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Peggy Eldridge-Love Poetry in PoetsArtists Issue #29

One of my poems, "Scout", is included in this issue of PoetsArtists.  I won't mention what page it is on because it would be an injustice. You deserve to treat yourself to the feast of words and art from poets and artists from all around the world. Enjoy!*

PoetsArtists #29

Tess Allen and Peggy Eldridge-Love

His Wife's Diary (Love Bites)    
India Reinhart, a 33-year-old successful Kansas City graphic artist, is torn as to what is the right thing to do when she finds a diary in a box of old books she purchases at a yard sale. Things get very dicey once she steps deeper and deeper into the quagmire of the lives that have unfolded in the pages of that diary. It is a quagmire that India realizes is turning out to be almost as unsettling as the life she is already living.

To make matters worse, India finds herself attracted to, rather than repelled by, the man she has come to despise based on his wife’s written words. He's Langley Monza, a Kansas City favorite son and ex-NFL star. The unwelcome attraction is a very complicated emotion for her since she still has some unfinished business with her own ex-fiancé and feels guilt and betrayal towards the diary writer whom she knows is dead.

 India discovers there is much more than just a broken heart hidden in the pages of Langley’s wife’s diary and it is that discovery that she realizes may easily drastically change the course of a number of lives, including her own.

VIEW BOOK TRAILER HERE!

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BUY IT NOW! This ebook novella is available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other retailers online
EXTRA EXTRA:

Read a sample of "His Wife's Diary (Love Bites)", learn more about Tess Allen, have an opportunity to win some great books and prizes on fReado now!

Check out "Author Tuesday's Present 'His Wife's Diary'"  an Interview with Peggy Eldridge-Love by Minolta White!  Get the inside scoop now!

The Jewel Thief (Love Bites)
Jewel Capri is on the fast track with her jewelry design business and it looks like things are only going to get better when she ties into one of the most popular women in Dallas, Soraline Baugh, a woman who seems to have the power to make or break her career.

           But Jewel has no idea what awaits her as she finds herself caught in the middle of a cloudy world of television and professional sports personalities. And she's not at all happy with herself when she winds up thinking far too much about the intriguing, Wayman Washington, an ultra sexy, sensitive man who just won’t leave her alone.

           When Jewel discovers who Wayman really is all she wants is out. But does she? BUY NOW! This ebook novella is available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, and other retailers online.

ABOUT LOVE BITES:
Love Bites are short romantic stories that are offered as electronic books. Look for others by Essence Best Selling author Shelia Goss, including The Kandie Shop and Mrs. America. Love Bites are quick short reads. So sit back and enjoy these romantic appetizers.

Article:
The short Ebook, the right price, and the right subjects. Art Imitating Life or Life Imitating Art...for Under a Buck!



Peach Seeds

A part of the Mipo-Chapbook series, this chapbook contains twelve poems from Peggy Eldridge-Love. Author Shelia Goss says in her Goodreads review that Eldridge-Love's poems "sing off the pages", while"love it" is a first utterance by many others who have read it.

Update! You can now read Peach Seeds online at issuu.com! Click Here!
Ebooks!
Several books are now available in the Kindle Store including You Beckon, Loving Buddy and Holding It Together With Band-Aids and Safety Pins!

Loving Buddy is also available from Barnes and Nobel, Kobo Ebooks, Diesel-Ebooks, and Smashwords.


Loving Buddy

“Loving Buddy” focuses on the changing world of 13-year-old Kaye Hawkins, the daughter of a third generation pastor, who is a staunch defender of her big brother Buddy, no matter how many hearts he breaks or the trouble he makes. She is also intrigued by the inner workings of her extended family and what she is perceiving about the quality of the lives of the women who surround her.

