Naomh- Chapter 11

“Love never fails” Read the inscription of the gold wedding ring that Sylvia Breslyn removed from her finger. She placed it on the windowsill above her kitchen sink before plunging her hands in to wash a pair of man’s trousers in the warm basin below. The pants had earned a good wash. As Sylvia frothed the soap through to work up a good scrub the grime oozed its way through the white lather turning it brown. It would take a few rounds, top to tail to come clean. Sylvia enjoyed making things come clean helping things become what they ought to be. The simple task of setting one thing right in the world, even a pair of pants set her at ease.

The trousers were one of two pair owned by Sylvias husband Neil who at present lie sleeping on the living room couch and at present washed dishes at a café in the Harbor and on any given day was another man entirely depending on the weather and his pocketbook and the stiffness of the drink. A baby’s cry rang from the other room breaking the silence of the afternoon. Baby Trudy. Sylvia’s hands were still wet and soapy, she looked into the living room. Neil was unroused by the baby’s cry, or at least he pretended to be so. She squeezed the pants through again and brown streaks continued to bleed into the water below. “Not finished”, she thought. She paused before calling to Neil to go to Trudy. He had come home late again last night. Drinking. She had heard him heaving in the bushes at 2am. Now, he lay in what looked like an uncomfortable position, his legs off the sofa and his arms catawampus to fit the small couch. He was still greasy from the day before. She looked at him and could only imagine his smell. Sweat and vomit and food odors of many kinds. And his breath… It was better he didn’t get the baby. She looked down the half washed trousers. They would have to wait. She dried her hands on a dishtowel nearby and looked at her ring on the windowsill, “Love never fails” She laughed to herself and slipped the costume back on her finger, exiting to gather baby Trudy for another morning nurse

Calla-Chapter 10

“Where to Miss?” The cabby looked in the rearview. ---

Anne sat in the back seat with her hands wrapped tightly around the handle of her umbrella. Where could she go? The last train back to San Francisco had left. Besides it would be callous of her to leave at a time like this. She was stuck in Seattle. Damn him! --- --- “Miss, I need to know where were headed.” Anne hesitated. “Capitol Hill, The Conservatory.” The words rolled off her tongue and she hated that they did. She could almost see him smirking the way he did. Even now she couldn’t escape his supremacy. --- The Great John Hibbert! A sudden desire to snap her umbrella half rose inside her. What kind of a person was she? --- He had raised her to follow in his footsteps at the time of his passing, and now that time had come. He had lured her back by her own sympathies, baited her with her own inheritance to carry on his legacy. Put her name to paper even and low, he had passed in the night before she could even contemplate her own word. And now legalities would hold her to it! --- She was stuck. Bequeathed to a life she loathed. The one she had fought to get out from underneath by her life of independence. Hadn’t it been bad enough being dragged around the world her life through being filled with the pomp and rhetoric of his scientific community? Being raised as a horticultural savant; shown off at parties to recite Latin to adults carrying on in conversations far beyond her years! She had found herself a social cripple by her peers knowing nothing the small talk of fashion and music! Too passionate and serious with an exacting nature, lacking the same abandon of youth that most people around her felt. She often left parties humiliated, having said too much. --- He had made her this awful way and now left her behind in it. --- She wanted nothing of the life left behind. His life. The one that made her strange and isolated and lonely. --- At least with him alive she had someone to be angry with, someone to blame. Now it was just her alone in her rage and loneliness. She wanted to die with him or wished she had died before him so that he could feel this weight and not she! Damn him! God Damn Him to Hell! ------- Suddenly the cab stopped. The Conservatory. “Fifty-five cents, ma’am. You want someone to walk you in?” She dared not answer. Her rage crippled mind was betraying her countenance and she hid her crooked face from the driver as she handed him a dollar. She ran from the cab as he called after her. “You alright Miss?” --- She thrust her hand into her purse and pulled out a key and unlocked the door to the Conservatories main entrance, slamming it shut behind her. Turning toward the exotic displays, an awful animal utterance escaped from her mouth from her gut. It was an ugly sound somewhere between crying and yelling. Sadness and anger. “YOOOOOOUUUUU!” She shouted as hard as she could against the interior walls of the glass house until the last bit of breath expelled from her lungs, and she pushed the more until nothing was left but a helpless spittle of a groan. ------ Silence. ------ And there he was. All around her. ------- She could see him in the Sego palms and Dendrobiums that covered the walls of the room. Smelled him in the Narcissus papyraceus of the autumn display. She could hear him in the pond as it splattered against the rocks and shook the fronds of the Blechnum spicant waving at her like a tease. And she could feel him in the towering Livistona chinensis, far above her shoulders looking down at her from on high. -- And finally, the tears came. Not mild and sad, but hapless and ugly. An old familiar sadness that told her that she was alone and strange and impossible to please. And she found herself missing him in the most surprising way. She missed the anger that she felt for him. The anger that helped keep the sadness at bay. The blame that made the loneliness stop. He had raised her, and she hated him for it. --- In life she could not escape his vain grandiosity and now, in death it would be no different. She was tied to his intentions, whether she liked it or not.

