[Glorious, Nondescript, Crazily, Normal, Pursue]
I made an effort and went to breakfast hoping to speak with Bianca as luck would have she also was up for breakfast.
“Bianca I was reminded yesterday of my mortality and I was wondering if you could brainstorm with Anais and I. I mentioned setting up a Foundation to insure that the writers collective exists as long as there are writers who write and readers who read.”
“I’d love to Laura. When are you thinking of doing it?”
“I’d like to do it this morning if I can twist Anais arm. Then I can bring it to Eve to have it notarized and whatever other lawyer magic they do to documents to make them legal.”
“We usually use the blood of a freshly slain baby.”
“I see the law uses the same methods as the bible. Good to know.”
“I’d be offended if I wasn’t a buddhist.”
“The only religion I was ever tempted to dip my toe into. Buddha and Epicurus are so close on so many opinions. So Eve, do you believe in the whole rebirth until enlightenment or are you a one birth one death person?”
“For me the person is the memory, so if you are reborn but don’t remember anything how could you be the same person? So in that respect I’m kind of agnostic. I believe you are right about Buddha and Epicurus; they both are just teaching you how to be happy.”
“So do you meditate everyday?”
“Yes, that’s why I’m a buddhist, a monk taught me to meditate and I just looked into the rest of their beliefs and it all clicked. Have you tried meditating, Laura?”
“Yes, many times when I lived in the city. It was very stressful in such a large city after growing up here. So I tried meditating and failed spectacularly. Every time I built myself up to sitting for twenty minutes or more. I fell asleep. Then when I woke up, I’d feel guilty for falling asleep. So I gave it up, the guilt was killing me more than the stress was.”
“The monk who taught me told me if you fall asleep while meditating, it’s your body's saying that you need to sleep more than you need to meditate. So if you go by his rules you shouldn’t feel guilty. Just less tired?”
“I like your monk. So are you a vegetarian?”
“Sorta, when I’m in a restaurant and there is a vegetarian option, I always order it. If I’m home cooking for myself. It’s always vegetarian. But when I’m at a friend's house or here, I’m happy to eat whatever is provided to me. According to Buddhist legend a monk asked Buddha if an eagle dropped a fish into my bowl. Is it alright to eat? The Buddha said if you didn’t ask for it to be killed so that you could eat it then yes. So the monk said, if someone gives you food, you eat it. So I am happy to be a vegetarian on my own, but I wouldn’t ask for a vegetarian option, here or at a friend's home. My dietary preferences are my own not to be inflicted on others.”
“I like that, I was a vegetarian in New York, but there was probably a vegetarian restaurant every two blocks. When I came back here I just ate whatever the collective was eating. Well, if Anais can help, I might look for you to notarize it.”
I left the dining room and called Anais from the hallway.
“Hey, Anais, remember we talked about you and Bianca helping me set up a Foundation. Is there any chance that we could do it this morning?”
“Started to think about that bullet, have you?”
“No, Amy asked what will happen to her, and the writers would be homeless. I think the estate would revert to August. He’s really an alright guy at heart but he is not literary. I have no doubt he’d just sell to the highest bidder. He shared none of his mothers ideals.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
As always Anais was true to her word. Fifteen minutes later she was walking through the front door of the store. Which was already open. Lucy was busy putting the finishing touches on her huge order.
“Did you sleep here?”
“No, I left shortly after you left for Saranac, I just got here a little early to put the finishing touches on this order. You want to give the buyer a bonus and I wanted a little time to consider just what a reader with this varied taste might enjoy.”
“So what did you come up with?”
“A two novel mystery series, Jay Omega by Sharyn McCrumb. ‘Zombies of the Gene Pool’ and ‘Bimbos of the Death Sun’ along with "Sweet Silver Blues" by Glen Cook.”
“Very, very good Lucy, you combined two of the genres that they ordered in two science fiction mysteries and one fantasy mystery. Well done, I really should be paying you, when you use your head like this.”
***
Anais came in and we went up and joined Bianca in the dining room. The other writers had agreed to doing their writing sprints this morning in the living room. Bianca had her laptop open typing some notes. Anais and I opened ours. Anais was going to write up the official, legal wording as we brainstormed together.
“Alright first things first, Laura is the foundation going to cover the grounds and property, including the bookstore? Or should the bookstore remain separate?”
