{"id":4591,"date":"2021-06-16T07:48:36","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T14:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=4591"},"modified":"2021-06-16T07:48:36","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T14:48:36","slug":"who-is-your-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/4591","title":{"rendered":"Who Is Your Audience?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nathan is eighty-five, spry, in full command of his senses, and very much enjoying his less strenuous life after fifty years of pruning fruit trees for a living. He lives with his wife Celia, seventy-nine, a retired nurse, in a little house on the outskirts of the small northern California coastal town of Mercy. They\u2019ve lived in their comfy two-bedroom home since they married fifty-three years ago, and for the last twelve years they\u2019ve shared their house with Delilah, who is now twenty-five. Their one child, Calypso, fifty-two, a nurse at Mercy Hospital, lives nearby with her computer-savvy husband Paul and their teenaged son Carlos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A poet of some renown in his late twenties,\nNathan writes for an hour or so every day as he has for the last sixty-five\nyears. He posts poems and short stories on his blog whenever he finishes one he\nespecially likes. Every now and then he hears from someone who enjoyed one of\nhis postings, and he thinks of these communiqu\u00e9s from afar as the universe kissing\nhim. He teaches writing twice a week to the Ziggurat Farm kids Arturo,\nVivienne, Henri, and Irenia, and occasionally lends his editing skills to local\nwriters who appreciate his way with words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On a foggy morning in mid-July,\nNathan sits at his kitchen table with Daisy, who is forty and moved with her\nhusband Michael into the house and property adjoining Ziggurat Farm nine months\nago, just five months before their baby girl Jenna was born. Daisy has come to see\nNathan today to find out what he thinks of her novel she gave him to read two\nweeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Celia carries four-month-old\nJenna around in the living room, singing softly to her in Spanish, Nathan asks\nDaisy, \u201cSo who is this book for?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d asks Daisy,\nconfused by the question. \u201cI wrote it to try to get published.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understand, but\u2026 who did you have\nin mind while you were writing it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh,\u201d says Daisy, frowning. \u201cI guess\nmy agent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour agent,\u201d says Nathan, surprised\nby her answer. \u201cIs she a friend of yours?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, I don\u2019t really know her,\u201d says\nDaisy, realizing she knows nothing about her agent except she\u2019s a literary\nagent in New York and represents several published writers. \u201cWhy do you ask?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust curious.\u201d He sips his tea.\n\u201cWhat did your agent say about this book?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell\u2026\u201d Daisy clears her throat. \u201cShe\nsent me a list of things I need to change before she\u2019ll show it to anyone. You\nknow\u2026 things like\u2026 I need to beef up the romance between Arno and Miranda and\nmake the characters of Harmon and Cid more overtly evil and the characters of\nMiranda and Jessica more obviously good. But she likes the writing and thinks\nthe plot is strong for the first two-thirds, and then she says things kind of\nfizzle out and I need to wrap things up much sooner and with more of a bang. To\nmake it more saleable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI see,\u201d says Nathan, looking at the\ntitle page of the manuscript: Racing Through\nDarkness by Daisy Darling<\/em>. \u201cMay I ask who your writing role models are?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy favorite authors?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, writers you learned from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell I decided<\/em> to be a writer after I went on an Edith Wharton binge my\nlast two years of college. I read everything she ever published over and over\nagain, including her most obscure short stories. And then I had a fling with\nThomas Hardy and Dickens, and then I was obsessed with Irish short story\nwriters, and then Bashevis Singer and somewhere in there Steinbeck and Faulkner\nand Carson McCullers and Truman Capote, and then I read lots of contemporary\nwomen writers, and when I finally<\/em> got\nan agent\u2014took me seven years to convince someone to represent me\u2014she said I\nshould religiously read the books on the New\nYork Times<\/em> bestseller list, so I\u2019ve been trying to do that for the last\nthree years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow has that gone?\u201d asks Nathan,\nsounding concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell\u2026\u201d Daisy laughs uneasily.\n\u201cInteresting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMostly murder mysteries and\nthrillers and horror books. Yeah?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot all of them. Every once in\nwhile there\u2019s one about a person\u2026 you know, overcoming incredible odds and\u2026 to\nbe totally honest, I don\u2019t actually read<\/em>\nmost of them. I skim them. The writing is\u2026\u201d She hesitates. \u201cNot great.\nUsually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan thinks for a moment. \u201cDaisy,\nI don\u2019t think I can help you. I don\u2019t know anything about commercial writing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDid you hate my book?\u201d she asks, her\njaw trembling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I hated it,\u201d he\nsays, shaking his head. \u201cWhen you gave me the manuscript you said you felt\nthere was something missing and you couldn\u2019t figure out what it was. And for me<\/em> what was missing\u2026 was you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMe?\u201d she says, horrified. \u201cWhat do\nyou mean?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mean your voice, your feelings,\nyour take on reality.