Novel Continued...Ruby Leaves.

Ruby leaves. Amelia sighs and looks in the fridge. She puts a piece of cheese inside two dry pieces of bread. She leaves her shoes at the bottom of the staircase and goes up. Cup of tea in one hand. Dry sandwich in the other.

The shoes at the bottom of the stairs was an old family habit. Ruby used to make everyone take off their shoes when they entered. No, not as any sort of spiritual thing. She just didn’t want dirt “tracking her house.” So, almost thirty years later, it was ingrained in Amelia. Ingrained or stained?

She’d never tell Ruby, at Amelia’s home in California, she also makes visitors take off their shoes before entering. Amelia’s greatest fear I that somewhere deep inside, she may have no choice but to be like her mother.

The home is weathered, but solid. Brick and mortar with bay windows all around. As expected, spotless. In fact, from its neurotic cleanliness to the cases of intricately arranged insects on the wall, the house has a kind of sinister dark side of Disney World feel.

Amelia looks in her parents’ bedroom. Antique furniture that wasn’t when her folks bought it. Daddy’s old dresser. She runs her fingers lovingly across the top. And for her trouble, gets…a deep splinter cut. Blood spurts from it. So much for warm fuzzy memories.

She hears something that sounds like a body being dragged across the downstairs floor. Look out. It’s Cleveland dragging her suitcases from the kitchen. His cat, Golddust, walks in between his feet. The feline doges his walk with grace and a lack of concern for safety. Amelia laughs as Kelly ignores Golddust with studied practice.

“You can leave those. I’ll get em,” says Amelia. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”

Cleveland smiles a crafty smile and tosses her hat.

“Oh yes, you are?”

Before Amelia knows it, she and Cleveland are exiting her rented car taxi at the city’s police car impound lot. The lot spreads for miles, a fact that amazes Amelia.

Who would guess that that many scofflaws existed within such a small county? Or that the county would have such a vast property simply covered with cars.

You’d think they’d build a multilevel garage and use the rest of the property for something much less intrusive to one’s eyes than cars that ranged from dented violet Corvettes to burnt out burnt orange Hundi’s.

Novel Continued...Ruby Leaves.

Ruby leaves. Amelia sighs and looks in the fridge. She puts a piece of cheese inside two dry pieces of bread. She leaves her shoes at the bottom of the staircase and goes up. Cup of tea in one hand. Dry sandwich in the other.

The shoes at the bottom of the stairs was an old family habit. Ruby used to make everyone take off their shoes when they entered. No, not as any sort of spiritual thing. She just didn’t want dirt “tracking her house.” So, almost thirty years later, it was ingrained in Amelia. Ingrained or stained?

She’d never tell Ruby, at Amelia’s home in California, she also makes visitors take off their shoes before entering. Amelia’s greatest fear I that somewhere deep inside, she may have no choice but to be like her mother.

The home is weathered, but solid. Brick and mortar with bay windows all around. As expected, spotless. In fact, from its neurotic cleanliness to the cases of intricately arranged insects on the wall, the house has a kind of sinister dark side of Disney World feel.

Amelia looks in her parents’ bedroom. Antique furniture that wasn’t when her folks bought it. Daddy’s old dresser. She runs her fingers lovingly across the top. And for her trouble, gets…a deep splinter cut. Blood spurts from it. So much for warm fuzzy memories.

She hears something that sounds like a body being dragged across the downstairs floor. Look out. It’s Cleveland dragging her suitcases from the kitchen. His cat, Golddust, walks in between his feet. The feline doges his walk with grace and a lack of concern for safety. Amelia laughs as Kelly ignores Golddust with studied practice.

“You can leave those. I’ll get em,” says Amelia. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”

Cleveland smiles a crafty smile and tosses her hat.

“Oh yes, you are?”

Before Amelia knows it, she and Cleveland are exiting her rented car taxi at the city’s police car impound lot. The lot spreads for miles, a fact that amazes Amelia.

Who would guess that that many scofflaws existed within such a small county? Or that the county would have such a vast property simply covered with cars.

You’d think they’d build a multilevel garage and use the rest of the property for something much less intrusive to one’s eyes than cars that ranged from dented violet Corvettes to burnt out burnt orange Hundi’s.

Serialized Novel, Part 7

Amelia walks into the living room. Looks at the family photos in the bookcase. Notices one particular solid brass frame with a photo of a woman in it. Carries it back to the kitchen.

‘Who’s this in this frame,” asks Amelia.

“It’s your cousin, Idolly.”
Amelia’s face darkens discernibly.

“This is the frame I sent to Daddy’s hospital room. With my photo in it.”

