#she took me from Madison a sweet old horse who you had to really be animated to get her going

[writershapeholeonthedoor]

Bitter Sweet - Foxxay/Gooday

Rate: General Audience

Tags: Love, Fluffy, Angst, True Love

Disclaimer: You might cry

Read it on AO3

The first time it happened, Misty felt like it was better to die again – she kinda wished she would die again so she wouldn’t have to see it. It was such a small and simple thing that Cordelia had no problem to hide it from anyone, but Misty was no fool, as much as people like to think she is. It started as a normal monday when Mallory entered the kitchen holding a Kleenex pack with Coco behind her proclaiming the girl had sneezed all night. A flu, everybody has a flu sometimes. But by tuesday Mallory was fine, almost like she hadn’t spent all day coughing, and she was back to her classes.

The surprise came when Misty searched for Cordelia before lunch to talk to her and found the Supreme leaving the bathroom with a red nose. “Are ya okay?”

“Of course!” Cordelia laughed, approaching Misty to give her a gentle kiss. “Just went to pee, you know, I also have to do it.”

Misty rolled her eyes – she didn’t bought the excuse, but she wasn’t going to press it. “Some of the girls asked if we can go to a fiel trip to the swamps this weekend.”

Cordelia arched her eyebrown with a small grin. “Which girl?” She knew her students and, besides Mallory, no one else would ask for that.

“Me.” The taller blonde had the cutest smile in the world when she leaned to place a soft kiss to the corner of the Supreme’s mouth. “Imma your girl.”

Cordelia laughed again, louder and happier, a little impressed by her wife. “Yes, you are.”

“So?” Misty raised her eyebrowns a couple times while putting her arms around Cordelia and pulling her closer. The door was closed and was almost lunch time, she didn’t had to worry about someone catching them – she wouldn’t mind, but Cordelia was relentless about keeping her image as the Supreme.

“Well, you can go, but I’m not sure any of the girls will want to go with you.”

That was the first time Cordelia ever got sick after the Apocalypse. Since Mallory had go back in time and change all of it, it was actually the first time Cordelia got sick after she became the Supreme. It happened five years and a few months after Nan brought Misty back from Hell and that broke her heart. Misty remembered when Fiona started to get worst and worst as days went bye and, even if she wasn’t around to see it, she could picture how Cordelia raised to power. She could imagine it was pretty amazing, considering even her eyes went back to normal, and even the scars disappeared.

But Cordelia denied she was sick and she did a very good job at hiding it from everyone else, and Misty calmed herself down when she realized it was nothing but a small flu that was gone in less than a week and everything was fine. It took two more years for the Supreme to get sick again and by the time it happened, Zoe and Madison wasn’t living in the house anymore, Mallory was a teacher and not a student and they had to buy a second house so they could shelter all the girls that searched for them.

Misty woke up with empty arms and the distant sound of coughing. “Delia?”

“Yeah?” That was the only word Cordelia managed to say before another cough fit hit her.

Misty rolled around, already throwing her blankets away, and got up from the bed. The floor was cold under her bare feet, but she was used to it, so she simply walked to the bathroom. “What’s goin’ on?” She was aware that her accent was heavier with sleep, but she also knew Cordelia loved it.

“It’s just a alergic reaction.” Cordelia waved her hand when she heard that Misty was behind her. She coughed again before she turned around to smile to her wife. “You should go back to bed, honey, you look about to pass out.”

The swamp witch sighed and walked to hug Cordelia. “Do ya want some water?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” Cordelia took a deep breath to recover.

“Nah, I’m goin’ to grab a cup for ya. Go sit in bed.”

Less than a week after, Cordelia was fine again. That time, Queenie also realized that the Supreme wasn’t feeling very well, but she didn’t said a thing about it when she saw Misty making a potion to help. Misty was sure the girl spread the news to the other Council members, because Zoe started to visit more and Madison even kept her mouth shut for the most part of it.

The next time it happened, Cordelia couldn’t hide from anyone what was going on. She fainted. The Council was having a meeting to decide a few things when the Supreme got up from her chair and, just when she was about to take the first step, she fell in the ground. Misty jumped from her chair, but she wasn’t fast enough to catch her.

“Cordelia!” Misty shouted, already kneeling by her side to help her getting up.

“I’m okay.” The woman whispered. Besides a little ache in her wrist, she was in fact okay, but she knew no one would believe her.

“What happened?” Queenie asked with a worried look in her face.

Cordelia, who was now sitting in the ground with Misty’s hands around her arms, shook her head. “I didn’t eat anything today, I just got weak.”

Weak. The Supreme never got weak. “Well, sit down. I will go get you some coffee and crackers.” Zoe said, before going to her other side so Misty and her could help Cordelia got up and sit down in her chair.

But even after she ate, Cordelia still felt bad for hours. Misty used mud to heal her wrist, made some tea for her to drink, and stayed in bed with her all day, but, by the end of the night, Cordelia had a fever that wasn’t there before and she couldn’t keep nothing in her stomach. It was just after dinner that a knock came at the door and Misty went to open it.

“Mallory?” Her voice wasn’t gentle as it normally was.

“Hi. Zoe told us that Cordelia wasn’t feeling very well today, I just wanted to know if is there anything I can do to help. Does she need anything?” Mallory’s smile was gentle, sweet, inocent even. So willing to help.

“Is Zoe still here?” Misty asked. She told before the meeting that Madison buyed them tickets to some concert that night.

“Yes! I will sleep with Coco so they can sleep in their old room.” The younger girl sounded happy, like having her friend (s?) there was the most amazing thing in the world. “So, how is she feeling?”

Misty looked at Mallory. Really looked at her. From hair to toe, shoulder to shoulder. The girl was really young, Misty knew it, she was almost thirteen years younger than Misty herself. When they met, she was only sixteen, already carrying the weight of saving the world upon her shoulders, sounding much older than she looked. But right now, standing outside their room, Mallory never looked younger, alive, good. She looked like she could go out and beat a lion with her bare hands, like she could stop a train if she wanted to, like she was ready for anything. Misty threw a look over her shoulder to the woman in bed. Her wife. Pale, curled in her own body, trying to hide under the covers because of the fever, with a bucket by her side in case she needed to vomit again.

Misty knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t stoped blaming Mallory for that.

It came as a surprise to everyone. Mallory and Misty were really close, like lost siblings or something like it, so it was a shock to see Misty pushing her away with harsh and cold words. Misty knew that what she was doing wasn’t right, that it wasn’t actually the girl’s fault and that it was just life, but there was a part of her, probably some primary instinct to protect the one she loved, that made her want the girl away. She realized that Cordelia would get weaker and weaker as time went by, while Mallory was going to get stronger and, in the end, her power would kill the older Supreme so she could rise, and Misty felt bitter.

How Cordelia managed to look at the girl everyday was a mistery to her. How could someone look at the person that would be the death of her everyday like nothing was wrong? Every thing was wrong.

Misty never brought up the subject, neither did Cordelia or any of the other girls, until Coco did.

“It’s not her fault.” The rich girl said one day when there was only the two of them in the kitchen. “I know what you’re doing, but it’s not her fault. Mallory don’t want this.”

Misty gulped loudly, almost dropping the cup from her hand. She knew that, but she couldn’t help how she felt about it. “I know.”

“So why are you acting like it is?”

“What would you do if it was the other way around?”

Coco didn’t had a reply, but Misty didn’t push the subject furter. A week later, Zoe and Madison moved back to the Academy with the excuse that living alone was more boring then they thought it would be. The Council was back together to keep an eye in their Supreme, but Cordelia didn’t needed this. She was fine for a while, strong as a horse, healthier than ever.

“Mallory is a very strong witch.” Cordelia said one day, with a happy smile. The imagine of proud. “She had proved that a lot of times to all of us.” Misty remembered the girl had learned a new power just a few days before and shivered. The girl had just learned how to transmutate, out of nowhere, with no help. “I think she’s ready to be a part of this Council.”

Silence. They could almost hear a cricket in the backyard – Misty was sure they could hear her heart beating fast against her chest in panic. Zoe and Queenie exchanged a look. They were the first members of Cordelia’s council and they lived with her more than the other two had, it looked like they were trying to comunicate without saying anything, but it was Madison who spoke first.

“Isn’t there a rule that say: don’t put a girl in a woman’s position?” She mocked.

Cordelia rolled her eyes to her older student. “I have been watching her for years now, Madison. She’s ready.”

“So why are you asking us? Or that wasn’t a question?”

“Well, you’re my current Council, your opinion is very important to me.” Cordelia shrugged.

Madison watched her Supreme for a couple of seconds, before scoffing. “It wasn’t a question then.”

“I don’t want her to be unprepared like I was.” The older woman explained. “This way, she will start to help taking decision for this Coven. I won’t do it if any of you have an objection.”

Zoe moved unconfortable in her chair before answering. “If you think she’s ready, I agree with it. You’re right, she’s very talent, I teached her myself when she first got here and I can tell that.”

“You could have done it without flirting.” Madison snapped back to her girlfriend.

“I never...”

“Fine.” Madison cut Zoe before she could finish. “But I won’t work with Junior until we have her fully trained.”

Queenie rolled her eyes. “I think she will be a great help, we do have a lot of papers to go throught. Besides, the newest one does the boring stuff.”

Cordelia giggled at the girl, squeezing her hand on top of the desk, before turning to look at Misty with a smile that warmed the whole room. “So?”

Misty knew she was right – like always. Mallory was ready to do it and it was going to be beneficial to everyone to have her be envolved in things before she becames the Supreme, Win-win. But she looked at Cordelia again. Just the other night, she had to say a spell twice in the greenhouse, just after Mallory transmutate from her room to the kitchen to get a cup of water.

Her eyes filled with tears before she could stop herself. Misty never hated anyone, not even the crazy people who burned her at the stake, and maybe she didn’t actually hate the girl, but she wished Mallory never got there in the first place.

“Misty?” Cordelia’s smile had fadded into worry when she saw the look in her girlfriend’s eyes.

“Sure.” She whispered, seconds before spinning out of the room.

Misty ignored everyone while she ran to the greenhouse, knowing Cordelia was right behind her. She managed to slip inside the greenhouse before she started to cry and sob like never before. Cordelia had her arms around her in a heatbeat, stroking her hair and whispering sweet things in her ear, trying to calm her down and stop the tears.

The Cajun had gone throught a lot of shit in her life. Burned at the stake, left to die in a coffin, fail the Seven Wonders, she was judge for being different all her life, she never had friends and she lived in the Swamps for months all by herself. Nothing of that was easy to live by, but to think that Cordelia, her soulmate, was going to die, was the worst thing that ever happened to her.

Misty prayed to Goddess or whatever superior being that could exist to take her in Cordelia’s place. She would gladly go if that meant Cordelia would be okay.

“Misty, darling, talk to me.” Cordelia begged. She felt useless and powerless, like there was nothing she could do to help the other woman.

“You’re dying.” The wild-haired woman whispered, feeling her knees became jelly under her.

Cordelia, sensing the woman was about to collapse, helped her sit in one of the stools, not letting go of her hands in the process. Misty was shaking, holding her hands so fiercely that it was almost painful, but she wasn’t going to complain, not when her wife looked so lost and terrified. “Misty, baby, what are you talking about?”

