progress!

We have a working title:

The way you danced into my heart by Allison Bree Fitzgerald

that's the whole title.

and almost a paragraph of a forward that will be complete when I finish the book, probably written and rewritten in stages.

and the first page of the framework.

What is the Framework?

For those of you who don't know. The framework is a fancy word for the vehicle which is, in turn, a fancy way of saying that the structure upon which the story is told. A classic example of this is Pride and Prejudice or Dangerous Liaisons (yes the title is in French) where the framework is either conversations only or letters that are written. In the case of something like the Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot, the story is told through a series of Journal or Diaries entries. Most of the time it does quite well if you are telling the story from a limited point of view.

But I want the story to be told through multiple points of view with Allison Bree's POV- being dominant to tie it all together. So, it's my intention to use first person narrative with third person omniscient (limited) [I know all the terms are wrong, some Stuffy English Professor will, no doubt swoop in to correct me....anyone? Oh well]

I am probably insane (insert Billy Joel song)

Things to do. 

1. Research: I suspect I will be watching a fair amount of the L Word and other gay/lesbian tv cinema until I can get a lesbian, a gay man and a bisexual woman to talk to me.
2. comb through the internet for source material, find it and ask nicely if I can quote them without being burned at the stake for daring to upset their fans.
3. read everything that is written in diary journal form without going mad first
4. pray for a miracle or someone who suddenly says "I get what he's trying to do!" and contacts me so we can talk almost every day about what I am trying to do.
5. be patient, Phil Collins did sing "you can't hurry love or finish a novel fast or something like that.
6. write some more blogs to try out other points of view, get feedback???? Well, I will pretend to get feedback and then me and the characters will discuss this all over tea with Sir Reginald and Tiny Tina.

Peace. 

PSS: If you wish to help me out

leave a comment or send me an email @ mikemumbled@gmail.com

The Sounds of screeching Brakes. or what this was and probably what this will become from here

I started writing a love story here.
I made the fortunate mistake of listening to Neil Gaiman talking about writing, reading and writers and somewhere north of Roanoke VA on I-81, I realized this wasn't going to be a love story and it wasn't going to be short.
It's a novel.
A novel I plan to finish.
now for a few possible reactions.

"That's the best news I've heard all day. or not."

"I knew that was what you were going to say- no wait a sec!"

"You said LOVE STORY! I had guarantees....NOW I am a bit upset."

"You just could leave it as something simple?"

"Woohoo!"

So, for those of you hoping to continue getting the juicy bits. You will, but

(I KNEW THERE WAS A BUT)

What is here and what will be here are character sketches and ideas that will be going into the novel. The novel itself will be written offline.

Yep. 

Gnashing of teeth follows.

It's just how I write novels (the two I am writing anyway)

I am still going to come here and write.

So some reassurances.

This is still a story about finding and keeping love.

It has a new narrator. I had originally planned to have everyone tell their own story and that is still true, but I am going to frame around Allison Bree's diary. 

Allison has not been introduced yet and won't until I have had time to discuss/read some diary/journals of women who were teenagers in the nineties and became adults in the time since.

Much of what I am trying to tell her, came out of my head and dozens of books and tv shows and movies.

I want to share all of them with you, so for now, I will keep telling you the stories but just understand you are reading the outline of a novel.

One final note.

I am a writer of fantasy and science fiction

this novel will be fantastic and have science 

but it won't be the same thing.

This is going to be a story about 5 people and how they

changed each other.

hope to see you back here...soon.

Interlude One: Tea time with Lady Fitzgerald.

Jen went over to Ellie's house almost every day following her initial encounter with Ellie and Eric.
Eric hated this, it was obvious why since Eric made no secret of it from here and should he be able to catch Jen before she could get within earshot of Ellie, he would confront her and say things like:
"Ellie is feeling ill today, go home."
"Ellie is not here, she had to stay over at school"
or
"Ellie no longer likes you, you're boring."

Jen would look down at Eric who would slowly become aware that Jen was taller than him, then Jen would lunge forward until he got out of her way. Jen would call Ellie's name out in a loud voice and Ellie would rush into the room or the entry hall or out into the yard and curtsy in her graceful manner, her skirts flaring and declare:
"It's so nice of you to drop by Lady Olsten. Would you like to take a spot of tea on the veranda or gazebo?"
Jen would do her own curtsy wishing she had a skirt like Ellie's instead of the torn jeans of soccer shorts. Eric would sneer at her as if she was some street urchin before stalking off to the house. He seldom stayed with them for these visits.
Ellie would look at Eric and tsk at him disapprovingly before coming to Jen. Ellie would look so happy to see Jen, a smiles, bright eyes, mischevious grin. Together they would walk hand in hand to wherever the tea party was set out. There were always enough chairs for each of the stuffed animals and Ellie and Jen. On the occasions that Eric would be civil enough to join them Ellie would ask him sweetly to fetch himself an additional chair. He would grumble and stomp back to the house to get the chair.
The amazing things about these tea parties were;
One, it was alway real tea with hot water steeped with some exotically flavored tea. Jen had asked her mother about this, Patricia said she had played Tea-time as a girl but her parents only let her use water. When Jen asked Ellie about this, Ellie giggled and declared that it would be a water party and not a tea party then. Eric would give his well-practiced sneer as he pointed out only the lower class would pretend such a thing.
Two, the biscuits and crumpets were real food. Again, when Jen asked Ellie would giggle and blush and after a little coaxing admit that she baked all of it herself, then she would add that Eric helped her do it. Eric would look a bit abashed as Jen told them she had never baked anything. Ellie was for authenticity, the very idea of plastic food and water was unmentionable.
Three, each of the animals wore a specific coat or hat that assigned them a station. There was Sir Reginald the Teddy Bear with a monocle and the velveteen vest. Lord Faldaroy the Rabbit who had a bow tie and cardigan sweater. Lady Cathy the Cat who had a bonnet, and Mister Alex the Monkey who was actually a Curious George but with a sewn-on tuxedo.  It would take a while before Jen figured out that Ellie would repeat whatever she imagined the animals response to was to a question or a statement was for Jen's and Eric's benefit. After she realized this was the case, Ellie turned to Jen one afternoon and asked her to repeat what Sir Reginald had just said. Jen look baffled as she had never thought it was her place to speak for the animals. Jen stuttered for a moment then made up a plausible lie and said that Sir Reginald had wanted cream with his crumpet was quite put out about it. Jen had no idea what cream was or what being put out was. Eric looked delighted for a second as he seemed to be hoping that Ellie would declare Jen unfit for any more tea parties but he was to be disappointed.
Ellie burst into laughter, placed her right hand on Jen's upper arm as she remarked to Sir Reginald that she had just "run plum out of cream that morning and next time there would most assuredly be cream with his crumpets in the next day." Jen sat there looking at Ellie for a long time finally understanding that she could say anything for the animals and Ellie would accept it as a matter of fact. Eric looked sick which made Jen feel bad for him and also glad that he would not be rid of her that easily.

