Novel Excerpts
Cupid and a Toolbelt: Of Love and Home Improvement
Toolbelt Chapter 1
She blamed the goldfish.
With hindsight, Josie could pinpoint the instant she descended into a life of crime. It was the moment she looked into those trusting underwater eyes, and realized she had no choice. She couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t take action – consequences be damned. So, really, if the fish hadn’t been right there, right then, doing infinite laps round its private little pool, her destiny would have taken a different shape…
Toolbelt Chapter 2
‘I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach’
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
“History is a record left by dead people. It started in 1207.”
Josie tortured herself marking papers in one of the airless cubicles comically described as offices for university teaching assistants. Slogging through the semi-literate thoughts of first-year students was almost more than the modest salary was worth. ‘Almost’ being the key word. With no choice but to stick with it, she had armed herself with red pen, six-pack of lemon tarts, and crystal clear consciousness of a bank statement veering ever closer to overdraft.
“One of the most famous Egyptian kings was called Toot.”
The cellphone chirrup came as a relief. Even better, her favorite caller. Well-groomed, well-dressed, well-educated, well-heeled, well-connected; was there ever a better boyfriend than Oscar? Sometimes she still felt a little awed they were a couple.
“Oscar! Perfect! How could you tell I needed a break right this moment?”
“I just knew. And I like it when you say I’m perfect. So what’s up?”
Josie dropped the hard-working pen and flexed her fingers. “Thirty papers down, about fifty more to go. Is everything alright at the agency? I was surprised you didn’t call earlier.”
Living in different cities translated to multiple calls per day to make up for infrequent face-to-face time. Josie was captivated by this proof of how much Oscar loved and missed her. She was less captivated by the proof of her elder sister Charlie's overprotectiveness. Charlie had the notion that Oscar paid the monthly invoices as a form of long-distance supervision, given that it allowed him to check incoming and outgoing calls. That was nonsense, of course. Oscar's generosity was one of his best attributes.
Oscar blew out a breath. “No, nothing wrong, I just…needed some time to think.”
Josie couldn’t quite tell if his tone was merely thoughtful, or thoughtful with a side of subdued concern. “Would you like to talk about it?”
Silence. Josie didn’t push it.
When Oscar spoke again, it was with his more typical conviction.
“What the hell. Let’s do it. Let’s get married. No good reason to put it off. What do you say?”
Silence again. More resounding this time.
I say even though I didn’t spend hours in high school fantasizing about how my ideal proposal would play out, I know this isn’t it. What happened to flowers? Mention of tender feelings? Any feelings at all?
“Sorry, pumpkin, that wasn’t quite how I intended it to come out. What I meant to say was, I can’t imagine my life without you. You complement me in every way. I love you, and hope you will do me the honor of becoming my bride.”
O.K. Improving. At least love and honour are in the picture. I really wish I’d nipped the ‘pumpkin’ name in the bud. How is being called squash a compliment? I guess I should be happy it wasn’t ‘muffin’. Way too many women in the world who think of themselves as baked goods.
“Josephine?” His voice sounded mild rather than worried at her pause. Oscar was far too sure of himself to consider the possibility that she might be anything but thrilled. Which she was, of course. Thrilled. Why wouldn’t she be?
“Pumpkin? You still there?”
“Yes, Oscar, I’m just a little surprised.”
“Come on, bunnynose,” he coaxed, rounding out the terrible trio of undesirable pet name categories: rodents. Josie could sense him switching over to professional mode to drive home the closing argument like the realtor he was. “You wouldn’t want to sit too long on my offer in case someone else swoops in and takes me up on it. What do you say?”
She laughed a little, as she knew he expected.
All right then. “I say yes, Oscar”.
“Terrific!” he crowed. “We'll be such a power couple! Tell you what, I’ll fly in next weekend so we can celebrate properly. This weekend is out – remember that convention I told you about? It’s here in town and I’ll be staying at the hotel so I don’t miss any of the action. I’m going to be in seminars and workshops nonstop. But I won’t stop thinking of you…,” and on that dramatic note, he hung up.
Josie clicked her phone off as well, and caught a glimpse of her distorted reflection in its little glass window. Something huge had just happened. Had her outer look shifted along with her inner status? She couldn’t tell from the mini square of glass. Yet she had entered into the conversation a single woman, and exited from it a duo. To her great surprise, she had acquired a fiancé.
Peculiar word, fiancé. Uncomfortably close to “finance”, which brought to mind the long history of marriage purely as an economic transaction. How many wedded couples in the world had shared lives with little or no love between them? Joined together for reasons like tradition, convenience, expansion of family power, or to increase the sheer odds of survival?
Thank goodness that’s not the case for Oscar and me since we love each other all-consumingly.
I’m pretty sure I love him all-consumingly.
Why wouldn’t I love him?
I do. Of course I do. The towering waterfall of my full emotions will burst past the bubbling brook stage of love as soon as we see each other face to face again. I’m just thrown off by the indirect phone aspect of it all.
Having smoothed away the irksome wrinkle of doubt, Josie went back to marking papers.