Chapter 8- Father and Son

---As Parochial Vicar of St Josephs Catholic Church and nearing 80 years of age Father Pat seldom heard what he considered a good confession anymore. ---During the Spanish American war Father Pat had heard some of the most heart wrenching last words of dying soldiers on both sides. He had been Chaplin for the American army, but the Spanish opposition happened to be fervently Catholic, and he often heard “Padre…Por favor…” or “Father…please…” beckoning him close to hear the dying words of a blood-soaked soldier in his last moments on the battlefield. --- Father Pat heard all the things a man hid from the world until death came to find him. He heard about infidelity, and abuse both given and received. Stories about theft and lies and the willful schemes of men. Lament over rapes and murders. He would have been downcast at the tales had he not remembered that it was redemption they sought. It was their repentance and their hope of heaven that drove them to cry his name, “Padre…Father…” Boys all of them. --- He gave last rights to both sides; his faith knew not the boarders of war. All were Gods children and he doled out absolution to all who asked for it. Repentance reflected the sacred rhythm of life, the great cycle of pride and humility, the refining of a soul that drew him to the priesthood. Father Pat loved a good confession, he seldom heard one, but he always prayed. ---The bell of St. Josephs Catholic Church in Seattle rang Twelve noon, Monday. Normally Reconciliation wasn’t heard until Wednesday. It gave people proper time to sully their pure hearts after Sunday’s offering. ---Joseph Lavery was the only one there that afternoon, he had requested it. He had called Father Sunday night and wanted to meet right then but Father Pat had said he served four Masses that day and had a headache. But truth be told he had already eaten a steak dinner at Callahan’s and seen his way through the better part of a bottle of red wine a nice family had given him last Christmas. He was listening to a ballgame on the radio when Joseph called. ---It would have to wait till Monday. ---By noon, Joseph had already been there an hour to pray a rosary. Typically, his confessions were quite drab; impure thoughts, half-truths, and late bills; that sort of thing. But today did not disappoint, Father Pat loved hearing about the family arguments. Their squabbles were his entertainment. It reminded him of his upbringing with three brother of his own. Josephs tale did not dissapoint, he had never actually struck Daniel. Father Pat was swept away and for a few blessed moments, forgot himself. ---From between the veil between Father Pat jumped to his feet during Josephs confession and swung his fist like he was watching a boxing match and cried out, “Heeyo! Right in the jabber!” It certainly wasn't like Joseph to strike someone, let alone his brother and Father Pat couldn't help but be swept away. ---Joseph exhaled in frustration from behind the veil. “He didn’t deserve it…well he did. But I know how he struggles in his faith, and I don’t think I brought him any closer to Christ with what I did.” ---“Admonish the sinner I say, Joe! Besides your brothers been a dirty no gooder at times…can’t say I blame you.” Father Pat sensed there was more. He could smell the reluctance on Joseph, he was holding back, he always held back. That was the thing about people who confessed their scruples like Joe. They confessed everything and nothing. Father knew there was more, just how much was a mystery. Still, he invited, “Is there anything else?” ---Joseph hesitated and thought about Daniels commitment to the Gatt Brothers and what trouble they were in. But he couldn’t say any of that to Father Pat. He had never confessed to Father about selling booze, first because he didn’t think it was wrong and second because he wanted to protect Father Pat. It was one thing to confess a sin to a Priest if you had an intention of changing but what Joseph was doing was considered crime and he did not want to make Father Pat an accessory. ---Father Pat sat in the silence and let the spirit move. ---Joseph remembered what Daniel had said about family and the rage that it ignited inside him. A lump rose in hi his throat. He rolled his neck to stretch it out, breathed hard and swallowed it back. “That’s all today, Father.” Joseph sat stoically, holding himself back from saying more. ---Father Pat raised his eyebrows. He enjoyed Josephs confession today, but it was not the one he had hoped for. “Well, you’ve got to make things right with him. Tell him you’re sorry. Move on with it. Brothers shouldn’t quarrel.” Father leaned into the screen between them. ---It wasn’t that simple Joseph leaned into Fathers niceties, “He’s deciding things for the business without me!” ---Father Pat leaned back, “Is he deciding without you or are you deciding without him?” ---“I’m ten years older! I’m in charge of more! I know better!” Joseph’s protest sounded petty the closer he got to losing control. ---Father Pat continued, “Who are you to take away your brother’s freedom Joseph?” ---Joseph, almost insolent now, “Father you don’t even know…” ---“But it sounds like you do! You know better than Daniel you know better than me. Joseph, some men insist to learn by consequence. Who are you to take that from him?” ---“But what if it leads him too far down the wrong path? What if he hurts others?” Joseph wore the anguished face of a prophet. ---Father Pat reminded, “Then the lord will be here for him to make a right turning.” And with that the penance was given. “Three hail Mary’s and an our Father…but both of us know you’ll say the whole Rosary.” ---There was a stillness between the two of them. ---Father Pat made the sign of the cross over Joseph as he left to do his penance. Father Pat stayed behind alone in the confessional. He gave thanks for the confession that Joseph gave and prayed that what ever he was holding back would be brouht to light in Gods prescious time. ---

