11.10.08 - Word Count 12777

The more I thought of the beginnings of Emmey’s story, the more I felt connected to her. I had grown up in a family that was as different from me as night was to day. My parents were Baptist missionaries in Africa up until the time I was six years old, when we moved back to Alabama for my father to pastor a church in one of the poorest counties in the country. I started singing at the knee of my mother – the great hymns of the Baptist tradition, she called them – as she pounded them out on the old upright piano, one clunky chord after another. She was not a natural pianist – she had learned laboriously, and only in order to serve as my father’s helper.

I still remember when they realized I could sing, and sing well. I was in the kitchen of our little parsonage, making cornbread for our supper. My brother and sister were setting the table and singing some of the songs my mother had taught them to help them memorize the books of The Bible. When they finished the Old Testament, I broke in with The Gospels, in a high, clear soprano and sang clear through to Revelation. I could still feel the silence that followed. I looked up from the oven to see my brother and sister staring at me with their mouths open. My mother walked into the kitchen and asked who that was singing, and I was afraid to answer her. Afraid I had done something wrong.

My sister pointed at me and said, “It was Carrie!”

For the next hour, my mother made me sing everything she could think of, just to test and see if it was real, or some sort of fluke that had caused the melody to flow out of my mouth.

That Sunday, I was standing on the wooden platform in front of the little church, knees knocking, voice quivering, singing, “I Shall Not Be Moved,” while my mother clunked out the chords on the piano behind me. The congregation sat perfectly still during the entire song. I’d never seen anything like it –even when Daddy preached people coughed and sneezed, and fidgeted on the hard wooden pews. When I was done, a chorus of deacons’ voices rang out in “Amens” and “Hallelujahs,” but I was speechless.

Back then, no one applauded in churches. An amen or two was high praise.

Every Sunday after that, I stood on that same wooden stage, behind that same dark walnut stained podium, lined up with the center of the cross in the baptistery, and sang my heart out. I never told Mama and Daddy that I sang to hear the Amens and Hallelujahs, not for the Lord’s approval like they told me I should. I didn’t think they’d understand.

We were raised, my brother and sister and I, to serve the Lord. Every aspect of our lives was supposed to honor God and lift up the name of Jesus. I just wasn’t very good at it. I tried – God knows I tried – at least I hope He does. But it wasn’t in me to serve in the way my family did. I was very young when I realized how very selfish I was, and how little I cared about how selfish I was. It just didn’t bother me. At least not the way it bothered them – my family.

In school, I was an okay student. I excelled in choir and theater, though and found that to be a very powerful tool in the avoidance of the consequences of underachievement. I was always cast in the lead role of every musical production, and so I couldn’t ever be expected to do quite as well on tests and term papers, because I needed to prepare for the big show. My teachers were quite enamored of me and my voice, and I learned how to use it to my advantage. I wasn’t an honor student, but I received grades that far surpassed my effort.

One of my high school boyfriends, Chris Beatty, taught me to play his guitar and how to work through chord progressions. I saved up my babysitting money for months before I had enough to buy the old Yamaha guitar that was in the window of the pawnshop in downtown Eutaw. I had been writing lyrics and melodies since I had learned to write my letters, and soon I was writing songs more often than I was writing term papers. The songs were better than the term papers, anyway. I performed one of them at a school concert my junior year. It was a typical teenage song about unrequited love and unfulfilled dreams. And kissing.

Lots and lots of kissing.

After the concert, my parents locked me in my room and took away my guitar, thinking that I had forsaken my faith by writing this “piece of filth,” as my father called it. I do think they were somewhat relieved that that song had only involved kissing, but it was still too much for them to accept.

Mama and Daddy meant well, of course. I promised to write only songs that uplifted people’s faith in Jesus, and they gave me my guitar back. I was careful to not sing any of my real songs in front of any member of my family. Ever.

My sister and brother both went into full-time ministry when they grew up. Sarah married a preacher from just over the state line in Mississippi and went on to have babies and host women’s luncheons and spearhead food drives and baby showers. David went to seminary in New Orleans and became a youth pastor at a church in Brookwood. After a few years, he married a sweet girl and then was called to a church in Tuscaloosa as pastor. Mama and Daddy couldn’t be prouder.

Of them.

