“Where’s my change, you creep!” Regina shouted. “May your hair fall out! And your nose grow back!”
This had the effect of making the crowd back off enough to allow her to start a slow, one-legged walk toward the cordoned-off lines that snaked toward the grand, but uninviting, steps.
Soon after she entered the slow-moving line, someone else tugged on her elbow.
It was a bear: a large, fuzzy, white bear with big plastic eyes focused on its own button nose, a dimwitted smile on its cartoon face, and small, insect-like silver wings pinned to its back. Next to the bear was a young black man wearing a winged teddy bear pin on his lapel.
“Ma’am,” said the young man. “We have a handicapped elevator. Please come with us.”
Regina followed gratefully. The person in the bear suit pointed toward the mirrored door of a glass elevator located near the gate to the underground garage. The man lifted the rope barrier that formed the snake-like queue that inched toward the cathedral entrance, but as she ducked under the rope, the crowd surged around her with a sudden roar. She turned to see a bronze-colored stretch limousine pulling up to the curb behind the TV van.
“Tammy Faye!” shouted a woman beside her, whose eye make-up showed true devotion to her idol. “Oh, I hope it’s Tammy Faye. I love her. She’s been through so much! Or Miss California. Somebody said Miss California was going to be here!”
Regina could see two uniformed guards stepping out of the limousine, and then a black man—a man who didn’t look as if he gave a damn about Tammy Faye or Miss California or much of anything in the candy-coated world of Reverend Elmo’s Cathedral. The black man was not tall, but he oozed sex appeal and the aura of raw power. He was Someone. Had they met? He was speaking to a woman seated inside the car—an elegant, perfectly-coiffed black woman—all ageless perfection in Valentino linen.
Could it possibly be…?
“Cady!” Regina tried to push her way back toward the curb for a better look, but the crowd wouldn’t budge.
“Cady, it’s me, Regina!” She lifted a crutch and waved it above her head.
The young man who had offered to lead her to the elevator grabbed her raised crutch.
“Ma’am, I’ll have to take this if you don’t use it appropriately. Please come with us.”
“You don’t understand,” Regina said, trying to move against the crowd and back to the curb. “I’m here to see Cady Stanton.”
“Yes, ma’am. We all are,” said the man. “Please. The elevator is this way.”
The mascara-woman nodded in vigorous agreement. “Reverend Stanton. She’s my favorite. Do you know she’s lost fifty pounds?”
“No, not like these people. I’m Cady’s sister,” Regina told the man. There. She’d revealed herself. She had hoped to avoid this, but it couldn’t be helped.
“Yes, ma’am.” The young man secured the rope barrier once again, trying to wave the crowd along. “We’re all brothers and sisters in the eyes of the Lord.”
The mascara woman smiled beatifically. The bear still hovered, infuriating with its cartoon-mask smile.
“Of course we’re all spiritual brothers and sisters,” Regina said. “But Cady and I were raised together. She was in the foster care system, you see, because of some misunderstanding with the welfare people and a Davy Crockett hat. So my mother took her in. She thought I needed a sister—or my psychiatrist did, so—I really do need both of my crutches, young man.”
Regina reached for her crutch, but the man maintained his grip. She tried to smile, glancing at the nearby television crews. This was going to be tricky. Whatever was going on with Max was only going to be made worse by a media episode.
“Young man,” she said in a low voice. “Please. I really am Reverend Stanton’s sister. Her foster sister. We were brought up together. I’m Princess Regina of San Montinaro.”
A big woman behind her laughed. “Yeah, and I’m Cleopatra, Queen of De-nial.”
“You will give me back my crutch, sir,” Regina said. Her temper was fraying.
“After the fund raiser, ma’am. You can pick it up at the security desk when the event is over.”
“The box-lunch social? Fine. That’s what I’m here for. The Celebrity Social. But how am I going to get inside without both my crutches?”
