hundreds of photos I flipped through with Helen of her new granddaughter, who is admittedly adorable, but newborn pictures all pretty much look the same. Squishy and puffy-eyed, sleeping, or screaming balls of limbs curled around a round, tiny belly. Cute, but . . . not, at the same time. At least, not when they’re unrelated to you. “Yeah.”
“Well, my daughter called last week. Told me there was a little house in her neighborhood for sale. It’s perfect for me—a little one-bedroom bungalow, walking distance to my baby . . . my daughter too. Big enough that I’m not banging off the walls, but not so big that I’ll tucker myself out cleaning it on a regular basis. So I snatched it up. Closed in one week and sold this place to an investment group. So, boom,” she says with a snap of her fingers, “I’m blowing this popsicle stand.”
Her comment hits me harder than I thought. I’ve always enjoyed talking with Helen and have always treasured her advice. But at the same time, I get it. She wants to be with her first grandchild, which she always wanted. So instead of saying anything bad, I just reach out and give her a hug.
“I’m happy for you, Helen. I’m gonna miss you, though. Do you know who’s moving in?” I ask, looking over. Her townhome’s one of the bigger units in the neighborhood, three bedrooms with plenty of space. It could attract a fast-moving single person, a work-from-homer like myself . . . or a family with kids.
I’m personally hoping the former. Or at the very least, no rowdy kids or partying young adults. I’m behind schedule already.
Even worse, the looks the husbands give me when they realize that the book they sneak-read and totally deny came from my mind. I even had one guy tell me he’d read his ex-girlfriend’s copy and that I obviously knew how to give killer blowjobs, so how about I practice with him?
Nope, don’t need either scenario. I want a nice, quiet neighbor who’ll make it easy to focus when it’s my writing time.
Damn, I’m picky. No wonder I want Helen to stick around.
“I’ve got no idea, but you’ll be fine, dear,” Helen says reassuringly. “You’re so quiet and easy to get along with.”
Maybe Helen’s losing her hearing because I know I spend a lot of time talking to myself and yelling at Nut and Juice. But I guess in the scheme of loud kids and partying neighbors, I’m not that bothersome.
“Well, one more hug,” I tell Helen, who laughs when Nut grabs her leg and gives her a ‘hug’ of his own. “Nut, stop that! You can’t hump every leg you see!”
“Well at least he thinks this oven can still bake something,” Helen says with a chuckle. “Best of luck, dear.”
I wave, shooing my dogs back into the house and running out to my car. I’m already running late.
Chapter 2
Poppy
W3AS.
It’s probably not the best acronym in the world, but it works for us. Besides, I think as I run up the stairs to the second-floor study room of the Great Falls Public Library, Women Who Write Awesome Shit doesn’t look very polite on the room reservation forms.
Whenever someone asks, we just call it ‘wheeze’, like the sound a two-pack-a-day smoker makes. It’s a weird assembly of women, but they’re my tribe.
There’s Aleria, who is only thirty but is by far the oldest soul of our group. Blonde and often barefoot—and possibly naked—beneath her floaty skirts, she loves to fit social commentary into just about everything she says, does, or writes. She’s big on nature magic, inner power, and a lot of ‘crunchy granola’ stuff like meditation, crystals, and kombucha. More than once, we’ve caught her trying to cast spells over the group, which she says are protective spells against the ‘evil magics the patriarchal capitalist system uses to leech our feminine power’, also known as shitty publishing contracts like the one she got tricked into as a newbie romance author.
So of course, she writes indie paranormal romance with some pretty creative sex scenes and groupings that can open your mind to unique possibilities even if you’ll never, ever meet a vampire, a werewolf, and a faerie at the same time.
Daysha’s sassy but the most no-nonsense of us. Highly educated with a bachelor’s from Spellman and a master’s from Columbia, she keeps us in line. You always have to be prepped for Daysha because if you ask her for an opinion, she’s going to