{"id":1408,"date":"2014-03-19T09:29:14","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T16:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=1408"},"modified":"2014-03-19T09:29:14","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T16:29:14","slug":"idas-place-book-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/1408","title":{"rendered":"Ida’s Place\u2014Book One"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"idas-place-cover\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ida’s Place<\/em> cover drawing by Todd<\/p>\n

(This article and these first two chapters of Ida’s Place\u2014Book One: Return<\/em><\/a> appeared in the Anderson Valley Advertiser<\/em> March 2014)<\/p>\n

About a year ago I began writing a novel entitled Ida\u2019s Place\u2014Book One: Return<\/i>, the first of what I intend to be at least a trio of connected novels. My other twenty novels, published and unpublished, are single volume works, though I did write a sequel to Under The Table Books<\/i> entitled The Resurrection of Lord Bellmaster<\/i>, though that as yet unpublished sequel, was born long after Under The Table Books<\/i> had stood alone for many years.<\/p>\n

Before I read the first fourteen volumes of the No. 1 Lady\u2019s Detective Agency<\/i> series by Alexander McCall Smith, the only multi-volume fictional works I had ever read and enjoyed were The Alexandria Quartet<\/i> by Lawrence Durrell and The Deptford Trilogy <\/i>by Robertson Davies. While reading the No. 1 Lady\u2019s Detective Agency<\/i> books, I became intrigued by the idea of writing a series of connected novels, and so I began my latest opus with the conscious intention of following the first book with at least two more.<\/p>\n

To my amazement, the realization that I need not tie up every important loose end in a single volume was fantastically liberating. More characters than I had ever dared introduce in a single volume began to arrive and take up residency on my pages, with subplots and interconnections growing as profusely as well-watered zucchini in rich soil during a hot summer. And with the stricture of Finality gone the way of the dodo, Ida\u2019s Place\u2014Book One: Return<\/i><\/a> was born.<\/p>\n

As it happens, Ida\u2019s Place<\/i> is set in the mythic California coastal town of Big River, the weekly paper there the Big River Advertiser<\/i>, otherwise known as the BRA<\/i>, the editor none other than the jocular Anderson Bruce. In Book One, Anderson only makes a cameo, but there\u2019s no telling what may happen in Book Two. Comb-bound photocopies of Book One: Return<\/i>, lavishly numbered and signed by the author, are available exclusively from yours truly via my web site UnderTheTableBooks.com.<\/p>\n

Here for your enjoyment, are the first two chapters of my newborn opus.<\/p>\n

1. Little Things<\/p>\n

On a cold day in October, a strong ocean breeze rattling the windows, two-year-old Ida Kaminsky, her dark brown hair in pigtails, sat on the living room sofa in her pink pajamas with a hardbound copy of Treasure Island <\/i>open on her lap. Ida\u2019s mother Alice, a gorgeous brunette with sparkling green eyes, stood on the threshold between the kitchen and the living room watching her tiny daughter turn the pages of the big old book. She assumed Ida was looking for pictures because Ida loved making up stories to go along with the illustrations in her children\u2019s books.<\/p>\n

\u201cSweetheart,\u201d said Alice, approaching her daughter, \u201cI don\u2019t think that book has any pictures. Shall I get you one that does?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I like this story,\u201d said Ida, who had begun to speak in complete sentences when she was nine months old. \u201cAbout Long John Silver.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alice had never read Treasure Island<\/i> to Ida and wondered how her baby girl had learned the name Long John Silver. Ida\u2019s brother Howard could barely read, though he was eight, and Walter, Alice\u2019s husband, had never read anything to Ida.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did you hear this story before?\u201d asked Alice, sitting beside her daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hear it now,\u201d said Ida, looking at the page. \u201cDown went Poo with a cry that rang high into the night.\u201d Ida looked at Alice and made a sad face. \u201cPoo is blind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alice gently took the book from her daughter and studied the page and saw that Ida had read the name Pew as Poo, but otherwise had pronounced all the words correctly and in the order they were written.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did you learn to read, honey?\u201d asked Alice, handing the book back to Ida. \u201cWho showed you how?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at those little things,\u201d said Ida, touching one of the words, \u201cand you tell me the story.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou hear me<\/i> say the words?\u201d asked Alice, holding her breath.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Ida, nodding. \u201cI hear you, Mama.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s try some other books,\u201d said Alice, going to the bookshelf and choosing Darwin\u2019s On the Origin of Species<\/i> and Kerouac\u2019s On the Road<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Having determined that Ida could read anything, no matter how strange or difficult, Alice called the University of California in Berkeley and was referred to a professor who was supposedly an expert on such phenomena, and he agreed to do an assessment of Ida. But when the professor, a taciturn fellow, gave Ida a few simple tests, the little girl didn\u2019t seem to be able to read at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid, Mrs. Kaminsky,\u201d sneered the professor, \u201cyou have fallen prey to delusions of grandeur. Parents often do.\u201d<\/p>\n