Ruby doesn’t even bother to look up.

“The frame you sent was too good for County General Hospital,” says Ruby.
“I switched it and gave him an old one. Somebody woulda’ stole your frame.”

“Apparently somebody did.”

Home five minutes and Ruby’s pulling at her nerves.

But, Ruby’s already dismissed Amelia’s feelings about her father. Amelia wants to dismiss Ruby.

“Aren’t you on your way to the store?” asks Amelia sweetly.

“Oh yes, the commuters will be coming soon. And those construction guys will be wanting some fresh coffee.”

Ruby notices a pea-sized drop of tea spilt on the table. She rushes to put a saucer under Amelia’s cup before she dares to commit another household felony.

“Mom, that 7-11 those guys are building wants to put you out of business.”

But, Ruby knows best and would never second guess herself, even in the face of blatant business strategy.

“They pay good money for hot coffee.”

“And one of them whistled at me.”

“That’s why I always tell you girls to wear a girdle.”

Serialized Novel, Part 6

When Ruby met Henry, he had money saved in one hand and the keys to a brand new Chevy Impala in the other. A lot of money. A lot of car. He had worked the railroads since he was 13 and had saved most of it. When he and Ruby married, he started working in a restaurant. Then opened his own little café.

Cooking was his life. It was also his death. The type of metals used in pots in those days had a corrosive effect on Henry’s brain. Over time. Binswanger’s Disease, named after Leonard Binswanger. Why would someone take so much pride in discovering a disease that they’d name it after them.

Binswanger’s gradually dissolved the seal around one’s brain. And with no protective coating, anything could happen. Anything did to Henry. For two years. And then he died.

And with him, a large part of Cleveland died. He tried to get over it. He tried to hide it. He was unsuccessful in both attempts. Time would prove the final arbiter. But, getting through the time was a type of hell for Cleveland that no one could ever guess the depth of.

He tries to shake it off by teasing Ruby.

“Now, we can have the funeral,” says Cleveland. “Folks sa been asking.”

Amelia’s surprised. “No one’s planned the funeral yet?”

“Mom won’t talk about it?” explains Cleveland.

Amelia jumps to an assumption. Death is always hard for those closest. Well, at least the funeral was something Amelia could handle. In fact, she felt glad to be able to offer her services in some way.

“I’ll take care of the arrangements, Mom. Just pick a day,” says Amelia.

“A day, a day mom?” teases Cleveland. “Hey sis, cool hair?”

Cleveland leaves before Ruby answers. A sure sign that Ruby’s response was not going to please Amelia. His footsteps fade up the stairs.

Ruby’s tone was light. Not something Amelia was used to. Ruby and light? An inherent contradiction that immediately made Amelia suspect.

“Your father ain’t been dead that long.” Strange how the way she said it came out sounding just the opposite. As if Henry had been dead in her mind, in her heart, so to speak, for longer than forever.

“Yeah, but I thought it had to be taken care of fairly soon…” says Amelia, “Before the body, you know…”

Ruby puts her jacket on. Seems more absorbed by the process of buttoning than in the subject of her husband’s death.

“What?” asks Ruby, “Wanders off and gets lost?”

Amelia just looks at her. Not understanding her mom’s casual attitude towards the death of her husband.

“He used to do that when he was alive,” continues Ruby, barely hiding her contempt, “the last few years before he went to the hospital. Wander off and get lost. And some kid would find him a block from him and bring him home.”

“The disease did that?” asks Amelia.

The water starts to boil. Ruby and Amelia bump into each other trying to turn it off. Even that accidental brush makes Ruby shy away. It made Amelia wonder how Ruby ever let Henry get close enough to her to have children. Not a thought she wanted to dwell on long.

Amelia takes down a cup from the cupboard. Ruby switches it for an older, bulkier one.

“This way, you don’t waste the teabag,” explains Ruby, as if she wasn’t explaining it for the millionth time to someone who could care less.

New Novel, 4th Section

Young Amelia’s on a Greyhound. Looking out the window and seeing nothing.
The bus gets emptier and emptier and it passes through manicured Northern Massachusetts…

Through smoky industrial founding father type towns…

Through others dank, lifelife, unidentified by droopy signs…

Through coastal areas helmed in by fog…

Through Narragansett, Rhode Island…

And finally…Amelia’s hometown, Millerstown.

The Millerstown of fifteen years past is a healthy working class, fishing mill community. Amelia drags her hand me down suitcase off the bus. The Millerstown Café and Sundries store demands a once over. Hmmm. A “Closed” sign is in the window.