About two weeks of going over to Ellie's house for tea parties almost every day, save for Sunday when her father declared that they were going to church- where Jen and Saul learned to their mutual horror that Saul's football coach attended as was married to a girl's volleyball coach. Jen, sat in the pew paralyzed with fear since she realized at that moment, that her father had not given up on her as an athlete but had been biding his time waiting for her wrist to heal. As her father talked with the coach and his wife and Saul and Jen were paraded up for show and tell. Saul turned to his sister and whispered, "kill me now."
Jen looked back at him and knew at that moment that Saul hated football and like her, he had thought by getting pulled from the last team that he could escape their father's obsession. Alvin turned in the pew in front of them with a big smug grin on his face.
"I guess we won't be seeing either of you around much anymore," he said.
Jen wanted to punch him instead she hunched over with sudden cramps and threw up all of her breakfast all over Alvin who cried out in horror. It wasn't the first onset of her first period, but combined with stress, anxiety, and fear, it was the most spectacular sign of it to occur in her life.
Needless to say, by the time Jen had been escorted out of the church by her mother and a herd of women to the bathroom to get cleaned up, and Alvin had stopped screaming, Saul laughing, her dad apologizing to the coach and his wife, the Olsten's did not go back to that church ever again.
Patricia explained to Jack that this was a normal stage in Jen's life and there was no need to lose his mind over it. Jack lost his mind over it.
Jen was grounded for 2 weeks for throwing up on Alvin. Alvin was grounded for a month for screaming in church and for calling his sister a fucking bitch. Saul was ground for a week for laughing at everyone including his coach and father. Patricia stopped talking to Jack unitl 4 days later when he relented on the grounding and mumbled an apology to his children before leaving the house for work.  Rebecca sat at the table watching everyone looking baffled and confused.
By the time Jen got back to Ellie's house everything had changed.

Jen Olsten

She was born Jennifer Olsten. She chose to go by Jen instead when she turned thirteen. She was standing in the hallway waiting for her older brother Alvin to finish in the bathroom. After five minutes, she began to beat on the door.
"I'm busy!" Alvin chirped.
Jen liked to think of him as that chipmunk....
"Come on Alvin! I need to pee!"
"I'm busy Jenny 5309!"
"My name isn't Jenny!"
And just like that- she decided that everyone would call her Jen from then on.
A week later she googled Jenny 5309. she watched the youtube video, then she went in search of her brother. She found him on the curb of their suburban road in Ohio hanging out with his skateboarder friends. A bunch of dweebs who considered themselves "Thrashers."
She walked up to him as he was bragging about doing 360 flips. He looked at her.
"What do you want retard?" He said as his friends leered at her and laughed.
He looked back at his friends for a moment to laugh at his own joke with them. When he looked back
Jen slapped him across the face as hard as she could muster.
Jen played softball since she was nine. So she could slap the shit out of her brother.
He stood there dumbfounded while his friends laughed at him. She stepped on his board flipping it up into his crotch. He let out a squeak and doubled over.
Jen then grabbed the board and threw it over the fence behind his friends who all dived for the ground as it sailed up and over them out into road beyond. Luckily it did not hit the car that was passing at that point but there was the definite sound of screeching tires and cussing.
Alvin looked up at his sister a mixture of fear and hatred in his face.
"I'm telling Dad!" he managed to say over his pain and discomfort.
"That'd be great," Jen said with a big toothy grin. "while you're at it- you can explain to them how you called me a whore, dickweed."

Alvin's story was edited down to the brass tacks when he told his father what Jen had done, it did not include the slap in the face or crotch hit. It was just about her throwing his prized skateboard out into traffic getting it run over by a semi-destroying it in the process. Alvin almost managed not to cry as he pointed at his sister at the dinner table while his older brother Saul had tears in his own eyes from as he struggled not to laugh at Alvin. Her father looked at Jen as this was all reported to him. When Alvin finished his story tears on his red face, her father looked at his daughter and raised a single eyebrow.
Jen looked back at him defiantly, crossed her arms and said.
"You ever hear that Tommy Tutone song about the phone number, Dad?"
Alvin was grounded for a month.
Their father decided it was best that everyone call Jen by her new name and anyone other than her mother caught calling her Jenny would be doing the dishes for life.
Alvin never called her Jenny again.

