If you know me at all, then you know that I love to write and I love to ride. You might also know that, prior to leaving teaching, I had a few books written or in various stages of being written. My initial goal was to finalize the two that were the most complete. Those were “Ticker Tape,” and “Twinges.” I put them out in the fall and winter of 2021. Then, the next goal was to finish and edit and then publish “Trouble on Tybee.” I put that novel out at the end of 2022.
Now, the goal is to finish the other pieces that weren’t as far along as any of the above-mentioned titles when I left teaching. Technically, there are four of them — two fiction and two nonfiction. Since I hope to publish all the “Cognate Cognizance” pieces I’ve been writing since leaving teaching into one book, I guess you could say there are five of them.
Today, I’m going to share the beginning of a novel I’m temporarily called “A New Ride.” I wrote about 66,000 words of it many years ago and then abandoned it for other projects, but I want to complete it and get it out next. Most likely it will be my sixth book, but two other stories that I started writing last year are also vying for my attention, so I make no promises.
This is a mystery. You won’t necessarily sense that from this beginning, but there is a murder mystery involving the former owner of the motorcycle, and that part of the story comes up later. I’m planning to write a prologue for this story, too, but I haven’t yet. I’ve just been rereading what I wrote and trying to put myself back into the story, so I can finish it.
If you are a paying subscriber, you will be able to read all of what I’ve included here so far, but if you are a free subscriber, the paywall will come up and prevent you from reading very far into it. I hope you’ll enjoy the taste of it at least.
The photo at the top is one I’m considering for the cover. There is a less cropped one, too. My uncle Paul Filsinger took the photo, and I want to continue to honor his legacy and his memory by using another of his photos for the cover.
For now, sit back and enjoy the ride.
Until next time.
Tammy Marshall
A New Ride Tammy Marshall Part One: Kickstands Up They said she was too old for a bike. Of course, they didn’t mean the kind with pedals because if they did, she’d be the first to agree. The seats on those things were too small for her ass, and the hills in her town were too steep for her to attempt unless she didn’t mind killing herself from an asthma attack on the way up or from a certain collision with the pavement on the way down. No, they meant she was too old for a real bike, the kind that menacingly rattled the window panes in the houses she passed even as it purred seductively in her soul. They’d all laughed at her when they’d first seen her ride up to the school on her newly purchased Harley-Davidson Fatboy. “Can you believe it?” They whispered behind her back as she passed them in the halls on her way to her office. “Principal McFarley bought a Hog.” “No way.” “She’s too old.” “What is she? Like thirty?” Actually, she was fifty, but she understood their confusion since they were teenagers, and to a teen, anybody over the age of twenty-five is ancient and ought to be euthanized for the benefit of everybody else -- meaning, of course, other teenagers. Sadly, though, it wasn’t just the teenagers who said she was too old. She heard it from her younger staff, parents of the annoying teenagers, fellow church-goers, the man who sold her the bike, who must not have realized she could actually hear him while he was talking to another salesman within her earshot, and, above all, she heard it from her own family. “Are you crazy, Mom?” her twenty-two year old daughter, Angelica, asked her while looking at her aghast over supper the night she decided to break the news to her and to her parents -- at the same time. She shrugged and sucked a piece of spaghetti off her fork. “Pretty sure I am after twenty-seven years spent working with kids.” She peered at her daughter over her glasses. “But what’s that got to do with it?” Angelica continued to give her mother a stunned expression and then turned to her grandparents for support. “Seriously, Pops, she’s going to kill herself on that thing. Talk some sense into her.” She turned her over-the-glasses look from her daughter to her father who returned it with one of his own. They held each other’s gaze for a minute and then burst into raucous laughter. “Angel, you know better than to ask your grandpa to control your mother. He never could tell her ‘No,’ and that’s why she was the hellion that she was.” This remark was made with a weary sigh by a stoop-shouldered, white-haired woman as she dabbed at the lipstick that had become hopelessly smeared around her puckered mouth while she ate. Josephine McFarley sighed. She shot her mother a quick glance and then rolled her eyes. “For the millionth time, mother, being stopped twice in four years for speeding does not a hellion make. Must you be so overdramatic?” She raised her wine glass and downed the rest of its contents. Her mother frowned at the gesture and looked pointedly at the carafe of ice water sitting in the middle of the table. She audibly harrumphed as her daughter refilled her glass with wine. “I’ll stop being overdramatic when you decide to act your age, dear.” Josephine’s father, Gerald Moyner, cut in before another battle broke out between mother and daughter. “Ladies, let’s not forget why we’re here tonight.” He raised his glass toward his wife. “Happy birthday, sweetheart.” Angelica joined in. “Yes, happy birthday, Gram-gram.” Josephine noticed that her daughter made a point of using her left hand to lift her glass high into the air even though she was right-handed. She chortled softly to herself but not softly enough. “Something funny, Mom?” Angelica asked as she narrowed her eyes at her mother. She began to shake her head, but then she changed her mind. Her own daughter and mother were so quick to ridicule her, so why not return the favor. “Couldn’t help but notice how you’re showing off that big rock every chance you can get, that’s all.” Angelica colored, and for that Josephine felt a bit chagrined, but it only lasted a moment until her daughter said, “At least I have a man who loves me.” Even her prim, seventy-year-old mother sucked in her breath at that comment, and Josephine sensed that one, or both, of her parents were about to say something to their snotty granddaughter, so she raised her hand to ward off their comments. She fixed her daughter with a stare that said more than words could say, and she let her eyes bore into her daughter’s until the younger woman looked down at her plate. Finally, Angelica said, “I’m sorry, Mom. That was uncalled for.” Josephine nodded. “Yes, it was.” She took a shaky sip of her wine before adding, “I’m sorry for being snide about your engagement ring, too. You know that I think it is beautiful, just like you.” Angelica looked up with tears brimming and whispered, “Thanks, Mom.” “And where is Thomas this evening, dear?” Virginia Moyner asked her granddaughter. Josephine felt her back teeth grind together in irritation. She specifically told her mother not to ask about Thomas tonight because he and Angelica had a fight, and he’d gone off to sulk a while with his buddies. “Uh, he’s busy,” Angelica mumbled. “Well, that’s too bad that he couldn’t join us tonight,” her grandmother continued, oblivious to the meaningful looks emanating from her daughter. “Maybe he could help talk some sense into your mother since your grandfather is of no help.” Angelica laughed in a tittering fashion and turned her attention back to her mother. “No kidding. What possessed you to buy a motorcycle, Mom?” Josephine looked around the table into the faces of the three people who she cared about most in the world and who should care most about her. She read disbelief on her daughter’s face, distaste on her mother’s and perhaps a touch of envy on her father’s. Finally, she said, “I’ve been thinking about getting one since your father left.” Angelica sucked in her breath at the mention of the man who had abandoned them both. “That was thirteen years ago, Mom. So, why now? Why didn’t you get one then?” Josephine shrugged. “Lots of reasons. I had you to raise. I didn’t really have the money to get one. I was a little afraid that I might do just what you are worried I’ll do and go off and kill myself, and then where would that have left you?” “With us,” her mother interjected. Josephine shot her mother a look. “Gee, thanks. You were pretty quick to take up on raising my child.” Virginia sniffed. “Well, if you’d been stupid enough to get yourself killed on a bike, then I would have had to step in and take care of my only grandchild, now, wouldn’t I?”
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