Author: Sarah A. Hoyt

. No, this is not the obligatory ecological post. Today, in the car on the way from dinner (not cooking at Thanksgiving is logical when you have only four people – five with our friend/honorary uncle to the kids) I was talking to the kids about a book I read when I was maybe 12/13.

This book – whose name I (unfortunately) can’t remember – came amid a trio of “fairytale books.” At twelve or so, I decided that I hadn’t read enough fairytales and was trying to round out my education. This one looked like a nineteenth century book with woodcuts, was written by some unknown Portuguese author and the title was something like “the foundling.”

It started with a baby girl found abandoned in a forest. She’s taken in by an older woman who gathers wood and who makes a good – if unloving – foster mother.

Half-bored, I felt I knew where this was going, but continued reading, expecting the more or less obligatory hidden princess story.

I was wrong. Though I no longer remember the details of the book – yes, I read it a good hundred times, as it became one of my favorites, but it was a long time ago and memory gets blunted – I know that the parentage of the girl is never revealed. The old woman dies, the girl is turned out of the house, she ends up working as a maid and some other menial jobs. Her work ethic and (what my friend Dave Freer calls) battler spirit get her through. She helps an old lady who is dying and whom no one looks after and, in return, is given an old book of recipes.

She starts her own little business selling cakes and pastries at fairs and meets a young man of very good family who – however – does not marry her because of course, she’s a foundling of unknown parentage. Eventually her little business becomes a successful pastry shop and later she meets another young man, a pastry chef, and this time it all works out and they marry and have a happy family and a successful business.

If you’d asked me at twelve, I’d have told you I had no idea why the story charmed me as it did. I only knew I liked re-reading it and it became one of my favorite books. It felt good and somehow “right” in a way that fairytales and romances didn’t.

Today, when I telling the kids about it, I realized why. It was because the character was a strong woman. Born with the ultimate disadvantage, the ultimate lack of support, she doesn’t – like fairytale princesses – either get rescued by a strong knight nor even by fate that reveals her to be a hidden princess. Also, she never complains; she never repines – she takes the situation she finds herself in and makes the best out of it, all the while looking out for those who are weaker or in more need than her. This last characteristic nets her the all-important recipe book (supposedly created by a medieval convent, which rings true for Portugal, and lost for centuries.) When her romance doesn’t work because her very conventional suitor wants a girl of suitable family, she doesn’t go into a decline, she just goes on with life.

She is, in fact, what editors so often say they want “a strong woman heroine, self sufficient, a good role model for growing girls.” Only, from my observation and reading, by this they usually mean mouthy, aggressive, foolhardy and complains a lot about men till one wonders if said character has an issue with being born female. There are exceptions, of course, but complaining about fate and men and being bitter seems to be obligatory.

And yet, it is true that this type of character is not only a great role model for young women, she is the type of role model we do need. Earth needs women (yes, and men, but we’re talking women here) who take care of the weak and helpless. Earth needs women who don’t whine. Earth needs women who cheerfully shoulder the burden of what needs to be done.

Earth does not need women who complain about men all the while neurotically obsessing on clothes and jewelry to attract said men and pursuing the highest-status males they can possibly get. There is nothing wrong with these activities, in moderation, but when they become the focus of existence they create a generation of infantile harpies. Now, I don’t think any women in real life are as bad as that, but almost all women characters in books and movies are just like that.

Young women who read/watch these characters end up feeling they must APPEAR like them or they’ll be thought weak. And this is wrong. Strength in women – and men – can be defined not as throwing weight around but in doing what must be done for oneself and those who depend on one.

Earth needs grown up women.

I very much hate to tell people what to do, much less what to be, but I wish we could set about writing – and living – role models for the women Earth needs.

Periodically people – on facebook, via email, through my site – try to get me to read their manuscripts. Unless they are friends or I know that what they really want is an honest critique, I do not give it. This is difficult, because some of these people are quite, quite, quite persistent and keep coming back with “but I’m sure you’ll love it if you just read it.”

I’m not saying that they’re wrong. For all I know, most of them or a significant portion of them are right and their manuscripts would absolutely knock my socks off, set my world afire or rock my aesthetic perceptions.

