Teresa Milbrodt, Fictioneer

Starting August 18th I’ll be teaching two online creative writing classes with Lighthouse Writers.  Click below to find out more about the courses and sign up.

Fiction Workshop:

https://lighthousewriters.org/workshop/detail/id/356

Creative Nonfiction Workshop:

https://lighthousewriters.org/workshop/detail/id/809

Now you can read my fiction on your phone, tablet, or e-reader! I’ve gotten involved with a project called PhoneFiction designed to make short stories more accessible. You can also vote for my stories online since there will be a Reader’s Choice award.

The link below will take you to my story “The Dog Stone,” but I have seven other stories up on PhoneFiction as well.  Enjoy!

http://www.phone-fiction.com/books/40/chapters/1

Only two and a half months left before THE PATRON SAINT OF UNATTRACTIVE PEOPLE is released.  To further whet your appetite for weirdness and the Midwestern mythic, here’s another deleted scene from the book.  My protagonist is reminiscing over her elemetary school days:

Callie and I got along well in school because she was a smart short kid with a big mouth. She could verbally best anyone who made fun of her because she knew big words that they didn’t. The second-grade kids who called her names didn’t know what to think when she said they were senile cretins or obtuse imbeciles.

“We don’t understand what that means,” one of her tormentors whined.

“Too bad,” she said. “Get a dictionary.”

“Yeah,” he said, “well, you’re really short.”

“Go to Hades,” she said.

“Did you just swear?” he said.

“No,” she said.

“It sounded like you swore. I’m telling.”

“Go ahead,” she said.

“What did you say again?” he said.

“You should have paid more attention the first time,” she said.

Callie was queen of the snappy comeback, even when we were seven. I was the kid with sunglasses shade who sat out when we played dodgeball because my shade could get knocked off. I wasn’t taunted much in school but give most of the credit to my first grade teacher. She explained to the other six-year-olds that I had to wear sunglasses because I had a condition that made me sensitive to light. Soon the other kids wanted to wear sunglasses to school like I did.

“I don’t see a problem with that,” said my teacher, “as long as you get your work done.”

Everyone in my class wore sunglasses for the first two weeks of school. After that the novelty wore off and they realized they could see a lot better without them. But since anyone could wear sunglasses inside, it wasn’t a big deal. For years I sent my first grade teacher a card at the beginning of every school year. In another place with a meaner teacher, my elementary school experience could have been a lot worse.

Dianne is another one of my protagonist’s friends who didn’t make it into the novel but deserves a mention anyway.  Part candy store owner and part oracle, she probably has the coolest job in the world.  Read on:

Sweet Truth is three blocks from our coffee shop. Dianne owns the candy store. She was two years ahead of me in school and often I’ll bring her a vanilla latte in exchange for candy. I’ve probably gained a couple pounds because of all those sour balls and gummy bears, but I’m on my feet all day so it doesn’t matter much.

The candy store is what you’d expect – rows of clear plastic bins filled with jelly beans and chocolates and gummy everything, rolls of plastic bags and cups of twist ties. Dianne’s office is also pretty normal, but she’s impeccably neat, has everything in piles and folders and trays. The only thing weird thing about Dianne is that whenever anyone drops candy, she runs over and examines where the pieces fell before she cleans them up. Some people read palms. Some people read tea leaves. Some people cast stones and read the pattern. Dianne reads jellybeans.

“Got another latte for me?” she asks when I walk in the door. “I have some malted milk balls and orange slices for you.”

“Sugar sounds good,” I say, “but could you take a raincheck on the latte? I don’t want to back to the shop right now. My parents are having difficulties.”

Dianne frowns. “Marital?”

“And economic,” I say.

“They usually go together,” she says. “How are sales?”

I shrug. We hear the familiar clattering of jellybeans or sour balls or candy-coated chocolate bits on the tile floor.

“Don’t move,” Dianne yells. She almost vaults over the counter, skittering to where a woman who smells of lilac is staring down at a scattering of green jellybeans.

“I’m sorry,” the lilac woman says, “I’m so clumsy. I thought I had a good grip on the bag but then–”

“It’s okay,” says Dianne. “Couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

She studies the pattern of green jellybeans for several moments.

