Sixteen tales of love, passion, and romance from Victoria Howard, Jacqueline Seewald, Chelle Cordero, Michael Bracken, Charmaine Gordon, Melinda Clayton, Marilyn Celeste Morris, Angelica Taylor, Robert Hays, Kathie Harrington, Misha Crews, Allison Wonderland, Sandy Nicks, KC Sprayberry, Smoky Trudeau Zeidel,and Billy Burgess
Coming Soon in electronic editions and print edition, from Vanilla Heart Publishing, http://www.VanillaHeartBooksAndAuthors.com...
Sometimes I think that every time we take a breath we're cheating death.Please excuse the accidental rhyme, there, not to mention the macabre subject matter, but it's true.My mother died when I was seventeen, my father when I was nineteen.My only sibling, a sister, died in infancy.Given my family's tendency toward "short-lifedness," the fact that I am still here to talk to you today is something of a miracle.
I'm not really a morose person, but circumstances do sometimes make me ponder: we're born, we die, and in between…what?
Love, my mother would have said, with stars in her eyes.Sweetly sentimental, my mother was, but hardly realistic.I, as you might imagine, turned out to be just the opposite.
My name is Midge Geddes.In the summer of 1957 I was twenty-four years old.Practically an old maid by the standards of the day, but I was happy enough.I had a home in Washington, DC, which was a small city but an exciting one, and a job as a secretary in a real estate development firm, which was pleasant work.It was so pleasant, in fact, that I hadn't taken a vacation in the two years since I'd started there.And I had no real intention of vacationing, either.But one night in the spring of that year I was almost killed stepping off the curb in front of my apartment house.That sort of thing can affect a person.Ray Ferguson, my boss, had been urging me to take some time off, and after my little "incident" I decided to take him up on his suggestion.
I could have gone to New York to visit with some of my old college friends.I could have made like a pioneer woman and gone out west. But for some reason, I chose instead to go to the Eastern shore, to a little town called Bartlett.I guess I thought that the cool tranquility of the ocean would be a nice change from the sticky heat of the city.
It was a change, all right, but not the one I'd imagined.
For one, the weather in Bartlett turned out to be just as unpleasant as it had been in Washington.For two, the Summer Fair was in full swing when my bus pulled into town, meaning that the place was overrun with tourists, and every night the restaurants and bars closed down so that the owners and their families could take part in the festivities.So in the evenings the only thing to do was to venture down to the pier, and try to enjoy myself.Of course, being neither the parent of a child nor a child itself, my tastes did not tend to run to Ferris wheels and halls of mirrors.The Tunnel of Love might have been fun if there had been someone to share it with, but at the moment I was alone, and content to be so.I'm not really a complainer, normally, but I admit that the high temperatures and the boredom were making me cranky.
In the early evening of my third day in town, when the heat of my little room became oppressive, I escaped to the street.As the sun began its final descent of the day, my feet turned towards the fair.I was hoping to catch the stirring of an evening breeze and maybe treat myself to an ice cream.
Misha Crews has lived in and around DC all her life. Raised in a family of book-lovers, her mother first encouraged her to read by offering to pay her two cents per page of her picture books. But Misha soon traded the pennies for the riches of the written word, and since then she has seldom been seen without a book in her hand.
Like most writers, she has been telling stories for as long as she can remember. The first ones, of course, were the stories she told her parents: I didn't eat the candy! Or maybe I finished my homework already! Later she graduated from making up fibs to making up plays, poems, songs and stories.
At the age of fourteen, while attending ChesapeakeAcademy, she took over production of her school newsletter, and was instantly hooked on the craft of writing. Since then she has written everything from short stories to plays to ad copy. Her first novel, Homesong, was completed in early 2008. She is married and is currently living and working in Northern Virginia.
When my roommate in college confessed that she was a LUG, I had to request a translation:
“Isn’t that a verb?” I inquired, foraging in our cubbyhole of a closet for my teal cardigan sweater.
“It’s actually an acronym,” she replied. “It stands for Lesbian Until Graduation. L-U-G. See? Basically, it means that I’m a lesbian for a limited time only.”
