Finally, my novel is being read and not just by people who are doing me a favor. Bethany wanted to read my book and she asked Brandon to print it out for her. Brandon took it to his chiropractic school where he could print it out for free. But about a third of the way through the printing, the machine ran out of paper. He had hundred pages printed and he figured he’d do the rest later, when there was paper.
The next day he goes to school and finds that people are passing around a two hundred page novel printed on pink paper. He tells a friend that he has to get it back. Friend replies, “That’s yours? People are reading that.”
I imagine this medical student turning on a printer. It says no paper, he loads it with the only paper he can find… pink. And then the printer proceeds to shoot out the remainder of my novel. And of course, all the kissing happens in the remainder. Suddenly, all these students of anatomy have something less clinical to read.
Bethany said, “Brandon got it back, but I think there are pages missing.”
I wonder which ones.
The Arroyo Oaks
Renaissance Faire is the brain baby of Mrs. Brighton, part-time English teacher
and full time witch. Glass blowers, potters, and herbalists mingle with
students, teachers and parents on sawdust strewn paths lined with wooden
stalls. Knife and ax throwing are not only allowed, but encouraged. Games
include Drench-a-Wench (Mrs. Brighton) and Soak-a-Bloke (Principal Olsen.)
Wizards, elves, beer and barely covered booties are all welcome as long as they
help raise thousands of dollars for the drama department.
Petra’s notes
Chapter One
Petra stared at the fortune-teller’s
tent -- silky curtains, beaded strings, the faint aroma of vanilla, a gaudy
riot of color. She’d been waiting forever, but now that she was here, she took
a breath and then another. She turned to Robyn to say something glib, something
that would mask her nerves, but she couldn’t find the words.
Robyn squeezed her hand. “It’s so
romantic,” she whispered. “This is the perfect place for him to ask.”
“It’s so him, right?” Petra returned
Robyn’s squeeze, but her eyes never left the tent. She thought it ugly, garish
in a more is less sort of way. She sighed and wished that Kyle had just asked
without fanfare or hoopla. Maybe she should have asked him. Maybe they
shouldn’t go. Prom was so yesterday, dated like a debutant ball… Or a jousting competition, she thought,
her gaze going to the nearby stadium.
The frustration of denial settled
between her shoulder blades like an unreachable itch. Why did she even care
about prom? She’d been with Kyle for months; a silly dance didn’t define their
relationship.
Or did it? Some of her friends even had
their dresses. Petra hadn’t actually bought her dress, that would have been
presumptuous, but she did know which one she wanted. She’d found the perfect
shoes. She hoped Kyle would be okay with the coral colored vest she’d picked
out for him.
“It’s so who?” Zoe demanded.
Petra put her hand on top of Zoe’s
orange curls. Zoe was the pooper at the party, the stepsister that never should
have come and would have stayed at home if Laurel’s Aunt Ida hadn’t fallen down
the stairs. Petra had never even met Zoe’s Aunt Ida. She sounded like a potato.
Petra could understand why Laurel felt
uncomfortable taking Zoe to a hospital, after all, no one sane would ever
wanted to take Zoe anywhere, let alone a place where people needed quiet and
rest.
Robyn rolled her eyes at Petra. Robyn
and Petra called themselves tele-friends, because they could read each other
like open books. Now Robyn nodded at the tent, her head bob saying, just go.
“Do you think he’s in there?” Petra
whispered.
Robyn widened her eyes, as if to say
of course. “He said he would be, didn’t he?”
“Who’s he?” Zoe demanded. “Are you
talking about Kyle?”
Petra swallowed and ignored Zoe,
tried to forget her existence. “Actually, he didn’t say anything, but his note said to meet at the fortune-teller’s
tent. What if he didn’t send the note? What if this is joke?”
“Then it’s not a very funny one.” Robyn
shook her head and her curls bounced around her shoulders. “It was Kyle.” She
sounded way more confident than Petra felt. Robyn cut her a sideways glance and
a small flicker of doubt tickled in Petra’s mind. Why did she suspect the
fortune-teller’s tent was more Robyn’s idea than Kyle’s? Petra squelched the
thought. Kyle was her fortune. Nothing else mattered.
“Kyle has hotitude that sadly so
often accompanies physical beauty,” Zoe sighed, parroting her mom.
Petra groaned. Did her parents
dislike Kyle just because he was rock star gorgeous? She shook away all the
other , more legitimate, reasons why her parents might not like Kyle.
“Ignore her,” Robyn mouthed over Zoe’s
head. “And just go already.” She gave Petra a little push toward the tent.
Petra dug in her heels, or in this
case, her silky flats. “Wait, how do I look?”
“As always, you’re beautiful.” Robyn
straightened Petra’s tiara, gave her a small hug, and then turned her shoulders
tent-ward.
