“Stop it! I hate you! You’re making me crazy! Go away!” I bellow, shaking my shovel at the sky.
With my shovel in one hand, I try to scale the tree with the other, thinking that maybe I can scare the bird away with a combination of yelling and shovel shaking. But I quickly learn that I do not, in fact, have the dexterity or upper-body strength of a monkey, and I slide down the tree and into the dirt, slamming the bejesus out of my tailbone. The string of profanity that escapes my lips surprises even me.
I’m just gathering up my shovel — loudly — when behind me I hear, “For the love of all that is holy, would you please shut up?”
I spin around and come face-to-bicycle-shorts with Lululemon. I guess we’re cross-training today.
She continues her tirade while I attempt to stand up. “Do you hate children? Is that your problem? Did you move here with the sole purpose of disturbing and traumatizing my babies? Is that your endgame? Do you realize they still ask me about the crazy old naked lady on the beach? They won’t even set foot on the sand anymore! I have to take them to the pool to swim!”
I say nothing, instead opting to simply stare at her through my haze of alcohol and throbbing butt pain.
She moves in closer to me. “Well, say something, you moron.”
I begin to inch back toward my house, and that’s when it happens and I prove that cliches do, in fact, have a basis in reality. My heel connects with the banana peel I’d tossed hours earlier and, in overcorrecting my balance, I lurch forward toward Lululemon with my shovel. The scoop connects with where the tops of her sneakers would have been if she hadn’t hopped right before I hit the dirt.
From my spot splayed on the ground I see her beating a hasty retreat down the drive.
For the record?
The drunk tank in the Abington Cambs police headquarters is more luxurious than most Holiday Inns, with its fluffy duvet covers, soft sheets, cheerily painted walls, and nice, hot showers. Better yet, the officers allow me a pad of paper and a pen and I’m finally able to get some writing done in peace.149
Mac was cleared to pick me up first thing this morning, but I asked him to wait until noon, because I want to take another shower and they’re serving fried chicken for lunch.
Because the officers couldn’t prove I’d committed any real crime, the charges were dropped and I’m back in my office typing up my notes from yesterday.
Mac is none too pleased with me, but I don’t care. If he’d actually been here yesterday instead of pouting at the movie theater, this whole incident could have been avoided. He’s at the gym right now and that’s fine. I didn’t join him because I already bathed today. In jail.
I figured the best way to resolve the whole Miriam/Amos plotline was to — okay, this is cheap and sensational and not at all how I normally do things — trap them in a well together. By the time the next book rolls around, I’ll know what to do with them, but for now, they’re out of sight and off my plate. Hopefully fans will actually enjoy having a bit of a cliff-hanger.
I’ve got to plow through the final chapter and then I’m officially done, at least with the book.
All righty, let’s do this. I’m immersing myself in this book. I’m not in this enormous, drafty construction site that I hate with every fiber of my being. Instead, I’m strolling the verdant green hills of Nappanee, Indiana.
Is it hilly there? I should probably check.
Scratch that; I’m strolling the verdant green
Son of a bitch.
You know what? I need to think more like the Amish. I’ve got to get inside their heads. How would they deal with this? WWMD?150
And then it comes to me. My plain-talking, straight-shooting characters wouldn’t mess around with the symptoms — they’d directly address the cause.
I head down to Mac’s workshop and grab some protective goggles and his good shootin’ gloves. And then I pick up the chain saw and march back to the house.
That tree is going down.
“All rise.”
We rise.
“You may be seated.”
We sit. Then I rise again when my attorney pokes me, because everyone’s supposed to sit but me.
The judge begins to speak. “This is Mia MacNamara, case number 0360144237. Good afternoon, Ms. MacNamara. I understand you want to plead guilty to the charge of an unlawful discharge of a firearm, code 13- 3107.”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
The judge glances up from his files to take his first look at me. He peers long and hard over his half- glasses.
“Ms. MacNamara, what is this all about?”
“Your Honor, have you ever seen
“Ms. MacNamara, I ask the questions around here.”
“Sorry. It’s just that it’s superrelevant. Anyway, long story short, we bought this house that was featured in that movie almost three decades ago and we made a stupid, emotional decision, and because of a birthday cake and a song and John Hughes we bought a money pit that we thought we could fix up ourselves and we couldn’t, and then a contractor ran off to fight a war in some former part of the Soviet Union and he took all our cash and I don’t have a shower or a kitchen and I got covered in ants and now the only way we’ll have enough funds to finish the house and start living like human beings again and not like bears or something is for me to turn in my manuscript, which I couldn’t do because a stupid woodpecker wouldn’t shut up already, so I threw shoes at it and shook a shovel at it and then cut its tree down and after all that I kind of lost my mind a little bit and I shot at it and I’m sorry but I almost don’t even want to go home because my husband is mad at me and because I want to take another shower and because they’re serving spaghetti for lunch at the jail today.”
I gasp for air because all that came out in one big breath. “So, yes,” I continue, “I’m guilty. I’m sorry, but I’m guilty. Whatever my punishment is, I’ll take it, but please know there were extenuating circumstances that led to my discharging the firearm.”
The entire courthouse is quiet after my soliloquy, and the judge takes a long time before he says anything. He takes off his half-glasses and rubs his eyes.
“Ms. MacNamara, what do you know about Spanish tile?”
I shrug. “Virtually nothing, Your Honor.”
“My wife loves Spanish tile. In fact, she loves it so much she decided to have our kitchen redone in it. The whole job was supposed to take a week. ‘One week, that’s it,’ she promised. We’d have the contractors do the renovations while we were on vacation. We’d be out, they’d go in, and we’d come back to a brand-new kitchen. Piece of cake.” He swings around in his big chair to face his bailiff. “Remember that, Marcus? When I told you it