She looks towards the docks. A few catch-the-dawn fisherman stand planted to the wood railing, their lines adrift in the waves 30 feet below. Some look as if they’d like to be with their bait six feet under. She starts to trudge down a lane, past five newly-planted elm trees. At the end sits a small split-level, Cape Cod style home.

Despite the newly-birthed trees, the home feels like death has taken up residence.

“Hey, it’s sis!”

The entrance of her brother, Cleveland, sweeps Amelia back from her teens, back to the present. The 17-year-old swings into the room. He’s slim, energetic, good-looking in a casual, unconscious way. Even in the plaid robe and bare feet he now sports, he’s teenage hip.

They hug. This time, it’s genuine on both sides.

“Cleveland, your feet’ll get cold,” interrupts Ruby, jealous of their friendship.

Cleveland waves off the comment. Turns back to Amelia.

“Shoulda’ known you’d show up? Always doing the right thing?”

Cleveland has a habit of ending every sentence like it’s a question. It sends Amelia into a playful mode.

“You look good. Must have some young hussy looking out for you,” she teases.

“Always, always, When’d you get here?” asks Cleveland.

“I planned for midnight. Just a lot of delays. Fog. Finally flew into Providence around four this morning.”

Ruby’s less than not interested. “I got to get to the store. You want anything to eat, Cleveland? I can make something before I leave.”

“You can make something for me,” says Amelia.

“You’re a grown woman. You can take care of yourself.”

It was always like this with Ruby. Not only didn’t she understand affection. Not only would she never be able to give it, accept it or fake it in this lifetime or the next. But, the site of it between others seemed like such a threat to the essential nature of her being, that she went out of her way to try to stifle affection in others.
O
h wait, she did seem to warm to it in her “stories”, the ones that repeat forever on TVLand. Maybe she accepted what she knew she could never control. Or perhaps because that was the past. That was then. This is too much of now.

Amelia opens the top of Cleveland’s robe a smidge. Picks at the hair on his chest.

“As if this ain’t grown man hair growing up under here,” retorts Amelia. And to herself. “Not again. I’m going to enjoy seeing my baby brother. Not even my mom’s gonna kill this moment.”

Cleveland starts picking at the hair on her head. Soon, they’re both slap-boxing playfully.

“Don’t rough house in my kitchen,” admonishes Ruby. Cleveland gives in with a wry smile and a gesture of hopelessness. Hopelessness? Another house characteristic.

“Ok, it’s starting,” says Cleveland. “Going to get dressed?”

“I’ll be here, least till Daddy’s funeral,” says Amelia.

That casts Cleveland into a kind of coma-recovery mode. For her brother, that happened all too frequently, she was soon to discovery. His eyes take on a far away aura. And pretty soon, it’s like only his body is in the room. Spirit? Essence?

A search through the entire Thomas Brothers wouldn’t fine them.

Usually when this happened, those around him would start to fidget in discomfort.

Gradually, they’d drift off one by one, concerned that they would think ill of him, but not finding any other choice. What they didn’t know was that when Cleveland emerged from these surprise attacks, he had no idea where he was or who he was talking to.

Cleveland never questioned the source of location of his reverie.
All he knew was that even though the thought of his father might have initiated these episodes, his father was not in them. As far as Cleveland knew. For not only did he have no memory of those he spoke to before the attack. He had no memory of what happened during those attacks.

But, except for the faint inhibition within the pit of his stomach, Cleveland suffered no ill effects. And after watching his dad shrivel up and die after two years, Cleveland felt a slight discomfort was nothing.

No one knew what had been wrong with Henry, their father. At least not until his death. The symptons seemed similar to Alzheimer’s. And because that was untreatable, no one looked any further.

Oh yes, doctors recommended cat scans. But, Henry came from a generation in which men didn’t go to hospitals unless they had bullet wounds or their wives were having babies. And maybe not even then. So, a cat scan was not an option. As for Ruby, she came from a generation in which you might undermind and hate your husband, but you certainly didn’t second guess them.

It took dying to finally figure out what had happened to Henry. Being the good husband. Being the good provider. Being the good dad. He died from a disease that a dead beat dad would never have caught.

New Novel, 3rd Section

A time so far away in time, yet always on the surface of Amelia’s memory.

She was only 13 and trying hard. Trying hard to fit in at a girl’s New England private school that didn’t usually let in people like her, people from mill fishing towns. Already she stood out. Here she was staying at the school through the Thanksgiving holiday because she couldn’t afford to go home. Sure there were a number of other girls doing the same. But, not because they didn’t have the money. Hell, there was more than enough money in the lives of these young women.

