Rattle Snake Lodge - Memoirs of a Seeing Woman

B.K. Smith

Description

MY NAME IS AMANDA FRENCH. My family name French, I believe says it all. We, the French women, were born to wear elegant clothing and accessories, the finer brocades and silks, fluid and cool, raw dupioni and nubby shantung, the texture that is pure sex to the hand that appreciates.

All the women in my family have some sense of the future and will tell you what it holds; and even before I was sure what it was, I knew I had it, the power to see. My grandmother, a healer, could interpret the sky; predict weather patterns, upcoming anomalies, drought, that sort of thing. My sister read hands; tiny crooked lines leading up and down, front to back, thumb to wrist, are the roads she helps to navigate. My aunt could read dreams and tell an expectant mother the sex of her unborn baby. My great grandmother could heal "troublesome ailments" and call out evil spirits from the sick, the overlooked, and cursed alike. And her mother, my great great grandmother before her, was known to associate with ghosts, the spirits that have passed over but not before promising to return and tell all, which they did by channeling through her in different languages. Her sister, my great aunt, could tell you the day and time of your birth and the day and time of your death.

Sometimes I know the future in my breast. Sometimes I see the future coming out like a picture show, images that seep into your head the way rainwater collects in a basement corner, gathering from no place in particular. More often though, I see events in tea leaves, little bits of myself floating to the top of a shapely Spode china cup, tentatively dancing along the fragile gold leaf rim like your last memories in the few minutes before death. Often as I would stare down into my tomorrow, wondering if I should drink the brew or run to the sink and pour it down the drain, I would often do the latter. It's not that a particular vision was so frightening or alien–I grew up after all with these gifted women around me conversing with entities neither you nor I could see–it's just the memory of seeing trouble early in a courtship and remembering what it felt like, one lone tear snaking down my face, and my words all square and neat as I told him, "I love you but... I see no future." Or, I did see a future and there was no happiness in it. But, with this man, with Reed, I never saw a blessed thing. I never saw anything at all in the beginning. If I had, it would have been as shocking I'm sure as seeing blood on the moon. I guess it's true what they say, that you never see the bus that hits you.

Sujets

• Women
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 08 juin 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780990930525
• Langue: English

Extrait

Lipstick Mountains Memoirs #3
B.K. Smith

Memoirs of a Seeing Woman
Lipstick Mountains Press
Madison Avenue Publishers LLC
2015
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Epigraph
Dedication
Prologue
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
PART TWO
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
PART THREE
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
PART FIVE
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
PART SIX
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
PART SEVEN
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
Excerpt of Manifest Destiny
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, including electronic information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publishers except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
RATTLESNAKE LODGE
Memoirs of a Seeing Woman
B.K. Smith
Copyright © 2015 B.K.Smith
ISBN 978-0-9909305-2-5
The Lipstick Mountains Memoirs Series
#1 CHELSEA MATINEE -
Memoirs of an Easy Woman
#2 SANDS POINT -
Memoirs of a Money Trader
#3 RATTLE SNAKE LODGE -
Memoirs of a Seeing Woman
#4 MANIFEST DESTINY -
Memoirs of a Dreaming Woman
Also:
The Ecology of Photography
Lipstick Mountains Press
Madison Avenue Publishers LLC
Scottsdale, Arizona
602 622 1078
[e-mail]
“We don’t see things as they are, but as we are.” -- Anais Nin
For J.J. Morgan
Gabriella Sophia & Annika Lucia
Prologue
F- is probably the most versatile word in the American-English language. It is a noun as well as a verb. It can be an adjective, an adverb, a pronoun, and a preposition. It can even be a dangling participle-if you hook it just right between two words in a sentence.
F- this and f- that. F- you, f- me. Bloody F- it all… This is a story that begins and ends with that very versatile expletive. If you have ever worked on a trading desk or for a bank on the inside of Wall Street, or anyplace in the world, as I did for more years than I care to recount, then you have either used it or heard it used in nearly every sentence, context and tense. We have a very limited vocabulary because we trade inside a hairline fraction-a 64th and a 64th+-which means 1/64th to 1/129th of 1%. And a lot of money rides on these razor-thin spreads, because of the volume and the size of the trade. There is much riding on one-half of a “basis point” (.005%) move in any direction. Say, in oil futures, gold or treasury bills.
Quiescent is another word I learned on Wall Street. Quiescent (adj., kwee-ES-sent) markets allow you to catch your breath and catch up on trade tickets, delivery instructions and postings, and relationships-personal and professional. A joke or rumor can leave London, go to Boston, and be in San Diego in 10 minutes, passing through various states, not necessarily in a straight line. Quiescent means calm, flat, and creeping along sideways. You can hang money out there like wet wash and watch it flap up and down a fractional bid and offering, and at night you can pull it in like so many socks on a piece of line, only to throw it back out tomorrow, with or without other more deleterious trades. Can’t have calm and flat all the time and make any money, that is, in this, the greatest market ever. Money is made when there is movement, where time and intrinsic value have a little dance, and you try to get right inside it and push them apart, to widen a spread so everyone gets a piece, even though you just “weaseled” your own way in. A spread is where money is made, whether the overall market is going up or it is going down. If you can find parity between two instruments, and it could be between a Volkswagen and a goat, just handicap the differential. It’s that simple and you can make a market and arbitrage it. All is well so long as the overall market is moving, and not skidding sideways for too long, which would signal something else. Even quiescent markets have rustlings and stirrings. Sometimes the market moves fast and changes direction without warning, like gaggles of baby quail in the side yard, and you simply cannot get your arms around the whole business. You could “lift a leg” and get “dropped” or “stuffed,” depending on which side of the market you are on, if you are short or long, taking delivery, or rolling up and rolling out.
Remember this: Bond traders don’t die: they mature or get called away. Money brokers don’t die either, they get dropped or stuffed.
The implied intent of the F-word (F-bomb) rests in the tone and inflection when spoken, and the context within which it is used. It can be very sexy. Unexpected. Especially sexy, and unexpected in an important negotiation, when a beautiful powerful woman lets down her hair. It is like currency and, like currency, has parity only in relation to other currencies. It is all implied, and with the slightest snip and tailoring of vocal inflection, can mean something else. Like FUC K when you hit your thumb really hard with a hammer while hanging a genuine Picasso you picked up cheap at auction, is very different from the F-bomb … long and low-… f…u…c…k…- with reluctant and horrified disbelief. A small and seemingly inconsequential choice, which ordinarily would have no long term, lasting, or devastating effect whatsoever on your life, morphs, and takes on a life of its own, in a perfect storm, as it snowballs into the most monumentally wrong decision you have ever made. An avalanche gathers and you comprehend that your life is, for all intents and purposes, over.