I’ve long ago learned not to judge how good someone’s work will be by whether or not they’re published. Being published involves all sorts of other qualities/events than being a very good writer. For example, one of my best friends was writing much better than I was – or probably ever will – when she was completely unpublished and is still doing so now, when she’s only published short stories and I’ve published several novels. Her novels keep getting rejected, though. Another of my best friends writes so much like me that my own husband can’t tell our work apart. She’s published almost nothing compared to me.

So these strangers who absolutely want me to read their novel might be amazing writers, much better than what I can buy off the shelf. I’m still not going to read their work, because it wouldn’t do either of us any good. Note my examples above. These are people I like very much and on whom I depend as though they were family. They are still largely unpublished. Why? Because writers don’t have that kind of power. We can’t do the editor’s job for them. It’s not OUR job. We can at most – if we love something – recommend it to an editor/publisher/agent. I’ve now recommended my two friends a couple of times. They’ve been rejected. Mind you, they got the up close and personal rejection which means my view of their work is correct – they’re very good and publishable. But something about the work, something about the timing, something about the editor’s/agent’s taste keeps them from breaking in.

It might seem to you getting an author’s recommend, or a personal introduction gets you closer to the goal, at least, let me disabuse you of that notion. I have a lot of friends, many more – much, much more – successful than I am. Their attempts to give me a hand up have been about as successful as my attempts to get my friends published. Oh, it happens, once in a blue moon, that an author friend – and almost always these are close friends – will recommend you to his/her editor/agent/publisher and you’ll get a contract. However, just on percentage, it’s easier for you to go through the normal channels of submission. Discovery sounds glamorous, but it’s harder than normal acceptance.

Of course, some more creative souls do stranger things, like post samples of their work on my blog comments, my facebook wall or – and this is very creative indeed – send it to my agent/editor with a note that I recommended it.

The first two are at best annoyances. Look, yeah, I have a few editors/agents who, sporadically, read my postings. They do this because we’re friends outside of “work” and like to joke or tease me about stuff I post. They do not do this to find “the next best thing.” To be blunt, most of them get quite enough submissions to read during their normal work time. In fact, reading submissions is the chore that never ends. They get submissions through the normal channels, they get work from writers they met at cons and social occasions, and they get submissions from people (not always writers) who recommend friends and co-workers. And this is work for them. No matter how much they love reading, no matter how much they tell you, in interviews, that they love “discovering” new work, when they read submissions it’s in a different frame of mind than when blogging or reading blogs/facebook/twitter. TRUST me on this. I’ve edited in the past. When I read with an eye to what might be publishable/needed, it’s not the same as reading say Austen fandom, which I often do read.

I’m not saying they might not look at your work. I’m saying that after catching on it’s a “sneaky submission” slipped into their leisure time, they’re likely to be mad at you and, if I don’t take steps to delete it or dissociate myself from it, at me for ambushing them with work during their fun. Ambushing them in that way is as impolite as ambushing a doctor at a party and asking for a diagnosis. I don’t have numbers, but I’d bet you a lot of money that you stand a better chance of being ambushed by a meteor in a back alley than you have of selling a book this way.

In fact, some writers will block you/defriend you/shut you out for this sort of thing. I won’t, because I can understand where you’re coming from. (More on that later, as well.)

The third method – to send something to my editor or agent and telling them I recommended it when I didn’t – will get you defriended/blocked/shut out if I ever find out it happened, because frankly it could potentially affect my professional relationship. POTENTIALLY – as in, unlikely, but it could happen. The reason it’s unlikely to damage my professional credit is the same reason why this fraudulent action manages to be both dishonest and stupid.

The person who comes up with this brilliant idea doesn’t realize that there have been several people to try it before him/her and that therefore there are procedures in place to circumvent it. For instance, unless I send my agent or editor a letter asking “Would you like to see my friend’s…” and the editor or agent answers with “sure” any over the transom submission saying “Sarah A. Hoyt loves this” will be seen as a fraud. MOST of the time (exceptions made for writers’ group members I HAVE introduced to the editor and even those just in short stories, frankly) such letters from me to editor and answers are followed by MY sending the manuscript I’m recommending to the editor/agent, with a copy to the author, with whom future correspondence will take place.