Click Here to Order
Holding It Together With Band-Aids and Safety Pins

An engaging poetic look at the social, emotional, economic, and political struggles of the early twenty-first century that impact the lives of both young and old. It finds people where they are, who they are, and what they are doing to try to cope and understand their changing world. It whispers of the mysteries of complex relationships to the anguish of facing incomprehensible grief. It speaks of you and it speaks of me. Holding it Together with Band-Aids and Safety Pins is the second poetic offering of poet/playwright Peggy Eldridge-Love and dovetails nicely with her first award-winning collection, You Beckon. Peggy is also the artist of the cover watercolor entitled Uprising.

Click Here to Order

	The original award-winning volume of poetry by Peggy Eldridge-Love. Published by Write On Writers. Print copies: (Available by clicking here.)

Zazzle and Other Stuff:

I have a few new things that are now in print. A short story, "War Paint", was published in the OCHO #30 issue. A poem entitled "Free Wrapping With Purchase (After Christmas Sale)" was included in the June Issue of Poets and Artists.  Also,  "Peach Seeds"  ,a chapbook of a dozen of my poems was published as a part of the Mipo-Chapbook Series. Digital copies of these journals are available and, at this writing, the Mipo-Chapbook Series is available for free download to iPad users. Hard copies can be purchased from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Scribd.com, and MagCloud.com. 

***NEW "ZAZZLE" PRODUCTS BY PEGGY***

Check out a host of new designs, including postage, t-shirts, shoes (yes shoes!), iPad and iPhone spec cases, and much more from the Peggy's Zazzle Stores:
Nudgies
PeggyTees

A Minute With Author Jennifer Chase

What's Your Name and the title or titles of your books?

My name is Jennifer Chase and I have four books available: Compulsion, Dead Game, Silent Partner, and How to Write a Screenplay.

What genre do you normally write in?

My three novels are thrillers with emphasis in the crime fiction or police procedural categories. 

Could you tell us just a little about yourself?

I have a bachelor degree in police forensics and a master’s degree in criminology.  Up until about five years ago, I worked in the corporate world in the area of business and accounting.  I decided to change my current path into the criminal justice field, but an interesting thing happened during that process.  My love of writing took over and I decided to write my first novel Compulsion in 2008. 

Will you give us a brief overview of your latest, or if you prefer, your favorite book?
 Compulsion and Dead Game are two books in an ongoing Emily Stone Series that revolves around a heroine who hunts down serial killers and child predators anonymously, then emails her investigation to the local police.    

Where are your books available?
 All my books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, and available by special order with any book retailer (online or in person).  They are in ebook and paperback formats.

Are you working on anything new at the moment?

Yes, I’m in the middle of my third thriller in the Emily Stone Series.  It will take my heroine on her serial killer hunt to the island of Kauai.
 
What one statement would you like to make that you think our audience and your readers might benefit from?

Great question!  Honesty, pure and simple, is what makes everything that much better for everyone.
Practice this simple attribute everyday, you'll be amazed at what can happen.

How can someone follow you if they want to stay abreast of what you are doing?
 I welcome comments and questions!  

Blog: http://authorjenniferchase.com/

Website: http://jenniferchase.vpweb.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Author-Jennifer-Chase/208188122534165/

Twitter: http://twitter.com/JchaseNovelist/

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A Minute With Author Jodie B. Cooper

What's Your Name and the title or titles of your books?

Hi Tess, Thanks so much for having me here!

I'm Jodie B. Cooper. I currently have three books published. Forbidden Temptation of a Vampire: Sídhí Summer Camp #1, Beloved LifeMate: Song of the Sídhí #1, and A Dragon's Dream of Love: Song of the Sídhí #2

What genre do you normally write in?

YA paranormal romance.

Could you tell us just a little about yourself?

When I was in my teens, I wrote a few short stories. After I graduated from HS, I gave up my writing to 'do the right thing' and make a living. Big mistake! I spent years (many years! LOL) with stories bouncing around in my head begging me to write them down. After getting my degree in accounting and working as a tax preparer for several years I decided it was time to give up the icky in life and enjoy it. I now write about shapeshifters, dragons, vampires, elves, fairies... fun stuff!

