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Subject: We Won, We Won!
Content Advisory! This message contains profanity
Here are the exceprts I posted at the NaNo site (with a few minor edits - there's always edits, it seems).
Excerpt 1, my opening line...
It's days like these that make me want to quit this job.
Excerpt 2, from Chapter 13...
Angie's fishing license arrived on Monday. I drove by my apartment and there was no sign of mine. What the Hell? Sometimes life is just not fair. Monday night we packed up the Brougham. I managed not to gloat when Angie expressed amazement at how much room we had left after everything except the coolers was stowed away. We'd put the coolers in last thing before we left.
On Tuesday morning we went to the Post Office to have our mail stopped, picked up some ice and waited for school to let out. I fretted about my fishing license, and now Angie told me it was I who worried too much. “It'll be there,” she assured me. “You ordered yours two days before me.”
At two thirty we put the coolers, and Casey, in the car and headed out to pick up Steve. Steve, and the rest of his class, came out carrying the remaining contents of their desks, and their final science projects. In Steve's case, that meant a Styrofoam and tissue roll scale model of the International Space Station, a monstrosity that took up half the back seat. We moved Casey to the front seat between us, and headed back to Angie's to unload the beast. The good news was that he got an A on it.
After that delay we swung by my apartment to check the mail and to ask Janet Fuller, my first floor neighbor, to keep an eye on the place over the week. I was outraged to find my mailbox empty.
“Well, Hell. Now what am I going to do?” I blustered.
“Maybe they stopped your mail today,” Angie offered. The stop order was to begin tomorrow. “Or maybe he's just not been here yet?”
We went down to Apartment A, Janet's place, to check out that theory. After a moment the door swung open and a vivacious blond popped into the opening. When she saw who it was she smiled broadly, casting Angie a curious glance. “Well, hi Mr. Mann! How are you!” Then she looked down and saw Casey, who was wagging his tail furiously. “And how's my favorite puppy!” She squatted down and heaped loads of admiration on my gimpy dog. I wished she hadn't. Her current position exposed an abundance of cleavage. Angie rolled her eyes.
“Hey, Janet, has the mail come yet?” I asked.
She looked up, but continued to pet my dog. “The mail? Oh yeah. I got a bunch of stupid catalogs. Why don't they just give it up? I mean, who uses catalogs anymore when you can shop on-line?”
“The idiots stopped my mail,” I said in an aside to Angie. “Isn't that great.”
Thankfully, Janet stood up, though she reached down repeatedly to scratch Casey's ears. Each reach was a near violation.
“Listen, Janet. We're going on vacation...”
“Oh yeah? Where ya going?” She looked from me to Angie, smiling equally to both.
“Uh, got a cabin...”
“Oooh. I just love the mountains.”
“It's not in the mountains,” Angie snipped. I could almost sense her claws extending.
“Oh, well, on the beach?” Janet asked.
“Ah, no. Actually, it's a place called Piedmont Paradise. It's over near Lockhart.” She seemed to be trying to puzzle out where Lockhart was. “Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, so you can sort of keep an eye on the place for me. We'll be gone a week.”
“Sure thing, Mr. Mann. Don't worry. If anything comes up, I've got a key.” I grit my teeth. I could sense Angie boring holes in the back of my skull with her eyes.
“Ah, you shouldn't need to go in. Just keep an eye out for any activity.”
“Won't I need to feed Casey, and let him out?”
“Oh, no. Casey's coming with us.” She looked a little disappointed and squatted down to give Casey some more affectionate rubs. “I'll miss my little Casey,” she said in that God awful voice people use on animals. Then she stood up again with a big smile, and said she'd take care of everything while we were gone. “Have fun!” she beamed as we turned to leave, then gave Steve a friendly rumple on the head. As we approached the car Angie furiously combed out Steve's hair with her bare fingers.
“She has a key?” Angie asked icily as she slammed her door shut.
