Anything but Ordinary

Marcia Penland

Description

Two members in a small circle of friends set off for a fun trip, split between half business and half pleasure. The whole town of Calhoun is excited for them, especially the art group. On their way to the airport, the pair of friends vanish. The police are baffled and the case is moving too slow to satisfy the art ladies. Just a few months later, while one member of the group is participating in an art show at a shopping mall, a college student goes on a shooting rampage. The art ladies think this will happen again and again until the root of the problem is addressed. Tragic and complicated situations do not discourage this little band of feisty middle-aged artists. They are church-going, family-oriented, and strong-willed. Plus, they have a talent and passion for art. The same critical and analytical eye they use for detail in their paintings is applied to the cases they are determined to solve. The art ladies bring a wide spectrum of life experiences to the group, and their personalities are as different as daylight is to darkness. But the things they all have in common are a zest for life and loyalty to one another. Love, humor, suspense, integrity, and snappy dialogue play a large part in this story. Despite what they think, their little painting group and daily activities are not commonplace. In fact, everything about them is quite the opposite. Their lives, all the way around, are ANYTHING BUT ORDINARY.

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781647501266
• Langue: English

Extrait

Anything but Ordinary
Marcia Penland
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-05-29
Anything but Ordinary About The Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgements Foreword Anything but Ordinary Epilogue
About The Author
Raised in Fort Worth, Texas, Marcia (Marcie) Penland has lived in five states and Europe. She has a degree in English and journalism from The University of Texas in Austin and retired after a full career teaching math. She studies painting with regional artists and a close circle of friends. Moreover, she displays and sells her paintings at local art leagues, galleries, and art shows. Marcie combines her wide interests and experiences in Anything but Ordinary —punctuating it with humor, suspense, sweetness, and loyalty. Faith, family, and friendships mean the most to Marcie and that rings loud and clear in her writing.
Dedication
I dedicate this book to the person who means the absolute most to me—my husband, Pat Penland. He is my rock, my biggest fan, and the person who always loved and supported me, no matter what crazy project I undertake.
To my parents, Mary and Ed Wilburn. Thank you for encouraging me to be creative, work hard, and put faith and family above all else.
Copyright Information ©
Marcia Penland (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloguing-in-Publication data
Penland, Marcia
Anything but Ordinary
ISBN 9781647501242 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781647501259 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781647501266 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020903382
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers, LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
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Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge a special group of artists whom I was fortunate enough to know and paint with in Crawford, Texas (see Epilogue). Each woman in this group is immensely talented and beautiful in every way.
Foreword
“We can’t thank you enough, Darla, for squeezing us in this morning!” Both Margie and Crystal were absolutely beside themselves with excitement.
“Well, you have to look glamorous from head to toe,” Darla laughed. She had opened The Clip and Tip two hours early this morning just so her friends could have fresh new hairstyles and manicures. “And you both do look gorgeous, if I say so myself.”
Margie laughed and Crystal bowed, sweeping her arms out at her sides. “I even bought new clothes for this trip. This is one of my new outfits.”
“Very nice.”
“Okay, girlfriend, we have to hit the road. Crystal borrowed Iris’s new Altima so we’re even riding in style. Nothing old or outdated about us.” Margie pointed to herself. “Except maybe me.”
“Not hardly. You look great. Now both of you go and have a great time! How long will you be gone?”
“Oh, just till the end of the week. I sure hope Greg can manage okay. Our boys can sure be a handful sometimes.”
“That’s the way it is with most kids. But, hey, Crystal, you manage them every day on your own. It’s Greg’s turn. And he’ll do fine.”
“I hope you’re right,” Crystal looked a little skeptical.
“Okay, let’s roll. We have a 2:00 plane to catch and you never know what that Fort Worth traffic is gonna be like. We don’t want to be a minute late.”
“Ben said yesterday at church that you’re up for an award at the convention. That’s a big deal, Margie.”
“I’m proud of it, Darla. I’ve had a good year, thanks to all my loyal customers here in town.”
“Maybe next year she’ll win a pink Cadillac.”
“That’s what YOU need to be working towards, Crystal. I’m telling you, Darla, she’s a natural. Just look at how pretty she does her own makeup. She transforms every lady who buys from her the same way.”
