Robin Chalkley's Blog

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Noah has a cover!

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[image error]Thanks to Lindsay Cheesewright of Gulgong, Australia for helping to bring Noah to life!

Coming soon, my first children’s book: “Noah Don’t Think So”

I love children’s picture books, and recently – well, is two or three years ago “recent”? – I had the privilege of attending a great workshop led by the wonderfully creative (and prolific) children’s author, Stacy McAnulty. And I said to myself, Robin, it’s time to get yourself in gear and start writing. The fact that I have several grandchildren entering reading age was also a significant motivation.

I’ve now written four picture books, but the first one I’ve decided to publish is about Noah Peterson, a little boy who refuses to try anything new. Do you know any children like that? I’ve known them over the years, and Noah’s parents offer many suggestions before they finally find Noah’s passion.

I’m pleased to be working with illustrator Lindsay Cheesewright of Gulgong, Australia. Lindsay is doing a fabulous job of bringing Noah to life, and has become a valuable partner in the book’s progress.

My estimate at this time is that “Noah Don’t Think So” will be available on Amazon and Kindle in late September or early October. I’ll keep you informed!

“Gotta Be Bobby G.” Flash Fiction

“Let’s start at the beginning.”

Detective Ray Mahaffey turned on his digital recorder. I was in a police station, suspected of murdering Mandy Stapleton.

“That’s where things usually start,” I said.

Mahaffey ignored me. “You signed up with LetsMeet.com on January 1.”

“Right. I made a New Year’s resolution to meet someone.”

He consulted a stack of papers in front of him. “We subpoenaed your emails from LetsMeet. This signature of yours – ‘Gotta be Bobby G.’ Pretty corny.”

“I considered it distinctive.”

He snickered. “Distinctively dorky.” He looked at the papers. “So, your first date was with Kelly Schuster.”

I closed my eyes and tried to remember. Kelly. Cute brunette with a page boy haircut.

“Yeah, we talked about President Garfield.”

“Wow, there’s a conversational gold mine.”

“She’d just read a book about him. He was killed by a disappointed office seeker.”

Mahaffey sipped his coffee. “You don’t say.”

“That’s how his killer is always described. ‘A disappointed office seeker.’ Hey, I wasn’t elected fifth grade class president, but I didn’t kill my principal.”

“No,” Mahaffey said. “You waited for Mandy Stapleton.”

“Nice segue,” I said.

He referred to his list again. “Next was Ella Carpenter. You met her at the Bean There, Done That Coffee Shop. Some name, huh?”

“Used to be the worst puns were for hair salons. Now it’s coffee shops.”

“So, this Ella. You two hit it off?”

“At first I thought she had potential, but she became way too possessive. Because we were exchanging emails she thought we had to be exclusive. Creepy. I had the strange sense that she was reading all my LetsMeet emails.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but she mentioned details. Anyway, the day we met was warm, but she showed up in a cable knit sweater, hair pulled back in a bun. Big, strong woman. First thing she said, ‘This whole process is demeaning to women.’ Spent thirty minutes telling me she never wanted to hear from me again. She stormed off, sticking me with the check. I almost signed off LetsMeet.com after that.”

Mahaffey half smiled. “But you didn’t, did you? Okay, looks like Angela Wilson was next. She told me on the phone, ‘He was a lot more interesting online than in person.”

“She had a great body, though. Kind of disappointed that one didn’t go further.”

“Then Vanessa Bell.”

“She had thirteen cats.”

This went on for a while, because I’d met eighteen women on LetsMeet.com. Finally he asked about the only one he really cared about. Mandy Stapleton.

Mandy was a cute blonde, 25, a teacher. Her body had been found in a wooded area, nude, with dozens of stab wounds the coroner said had been inflicted post-mortem.

Oh, and she had two emails from me folded up in her purse.

Mahaffey asked me a thousand questions about Mandy. I said she was beautiful, and dedicated to her job. Her talents were wasted on third graders, but she said it was her calling. I used all my charm in my letters, trying my best to be interesting and funny. She rushed home after work each day, and if an email from me wasn’t there, she was disappointed. If it was there, she said it made her day.

We agreed to meet Friday night at 7 at Brewed Awakening. (See?)  My heart jumped with every woman who entered, but not for Mandy. Because she never arrived. I sent her a text at 7:30 that wasn’t answered. I stayed till 9, but she never showed. I was crushed.

I sent her emails and texts for two days, but got no answer. I had to let it go. Then the police showed up at my door, and brought me down here to see Detective Ray.

*

            Finally, I was released, but I’m still officially a “person of interest.” I took a cab to my apartment, opened a beer, then sat down to check email. One stopped me cold:

                          “Remember I said ‘This whole process is demeaning to women?’

                        Stupid me, I thought you were different. But you’re just like the rest of

                        them. Now that you know what will happen to anyone you care about,

                        I have a feeling you’ll stop. Oh yes, you’ll stop.

