The Rejected Writers' Book Club (Southlea Bay)

by Suzanne Kelman

  She made it sound as if she were planning to give me the launch codes for a nuclear bomb.

  Reluctantly, I gave in. “I have a little time to spare between three and four, when I usually grab something to eat. But I need to be back in plenty of time to get the library ready for the kids. They’ll start arriving as early as five o’clock.”

  “Perfect. And don’t worry, I can feed you.”

  “Oh no, don’t trouble yourself. I can just grab a sandwich at the store or something.”

  The thought of eating at Doris’s again caused my insides to scream for mercy. It felt as if my blood sugar was only just returning to normal after my last visit.

  “Nonsense,” she said sternly as she waved a hand dismissively at my costume. “You can’t do all this . . . this . . . whatever it is on a store sandwich!”

  She said “store” with such fervent disapproval in her tone that I couldn’t stop myself from bursting out laughing, even though I could see she was deadly serious. Covering it up by coughing, I put my false nose back on.

  “I will expect you at three o’clock sharp,” she said.

  I tried to protest one last time, but before I could get another word out, she was already out the library door. I thought she’d gone when her head popped back in and she shouted back to me, “I’ll make pork ribs and beans. That ought to give you enough stamina for all this foolishness.”

  Then she was gone. Pork ribs and beans, God help me! I stood there, bereft and pretty sure I could hear my cardiovascular system starting to cry. Slumping back down onto the floor to finish shelving, I felt totally disheartened. Somehow, Doris had managed to take all the steam out of my day.

  As I sat, pouting and stacking, an elf popped up over the top of the shelf. It was actually my boss, Karen, wearing a three-point green felt hat with miniature silver bells hanging from the points and jangling as she bobbed her head. She was dressed in a green felt tunic with a sparkly zigzag collar, red-ribbed woolen tights, and pointy shoes. On her face, she had painted rosy red cheeks and dotted her nose with dainty brown freckles. She looked as cute as a button. But her tiny elf face appeared concerned.

  “You have a phone call from someone called Christopher?”

  Thoughtful for a moment, I followed her back toward her office.

  I’d forgotten my cell phone that morning, but no one usually ever called me at the library. Martin worked locally as a production consultant at a local engineering company. This was a break from his years in California working with the big aircraft companies that were based there. During those years, he had spent the majority of his time crawling inside aircraft to make sure their equipment was up to FAA standards. Now, on the island, he had a more flexible and easy schedule and always just dropped by if he needed something.

  Karen politely excused herself and closed the door as I picked up the telephone.

  “Hello, this is Janet Johnson.”

  The voice that came back was tense, and there was a lot of background noise, as if the person were calling from a busy street. A strained voice filtered through. “Janet, it’s Christopher.”

  I sat down hard and caught my breath. It was Stacy’s husband. He’d never ever called me at work before and calling himself Christopher instead of Chris had thrown me. Something was wrong.

  “Oh, hello, Chris. Is everything okay?”

  “Not really. I’m here at the hospital with Stacy.”

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” My throat tightened. I could barely get the words out.

  “She started bleeding this morning. At first she was just spotting, and her doctor said not to worry and to just rest. But then as the morning went on, it got worse. So, we came here.”

  “I see,” I said weakly. I really wanted to say something motherly and wise but was unable to as my heart tried to thump itself out of my chest. I tried to absorb this information.

  “Are you still there?” he asked anxiously.

  “Yes. Yes, I’m here. What is her doctor saying now?”

  “She’s reassuring but also concerned. The hospital did some preliminary tests, and now she’s in with a specialist. Stacy just thought I should let you know.”

  “Of course. Call me when you know anything. I’ll be here until just after eight and then home after that.”

  “Okay, I’ll call you when I have an update.”

  Putting the phone down, I sat there feeling helpless and wanting to hold my daughter as I had when she’d been a little girl. It was times like this I hated being so far away from her, but Stacy had never liked the island and insisted on staying in California when we moved.