As they drove home to Big River, Alice asked Ida, \u201cWhy wouldn\u2019t you read for the man, my darling?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo voice talked,\u201d said Ida, shaking her head. \u201cI looked at the word things, but I couldn\u2019t hear you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you like that man?\u201d asked Alice, recalling the professor\u2019s sneer.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d said Ida, shaking her head. \u201cHe scared me.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Alice, who believed in signs from the universe, interpreted their encounter with the unpleasant academic as a portent of what might happen if she were to make a commotion about her daughter\u2019s remarkable ability, and thereafter kept her discoveries of Ida\u2019s extraordinary talents to herself.<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Extremely myopic, Ida got her first pair of glasses when she was four-years-old, and though she said she loved her new glasses, she was forever taking them off and putting them on and taking them off and putting them on again.<\/p>\n

After a few days of this incessant taking off and putting on, Alice asked Ida, \u201cSweetheart, is there something wrong with your new glasses?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d said Ida, never wanting to disappoint her mother, \u201cthey certainly help me see everything much clearer now, but they don\u2019t let me see the colored clouds around people and Sophie and Mike and Elmer and flowers and things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sophie was their big gray cat, Mike and Elmer the family dachshunds.<\/p>\n

\u201cColored clouds?\u201d asked Alice, smiling curiously at her ever-surprising daughter. \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean,\u201d said Ida, taking off her glasses to see her mother\u2019s misty golden outline, \u201cthe color floating around you.\u201d<\/p>\n

At which moment, Howard came rushing in from outside to get a drink of water. A gangly clumsy boy diagnosed as moderately autistic, Howard was digging a hole in the backyard he hoped would one day be a tunnel going all the way to the ocean a quarter-mile away, hence he was filthy.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes Howard have color floating around him?\u201d asked Alice, afraid her daughter might be suffering from something more serious than nearsightedness.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowie has dark blue,\u201d said Ida, watching her brother lean over the sink to gulp water from the faucet. \u201cYours is gold, Mama. Elmer has yellow, Mike has green, and Sophie has yellow, too, unless she\u2019s mad at another cat and then she has red.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about Walter?\u201d asked Alice, wincing as Howard slammed the door on his way out to resume digging.<\/p>\n

\u201cPapa doesn\u2019t have any color,\u201d said Ida, slowly shaking her head. \u201cI don\u2019t know why, but he doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when you put your glasses on, the colored clouds go away?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d said Ida, putting her glasses on. \u201cBut I still love them because they make everything so clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Golden Buddha<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first I no want rent Ida,\u201d says Duyi Ling, telling Ralph Canterbury, his brother-in-law, about leasing three-fourths of the Ling building to Ida Kaminsky who intends to open a bakery and coffee house there. \u201cShe say have two maybe three big oven for make many muffin and bread. I think maybe too much competition for me. No want competition next door.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duyi, sixty-nine, short and chubby and entirely bald, and Ralph, seventy-two, tall and lean with a full head of silver gray hair, are sitting at a table for six in the otherwise empty dining room of Golden Buddha. The late June sun is shining through just-washed windows into the large square room with yellow walls, lime green ceiling, blue linoleum floor and seating for seventy people. Golden Buddha is the only Chinese restaurant in Big River, a coastal town with an official population of 4,789, a hundred and eighty miles north of San Francisco and a hundred miles from the nearest freeway.<\/p>\n

Open seven-days-a-week for lunch and dinner, closed from three to five in the afternoon, Golden Buddha has been in operation for thirty-six years, the extensive menu immutable, the food consistently superb. The time is now four in the afternoon and Ralph has come to help string (actually destring) snow peas in preparation for the Friday night dinner rush. Duyi is always at the restaurant save for those few hours late at night when he goes home to sleep, his house two blocks away.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did you change your mind?\u201d asks Ralph, an English teacher at Big River High, the only high school in Big River. Descended from Philadelphia Brahmin, Ralph has been married to Duyi\u2019s sister Far for twenty-five years and very much enjoys being part of a large family that is entirely Chinese save for Ralph.<\/p>\n