 

                         Don’t bother trying to trace this encrypted message.  It’s been modified,

                        fragmented, scripted, and redirected so much that even I can’t prove

                        I sent it.”

It was signed: “Gotta be Ella C.”

“The Kiss of Death” Flash Fiction

I don’t know how many Hershey’s Kisses were in the box. But I do know how many bags it took to fill it: seventeen. One for each year of our marriage.

It started innocently enough. My husband, Arthur, likes chocolate. No, loves it. He keeps Kisses in a canister on his desk at work, and our candy dish in the den is always full. So I bought him a bag for our first anniversary. The second year, thinking I was cute, I purchased two bags. Thus a tradition began that has clearly gotten out of hand.

And since our anniversary was on Valentine’s Day, I always bought a bag of red foil Kisses so I could put one on top of the silver candies to symbolize our fidelity. He opened his anniversary gift after dinner.

“Kisses,” Arthur said. “How sweet.”

My kid sister Jesse was living with us for a few months because – well, because she’s temporarily between abusive alcoholic boyfriends. But then, she’s made a habit of making my life miserable since she stole my boyfriend right before junior prom. “Did you just say, ‘How sweet?’” she said. “That’s lame, Arthur, even for you.”

He had no idea what she was talking about. Arthur’s an accountant, after all. No sense of humor. No sense of spontaneity, either. Or so I thought. Then one day last month, I did something totally out of character. I looked at our MasterCard bill.

My accountant husband always paid our bills. We never received dunning phone calls or late notices, so I didn’t give them a second thought. But that month I had ordered some linens on QVC, then changed my mind and cancelled the order. I had to be sure the charge didn’t show on the bill, or I’d have to endure one of Arthur’s lectures on frugality. So when the statement arrived, I peeked.

That was a Tuesday. I remember, because Tuesday is meat loaf night. Like I said, no spontaneity. As I was pouring some gravy on his mashed potatoes, I said, “Arthur, what were you doing at the Quality Inn in Winston-Salem last month? Twice?”

He blanched white as the potatoes. It took him a moment to devise his answer.

“We, uh, we’re trying to hire someone to take Gordon’s place, you know.” Gordon was a principal in the firm who shocked everyone by shuffling off to that great audit office in the sky due to a massive stroke in the middle of a lap dance. “And, uh, we interviewed a couple of candidates from out of town.”

“Well, that explains everything,” I said. “Who wouldn’t want to impress potential partners by putting them up at the Quality Inn? Where’d you take them to dinner? Steak and Shake?”

I didn’t press him right then, because I wanted him to think he’d gotten away with it. Maybe I’m not your typical woman. I didn’t care who the bimbo was. Or how long it had been going on. All that mattered to me was that the bastard cheated on me – and the bastard would pay.

So I went to the library the next day to conduct some online research. I needed a computer that couldn’t be traced back to me. Making sure no one around could see, I entered two words in a Google search:

“Tasteless poison.”

They say you can find anything on the Internet and, apparently, they’re right. Succinylcholine paralyzes the respiratory muscles and only the most diligent coroner would look beyond the easy and obvious symptoms of a heart attack. Works immediately, too. I probably read about that possibility somewhere along the way. Because it’s used in small doses in hospitals to insert a breathing tube into a conscious patient.

Did I mention I’m a nurse?

So I carefully unwrapped the red foil from one of the red Kisses I’d bought. I hollowed out the inside, then took a syringe and injected it full of succinylcholine. I used chocolate to plug the opening, then rewrapped it. I placed it on top of the rest in the gift box, and wrapped it.

“Kisses,” Arthur said, opening his annual present after dinner. “How sweet.”

“Did you just say, ‘How sweet?’” asked Jesse. “That’s lame, Arthur, even for you. Hey look,” she said, reaching into the box. “A red one.”

I quickly reached out my hand…

…and the priest took and patted it gently as we watched the coffin being lowered into the ground. “She was so young to have had a heart attack,” he said.

 

“Gilbert Beagle” – Flash Fiction

Gilbert Beagle was accurately, if unfortunately, named.

Everyone noticed his ears, of course, which had continued to grow when the rest of him called it quits, standing out from his head like commuters hanging from the sides of a groaning New Delhi bus. And he possessed a hypersensitive sense of smell which his wife Dora attributed to his “colossal schnozz.”

So when his boss at J.G. Finklestein and Sons Ladies Foundations (“Generous Garments at Generous Discounts”) rewarded his twentieth anniversary as chief accountant by allowing him to leave after lunch, Beagle’s canine-like intuition was activated the moment he opened his apartment door.

Oh, everything looked normal. Breakfast dishes still in the sink. Half-completed crossword on the table. McDonald’s bag and cup sticking up out of the trash can. And a note on the table:

Gone to pick up some wine. Back shortly.