  Karen tapped gently on the door.

  “Everything alright?”

  I told her the news, and she made all the right sympathetic noises. Though I wouldn’t call us close, she was a wonderful boss, and we had gotten to know each other quite well over the years.

  “Do you mind if I call my husband?”

  “No, of course not.” She shook her head, causing all her little bells to jingle. Despite how I was feeling, it delighted me.

  “I won’t be long; then I’ll get on with shelving the DVDs.”

  “Take as long as you need,” she replied.

  I called Martin, and he listened intently, then commented in his levelheaded way. “Let’s wait to see what the doctors say. She’s in good hands. No point worrying about a storm until we smell rain.”

  “Maybe one of us should go?” I thought aloud.

  “Let’s see how things look in the morning first, shall we? Things always change so quickly with Stacy.” Then, without a pause, he asked, “What’s for dinner?”

  Only my husband could change topics like that. He had that male way of thinking. In his mind, the problem of Stacy was now solved, so he could move on to his own culinary needs. He divided his whole world into little boxes on shelves. We had finished talking about the family box, so he’d put that one back. Now he’d taken down the dinner box. I, on the other hand, only had one large box that I juggled in the air, and random things bounced and spilled in and out of it all day long.

  “I’ll be having pork ribs, beans, and candy!”

  “What?” he asked incredulously.

  “There’s spaghetti sauce in the slow cooker for you. I’m on Halloween haunting duty, remember?”

  “Oh right, yes. Have fun.” He was ready to wind up the conversation now that he knew his culinary needs were met. He was very predictable, and I did love him. Hanging up the phone, I got to work.

  It was surprising how fast the time went with all the Halloween excitement. It was 2:45 p.m. before I knew it. My head was down, checking in books, when Karen reminded me to take my break before it got kid-crazy. I stopped and remembered I now had to face Doris and her urgent matter.

  When I arrived at Doris’s, I was grateful to see there were only two cars in the driveway. I was also pleasantly surprised to observe that even though Doris didn’t appear to have an exceptionally high opinion of Halloween, she’d decorated her house in preparation for the event. Wiry black spiderwebs hung in shrouds from her front porch, eerie candlelit jack-o’-lanterns decorated her steps, and her welcome angel sign had been exchanged for a witch riding on a broomstick.

  About to knock, I noticed the door was already ajar. Pushing it open slowly, I spied Ethel, seated like the Queen of Sheba in the middle of the hallway, dressed as an alien. At least I think that was what she was. Her face was painted green, and she had two silver pipe cleaners sticking out of her head. She wore a silver-and-green tunic, green tights, and an expression on her face as if she were chewing a bumblebee. The moment she saw me at the door, she grabbed the large bowl of candy balanced on her knees and protectively pulled it close to her chest.

  “Hello, Ethel,” I said, wondering if I would ever win this woman over. “Is Doris around?”

  Doris bellowed from the kitchen, “Have your food all ready. Come on down, follow your nose!”

  Entering her kitchen, I took in the heavenly
smell. The table was already laid with a festive harvest-themed tablecloth and a vase brimming with golden chrysanthemums. In the center was a large pot of something that smelled wonderful. I beamed. It had been a long time since someone had cooked a hot meal for me, and it reminded me of my childhood.

  “Did you know you have an alien in your hallway?” I quipped, removing my nose and hat.

  “Oh, yes,” said Doris dismissively. “I always have to get Ethel to sit there to stop all those young rodents from trampling over my chrysanthemums. I hate this silly time of the year!”

  She pulled a loaf of freshly baked bread out of the oven and turned around to face me—a fake knife was sticking out the side of her head. Starting to laugh, I covered it up with a fake cough as Doris just stared at me. Despite hints to the contrary, Doris didn’t seem to have any overt sense of humor that I could find.

  “If you don’t like them coming up your driveway, you should turn off your lights. They wouldn’t bother you then.”