Will you give us a brief overview of your latest, or if you prefer, your favorite book?

Ah, my latest project... that's a rather difficult question. I always work on several items at once. Keeps my brain from bursting when ideas clash and demand my attention. Book #2 in the Sídhí Summer Camp series is at 36,000 words. A little over halfway finished. Book #3 in Song of the Sídhí series is a novelette and finished at 17,000 works, but needs editing. (It started out as a 7,000 word short story. LOL) Third, I'm now reporting Sídhí news clips.

Where are your books available?

Readers can find links at my website or at most on-line retailers, such as: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, OmniLit, Smashwords, & Goodreads

Are you working on anything new at the moment? 

Yes! I am reporting Sídhí news clips on my blog, Sídhí World News. I love reporting Sídhí news and events. You never know when a werewolf is going to escape from the zoo or when a vampire submits to blood lust or the latest theft of basilisk eggs... the list of hot news clips is endless.

What one statement would you like to make that you think our audience and your readers might benefit from?

What's done is done and you can't undo it. ~ Therefore, think before you speak or write!

How can someone follow you if they want to stay abreast of what you are doing?

Thank you so much for asking! I love meeting new people.

Sídhí World News Blog: http://sidhinews.blogspot.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JodieBCooper 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/JodieBCooper 

Website: http://www.jodiebcooper.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/jodiebcooper

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You Beckon

Order Now

The original paperback "You Beckon".

A Minute With Author Tess Hardwick

What's Your Name and the title or titles of your books?

Tess Hardwick

"Riversong"

"Duet For Three Hands" - coming out in November.

What genre do you normally write in?

Women's fiction.

Could you tell us just a little about yourself?

I was trained as an actress at the University of Southern California but found my voice as a playwright in the late 90's. After a time, I decided the types of stories I wanted to tell are better told in novel form. I live in Snoqualmie, a suburb of Seattle, with my two young daughters and my husband. I was raised in a small town in Southern Oregon, the setting for my first novel.

Will you give us a brief overview of your latest, or if you prefer, your favorite book?

My debut novel, Riversong, is about a young woman, Lee Tucker, who is forced to rebuild her life when her husband dies unexpectedly. She moves to her childhood home in southern Oregon to fix up her deceased mother's home to pay a large debt. While there, she meets a colorful cast of small town people and is convinced to help open a restaurant in order to reinvent the town as a tourist destination. It is primarily a love story with a dose of humor, food and the power of community.

Where are your books available?

Barnes and Noble.com and Amazon.com in both paperback and Nook or Kindle. Also, you can read it for free on booktrope.com.

Are you working on anything new at the moment?

I am in the final editing process on my novel, "Duet For Three Hands". It will be released in November by Booktrope Editions.

What one statement would you like to make that you think our audience and your readers might benefit from?

If you love something, do it, ignoring both the naysayers in your mind and in your life.

How can someone follow you if they want to stay abreast of what you are doing?

I write a blog, "Inspiration For Ordinary Life" on my website www.tesshardwick.com. There are event details, book excerpts and workshop information on there as well.

Thank you so much!

Want A Free Copy of "His Wife's Diary (Love Bites)" ?

You might be a winner here:

A Minute With Author Bryan R. Dennis

What's Your Name and the title or titles of your books?

Hello, I’m Bryan R. Dennis the author of An Epitaph for Coyote and four short story collections.

What genre do you normally write in?

I write speculative fiction, though my early works, such as An Epitaph for Coyote fall in the literary category (notwithstanding the speculative subtext).

Could you tell us just a little about yourself?

I’m just a regular guy trying to discover why I was put on this earth. I joined the Army right out of High School and served overseas. Enjoyed some of it, hated the rest. Came home and worked several blue-collar jobs and hated them. Got a degree at University and worked a few years in a white-collar career. Hated it. Now I’m writing fiction, the only job I’ve ever loved. I love it so much I do it for free (well, almost free).

Will you give us a brief overview of your latest, or if you prefer, your favorite book?