What all three of these methods will do, in any case, is cause untold damage to YOUR reputation and your chances of publication – if they’re noticed. You should pray they aren’t. This is because the one thing the publishers fear is “the crazy”. “The crazy” might have been a perfectly normal person driven insane by the process of getting published and their fundamental misunderstanding of that process. Or they might be – and very often are – people who think of themselves as artists and tortured souls: people whose work doesn’t depend on excellent craft and practice, but on the bolt of lightening of inspiration or the touch of a god of some description. These people just KNOW they’re good. (A surprising number of them have ‘something’ – usually smothered under layers and layers of twitdom and lack of craft.)

For the Touched By The Gods Artist it’s hard to endure the fact that they have to go through the same selection process as common mugs. This is reinforced – for practically everyone – by

a) the fact our society’s method of educating the young gives everyone, even adults this bizarre idea everything is a class and has an exam/grade. So when your work is good enough and you’re still not getting bought it’s an “injustice”.

b) Stories of strange methods of discovering writers circulated around and highly publicized. I’ve heard these stories the same as everyone else has and I can tell you nine times out of then when you dig into them you find that they just ain’t so. There’s always something that’s not told, like that the new, amazing star happens to be the best friend of the editor’s boyfriend/girlfriend and that’s why their blog post got read. Or they went to school with the agent or the agent’s best friend. Or…

The stories of sudden discovery are just that – stories, which make for d*mn good publicity. But again, you stand a better chance of being snatched up by aliens to be their king.

The Artist doesn’t know this, or if he does, he thinks he deserves that almost-impossible chance. And that means, he tries creative methods. The other things that lie in his path should he not wise up are what will get him blacklisted at the first sign of “artistic temperament” – a lot of these tortured souls will make threats to published writers/agents/editors; they will act unhinged/aggressive at cons; they will at best be nuisances and at worst dangerous.

Worse yet, even if they don’t do any of those things, and manage to get published, they’re unlikely to be able to bear up under the slings and arrows of publishing fortunes. And if you want to know what I mean by that, let me just say I thought I was uniquely unlucky until – while siting with about twenty other writers, some of them bestsellers – we started comparing horror stories. And then I realized I’d practically been treated with kid gloves by lady luck.

As into every life a little rain must fall, into every writing career – even of those who will end up being bestsellers – a little sh*t happens must fall. And the sh*t includes but is not limited to: horrible covers, dropped publicity campaigns, completely failed early books, disaster doom and lack of sales. The people who go on to be bestsellers end up shouldering these issues, and forging ahead – not matter how much more difficult the road has become.

This is why the best and fastest way to get published is to play by the rules. This shows an even temperament, understanding of the field, and taking a realistic attitude towards the BUSINESS of publishing. It means you have a better chance of persevering, working hard and not causing trouble – all excellent qualities in a contractor, which is what the publisher/editor is looking for.

Nowadays, I agree the process of submission is a mess. I’m not going to advise you on that beyond the barest level: find editors/agents who take slush submissions, or find an agent and leave the process to them. Or if you’re absolutely sure you’re not a twit but a real writer, publish your own work, publicize heaven out of it and sell enough to then submit to a real house. All of these methods have been proven to work, as has climbing the ranks from small press to major publisher.

Things that will help your path will be attending cons and both making personal acquaintances in publishing (always showing yourself polite and professional, of course), reading in the field to know what people are looking for/like, and – needless to say – work at perfecting your craft, because the great idea must be married to great execution to work.

And then… keep at it. In my experience, a good publishing career depends on – preparation, persistence and professionalism. Luck helps, but it’s neither indispensable nor all important. And notice that the “p” of potential or the “g” of genius are not mentioned. Most bestsellers or even mega bestsellers didn’t make it on either but on sheer slogging and persistence.

Questions? Protests? Worries? Let me know and I’ll answer as I can.

*crossposted at madgeniusclub.blogspot.com and at Classical Values.com*

Not to go into details, but apparently my teeth are very weird. My adult teeth are over-well-anchored, and apparently so were my baby teeth.