Chapter 7- The Seed

“You could have called, Blossom! I sent letters! Telephoned!” Anne’s father, John Hibbert was bedridden and winded but still he persisted over his profuse coughing. --“Stop calling me Blossom. You didn’t call or write, your staff did.” Anne huffed back, unphased by his infirmities. --“What’s the difference?” He asked indignantly. --“Whether or not you want me to come. Besides, it’s just a cold and your asthma makes you feel worse. You do this every time you’re sick! It will pass, just like it always has!” She handed him his nebulizer and he inhaled in between coughs. “And shame on you for sicking poor James on me! I only came so his efforts weren’t in vain, you know.” Anne wandered about her father’s bedroom. Her eye caught a beautiful flower blooming in a pot beside a large window. ---His cough now subsiding, her father watched Annes eyes, “Do you remember our trip to South Africa?” --“I was sixteen! Of course, I do! Anyway, it’s a nice flower.” ---“Flower? Come now child! Since the garden, Adam was charged with the proper naming of things…say it with me now, you remember!” ---“Not this again!” Anne rolled her eyes. ---John raised his hands as if conducting an orchestra. Anne recited with her father reluctantly “A-Asclepias, B- Berberis, C-Cotoneaster, D-Dendranthema.” The side of her mouth curled in-spite of herself. “There now.” Her father’s eyes shining brightly back at hers. “Banksia speciosa if you please!” They smiled together in silence. “This is her first flowering year. There were two. See there…” Pointing to a large pod behind the flower. It was smaller than a pinecone but similarly formed, large seeds were bursting from it. ---“You men and your pursuit for ephemeral beauty!” She shook her head. "Eight years seems a long time to wait for a flower” She scoffed. ---He rose from his bed and teetered over to the windowsill, winded. “Some flowers take time my love.” He looked at her face tenderly and cupped her chin. “You can take it home if you like. Give it a try yourself” He took a pair of clippers next to the pot and sniped off the seed pod. There was an ornate wooden box on the desk nearby, he placed the pod inside and closes the box, offering it to her. ---Anne gave him an insolent laugh, “No thank you! I have better things to do!” ---He returned her impertinence. “It’s probably better, it’s not an easy one to sow. Not all seeds are water and soil my dear. I never taught you to sow the seed of a Chaparral…” ---“I never asked!” Exasperated by his persistence. “I think I know what you’re doing…and it’s not going to work.” ---“Come back to the Conservatory my dear! You were very promising as a botanist, and you loved it!” He sat in the window seat next to the Banksia. ---“Yes well, I have my own life now! No more following you around the world, chasing your dream! Africa, China the Netherlands for God’s sake! I should have been at playgrounds, schoolyards, and dances! If there is any fault to the way that I am I can assure you it’s because of the eccentric way you raised me!” She slumped into the window seat next to him, thinking about the way she persuaded the other girls to the protest in their bathing suits and got them arrested. The way she was quick to fight and adamant to get her way on things. The way that she pushed James away in his affection for her. And worst, the way she wanted her father to apologize so that she could refuse him forgiveness. ---Her father put his arm around her. “The way you are? You are lovely my dear. You are as bright, and beautiful as a daisy.” ---“I am not! I’m prickly, and dry and plain.” Anne hung her at the thought of herself. Her father looked at the Banksia. “Ah, Blossom.” Anne leaned into him tearfully. “We don’t come into this world knowing. We are roots and branches and flower all the same and growing takes time.” ---The warm sun shone on them. Finally, Anne said, “I imagine you called mere to make things right, to apologize.” ---He hugged her close for a moment. “I know you expect that of me. But I can’t bring myself to apologize for something I am not sorry for.” ---Anne’s head rears back out of his arms. “NOT SORRY?” ---He reached for her as she pulled away, “I know you don’t understand, I don’t expect you to. I am a disappointment for what I did