WRITING: NANOWRIMO 2022
Naked Truths
American Kingdom: Day 3
Previous chapter:
“Molly, can I come in now?”
Marion — of course — and while I had been doing nothing but feeling sorry for myself she had changed out of her bike-riding clothes into a casual round-the-house dress that looked like nothing much but probably cost more than I made in a week if I could sneak a peak at the label, opened a bottle of something bright and bubbly, and poured a generous amount into two glasses.
She handed one to me, and then tilted hers. We clinked and I took an appreciative sip.
My God. It was all I could do to keep from draining the glass. Instead I enjoyed the fizzing in my mouth. Bubbly in a bubble bath. How decadent!
“That man of mine!”
“What?”
“You’ll see. Champagne is only the start of it.”
Champagne? Wow.
“Drink up. This is from friends of ours in California. They make wine and they are very good at it.”
I didn’t know they made champagne outside France at all, but hey, what did I know about wine except that it dulled the pain?
I took another gulp, admiring the way the tiny bubbles streamed up the sides of the glass, lifting my spirits as they rose.
“You’re really a lawyer?”
“Guilty.”
“And you’re my lawyer?”
“You paid me a dollar, remember?”
Had I? I thought payment went the other way in the tour guide business. Marion must have picked up on my puzzlement.
“When we left the powder room, you gave me a dollar, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
I took another sip of my champagne. “Don’t lawyers usually cost more than a buck? Um, no offense.”
“Depends on the client. Once I work out how wealthy you are, I’ll adjust my scale accordingly.”
She leaned back — on the appropriate seat — and contemplated me.
“You’re not a millionaire or something, are you?”
I considered my financial situation. A few thousand dollars in the bank, balanced by about the same on my credit card. Personal belongings were pretty much what was stacked up in the small second bedroom of this Airbnb. Plus my bicycle downstairs.
Everything else was tied up in the business. The Covid years had been tough. We had a little operating money, a van, two dozen or so bikes and assorted spares, a couple of computers. Some furniture and appliances. The earnings basically paid the rent on a shop below and apartment above and anything extra we split between ourselves and the business. Fees, insurance, advertising: it all added up.
We were never going to get rich running bicycle tours, but we were happy. At least up until a few hours ago.
I shrugged. “Not stony broke, but not far off. If we sold up, we’d get maybe ten thousand bucks apiece. Plus goodwill, whatever that’s worth.”
“So Ted’s got the money?”
“Huh. He’s broker’n I am.”
“Hmmm. Partnership agreement?”
“Standard. We had an attorney draw up all the paperwork, register the business name with the city, all that stuff. Package deal, cost us a thousand apiece. If one wants to leave, the other may agree to buy out their share of whatever the business is worth, less five thousand. If it’s mutual, we sell up and split fifty-fifty.”
She pointed the bottle towards me. I held out the wineglass and she topped me up before filling hers.
“My professional opinion, for what it’s worth, is that your best bet is to go back, patch things up with Ted if you can or mutually wind it up and sell out if you can’t. Anything else is going to cost you money you don’t have, and if you lawyer up he’ll do likewise and you’ll both end up with nothing and most likely even more debt.
“My personal opinion is that you’d be foolish to trust a partner who isn’t worthy. However, I can’t look into your heart or his and what you need there is a relationship counsellor, not an attorney.
“And,” she held up a finger, “If you don’t mind me saying so, it seems that you’ve spent a few years spinning your wheels. Having a good time here in this beautiful city, but in the grand scheme of things, surely you are wasting your talents? What do you say when Saint Peter asks you how you have spent your time on earth?”
That I was a good citizen, I generally obeyed the law, I served my country, and…
“I taught a lot of people about the history of Charleston. I gave them things to think about, like respect for the law and human dignity, that we all have our parts to play in society, that we can create beautiful things and work wonders if we put our minds to it.”
That was the champagne talking, for sure. The sort of late-night discussions Ted and I might have, looking out at the dark waters, a couple of Jack Daniels and maybe a toke of something else on board.
Marion said she couldn’t look into my heart, but she must have been mistaken.
“And have you?”
I hunkered down in the suds.
“Sometimes,” Marion went on after a pause where it was plain that I wasn’t going to answer, “we come to crossroads in our lives. Let me tell you about mine.”
I listened while she talked. The water was losing its heat and the bubbles were going down so but on the plus side I could feel my aches and scrapes diminish as the wine kicked in.
