The Blue Rose Bouquet » janelle meraz hooper

The Montana Kahuna

Pamela Rice Hahn — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 06:58:04 +0000

Bears in the Hibiscus is a humorous romance novel by frequent Blue Rose Bouquet contributor Janelle Meraz Hooper.

Bears in the Hibiscus is a a book about Mary, a divorced woman in her late thirties who is resisting the dating scene. When her ex-brother-in-law Mark, a Montana Park Ranger, lets her know he’s interested, Mary’s life becomes complicated because getting involved with him would also mean becoming a part of her ex-husband’s family again. When fate puts Mary and Mark in Hawaii at the same time, romance begins to bloom. However, Mary still struggles with her initial feelings about her ex-in-laws. Will she be able to overcome her fear of pressure from Mark’s family and make a new life with Mark?

You can read Chapter 1 of this novel on this Janelle Meraz Hooper’s Web page.

What follows here on The Blue Rose Bouquet is:

Chapter 3: The Montana Kahuna

Mary was so busy getting her ducks in order so she could get out of town, she didn’t have time, at first, to think much about Mark spending the night at her house. When she did, she wondered why had he picked her house, when he had a brother nearby? Actually, he had his own place a few miles away, on his parents’ compound. Why was he spending the night on her floor?

Before she went to bed the night before his visit, she made sure he could find the floor. All of the old newspapers, newsletters and mail-ads were either banished to recycling or put into a box in her car trunk so she could take them to Ray, who ran the layout department. Other peoples’ magazines were a gold mine for layout and design ideas, not to mention leads for new clients for the advertising department. Mary would almost sooner throw away money than old magazines.

A rental car was in the driveway when she got home the next night, and Mary had a rush of guilt for not offering to pick Mark up at the airport. What was I thinking?

She forgot her guilt when she got a whiff of something wonderful. Something only vaguely familiar. Something—trout! She raced upstairs, not sure which sight was more welcome, Mark or the trout he and Kate were cooking in the skillet.

“Mark! You brought the fish, I could have at least cooked them!”

“That’s okay, sis,” Mark grinned. “Kate wanted to learn how to cook fish that aren’t named Charlie.”

“It smells wonderful! I love the way you cook fish with just salt, pepper, and flour. I hate all those Frenchy sauces.”

“When there’s sauce on the trout, lookout!” Mark cautioned, “It’s probably covering up a fish that’s older than you are.”

“I guess being frozen kept them fresh on the trip.”

“Actually, I got up early and caught these before I left the park. You’d been without so long I figured you were due. Kept them cool in an old Styrofoam ice chest.”

“Did you get any strange looks at the airport when you checked your Styrofoam luggage?”

“No, the floor was covered with ice chests bigger than mine that belonged to people who had been fishing for Kings in Alaska. My little chest looked kind of pitiful next to theirs.”

“The best things come in small packages, they say.”

Mary left the cheerful cooks to change into a boxy pair of khaki walking shorts and a forest green tank top. She had a closet full of similar clothes. Her outfit was fine for the Northwest, especially since she was having dinner with a Montana Ranger, but she had trouble picturing it on a Hawaiian beach. She’d have to dig a little deeper into her closet and see if she could find something a little brighter.

Before she returned to the kitchen, Mary gave herself a quick look in the mirror. What looked back at her was a woman with long brunette hair and a medium frame. She was a few pounds lighter than the last time Mark had seen her, and she’d lost her tan. Both changes could be attributed to an increased workload. She hadn’t stopped any cars lately, but she thought she looked as well as she could without the benefit of one of those instant facelifts she kept reading about in the women’s magazines.

How she hated being the ex-wife. What would this ex-brother-in-law say to Brian the next time they spoke? Maybe, “I saw your ex, she looks pretty good for her age, but your new love is a real knockout.” It distressed her to imagine other people commenting, “I saw your ex, she had wrinkles all over her face! No wonder you’re shopping around for a trophy wife.” Well, she doubted that people would actually make those comments out loud, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t think them. Mary hated most to hear, “When I look at Kate, I can see just how pretty Mary must’ve looked years ago.” Mary loved her daughter, and they did look a lot alike, but who could compete with someone half her age?

