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Query Questions I May Have To Answer Some Day

What's the book about?

It's an unscheduled journey of self discovery, telling the tale of a young man who yearns for love and acceptance in a world that is lonely and cold.  

What is the audience hook?

An unexpected love affair will take the reader through the gorgeous landscape of Newfoundland's north central coast, out into the wild Atlantic seas, inside the warm music filled places of a classic outport town, and into the unique lives of the people who live there.  The reader will spend five days in the spring of 1964 eavesdropping on the life of Fisher Sullivan as he copes with new challenges in his previously unfulfilling life. 

What will prompt readers to buy it?

The literary landscape of the past few years, has been heavily weighted in vampire tales,  post-disaster epics, addiction memoirs, and espionage escapades.  White Horses on the Bay will be an enjoyable light diversion into a romantic landscape with charming characters. Like a tiny purple crocus popping up from the barren spring ground, this story will be a delightful and welcome respite from the gloom on the shelves.

Who will read it?
People of all ages will enjoy the simple romantic story line. Anyone who likes to travel to an unfamiliar place and immerse themselves in a unique culture will appreciate the glimpse into community life on the rugged east coast of Canada. There is history, adventure, opera music, kitchen parties, births, deaths and the messes of life in between the covers of White Horses on the Bay.
What is the quality of writing?
Although this is the author's first full length novel, she has been published in Canada's national newspapers, as well as local publications.  She has completed several university continuing education courses in the writing and publishing faculties at UBC and SFU. She has a background in commercial copywriting for print and broadcast media.
What is special or unique about this book?
The fast paced story line of the main characters is entwined with historical threads and framed by the memories of the main character's grandmother, whose life spans the past and the present in one of Canada's oldest settlements.  The progression of the novel follows the escalation of wind speeds in the Beaufort Wind Scale; from the calm, serene breezes in the beginning to the gale force storms that inevitably change everything in the end. The reader will learn about this wind scale still used today.
What does the project look like?
This is a literary fiction novel of 264 pages, 74,000 words.  It will be enjoyed as all literary fiction is, for its inventive diversion from one's ordinary life.
How have similar books sold?
According to the Hills Strategies 2005 report on "Who Buys Books in Canada?" funded in part by the Canada Council for the Arts and based on Statistics Canada data from 2001, more than 1.1 Billion dollars was spent on books in Canada in that year.  Over 50% of households reported buying "some" books in that year.  Sadly, nearly 50% reported buying no books. There was a 50/50 split in the amount of spending on books in single gender households, so roughly 50% of people who buy books are women. A large percentage of people who buy books in Canada are drawn to literature with a romantic, sentimental theme, and therefore many will also be interested in a novel such as White Horses on the Bay.  If the author's bookcase is any indication, similar books have sold very well.
How will this book stand out in the marketplace?

The Cover?

The name of the novel, White Horses on the Bay, will be intriguing and also vaguely familiar. It is an old maritime saying suggesting a storm is brewing.  The concept of storms may encourage readers to pick this book from the bookstore shelf.  The lonely character on this fence post may also draw the prospective reader to speculate what life in this place might be like. The clever inside cover synopsis and the intriguing first paragraph of Chapter 1 will hopefully, close the sale.

What will its shelf life-be?

White Horses on the Bay could have wide ranging appeal with a simple story that transcends countries and cultures.  The main story-line takes place in Twillingate, Newfoundland but an echo of that story crosses the Atlantic and plays out in the opera houses of Europe.  The time frame of the book's central narrative is Spring of 1964 and touches on the many events that occurred in North America during that era.  References to music, movies and pop culture of the turbulent 60's is peppered with turn-of-the-century technological advances in electricity, architecture, art and transportation.  The impact of WWII on several generations of Newfoundlanders adds a universal theme to the stories as does the harsh realities of living off the sea.  These aspects may make the book quite appealing to a broad audience and therefore have an enduring shelf-life, once word of mouth is considered.  