“You’re a celebrity for the social?” The young man looked skeptical. “May I see your invitation, please, ma’am?”
“My invitation? Of course.” Regina rummaged in her purse, pretending to search for what was not there. She started to pull out her wallet to show him her passport, but stopped herself. If she made a point of proving her identity in the middle of this crowd, there really would be no way to avoid another tabloid scandal. Finally she unearthed the stub from her airline ticket and scribbled on it with her Prada violet eye pencil—something to signal Cady of an emergency without causing panic
“Caterpillar—I’m here. Please see me. Love, Ringworm.” She handed the note to the man. “Just give this to Reverend Stanton,” she said. “She has my invitation.”
The man gave her a scornful glance and turned away, rushing off toward the garage. Regina stood stunned, balancing on her lone crutch, watching him walk away with her other crutch, the bear in his wake.
“No… Please!” She reached for the bear and grabbed its fake-fur shoulder. “Please,” she said. “You have to give this to Reverend Stanton. It really is important.” She pushed the crumpled ticket into the bear’s furry glove and watched the idiotic cartoon mask turn away and follow the security man into the crowd.
Regina stood immobile in the crowd, close to tears.
“Don’t cry, hon,” said a voice. It was the Cleopatra woman. “I know what it’s like to be down on your luck. You just gotta pray and trust the Lord. Here.” The woman pressed something into her hand.
“La Brea Christian Women’s Shelter and Sobriety Center,” it said—some sort of flyer advertising a poetry reading by survivors of alien abduction and satanic abuse.
“Ask for Miss Ida Belle,” said the woman, pointing to an Inglewood address in the corner. “She’ll get you some clothes and a bed for the night. You gotta take the pledge, but that’s not too bad for a few days, you know?”
Clothes. Sober Christian Women’s clothes. Found in the famous La Brea tar pits along with other dinosaur remains, no doubt. Regina tried to smile politely, but the woman had already been carried on by the crowd.
Sudden pain shot through Regina’s good foot as someone stepped on her toe. She leaned heavily on her remaining crutch and looked down as Garfield the cat smiled back from her slippered foot. That was when she realized her once elegantly long silk skirt had shrunk to wrinkled mid-calf frump-length. She could feel its tight stiffness around her hips and thighs.
Bag lady time. Thank goodness nobody believed her when she said who she was. Imagine if the press got a shot of this ensemble. She had to get to Rodeo Drive. Immediately. This was not the outfit in which to meet the new, glamorous Cady Stanton and her sexy man-friend. How far was Beverly Hills from here? She must find a taxi. But how was she going to pay? Damn Fabiano.
She opened her purse and took out her wallet, a sweet gift from Max just a few short weeks ago, Must de Cartier silvered cobra-skin with the Saxi-Cadenti crest in diamonds on the platinum clasp. But it contained only San Montinaran dinars and euros. She had to find an ATM.
She tried to move back to the street through the maze of worshipers moving in the opposite direction. But closer to the curb, no barriers ordered the crowd, and a mass of bodies surged around her. A huge man in overalls appeared from nowhere and shoved her against a coven of blue-haired church ladies dressed in matching granny jog-suits and teddy-bear hats.
A sudden roar rose from the crowd.
“Here she comes. Praise the Lord!” A church lady pointed at another arriving limousine.
Regina felt the chain of her Chanel bag cut into her shoulder as the overall man pushed by. A glint of diamond and cobra-skin showed in
the man’s hand.
“My wallet!”
She pushed toward him, but her crutch gave way as someone shoved her from behind. She could feel herself falling headlong toward a granny-suit.
She heard a series of high-pitched screams. The world spun with blue hair and tiny teddy bear angels—and then nothing at all.
Find Food of Love Online
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*
Dani Amore
Writing From a Flour Sack
Fact: I was born on a bathroom floor. Literally. My arrival into this world was followed seconds later by an unceremonious drop onto the cold tile of St. John’s Hospital in Detroit, Michigan.