Duyi sips his lukewarm tea and explains, \u201cIda say, \u2018Please no worry Mr. Ling. We no compete. My people come for muffin and coffee, go you lunch and dinner.\u2019\u201d He chuckles recalling his meeting with Ida. \u201cShe thirty-one but look teenager. Have so long brown hair and so pretty face behind so big glasses. You see her?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I know Ida very well,\u201d says Ralph, smiling at memories of the delightful wunderkind. \u201cI was her teacher for two years when she was in high school here before she went off to conquer Harvard. Beyond brilliant. But I haven\u2019t seen her in\u2026gosh\u2026at least ten years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo,\u201d says Duyi, not sure what conquer Harvard<\/i> and beyond brilliant<\/i> mean, \u201cI say her, \u2018You no open lunch and dinner? How you make money?\u2019 She say, \u2018Yes, I open lunch but no open dinner and no compete you. Sell muffin and coffee and bread and kind food you no make. Send people you for best Chinese.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI seem to recall,\u201d says Ralph, tapping his fingertips together, \u201cthat Ida and her family ate here all the time, didn\u2019t they?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, she come here when little girl many time with so pretty mother and crazy brother and fat father.\u201d Duyi frowns sadly as he recalls Ida and her mother deciding what to order\u2014the crazy brother ripping his napkin into hundreds of tiny pieces, the fat father never once looking at the menu. \u201cAnd when older she come here with giant boy Donald and drink much tea and talk very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe odd couple,\u201d says Ralph, remembering the huge boy with orange red hair and brilliant green eyes holding hands with the little girl with long brown hair and shining brown eyes behind oversized glasses\u2014holding hands as they walked home from school. \u201cShe so brilliant, he the rock of Gibraltar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think maybe she too much competition for me,\u201d says Duyi, nodding anxiously. \u201cSo I make rent very high. First and last and big deposit for maybe damage. I think scare her away, but she say okay. Want pay for whole year. I say, \u2018Whole year? What if you big competition for me? Better three month at time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFear not,\u201d says Ralph, smiling as Duyi\u2019s wife Jiahui approaches with a silver platter heaped high with snow peas. \u201cShe\u2019ll bring you loads of business. People will flock to Ida\u2019s for coffee and muffins, they\u2019ll smell your fabulous food and\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWife say same,\u201d says Duyi, glancing furtively at Jiahui before checking his cell phone to see how the stock market closed. \u201cI not so sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI listen from kitchen when he talk to her,\u201d says Jiahui, fifty-two, lovely and slender, dressed for work in black slacks, black shoes, white dress shirt and gold bow tie, her black hair stylishly short. \u201cSo I come here and say to Ida, \u2018What kind muffin you make?\u2019 She say, \u2018All kind. Blueberry, banana, chocolate chip, pumpkin. Also kind for people allergic wheat. Also many kind bread and cookie. Also best coffee in whole world.\u2019\u201d Jiahui laughs in delight. \u201cShe so confident. And all kind coffee drink, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSounds marvelous,\u201d says Ralph, thrilled by the prospect of an excellent coffee house and bakery right here in Big River.<\/p>\n

\u201cI bring you fresh hot tea,\u201d says Jiahui, winking at Ralph and hurrying away.<\/p>\n

Duyi begins to swiftly string the snow peas. \u201cSo\u2026wife say Ida, \u2018We can put Golden Buddha menu in your place?\u2019 Ida say, \u2018Oh, yes. Right next cash register. We send many people you.\u2019 Wife say, \u2018Okay. We rent you. Only not so high as husband say. Half so much.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a shrewd wife,\u201d says Ralph, picking up his first snow pea. \u201cYou won\u2019t regret this, Duyi. Ida has always been a powerful people magnet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Ida happy now,\u201d says Duyi, with a humble shrug. \u201cShe so pretty smile. Jiahui happy, too. I think she want Ida muffin and best coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut are you happy, my friend?\u201d asks Ralph, smiling wistfully at his dour brother-in-law.<\/p>\n

Duyi shakes his head. \u201cI want happy, but afraid Ida bad competition for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Learn more about Ida\u2019s Place<\/i> and read the first three chapters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ida’s Place cover drawing by Todd (This article and these first two chapters of Ida’s Place\u2014Book One: Return appeared in the Anderson Valley Advertiser March 2014) About a year ago I began writing a novel entitled Ida\u2019s Place\u2014Book One: Return, the first of what I intend to be at least a trio of connected novels. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2171,2653,268,571,2652,2655,2657,2654,2607,2608,2651,2647,2656,2650,2649,2648,2646,9,33],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1412,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408\/revisions\/1412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}