Why did the author write this particular book?

The author is a direct descendent of a famous opera singer from Twillingate.  The remarkable story of Georgina Stirling, The Nightengale of the North, who dazzled the concert halls of Europe from the late 1880's, was the starting point of the author's foray into literary fiction. The author has always wanted to write a longer piece of fiction and decided to construct a fictional novel that touched on the interesting history of her family.

Short, tight, succinct query with three sentence description of plot, character, and conflict.

Fisher's commitment to life recedes a little bit with each passing day, dissolving like a massive iceberg grounded in a bay of unfulfilled dreams and un-requited love. One stormy day, the wind whips the waves of passion into his lonely heart and moves a mountain of doubt out of his way. A swirling gale of extraordinary events hurls Fisher Sullivan, and all who know him, head first into a sea of change.

Anthony Sedlak - The Guy can Cook!

So my friend Debi and I went to a cooking class last night at the local gourmet gadget store, Kitchen Therapy, and we had the most amazing, head spinning, appetite conquering, mind boggling, culinary adventure anyone can have in an urban plaza that also sports a Le Chateau!  Just mere steps from the H&M store, across from a Hallmark  Cards shop, none other than the gorgeous gourmand himself, Anthony Sedlak was stirring up a savoury storm on an uncharacteristically stormy night.  At exactly the moment he flung another handful of coarse salt into the Bolognese sauce, the lights went out with a thunderous BAM!  It was as if he was channeling Emeril Lagasse and announcing his presence in the suburbs with a perfectly timed bolt of lightning.
Anthony Sedlak, is of course, right up there with the likes of Lagasse and other pop-culture TV chefs.  His show The Main on the Food Network, has people from all walks of life and all culinary backgrounds tuning in to watch his incredible physique......I mean, finesse with all things gourmet.  He's a local boy (BC) and he's made himself a name in the clique of cookbook gurus.  I now have Gordon, Jamie, Joel and Anthony's names prominently displayed in my collection of kitchen counter cookbooks. I have had the good fortune to dine at Gordon, Jamie and Joel's famous restaurants, but I've never had the joy of personally watching them cook!

Sitting just a few feet away from Anthony's "cooking stage" at the back of the incredibly stocked kitchen store, my 11 classmates and I watched and listened as Anthony flung ingredients by the handful into simmering pots on the cooktop in the demonstration kitchen.  He created the three course meal with more joie de vivre than the small space could actually handle and there were times when I threw my head back at the sheer power of his culinary conviction.
A few times he mentioned his penchant for Red Bull, which made me wince at the thought.  He also confessed to having a "quarter life crisis", which made my menopausal friends and I feel ancient.  He let it slip, perhaps in jest, that he suffers from OCD, but more than once, I wondered if he had a hyper-sensitivity to everything in his environment like Jeff Goldblum in The Fly, when he'd nervously bat at invisible specs in the air around him.  The energy coming off Anthony Sedlak when he's wearing an apron and stirring a pot almost makes the gas burner redundant.
This chef is all about rustic cooking, local ingredients, simple recipes, long slow cooking and the not-so-delicate balance of the savoury and the sweet.
I found it kind of difficult to keep up with the way he peppered cooking instructions with philosophical quotations and personal life stories.  A psychiatrist would have a field day with this guy! Who casually drops Margaret Mead quotations into a cooking lesson?  "So that's 2 litres of Beef stock....A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has....and a couple of dried bay leaves"....  
There are two things you notice when you encounter Anthony Sedlak in person: 1) he's really good looking and 2) he's super hyper.  These are things you notice as opposed to things you already know.  He's an accomplished and internationally recognized chef and he has a Food Network cooking show.  At first, I thought he would be a great catch for my daughter.  She loves writing about food and he loves making food.  What could be better?  So the first question asked from the cooking class assembled in the back of the store was "Are you single?".  And I wasn't the one who asked it!  Anthony mumbled something vague as we all felt a bit of crowd embarrassment and then he jokingly answered "If we're not in North Van, then yes!"  I was a little less enthusiastic at that point on the idea of my daughter dating him.  In fact, as the evening wore on, I grew less infatuated with him and more worried about his mental state.  Every time he flicked the back of his neck and rubbed his jeans with his hands, I thought of Rain Man or that Sam character Sean Penn played in I am Sam!. But I guess genius in all its creative forms comes with a bit of quirkiness.  
Back to the good looking thing.  Anthony tried to explain "pork belly" by rubbing his own belly, which is the area now occupied by his rock hard abs. Nobody, even the guys, could concentrate after that.  He mentioned the fact that he'd gained some weight during his Michelin 3-star restaurant days, but his 8-10K daily runs and his 80 -100k three-times-a-week bike marathons have turned him into a lean mean cooking machine.  I think you could make fudge on the guy's marble slab torso. One of my classmates even asked, "how can you stay so trim eating food like this?"  That's when Anthony mentioned the Olympic athlete fitness regime he's got going.  
Let's just say that I loved his laissez faire attitude to cooking. The French phrase literally means, "allow to do", and it is basically the way I love to cook.  Whatever ingredients I have on hand, whatever I feel like tossing together, often outdoes the precisely planned concoctions every time.  In our house we call it "A Taste of the Fridge" and it is a fantastic adventure to embark on! 
I don't want to be Anthony Sedlak's mother-in-law, but I wouldn't mind if he came over to cook once in awhile!