My latest book, An Epitaph for Coyote is a satirical love story about a lonely insolated clerk who encounters his complete opposite in a strange woman from the desert. She shows him a radical way of looking at things and at himself, and basically shakes his neat orderly world up as if it were an ant farm.

Where are your books available?

I have four short story collections that can be downloaded at Amazon or at Smashwords. Three of them are free at Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61922.

Are you working on anything new at the moment?

Yes. I’m putting the finishing touches on my next novel Saw a Rainbow. This book is a metaphysical suspense about an ancient general who seems to have died and wakened as a drunken bum in modern-day Las Vegas. An ominous presence stalks him, his lover from the previous life haunts him, and there is something very disturbing buried in his back yard. This is due for a September 2011 release.

What one statement would you like to make that you think our audience and your readers might benefit from?

Enjoy the journey as much as the destination, and don’t wait until you’re old to have your regrets.

How can someone follow you if they want to stay abreast of what you are doing?

Twitter: http://twitter.com/BryanRDennis
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bryan-R-Dennis-Author/302526520888
Blog: http://www.bryanrdennis.com
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Bryan-R.-Dennis/e/B0052

Wow! Thanks Bryan. I wish you every possible success in your endeavors!

Peggy

 

Start Reading a Free Sample Now!

Loving Buddy, Young Adult Christian Fiction

Loving Buddy

Coming of age is tough enough, but coming of age as the children of a well-known third-generation pastor in a small close-knit community is triple the burden it seems to 13-year-old Kaye Hawkins. And she's already concluded that if it's going to be as challenging for her as it is for her older brother, Buddy, she may well want to take an entirely new approach.

Kaye is witty and humorous, uncannily wise and deeply loyal. She is not someone you'll easily forget.

Tess Allen's "His Wife's Diary (Love Bites)" Book Trailer

New Release from Tess Allen! "His Wife's Diary"

Hot off the Tess Allen Writes site:

Just Released!!!

His Wife's Diary (Love Bites) by Tess Allen  (BUY NOW!)

HIS WIFE'S DIARY...

India Reinhart, a 33-year-old successful Kansas City graphic artist, is torn as to what is the right thing to do when she finds a diary in a box of old books she purchases at a yard sale. Things get very dicey once she steps deeper and deeper into the quagmire of the lives that have unfolded in the pages of that diary. It is a quagmire that India realizes is turning out to be almost as unsettling as the life she is already living.

To make matters worse, India finds herself attracted to, rather than repelled by, the man she has come to despise based on his wife’s written words. He's Langley Monza, a Kansas City favorite son and ex-NFL star. The unwelcome attraction is a very complicated emotion for her since she still has some unfinished business with her own ex-fiancé and feels guilt and betrayal towards the diary writer whom she knows is dead.

India discovers there is much more than just a broken heart hidden in the pages of Langley’s wife’s diary and it is that discovery that she realizes may easily drastically change the course of a number of lives, including her own.