to you…” ---“For what you did to Mother!” Anne hissed. ---Her father abruptly “I’m dying, my dear. I can feel it…something isn’t right.” ---Anne stood folding her arms as she looked down on him, “How very opportunistic. Now I’m supposed to forget what you did. Do you know how it tormented me? The least you could do is to admit you were wrong instead of holding your infirmities over me, relying on my sympathies to win the day. You Cad!” ---He persisted and rose, looking her in the eyes sincerely, “I’m leaving you everything; the house, the estate…” ---“…are you trying to buy me off?” Anne was apauled. ---Still her father continued, “… stocks, bank account, The collection.” ---The mention of the word sent Anne over the edge, “The collection? I don’t want it!” ---“I won’t break apart the estate. You take it in its entirety or nothing at all! You know what it means to me.” He was adamant. ---“Haven’t I lived under your madness long enough?” How could he do this? She thought. ---“Sell it off after I’ve gone, give it away! Burn it for all I care! But please, help an old man come to the end of his life and feel as if he has amounted to something? Please Anne…” He stood up as straight as he could, trying to catch a breath. Coughing uncontrollably, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. She brought him his nebulizer again. He inhaled. ---She continued “You’re not dying, stop trying to enlist me as a foot soldier, I’m not your little seed!” ---“But my dear that’s exactly what you are…” He touched her face gently, she pulled away and turned on her heels from him. “Where are you going?” He stood up to follow her. ---“Home! This is nothing more than an eccentric attempt to usher me back into your ranks as a minion because no one else will…” She walked over to the door putting distance between them. ---Still, he implored her, “No one else understands what they mean to us” ---“What they mean to you! Now leave me alone!” Anne slams the door as she walks out. ---John sighs in frustration, on the verge of tears. He looks at the flowers longingly. He pulls the handkerchief from his pocket, there is blood on it.

Chapter 6-Going Home

The Northern California countryside passed quickly from the passenger train window. By late fall the dry ground was scattered with nuts from Walnut and Oak trees. Anne’s eyes tracked the tidy rows of passing farms. Sitting next to James in a passenger car her head nodded sleepily from one side to another. James shifted towards her as if offering his shoulder for her to rest. ----- Occasionally they passed a field of farmworkers turning soil. Their sun scorched skin made Anne wonder why they chose to live that way. There were plenty of other jobs a person of minimal education could hold. Why farm work? It paid nothing, it was never done, and it never changed! It seemed an enslavement. How awful to get to the end of one’s life only to reflect upon a life filled with planting and tending and harvesting! It was a sad thing to see but also a reminder never be complacent in the making of her own destiny. ------ She was raised to follow in her fathers’ footsteps at the Conservatory, marry and have children. But upon finishing her education she stayed in San Francisco to join the Suffragist movement, much to her mother’s shame and her father’s disapproval. Her decision had its consequences; a sizeable decrease to her monthly living stipend. But she was determined. Life was supposed to be an enriching journey and she was willing to live modestly for the sake of it. ----- It would be a long way to Washington, to her father, back home. She sighed at the thought of seeing him. It had been five years. He was sick, which was not unusual. He was asthmatic and had a myriad of allergies. He had been confined to his bed in the past. But James had come all the way from Washington! Perhaps this was different. She had to come. She would give him a chance to apologize, a chance for him to make things right. ------ Her eyes drifted as the train headed out of the valley and into the mountains. Out of the dry windy landscape of the farmworkers and the everyday people and into the woods and their uncultivated landscape. She rested her head on the metal wall to her left, away from James’ shoulder and finally found rest.

