Even More Snippets!

I've been getting a bucketload of reading done lately, partially because our home wifi has been ought and my cellular data doesn't support overmuch lazy Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram scanning, leaving me way more time for actually productive pursuits. Also, since my sister and I carpool to work most days and she gets off half an hour later than I do, I have spare shreds of time that I've been filling with reading rather than browsing. Maybe by the time we get this sorted out, I'll have reformed to a creature who doesn't fulfill all Millennial stereotypes? Anyway, I've rediscovered the depth of my love for reading which had been forced dormant for a while. I've also been getting a lot of words into The Spindle and The Queen via "word-wars" with friends such as Meghan Gorecki. I had never given much credence to the helpfulness of friendly competition until I tried it and realized I really didn't like losing. Sunday afternoon found me having written three-thousand words, give or take. I like this trend. I also finally dragged Cottleston Pie out of my trunk, discovered my trunk has a leak and the file had become a hotbed of disease and black mold, tied a scarf around my face and extracted blurred words from the page and copied them into a file on my computer, and generally felt like I would fall prey to the Bubonic Plague any minute. Update: I'm fine. I've finished Schindler's List, read Go Set A Watchman in record time, am a chapter away from rounding off Wodehouse's Cocktail Hour, and am the same distance from finishing Wordsmithy by Douglas Wilson. I have so much to say on the subject of all these things...about reading in general, reading as regards writers, about my story, and about the value of other art forms serving as inspiration. In short, I've got a lot to say and about ten minutes in which to say it. So I'm not going to waste my breath. I'll write it out when I have time (tomorrow?) and leave you with a few snippets from The Spindle And The Queen instead.

The producer’s phone rang once, twice, three times. Heath glanced at the minimalistic wall-clock and calculated that if it was seven o’clock here, it would be noon in New York and nine in L.A. Brendan Fischer was likely finishing his second mimosa, wiping his mouth on a monogrammed napkin, calling for Natalie to reschedule his nine-fifteen appointment an hour later so he could cram some yoga into his routine and swing by the juice bar before hitting the office. Heath winced as a deafening crackle birthed a dubious connection between two continents.

“What’s up, man?” Brendan’s voice sounded suntanned.

Silence. Silence so firm and cold you could skate across it.

After confessing the non-plausible plausible solution to Flavian, the man had quietened, suggested he might have someone who could help the case, and invited Heath into the street with him. Every cell in Heath’s composed, civilized brain told him this was what travel guidebooks called “a compromising situation” and suggested the American traveler at all costs avoid. 

They passed skinny boys and gangly men, shapely women with braids swinging to their hips, fat women with hair combed into thick knots at their necks. No one seemed in a particular hurry to close themselves into their homes for the evening. All doors were open to the street. Half the children ran naked, chasing a ball down the center of the street. Dogs skulked between legs and cats hid in potted petunias, their eyes catching odd shards of light leftover from the setting sun. Everywhere the streets reeked until Flavian led Heath and the boy into a clean, white lane set with the most opulent mansions Heath yet seen. The contrast between the sector through which they’d just trekked and this celestial glory hurt Heath’s eyes almost physically. He blinked a few times and caught his breath while Flavian spoke to a slender gypsy man smoking against a gold-painted fence. Daniel climbed the fence and swung by his hands on the top spikes, making faces at the grand house in its beautiful cage.

“I am supposing the spirits brought me to you.” 

Heath looked at him curiously. “You believe that?” 

“Of course. What do you believe? Are you Orthodox?” 

“I’m not saying it’s a popular belief and I’m not saying I don’t sometimes forget I believe it, but I’m a Christian.” He laughed. “The only Spirit I have dealings with is the Holy Spirit.” 

“Oh.” Flavian eyed him slyly. “Ah...Pentecostal.” 

Heath grinned. “Baptist.” 

“Okay.”

At the balancing point in all awkward interactions when some decision or another must be made, the farther door opened the queen who had once been beautiful entered.