I tried. I really did. I thought maybe I could go into music ministry, so that I could be on the stage every week, but then I found out that most Baptist churches don’t let women be music ministers, so that kind of killed that. My parents suggested that I get a degree in music education so I could work with children and teach them how to sing for the Lord. I applied to a small college near home that had a music education program and was accepted. I wanted so much for them to approve of me, too.

I had worked at the Dairy Queen in town every summer during high school so I could have enough money to go to college, but the day after I turned 18 years old, I wrote my parents a long letter, took my money, my old Yamaha acoustic guitar and the 15 songs I had written that I really liked and went up to Nashville to see if I could get them recorded instead of going to school. I didn’t tell Mama and Daddy about that. None of the songs had anything about Jesus in them. I didn’t think they’d approve.

I called them when I got there and told them I had a job at a diner, waiting tables, which was mostly true. It was a job. And I was waiting tables. But I was serving cocktails instead of coffee, and my skirt was as high and tight as the collars on my daddy’s Sunday shirts. I worked nights at the “diner” and during the day I beat on the doors of studios and agencies and anyone I could get to listen to me. On my off nights at the club, if they didn’t have anyone else booked, they’d let me play and sing for the customers and for tips.

It took two years, and one of those fortunate misunderstandings to finally break into the business. One Monday night at the club, I was scheduled to work until 11 pm, then play until closing at 1 am. When I got to work, the manager pulled me aside and told me he had messed up the schedule and booked five waitresses on a night when he usually booked 3. He couldn’t afford to pay all of us, and since I was the youngest of the bunch, I would have to give up my shift. I told him that would be fine if he’d let me play for tips starting at 9 instead of 11 and he agreed.

That night, Mitch Ryland walked into the club and changed my life.

After my first set, he walked up to the stage and handed me his card. When I looked at it and saw “CFA Records” under his name, I thought it was a pick up and handed it back to him. I may have only been 20, but I had been waiting cocktail hour for 2 years. I wasn’t stupid.

After my second set, he came back up and handed me his card again. He was very insistent that I take it, and said he understood my hesitation, and that he would prove to me that he was who he said he was. I took the card and told him I hoped so – I could use a break – and put it in my front pocket.

He stayed for all four sets – all 15 of those original songs I'd walked out of Greene County, Alabama with, and 5 that I had added since arriving in Nashville. As the bar closed, I packed up my guitar and headed out to my little beaten up Chevy Chevette hatchback, escorted by the club's bouncer, Hector Smith. Hector put my guitar case in the back of the car and told me goodnight.

When I got into the car, I looked out the front windshield and saw something flapping from my windshield wiper. I rolled down the window and reached out to get it, waving goodnight at Hector at the same time. As I rolled up the window, I turned on the dome light to see what it was.

It was a newspaper article from the Nashville paper, The Tennessean, about the impact Mitch Ryland, CEO of CFA Records, had made on the country music scene in Nashville over the past 5 years. The accompanying photograph didn’t do him justice, but certainly did make it clear that he was who he said he was. I reached into the pocket of my blue jeans and pulled out the card.

“Mitch Ryland,
CFA Records,
Country Music’s Rising Stars.”

11.5.08 - Word Count 6476

After helping me bathe and get dressed, Louise wheeled me into the activity room and over to the table where I usually sat, looking out the window or putting together a puzzle. “I’ll be back in an hour, Miss Carrie. Try to keep all the beverages on the table, okay?” She called over her shoulder as she walked away.

“Funny. That’s just great.” I looked out at the grounds of the center. The maple trees had just passed their peak of autumn color and were beginning to fall to the ground, creating drifts of orange and red and yellow on the neatly trimmed grass. Doctors and nurses, aides and patients were walking through the grounds, looking for a sunny spot to take the chill out of the air and enjoy a few minutes outside. I made a mental note to ask Louise to take me for a walk today. It had been over a week since I had been outside.

“Ooh!” A woman’s voice cried out in alarm. I turned in the direction of the sound and saw the old woman there – Emmeline Wilson. She was standing in front of the seat she normally took by the fireplace, wringing her hands and looking down at the chair in confusion. The only other person in the room was an old man who had never looked up from his lap in the time I had been in the center. With no small amount of effort, I turned my chair and wheeled up to her.