Chpter 5- The Big House

“The lady I live with wont like this!” Cried Mildred from behind the jail bars. Anne patted Mildred’s shoulder, “We’ll be out by dinnertime once they process our bail.” “Said the rich girl! That was a week’s wages for me, no dinner tonight.” The girl with the fat bottom sneered. Anne straightened, “Come now! This is the stuff that change is made of.” “Change! Sure, change of apartment for her and a new job for me. I should have been at my shift an hour ago.” The fat bottomed girl started pacing. A lazy officer on the other side of the bars leaned back in his chair and pretended to read a magazine. The fat bottomed girl hissed, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself locking three girls up for no reason.” “Ashamed? You came in wearing nothing but bathing suits!” He raised his eyebrows at the memory of it. “The female form is nothing to hide!” Fired Anne. The officer stood, leaning against the bars, looking Anne up and down “Why don’t you take off your coat and prove it!” “How dare you!” Stomped Anne. “Come on now! You girls like to dress like that, I like to see it. We agree, now let’s have another look.” He snickered and stuck his Billy club into the cell lifting Anne’s coat. A door opened from behind the officer, a familiar voice. “Anne! Good heavens!” A young man a bit older than Anne rushed over to the bars. He wore a bowtie suit, and his hair was parted down the middle. He was tall and lanky wore wire glasses. He was handsome but didn’t seem interested in showing it. Anne looked relieved to see him at that moment, “James? What on earth are you doing here?” “What am I doing here? I’d ask you the same thing.” A clerk walks in and hands the officer some papers. The officer stands flipping through them, walking over to the cell he fumbles with his keys. “Well looks like you girls are free to go if you like.” The fat bottom girl bats her eyelashes, “If we like? What are we going to do stay here with you?” She cackles at Mildred links her their arms and they trot out of the jail cell together without waiting for Anne. She calls after them, as if to keep up, “Remember girls, next week in the park!” “So long as you’re posting bail rich girl! C’mon, walk me to work, I bet I can make it…” They take off out of the building out into the city streets. Anne starts to chase after them, James takes her arm, looks at her sincerely, “Your father has been trying to get ahold of you. Sending letters for weeks!” Anne is unmoved. She continues walking down the street. He catches up to her. Anne walks next to James, her face forward, “So that’s what this is about. You’ve come on his behalf. Shame on you James.” James stops, takes both of her arms, and looks at her squarely. “He’s sick. Pneumonia. That on top of his condition, the doctor says it’s serious.” “Serious.” She chuckles to herself “John Hibbert always gets his way.” She trails off in memory for a moment. Then, all at once she is decided. “No, I have a life here people depend on me.” She motions ahead of her as if toward the girls who have just left. She turns back to James, she rolls her eyes slightly, she can feel him imploring her to come with him back to her father’s house. She crosses her arms, “No! Stop looking at me like that! I’m Absolutly not going James!”

Family meeting-Study "Chptr 4"