Misty shook her head and looked at their hands, lost in the feeling inside her chest. She felt hopeless and that was something she never felt before. “Mal-Mallory i-is getting stron-ger.” Her voice was shaky because of the sobs and that broke Cordelia’s heart. “You-You-You’re go-going t-to die!”

“Oh, darling.” Cordelia sighed heavly, pulling her so Misty’s head would rest in her chest while she hugged the woman as close to her body as possible. She used one of her hands to stroke Misty’s hair, while the other one was pressing firmly in her back, as a reminder that she was still there and she was going nowhere. “I’m not going to die any time soon.” Her voice was low, but the vibration in her chest when she spoke helped to calm down the younger blonde. “You’re stuck with me until we’re old and I will need your help to get to the bathroom.”

Misty almost fell from the bench when she tried to get closer to Cordelia, desperately holding into her like the devil himself was trying to pull her down. “Delia.” She sounded like a wound animal and Cordelia finally let her own tear roll down her face.

“Mist, one day Mallory will become the Supreme. And for that happen, I will need to go.” The older woman tried to be gentle in her approach, but she figured there was nothing she could say that would sugar up the situation. “But that’s not happening today, or tomorrow, or in a very long time. Mallory is with us for more than eight years now and she learned so much. She’s a teacher. Is natural that she will learn how to do new magic, that dosen’t mean it’s making me weaker.”

“Fiona...”

“My mother killed herself with her choices.” Cordelia cut her gently. “She drinked, smoked and Goddess know what else. Besides, we rushed the raising of a new Supreme because we wanted her gone. She was bad for this Coven and we took a very hard decision since she wasn’t able to let her powers go. What happened to her won’t happen to me. When Mallory is ready and I have nothing else to give to this Coven, my powers will fade so she can rise. It will happen naturally.”

“You said she’s ready to be in the Council.” Misty was silently crying now, paying attention to every word that came out of the other woman’s mouth like she was telling the most important secret in the world.

Cordelia giggled softly. “You’re also a part of the Council, Misty. It only means that I trust her to help me manage this Coven.” She leaned to press a kiss on top of the Cajun’s head. “Can I ask you something, darling?” When Misty nodded, Cordelia took a deep breath. “Is that why you’re treating Mallory so badly?”

Misty choose to remain silent for a while, considering how to answer it, but it was Cordelia and she trusted the woman to never judge for anything. “I can’t help it. Everytime I look at her I see... you, but not in a good way.”

“In what way?”

“Dead.” Misty sniffed. “She reminds me that you’re going to die.”

“We all are going to die one day.” Cordelia replayed with a smile, putting a blonde lock behind the younger girl’s ear.

Misty sighed. “Yes, but...” She removed her head from the comfy place between Cordelia’s breast to look at the woman’s eyes. It crossed the Supreme’s mind that she had never saw Misty so serious before. “You’re getting sick, you never got sick before. And she... she’s not.”

Cordelia had a sad smile when she was done talking. She kept forgetting just how sensitive Misty could be. “People get sick. I had a flu or two, I was out of luck, but that dosen’t mean I will drop dead in the ground.” Misty’s hand clenched around the back of her dress like it was going to happen right now, and Cordelia was quick to calm her by placing a loving kiss in her forehead. “You don’t need to be mad at Mallory, sad or angry. You or any of the other girls.” Misty arched her eyebrown to that and Cordelia laughed. “The four of you aren’t as subtle as you think you’re. I know why Zoe and Madison came back, I know Queenie is keeping an eye on me when you’re not around. You all think I’m about to die.”

“We’re worried.”

“I know, baby.” Cordelia’s face softened to that and she used the back of her fingers to caress Misty’s face. “You don’t need to worry about that, ok? Let me do the worrying because, after all, it’s happening to me and I will be able to know when we have to worry, ok?”

“Do ya promisse to tell me?” Misty’s voice had suddenly got lower and her accent popped out when she pouted.

Cordelia thought she never looked cuter. “I promisse I will tell you when is time to worry. I will tell you, and then we will tell the girls, so we can all worry together about something that none of us can do nothing about.” She finished with a light giggled and an eye roll. “Meanwhile... stop blaming Mallory.” Misty blushed to that. “It’s ok, baby. I understand. I can’t say I wouldn’t feel the same way if our places were changed. But I want you to try. You two always got along so well, I don’t want you to push your swamp partner away about something that it’s not her fault.” Cordelia poked her nose, smiling when she crinkled it. “She didn’t choose this.”

“I know.” Misty sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, you did nothing wrong.” Cordelia leaned for a kiss that Misty was glad to give. It was sweet and slow, almost like they were trying to hold as much as they could into each other before letting go to grab some air. “I love you, Misty Day, everyday and everynight, until the day I die.”

“I love you, Delia, to Hell and back.” That earned her a narrowed eyes that were clearly annoyed. Misty giggled, slidding her hands around Cordelia waist more gently than she had done before. “It is true.”

Cordelia rolled her eyes and placed her arms around Misty’s neck, even if her upper body was leaning away from the other girl. “Say something like that and you won’t be allowed to listen to Stevie for a week.”

Misty only smiled, suddenly lost in the Supreme’s dark eyes. She couldn’t wait to spend her life by her side.

#ahs #american horror story #foxxay #gooday #raulson #ahs drabble #ahs fanfic #imagine ahs #fanfic ahs #american horror story coven #american horror story apocalypse #ahs coven #ahs apocalypse #lily rabe #sarah paulson #cordelia goode #cordelia foxx #misty day #misty x cordelia #cordelia x misty #cordelia goode x misty day #misty day x cordelia goode #cordelia foxx x misty day #misty day x cordelia foxx #love #true love #wlw #ahs headcanon #fanfic #imagine

[mirkwoodshewolf]

The Rock angel shines; Queen x reader

Hello people and beyond. Well like I promised here is the first part of my Rock Angel series.  So for those who have asked to be tagged I have you up, let me know if it doesn’t work and I’ll try to fix it as best I can. I hope you all enjoy this and have some warmly big brother feels with this chapter. Not really any warnings except for some mild swearing, scars (not suicidal but of this triggers you this is a warning for you) and TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF.

Taglist (open):

@phantom-fangirl-stuff

@mr-badguymercury

@onebigfangirlworld

@labessieisallama

@starswin

@naturalswifty89

_______________________________________________________________

April 20th, 1982

Frank Bough was hosting his Breakfast time interview discussing the next rising star of Britain.

“We first saw her make her big debut at a Queen concert at Madison Square Garden last year and ever since then she’s been recording her first album which will be released at the start of summer. Her biggest single ‘Set it all free’ took her to the charts as the youngest performer at 19 years old. Let’s have a listen.”  What would then play on the television was the newly made music video for “Set it all free”.

(Y/n) was on the guitar in the same attire she wore that day at Madison Square garden, her hair this time was dyed a blood red as the chorus of “Set it all free” was being sung.  As (y/n) would rock out in one shot, in another she was wearing normal clothes trying to escape the confines of what appeared to be a jailcell she would constantly beat against the walls trying to escape but then cry every now and then.

“(Y/n) (l/n) welcome to the show.”

“Oh Frank it’s an honor to be here, how are you?” I asked as I leaned up against the couch and extended my hand out to him.

“I’m doing well and you?” he said as we both shook hands.

“Fine thank you.”

“Well you have truly made a name for yourself, the Rock Angel tell me where did that name come from? Did you come up with it yourself?”

“No I’m terrible at coming up with names” I joked out as I laughed. “It was actually Freddie who came up with the name Rock Angel. Back when I was helping them and when I told them that I had written songs and played music he’d always just call me their little ‘Rock Angel’.”

“Now when you say, ‘work for them’, how do you mean?”

“I was an intern for Jim Beach.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. At the time he was asking for interns at my University and I was one of probably hundreds of other young kids to apply and by some miracle I was picked and the rest is history.”

“Now on your album ‘Set it all free’ you also include Queen on a couple of your tracks. Is that because of your history with them?”

“I love my boys so much. When it was fully announced that I was to make my first full length album after my single was released, they were so supportive and happy for me. And actually it’s a sweet story, I was recording my album at Rockfield studios, the same place where they recorded their hit Bohemian Rhapsody as well as the rest of their Night at the Opera album. And while I was recording they just suddenly popped in for a visit…..”

*November 11th, 1981*

I have been here at Rockfield studios for the past six weeks now recording my first album ‘Set it all Free’. Now I began to understand why Fred said they needed to be away from all distractions to record A Night at the Opera, because out here with all the country side, the fresh air, never have I felt such creativity flow through me.

I mean sure I’ve hit a couple of speedbumps and obstacles when it came to some songs but after feeding the chickens and riding the horses, I would suddenly get inspired.

I was currently in the studio now doing my latest song that I’ve titled “Who I am”.  I had completed the guitar and vocal portion of my song and now I was recording the drums.

Now I know what you’re thinking? Why are you doing all the work? Why hasn’t a band come in and help you with the percussions?  Well the answer to that is because of the sudden reservation I had made with it being the autumn season now, no one wanted to risk driving along the roads to the studio so living at the studio is just me, Mack and a couple handlers just to keep an eye on me.

Using the lessons that Rog has given me, I twirled my sticks and began doing the rhythm I had in mind.  After the first half of the song was done, I stopped and flexed my hands and I said.

“How’d it sound Mack?”

“Come out and have a listen.” I took off my headphones and left the booth as Mack played the first half of the song back to me.  I bopped my head up and down as my voice came up for a brief moment before I heard the strum of my guitar.  The whole song so far sounded good and I said.

“Sweet, okay play it from the second verse.” He gave me a thumbs up and I went back into the recording booth and quickly put the headphones back on and as I gave him the signal that I was ready, I began the next verse of the songs for the drums.

We kept going with the song until it was perfect and as I had Mack play back to me the entire song, I got goosebumps all up along my arms and shivers up my spine.  I did a successful ‘Deacy’ dance as I was happy for the song.

“Love it, I fuckin love it!” I praised.

“Sounds good love, why don’t you take a break now love?”

“Mack my deadline is fast approaching and I still got three songs to do, plus one of my songs that’s already been recorded is still missing something. I can’t afford a break.”

“But you’ve been hard at it for the past week with no break love, if you don’t slow down your fingers will bleed out and your arms will pop out.”

“I’m fine Mack.”

“Doesn’t sound like it love,” I froze right there in my spot. Mack looked just as surprised as I was, when I turned around there stood my boys.

Freddie, Brian, Roger and John.

“Oh my god….what—what are you lot doing here?”

“Well we heard our little Rock Angel would be here, so we’d thought we’d check on her to see just how her first big album is coming along.”

“And it’s a good thing we did, cause from what we just heard, you’ve been over working yourself, haven’t you love?” Brian asked using is dad voice.

“No” I said shamefully kicking my foot around as I avoided looking at them.

“Then let us see your hands.” John stated using his dad voice.

Damnit.  Now I knew there was no escaping this lie this time.  Truthfully my hands were heavily imprinted with both base and normal guitar strings, and my palms were scarred and cracked from the drumsticks.

“(Y/n) (l/n) show us your hands” demanded Roger.  I sighed and held them out palms down.  Both Roger and Bri took my hands and flipped them over and they were all horrified at how extreme they were.

