Wherein I subject you to more of my fiction

Blogging is great. Blogging is fun. But blogging is not my Number One.

Fiction has always been my thing. (See my right sidebar in which I am a complete braggart.) Fiction has been my thang ever since Seventh Grade when Mr. Regentin heaped so much praise on my little stories and essays that I decided, Hey, I like when people say nice things about my words! I want to be a writer!

Though somehow, and it's still a bit of a mystery to me how this happened, once I graduated from Michigan State with a Journalism degree, I became a graphic designer. 

So, except for lunch breaks at coffee shops where I would write furiously for one hour, my fiction took a backseat. A third row seat, in fact.

And then came marriage and kids and you all know what that can do to professional hopes and dreams. Fiction moved to the back of the bus.

Now, though, the kids are in school. And I have nine to twelve hours a week. 

Sure, I spend a lot of that time vacuuming and folding laundry and hiding Hama beads so they don't get shoved up any nostrils. But I spend a good chunk of it typing away on my laptop too.

Stacy, from Mama-Om, has been critiquing me. She's amazing. She's pointed out places where my plot buckles and gapes. She's constructively suggested character tweaks that I never would've seen myself. All on her own time (which she does not have much of).

And I. I've been revising my ass off.

If something doesn't eventually come of this project I've been working on for almost 9 years, I will submerge myself in a bean bag chair and weep for several weeks on end. Or, more likely, I'll keep plugging away at short stories. Because I'm resilient like that. And I'm a little like an overeager, mouth-breathing teenage boy trying to feel up the publishing world.

I'm not sure I even know when to give up on this thing. I've been rejected by agents, but my reject letters seem to suggest that the manuscript is just a bit Off. And that it is fixable. And Good Golly, if it's fixable, I'm damn well going to do my best to fix it. Because...9 years.

My first chapter is over there in the sidebar.

Here's my second. If I don't at least get a blog post out of this tome of mine, then I don't care if we do eventually collide with Venus. Bring it on Milky Way!

The Goodness of Meredith Beam (which I'm considering renaming The Mating Habits of Fireflies)

Chapter 2

Our boat drifts to the perimeter of our willow harborage and branches graze our hair and click against the outside of the hull. I reach over and pull in the anchor. Water streams onto my feet and puddles beneath us.

            He says, “I’ve been smitten with you for quite a while.”

            Smitten sounds so unlike a word he would choose that I laugh.

            Steering us into open water, he asks, “Do you want to go to the lake? Or back to ma’s?”

            Considering how much safer it will be out there surrounded by houses, docks and jet skis, I say, “The lake.”

            Brian rows for a long time, until he sweats and starts muttering, “Fuckin’ oar.” We switch places, the boat wobbling as we skirt each other, he holding my elbows and me struggling to retain my footing.

            I take the handles, feeling strong and fresh. The boat is heavy with Brian’s weight, but I row hard, throwing my body into every pull, burning off my sudden carnal vivacity. I love the hollow clunk the oarlocks make as they rotate and the small splashes as the paddles hit water. The lake, when we finally get there, is an endless expanse compared to the narrow river. It is wide and turquoise, rippling and gleaming. In the distance, small powerboats and, indeed, jet skis scream back and forth.

            Houses of different sizes and stature edge the circumference, some set back with giant lawns stretching down to the water and some stuck almost on the shore with piers running up to the front doors. Most of the structures would be considered cottages: square and single-story with screened porches. But the newer houses are palatial multi-winged sprawls with massive skylights and great, curving decks.

            We are small there, just a tiny aluminum speck lurching along under a sky so hot it is full of frothy haze.

            I take a break, lifting the oars into the boat. I list over the rim, looking for fish, but all I see is deep, dark green. All I hear is the slap of water against our bow.

            Brian has leaned back on his hands. He says, “This is peace.”

            I do not feel peace. I exist inside mental pandemonium whose only saving grace is that I am able to forget what is happening, or not, between Jay and me. Almost forget there had once been lovely, little babies inside me, that my father is a selfish ass and that a Martin Van Amber ever existed.

            The day before, Jay moved about Leola’s house with the precision of a soldier gathering provisions for battle. He didn’t say much and when he did, it was usually to ask where his tennis shoes or glasses were.

            Leola stalked around the house too, her hair in the pin curls I secured the night before. She wore a sleeveless dress covered in shiny, beaded cabbage roses. She looked glumly down at herself. “Is this okay?” she asked. Alternate outfits dangled from her forearm. “What should I wear?”

            “Anything,” I said, looking up from the Today show, which I had started watching only because it was always on. “Anything, really. I’m sure people won’t be dressed up.” I felt sorry for her. The rehab facility we decided on is in Standish, Michigan—a tiny Lake Huron community. Not Betty Ford. Definitely nowhere she would need fancy clothes.