“She let's Casey out if I'm tied up on a case,” I tried to explain.
“She seems awfully accommodating.” Angie's fists were curled into tight little balls.
“Well, she damned well ought to be,” I countered, getting a little annoyed. “She's the one who foisted him off on me in the first place, after all. She ought to feel a little obligation.”
“How old is she?”
“What difference does that make? Angie, honey, believe me. There is nothing going on between me and Janet. She takes care of my dog sometimes. That's it.”
“Humph.” She turned to glare out the window.
I sat there, with the car idling. “Listen, baby. You either trust me, or you don't. Should we go to the Post Office to get my fishing license, or should we just go back to your place and unpack the damned car?”
She sat there in silence for a moment. Finally she muttered, “Go to the Post Office.”
I slid the car into drive.
We didn't talk at all the whole way there. Then, when we got to the Post Office we learned that they had not stopped my mail after all. I simply hadn't gotten any, and arguing with the postal clerk wasn't going to change that. Man, this vacation was getting off to a great start.
Excerpt 3, from Chapter 23...
Friday morning dawned bright and clear. “Looks like a great day for another hike,” I suggested to Angie, bound and determined to keep her off the tennis courts.
“You don't think the trails will still be muddy?”
“Oh, they had all day yesterday to dry out. According to this brochure, there is an old Indian archaeological site up on the East-slope Trail. Dates from about 1100 BC.”
“That sounds interesting. Are you up to it? I mean, your back...”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Well, OK. That sounds good.” She looked over my shoulder to peruse the map and brochure. “That's a lot further than the overlook was. I better pack a little lunch.”
We were out on the trail by 8:00, never having to go near the lodge.
This time we headed out from the south-east trail head. Once we crossed the road to the primitive camping area the trail plunged into the forest and started steeply upward. Fortunately wooden steps, similar to the ones at the overlook, traversed the steepest slopes. This trail was much more challenging than the Overlook Trail, and we were soon all huffing a puffing.
“Oh, look, a bench!” Angie topped yet another set of stairs and plopped down on a hewn log bench to take a breather. I plopped down right next to her. “Maybe... this afternoon... we can do... something... a little less strenuous,” she suggested.
“How's that day trip to the gold mine sound?” I asked her.
She looked at me and grinned, shaking her head.
“What?”
“I know what you're up to, Mr. Mann.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Look, Max. Either you trust me, or you don't. There is absolutely nothing going on between me and Derek,” she mocked.
“What!”
“Come on, jealous,” she said getting back to her feet. “We have to catch up to Steve and Casey.”
The trail eventually wend its way right to the summit of Mount Steedman. We knew that by the little brass plaque mounted on a piece of granite, within a stones throw of the cell tower. It proclaimed our altitude to be a whopping 537 feet above sea level. “Not exactly Mount Kilimanjaro, is it?” Angie quipped.
“I wonder if I can get a signal here?” I dug out my cell phone. Angie laughed out loud.
“Of course you can, you big goof. We're standing right next to a cell phone tower.”
“It's not operational,” I told her as I turned on my phone.
“You're kidding?”
“Nope.” I looked down at my phone and frowned. “Well, I've got a signal. Just barely.”
“Oh well,” Angie replied. “We're on vacation. Who do we need to call, anyway. Besides, we have a phone in the cabin, if there's an emergency.”
“Yeah, but the surcharges.”
Angie looked ahead to where Steve and Casey were wandering. “Well, cheer up Max. Looks like it's all downhill from here.” We set out again, following Casey's lead.
“OK, that's the Summit Trail,” I concluded after consulting the map. “We turn left here.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I'm sure. That way would just take us back to the lodge.” I traced the little dotted lines on the map for her.
“OK, left it is.”
We continued on downhill. Soon we came to another fork in the trail. Once again I consulted the map.
“Well, that way would take us back to Bridal Falls,” I pointed to the right. “We need to go left again.”