“Love do you know how serious this could’ve been?” stated John.

“Based on these string imprints, any longer and you could’ve damaged a nerve allowing you to not be able to feel a note again.” Brian answered.

“And your palms, you’re lucky these scars don’t need stitches, not to mention they are as dry as the desert.” Hearing the boys say this made me rethink a little bit on how strict I’ve been to keeping my schedule.

“I’m sorry guys. It’s just that—my deadline is in a couple of weeks and with it just being me and no one else willing to travel this far up north during this time I….I had to work three times as hard as I am just a soloist and I didn’t just want my songs to be recorded separately from what I’ve already delivered through singing. You guys get what I’m saying right?” They all looked at me and Deacy said.

“We do love, but we also understand when we need to step away and not strain ourselves to the point of almost losing the limbs that need to be required in order to play them.”

“And don’t take offense to this darling but you look like shit at the moment.” Freddie stated.

“Oh gee thanks Fred.” I sassed sarcastically.

“What Freddie means is that you look so exhausted. When was the last time you had a proper sleep?”

“I’ve tried to get my daily 8 hours but so far I haven’t.”

“And what about a decent meal?”

“I had a big breakfast earlier this morning before we started recording.”

“But that was hours ago.” Mack piped in. I turned and glared at him but he explained to the guys, “In fact that usually all you would eat minus a piece of fruit, a granola bar or some water to stay hydrated.”

“Thank you Mack” I sneered at him.

“Alright. (Y/n) you need to take the rest of today plus tomorrow off, you are running yourself ragged at this point. You need a proper meal, some rest, and all the pampering you deserve.” Roger said.  One look at these boys and I knew I wasn’t going to win. So I gave in and told them.

“Alright, I fold. Take me away.” I was then taken out of the studio picked up bridal style by Roger and taken back towards my room.

John unfolded the sheets from my bed and Roger put me in and John tucked me back in.

“Anything in particular you would like me to cook up?” Roger asked.

“I’ve been kinda craving for Tikka Masala. But you don’t have to make it if you don’t want to.”

“Nonsense, I’ll get right on it.” He kissed my head before leaving my bedroom.  Deacy came back with a first aid kit and he said to me.

“Okay give me one of your hands, love.” I handed him my right one since it was closer to him.  He took out the rubbing alcohol and some cotton swabs and he began to lightly dab around my palms which made me wince in pain.  “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, not your fault. It’s mine. You all were right, I’ve been overworking myself.”

“You have such dedication poppet, that’s the first thing that I noticed about you. But it is always best to take a break. You’re already a star to us and to the world. And you always will be, don’t let the pressures and stress of this business affect you, otherwise we’ll lose our Rock Angel forever.” I looked up at John and nodded.

He paused his doctoring and looked straight in my eyes and softly smiled before leaning forward and pressing his forehead against mine. I smiled softly as his nose bumped up against mine in an Eskimo kiss before he kissed it and went back to doctoring my hands.

Once they were bandaged up John adjusted my pillows and soon Brian came up and he said.

“How are things up here?”

“Well I’m officially the mummy’s wife” I joked as I raised up my bandaged palms.  The two of them chuckled then Brian came in and he sat down beside me as he handed me a cuppa of Jasmine tea.

“Your favorite, just how you like it.”

“Thanks Bri,” I took the mug and took a small sip and hummed in content.

“Dinner is served madam.” Freddie gestured as Roger came in with a tray with my meal, plus a plate of cracker, and some ham and cheese sandwiches.

“You guys really did go the full yard of pampering.” I said as the tray was sat down in front of me.

“All the best for our little angel.” Freddie said as he gingerly took one of my hands and kissed my fingers, his tache lightly tickling them. I then began eating my masala and my taste buds had died and gone to heaven.

“Oh my god, Rog this is…..this is incredible.”

“Thank you darling, of course I had help from Fred here.” I thanked them both and continued eating.  I would occasionally dip the crackers into the masala for a little kick.  I then moved to the sandwiches before finally feeling so full I felt like I was going to burst.

“Ohh that was so good,” Brian gathered my now empty tea mug and placed it on top of the tray and he took it back down to the kitchen.

Once he came back, I noticed he had actually brought up one of the acoustic guitars.  Probably the one I may have left in the kitchen one time just to practice my chords and experiment with a song.

“Alright now that that belly of yours is full, its time you got some sleep.” Freddie said.  Brian strummed on the guitar and I said.

“You guys are gonna sing me to sleep?”

“What better way, with the way your little brain has been buzzing lately, it needs a sedative. Allow us to be that sedative you need.” Brian then began to play notes to “Love of my Life”.  Even without a piano, it still sounded just as beautiful as Freddie began to sing the song.

I adjusted myself to lay down on the bed as Fred kept singing the song and soon the rest of the guys joined in on the backup vocals.  Their voices harmonizing so beautiful which soothed my mind and I began to relax and shut my eyes.

“The next day after just hanging around the farm, in thanks for all that they’ve done I asked them if they’d be interested in being featured in my album, at first they were hesitant but I managed to convince them and so we got to recording once my hands were better of course. And as for the song I had a problem with, it was fixed up when I decided to make one version of the song just me singing, and then the same song featuring Queen, which to be honest I prefer the latter’s version.”

“So what’s up next for you?”

“Well I’m gonna take a summer vacation but then get ready for my first ever European tour.”

“Well, all the best of luck to you. (Y/n) (l/n)’s album hits the shelves this summer and you can catch her up in her upcoming tour. We’ll be right back after these messages.” With that we went off the air.

After my interview I was back at my flat and collapsed into my couch after having to wake up at 4am just to get to the station and get ready for that interview.  Just before I went back to sleep, my phone rang and I groaned as I answered it.

“Hello.”

‘We saw your first television debut love.’ I heard Brian’s voice say on the other end.

“Did I screw up?”

‘You were perfect darling, and the press won’t hold anything against you. Well done love.’ I heard Roger’s voice say.

“Thanks lads, well I’m bloody exhausted these past few months have been brutal, I’m getting some sleep and sleeping until supper time.”

‘Alright love, you deserve the rest. Rog and I will pop in on you later to make sure you aren’t oversleeping too much.’

“Okay, good day guys.”

‘Sleep well love.’ I heard them both say. With that I hung up the phone and fell right asleep there on my couch.

#bohemian rhapsody #bohemian rhapsody imagines #bohemian rapsody movie #bohemian rhapsody imagine #bohemian rhapsody x reader #roger taylor #freddie mercury #john deacon #brian may #brian may x reader #roger taylor x reader #john deacon x reader #freddie mercury x reader #queen imagine #queen imagines #queen fanfiction

[taylorftparamore]

YOU CUT OUT ALL TOO WELL??????

i mean... starting from debut, let’s show all the bridges that got cut that definitely didn’t deserve to be cut but y’all let them get cut anyway, hm?

“you never did give a damn thing honey but i cried, cried for you. and i know you wouldn’t have told nobody if i’d die, die for you, die for you.” (cold as you)

“if you and i are a story that never gets told, if what you are is a daydream then at least you’ll know.” (stay beautiful)

“you stood there in the doorway my hand shake, i’m not usually this way. you pull me in and i’m a little more brave, it’s the first kiss, it’s flawless, it’s really somethin. it’s fearless.” (fearless)

“when all you wanted was to be wanted, wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now. back then i swore i was gonna marry him but i realized some bigger dreams of mine. and abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind, we both cried.” (fifteen)

“i got tired of waitin, wonderin if you were ever comin around. my faith in you was fadin. when i met you on the outskirts of town, and i said, ‘romeo, save me. i’ve been feelin so alone. i keep waitin for you but you never come.’ he knelt to the ground and pulled out a ring.” (love story)

“they’re dimmin the streetlights, you’re perfect for me, why aren’t you here tonight? i’m waitin alone now so come out and pull me near and shine, shine, shine. hey stephen, i could give you fifty reasons why i should be the one you chose. all those other girls, well, they’re beautiful, but would they write a song for you?” (hey stephen)

“and there you on your knees, begging for forgiveness, beggin for me. just like i always wanted, but i’m so sorry.” (white horse)

“i remember you drivin to my house in the middle of the night, i’m the one who makes you laugh when you know you’re bout to cry. and i know your favorite songs and you tell me bout your dreams, think i know where you belong, think i know it’s with me.” (you belong with me)

“i have an excellent father, his strength is making me stronger got smiles on my little brother, inside and out he’s better than i am. i grew up in a pretty house and i had space to run and i had the best day... with you. there is a video i found round back when i was three. you set up a paint set in the kitchen and you’re talkin to me. it’s the age of princess and the seven dwarves. my daddy’s smart and you’re the prettiest lady in the whole wide world. now i know why all the leaves change in the fall.” (the best day, typing this one out made me fuckin CRY, bitch how DARE y’all cut this one)

“i run my fingers through your hair and watch the lights go wild. just keep on keeping your eyes on me, it’s just wrong enough to make it feel right. and lead me up the staircase, won’t you whisper something slow? i’m captivated by you, baby, like a fireworks show.” (sparks fly)

“i miss your tan skin, your sweet smile, so good to me, so right. and how you held me in your arms that september night, the first time you ever saw me cry. maybe this is wishful thinkin, probably mindless dreamin, but if we loved again i swear i’d love you right. i’d go back in time and change it, but i can’t. so if the chain is on your door, i understand. (back to december)

“take pictures in your childhood room, memorize what it sounded like when your dad gets home. remember the footsteps, remember the words said and the words to all your little brother’s favorite songs. i just realized everything i ever had is someday gonna be gone. so here i am in my new apartment in the big city, they just dropped me off. it’s so much colder than i thought it would be so i tuck myself in and turn my night light on. wish i’d never grown up.” (never grow up)

“time turns flames to embers, you’ll have new septembers, everyone of us has messed up too. lives change like the weather, i hope you remember today is never too late to be brand new.” (innocent)

“so i’ll watch your life in pictures like i used to watch sleep and i feel you forget me like i used to watch you breathe. and i’ll keep up with your old friends just to ask how you are. hope it’s nice where you are. (last kiss)

“this is the state of grace. this is the worthwhile fight. love is a ruthless game unless you play it good and right. these are the hands of fate. you’re my achilles’ heel. this is the golden age of something good and right and real.” (state of grace)

“remembering him comes in flashbacks and echos. tell myself ‘it’s time now’, gotta let him go. but movin on from him isn’t possible when i still see it all in my head, burnin red.” (red)

“two headlights shine through the sleepless night, and i will get you, get you alone. your name has echoed through my mind and i just think you should, think you should know that nothing safe is worth the drive and i will follow you, follow you home. i’d follow you, follow you home.” (treacherous)

“oh, we made quite a mess, babe. it’s probably better off this way. and i confess, babe, in my dreams you’re touching my face and asking me if i want to try again. and i almost do.” (i almost do)

“you took the time to memorize me, my fears, my hopes, my dreams i just like hanging out with you all the time. all those times that you didn’t leave it’s been occurring to me that i’d like to hang out with you all the time, stay.” (stay stay stay)

“it was a few years later i showed up here and they still the legend of how you disappeared. how you took the money and your dignity and got the hell out. they say you bought a bunch of land somewhere, chose the rose garden over madison square. and it took some time, but i understand it now. (the lucky one)

“what do you say when tears are streaming down your face in front of everyone you know? and what do you do when the one who means the most to you is the one that didn’t show?” (the moment i knew)

“this is falling in love in the cruelest way. this is falling for you when you are worlds away. new york, be here. but you’re in london and i break down cause it’s not fair that you’re not around.” (come back... be here...)

i feel the “you cut all too well” loses weight when y’all let EIGHT tracks from red get cut. let’s keep going regardless, cause y’all let some GOOD 1989, reputation, and lover bridges get cut.