The rage was building inside Joseph Lavery. He looked into the warehouse from the window of his office. Everything was as it should be. The moving truck was tidy and in working order. Padding blankets and crates were stacked and folded for the next day’s job. Their two employees had been sent home with pay to feed their families. The Lavery Brothers Moving company was booked solid for the next month. - And now this. He looked at his brother Daniel, still seated at the desk, having the nerve to look smug after what he just did. Joseph would have socked him if he wasn’t a praying man. Suddenly, Joseph blurted out, “The Gatt Brothers? What were you thinking?” “I was thinking about making money, Joe!” Daniel expected Joseph to respond this way. He had his argument prepared. “We’re already selling the stuff.” “Sure, but to friends and neighbors and occasionally over to Sully’s but that’s it! This is different, this is crime!” Said Joseph with conviction. He wasn’t wrong. Distilling and transporting high volume spirits for resale and distribution was a federal offence. Selling to a place like Gatt’s was instant incrimination. The small booze operation the Lavery’s had been running was a hobby, a community service of protest to the eighteenth amendment of the prohibition of alcohol. The Laverys believed an honest day’s labor deserved a strong drink. What a man put in his body was his own business. Distilling on a small scale came with some risk but getting caught with a bottle or two never came with incarceration. It could but didn’t. The Cops and The Dry Squad didn’t go for small infractions. Too much paperwork. Bottles got dumped out or, in most cases officers just pocketed the loot for their own personal drink. Selling to a place like Gatt’s where they were taking five jugs a week was a new kind of game. The kind that the dry Squad was keen to. One that Joseph wanted no part of. This had been a source of contention between the brothers from the beginning. Daniel wanted to grow, distill as much as possible, make money. It pained him to constantly turn customers down, and they were! They had a reputation for having the best Moonshine in the region and he was ready to cash in. “Four hundred dollars a month Joe! Four hundred! What’s a few more jugs a week?” “It’s another cask! It’s two more truckloads of rye and sugar a month from the pier and double the water from the city. We can’t hide that! Tell me this, how are we gonna get it to them? How do we know the squads not watching their building and seeing our truck with our family name on it? Our name! How can I be sure they won’t be watching Sully’s, bringing a heap of trouble on that poor old man and his boys. Four hundred dollars a month? That doesn’t seem enough for what you’ve just enlisted us to!” “Enlisted us to?” Daniel was indignant. “What have you enlisted us to, old man? A life of servitude to the well to dos? Hauling their shite all over this town?” “It’s an honest day’s work.” Joseph waved him off. Daniel fired back, “That’s just something poor folks say to face another day!” Joseph, scowling “It was good enough for father…” Daniel snaped his fingers as if his proved his point, “We couldn’t afford a headstone for that poor fool when he died…” “Don’t you dare call him a fool!” “Well, he was! Pushed that damn plow all his life only to die without a proper burial. He brewed the best Poitin in Donegal and practically gave the stuff away. Jesus, even the Priest came to Dad every week, but he just couldn’t muster the savvy to make a gain from it.” “It was a hobby…” “It was a missed opportunity! I’m not going to die someone else’s man like he did.” “No, you won’t die like he did, not at this rate. You’ll die young rich and fat in a bed of your own money with no wife or child.” Daniel laughed cruelly, “No wife and child, I guess that aint far from how you’re gonna die at this rate!” In an instant Daniel received a fisted blow to the face. He fell to the floor in a heap while Joseph stood over him. “Don’t you ever mention that again you snake!” Joseph was on the verge of tears or rage. His body is tense. Daniel knew to stay put where her is on the floor, motionless.

Suffergist -Study "Chptr 3"

PART 1 One month earlier: October 2nd 1929 In Anne Hibbert’s small San Francisco apartment there is a framed copy of the 19th Amendment hung in the center of the mirror vanity in the place where a woman would normally fix her face. A sash that reads: “The vote is not enough” is draped next to it. “Singing in the rain” by Cliff Edwards plays on the phonograph. It’s pouring outside. The mail chute flaps open, and a letter falls to the ground. Anne picks it up, rolls her eyes and tosses next to the door into a basket already filled with several unopened letters written in the same hand. A small olive tree next to the vanity and a blooming gardenia in front of the mirror. Other various succulents and philodendrons are scattered about. Anne is cinched in a full length peacoat and heels. She takes the sash from the mirror and drapes it over herself and pins a Cloche hat on her head. She peeks at the mirror sneakily around the 19th amendment. She plucks the gardenia flower and places it in the hat. She looks at herself and rolls her eyes, throwing the flower back on the vanity. It lands next to a framed picture of a well to do man in the rainforest holding a baby standing next to a solemn faced woman. Instead, Anne plucks a prudent spring of olive and tucks it behind her ear and walks out the door.

PART 2 “Come on Mildred! We’re already late!” Anne practically runs. “What if someone sees us?” Asked Mildred nervously almost out of breath. “Well, that’s entirely the point, isn’t it?” Anne’s eyes are fixed ahead. Mildred, practically whining. “The woman at my boarding house is very sure we ought to conduct ourselves as ladies. I can’t lose my place. You sure were not going to catch any trouble for this? No man’s going to marry a girl who’s up to trouble…” Anne stops walking, takes Mildred’s shoulder, “Oh dear…you’re missing the point entirely aren’t you.” Mildred looks back at Anne vacantly. Anne exhales, drawing up her patience. “Speaking your mind is not making trouble, Mildred, remember that. Any house that believes that is not worth living in! And any man who holds you to that is not worth loving. Do you understand? We must be absolute in our cause or change will never come! Now come on, we can’t let all the others down. All for one girl! Onward!” Anne links arms with Mildred, practically dragging her.