Beagle’s wrinkled brow furrowed more deeply. He hadn’t called to tell Dora he was coming home early. So why would she leave him a message when she wouldn’t be expecting him for — Beagle looked at his watch — four more hours? And wine? All he drank was beer.

Something had gotten into Dora lately. She hadn’t been the same since her accident. She’d driven straight through a red light, absorbed in a cell phone conversation, hitting one of those SUV’s that looked like it belonged on deployment in Afghanistan. The airbag saved her life, but it smacked her shoulder something fierce. She developed a chronic pain that only her physical therapist — Gunter — could relieve. Now she had a standing weekly appointment at the rehab center.

In recent days it had been “Gunter said this,” and “Gunter said that.” What kind of name was “Gunter,” anyway? Sounded to Beagle like one of those sissy Swed–

Wait. A man. Beagle’s nostrils flared. Somewhere close by. Maybe outside in the hallway. He moved toward the door. No. He was definitely in the apartment. He pointed his head to the living room. No. His study. No. The bedroom.

Yes, the bedroom.

He walked there as quietly as possible, hearing breathing as he approached. Normal ears wouldn’t have picked up the sound, but it was unmistakable to Beagle.

Once in the bedroom, his nose led him straight to the bathroom, anger swelling in his chest. A man in his home! His bathroom! That’s why Dora went for wine — she had company.

His wife was having an affair!

Beagle picked up the Louisville Slugger he kept in the corner as a weapon against intruders, and brought it up ready to smash the man in the bathroom.

“Come out of there,” he growled.

Slowly the bathroom door opened, revealing a young man with blonde hair, a good physique, wearing nothing but silk boxer shorts.

The sight of the nearly naked paramour pushed Beagle over the edge. He attacked with the bat, ignoring his target’s struggles and pitiful cries for help.

Some time later, Beagle got down on all fours beside the mangled torso of Gunter, his wife’s lover. He sniffed the body from head to toe.

“Dead, all right,” he said.

Beagle then took his bloodied bat to the kitchen, hid it under the table, and grabbed a beer from the refrigerator. He expected Dora home any minute, and indeed it wasn’t long before he heard her key turn in the lock. She came in, hands holding bags from Chelsea Food and Wine. She stopped suddenly when she saw her husband.

“What are you doing home?” she asked.

A gloating smile found Beagle’s face. “Surprised to see me, aren’t you?” he said. “So was Gunter.”

Dora set the bags on the counter. “What the hell are you talking about? Where’s Jason?”

Beagle frowned. “Jason? Who’s Jason?”

“Jason Hamilton,” she answered. “Your sister Helen’s boy. He’s visiting the city for a couple of days and dropped by to visit. I insisted he stay with us instead of getting a hotel room.”

The color drained from Beagle’s face. “Little Jason? Last time I saw him he was about twelve years old.”

“Well, he’s all grown up now. I asked him if he wanted a Coke, and he said did we have any wine. So I went out to get some while he took a shower. Hey, are you okay? And what was that about Gunter?”

Her husband hung his head. He was a bad Beagle. Bad, bad Beagle.

Book signing scheduled

Barnhill’s Books in Winston-Salem, NC

I’ll be signing copies of Two Americas at Barnhill’s Books in Winston-Salem on Saturday, Dec. 22 from 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. If you’ve never been to Barnhill’s, it’s a great local bookstore with a good selection of books and regional wines. And it’s a terrific supporter of local authors. Come on out and meet me, and let me autograph books for you – just in time for Christmas, as they say! Barnhill’s is located at 811 Burke St. near downtown Winston-Salem, NC.

Get Two Americas now in paperback!

Today’s world of book readers is divided between those who read e-books and those who like to hold (and own) a physical book. Two Americas has been available to the first group for a while, but now it’s available in paperback form for the latter group!

Just go to my e-store, https://www.createspace.com/3998875, and place your order. The price is just $14.99 plus shipping. CreateSpace is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, so you can make your online purchase with confidence. Of you can purchase through Amazon directly here. Being honest and blunt here, the author receives greater royalties when you order through his e-store, so I’d be grateful if you’d give that first consideration.

Thank you, and I appreciate being part of your reading life!

Every author awaits his first review. Here’s mine.

Posted on amazon.com:

5.0 out of 5 stars
Two Americas Indeed!
August 18, 2012


By
Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxx


Amazon Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This review is from: Two Americas (Kindle Edition)

Interesting characters and a plot that kept me turning pages. Enjoyed references to places in the south I’m very familiar with and the twist on the Confederacy that made me stop and think about what would have happened if the Civil War had a different outcome. Strom Thurmond as president of the Confederacy is a real stretch of the imagination and gave me a good laugh. This may be Robin Chalkley’s first novel but this story reads like that of the experienced writer that he is. I’ll certainly look forward to more of his work–hopefully in the near future!

Download Two Americas Now!

Two Americas