“Well,” she sighs, “there may be some rough times ahead.”

I say, “There are rough times now.”

“I don’t know how things will end,” she says, “but you’re survivor. I’m pretty sure things will be fine.”

“Pretty sure?” I say.

“That’s all the beans will tell me,” she says.

“Can I help clean them up?” says the lady. “I feel so bad about this.”

Dianne waves her hand and says not to worry. I walk back to the coffee shop with my malted milk balls and orange slices and a deep-set sense of dread.

This scene made the novel’s first section a bit too long and needed to be cut, but consider it one of the episodes that happened, anyway.  The relic case mentioned in this excerpt contains an (alleged) fragment from Saint Drogo’s wooden shepherd’s staff.

A normal afternoon at the shop. Cynthia enjoys her cappuccino at a table near the front window. A weird-looking devotee stands in front of Drogo’s relic case. He’s been there for the past two hours. The guy is thirty-something, wears jeans and a black t-shirt, and has the greasy-haired look of someone you’d expect to see hanging out at an arcade and pretending to be seventeen. He’s bought three shots of espresso and four pieces of fudge. From behind the cash register I watch him tremble with caffeine, sugar, and holy fervor.

“I saw Drogo in a dream,” he says. “Everyone was in wheelchairs but he helped them stand up. Then he served coffee.”

“Wow,” I say.

“I’d like another double shot of espresso,” he says.

“Of course,” I say. I turn my back to grind beans for two shots. The sound of glass breaking. I swivel back around. The greasy guy pulled some sort of trophy with a fish on it out of his bag and used it to break the glass on Drogo’s case. He’s groping around for the piece of wood amid the shattered glass. I sprint out from behind the counter. All I can think is that we shouldn’t count on devotees as customers because too many of them are head cases.

There’s glass all over the floor and it’s a little slippery, but the black shirt guy moves more slowly than me so it’s easy to tackle him. The force of the tumble almost knocks off my shade. Glass pokes my arms, but at least he’s down. I’m pretty strong from lifting twenty and thirty-pound bags of coffee every day.

Cynthia is beside me quick, and grabs the guy’s arms. We haul him up and wrest the bit of wood from his fingers. I pin his arms behind his back and notice blood pinpricks on my own arms, but I’m so damn pissed that he tried to steal the wood that I hold him a bit more tightly than I should. Mom runs in from the stock room. Cynthia calls the police.

“I just wanted it for my grandpa,” the guy warbles.

“Are you okay?” says my mother.

“A couple little cuts from the glass,” I say. “Nothing bad.”

“Your shade slipped,” she says, wrinkling her nose and adjusting my visor.

Mom doesn’t say anything more, just waits for the police with me and Cynthia and the warbling guy. Later she and Dad get mad at me for risking myself and risking discovery when I tackled the whacked devotee.

Mom says, “What if the shade had come off?”

“You have to be more careful,” says Dad.

“I’ve been careful for thirty-seven years,” I say. “That guy could have made off with the wood.”

“Even Drogo isn’t worth exposure,” says Dad, though he doesn’t look as worried as Mom. If I hadn’t tackled the guy, I bet he would have cussed me out.

 My protagonist’s friend Melinda does not actually appear in the novel, but she does exist.  This excerpt, which also does not appear in the novel, serves as a testament to that fact:

I have next morning off and help my friend Melinda take inventory in her shoe store. Melinda has dreadlocks like snakes and can silence snippy customers with her stare. It’s very impressive. One look from her can turn anyone to granite for fifteen seconds. She’s also good at consoling me when needed and giving me part-time work to help with my car payments.

Melinda inherited the shop from her dad. Her store smells of lavender and new shoes and she plays classical music, Mozart or Hayden or Beethoven. Melinda says stately music makes people feel like buying shoes. Lavender makes them feel calm and classy, and classy people also feel like buying shoes. I don’t know where she got her information on shoe psychology, but it works. A few years back she also decided to carry a specialty line of orthopedic shoes and cater to old people.

“There will always be old people with foot problems,” she says. “Besides, old people like the personal touch and don’t mind paying more for it. All your dad has to do is figure out a market niche and you’ll be fine. I suggest old people.”