Well, she was hungry, and she doubted that her two cooks would deliver fresh, pan-fried trout to her bedroom door. “There she is!” greeted Mark when Mary entered the kitchen, “How about some wine?”

“Oh, you must have found my cardboard box in the fridge,” Mary said as she held out her glass.

“Yep. Park rangers know how to find their quarry. It was marked Wednesday, so I thought it must be fresh.”

“Very funny. Actually, I’ve got a box dated Thursday; I’m giving you the old stuff.”

“It tastes good to me.”

Dinner was delicious. Mary looked down at a plate of fresh trout, green salad with raspberry dressing, and lightly buttered and toasted Como bread, and thought she was in heaven.

After Kate downed her trout like it was a burger at Dollar’s and left with a carload of friends, Mary and Mark settled down with fresh glasses of wine on the sundeck. Mary cringed as a whole flock of fruit bats flew into her big cherry tree. The crows stripped her fruit trees in the daytime and this was the night shift. Not surprisingly, she preferred the crows.

“So, how’s it going, sis?” Mark asked as he eased into a deck chair that had seen better days.

“Not bad. How about you?”

“Good. I’m really looking forward to getting away for a few days. I didn’t get much rest this year after the forest fires started.”

“Kate and I watched the news every night. It was the worst we’d ever seen.”

“That’s for sure. We were lucky we didn’t lose any of the firefighters.”

The niceties were over, and Mary asked what she really wanted to know, “Mark, you know you’re welcome here, but why did you come here instead of the compound or your brother’s?”

“Mom is letting company from Minnesota use my house at the compound while they’re here on vacation. And I didn’t feel up to spending the night staring at the bare chest of Brian’s latest Seahawk cheerleader. I think he should start carding those girls. Besides,” he said with a twinkle in his eye, “I thought it would be tacky to sleep on my brother’s floor when I was thinking about dating his ex.”

Mary choked on her wine, and reached for a tissue from her pocket before wine came out of her nose. “Mark! Don’t go there!” Mary said with surprise.

“Too late! I’ve already bought a ticket! What’s wrong? Have someone else?”

“No…”

“I have cooties?”

“No…Mark, I like you, but I’m just not sure if it’s smart for me to get involved with a Bergstrom again. You’re a great guy, but I don’t think I fit in with the rest of your family.”

“Mary, you fit in just fine. Don’t be intimidated by the Bergstrom money. It has nothing to do with me or us.”

Mary was still wiping wine from her nose when she said, “I can’t help the way I feel.”

“Well, I always like to leave a woman in a state of shock, so I’ll go to bed now,” he said with a grin. “Thanks for the hospitality, sis. I’ll be gone when you wake up, so I’ll call you in Hawaii to see if you’ve managed to get your mouth closed yet.” Mary felt him hesitate as he walked behind her, but he kept walking. Is he going to touch me? Pat me on the head? What?

Whatever he almost did, Mary was glad he hadn’t. Her brain was occupied trying to list all of the reasons why their dating wouldn’t be a good idea. Mark had already left the sundeck, so whatever thoughts she had remained unspoken. She was left with an empty deck chair, half a glass of wine, and a big full moon that she was sure was laughing at her. Or was the laughter she heard coming from the bathroom where Mark was? She vaguely felt a mosquito chewing on her bare arm and swatted it with one hand while she finished her wine with the other. She groaned when she heard him turn on the shower. There was no question that Mark was a hunk. Knowing he was less than ten feet from her made her knees tremble. What would Roxanne do? The answer to that was easy. What was Mary going to do? “Nothing!” her friend’s voice ridiculed from the darkness.

