Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
PART I
SPEAKING IN TONGUES
18
“HE WHAT?!” DOT hissed at lunch on Wednesday, horrified.
Dot’s horror made Marina even more gleeful. “He told Trey I could walk out with him on Friday and Saturday nights. Trey’s taking me out Friday. I don’t know where.”
“Without me?” she asked plaintively, which dampened Marina’s glee quite a bit.
“I— Well, yes. But you— You have your church activities then,” Marina said hesitantly. “You, um … You have a dance at church Friday, don’t you? I didn’t think you’d mind, especially if you asked Gene to go. He would, I bet.”
Dot blinked. “Uh … ”
“Golly, Dot, didn’t you even think of it?” Marina started to get excited again. “Gene went to your show and he really liked it. Why don’t you ask him if he’d like to go?”
Dot’s expression turned doubtful. “I don’t think that’s quite proper. That’s almost like asking him out on a date.”
“Even if you don’t want to ask him, you can tell him about it. I bet he’d get the hint. He can’t show up to a party he doesn’t know is happening.”
“That’s a ducky idea!”
“Hi, Marina.”
Marina was surprised when a girl in the class ahead sat beside her.
“Soooo who’s your highjohn?”
“Go chase yourself, Ruthie,” Dot clucked.
Ruthie ignored Dot, her eyes narrowing on Marina. “Well?”
“His name is Trey,” Marina said calmly, although her heart was thumping. She didn’t know if she was pleased to have caught the attention of Ruthie and her clique or not. She wanted to brag about him, but she didn’t want to open herself up to ridicule.
“Mmm hm. And what’s he do that he’s got that snazzy car?”
“He sells insurance.”
“Marina, you don’t have to answer her questions. She’s just jealous.”
Ruthie rolled her eyes. “Where’d you meet him?”
“Kresge’s.”
“He doesn’t look like the kind of man who’d go with someone like you.”
Marina knew it. Dot knew it. Trey knew it. Gene knew it. Everyone in school knew it. And yet … “He looks like he looks and he’s going with me, so I guess you need spectacles.” Dot choked on her milk, then started laughing. Marina gave Ruthie an innocent shrug and said, “Sorry.”
Ruthie curled her lip and flounced off.
Dot was still laughing, but Marina swirled her spoon in her chocolate pudding, no longer able to eat.
“Oh, Marina,” Dot sighed when she finally realized Marina wasn’t happy.
“It’s true,” she muttered. “It’s just a matter of time. I thought … I thought people would look at me differently if they knew about Trey, but they don’t. They just think Trey has an ulterior motive.”
Dot and Marina didn’t speak for the rest of the day. Marina was too sad. Dot knew there were no words to make it better.
“Dot!”
“Dot!”
“Dot!”
went the barks of little puppies at the end of the day as Marina and Dot were gathering their books.
Dot gave them the side-eye, but didn’t smile, didn’t chat, didn’t flirt. She had been doing this for the last three weeks, but they wouldn’t give up. “I wish Gene would come pick me up at school, too,” Dot grumbled.
“They’ve seen him at Kresge’s, haven’t they?” Marina asked as they headed toward the front doors.
She shrugged. “We both have beaux and our problems didn’t get solved. I thought … ”
Marina looked for Trey at the bottom of the long flight of stairs from the front doors of Paseo High School, but he wasn’t there. She heaved a sigh. “I thought too, Dot,” she muttered.
“Did he get tired of you, Marina?” Ruthie sing-songed in her ear.
“He has a job, Ruthie,” Dot sniped. “More than I can say for the dewdroppers in your family.”
“You’re such a ritz,” Ruthie snarled.
“And you’re a ritzy burg,” Dot returned sweetly.
“Marina!”
Marina’s heart stopped and she looked up the street to see Trey waving at her. “Trey!” she yelled back. “Golly, Dot, look!”
But she’d already seen. “Gene!” Dot squealed and waved.
Both men looked like the cat that ate the canary and leaned back against Trey’s car, folding their arms over their chests.