I remember feeling conflicted after the explanation. On the one hand, I resented her for having the audacity to go after girls who were and always would be lesbians, and who would end up hoodwinked and heartbroken when she traded up for a guy. On the other hand, I envied her for having the gumption to go after what she wanted, even if she didn’t want it for very long.
Me, I didn’t even have the guts to ask a girl out. Bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk. I did accept dates when they were offered, though they weren’t offered often, as I didn’t exactly put myself out there. In fact, for the duration of my dorm days, I practically took a sabbatical from dating, sublimating my attraction to girls with the kind of asexuality that abstinence-only advocates can only fantasize about.
I had a whole slippery slope scenario worked out in my head: I meet a girl. I fall for the girl. The girl doesn’t fall for me. I fall into a deep depression. I fall behind on my schoolwork, inevitably flunking out of school. Shortly thereafter (because where else is there to go but down?) I fall off from humanity, and later, a cliff.
It sounds silly, I know, but there was safety in self-denial. As long as I didn’t put myself out there, I didn’t have to worry about rejection.
As my mother is fond of saying, “You need a serious attitude adjustment. Stop putting yourself down.” (My mother is also fond of saying that I’m her “little lezzie.” She considers it a term of endearment.) But she’s right, as mothers often are, and even though it took me almost four years, I finally managed to acquire a smidgen of self-esteem and get that trajectory of tragedy out of my head. I got tired of being a window shopper, always browsing, never buying; always looking, never touching. I vowed that as soon as I finished school, I would return from my sabbatical and get myself a steady girlfriend. It would be my graduation present to myself.
But fulfilling my promise hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk. What my efforts lack in success, they make up for in failure. Hey, it’s not easy being green. The selection process might be easier if I had some sort of instruction manual – Dating Dykes for Dummies or something – that could point me in the right direction. Or, better yet, if I had some Sapphic friends.
My first biggest problem is that I have no idea what to look for. What’s my type? Femme, I guess, but if I only look for femmes, I’ll be limiting my options, right? Yet I have to exclude some candidates. I can’t be open to everyone, because then I might wind up taking what I can get instead of getting what I want.
Allison Wonderland has been writing romantic fiction and poetry since 2007. Her work appears in several anthologies, including Best Lesbian Romance 2009 and To Love and To Cherish: An Anthology of Lesbian Love and Marriage. In addition to writing, Allison's indulgences include cotton candy, kitten heels, and Old Hollywood glamour. Find out what else she's into and up to at http://aisforallison.blogspot.com.
Chelsea and Ally simultaneously rolled their eyes.
“Cass,” Chelsea began, “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re human.”
Cass fiddled with her car keys before slipping them into her purse. She looked at the store window. “But it’s not right.”
“It’s not wrong, either,” Ally chimed in.
Cass wrapped her fingers around the doorknob of Briar’s Country Kitchen. Part of her wanted him to be there. The other part, the sensible part, hoped he wasn’t.
When they entered, Cass immediately looked to her left to the long counter that lined the wall…to where she knew he’d be standing. The instant they made eye contact, her heart began to pound. She’d been coming to the store for over a year and yet every time she saw him, she felt a wave of emotion roil within.
“What are you doing here so early?” he asked.
“Hey Patrick,” she replied. “My friends are visiting. I wanted them to try your great cooking.”
Patrick leaned against the corner of the refrigerated case housing the various homemade salads and lunch meat. “The specials are on the board.”
Chelsea and Ally looked up at the menu, but Cass couldn’t take her focus off of Patrick.
He flexed his muscles. “The Giants are playing tonight.”
Transfixed by the contours of his forearms and biceps, she hadn’t heard what he’d said. “Pardon me?”
He cocked his head to the side and smiled. “Football. My team is on tonight.”
“Oh,” she replied. She looked down at the floor. A surge of heat swept across her face. She had to stop making a fool of herself. She wasn’t a teenager.
“We’re ready to order,” Chelsea said.
Cass’s nerves continued to jumble. She needed air. As Ally and Chelsea gave Patrick their orders, she fled to the coffee stand in the back of the store.