The next sound Mary heard was Mark shaking out his sleeping bag. And fluffing his pillow. He made a big deal out of fluffing his pillow. There was something else. She was sure she heard another laugh when she scooted to the bathroom to get ready for bed. He was laughing at her. She was sure of it. And why shouldn’t he?

Kate was due in at any time, so any thought of giving in and crawling into Mark’s sleeping bag with him was pointless, even if she could find the nerve which, of course, she couldn’t. By the time Kate’s friends dropped her off in her driveway, Mark was already fast asleep. How could he do that? How could he make a pass at me and then just go to sleep? Mary was in her bedroom, wide awake, curled up into a tight, fetal position, with her pillow over her head so she couldn’t hear the soft gentle breathing of a man who was totally at ease on her living room floor. For now.

The next morning, Mary heated up the coffee that Mark had left in the pot and swore that it, too, was laughing at her. The living room was neat as a pin, and only a slightly wrinkled pillow rested in the easy chair. She resisted the urge to stop and fluff it.

###

Ready to read more?

Bears in the Hibiscus is available on Amazon in:

Softcover edition

Kindle edition

Author Bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is an award-winning, independent author with five books published in the novel, romance, and short story genres. She is from Oklahoma but now lives in Washington State. Her website is: JanelleMerazHooper.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached at: JanelleMHooper@comcast.net.

Other books by Janelle Meraz Hooper:

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The Montana Kahuna is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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How to Fight Big Hair (Adventures in Raising a Teenager)

Pamela Rice Hahn — Sat, 11 May 2002 02:44:50 +0000

by Janelle Meraz Hooper

When our children were young, I had a friend who told me that it was time for her five-year old son to go to school — she had taught him everything she could.

I looked at it this way: the teachers could teach my daughter all of that 3-R stuff — I was never good at it anyway. I could teach her about fine literature, art, the history of oriental carpets — and how to make tiny guest soaps from little plastic muffin pans and a microwave.

Okay, so all we did was buy the book with the soap recipes. We never actually got around to making the soap. It’s probably still on a bookshelf somewhere next to the books on One Hundred Ways to Braid Your Hair and How to Have an Archaeological Dig in Your Own Basement.

When she was about eleven, we reached a point where she had her own ideas, so her father and I invented mini-scholarships that we tucked into her Christmas stocking. I think that most of the money went for sheet music, extra flute lessons, and Judy Blume books. She still had plenty of time leftover for camping and fishing trips, cooking lessons, and documentaries on PBS.

There did come a day, when she was a senior in high school, that she said she’d learned all she could from me. It was time for her to move on. From what I could tell, she’d moved on to big hair, frosted eye shadow, and boys.

No! She couldn’t quit on me now, I still had so much to share with her! I was already looking into opera tickets, museum passes, and jazz concerts.

I was on the county art commission at the time. Each day, my mailbox was filled with colorful brochure from art galleries. I wanted to share them with her, but she couldn’t work me in between her hair curling and phone calls from boys. Stacks of colorful pamphlets stacked up on the windowsill of her room. Unread. I knew they were unread because they were covered with dust. Any parent who knows her stuff can tell you that printed materials in a teenager’s room that are actually being read are covered in food crumbs.

I had to do something fast. The stacks of art brochures were beginning to block out the light in her bedroom. Since the bedroom was already facing north, it got too little light to begin with. If one of us didn’t back down, she could be facing a health problem.

I made a mental note to start slipping vitamin D into her colas.

Each morning she sat cross-legged on the bathroom cabinet for at least thirty-minutes while she tortured and sprayed those straight locks into curls tight enough to last through outdoor gym class in the rain. There was only one curling iron, one electrical outlet, and one mirror. Desperation spawned inspiration. Maybe I could make that big hair work for me.

That night, I sat down and cut out each little picture from the brochures and taped them to the mirror right in front of where she sat to curl her hair. Some were beautiful. Some were funny. Some were just plain weird. Each day, after she went to bed, I put up new pictures. Each morning, she’d go into the bathroom and while the curling iron heated up, she’d take down the pictures — one by one. Over and over she asked me to put them someplace else. She never did catch on that they were just where I wanted them. In her way. Soon, the stack of art brochures on her windowsill was gone, although I noticed that it was still dusty.