Back From La Belle Province!

    After a lovely, long summer of hot, dry weather in B.C., a trip to Quebec was like icing on the cake!  We spent 7 wonderful days exploring Mont Tremblant, Montreal, and Quebec City and enjoyed every single minute!  It must be that I love old and beautiful places and enjoy learning about history and also, that we were able to spend quality time together.  Lots of walking and exploring, dining and wine, art galleries and tourist traps, patio lunches and luxurious hotels added to the enjoyment factor!
    I didn't know it, but Mont Tremblant is the oldest resort in Canada.  It got its first chairlift in 1939.  Brad was able to take the ride to the top of the mountain before I arrived in Quebec, but once I got there, the weather turned cool and rainy so I could only imagine what the landscape looked like from up top.  My journey to Mont Tremblant was interesting in itself,  as I had a driver who is also a tour guide and spoke 6 languages.  He told me all kinds of things about the countryside on our way to the resort and I just thoroughly enjoyed listening to him. Although the trees were still lush and green, you can imagine how spectacular the scenery would become in the fall, as the hillsides and mountains are just carpeted with deciduous trees.  Every so often, a gorgeous stone church with a perfect spire, would appear in the distance like in an A.Y. Jackson painting.
    We had 3 great dinners in Mont Tremblant, our favourite being the Auberge Sauvignon.  It was an old home converted into an inn with a gourmet restaurant that felt cozy and elegant at the same time.  We had a 2006 Bordeaux that was exquisite.  We actually walked all the way to the Inn from our resort digs, which was about 20 minutes along a lovely path beside Lac Tremblant.  It seemed like a very posh, exclusive area with private club beaches and gated communities everywhere.

The Intrawest development at Mont Tremblant

    We had a great day travelling from Mont Tremblant to Montreal and onto Quebec.  Took the VIA rail from Montreal and enjoyed the first class tickets.  You get to wait in a lounge area if you want, our bags were taken and placed on the train for us, we had the first car behind the engine, and were served a lovely lunch with wine and other goodies.  The seats were very comfortable and the views from the huge windows were spectacular.  The countryside of Quebec rolled by for three hours through little towns and farmland and great expanses of forests.  I really enjoyed the sound of the train whistle and the jostling of the train car.  It was a romantic way to travel.

