, had dragged my Mary Lee off on a church Meditation Retreat. I hoped Mary Lee wasn’t going to come home a hardshell Baptist like Leona, who was a fine person but sometimes a little too particular about what was okay and what wasn’t. How she got to be married to Lonnie was something I’d always been a little afraid to ask.

Anyway, Lonnie and me had been batching it for the three days they were gone, pitching in the food our wives had left us and watching action movies on Lonnie’s big screen TV. I’d been careful to only take over a third of Mary Lee’s potato salad every night because Lonnie loved it as much as everybody did, and I knew anything I left in his refrigerator would be gone the next time anybody else wanted any.

After I cleaned up and got into my jeans and baggy shirt, I grabbed the night’s share of potato salad and the You-Know-What – beer – and went on over to Lonnie’s, around to the kitchen door.

“Finally! Rip me off one of them cold ones, would you, buddy?” He opened the refrigerator, hip-bumped it wide open, and pulled out a heavy glass plate. “Ta-daaaaa!”

The plate was one of those cut-glass dealies the ladies use for parties and pitch-ins, with oval indentations pressed into it to hold a dozen or so hard-boiled egg halves. It was full.

“I made Resurrection Eggs! Leona always makes them for picnics, and they’re so good with ham and potato salad, and she didn’t make any and I got a taste for them. How about that?”

I was impressed. I’d never known Lonnie to make anything in the kitchen except a mess, but these looked like the real deal.

One of the real deals. Every woman made them a little bit different. Mary Lee took out the yellows, mashed them up with mayonnaise and onion powder and mustard and salt and pepper and paprika, and refilled the hollows the yellows came out of. She called hers Stuffed Eggs. Leona mashed her yellows up with sweet pickle relish and Miracle Whip and called hers Resurrection Eggs. Lonnie’s had so much pickle relish in them you could hardly see the yellows.

“I will not eat green eggs and ham,” I said and laughed.

Lonnie planked the plate on the table. “I wouldn’t kill you to try them.”

Served me right for quoting literature to Lonnie.

I picked one up and bit into it. It tasted like nothing on Earth, and I don’t mean that in a good way.

Lonnie popped one in his mouth, managed to chew it up and swallow it, and looked at me with an air of betrayal, as if I had made the damn things.

I apologized to my stomach and swallowed my bite whole.

“Lonnie,” I said, “what have you done?”

“Well…. Leona’s are good, and Mary Lee’s are good, so I figured if I put in everything they both use mine would be better.”

“I can’t honestly say they are, buddy.”

“But we gotta eat ‘em. I made a whole dozen.”

“Why, Lonnie? We watching Cool Hand Luke tonight?”

“No. Why?”

I didn’t even answer that. I’d just show him the movie, and he’d see.

“We gotta eat ‘em,” Lonnie repeated. “I can’t waste all them eggs. Maybe I the girls would like them?”

He actually had a point. Our wives ate a lot of stuff Lonnie and I wouldn’t touch unless they were watching. But I couldn’t stand by and watch while a couple of loving, trusting women touched these things to their tastebuds.

“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll buy ‘em from you and give ‘em to Homer.” Homer was my dog, also known as The Living Garbage Disposal.

“I don’t know. Giving good food to a dog….”

Good food wasn’t in question, but I could see Lonnie getting that cross-eyed contrary look, and I had to think fast.

I leaned across the table, like I was telling a secret and somebody might hear. “Lonnie, do you know what you made here?” I tapped the plate. “These here are what the recipe books call Deviled Eggs.”

His jaw dropped. “I made Deviled Eggs? In Leona’s kitchen?”

“I’m sorry, buddy, but yeah, you did.”

“Homer would eat ‘em. He’d like ‘em.”

Homer would like a dead skunk, but never mind.

“Let’s just leave these be for right now,” I said, “and eat the ham and potato salad. Then I’ll put these in the empty potato salad bowl and take ‘em home. You buy some more eggs tomorrow and Leona never has to know.”

Lonnie reached out a hand and we shook on it.

“Tiny, you’re the best friend I got in the world.”

“And you’re my best friend, Lonnie.” Kinda sad, but it was true.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: Recipe variations

p.s. In case you’re wondering, here’s a scientific study on Cool Hand Luke’s egg eating. You’re welcome.