Her hands trembled as she poured herself a cup. Why couldn’t she control herself? Patrick was a young man. She was at least seven years his senior. More importantly, she was engaged. She poured a sugar packet into the coffee cup. She had to stop this infatuation. She had to force away the images of what it would be like to kiss his lips.
“Cass,” Ally whispered from behind. “I can understand why you’ve got yourself in a tizzy over this guy. Who wouldn’t?”
Sandy Nicks grew up surrounded by family members who loved to read, write, dance and draw. Her dad enjoyed writing, her mom was a voracious reader, her aunt was a Rockette in the 1930’s and her sister and grandmother loved to draw portraits and landscapes. In a house filled with laughter and creativity, she found her passion for writing after realizing she couldn’t dance or draw a stick figure. Her grandmother taught her to read at a very young age and it was her grandmother’s made-up bedtime tales that Sandy says sparked her creative flame and inspired her to tell her own stories.
In 1993, she joined Romance Writers of America and the New Jersey Romance Writers. She served on the NJRW board for many years in various positions. The friendships formed and the support provided by NJRW and RWA are invaluable and very dear to her heart.
Her publishing credits include a short romantic story (written under the name Sandy Ferguson) in the 1999 anthology Romance Recipes for the Soul by Pisces Press Publishing, greeting card copy, newsletters and freelance pieces.
In 2008, Falling for Autumn won first place in the Celtic Hearts Romance Writers “Golden Claddaugh” contest in the Mainstream with Romantic Elements category.
Sandy grew up in northern NJ, but spent childhood summers in SeasideHeights with her family. She currently resides close to the Jersey shore with her family and many spoiled pets, but says it won’t be close enough until she has an office with a beautiful view of the ocean.
She wrote Falling for Autumn with the belief that love and a sense of humor go hand-in-hand. Falling for Autumn is Book 1 in the Sisters for All Seasons Series, Crazy Days of Summer is Book 2, and A New Trend for Spring is Book 3, to be published in 2011.
Her newly released Circle of Eternity, is a time travel romance, with elements of her signature style subtle humor.
Jess Brennan sat at her desk in NewsLink's Atlanta headquarters and gathered her long, black hair into a twist. Grimacing, she held the thick hair in place with the brace around her left arm and fastened a clip through the curly mass with her right hand. A few wisps worked free and lay against her neck but she ignored the sensation of ants crawling across her skin when those hairs shifted. Experience had taught her trying to fix the problem would drive her nuts for hours. Casually dressed in jeans, a gauze shirt with a keyhole pattern embroidered around the V neckline and sturdy boots, she tried to relax but found that impossible.
Her heart pounded with excitement and fear, a mixed reaction she always had when coming to her now safe workplace. Most of the staff had the day off, to prepare for Thanksgiving tomorrow. She had no such plans. No thanks were in her life; not after everything fell apart while trying to make a career as a freelance reporter by tackling a project destined to destroy everything she held dear. Six months ago, greed and corruption exploded in her hometown, taking her family in one unsolved murder after another and destroying her trust in the man she had loved since eighth grade. Since recovering from injuries sustained in a fight for her life, she continued the explosive series responsible for exposing the corruption and bringing about the murders in an effort to stop her crusade, but at too high a cost. Her parents, older brother, and grandmother now lay in graves but Jess had no time to mourn them; she put all her skills and energy into bringing justice to a North Georgia town.
"Seventy five times," Jess whispered. "Why? There's been no activity for months. Why now?"
Quiet footsteps approached her cubicle. Jess had no worries about the men responsible for her flight and the deaths of her family finding her. They would never get inside NewsLink, not without a warrant, and she already had an escape route planned. No one would ever make her go back to Landry, Georgia; not even Troy Andros, the man she still loved with all her heart.
KC Sprayberry lives with her husband and youngest child in LaFayette, Georgia, but was born and raised in the Los Angeles basin. She also has a reformed but loving barn cat to keep her company and scrape his whiskers across her bare foot just when she is at a very tense plot moment. Her love of writing dates back to the day she received a diary for her thirteenth birthday and she learned the beauty of the written word, often jotting down ideas or stories on whatever scrap of paper she has available. For more than a decade in the Air Force, she used her writing skills daily in the course of her duties and then as an administrative assistant with a company providing support crews for Antarctic researchers. After settling in her adopted hometown, KC took writing courses through The Institute of Children's Literature and Writer's Digest. She sold her first short story while still doing course work and a dozen others over the next few years. Her middle grade tale, BD Bradford and The No-Sock Brigade, took third place in the 2004 Frontiers in Writing Juvenile Novel competition. Both the unusual and silly fire her imagination.