She’s older now. Styles have changed. The hair is much shorter and less time consuming. The garish eye shadow has been replaced with more subtle colors, and the boys have been narrowed down to two: a husband and a young son.

She really has moved on, but I’ve kept those pictures in a file. Someday I might use them again — when my grandson decides that he’s learned all he needs to know from me. I’m thinking I’ll glue them all over the backboard on his basketball hoop. Now if I can just figure out how to get up there — and back down!

Author bio:

Janelle Meraz Hooper is a writer from Oklahoma with a Hispanic background. Her novel, A Three-Turtle Summer, was published in September 2002. The sequel, As Brown As I want, The Indianhead Diaries, was published in 2003. Her other books include Free Pecan Pie And Other Chick Stories and Custer and His Naked Ladies.

In June 2003, four of her short stories and a poem were published in a Northwest anthology, Dream Makers (compiled by Val Dumond, published by Muddy Puddle Press). She has been a contributing writer for The Northwest Guardian Newspaper, Ft. Lewis, Washington, and other newspapers. In 2002, she was awarded The Bold Media Book Award for A Three-Turtle Summer.

How to Fight Big Hair (Adventures in Raising a Teenager) is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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The Big Navy Blue Crab

Pamela Rice Hahn — Tue, 25 Sep 2001 06:41:23 +0000

by Janelle Meraz Hooper

I had plowed through an endless sea of dirty used Toyotas when I saw her. She crouched in the corner of a used car lot like a big navy blue crab on the bottom of a dusty ocean. This car was so dirty I couldn’t even tell she was a Mercedes, but I could tell she was special. She had a style the new Mercedes didn’t have. To me, the new ones just screamed money; this one purred class.

And I needed some class. Desperately. I was having a heck of a time! My body was already busy fighting off a full frontal attack of arthritis when a Mack dump truck lost its brakes and totaled my Toyota Celica. This unpleasant encounter left the only parts of my body that didn’t already hurt from my chronic illness with a totally new kind of physical pain.

I also had a third kind of pain, centered in my pocketbook that was almost as severe as the first two: the insurance check to replace my totaled car was only $7800. Although it was more than the original purchase price ten years before, it was only about half of the replacement price of the new cars on the market.

My husband needed the other family car to commute in, so I had to find another vehicle as soon as possible. Since I didn’t have the option to wait until I felt better, I bundled up all of my aches and pains—especially the big one in my wallet—and started making the rounds of the used car lots.

She was squarish with four doors. Her color was a few shades lighter than true navy blue. I called it Mercedes blue. Her chrome headlights were big and round and gripped the sides of the biggest chrome grill I’d ever seen. The dash was part polished wood. Real wood. I had never been attracted to luxury cars before, but I was in love with this one from the moment I first saw her.

I called her Sadie. It was short for Mercedes. Sane people looked at Sadie and saw a 1973 car that had 160,000 miles on her. I looked at her with my right brain (the creative side) and what my right brain saw was pure style.

The left (and logical) side of my brain screamed, No! No! She’s just a piece of junk! Look at her! She’s a big blue hole you’ll throw piles of money into, just like your friends who fix up old yachts. At least they can fish!

The right (and creative) side of my brain sung this is it! This is the missing link! If I can just have this car, I can survive the crooked bones. I can endure the humiliation of my hair falling out in chunks from the lupus. I’ll get a turban! A turban would look GREAT in this car! Obviously, the right side of my mind was out of control. How else could it determine that a Hispanic woman who wore an East Indian turban would look more appropriate in a Mercedes than in a Toyota?