“Caesar liked to say ‘I came, I saw, I went.’ ”
(copyright Maya Missani)
Cupid and a Suitcase: Of Love and Boarding Passes
Suitcase Chapter 1
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope
without any address on it ?”
Mark Twain
Oh, how she loathed mice.
The sounds they made. The aimless way they scurried. The chaos and unsightly mess they caused. Their long, skinny tails. How some benighted people fussed and fawned over them. All these things ratcheted up her internal stress-o-meter in their own ways. But without a doubt, what she despised most of all were their bulbous, white, weirdly oval-buttoned gloves.
Those repulsive gloves. Touching her. On top of her head as a visual gag for the everpresent cameras, to emphasize the height difference between her and the grotesquely top-heavy female rodent. Or, without warning, on her tush, as a cheap thrill for the male rodent (or more precisely, whatever hormone-stricken teenage boy sweating like mad for minimum wage was trapped inside the suit).
How she longed for the day when she could wish upon a star and magically fly into a mouse-free life.
It hadn’t always been like this. No. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, she had belonged to the wide-eyed tribe of Mouse admirers. Like her brothers and sisters, cousins and friends, she had delighted in the hijinks of Mickey and his dysfunctional pals. Growing up, she conducted such a relentless campaign of parent pestering that one memorable December the family made the unending road trip from cold white north to “Humid Expensive Mosquito Land”, as her father put it. The large blocks of time spent waiting for fleeting rides, the eardrum shredding sound effects, the discovery that two thirds of the park was dedicated to restaurants and souvenir stores selling wildly overpriced food and memorabilia – none of it mattered. Everything about that trip was glorious to her.
Of course, not many 13-year-olds look on Big Business with a critical eye. Now, however, more than a decade later, the gilt had worn off the once-glittering spectacle and she had difficulty seeing anything but the flaws.
She kept the requisite smile pasted on her frozen face and sighed inwardly. She should already be shepherding this week’s group out of the park and into the waiting transfer bus, but the driver had called to warn of delay. Apparently a movie crew was filming on location, and traffic was paralyzed by rubberneckers.
“Hey, Minnie and Minnie! Look over here! Say cheese! Ha, ha, ha! Cheese - mice! Get it?”
Minerva, who had heard this lame joke roughly a zillion times before, laughed. Because it was expected of her, and part of her job. But also, to please the pudgy, balding, sunburned – and endearing - photographer. Her personal grudge against The Mouse hadn’t obliterated her basic niceness as a person. She realized that even though she had issues with the cartoon empire, it wouldn’t be right to rain on the parade of this father of four’s first, magical visit. Let him be disillusioned bit by bit all on his own. Or not at all, as the case might be. To each his own
So she adjusted her polka-dotted Minnie skirt, centered her bow-tied Minnie headband, and smiled. While thinking about what came in second on her Most Hated Things list.
Her name. Not the full form, which had provided a pleasing sense of being out of the ordinary as a teenager. Rather, the bitter irony of the nickname. Who could resist the delicious coincidence of a professional tour guide at the Kingdom of the Mouse, land and sea divisions, whose name could be shortened to that of Mickey’s perpetual girlfriend ?
In her darker moments, Minerva suspected it had been the deciding factor in her boss’s decision to hire her. Because Mrs. Schmidt immediately made it a requirement of the position to wear the uniform, consisting of Mouse-inspired dress, shoes, and headgear. It hadn’t hurt that Minerva’s hair was as sleekly black as the trademark rodent hearing apparatus.
Spending her days in countless varieties of Minnie Cheese pictures was not how she had pictured her life. Many a time during those all-night sessions studying for exams and polishing assignments to perfection, she ignored her beckoning bed by fantasizing about future rewards. Of travel to distant, glamorous lands and all the fascinating, creative folk who peopled them. By the time she graduated, Minerva had developed a reputation as a shy, serious introvert by those inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, and as a geeky snob by those inclined to be catty. Minerva knew this and tried, unsuccessfully, not to feel hurt about it. It doesn’t matter, she insisted too forcefully to herself, this is all just temporary. Once I’m done here, and out in the real world, I’ll find my kind of people, and my fabulous life will unfold at my feet.
Two stultifying years later, Minerva’s kind of people seemed to be playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. She looked down at her feet and realized that the fabulous life that should have been unfolding there was obscured by something less than fabulous. A preschooler who had combined one too many MousePop treats with one too many twirly rides had left the pungent results on Minerva’s Minnie pumps.
“I feel much better now!” announced the cherub, before skipping merrily back to her parents to beg for another MousePop.
“Ha HA!” chortled Micky, “That reminds me of the time Donald and Daisy went for a ride on the carousel and Goofy set it on maximum speed!” He put his arm around her waist for another photo, accidentally on purpose sliding a gloved hand across her derriere.
No, thought Minerva, wiping the splatter from her shoes on the back of Mickey’s pants while he was distracted with posing. No, this cannot be my most fabulous self. My most fabulous self is still waiting for me, somewhere out there. I will find it or die trying, felled by boredom and toxic rodent exposure.
“Smile!” instructed another camcorder-on-legs. So she did.
copyright Maya Missani