MA

21 #StoryADayMay The Cure for Meh

I’m feeling kind of meh today, so I wrote a story about a cure. Bud said it was about him, and I agreed with him, for once. Bud thinks everything is about him, and every now and then he’s right.

If you don’t know Bud, search this site for Bud Blossom or buy ($1.49 and cheap at the price) THE KING OF CHEROKEE CREEK. You’ll be sorry glad you did.

The Cure for Meh

by Marian Allen

Tara Mitchell forced herself up the gangplank onto the deck of The Golden Lotus, the houseboat/restaurant where she worked. She would have stomped, if she’d enough enthusiasm for anger.

Bud Blossom, her Chinese-American boss, was at the hostess station, of course, checking his watch.

“Two minutes early, Miss Don’t Give The Boss An Extra Second,” he said in the Midwestern twang that sounded so odd coming from his exotic face. “You must be slipping.”

“Not today, Bud. I am not in the mood.” She wanted to scowl, but her facial muscles weren’t any livelier than the rest of her.

“Hey, I didn’t make you get up at ass a.m. to take your kid to the airport. You got a shift to cover. Cover it. And brighten up before the customers get here.”

The other waitress on the shift, Hester, shuffled aboard with a speed only matchable by in-line skates. She gave Bud a thumb up when he looked from his watch to her, and hugged Tara with her stick-thin, steel-strong arms.

“Oh, honey, don’t be sad!”

“I’m not sad. I’m just … meh.”

Bud tapped the stand at the hostess station. “You two are on my dime now. Save the soap opera for later.”

~*~

Hester handled the early crowd while Tara wrapped plastic ware in paper napkins.

All Tara could think about was her only child, high in the air in a huge mass of metal, flying farther away by the second.

Bud sat down beside her. Ordinarily, she would have flinched, but not today.

He flapped a hand, dismissing all her unspoken words. “Tattoo Boy can take care of himself.”

“His name is Alexander.”

“Whatever. He’s too big for Mommy to run after him with a hanky to wipe his little nose.”

It had worried her, when Alexander – Cosmo, to his friends – had chosen to attend a local college so he could continue to live at home. Had he done it because he knew his widowed mother would be desolate without him? Had she shackled him with the neediness she tried to hide?

Apparently not, because he had announced his intention to study abroad in China this summer, and had bubbled and burbled about it as if he expected her to be as excited as he was. And she had pretended, but she didn’t have to pretend anymore.

Bud rapped on the table and stood. “The customers don’t care. I don’t care.”

~*~

The shift finally ended. Bud hadn’t spoken to her again, so she must have put on a good enough show for the public.

At last, she was able to go home and shove some leftovers down her throat. She curled up on the couch with her email window open, waiting for the email Cosmo had promised to send when he was settled in his dorm.

The phone’s ring made her jump.

It was Cosmo.

“Hey, Mom! I just landed.”

“But … How are you calling? Your phone’s right here.”

He laughed. “I got off the plane and there was a guy here holding up a sign that said, ‘Tattoo Boy’. Some relative of Bud’s. He made arrangements with the school to show me around and help me with translation and all.”

“Bud.”

“Bud. Gotta go, Mom. Love you!”

“Love you, too.”

Bud.

There was nothing else to say, really.

~ * ~

I’m posting at Fatal Foodies today on the subject of iced tea, and at The Write Type (if it ever finishes thundering) about social networking — REAL social networking.

MY PROMPT TODAY: Meh

MA

20 #StoryADayMay #W4WS Host

Today, in addition to my story, I’m happy to announce that I’m one of the beneficiaries of this month’s Writers4Writers promotion. The other is Laura Eno You’re invited to join in, of course!

Stephen Tremp, one of the founders, says this:

Hosted by Mary Pax, Christine Raines, C.M. Brown, and myself Writers helping other writers to succeed.

The writer posts an image of their book along with a short blurb and a link to Kindle on their blog. Visitors may share the link with their FB friends. Also visit the W4WS Facebook Page.

The author posts pre-written Tweets on his/her blog. Visitors may simply copy and paste Tweets into Twitter. Or they could go to #W4WS on Twitter and Retweet.