Jen had four siblings. Saul 4 years older, Alvin 2 years older, and Rebecca 3 years younger. Her mother, Patricia was a librarian at the community library and an avid knitter. Every year, each child got a brand new sweater for Christmas. Only Rebecca ever wore hers. Her father Jack was a car salesman who had dreamed of being a sports star but lost out due to a football injury in college which cost him his dreams. Jack had dropped out of College met Patricia and decided to relive his sports dreams vicariously through his children.
So far, Saul had been his favorite excelling in football to become the youngest all-star quarterback in their hometown of Perrysburg. Alvin had been introduced to several sports but shown no interest in furthering his father's desire and had turned to skateboarding instead. Jack hated the whole skateboarding thing until Alvin had shown his father Tony Hawk and extreme sports. Jack had taken Alvin to several events before concluding that Alvin did not have an athletic gene in his body.
Jen had been introduced to softball and soccer at an early age and to her father's relief been quite good at it. When Jack had started for Rebecca, Patricia had thrust out her knitting needle and told him a flat no on Rebecca following Jen or Saul into sports. Jack had spent a week sleeping on the couch in the den before patting his youngest child lovingly on the head and presenting her with a new barbie.
Jen had wanted a G.I. Joe instead of a new softball bat but her father would not hear of it.
Jen did not hate sports, she just didn't like the way it made the parents behave at games, her teammates screaming obscenities at the other team. She tried hard to not let it all get to her until one day in mid-spring when she had struck out at the plate and her father had strode across the field in the middle of the inning right up to the umpire and yelled in the man's face, calling him a cheat and a liar and a traitor to his class. The two men had scuffled with a lot of kicking dirt onto each other's shoes until a policeman had arrived to separate them and the game was called off due to a rain storm that no one could see but everyone agreed was about to happen.
In the aftermath, Patricia had to go bail her father out of jail, Jen decided that she was done with watching her father behave like that, so she tried to fake an injury and ended up breaking her wrist.
Blocking an incoming softball with your wrist proved to be both stupid and painful. The end result was no more softball and soccer for that season. Saul became the sole focus of her father and she was relieved.
Then Saul came home one day and informed Dad that he had been cut from the starting lineup for making a "C" in Chemistry. Her dad went nuts, he yelled at Saul who just shrugged at him. When that failed to get a response her dad called the school, and when that failed they moved. Yes, Jack uprooted the whole family from their home in Perrysburg and moved them to Sylvania. He did this on the pretense of changing jobs, but everyone knew it was so Saul could get back into the starting lineup with the Sylvania Southview Cougars.
Jen didn't mind as she had been kicked off the Softball team - she suspected mostly due to her dad costing the team the regionals. She liked the idea of going to a new school where no one had heard of the incident. The only one who took it hard was Alvin who lost his little posse of thrasher skateboarders. Jack ignored Alvin and his whining about it as he focused on making sure that Saul would get scouted for a good college team.
Alvin withdrew into video games and grunge rock until he had little to do with the rest of the family. Rebecca seemed oblivious to all of it happily reading her books and knitting with her mother. Which left Jen on her own with not much to do. It was at this point that Jen realized that she had never taken the time to have a pastime or a hobby that wasn't a sport. The first few weeks in the new neighborhood she would spend her time after school wandering around looking for potential playmates.
One afternoon as May was winding down, she came upon a small girl about her age sitting in an odd little house (a gazebo as she would learn later)  playing with teacups and stuffed animals. The girl was talking to each animal as if they were members of a tea party. Jen was impressed with the skill that the girl poured the teas, the gracefulness of her actions and her careful speech as she talked to each of the animals. The girl wore this skirt and blouse that looked like it belonged in a museum.
Jen watched the girl carry on until a boy walked up next to her. She looked at him and realized that the boy wore a miniature version of a tuxedo. She looked at him and he stared back at her in her torn jeans, tee shirt and sneakers.
"Go away." the boy said making a shooing motion with his left hand.
Jen shook her head no.
"Go away!" the boy said louder and made as if to shove Jen.
"Ah, Eric." the girl said looking up from her visiting with a rabbit in a tux similar to the one the boy wore. "I see you have found our new tea party guest."
"She was just leaving," Eric said.
"Nonsense." the girl replied standing up from her table. She glided out to where Jen stood. The girl curtsied gracefully and looked up at Jen, smiling.
"I am Lady Fitzgerald, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance," She held out her hand palm down.
Jen reached out a carefully took the girls hand, it was so soft and delicate.
"I am Jen Olsten."
"Lady Olsten, what a lovely name, please join us in the garden gazebo for a spot of tea and refreshment." the girl said still holding onto Jen's hand. Jen glanced at the boy who was scowling.
"Ah, forgive me, Lady Olsten," The girl said. "This young man is my valet, Eric Whinestien."
Jen grinned at this, as she was pretty sure from the sour look on Eric's face that Whinestien was not actually his last name. She nodded as she let the girl guide her to a vacant seat at the table. Jen sat down trying and failing to be graceful as she could manage. Eric made as if to move one of the stuffed animals- a teddy bear in a velveteen vest.
"Eric!" the girl said, "Sir Reginald will not be leaving, he just got here!"
"Ellie, please," Eric whined glaring at Jen.
Ellie ignored him.
"Lady Fitzgerald, may I please sit in a chair?" Eric pleaded.
Ellie, Lady Fitzgerald, paused for a moment tapping her bottom lip, then swept the stuffed cat into her arms and gesturing Eric into the vacant seat opposite Jen.
And that was how Jen first met Ellie Fitzgerald, her best friend.

When Eric met Ellie.

Eric was 12 going on 13.
Ellie was 11 going on 12.
They first met in Ellie's parlor on a misty Monday morning in April.
The social workers and Ellie's parents told them that they would be siblings: brother and sister. Eric fell in love with Ellie at first sight. Ellie did not.
Ellie looked at this slight boy with tassel brown hair, somber expression, sad brown eyes, brown clothes, thin hands. She did not like they way he was looking at her, she did not like his brown, drab clothing.
Being children, neither of them could put into words, the idea that would lie- in wait- in the sub-consciences for years; that they were being forced into a relationship role neither of them would want. The adults had decided their fate without understanding what it would do to them later in life. The grief and stress that it would cause. All they understood right now was that Eric was infatuated with Ellie while she despised him without any clue as to why.
"This is your brother, Ellie," her father said to her.

So is this what a brother was? Ellie thought, she felt like she had missed something vital in her Nancy Drew book reading. She was fairly certain that one did not acquire siblings like this.

