Teaser Tuesday: Family Tumult and Gfilte Fish

Posted on July 27, 2010 by Phoebe 3529 Commentshttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebenorth.com%2F2010%2F07%2F27%2Fteaser-tuesday-family-tumult-and-gfilte-fish%2FTeaser+Tuesday%3A+Family+Tumult+and+Gfilte+Fish2010-07-27+05%3A19%3A28Phoebehttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.phoebeeating.com%2F%3Fp%3D346

Hello out there in internetland! Apologies for my week of absence. Relocation has successfully been completed (unpacking, less successfully begun). The husband and I are now located in scenic Arlington, Virginia. Pictures of our new abode to come when I’m not drowning in cardboard boxes.

I have both some work and some interviews lined up, but not for a bit. I’m hoping that at least a few week’s respite will be good for my writing–I’m so close to finishing SEAS RUN DRY that I can taste it. This week’s teaser, though, is from a different project–from THE STONE SORTER, last year’s NaNoWriMo novel, a longer excerpt of which you can find on my professional website. I queried with it in March, got some requests, but no real interest. I stopped at just under thirty queries before I decided to proceed with other projects. It’s not that I don’t believe in this manuscript individually–but it’s part of a longer series that I decided I’m not really all that interested in writing. These things work out for the best, I think.

Anyway, I’ve always liked the following bit, which is from the beginning of the novel, before our heroine, Miranda, learns that she has fairy blood and is shipped off to a school in another world. At this point, she believes the school she’s setting off for is in Oregon. This scene largely explores her family dynamic, and the fallout of her decision to attend an alternative school.

It’s also probably the most Jewish thing I’ve ever written. Go figure.

“A free school? Really, Miranda, what will you do all day?”

It had been three weeks since my interview in the city, and my mother still hadn’t let it go. It was April; all the trees lining I-78 west were blossoming, and the wind was sweet through the open window of her SUV. The sky had just begun to turn gilded at the edges. We were going to my grandparents’ house for Passover. I ignored her, squinting into the breeze as it whipped my hair over my eyes. But then my mother closed my window.

“Miranda!” she said. In the rear view mirror, I saw the sharp edge of her gaze. But I still didn’t answer, only rolling my eyes away.

“My cousin went to one of those schools in the seventies,” my father offered, chuckling. “He said they played board games all day. Didn’t learn to read until he was nearly twelve.”

“Dad, I know how to read,” I snapped, maybe a little too harshly. Abashed, my father looked out his window. It was my mother who defended him.

“Thanks to your teachers,” she said. “And with what we’re paying in property taxes . . .”

“It’s not like this will cost you anything extra,” I said. Before she could respond, my mom’s phone rang. She fumbled to flip the receiver open, fishtailing between the lanes. My dad reached over and took the steering wheel for her. As he did, he looked back over to me, his gaze level, considering.

“Going away to this school―it’ll make you happy, Miranda?”

I looked at him. His brow was all knitted up, the wrinkles at the bridge of his nose even deeper than normal.

“Yes, Daddy,” I softly replied. He nodded. A gentle smile curled his lips. He turned back to the road.

They ignored me the rest of the way, as my mother’s SUV tilted and swayed, winding its way up through the mountains

The sun had started to set. The roads grayed, and then darkened to nearly black as we moved through them under the cover of heavy-branched trees. From the main road, my grandparents’ house always reminded me of a forest bungalow, with its faux-log-cabin siding and wide porch shrouded by overhanging branches. The car bobbed as it moved from the paved surface to the gravel. My grandmother was waiting for us on the porch, waving under a net of string lights, like she always did. And my mother made the same sound she always did at the sight of her―a sibilant tch, her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

“Bubelah!” my grandmother gushed as I closed the car door behind me. She came at me with her big arms raised, the knit shawl that she wore over her shoulders hanging down like a pair of mauve batwings. She buried me in a hug.

“Hey, Gram,” I said, laughing. As I pulled away, I saw my mother come close, her arms folded over herself.

“Hi, Mom,” she said quickly. My grandmother pressed a wet kiss into her cheek, lips smacking. Then she turned back to me.

“So tell me, Miranda,” she said, as she began to walk me back to the house, “All about this new school you’ll be going to next year.” We walked up the creaking front steps together.

“Well,” I said, “It’s in Oregon―”

“Oregon!” My mother exclaimed. We walked into my grandmother’s dim, warm living room. There were dozens of scented candles burning away in the fireplace, but the bright forest of flames didn’t do much to disguise the smell of roast chicken and onions and dill. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell my friends when they ask about her.”

“You’ll tell them,” Gram began; though she spoke to my mother, she looked at me, holding me at arm’s length, winking, “That your daughter is a teenager, not a status symbol.”

“Well, of course, Mom,” my mother said, dropping her purse by the front door. There was a clatter of keys. “But what will she do all day?”

“Why, whatever she wants to do, Marcia. That’s the point.” My grandmother finally turned away from me and towards my mother. I left them to argue. My grandfather was waiting in the kitchen, silently leaning against the counter, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans.

“Hi Miranda,” he said. I went and kissed his scratchy cheek.

“Hi Pops. Staying out of the fray?”

“You know me,” he agreed, smiling. My grandfather always avoided getting between Gram and Mom. I think it had something to do with his being mom’s step-father and not her birth dad. Her real father had died when my mother was little. They’d been two peas in a pod, Gram always said, and then would add “Capricorns, both!” as if that explained it. He’d been a businessman, an odd match for my free-spirited grandmother. Pops was more like her, with a long, silver ponytail snaking its way down his back.

“Can I help?” I asked, going to the massive pot of matzo ball soup and stirring it with a ladle. Pops stood straight, suddenly pulled out of wherever it was he went when his wife and step-daughter fought.

“Sure,” he said, getting the sea salt and the pepper grinder down from the cabinet. “You can season it.”

I turned the handle of the pepper grinder, then tasted, then offered the ladle to Pops. “More salt,” he said. We worked quietly, peacefully―until my mother and my grandmother came rattling into the kitchen.

“I’m sure she’ll just sit on the computer all day. I don’t see why she needs to go to some . . . hippie nursery school for teenagers for that!” My mother wasn’t shouting, not quite, but her voice was strained. My shoulders tensed involuntarily at the sound.

“Because, if she wants to sit on the computer all day, then that’s perfectly fine.” Gram sounded like the mother now, and my mom the kid. But that didn’t make it any more bearable. “Don’t you think, Miranda?”

I stopped stirring the soup and turned. “I think,” I began, slowly, “that we should eat.”

It was Pops who answered that. He laughed, and put an arm around my shoulder. “Good idea!” he said. Then he began to pull me from the kitchen. “Let’s find you a kippah.”