“Are you okay? Do you need a nurse?” I asked.

She lifted her head and looked at me, those pale blue eyes rimmed with tears. “My goodness, no. I don’t need a nurse. What is wrong with you? Why would I need a nurse? I’m perfectly fine. “ She looked back at the chair, then returned her gaze to me. “I was just getting tired of waiting for you. Had to employ a little subterfuge.” She giggled and shuffled over to the chair, lowering herself down in the same careful way she always did.

I sat there stunned for a moment. She had baited me.

I liked her.

I rolled up and maneuvered my chair so that I could sit facing her. “Okay. So what is it that you want to talk to me about?”

“I don’t know. I just want to talk to you. You seem so lonely. I’m rather lonely. I thought maybe we could keep each other company for a while. I’m Emmeline Wilson, but you may call me Emmey. “ She reached out her slight hand and I took it. It was cool and soft, so finely wrought it looked sculpted, covered in the pale, wrinkled skin of a very old woman.

“I’m Carrie McCarthy.”

“Oh, yes, dear. I know. Everyone here knows who you are. Why, you were on the news all the time before you came here. Not that I watch the news, but everyone talked about you. Carrie McCarthy has a new CD out. Have you heard about Carrie McCarthy and her latest boyfriend? Is that really all her hair? You’d think they could find something else to talk about every now and then.” She smiled in her enigmatic way and turned her head toward the fireplace.

She seemed lost in thought for a moment, then turned back toward me and said, “You know. Time passes very slowly when you don’t know who you are.”

“You said that to me the first day I saw you.”

“Did I? Well. I guess I wanted you to know that, didn’t I?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Carrie, sometimes I don’t know who I am. Or where I am. There are days when I can’t remember a single thing that happened the day before. But I can remember the past. I can remember the things that happened to me when I was a young woman. I find it is so odd – for one to know and recognize the loss of memory. It isn’t anything that I ever expected. I start to realize that my mind wants to be 30 again and stay there and that time just ceases to move forward for me on those days. When I was actually 30, time flew by a hundred miles an hour.”

She sighed and shook her head.

“I’m 30. Time gets faster every year. At least it did until I got here. Now it moves at the pace of Louise.”

“That’s because you don’t remember who you are anymore, dear. It’s gotten lost in your mind. My mind is like swiss cheese. Lots of giant holes with little to support them anymore. Today is a good day. I know what I had for breakfast, although that’s a bit of an unfortunate memory. Whoever decided that waffles and scrambled eggs was a good breakfast?” She shuddered.

I laughed. “I skipped breakfast.”

“I heard. News travels fast when you throw a water pitcher at Dr. Fussy’s head.” She threw her head back and laughed delightedly. “I think maybe you have some anger issues, Carrie. Have you thought about talking with Dr. Morris?”

I looked at her witheringly. Great. Was this some kind of set up?

Emmeline laughed again. “I am glad to see that you have not. Dr. Morris is an idiot. She’s a well-educated idiot, but still an idiot.” She pushed herself up to her walker and looked back down at me. “It’s time for my nap, Carrie. I’m heading off to my room.”

“Oh! Oh. I thought we’d be able to talk today.” I suddenly didn’t want her to go.

“We have been talking, girl. What did you expect? I’m no oracle. I can’t help you figure anything out. I just want to be your friend. Do you have anyone coming to visit tomorrow?” She smiled kindly at me.

“No. There’s no one that would come.”

“Me neither. They’re all dead. That’s the problem with living to be 90. It’s easy to outlive everyone else. Let’s meet here while visitation is going on. We can talk more then.” She began to move toward the door. “Goodbye, Carrie. I hope the rest of your day continues without any more thrown pitchers.” She winked at me and shuffled off to her room.

11.3.08 - Word Count 2180

The next few days, I noticed the old woman in the activities room. She would shuffle in, look around and catch my eye. With a wiggle of her fingers, she would wave at me and grin her childish grin, then continue to the large chair by the fire. I would glance her way occasionally, without trying look as if I were really looking, but it didn’t matter. She was caught up in her internal world, seemingly oblivious to everyone around her.

