Hello again at last readers!
First, I’d like to thank you for your patience as I worked out this latest chapter. It’s only one of a few instances of magical realism (Modern magical realism novels explore facets of the mundane alongside the fantastical—a real world setting into which the magical enters. In magical realism, supernaturality has no explanation. It’s the absurdity of magic in an average world. Source: https://bookriot.com/new-magical-realism-books/?fbclid=IwAR2U3hxENcvAmJG8ahZ1jjPzb3wipOr6KbBceL3j_G671z0ha6cWqB7FND) in the novel, and while I know this blog will not be the final edition of the book, I wanted it to feel right at the outset.
A few years back, I bemoaned my slow progress to a family member. He promptly shared an article with me about a writer who took 7 years to write a single book. That humbled me. Art cannot be rushed. I certainly don’t plan to take seven years to finish this book; as a matter of fact, that’s why I chose to release it in blog form, because it seems more doable and allows me to build interest. But I also realize that in this case, not only was I working out how I wanted to portray the “absurd” and magical bits, but life happened—I was dealing with several personal issues this summer.
So, thank you for hanging in there with me, and without further ado, let’s get back to it.
Synopsis:
Gloria Carlisle filled every article she wrote for Anthem magazine with her penchant for classic rock and her passion for storytelling. When her editor assigns her an interview with the lead singer of the country’s number one rock band, it’s Gloria’s chance to establish herself as a Black female writer in a white man’s world of rock journalism.
When the singer cancels the interview and refuses to reschedule it, Gloria must return to L.A. to face her editor with no story.
After hours on the road, Gloria finds herself at the Silver Cactus, a small bar and grill in the middle of the desert, owned by the former bass guitarist of the all-female rock band Crimson Fox. That pitstop leads to a journey across the country and back to the desert in search of the story that was never told—the story Gloria was meant to write, and the one that will show her who she was always meant to be.
If you’d like to reread the previous chapter, click here.
If you’d like to start again with the Prologue, click here.
And at any time, just click on the title of the book on the list to the right of the blog page to see all of the chapters I’ve released to date.
Crimson Fox by Anne Eston
Gloria
ii
He might as well have shot her. Failure hit Gloria’s gut like a tranquilizer dart, and while she told herself that she had to move, its invisible inky poison seemed to flood her veins, and numb her from the inside out.
She saw her hands shift the car into reverse and turn the steering wheel, and she felt her foot press the gas pedal, but only in a disconnected way.
Gloria was unaware of the speed at which the car catapulted out of the driveway, and she nearly crashed into a tree on the other side of the road near where she’d been parked minutes before thinking her career as a rock journalist was about to take right off. Or implode.
She managed to pump the brakes seconds before she collided with the tree. Luckily the berm of the road wasn’t a ditch. The numbness she felt made her grip the gear shaft more tightly, and she peered, disoriented, at her own white knuckles as she put the car in drive again.
As the tires spit a hailstorm of gravel, Gloria guided the car back onto the road. After fishtailing for a few hundred yards, she found the center of her lane and held the car steady. As her breath slowed, so did her speed, and Gloria left Kip Ripper, his lackey, and his mansion behind.
Some part of her knew she wasn’t driving back the way she’d come, but she ignored it. To breathe and to drive was all that she could manage.
The edges of Gloria’s vision grew blurry. The road widened, and became emptier, more desolate. She squinted and glanced up at the rearview mirror; the road she saw there was just as empty. Kip and his mansion, along with whatever story she might have written about him felt much more distant than that morning.
She heard her own pulse throbbing in her ears, each beat marking the passage of time. Gloria couldn’t tell whether it had been minutes or hours since she left Kip’s driveway, but she was speeding again, and an open swing gate in the distance was suddenly upon her.
She should stop, turn around. Get a grip. Jeremy was waiting. But what was the point of that? All that lay behind her was the waste of a plan, a story, a writer’s life. She floored it, and sent her Camaro crashing through the gate. Its iron double arms swung and banged in her wake.
At first the car rocked and bounced over uneven terrain. Rocks pinged and banged on the undercarriage, and still Gloria did not ease her foot off of the gas pedal. Then without warning, all sound ceased. The ground beneath the tires of her car became smooth. To Gloria, it looked the same, with desert shrubs and rocks everywhere as far as her eyes could see, but she sensed nothing as she drove over them. Mountains loomed on the horizon with the sun falling nearer to their peaks off to her right. She was heading south, but Gloria was no longer certain where she wanted to go.