The family of Laurel Miranda had so much money that when she was sent from 90210 to this Western Massachusetts prep school, her parents transported her horses with her. Laurel’s father was a power player in the telecommunications world. Shipping and stabling a few horses for his daughter’s pleasure was nothing. But, actually seeing her and spending time with her over the holidays, now that was a bit much to ask.

So, when Laurel came towards Amelia on the lacrosse field…yes, lacrosse…Amelia knew she shouldn’t underestimate her. Laurel’s chance to release her frustration could mean a point in her favor, and against that of Amelia’s team.

Ouch!!! ABM!!! These bodies slam together. Sticks cross like lances.

Ten girls, 13 to 15 years of age, mud-stained uniforms, scowls to outmatch Wayne Gretsky.

“Ger her! Don’t let Amelia get inside!” shouts one teenager.

“I’m trying!,” huffs a second.

A third opponent, running and breathing hard, gasps out “Catch her. She’s just a sophomore.”

The amused coach, Ms. Burns, pipes in from off-field. “Girls, remember. Northfield Academy was founded on religion, not homicide.”

The 13-year-old Amelia makes a sudden break, pigtails flying. Or so she thinks. Oomph!! Laurel, Amelia’s roommate, plows Amelia into the ground. Laurel smiles her regrets…and sweeps the ball away.

Amelia fall to the ground. Clutches her stomach. Sudden agony. She looks surprised. The impact wasn’t that bad.
Suddenly, her vision clouds. The surrounding sounds disintegrate to a mesh of whispers. She feels something malevolent lurking. She strains to see. And still, a shrouded world. Oddly, she feels no fear. Just an overwhelming sadness.
A teammates’ admonishment brings her back.

“Amelia, get up!!!”

Clarity returns. Its as if time passed for her and no one else. She nervously laughs it off and charges after Laurel.

“Ok, Roomie, I’m warning you. I’m gonna’ sweep your feet,” laughs Amelia. They’re the best of friends.

"You can’t do that!!! Against the rules,” says Laurel indignantly.

“That’s why I’m telling you first. Perpetuating, girl,” says Amelia as she makes her move, trying to trip up Laurel. Laurel dodges the first attempt. Not the second. No such luck.

Splat!!

Laurel’s a lame duck in the mud. Amelia races back to her goal as her teammates hold off opposing forces. Amelia dashes back to assist Laurel. Laurel sits laughing in the mud. Amelia pulls her up. Laurel surrepticiously drops some mud down Amelia’s back and givers her a friendly pat on the back. Amelia jumps.

“Aaah!!!” she cries.

Ms Burns looks up. “Is something wrong, girls?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” says Amelia with a bright, false smile. “Watch your back, roomie.”

But, it’s Amelia who’s watching her back, wondering if her imagination was playing tricks. Or was it something or someone else?

By the evening, Amelia has passed off the incident as something from her imagination. Nothing to interfare with the fun of making hot cross buns with the other girls.

“Staying at school for Thanksgiving was the best decision,” laughs Laurel.

”Me too,” says Amelia. “Finally learning to cook.” The other girls look at her strange. “You don’t cook at home,” says one.

Amelia tells the truth without thinking. “Uh uh. My mom will cook turkey her way, which I love. But, if I ask her how to cook something, my daddy puts in his two cents. Then, they start fighting. And I never get to cook. Last Thanksgiving, my parents got so mad, dad threw the turkey in the dumpster.”

She looks up to see faces more shocked than she’d expected. Not at her story, but at her unusual expressiveness. She plays it off.

“Boy, that was one fowl Thanksgiving,” says Amelia. The other girls still aren’t sure how to react. Amelia flashes her most convincing smile. “A joke, girls. Come on.”

The other girls chill. But, Laurel’s concerned look says she knows otherwise.

“What time is it?” asks Amelia.

“Why?” asks Laurel.

“Girl, would you just tell me the time fore I give you five across the eyes,” laughs Amelia.

Laurel adapts a long-suffering “how long oh Lord” look.”

“About eight-thirty,’ says Laurel.

“I gotta call home before it gets too late,” says Amelia.

Amelia walks through the old-mansion-turned down house. Through the windows she psses…spacious grounds and turn of the century mansions. Tall, Methuselah trees. And in the distance, the Connecticut River, and the dim lights of 18th Century road lanterns. If any setting could bespeak tradition, wealth and family values, Northfield Academy for Girls would be it.

Taking two steps at a time, she jaunts up to the second floor hallway payphone. It was a vintage antique payphone. All mahogany with stained glass windows. Amelia felt positively elegant whenever she used it even though waiting for the heavy ringed dial to wind back after each number took a patience users of 90s technology were unaccustomed.