Mine for Facebook:

SAGE: Usurper. Lost Heir. Runaway bride. Land on the brink of civil war. All so familiar, until Tortoise — the Divine Creature who ignores the rules of right and wrong — challenges his fellow divinities to meddle. Suddenly, children targeted for murder are adopted, swordsmen turn into blacksmiths, and none are reliably who or what they seem. The four Divine Animals are afoot: Tortoise, Dragon, Unicorn, and Phoenix. Hold on tight.

The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of Sage

Bargain with Fate, Book 2 of Sage

Mine for Twitter:

[image error]The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE #fantasy #trilogy “intriguing, intricate new fantasy series” http://www.amzn.com/B00AYF6546 5 stars #W4WS

Bargain With Fate, Book 2 of SAGE #fantasy #trilogy “getting more engrossing all the time” http:www.amzn.com/B00CLUUO9O/ 5 stars #W4WS

Host

by Marian Allen

I opened the door slowly for my guest, careful of my candle’s flame. My eyes are accustomed to the gloom, but a gentleman is always considerate of his visitors, even if they only come on business. So few people want to visit me, and none of them stay long. It’s no wonder I want to emigrate.

He seemed startled when I answered the door myself, no doubt expecting a butler in a house this large. Too much house for me, by far, a remnant of the time I felt the need to impress my neighbors. As I led him up the staircase to his room, I saw the place as he must see it, and I regretted not bringing in a cleaning crew; the dust and cobwebs I usually ignored must disgust someone accustomed to gleam and sparkle.

Old. Everything here was old, including – especially – me.

I had laid out a simple meal in my guest’s room; that one room, at least, was immaculate. That much, I could manage on my own.

The poor man was becoming uneasy. I knew my smile was unnerving, but I was just so glad to have him here at last! Soon, our business would be done and I would be a proud landowner in a new country. The very thought of leaving this stagnant existence invigorated me!

He invited me to share his repast, but I declined. He offered me a drink. We could toast the beginning of our business connection.

It seemed a poor way to begin a relationship, but I refused.

I never drink … wine.

~ * ~

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: Host

MA

 

19 #StoryADayMay #SampleSunday Barking Mad

Yep. Looks like a pattern. Another Holly Jahangiri story this Sunday.

Holly appears in the short stories “By the Book” and “The Pratty Who Saved Christmuss.” The planet Llannonn also appears in FORCE OF HABIT.

Barking Mad

by Marian Allen

Assistant Librarian Holly Jahangiri tied a knot in the ends of her purple feather boa to keep them still. The wind was kicking up on the museum’s grounds, and the rows of tents set up on all sides of the building channeled that wind right through the shoppers’ bones.

Although Holly had no interest in the Council City Museum of Water Transport, she needed a present for Head Librarian Devra Langsam’s mother on the anniversary of the head librarian’s birth. She understood that, on the distant and exotic planet Earth, presents were given to the person who had been born, not to the person who had caused that to happen. Aliens were so … alien.

Holly had made the rounds of the vendors once, just to see everything on offer, and found herself drawn back to two tents.

For herself, she bought a small painting of a meadow of flowers, to remind her of Meadow of Flowers Province, her home before she moved to the city.

The second tent was where she would buy Devra Langsam’s mother’s Giving Birth Day present.

The vendor was short and broad, with dark brown hair and muttonchop whiskers and a face set in an apparently permanent snarl. But he had a wonderful collection of necklaces made of semi-precious stones decoratively wrapped in wire, and Devra’s mother could never get enough of those.

She bought half a dozen.

“Do you have a business card, so I can tell other people about you?”

“No.”

“Do you have a shop, or some other way people can contact you to buy?”

“No.” He bared his teeth. “I’m sleeping in my pedicar. That’s my ‘shop’.”

Holly felt her librarian senses tingle.

“What’s your name?”

“Lad of – Timm Hurrllee.”

It was the old, sad story: Contact with Earth had brought with it a fashion for Earth things, particularly books of that strange planet. Wealthy families hired people to memorize Earth texts and recite them – they were known as Living Books. FAHRENHEIT 451 by Ray Bradbury had been the first, if she recalled her History of Library Science correctly. Even today, wealthy people collected Living Books, paying high salaries to their favorites, dismissing the ones they didn’t care for.

Most of the Books found other employers at lower salaries. Some didn’t. Of those, some went into other work, but some couldn’t imagine a life outside their recitation.

