The Unexpected Life of Carnegie Lane

by Virginia Higgins

  Olivia and Sobian both looked at each other, in their eyes was not joy, but confusion.

  “What is she doing?” Sobian asked her sister.

  “I don’t know… just run with it, can’t be a good sign.”

  Both the girls walked over to their mother, noticing how happy she was. They had forgotten what it was like to see her this happy and making breakfast only added to their panic. The twins had become used to living with a mother who was absent while present. It was a state that they learned to play to their advantage on many occasions. They were about to begin a joint interrogation, when they were rudely interrupted by Sienna who bounded out of her room with her shoes on the wrong feet and her hair knotted up in balls on the side of her head.

  “Why are you cooking?” She asked, although to her it was a great thing and it didn’t bother her that she hadn’t had a cooked breakfast of pancakes for over ten months. All that mattered to her was that she was getting one now.

  “Why does your hair look like that?” Her Mother asked back, ignoring her question for fear it would lead to a persecution for her previous abandonment.

  “Cause I’ve got nits, I told you that on Tuesday.” Sienna replied without a care in the world, and began scratching with both hands as if to prove a point.

  “Shit…forgot all about it… Sorry.” Carnegie was trying to finish the last pancake so she could take over the taming of the jungle, that she now realized, held an entirely new civilization all on its own. She wondered if nits had a contingency plan when they saw the enemy coming in for the kill in the form a comb. Somewhere in her mind, Carnegie was convinced head lice were intelligent beings and were selective of whose brain they chose to suck on. Sadly, Sienna seemed to be a popular choice.

  The poor kid flinched as the comb pulled at the knots, so she tried to make her mother feel better, in the hope she would stop ripping her hair out from the roots.

  “It’s OK mum, all the kids in school have them. Sometimes we trade.”

  Carnegie stopped what she was attempting to do, and grabbed a softer brush. Carefully she put her daughters’ hair up into a satisfactory messy bun and promised herself she would deal with it that afternoon. She then turned to look for Cooper who was standing at the kitchen counter, scoffing the pancakes one after the other like he had never eaten before.

  “You ate my pancake!” Sienna screamed, as she turned to look at her mother for back up. Carnegie just shrugged her shoulders.

  “Did not, you ate yours already.” Said Connor with that neon sign starting to turn on as he grabbed the last one and took off to his room.

  “MUM!” Sienna cried out as if in pain. She was not happy now, but there was nothing she could do.

  Once again Carnegie had gone into a frozen state, seeing for the first time in a long time, how out of control things had become around her. She grabbed the cornflakes and poured a bowl for Sienna who muttered something about fairness under her breath as she ate. Olivia and Sobian just looked at each other with relief when they saw their mother returning back to her normal state of distance.

  “That was close…” One said to the other.

  “Absolutely.” Carefully they gathered up their school books, kissed their mother on the cheek and took off out the door.

  She didn’t even find it strange that the two, who were the hardest to remove from the house, suddenly became the most eager to leave.

  It wasn’t necessarily the pancakes being eaten and the disaster left in its wake or even the citadel of head lice thriving in her child’s head that had thrown her. Carnegie suddenly realized that now she had finished her book, she needed to do something with it in order for it to be seen. It had dawned on her she had absolutely no idea what that something was.

  After the final two kids had left the house trudging down the hill, with Sienna still protesting the loss of her pancakes to her snickering brother, Carnegie stood alone. She looked at the deluge of her home in a state of almost disrepair. She had totally neglected it for an entire month. Even though she had the remedy that would help her whip it into order firmly in the back of her mind, it had been a long time since she had performed to more than the small, appreciative and relatively clean audience in her bedroom. Now she stood in the lounge room, looking at the statues, and her collections in a new light entirely.

  It seemed to her that the once stately, enthusiastic and appreciative crowd looked more like sickly winos living in a park somewhere. Some were fallen over, others were covered in towels and discarded clothing. One had an empty tub of yoghurt on its head. Some were so covered in dust, it was hard to know at this early stage if they could be revived and still remain unscarred from the neglect. There was only one way to find out.

  Carnegie went to the stereo and selected the songs that would allow her to clean and not remember having done it. Beginning with Water boys singing ‘The Whole of the Moon’, she activated her musical time warp. She felt the drug enter her body, her soul, her mind and her heart. She forgot all her worries and all those fragmented memories at that moment were no longer hers. For two hours she sang, cleaned, danced and performed.

  Carnegie Lane was once again happy in a world of her own with music loud enough for a small stadium. Outside the neighbors began to gather. Some were still in dressing gowns, one elderly lady turned up with a shower cap on her head. All were wondering how this house, that had until now been silent to the point of creepy, suddenly changed to be the house of rock and roll. This was unheard of in their peaceful little street. They just stood there waiting for something to happen, none of them knowing quite what that something was.

  Realizing that no one wanted to be the one to go up to the door and find out why this noise was ruining their day, they walked away in disgust. Clearly, not all of them had been brought up with the Violet Femmes like she had. The crescendo that left her house spic and span had come from Guns and Roses with a seriously loud version of ‘Welcome to the Jungle’. If the neighbors weren’t all that concerned to this point, then she may have just left them with something to ponder.