2015
PART ONE
CHAPTER 1
F- IS OF COURSE THE VERY FIRST WORD that came to mind when Banker Reed Petty informed me, over a celebratory lemon drop martini, of his intention to run for governor of the great state of Texas.
“I have decided to throw my hat in the ring. I’m running for governor!” he exclaimed.
“That’s wonderful,” is what I said, and I smiled and had an out-of-body experience as I lifted my martini glass and toasted him with great enthusiasm. He had invited me and about a hundred other people to join him at this small gathering and I stood beside him and soon people and reporters were asking me questions about Reed, his policies and views. I just smiled. “I hadn’t known he was going to announce tonight his intention to run for governor, but that isn’t what I was thinking about at that moment. “That’s wonderful,” is what I said. F- is what I thought.
I held my tongue, which tends toward sharp, and pushed my hand at him, which he didn’t shake, but instead brought to his lips, but did not kiss. He looked every bit the showman, unmasked, a flash of real peeked out from under the hem of the kimono-”Look, look, it’s really me, and you are about to have another f-ing life growth experience!” Yes, sirree, step right up!
He held my hand and he said, “I need your help to win this election.” He tried not to sound too clichéd, too needy, or too demanding too soon. “Your skill set,” he qualified. He was luring me, as he did all of his victims at the onset, to draw them closer.
“My skill set? Any skill set in particular?”
“I need you to marry me.”
“Marry you?” I didn’t see that coming. But I guess you could call tolerating an aspiring politician a skill set.
“Well, you don’t have to say it like that. I mean … I really mean it. You and me. Partners. What do you say?”
I didn’t know quite what to say. Be careful what you ask for. Be careful what you say, where you say it, and to whom you say it. It comes back, as a boomerang comes back, but with collected random data, and delivers itself, not uncomplicated, at your feet. How will you handle what is unfolding all around you, as rapidly as you are reading this sentence?
“I can give you a great life,” Reed continued, cracking a slow, practiced smile. “You’ll never want for anything. I will see to it. I’ll begin providing for you financially right away. My attorney will get in touch with you. Tomorrow is soon enough for business. Tonight we celebrate. What do you say? There’s a reason why you are back in my life after all of these years. I’m happy that you are.”
I averted my eyes and turned my face. Thirty years. I did not understand why I was back in his life again either-because I had not learned my lesson well enough the first time? Or, because I had learned it only too well-and now I was back. Sometimes I could taste metal or insulin in my mouth.
I had a state contract, one year, with social services on the Tex-Mex border, and the contract was almost up. It had a renewable clause, but it depended on state and federal funding, the economy, budget cuts. I worked at “the pleasure of the governor,” ironically. The end of the second term for the incumbent governor was looming and Reed had as much a shot at getting nominated as any other solvent candidate, and as good a chance as anyone of winning and becoming the next governor. It was all bigger than I could have imagined. Like Mary when she learned she was carrying the son of God. I mean you could never prepare for that. And what are the odds?
Reed took a step forward, “I can help. You help me and I’ll help you. You need to be doing this, this public service work…”
“Public health,” I said.
“What?”
“What I’m doing is public behavioral health work.”
“Sure. Well, right,” he said, “as I was saying, ‘you need to be doing this public behavioral health work on a higher level.’” He measured “higher level” by holdin