To Amelia, the sound engendered a contentedness within her. Rather it always did in the past. Not tonight.

She dials. The squeaker voice of an operator pierces her ear.

“Yes,” says Amelia. “This is a collect call from Amelia Chatman.”

She waits, blowing air on the window, drawing faces in it. Muffled voices drift over the line.

“Mom? Daddy?” Amelia’s tentative, wondering why someone would pick up the phone and not speak. Finally her mother breaks through in chilly tones.

“Amelia, is that you?”

“Mom, What’s wrong?”

“Who called you? Who told you to call” She could almost see her mother’s glaring eyes sweeping the room for a culprit.
“I told you not to call her. She doesn’t need to come home.”

Now, Amelia is freaking. The weirdness of the lacrosse field comes back to her. Is this what that meant? Did she ignore the warning that might have prepared her for this.

“Mom nobody called me. What’s wrong?”

Only silence. Amelia hears someone crying in the background. The crying generates an anxiety and fear in Amelia. Why doesn’t her mother simply tell her, she asks. Whenever it comes to Ruby, nothing was easy.

“Mom!!! Where’s daddy? I want to talk to Daddy,” insists Amelia. “I want to talk to daddy.”

But her mother had pulled rank and had had enough.

“Your brother’s dead,” Ruby says flatly. “The funeral’s tomorrow. But, you don’t have to come. We can…”

Ruby’s voice fades. Amelia stands in shock. The world, her world, fled.

New Novel, 2nd Section

A hallway light flips on.

Amelia’s mother, Ruby Chatman, 50s, comes down the paisley carpeted stairs. He eyes are clear and unclouded for one her age. She pauses mid-level, hesitating, both wondering and worrying at who’d be calling so early.

But, then she surges forward, as if “what will be will be.” Besides, she’s preparing to go to work, herself.

Black pleated skirt stretches below Ruby’s calves. She rushes to button a high-collared floral blouse, step into black pumps sitting at the foot of the stairs, and strains to see through the curtained door window, all at the same time.

Ruby presents a matronly figure from her opaque panty-hose with reinforced toes, to her legs thickened by time and matted varicose veins, to the tight French twist imprisoning every strand of hair.

But, when she walks, her steps are light, her movements frenetic.

Ruby is an inherent contradiction, sometimes even to herself.

She pulls back a corner of the curtain just as Amelia finally negotiates the keys. Ruby jumps as Amelia, unknowingly, almost hits her with the full force of the door.
“Mom!!! I didn’t see you,” exclaims Amelia.

Amelia tries to keep the family Irish Setter, Kelly, from bounding outside. Finally, Ruby intercedes.

“Kelly!!! Go!!!!” says Ruby “In the kitchen.”

Ruby’s Tone? Harsh and cold as a Siberian winter. Kelly quickly obeys. Ruby’s a remote, recalcitrant woman with a visage that shows no hint of kindness.
Amelia hugs Ruby. Ruby half hugs, half pats Amelia on the back the way people never comfortable being warm do. Amelia’s expression says she’s used to it.

“Oh!!! I didn’t know you were coming so soon. Your brother wouldn’t come get you.” Says Ruby impatiently.

Ruby studiously ignores the tone. She’s determined to ignore any and all irritating statements from her mom, knowing that sometimes the fact that they came from her mother and not someone else was sufficient cause for it to be annoying.

“I didn’t want to bother him.” Says Amelia. “Besides, the way he drives, all up on people’s fenders. I’da been in some ditch.”

Ruby leads the way into the kitchen. Everything’s dour yellow. The walls. Stove. Fridge. Yellow. Dour. Ruby tries to lighten the room with a breezy tone.
“You painted again,” says Amelia.

“Just a few weeks ago. It rained. It leaked.”

Ruby’s the exact opposite of Amelia when it comes to words. Ruby’s inexpressive, uncommunicative. Amelia’s a speed-talker. Words, like swarms of bees, surround her.
“Mom, I keep telling you. You should get the leaks fixed so you don’t have to keep painting all the time.”

Amelia puts some water in a small pot on the stove to boil. She sits at the table. She’d really like a drink. But that would have to wait for later and certainly at a time when Ruby was absent. Despite the new millennium, Ruby was still back in the 60s when it came to women drinking.

Not that women didn’t drink back then. But, Ruby didn’t run in those circles. In fact, as far as Amelia could tell, her mother never ran in any circles that did anything fun. She just got married and had children, like most women who grew into their twenties in the 50s.