PART 3 A white linen restraunt on the pier. Waiters formally dressed. Windows all around provide a panoramic view to city and sea. A lady and gentleman sit in silence while they eat, fork and knife slicing modest bites. CRASH! The lady drops her silverware from her hands it rattles the plate. Holding her hand to her mouth, “Oh dear!” Her gentleman partner wipes his face, averting his eyes from the front window with his napkin, “Oh my God!” Out front three women stood in the rain wearing reduced bathing suits; the controversial style that revealed their bulges and creases, like the hanky panky magazines men liked to look at in secret. The women were glistening and wet from the rain. Still wearing high heels, their hair was disheveled and their eyes were dark with smeared mascara. One of the women wore a sash and had an olive branch tucked behind her ear. Another one was short and plump with a bottom so large that the underside of it hung out of her suit, undulating as she paced back and forth chanting. She had a short haircut so that it looked like a wet swimming cap. The last woman was tiny and mousy looking. She looked freezing cold and covered her breasts with one hand and held a sign with the other, fighting back tears as she chanted. The manager was going by the tables apologizing. The waiters fumbled with the drapes at the windows, closing them slowly, catching one more peak at all the delightful quivers and curves of the angry wet ladies, licking their cops and snickering to one another. Two of the waiters stood by the window, close enough for the dinning couple to hear. “Which one would you have?” Said one. “I’d take the big one. Look at all that…she is all riled up” Smacking his knee the other one added “The big one? She looks like a mountain climber!” raising his eyebrows, “Well, I got a mountain for her to climb!” The lady started fanning herself, it was all she could take. “Oh my, Jesus Lord!” CREEEEK! Her gentleman lurched his chair out from the table abruptly and threw his napkin on the table in disgust. He grabed the nasty mouthed waiter by the arm. “We will not exit this building with those Suffragists outside! Call the police now!” The waiter noded sheepishly. He started to walk away as the gentleman added “…and get back in the kitchen and away from my wife!” the

The Genesis of Anne-Study "Chptr 2"

It was unfortunate for Anne that things had come to this. She had never wanted to be the Conservatory’s Curator. She despised the position in fact. She had avoided the place entirely for years, wanted it gone even. But now, this Monday am, donned in apron and glove hauling the wheeled watering cart she doled out fertilizer to the Livistona chinensis in the great Palm room. Her late father had been the Previous Curator. The great Joh Hibbert. He was a well-known botanist and collector who had spent his life traveling, collecting rare specimens to cultivate and display, ironically in pursuit of conservation. The hypocrisies of conservationism were Anne’s primary repulsion of Conservatory culture. Botanists the world over harvested the rarities of nature and displayed them for the public in the name of conservation. But it was the displays that created the lust for the market in the first place. Foolery! It was a shameless public black market. Led by egotistical scholars like her father who sought their names in history books and ecology magazines hoping to be remembered like Darwin, Roosevelt, and Muir Anne’s second repulsion was that the Conservatory attracted wealthy patrons who had adopted exclusive rights to it. That’s not to say that it wasn’t open to the public, but funding members had decided on hours of operation which did not include convenient times for the working class. Weekends and evenings were reserved for events and scheduled parties. Docent led tours could be scheduled for a fee, which none could afford. Anne had grown up in the Conservatory and knew everyone of its glass panes and curved spires. The light shown through the stained glass around the entryway and colored the mornings depending on the time of year. She knew its hiding places and loose bricks where she stowed away sweets for safe keeping. One summer was spent reading The Secret Garden behind the rock waterfall. The majesties of the story were all around her. She pondered how a fern could unfurl from its dormancy slow enough to be undetected and yet all at once as if to have appeared suddenly. How could a carnivorous plant know how to flex and reflex itself without having a mind for sensation? Could a plant actually feel? Once her father brought a boat small enough to go in the pond of the main room so she could practice writing poetry by candlelight, on evenings when he had to work late. It wasn’t the Conservatory she hated but rather what it fostered, pretension, division, scandal and sometimes shame. All good things in life were like that. Since Eden really. Like the garden itself, God’s gift to man; beautiful and perfect yet stained by the perversions of secrets and personal gain. It could be said that she missed the Conservatory for what it used to mean to her. But she could never go back. Not after what she had seen. For what her father had done that summer night when he thought she had gone home. The night that everything changed, and she learned about the lies people tell and the secrets that they keep in places sworn to be sacred. That fathers play a certain kind of make believe to their wives, and another kind of make believe to the women that they love. She had gone away and sworn she would never come back but it could not be avoided. And though she was made to be there, this time, she promised to be on her guard; not to fall for anything fleeting and wild. Never to lose herself to poetry and romance; and certainly, never to trust anything so tremulous and tender as love again.

