My latest book, Georgette Alden Starts Over written under my pen name, Annie Hoff, has a penguin on the cover. Penguins add some comic relief and a bit of a challenge to this romantic comedy. Here's the first introduction to them--a scene where the title character, Georgette, meets up with an old director, Kent Markham, to ask a favor. Seems he has a favor to ask as well....

Kent lived in a high rise for the elderly a few blocks from Georgette’s building. He answered the door wearing florescent green yoga pants and a matching shirt that looked like a pajama top without buttons. His feet were bare, long toes with cracked yellow nails topping off long feet at the base of spindly legs that gave him a sort of aging Big Bird look. Georgette made a mental note to get
a pedicure and soon. 

“Come in, dear Georgette. Do come in!” Kent put a gnarled hand on Georgette’s elbow and led her through his hall to a small and barely furnished room with a futon to one side and a yoga mat on the other. “Last time I saw you, you were just a slip of a girl.” Kent put both hands to Georgette’s shoulders and held her out at arm’s length. “And now? You are a magnificent and mature woman.”

Georgette didn’t particularly like the word mature, especially since it came out of the mouth of a man who had matured beyond all expectation.

“So.” Kent clapped his hands together and bowed at her before gesturing to the futon. “Won’t you sit
down? I have some delightful oolong tea. I will fetch us each up a cup.”

“Delightful,” repeated Georgette as she watched his skinny frame disappear into the kitchen area.

He called back to her, “How long has it been since we’ve worked together?” 

“A few years? Quite a few,” Georgette answered.

The only response this time was a clanging noise. Kent probably hadn’t heard her and besides, it was awkward holding a conversation through two rooms. Georgette put a hand to either side of her on the futon’s velvet cover. It was soft, but who knew what hid inside the nap. She put her hands on her lap.
Kent came back with two steaming cups of greenish tea and handed her one. Instead of sitting beside her, he sat Indian style on the yoga mat. He raised his cup to salute her and she took a sip of strong and bitter tea.

Kent was looking at her in a way that Georgette was sure could be described as ogling. Yes, he was most definitely ogling. She remembered something else about Kent Markham—he had tried to seduce every actress on Our Time Tomorrow. He had succeeded more than once with some of the women, who thought sleeping with the director would help their careers. It hadn’t helped to get them anything but a roll in the hay with Kent. Georgette had known as much from the start. She hadn’t let him seduce her then and she was certainly not about to let him seduce her now.

“I’m happy to shoot the commercial spots if you’ll do me a small favor.” Kent smiled at her. She wondered if he still had his own teeth.

“Favor? What kind of favor?”

“A personal favor.” Great. Here it comes. Georgette took another sip of bitter tea. “Help me free the
penguins.”

The tea spurted out of Georgette’s mouth, sprinkling her blue linen blouse. At least she’d chosen a
washable fabric. Kent was spry for an octogenarian. He was in the kitchen and back two seconds later with a handful of paper towels.

Georgette dabbed at the spots. “Did you say penguins?” It had occurred to Georgette, in the brief
moment Kent was in the kitchen, that penguins might be some sort of quaint euphemism connected to his ogling.

“Yes,” Kent said, taking the paper towels and going to deposit them in the kitchen, “from the Bronx Zoo.”

Kent came back and plopped down on the yoga mat.

“Excuse me for asking, but why would you want to take penguins from the Bronx Zoo?”

“Why?” Kent jumped up again and began pacing. “Because penguins are sentient beings and they deserve better than to be confined in enclosures! Don’t be fooled by how comfortable those enclosures may look. A prison is a prison.”

Georgette blinked. Kent’s impassioned speech left her speechless.

“How would you like to spend your life in an enclosure?”

Georgette tried to remember the penguin enclosure at the zoo. She had only a vague recollection, but animal cruelty did not come to mind when she thought about it. How horrible could it be to be fed, watered, and sheltered with your nearest and dearest? Georgette noted the crazed look in Kent’s eyes and knew he wouldn’t share her point of view.