A thriving Southerner transplanted from the frenetic bustle of California, she is enmeshed deeply in her tight-knit community. After years of big cities and bustling Air Force bases, she enjoys a community where everyone waves at everyone else and children play outside without worry. She and her husband live in a fixer upper home with a kitchen that can only be described as quaint, where she experiments with recipes or packages the products from her many pear and fig trees or the excess bounty from her in-law's vegetable garden. Adding to the charm of her home, more than hundred year old trees rise above everything to provide shade while birds give not only color to the surroundings but also delight as they go about their routine. It is not unusual to hear a whippoorwill calling in the night or see deer feeding on her lawn with their young or a badger waddling from den to a tree to a rock. Squirrels, wild turkey, and the occasional fox inspire her muse when taking a break.
KC has a running commentary on her latest writing project or whatever else piques her interest at http://outofcontrolcharacters.blogspot.com. She welcomes comments from followers or the occasional fellow writer that stumbles across her ramblings.
The machine was a confusion of buttons: warm wash/warm rinse, warm wash/cold rinse, cold wash/cold rinse, hot wash/warm rinse, hot wash/cold rinse. Water level: low, medium, high. Then there were the little cups where the detergent, bleach, and fabric softener were supposed to go, but the illustration on the machine’s lid didn’t look a thing like the cups on the machine itself. Did it matter if the detergent went in the fabric softener cup? Would it work if he didn’t use bleach?
The machine in his condo was old, but at least he knew how to use it. The buttons were labeled darks, whites, colors. He had no idea what temperature the water was for each setting, but his clothes always came out clean. But washing his living room curtains had been a bad idea, because they got all tangled up in the agitator and broke it, and getting Sears to come out to repair it had been one frustration after another. He called the service number on their Website and got a call center in Mumbai, where a polite young woman who said her name was Elaine—as if anyone in Mumbai was really named Elaine—requested his Zip code so she could direct him to the correct service representative, then informed him that according to their records, there was no such Zip code, so she was unable to help him. He’d called three different times and gotten three different Elaines before giving up and calling a local independent repairman who said his name, ironically enough, was Narhari, even though he sounded a whole lot more American than Elaine from Mumbai. Narhari said he could come outa week from next Thursday to fix the machine. So here he was, standing in the Duds ′n Suds Laundromat, a roll of quarters clutched in his fist and a bewildered expression on his face, wondering if he looked as idiotic as he felt.
“You want warm/cold, high water for your jeans.” A slender arm reached around him; a slightly arthritic-looking finger with chipped hot pink nail polish pushed the buttons on the washer. “You pour the detergent in the cup on the left. The fabric softener cup doesn’t work on this particular machine, so you’ll want to watch for the rinse-cycle light to come on before adding it.”
She stepped around from behind him and in front of the washer where he’d put his whites. “This one, you want hot wash/cold rinse. It’s only half full, so set it to medium. And your colored shirts here in this one, you want warm/cold again.”
Again, he stared. His guardian angel of the laundry looked about his age, early fifties maybe, but at the same time, she looked like she’d just stepped out of the 1960s. Her hair, streaked with gray, hung halfway down her back. Lime green flip-flops on darkly tanned feet peeked out from beneath her tie-dyed floor-length skirt, and as she bent over the machines and pushed buttons, her scoop-necked tank top gaped just enough to give him a whisper of a glimpse of what curved beneath. She smelled of vanilla and nutmeg. Like a Snickerdoodle cookie, he thought.
She turned to him and smiled. “They won’t bite you. Really. They’re just machines.” She pointed to the coin slot on a machine. “You put in a buck and a quarter, then shut the lid. It’ll start automatically.”