Ruby responds with irritation. It seemed the two had the same effect on each other.
“You don’t talk to me about painting my walls, I won’t say nothing about your hair.”
Ruby puts the water into a larger pot.

“That pot doesn’t cook water fast,” says Ruby.

“I’m not going anywhere fast,” Amelia retorts.

“I’m on the way to work,” says Ruby, “I don’t have time to make you breakfast.”
Ruby takes the suitcase from the corner that Amelia put it in and moves it closer to the door entrance. Her movements are nervous, frenetic, almost the opposite of Amelia’s.

Oddly enough, Ruby shys away from touching the hat that Amelia left near the suitcase.

Throughout her life, Ruby unconsciously redoes what others do, as if she’s fixing their actions.

Amelia looks at the plastic covering the table. She looks down the hall into the living room. Plastic covers the furniture there.

“Mom, why are you always covering stuff with plastic,” asks Amelia.

“Oh, Amelia, you know I like to keep my furniture nice,” says Ruby. Don’t start trying to change things.”

“I just always wondered. That plastic always sticks to my legs,” says Amelia.

“Not if you wore stockings like proper girls do. You girls never even wore girdles,” says Ruby.

Amelia smiles at the old-fashioned notion. Ruby takes it as an insult.

“You didn’t have to come home,” says Ruby.

A conversation of an echo…15 years ago.

New Novel, First Section just finished

Committed
A Novel
By Skye Knight

“Doors open for a reason, Miss”

The bus driver honked for emphasis. Not that Amelia Chatman needed the second reminder. She knew she was home. She just didn’t want to be there.

Sure, she had come of her own volition, with no prompting from or warning to anyone. In fact, no one even knew Amelia was arriving. After all, it was just yesterday that she had asked for an impromptu two-week vacation from her editor, crossed the country red-eyed on the red-eye, and scooted on the first morning bus for an hour-long ride past towns and villages still shockingly burned into her memory.

And through all her speedy preparations and the dusk to dawn flight, she knew she didn’t want to be home. Nothing good ever came of it before.

Amelia lugs her suitcase down the bus steps with a reminder to herself “I’m not here for something good.”

A sideways look from the bus driver lets her know that she actually verbalized the thought.

The bus door closes with the finality of a prison gate. It lurches away, its tires flipping bits of pebbles back at Amelia, almost as if the bus were spitting a goodbye.

When the dusk settles, it reveals Amelia to be a 28-year-old, eye-catching blend of West Coast funk and East Coast punk. She wears jean, topped off with a tie fitted top, flashing jacket and close-cropped, dyed copper hair with honey blond streaks. Everything about her shouts “Now!!!” Well, except for one thing. The 50s men’s Cavanaugh hat.

“Anywhere I hang my hat is home.” So sang Cleo Laine to the accompaniment of John Dankworth. So sings Amelia in a low melodic strain.

Amelia looks around. In many ways, the town has changed…and in most ways he hadn’t.
The fish business that once made its residents proud as well as prosperous? Dried up. The mill business? Taken elsewhere.

Millertown still had its charm, thanks to residents who refuse to let appearances reflect their vanishing bank accounts. In fact, the town still had its schools, banks, all the services one expects of a stable community.

But, the frayed around the edges taint gave away the fact that a healthy economy is not of the things Millerstown sports.

In other words, this is a town still loved by many, increasingly ignored by most. Betwixt boom and bedroom. A coastal community dying of thirst.

Amelia starts walking down a lane. He face reflects the resolution of a sidelined player unwillingly stuck on the permanently disabled list.

She passes a white oak tree. Her initials still engraved after all these years.
Suddenly a wolf whistle cuts the air. Amelia turns towards the sound. It’s one of several construction workers laying ground for a seedier version on 7-11, if such a thing exists. His admiring look doesn’t sway.

Amelia gives him the finger. Then pauses to light a cigarette. And continues walking the Cape Cod styled home at the end of the lane. Continues walking to death’s door.

She doesn’t notice the driver inside the dark gray sedan, a driver who’s been watching her since the moment she stepped off the bus.

Why should she have? Too busy talking to herself. Like now. “Get a grip, Amelia.”

Yeah, right. Like such an admonishment had ever worked any of the other times she had returned home and felt the same trepidation now staining her body with each step. Some people would say, you get what you wish for. Was that why within a day of each of her prior visits, something had happened that drove her to get a hasty return ticket and return to the comfortable superficial embrace of Hell-A.

But, here she was, pre-dawn and unprepared. The keys jangled in her hands as she fumbled at the carved oak entrance to the home where Amelia was born.

