Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Chapter 1 of "WHY NATASHA?"



Prologue

There should have been a sound--she knew that much--but she was also aware that not hearing anything was curious. It was as if she was watching someone else from a detached distance. Then a voice followed by an explosion of white light. Then all was darkness.

Her next awareness was of lying on her back and of the intense throbbing in her lips. She tried unsuccessfully to lift her head. The failure to lift herself refocused her awareness to the dull pain in the back of her head and how hard it was to breathe. She laid her head back and just tried to move her lip, which had the effect of doubling the pain.

“Just lie still,” a calm male voice said.

She squinted, then closed her eyes, then opened them as wide as she could in an attempt to get the face behind the voice into focus.

“You’re ok,” the voice said.

“What happened?” Nattie asked as the man’s face came into view.

“As near as I could tell you were sucker punched.” The voice was impassive, professional.

“You never saw it coming. He walked up to you, said something, and then bam. You didn’t lift your arms; you didn’t flinch; you didn’t protect yourself at all.”

Nattie noticed that he was in a blue uniform. He was a policeman.

“My partner and I saw the whole thing. We were parked right over there.”
Turning her head to look in the direction where he pointed made Nattie wince. Her neck was stiff. She labored to take a long deep breathe and began to sit up.

“Are you sure you’re ready to do that missy?” the policeman asked, but seeing that she was not to be dissuaded he put his left hand under her right arm and supported her neck with his right. “Just go slow,” he encouraged.

Once she was upright, Nattie bent her head forward and fought off dizziness. She touched her lips. She could not tell if they were swollen yet but she knew they would be. Her front teeth felt loose against her tongue.

“Do you know who hit you?”

Lifting her head Nattie gazed across the parking lot outside her office. After a prolonged consideration she slowly turned to face the officer, who was still squatting next to her. “I don’t think I do.”

“That’s okay,” he said, “we’ll know who he is soon enough. My partner caught him as he ran around the front of your building.”

“Already?”

Laughing more heartily, the officer said, “He wasn’t the brightest assailant we’ve ever had to catch. He attacked you right in front of us and then when he tried to make his escape he ran straight towards us.”

How nice for you, thought Nattie.

“Are you sure you didn’t recognize him? It looked like he said something to you just before he hit you.”

“He did.” she remembered. “He asked me my name.”

CHAPTER 1

NATTIE


“Peace and goodwill,” Nattie announced as she crested the State Street hill on Monday morning. Immediately she touched her lip. Although it had been nearly a week since she had been punched in her parking lot, pronouncing words that begin with the letter “p” still hurt.

On Wednesday she had driven to the Opryland Hotel in Nashville and on Thursday and Friday she attended a review course in preparation for a private investigation agency licensure exam on Saturday. She returned to Bristol late Saturday night and enjoyed the solitude of being home on Sunday without anyone knowing she was back.

The timing of the trip to Nashville was a blessing for her. Staying in Bristol would have required endless questions about her fat lip. Having no answers for those questions would have been embarrassing enough without the added pressure of her profession. She could picture the comments:”You say you don’t know who hit you or why?--Too bad you don’t know a private investigator.” In Nashville, if one of the other private investigators were to ask, “in the line of duty” would have been an acceptable explanation.

She was already a licensed private investigator but this license would qualify her to own and operate her own agency. Passing the agency exam had been Nattie’s main concern for the last five days; but now that she was home in Bristol, finding out who attacked her moved to the top of the To-Do list. She did not see herself as a crusader defending women against men. In spite of knowing that women are just as capable of villainy as men, she still had a slight fantasy that the inaugural case of her new agency, assuming that she passed the exam, would be to find justice for a victimized woman. I just wish it wasn’t me, she thought.

On State Street, two blocks east of the “Bristol: A Good Place to Live” sign, is a hill. Atop of that hill is a panoramic view overlooking downtown Bristol with the “knobs” in the background to the west. The knobs were not exactly mountains, but if she was squinting she could envision herself looking over the hillside surrounding Assisi, Italy, the home of Saint Francis.

Nattie’s affection for Saint Francis was not born from a Catholic upbringing. Her parents went to a Lutheran church on those occasions when they went to church at all. It was her mother, Ingrid, who had first been enamored with the founder of the Franciscan order. Ingrid had a small plastic statue of Saint Francis on her dashboard and was fond of telling stories about him to her children. When Nattie was eleven, Ingrid married Lionel O’Brien, who considered Ingrid’s plastic statue to be a form of “idol worship,” so she threw the statue, a DVD of “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” and two biographies of Saint Francis away. Nattie retrieved it all and the very first thing Nattie did when she bought her first car was to place that same plastic Saint Francis statue in the middle of her dashboard.

If traffic on State Street was thin, as it often was early in the morning, she could lean over to the middle of her front seat and include the statue in view of the city and hillside. She could then imitate Francis himself welcoming the Sun to a new day in the hills of Assisi, “peace and goodwill.”

The scene observed from behind Saint Francis was her favorite view of the city. She did not have this visual experience as often as she would have liked because it needed daylight and sparse traffic, which meant early in the morning. When she started her morning this way she knew it would be a good day.

Natalie “Nattie” Miriam Moreland slid into her usual parking spot in the lot outside her office. As usual she was the first car there. Not a big surprise for seven thirty on a Monday morning. Her Private Investigator office had a side entrance leading directly to the parking lot which allowed her clients to enter with some anonymity. The front entrance facing State Street would have been better advertising, but it would not have allowed much privacy.

She had been gone nearly a week and could see already that the sign painter had worked on her door. Good, Nattie thought, slinging her bag over her left shoulder. She transferred her keys to her right hand and headed for the door. But something she noticed stopped her in mid-stride. The key to her office door froze in time just six inches from its home. She could not believe what she was looking at on the glass door to her office.

Nattie almost knew that she would eventually find this very funny. Almost, but not quite. What she did know was that someone got her name wrong. Her name, the name she had written on a work order exactly as she wanted it painted on her door. The name she had written on the work order her receptionist had downloaded from the Ace Sign Company. The name on the check that the Ace “policy” required before they would start to work. The name she had pointed at and said aloud to her receptionist before she left town six days ago. The name she wanted on her door was her name, Natalie Moreland.