Her policing friend, Constable Pel Darzin, had told her some of the stories: Men who stopped people on the street by force and made them listen to “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Women who haunted bars, reciting bits of themselves to anyone who would buy them a drink.

“You’re a Book, aren’t you?”

A spark of life came to the vendor’s face.

Holly was careful not to break eye contact. “Lad of … Sunnybank?”

Color drained from the Book’s cheeks and he whispered, “By Albert Payson Terhune.”

Holly held out a hand and said the words this man had probably been longing to hear: “I’m a librarian.”

Slowly, he extended his own hand and they hooked thumbs.

“Council City Living Library,” Holly said, giving the address. “Can you come for a recitation after the event here closes? If you’re in good shape, there’s a bed in the dormitory for you. We don’t have any Terhune, and Head Librarian Devra Langsam was wishing for one just the other day.”

The Book was transformed. Eyes bright, teeth shining in a dazzling grin, he said, “I’ll be there!”

“Don’t let Parlormaid Tambar Miznalia put you off. Tell her Assistant Librarian Holly Jahangiri sent you.”

“I’ll be there! I’ll be there!” The fierce joy of a Book whose recitation has been unheard for too long shone from him.

As Holly walked away from the tent, she could hear his laughing voice saying, “Lad had absurdly tiny white forepaws, of which he was inordinately proud.”

It was very endearing, but Holly was a cat Book person, herself.

~ * ~

Update: Holly (the real one) informs me that she is not more of a cat Book person, and that she loves Lad. Allow me to point out that the real Holly is not a resident of another planet, either, nor is she a librarian. :p Nevertheless, the point is taken.

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: An internet friend and a favorite childhood book.

MA

18 #StoryADayMay #Caturday Cats’ Cradle

I was up at 5:20 this morning getting ready for the Howard Steamboat Museum’s Victorian Chautauqua today and tomorrow. No, I will not be in costume, although some folks will. One year, we chatted with Abraham Lincoln. Another year, I had my picture taken with that Rough Rider, Teddy Roosevelt.

So I got up early to do my story. It probably shows. heh!

Cats’ Cradle

by Marian Allen

Long ago, before the Great Flood, there were no cats in the world, and Wasn’t that a sad old place?

Then the rains came. Forty days and forty nights. The cats are just as glad to have missed that. Old Noah gathered the animals, two by two, and they all floated above the desolation.

As will happen in cramped quarters, the passengers on the Ark began to get on one another’s nerves.

The mice and rats, in particular, had no respect for anyone else’s personal space. They were into everything. Cute as their bright little eyes and pink little paws might be, their nibbling and skittering annoyed everyone. Worst of all, they multiplied.

The babies adored climbing all over any creature they could catch standing still. They considered the the elephants their own personal playgrounds.

Elephants are, of course, huge, but they’re also very sensitive. When rodents raced up their trunks or took naps in their ears, the elephants trumpeted and stamped until it seemed they would knock holes in the hull and let the Great Flood in.

With tears in their eyes, the elephants called, “Will no one deliver us, or must we go mad?”

The lion and lioness, neighbors of the elephants back in Africa, heard them and pitied them. One morning, before the decks were cleaned, they snuffled up a mixture of hair and dust. The mixture tickled and burned and, before you could sneeze, each lion … sneezed!

From each nose, out tumbled a spray of tiny balls of fur. Each ball uncurled into a full-grown cat, each with an urge to find and kill rodents.

When Noah discovered the new species, he was furious. “These aren’t God’s creatures! I didn’t invite them along for the ride! They’re killing my mice! They’re killing my rats!”

He caught all the cats he could, and tossed them overboard.

By the time the waters receded and the Ark came to rest, he was sorry for that action, as he landed with considerably more rodents than he began with.

The cats, of course, had found a place of refuge where no other creature could have, and survived their dunking, although they’ve hated water ever since.

Now, if you ever hear a cat yowling, you’ll know what it’s saying:

“Don’t worry, elephants! We’ll protect you!”

Of course, that was so long ago, they don’t remember what it means. Still, that’s what they’re saying.

Or do you think I’m making it up?

~ * ~

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: from the entry on Cats in the Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. I would give you a link to where you can find it, but then I’d have to kill you.