"Take him back, I don't want a brother," she mumbled looking down at her shoes, they were black is red buckles. She liked the red buckles. "I want to have a puppy instead."
Most likely, her father did not hear her. Most likely no one heard her. No one (the adults anyway) responded as if she had said anything. When Ellie looked up, the adults had left the parlor and she was alone with the strange boy. She looked to the door, her mind on escape, but it was closed.

Eric gazed at this girl, her bangs hanging in her eyes. He felt love, he thought it was love, it must be but since he had no basis other than what he had learned from TV, he decided that must be what it should be. He struggled through the muddle of his mind to find something that would tell him what to do. Then, the thought struck him, he should hit her like the Alfalfa from the little rascals must have done- or did he just kiss Darla. he couldn't remember.
Well, he had to do something.

The boy walked towards her until they were face to face.
"I like you." He said and blushed.
"Uh," Ellie replied.
The boy leaned forward pushing his face into hers, their forehead bumped, embarrassment and pain shot through her head as Ellie stumbled back and fell.
Crash.
Ellie lay on the carpet stunned.
The boy leaned over her.
"Are you okay?" he squeaked.

Eric knew that he hadn't paid enough attention to that movie. He looked down at the girl lying on the carpet and rubbed his forehead which didn't hurt as much as he thought it would. He had tried to kiss her but smacked his forehead into hers instead. She had stumbled backward then fallen and he hadn't even tried to catch her. For a time, he just stood there looking down at her. Her dress had ridden up her stockings and he could almost see her crotch.

Her skirt was up to her knees, she could feel the cool air on her thighs. Ellie had a rush of white-hot anger at the idiot boy, he had attacked her and now was leering down at her. Was this what having a brother supposed to be like. She sat up to glare at him and noticed her skirt was hiked up and the boy was staring at her private place. She rolled over to her knees, pulling her skirts down as she did so, she clambered up to her feet, her head throbbing, and turned to face him.

Eric felt a stab of fear as the anger in her face registered in his mind. She would probably cry, that was what girls did- right? He should put his arm around her to give her a shoulder to cry on. Yes, that would be best, since the kiss maneuver had failed. He stepped forward raising his arm.

The boy lunged forward bringing his arm up. Ellie's eyes went wide. Unbelievable, she thought and then punched Eric in the stomach as hard as she could. This wasn't very hard, but Eric wasn't made of stern stuff, so he doubled over in shock and pain.
Eric gasped for breath, she hit hard for a girl. He looked up where she was looking at him, her fists up ready to fight. He sat down on the floor. After a moment, he tried to speak but no words came out.

Ellie glared down at her attacker. She'd hurt him.
I can't have a puppy. I am a bad girl, no one will give me a puppy.

"I," Eric said, "I was just trying to kiss you." There he had declared his love for her.

Ellie felt ill. The boy just wanted to kiss her. She had punched him for trying to kiss her. Had she a larger vocabulary she would have found the words to express how she felt about this latest bit of information. Instead, she opened her mouth to say "I'm sorry," but nothing came out. She burst into tears instead because now she was sure no one was going to give her a puppy. She cried and cried and nothing could stop the tears from streaming down her face. her whole face hurt.

Eric looked up at this girl, sobbing like there was no tomorrow. He got back up and hugged her as she sobbed into his shirt. I don't understand girls, he thought as he led her to the sofa. They sat there as she cried, the sobs just coming and coming until she cried herself out. She looked completely miserable, but she leaned against him, so it couldn't be that bad.

"My name is Eric."

"Ellie," she began to weep softly as looked down at her empty hands where no puppy would ever be held.

Eric Cana

I have no memory of who I was before I met Ellie.
Eric likes to say this about himself. It's an out and out lie but Eric found that he liked lies like this one because it masked his pain and embarrassment from anyone who pried into his youth. Eric, the keeper of dark secrets, desires, and regrets often found himself also the teller of such things. He held onto the idea that the only safe thing to do was to lie about what he was until he, himself, believed all of it to be true.
Eric wasn't entirely wrong in his original opinion of his early life before Ellie Fitzgerald became part of it. This was in part true because his memory worked more like an almost broken slide projector, holding onto some memories until something would jog it back into motion and another memory would almost load into place before the whole assembly that was his mind would lock back into place. As for the rest of his memory about life before Ellie was a series of scenes that Eric fought hard to forget ever happened.
Eric could not remember either of his parents. When he closed his eyes and tried to picture them he could not. The only parents that ever came to mind were Ellies. All that he remembered about his parents was what his Aunt Bettie had told him the last time he ever saw her.
Eric played with some toys on the floor of a room. He could never remember what the toys were- save that he liked how they felt in his small hands. Smooth and cool to the touch, that was it, he was pretty sure that they were dolls of some sort although he suspected they were Barbie and not G.I. Joes. The memory was featureless and thus Eric never tried to explore any further into what the toys could have been.
After a time, the door to the room opened as a woman came in, all that Eric could remember about her was that she seemed to have been crying about something. A man followed her in but before he could even register the man, his aunt Bettie reached down and snatched away the doll.
"You disgust me," the woman sneered at him.
"Bettie, enough." the man would say in his memory.
"No, it's all his fault that they're-" Bettie would say then "I hate you and I hope you die soon."
Then the Bettie would burst into tears, tear the head off the toy before throwing it down at Eric as he crouched there below her. he would bend down and pick up the head and look at it without emotion, without tears. Bettie would then stomp out of the room and Eric's life. The man would say something but Eric would no longer be listening to him and the memory would fade away.

Eric was six years old when he was placed into foster care by the state.