What does that have to do with anything? It means that losing my baby teeth was a series of painful experiences, probably more so than they are for the average kid. (No, I don’t know this for sure, but I know my pain threshold is higher than normal and that I dreaded pulling a shaky tooth out.)

My parents tried all the usual stuff, including tying the tooth to a door and slamming the door, or having an adult pull it off for me. (I’ve heard of people taking kids to the dentist for this now, but it was unheard of in my day. Also, my kids never needed it.)

My dread of the pain grew to the point I wouldn’t tell anyone when a tooth was loose and once or twice ended up with the new tooth wildly out of place (which was fixed later.)

Finally I figured out a way to deal with it. I would pull my own tooth. It still hurt like living fire, but the fact that I was in control seemed to make all the difference.

I have since found this is true for me for all unpleasant or painful experiences. I pull my own bandages, I remove my own splinters and I edit myself more harshly than any editor can.

I think this is the only thing that explains how I feel about the current TSA shenanigans. I am not someone overly afflicted with body modesty. Right now I feel embarrassed about being seen naked, but I feel embarrassed about being seen clothed, too – being about fifty pounds overweight. In fact, con pictures and family pictures are most notable by how much I manage to avoid the cameras.

However, this is consciousness of my weight, and not modesty. I never UNDERSTOOD modesty. One of nature’s nudists, I guess, mostly I cover myself so as not to embarrass other people.

But the idea of the TSA using the peekaboo scanner brings up a “h*ll no” reaction and the idea of being felt up… Well, that is a genuine phobia. If you’re my friend you know I’m kind of a touchy person – I pat arms, I squeeze shoulders and I hug. BUT if you’re a relatively recent friend, you also know it took time and I need to be familiar with someone before I touch them in casual contact. I HATE being touched by strangers – yes, it does make doctor’s visits very fun.

So, being me, I intend to lose at least forty pounds before I fly again, and then wear an easy-off dress atop a micro bikini (if I can find one in stars and stripes, so much the better.) I will then remove the dress, put it in the scanner, and walk through in bikini.

It’s quite probable they’ll arrest me as they did guy in underwear. If they do, the fur will fly. But I intend to have a bikini small enough they can’t imagine I’m concealing anything. And then, I’ll still have to reveal all to fly, but I – not them – will be in control.

Today I need to clean the house. I hope to do it quickly, so I can… work in the afternoon.

Yep, that’s how much fun we pro writers have. Aren’t you glad you asked?

Windy but sunny. I’ve gone for a walk for the first time in days — instead of using the treadmill.

Bought dishwasher and washer and dryer yesterday. My poor wallet is screaming, but this is good news for my readers, as I’m likely to get more work done without the endless hours washing dishes by hand, or having to make trips to laundromat. Yes, both things failed two months ago, at about the same time. I was too busy to shop until this weekend. Now that’s done. Unfortunately it will take a couple of weeks for stuff to be delivered, so there’s more laundry trips in my future.

On the good side, a new washer won’t have “tricks” I’ll have to work around, so I can teach the boys to do their own laundry. This will serve them well when they move out (a date edging every closer) and free yet more time for me to work. (Whee.)

I’m doing my post for MGC ahead of time and hope to get the next Refinishing mystery finished this week.

Well, besides my head? It’s when you consider junking your own comments or marking your own comments as spam in your own blog, then wonder if you’d take offense.

Yeah, okay, I’m sleepy after an excellent dinner with Doctor Les Johnson and his wife who were visiting in the Springs. Les and I will be sending a joint proposal up to Toni really soon. Like, as soon as I get off my behind on my part of it. :-P

At least the headache/nausea are gone.

if I didn’t touch alcohol? Partly it seems to be the result of sugar alcohols/artificial sweetener. I think I have a bad reaction to them. Partly, I THINK it’s that my sinus infection is back.

So, it’s an achy breaky day.