\u201d He taps the manuscript. \u201cI think this was an attempt to\nwrite something you thought your agent would want to try to sell. But I\ncouldn\u2019t find you<\/em> in here. And I\ndon\u2019t know anything about these kinds of books except I\u2019m not the audience for\nthem. I\u2019m an audience for the radiance of your soul. And though that may sound\ngrandiose, it isn\u2019t. I listen to you talking and telling stories and you flood the\nworld with the radiance of who you are. That\u2019s what I\u2019m an audience for. That\u2019s\nwhat makes a good poem or a good story for me. Not the plot. Not the genre. Not\nimitations of tired old formulas, but the miraculous nature of life expressed\nin words.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut they won\u2019t publish the radiance\nof who I am,\u201d she says, crying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAye, there\u2019s the rub,\u201d he says,\nnodding. \u201cThey used to, when all those writers you named got published. They used\nto hunt for books and authors full of the radiance, and that\u2019s when all sorts\nof weirdo geniuses got published. But now the radiance has got to get through in\nother ways, which I\u2019m sure it does, just not very often through conventional\nchannels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She stops crying and looks at him. \u201cYou\u2019re\nsaying I wasted twenty years of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot at all,\u201d he says, shaking his\nhead. \u201cYou know how to build a house now and you can build another one if you\nwant. And I\u2019ll bet you if you build it for someone you know and love, they\u2019ll\nwant to live there. And I probably will, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She takes a deep breath to dispel\nher tears. \u201cSometimes I\u2019ll be writing and go into a kind of trance, and I\u2019ll write\npages and pages that have nothing to do with the book I\u2019m trying to write. And\nI\u2019ll read those pages and be amazed, though I never think they\u2019re anything but\ntranscriptions of waking dreams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the boss stuff, Daisy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou think so?\u201d she says, turning to\nwatch Celia standing at the window with baby Jenna in her arms, the fog giving\nway to sunshine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating from college with a\ndegree in English, and until she inherited a fortune from her mother two years\nago, Daisy worked as a secretary in the Biology department at the University of\nMichigan in Ann Arbor where her husband Michael was a graduate student, then a lecturer,\nand most recently a professor of Ornithology and Wildlife Biology. Daisy worked\non her short stories and novels in the evenings and on weekends, and belonged\nto a group of writers that met every two weeks to share their writing and\nencourage each other to keep going. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daisy and Michael were saving money\nto buy a house and have a baby and give Daisy two years as a stay-at-home mom when\nDaisy\u2019s mother unexpectedly died and left them a huge pile of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now they own a beautiful house on\nthree acres adjacent to Ziggurat Farm on the edge of a vast forest of redwoods\nand firs and spruce and hemlocks. Michael is completing his third book about\nowls and beginning research on Ospreys, their baby Jenna is happy and healthy,\nand Daisy, until a few minutes ago, thought she would soon be starting another\nrewrite of her novel following the directives of her literary agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But now, as she sits in Nathan and\nCelia\u2019s living room nursing Jenna and waiting for Michael to come drive her\nhome, she knows she will not<\/em> be\nrevising her novel and may never write another one. And though she feels sad\nabout this ending to a very long chapter of her life, she also feels profoundly\nrelieved, as if some part of her always knew she wasn\u2019t meant to be an imitator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She closes her eyes and surrenders\nto the lovely sensation of her daughter suckling, the fire crackling in the\nfireplace, and when she hears Nathan open the door and greet Michael and invite\nthem for lunch, she doesn\u2019t open her eyes until Michael kisses her forehead and\nwhispers, \u201cShall we stay for lunch, darling?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe shall,\u201d she says, seeing how\ntired he looks from the months of getting up three times a night to bring the\ncrying baby to her. \u201cGuess what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou had a good time with Nathan,\u201d\nhe says, relieved to see her happy again after weeks of anguish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she says, nodding, \u201cand I\u2019ve\ndecided to let my novel go and start anew. Only from now on I\u2019ll write what I want\nto write and not what anyone else tells me to write.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A few days later, Daisy puts Jenna in what Michael calls the all-terrain stroller, the most heavy duty stroller they could find, leashes their Golden Retriever pup Figaro, and takes baby human and baby dog on the path to the one-acre terraced vegetable garden where Andrea and Lisa and Irenia and Vivienne are working, all of them wearing long-sleeved shirts and shorts and sunhats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irenia and Vivienne ask Andrea if\nthey can take a break from weeding to visit with Daisy and Jenna, and Andrea\nsays, \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vivienne, who is a few months away\nfrom turning ten, lifts four-month-old Jenna out of the stroller\u2014Jenna\nchuckling with delight because she especially loves Vivienne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHello my darling precious new\nperson,\u201d says Vivienne, kissing Jenna\u2019s cheek. \u201cYou who are possessed of the\nsoftest skin in the entire universe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Irenia, who is twelve and a foot\ntaller than Vivienne, stands nearby waiting her turn to hold the baby. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s growing so fast,\u201d says\nIrenia, making no attempt, as she sometimes will, to hide her Russian accent.\n\u201cEvery time I see her she is a different person, and I just saw her two days\nago.