In Sweet Auralie, the last book of the Sweet Lenora series, Lenora wants to uncover the truth about her father's death ten years earlier. She goes to visit Mr. Eldridge, who worked as a master carpenter in the shipyard owned by her family. He's an old man now, long retired. 

The Eldridges lived in a small cottage near the harbor, weathered and a bit shabby; a few of the clapboards had come loose and needed to be nailed down. The garden, while still lush and green
on this September morn, was overrun. Still, the place had a welcoming feel, perhaps because it reminded me of our little cottage in San Francisco as it had been when Anton and I first moved into it.

Mr. Eldridge answered my knock. It had been ten years since I had seen him last, and these years showed upon his face, which was more leathery than I remembered it and his hair, which was flecked
in grey. Still, his eyes were warm and there was a sparkle in them.

“Miss Lenora, well, aren’t you a sight. You’ve grown into a fine lady, looks like to me.”

I felt my cheeks heat at the compliment, as though I were still a child of five. “It is good to see you, Mr. Eldridge.”

“I remember you as a mere spit of a girl, running about the shipyard.”

“Getting underfoot, I would imagine.” 

“Nay. You were always a curious one, and smart as a whip.” 

Mr. Eldridge ushered me into the parlor, where a tabby cat lay curled on one of the two chairs set by the unlit fireplace. He shooed the cat and offered me the chair. “Where’s my manners? I have tea. I’ll go fetch it.” 

The cat eyed me suspiciously as her owner went to the kitchen and returned a few moments later balancing two cups in his hands. “Oh, me. I forgot to ask. Cream and sugar?” 

“Black is fine.”

“I do apologize. I’m a bit discombobulated of late,” he said, handing me the cup with the slow sort of care usually reserved for a raw egg. “I’ve been a poor housekeep since my Mary passed on.” 

I had a vague memory of Mrs. Eldridge, a round and jolly woman. As a child, I imagined I would have liked her for a grandmother. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

Mr. Eldridge brushed the air as he sat in the chair opposite, the cat winding about his shins. “ ‘Tis five years, now. I’ve gotten used to being alone, though not a day goes by I don’t think of her. The realities of living to ripe old age.” He took a sip of his tea and looked at me. “If I may be so bold, I don’t imagine you came by to reminisce with an old man.”

His directness startled me and I took a sip of my tea to cover it. “Actually, I look to reopen the shipyard. I remember how great a carpenter you were, I thought perhaps—”.

He waved his hand again to stop my pretty speech. “I hear tell the shipyard is being sold, now that John Brewer has died.”

“The shipyard belongs, at least in part, to me, Mr. Eldridge. The primary reason I have come back to Salem is to reclaim it. I hope to build another super clipper, like Sweet Lenora, only sleeker along the line of her hull and deeper, so she can cut the waves all the faster.”

“Ah, Sweet Lenora, now there was a ship.” He smiled and gazed out the window as though she were still at anchor in the harbor. “We spent a deal of time fashioning her. Mr. Brewer wanted the prow pointed sharp as knife. She was a beauty.” He looked again to me. “I heard she was fired. Pity to destroy such a ship.”

“Yes, it was a shame. I watched her burn. ‘Twas a sad day. It is why I am resolved to build another.”

“You will build her? No offense, Miss Lenora, but you—”

“Are but a woman?” I finished for him. “I was not underfoot for naught, sir. You’ll recall I spent many a day by your side. I redrafted Lenora’s blueprint. I kept her dimensions in my head.” I smiled at him. “And I even went so far as to marry her captain.”

He nodded. “Ah, yes. The captain. He has gained a reputation.” From the way he said it, I knew Anton aroused in him an unfounded suspicion. No doubt rumors had flown about the town. I would do my best to dispel them, here and now
.
“My husband is the finest, most honorable man I have ever known, Mr. Eldridge, and I have been lucky to have the acquaintance of many a fine man, so I believe myself to be a fair judge.”

Mr. Eldridge cleared his throat. “Yes, I imagine you would think so. Would you care for more tea?”

I was not so quick to let it go. “You seem to have more to say upon the subject.”