“Pretty as a Petra poopy picture,” Zoe
said, muttered.
Petra frowned at Zoe and then glanced
down at her dress, last year’s prom gown. She and Robyn were the only two at
the faire dressed as princesses. All around her she saw women wearing laced up
bodices, men in tights and knee high boots, horses covered in bright cloths and
even a snowy white owl on a perch. Zoe in her cut up pillowcase and drapery
tassel looked more in place than Petra and Robyn in last year’s prom-wear. She
sniffed. She didn’t care that she was overdressed. She put a finger on the
tiara; perhaps the faux diamonds were too much. Too late now.
Straightening her shoulders, clutching
her beaded purse, she headed to the tent. Her steps faltered and she turned
back to Robyn and Zoe. “Come with me,” she said to Robyn, taking and tugging
her friend’s hand.
Zoe’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t
leave me here alone!”
Robyn motioned to all the faire-goers:
teachers, fellow students, and neighbors. “Alone?”
Zoe’s eyes, for a moment, looked almost
as crazy as her hair. “There are witches, people with swords, wild animals!”
Petra saw several people she knew, but
Zoe, who had only just moved to Arroyo Oaks, probably didn’t know any of them.
She knelt down, so that she could look Zoe in the crazy eyes. “And not one of
them will hurt you, I promise. If anyone bugs you, which they won’t, call a yellow jacket,” Petra said, referring to
the Arroyo Oaks security guards that patrolled the school grounds and kept
peace by way of blow-horns. “Please, just sit.”
Petra stood and pointed at a well placed stump, wishing for perhaps the
zillionth time that Zoe would take lessons from her dog. Frosty greeted all
instructions with a lolling tongue and wagging tail. Zoe didn’t receive
instructions, she counterattacked them. Poodles and stepsisters had very little
in common, except for in Zoe’s case, the hair-do.
“If you leave me here—” Zoe began.
Petra silenced her by holding up a
finger. “If you can be quiet, sit and not say a word, I’ll buy you a funnel
cake.” She raised her eyebrows to see if
Zoe would take the bribe or would if she needed to toss in a caramel apple. Her
health-foodie stepmother, Laurel, wouldn’t pony up for brand name peanut
butter, let alone treats fried in oil and covered with sugary powder.
Zoe sat with a humph and picked at the
hem of her pillowcase tunic and her gaze went to the corral across the path.
Her eyes lit up. “I want a funnel cake and to ride that horse.”
Petra and Robyn both turned to watch guy
lead a stallion through a wooden gate.
“Giddy-up,” Robyn said, staring.
The guy had brown shoulder length hair
tied back with a leather thong and wore soft, fawn colored breeches and
matching knee high boots. His white shirt billowed around a wide leather belt
that hung about his hips. Three simultaneous thoughts struck Petra. The first:
everyone else, including herself, wore costumes, but this guy looked at ease in
his breeches and boots as if they were his everyday clothes. The second: his
eyes and the small smile curving his lips sent a jolt of recognition up her
spine, although she knew they’d never met. She would have remembered him. The third:
she was quite sure this guy would never wear a coral colored vest.
“Isn’t he awesome,” Zoe breathed, her eyes
large and round. “He’s so huge.”
Robyn gave Zoe a funny look and Petra
laughed at the misunderstanding. “You
can’t ride him,” she said, watching the Arabian toss his mane and pull at the
reins held by the guy with long brown hair. The stallion fought the bit, rose
up on his hind legs and scissored the air with his hooves. “He’s not one of the ponies they lead through
rink.”
Zoe frowned, sending her freckles south.
“I’m sure he’d rather be with me on the trail than in that horrible jousting
place.” Earlier, they had tried watching the knights’ competitions. Zoe, unconcerned for the men being thwacked about
by lances, had wailed for the sweat dripping horses.
“I’m sure you’re right, Zo, but I’m
pretty sure I’m right, too,” Petra said. “They’d never let you take him out of
their sight. Besides, he looks fast and barely tame.”
“I like them fast and barely tame,”
Robyn said under her breath, smoothing down the pink chiffon skirt of her prom
dress.
From the jousting arena came the
cheering and huzzahs of the crowd. Petra heard the horses’ hooves thundering
and the clanging of lances hitting shields and armor. She smelled roasted
turkey legs, the fires from the pottery kilns and dung. Her senses careened on
overload and when the guy with the horse caught her eye and winked, dizziness
and a skin-pricking sensation of déjà vu washed over her.
Zoe looked up at her, smiled and said,
this time, in a voice as sweet as funnel cake, “If you let me ride that horse I
won’t tell about you and face-sucking Kyle.”
“There’s been no face-sucking!” At least
not in front of Zoe.
Zoe put her fists on her hips and jutted
out her chin. “Who says?”
Petra blew a loose strand of hair from
her eyes. “You can’t ride that horse!”