You see, I was the fifth out of six children. My mother knew my delivery would be fast, but the nurse at the hospital insisted she go to the bathroom before the doctor arrived.
Later, after the drama and I was pronounced healthy, my mother told the doctor that the nurse should have listened to her, that she had warned the nurse that the baby (me) was going to arrive any second. That, having already delivered four children, she knew her body pretty well.
The doctor said, “Five kids, huh? Maybe you should tell your husband to keep it in his pants.”
True story.
*
Both of my parents were born in Italy. They emigrated to the U.S. in the 1950s. My father always said the biggest difference between Italy and America at that time was that you could work your ass off in Italy and have nothing to show for it. If you worked hard in America, you could eventually become wealthy. He started a construction company and worked 6 days a week, from dawn to dusk. Eventually, he was successful.
My mother raised six children.
She is a strong woman.
Both she and my father share a love of aphorisms.
The one I remember most? “A well-made flour sack stands on its own.”
It was almost like a mantra with her.
At a key point in my writing life, that phrase came in handy.
*
So there I am. I’ve got a full-time job in advertising. I’m writing about products that suck, working for people I can’t stand, and with two good friends, drinking every night after work. At a little bar not far from the office. I’m averaging about five or six drinks a night. Every weeknight. More on the weekends.
But on those weekend mornings, I’m writing fiction. Just short stories that I try to picture in The Paris Review.
Everything gets rejected with remarkable efficiency.
One night, probably half in the bag, I come across THE DAY OF THE JACKAL on television. The original movie is pretty campy and the remake with Bruce Willis is a pure load of crap. But the book. The novel by Frederick Forsyth is one of my all-time favorites.
The scene on television is the best part of the movie: It’s where the Jackal is sighting in his rifle. He paints a little face on a small melon, then blows it apart from 500 yards away.
There’s no epiphany. I go to bed. But as I toss and turn, vodka fumes in a cloud around my pillow, I think about the narrative structure of the story. I’ve read the book several times. Even have a collector’s edition. The chase. The tension. The violence.
When I wake up the next morning, I make an especially strong pot of coffee. I push aside my short literary fiction, and start a new story.
It’s about a hitman and a female escort.
Later that day, during some interminable meeting where everyone is throwing out insidious phrases like “let’s get on the same page,” and “think outside the box,” I realized what I was doing.
I was writing to please others, instead of focusing on the kind of stories and books I like.
Crime fiction. Thrillers. Suspense.
I had forgotten one of my mother’s cardinal rules.
A well-made flour sack stands on its own.
*
I know it sounds melodramatic. But the truth is, everything changed after that night. I still despised the advertising industry, but I no longer let it bother me so much. I begged off going to the bar with my friends, instead choosing to work out and then get some writing done in the evenings.
Eventually, I finished several crime novels. Even landed a big New York literary agent.
But a funny thing happened. My agent, and publishers, seemed to have endless debates about how to market me. Should I be a hardboiled crime novelist? A thriller writer? A traditional mystery author?
There were suggestions to change this book and change that one. Then change it back. Then change it to something else.
But now I had learned. I was smarter.
I told them thanks, but no thanks.
It was time to stand up and be the writer I wanted to be.
So I became an indie author.
And when my first book became a Top 10 Mystery on Amazon, I knew I had made the right decision.
Never underestimate the power of an Italian mother armed with an aphorism.
About the Chick
Dani Amore is a crime novelist living in Los Angeles, California. You can find out more about her, and see what she’s blogging about, at her website: http://www.daniamore.com
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Death by Sarcasm
Dani Amore
An Excerpt
One
Instead of the local rats, a team of crime scene technicians scurried around the grimy alley, popping flashbulbs and taking notes. Occasionally, blue and red lights flashed on the cinderblock walls, courtesy of the black-and-whites blocking each end of the alley.