In a moment of panic, she pulled her foot off of the accelerator—but the car didn’t slow. Gloria steered slightly first to the left, then to the right, but the car never veered from its trajectory. She opened her mouth to speak her confusion and fear aloud, but nothing came out.
I’ll turn on the radio, she thought. Maybe this is weather. Maybe there’s some kind of bulletin. She twisted the “on” button to the right in frustration and waited for the sound, any sound to come out of the speakers in the dashboard.
For long moments, static, then—
<You got to be smart out there on the road like that. You got to think.>
A public service announcement, about road conditions. Maybe they’ll say what the hell is going on here.
<Get yourself someplace safe before dark, now.>
I’m trying. A little help here. I don’t even know where the hell I am. At least give me some call letters, where your listeners are from tonight, something.
<I know what you want…>
Another jolt of electric wisdom shot through her. Jesus, that's what Daddy had said . . . that was his voice!
<Go on . . . talk to her. She’s the head of the comp sci department, isn’t she? . . . you could make sixty grand right after graduation . . . I want a return on my investment.>
I’m not having this conversation again. I made my choice. This is who I am, what I do.
Eyes fixed on the horizon, Gloria reached blindly for the dial and gave it a hard twist. The faint sounds of a new station began to come in over the air waves.
<If you don’t . . . *crackle* . . . the right way . . . *crackle*>
A talk show--thank God, something normal!
Her hand started to shake, but Gloria gave the dial a slight twist.
<Well, you’ll never amount to anything.>
Mom . . .!
I will amount to something—I DO amount to something!
Tears stung the back of her eyes as she wrenched the dial again. What sounded like more static, Gloria realized was applause.
<Welcome to Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me . . . and now for our first question . . .>
Finally, something real. I'm not crazy after all.
Gloria still had no idea where she was, or how to get herself turned around, but maybe after this program there would be some kind of station identification.
<You know, I don’t want to be Todd’s assistant forever—>
My own voice—!
The memory from Gloria’s first job after college throbbed in her mind like a sudden onset migraine. Burke, that hot shot editor thinking he knew everything, had said to her—
<Why not? You’re good at it.>
Gloria wailed and covered her ears, not caring that she had let go of the steering wheel, and at the same time floored the gas again. It didn’t matter who drove the car now, or where it was headed, only that this all needed to stop, these voices, this quest that never led to anything.
In that moment, Gloria’s ears thundered with a pounding wind as if she were in the free fall of a skydive. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, even as she felt the car bump and bounce across the ground. She grabbed the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes. It was only when the car finally skidded to a stop in the crush of sand that Gloria dared to open her eyes.
Her breath caught at the realization that it was now full night. Her eyes flicked across the dark, moonless horizon to the left and right. She took little comfort in the canopy of stars.
The only other lights were a single tall road lamp that looked as if it had been plucked from the interstate and driven into the ground, and a white and blue neon sign on the building over which it towered: Silver Cactus Cantina.
Gloria cut the engine, and all sound left the car as if in a vacuum, except for the tinny sound of an old Donna Fargo tune on the radio. She clicked the radio off and tried to remember the journey, tried to remember the day that had passed so quickly. There had been the interview just that morning. She blinked and the memory that it never happened and why, stabbed her heart again. Then the driving—she must have driven like a madwoman. Still, Gloria couldn’t recall actually driving all those hours, or seeing the sunset as she drove.
Her body told her otherwise, and in her current state of exhaustion, she had two choices: keep the doors locked and hope no one would bother her until morning when she could find her way again or risk going inside. Her father would have scolded her for allowing herself to end up alone at night in the middle of the desert with no protection.
Then she remembered the radio and nearly going half mad trying to find a decent station. Her heart started to thunder in her chest again. The radio. . .those voices. Gloria suddenly wanted to be anywhere else but inside the car.
There were no other cars that she could see; maybe the place was closed. But there was faint light coming from the a single window. Maybe the owners were still inside and might at least give her something to eat. If not, then she’d force herself to come back to the car and hunker down until morning.
Gloria opened the door and pulled herself out of the car. She flung it shut again, and on shaky legs, she stumbled toward the entrance to the cantina, and prayed that food and answers awaited her inside.
****
Thanks for reading! Would you like to release your novel as a blog? Let’s talk! anne@writeranne.net.