Smoky Trudeau is the author of two novels, Redeeming Graceand The Cabin, and two nonfiction books especially for writers: Front-Word, Back-Word, Insight Out: Lessons on Writing the Novel Lurking Inside You From Start to Finish; andLeft Brained, Write Brained: 366 Writing Prompts and Exercises to Free Your Creative Spirit, Awaken Your Muse, And Challenge Your Skills Every Day of the Year, all from Vanilla Heart Publishing. She has published short stories and poetry in literary journals such as CALYX and online e-zines such as Smashed Ink, and was a 2003 Pushcart Prize nominee.
An ardent outdoorswoman with a deep reverence for nature, Smoky’s newly released book, Observations of an Earth Mage, is a collection of prose, poetry, and photography celebrating the fragile beauty of our planet. She is also nearing completion of her third novel, The Storyteller’s Bracelet.
Smoky spent many years teaching writing workshops at several community colleges throughout her former home state of Illinois, where she was also a frequent speaker at writers conferences and book fairs.
Finally succumbing to her bohemian spirit and need to live near the mountains and the ocean, Smoky moved to Southern California in 2008, where she lives with her husband and daughter in a ramshackle cottage in the woods overlooking the San GabrielValley and the San Gabriel Mountains beyond. When she isn’t writing, she spends her time hiking in the mountains, camping in the Sierras, splashing in tidepools, and fighting the urge to speak in haiku.
Elizabeth Lambert pulled back the flowered curtains and watched the sunrise, the first she’d witnessed without her beloved Michael. She closed her eyes and wished she could see him walking toward the house wearing his Navy uniform.
The door to the bedroom creaked open. Her younger sister, Rose, walked in, wrapped in a pink robe.
“I thought I heard you walking around in here.”
“Couldn’t sleep. I just can’t believe….he’s actually gone.”
“Maybe he’s still alive. It’s possible.”
Elizabeth looked away from the window and gave a half smile. “Part of me feels he’s still is, but then I tell myself there’s no way he could have survived the crash.” She turned her attention to the right corner of the room, where an oak crib rested.
Tears trickled down her face. “Michael never even knew. I didn’t go to the doctor until after he got drafted into the war. I thought about writing him, but what man wants to find out he’s a father through a letter?”
The baby, Clara, gave out a cry. Elizabeth walked across the room and picked the baby up, cradling her in her arms.
“It just crossed my mind that Clara will never get the chance to be held by her father.”
“Here let me take her.” Rose reached out as if to take the baby from Elizabeth.
“No, she needs to be fed.”
Elizabeth sat down in the rocking chair, next to the bed. Michael had built it for her birthday three years ago. She unbuttoned her pale green nightgown letting her daughter drink from her breast.
“I should go and help Ma get started on breakfast. Will you be okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Rose left, shutting the door behind her. Elizabeth rocked, thinking about the day Michael died.”
***
Two months ago in this very rocking chair, she was knitting Clara a blanket, when a truck pulled up to the house.
There was no need for her to go to the window to see who was outside. She recognized the sound of the Michael’s truck; the truck his father has been driving since he went to war.
Elizabeth went downstairs because she was worried about not hearing from Michael for several weeks.
From the expression on his face, she knew something awful had happened to Michael.
Elizabeth rose and carefully placed Clara back in the crib.
Michael’s last letter sat on top of the cupboard. She picked it up and began reading it.
March 19, 1943
My Dearest Love,
I received your letter last week. I was so happy to hear from you. Your letter put a smile on my face. I’m so happy that you’re waiting for me to come home. Knowing this helps me get through the days. I love you so much! I wish every night that you could be in my arms, so I can hold and protect you. I miss you so much! Not a minute goes by that I don’t think about you. I love you. As soon as I get home, I want us to pick a date to say our vows to one another.
Billy Burgess, Author & Book Reviewer, is a multipublished author andhis pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in magazines/ezines such as STORIES FOR CHILDREN, MY LIGHT MAGAZINE, LONG STORY SHORT, SFC NEWSLETTER FOR WRITERS, POPCORN MAGAZINE, YA LITERATURE REVIEW AND ONCE UPON A TIME.
His Website, Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer, is home to reviews, news, ‘ramblings of a coffee addicted writer’; http://ramblingsofacoffeeaddictedwrter.blogspot.com/