Mary Cooper stood next to her uncle’s body. The large pool of blood — to her it looked like a Snow Angel from Hell — had already thickened, turning darker as if its purity had been contaminated by the lingering sins of the alley’s sordid past. And even though the club was just a few blocks from the Pacific, the air held a thick pall of L.A.’s favorite aromatherapy scents: rotting garbage, human piss and death.
Mary had said nothing upon her arrival. Now, several minutes later, the uniforms were starting to sneak glances at her, wondering how long she planned to maintain her silent vigil. They unconsciously positioned themselves closer to her, just in case her grief and rage exploded and they needed to restrain her in order to protect the sanctity of the crime scene.
And quite a scene it was. In the alley behind some two-bit comedy bar called the Leg Pull, Brent Cooper had been shot in the back of the head. But the killer couldn’t just leave it at that. A large, deep cut, a slash really, had been made across the dead man’s belly. The knife, a long, bone handled stiletto was then thrust into the body, its perfect verticality looked like an exclamation point to Mary. And finally, a note had then been impaled onto the handle of the knife.
The words were in thick block letters, probably from a Magic Marker.
Bust a gut.
Mary tore her eyes away from the dead man and glanced up at the officer now standing directly in front of her, watching her. His eyes seemed to implore her to express her emotions, but in a calm, measured way. She could guess what he was thinking. That maybe she would tell him a cute little story about how her uncle used to swing her in the air and threaten to withhold ice cream if she screamed. Or maybe she would tell him how her uncle used to insist on reading ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas every year in front of a crackling fireplace near the twinkling tree. But Mary offered no such tidbits. For one thing, Mary had no such stories. Nobody would ever confuse their family with the Cleavers. Mary offered no such stories. And while there was definitely grief, and an abundance of rage, she had used the time observing her dead uncle to unclench her fists. To slow her racing heartbeat, and to gather her thoughts. She pushed aside her own feelings, and used the moments to observe the crime scene. To take in the facts of the murder. But at some point, she knew she had to say something to the uniforms.
So then, at last, she turned to them and spoke.
/> “Are you sure he’s just not asleep?”
*
Detective Jacob Cornell emerged from a dark section of the alley and nodded to the uniform to take a walk. He was a big man, with a considerable physique, and a handsome-ish face. Not the kind that would land him on the cover of GQ, but certainly could find him a place in a Wal-Mart flyer modeling $7.99 flannel shirts. Now, he wore a sportcoat that camouflaged his powerful upper body, and khakis that hid the ankle gun Mary knew he always wore.
“Jesus Christ, Mary, he’s your uncle…was your uncle,” he said, his voice a whisper. “I mean, I called you here because I thought you would want to know. I mean, I know it’s not my place, but, a little respect, a little decorum…” His voice trailed off.
Mary nodded in agreement, as if she was glad she’d been properly admonished.
“True, true,” she said. “That’s a very, very good point, Jake.” She paused. “It’s just that he was always such a heavy sleeper. It runs in the family.” She cut her eyes over at him, winked and said, “You know that.”
Jacob Cornell closed his eyes and held them shut for a beat. And then when he opened them, he looked at her with a sideways glance. “This is not the time and it certainly isn’t the place,” he said, his voice soft.
Mary felt warmed by his indignity. A little pissed that he was judging her, but she was used to that by now. Nobody would ever liken her to an open book. But still, despite his many faults, an overly developed sensitivity chief among them, Mary didn’t mind knowing someone like Jake. So good. So nice. So friggin’ cute.
“I’m not sure why you’re focusing on me, instead of my dead uncle lying over there in repose,” Mary said. “But since you’re questioning me, I ought to remind you that he was a comedian, Jake,” she said. “Believe me, if the roles were reversed, he’d be standing right here saying, “What’s the big deal? I’ve died hundreds of times at comedy clubs — but it was always on stage.” She pantomimed a rim shot. “Boom ch,” she said.
Indie Chicks: 25 Women 25 Personal Stories Page 39