MA

17 #StoryADayMay Heart’s Desire

This one turned out to be a story set in the world of my fantasy trilogy, SAGE. The Traveling Players are only in a couple of chapters, but I just love them. I’ve written two stand-alone short stories (those of you who chose that level of contribution to the SAGE Kickstarter campaign will be receiving them) featuring the Players.

Heart’s Desire

by Marian Allen

“Time’s up,” the stableman announced, although Silvin knew Lumpkin had been stalled half the time paid for. Fortunately, his time touring with The Festival Players had taught him to groom and inspect their massive horse with lightning speed, just as it had taught Lumpkin to eat with a concentration seldom found among horses.

The landlords at the inns were always glad to sell them some feed for Lumpkin – at inflated prices, of course. The taverners were always glad to sell them food and drink, or to give them others’ leftovers in exchange for a bit of free entertainment for the other diners.

No respect, though. Not from anybody. Their only sop to respectability was Maida, the only woman in the troupe. Everyone assumed that Florian, the troupe’s leader, was her husband, and that Cristoval and he, Silvin, were her heart-husbands, brought along for the sake of convenience.

None of them had much of a social life, either, since that fiction put off the locals, and they all spent too much time together to feel any romantic or physical attraction for any of the other players.

Which brought his mind to another group of people who were always glad to sell them something.

He led Lumpkin back out onto the grassy town common where their wagon was parked. The others had let down one side, using sawhorses to prop it parallel to the ground, making a stage and revealing the shabby curtains behind it. They’d need to replace those, soon, or the customers would be able to see backstage.

Florian waved a hunk of bread at him as he approached. “Hurry, lad! It’s all I can do to keep Cristoval from eating it all!”

Cristoval growled and snapped like the dog he would portray in that night’s production.

A giggle from his right made Silvin stop and cock an eyebrow at Lumpkin. The woman who passed by on Lumpkin’s other side put the player’s mind at rest. He patted the horse’s neck in apology.

The woman made for Florian as a bee makes for its hive. Although it was just past lunch (Silvin took the bread from Florian), she was dressed in the richer fabric of evening. Florian looked her up and down in open approval.

Silvin settled down to eat his lunch and watch. Florian and the woman traded sultry looks and thinly veiled bawdy remarks. The woman and two of her friends would certainly be in the audience that night, with no expectation that they’d pay so much as a copper penny for the pleasure. They would have shown their appreciation later that afternoon, this being one of the towns that didn’t want the sun to set with vagabonds and actors inside the city limits. As for Maida: she preferred to make her own, more discrete, arrangements, as befitted the status of a woman.

*

The play was well received. Stories with dogs in them always did well in this part of Layounna. It amused Silvin to see Florian play so broadly to the giggling woman. It was seldom that Florian’s attention was engaged by anything other than troupe business.

After the show, Cristoval collected the coins tossed on stage by satisfied patrons, and Silvin and Maida returned the stage to its position as one side of the show-wagon. Silvin backed Lumpkin into the wagon shafts and harnessed him. Florian was deep in an animated conversation with the giggling woman.

With a final flirty flounce, she turn from him and swayed away.

Brow thunderous, Florian mounted the wagon and took up the reins. It was his and Silvin’s turns to ride, the other two walking behind until they camped for the night.

Silvin said nothing. It was better to let Florian cool down after a disappointment. Get him talking too soon, and he’d declaim at the top of his voice half the night.

By the time they stopped to build a fire and cook a bit of stew, the troupe’s leader had eased into a gentle melancholy.

Maida laid a comforting hand on his shoulder as she passed behind him.

Florian had eaten half his stew before he spoke. “She didn’t have to stay with us, if she didn’t like the life. She could at least have given it a week.”

Cristoval tapped a spoon on the side of his plate and said, “Well tried, Florian. The woman has no soul, to resist the picture you must have painted her of the glories of traveling theater.”

“Settled,” Florian snarled, as if that were a capital crime. He swallowed another bite of stew. “Did you see that dress she was wearing?” He sighed deeply. “What curtains it would have made!”

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: “Inevitably, this put playwrights and actors at the bottom of the male hierarchy.”

Taken at random from Shakespeare’s London on 5 Groats a Day.

MA

16 #StoryADayMay Harsh

Quills and Quibbles writing group met last night and got a new assignment. Unlike most months, when I put it off or even ditch it, I embraced it for today’s story.