He examined his cup for a moment. “’Tis nothing, Miss Lenora. You remind me of your father, is all. He was a fine man, I would not have stayed in his employ for so many years were it otherwise. He always believed the best of everyone and, in some ways, this can be a fault, for it blinded him to...” He stopped and took a deep swallow of tea. 

“I know of my uncle’s business, Mr. Eldridge. I am no longer a child, I understand the world better than you may imagine.” 

“Then I advise you be careful, Miss Lenora. Your father, and even your uncle, got themselves tangled into a net. I fear it drowned them both.”

“How do you mean, drowned them?”

Mr. Eldridge shook his head. “I have spoken out of turn. It is a bad habit of the old, they forget their place.”

And still, I would not let it go. “You must tell me. I swear on my life, on my child’s life, I would not use your words against you.”

He swallowed deep, as though to gain his courage. “I should not spread rumor, and particularly not of something that happened so long ago. It’s been ten years, has it not?”

A feeling of dread crept over me. “Since my father’s accident.”

“’Twas no accident,” he whispered. “I’m not the only one around these parts who believe it weren’t.”

I've always been fascinated by names, maybe because I have an odd one that's  hard to figure out how to pronounce (it's ooh-tah).  Naming characters has always been fun for me. And in the P-Town Queen, I had a little extra fun. Marco, on the run from a mob boss, does not want to use his real name when he applies for a job. Thinking  fast, he remembers where he first saw  the beautiful Nikki, his potential future boss. H'd been sitting on a bench near the town wharf….

​I found Fishy’s without a whole lot of trouble and asked the girl at the cash register about the job. I had turned from wondering about Dr. Silva to wondering what kind of research you did at a t-shirt hut.
“Hey, Fish,” shouted the girl to a blonde guy squatting over a box of
snorkels, “you hiring an assistant?”
“Research assistant,” I said, when Fish stopped diving into the box
so he could look me over.
“You want Nick Silva.” Fish pointed to an “Employees Only” sign
taped onto a metal door.
I went through the door and there, in the corner of the room, was a metal desk and sitting on the desk was the redhead from the pier. I couldn’t have been more surprised if it had been Fat Phil sitting there. My stomach did a loop-di-loop, like I was in the sixth grade and just found out the popular girl had the locker next to mine. I told myself to quit being a dumb ass. I had
exactly two cents rubbing together in the pocket of my only pair of pants.
She was talking to the guy from the pier. The younger one that looked like her. She caught me in her gorgeous brown eyes, blinked a few times, and asked if she could help me. “Yeah, yes,” I said. “I’m here about the research. The assistant. Job. Research assistant.”
“Find me an office and they will come,” the guy said.
To which the redhead gave him a look that might have killed him.
“And how is it that job applicants magically appear?” she asked him.
“The flyer,” I said. “At Ella’s Place.”
“Flyer at Ella’s Place?” The redhead turned the killer stare at me.
“They weren’t. She didn’t. They were under the counter. I saw. I was. I really need the job.” I took a deep breath. “So if you tell Dr. Silva. I’m available. For an interview.” Jesus, Mary, and Joe, it was lucky that drool didn’t come running out of my mouth.
The guy put a hand on my shoulder and said, real quiet, “She is Dr. Silva,” which really made me feel like a friggin’ idiot.
“Nick Silva? She’s Nick Silva?”
“N-i-k, as in Nicola,” the guy said.
“It’s a mistake. My mistake. I’m mistaken. Sorry.”
“She makes people nervous. But she’s not so tough. I’m her brother, I ought to know. Billy.” He held out his hand.
“I do not make people nervous,” Nik Silva said.
“Ask her about Rusty’s boat.”
Nik sighed. “There is no job. Mr.…?”
And here’s where things got dicey. In giving myself a new identity I forgot to give me a new name. Any self-respecting witness protection program will give you a new name and I sure as hell didn’t want to use the old one. Nikki Silva was kind of staring at me again and my pulse rate was up around two hundred, so I spit out the first thing came into my head.
“Parker. Parker Bench.” I wished, right after I said it, that I could have taken it back. I wished I’d have come up with something, anything, else: Jerry Lewis or Phillip Morris or Captain Crunch. Just about anything would have been better than Parker Bench.
Nikki raised her eyebrows. “Parker Bench?”
“It’s a family name,” I said, having to come up with some reason, quick, why I had such a dumb moniker.
“Well, like I said, Mr. Bench—”
“Call me Parker,” I said, feeling I might as well get into it. And, to tell the truth, the new name did kind of calm me down a little.