Being in a p*ssy mood I wrote an article which I’ll never post. Yeah, the woman who brought you the socially-conservative view PRO gay marriage (it’s in the archives, somewhere) came within inches of bringing you the FEMINIST view AGAINST abortion. (Though not for making abortion illegal. Heck, I’m not sure murder should be illegal.) But it ran to eight pages, and there’s way too much room for it to be WILLFULLY misunderstood. And it WOULD be.

I’m hungover. I’m not suicidal. I’ll go and write a holiday story instead.

The first birthday I remember, I must have been about three. I don’t remember details, only that I got up very early — before my parents knew I was awake (though I think they were both awake and busy. I don’t remember.)
I remember going through the still house — it was a brief excursion, since at the time we lived in a railroad-appartment (for the unitiated, that’s an appartment where the rooms follow one another in a row. Long and thin. One room thin, though we did have a large hallway which accomodated my brother’s trundle bed) carved out of my paternal grandparents’ larger house. (I understand they converted the store rooms to accomodate my parents.) One door faced the street, the other door faced to the back patio (which was no wimpy suburban patio, but more substantial. A working patio, almost a farmhouse patio, floored in broad paving stones and surrounded on the two sides flanking the house by my grandfather’s workshop, the shed and the chicken coups. The one open side faced a bed of calla lillies and a broad backyard which was itself surrounded by grapevines.) Both doors had glass panels which provided the only natural daylight in the house. Since we lived in the kitchen, that back door was open almost all the time we were awake. (I used to dream of living in a house with windows, as weird as that sounds. I never outgrew my wish for “a lot of windows.”)
That day, November… 1965? was so cold that the back door was closed. I opened it and looked out.
There was a whisp of wood smoke in the air and the fog shrouded the yard and gave it a dream-like quality. I don’t remember why — perhaps because it was the first time I’d woken up, dressed myself, and was out there on my own? — but the day had a quality of wonder and marvel.
My grandmother was in the yard, splitting wood for the franklin stove. I don’t know how long I stood at that door, watching her work. I remember feeling love for her and more importantly feeling protected and happy at her love for me. I remember the fog cool on my face. I remember the smell of burning wood.

There have been other birthdays since — forty five of them. I’m now markedly closer to the age my grandmother was then than to three. Or four. Or ten. As an adult, I can now appreciate how extraordinary it was that she was doing that work at … she had to be more than sixty, with neither complaint nor any signs of weekness. What is much harder to remember or accept: my grandmother has been dead eighteen years. I have sons who, I think, depend on me the way I depended on her.

But in my mind, I’m still standing there, my hand on that green kitchen door, looking out with new eyes at a world full of wonder and magic and the one woman who — more than any other (though my mother is formidable in her own right) — molded me into who I am.

When I first moved to town, I had a small child who was — just barely — verbal. This meant I spent a lot of time walking around with a baby carriage and day dreaming about writing. One of my favorite fantasies was “If I’m going to get published, I wish I’d come back and tell me that, so I wouldn’t despair…” So, in that spirit, ten things I would tell my younger-writer self, if I could.

10 – Read some up to date books. Find out the styles and conventions of what is being done now, not twenty years ago.

9 – Find a critique group, ASAP.

8 – Make sure it’s a critique group for genre fiction.

7 – Start sending things out, instead of waiting for a psychic editor to call and say “I know you have some wonderful…”

6 – Stop being afraid to send things out. Believe me, the editors have seen MUCH worse.

5- Stop taking rejections personally. Nine times out of ten it really is “We can’t use it now.”

4 – Start going to the cons you can afford, so you can put faces with the names and so they know you’re a real person too.

3 – Read the trade magazines, not just the “how to write Magazines.”

2 – That beloved world you’ve been working on for years? Kill it. It’s way too weird.

1 – Yes, you’ll eventually get published, if you work very hard. You’ll stay published if you continue working very hard. And, oh, yeah Don’t GET COCKY!

Another Fine Mess

The first time I tried to run away from home I was three. I’d packed all my comic books and a package of cookies in a book bag emblazoned with Remembered Murder, the name of my parents’ bookstore in Goldport Colorado, and I’d made it all the way down to the bus station, where I realized I didn’t have the money for a ticket. I’d then sat quietly in a corner bench and eaten my cookies and read my comics until my grandmother noticed I was missing and came to find me.

