Millie and the Homeagain Blues

Rochelle/Rachel

grumpywriter — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 00:40:49 +0000

Rochelle Whitman always sat behind Rachel Weiss. Every class they shared, it was Weiss, then Whitman. For three years: Weiss, Whitman. Every day, Monday through Friday. And never Whitman, Weiss.

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Things were probably different for you. For most people they were. But the school I was in was old. And it was small. Like some dried hag of a thing, it had its ways and, well, if the rules there did not arrive with the Hebrew children, they were still hard and fast. There’s a chance stone wouldn’t have been rigid enough. Rules cast in steel, brass-hard habits. You adapt or you live bruised. Or you do both.

Beginnings need editing

grumpywriter — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:10:22 +0000

Her dad did not say a word when she stepped, tentatively, into the bar. He only nodded toward the back booth and went on polishing glassware. Ostentatiously polishing glassware. Good. She was there for business. She’d pay for it later, though.

In brief–Backstory

grumpywriter — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 22:45:06 +0000

Millie was something of a minor superstar when she was in her 20s. She had a cross-genre style which made her popular with a wide variety of people, although without a large fanbase in any single group. Her single hit song stayed in the top 25 for weeks, but never made it above 12. Some public appearances at the time might have pushed her into the top, but she had scaled back her efforts due to her pregnancy. She and the baby’s father parted amicably, but completely, and she moved back to the town where she was raised, where she had the support of an extended family.

Gad, what a bore. Even if it is backstory and no one will ever see it, do you have to be so fricking dull? Get on with it. Tell about the exciting part. She almost died, for godsake. Her career was wrecked. Life did a 180. BADABOOM!

Right. Shit happened. She was twenty-odd and on top of the world and had a life-altering experience and rose above it. Decided to live life as a normal. A 9to5 (8-4, 11-7, lifewithin borders) rocksteady hardworking mommy. And she was good at it. And she was happy. Taught the kid, the Cookiemonster, music. Sang, around the house, in the choir now and then, parties. Moved for better paying work, more training. Away from home again. Away from the clan and free babysitting mom and aunts and cousins, she and The Cookie were a team.

October

grumpywriter — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 03:36:18 +0000

Red Millie

grumpywriter — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 23:02:12 +0000

You saw the movie “Misery”? You remember Kathy Bates in all her dowdy intensity.
Imagine, instead of dark, that same woman as a redhead, pale and freckled. Add a bourbon and soda on the rocks and a voice with a cigarette buzz. Mildred Parnell