Dot stopped cold and looked at Ruthie. “That,” she said, “is my beau.”
Ruthie sniffed. “He looks Sicilian.”
“A very handsome Sicilian. If he were. But he’s not. So I guess he’s just plain ol’ handsome.”
Marina snickered.
“C’mon, Marina. We have men waiting for us.”
Happy as a lark now that Trey was here, Marina clipped down the stairs with Dot. He made everything so much better, and now she was getting impatient with high school and the catty girls and the fawning boys.
“Hellooooo, ladies,” Trey said with a wide smile after she and Dot had squeezed their way through the mass of bodies.
“Hi, Trey,” Marina chirped.
He took her hand and kissed the back of it with a wink and a sly smile, then leaned down and planted a kiss on her forehead.
“Aw, that’s cute,” Dot gushed. “Hi, Gene.”
“You want one too?” he asked with dry amusement.
“Of course!”
“Gene,” Marina said, once he had planted a kiss on Dot’s forehead. “Dot has a dance at her church Friday night.”
“Marina!” Dot cried.
“That was for his information. Nobody asked him to go. Nope.”
Trey started to laugh and Dot lightly slapped her arm. “Augh! You awful girl!”
“I guess I know where you’ll be Friday night,” Trey drawled.
“I guess you do,” Gene returned with a grin. “Good morning, Dot.”
“Good morning, Gene,” she returned sassily.
“All right, ladies, hop in,” Trey said as he went around to open the front door for Marina, and Gene, the back door for Dot. “Time for Kresge’s and then it’s church for all of us.”
• • •
“Would you be allowed to wear a dress Friday night if I asked?” Trey asked quietly underneath Dot chattering at an enthralled Gene. “I want to take you to Correggio’s for supper and they don’t allow women in trousers.”
“Perhaps,” Marina murmured. “Father likes you, but Mother is more … She’s not— Augh! What am I trying to say? She doesn’t like my walking out with you, but it’s not you. I don’t think. I have never had a beau before and I have tried to explain that I would like to enjoy having one for a while—”
“For a while?”
Marina took a deep breath. “Well … yes. I assume that eventually one of us will become disenchanted and not want to be with the other. It happens all the time. Susie is going with Johnny and then the next week, they’re each going with someone else.”
He gave her an odd look. “Marina, I am not a boy. I don’t waste time. What I said about Gene’s interest in Dot applies to my interest in you even more because I’m older than he is.”
Marina didn’t understand. “Are you saying you want to … um … ”
“I want to find out if I want to,” he said gently. “I can’t do that with Dot and Gene around. That’s why I went to your father.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Truly?”
“Truly. That is not to say you won’t get tired of me.”
“I don’t think I would get tired of you,” she mused, thinking. “I do think Mother would— I don’t think she— Augh! I mean to say I think she wants—”
“She wants you to stay home forever and take care of her!” Dot interrupted indignantly.
Marina’s brow wrinkled. “Do you think so?” she asked uncertainly.
“Oh, it’s clear as the nose on your face. You do all the housework, all the baking—”
“But she says she wants me to be a good—” She bit that off.
“Caretaker! If you think she will ever let you get married and leave her, think again.”
Marina’s attention fluttered up to the back wall of Kresge’s and considered, then looked back at Dot. “Nooo,” she said as she tried to put her thoughts into words. “I do the housework, but she goes out to the parishioners to tend them. I’m helping her be a good reverend’s wife. The parsonage isn’t a burden, as long as I keep up.”
“And you make all her clothes!”
“But I like doing that. It makes me happy when other people admire her. And she does all the cooking, which she would not do if she wanted me to take care of her.”
“But—”
“I can see what you’re saying, Miss Albright,” Trey interrupted gently. “But Marina doesn’t see it that way. Even if it were true, does it matter if Marina doesn’t mind?”
“She does mind!” Dot shot back, leaving Marina thoroughly bewildered. “I see her face when she wants a little praise or a sincere thank you and her mother doesn’t say anything or criticizes her or adds to her chores. I see her face when she asks to do the most innocent thing but is denied.”