“Dad doesn’t believe in niches,” I say. “He says our store has have the best coffee in town and everyone should pay homage to the fact.”

“Screw that,” she says. “Old people are where it’s at. The other key to attracting old people is not to treat them like they’re six. Too many people talk really loudly and slowly around old people. You have to remember that they’re human, they’re just old humans. You find out all sorts of stuff about how to sell to old people if you just listen to them.”

Five minutes later an elderly lady waddles in the shoe store and demands that Melinda take back a pair of shoes and give her a full refund.

“You said the shoes would feel good and they don’t,” she says. “My feet still hurt.”

Melinda smiles and walks the lady to the front register where she examines the sales receipt.

“Ma’am,” she says, “you’ve had these shoes for a month. They have a lot of wear on them.”

“Yes,” says the lady, “and my feet still hurt.” She proceeds to talk for fifteen minutes about how she has to babysit her grandchildren four times a week. She takes them to the park and runs all over and needs shoes that can support that kind of workout.

“I can’t take them back if you’ve worn then for a month,” says Melinda. “Maybe you just need insoles to cushion your feet. I’ll give you some for free.”

“But you said my feet wouldn’t hurt if I bought these shoes,” says the old lady.

“And they didn’t hurt for quite a while, did they?” says Melinda.

“I want new shoes,” says the old lady. “If I knew you were going to be this impolite about taking them back, I wouldn’t have come to the shoe store in the first place.”

Melinda rolls her eyes and gives the old lady her stare. It’s a long stare. A hard stare. The lady shuts right up.

“I’ll get your insoles,” says Melinda, turning so fast that her dreadlocks swirl around her head. After the old lady leaves, Melinda mutters that the customer is not always right. Sometimes the customer is just a pain in the ass.

Just what you’ve been waiting for…an interview with the cyclops protagonist of my upcoming novel, THE PATRON SAINT OF UNATTRACTIVE PEOPLE. Thanks to Mark Todd and Kym Johnson Todd for being willing to chat with her for their blog!

Check out the interview at this link:

http://writeinthethick.blogspot.com/2013/04/an-interview-with-fictioneer-teresa.html

From now until my novel’s publication in September, I will be posting a series of deleted scenes and excerpts to whet your appetite and introduce you to my protagonist, her coffee shop, and assorted friends and family members.

Here’s the first one:

My grandmother calls in the afternoon, while Dad’s on break, to ask Mom if she’s divorcing him yet. My grandparents were upset with Dad when he decided to give up accounting and open a coffee shop. They’d married their daughter off to an accountant and they expected him to stay that way. My grandparents believe in tradition and stability. Owning a coffee shop was not stable.

Grandma has been trying to dissolve my parents’ marriage for the past thirty years, though I only hear Mom’s side of the phone conversations. My grandparents live in Arizona, don’t want to trouble themselves with Ohio’s humidity, so Grandma resorts to bothering Mom long-distance.

“Yes, I’m happy,” says my mother.

This is always the first sentence out of her mouth when Grandma is on the phone. I’ve only seen my grandparents a few times, when I was little, before they moved to the southwest.

“I’m sure,” Mom says.

When she saw me with my shade, Grandma said I looked like a space invader. I liked the comment at the time, but I’m not sure if she meant it to be a compliment.

“Mom, we all work hard,” says my mother.

Sometimes I think Mom has stayed with Dad for so long because she wanted to make my grandparents mad. They planned on her being a housewife, cooking and cleaning and taking care of me. This was why they wanted to marry her to an accountant. She did as they asked. Ten years later, Dad opened Drogo’s and my grandparents told her to threaten him with divorce.

Mom was sick of being ordered around.

After a fifteen-minute conversation volley (in which Mom tells her mother nine times that she’s happy and eleven times that she’s not leaving Dad) Mom hangs up the phone and gets a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket.

“I thought you were just going to buy the one pack,” I say.

“This is only the second pack,” she says.

“I said I’d smack you if you bought another pack,” I say.

“Go ahead,” she says. “After talking with my mother I need a cigarette.”

I consider this. “I’ll smack you if you buy a third pack,” I say.

“Deal,” she says.