The Absent - Excerpt - Peggy Eldridge-Love

THE ABSENT

PROLOGUE

            Juice from the blue Popsicle trickled down Lauren’s arm onto her faded yellow sun suit. It had been a while since she licked it, her attention instead focused on the voices just behind the rickety screen door. They were loud angry voices, and they were talking about her.
            “See if I care what you do with the stinking little bastard,” Alva, her grandmother, screamed. “Hell, you can put her out for the trash collector for all I care!”      
            “Then why did you make me have her? I told you I could still get an abortion, but no, wasn’t no daughter of yours having no abortion. You remember that, Mama? You remember that?”
            The resounding sound of the slap Alva gave her daughter, Charlotte, Lauren’s mother, rang out like gunfire making Lauren jump not once, but twice as the last of the Popsicle slid off the stick and into her lap.
            “Well, she ain’t my ‘sponsibility and you ain’t gonna dump her on me. I didn’t want you neither, come to think of it. You so big on abortions, I shoulda got rid of you.”
            Lauren’s tiny fingers trembled as she tried to wipe the blue slime from her sun suit, the expression on her face far too serious for a four-year-old. She began to tremble in earnest when the screen door behind her flew open. Charlotte, her narrow shoulders heaving up and down with rage, the fingerprints of the just heard slap already showing up red against her amber skin, propped the door open with her foot, leaned over, grabbed Lauren by one tiny brown arm and drug her through the door into the dark abyss of the musty living room.
            Charlotte dug the heel of her palm into the base of Lauren’s neck shoving her forward with a force that sent her reeling across the linoleum floor. With nothing to stop her momentum, Lauren sailed into the cheap, pressed wood coffee table, its contents flying everywhere as she continued her journey, ending up in an awkward somersault that landed her in an upside down heap against a far wall.
            “I don’t want her, Mama! You can do whatever you want with her. I’m outta here!”
            Lauren could feel the blood seeping from her ear, but she didn’t know what it was. All she knew was her mother was leaving and Grandma Alva was going to put her in the trash, but, scared as she was, she was getting sleepy, and, try as she may to stay awake, she couldn’t.

***
From the (WIP) novel The Absent by Peggy Eldridge-Love  -©2011
All Rights Reserved

For Hawice ...

                                                                               

This Stevie Wonder classic, "As", is the epitome of you! I only hope that it will touch someone who pauses to listen to it now with the power, the truth, the essence, the insight, the love, the strength, the kindness, the wisdom and the utter beauty that was (and will always be) you.

I love you, Hawice.

*************

Love Bites Romantic Appetizers

Okay! Maybe you haven't heard of them yet, but I guarantee you soon you will. So, let me be one of the first to introduce you to "Love Bites", little romantic appetizers ...Ebooks that deliver that extra special little buzz when all you want is to feel good and enjoy!

First in that marvelous line is Essence Best Selling Author Shelia Goss' "The Kandie Shop". It is available all over the net, but on this page I'm including a link!

The next in the series is the debut romance novel by Author Tess Allen "The Jewel Thief". It will tantalize your love of romance and mystery and definitely leave you wanting a little bit more.

It too will be available at most online book stores within the next few days, and is currently available from Lulu and in most formats at Smashwords..

or .The Jewel Thief (Love Bites)


So! Enjoy! You heard it from me and I'm proud you did!

Loving Buddy: A Sibling's Tale of Loyalty and Love

Kaye wonders why her brother's girlfriends are such geeks until she's bitten by the love bug herself!

Watching the unfolding dramas that surround her big brother Buddy as he stays the focus of the girls at the church their father pastors, 13-year-old Kaye Hawkins finds herself shaking her head in amazement a lot. Especially when Buddy's drama spills over into tensions at home. But even though she's Buddy's most ardent supporter, Kaye's discovering that being a girl is not quite as simple as it seems and becoming a woman might not be such an easy road to travel.

Your Most Valuable Asset is Your Human Resources!

If you or someone you know in the US has 50 plus employees and needs to give them a "perk" or "fringe benefit" that may not cost the employer anything, but offer the employee incredible peace of mind please contact us here:

Thanks! Human resources are any organization's most important asset. Happy employees don't just work at the company, they work for the company!

Garage Sales Rock!

If you're a Garage Sale Junkie Click HERE!

Photos/Designs Peggy Love - All Rights Reserved

Totes,

Beach Bags,

Shirts,

Mugs

 

Garage Sales Rock

F.H. Crumbly: A Man of Color, A Man of Genius ... A Man

My husband's paternal great grandfather, F.H. Crumbly, aka Floyd H. Crumbly,  was an extraordinary man of color at the turn of the 20th Century and during its early years. Here are a few pieces of history to support that claim and to remind us that the event of slavery is not our catalyst of history, rather but an event. We were and we are and we shall always be a people imbued with strength, determination, vision, power and genius - whether given a fair opportunity or not!