    We arrived in Quebec City in the late afternoon and found our hotel to be just a few blocks from the train station.  We stayed in a boutique hotel in the old lower city.  Very enchanting area full of cafes and galleries, teaming with tourists and very much like the old villages in the South of France. It reminded me very much of Cannes, Nice and  St. Paul de Vence.

St. Paul de Vence (above)  Old City in Quebec City (below)

    Brad and I used the iPhone application of walking tours on our first day of sightseeing and enjoyed finding places with the GPS.  We went to perhaps one of the ugliest buildings in the city which was also the tallest building and was a government tower where they have quite an astounding observatory on the top floor.  It gave 360 views of the  city and surrounding area and lots of great information on the window sills describing what you could see from that particular vantage point.

I think this photo really captures the tone of the city.  

Lots of flat roofs, short buildings, colourful siding, etc.

    We stopped in at the Plains of Abraham interpretive centre and spent a bit of time on the walkways, but actually saved a better visit of the battlefields for the second day.  We also toured the Citadel which has amazing grounds and is an archaeological wonder.  

The Citadel is included in the walled fortress of the Old City and is a World Heritage Site.  

This guy was standing guard in the hot sun and it was about 30 Degrees Celsius!

    We visited the Musee Des Beaux Arts Du Quebec on our second day of sightseeing and enjoyed seeing the Jean-Paul Riopelle paintings.  One of his paintings recently sold for $1.4 million!

Jean-Paul Riopelle Painting

The Museum

    Our old neighbours from BC, who now live in Quebec, joined us for an evening of fun that started with drinks on the terrace of the Chateau Frontenac and proceeded on to a 9 course tasting meal at Auberge St. Amour which featured food from Quebec.  It was incredibly fun and all 9 courses were paired with what seemed like 2 glasses of wine each!  Yikes!  Quite a culinary adventure.  I think I ate deer.  I know I had fois gras! There may have been petite lapin?

Char, Marie-Andree, Brad and Jean

Note the # of glasses!

     We spent a lot of time just wandering in and out of shops and galleries and churches.  Here are a few photos of these places:

    From the Old City of  Quebec to the modern architecture of Montreal, we had a fantastic trip through the history of La Belle Province.  It was such a great holiday.  I highly recommend it!

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Of course Hamlet was contemplating suicide in this line from To Be or Not To Be, one of Shakespeare's most famous soliloquies.  I'm just wishing I could sleep, even without dreaming, just one night, all through the night without waking even once.  I don't know why I can't sleep well, but it may be something to do with my age and hormones.  Or my gender and its genetically wired need to keep vigilant over the nest, protecting the young from predators.  Well, the young are off on their own life's adventures and there's no one left to worry about here in the nest, so what gives?  Here's an essay I wrote about my sleep deprivation.  If I wasn't so tired, it would make me laugh!

I Need a Nighttime Revolution

I haven’t slept in decades.  1981 was the last year of great sleeping for me.  Those sleeps where your head hits the pillow and the next thing you know the alarm clock is going off and it’s time to get up. The past 29 years have flown by for me in a fog of sleep deprivation that seems to be intensifying.  I’m beginning to wonder just how little sleep a person can exist on.  I remember a high school classmate of mine, who come to think of it may have become a communist but I’ve lost track of him, once mentioned to me that Che Guevara, survived on less than four hours sleep each night.  And he led a revolution.  I’ve got considerably less on my agenda, but still I question whether I’m in serious trouble trying to exist on what seems like 15 minutes of quality sleep. 

There are lots of reasons why I haven’t slept in ages.  I’m a worrier.  I will flail out of bed at 3am to check the doors are locked, look in the garage to see if anything has spontaneously combusted, or see if we accidently left the mini wiener dog outside when he went out for his before-bed pee.  There’s never any thing burning, the house is always secure and the dog is snoozing away in a rabbit-chasing dream. 

My husband snores so I invested in earplugs.  They’re supposed to muffle up to 33 decibels of sound, or the equivalent of a 747 jet landing.  Somehow the earplugs just make me listen more intently.   Also they make my ears itchy.