“Dot,” Marina said thinly, “why—?”
“Because I want you to be happy, Marina,” she pled, taking her hands. “But you’re not.”
“But I can go lots of places and do things and I get pin money and I have good clothes and—”
“Yes, but—”
“What do you think would make her happy?” Trey asked.
Dot glanced at him with a tidge of contempt and said, “Well. I think being allowed to come to my church every so often would be a good start.”
“Are you still mad about that?” Marina asked, hurt all over again.
Dot flushed. “Not at you,” she muttered. “Marina, everyone loved the outfit you made me and I wanted to brag on you so you’ll know what it’s like to— I just wanted you to hear someone praise you. You never believe me. But noooooo your father just couldn’t be disturbed with his—”
Marina’s mouth twisted all sorts of different ways as she tried to sort that out. “He was in counseling with a woman with a family problem,” Marina said gently. “That was God’s will.”
“I don’t think she had a family problem,” Dot muttered.
Both Trey and Gene started and gave Dot a long look.
“What else would he be doing?” Marina asked plaintively, feeling as if suddenly she were the only one at the table missing the joke.
“I guess it was God’s will,” Dot muttered unhappily, sliding down in her seat and glaring at her cherry lime phosphate. “It’s beautiful, Marina,” she whispered, dashing moisture off one of her cheeks. “I would wear it every Sunday if my mother didn’t have some silly rule about not wearing the same thing two Sundays in a row.”
Dot’s mother was quite a stickler for fashion rules and Dot had enough beautiful Sunday outfits to never wear one twice in three months.
Marina had a lovely closet too, but she didn’t seem to look as good in her clothes as the models in the fashion magazines.
“Well … ” Marina finally murmured, “thank you.”
“Gene,” Dot said, turning to her beau with a bright smile. “I need to go for a walk. Would you like to come along and protect my honor?”
“Certainly,” he said gravely, sliding out of the booth, offering his hand to her, then placing it on his crooked arm before strolling out.
There was an awkward silence between Marina and Trey because she was thoroughly embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” Marina muttered. “I’m not quite sure what she was trying to say or … what. I mean, I understand what she said. I don’t understand what she said … I mean! Arrrggghhh. I don’t know why she cares so much. She’s just so … The strangest things set her off.”
“She loves you,” Trey said simply. “She’s trying to protect you.”
“From what?!” Marina demanded.
“Well, first, from me. Now it appears she’s at the end of her patience with your mother.”
“Mother isn’t—” Marina stopped. Wasn’t what?
“Marina,” Trey said gently, “you’re a good daughter. Dot’s family is different from yours and she doesn’t seem to understand there’s more than one way to be a good daughter. Just her way.”
Marina sighed and fiddled with her napkin.
Trey leaned toward her and nudged her gently. “Whether your mother wants you to stay home forever or not, your father seems to want to see you settled. And in a good Christian household, the father is the head. I’m sure Dot’s parents would agree.”
“That’s true,” Marina mused, then glanced at Trey. “But Mormons aren’t Christians.”
He shrugged. “Whatever they are, they’re still good people in the most important ways. Dot’s proof of that.”
Marina nodded. “What did you say to Father that he agreed I could walk out with you alone?”
“I told him Dot was too protective of you for uninterrupted conversation,” he drawled.
Marina gaped at him, then laughed, then clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh. She means well.”
“And that was my point about her goodness. Your father appreciates Dot’s concern and protective nature. But he also understands that Dot is a little too good at it.”
“Oh.”
“Marina, I am not trying to come between you. I think Dot’s a good person, but she is also a lot more cynical than you are so she sees things you don’t or simply are not there. I think you’re charming just the way you are. Gene thinks Dot’s charming just the way she is. I would also like to see the outfit you made for Dot, but I see your mother’s clothes so I don’t need to see Dot’s outfit to know you’re a talented woman.”