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wonder if she would like a\nstrawberry?\u201d asks Vivienne, kissing Jenna again before handing her to Irenia.\n\u201cNot to eat, of course, but to suck on. We\u2019ll be very careful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fine,\u201d says Daisy, sitting\non a small wooden bench next to an expanse of voluptuous scarlet and burgundy\ngladioli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrea and Lisa are thinning carrots\nseveral terraces up the gently sloping incline, and Lisa says something that\nmakes Andrea laugh and Daisy hears They\nare a farm of women. Not that men don\u2019t come to visit, they do, but the men\nrarely stay for long because they are not wanted here save for sex and to make\nthe occasional child, male children sent away to the farms of men when they are\nno longer little boys.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Jenna goes down for a nap in\nthe early afternoon and Michael and his sister Caroline go on a hike, Daisy sits\nat the kitchen table and writes down the words she heard in the garden. But\nwhen she tries to write more than what she heard, nothing comes out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is when I start forcing things,\u201d\nshe says, speaking aloud. \u201cTrying to make up what I think should come next. But\nI\u2019m not going to do that anymore. I\u2019m not going to worry the words<\/em>, as Nathan says.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking of Nathan and his\ninvitation to come write with him, she goes in search of her phone. After\nlooking in the bedroom and kitchen and living room she remembers she left her\nphone in the all-terrain stroller they store in the foyer where they hang their\ncoats and keep their outdoor shoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she\u2019s fishing her phone out of\nthe pocket on the backside of the stroller, she feels an urgency, almost a\npanic, to turn those lines she heard into something big and sensational, a book\nher agent will want to sell to a publisher, and she realizes that as long as\nshe is ruled by this compulsion, she will never hear more of the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day after breakfast, Daisy\nnurses Jenna, leaves her with Michael, and drives to Nathan and Celia\u2019s for tea\nand talk by the fire, the town of Mercy cloaked in dense fog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daisy tells Nathan and Celia and\nDelilah about her experience of hearing the beginning of a story, writing the\nlines down, and then feeling desperate to write more but only being able to think\nof what she describes as derivative guck<\/em>.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo what are you gonna do?\u201d asks\nNathan, sipping his tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI guess I\u2019ll have to unlearn my\ncompulsion to force things,\u201d says Daisy, having no idea how to do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think you\u2019ll have to replace your\ncompulsion with something else,\u201d says Delilah, nodding thoughtfully. \u201cI\u2019ve been\nreading about brain maps and how we create synaptic patterns, actual maps in our\nbrains, by repeating physical and emotional patterns, and these maps are the drivers\nof our neurology, our operating system, so to speak. And it seems the more we\nrepeat something, the more deeply etched the brain map for that particular\nthing and the harder it is to override the commands of that map. But if we\ncreate new<\/em> brain maps by repeating new<\/em> behaviors hundreds and thousands of\ntimes, and we stop<\/em> repeating the old behaviors,\nour old brain maps eventually grow fainter and less dominant, though they never\ngo away completely.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhich is why we can still ride a\nbike even if we haven\u2019t ridden one in twenty years,\u201d says Nathan, trying to\nremember the last time he rode a bike. \u201cThe brain map we made when we learned\nto ride is still there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think also,\u201d says Celia in her\nquiet way, \u201cyou need to end your connection with your agent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daisy gasps. \u201cOh no. It took me so<\/em> long to find someone to represent me.\nShe won\u2019t care if she doesn\u2019t hear from me for a few months.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut isn\u2019t she the grand manifestation\nof your compulsion?\u201d asks Delilah, going to heat more water for a second round\nof tea. \u201cIsn\u2019t she fueling the urgency that causes you to force things?\u201d She\ncackles. \u201cThe wicked witch of the east.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOh let\u2019s not make her wicked,\u201d says\nNathan, laughing. \u201cLet\u2019s just say she may be keeping you anchored somewhere\nyou\u2019d rather sail away from.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t think it\u2019s\nnecessary,\u201d says Daisy, terrified of not having an agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen stay with her,\u201d says Nathan,\nsimply. \u201cSee how things go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few nights later, Michael and\nDaisy and Jenna and Caroline are having supper in the farmhouse with the seven\nfarm residents plus Irenia, the feast prepared by Philip with assistance from\nHenri and Irenia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mid-supper, Arturo, who is about to\nturn twelve, describes something that happened as he and Vivienne were closing\nup the chicken coop for the night and gathering eggs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are two hens,\u201d says Arturo,\nhis story-telling style modeled on that of an erudite British fellow who used\nto be a mainstay of the collective. \u201cOne is Marilyn Monroe and the other is\neither Queen Elizabeth or Marie Antoinette. I never can tell those two apart.\nIn any case, they are always the last hens to go inside to roost for the night,\nand sometimes we have to shoo them in, which we had to do tonight, which is\nwhen we saw the fox.