Zoe’s gaze cut to the corral and
lingered on the stallion. “But you can ask if I can.”
Robyn nodded in agreement, a flirty
smile on her lips. “We can ask.”
Petra shot her look that said, Traitor.
“Hot horse guy,” Robyn murmured,
flipping her brown curls over her shoulder.
“And offer him money,” Zoe put in.
“How much money?” Petra nearly growled.
Since her dad’s marriage she’d been given an allowance ‘to help her find her own financial feet in the real world,’ Laurel’s words, and
Petra’s feet wanted to wear a pair of coral colored heels to prom.
“I saw him wink at you.” Zoe’s tone
turned calculating. “Maybe you wouldn’t need to pay him.”
Petra frowned at Zoe; eight-years old
seemed too young to know the art of female bartering.
“We’ll ask him right after we visit the
fortune-teller,” Robyn promised Zoe, sending a let’s-get-together-soon smile at
horse guy.
Zoe scowled, folded her arms and watched
the horses parading in the corral, but she didn’t budge from the stump.
Petra turned to the fortune-teller’s
tent and forced herself to not look at hot horse guy, although she imagined she
felt his gaze on her back. She towed Robyn with her.
Held up by large wooden poles, the tent
had brightly woven damask walls. A barrel-chested man wearing nothing but gold
chains, large rings and red bloomerish pants guarded a money jar. A hand
printed sign propped by the jar read Fester
Foretells your Fate.
“Fester?” Petra whispered to Robyn and
stopping short of the tent. “He sounds like he needs a squirt of Neosporin.”
“You’re stalling.” Robyn whispered in
return and pulled on Petra’s hand.
“What if he’s not in there?” Petra
asked, stopping in front of the guy dressed in bloomers. She flashed the guy a
nervous glance, but he remained motionless and expressionless, as if she and
Robyn didn’t even exist. Petra wondered what would happen if she poked him.
Would he do more than flinch? Would he do even that?
“Then we’ll have our fortune’s read.”
Robyn gave the bloomer guy a sideways look, but he stared straight ahead not
even looking at Robyn, which Petra found impressive. Most guys couldn’t resist
looking at Robyn.
“I’m telling Daddy that you ditched me,”
Zoe said.
Petra scowled at Zoe. It still stung to
hear Zoe call her dad ‘Daddy.’ “We’re not ditching you. It’s
more like we’re parking you in a five minute loading zone.” Petra made a lever
pulling motion. “There, I put on the emergency brake. You’re stuck.”
Petra turned her back on Zoe and faced
Robyn. “What if he doesn’t come inside? He could stand out here for eons while
some biddy predicts I don’t get into a good school and end up selling shoes for
the rest of my life.”
“You love shoes,” Robyn said. “Besides,
I’m sure he’s already inside.”
“And, just like me, listening to every
word you say!” Zoe added.
Petra sent Zoe another
be-quiet-or-be-dead look, but then realized Zoe could be right. What if Kyle
was just on the other side of the curtain, waiting for her, listening to her
arguing with Zoe? Fighting the flush
creeping up her neck, she dropped money into Fester’s jar and pushed back the
curtains of the fortune-teller’s tent.
When the curtain of crystal beads fell
back into place behind Robyn, it carried the eerie sound of tinkling falling
glass shards. Heavy incense hung in the air. Petra blinked, waiting for her
eyes to adjust to the gloom. She scanned the tiny space, searching for Kyle. A
crystal ball on a table draped in silks glowed and sent a shivery light that
didn’t reach the far corners of the tent. Large pillows dotted the tapestry
rugs and Petra nudged one with her foot, wondering if she should sit and wait.
Could Kyle be hiding behind the draped curtains? No. He probably wasn’t here
yet, meaning that he hadn’t heard her and Zoe, and that was good. Wasn’t it?
“Petra, welcome,” a voice in the
semi-darkness cackled.
Petra laughed when Robyn, just behind
her, jumped. It took a moment for her to find the owner of the voice, a hunched
man sitting on a pillow in a dark corner. In front of him lay a collection of
tarot cards, face up: a fool dancing, tossing stars into a purple sky, a
magician holding a wand scattering glitter.
“I’m afraid you must come alone,” Fester
said, leaving his gaze on Petra’s face as his twisted hands gathered the cards,
and tapped them into a deck.
Robyn’s eyes flashed a question at
Petra. Petra squeezed Robyn’s hand, sending her a silent signal.
“I’ll wait with your sister,” Robyn
said.
Still expecting Kyle to suddenly appear,
Petra didn’t even watch her friend leave, but she knew when Robyn had gone by
the flash of daylight that came and then left with the rise and fall of a
curtain and the jangle of the crystal beads.
“There are journeys some must undertake
on their own,” the fortune-teller said, staring up at Petra.
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