We talked about writing exercises, and how doing them, like doing physical exercises, strengthens your muscles. I told them about Jo Robinson, who said she had always imagined writers as having a special muscle at the base of the skull, flabby at first, but growing stronger with use. We agreed it was a delightful and appropriate image. Thanks, Jo!

Harsh

by Marian Allen

Mrs. Malthus, like most of her students, stole looks at the clock. She wished she could join the happy few who were unobtrusively – and, some, obviously – sleeping. Don Pardo’s snoring was the only thing keeping her brain from shutting down entirely.

The dear, lovely clock on the wall told her that the oral presentation currently droning in her ear would be the last of the hour. That happiness caused her to focus a beam of attention and approval on the beauty queen next to her desk.

“And so the rebellious people brought the author of the dra… drac…”

“Draconian,” said Mrs. Malthus, along with several of the class who had somehow managed to retain consciousness in spite of the classroom’s heavy fog of boredom.

“…draconian law to justice.”

Mrs. Malthus accepted the essay and added it to the stack on her desk.

“That’s the last of the oral presentations,” she announced. “Monday, we begin a new unit.” She wrote the assignment on the whiteboard.

The blessed bell rang, releasing them all.

She tucked the stack of essays into her briefcase. Before she forgot, she made another tick-mark on the index card with draconian and the present school year printed at the top. Students in three of her classes had presented the same paper. At least they had been in three different classes.

The internet had become an invaluable source for students too lazy, too busy, or too stupid to write their own papers. It was also a nice little source of income for people who could crank out themes, essays, and research papers for a price.

She added the name of the beauty queen who had gone last to the list of three on the index card. They would all get A’s, of course. Word of mouth is the best form of advertising, and Aunty M’s Homework Vault brought in more money than her paltry teacher’s salary.

Draconian. What did that even mean?

~ * ~

The lovely and delightful Cairn Rodrigues sent me a set of the funniest interview questions anybody ever asked me. The interview is posted at her blog in a feature she’s just started, appropriately named Askew Questions.

MY WRITING PROMPT: author, rebellious, draconian

MA

15 #StoryADayMay Lilly Was A Lady

Someone who shall be nameless, but whose initials are Andrea Gilbey, challenged me to write a story about toothpicks.

So I did.

Since today is also food day, I included food in it. The chicken salad recipe is one my late, beloved mother-in-law favored. You can use walnuts rather than pecans, if you like, and green and/or purple grapes. Raisins, dates, or apricots, in a pinch.

Lilly Was A Lady

by Marian Allen

Lillian washed her hands thoroughly, carefully, and often between each dish she prepared. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, her mother had always said.

Lillian wasn’t sure she believed in God, but she most certainly believed in her mother.

Harold lumbered into the kitchen. The kitchen was her territory. Everyone knew the kitchen belonged to the lady of the house, but Harold, of course, must invade it – must assert his mastery of every inch of his domain.

“When are the old biddies due?” He poured himself a glass of milk.

“Four,” she said, her eyes and attention on the task of cutting the crusts off the bread lying helpless on the cutting board. It wouldn’t do, if she made a sloppy stroke and the bread came out lop-sided. Part of being a lady was presenting nice food.

“Are you having that chicken salad slop?”

“Mother and our friends and I like it.” Cooked and cubed chicken breast, celery, pecans, halved green grapes, and home-made mayonnaise – of course they liked it! Lady slop, Harold called it, along with most party foods.

Lillian, of course, controlled her anger, although she trembled so badly, the ruffles on her apron shuddered.

“Are you making anything worth eating?” He scooped up the bread crusts and crammed them into his mouth, chasing them with enough milk to turn them to paste.

“I made ham and Swiss cheese wrapped in long-way-sliced dill pickles, and those little cocktail wieners stewed in barbecue sauce. You like those, don’t you?”

“Near enough. Where are they? In the refrigerator, getting cold?”

“Staying fresh, yes. But I kept some out for you. They’re in the microwave.”

She heard the microwave door click open, heard Harold’s grunt of begrudging satisfaction and the scrape of the plate as he slid it out. Not the thump of the door closing, of course. Leave things as you found them was another of Lillian’s mother’s teachings which Harold’s mother had apparently not taught him.