Unfortunately the downhill pitch ended with the left turn. Now we started hiking up and down little ravines, these apparently not long or steep enough to be deemed worthy of stairs. Each uphill climb got progressively worse. After about three of these Angie called for a stop, and we found an old log to sit down on.
“No more benches,” she observed. “Hey, Steve, how about some lunch?” she called out to her son, who was once again well ahead of us. He turned back, bringing Casey with him. We sat on the log, sharing an occasional bite of ham and cheese with Casey, and cupping our hands to give him a drink.
“We need to bring a bowl next time,” I said.
“Next time!” Angie snorted, pushing a lank lock of hair out of her face. “What next time? Shouldn't we be there by now?”
I looked at the map, trying to judge distances. There had not been a mile marker in quite a while. “I guess we ought to be there soon,” I said.
“If we're not lost,” Angie quipped.
“Are we lost?” Steve asked, looking both worried and excited at the same time.
“No, sport, we are not lost,” I insisted. “The Indian site should be coming up real soon now.”
We packed away our stuff and headed out again. We had not been walking more than two minutes when Angie called out to me. “Hey, Chief! Take a look at this.”
I turned around to see her standing in the middle of the trail, feet firmly planted, hands on hips.
“What?”
“Come 'ere.” She gave a little jerk of the head, a wry smile playing across her lips.
I walked back to where she stood.
“Well, you were right,” she informed me. “We are not lost. This is it.”
“Huh?”
“The great Indian Archaeological site,” she explained, and pointed down to the side of the trail.
There, almost completely obscured by the overgrowth, was another block of granite bearing a brass placard. It read,
"This monument marks the site of a late Archaic Period Native American settlement, dating from approximately 1100 BC. Pottery and stonework artifacts uncovered from this site during the 1929 Smith – Wesslian expedition can be seen on display in the lobby of Steedman Lodge, and at the Clemson Museum of Natural Sciences, in Clemson, South Carolina. Monument erected – 1959"
Angie broke down into a fit of snorts and giggles. “Next time you're jealous, Mr. Mann, just kill the son-of-a-bitch, would you?”
Of course we could not leave the site of my mortification without some pictures to capture memories of our great archaeological outing. Angie had Steve stand on the stone, then had Steve sit on the stone while petting Casey. Even I finally agreed to have my picture taken in front of the damned thing, convinced the prints would be used for blackmail sometime in the future. When Angie had finally finished rubbing it in we headed off, continuing on in the same direction we had been going. We eventually hit the horse trail, and took that down to the same road where we had been intercepted by Markus on our first day out. Then we followed that back to the lodge. Just as we were dragging into lodge parking lot Derek came sauntering around the corner and stopped short at the site of Angie.
“Oh, hi Angie.” He gave her a big smile while at the same time giving me a dismissive look. “Up for another round of tennis this afternoon?”
“Oh, I'm sorry Derek, but I've already got plans for this afternoon.” Angie answered. Derek looked disappointed.
“Well, some other time then?”
“Yeah, maybe,” Angie answered noncommittally.
“What plans do you have for this afternoon?” I asked under my breath as we walked away.
Angie laughed and wrapped an arm around my waist. “Anything but another hike, Mr. Mann. Anything at all.”
~jon
My Blog - Mad
Utopia Writing in a new era.
Hopefully we can corrupt more people next year.
Shanna :-)
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Forgive me for bragging, but three of us here at Rendie did the NaNoWriMo insanity test this month, and we’re all certifiable, err, I mean we all won! Shoshanna, phoenixwaller and I all signed up to write a complete novel of at least 50,000 words in one months time and we’ve all been verified as NaNo winners. Of course now comes the hard part, editing those puppies and perhaps even submitting them to publishers. I know I intend to send mine out. Congratulations Shoshanna and phoenixwaller. Hope to see you both at next year’s NaNo.
~jon
~jon
My Blog - Mad Utopia Writing in a new era.