Much of the rest of his childhood would appear in episodic scenes similar to this one. Eric never associated an emotion with any of them. He had no memory of his parents outside of his aunt's rage at him, her palpable hatred at him for taking them away. All he really knew was that he had never cried for the lack of them nor did he ever smile when he remembered the things that followed their disappearance from his life.
One thing remained a constant in Eric's life, no one would keep him longer than a year. So, by the time the Fitzgerald's fostered him, he had around 7 placements - it was likely there were more but only 7 of them registered in his psyche.
Eric compartmentalized much of his life before Ellie as if all of it were butterfly specimens that he had stored in a book.
Specimen 1: Helen and Ernest White.
 A midwest American couple with 2 sons, Paulie and Jonnie who immediately hated Eric. The boys would tie Eric up and leave him inconvenient places like the basketball goal in the neighbors driveway or the mailbox down the street. Eric had no memory of ever resisting either of them as they tied or taped him to their latest idea. Paulie would call Eric names like dork and dweeb as he did this. Ernest would eventually notice that Eric was not home for dinner and come out looking for him. Upon finding Eric, Ernest would berate him for letting the neighborhood bullies into doing this to him and that Eric should learn to fight back instead of just letting it happen. 3 months after Eric entered the White's lives, Eric suddenly fought back against Jonnie by biting his hand as he was busy duct taping Eric to a stop sign drawing blood. Jonnie howled in agony as the small bite bled. Paulie took a swing at Eric, missed  him striking the sign post with his fist, Paulie screamed as the metal tore into his flesh and blood went everywhere. By the time Ernest got home, there were police cars and an ambulance on the scene. Ernest waded into the crowd to find Eric looking at the two boys who were being treated for their wounds. Upon seeing their father, both of the boys pointed at Eric and burst into tears. Ernest turned back on Eric and went to take a swing at the boy right in front of a police officer, who would later take Eric back to the state home after Ernest had been arrested and charged with child abuse.

Specimen 2: Grammy Watkins.
She smelled like cats; Eric, as it turned out was allergic to cats. She said he would get used to the cats. She was wrong. Eric woke up in a hospital two days later. All Eric remembered was that Grammy Watkins smelled like cats.

Specimen 3: Steve and Gracie Miller.
At first, this seemed to be a good placement. Steve and Gracie were decent folks from Arkansas and their home life was stable enough. They had a son, Max and a daughter Maxine both of whom were a few years older than Eric who had turned 7 by this point. Max and Maxine were paternal twins and appeared to get along with Eric who showed no real interest in them. Steve noticed that Eric showed no interest in him or Gracie and was nonparticipatory in family activities. This wasn't a problem for the state until they realized that the Miller's idea of family activities was nudism and going to nudist events. The social worker tried to keep her cool as Gracie explained that Eric would have to strip down to his birthday suit if he wished to remain in foster care with the Millers. Eric chose that moment to point out how ugly Steve and Gracie were without their clothes.

Specimen 4: St. Martin's Home for Lost Children.
The state believed that Father Mark and his wife Sister Angeline were married and ran the home with the blessing of the church. This was not actually accurate as the state failed to verify which church that Father Mark and Sister Angeline belonged to or for that matter who the other children belonged to. Nothing seemed amiss until Father Mark announced that the kids were all going on a camping trip with Sister Angeline and a Brother Marvin to the local state park, about a week after Eric has arrived. Eric did not integrate well with his fellow foster kids and the three runaways housed there. The state police caught up with the three when they failed to report crossing state lines or the minor detail that the lot of them were moving to Saskatchewan without passports. The State Police were unamused when Eric informed them that his foster parents were not married, that Sister Angeline had been naked in front of the children and that Father Mark had kissed Brother Marvin right before the police had caught up with them. Eric delivered all this in a monotone. The media storm went on for a month and the state had their hands full trying to re-place the children following the media finally forgetting that the kids existed. No one ever determined what religion the culprits actually belonged to, no church came forward to say that St. Martin's was a part of their faith.

Specimen 5: Robert Casey and Susanna Maxwell.
It turned out there was nothing off with this couple other than Susanna Maxwell going by her maiden name instead of Casey's. The couple tried to care for Eric who by this point had perfected the unemotional non-reactive state of being that he would maintain most of his childhood. Truth be told, Susanna just could not stand that Eric would not call her Mom, or show any affection for either of them and he was sent back to the state after almost a year of the couple trying everything from physical displays of affection to bribery to a weird of exchange of promising toys in exchange for a simple sign of gratitude. When they were asked why they had made the decision to send him back, both of them looked at each other for a moment before admitting that they didn't like Eric and that there was something seriously wrong with him. The state did reevaluate Eric sending him through a barrage of screening and sessions with several family therapists and even a couple of psychiatrists who came back with little helpful information other than Eric was a bright child who showed little emotion for others. One of the psychiatrists went as far as to suggest that Eric was possibly sociopathic but that was dismissed as hearsay since Eric didn't show any of the other signs that could fit their model for this. In the end, the experts determined that Eric was emotionally withdrawn from the trauma of losing both of his parents in a fatal car crash when he was almost six. unbeknownst to the State and their experts, Eric overheard this detail in a final conversation before he was deemed eligible to reenter foster care.

Specimen 6: Robert and Gillian Smith.
The Smiths were a middle-class family with four children who lived in the suburbs and were quite popular with their neighbors. Eric had turned 10 at some point and the Smith threw him his first birthday party and Eric smiled, perhaps for the first time in his life when he saw his name on the cake. Overall the Smiths were very good to Eric, he got along with Helen (age 12), Sarah (age 10), Robert Jr. (age 8) and even Grant (age 5). There was no conflict and he and Sarah became playmates for the year he spent with them. Then Robert lost his job at the plant and failed to find any work. Life at the Smith house became stressful as Robert fell into a deep depression as the bills piled up and the Smith's standing a neighborhood celebrities dwindled then faded altogether.
When Gillian took Eric back to the Foster house, she cried the entire trip and had to pull off the road several times because she was so overcome with emotion. Sarah took Eric's departure the hardest of the kids and had to be forcefully separated from Eric when it came time for Gillian to return home. Eric waited until they were gone before he wept in the silence of the room he shared with the other unwanted children at the state home.