Her eyes blinked then opened wider as she lowered her right hand and let the key dangle. She realized that it really could be Ace’s fault, but a screw-up like this had Kevin’s fingerprints all over it.

“Why Natasha?” she asked out loud without expecting an answer. Then her eyes narrowed and her breathing became very deep and very slow. In spite of knowing that it was 7:30 in the morning and that Kevin, her receptionist, her little brother, had never come to work before lunch on Mondays, she still looked for him in the parking lot. When they were kids and Kevin knew he had done something that would tick her off, he would always hide somewhere to gauge her first reaction from a safe distance. She was sure he was watching from somewhere now.

“Are you Ms McMorales?” shouted a man from across the intersection.
The shout startled her. Maybe it was because this was the first time she had returned to the scene where she was attacked. Nattie was surprised by how much the shout startled her. She just looked at the shouter, a man she did not recognize. If you don’t know the rules of the game it’s not wise to roll the dice. So she stood there, non-committal about her name, and watched the shouter wait for traffic to thin enough to cross the street.

He was bald, middle-aged, maybe a healthy 50 or a 40 with some hard miles. He was dressed in spotless white painter’s pants, a white tee-shirt, also spotless, and a blue sports coat. He carried two cups of coffee from Java J’s as he tip-toed through traffic towards her.

“You are Natasha McMorales” the shouter stated, “I just knew it when I saw you.” His smile was big, too big for Bristol, Tennessee, where the standard operating procedure for smiling was to show the upper teeth and occasionally the upper and lower teeth on one side of the mouth or the other. But this tip-toeing middle-aged man wearing a sport-jacket and painter pants was showing every tooth he had.

He held out a cup of coffee in his right hand, “Your office manager told me you drink decaf with splenda.” Then he nodded as if to say, “Go ahead; take it.”

“Do you mean Kevin?” Nattie asked as she pointed her thumb back over her shoulder toward the door behind her while thinking, My idiot brother?

“Si, Kevin.” Mister Tip-toe frowned, retracting the coffee cup. “Did he play a joke on me?”

Nattie stepped forward and reached for the decaf coffee, “I’m sorry for acting so rude. I don’t usually think of Kevin as my office manager.” She shrugged. “He’s my brother.”

Mister Tip-toe’s gigantic smile returned as he released his gift into her hand.

“Thank you,” she said, as she took a sip through the plastic lid. It burned her over-sensitive upper lip, but she added, “This is perfect.”

Placing all five fingertips of his right hand on the middle of his chest, the man announced, “I am Oliver Ruggaliano”; and after bowing slightly, he added, “Please call me Ollie.”

“Hello, Ollie,” she said as she shifted the keys to her left pinky finger and offered her right hand to shake, “I’m Nattie.”

Ollie moved his coffee to his left hand, then after drying his right hand on his right butt cheek he shook her hand enthusiastically. “Nattie! It is a good name, a good American name.” His teeth disappeared and he knitted his brow, “Natasha is a beautiful name, though, a dignified name, important.”

“Why is the name Natasha important?”

“I need to hire a detective who has--” He paused. “--European sensitivity.”

“European sensitivity?”

“I must explain,” Ollie said, “but it is a long story and you have just gotten here. I will come back later when we both have time.”

She was tempted to tell him that “Nattie” is American for “Natalie,” not “Natasha,” but with the “European sensitivity”’ comment the game just got more confusing. “Let me go inside and check my calendar.

Ollie held her coffee while she slid the key into the lock of the door. “I was gone all last week,” she explained.

His “I know” froze her for the second time that morning. She lifted her head and made eye contact with her own reflection in the glass door. Did you hear what I heard? she asked herself silently.

It was not fear that Nattie felt, although she was aware that several alarms had rung in the last few minutes. Then again, maybe the awareness of alarms being rung was how she felt fear. Setting the questions of emotional intelligence aside she decided to keep Ollie in front of her and with his hands full until she was within easy reach of one of the guns she kept in her office. The gun she normally kept holstered at the small of her back was still locked in the glove compartment of her Subaru. Pulling the door open with her left hand she ushered him in with her right hand.

“After you,” Ollie said politely.

“I appreciate that, Ollie,” she said pleasantly, “but I have the door and you have your hands full so please, go ahead.”

He tried giving the coffee to her, but she said, “You hold the coffee and I’ll get the lights.”

Ollie half-bowed again and then stepped through the door into the unlit waiting room. Nattie followed him through the door and flipped on the light switch which was to her left. With the lights on she turned towards Ollie only to watch him set off another alarm in her head.

The waiting room had a large frumpy couch, upholstered with a heavy dark green fabric that reminded many folks of an L.L.Bean dog blanket. The couch was along the short wall to the right of the door, which made the wall crowded enough to offend even marginally sensitive tastes. But aesthetics was not why Nattie wanted the couch there. Her real reason was because she wanted the end table to be just inside the door.

It was a plain end table and it usually held a disorganized pile of odd and unrelated magazines; People, Gold Digest, Southern Living, and Sojourners. But the real importance of the plain end table was the spring loaded hidden drawer that held one of the two guns she kept in her office.

What was alarming Nattie at the moment was that Ollie was now standing next to and facing the end-table. After he put her coffee on top of an old People magazine proclaiming Mel Gibson as the sexiest man alive, he slide his hand under the lip of the top and sprung the secret drawer open, which immediately thudded against the wall.

Nothing about this scene was acceptable to Nattie. Ollie knew way too much about her for her comfort, which was par for the course when Kevin was involved. Also, Ollie had a very European name and an interest in “European sensitivity,” whatever that was, but his accent sounded more like he was from New England than Italy. And the secret hidden drawer, which normally missed hitting the wall by half an inch, was not where it had been last week. And worse yet, it was most certainly not a secret hidden from this oddly dressed tip-toeing man who now smiled warmly gesturing at the gun in the drawer with a hand motion that would have made Vanna White proud.

Nattie did not know whether to leave the gun be or put it in the holster and clip it on her belt at the small of her back. Ollie made the decision for her by stepping backwards to the middle of the room and giving her the “go ahead; take it” nod again. As Ollie turned her back to Nattie to look at a framed poster replica of “The Birth of Venus,” Nattie put the gun in the right pocket of her jacket and closed the drawer.

“I love this,” Ollie said, pointing at the poster. “Who was the artist again?”