“your kiss, my cheek, i watch you leave. your smile, my ghost, i fell to my knees. when you’re young you just run but you come back to what you need.” (this love)

“they are the hunters, we are the foxes. and we run. just grab my hand and don’t ever drop it, my love.” (i know places)

“ten months sober i must admit, just because you’re clean don’t mean you don’t miss it. ten months older, i won’t give in. now that i’m clean i’m never gonna risk it.” (clean)

“i reached for you but you were gone. i knew i had to go back home. you search the world for something else to make you feel like what we had but in the end in the wonderland we both went mad.” (wonderland)

“please take my hand and please take me dancing and please leave me stranded, it’s so romantic.” (new romantics)

“they’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one. they got their pitchforks and proof, their receipts and reasons. they’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one, so light me up. go ahead and light me up, light me up, light me up, light me up. go ahead and light me up, light me up, light me up.” (i did something bad)

“they’re burning all the witches even if you aren’t one. they got their pitchforks and proof, their receipts, they don’t need their proof. they’re burning all the witches and it’s just for fun. so light me up! light me up! light me up! light me up, light me up, go ahead and light me....” (i did something bad tour version)

“i don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me, i’ll be the actress starrin in your bad dreams. i don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me, i’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams. i’m sorry, the old taylor can’t come to the phone right now. why? oh! cause she’s dead.” (look what you made me do)

“you did a number on me but honestly, baby, who’s countin? i did a number on you, but honestly, baby, who’s countin? who’s countin? 1, 2, 3, and all the pieces fall” (so it goes...)

“we were jet set bonnie and clyde, til i switched to the other side, the other side. it’s no surprise i turned you in cause us traitors never win. i’m in a getaway car. i left you in the motel bar. put the money in the bag and i stole the keys, that was the last time you ever saw me.” (getaway car)

“i’d kiss you as the lights go down, swaying as the room burned down. i’d hold you as the water rushes if i could dance with you again. i’d kiss you as the lights go down, swaying as the room burned down, i’d hold you as the water rushes in if i could dance with you again.” (dancing with our hands tied)

“flashback when you met me with your buzzcut and my hair bleached, even in the worst times you could see the best of me. flashback to my mistakes, my rebounds, my earthquakes even in my worst lies you could see the truth in me. and i woke up in just in time. now i wake up by your side. my one and only, my lifeline, and i woke up just in time, now i wake up by your side. my hands shake, i can’t explain this ah ah, ah” (dress)

“i want to wear his initial on a chain round my neck, chain round my neck not because he owns me but cause he really knows which is more than they can say. i recall late november, holdin my breath, slowly i said, ‘you don’t need to save me, but would you run away with me?’ yes.” (call it what you want)

“would you please stand? with every guitar string scar on my hand, i take this magnetic force of man to be my lover. my heart’s been borrowed and yours had been blue, all’s well that ends well to end up with you. swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover. and you’ll save all your dirtiest jokes for me. and at every table, i’ll save you a seat, lover.” (lover)

“what’s it like to brag about rakin in dollars and getting bitches and models? and it’s all good if you’re bad and it’s okay if you’re mad? if i was out flashin my dollars, i’d be a bitch not a baller. they paint me out to be bad so it’s okay that i’m mad.” (the man)

“cause they see right through me, they see right through me, they see right through me. can you see right through me? they see right through, they see right through me. i see right through me! i see right through me! all the kings horse and all the king’s men couldn’t put me back together again, cause all of my enemies started out friends, help me hold on to you.” (the archer)

“lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hand on my thigh, we can follow the sparks, i’ll drive. lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hand on my thigh, we can follow the sparks, i’ll drive. so where we gonna go? i whisper in the dark. where we gonna go? i think he knows.” (i think he knows)

“i want to drive away with you, i want your complications too, i want your dreary mondays, wrap your arms around me, baby boy. i want to drive away with you, i want your complications too, i want your dreary mondays, wrap your arms around me, baby boy.” (paper rings)

“and i hate to make this about me, but who am i supposed to talk to if there’s no you? this won’t go back to normal, if it ever was. it’s been years of hopin and i keep sayin it cause i have to.” (soon you’ll get better)

like you’re telling me out of ALL THESE SONGS that got cut, all too well’s bridge is the only one worth being outraged about? grow up.

#long post #literally y'all slept on ALL of these bridges but now that atw got cut in the final round (it made it ALL THE WAY TO THE FINAL ROUND) #suddenly you're OUTRAGED? #get real grow up #that's not even including all the amazing bridges that WERE NOT NOMINATED #y'all absolutely slept on afterglow & false god #and like half of 1989's bridges too #like fr i cannot believe after all the red songs that wound up cut #all too well is the only one i get an Outraged Message about #Anonymous

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

An Everyday Hero by Laura Trentham

Heart of a Hero #2

Eagerly anticipated and well worth waiting for! The second book in this series takes on a new set of characters living in a new town but continues to deal with life issues of military veterans and the people that are in their lives. In some ways it is the story of dreams and goals that were held dear for years and yet something happened in life to derail, detour or destroy the dream from appearing as reality. Greer had dreams of being a hit in the music business, Emmett dreamed of adding to the family military legacy in a big way, Ally and her mother dreamed of a family life with father and husband and yet...those expectations were not to be. And yet...when things don’t go as expected there is always the opportunity to do one of two things...wallow or move on and make the best of it. I really enjoyed this book!

What I liked:

* Greer: banged up and bruised and wallowing a bit she is given a job to do and in doing community service impacts Ally and Emmett in ways that improved her life, too. I liked the way she interacted with Emmett and with Ally...she is a person I wouldn’t mind having as a friend.

* Emett: withdrawn and nursing his wounds he is hermit-ting and wallowing until Greer shows up and begins to draw him out. When he started to emerge I really REALLY began to like him.

* Ally: an old soul that had more on her plate than a fifteen year old should have to deal with. She was tough with a soft center – was rooting for hermit-i

* The parents of Emmett and Greer – they were a soft place to land for their children even though their children might not have always realized it. It did take a bit to warm up to Emmett’s father but all’s well that ends well.

* The military persons from old and current wars that made appearances

* Eddie the horse and Bonnie the cat

* The big reveal...and how it impacted more than one

* Even the sad bits were heartwarming and gave a positive vibe for the future

* The “realness” of the story

What I didn’t like:

* The fact that sometimes people, for whatever reason, opt to escape and in doing so harm not only themselves but others...but...that is life. If those people are lucky they will have people come into their lives that can help them do a U-Turn.

I can’t wait for book three…

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press – Griffin for the ARC – This is my honest review.

5 Stars

SYNOPSIS

Laura Trentham, the author of The Military Wife, is back with an emotionally charged novel about redemption and second chances. In the vein of Josie Silver’s One Day in December, AN EVERYDAY HERO (St. Martin’s Griffin, February 4, 2020, $16.99), explores the challenges of a relationship and ultimately discovering that love…and joy is worth fighting for.  

At thirty, Greer Hadley never expected to be forced home to Madison, Tennessee with her life and dreams of being a songwriter up in flames. To make matters worse, a series of bad decisions and even crappier luck lands her community service hours at a nonprofit organization that aids veterans and their families. Greer cannot fathom how she’s supposed to use music to help anyone deal with their trauma and loss when the one thing that brought her joy has failed her.

Then there's Emmett Lawson, the golden boy who followed his family’s legacy. Greer shows up one day with his old guitar, and meets Emmett’s rage head on with her stubbornness. A dire situation pushes these two into a team to save a young teenager, but maybe they will save themselves too. . .

BUY LINKS

Macmillan: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250145550

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250145554?tag=macmillan-20

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/an-everyday-hero-laura-trentham/1131936712;jsessionid=B7619745B109010F501CA5500AB3BAF3.prodny_store02-atgap02?ean=9781250145550#/

Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/product/9781250145550?AID=42121&PID=7992675&cjevent=1101dd10476711ea83cc00ae0a240614

Indie Bound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781250145550?aff=macmillan

Powell’s: https://www.powells.com/book/an-everyday-hero-9781250145550?partnerid=33241

EXCERPT

Chapter 1

“Disorderly conduct. Public intoxication. Resisting arrest.” Judge Duckett put down the paper, linked his hands, and stared over his reading glasses from his perch behind the bench with a combination of exasperation and fatherly disapproval.

Greer Hadley shifted in her sensible heels and smoothed the skirt of the light pink suit she’d borrowed from her mama for the occasion. “I’ll give you the first two, Uncle Bill—” The judge cleared his throat and narrowed his eyes. “Excuse me—Judge Duckett—but I did not resist arrest.”

“That you recall.” Deputy Wayne Peeler drawled the words out in the most sarcastic, unprofessional manner possible.

She fisted her hands and took a deep breath. The impulse to punch Wayne in the face simmered below the surface like a volcano no longer at rest. But ten o’clock on a Monday morning during her arraignment was not the smartest time to lose her temper, and she’d promised herself not to add to her string of bad decisions.

She sweetened her voice and bared her teeth at Wayne in the facsimile of a smile. “I recall plenty, thank you very much.”

Truth was she didn’t recall the minute details, but the shock of Wayne’s whispered offer on Saturday night to make her troubles go away for a price had done more to sober her up than the couple of hours spent in lockup waiting for her parents.

Dressed in his tan uniform, Wayne adjusted his heavy gun belt so often she imagined he got off every night by rubbing his gun. Giving him a badge had only empowered the part of him desperate for respect and approval. His nickname in high school, “the Weasel,” had been well earned.

Unfortunately, she was the unreliable narrator of her life at the moment and no one would trust her recollections. Judge Duckett, her uncle Bill by marriage until he and her aunt Tonya had divorced, rustled papers from his desk.

The ethics of her former uncle acting as her judge were questionable, especially considering they had remained close even after he’d remarried, but if nepotism is what it took to make this nightmare go away, then she wouldn’t be the one to lodge a complaint.

“A witness claimed you were sitting quietly at the end of the bar until a song played on the jukebox. What was the song?” Her uncle glanced at her over his glasses again, which made him look like a stern teacher.

“‘Before He Cheats’ by Carrie Underwood.” She forced her chin up.

His mouth opened, closed, and he dropped his gaze back to the paper. A murmur broke out behind her.

She would not cry. She wouldn’t. She blinked like her life depended on a tear not falling. Later, in the privacy of her childhood bedroom, she would bury her face in the eyelet-covered pillow and let loose.

Beau Williams, her cheating ex-boyfriend, was only partially to blame for her embarrassing behavior. It was a confluence of setbacks that had had her holding down the end of the bar. Hearing Carrie’s revenge anthem had hit a nerve exposed by the shots of Jack. Rage had quickened the effects of the alcohol, and that’s when things got fuzzy.