Specimen 7: James and Barbara Matheson.
Some time passed before this placement, a series of short-lived experiences where the state placed Eric with a series of quick failures that meant nothing to Eric save for the annoyance of having to repack his suitcase between stops. By the time the Matheson's entered the picture Eric had turned 12 and was weary of the prospect of yet another family and yet another eventual rejection for some reason that never seemed as important as the last.
The Mathesons were a solid upper-middle-class family who had decided to faster some children as a means of "giving back" to the church being devout Baptists. Eric had no interest in religion and was immediately at odds with James who saw this as a challenge to indoctrinate Eric into the "only way you are going to heaven." Eric seeing that this would get him sent back to the state house decided that the path of acceptance would be best for him to stay in what was an otherwise nice place, or so he thought.
The Mathesons had three children: Deborah 14, Jimmy 12, and Delores 8. They also fostered two other boys, Gerald 12 and Henry 8. Eric was the latest addition to the family dynamic. The first shock was having to attend church on Sundays and Wednesdays along with family chores that included lawn maintenance and gardening - the latter under the supervision of Barbara. Any misstep, even a complaint was met with a quick slap on the bottom and followed by a quick prayer that the child would be forgiven for his or her mistake.
Eric hated Barabara. Deborah hated Eric especially after he refused to kiss her one night when she cornered him in the children's bathroom and presented him with the option to do so or face the consequences. Eric found out that the other two foster boys had complied out of fear of what the consequence would be. The consequences turned out to be Deborah blaming Eric for everything that went wrong at the house. This was a fair amount especially since Deborah had her father twisted around her finger and she loved to break something than cry foul and blame it all on Eric.
Eric took the slaps and prayers well enough, then when James took him to the garage and switched him bare bottom, he made the decision to kiss Deborah at the very first opportunity. He never cried despite the pain and shame that followed the punishments. James was still sure at that point that he would bring Eric around to Christ and make him a good Christian. Eric was pretty sure whoever this Christ was that he wanted no part of this family.
Once the opportunity presented itself, Eric approached Deborah planning to kiss her and get it over with. Deborah, however, drunk with the power she now had over Eric, refused to comply and demanded that he do her chores in addition to his own. When Eric refused she told her father that Eric had tried to kiss her and Eric was switched nightly - to "get the devil out of him."
It was the first time Eric cried since the Smiths left him at the state house. As he crouched in his room, his bottom red from the latest punishment, Jimmy came in and sat down next to him and told him he was sorry that his sister was such a bitch. Eric thanked him and from that point on Jimmy would help Eric whenever he was sent to bed without food or grounded from family outings.
Jimmy steadily showed more and more affection for Eric as the months passed until one night, after Deborah's latest torment had taken to fruition in the form of accusing Eric of 'groping" at her, and James declaring at the dinner table that if Eric did not get "the devil out of him" there would be hell to pay that following Sunday. Eric, for his part, had simply surrendered and gone to the garage for yet another switching only to find that James just locked him in for the night. Eric decided that if he was given the opportunity he was going to run away. Jimmy came in later with a blanket and a pillow and some food. Eric thanked him, cried a little and they spent some time trash-talking Deborah and her evilness towards him.
Eric would remember what happened next, for years to come. One moment, they were sitting side by side looking up at the garage doors laughing about Deborah's panic at finding a zit on her nose and then Jimmy trying to kiss Eric by forcing Eric - who was smaller than Jimmy. Eric froze up in shock as Jimmy groped at him trying to get his hands in Eric's jeans as he continued to push against him moaning. Then the garage flooded with light and there was yelling as James grabbed Eric by the neck hauling him up then slamming his small body against the wall several times.
The next thing Eric knew he was being bodily thrown out the front door to the pathway to the driveway as James Matheson continued to roar accusations at him at full blast. Eric managed to recover long enough to pull up his pants and scrambled across the lawn out of range. Barbara came out of the house as James went into full preacher mode. She managed to get James to calm down and go back in the house as the neighbors began to come out to see what the commotion was all about. Once that was done she stormed down to where Eric huddled crying his eyes out. She stopped long enough to spit on him before she noticed the police lights approaching down the street. When he looked back and saw Deborah smiling at him from her window. she gave him the bird before closing her curtain.
Once the police had arrived, James Matheson reappeared to make a statement that Eric had assaulted his daughter and son before trying to force himself sexually on his son. The police officer looked at his partner and they both looked at Eric who stood as far away from James as possible and not be standing in the road. The other cop looked back at his partner and shrugged. They looked back at James and shrugged at him. Obviously, they had a hard time believing that Eric was capable of doing anything. Eric carefully walked around to the opposite side of the police car away from James and approached the Police officer, when the police officer looked down at him, Eric turned around raising his shirt and dropping his pants revealing the welts left by the constant switching. The policeman swore softly. As Eric straightened he heard the other policeman tell James Matheson to put his arms up.
Eric never collected the suitcase, it was delivered back to the state foster house a few days later by a social worker who looked stunned as the other two foster boys were with her. The social worker knelt down next to Eric then pulled him into an embrace whispering "I'm sorry, so very sorry," over and over again.

Eric stayed in the state home for a few months before he was once again sent to a new home.
It was Sunday, September 14th. It had rained that morning. Eric looked up at the victorian style house nestled in the trees in the quiet neighborhood. The front door opened and a tall austere man stepped out. He looked down at Eric who looked up at him. A moment passed before the man nodded and gestured them all inside. Eric was brought into a sitting room. There he saw a severe woman sitting with the other social worker and a young petite girl.
She had jet black curly hair cut into what he would later learn was called a pageboy flip, dark green eyes almost blue, a small shy smile and slight frame. Eric fell in love immediately.
"Eric," The social worker said kneeling down next to him. "this is your foster sister Ellie."