One day, I asked Louise about her. “Who is that old woman over there?” “Honey, you are gonna have to be more specific than that. There are a bunch of old women in this room.” I pointed to the woman by the fireplace. “Her – the one by the fire.” I said. “Oh, my. That one? Well, I’m not supposed to talk about other clients, you know. Why don’t you go ask her about herself?” She smiled an enigmatic smile and turned away from me.

“Oh, come on, Louise. I’m not asking for her freakin’ medical history. Just tell me her name!”

“Sugar, that lady there is Miss Emmeline Wilson. That is all I will tell you, except this – you should talk to her. She’s got a lot of wisdom to pass along.”

“Great! Wisdom! Wow – thanks Louise. Gee, I think I’ll go right now and ask her what the Beav and I should do when faced with peer pressure. Sheesh. What the hell?”

“Hmm. Sensitive a bit, are we child? Well, let’s get you down to PT before you turn into a cream puff.” Her cackle rankled every nerve in my body. I looked over at Miss Emmeline Wilson, Wise Old Woman, and would swear she was laughing, too.

That night, as I lay in my hospital bed, all I could think about was Miss Emmeline Wilson. Her name reminded me of something, was familiar in some way that I couldn’t put my finger on.

That night I had a dream. I was driving my silver Mustang convertible down a country road. Miss Emmeline Wilson was sitting in the passenger seat, her translucent white hair blowing in the breeze. She kept looking over at me and telling me something, but her words were torn away by the swift wind barreling through the open top. I asked again and again what she was saying, but every time I asked, she looked away and her mouth went slack. She turned to me again and again, but I couldn’t hear her. The last time I asked her to repeat it, she looked through the windshield and screamed.

I saw the bridge abutment, heard the ripping of metal on concrete and felt the searing heat of my pelvis being crushed as my car folded in on its self.

My eyes flashed open and I caught myself just before I cried out loud in the dark room. My heart was beating so fast, it felt as if it would fly out of my chest, and the sweat on my forehead was dripping into my hair. It was as if I were back there again, at the scene of the accident. That’s all I could ever remember – seeing the bridge, hearing the crash and feeling the initial pain. Everything on the day leading up to that event was completely lost, as were the seven days following the accident.

Apparently, that’s not uncommon in an alcohol-related blackout.

Here We Go Again!

I'm off and running. 1670 words today. I'm not ready to post an excerpt, but I'm sure I will be in a day or two. I've already been surprised about where my characters are taking me - and strangely enough, I don't like one of them very much right now. And that's okay. She's not really very likable.

But I think maybe she will be.

If Emmeline has anything to do with it.

I like Emmeline.

It's Official...

I pasted my scrambled text into the magical and official NaNoWriMo novel word counter 2007 and it spat out the amazing number of 50,016. I won. Still 26 hours left in the game, I could increase that number if I wanted, and I do.

The story hasn't wrapped itself up into a tidy little package yet, but it's getting there. October will not be finished in November, but it won't take all of December, either.

At least I don't think it will...

Thanks for cheering me on...

(I need to find a nice frame for the pretty certificate...)

November 26, 2007, Word Count 41066

October 22, 1999

When I stepped out of the rental car in front of the house, I shivered as if a cold breeze had blown past my open coat. In reality, it was a warm October – it was the memories that chilled me. Charlie walked around the car and took my arm. “Are you ready for this?” He asked with concern in his voice.

“I’m ready. Let’s go in.”

Cars lined the block on the street where my parents had lived for decades. Ever since he had retired from the Air Force, my father had worked at one of the largest independent airlines servicing the regional airport in Shreveport , and it would seem that everyone that ever worked with or for him had come to pay their respects. Their church had organized all the food, so I was quite certain that there would be a lot of the members there as well. I hadn’t set foot in this house in almost 15 years. I hadn’t seen my mother since I had left. My father and I had spoken here and there, and he had come to visit me when I was in Alabama, but it had been almost 3 years since I had seen him. He had looked pale and thin and weary. The years of unrelenting grief had taken their toll on him.

My mother hadn’t even called me when he died. His lawyer had done that for her. He had left me a small inheritance, or I’m sure she wouldn’t have allowed anyone to call at all. I had called them just before Charlie and I got married and after I told her the news she hung up the phone without a word. I sent a card with our address and phone on it, and my dad had called, but I never spoke to my mother again.