I’ve read up on sleep hygiene techniques.  No TV in the bedroom, no caffeine late in the day, cut back on alcohol, etc.  I’ve tried these things, with the exception of the last one.  Who wants to be sleep deprived and give up wine?  That’s just torture.

Yesterday morning when I was sleep-walking the wiener dog down to the mail box, I noticed a delivery truck slowly making its way down the street. I’d seen the truck many times before, recognized its company logo, the green medi-gas sign.  But this time, I also noticed the three things they delivered.  Oxygen, something else, and sleep therapy.  It was that third one that caught my eye.  Was it true?  Can you get sleep delivered to your door?  Like the newspaper or pizza? Wonder of wonders!  Halleluia!  I’ve found the elixir of my dreams and it’s conveniently driving down my street. 

But then I wondered.  What’s inside that truck that could possibly solve my sleep dilemma?  Some sort of time travelling machine that would take me back to last year when our investments were soaring and our house was worth twice what we paid for it?  This would be great, but then of course I wasn’t sleeping when times were good, either.  Maybe the truck was full of husbands being returned from their off-site snore facilities to their homes where their wives were just waking up from a silent night.  Maybe it was sort of like those ice-cream trucks that come around in the summer and play calliope music that only small children can hear, only this truck is playing a frequency only sleep deprived women can hear and they’re selling little blue sleeping pills out the back.  Does it sound like I’ve lost my marbles?  I’m well aware of it.

Every morning I slither out of bed, mention my lack of sleep to my husband who gingerly replies, “Oh God, I slept like a rock!”  I look in the bathroom mirror at the dark circles under my puffy eyes and sigh.  I seem to function well enough throughout the day and I try to remember my Mother’s advice:  “Don’t worry about sleeping, dear, you’ll have plenty of time for that when you’re dead.”  That one always helps. 

A recent Globe and Mail article by Marina Jimenez about sleep deprivation and its near epidemic proportions in society today had some helpful insights for me. I’ve had to re-read it several times, though as I’m so tired I can’t stay focused.   It talked about how a few generations ago, people slept in segments, often breaking in the middle of the night to do chores, then returning for another few hours of morning sleep.  So I’ve decided to simply get out of bed at 3am, work on my novel, paint, read, clean the house, basically do all the things I’m too tired to do in the daytime right now, and see if this changes things.  If Che Guevara can become one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people of the 20^th century on less than 4 hours sleep, then surely I can achieve something.  Wait a minute….what happened to that guy anyway?  I’m too tired to google it.  Must take nap.

Patron Saint of Parking Spaces

We call her the "Patron Saint of Parking Spaces" because whenever we invoke her name, we find a miraculous parking spot usually in a packed lot!  Or a parking meter, right outside the shop/office we're heading to.  Or a perfect spot on the ferry with a view from the car windows.  And when she's in the car with us, her effect is even more obvious.  She laughs it off and sort of wonders if it's blasphemous to even consider someone to be a "parking space saint".  Then she reminds us that to be a saint, you have to be already dead.  Never-the-less, we kid her about it and secretly say, "Thanks for the parking space, Jen!" when we find one.

I love having Jen visit.  She makes me laugh and I can make her laugh so easily it's almost inhuman.  I love the way she enjoys the simple things in life.  A tiny green frog hanging around her place mat at the table, was the source of immense joy! Somehow, the frog knew that Jen would appreciate his company the most.  The frog even walked across the waffles.  Jen wondered if the waffles were still edible at that point, and of course I said that the only way the little green tree frogs are poisonous is if they come in contact with anything Belgian.  She laughed and poured more syrup on her waffles.