“Botticelli,” Nattie said as she looked for her calendar on Kevin’s desk. Her calendar/appointment book should have been locked in the middle drawer of his desk, but it was not there. She finally found it left open in the middle of his desk. All it took to find it was to remove the stack of Sudoku puzzles Kevin had left half finished. Apparently this was part of his work week while she was gone.

“I think this painting is in Venice.” Ollie said from the chest high counter on the other side of Kevin’s desk.

“Actually, it’s in Florence,” Nattie said apologetically. She did not want to sound arrogant or make Ollie feel bad for being wrong but she did feel some satisfaction in knowing where the Botticelli hung. She knew the name of the museum in Florence too, the Uffizi. It felt good to know the name of the museum. It would not have felt good to say it.

“Ah yes, Florence,” Ollie smiled, “They say that the ‘Birth of Venus’ kicked off the Renaissance. Do you think that’s true--Nattie?”

Nattie had been stooping over the desk but stood up and looked at Ollie square in the face. As a private investigator she had trained herself to avoid making hasty judgments. When confronted with a situation in which she did not know the rules, her strategy was to slow down the rolling of the dice. With people she used a different metaphor. She envisioned gathering puzzle pieces, and her strategy was to slow down picturing the finished puzzle until enough puzzle pieces had been gathered. Slowing down was the common denominator in both metaphors.

The puzzle pieces Nattie had already gathered about Ollie so far were the oddest collection of personal facts she had ever encountered. And her collection was only fifteen minutes old.

“I don’t know if it started the Renaissance or not, but the art history teacher I went to Florence with said it was.” Nattie pointed back at him with her chin and asked, “Are you interested in art history?”

“A little,” Ollie replied, “My mother’s family is from Tuscany. She loved everything Tuscan and passed that on to me.”

“Have you been to Toscana, Ollie?”

“Toscana!” Ollie repeated, “You say Tuscany like an Italian--Toscana”

“That brings me to another question Ollie. What do you mean by the term ‘European sensitivity?’” asked Nattie.

“I don’t really know what it means either. I told the man who was here last week that I need a detective who knew about Italy and Italians. He told me that you were famous for your European sensitivity.” Ollie showed all his teeth again and pointed at the appointment book Nattie held. “But that is a long story for anther time.” Then he looked out the window and added, “I am a bit late for work so if you would not mind checking your schedule I’ll be on my way.”

“Of course.” She opened the calendar and placed it on the desk. She ran her finger across the Monday column out of habit as her schedule was completely free all day. The puzzle pieces she collected so far confused her a bit and piqued her curiosity. What she knew, from what she observed so far, was that there was not much she knew. At least she knew she was no longer afraid, but she did not quite know why.

What Nattie did know for sure was that before she would talk to Ollie again she was going to talk to her brother. She wanted a piece of Kevin’s hide. “How about one o’clock today?” she said to Ollie, “Right after lunch.”

Ollie squinted and clinched his teeth, “I’m afraid I cannot come so close to lunchtime.” He pointed out the window, “I am the chef at Michelangelo’s across the street.”

Michelangelo’s was a fairly new restaurant to Bristol. She ate there for lunch almost every week and almost always ordered their Tomato Florentine soup and a Greek salad. Ollie had not been there two weeks ago.

“How about three o’clock then?”

“Three o’clock is perfect. Thanks,” he said and started for the door.

“One question before you go, please,” she blurted out.
Both Ollie’s hands were poised to push the door open but he stopped and turned his head towards her.

The question Nattie most wanted answered was how he came to know about the secret drawer and the hidden gun. But she wanted to talk to Kevin before she asked Ollie about that. So she asked her second question instead. “How did you know that I was gone last week?”

Ollie smiled that big smile again and said, “I knew you were gone last week because I’m the one who painted your door last week.”

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

On the New Moon Italian landscape

A question came to my blog last week asking me to explain the significance of the Saint Francis picture.

The short answer is that the very picture was the final piece of the puzzle that successfully finished the first big case of the Natasha McMorles Detective Agency. I cannot go into much detail about that case yet but I can say that it allowed me to make my first visit to Italy. I say first trip because I did not visit St Francis’ home in Assisi, so visiting there is still the number one item on my bucket list. Anyway, what I can say is that being in Italy far exceeded my expectations, which were high to begin with. I did stay a few days in Montepulchiano, a mountaintop Tuscan town where several scenes from the movie “New Moon” were filmed.




That’s Montepulchiano in the distance. This shot looks very similar to the scene in which Bella races towards the city in that red sports car.












On the last day that I was in Montepulchiano they partitioned off the Piazza Grande and began building this movie set. It was only partially finished when I left the city but you can recognize the beginning of that fountain Bella climbed through.







I can't say more about my time in Montepulchiano here because my time there will be covered in the first Natasha McMorales detective novel. Why Natasha? is the title and it will be available soon. The author, C S Thompson has decided to make some sample chapters available to preview maybe here on this blog...I hope so.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Dwayne and his roving eye

What do you do when the husband of one of your friends pays just a little too much attention to you? Debbie’s husband, Dwayne, is one of those guys that isn’t aware that he should at least try to hide his obsession with the breasts of whatever woman he is facing. I mean when a guy is standing directly in front of you and only three feet away does he really think you don’t notice where he’s looking? I have literally crossed my arm across my chest and held onto my shoulder and he hasn’t gotten the hint. By today’s standards I’d say I dress pretty modestly. I rarely show cleavage and when I do I take great pains to make sure I don’t bulge at all, but if I know Dwayne will be around I cover everything. And what do I say to Debbie? “I love your new outfit and by the way, your husband has the sexual gracefulness of a seventh grader in heat.” I might have said something if it seemed like she had ever noticed but she has not, which is absolutely amazing because he does it right in front of her. She has always seemed oblivious to it. But yesterday everything changed. Yesterday I met them at the Burger Bar, which recently re-opened. I was wearing my hair pulled back in a pony-tail and when Dwayne told me he thought he liked my hair that way best I could see Debbie flinch. It was like she got punched in the stomach. The look on her face was gone in a nano-second, but there was no question that she had noticed it this time. I always thought I’d talk to her if she ever noticed and now that she has noticed I still feel that way. Any suggestions?