  She glared at me with a look of disdain, and her fake knife trembled comically as she answered me. “Not do a holiday?” she said indignantly. “I don’t think that’s even American, is it? I might hate it! But I’m an American, and there’s been Halloween candy at my door for forty years. I have to support this community in all its foolishness, whatever it is. I am, after all, patriotic!”

  I had to stop myself from laughing again, realizing Doris’s act of patriotism consisted of sticking a fake knife on her head and putting a disgruntled alien on garden guard duty.

  Doris turned back toward the stove. She wrapped the hot, homemade bread in a green-and-white-checked napkin and placed it in a wicker basket. Her fake knife wobbled ominously as she bustled over and placed it on the table.

  “Can I help?”

  She brushed me off and pushed me down into a seat. She always seemed to be pushing me down into chairs. I felt as if I were five years old.

  She moved around the kitchen and added a pitcher of iced tea, butter, and cutlery to the table. Then she fetched napkins and seated herself.

  I poured myself some tea while she heaped piping-hot pork and beans from the pot into a bowl. It didn’t take long for her to come straight to the point.

  “I’m glad you could come,” she said, cutting a whopping slab of the steaming bread and plopping it on my side plate. “I wanted to talk to you alone about all this publishing business.” She said the word “publishing” as if it were a new epidemic. “This new turn of events is very hard, and I need some advice from a book person!”

  Carefully, I tasted a small spoonful and was going to say that I wasn’t actually a “book person” but a librarian. I was struck dumb by the taste of the food. It was just too delicious. I’d been eating gluten-free, fat-free, and sugar-free for so long, I’d forgotten what cholesterol on a plate tasted like. And it tasted so good, it was hard for me to concentrate on what she was saying.

  “This has to be a mistake. I can’t go getting published when no one else is. They’re counting on me to be the worst of the bunch! I was hoping you could help me find a way to change the mind of this publisher so we can get the rejection letter we need.”

  I just listened and tried not to think about what this wondrous-tasting food was doing to my insides.

  Doris searched my face as if she were sizing me up, as if she wanted to say something more. Then, taking a deep breath, she walked to the kitchen door and closed it quietly.

  “There is something else too,” she said, sitting back down, “and I don’t know how to talk about it.” She became quiet, even vulnerable, staring at the tablecloth as if she were hoping it would give her some inspiration.

  “What is it?” I paused from the meal.

  “I have something to confess, something that I can’t tell the group because it would be too devastating.”

  My interest was really piqued.

  “It’s about the manuscript, the one I sent off to this publisher.”

  She became agitated, got up, and walked back to the kitchen door, opened it, looked down the hallway, and then closed it again. Sitting back down, she took a gulp of her iced tea, and I noticed her hand was shaking.

  “What about it?”

  She lowered her voice to a hushed tone. “It’s about the story itself. You see, I always have the core story I send out to each publisher. But I often add in little scenes here and there, just to amuse myself, just to keep up my writing skills. Adaptions of stories I read or snippets of news I hear. Anyway, I came across this scandalous story quite by accident. It was perfect, and I thought it would be a fun scene to add to my book.”

  She paused and took another swig of her tea. These words seemed really hard for her to say.

  “Then yesterday I heard something, something very disturbing, and I realized there is a chance that the story I put in my manuscript, well, it might be true. And the worst thing about it is”—she was almost whispering—“it’s about someone in this community, and if it were to become public knowledge, it would no doubt ruin that person’s life . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she looked utterly bereft.

  I took her hand and was about to say something wise and wonderful, I’m sure, but the door burst open, and Gracie danced in, dressed as a fairy. She had on a blue tutu, white tights, sparkly blue wings, a crown, and streaks of blue sparkles across her porcelain cheeks.

  Doris pulled her hand from mine, and her shutters came down as she became “practical Doris” again. Bustling to her feet, she started to clear the table.