“Where’d you get these toothpicks?” Harold had mastered the ability to talk with his mouth full, no doubt through his years of practice. “Spent extra. Going all out for your little hen party. Nothing too good for your mother, eh?”

That was true, but Lillian knew sarcasm when she heard it.

“The colored toothpicks are for you, actually,” she said. “I put extra in some of the wraps, and some of the wieners were bigger than the others, so I marked those with colored toothpicks and put them on your plate.”

He smacked his lips by way of thanks.

The empty plate clattered on the counter – not in the sink, of course; that would be too much like woman’s work.

“I’m going out for some real food. Have them gone by seven.”

But it wasn’t her mother who would be gone by seven.

Lillian washed her hands, removed her apron, drew on a pair of disposable gloves, and gathered Harold’s discarded toothpicks, counting them carefully to make sure she had them all. She took them outside and across the alley and tossed them and the gloves into the gigantic trash bin of the restaurant that fronted the parallel street. Back in the kitchen, she washed Harold’s plate in hot running water and scouring powder, dried it and put it away.

The poison, she’d read when she spent the day at the library, was supposed to mimic a heart attack. Harold was certainly due for one. If his death was considered suspicious, food poisoning from that horrible greasy spoon he favored over her own cooking might get the blame. If bad came to worse and she was arrested, she would confess and save the state the expense of building a case.

A lady always takes responsibility for her actions, as her mother always said.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT TODAY: Toothpicks

MA

14 #StoryADayMay Rats

This one is for Andrea Gilbey of Great Britain, fellow knitter, and Monkees fan. She has the cutest li’l pet rat!

Hi, Andrea! Hi, Dizzy! ~waves~

God save the Queen!

Davy was the cute one!

Meanwhile, progress is … er … progressing on the paper editions of the SAGE trilogy. They, and at least the electronic version of SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING, will be out by the end of the month. Yay!

And now, today’s story:

Rats

by Marian Allen

“It seems odd to me,” said my shop assistant, Andrea. “I do understand the need, but how can you do it?”

“Who better?”

Rats are my life. Never married; never will; no woman alive would eat, breathe, and dream rats, as I do.

Not nasty rats, though. With every man’s hand turned against them, feral rats are canny and fierce. They’re a danger to life and property, and no mistake. Let’s not forget The Black Plague, although technically that was fleas, not the rats proper.

At any rate, part of my dedication to rattery was my dedication to eliminating as much of the feral population as possible.

The best part was the clean-up, when I investigated any place my clients had marked as a place they’d seen rats hanging about or going into or coming from. I often found nests of ratkins, many of them old enough to survive without their mums. I kept the nicest ones, and bred them into my private stock. Couldn’t sell them in the shop, of course, but a lot of people preferred hand-raised common rats; they considered them more English, for some reason.

I shrugged myself into my uniform jacket and put on my hat.

“Everything well in hand here, then?”

Andrea made a face. “Don’t forget your Fiendish Device.”

“Got it right here.” I lifted the long, slim case and waggled it.

“Off with you, then.”

“Right.” I hated to leave the shop but, once I was out and had climbed into the van, I was almost a different person. By the time I had pulled out of the village and onto the motorway, I was no longer the proprietor of Best Fancy Rats. I was the man whose name was stenciled on the side of the van:

P. Piper, Exterminator.

~ * ~

It’s Tuesday, so I’m posting at Fatal Foodies on the subject of a happy childhood memory.

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: Rats

MA

13 #StoryADayMay Duck

Monday being writerly day here, I thought it would be fun to show you my writing process for these stories.

For this one, anyway, I pulled a book from a shelf. The book turned out to be THE ORANGE FAIRY BOOK, one of Andrew Lang’s wonderful Rainbow Books of fairy tales.

“The duck was always puzzled about that egg”

something was wrong about it

something was different about it

it disappeared

somebody put something in the nest that didn’t belong

sneak

thief

something passed from one person to another

something put there only one person would see

girl doing chores?

Why what how

Old woman rather than young? What’s an older name? Names of my grandfather’s generation

People I know 90 or so

Ruby, Phyllis, Ruth, Helen, Geneva, Hazel, Violet, Rose

Duck

By Marian Allen

They never let Phyllis McCann out alone, of course. She might talk to somebody. They picked LittleBoy because he had such an innocent face, and made her introduce him as her nephew, come to look after her.