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

City Dogs of Richmond



PI work has its' perks...like visiting other places. Which for me means finding interesting places to eat. Okay, I'm sorry, I like to eat. And the City Dogs Tavern in the Bottom section of Richmond, VA gets a thumbs up from me. It's a neighborhood bar kind of place which means they have several large screen TVs all turned in to ESPN channels. The menu has a page full of hot dogs all named after US cities. I had a Philly dog (onions, peppers, provolone, & mayo) and a Sante FE (guacamole, mustard, & jalepinos)....If I get there again I'll try a brat and get another Santa Fe. While all the men in the place watched Notre Dame get beat I enjoyed my lunch and thought about Ollie Ruggaliano, the first client of the Natasha McMorales Detective Agency. Ollie's family owned a chain of hot dog places in the Chicago area. When I visited there to do a background on him I met his menagerie of a family and heard all sorts of theories about why he hired me. You can read more about all that when the "Why Natasha?" novel is published next month.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Mountain beauty



I was on my way to Atlanta on Friday to check on a client's wife. I got as far as Spartanberg,SC when I got a call telling me that the wife was not having an affair. She was having breast enhancement surgery. "Problem" solved. I love it when a plan comes together. So I decided to come back to Bristol the long way, through the Smokies, so I could see how the colors had changed. The mountains weren't the way I had expected but they were still breathtaking. I guess you have to let the beauty in a thing be in that thing and not in your own head.

Monday, September 6, 2010

Molly: Thief of Hearts

This week I learned what a thief a child could be. Molly was five years old and I’d been hired to take her home to Denver. She had come to Bristol so a relative could take care of her while her mother recuperated from an appendectomy. The problem was that while Molly was here the relative broke both her legs in a traffic accident. The relative, a distant cousin, was chosen because of her distance. They didn’t want Molly’s father to know where she was for fear that he would violate the order of protection and abduct her. My job was to make sure she got home to her mother. I offered to hold her hand as we walked to my car. She very politely said, “no thank you. “ At the airport I didn’t ask. She didn’t really hold my hand but she let me hold hers. It was limp and it said, I accept this and I won’t fight you. In the air we hit some turbulence and she squeezed my hand. It said, I’m afraid and I have no one else to hang on to. Somewhere over Kansas we both giggled at a Disney movie about flying dinosaurs and she held my hand playfully. It was a great feeling, it said, we are friends. I was sure that the "we are friends" handholding was the best until we arrived at Molly’s mother's house. As we walked up to the front door Molly hesitated. I had no idea how much Molly knew about her mothers’ medical condition or how much time they had had to arrange for her trip to Bristol, but I got the clear impression that Molly didn’t know what to expect inside her house. So I waited until she was ready to proceed. Molly never took her eyes off the door while she slipped her hand into mine. She didn’t hang on like she was frightened, it was tender, like she was saying, I trust you. And right there, right in front of me, and without blinking an eye she stole my heart.

Monday, August 30, 2010

The Natasha at Manna Bagel

Susan just smiled and looked at me with one of those expressions that said, “You will realize what you just said if you just think about it for a moment.” Susan is the manager of Manna Bagel on State Street and she took my order last Wednesday. “I’ll have a Nattie,” I had said. After a minute she could no longer wait so she asked, “Do you mean a Natasha?” A “Natasha” is a Continental (an open faced grill cheese sandwich with tomato) with a slice of onion on a pepperoni bagel instead of sesame seed bagel. It is a variation of the sandwich my mother made for my brother Kevin and I. It was Kevin’s idea to name the sandwich after me, or at least he named it the Natasha. So you can see why I was a little embarrassed … it is just weird to ask for something named after yourself … especially if you forget the name.

If you go to Manna bagel for lunch there are many great things to order from the menu, but if you want a Natasha (which is not on the menu) than make sure to order it from Susan or Matthew. I like mine with a side of Terra chips.


Friday, August 27, 2010

Buffalo Chili at the American Indian Museum

While I was in DC on a case I had to kill some time before meeting the President...of National
University Law School, not The President. We were meeting at the cafateria in the Smithsoniam Museum of the American Indian because he was in a meeting there and that was all the time he could spare me. The cafeteria serves Native American dishes. I had the Buffalo Chili over fried flat bread with a side salad of watermelon and green tomatos. ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL. If I am ever in DC again it will be on my "must do" list. There were a lot of other dishes that looked good and I really should try them ... but that is just not my style. I found what I like there, it is what I will go back for, why would I try something else?

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Nathan's shirt

When I drove to work yesterday I passed a man walking on the Virginia side of State Street in downtown Bristol. I did not recognize this man but he was wearing a yellow Hawaiian shirt that reminded me of my husband’s favorite Hawaiian shirt. Nathan is actually my ex-husband, but there are still times when memories of him make me smile and this was one of those times. We had been married for only eight months or so and his alcoholism had not kicked in yet so I did not know enough to be alarmed by the story he told me after I unpacked his Hawaiian shirt from his suitcase. He had to explain why there were so many cockle burrs stuck to that shirt and it needed to be a very good explanation because the cockle burrs were stuck to the inside of that shirt.

Nathan had gone to Indianapolis to call on an Insurance Company’s claim center on behalf of the Hiram Moreland Detective Agency where we both worked. He got friendly with a couple of claims managers and they invited him out for dinner. Nathan is not really a drinker, at least he was not a drinker yet. They had worked late that evening and it was after 9:30 when they picked Nathan up at his motel. They went to a Mexican place and he had a beer with the chips and salsa. He quickly ordered another beer when he discovered that his entree was hotter than he expected. One of the men ordered after dinner drinks for the table. The most I had ever seen him drink was two beers or two glasses of wine so I knew he was already past his comfort zone. After dinner they went somewhere else for dessert but the place they went only served drinks. I knew it was a strip club but I did not let him know that I knew. After several Navy Grogs they started to take him back to his motel on the west side of Indianapolis. Nathan was unable to hide his inebriated state from his hosts who thought it would be funny to describe going out to breakfast and getting some greasy fried eggs. After hearing the phrase “greasy fried eggs” one too many times Nathan tried franticly to roll down his window. He just barely got it rolled down as far as it would go before he lost control of the contents of their evening’s entertainment. Unfortunately for them all Nathan did not realize that the windows in the rear doors of most cars only go down half way. In an effort to minimize the damage of his miscalculation Nathan tried to clean up as much as he could with his shirt. He was too drunk to throw up through the open portion of his window but not too drunk to take care of his favorite Hawaiian shirt which he removed, set aside, and then used his white tee shirt as a rag/mop. Once they got to the Holiday Inn parking lot the driver got some rags and a bottle of windshield wiper fluid to finish the cleanup job Nathan had started with his undershirt while Nathan stood bare-chested and held his precious shirt in his hands. All was well until they heard a screech of tires and a collision from Interstate 465 bypass behind the motel. They could not see the accident because there was a large field and a dip between the parking lot and the highway. Nathan was the last to sprint towards the accident because he took the time to put his shirt on, not noticing that it was inside out. Being a former baseball player and the youngest of the three, “helper” Nathan quickly outran his hosts and was the first one to reach the wire fence that bordered the highway. He did not see the fence until he hit it full speed.