Beanie, the main character in Blueberry Truth, want nothing more than to have a family and be a mother. But she and her husband Mac are having trouble conceiving.  The scene below is Beanie's account of their first meeting with an infertility specialist. 

​The coffee table in Dr. Milletti’s waiting room is spread with books and pamphlets with titles shouting at you: “Get Pregnant Now!” and “You Can Do It Too!” I feel like I’m at a pregnancy pep rally. While I wait for Mac to get here, I entertain myself by making up cheers. “We’ve got ovulation! Go insemination!” I’m amusing myself enough to smirk, which is a lot better than concentrating on the slipknots being tied and untied in my stomach. Comfortable enough, the room has nice plushy chairs and a big window with a healthy spider plant, but I might as well be in a walk-in freezer. Smirking also works to keep my teeth from chattering.
I’m not sure what I expected, but I think I’d pictured Dr. Dowdy, some elderly gentleman who’ll take you by the hand and say things like “there, there, now.” Dr. call-me-John Milletti doesn’t look any older than Mac. He wears little gold posts in his ears. And he has a beard. A well-trimmed beard, true, but it makes him look like the psychologist at St. Luke’s, the crazy one who comes in once a month, observes the kids for two minutes, and comes up with a bullshit behavior modification plan we can’t possibly follow and wouldn’t work if we did. Prejudgment is unfair, I’ll grant you, but my first impression does little to make me comfortable in an already uncomfortable situation.
Dr. Milletti asks if we’ve finished the questionnaires, and Mac and I hand them in. “Like handing in homework.” I’m trying too hard to ease the tension.
“There will be quite a bit of homework,” says Dr. Milletti, and though he’s joking, it does nothing to help matters. Then he gets down to business. He goes over lists of causes, reviews the tests we’ll need to take, and outlines possible treatment. The words sperm, ovaries, and intercourse uttered any number of times. The words love, caring, and tenderness unspoken.

The Tender Bonds is a more serious book that looks at family relationships and the things that bond us together. The setting is a small upstate New York town called Bensonville, which exists only in my imagination. A few miles out of town, nestled into the foothills of the Adirondacks, is a small lakeside community. Babylon Lake becomes a central part of the story as the scene where main character Patty's life has changed and will change again. Here is a first introduction to the place. 

​

​Back at the beach, I skipped rocks over the smooth, glass surface of water. I tried to remember if my father had ever brought me here and I couldn’t. But I could imagine it—the smell of hot dogs grilling on a charcoal fire, kids shouting and splashing in the water, the hot midsummer sun baking the sand. If my mother and I had stayed, I might have come here often. I might have swum in the mirrored water out to the dock, might have sunned myself there. Had my father been in my life, and I in his, things might have turned out differently. It did no good, this speculation. My father, who could have come for me, never had.
I got back into the car, my aim to drive around the small lake. I passed a camp store, still boarded up, at the edge of the camp city. Farther down, where the lake came to a small point,
there was an old amusement park, also closed. Farther still, at the crest of a hill overlooking the water, I came to a paint-chipped sign that read Babylon Hotel. I drove up the hilly dirt road, my car stumbling over rocks, until I was face to face with an ancient house that looked as though it had been transplanted from some small, starved-off plantation in the south. There were pillars, four of them, all too big for the façade, holding up the porch roof. On the roof, a neon sign buzzed like a misplaced antenna. I sat parked in the gravel drive, contemplating the closed sign hung on the door and the Miller beer sign in the window. I had never been here before, and yet there was something so familiar about the place I could feel it move through me. I was so wrapped in this thought that I didn’t hear the other car pull in, didn’t notice at all until there was a tapping on the driver’s side window. I startled to see a burly man, nose reddened, hair nearly depleted. His sausage fingers knocked against the window again.
“Can I help you out with something?” he asked when I rolled the window down.
“No. No you can’t.” I rolled the window shut and drove off, leaving the man standing in the drive of my father’s favorite watering hole.
Thundering down the roadway towards town, driving faster than was prudent, I passed the sign marking Shore Drive. Somewhere down that road had lived the Pearson family. Was Will Pearson still living here?
Curiosity got the best of me and I turned the car around. Shore Drive was a dirt road, the houses on it all but hidden by pines. Long drives with mailboxes indicated their locations. I drove along reading the names on the boxes and stopped when I came to the one marked Pearson. I turned up the long drive, which circled back to a Cape Cod-style house nestled in the pine grove. There was no car in the drive. In the side yard, a swing set stood rusting in the spring mud. Beyond this, the lake glistened and hovered through the trees. I listened for something, anything that would indicate some sort of life here. I imagined children laughing, but none materialized, just the swings moving back and forth, empty and creaking in the breeze.
​