Marina looked at him warily. That was the second time he’d referred to her as a woman. Furthermore, his compliment sounded like a statement of fact, not empty words.
“You want me to tell you you’re pretty.”
Marina gave him a tiny nod.
“I won’t.”
She pulled her lips between her teeth.
“I tell you I could look at you all day long. So why would I say things I don’t mean just to make you feel better?”
“You do have a point,” she said slowly.
“Dot wants you to feel better because she doesn’t think your mother does enough.” He held his hand up when Marina opened her mouth to protest. “Whether she does or not is not for me to say. I don’t know; I don’t want to get between you and your mother any more than I want to get between you and Dot. My only point is that however clumsy she is, Dot loves you and cares about your feelings. Most people spend their whole lives looking for a friend like that.”
“Do … You don’t have a friend like that, do you?”
He gave her a wry smile. “No.”
“Gene?”
“My employee, not my friend. Not like you and Dot.”
“Do you want a friend like that?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “I … Um … No,” he finally said. “Men have allies and mutually interested acquaintances who may or may not stay mutually interested if something doesn’t work out right.”
“You mean … business?”
“There are no friends at an auction, Marina.”
18
If you don’t want to wait 2 years to get to the end, you can buy it here.
It’s going to be interesting when things actually click for Marina.
“That’s why I went to your father”
I did that…once, a long time ago.
As was the custom, back then.
Must be a busy zoom tonight. I might have to find a tie and a crystal glass.
Hoodies are all the rage these days.
Mo’, you are very good at dialog. I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s just fun reading your dialog. I’ve read many other books where the dialog doesn’t flow, or seem real, or whatever. Yours is snappy, and authentic. Good stuff.
This.
I agree 100%.
This plays out like a movie in my brain. Mo is humble, but it just doesn’t happen very often.
Thanks! I pretty much spent my late adolescence and most of my adult working life listening to people talk (transcription) and how to punctuate what they say to replicate the rhythm of their speech. It’s music, really, and each person has his own rhythm.
Now for an academic exercise, imagine how SugarFree would write the dialogue.
The idea of a Moj and SF collaboration has been floated (although not by either of us).
I think we need a Mojeaux/Sugarfree team-up in a fantasy setting made by UCS where you take characters he has designed and make them to obscene things that would break his spirit.
It would be more efficient if I just sold my soul to the devil.
We wouldn’t want that.
Think of it as more of a lease.
*slides stack of papers and pen across table*
Don’t trust him, he’s a lawyer!
*reads fine print*
So…what do I get out of this?
Moving forward, after proclaiming “Well, I’ll be damned” you can then follow it up with “literally” and a wistful chuckle.
Guess who has a leaking speed control disconnect switch in his truck?
Yeah baby!
https://youtu.be/uAFdEkzgnIQ
How TF did my comment end up here? Was supposed to go at the end.
Trey is making headway on his wager but seems like some part of it is biting him ’cause he really is a good person. He wants to be in the fast lane and his conscience is killing him.
I’m doubly impressed to know that Trey’s convert is a 4 door
Thanks Moj, the more we learn…
Well, I cheated a little. It does come in a four-door, but the really slick one has a rumble seat, and that didn’t work for the story. Also, Trey is very conscious about what he’s saying when he’s not saying anything, and he can’t afford to look TOO slick.
Looks like this thing is projected to fly over Norfolk Naval / Langley / Oceana. I’m sure this is fine.
It’s uncontrolled but somehow going over some of our most sensitive sites
Or maybe we have so many sensitive sites it would be bound to pass them no matter what path it took.
True.
Heh
Trump Attacks DeSantis For Failing To Fire Dr. Fauci, Rushing Untested Vaccine
From the sidebar – Does this mean six more weeks of investigation? 😆
Ha!
You know damn well this is going to happen.
So, they may have shot down the darn balloon.
Not to worry – they have a spare.
About damn time. It would sure appear that they were just going to let it float across America, but then got public pressure and had to act.
Way to deflate my last post.
You floated it out there as best you could.