My husband of over twenty-five years didn’t share any of my enthusiasm for my choice. Both sides of his brain shouted NO! and he tried all kinds of arguments based on logic to talk me out of buying Sadie…that was his mistake. Logic is useless when the right side of someone’s brain is panting, “Come to me! Come to me!”

As a stalling tactic, he insisted that we have the car checked over by a mechanic. Much to his chagrin and my delight, he was forced to abandon mechanical problems as an argument; Sadie was in good shape. Sure, she was old and would require some repairs down the road, but nothing to be concerned about, they assured us.

My husband knew he was losing ground. In a less than enthusiastic gesture, he made a ridiculously low offer on Sadie — $3,500 — that the dealer immediately accepted. I never knew whether they were more delighted to get rid of Sadie or their daily visits from me. But for whatever reason, Sadie was mine.

Had I been as much in tune with my husband’s vibes as I was with Sadie’s, I would have noticed that I was becoming less and less his loving companion and more and more his big pain in the neck. My only excuse for my denseness is that I was so busy trying to survive a devastating illness that I didn’t have the energy to notice the relationship that I treasured so dearly was crumbling fast. All of my strength was going toward finding a Band-Aid for all of my physical pain, and I found one — a big blue one.

I can hear you sniffing, “All this excitement over such an old car?” I know. I can’t explain it. She lifted my spirits when very little else did. It was the only car I’ve ever loved. It also turned out to be the only car I’ve ever washed at least five times a week…even when it snowed. My other cars were lucky to be splashed with water from a puddle at an intersection.

I marveled at the polished wood dash, the little lock with the tiny key that secured the radio antenna, the Mercedes leather (actually Mercedes vinyl) seat covers, and the magical carpet on the floorboard that refused to pick up dirt and stains. This car was pure magic. Expensive magic, but magic.

With a sense of stewardship I bought parts for her and made sure she saw her mechanic regularly. If I had two dollars in my pocket, I would swing by our local Mercedes’ dealer and invest it in Sadie. I stocked up on little things like fuses (I had a whole baggie full of these in my glove compartment), knobs for the radio, and door handles — all of which were constantly falling off.

My increasingly grouchy husband shelled out for bigger ticket items like transmissions, exhaust systems, and radiators. Once, I called him away from work to come and rescue Sadie and me after she lost a thirty-cent gasket that cost over three hundred dollars in labor to replace because the mechanic had to take off the whole bottom of the car to get to it.

On the plus side, he was also beginning to socialize in parking lots with other Mercedes’ owners. He found them full of information on how to save money maintaining Sadie. For instance, one fellow Mercedes owner showed him how to adapt regular windshield wipers to fit on a Mercedes, a savings of about forty dollars. The man with two left brains and the empty pockets to go with them was thrilled, at least with the car.

After he borrowed Sadie one day to pick up some businessmen at the airport, he discovered the back window never seemed to get wet when we were going down the freeway in the rain. Then he discovered that the tire jack fit into a metal slot under the car so it couldn’t slip out, even on a hill.

“Do you know that that Mercedes’ mechanics make marks on the engine when the automobile has been in a collision?” he asked me one day.

“A very handy thing to know if we ever buy another one!” I answered. I didn’t have a clue as to how unhappy he was with me and that he had no intention of making any more joint purchases. After all, we’d been married for almost twenty-five years. How could anything go wrong now?

Sometime during all of this, his affection for Sadie grew. Even he started to call her Sadie; his previous names for her were largely unprintable. Conversely, I can only guess that his names for me became less and less endearing — and most likely unprintable.

Well, all this was years ago. At the end of our marriage, my husband was a lot more enthralled with Sadie than he was with me, a fact that is a lot funnier now than it was then.

As I adjusted to my new, much poorer, economic station in life, I had to face the fact that I could go back to college on the money I was using to “restore” Sadie. She had to go.

I’d been married a little over twenty-five years the day my divorce was final. I went straight from the courtroom to the car lot, kissed Sadie goodbye and bought a new, reliable Toyota Camry. It was silver. After all, it was my silver anniversary.