“Yes, well. That is a rather … Let’s move on, shall we? The witness also claims after a heartfelt, albeit slurred speech about the vagaries of relationships and how the moral fiber of the Junior League of Madison was frayed, you fed five dollars into the jukebox and played the same song for over an hour. ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline, was it?”

Ugh. She didn’t recall how much money she’d fed the machine, but it sounded like something she would do. “Crazy” was one of her favorite songs. A master class in conveying emotion through simple lyrics. She was just sorry she’d wasted five dollars on Beau. He didn’t deserve her money, her heart, or Patsy.

“No one can fault my taste in the classics.” Greer tried a smile, but her lips quivered and she pressed them together.

Her uncle continued to read from the witness statement, “You proceeded to throw two glasses on the floor, shattering them, and attempted to break a chair across the jukebox.”

She swallowed hard. A vague picture of a frustratingly sturdy chair surfaced. The fact the chair remained intact while she was falling apart had sent her anger soaring higher and hotter. A glance from her uncle Bill over the paper had her giving him a nod. She couldn’t deny it.

He continued, “A patron called 911. When Deputy Peeler arrived, he pulled you away from the jukebox and forced you outside. That’s where, he claims, you kicked him … well, you know where.”

“Wayne dragged me down the stairs—”

“Deputy Peeler, if you please.” Wayne sniffed loudly.

“As Deputy Peeler escorted me down the stairs, I lost my balance and fell. The heel of my shoe jabbed into his crotch. Sorry.” Greer didn’t make an attempt to mask her not-sorry voice with fake respect.

If she accused Wayne of misbehavior on the job, he would deny it and spin it somehow to make her look even more irresponsible. Lord knows, she’d embarrassed her parents enough for a lifetime. Anyway, seeing him rolling on the ground and cupping his crotch had been sweet payback.

“I sustained an injury where that spike you call a heel caught me.” Wayne half turned toward her.

Instead of playing it smart and soothing his delicate male ego, she batted her eyes at him. “I’m sure that’s left the ladies of Madison real upset.”

Wayne took a step toward her. “You are such a—”

The gavel knocked against the bench and her uncle stood, looming over them. “I’ve heard enough, Deputy. Sit down.”

Wayne turned on his heel and left Greer to face her uncle Bill. This was where she would promise such a thing would never happen again, and he would give her a stern warning before dismissing all charges.

“I’m striking the resisting arrest charge. It was an accident.”

Greer forced herself not to look over her shoulder and stick her tongue out at Wayne. That left only two misdemeanors, which her uncle could expunge with a swipe of his pen.

He settled behind the bench and picked up his pen, his gaze on the papers. “You will pay for any damages.”

“I’ve already reimbursed Becky.” Technically, she’d had to use her parents’ money, considering she’d crawled home from Nashville broke. “And apologized profusely. You can be assured there will not be a repeat performance. I’ve learned my lesson.”

“Good. As for the other charges…”

Her deep breath cleansed a portion of the tension across her shoulders, and a smile born of relief appeared.

“You will perform fifty hours of community service.”

Her smile froze on her face. It sounded like a lot, but she’d been stupid and immature and deserved punishment. “I understand. Clean roads are important.”

“Litter pickup? Goodness no.” He took his glasses off and smiled at her for the first time, but it wasn’t the jolly-uncle smile she was familiar with. “You have talents that would be wasted on the side of the road picking up trash, Ms. Hadley. You will spend your fifty hours working at the Music Tree Foundation.”

“I’m not familiar with it.” She swallowed. The mention of music set her stomach roiling. “Highway 45 was in terrible shape on my drive in last week.”

“The foundation is a nonprofit music program that focuses on helping military veterans and their families cope with the trauma they’ve endured serving our country. They’re in need of volunteer songwriters and musicians.”

“I can’t write or play anymore.” Her dream of hearing one of her songs on the radio had died. Not in a blaze of glory but from a slow, torturous starvation of hope. At thirty, she was resigned to finding a real job and cobbling together a normal life in the place she’d tried to leave behind.

“My decision is final. As far as I can determine, your brain—despite this lapse in judgment—is in fine working order. You can and will help these men and women heal through your gift of music. Unless you’d rather spend thirty days in county lockup?”

Would her uncle actually throw her in jail? For a month? “No, Your Honor, I don’t want to go to county lockup.”

“Good. Once you turn in your log with all your hours signed off by the foundation’s manager, your record with this court will be cleared.” He handed her file to a clerk. “Case closed. Next up is docket number fourteen.”

She stood there until he met her gaze with his unflinching one. “Go home, Greer.”

Her parents were waiting at the door to the courtroom. While they’d faced the horror of having to bail their only child out of jail stoically, her mother’s embarrassment and disappointment were ripe and all-encompassing. Greer wilted and trailed her parents out of the courthouse.

She felt like a child. An incompetent, needy child living in her old bedroom and dependent on her parents for emotional and financial support. She thought she’d hit rock bottom many times over the years, but her situation now had revealed new lows.

The silence in the car built into a painful crescendo.

“The tiger lilies are lovely this year, don’t you think?” Her mother’s attempt at normalcy was strained but welcome.

Her father’s hands squeaked along the steering wheel as an answer.

Greer huddled in the backseat and stared out the window, the clumps of flowers on the side of the road an orange blur. As a teenager, she’d chafed at her parents’ protectiveness and had wanted nothing more than to escape to Nashville, where she’d been convinced glory and fame awaited. Now she was home and a disappointment not only to her parents but to herself. Even worse, she hadn’t come up with a plan to turn her life around.

“Ira Jenkins is back in the hospital. I thought I’d run by and check on him. Since Sarah passed, he seems a shell of the man he once was.” Her mother turned to face the backseat. “Would you like to come with me? I’m sure he’d be happy to see you.”

“He won’t remember me, Mama.”

“I’m sure he will.”

Greer scrunched farther down in the seat. The last thing she wanted was to make small talk with a man she hadn’t seen in years.

“You’ll have to get out eventually and face the music.” Her mother’s smile wavered and threatened to turn into tears. “So to speak.”

Her mother was trying, which was more than could be said for Greer at the moment. Her parents deserved a better daughter. Someone successful they could brag on at the Wednesday-night potlucks at church. Not a daughter they had to bail out of jail.

“I will. I promise. Just not to see Mr. Jenkins.” Greer leaned forward and squeezed her mother’s hand over the seat, needing to give her something to hope for even if Greer wasn’t sure what that might be.

Her father cleared his throat. “You need to think about the future.”

He ignored her mother’s whispered, “Not now, Frank.”

“A job. Or back to school. We’ll put you through nursing or accounting or something useful.” He shifted to meet her gaze in the rearview mirror. “But you can’t keep on like you’re doing. You need a purpose.”

“I’ll start looking for a job tomorrow.” School had never been her wheelhouse. She’d been sure she’d make it in Nashville and had never formulated a backup plan.

They pulled up to her childhood home, a two-story brick Colonial on the main street of Madison, Tennessee. Oaks had been planted down a middle island like a line of soldiers at attention. They had grown to shade both sides of the street. It was picturesque and cast the imagination back to a time when ladies lounged on porches with their iced tea and gossiped with their neighbors to escape the heat of summer. Air-conditioning had altered that way of life.

At one time, as a kid, she’d known every family up and down the street well enough to knock on their door for help or run through their backyard in epic games of tag. Now, though, the houses were being bought up by people who used Madison to escape the bustle of an expanding Nashville. They built pools in the backyards and fences and weren’t outside except to walk their trendy dogs.

The march of progress through Madison added to her melancholy sadness. There was a reason not being able to go home again was a recurring theme in books and songs.

“We love you, Greer. You know that, don’t you?” Her mother’s voice was tight with emotion, but she didn’t turn around, thank goodness.

Her mother never cried and if Greer witnessed tears, she would burst into sobs herself and embarrass everyone.

“I know. Thanks for everything. I’m going to do better. Be better.” It seemed a wholly inadequate promise she wasn’t even sure she could keep, but it was all she could manage. She ducked out of the car and skipped around to a side door of the house that was always unlocked.

Her room was both a haven and a mocking reminder of the state of her life. Posters of album covers papered the wall behind her bed, the colors faded from the sun and the edges curling with age.

In high school, she’d gravitated toward indie folk artists and away from the commercially driven country-music machine located a few miles south. Joan Baez was flanked by Patty Griffin and Dolly Parton. Even though Dolly veered more country than Greer, no one could deny the legend’s songwriting chops. The guitar Greer had hocked for rent money had borne Dolly’s signature like a talisman. Sometimes Greer ached for her guitar like a missing limb.

The flashing glimpse of a woman in a pale pink suit stopped her in the middle of the floor. She turned to face the full-length mirror glued to the back of the closet door. God, it was like glimpsing her mom through a time warp.

Greer touched the delicate pearls that had been passed down to her on her eighteenth birthday. They were old-fashioned and traditional and stereotypical of a Southern “good girl.” Not her style. She’d left them in her dresser drawer when she’d left home the day after high school graduation.

A tug of recognition of the women who had come before her had her clutching the strand in her hand as if something lost were now found. Was it her circumstances or her age growing her nostalgia like a tree setting roots?

She turned around to break the connection with the stranger in the mirror, stripped off the pink suit, and pulled on jeans and a cotton oxford. Her mother would appreciate seeing her in something besides the frayed shorts and grungy concert T-shirts she’d lounged around in the last week. She reached behind her neck for the clasp of the necklace, but her hands stilled, then dropped to her sides, leaving the pearls in place.

She stepped out of her room and was enveloped in silence. Her father had returned to his insurance office and her mother must have set off for her hospital visit. The house took on an expectant quality, as if waiting for its true owners to return. She was no longer a fundamental part of this world. Not unwelcome, perhaps, but a loose cog in her parents’ lives.

She tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen and made herself a ham sandwich. May was too early for fresh tomatoes, but in another month or two her mother’s garden would make tomato sandwiches an everyday treat.

Craving an escape, Greer grabbed a book and settled in her favorite window seat. The rest of the afternoon passed in the same expectant silence. The chime of the doorbell made her start and drop her book. If she pretended no one was home, maybe whoever was on the front porch would go away. The last thing she wanted was to face one of Madison’s gossips masquerading as a do-gooder.

The creak of the door opening had her bolting to her feet.

“Greer? I know you’re home. Are you decent?” Her uncle Bill’s booming voice echoed in the two-story foyer.

She propped her shoulder in the doorway of the sunroom. “Letting yourself in people’s houses is a good way of getting shot around here.”

“While your mama would have liked to have shot me during the divorce with her sister, I hope we’ve made our peace.” He closed the door behind him and Greer did what she’d wanted to do in the courtroom—she threw herself at him for a hug.

He lifted her off her feet and spun her once around. Her laugh hit her ears like a foreign language. It had been too long since she’d laughed from a place of happiness.

“You could have just come out to the house. You didn’t have to get arrested to see me.” Bill let her go, and she led him into the sunroom.

“Do you want something to drink?” Greer asked, already turning for the kitchen and the fresh brewed pitcher of sweet iced tea.

“No, thanks. Mary has fried chicken ready to go in the pan, so I can’t stay long.”