We entered the house together, two strangers in a house I had once called home. It looked exactly like I remembered it. The dining room was to the left, sparkling chandelier hanging over the heavy oak table. The table was covered with casserole dishes and crockpots – like Baptist offerings to the god of the dead. Photographs of Ray and me hung on the right of the entry door – school pictures from kindergarten to 12th grade. Ray’s senior picture was like a ghost – taken just a month before he had died. The spot for my senior picture was empty.

The living room opened up off the entry way, perfectly arranged furniture – spotless and worn. My mother had always kept a clean house, even while arranging funerals. Over the fireplace hung a large framed painting of the house in which she had grown up – a genteel and elegant home on a riverbank. The room was crowded with people dressed for mourning, crying softly in that corner and talking quietly in another. I looked out the French doors onto the patio behind the house and saw my mother sitting in the swing, surrounded by some of the ladies from the church. They appeared to be praying, but my mother was staring right back at me.

I grasped Charlie’s arm and breathed in sharply. He looked at me, concern filling his eyes, and said, “What is it, Annie?” “My mom,” I whispered. “She is outside on the patio. She just saw us come in.” I didn’t know what to do. I was rooted to the spot, but my mind was telling me to go to her. How could this woman still affect me so, after so many years? I was getting ready to flee when a tall, silver haired man approached us.

“Annie?” He asked.

“Yes, I’m Annie.” He offered his hand and I shook it.

“I’m Tom Sweeney, Annie. Peter was not only my client, but my friend. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sweeney, and thank you so much for calling me. This is my husband, Charles Bradford.” The two men shook hands and exchanged niceties, then Mr. Sweeney turned back to me.

“I have some papers for you to sign and a few other items to give to you. Can you come by my office later this afternoon?”

“Of course, but it’s Saturday, Mr. Sweeney, surely your office is closed?”

“Please call me Tom. And I can open the office on a Saturday. It’s just me. I know you are traveling and I wasn’t sure how long you were going to stay, so I thought we could get the legal stuff handled today for you and then you’d be free to do what you need to do here.”

“That’s very kind of you, Tom. Thank you.”

Tom looked at me, eyes full of sympathy. “Annie – don’t pay much attention to what your mother says. She’s hurting, and her words are likely to be harsh. But Nora has been through a lot the last few years and she doesn’t always think straight. Try not to take anything she might say to heart.” He gave me his card and asked us to come by the office around 3:00 pm.

As he walked away, I saw my mother walking in through the French doors, headed straight for me.

November 19, 2007, Word Count 30516

My phone calls completed, I put the car into drive and started out on the Hatteras Lighthouse Road back to Highway 12. I spent the rest of the day touring the area by car, finding the nooks and crannies that defined small towns – those out of the way places that tourists rarely saw and, in truth, weren’t all that interested in. I finally turned north to Avon and the large grocery store there. Inside, I picked up a steak and some new potatoes, a six pack of Bass Ale and some chocolate. I felt the need to celebrate something – some kind of liberation that was just starting inside me. I paid for my purchases and drove back to Hatteras to Risky Business, where I had them steam some shrimp in their spicy seasoning.

The light was just beginning to fade as I walked up the stairs to my house. I walked in and called to Pippi, who came running and mewling for food. After I fed her and put the new potatoes on to boil, I took the steak to the gas grill outside. As it sizzled over the flames, I sat in a deck chair and drank a Bass, watching the sky turn that Quinacridone Magenta shade that always made me want to pull out my paints and try to capture it. The clouds formed radiant waves in the sky that echoed the indigo waves below. When the steak was done, I walked back into the house and drained the potatoes and added butter, salt and pepper to them, sliced the steak and opened a new beer. I went back out on the deck to eat and watch the sky make its journey from day into night. The magic of the light rested on the feldspar rich sand of the beach, turning it from light tan to pink, then through purple to a rich blue-gray of shadow. I knew that when the moon came out it would change it again to a silvery white ghostly plain.

When the food was finished and the second beer drained, I walked back inside and opened the package of chocolates. I peeled the silver paper from one and popped it into my mouth and remembered Charlie’s kisses. I placed the rest of the bag in the refrigerator and closed it. I wasn’t ready to remember Charlie, today. I wasn’t ready to give him up quite yet.