Marion talked about her childhood, good grades in school, a liberal arts college, meeting a handsome young navy pilot, raising children in cramped married quarters, and pretty much doing her duty as an officer’s wife until one day…
“It was a drunk driver. My three were crossing the road when he blew through the red light. They all ran, but my little Emma ran the wrong way.”
“Oh Marion, I am so sorry to hear this.”
She shook her head. “It was a long time ago and my girl is surely with the Lord now. It was hard at the time, very hard. They caught him and he went to trial but they let him go when his lawyer was better than the State’s attorney. He had money, you see, and there was some fake medical doctor stood up in court and lied his soul away.”
She took a long pull on her glass. It was nearly empty and so was the bottle.
“My little girl was gone, that rich man was free to walk into a bar and do it again, and the State said they had no grounds to appeal. I stood up in church and vowed that I would follow the law, help others like me, and well, get rich too.”
“And you did?”
“I did. It’s easy to say it like that when it took years and years of hard work but every time I faltered I’d hear my Emma in my prayers telling me to keep going, and if she had faith in me, then I had to just knuckle down and keep on. It happened, one thing led to another, and here I am, here we are.”
She split the last drops of champagne between us, and dipped her hands in the water.
“Getting cool now. How do you feel?”
I was glowing with the alcohol.
“Much better, thank you.”
“Let me take a look at that elbow.”
I held it out for her. I noticed that there was nothing much between me and her but a few shallow drifts of fragrant bubbles. I was ex-Ranger. You lose any idea of personal modesty when there are thirty women in a platoon sharing sleeping quarters, showers, latrines, all under the urgent shouts of NCOs to hurry it up, Princess.
Still, I didn’t want to shock her.
“Nicely scabbed up. I’ll put something on it when you’re decent, keep it clean.”
“Oh, I can do that, they taught us basic medical aid in Rangers. Just need a few things from my bag.”
“We can do it together. Oh, I was wondering, why did you leave the Army? That’s a good career right there, doing useful work for your country, learning practical skills, seeing the world, building a pension.”
“Oh, like I told Brian, I got out after they elected Obama. I didn’t like the direction he was taking us.”
“Why, because he’s Black?”
Only she didn’t say Black. She used a word I won’t repeat. I’ve served with too many Black soldiers to stand for that. I stood up.
“That’s not acceptable. I’m disappointed in you.”
Well, I didn’t use those exact words.
She wasn’t listening anyway. She let out a scream when I stood up.
Her eyes were fixed on the front of my body.
“Oh, Dear Lord!” she gasped.
The door sprang open and there was Brian, a gun in his hand.
She rounded on her husband. “Get out! Get out right now! Have you no common decency, man?”
He got out, but his jaw was hanging open. He’d gotten a good eyeful.
I reached for my robe. I was heading out. I had a few friends who could put me up for the night.
“Molly, Molly, stop!” Marion was holding her hands out. “I don’t use that word. I just wanted to test you.”
“Test me? Test me? What the fuck for?”
“Forgive me, dear. I was clumsy. And drunk. I always try to sound out people in the South. I won’t have anything to do with simple-minded racists, and that’s the one sure test. For what it’s worth, you passed.”
“I’ll stay. For the night. But I’m leaving tomorrow.”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry. I was stupid. And I’m sorry I screamed. I just wasn’t expecting, you know, that.”
“My scar?”
It was impressive. It began in my pubes, went north over my belly, split into two between my breasts, and each fork ended at the point of a shoulder. I didn't wear too many low-cut tops.
“Yes, you must have been hurt terribly.”
I shook my head. “Post-mortem cut. Didn’t feel a thing until I woke up.”
Next chapter:
The whole thing, chapter by chapter, in progress:
Daily notes: I’m using Medium as my primary writing surface. I have a (paper) notebook to jot down thoughts and I’m dumping the raw text into Scrivener to keep a backup and a place to work on revising it — which it will surely need!
Scrivener has a NaNoWriMo template and I can just copy and past a day’s work into the “Daily Target” container and it counts the words and lets me know how I’m going.
I’ve published my Google Sheets word count document and that lets me know how I’m tracking. positive but barely so right now.
Plotwise, this is beat two of this guide:
Medium-wise, I’m putting in a fair bit of effort to get to a hundred followers so that I can join the partner program and earn a few cents from all this writing. The upside of this is that there are a lot of interesting writers to follow and articles to read. More story fodder!
This chapter brought out a few surprises for me. My characters are beginning to come alive.