  Back in her room, Carnegie searched for an Ethernet cable, so she could connect her computer to the modem. It was time to plug back into that amazing other world of the internet. Originally, she had blamed her inability to play “spot the difference” in her husband, on her sometimes obsessive preoccupation to that world within a world. A place where everything could look even shinier than it really was. Somewhere in her healing, born mainly from denial, she had changed her mind and forgiven the global linking platform for taking up so much of her time. She loved the freedom of expression it allowed.

  Carnegie began on Google. She looked up a simple set of key words to begin her research on ‘HOW TO GET PUBLISHED’. She put on a CD, something from the 80’s since there wasn’t that much in between then and now that she really followed with strict dedication. She got lost in pages and pages of conflicting ideas, vanity publishers and research.

  She thought about her husband while she read through the submission guidelines. One thing she had figured out was she didn’t miss him. She only missed who she thought he was. The night they met had been at a concert out the front of the Horden Pavilion. She was 18, he was 21. He had on black jeans, and the essential Doc Martin boots. His hair was midnight black with a fringe that draped like a curtain across his right eye. He had on a Black T-shirt torn carefully across his chest and perfectly placed eyeliner. Most importantly though, he had his ear pierced.

  Carnegie had decided from a young age that a man with an earring would be a good criteria for a husband - since they clearly could handle pain and already knew how to buy jewelry. Once their eyes met, they were inseparable. The rest became history.

  Sadly he grew out of the phase in his life that allowed him to dress, think and feel for himself. Possibly out of necessity, since they had two children by the time he was twenty. He stopped wanting to fall asleep to the sounds of songs that allowed him to dream. He became normal. It may have been that mom
ent, without Carnegie realizing it, they truly drifted apart.

  It took her five days to get together all the peripherals she needed to send her book to an agent in London who may, or may not be interested in what she had on paper. In fact, she had read so much information that told her she may never hear from them in regards to her submission, that the small glimmer of hope she felt when she completed the manuscript, was now swimming like a nest of hungry bees deep within her. Still, Carnegie Lane believed that what she had, showed the potential to be liked by someone other than herself.

  Leaving her house she decided to walk the seven blocks to the post office slowly. All the while she was sending positive vibes to the parcel in her hand, willing it to change her world around. Carnegie for the first time, said hello to half a dozen neighbors who she had chosen to ignore until now, in favor of her self-inflicted solitary confinement. That ended with the completion of her book. All of them looked suspiciously at her. Only some braved a response. In the last month there had been way too much noise coming from her house, and now, she was speaking!

  There was something going on in Willow Street Bundaberg. Carnegie Lane, the strange woman from number 27 was absolutely and entirely responsible. It didn’t matter if they liked it or not, the sanctuary of their quiet little world was about to be changed forever.

  That Manuscript, carefully wrapped in a postal sachet, went by Express Mail all the way from Bundaberg in Queensland Australia to Grays & Wilson Publishing Agents in London England. It took seven days to get there and it sat in the mailing room for a further forty eight hours before it was even sorted and distributed to the office of Katalie Bowman, the Agent in charge of Fantasy fiction submissions.

  Those pages arrived accompanied by twenty two other packages, all vying for the same attention. She sighed, thanked the mail boy, and turned to her filing cabinet where she pulled out ordinary yellow folders and one by one started labeling and categorizing the mountain of work that she had just been presented with. It could take her months, even years to actually get to the point where she looked at and even read all of the stuff she had piled up - let alone get to the point of accepting to represent the author of the various works in the hope of a successful publication.

  Katalie had moved to London from the US two years ago. She landed the perfect job in a place she had always wanted to visit. London had become her home. She loved it, and somehow she felt like she belonged there. At twenty eight, she was the youngest of five children, all raised by their mother alone, the best she could.

  Her sister, Lilli, was forty four and happily married, living in Missouri with her husband and their two sons. Her three brothers were a different and eclectic mix. Jason, thirty three, was somewhere between jobs and had set himself up to spend what felt like -the possible rest of his life - travelling between siblings on an eternal rotation of visiting quests. Although he often overstayed his welcome, he was a likable guy who meant no real harm. He just, after a while, became a strain on the mental strings. When he left one to go visit another, there was a sigh of relief mixed with the sense of foreboding that someday… he would return.

  Leighton was thirty six. He had unsuccessfully been married once and moved on to living out his fantasy of chasing women almost half his age. Finally one had nabbed him and they were attempting to set up house in lower Manhattan, where she worked as a PA for a successful stockbroker. Leighton worked as a journalist for a money magazine. Time would tell if this union would be successful. Right now, no one in the family was prepared to hold their breath too long, or bet on it from either possible outcome.

  Out of all of her siblings, there was one she adored more than the others. It may have been because he was the oldest boy. Not having her father around, she had always looked up to him as a replacement in some way. Her big brother Nate, who was now forty one, always managed to make her happy. Nate also just happened to be the front man in one of the most successful Rock Bands this generation had seen. A group of five interesting guys made up the enigma known as Sheeva’s Disciples.