Jen was here for a week and we enjoyed Salt Spring Island together with our Mom.  We sat out late at night and watched the shooting stars, the satellites, the space station in orbit, and the bats darting here and there.  We marveled at the night sky and the early morning tranquility.  We listened to the birds, the rooster up the road, the float planes overhead.  We noticed how there was not even a breath of wind moving the towering pines.  We watched a swallowtail butterfly float through the air from flower to flower.  We laid about in the sun and constantly sought the shade for Mom.  We drank lovely wine (some of us did, anyway).  We ate fresh caught crab and local Salt Spring lamb.  We swam in the lake and even got Mom to join us!

We threw sticks for Bodger and watched him dig a few holes.  We golfed at Blackburn and took lessons from Brad. We picked weeds and read books and played scrabble and talked.  Sometimes we just listened to music and said nothing.  It's a wonderful place to enjoy each other!

Jen the tree-hugger from Alberta!

Man Lands on the Moon and other Important Moments of the Summer of '69

A Summer to Remember

    In the summer of 1969, around the time Neil Armstrong was landing on the moon, the Orbans landed in the middle of the Roe family living room. The Orbans were refugees fleeing Czechoslovakia.   Their country, fractured from revolution and war, sent many Czechoslovakians in search of welcoming countries around the world.  The Orbans found themselves welcomed to Canada and the Roe family’s modest little home in southern Saskatchewan.  An unlikely place to land, but a comfortable one, none the less. 

    Always available to strangers in need, the fold out couch was the only seating in the Roes’ tiny living room, except for the French provincial chair and an orange hassock.  There wasn’t room for much furniture at all in the three-bedroom, basement-less home on Bogue Avenue in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan which needless to say, is so far from the borders of Czechoslovakia it may as well have been the moon.

    The Roe family lived a pretty quiet middle class prairie life during the loud and turbulent 1960’s.  It was the decade of civil disobedience and human triumph.  Vietnam, presidential assassinations, drug culture, The Beatles invasion, Woodstock, and the space race punctuated a truly amazing time in the life of planet Earth. 

    In the midst of all that worldwide angst a struggle of slightly less significance took place daily in the Roe family home.  The conflict mainly concerned the bickering between the four sisters.  The girls were between the ages of 8 and 13 with many different interests living under one small roof.   Mrs. Roe often complained: “you couldn’t swing a cat in this house”.  The youngest would look at her cat and wonder if they ever lived in a bigger house would they be swinging cats and would the cats mind this sort of activity?

   Enter the Orbans.  Mrs. Orban had long dark curly hair.  Mr. Orban had a beard and a mustache; and looked a bit like Dr. Shivago.  They were young, newly married and childless.   They were very tall.  Their feet dangled off the end of the fold out couch.  They stayed for a week.   It was a temporary situation, the parents assured their daughters, while a long term settlement strategy was being worked out.  The girls never really questioned why there were strangers sleeping in their living room.  It was quite normal for the Roe family to have unusual guests for dinner or the occasional extended stay.  There were the two recent exchange students from Ghana who provided an intriguing addition to the dinner table.  They were the only African people the girls had ever seen outside the pages of Life Magazine.  That is until the day a nurse from Uganda arrived to work at the local hospital.   There are photos of the Ghanians and Rose the Ugandan nurse in the Roe family album.  Rose would occasionally join the family on their weekly hikes at Buffalo Pound Provincial Park.  The students from Ghana loved Mrs. Roe’s shepherd’s pie.

   The Czechoslovakians were there the night Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.  The six Roes and the two Orbans squeezed around the little 9 inch black and white TV.   To keep the picture reception clear, the girls jammed a pack of their dad’s matches in between the channel knob and the set to hold the frequency in place. They watched as the big billowy astronaut climbed down the ladder of the landing module, bounced onto the barren moonscape and made that famous footprint.  “One small step for man....one giant leap for mankind.”  It was perhaps the most significant moment of television any of them had ever seen.  It’s possible it was the only television the Orbans had ever seen.  Because of the language barrier the Orbans could only gesture at each other with wide eyes and clasped hands, how marvelous it all was. 

