My friend, Tom Pick, over at The WebMarketCentral Blog, has challenged me to write something interesting, seasonal and non-work related. Although, I'm not sure I can compete with his tree house endeavor, (great job, BTW. and more like a tree condo, I'm thinking), I'll give it a shot.
Right now, I'm gearing up for a fiction writer's conference that I attend every summer. It's a week full of good friends and good times, all based on writing. The publishing houses, agents, editors, published writers and those of us with ambitions to break into the industry (over 2,000 of us all total) come together to talk nothing but story and writing and the publishing industry for four days.
Recently, I was asked, "How can you be so prolific on your blog?"
I hadn't thought I really was, but what I realized is that varying my type of writing really helps to keep my mind limber. I write both fiction and non-fiction almost everyday. Because I started my consulting practice this year, and have some very cool new projects, I've focused more on business writing lately.
But, because Tom said this had to be non-work related, I thought I'd post the first scene of my new women's fiction manuscript, the one I'm pitching at the conference next week. You know, just so you know I do actually do something besides think about B2B marketing strategy.
I hope you enjoy it. Happy 4th everyone.
Lightning
flashed in the nearby sky as Marley Bronson alighted from the taxi she’d
grabbed after Stuart’s attorney had dropped the bomb. She didn’t flinch. She
stood there for a moment, the chill wind blowing through her as the thunder
rumbled, waiting to see if the next spear of electricity would be better aimed.
When it flashed in the sky a few miles away, she sighed, paid the cabbie and
trudged up her front walk as the rain began to fall.
Roo yapped and raced from the den as she
shut the door and dropped her purse and keys on the hall table. She heard
voices from the living room and closed her eyes. They’d come anyway, hadn’t
listened when she’d asked for time.
She scooped Roo up into her arms and
snuggled her little, warm body close, sunk her face into the soft fur, and
dragged in a fortifying breath of puppy love.
“Mother, where have you been? We’ve been
worried sick.” Sophia stood in the doorway, arms crossed, looking more angry
than relieved Marley had come home.
“I went to see your father.”
“What for? We were at the cemetery this
morning.” Sophia shuddered her distaste.
“There were some private things I needed to
say.” The weariness of it all washed over her. Tea. Tea was what she needed.
She turned down the hall, away from Sophia’s disapproval and went to the
kitchen to put on the kettle. Cowardly, perhaps, but she didn’t have the
strength to take in anything else today. She heard them behind her, crowding
her space.
“You can’t hide from this, Marley. There
has to be something we don’t know about. Stuart wouldn’t have left us all
swinging in the breeze. You must know something we don’t.”
Marley braced one hand on the counter, kept
her back to Sophia’s husband. Couldn’t bear to see the calculation in his eyes
that she’d seen earlier, when he was named executor of Stuart’s estate.
“Dennis, I don’t want to discuss this right now. I thought I made that clear.”
“I need answers. There isn’t time to feel
sorry for yourself. The bank can move on the estate any time now. The company’s
records have been subpoenaed. The marshals will be at the company by tomorrow
afternoon, at the latest.”
Tears pricked the corners of her eyes and
she thought, not again. She wanted to be angry. Marley wanted to rail at the
mess he’d left behind, but the disbelief that her husband had been a fraud, a
con man who’d stolen from their neighbors, friends and daughter, was too raw.
No, the hell with that. He’d stolen from her.
Even when they took everything, it might not be enough to cover the debt. God,
how stupid she’d been to believe him when he’d assured her everything was fine.
The signs had been there, right in front of her. If she’d only looked harder,
questioned further.
Roo growled over her shoulder and she knew
Dennis had stepped further into the room. Roo was a terrific judge of
character. She stroked the dog’s head and then set her on the floor so she
could get the tea things out. The kettle whistled, followed by the doorbell.
“I’ll get it,” Sophia said, disappearing
down the hall.
“We need to talk about what this means,
what you know.” Dennis leaned against the counter, settling in for a
conversation she wasn’t having. Not with him.
Marley dropped a tea bag into a single mug
and poured the water over it. “No, not tonight.”
“But it’s all gone. I need to know where it
went.”
She turned to face him, this ingrate of a
son-in-law. “Go away, Dennis. Take Sophia back to the hotel. There’s nothing to
discuss.”
He advanced on her, smoothing his Hermes
tie, his glare what she supposed he thought threatening. “The only reason you
can possibly be this calm is because you know where it is. For God’s sake,
Marley, if you don’t tell me, I can’t help you.”
She almost laughed. “Oh, Dennis, don’t
pretend to be worried about anyone but yourself.”
Sophia’s heels clicked on the tile floor,
then stopped. “Mother, stop it. We invested a lot of money in Daddy’s latest
project.” Sophia stood in the doorway looking like someone else’s kid. Surely
this wasn’t her Sophia. “The marshals are here. They say they need the house
vacated. They’re taking possession.” Her voice broke at the end and Marley’s
heart fluttered for a moment, hoping the daughter she’d raised had surfaced
from underneath her designer suit and flashy jewelry. “This is so humiliating,”
she murmured, covering her face with her hand.
Apparently not.
Marley took her cup and moved to the kitchen
table. She sat in one of the tall carved chairs she’d refinished twenty odd
years ago and ran her hand across the smooth grain of the tabletop. She gazed
at the stainless steel appliances set into custom cabinetry in rich cherry
wood, the Italian granite counter tops. Her eyes misted as her gaze settled on
the African violets and orchids growing in the bay window that looked out over
her roses. She drank it in. The etched glass on the cabinets that she’d
designed herself, the Travertine floors and the ceramic frog salt and pepper
shakers that Stuart had tried to get rid of when they’d finally “made it.”
“Mrs. Bronson?”
She swung her gaze up to the marshal she
hadn’t heard approach, who held out the paper that would tell her to leave her
home. She wrapped her hands around the mug and nodded for him to put it down.
She took a sip of tea. Her blend. She ordered it from a wonderful boutique tea
company in upstate New York.
Made to her specifications. She’d spent three years creating just the perfect
blend.
“Excuse me, ma’am. I’m going to need the
keys to the Lexus and the Mercedes,” the marshal said, consulting a list. “I’ll
also need to collect the key to the safe deposit box at First Global Bank. And
your passport.”
“What am I allowed to take?” Marley asked,
trying to still the quaking working its way up to her shoulders as she steadied
her hands to take another sip of soothing tea.
“You can pack a bag, for now. Only clothes
and toiletries. I’ve got a female marshal in the hall who will go with you and
make an inventory.”
Her eyes swept her favorite room again and
lit on a picture of her and Stuart, laughing together on the beach in Antigua. She reached down, picked up Roo and stood. “I’ll go pack,” she said, as she swept the picture off the shelf and tucked it under
her arm on her way down the hall.
“This isn’t as bad as you told us it’d be,”
she overheard the marshal say to Dennis and Sophia.
They had no idea.
