Valentines Day is quickly approaching. This holiday can be celebrated in so many different ways. Here are a few non-traditional ideas:
Bring a basket of trinkets to a childrens hospital in your community.
Surprise the overlooked office administrators at your child's school by bringing them lunch.
Visit a senior's home and let your little future actor/actress read them poems.
Bring some old coats (fill the pockets with hard candy) to a local woman/children shelter.
Make a canteen of hot chocolate and give it to your child's crossing guard.
Breathe for Me is finally getting some traction and I would like to thank you all for continuing to inquire about its availability. All I can say is soon. But until then here is a new excerpt. Meet Maggie. She is a character indeed.
Excerpt from novel Breathe for Me
Tara and Maggie strolled through the men’s department at the Wal-Mart.
“We gone find you a daddy today, so keep smiling and don’t mess up that hair that took me an hour to do.”
Maggie stuffed her own shoes deeper inside her purse and tried to balance herself in the brand new fancy shoes she had just borrowed from the ladies’ shoe department. She also borrowed a fancy coat and the most expensive looking pair of earrings she could find. As soon as she found her a potential husband, she would be sure to put almost everything back in its original place.
“Excuse me?” Maggie said as she batted her ice-blue colored eyelids, courtesy of the sample eye shadow palate in the beauty department.
“Yes, Ma’am.” A tall good looking fair skinned man answered.
“My daughter wants to send this jacket to her daddy, we’re divorced, and she wants to see how it looks on you. You have the same gorgeous body as him.”
The man smiled, flattered by this tired phrase Tara had heard dozens of times before.
She had reeled in another one. Maggie’s promise to buy her school clothes was trumped by the capture of another pervert. As they were leaving the store, Maggie tucked the man’s phone number in her purse.
“Momma, where’s my real dad?” Tara hesitantly asked.
Maggie walked on, ignoring Tara’s question.
“You tell me he’s gone, but what happened? Does he know about me? Does he even care? Did you meet him at the Wal-Mart too?” Tara stopped walking and Maggie jerked her arm pulling her across the street toward the bus stop.”
“Girl, you better come on. I don’t have time to explain nothin’ to your little ungrateful self. I’m the only one you got. So stop talkin’ to me about all this daddy crap. You ain’t got no father.”
*****
The bus stopped at the corner of Hester Avenue. Maggie and Tara trudged down the unpaved street, stopping in front of a brick multi-family apartment dwelling. Maggie unlocked and entered the first floor level of their apartment and emptied the contents of her overstuffed pockets onto the kitchen counter.
“Go on girl, put that stuff away,” Maggie sniped.
Tara entered the kitchen, stumbling over the same half tied trash bag that lay in the hallway from that morning. Maggie hurried into her bedroom, dropping her coat on the tattered tweed sofa along the way.
“You see my lighter out there,” Maggie yelled.
Tara spotted the lighter next to the yellow tinged toaster oven that hadn’t worked in years. She brought it to her mother.
Maggie pursed her lips, inhaling as she lit the cigarette. Tara hated the smell of smoke. Her third grade teacher, Mrs. Sanchez warned the kids about the dangers of second hand smoke. Tara was disgusted by the thick and cloudy film that it left on every living and nonliving thing nearby. Blowing in and blowing out. It served no purpose except to deprive her of at least two days worth of meals. There was very little money to go around as it was, yet a mound of cigarette butts filled Maggie’s nightstand consistently.
“Well, those people found me another place to work, so you gonna be by yourself tonight.” Maggie buttoned up the burgundy uniform shirt that read “Fry Daddy” on the pocket. She slipped on the matching pants and hurried back to the front room.
“I’ll be fine,” Tara convinced herself.
“My legs gonna’ be sore tomorrow, so you gonna’ have to take care of that laundry.” Maggie twisted her wig into position as she walked to the door.
“I will, momma,” Tara said unsurprised by this request.
“Okay, I’m a get goin’. You know those people don’t like me being late. You ain’t got school tomorrow, but keep yourself in da’ house,” Maggie reminded Tara. “I don’t want no police showing up on my door like they just did wit’ O.J.”
“Okay,” Tara sullenly answered.
“I get off at eleven and they should have plenty chicken left over so I’ll bring extra if I can.”
“Bye, momma.”
Maggie’s promise to Tara was as firm as the watered down Jell-O that sat in their empty refrigerator. The thought of not having dinner that night didn’t faze Tara. But the impracticality of fending for herself for the next two days was distressing.
Thanks and I hope you enjoyed this month's blog
Terri Whitmire