My eyes still mist up when I think about my Sadie. But I had her when I really needed her. The only time I felt safe was when I was surrounded by all of her navy blue steel. She was the perfect car for that time of my life. Too bad I didn’t have a navy blue steel heart to go with it.

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Author Bio:

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The Big Navy Blue Crab is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Get Thee to a Writers’ Group!

Pamela Rice Hahn — Thu, 16 Aug 2001 06:01:29 +0000

by Janelle Meraz Hooper

Author of:

One of the best things that can happen to a serious writer is to find an active, supportive writing group whose members have goals similar to yours. At their best, these writers will listen to your query letters, synopsis, and chapter problems and be able to offer constructive advice. Chances are, it’ll be much more satisfying than asking the plumber who thought he was just there to fix the leaky faucet. Or, the glazed look you get at the dinner table at home when you ask for your family’s help.

Don’t think your family’s reluctance to critique your writing as being abandoned in your time of need by the people you’ve loved, supported, and fed all their lives. After all, there was that time they actually had some ideas and you burst into tears over your meatloaf. No one in your family wants to go there again. Do you?

Sometimes the people around your dinner table are silent because they have no advanced writing skills and they hate to be wrong. Don’t we all? So, most likely, they’ll hem and haw until they get their dessert, then they’ll leave you little sticky-notes on your computer behind your back. More about those notes later.

Better to take your questions to some people who will be more objective. Your family will be happier (relieved is more like it) and you’ll be happier and further along in actually fixing the problem, whatever it is.

Your fellow writers will also be a valuable resource when you have to make other decisions like: which writing conference is worth the time and money and which isn’t. Who’s buying the kind of stuff you’re writing? What’s new on the Internet?

A serious organization should have set times to meet in a dry place with tables and chairs. It should be cool in the summer and warm in the winter. A circle of writers that hopes to be productive should have a moderator who’s there on a regular basis and appoints someone to sit in her place when she’s absent.

Luckily, the group I’m in has a published writer who’s also an editor at the head of our table. She doesn’t just maintain order and make sure that all members get a chance to read, she can offer legitimate help on any writing project, big or small. Maybe her best quality is she’s so tactful. Every meeting, we tax her critiquing skills more than once or twice. I’m sure one of us could read aloud from one of Nixon’s old speeches, and she’d think of something encouraging and constructive to say.

Sometimes the perfect collection of writers to encourage your creative flow isn’t easy to find. If you don’t feel comfortable with the first writers you visit, try, try again, until you find your “writing home.” For instance, I knew that a group I visited wasn’t a good fit when I was the only writer at the table who didn’t have on a marijuana tee-shirt. The second bunch was okay but too far away to get me off my couch on stormy winter nights. My next “home” was perfect, and I’ve been there for several years now.

So, get out there and find some other writers you’re simpatico with. Either that, or get used to coming home to find that your family has left notes stuck all over your computer with messages like these:

Mom! I had a few minutes before baseball practice, so I made a few improvements on chapter seven for you. Hope you like the scene I added with the giant spider. -Ritchie
Dear, your editor called and said you needed an “expendable character,” so I murdered your protagonist in chapter three. Hope that was all right.-Mike
Sis! I went through your new Thesaurus and underlined all the literary-sounding words in red. If you’re more literary, maybe you can be on Oprah. -Molly
Mom! I thought your Times Roman was looking a little flat, so I changed everything to Ravie. It’s way cool, and added another fifty pages to your book. So I solved your page-count problem, too! -Kandy

Well, you did ask sometime over meatloaf for their help, remember?

Believe me, you’ll be much happier if you find a good writing group and make a commitment to it. If you want to become a better writer, you have to set aside the time to make it happen.

Members also have an obligation to be there to help their fellow writers, cheer when the news is good, and lend encouragement when needed. I should also add: be nice. Some of your fellow writers will be there for the camaraderie, so spare them the twisting knife in the ribs after they read.