  Their crowds packed the largest and best venues, his fans were many and some rather obsessive. His songs were constantly in the charts and every which way she turned, Katalie saw her brothers face staring back at her from the cover of a magazine. She often chose not to read the headlines. Tabloids had a way of disturbing the truth to suit themselves. If there was anything really going on in his life that mattered on any level, without a doubt, she would be one of the first to know.

  Right now what she did know was that her favorite brother was in London preparing for a gig at Wembley Stadium. She had two days and one night to catch up on his life and the other members of the band she now saw as surrogate brothers, not to mention Leonie, Nate’s assistant who took care of everything. Looking at the submissions, she decided that she would take some with her and go home to work on them. Home right now was where Nate was hiding out, waiting to see her and just happy to hang in the energy of his little sister, whether she was there with him at that moment or not.

  Katalie grabbed half a dozen manuscripts out of the pile of unopened mail along with enough folders and headed for the elevator. Everything she needed to sort out and categorize those stories, she could do from home. Most of them would go into the ‘try again in another life’ department although, it was an unknown element. Exactly what day you would get a manuscript that showed enough potential to possibly be ‘the one’ was the day it was most unexpected... You never saw it coming.

  Every month her boss asked that at least five be presented as potentials, out of which, a grand total of four from the ‘fantasy’ genre per year, would be selected to send forward under promotion to the publishers from her agency. The odds weren’t good. Yet, fate sometimes told another story.

  Katalie was standing at the elevator, waiting for that light to leave the second floor and venture up to the twenty fourth. It went up and then went back down, missing her floor twice which was unusual in itself. She pressed the button a few times just to be sure. Then it went back up to the twenty ninth floor and slowly crept its way back before it stopped. The doors opened revealing a mobile tiny room crammed packed full of people, some very interesting and smelly looking people. She smiled gently and indicated that she would wait for another one. Body odor was a personal thing, something she chose to keep to herself.

  While she waited for the lift to do its rounds, she realized that a couple of the drafts she had in her hand felt rather slim. It was possible she had time to read just one more while she sat at home catching up with her brother. Besides, she usually only got to the first page before she put it down and went to the next one. She ran back to her office and grabbed one more mail delivery. She knew nothing about the package she chose. She hadn’t even looked at the name on the “return to sender” tab.

  In her hand was Carnegie’s submission. It jiggled its way home on the train, and then was thrown carelessly on the table along with all the others in her cute little apartment as she hurried to the lounge where her brother was watching television. Guitar in hand, he looked up and into her eyes. He was happy to see her. She sat down next to him, threw an arm around his shoulder and flicked the channels.

  Right now, Carnegie Lane, mother of four, idol to inanimate objects and almost Author, had suddenly and unexpectedly, been given a chance.

  Is there any just cause for feeling like this?

  On the surface I'm a name on a list

  “I just died in your arms tonight”

  Written by Nick Van Eede

  Recorded and released by Cutting crew in 1986 – Broadcast Album

  3

  It had been a long night for Nate Bowman. Great sell out concert, heady after party and lots of camera flashes in between. Now it was 8.30am and he had until late that afternoon to sit comfortably at Katalies flat and get himself back together before they flew out to another destination, to a new crowd, a new bed and a thousand fans all wanting a piece of him. As much as he loved it, there were times
when he wished every photo snapped of him didn’t result in the accusation of a new girlfriend, or the possibility of an affair if he already had one. He wanted to walk down the street and into a store unnoticed. He wanted to have one day just to himself.

  The rest of the band were staying at a hotel in downtown London. That was where the cameras were waiting for him. He lay on his sisters lounge just enjoying the peace without someone screaming his name from the street below. His sister had been called into work for a meeting, she would be home by noon. They planned to attempt lunch at a local café she had recommended since breakfast had been removed as an option. As she ran out the door, she mentioned the new submissions and told him he was welcome to have a look if he liked. All she asked was not to mix them up. They might not be titled well enough on every page to put them back together successfully until she got a good look at them herself.

  He made himself a coffee, then went and looked at the mountain of large A4 mail that sat on her table. He could almost hear them screaming... “Pick me!!! Pick me!!!”

  Wow…he thought to himself as he touched them. Which one he picked up, opened and began to read would be a lucky dip. He didn’t know what they were about. He didn’t even have a cover to look at, just the hand writing on the address labels that may or may not have belonged to the one who wrote it anyway. As if selecting a tarot card, he ran his hand over them all, playing an internal game of ‘eany meany miney mo’. Finally his hand wrested on a package. He picked it up, and with coffee in hand he took it back to the lounge to open it.

  He looked at the return address, it read:

  Carnegie Lane

  27 Willow Street

  BUNDABERG QLD 4670

  AUSTRALIA

  He opened the envelope carefully, and pulled out the contents. It began with a bio that he read quickly, really holding no interest as to who Carnegie Lane was at that particular point in time. He looked at the photo of her that was attached and decided that she was an average, dark haired forty two year old who looked tired. He nodded in agreement when part of her bio pointed out that she thought The Cure was the best band in the world, in fact as he kept reading he noted that she had titled her story ‘Impossible things’ as a tribute to the band.