Ellie Fitzgerald

When Ellie was born, nothing special happened- save that her father, a kindly man looked down at her small body cradled in her mother's arms and wept inconsolably. Her mother looked on in shock as the man she had loved for 20 years crumpled in on himself and collapsed in the delivery room as the nurses stood stock still unsure who to attend to first as if a spell had been cast and no one dared move lest something worse was to happen.
When Ellie was two, her father admitted to her mother that he had fallen in love with someone else and would be leaving her for this other woman, whom he would not name. Ellie's mother said that she understood and that she would forgive him if, and only if, he would explain that to his only daughter. Ellie's father, whose name was Matt Fitzgerald, stood at the foot of his daughter's crib and tried to tell his uncomprehending daughter that he would be leaving her and her mother for a woman whom he had been with since right before Ellie's birth. Matt stood there for almost an hour, not able to find the words, he told Ellie he loved her and returned to his wife to beg on his knees that she forgive him.
Ellie grew up in complete ignorance of this save for her mother, Glenda teasing Matt about the fainting fit and her father would squirm and look mortified that Glenda kept bringing it up.

Glenda and Matt remained together throughout Ellie's childhood, outside of the long silences that occurred between them from time to time. When these mysterious silences would happen, Ellie would stop playing and watch her parents eagerly waiting for a big reveal as they would stare at each other as if wanting to say something. They never did.

As parents went, Glenda and Matt were very loving and attentive; showering their daughter with all that she desired while sheltering her from much of the world at large. Ellie grew up, naive with the particular innocence that comes with being home-schooled for much of her educational years. She was a fragile child in truth being small and petite through much of it. She lacked the common hardiness of her neighbor's children and as a result played mostly inside as her differences in physique and temperament made her stand out as strange to them.
By the time, Ellie turned six, she had been ostracized from the neighborhood kids. She would run and hide in her room whenever her father suggested that she try to make friends. Matt would come to her door to try to reason with his daughter only to give up in frustration when Ellie would start crying. He failed to understand that his daughter suffered from depression and persisted on trying to extrovert his introverted daughter. Fortunately for both of their collective sanities, Matt gave up on this tactic by the time Ellie turned eight.
Glenda tried to intercede but also failed to perceive or grasp the extent of Ellie's anxiety and vulnerability to rejection and the torments of early childhood depression until Ellie turned nine. At that point, a friend of Glenda's took one look at this small frightened excitable girl and recommended psychotherapy. The psychotherapist informed the parents that Ellie suffered from extreme anxiety, several phobias and was in need of antidepressants that would make her more normal. All that and a constant run of psychotherapy sessions with him on a weekly basis. A fair amount of money was spent over the next year until Ellie, upon her tenth birthday refused to speak to the psychiatrist ever again.
In truth, Ellie would have been better off with a normal therapist who would have actually tried to help her cope with her depression instead of being psychoanalyzed until she felt more like a science specimen than a patient. Ellie used what had become her standard defense against her parent by running to her room, locking the door and refusing to come out until they gave into her demands. Despite the obvious emotional blackmail of such an action, Ellie seldom employed this tactic save in dire need. This was dire need to her. Her parents reluctantly agreed to take her out of psychotherapy, despite the protestations of the psychiatrist who had been making a tidy sum of money off of all of it. He did advise them to place Ellie in a public school as a final measure. Ellie was sure this was an act of revenge against her defiance.
Ellie understood she was an emotionally fragile child, being much brighter than most of her peers and their parents. From age five, she had grasped why this would make her the object of scorn and rejection. Thus, in a move that should have been recognized as sheer brilliance, this young girl had decided to preemptively remove herself from all that would have damaged her as a child. She had learned to gauge her parent's reactions to her condition plus their own discomfort when dealing with the "professionals" and actually developed a plan of action in order to avoid conflicts that she instinctively found threatening to her own well being.
So, anytime she suspected her parents were on the verge of a bad decision where she was concerned she would run to her room and refuse to be reasonable until they complied with her will. This tactic was used rarely as Ellie had learned from the fairy tales the consequences of overusing something to the point that it became useless. So, she chose to appear as a fragile child who had all these problems until the whole psychotherapy thing blew up in her face. She was shocked at first when she realized that she was smarter than the psychiatrist, then appalled at the fact that this did not put her in control of their relationship. When the psychiatrist turned to physical treatments like shock therapy, Ellie knew that she had to find a way out. So she added starvation to her room isolation refusing to eat for almost two days, her terrified parents gave into this and she never saw Dr. Whatshisname ever again.
Ellie would revive Dr. Wahtshisname later as a character in her stage show.
Her victory was short-lived as she was thrust into a public school at age eleven and expelled within three days when the room tactic failed to motivate her parents to take her out. Ellie arrived for her first day of school to discover that she was shorter than almost all her new peers and her mother's idea of what she should wear immediately set her apart from the rest of the kids. What this was, was so basic that Ellie gave up trying to explain it to her mother after she came home in tears with a torn skirt and missing a loafer shoe.
The crime in question was that her mother was not much of a modernist and insisted that her daughter wears skirts from the 1950's instead of the pants and jeans of the 1990's.  Ellie knew immediately that she was out of date as fashion went immediately upon entry to the school that morning. People stared at her like she was some kind of freak of nature in her poodle skirt, sweater, and loafers.
The funny thing was, Ellie liked the clothes her mother made for her, she would retain the preference for the 50's skirts and blouse and loafers into adulthood. However, it made her stand out and the looks of derision were more than she could stand at age eleven. She cried that night in secret, not sure who or what she was crying for but knowing that it was necessary for her well-being.
The next day of school, she spent with her head down to avoid the stares and in her student handbook studying until she found the least harmful was to get expelled.  She almost escaped the school unscathed but found that she had to go before the last bell and asked to be excused from class to go. On her way out of the classroom, a girl who had sneered at her the most (Ellie was sure it was her) tripped her. She sprawled to the floor, her skirt up and her underwear exposed. Mortified she clambered to her feet but not in time to avoid that girl's comment that she was wearing granny panties. She fled the classroom in tears not even understanding the extent of the insult. She hid in the bathroom stall and refused to come out even after the principal came to fetch her.  When she was sure the coast was clear she crept out and got a personal escort out of the building to her waiting bus. There she learned to her horror that the girl who had tripped her had somehow ended up next to her on the bus. The girl, whose name turned out to be Bernadette continued to make fun of her clothes and being such a baby as Ellie wept the whole miserable ride back to her block.
The next morning she decided she had enough of this experience. During homeroom, she walked over to Bernadette, tapped her on the shoulder and when Bernadette turned she punched the girl right in her nose.  This was not the original plan which was to spread the rumor that she had contraband in her locker. However, the effect was both painful and rewarding.
She hurt her hand and nearly broke her thumb as she had never ever hit anything much less another person, having no idea how to even make a fist. As her thumb and palm throbbed, she looked up to see Bernadette look of shock and fear as blood gushed from her nose. Bernadette screamed an ear-splitting scream and tried to stop the blood gushing from her nose getting it all over her hands. Then the scream became a wail of terror and pain as she hit her own nose in the vain attempt to stop the bleeding. Then Bernadette fainted.
No one was ever sure that Bernadette had fainted from the pain, the blood or the embarrassment of the experience. All Ellie knew was a deep sense of justified satisfaction as the teacher also screamed and ran from the classroom to get help. She returned with a police officer who looked more amused than upset as the teacher pointed to Ellie who was anything other than threatening and tried to explain what she did. The policeman shook his finger and Ellie who could not stop grinning.
The teacher called the school nurse and came over with a wad of tissues to administer to the downed Bernadette. The school nurse rushed in shortly thereafter and the crime scene became an emergency ER as the teacher and nurse administered to Bernadette who regained consciousness long enough to burst into tears and make a bloody mess of her face. Ellie was escorted away by the police officer who managed to keep a straight face as he walked her to the Principal's office and made her wait while he reported the situation to the Principal. The Principal had Ellie come into to the office and sit in a chair while she called her parents.
A tense conversation followed with the principal calling first her home and then her father's place of employment, the local university where he taught philosophy. The principal hung up and said
"He's in class and will call back," to the police officer, who nodded understandingly and looked down at Ellie and winked. This earned him a glare from the principal whom he ignored. Ellie liked him a lot more after that.
"Why did you hit her?" The Principal asked.
Ellie sat for a long moment, measuring up whether a lie would work better or just tell the truth.
"Well?" The Principal asked, tapping her long fingernails onto her big desk.
Ellie shrugged and hung her head.
"She called me a bad name on the bus." She mumbled mostly at her knees.
The Principal made an exasperated sigh and Ellie could just see the woman shake her head through her bangs.
"Kids these days." The Police Officer said.