. . . Wait a minute. I just found another sticky-note. This one says: “Hey, lady! What’s with all that back story in chapter two? Ya’ gotta get that stuff outta there, else you’ll slow down the pace.” Signed: Joe the plumber.

It was bound to happen. A plumber who writes. Turns out, he was right. Maybe I don’t need a writing group after all. Maybe what I need is another leaky faucet.

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Get Thee to a Writers’ Group! is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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Elvis Has Left the Building — and Is Living In My Computer

Pamela Rice Hahn — Mon, 30 Jul 2001 06:02:37 +0000

by Janelle Meraz Hooper

Elvis is still alive. I know it. I have proof. And I don’t mean the kind of proof where some guy who’s had too much beer stops at a local filling station and sees Elvis filling up his Eldorado with regular gas. What a joke. Everyone knows that Elvis uses super.

And I don’t mean like that guy outside of the basketball arena waving a sign that says, “Elvis parks here.” Everyone knows that Elvis is way too cool for basketball.

No, I’m talking about tangible down-to-earth evidence that the King of Rock n’ Roll is alive and well — and living in my computer.

Yep. That’s what I said. Right here in my computer that I call Ole Trigger because he doesn’t have enough guts to boot up all of my fancy equipment on the same day, much less at the same time.

Whenever I want to do anything more complicated than word-processing, I have to load the color printer, print, delete the non-color printer and drivers, and let Ole Trigger rest for a day or so. Then I can load the color scanner, do my scanning, delete the scanner from my hard drive, re-load the non-color printer and its drivers, and let Trigger rest again for a couple of days until it feels up to fetching my emails. Sometimes, if my preacher cousin sends me a long message, Ole Trigger just gets all tuckered out and has to be rebooted. I keep a special pair of cowboy boots next to my PC just for this purpose.

As far as I can tell, Elvis moved into my computer a few days before
the Fourth of July. That’s when I sent a color poster of Elvis to my editor, who’s an Elvis fan, wishing her Happy Fourth! It was a photo that showed Elvis in all his glory: gold metallic suit, slick pompadour hair, and white buck shoes.

Of course he had that special look of his on his face, like he’d just
jammed a guitar pick up his nose and was wondering if he wanted to get it out or just leave it there because it felt good. It was pure, vintage Elvis, and I blew it up full size before I sent it to her via email. I should have known something had gone wrong when she said she never got it. Come to find out: that’s because he never left!

He took up 486 bits or bytes or whatever that stuff is called, but he
was kind of cool, so I didn’t delete him right away like I should have. A
few days later, I began to find strange messages on my computer when I brought up my screen in the morning. Messages like, “Warning! Your memory system is running dangerously low. Norton antivirus system may not be working correctly.” Oh, happy 99! Oh, Melissa!

I went into Trigger’s guts and started deleting everything that wouldn’t make me stop breathing if I didn’t have it. I even deleted-augh!-Elvis,
but the messages kept coming: “Warning, warning! Danger! Danger!”

The next time I used my graphics software, I noticed that Elvis was
still on the menu. I deleted him. He came back. I deleted him again. He came back again. By now, his lips were starting to move, and his suit was beginning to shimmer. I don’t know why he doesn’t leave, except that maybe he’s finally found someplace to hide out where people have to leave him alone — sort of like having Heartbreak Hotel all to himself, maybe.

For myself, I’ve given up and just deleted Norton. I know when I’m
beat. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I wake up and hear a lonesome voice in my computer singing, “Ho-oold me close, ho-oold me tight . . . make me thri-illll with dee-lighttt . . . .”

Sure beats anything I ever heard from Norton.

###

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Elvis Has Left the Building — and Is Living In My Computer is a post from: The Blue Rose Bouquet

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A Sister in Trouble

Pamela Rice Hahn — Wed, 04 Apr 2001 06:15:09 +0000

by Janelle Meraz Hooper

Note: When this short story first appeared in The Blue Rose Bouquet, it was an excerpt of Chapter 1 of the author’s (as yet) unpublished novel, A Three-Turtle Summer; see the author bio after this excerpt for exciting book details!