1. To be continued...

Possibly Go Wrong: Novel

Possibly Go Wrong: Novel

Novel

I will be posting chapters and/or sections from a novel that I am writing as I write it. I'm also working on a new spec script, but I won't bug all of you by posting that. Just laying low and writing a lot now because I keep running into hateful people who are hurting my heart.

Hello Friends,

I've been so busy working on my family tree, gearing up for my journalism classes in the fall, packaging my projects and trying to avoid sinister relatives that I'm afraid I've neglected you.

And even now I'm only back because I took the time to enter an ESPN essay ticket memory contest. And I thought my memory was so damn good that I'd post it here. Because obviously I didn't win or I'd be out shopping for what I would wear to Monday night's Lakers' playoff.

But, hey I wrote and someone is going to damn well read it. Might as well be you.

Here it is, my submission to the Mason and Ireland essay contest.

Memory Ticket
Submitted by Skye Dent

The year was 1985. I was enrolled at this snooty university in Providence, R.I. Brown University. But, I’d managed to get into a photography class at this hip design school that most people passed while walking down the hill from Brown into the city. It was called The Rhode Island School of Design. (RISD for short, pronounced Riz-D)

A decade earlier and RISD would have been known as cool. A decade later, it would be hip. But, in 85, we used the term “wicked” as in “He was wicked hot.”

Growing up, I had wanted to be Arthur Ashe. That wasn’t meant to be. But, suddenly, I heard that he was going to be inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R. I. I knew I had to be there. Somehow I got a ticket and an invite.

So, I took my Honeywell Pentex K-1000. If you know that camera, you know that was back in the day. Nothing automatic about that single lens reflex. The prism focus probably is considered as ancient as the wheel these days, or at least a spoke.

I hitchhiked to Newport and to the Hall of Fame. It was my first time seeing grass courts, everywhere. People were oh so proper, except for the sports photographers, who like most folks in sports journalism, are pretty down to earth.

The only problem was there were tons of them. Surprisingly, I managed to bluff my way onto the grass courts where Arthur Ashe was getting his award. Probably by saying I worked for the Brown Daily Herald, which was a bad student newspaper, but not as bad as every Brown Bruin sports team back then.

I inches my way closer and closer to Mr. Ashe. I couldn’t believe it. It was like The Red Sea parting. Suddenly, he looked directly at me and waved. I took the shot you see below. Realizing that I might be discovered for the faker I was, I backed away.

I looked around and realized, sadly, that I was the only black person there other than Arthur Ashe and his family. The sports photographers and others had let me through because they assumed, my being there and being black, that I was related to Arthur Ashe.

I looked back at Mr. Ashe and we shared wistful smiles.

In that moment, I knew that my being there, one sole black tennis fan, meant as much to him as it did to me.

David Mills - Yesterday Continued

I did say yesterday that I would post the piece that I wrote on David Mills. I was asked yesterday to read what I wrote if there is a memorial for him here in Los Angeles. But, I'm a writer, and a little too tall for podiums.

So, here it is.

I know that everyone will talk about what a great writer David Mills was. And indeed he was.

But, I remember him as someone who took the time to meet with a stranger, me, in the process of striving to be a TV and Film writer.

It was a number of years ago. I invited him to meet me at Itana Bahia's restaurant in West Hollywood. It was our first meeting.

In those days, I always offered to pay dinner, coffee, or lunch for the honor of meeting with anyone in the industry who agreed. They were the experts. They were giving me their valuable time. It wasn't a fair exchange because I got more out of it than they did. But, I was always taught not to try to get something for nothing.

David agreed to meet me. At first I thought it was because I had also left journalism for entertainment. But, in the course of the dinner, I realized that he was simply a giving person. He didn't need a reason to meet with me. My asking for his help was reason enough.

About a year later, when I was passing through Maryland, he offered to take me to the set of The Corner, a TV series that he had co-created. On the way, we stopped at a coffee shop. One of the writers of Homicide, the one who wrote the great subway train episode, was there. I tried to stand off to the side in case they wanted to have a private chat. But David pulled me into the conversation and introduced me as "a writer friend of mine".

We then went to the set. I had visited film and TV sets before. But, generally I was told to stand quietly in a corner. Even when I visited the set of a series for which I had written a freelance episode, I was told to blend into the background, and mind you, not stand too close to the director's chair.

Visiting The Corner was a different experience. David introduced me to director Charles Dutton and other key members of the producing staff. David explained what was happening in the scene, and talked with me about the script. And when others came to ask him questions, he kept me within the circle of conversation.

In this world, contacts matter. And David made sure everyone there knew I was a writer in a manner that made them think I mattered. For David, it wasn't just because I was a good writer than I mattered. It was because I was a person, a human being.