The three friends exchanged a quick hug, and Margie and Crystal dashed out the door, headed for the airport. They just thought this was going to be the fun trip they had worked so hard to take.
Anything but Ordinary
There was nothing fancy or complicated about the ladies in this group. They weren’t like characters in a novel where the reader had to plod through 300 or more pages just to find out why each person was so dog-gone important. No, each person in this group lived with a what-you-see is-what-you-get kind of attitude. They thought of themselves as pretty ordinary. They didn’t dress in expensive clothes. Yet their clothes were certainly tasteful, attractive, and, for the most part, stylish. They didn’t drive fancy cars. They drove Hyundais, Chevys, Toyotas, or, in the case of Darla, a Ford F150 extended cab. Their cars were clean, dependable, and no-nonsense. Whatever they did, they got the most for their money. They researched, thought through, and consulted with others before making any major transactions. They always shopped the sales rack, cooked three meals a day themselves, and their idea of a good trip was to go see a son or daughter, brother or sister, or mother or father, if they were still so blessed. Each lady had different gifts, but the one gift they all had in common, and they all had it in abundance, was their ability to paint lovely pictures.
Their gift was indeed art. They loved art. They loved creating art, admiring each other’s art, and discussing what made each piece turn out so spectacular. Not all of their pieces were success stories, of course. Some got painted over, and some were deemed too far gone and wound up in the trash bin. Not many, though. Most of them found their way into their own houses, the houses of people they loved, or sometimes front and center at local art shows. Some of their paintings brought in a little extra money for their churches when they were entered in silent auctions or sold at the fall bazaar. Some that were painted by the group’s leader made it into banks, government offices, or rich people’s houses. Then there were others that decorated the walls of The Clip and Tip on Main Street and a few that got shipped as far away as Tinsel, Oklahoma, to Mary Ann’s cousin, who was a doctor.
Each lady in the group was an over achiever in her own right. She might not think so, but she was. The leader of the group, LaVonda, not only was an excellent artist, but she was also an accomplished pianist at the First Baptist Church of Calhoun. She had even studied art in junior college and was able to support herself for 40 plus years selling and teaching art in a little shed behind her house. She played the piano at church for free.
Bobbette, a former factory worker, had dabbled with drawing her whole life, even in the midst of running an active household. That meant caring for her husband and four live-wire children, with only five years between the oldest and youngest one. Her drawings could truly be considered “plein air” because they were sometimes done just that way—in plain air, never actually making it on to a piece of paper. Sometimes, there just was no time.
Cora Beth was the mother of five. She had moved more than a dozen times with her executive husband and she basked in the limelight of the accomplishment of each member of her talented brood. Her husband and two sons could bang out a full-score musical on an old upright piano and set of drums in the corner of every living room they lived in all the way between California and Massachusetts. Her three daughters were like their mother. They drew anything and everything set in front of them on the kitchen table. Their favorite subject was a bowl of fruit or a plate of waffles oozing with butter and syrup. It took a little practice, though, to make the highlights on that syrup look just right.
Patty had been a seamstress, and had spent a lot of her time in the state penitentiary. She certainly was not an inmate there—for goodness sakes, no! She was a member of the First Baptist Church of Gattsville. She made lunch for the women in the pen every day and stitched up their scrubs at night. Patty had a heart of gold and a hand for painting like the master himself. Michelangelo painted a ceiling and Patty painted her pictures upside down sometimes. She always said it was a good way to get a different perspective on things. Perhaps she was right because her paintings looked good from almost any angle. She was also an accomplished cook because she could make smothered steak with cream gravy that would melt in your mouth and then top it off with the meanest Mississippi Mud cake this side of the creek. Patty always referred to everything as being either north, south, east or west of the creek, although which creek she meant was never determined. She was a gem, a saint, and way too soon, an angel. The creek ran slower after Patty went across.
Darla was a hair stylist who owned and operated the only hair salon in Calhoun, The Clip and Tip. Darla was tall and thin, quick and good at her painting. She could make a pair of deer look like they were about to jump off the canvas right into your lap. She never said a bad word about anybody, or at least not very often, and she