It was a good story and I remember it with amusement but what brought a smile to me today was the look on his face when I held up that shirt with the cockle burrs inside it. Nathan looked at the shirt and then looked at me with the kind of “who me?” crooked smiles little boys use to get out of trouble. I guess I am one of those women who likes for men to have a little bit of little boy inside of them. But like most women I could not wait forever for a little boy to grow up.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Murder Takes The Cake





Always carry a good book. It is a rule that can carry you through those times when waiting is the order of the day. After an eight hour drive to Washington DC last Thursday and then a visit to the payroll department at National University Law School all I got was an appointment with the president (of the school not the country) for Friday. With time to kill I visited Legal Seafood for dinner. Legal Seafood is famous for clam chowder but let’s face it, famous clam chowder is still clam chowder so I had what turned out to be the best crab cakes I had ever eaten. I finished my evening by soaking in a warm bath and reading the last three chapters of Murder Takes the Cake by Gayle Trent. It was a great read, filled with characters with great names like Yodel Watson and her sisters Harmony and Melody. The plot line was intriguing with loads of possible murder suspects. The characters rang true, they reminded me of my grandmother’s Eastern Star friends. I found myself wondering if Gayle’s grandmother knew mine. Anyway, it was nice to finish off a nearly pointless day with a good soak and a good read. Be careful when you read this book though because as you read you will finding yourself with a craving for cake.

Monday, August 9, 2010

The Twin's Elmo Birthday Party


The first time I met Dwayne, Debbie’s husband, was at the two-year-old birthday party for their twins, Abe and Matilda. As I have already mentioned I see Abe as a rhinoceros and Matilda as a fox. For example, Abe is atypical little boy and loves all things with wheels. Abe’s big present was a wagon. It was a big wagon with tires instead of solid rubber wheels and what looked like a wooden split rail fence all around it. A great wagon but too big to have inside their home. Matilda is a typical little girl and what she loves most is being a big girl. Her main birthday present was a baby stroller for her doll. The stroller was small enough and light enough to have inside the house. With the wagon outside and the stroller inside drew Abe’s attention and whenever it was left unattended he would push it in a circle through the kitchen, to the family room, then the living room, and finally through the dining room and back to the kitchen. Like a rhino, when he saw what he wanted he put his head down and went right to it, no guile, no deception. Now Matilda, the fox, would just set him up by leaving it where he would see it and then when he was pushing it around with his head down she would wait until their were no adults around and then sneak up on him and snatch it away. He never saw it coming. She saw everything. After about the forth time this little drama re-played Abe ran head long at the couch and threw himself down in sheer frustration. I had to feel for the little guy with his face buried in the cushions and his arms flailed out to either side. From the door to the kitchen his dad simply said “you better get used to that buddy,” while Matilda stood innocently by with the most angelic expression on her face.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Top 10 Romantic Comedies


The other day I pulled another all-nighter. The man I was watching was supposed to be alone all might and as far as I could tell he was. Time will tell if he is innocent but he was not guilty last night. As for me, I got nine hours on the clock and another top ten list under construction. Last night’s list started out to be an all-time romantic comedy list but I decided to divide it into two lists, a modern one and an older one. Here’s my modern list with a three way tie for the top spot:

1. Sweet Home Alabama
1. French Kiss
1. Knotting Hill
4. America’s Sweethearts
5. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
6. Housesitter
7. Roxanne
8. When Harry Met Sally
9. Overboard
10. The Bounty Hunter (I haven’t actually seen this movie but it made the list by virtue of the commercials)


HONORABLE MENTIONS:
Fools Rush In (This movie didn’t make me laugh so much but it is here because it has the greatest movie line said by a guy which was, “You are everything I never knew I always wanted”)
Milk Money (As long as Fools Rush In made by virtue of a great guy line, this movie is here because of a line delivered by Melanie Griffin. She told a prepubescent boy that, “Yes, there is a place on a woman’s body that if a guy touches it she will do whatever he wants. It’s her heart.”)


Monday, August 2, 2010

MATILDA SQUIRTS HER MOTHER

I had lunch at Debbie’s yesterday. I wrote about meeting Debbie at the Sunny Side Up Cafe on June 7th. We have since become friends. She is an amazing mother and she just about has to be with the twins she has. If Abe were an animal he’d be a rhinoceros. That boy runs wherever he goes. I swear whatever he doesn’t run into he climbs on, and then falls. She has to keep a step ahead of him every minute he is awake. Matilda, on the other hand, is a fox. She watches everything her mother does and is determined that she could do everything too. Watching Matilda does not carry the same level of urgency that watching Abe does, a fact that Matilda has already discovered and knows how to put to good use. Once when Debbie was busy with Abe, Matilda pushed a kitchen chair to the sink and started doing the dishes. Water was everywhere but how could you do anything but smile when a child tries so hard to be helpful. And being helpful is her life’s work, if she finds anything out of place she will put it where it belongs immediately. Unfortunately she has her own ideas about where its’ place might be. Debbie found a potato in her underwear drawer and her husband found one of his golf balls in the fruit and vegetable bin of their fridge. Matilda finished her lunch first so she was allowed to get down while Abe had to stay in his highchair until he finished his orange. I was told that getting him to eat his fruit at lunch was a regular battle of wills. Matilda opened the back door, went out on their deck, and peered in at us through the kitchen window next to the breakfast table where we were still sitting. Debbie with her back to the window and bragged about how easy Matilda is to take care of while I watched the little cherub face smile at us. A moment later Matilda was next to the table again holding a small squirt/spray bottle, which her mother filled with water. As she handed the squirt bottle to her daughter Debbie said, “That’s an outside toy. Take it outside before you squirt anything.” Debbie returned to her seat and as she was handing Abe another orange wedge, she suddenly flinched forward as if she had been zapped in the back with a stun-gun. Her angelic daughter had done exactly as she was told. She did not squirt anything until she was outside. I’m guessing that the water in the bottle was pretty cold.