I wanted to elevate the discourse.
Doubtful. The reported ballon was near KS. Unless it was a second one. Though reports that another in S. America
Possible scenario (and also obligatory.)
If you had posted the German version, I would have accused you of being Ted’S’s sister.
I guess all the spies they have on the ground aren’t enough.
Lower altitude and longer dwell time. Forces us to stop activity longer on sensitive projects. Unlike a satellite where it’s brief. If indeed a spy platform
+1 Chinese police station
Was over KC at 6p news time.
Never heard of it in KC, always further north.
How many of these things are there?
At least 99.
Confirmed? One. Suspected? Two more, one still in Canada and another in South America.
Sometimes ZH does good work
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/high-altitude-chinese-spy-balloon-tracked-montana-airspace-near-icbm-fields
It’s the ZH comments where people get in trouble.
Didn’t Q put up some Chinese balloons a couple weeks ago?
How long would a US spy balloon, or whatever it was being used for, last over Chinese airspace once detected? One hour, tops?
There was some jackanape on TV saying how it would be dangerous to shoot it down because people might DIE from debris falling. Very Chicken Little about the whole thing.
I’m reminded of the fact that Biden was the guy who told Obama not to do the OBL raid…
They’re probably just scoping out farmland before buying.
I’m really curious how China intended to justify these contraptions. There are multiple out there that flew into foreign airspace on the other side of the world. Just a “little” off course.
I’m sure we do it too and they just shoot ’em down.
Probably the same way they justified those militarized artificial islands they weren’t building.
It’s 7 below zero, before windchill.
This is some bullshit.
Here -9, Wind chill -34
A balmy -31 with the wind chill.
Dog better do her business quickly tonight.
Positive 12. I win.
I’ll see your 12 and raise you 16. And it’s going to be in the 50s here next week.
you people are all bananas. It’s 56 right now outside.
That’s about a 20 minute walk. I’m not some NoDak lunatic with the gear for this sort of weather.
*sigh*
That was meant for Chafed.
MikeS is punishing you for your insolence.
76 at the moment and a low of 74 expected.
Should I fetch your sweater?
Walk down to Warren’s house. There’s plenty of hot air.
Is everyone in MA excited for their all electric future? I don’t see how anything can go wrong.
*listens to gas furnace running*
I do not want electric heat.
Same.
It’s not what you want comrade. It’s what’s best for the people. Surely you support what the state (or Commonwealth) decides.
Nope, they can fuck right off.
My only solace is that Mass isn’t quite as bad as California. So far.
Low bar. Hell, even NY isn’t as bad as CA yet.
We are genuinely screwed but I bet NY beats us to hell. We have some cities banning gas stoves. Hochul is about to get that implemented statewide starting in 2025. Newsom is despondent she got there first.
On the other hand, we are banning gas cars come 2030. I have a strong suspicion that will get pushed back. Our grid is shaky right now. We are buying more EVs than any other state. The next heat wave we have will make it temporarily impossible to charge an EV. Our gas prices are higher than any other state. But our electricity rates are increasing so quickly it will soon be cheaper to gas up than to charge a car.
Both states will keep shedding population. Neither is willing to confront reality.
Gas stoves are not going to be banned in 2025.
None of these fantasies are going to come true. Not when reality still exists.
It starts in 2025.
https://cbs6albany.com/news/local/hochul-wants-gas-stove-ban-for-new-homes-in-2025-can-stay-in-existing-homes
oh god, I was wandering among the lib internet wilds today. apparently all the Republicans are rich people panicked for nothing over the gas stove ban because renters won’t be affected.
I’ve been coming to the conclusion that what really separates leftists from everyone else is a complete inability to imagine second-order effects of anything. The analysis always – always – stops with the first answer. “I rent, so I don’t care what my stove is!”
“Only rich people have gas stoves” has been a surprising talking point.
They truly have no idea what those big, white, metal bottles outside many rural houses are for.
Aren’t those septic tanks?