  “Oh look, a witch,” said Gracie confrontationally as she balled up her fists on her hips. “I’m glad I have my wand to protect me.” From her glittery belt, she pulled out a sparkly wand that had obviously been a feather duster in a previous life.

  Doris went to the sink and started washing up. Feeling torn, I checked the time.

  “Doris, I’m so sorry I have to leave. We can talk more later, if you want. I’ll do anything I can to help.”

  Doris shook her head dismissively, and I realized how difficult it had been for her to open up to me.

  She walked to the table then, and there was a thud, and there it was . . . an enormous slab of chocolate cake. “You can’t go off without having dessert. It’s Momma’s favorite,” she said encouragingly.

  Gracie clapped her hands and tucked her wand away. I thanked her weakly, thinking I would need to run halfway to California to work off all these calories.

  As I was getting in my car, all at once, I remembered the raccoons. Doris stood at her front door, next to her disgruntled alien.

  “Hey, Doris, I hear you once managed to get rid of a whole family of raccoons from your barn. How did you do that?”

  “Poisoned them,” she shouted back matter-of-factly.

  Poison. I tried not to show my horror. I wasn’t even sure that was legal.

  Driving back to work, I thought about what I had just learned, having encountered a whole different side of Doris Newberry.

  The warm, cozy library was bustling with festiveness. Karen was behind the counter, refilling the large orange bowl with candy, and nodded as she saw me enter the library. “Did you manage to get something to eat?” she inquired.

  “Did I!” I bragged, beaming at her broadly.

  Our Halloween event went off without a hitch, and apart from one overstuffed fairy princess who managed to throw up on the carpet, there was no serious drama. I helped clear up the debris at the end of the night but was eager to get home to see if there was any word about Stacy. I was still pretty worried. I wanted to call her but didn’t want to push her buttons; she was always telling me I was way too overprotective. Navigating my relationship with my offspring was akin to running through a minefield of live ammunition, I thought as I drove. I was never quite sure if this could be the phone call to trigger the explosion. In preparation for dealing with Stacy, I kept myself well and truly kitted out in my flak jacket and blast helmet at all times.

  It was just after eight o’cloc
k before I finally pulled into our driveway. Noticing that Martin’s workshop light was still on, I tiptoed to his door. Pulling open the door, I cackled, doing my own impression of the witch from The Wizard of Oz, hoping to make him jump.

  “Good evening, Witch Book!” he said unflinchingly. He was impossible to scare; I blamed it on his happy childhood, darn it. “How was your day?” he asked, going back to looking intently at the plans he was studying.

  “Good.” Pulling up a stool next to his bench, I asked, “Did Chris call?”

  “Not yet, and don’t worry. I’m sure if there had been more complications he would have called already.”

  “Trick or treat!” I sang out, holding out a hand containing his favorite candy that I’d saved from the library bowl.

  He sat back in his chair to open it. I surveyed the odd bits of wood, nails, and chicken wire that were spread out haphazardly over his workbench.

  “What are you making?”

  He suddenly became as excited as a ten-year-old with a model airplane. “You’re going to love it.”

  As he showed me the rough plans he’d sketched on a piece of paper, I tried to follow. There were dimensions and calculations scribbled on it, but it looked like a big box with a wire frame to me.

  “Where do I put my saucepans?” I asked in mock seriousness, teasing him. I’d been asking him to build me a kitchen island for six months, and even though I wasn’t an engineering type, the chicken wire was a significant clue this wasn’t going to be it.

  “Huh? Oh, yes, well,” he stuttered, “I thought this was much more of a priority. Don’t you like it?”

  “I might, if I knew what it was.”

  “I would’ve thought that was obvious,” he said, appearing a little hurt that I hadn’t recognized his emerging masterpiece. “It’s a raccoon trap, of course!”

  “Oh! What a good idea,” I lied, trying to show some enthusiasm. Though, to be honest, nothing about this new plan sounded good to me.

  Wild animals were called wild for a reason.