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Chocolate/Peanut Butter Squares

QUESTION: Where can you get a chocolate/peanut butter square?




ANSWER: Blackbird Bakery .... but if it is not on display out front it may be in the back so do not be afraid to ask for it. So tell 'em Natasha sent you.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Saint Francis

Someone saw me drive down State Street yesterday and asked me about the Saint Francis statue that I have on the dashboard of my Subaru. The simple reason is that I like Saint Francis. I’ve liked him since I was a little girl. My mother liked Saint Francis and told us, Kevin and I, stories about him. My favorite story was the one about the town that was terrorized by a wolf. The wolf told Saint Francis that he had a hard time hunting because he was injured. So Saint Francis told the town to feed the wolf and all was well. I just loved the idea that he could talk to the animals and make peace with them. We were Methodists but my mother said we didn’t have to be Catholic to follow St. Francis. I didn’t find out until later in life that one of his teachings was to renounce wealth, a teaching my mother failed to mention and she was certainly not going to follow. But in her own way she did love him and she taught us to love him too. To me he is an example of someone who was true to himself no matter what the cost was. I like that in a guy. My favorite book on Saint Francis is The Lessons of St. Francis by John Michael Talbot.

The statue on my dashboard was originally my mothers’ but when she remarried she turned her back on St. Francis and threw all her Francis stuff away. I was able to retrieve some of it including the statue on my dashboard. To me that statue is a constant reminder to be true to my self, just like he was true to himself. I just want to make sure that I never become one of those women who disappear into a man. You know, the kind of woman that gradually absorb the opinions and worldview of the man they are attached to. Eventually what happens is that when these women speak you listen but you don’t ask questions because you know she is just repeating what she was told and if she had an answer for what you asked it too would be his words coming out of her mouth. I would rather have my tongue ripped out of my mouth than have someone think that about me. I know I’ve got plenty of my own problems when it comes to relating to the thicker sex, but disappearing is not one of them. And that St. Francis statue on my dashboard is a reminder to never disappear. It is also a reminder of when my mother did.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Meeting Pua at the Blackbird Bakery

It was a Thursday morning and I decided to have my mid morning coffee at Blackbird Bakery. Sometimes nothing will do but a chocolate-peanut butter square. I just wish it were smaller because eating one by yourself is a sugar over-load that will last all day long. Luckily for me the woman being waited on by the other cashier said, “I wish I could have half of one of those squares.” “I’ll split mine with you,” I offered and she accepted. She told me her name was Pua Coffman and that she was on the staff of First Presbyterian Church working with the youth group. She didn’t look particularly Hawaiian but she had one of those half grin/half smiles that make you think she’s just glad to be alive. I find myself smiling now as I write this and remember her. She seemed safe enough to talk about religion so I asked her what was the difference between Presbyterians and other Christians. Without getting all serious on me she told me that Presbyterians tend to be very serious about their theology while Pentecostals tend to be more interested in expressing their joy. At that point she had to go join the group of youth pastors she met with every Thursday morning. As she stood to leave her grin got bigger and she whispered, “I like to think of myself as a Presbycostal.”

Monday, July 19, 2010

My step-father, Lionel O'Brien

In a lot of ways Lionel O’Brien is a good man. In fact, in most ways he’s a very good man. I was twelve, almost thirteen, when he married my mother. Kevin was nine. Mom had been working as the receptionist at his law firm in Johnson City but she had to quit working there when they got engaged because he didn’t want to appear to show favoritism to his fiancée and any of the other staff feel uncomfortable. That put mom out of work and he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable either so their engagement was only three months long. Mom, Kevin, and I moved into the house he had lived in with his first wife. Why would I feel uncomfortable about that? His daughter, Samantha, became my older sister. In every way imaginable they opened the door to their home and their life and welcomed us in. And we went in. We joined their life. We started having hot breakfasts instead of cereal and fruit. We joined the Westfield Independent Church. Kevin and I each got our own bedrooms and the same Interior Designer that decorated his office decorated both rooms. Why would I feel uncomfortable about that? I suppose I could have gotten Samantha's old clothes as hand-me-downs, but that never happened. I got my own new clothes every August before school started. Samantha picked them out. I could have said I wanted something else, but she did have good taste, and besides, I never let myself want something else.

One of the new rituals was a formal lunch every Sunday after church. We kept our Sunday clothes on and ate in the dining room instead of the kitchen. The unspoken rule was that after we had eaten Lionel would ask each of us a question about our life and we each got a turn to talk about whatever he had asked about. Once each of us, including mom, had had a turn to speak he would lean back in his chair and say that something one of us said reminded him of something he had been thinking about. His pontifications could last anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes, even longer if someone asked a question. He is a very intelligent man whose opinions are all well thought out and well articulated. He is sure he is always right and he generally is. He is also sure he is interesting but that is one thing he does not get right.

Friday, July 16, 2010

HOW TO RESPOND TO REJECTION LETTERS

This form letter is for anyone who's ever gotten a rejection letter. One of my followers sent it to mefrom mikeshumor@gmail.com. Please let us know what kind of response you get if you send this out.

Dear [Interviewer's Name]:

Thank you for your letter of [date of rejection letter].After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me employment with your firm. This year I have had been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.Despite [Firm's Name]'s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet with my needs at this time. Therefore, I will initiate employment with your firm immediately following graduation. I look forward to seeing you then.Best of luck in rejecting future candidates.

Sincerely,

[Your Name]

Monday, July 12, 2010

Encouragement Baseball

This morning I overheard the very end of a phone conversation Kevin had. He didn’t know that I was so close but I heard him clearly say good-bye then close the phone and say, “That was a grand-slam” to himself. I thought it curious so I asked him about it. He claims he invented a game of solitaire called “encouragement baseball.”