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe think the fox was a she,\u201d says\nVivienne, taking up the tale, \u201cbecause she was not very big, but definitely not\na kit and certainly big enough to kill a chicken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe was just sitting there in the\nhigh grass on the edge of the clearing,\u201d says Arturo, looking at his father\nPhilip. \u201cCalm and unafraid and waiting patiently for the right moment to leap\nover the fence into the scratch yard and grab one of those hens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere were the dogs?\u201d ask Marcel,\nHenri\u2019s French father. \u201cDon\u2019t tell me. They were in here by the fire. Old dogs\nin retirement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlexandra was with us,\u201d says\nVivienne, speaking of her five-year old Golden Retriever, \u201cand she definitely saw\nthe fox, but she didn\u2019t even bark. It was very strange, as if she and the fox\nhad come to an agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo we need to start getting the\nhens in a half-hour earlier,\u201d says Andrea, who would hate to lose either of her\npremiere egg producers. \u201cI\u2019ll write the new closing time on your chore sheets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur brother Thom,\u201d says Caroline,\nwho loves living here and never wants to go back to New Hampshire where she is\na professor of Botany, \u201cwrote a book about foxes. He considers them a higher\nform of life than humans. He wants to come visit soon and meet Jenna and see\nwhat we\u2019re all raving about, but he\u2019s teaching summer session and then fall\nclasses start soon after, so it may be a while. He\u2019s in Ithaca. At Cornell.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love to read his book,\u201d says\nHenri, who has a secret crush on Caroline, though she is thirty years his\nsenior. \u201cCan we get it from the library?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI doubt it,\u201d says Michael, who is constantly\namazed by the sophistication of the farm kids. \u201cI have a copy. It\u2019s rather\ntechnical, but you\u2019re welcome to borrow it and I\u2019ll be happy to translate the\njargon for you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThom is working on another book\nabout foxes for the general public,\u201d says Caroline, giving Henri a big-eyed\nsmile, \u201cbut that won\u2019t be out for years, assuming he can ever find a\npublisher.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love the word jargon<\/em>,\u201d says Arturo, looking at Henri\nand Vivienne and Irenia. \u201cLets name our next dog or cat Jargon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it would be an excellent\nname for a male,\u201d says Irenia, holding Jenna on her knee and gently bouncing\nher. \u201cBut it doesn\u2019t sound right for a female.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re right,\u201d says Henri, raising\nhis voice as he always does before he makes a joke. \u201cThe female version would\nbe Jargonella.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExcuse me,\u201d says Daisy, getting up\nfrom the table. \u201cI\u2019ll be right back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the conversation rages, Daisy\nhurries to the all-terrain stroller, gets out her notebook, and writes The talk turns to naming the new dog the\nwomen got from Old Martha who breeds Malamutes with wolves to make protectors\nfor the farms of women.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Daisy returns to the table,\nMichael takes her hand. \u201cYou okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFine,\u201d she says, smiling at their\ndaughter so happy with Irenia. \u201cJust wanted to write something down before I\nforgot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day while Jenna is napping,\nDaisy carries her phone out on the deck, gazes at the fabulous forest\ndescending to the sea, and taps the number of her agent in New York.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDaisy,\u201d says Gwen, coming on the\nline. \u201cCall you back in ten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d says Daisy, knowing the\nuniverse is providing these ten minutes to test her resolve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she waits, Daisy thinks of her\nmother Doris who raised Daisy single-handedly and cheerfully while working in a\nFord assembly plant, how proud she was of Daisy for being a writer. \u201cTakes\ncourage to do something with no guarantee you\u2019ll succeed,\u201d said Doris a year or\nso before she died. \u201cBut it\u2019s what you love, so go for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daisy answers her vibrating phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d says Gwen who is simultaneously\nanswering emails.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve decided to stop working with\nyou,\u201d says Daisy, bracing herself for an angry retort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, that\u2019s my line,\u201d says Gwen,\nlaughing a little and ceasing to type. \u201cToo much baby, not enough writing time?\nI\u2019m happy to wait for the smoke to clear. Hate to lose you when we\u2019re getting\nso close.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going in a different direction\nnow,\u201d says Daisy, smiling at the truth of that. \u201cI really appreciate all the\nhelp you gave me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo problem,\u201d says Gwen, curtly.\n\u201cI\u2019ll email you the quit document to sign and\u2026 good luck.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On a warm morning in mid-August,\nDaisy and Nathan are sitting opposite each other at Nathan\u2019s kitchen table,\nCelia carrying five-month-old Jenna around the garden visiting flowers with\nher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nathan and Daisy are writing\ntogether, each writing two lines of a story on a sheet of typing paper, then\nexchanging the papers and writing the next two lines of each story, and so on,\nback and forth until they reach the bottoms of their pages and wrap their\nstories up with two final lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When they finish writing, they each read\naloud the story they ended up with. One of the stories doesn\u2019t do much for\neither of them, but the other story\u2026  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frederick wasn\u2019t sure Amelia wanted\nto go out<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with him, so he didn\u2019t ask her for\nfear she would<\/p>\n\n\n\n