David believed that the heartfelt goals of every human being mattered. He could not help everyone with their goals. But, as one writer to another, one ex-journalist to another, he could help with mine.

Over the years, even though we did not see each other for long stretches, we kept in touch. I clearly remember one call I made. When he returned it, he said that he could not talk long because his mother had just died. But, just the fact that he returned the call at all in the midst of his grief says so much about his humanity.

And during the heights of success when he could have insulated himself in, let's face it, what is predominantly an all white male showrunner business, David's hands and heart were continually stretched out to other blacks.

Because David was light-skinned, most people thought he was white or Italian upon first meeting him. But, even while pitching to people who would clearly treat him differently knowing he was black, he would casually drop in a comment indentifying himself as black man.

Although he eventually created a blog called "Undercover Brother", in partial response to jealous peers who made negative comments behind his back, David always identified as being black. He was far from being the kind of "black writer" hire to write downtown characters. We know from his credits and his work as a journalist how versatile and extraordinarily brilliant he was as a writer and then producer. But, he was a "black writer" in the sense that being a writer and being black were of equal importance.

The last time we spoke, he was in New Orleans on his new pilot "Treme." We didn't talk long. I got off the phone quickly because I know the working days of a tv producer stretch long into the night. We just planned to talk when the pilot was finished. Who knew.

David's success in Hollywood was on a level beyond that of most any writers or producers in Hollywood. That in and of itself is enough to celebrate his memory and mourn his loss, especially at such a young age.

But, I will always remember him for the heart and courage he displayed in regularly being there for people of color on much lower levels. As K'naan calls it. "People like me."

David took the time to do things that maybe he didn't need to, but believed someone ought to do.

A successful man with an unchanging sense of ethics. Not many of those in Hollywood.

I hope your heart rests in peace, David, just as I hope you know that I will always carry within me... a piece of yours.

Skye

David Mills - Sorry For Our Loss

Hello,

Just because I have a new blog, don't expect to read a lot from me. I make my living as a writer. TV. Film. Newspaper columns and features when they let me.

So, why should I give away my words for free?

I can't actually say that I will be. I have no idea where this will lead. But, on a blog, there's room to share a lot more than one can share on Facebook, Linked In, or Twitter. And yes, I have them all. But, hey, you're talking to a chick who used to make her own yogurt. So, you know I don't half-step on anything.

In addition to being a writer, I'm a communications professor. Journalism. TV writing. Film. Documentary production. I'm all about the medium and the message. So, I keep up to date with all things communications wise so that I can try to stay one step ahead of my students. "Try" being the operative word. Though I must admit that InDesign is kicking my butt.

Please forgive me if you think I'm starting off on a dark note. Of course I am dark. A black choctaw latina. So, I guess every time I start anything, it's on a dark note.

However, another reason I'm starting this blog today is because I wrote a short remembrance of former journalist and TV writer David Mills, a friend of mine who died this week on the set of his new HBO series "Treme." Friends who read it say that I should post what I wrote.

But before I get to that...Treme is about life in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

And ironically, during the one time in which I was back east this year, the college students I met expressed very passionate emotions about the news coverage of Katrina. Students that were not even in that state, and yet were still emotionally outraged. Treme will be of great interest to them and perhaps make viewers who watch it feel the way that they and others still do.

Back to my remembrance of David, I originally sent it to David's Facebook site and some of my friends. One of Variety's top journalists, Brian Lowry published part of it on his blog today. My friend Donna wrote to say that I should repeat it at David's memorial.

Emotionally, I know I'd never be able to get through delivering it all verbally. But, for the students who I met, who will inevitably watch Treme when it airs in April, I wanted them to be able to read something about David from someone who he had helped and encouraged for many years.

But, at the same time, since, as I said, parts of it are in Brian's column, it would be rude to print them today, on the same day that his column runs. As a writer, I have great respect for other writers.

As to why my blog is called Possibly Go Wrong? Well, I wanted to name it Possibly Go Right. But, that was already taken. I simply didn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about a name. And Possibly Go Wrong turned out to be available. Who knew.

In any case, I have a project due on Friday. So, I have to get back to that.

If you go to variety.com/bltv, you can read what Brian has to say and a bit of what I had to say. And if that piques your interest, come back and you'll be able to see the rest.

Speaking of rest, R.I.P. David Mills. You will not soon, or ever, be forgotten.

Skye Dent

P.S. If you look me up on Facebook, I'm the chick standing in front of the car wearing black sweat pants with a Japanese design. Not one of the other three Skye Dents. My production company web site at www.theroxburyprojects.com.