Kevin plays encouragement baseball in his head whenever he has an interaction with anyone for more than a few minutes. He does it with friends and strangers alike. The object of the game is to score a run, which can be done by hitting four singles, two doubles, or a home run. Hits are accomplished by verbal and non-verbal communications that build up, support, amuse, and/ or encourage whomever he is talking to. If he gets a smile, a chuckle, or an eye twinkle he gives himself a single. Doubles occur when the person laughs heartily and home-runs only occur when he can see that what he has said made the person stop and consider that Kevin’s more encouraging view of himself might be more accurate than the view he had previously held. “For a homer you have to see the light-bulb go on in their face,” explained Kevin.

That sounded dangerously insincere to me but according to Kevin insincerity only gets you foul balls anyway. The only way to get a hit was by the effect the encouragement had on the person so it had to matter to him or her. In encouragement baseball you only score with safe hits and safe hits only occurred when you waited for the right pitch. Besides according to him being deliberate does not mean insincerity, insincerity is when don’t really meaning what you said.


“I’ve never been accused of insincerity because I’ve always meant what I said,” he claimed. But I still challenged his sincerity if he tried to play the game with everyone he encountered. Surely that could not be sincere. But he had an answer for that as well, “No matter whom I’m talking to I can always eventually find something encouraging to say.”

That’s my brother. I told him he should write a book and he told me that I had just hit a double. And if at a later date he should call me and tell me that he has written a book and it was partly because of my encouragement then it could be upgraded to a grand slam.

Monday, July 5, 2010

After my father left us ...

This blog picks up where the June 21st blog left off:

Beautiful women get things. It’s just how it is. My mother was a beautiful woman. Actually she still is. And I was her gangly daughter with the small eyes and big feet. “That’s ok,” she’d tell me, “you’ll fill out when the time comes.” She meant that when I got boobs the boys would be more interested. That was before puberty, before my father’s accident, and even then I thought what’s so great about having boys interested? I had to admit that whenever we were in trouble, and I mean little troubles like car trouble or not enough to get into the movies, there would always be a man who would help us out. She could smile and laugh that soft way men like and the man helping her would go into a trance. Kevin and I would be invisible until mom would point at us, then he ‘d pat us on the head and say “what beautiful children, they take after their mother.” She’d always laugh and Kevin and I would become invisible again. It happened so often that when the man would turn away Kevin and I would turn to each other and with big fake smiles we'd bat our eyes. I know her laugh was fake in those moments because I had heard her laugh many times when we were alone. Her real laugh was harder and if it lasted more than a few seconds she would snort. I liked her real laugh. The fake one made me invisible. One particular day after dad left she was in the cafeteria at the courthouse with no money to pay for her lunch and of course a man came to her rescue. This time it was a lawyer named, Lionel O’Brien, whose wife had died two years earlier. He bought her lunch and she batted her eyes. He gave her a job at his office and nine months later they were married. Like I said, beautiful women get things. Most folks would say she landed on her feet and in some ways she did. But her snort disappeared and I became even more invisible.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

4th of July Parade "above" State Street



Where were you at 11:30 this morning? I was at the parade on State Street when a bi-plane flew overhead. This was one of those moments when I just happened to be taking a picture at the right place and at the right moment. I caught the bi-plane coming out of a loop-te-loop directly above the Paramount marquee. It was a nice celebration for Bristol followed by free food and music for all at Cumberland Square Park. A couple of high school marching bands would have made it perfect.

Monday, June 28, 2010

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo



Okay. I finally read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I had avoided it, maybe because it was so trendy, but too many people had liked it and I was stuck in the airport anyway so I gave it a try. I loved it and I want to recommend it to all my followers out there who can tolerate a few graphic portrayals of his subject matter, the abuse of women. If I had to guess I’d say that the abuse of women is a personal issue for the author, Stieg Larsson. It’s an easy read, well paced with multiple layers to the plot. I liked that his title character was not his main character, but in the end had the strongest voice. She is my favorite character. Lisbeth Salander, the dragon tattoo character, is undoubtedly an abuse survivor herself but her abuse is never mentioned. I know she is a survivor because of how she reacts to things. She doesn’t put much faith in a society that has more rules to punish abusers after they abuse than to protect their victims in the first place. I can picture her response to a bleeding heart who expressed sympathy for an abuser because of their own childhood abuse. “A lot of women have been abused without becoming abusers themselves and it is an insult to them for this abuser to use it for sympathy. When we know who an abuser is the only person we should be concerned about is his next victim.” At least that’s what I want her to say.

Monday, June 21, 2010

My father

For all of my childhood my father was a functioning alcoholic. I didn’t learn what that phrase meant until I was older but that is what he was. He was a salesman and he was gone a lot. My mother said he could charm the money off of anyone. I think she liked that he made a lot of money. She probably liked that he was charming too. He was very charming, and generous, and playful, and funny. When he was in a good mood he was everything you wanted a father to be. You just couldn’t depend on his being in a good mood. It wasn’t that he was ever mean or irritable when he was in a bad mood. He was never mean or irritable, ever. When he wasn’t in a good mood he would simply be gone. It wouldn’t matter if you needed him or if he had promised you something, he wouldn’t be there. By the time I was ten I didn’t trust him anymore. Kevin was six so he still believed all the excuses when Dad’s promises were broken. Mom seemed to be okay with it too. In fact Mom was the one who made the excuses for him. When I’d watch Kevin wait at the window for his father to show up I’d tell him that “If Dad’s late it means he forgot.” She’d tell me not to be so “sour” and then she’d make up some story about Dad working so hard or having such a hard job. And maybe she was right, maybe I was sour, but I couldn’t help seeing what I saw, knowing what I knew. I know he knew that I had turned sour towards him and sometimes I wonder if that made it worse when things got really bad.
Everything changed the day he killed that little girl with his car. He was in Philadelphia and he was supposed to be picking someone up in front his hotel. Dad didn’t know the man he was picking up but he had a description so he was driving slowly and looking out the drivers’ window. No one had an explanation for why that little girl was just standing in the street but the witnesses said she froze. She was eight. Her name was Martha. My father never saw her. He didn’t know that he had hit her until it was over. I can’t imagine what that memory feels like to him. Mom and I went to the hearing but Kevin stayed in Johnson City with our grandparents. Dad's lawyer thought it would look better for him if his family were there. So I got to hear it all. I heard about his blood alcohol level, which was just barely legal but close enough to be mentioned. They asked about his drinking and I got to hear him lie. Martha's mother was at the hearing and I got to hear her sobbing. And then when it was all over I got to hear what she called him, what she screamed at him as we left the courthouse. I don’t know what that memory feels like to him either, but I know what it feels like to me. After that he stopped being a functioning alcoholic. He was just an alcoholic. Six months later he was unemployed. And six months after that he and mom got divorced. She was no longer making excuses for him.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Natasha McMorales, Private Investigator