It never occurred to me that a three year old with a mystery bookstore shopping bag would be sort of noticeable. And it was several years before I realized that, even if I had had the money to buy a ticket somewhere, I wouldn’t have known where to go. My knowledge of geography at the time was limited to my street, the road leading to the kindergarten, and the diner where grandma took me for kids eat free Monday dinner. The only reason I’d found the bus station was that you could see it from the diner.

And I’d been married before I realized that, even had someone let me buy a ticket and run away by bus somewhere, no one would have given me a job when I got there.

The saddest thing of all was that at thirty one this was still about my level of planning. And that I was, once more, contemplating running away from home. Or at least running away from my parents’ store, where I sat by the fireplace, in one of the sofas provided for the comfort and convenience of customers wishing to browse mystery books, and listened as my mother and my best friend planned my second wedding.

Ben, aka Benedict Colm, has been my best friend since middle school. He is tall and rugged looking, with a face that’s more interesting than handsome and the sort of body that makes one think of Viking ships. He tones down the appearance by wearing a selection of impeccably color coordinated and blandly conservative suits during the week. On the weekend, he dresses down by wearing slacks, no coat, and sometimes shirts with an almost imperceptible pattern, which he convinces himself are garish. Today he was practically slumming, as he wasn’t wearing a tie and had unbuttoned the first three buttons in his shirt.

I suppose the attire goes well in his job as a financial planner. Unfortunately I suspect it was one of the things that had kept my mom – a porcelain-doll like woman who could have played a more true to life Miss Marple than the rather butch TV series actress – from believing me when I told her Ben was gay. Though if she didn’t believe it as he leaned forward and said, “I’m wondering if perhaps we could find someone to make a tuxedo for Pythagoras, so he can be best-cat?” I washed my hands of her.

I also washed my hands of my mother, whose response was, “So, your pet rats, are we putting them in the specially designed harnesses, so they can be used as buttonieres?”

It was at this moment I realized my hands had come up of their own accord and clasped the sides of my head, in horror. Cats and rats? Did they listen to themselves? And while Pythagoras, who is not so much my cat as a cat I allow to crash at my home, might be nominally my pet, the rats weren’t even mine at all. Okay, so I’d rescued them from inside a piano I’d buy to refinish for my fiancé Cas Wolfe. I’d only nursed them and looked after them because otherwise they’d be snake food. They were Ben’s problem now. I didn’t want them in my wedding.

“I don’t want anyone in my wedding,” I heard myself say. I sounded surly and unacountably like a teenager. My hand moved, all on its own, making an horizontal movement from side to side to indicate how much I didn’t want anyone at my wedding. “At least no one besides me and Cas. No cats. No rats. No tea roses. No buttonieres and NO book distributors. Also, no, mom, my wedding is not the ideal venue to display the covers of upcoming mysteries that can be bought at the store for a discount of twenty percent. And paperback books do not make tasteful wedding party favors.”

The two of them stopped talking for a moment and looked at me, for all the world, as though they’d completely forgotten I existed. Which, to be frank, they probably had. Then mom reached over and patted my hand, absently, more like she was fluffing a cushion or something. “There, there,” she said. “Brides always get nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” I said. I realized my voice was louder than it should be. “This is not my first time getting married. I don’t want a dress. It’s not a church wedding. I don’t want a guest list. I don’t want a reception. I don’t want–”

Mom and Ben traded a look that implied they were the adults in the room and that I must be humored and cajoled into playing my part. He tapped the pen he was holding against his teeth. It was one of the most annoying habits in the world, and I’d told him so several times since sixth grade. “To be honest,” he said. “Perhaps the mystery books as favors are a bit over the top. They’re damn hard to wrap in a tasteful way. Besides, we can’t know for sure what the guests will like to read or even if all of them read mystery.”

Mom narrowed her eyes at the unlikelyhood of someone not reading mystery, then wavered. “Well,” she said. “My husband has said that perhaps tasteful bottles of fingerprint powder…”

And like some slumbering warrior awakened from long sleep, my father perked up behind the register ten feet away, and beamed at us. “It would be handy, you know. Funerals and weddings and all often result in murder, and when someone kills Sherlockia on her wedding day, we’ll be all ready to take fingerprints.”