Bill had divorced her aunt Tonya more than a decade earlier and married the choir director of the biggest black church in town. A scandal had ensued not because he’d married a black woman, but because he, a long-standing deacon in the Church of Christ, had converted to a heathen Methodist.

“How is Mary?”

“Always singing.” He shook his head, an indulgent smile on his face, as they settled into their seats.

His comment sprinkled salt on an open wound. She’d begged off going to church with her parents because of the questions she was sure to face and the hymns she couldn’t bring herself to sing. Some of her earlier happiness at seeing him leaked out. “Good for her.”

“I came to make sure you weren’t mad at me.”

“Why would I be mad?”

“I got the impression you expected me to dismiss the charges.” His smile turned into a wince.

“I wouldn’t have been upset if you had, but I get it. I was an idiot and deserve punishment.” She picked at the fringe on a decades-old needlepoint pillow and cast him a pleading glance. “I’d rather pick up trash, though, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s not the same to me.” He crossed his long legs and tapped a finger on the cherry armrest of the antique chair that looked ready to surrender at any moment to his bulk. “Do you remember Amelia Shelton?”

“Mary’s daughter? She was a couple of years ahead of me in school. We didn’t hang out or anything, but she seemed nice.” Greer couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Amelia. Greer’s side of the family had skipped Bill and Mary’s small wedding ceremony; the acrimony between him and her aunt Tonya hadn’t faded at that point.

“Amelia is the founder and director of the Music Tree Foundation and is desperate for qualified volunteers. You’ve been playing and singing and writing music since you were knee high. It was meant to be.”

“It’s not meant to be. I’ve got to get a real job.”

Her uncle made a scoffing sound. “You’re too much like my Mary. You could never leave music behind.”

“Music dumped me on the side of the road, gave me the finger, and peeled out.” Greer shook her head and touched the string of pearls, her gaze on his polished black dress shoes. “I’m a mess, Uncle Bill. I have nothing to offer. In fact, I’ll probably make things worse for whatever poor soul I get paired with.”

She expected him to argue, but he seemed to be weighing the truth in her words like the scales of justice. His shrug wasn’t in the least reassuring. “Amelia has done something really special with her foundation. It might do you a world of good to focus on someone besides yourself.”

“Dang, that’s harsh.”

He patted her knee. “I’ve seen all kinds come through my courtroom. The ones who turn it around are the ones who quit feeling sorry for themselves.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Beau is an asshole. Not the first or the last you’re likely to encounter. Don’t you deserve better than him?”

“Yes?” She wished she’d been able to put more conviction into the word.

Beau was successful, nice-looking—even though a bald spot was conquering his hair day by day—and respected in their town. They’d known each other since high school, but had only started dating in the last year.

He was solid and steady and comfortable. Three things lacking from her life. Catching him cheating with the president of the Junior League had been another seismic shift in her world, leaving her unsure and off balance.

“If you can’t believe in yourself yet, then believe me. You are talented, Greer, and you have the ability to help people find their voice.” He slipped a card out of his wallet. When she didn’t reach for it, he waved it in her face until she took it.

A tree styled with musical symbols of all different colors decorated one side of the card. She ran her thumb over the raised black ink of Amelia’s name and an address on the outskirts of Nashville. “I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Not if you want to stay in my—and the court’s—good graces. She’s expecting you tomorrow at three.”

“No rest for the wicked, huh?” Her smile was born of sarcasm.

Bill rose and ruffled her hair like he had when she was little. “Not wicked. Lost.”

Greer walked him out, brushed a kiss on his cheek, and murmured her thanks. She leaned on the porch rail and waved until he disappeared down the street.

I once was lost, and now I’m found. She’d sung “Amazing Grace” so many times that the lyrics had ceased to have an impact. But, standing on her childhood front porch, having come full circle, a shiver went down her spine, and goose bumps broke over her arms despite the heat that wavered over the pavement like a mirage. Her granny would have said that someone had walked over her grave. Maybe so. Or maybe change was a-coming whether she wanted to face up to it or not.

Copyright © 2020 by Laura Trentham

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Laura Trentham is an award winning romance author. The Military Wife is her debut women’s fiction novel. A chemical engineer by training and a lover of books by nature, she lives in South Carolina.

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#Laura Trentham #Heart of a Hero 2 #St. Martin’s Press – Griffin #NetGalley #Military Veteran Romance #Contemporary Romance #Small Town Romance

[ordersreality]

Shadow of the Skull

Well, I woke up in ICU again. I don’t even remember moving. James sat quietly in a chair, resting, letting his mind wander. I gave way to an urge to stretch. I tried to be quiet about it, two others needed rest, too. Still, James’ mind snapped to, checking up on me, making sure I didn’t need him.

Mentally, I said it was just a stretch.

Mentally, he told me they replaced the crude stitches in my face with finer ones.

Thanks.

I let my mind wander for a bit. The emergency room was still full and then some. I guess that Jubilant won’t be going away anytime soon.

James smiled a little at that. Then told me to get some rest.

Nothing doing. See, I tried to do that, but I had an urgent call from nature.

I felt vaguely like I did when I woke up in that hole. I had to fight with my body to make it move. Vaguely, because as I move parts they came alive again. I might have walked like a drunken sailor but I got to the toilet in time.

.•.•.

Well, I guess money really does ease some pain. I bet it’ll buy happiness, and rent love real cheep, too.

See, Uncle Ronnie came to take me home. I expected the process to take a couple hours, or so. Nope.

James got me ready to go while one of Gwyn’s assistants took care of administrative details. Turns out Gwyn had things in the office to take care of. On Sunday? I’m grateful and all, but how about a day off for someone who’s about to die?

The bus stop became an exercise in privacy rights. Ten people sat or stood there waiting for one of two buses, this being Sunday schedule. The human mind can sure thrash on matters that don’t really seem important. Of course, they haven’t just walked away from a major, life threatening event, have they? Would that really make such a difference?

Focus, with your eyes to target your skills.

The man on the other side of Uncle Ronnie is thinking pornographic thoughts. The woman next to him is trying to pray her Sunday hours, but her husband came home the night before drunk and guns blazing. Must be where the bruise on her arm came from. What can I really do about that? Hay, lady, learn to defend yourself! You are worth more than that.

Shit, she’s starting to cry. Did I do that? If I did, was it a good thing or did I make matters worse?

I turned my eyes to the road. What can I do about all this? What kind of damage could I do before I get this under control?

Uncle Ronnie seemed to have noticed my mood. Did he say cheer up or what’s wrong? No. Not that I could have answered him. What could I say, I just made a woman more depressed by sharing thoughts with her?

What he did do was offer me some gum. Blackjack, his favorite. Focus on that sweet licorice taste, maybe keep my mind to myself with that.

.•.•.

Well, the plan seemed simple enough. Aunt Joan would bring Buck and Connie to meet us at the Xalapa Cafe for a special homecoming lunch. I felt a little worried about that, money being that tight, and all. I found a few money makers on line, but it would take me a bit to get that going.

And her cooking is at least as good as the Xalapa’s.

Well, they will clean up after us, too. So there is that. James’ lesson kept coming back to me, what do we value more, ten-dollars or a smile? I guess I’ll just have to earn that ten-dollars with more than a smile.

Well, we got off at Madison and Taft and hit a crowd. Sure, traffic is thick, but we could walk past them if the people would just get out of our way. Not going to happen without a fight.

Seems they had a show to watch, and it is the most fun they’ve had since the brawl at the docks two weeks ago between the dock workers’ union and the police union. Yeah, ironic to the point of scorching fabric.

Well, navigation wasn’t that easy for us. We just had to head up a block, lean to the left, and we’d be in the restaurant. Except the flow of people kept pushing us right until we hit a light spot where a police cruiser had just pulled up.

I suppose I can understand the entertainment value of watching a naked man yelling for them to take them bugs off him. If they could look into his mind they’d be running for the hills. Them bugs looked to be the size of horses, big ones.

And that voice sang along with them. That told me something, he’s on that Jubilant, and he’s about to die. I wanted to do something, see what I could do to save him.

Uncle Ronnie caught me before I could do that.

Shit, what was that? Who’s shooting in this crowd!?

Well, the man went down, as did one of the two officers.

The man couldn’t say anything, his head half blown off, but his mind was screaming for mercy.

Until it didn’t anymore. And I watched as that light freed itself from his body.

The girl carrying that big first aid duffle doesn’t look so good. She has a voice in her head, too. It’s different. Desperate, sure, like it wants to tell her something but can’t get through because the line is messy. And she thinks its just a headache, a bad one and why couldn’t it wait just ten more minutes.

That lean looking fellow who cooks at the Xalapa is a doctor, too? Shit, I didn’t know that. Well, he’s got that officer with the hot gun to stand down so he could fix his partner up for the ambulance.

But I notice the man’s mind has changed. It took a few, but his brain finally stopped working, and another mind seemed to take over. It was like that cheerleader, only I’m over here watching and not just running for my life.

The man rolls around onto his knees, grabs the injured cop by the head, spins him around real fast. That cop didn’t wait to die, just up and did it.

The other cop is shooting at the man. I notice two things, some of them bullets ain’t hitting the man, and the man ain’t noticing the ones that do, even when they nearly take his head off.

Suddenly, in a moment of clarity that girl’s mind just up and yells, “Stop.” I think every mind in that intersection heard that, and not just ‘cause it came out her mouth.

The naked man just dropped. What was left of that light tried to get away, just fly away. But, whatever that other voice is, the one that took him over, well, it seemed to slurp that up like spaghetti.

It took another five minutes or so. I hadn’t realized I’d been pressing into my uncle so hard. I don’t even remember being afraid. Or crying.

Well, that cinches it. My monster might be gone, but there really is another one in town, and he don’t care how old they are.

.•.•.

#Monster Hunters Int #FanFic #Fan Fiction

[isaacscrawford]

Remembering Uwe

By JEFF GOLDSMITH

The healthcare world learned with great sadness this week of the passing of our friend, Uwe Reinhardt. I met Uwe in 1982 at the Federation of American Hospitals meeting in Las Vegas. Uwe opened the meeting by apologizing, in his disarming German accent, for not being his usual sharp self. He had, he said, skipped breakfast because his wife May had instructed him not to pay for anything in Las Vegas that he could get for free at home. This was vintage Reinhardt, innocent and knowing at the same time. That meeting was the beginning of a long and warm friendship.

Uwe would have been acutely uncomfortable with his colleagues referring to him as a “giant” in our field, because he was genuinely humble, and had not forgotten what it felt like growing up poor in the frozen steppes of Manitoba after WWII. And there was no sterner test of humility that occupying the James Madison Professorship of Political Economy at Princeton, just about as flossy an academic title as you will find.

For many years, Uwe taught a standing-room-only undergraduate course in Accounting at Princeton. The way he taught it was as a cleverly disguised course in moral philosophy. A main trope: “how would a ‘seasoned adult’ look at this problem?”  A ‘seasoned adult’ was someone who had lost his or her moral compass and sense of shame. So, where would a ‘seasoned adult’ book a bribe paid to a foreign official to obtain a contract, etc.? He was cleverly goading them not to lose their sense of outrage and their own moral compass, a tricky task without patronizing them.