say yes and turn out to be a psychic\nblack hole<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and suck all the joy out of his life\nand make him<\/p>\n\n\n\n

want to become a monk, something he\noften<\/p>\n\n\n\n

had nightmares about. You see,\nFrederick loved<\/p>\n\n\n\n

wearing flamboyant colorful clothing\nand having<\/p>\n\n\n\n

sex with women, and Amelia was just\nexactly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a woman, which was just what\nFrederick was<\/p>\n\n\n\n

looking for. She had two arms, two\nlegs, two<\/p>\n\n\n\n

adorable dogs named Gormag and\nFitzroy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

and her voice was husky and warm and\nwhen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

she laughed the earth shook and made\nFrederick<\/p>\n\n\n\n

whimper like a dog hearing fireworks\nexploding on<\/p>\n\n\n\n

the eve of the ascension, not to\nmention<\/p>\n\n\n\n

making him wildly amorous and ready\nto<\/p>\n\n\n\n

throw caution to the wind and sleep\nwith <\/p>\n\n\n\n

someone he knew had slept with<\/p>\n\n\n\n

German aristocrats, rock stars, and women<\/p>\n\n\n\n

who enjoyed dressing as men and\nbehaving<\/p>\n\n\n\n

like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca.\nYet<\/p>\n\n\n\n

he didn\u2019t ask her out, though he\nwanted to<\/p>\n\n\n\n

more than anything he\u2019d ever wanted,\nexcept <\/p>\n\n\n\n

for one thing: to play boogie-woogie\npiano <\/p>\n\n\n\n

naked on a warm summer night for a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

gathering of his favorite writers,\nmost of<\/p>\n\n\n\n

them dead, but resurrected\nespecially<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for the occasion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

fin <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whoopsie Doopsie<\/a><\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nathan is eighty-five, spry, in full command of his senses, and very much enjoying his less strenuous life after fifty years of pruning fruit trees for a living. He lives with his wife Celia, seventy-nine, a retired nurse, in a little house on the outskirts of the small northern California coastal town of Mercy. They\u2019ve […]<\/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":[6831,6835,6820,6829,6837,6836,6832,6651,6830,6828,6833,9,33,6827,1284,6834,6838,6788],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591"}],"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=4591"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4595,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4591\/revisions\/4595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}