My name is not Sherlockia. Had my name been Sherlockia, I would have run away from home well before the age of three. In fact, probably before I’d learned to walk. Mom and dad had almost separated over what to name me, with my dad wanting Sherlockia and my mom holding out for Agatha. They’d met to discuss reconciliation in the local candy shop and mom had gone into labor over the parfaits. Which might explain – but did not excuse – saddling me with the names of Candyce Chocolat. Dad had dealt with the defeat as he dealt with such things: by pretending it had never happened.

Which meant the only way I could deal with this was by running away. I’d take my on-the-verge of dying third hand volvo station wagon, kosh my fiancé, police officer Cas Wolfe, stuff him in the passenger seat, then wait until my ex husband – all ex, couldn’t be more ex if I’d killed him, something I often contemplated doing – returned my son E – all right, his real name is Enoch, but I’m trying to save on therapy bills by calling him E. I’d strap E. in his car seat in the back, and we’d drive like bats out of hell to… Maybe as far as Denver, before my car died.

I revised my plan. I’d kosh Cas FIRST and steal his keys to his white Honda SUV. Then drag him to the passenger seat, move the car seat over and…

I paused. I could see E sitting in the back seat, screaming all the way to Las Vegas because we’d left Pythagoras – whom he called Peesgrass – at home in Goldport.

Right. I’d throw Pythagoras – a mangy and extremely neurotic black cat – in his cat carrier and strap him in next to E’s child seat. And then…

In my mind’s eye, I saw Ben – as opposed to the real Ben who was sketching something on a paper pad and showing it to my mother – crossing his arms and giving me his more in sorrow than in anger look at being left out of my elopement. After all, he’d been left out of my first wedding, mostly because Al-ex was jealous of him, which ranked up there as a feat of stupidity even for Al-ex. It probably wasn’t fair to leave him out of my second wedding as well. Besides, I’m superstitious. The first wedding had been Ben-less and the marriage had ended up on the rocks. What if the lack of Ben also blighted the second marriage?

My mental self koshed my image of Ben over the head, dragged him to the car – a feat of strength since he probably weighs double what I do – and strapped him in next to E and Pythagoras. Only in time for me to realize that Ben’s significant other, Nick, would probably be very upset if I took his boyfriend away for a few days. And probably even more upset to miss Cas’ wedding. Nick and Cas were not only best friends and colleagues in the Goldport Police department but also cousins who had been raised almost as brothers. It would be unforgivable not to take Nick along to Las Vegas to see us married by an Elvis impersonator at the Little Chapel of Quick Unions.

Sighing, I koshed my mental image of Nick, too, and stuffed him in the car under Pythagoras’ carrier, which probably would keep Pythagoras calmer for the trip, too.

Then just as I was about to get behind the wheel of my imaginary get-away car, I realized that though my parents had never exactly approved of me – I’d disappointed them by not becoming a private eye – I was their only daughter and they – alas – my only parents. They might be – and often were – the world’s most annoying people, but they probably deserved to be there when we told Elvis that we did…

I’d just done strapping my mental image of mom to the roof rack and dad to the front bumper, like a very beffudled looking deer, when I realized this wouldn’t do. I mentally untied dad’s hands and put a mystery book in them. He wouldn’t even notice he was strapped to the front of the car, provided that the book was interesting enough.

And then I realized that Fluffy, mom and dad’s cat, would be left alone for the whole time. But I had to draw the line somewhere. And Fluffy hated me and had – twice – tried to eat Pythagoras.

“No,” I said. “I’m NOT taking Fluffy.” And as mom and Ben turned to look at me, I realized that
eloping while taking all your nearest and dearest was probably not practical and got up. “I have had enough of this,” I said. “I’m going to work.”

As I rushed out of the store, I heard Mom ask Ben “What was that all about?” And Ben answer, “She just realized that she couldn’t take us all along if she eloped with Cas.”

I hated the way the man read my mind. Which did not excuse what I did next.