Uwe had a devastating dry wit. There was the barest hint of vermouth in the Reinhardt martini.

You lived in fear of being placed on a program before him for what he might conceivably say about your talk. Please forgive the following, but I will never forget being on the program with him for the Board of Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina about eight years ago. For some reason, our host had asked Uwe to talk about the current political landscape and me to talk about international health systems and what we could learn from other countries. This was a cruel thing to do, because Uwe had forgotten more about this topic than I know.

So I spent a month preparing this talk. I deconstructed the famous World Health Organization ranking of health systems, in which the US ranked 37th, behind Oman, Malta, San Marino, Switzerland etc., (largely by, effectively, double counting income inequality). And I found some great data it turned out Uwe hadn’t yet seen on WHY the US healthcare is so much more expensive than other countries (hint: ambulatory services dwarfed pharma pricing and the cost of our multi-payer system). As an almost 60-year-old “expert”, I was more nervous giving this talk than I was at my Ph.D. thesis orals at the University of Chicago decades earlier. To my immense relief, he LIKED it, and asked me to send him my slides.

Our last conversation, about a month ago, was about this very topic.   We were talking about the latest round of international cost comparisons, and he said “Our colleagues need to invent a new parlor game. This one is a complete waste of time.” Most of the countries we were unfavorably compared to, he went on, were smaller than Los Angeles County, and had been doing what they had been doing for generations. I riffed on how our health system WAS a country, bigger than Germany, sort of like a successful version of Afghanistan, replete with tribal conflicts, warlords, corruption, a bad communication system, language problems, etc. That reforming the US health system was a LOT harder and more dangerous than invading a middle eastern country like Iraq. He told me to be careful with that one.

He knew when not to be careful. During the 1980’s, he served on the Physician Payment Review Commission, which was eventually folded into MedPac. So he was a fixture on the medical society lecture circuit. On a panel in front of a bunch of physicians, he bridled at a physician who argued that cutting Medicare physician fees would damage the quality of care.

Uwe asked him whether he was going to leave a sponge in a patient after closing him up at surgery because his fee was reduced. That remark put Uwe on the American Medical Association’s “do not call” list for the better part of a decade.

Uwe had a soft heart, and if you wanted him to speak for you and could get to him, he would say “yes” and deeply discount his fee.   After some marital byplay, he eventually delegated the negotiations to his formidable wife, May. He met Tsung-Mei Cheng, a fellow immigrant, while studying graduate economics at Yale. May was the daughter of a Kuomintang (Nationalist Chinese) General who fled mainland China for Taiwan at the end of the Chinese Civil War. Photos of May photoshopped into Russian Commissar garb were a fixture in Uwe’s colorful presentations.

May is an improbable combination of steely, razor sharp and tough minded, but also sweet, gentle and loving. They were the most amazing couple. Delegating negotiation over speaking gigs to May was a classic economist’s move. Who better to place a value on a night away from home than his loving wife and fellow economist? She drove a very hard bargain. Later in his career, Uwe made numerous trips to Asia, “holding May’s coat” as he put it. He took immense pride in May’s role in advising Pacific Rim governments like Singapore and Taiwan on health financing, and eventually mainland China, on their financing reforms.

I talked to Uwe every few weeks or so, for decades.   Whenever something happened in the world that upset me or I just could not wrap my head around, I would call him up and ask him how he felt about it. He had a calming influence on me. I do remember him remarking on what a bad sign it was that so few members of the incoming administration of George W. Bush had passports, and that they could do a lot of harm without knowing it. That was a prescient forecast. The only time I can remember in 35 years where Uwe boiled over into outraged, white hot anger was over the War in Iraq, which he felt put his son, a Marine captain, at needless risk. His son was nearly killed by an IED on a subsequent tour of Afghanistan.

I learned through friends that Uwe got cancer at about the same time I did. He was absolutely not interested in telling me about it and didn’t, though he DID talk about multiple unexplained hospital visits. He also said that after age 65, we are all of us on thin ice, and it doesn’t take much to break through into the freezing cold water. We did appear together in the fall of 2015, both dealing with cancer and neither knowing about the other, in front of a health plan audience in Massachusetts. I blew up on the panel and remarked that if someone referred to a patient one more time as a “consumer” I was going to throw up.   He happily piled on without explaining what he was going through.

I remember Uwe saying once that our colleagues in health policy weren’t going to learn so much by travelling abroad, but that they would return perhaps feeling really lucky about how much talent and resources they had to work with. Our job, he said to me more than once, was to “keep them honest”. He never lost his moral compass, but also never mounted a high horse about it. Despite its manifest flaws, he loved his adopted country. It is VERY hard to imagine this world, and this field, without Uwe in it.

Article source:The Health Care Blog

[gettinghungary]

Food, Glorious Food (and drink)  July 13 and 14

Well this has been a week of self-indulgence from beer baths at the Széchenyi Spa to a Tasting Table dinner to sample wines from the Csopak wine region near Lake Balaton (and eat food that pairs well with it), to a 4-hour gastronomic food walk on the Pest side of the Danube.  

The Beer Spa

Thursday afternoon, I went with friends to the Széchenyi Thermal Baths near the City Park (Városliget) where I have been so many times in my 14 years coming to Hungary, but I wanted to check out the recently opened Beer Spa, which I had read about and posted about on Facebook.  I interviewed Olivér Szarvas, the proprietor who brought the beer spa to Széchenyi, after seeing similar set-ups in the Czech Republic. He arranged to rent space in the bathhouse and after you pay to get into the facility, which is a bit steep even for half a day (about $20 plus extras -- like a cabana, towels, massage, etc.), you will see a sign and a representative in the lobby for the Beer Spa.  She will lead you up a flight of stairs to the beer spa entrance, where you pay another fee depending upon the number of people and the number of wooden tubs (each fits two adults) you want.  Estimate it to be about 20- 25 Euro extra per person.  That gets you unlimited draught beer for the 45-minute session, and since we had some non-drinkers (I tried the beer, but I am not a beer drinker), we also had an interesting pomagranate flavored sparkling beverage. I won’t say soda, because it was almost cider-like.  Before we went in, they showed us what they would put into the tubs--malt, hops,bath salts, and yeast--which made the water whitish at first but it soon turned clear.  After we all got into the tubs, which were lukewarm, not hot, the hostess brought us zsiros kenyer, bread with fat, salt and paprika on it, which is a traditional Hungarian snack, that makes you thirstier, but I guess it goes well with beer.  It tasted too salty for me, but the pomegranate drink tempered the saltiness.  The beer spa can be booked ahead online and, as my friend said, could be a nice way to spend an afternoon or evening with co-worker, friends, or a date.  Well, co-workers would have to be good friends to share a hot tub together, but maybe even a pre-wedding celebration. More later on the rest of the spa experience, which is somewhat different from the Rudas bathhouse.    Find out more at thermalbeerspa.com.  

Tasting Table--Wine Tasting with Dinner

After working up an appetite spending the afternoon at the thermal baths following the beer spa, I was invited by my friend Gabor Banfalvi to a wine tasting and dinner at his company’s establishment, the Tasting Table.  He and his American wife, Carolyn, whom I met at her book signing in New York for Food & Wine Budapest, own a company called Taste Hungary.  It started out as a tour company when someone asked them for help in arranging a simple tour of a food-related location, and they soon grew their business into a number of food and wine tours, high-end tours (like spa and winery tours), and custom tours, which I worked on with them in 2014. (I brought a group of Agricultural Business students to Hungary to learn about the agriculture, viticulture and culinary businesses and policies).  Taste Hungary opened their Tasting Table location behind the National Museum (on Brody Sandor utca) where they offer biweekly Thursday night wine tasting dinners, and sell wines, gift paprika, books on wine and food in Hungary, and offer wine tastings to guests on their food tours at the culimination of the day. The room is in a lower-level room with vaulted brick ceilings reminiscent of a wine cellar, and the windows are close to the ceiling at sidewalk level.  Simple, clean wooden tables and chairs fill the room with the modern kitchen and pouring table at the front of the room near the entrance.

The dinner this week featured wines from the Csopak region on the northern shore of Lake Balaton. It is a region of small family run wineries, mostly, and their special varietals are Olaszrizling (which translates to Italian riesling, but is actually Welsh Reisling varietal), Furmint (a dry wine made with the same grapes used in world-renown Tokaji dessert wines)--both of which are white wines--and Kékfrankos, the most widespread red wine in the area, which is also produced in neighboring Austria as Blau Frankisch.  We learned about the terroir of the region and the difference between Csopaki and Tokaji Furmints. We got to taste the wines and enjoy them with peach soup, trout with mushrooms and spinach, and a summer fruit clafouty dessert. I shared my table with U.S. Embassy staffers--one couple outgoing and one incoming. Each week is a different theme, and the meals are designed around the wines, being cooked as the guests are arriving.   

Taste Hungary will open a  retail wine shop across the street from their Tasting Table location, and Gabor is investigating possibilities for opening another retail shop in Washington, D.C. With the international community, embassies, and visitors to that area, a Hungarian wine shop would be most likely to succeed, as they probably know more about these varietals than most Americans, who are not as knowledgeable or interested in Hungarian wines yet.

If in Budapest, for an introduction to and lesson on quality wines  from the country’s 22 regions (and craft beers), as well as a small but interesting selection of wines and food products to buy, check out the Tasting Room, in walking distance to the Astoria station on the M2 Metro line.  http://tastingtablebudapest.com/ 

Food on your Feet

After my dinner at Tasting Table, Gabor invited me to take a couple of tours--a food tour and a sightseeing tour.  The food tour was the next MORNING, and I was still full from the dinner and wine tasting the night before, so I suggest, since the Pest food walk is offered almost daily, to take it on a day when you are hungry and ready for walking. 

This was honestly more food and drink and learning than I ever expected a food tour to be. A group of four of us met at the entrance to the famous, and now tourist-friendly Vasarcsarnok -- Central Market--in Kalvin Ter.  We were met by Hannah, a PhD student in history and antiquities, who started us off with Unicom, the Hungarian liquer, which is traditionally used to prepare the stomach for digestion.  On to the food vendors for a shared langos (lest we fill up on fried dought, cheese and sour cream).  We wandered through the marketplace and saw the different food vendors, including the vegetable and meat vendors and fish mongers in the lower level.  We tried a selection of salami--which included horse meat, deer meat, mangalica pig, ham, and winter sausage--the creme-de-la-creme of sausage that is the only one that does not use paprika in the making. It is what Hungarians enjoy eating for special occasions, and it was actually quite delicious.  From there we had a selection of pickled vegetables, including the normal gherkins, but miniature watermelons (my grandmother used to pickle watermelon rinds, but these were almost the size of kiwis), garlic cloves--which took away the bite of the raw garlic, cauliflower, and peppers.  Hungarians love their pickled peppers.  These were from Vecses, the primary area for pickled vegetables made by Marika from a family recipe.  Traditional Hungarians believe that pickled vegetables and sauerkraut are good for digestion, and there may be something to the pro-biotic effects of the vinegar used.  