            I went into our bedroom, where Jay was bent over at the waist, tying his shoes. For the third time, I asked, “Do you want me to go?”

            All he said was, “I only slept two hours last night.”

            I sat on the bed. “Why only two hours?”

            Strapping on his watch, Jay said, “Don’t know. I couldn’t shut off my mind.”

            I flopped back onto the mattress and looked up at the water-damaged ceiling: brown spots puddled above the bed and near the window. I imagined the sheetrock collapsing on us some night. I didn’t want to die in that house. “We’ll be so much better once we’re out of here. I know it,” I said. “Once your mom gets the drugs out of her system.”

            Jay shoved his wallet and keys in his pocket. The room smelled like his shaving cream. He walked up to where I laid.

            I pushed up onto my elbows. “Bye,” I said.

            “Keep Brian in line.”

            “I won’t let him move from the couch,” I said and grinned.

            A flicker of a smile lit Jay’s face and he was gone.

            Now, I offer Brian food and we eat all of it–the pistachios and grapes and slices of sourdough bread with chunks of cheddar cheese. We drink Cokes, the sun burning our arms and tips of our noses, the current carrying us toward the lake’s center. A ridge of dark clouds is forming to the west.

            Brian finally suggests we head back and I take up the oars and race the oncoming storm.

            We swap places again, at the mouth of the Old Crow. His strokes, after his rest, are long and vigorous, the muscles of his forearms bulging under his skin, and we move quickly, willows and houses whirring by.

            When we first feel rain, I think it is water sloshing up from the paddles. But then it hits my scalp and shoulders. It drips randomly and slowly as Brian deposits us to the grassy bank in front of his mother’s house.

            We scurry onto land, pulling the boat behind us. The rain is coming faster. I gather the apple cores and empty cans into my arms and follow him, jogging, to the basement door.

            Inside, there is the WD-40 smell, the damp, the dusty boxes, goose bumps spreading down my arms and legs, Brian tearing off his shirt, then his pants, reaching for me and pulling me down to the concrete. I arch my back off the frigid floor. “Wait,” I am saying. “Wait.”

            He lifts the upper half of his body and hovers over me. He says, “What?”

            “Can we just wait?”

            He rolls to the side like a stuntman diving over a burning barricade.

            He sits naked, elbows on his knees. His penis sticks straight out, halfway between hard and flaccid. “What?” he asks again, his voice less alarmed and more woebegone.

            I crawl to a dilapidated, box -laden recliner and perch on one skinny arm. My mind has become a hollow basin around which I volley justifications. My husband won’t so much as whisk against me as we sleep in the same small bed in Leola’s house, where we’ve moved for the summer to help her break free of her addiction.

            All I want, really, is for Jay to stop me washing the dishes, or whatever I happen to be doing, look me in the eyes and tell me he respects and appreciates me. Then I want him to pull me to the bed (or the floor or the kitchen table) and make love to me. Just for the fun of it.

            Instead, it has come to this. Synapses in my brain spark and fray with guilt as the phone starts ringing, purring through the walls.

            I cannot cheat on my husband, I think. I am not that kind of person.

            Rain, hard and steady, snaps over the concrete just outside the basement windows.

            Jay’s brother, who has still made no move to dress, says, “I hope we get lightning.”

Comments

[Caitlin]

Hot Diggity Dog! This looks like it is shaping up to be an awesome book! I just stumbled upon your blog a few weeks ago and I am thoroughly enjoying it. You are a very talented writer- keep it up!
-Caitlin
ps. We just moved out to Boise from Seattle last year, and seeing some of your pictures makes me miss it so much! Oh, and I love Chelan too!

[Mrs. G.]

I will print this out this weekend and email you my edit suggestions. Also, have you read Carolyn See's Making a Literary Life...I think it is one of the best writing books out there. I can't read on the computer, but I promise I will get out my red pen and offer you honest opinions.

[apathy lounge]

People ask why I never write fiction. This is why. Because I make up anything like this.

[M]

Interesting story..kept my attention!! That Brian sounds like a sleazeball..be strong Meredith!!! You can do better. Keep writing..where does this go??

[The Introvert]

Your post sounds like me for so many reasons. A teacher who inspired your fiction at such a young age (Mrs. Bradley in 3rd grade), becoming a graphic designer instead, always wanting to write but your passion getting pushed further and further away. And then your story: that hit a nerve as well. You're very talented. Keep on writing!

[Nora Bee]

Woo! Racy! Good work, Angie.

[Kay]

just found your blog and I would so read this book! Hurry up and get it printed! snap-snap!

I'm a prisoner in a world of apple peelings and combine dust. I need a release of the printed kind.

[slouching mom]

Getting to this only now... How lame am I?

I want to read on! That's an excellent sign, isn't it?