Kassenburg is the imaginary town in which my comedy, Confessions of the Sausage Queen is set. It's a typical small town tucked away in the western part of New York State, somewhere near Buffalo. I wanted a town that would also be a character of sorts, a small place where people accept one another's quirks and occasionally get on one another's nerves. The main character, Mandy, acts as both narrator and tour guide as she takes you through her story. 
The story begins with a funeral. Big Bill Ludowski , owner of the town's largest enterprise, Big Bill's Sausage, has died and is about to have a grand sendoff. Below is a scene from the funeral.
​

We were late, of course, given the unfortunate circumstances I’ve already told to you. We missed the wake entirely. But the funeral could not start without a reverend. Which is why, when Sweet Sue looked over her shoulder toward the hearse’s open passenger door, she said, “Ah hell.”
Reverend Coney Hitchcock had climbed out of the hearse, taken off his shoes and socks, and climbed into the fountain.
Finster’s has a fountain. It was built by a semi-famous sculptor from Boston. Wally’s grandfather, George, had it commissioned. It is a massive thing, three marble basins with water flowing tier to tier. On either side of the bottom two basins sit splashing marble cherubs. In the center of the top fountain a cherub raises a golden scepter from whence the water spouts. Finster’s fountain is the largest statuary in Kassenburg. The giant chicken atop the Cluck and Chuck on the arterial ranks a distant and undistinguished second.
Coney Hitchcock had taken off his shoes and socks and was wading among the angels. Sweet Sue said, “Ah hell,” from the doorway, turned to Wally, grabbed the paper bag and told her son he’d better get the reverend out of there.
“Me?” Wally relinquished the bag.
“You’re the funeral director,” Sweet Sue said.
Funeral director or no, Wally was in no condition to confront the good reverend. It was a good thing, considering the circumstance, Gran took matters into her own hands. She wobbled down the stairs
to the fountain. I wobbled out after her.
Coney looked up from his wade. “Why Lila Rose. Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” He stood with his hands folded in reverend-like fashion and smiled in a manner befitting a marble cherub.
“Reverend,” I ventured. Quietly, because I’ve heard people who live on imaginary love boats get perturbed by loud voices.
“Lila,” said the reverend, also quietly, “I’ve got terrible news.”
Gran stepped to the edge of the fountain at the reverend’s beckoning and the reverend waded over to her and bent close. “I’m afraid I’ve died,” he whispered. “And, I hate to be the bearer of worse news, but I’m afraid you’ve died too.” Reverend Coney blinked under his thick spectacles. He put a hand to Gran’s shoulder. “You’ve got an angel with you.”
“Angel?” Gran craned her neck. “Where?”
“Shush! Right behind you.”
Gran did a full turn. I almost followed suit. It was said the reverend heard voices and who’s to say where hallucinations come from?
“You mean Mandy?” Gran asked.
“You know her name?” The reverend sounded impressed by Lila’s familiarity. “Why Lila, how long you been dead for?”
“That’s no angel. That’s my own Mandy. You baptized her. Don’t you remember?”
The reverend shook his head as thought trying to jar thoughts loose. “Mandy? Veronica and Howie’s little girl? Little Mandy Minhouser?” The reverend climbed out of the fountain and honed in for closer inspection. His breath smelled of wintergreen mint, which was a good thing considering. “Why I’ll be. Mandy Minhouser.” He patted me on the head. “I’ll bet you get mistaken for an angel all the time.”
Have I mentioned the reverend was quite charming?

In the first, and title, story of The Lilac Hour, Sara finds herself having an amazing dream world, so real that she wonders if it is a dream at all 

​

 figure I must still be dreaming. I have had dreams where I knew I was asleep, and I think that this is one of those. Though I have never had a dream with such clarity—I can feel the cool spring air wafting through the window against my skin.
I go out to the back porch to drink in the spring air. There, in a jar filled with water, are the lilac shoots Delilah had given me right after I married. They were gangly things, those shoots, just twigs but they had developed strong roots—you could see them magnified under the glass jar. I touch the water. Wet. Well, of course it is. I have never felt wet in a dream before.
I have a notion to plant those shoots, so I grab the garden trowel—right from where it always hangs on the hook attached to the side of the porch—and I take the shoots out to the back yard. I know the exact spot down near the fence. The spot is bare, as by now I figured it would be. I remember planting those shoots there years ago. They had grown up into an enormous bush, so tall and full that the blossoms bend the branches near to double when the rain comes.
I dig a hole deep enough for the soil to cover the roots. The earth feels cool and damp—rich with the promise of growth. I plant the shoot carefully, thinking the whole time how right it is I do this, that my dreaming sojourn into the past ought to be commemorated with a touch of the future.
I should wake up soon, I think as I clap the dirt from my hands. I should wake up. I go back into the kitchen and wash in the cool spring water from the well. I cup my hand and take a sip—the water is as sweet as it ever was—and I feel sorry again that the old well, dried out. The water never tasted like this. I said so to Maggie, who said back that it was foolishness, that water is water and it all tastes the same.
Thinking of Maggie makes me think of waking again. She will be worried if it has gotten dark. Here inside my dream, it is still the lilac hour; time hasn’t moved an iota past it. I want to stay longer, but I hate to make her fret. So I pinch myself, a bright hard pinch that makes me say “ouch” right out loud. Nothing happens. I am still standing in my old kitchen, only now I have a bright red mark just above my wrist.

More on A-Z Challenge
​More on The Lilac Hour

Ice Cream plays a big role in Afterglow, so much so that it's mentioned on the cover. And when things go sideways, what better way to have a pity party than with eight pints of Ben and Jerry's finest flavors? That's what India, her daughter Allie, and best friend Eva decide to do.

​

​“This party needs Oreos,” Eva said. She’d pulled into her drive, dressed in red with heels to match, just after we returned from our Ben and Jerry’s run. We lined the pints up on the counter like ducks in a shooting gallery.
“Got those,” I told her, pulling the cookies from the bottom of the bag.
“Also martinis,” Eva said.
“Can you have martinis with ice cream?” Allie asked.
“Of course, darling. martinis go with anything.”
I pulled Oreos from the sleeve and passed one to Eva. “You’re back early.”
“It’s over,” she said. “You’ve timed your pity party perfectly.”
Eva made martinis and I got spoons, one for each flavor.
“Tell the truth,” Eva asked, handing me a drink, “Has he always been a bore or did he get zapped by the quotidian fairy while I wasn’t watching?”
“Honest truth?” I asked, sipping the near-overflow from the wide-rimmed glass. I glanced at Allie, who looked up from sampling Cherry Garcia and shrugged. I didn’t want to say anything I’d regret.
“Boring, right?” Eva said into the silence. “I knew it. I knew it when he said he hated the shoe idea.”
“He said that he hated it?” Allie asked.
“He didn’t say hated, exactly. I outlined it for him, all the stuff your mother and Mitch and I talked about. Five thousand shoes, five thousand flowers. Which, by the by, is a great slogan. He pursed
his lips and said it was an interesting idea.”
“Interesting idea, hah!” Allie said.
"It’s a really dumb idea,” I said
“It’s a brilliant idea, Mom.”
“She’s right, India. The man can’t tell a brilliant idea from a lost boy. All he ever talks about is the Battle of the Bulge. And the Spanish-American War. And the invasion of Granada.”
“He was pretty awful,” I said, burying my spoon into New York Super Fudge Chunk. “The quotidian fairy conked him on the head long before you came along.”
“Why did you go out with him?” Allie asked.
“I don’t know,” Eva said. “He was available. He owned his own car. He knows how to read.”
“You need to up your standards,” Allie said.
“Yes, well. I’m not the one hosting this ice cream social.”

In Searching for Superman, the heroine  Stephanie works in an old regional theater. Her boss, Conrad, has a mother who curates the local Historical Society Museum.   A job no one else wants and job she does with questionable ability as this scene attests: she's gotten herself trapped in the junk she's collected. Our hero, Doug, goes with Stephanie and Conrad to rescue her. 

It was small wonder that Leona Finch had gotten herself trapped in the office. And a bigger wonder that it hadn’t happened sooner. As though reading his thoughts, Stephanie smiled at him as she helped pile the magazines back along the side wall. “You see why Conrad suggested shovels.”
She had a dazzler of a smile. “It’s…interesting.”
“It’s a big mess.”
Conrad had meanwhile stepped over the scattered debris and was knocking on a door at the far end of the hall. “Mother? Are you in there?”
“Where did you think I would be? Dining at Sardis?”answered a shrill voice from the other side. Doug imagined a cartoon mole, and smiled again involuntarily.
“No problemo, we’ll get you out!” Conrad sounded as though he were trying to rally himself for rescue.
“Who is this we of which you speak?”
“It’s me, Ms. Finch. Stephanie.”
“Stephanie who?”
“Stephanie Holbrook. From the theater?”
“Ah, yes, Conrad’s little helper. So nice of you to come.” If sarcasm were acid, it could have melted the blocked door. Stephanie bit her lip and shook her head. Conrad put his shoulder to the door and strained to open it. Doug came in next to him and the two of them pushed. The door budged an inch, just enough room to pass a copy of National Geographic through, then would go no further.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” came the voice from the other side. “What is taking so long?”
“Doug and I can’t budge this thing.”
“Who, for the love of all that’s holy, is Doug?”
“Doug Castleberry, ma’am. I’ve come to help.”
“Doug Castleberry, I’ve come to help,” mocked Leona. “Well, you’re not helping, are you?”
Doug had never in his life felt the urge to slug an old woman until just that minute.
“We’ll have to think of something else,” Stephanie said.
Conrad looked around, as though maybe the clutter would provide some clue as to how to solve the dilemma.
“We could go through the window.” Doug wasn’t sure where the idea had come from. Stephanie and Conrad looked at him, two sets of raised eyebrows. Doug shrugged. “Can’t go through the door
then go through the window.” He thought he’d heard it quoted somewhere. He couldn’t be sure where.
“Why not?” Stephanie was smiling at him again. God, he wanted to kiss her. Stop it, he told himself. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“Can you open the window, Mother?” Conrad sounded hopeful.
“Are you joking? I would have opened it by now, don’t you think? Besides, it is freezing outside.”
It was, in point of fact, not freezing outside. It was a nearly perfect spring day with sunny skies and temperatures running into the seventies. They stepped outside and found the office window, despite Leona’s lack of confidence. On the sill perched a pile of books that stretched to mid-window.
“If we can get it open, we can move the books.” Doug felt full of good ideas.
“How can we get it open?” Stephanie asked.
“It’s not locked.” Doug pointed to the lock at the center. “So if we can get something to pry under the sill, we’re in.”
“Breaking and entering.” There was that Stephanie smile again, directed right at him. “This could be fun.”
“Oh, yeah, burglary is a blast.”
“Will a screwdriver do?” Conrad handed him the tool and shrugged. “I found it among the artifacts on the stairs. Thought it might come in handy.”
“You have burgled before.” Doug took the proffered screwdriver.
“Nope. First time, believe it or not.” Conrad studied the window. “How do you propose we get up there?” The sill was about a foot over their heads.
“Easy peezy lemon squeezy,” said Stephanie. “Get me up on Doug’s shoulders and I’ll do the deed.”
“Okay.” Doug squatted and Stephanie climbed onto his shoulders like they were getting ready to play a round of Marco Polo.
Doug had to admit he kind of liked the idea of playing Marco Polo with Stephanie.
“Steady.” Conrad held out his arm as Doug stood up and handed Stephanie the screwdriver.
“A little closer,” she said and Doug sidled as close as he could to the building while holding tight to Stephanie’s legs. Not a bad sensation, holding Stephanie’s legs. Stop it, he told himself.
Stephanie leaned forward and wedged the screwdriver between the pane and the sill. She pushed and prodded. “It’s not budging.”
“Try again,” Conrad said.
Stephanie prodded again, leaning forward so Doug had to lean forward, too. “One, two, three. Oh, shit!” Stephanie waggled around, making Doug waggle until they both toppled into a nearby
juniper bush.
“You okay?” Doug asked. To his relief, Stephanie began to laugh, kicking her head back in a loud unladylike guffaw.
“I’m great. You?” she managed.
Doug hadn’t seen this laughing Stephanie. He liked her a whole lot. “Terrific. We suck as burglars.”
“You can’t give up.” Conrad came over to give them a hand out of the bush. “We’re so close.”
“Sorry, Conrad, but I can’t budge that window anymore than you could budge the door.”
Conrad turned to Doug. “All righty, then. What’s plan C?”
“There is no plan C.”
“There has to be a plan C. We can’t leave Mother trapped. She’s libel to chew off her arm.”
“I think we have to call in the professionals.” Doug got out his cell phone.
“Mother will never forgive me. She may never speak with me again.”
“If I call, will she still speak with me?” Stephanie lifted her brows.
“Doubtful.”
“Hand me the phone.”

In the novella A Whisper of Time,  Gwen is searching for a new life. She buys a farmhouse tucked into the Green Mountains of Vermont sight unseen. When she arrives at her new home, she finds she's bought a whole lot more than just a house.
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​I parked the bug next to an ancient brown Plymouth that looked as though it had been restored. Vera was waiting on the front porch, a bottle of champagne in one hand. She was quite the statement- blonde hair turned into a flip, a pair of flowered Capri pants. Very retro.
“Welcome home!” she said, handing me the bottle. She fished into her purse and brought out a set of keys. “You are going to love it here.”
Tyrone was already sniffing the porch rail and Miss Kitty had scooted under the porch the minute I’d opened the VW’s door.
“This is Tyrone.” I had to introduce him once he began sniffing Vera. “Miss Kitty has made herself scarce. I hope she’s okay under there.”
Vera chuckled and gave Tyrone’s ears a scratch, making her a friend for life. “I’m sure they’ll both do well here. They have lots of company!”
I heard several bleats. They seemed to come from the back of the house. “What’s that?”
“Why the goats, of course! Would you like to meet them?” Vera stepped off the porch and started around to the side field, Tyrone and I following in her wake. I hadn’t noticed it before, but the field was completely fenced by a thin barbed wire. “Forty in the herd!” said Vera. The wind came up and there was a manure smell in the air. A strong smell.
“Forty?”
“Oh, you will love the goats. They give milk and cheese—a little side biz!”
“I don’t remember you mentioning goats.” I have to say, I was concerned. There was nothing in the contract about a herd of forty.
“It is a farm. Farms have animals.” Vera looked as though this ought to be self-evident.
It hadn’t been. It hadn’t occurred to me, really, that the farm still had animals. Then again, I was always doing things without weighing the consequences. 

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