Renters all have gas stoves here in NYC so yeah that would be a surprising talking point.
It was more that the landlords will be the ones on the hook for changing out the stove, and ignoring both that homeowners exist and not all are rich, and that of course that renters are gonna pay for that replaced stove one way or the other.
Oh, well hm. That’s a red line for me. I’ll move if the landlord tries to force electric on me.
They hate the people who live in those rural houses.
I love how the lefties say they don’t want to ban gas stoves while a federal agency and at least one state government is proposing the ban. The reasoning is so flimsy it couldn’t support a tissue. It’s pure tribalism without any regard for the real world effects.
Chuckles wistfully
How to make Kamala Harris sound articulate.
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2023/02/02/biden-says-more-than-half-the-women-in-his-admin-are-women-and-we-all-have-questions-watch/
I just saw a Covid-19 commercial from California’s medicaid program. Apparently, we are all in it together. I have no idea what I’m supposed to take away from the commercial. But my deeply in debt state government has money to piss away.
how many billions in unused shots are we sitting on in this state? must be a ton since they’re only now giving way on the vax all the kids thing.
I don’t think we’ll get the actual number until Newsom is no longer a presidential candidate.
Oh this has happened before?
https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1621559235304726528
”
“That information is classified…I can confirm that there have been other incidents where balloons did come close to or cross over U.S. territory.”
Huh…right after he got sparky and said people can look up.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=VuE_jqYNi3c&feature=shares
Hey peeps.
Just got off the Zoomies for the night.
Baked Penguin is a solid therapist.
I am an awful listener, I’m told. My solution to all problems is always the same. Be First more or at least once.
It is the solution to, and the cause of most of life’s problems.
+1 BP. Now get him to do more Secret Nazi President.
I just can’t bring myself to get worked up about these damn balloons. It is pretty curious that we aren’t shooting them down though. A debris field in Montana or a lot of places in the US seems relatively low risk.
#1 It is an interesting test of our surveillance and radar of our own area.
#2 It is a test of our response capacity
#3 they seem to have a payload big enough for a 1st strike weapon. (EMP)
And considering the AF seems to be buying in with the way with china in 24 months who WTF is going on.
On a scale of 1-10, its at least a 3
They’ve got a nice beat, and you can dance to them.
Hey y’all.
☕😁
Mornin’ Sean
Mornin’
OK, now that I have my chai latte (after it boiled over while I was typing my reply to Ted’S below 🙄) I can wish a proper good morning to you, Sean, Ted’S, ‘bodru, Shirley, and NA! Just in time for the thread to die. 😕
😉
https://www.wsaz.com/2023/02/04/train-derailment-massive-fire-prompt-evacuations-ohio/
Give up your cars, ride more trains!
https://ktla.com/news/local-news/former-california-highway-patrol-officer-sentenced-for-shooting-neighbor/
I’m pretty sure any of us would get much more time for the same actions.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BgVfjXA_QY0
🎶🎶
Chicks, guns, cool car… How can you go wrong?
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/worlds-oldest-dog-ever-bobi-30-years-portugal-guinness-records
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2023/02/two-eastern-pa-school-districts-announce-delayed-openings-on-super-bowl-monday.html
Wut?
Cleaning up from the riots.
Neither of those districts are known for such antics. The one is where I live.
Good Morning:
Its a good day to travel to Tx to get medical stuff done and get some baby chicks.
-16 by the car thermometer! Took a minute for the power steering to start working.
Egged Benedict (with smoked salmon instead of Canadian bacon) for breakfast.
Cold enough for Lily?
Sonny went out, peed and pooped as quickly as possible, and wanted to come right back in.
-8 here in the Catskills.
I’m assuming GT is enjoying Tranquility Base.
Well, it’s a balmy 17 degrees (“feels like 6”) here in SW OH, so…no. I’ll be in my rocking chair with a cat on my lap as soon as my chai latte is ready, so it will be tranquil for him.
We held steady at 10 all night, now up to 12, heading for 33. So there’s hope, this should be heading your direction.