excerpt: Pajama Jones
I haven't posted anything from this novel in progress yet, and so now maybe it's time.
This is from the second chapter. John Dodge has come to Greenbriar, South Carolina, to overhaul a failing business he bought from the owner, who was retiring. He is in regular phone contact with his younger sister, who lives in Brooklyn.
Copyright me and only me; no duplication of any kind without express written permission.
At eleven Dodge took a chance and called his sister, and got his brother-in-law to start with."How're things down there in the Land of Dixie?"
"Interesting," Dodge said.
"Interesting good or interesting bad?"
"A little of both," Dodge said. "Why don't you come down here, bring the kids, have a look around. See what you think."
Tom was still laughing when Nora got on the line.
She said, "I don't see what's so funny, it's not like every vacation goes wrong." And: "So tell me."
"It's a wild place," he said. "Maybe I bit off more than I can chew this time."
"Hard to imagine," said Nora. "Give me the big picture."
Dodge thought for a minute. "Today I had something like ten unannounced visitors who just walked into the apartment. Most of them female."
"And what did all these people want from you?"
"Let's see," Dodge said. "Mrs. Tindell brought me supper, Big Dove Porter and Trixie Jameson made my bed and gave me decorating advice, Lyda Rose Guzman sent her husband over here to measure my windows to see if the curtains she has put away might fit, Marnie Lambert brought me a spider plant, I think she called it, and Hobart and Mae Oglesby from the Artists' Cooperative brought me a little hand woven Cherokee rug."
"As a gift?"
"As a gift. Hobart's mama wove it. Apparently his great grandma is clan mother, she lives up in Columbia. And of course everybody has advice, on everything from where to buy underwear to how to clean the bathtub. I lost track of the invitations after the first dozen or so, and I don't remember which ones I accepted. I'm pretty sure I turned down the personalized tour of the Greenbriar Money Museum."
Nora was giggling by the time he finished. She said, "You're making that up."
"You know Lambert Square used to be a printing plant, a family operation. Apparently the Lambert ancestor who built the place took up counterfitting as a hobby. Money from all over the world, circa 1830 They've got a little museum in the community hall. Right outside the room any local group can reserve for meetings. There's a list posted so you can take your choice. AA, the Pray for Peace Fellowship, a salsa dancing class and a meeting of the Elks.
"You did say you missed the south."
"Hey," Dodge said. "I do like the south. I like Greenbriar."
"Hmmmm," Nora said. Her therapist hum, Dodge called it.
"The one thing that's got me curious," he went on, "is the way everybody kept warning me away from one particular woman."
"Cocoon Widow?"
That gave Dodge a jolt, but then Nora had always picked up on things that he believed well and truly tucked away. The only defense was hide his surprise, though he would wonder for days what he had said to give her a heads up.
"Her name is Julia."
"Go on."
"Everybody goes out of their way to tell me that she doesn't need any more heartache and I should stay clear of her."
"And so you asked her out. Never one to back down from a challenge."
"--and she turned me down. So I took Link -- one of the employees I inherited from Cowper -- to dinner, and he tells me that Julia killed her husband. A mercy killing, according to him."
"Did she?"
"I have no idea," Dodge said. "And I don't think it would be a good idea to get wound up in this particular drama."
"But you're interested anyway."
Dodge thought of Julia sitting in that deep chair in her pink pajamas, the turn of her head, the tentative quality of her smile, and shook his head to dislodge the image before his sister could pluck it out of his head.
"I don't have to act on every urge."
"Dodge," said Nora, her tone both more serious and softer. "I'm going to repeat that back to you the next time you announce you're ready to move along."
There was a pause, and she said, "Tell me about the apartment."
"Big windows, high ceilings, a good view out over the town in two directions. I don't anticipate any problems."
"Hmmmmm," said Nora.