Speakeasy/Gatt Brothers study "Chptr 1"

If Booze was the remedy, they were the Pharmacists. The Gatt brothers, Frank and Leo were raking in the cash this Friday night in their packed club. Girls danced with Guys they had only just met. Smoke rose all around from tables of folks who were drinking to get drunk in a time where the stuff was illegal. Prohibition turned a healthy profit and the Gatt brothers sat at their reserved table watching their wallets get fat. Leaning back in his chair Frank sucked on the butt end of his cigarette, extinguishing it and looking at his watch. “He’s late” Leo’s eyes were fixated on a figure across the room, “No, he’s right on time.” A dark bearded man wearing a chapeau and dark tweed coat carried a medium burlap sack under his arm, surveying the room. The Gatt brother rose in unison. Frank wasted no time and waved the man over. “Dan Lavery, I assume?” Daniel rolled his eyes looking at the burlap sack, “What gave it away?” “Please” Frank motioned to a chair. They all sat together. Daniel placed the burlap sack in the center of the table. “This here is our Poitin. ‘Swat you Americans call Moonshine. Farmer’s whiskey where I’m from, strongest we distill.” Frank turned over three stemmed glasses, Daniel whistles, “Never seen shine served in a stemmed glass before! Is this how your people do it?” Daniel filled the glasses with Poitin. Frank looked over at Leo, “I’ve never seen Liquor served from a burlap sack, is this how your people do it?” Daniel grinned at the return. All raised their glasses. “To the Micks, and their Poitin!” Laughed Leo. “To the Jews and their glasses!” said Daniel. All three heaved back a shot. Leaving both Gatt brothers wheezing. Lavery Poitin was stronger than any American Moonshine and went down hard. “Shit!” Coughed Frank. “That’ll make a pair drop, dear God!” Added Leo. “Want another?” Asked Daniel “Nah. We’ll see how one settles. We’ll know by the end of this song." The lights grew dim. A woman wearing a red dress and a matching headband appeared on stage. Her eyes were smokey and her cheekbones high and angular. Her frame was soft and full against her dress and the lights from the stage reflected boudoir shadows underneath her clothes that drew attention from the men and most of the women in the room. The music started and she began to sing. Her voice was lower than the pretty tones of the women who sang on the radio. There was something slow in her tempo, like taking her time drawing the audience into her body and breath radiating herself against the stillness of the open room. She closed her eyes and sent her voice against the back wall, heaving air into her belly and chest as she let the tassels of her curls fall carelessly out of place around her cheeks, cupping the microphone gently as she breathed into it. By the end of the song Daniel had leaned in toward her, staring. Frank let out a chuckle. Daniel remembered himself, sitting up abruptly. “Her name is Angela” Frank whispered. Daniel exhaled “Nice voice” “Ha-ha. We know.” Leo nods to Frank. Applause roared throughout the audience. Daniels eyes followed Angela as she walked down the stage into the audience up the aisle toward them. "Back to business! It's a good buzz I think Daniel. How much for Jug?”Leo crossed his arms ready to negotiate. “Twenty” Daniel looked at him squarely. “Twenty? Jesus, would you take fifteen?” Pleaded Frank. “It’s worth Twenty!” Daniel watched Angela as she moved closer to them. Thinking of coming to the club often on deliveries he has a sudden change of heart. “Though…I suppose we could work something out.” “Like…” Prompted Leo “…Like, You place a standing order. Every week. The more I come the better deal I give you. I make money in volume; you reap the benefits in profit.” Daniel could feel Angela getting closer, he sensed her move from the corner of his eyes but kept them forward on the Gatt brothers, on business. He was steel and calm with an unwavering countenance. “You got yourself a deal!” Leo thrust his hand toward Daniel. Daniel took his hand and shook it. A moment later, Angela showed up at the table fluttered an unlit cigarette between her red lips. “Leo, Frank….anybody got a light?” Her eyes fix on Daniel as he reaches into his lapel pocket as his eyes met hers.