    An event of much greater magnitude occurred not long after the lunar landing.  It began with a white business envelope containing some remains.   The ordinary envelope originally contained gold fish carcasses.  Jennifer, the oldest, had been storing the deceased pets in the bedroom dresser drawer for future internment.  Jennifer was as sweet and gentle as an angel and most assuredly, God’s protector of all things meek and vulnerable in the Roes’ immediate world.   It was God’s will perhaps, that the gold fish lost the battle with their algae infested tank and succumbed en masse earlier that year.  Jennifer felt it was her duty to give them a decent burial. With school and church activities keeping her busy she had vowed to “do it” when she had the time.  The envelope was carefully tucked away on the bottom of the underwear drawer.

     The so-called dresser was really the buffet piece of the antique dining room set that didn’t quite fit into the Roe family’s small dining room.  The girls’ underwear went in the long narrow top drawer meant to hold the silverware.  The rest of their clothes lay in the deep long drawers below. 

    Charlotte, the youngest, came across the envelope one day while searching for an undergarment.   She pulled it out, opened it up and accidentally crushed the crisp skeletal remains.  Charlotte gasped in horror at what she had done and inadvertently blew the dusty fish remnants out of the envelope and onto their delicate things.  She tried to scrape the particles back into the envelope but every movement seemed to break them into even smaller bits of dehydrated fish.  She knew how devastated Jennifer would be.

      Jennifer, had no doubt, said a silent little prayer each time she opened that drawer.   “Dear God, please forgive me for the delay in a proper burial for your blessed creatures.  As soon as I can, I’ll lay them to rest in a more fitting way.  And also, forgive us for not cleaning their tank.  Amen”.  If anyone was getting special heaven consideration, it was Jennifer.

    Charlotte decided to own up to debacle and tell someone what she had done. Elizabeth, the second oldest, was sitting on the hassock watching TV when Charlotte entered the living room.    The Orbans were sitting on the couch (now folded up for day use).  Jennifer was at her Christian Girls in Training meeting at the church.

    Charlotte sat on the French provincial chair, her skinny legs swinging between its ornately carved ones and carefully produced the empty envelope for discussion.  She confessed to Elizabeth the unfortunate incident and hoped her sister would help fashion some kind of fish bones out of something and cover up the whole ordeal.  Richard Nixon was saying something on TV.  The Orbans watched closely, translating as best they could for each other.

    Elizabeth, the one who took to classical things like ballet and Mozart, suffered from chronic teenage angst like it was a disease.  She jumped off the hassock, ripped the envelope out of Charlotte’s hand, and angrily poked the off switch on the TV.  She turned towards Charlotte and sharply said, “You don’t deserve to watch TV”.  Then very dramatically stomped down the hallway to their bedroom. 

     The Orbans got up and went into the kitchen.  Charlotte shivered in fear alone in the living room.  After a few moments, Elizabeth returned with a load of underwear in her hands and threw it on the floor.  A cloud of dust lingered in the air above the mound.  The Orbans returned to the couch.  Elizabeth turned the TV back on. 

    Charlotte gathered up the clothes, skulked back to their room and stuffed the empty envelope into the drawer.  At that moment the answer came to her like a thunder-clapping sign from God himself.   It would be easy to explain to Jennifer that the fish had been resurrected.    If she’d learned one thing in Sunday School in the previous eight years of her life, and it is likely she only learned one thing, it was that Easter Story and the part about the empty tomb.

    Later that night at the dinner table, the Orbans spoke in broken English about their lives in Czechoslovakia.  Then they all sat close in the living room and watched the little black and white TV.  They watched the news about the fighting in Ireland, the fighting in Vietnam, the fighting in Yugoslavia, the fighting in Korea, and the fighting at the universities in America.  Then the girls bickered about which of the two channels available in 1969, to watch next.  The Orbans sat silently listening.  Elizabeth pushed Charlotte off the hassock.  Jennifer hummed Amazing Grace and Charlotte gathered up the courage to tell her about the miracle of the fish.