Hello all,
Wondering what my new book Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid is about?
Here’s part of the prologue and first chapter…
Prologue
June 2019
She was missing again.
It had been decades since it had happened, but that one time had almost killed her. She was not to wander - she knew that. As far as I knew, she didn’t want to wander.
“When did they last see her?” I asked my sister Joyce, fear creeping up my throat.
“This morning. Four hours ago.” Joyce’s voice was tight.
“What? Why am I just now hearing about this? I stared out my back window over the kitchen sink. My garden was growing. Lettuce. Carrots. Tomatoes. The only three vegetables my husband would agree to eat. He thought kale should be illegal. I’d planned to work in the garden all day. That would not be happening.
“They thought she would show up, that she was hiding,” Joyce said, inhaling to calm down.
“Hiding?” I said, my stomach clenching. “She never hides. She’s always with people.”
“I know. They’ve been looking for her and didn’t want to upset us.”
“I’m coming.” I tossed my dishcloth and turned off the oven. I was making marion berry pie using my mom’s recipe, but it could wait.
“Thanks, Jesse. You are one of my best sisters.”
“I appreciate that. The competition is fierce. You’re on your way over?”
“Yes. I left the lab, and now I’m headed to the freeway.”
“What about the other eight?”
“They’re coming, too. All of them. I’m worried.”
“Me, too.” I felt suddenly ill. “See you soon.”
I grabbed my purse and dashed out of the door, my hands shaking as I pulled out my keys. At stoplights, I called my husband and our kids. Their cries of concern carried over the line, like tiny lightning strikes.
A sense of doom settled over me, and I tried to breathe through it.
Chapter One
Deauville Drive, Huntington Beach, California
June, 1979
My mom’s marriage fell apart one sunny morning when she was wearing a layer of snow white cold cream on her face. The cold cream was thick, like Crisco, which we baked with, and everything but her mouth and a small circle around each eye was covered in it.
She was wearing her pink flowered housedress, it’s silver zipper closed from chin to hem. She would never wear her housedress outside - what woman would break that societal rule? But this indestructible polyester dress was perfect, as she was not only “getting rid of wrinkles,” she was also dyeing the few grey hairs snaking through her thick brown waves. Her hair was wrapped up in a plastic cap.
The weather in our peaceful, uneventful neighborhood in Huntington Beach, California, was normal-warm. The sky was normal-bright blue, with smog covering the mountains in the distance. The clouds were normal - white, like cotton balls.
The weather inside our home, in the middle of Deauville Drive, would soon become a hurricane. My dad’s footsteps were precise, a hurried thunking rhythm as he walked down the hallway of our midcentury home from his and Mom’s bedroom and into the family room.
The hallway was filled with our dead ancestors. As in, black-and-white photos of unsmiling, dour, and often destitute-looking people who seemed to be barely hanging on to a rough life that continually tried to push them off the cliff.
Thunk, thunk, thunk.
Whenever I heard my dad’s footsteps coming at a quick pace, I knew to get out of the way. Something was different that time, though: He was carrying two black suitcases - one small, one large. I’d never seen them before. He was in a white dress shirt, a blue tie, and grey pants that had been meticulously ironed by my mom, straight creases down the middle of the pant legs.
Our African Grey parrot, Porky, screeched, “Watch out!” and then barked like a dog.
Looking back, it was eerily prophetic. Porky was like that sometimes.
My sister Joyce taught him how to say watch out! and a whole lot more, including oh no! and stupid and pig and old fart and love you! Porky was intelligent. Joyce was intelligent, too, at fourteen years old, but she acted like a sophisticated, constantly irritated twenty-one year old…
As my dad got closer to the family room, Porky screeched, “Pig!”
Thanks for reading! If you need a book Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid is only available on Amazon.
Cathy
Just ordered. Can’t wait! 🙂
Altho this new book is very different from Cathy's other offerings I was none-the-less enchanted by this family/s life/lives together. I can't imagine being able to make character creation become a living, breathing reality the way Cathy does. She is truly a gifted story teller. Thank you for sharing your wondrous imagination and gift with the world. I loved Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid!