Mismaloya Beach

The only key to the beach house is missing. Shari flips over pots and pans, tosses papers and magazines.  Her appointment with Maya is in twenty minutes.

A parrot calls, a mynah clacks. Reggae music wafts from next door.

“Jason!” Shari leans over the edge of the veranda railing shouting at the ocean, where her husband is swimming. Her voice diffuses, trumped by birdcalls, hedge clippers, radios, and the pounding surf.

Yesterday, Jason bounded into their casita, breathless.  “I met Lorene, a French woman -down at the beach. She told me about Maya – an Indian woman. You’ve got to meet her.”

Nine-fifty-five. Shari hurries down the dusty hill to the bridge, leaving the casita unlocked. Her feet slip in the new leather-soled sandals. Checking Jason’s chicken-scrawled instructions, she repeats aloud:  “Cross the bridge. Turn right at Calle Julio.”

“Why can’t we just go to a hotel?” she’d lobbied, back in Minneapolis.  “With three pools and a swim up bar.”  “No way!” Jason was vehement, insisted on renting a casita. “We’re going native,” he asserted. “It’ll be fun, Shar. We’ll shop in the tiendas, buy fish straight out of the boat.  No screaming kids. Margaritas on the veranda.” His lime-juicing pantomime and clown-popping eyes won her over. Now she curses the casita, and Jason. If they’d stayed in a hotel she wouldn’t have to worry about losing the only key.

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Girls Night Out, Zeek Magazine

Rosh Hodesh Sivan was breaking my heart. Every day since last month’s full moon shone metallic on the bay, little shards of light had been disappearing, darkening in the sun’s changing angle.

Every day, my heart grew darker too, as if it were intent on keeping time with the planets. Could my girlfriend have timed her exit so exactly? I wouldn’t put it past her, not with her passion for all things astronomical.

When Jackie dropped the bomb two weeks ago, I was thrown off guard – like a wobbling planet with no axis at all. All day I’d been flitting about, excited to celebrate our seventh anniversary. I couldn’t have been happier. I’d found the love of my life. By the end of the night, my mood tanked like some start-up gone south. I’m in love with Annie, Jackie said as I was tearing the wire frame off the champagne cork. Her project leader? Talk about a buzz kill.

Now, here in the park, celebrating the Solstice and Rosh Hodesh (if you could call what we were doing celebrating) I cannot for the life of me remember why I didn’t stand my ground. I just listened, stony faced. Looking back, I guess it was because I really believed her. I was at least old enough to know that once the train of love left the station, there was no stopping. Read more

Better Days, MacGuffin Literary Journal

In two days – that is – Monday morning, I am due in court. I’ve just spent the better part of today building a desk for Justin, my oldest boy, and wondering what I’m going to tell the judge.

It’s dusky now. Shadows of cypress trees against the Japanese screens fade out like the last frame of a gauzy French movie. Camille leans over for a kiss. A drop of water runs down her shoulder onto my cheek.

“Vit! Vit!” she implores in ‘that’ voice. ‘That voice’ had brought me to commit a multitude of sins. I kiss her neck on the way to the shower, mussing her fresh chignon. Read More

Paris Blues Redux, The Chaffin Journal, University of Eastern Kentucky

You never know when destiny will run up, smack you in the face and change the course of your life. Unlikely as it may sound, I ran into mine near the accessories department in Printemps, my favorite department store in Paris.

Things were not going well, and this trip was meant to cheer me up. The novel I’d just spent four years on, an international kidnapping caper complete with international intelligence, smart detectives, politically correct heroines and sensitive men, had been summarily rejected by the New York agents to whom I had submitted and I was having, to put it mildly, a crisis of confidence. Read More

“The Art Critic”

Deep within the halogen lit labyrinth of the museum, swirling masses surround an astonishing collection of Renaissance paintings. Colors and shapes, wide, tall, thin, and short coagulate like amoeba under a laboratory microscope; gather, nod, disperse; gather, nod, disperse, on and on for ten hours each day.

Intense light and shadow freezes Celeste in front “Judith Slaying Holofernes.” Unlike the others, she does not nod, disperse, but rather searches Judith’s vengeful face, tracking the power in her hand as she slices Holoferne’s neck with his own sword. Blood drips down in thick rivulets. Judith’s face is resolved, determined. Read More

Bluegrass and Banned Books

The Liquake hosted reading at the Commonwealth Club tonight fed me all sorts of fun facts. Did you know that Steinbeck’s classic “The Grapes of Wrath” was banned in the 30’s? Did you know that Sutro, of Sutro Tower fame was Jewish? The talk tonight, just after National Banned Book week was well timed. Oh, yes, and banned books are on people’s minds since learning of S. Palin’s banning of “Daddy’s Roomate.” Read More