From entering the world as the son of a free woman and a slave (who himself became one of the first African Americans to serve on a congressional committee following the civil war) to earning the rank of Lt. Col. in the Spanish American War, from becoming one of Atlanta's first most distinguished business men to one of its founders of African American based charitable, financial, social, business and religious organizations, to making his way to Los Angeles to become a publisher and a key founder of the African-American YMCA and NAACP chapters there - Floyd Henry Crumbly made an indelible mark on history.

Enter "Floyd H. Crumbly" into search here:

Enter "FH Crumbly" into search here:

Perhaps ...

From my studio window...

Photos:Copyright Peggy T. Love, All Rights Reserved

This is the snow from about a week ago, not the blizzard we are in the midst of today. The quiet beauty is a reminder of the need to slow down, to allow the life flow to just feel its way unimpeded by the urgency so inherent in our current times.

I was working on a project, stumped somewhat because something I'd anticipated would be a given was clearly going to be anything but, when I felt the urge to get up and creep down to the landing at the foot of the final set of stairs that led up to my studio.

For a moment I sat on the bottom step and looked out the triple windows mesmerized. The sight of the unbroken snow that was still falling was such an unexpectedly calming reward. Finally, I knew I needed to capture the moment.

I tiptoed back up the stairs and retrieved my camera, eased back down as though I might disturb the snow if I walked hard and shot a few shots, including these. I felt I was taking a photo of "peace".

Is This Artist Familiar to You?

Does anyone know anything about this artist? I'd love any information you might provide. Thanks in advance.

I think ...

Have I made this world a better place for you?

I think that is what I am supposed to do, isn't it?

Isn't me being a part of your life and you being a part of mine meant to make us better?

Is that my true purpose in life?

I think so?

A Book About Leroy W. Allen, Fine Artist

Photo:Kansas City Star First Anniversary of 9/11

Front Page of the Kansas City Star 

I'd promised myself that I was going to write a book about my brother, Leroy W. Allen, the extraordinary fine artist who left us in 2007. Shortly after his death I attempted to tackle the task and almost immediately realized it wasn't time and that it probably wouldn't be time anytime soon. I tucked my pen and thoughts away, allowed myself to enter and begin the journey of early healing and immersed my grief related creative urges in a host of other tasks.

It appears I'm approaching the time now when I might be able to do him, his art, his still unfolding legacy and the love we, his family, felt from and for him justice. I've begun to rumble through memories - both tangible (photos, writings, drawings, videos, etc.) and intangible more and more. I love what I'm feeling, thinking, seeing through eyes both of hindsight and new revelation. My hand now itches with the need to try to capture a part of him for posterity.

When and how long it will be? I have no idea, I just know that God willing it will now happen. I'm grateful.

An old photo of Leroy, his daughters, our parents and me.

Excerpt from Loving Buddy

Excerpt from LOVING BUDDY!

Chapter 2

We were just saying grace when the front door slammed and Buddy came rushing in. I heard the books he slung hit the steps in the hallway and listened as he ran to the bathroom and washed his hands before coming into the dining room to take his place at the dinner table.

At seventeen, Buddy was six foot one, his thick black hair added at least another inch, and he was a special kind of color that I couldn’t name if I tried. It was kind of red, but it was a brown, and sometimes it almost seemed like he was a little yellow. Even I knew he was handsome, but I would be the last one to let him know I thought so. He had our mother’s big brown eyes, while I had eyes like daddy that people said reminded them of a cat’s. I wished I looked more like mama and Buddy than like daddy and Grandpa Hawkins, but facts were facts and I took from daddy’s side of the family and Buddy took from mamas.

“Sorry I’m late!” Buddy said and slid into his seat almost sideways.

“That’s a chair, not a sandbag, boy!” Daddy said, but I got the feeling he was relieved rather than mad that Buddy was there.

Mama had started to pass the food around. She handed the platter of chicken fried steaks to daddy, but her focus was on Buddy. “And the reason you’re late, Byron?”