It’s A Three-Turtle Summer—hot—and Grace has to dump a man who’s meaner than a rattlesnake and dumber than adobe.

1. A Sister in Trouble

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, July, 1949

It was too hot to play cards, especially if someone were keeping score, and Vera was.

“Ay, carumba! You can’t stand to go two hours without beating someone at something can you?” Grace Tyler playfully pouted.

Vera ignored her little sister, and began shuffling cards as she gleefully announced, “Senoras, the game is canasta, and we’re going to play according to Hoyle.” She began to deal the cards like a Las Vegas gambler while Pauline laughed and pointed at her mother, a notorious and frequent card-cheater.

Everyone was hot, but in her long-sleeved shirt and long skirt, Grace was sweltering. Sweat beaded up on her forehead and neck and she kept stretching her legs out because the backs of her knees stuck to her skirt.

“Gracie, for God’s sake, go put some shorts on,” Vera said.

Grace ignored her sister, pulled her shirt away from her perspiring chest and asked, “Anyone want more iced tea before Vera whips the pants off of us?”

Momma and Pauline both nodded and Grace poured tea over fresh ice cubes while Vera got a tablet and pencil out of her purse.

The room was almost silent as each woman arranged her hand. Only Momma barely tapped her foot and softly sang a song from her childhood under her breath:

“The fair senorita with the rose in her hair …

worked in the cantina but she didn’t care …

played cards with the men and took all their loot … awh-ha!

went to the store and bought brand new boots … ”

“Awh-Haaa!” Grace’s five-year-old daughter Glory joined in.

Unconsciously, the other two women started to hum along while they looked at their hand. About the second “Awh-Haaa!” Vera abruptly stopped humming and looked at her sisters with a raised eyebrow. Something was fishy; Momma was much too happy. Barely containing their amusement, they watched as she cheerfully arranged her cards.

Finally, unable to suppress her laughter any longer, Vera jumped up, snatched the cards out of her mother’s hands, and fanned them face-up across the table.

“Ay, ay, ay!” She cried out, “Momma, tell me how can you have a meld and eleven cards in your hand when we’ve just gotten started?”

The fun escalated as Vera rushed around the table and ran her hands all around her mother and the chair she sat on to feel for extra cards.

“Stand up!” Grace and her sisters said as they pulled their mother to her feet. They shook her blue calico dress and screamed with laughter as extra cards fell from every fold.

“Glory,” Vera told her young niece, “crawl under the table and get those cards for your Auntie Vera, okay?” Grace moved her feet to the side so that Glory could scramble under the table. Her childish giggles danced around the women’s feet as she scrambled for the extra cards that dropped from her grandmother’s dress.

“Momma,” Vera laughed, “you’re a born cheater. How did you know we were going to play cards today?” she asked.

“I’m not the only one in this family who’s been caught with a few too many cards,” Momma said in her defense.

“Yes, but you’re the family matriarch. We expect better of you than we do our good-for-nothing brothers,” Pauline said.

“Huh! Matriarch, my foot. You girls never listen to a word I say,” Momma grumbled.

“Maybe that’s because we can’t trust you,” Vera said.

As another card dropped from Gregoria’s dress and slid across the floor, Vera added, “We’ll strip you down to your rosary before we ever play cards with you again, Momma.”

“Yeah,” Pauline, chimed in, “the next time you’ll play in nothing but your lace step-ins and a bra made from two tortillas.”

“Well, at least I’ll be the coolest one at the table,” Momma chirped.

Vera reached across the table to gather all the cards and reshuffle them. “We’re going to start all over, and we’ll watch you every minute.”

Grace felt a sharp pain in her stomach when she looked up and saw her husband’s scowling face through the screen door. Why was he home so early? She didn’t have to look at him again to know his normally handsome blond features smoldered with disgust.

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