This is the story about how I got the name Natasha McMorales: My name is really Natalie Miriam Moreland but almost everyone calls me Nattie. I am a Private Investigator, a PI, and I have my own agency in Bristol, Tennessee. I never really thought about being a PI as a career but after I quit college I needed a job and Hiram hired me as a receptionist/office manager. Hiram encouraged me to get my PI license because he thought I was good at getting people to tell me things. And I’m thankful that he saw this gift because I didn’t see it. Hiram had to retire after he had a heart attack but I still needed a job so he let me keep working under his agency license. The sign on the door read:

HIRAM MORELAND DETECTIVE AGENCY
NATALIE M. MORLAND

When I went to Nashville to get the license that allows me to have my own agency, my brother, Kevin, was supposed to change the sign. He has my old job of receptionist/office manager. I wanted the sign to read:

NATALIE M. MORELAND
PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS

But instead of hiring a sign painter like he was told Kevin took it upon himself to scrape the old sign himself and in typical Kevin fashion he did it a little at a time so there came a time when the door looked like this:

NATA M MOR

I don’t know why Kevin didn’t scrape everything off all at once but that’s not his style. And it would not have been a problem except that Kevin was approached in the parking lot by a potential client who was looking for a PI with a European sensitivity. In typical Kevin fashion he had a moment of creative brilliance (or lunacy) and came up with a name that landed what would eventually be the first big case of my new agency. The name has been and continues to be both a blessing and a curse. The sign on my door now reads:

NATASHA McMORALES
PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR

Monday, June 7, 2010

Everyone can . . .

I was on another all-nighter and passed the time by thinking about my bests. It’s a pass-the-time strategy that I got from reading Robert Parker detective novels. Spencer, Parker detective and my alter-ego, would imagine variations of all-star baseball teams like an all-star team of only baseball players he had seen with his father or of Irish decent. I come from a long line of Cub fan so I don’t know anything about baseball but I have my own version, which is to imagine my top ten lists of various things. Last night it was the best breakfasts I have ever had. So here is the most recent entry to the best breakfasts list (most of the best breakfasts were in Tuscany):

It was about four months ago and it was a great breakfast for three reasons. The first reason is that it was at the Sunny Side Up Grill and the food was great. I had scrambled eggs with shredded Swiss cheese and hot sauce with sides of wheat toast, sausage patties, and home fried potatoes. They have the best coffee in town and the refills are free. The second reason it was such a good breakfast was that I met Debbie then. She was a classmate of Kevin’s so she was four years behind me, but that age difference, which had been so important then, was not important now. Debbie is now one of my closest friends and I adore her two year old twins, Matilda and Abraham.

Lastly, it was at this breakfast that Debbie told me the quint-essential story about my brother. As the story goes their fifth grade teacher was on a tirade about the “those who can do, those who can’t teach.” The phrase was offensive to her and she told her class that the phrase should be, “those who do, do.” In typical Kevin fashion Kevin told her that, “everyone can do-do.”

Monday, May 31, 2010

Sometimes I hate my job

Sometimes I hate my job. I’m a private investigator. I know that’s a strange job for a woman but it’s my job and I’m good at it. Sometime I might write about how I came to be a PI, but not today. Usually I like my job, but today I hate it. Today I finished a contract with Mrs. Jane (I changed her name to protect the innocent…and by that I mean to protect me against a lawsuit). Mrs. Jane hired me to find out if her husband was having an affair. While he told Mrs. Jane he was enjoying a golf weekend with his buddies once a month, Mr. Jane was enjoying Mrs. Gray. It was a simple PI investigation and I had a photocopy of the hotel registry and several pictures of Mrs. Gray and him leaving their hotel room in different outfits. While I waited in the foyer with the evidence, Mrs. Jane told Mr. Jane about her suspicion. Her plan was to give him a chance to confess the truth. If he had fessed up and agreed to end the affair she would agree to do whatever it took to restore her marriage. But if he held on to his lie she was going to bring me in, present him with the evidence, and then tell him to leave. Well, I sat there for close to forty-five minutes before that door opened and the whole time I sat there I prayed for him. I prayed that he would tell the truth. I wanted him to tell the truth because that is what Mrs. Jane wanted and I figured that if she was still willing to save her marriage it was probably worth saving. I sent my will for him to tell the truth through that closed door because other than cheating he could be one of the good guys. I may be the most naive PI that ever lived but I believe everyone should get more than one chance. So I wanted Mr. Jane to get the chance that Mrs. Jane wanted to give him. Every five minutes I would pace, stare at the door, and pray for Mr. Jane. I meant, with all my heart, every prayer I sent. At one point I remember wondering if Mr. Jane would appreciate the prayers and support he was getting from such an unlikely source as the PI who found him out. Then I remembered the York's who just a few weeks ago saw me at Manna Bagel one morning and told me how thankful they were that Mrs. York’s affair was discovered because it forced them to make some decisions that they had avoided for years. They looked so happy, so together. I wanted the Gray's to have what the York's had. So I continued to pray for Mr. Jane to tell the truth. And then I heard someone take the door handle. I watched it open expecting to see Mrs. Jane smiling. Surely they had worked it out after that much time. But it was not Mrs. Jane. It was Mr. Jane. And he was not smiling as he stormed through the foyer. He stopped in front of me where I sat and sneered at me. I slid my right hand around to my side so I could get at the gun holstered at the small of my back. But he didn’t come any closer. “How do you live with yourself?” he fumed just before he spit on me. I just sat there for I don’t know how long, with his spit on my jacket, and watched the man I had prayed for the past forty-five minutes kick open his front door and leave. And all I could think was, “sometimes I hate my job.”