Daddy took the platter and laughed. “Byron?” He said, almost under his breath. We all knew that wasn’t a good sign. Buddy was Buddy until he was in really hot water with mama, then he became Byron.

“I caught a ride with Animal – I mean, Anthony, and he had to make a few stops before he dropped me off.” Buddy said, happy to take the platter from daddy that was coming his direction.

“Did one of those stops happen to be at the Joseph’s?” Mama asked pointedly.

“Uh oh!” I said, my hand flying to my mouth, but it was already too late. I couldn’t hold back the giggle, at least not until mama flashed that ‘cut you’ glance my way again. Heck, that glance can stop anything.

Buddy looked really surprised by her question. “No. Why would Animal take me by the Joseph’s house?”

“Well, someone is going to have to take you by there so you can apologize to that silly little girlfriend of yours, Byron! You better stop playing with these little girl’s emotions! I’m sick of them showing up on my doorstep ruining my day!”

“What?” Buddy said, color draining from his face.

“You heard your mother, Buddy. Soon as dinner is over I’m driving you over to Sister Joseph’s apartment and we’re going to sit down with her and Tarrah while you apologize for being unkind.”

“But –“

“But nothing, son. That’s just the way it is. Tarrah came by here really distressed cause you said you weren’t going to take her to youth convention dinner and Sister Joseph already spent, per Tarrah, nearly half her check on the new suit she bought Tarrah for the dinner.”

I had stopped eating, propped my chin in my hands supported by my elbows that I knew were forbidden on the table, but this was too good to be concerned with my table manners. Daddy’s voice was calm, mama’s face was still angry, and Buddy, poor Buddy looked almost sick.

“I’m taking Kelly to the convention dinner, daddy. I told Tarrah almost four weeks ago we weren’t going together any more.” He set his fork down on his plate loudly. “Oh man! I hate that old girl! I never did really like her that much!”

“Oh really? So you never did really like her that much, Byron? Then why did I catch you kissing her downstairs after Sunday school when you all were supposed to be upstairs with the rest of us?”

“But that was two months ago, mama! So help me, right after that we – I – broke up with her.”

The swat that took my left elbow off the table caught me by surprise, as my head dropped suddenly. I forgot how good mama was at doing two things at one time. She snapped at me, “Finish eating your dinner, Kaye!” without missing a beat with Buddy.

“These little messes of yours are not cute, Buddy. Every Sunday now I’m hearing something else about you and I don’t like it, young man!”

Daddy put his napkin down next to his plate. He’d managed to eat most of his dinner while the other three of us had been caught up in the conversation, but it was his turn to talk now.

“Like I said, son, we will be going over to the Joseph’s. You will be apologizing to Tarrah. She is going to be your date to youth convention dinner, and thank God your new little girlfriend does not go to Mount Carmel and you and you alone will have to work out that mess!”

“Amen!” I couldn’t help adding my two cents. Buddy shot me a look that could have killed a lesser person, but I just flashed him a smile. I knew I’d pay for it later.

Buddy tried one more time. “Can’t you all see what Tarrah did? She’s just playing you. She let her mother buy that outfit knowing I wasn’t taking her. Everybody knows all they have to do is come running to you all about something you think is going to create a problem at church and you’ll do whatever it takes …”

Daddy leaped up and pointed one of his big, thick fingers in Buddy’s face. “Shut it up, boy! Don’t you start trying to lecture nobody about what we do regarding Mount Carmel or you’ll be looking for you a new home!”

“No he won’t, B.R.” Mama was on her feet now too, and my amusement evaporated. Both her hands were on her hips and the looked that flashed between her and daddy put a chill in my heart. I’d never seen anything like it before. It must have shocked Buddy too.

“Okay, okay, y’all, I’m sorry. I’ll go with you, Daddy. We can go now. I’m not hungry any more.”

“Eat your dinner first, Buddy, then you go.” Mama said, easing back down, but still eying daddy.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the car.” Daddy said, storming away from the table.

Mama watched after daddy for a moment then turned her attention to Buddy and me. “Eat!”

****