From there we left the building and walked to Rozsavölgyi Csokoládé shop, an award-winning chocolatier where we each got to choose two pieces of handmade, uniquely flavored chocolate--they included choices of coffee and balsamic vinegar chocolate, Earl Grey, orange balsamic, smoked wood, cardamom, and sour cherry raspberry among others.  The taste was so velvety smooth and decadent--just a perfect balance of bitter, sweet, and cocoa that you don’t easily find just anywhere, and that is so satisfying you really learn to appreciate the possibilities of how good food can be when prepared right.

In addition to the handmade individual chocolates for sale, there were shelves of exquisitely packaged gift chocolates, which Hannah said were made with the bean-to-bar method, meaning, the chocolatiers here buy their own coca beans and prepare the chocolate from scratch--directly from the bean themselves, before making each bar.  Hungarian chocolatiers are winning international chocolate competitions, and I think it is a good idea to try them out before they become too well-known as the treasure that they are.  A Madison Avenue, NYC, shop would do well to include these.  http://www.rozsavolgyi.com 

The next round was lunch near the law school and literature school of the ELTE university. We stood outside at a table at Belvarosi Dizsnotoros eating liver and paprika sausages, duck legs, red cabbage, lecso --a tomato, onion and pepper mixture-homemade potatoe chips, freshly grated horseradish and mustard, along with soups. I had cold red currant soup and the one gentleman with us had goulash soup.  I’m not big on eating sausage, but this was actually all tasty and filling and a great, quick lunch.  Hannah, our guide, said that the duck leg was a tradition with Jewish settlers to the area who took on Hungarian culinary traditions but did not want to have the sausage, but wanted some kind of fatty meat that would have the same kind of texture and experience of a Hungarian meal.  She also suggested we mix the freshly grated horseradish in with the red cabbage and eat it with the duck, and yes, it was a delicious combination.  

http://belvarosidisznotoros.hu

The Central Kavehaz

I was thrilled when Hannah brought us to the Central Kavehaz near the Elizabeth Bridge for dessert.  The kavehaz turned 130 years old this year and I had not been there since 2004 or so.  It looked lovelier than I remembered it and there was music--a piano player--by the entrance.  They do offer meals, which I believe are primarily on the upper level, but I may be wrong.  We sat directly in front of the cake display and chose to share four different types of cake among the lot of us--dobos torte, Eszterhazy torte, turos cake with merengue and apricots and a chocolate mousse cake called Opera Cake.  We all ordered cappucino, which was a good pairing, but the coffee, tea, hot chocolate and other beverage selection was substantial.

The different coffeehouses in Budapest attracted writers who were often not making much money and could not pay the heating bills. So they went to the cafe to stay warm and to meet potential publishers of their work.  Sometimes, Hannah said, the writers would write a poem to cover the cost of the meal and the waiter would take the poem and sell it to a publisher, and bring the change to the writer.  So the waiters were kind of literary agents on behalf of the writers.  Hannah also said that popular actresses of the time would come in to meet the writers in hopes of having a play written for them to perform in, and those actresses drew in young female fans. The young women then attracted young men, so it was a win-win situation for the writers, the kavehaz and the other guests as well.  During the Soviet time, the coffeehouse culture was “discouraged,” because there was too much political discussion going on among coffeehouse guests.  Presszo bars were the replacement--small establishments to drink a quick coffee or beer.  Those still exist as well.

Our final stop was the Tasting Table where we had an assortment of wines to try.  We were given a 10% discount if we bought any of the wines they sell.  Interestingly, on my trip to the ladies room, I saw a box holding the paper towels that read “St. Andrea.”  I remembered that St. Andrea was a winery that produced a lovely white wine called Napbor (day wine).  So I went out, looked at the shelves and found a nice bottle of Napbor to bring home with me.  

Wonderful way to spend four hours, eating, drinking, learning and meeting other visitors to Budapest.  

#tastingtable #budapest #vasarcsarnok #langos #unicum #pickles #wintersausage #salami #ducklegs #liver sausage #centralkavehaz #dobos torte #eszterhazy #turos #merengue #apricot jam #Napbor #standrea

[janiklandre-blog]

Monday, March 13, 2017

9:25 a.m.  sun is shining, blizzard tonight predicted - back to nyc - computer room - in a hurry again - THE TEETH. The German writer Thomas Mann was known for paying much attention to the teeth of his characters - befote 1914 my mother went with her grandmother to the market in a town now in Poland and called Bielo Bialska - in the foor hills of the Carpathian mountains - her Jewish grandparents had a dry goods store there and my mother's descriptions of that scenario take up many pages in her German memoirs - written with my encouragement. A scene she describes is going to the market where the young girls - often 12, 13, were sitting hoping to be hired as domestics - the kind of domestic her maternal grandmother had been, who died before she was born. The prospective employers made the girls open their mouth and examined their teeth - an indicator of good health - as also the teeth of horses get examined. My mother's mother, the daughter of the dead domestic woman, didn't have a tooth in her mouth by 24 and had dentures. Both parents of my former husband Robert had dentures. My mother paid a lot of attention to her teeth and my teeth - and made me aware that teeth are an indicator of social class - missing teeth show a shortage of funds. Actors all have brilliant white teeth - some false. I have early memories of crowded waiting rooms of dentists for the poorer of the people in Prague and fillings at an esrly age. My parents took me to a clinic to have my overbite corrected - in those days I was made to wear a contraption at night. In Germany later a dentist unnecessarily extracted a tooth when I was 18 - they were paid a flat insurance rate and extraction was faster than treatment. When I arrived in America the college sent me to a dentist who was horrified by my poisonous fillings and replaced them all. Soon after I lost another tooth, had a bridge, that broke - and had my first top rate dentist when we came to Geneva in 1957, Dr.Ackerman, who built a bridge that lasted a long time. Arrived back in nyc in 1962 I asked Ruth Bader Ginsburg for her dentist - we had given hospoitality to her husband in Geneva. Through her I came to Dr.Seligman - who truly loved dentistry and even when my funds dwindled after Robert divorced me in 1967 he kept my teeth in good shape (Robert left him at the request of a new wife, ended up with a tooth extraction, no antibiotics and in the hospital with a heart infection - twice - all that bad dentists can do also to rich people - in Amherst my son had a neighbor, a beautiful Duch woman, whose dentist friend botched something and she was in so much permanent pain, she killed herself.) In America only the very richest get really good dental care - and they also have to be smart. The moment someone does open their mouth I am aware of their teeth - and what it tells about them. After Dr.Seligman retired I found my way to Dr.F.- he was the dentist of a friend of a friend, whom I never met, Shelby, who raved about him but since has left him. I came to him when he had  newly started his practice on West End Ave. - in the 1980's - at first my problems were still minor enough and I could pay him - even paid for a couple of friends to see him - he is one of the very few people who understands me - and as my problems grew and I could no longer afford his fees he continued to treat me - and then - seven yeasrs ago zI begsan taking a beta blocker to keep my bloodpressure under control - he suspected it was acidifying my saliva - dry mouth is a side effect it announces in a long list - - alas my not so good medical doctors (could write about them at length) - only said - your blood pressure is great, keep taking them, never seemed to hear what I was saying about my teeth - that begsn rotting, then falling out - until one day my sweet dentist came up with what he called a bridge, later a prosthesis - beautiful teeth - I called them my decoration teeth - I looked great at the weddings of my grandsons - do keep getting compliments about my looks - only - alas - still losing more teeth this bridge no longer has a support - in September my dentist said I needed dentures - a hard blow Still, he kept putting it off, I happy to still have something fixed in my mouth - only - they have begun falling out - a very sinking feeling - this time I went to him a week ago - he cemented them back in - but by Saturday when I was in a restaurant in Northampton with my family they one again fell out - already before feeling rattly - making me very nervous on top of being alwsays nervous - I have to have to hold on to them while I speak - can really only drink something through a straw - called again this morning at 9 a.m. - the same assistasnt has been there since he started his practice - he had briefly worked on Wall Street before going to dentistry - truly loving what he is doing - happy to help people. He was happiest going one time to the Dominican Republic, he took his assistant, she is Spanish speasking, other times to Nicaragua - if he could he would do that permanently - sadly reporting the terrible state of the teeth of the people - dangerous infections - no modern machinery - little time - for the most part he is very sad only to be able to help them with extractions So I am approaching the end of my time for this morning - my eyes on my watch - do plan to read what I wrote on Saturday in the Northampton Library - they bought stickers to put on the letters of the keyboard to make them easy reading for the old. Excellent computer, lovely librarian - hope I was not too indiscreet - luckily I do share a couple of fellow mothers, women my age, who struggle with their relationships with their children as I do - making me realize how wonderful my sons are. From their point of view of course it is I who causes the glitches - and yes - I was writing about the lonely old women - about my mother, so dissatisfied with me - and I blaming her for divorcing my sweet father who was a wonderful companion to her - she loved making money and did well - he had no knack for making money - and she scorned him on this account. He left a couple of days I left in 1951 - she was 49 - and all I heard from then on - the worst fate that can befall a woman is to be old and alone. I held on to Paco for dear life - began living alone in 1988, I was 56 - and yes, I too can now sing and write about the hardships - and indignities - of being an old woman alone. We are not meant to live alone - and these days - the first question doctors ask: are you living alone. It's getting harder and harder - if I had more money..... My sons were much happier with me as long as I came with a companion - I ask more of them than they can give - watch them struggle - feel guilty - and other old women write about this also. What I also mesnt to mention was that on Friday night we went to see "I am not your nigger" - a much praised movie - expensive, full of flashy stuff - next day I read in the Saturday nyt, a profile on a black man who is in Syria documenting with his video camera the horrors committed there - many by Americans - and that should be shown in the movie theaters - not old history that we know about - but what is happening right now - Yemen, Afghanistan - The other thing that came to my attention was the obituary of the man who wrote Bridges of Madison - in two weeks - a runaway best seller - he did have a Ph.D. in business - also, as I recall he showed the story to a friend who was in publishing - I often throught, I too could have written in two weeks a book about my encounter in New Hampshire with Stephen W. in 1988 - I 55, he 32 - his wife had just taken up with a British lover - and my Paco had set off in East Hampton in the search of the heiress who had eluded him since his arrival in America in 1945 - he found a few - but parents put a quick stop to the relationships. And so, there were Stephen an I consoling each other on a very memoriable trip from Los Angeles to Dearing, New Hampshire - an excellent novel - and the relationship continued in some fashion until 2007 when he broke off all relations with his former life - a novel I have written, some place in the external drive of my computer my grandson set up. The tale of poor Eastern European Jews coming to America in the late 19th century - the rise of his father to a high earning psychiatrist in Westport, Connecticut - I met one of his patients - for both his sons he bought farms - I stayed on both - the psychiatrist was a frustrated farmer, studied books on seeds, the best raspberries I've ever eaten - Israeli wisdom in the watering system - the psychiatrist abandoned his terribly depressed wife after a long marriage, she a cripple by then and took off with a patient - I have googled him - his older son lives in the booniest of boonies in a hollow in Appalachia - southern tip of Virginia - my friend I suspect living on Bank Street - but his family has no interest in finding him. Very, very sad, A saga. I have written the whole saga up. Ah well, the author of Bridges of Madison became a a millionaire - and I was berated last night by a friend for writing this here blog - she one of many people who feel exposing oneself and others to the public is - indecent    got to run   Marianne