Her father called back after a fairly long wait. The principal took the call and then put her hand over the mouthpiece and signaled to the officer that she wanted privacy, so he gestured to Ellie that they should wait outside. The phone call was long, Ellie waited in a chair that was too big for her as the Police Officer regaled the office staff on how this petite little girl had 'laid out" a girl twice her size.
It was her mother who came to fetch her.
Glenda drove her home and Ellie felt bad for her. Glenda cried all the way back, insisted on carrying Ellie into the house, undressed her from her school clothes and into her pajamas and put her to bed.
Ellie lay in bed wondering what her fate would be, but being fairly sure she would never have to go back to that awful school again.
At supper, Ellie dared to creep downstairs. She found her mother red faced and puffy eyed sitting at the kitchen table. she looked down at Ellie sadly before getting up and making her a bowl of canned tomato soup. Ellie climbed into her special chair and watched her mother cook the soup on the stove and fetch a bowl and ritz crackers and a spoon. She placed the bowl of soup before Ellie and crumbled up the crackers for Ellie before returning to her chair. The look of utter misery returned to her mother's face. It was the first time Ellie knew what fear was.
Her father came home as she was finishing her soup. He was red faced but not sad. He walked into the kitchen and dropped his attache case on the floor and stared at Glenda. The long silence thing happened as if they were going to have a discussion. They did not.
An Eternity passed, Ellie watching them both one at a time waiting, hoping and dreading that they would finally speak to each other. Matt sighed, took off his glasses and rubbed the edge of his nose.
"Fine." was all he said before getting up and walking over to Ellie.
He took her by the hand and led her out of the kitchen as her mother began to weep.
It was the first time her father ever whipped her.
She never forgave him for it.

She was expelled the next day from the public school.
She did not leave her room for a week. She would not speak to her father. Her mother brought her food but all Glenda would say was "I'm so sorry, honey," before walking away. She would hear her mother crying each night. She did not see her father when she would creep out to go to the bathroom.
After the weekend had passed, she finally came down one morning to find her parents sitting at the dining room table talking to a man and a woman in dark clothing. She stood in the doorway in surprise. The pair looked at her and then back to her parents.
"Have you told her yet?" The woman asked and smiled down at Ellie.
"No." Her father replied. "We thought it would be best to wait until we were approved."
"Well, you are." The man replied as he smiled down at Ellie who managed to smile back.
After the pair had left, her father took Ellie by the arm leading her to the couch. He picked her up and sat her down there and looked into her eyes and said.
"You will now have a brother."

What this is...

I have many stories running through my head, these days.
So, after much daydreaming and rewrites in my head, I've decided to start writing them here.
Most of this will be romantically driven, so I am separating them from my regular short story blog (which I am redeveloping as well).
Much of what you will hopefully read here started out as dreams and became daydreams and then are being rescripted into works of fiction. 
I love- love stories, and before you ask: I have read romance novels. I suspect these will read a bit different. For one thing, I am a man writing about love. For another thing, I am a single and very lonely guy writing about the opposite state of affairs.
This might work.
I might meet Ellie Fitzgerald or Sharon McBee or Marissa Campbell or Genny Carver before I get their stories written down and decide that being in love is much better than writing about it.
I believe in Love.
Much like people believe in God, the Mets, Poker Luck, Winning the Lottery or not believing in anything. 
Love exists because I believe it exists. If you don't believe in Love, then you are at the wrong place and I would recommend you go find another place filled with all the illusions to which you are willing to buy into.
The views and POVs written here are mostly my own and those of the people I dream about (which is not the same thing).
That being said, we shall begin with Ellie Fitzgerald. 
Once upon a time....