Everybody made over him and asked her wasn’t she lucky and proud to have such a sweet nephew, and she said, “Oh, yes,” but she couldn’t keep the sour out of her voice. She caught the knowing looks that passed between LittleBoy and the people bragging on him, and she knew the gang was having their way, and folks thought she was being “looked after” because she was getting senile.

Which she wasn’t.

The gang had rolled in one dark night while she was out at the pictures with some of the other girls from her bridge club, girls she’d known since junior high almost seventy years ago. She had let herself in the back door, snapped on the light, and there they were: four men sitting around her kitchen table, wearing sunglasses so they wouldn’t get blinded when she turned on the light. She turned to run, and the one she came to know as Branson stepped from where he’d been hiding behind the door and blocked her way.

The short, stocky one stood up from the table. “We don’t have to hurt you. We just need some place to stay for a while. Our car’s broke down and we need a place to stay while we fix it. Soon as it’s running again, we’ll be out of your hair.”

She knew that was a lie as soon as she heard it. She pretended to believe it, though. She went on pretending to believe it, even though nobody ever tinkered with the car. Even though they called each other by name in front of her, talked about jobs they’d done and folks they’d killed, and never let her off the place without LittleBoy – the only one without a mug shot – going with her. Even though they watched the news and didn’t care if she saw their mug shots there, labeled armed and dangerous.

Today was the third week she’d come into town for groceries, with LittleBoy “helping” her.

The new bagger, a grown man (so sad to see grown men bagging groceries, a job for a schoolboy), chatted with her, as usual, while he fumbled with her purchases, moving them from one bag to another. Phyllis kept a wary eye on LittleBoy, knowing he’d get mad if she talked too much, knowing he wouldn’t show it in public, but that he’d pinch her arm until he raised purple welts once they got into the car, and keep it up all the way home.

LittleBoy was only half paying attention, though; the cashier was batting her eyes at him and wiggling her top-floor balcony.

“Miss Phyllis,” the bagger said, casually but in a softer voice, “is your nephew the only one helping you? Do you maybe have some other nephews staying with you?”

He knew!

“More,” she said, knowing that too much from her would draw LittleBoy’s attention, no matter if the cashier took all her clothes off and did the shimmy-shake.

“How many? Describe them.”

LittleBoy was already turning away from the over-painted gal behind the register.

Phyllis said, “I never buy eggs because I have ducks. I go out before breakfast and gather eggs.”

“Well, that’s as fresh as it gets,” said the bagger.

“Let’s go, Aunt Phyllis,” LittleBoy said, taking her elbow. “You’ll wear yourself out.”

“Thank you, dear,” Phyllis said, patting LittleBoy’s hand but making strong eye contact with the bagger.

That night, Phyllis tore a page out of her diary and wrote out descriptions of the men and the names she’d heard attached to them on television. The next morning, she tucked it into the pocket of her housedress and carried it downstairs. Lewis was on night watch. He finished the newspaper crossword puzzle, wadded up the paper, and tossed it at her.

She unwadded it, said what she knew he wanted her to: “I don’t know how you do it. They ought to call you Professor,” slipped her writing out of her pocket, and wadded the two up into a ball, her writing hidden inside.

She put the crossword ball on top of a small woven basket of paper trash. Every morning, while the man on night watch kept an eye on her from the kitchen doorway, she carried the trash basket out to the burn bin and stopped for eggs on the way back. This morning, she kept out the crossword ball and tucked it under one of the ducks.

Even though she was expecting it, the raid that afternoon was a shock. One minute, she was throwing feed to the ducks; the next minute, there were men and women in those bullet-proof vests everywhere and one of them was hustling her away from the gunfire.

One of the drawbacks of getting old was people believing you might be getting senile. One of the benefits of getting old where you were born and grew up was everybody knowing your habits – and your relatives. So many people tipped off the police about the change in Phyllis, the FBI had to follow up. And so she was rescued. Unharmed. Free to go back to her real life – although she did hire one of her real nephews to come live with her for the sake of her peace of mind.

The duck, though, was always puzzled about that egg.

~ * ~

MY WRITING PROMPT TODAY: The duck was always puzzled about that egg.

MA