“For now I want the bookstore separate but ten years from death and if the person I designate in my will refuses the store. Then the store reverts to the collective to either run as a bookstore or be converted back into living space to allow the addition of more writers into the collective. Whatever the foundation board decides.”
“Who do you want to serve on this board?”
“For now, myself, Amy, Anais, Sarah Doyle, Bianca and if Bianca ever decides to step down, then a writer in residence elected by all of the writers currently in the collective.”
Bianca said, “I’m flattered Laura, but I think we should start the voting right off. I’ll tell you why. I was the one who came up with the ‘New Deal’ when this even newer deal is sprung on the writers. I want them to have an immediate say. I understand that setting up this foundation is in the writer's interest. I want them to see it that way too. I’ll run for a position but if the other writers vote for someone else, I’ll completely understand. I’d also still be willing to consult for the board if you have financial concerns I can help with.”
“I understand, Bianca. But like I was saying to Anais. If I were to die today. The entire property would revert to my cousin August. Who would close the bookstore and sell the property as quickly as he legally could. I’m just guessing that would be when the last writer’s contract was up. So within the year. It would be the end of a fifty year experiment, the collective would be dead. Eventually I’d like all of the board seats to be taken by writers in residence. After Amy, Anais and I are dead. But I also want the three of us to be permanent until our deaths. Also I want the town librarian to always be a board member. So that the board has both the collective and the town's best interests at heart. The reason for the urgency is that my car was shot at yesterday. So if I had died yesterday, everyone would already be making plans to find somewhere else to live.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“No, just my car’s back window. I just want everyone to know why I’m hurrying this along. It’s probably nothing, but better to be prepared. So lastly, Amy donated her house to the foundation. She has health care and a pension, but no matter what happens to the foundation, we need to make sure that Amy is provided for.”
Anais said, “We’ll make that general so that anyone who donates their property and becomes a collective member is granted equal protection.”
“I doubt anyone else is going to give us a house, Anais.”
“True, but like you just said, it’s better to be prepared, Bianca wouldn’t the foundation be stronger if it had more than just two properties?”
“Yes Anais, absolutely the more diversified anything is the stronger the chance of survival. If I’m elected to the board, one of the things I would advocate is the purchase of additional property, to expand the collective’s membership. The more members we have the stronger we’ll be both financially and artistically. Also more rent free writers would be subsidized by a larger pool of writers. Right now we have space for fourteen writers, we have two rent free, if we could add one more paying writer we could have three rent free. Once the third floor is finished we’ll have twenty two spots total so we’ll have room for four subsidized writers. Of course if one of those writers creates something popular, the foundation will share in the royalties. Royalties that I think should be put into a building or acquisition fund. I also have a possible large revenue stream that I have been thinking about. That I’d like to discuss at the first board meeting, whether I get elected or not,” Bianca said.
“Laura, do you have any other things you want baked into the foundation?”
“Yes, Anais, I want to make sure that if the board goes rogue sometime in the future that the collective can’t be exploited or sold for profit. If something like that were to happen, I’d rather see the entire foundation revert to the Town of Lake Placid. I hope there will always be readers and writers, but we can’t see the future. If the collective were to die, the only entity that I want to profit from it is the town. I’m hoping knowing that, it will keep future board members concerned with the collective and not personal profit. What about you, Anais, Bianca, am I missing anything?”
“If the collective owns the building, should the bookstore pay rent and if so how much?” Anais inquired.
“How about twenty percent of the bookstore profits if the bookstore owner or owners live in the collective or ten percent if the owners live off site. Fifteen percent if one or more live in the collective and one or more live offsite. Does that sound fair to both the collective and the bookstore?”
“Yes Laura, and I know that Lucy has a proposal for you that I think you’ll approve. Which should both raise your profitability and meet your ideals. I have something for you to think about as well, are we going to include self published and web writers who write for non fiction sites like tech sites, news sites, gaming sites et cetera.”
“If magazines and newspapers go the way of the dinosaur, or evolve into web only content, might not novels do the same thing. Web novels are already pretty big. Royal Road is pretty big right now and will probably keep growing. An author can develop a following there and then go into self publishing, marketing on sites like Amazon which has something of a strangle hold on the business. The Fantasy Book Club just discussed the Wandering Inn, a huge web novel that is also very popular. So yes I’d be agreeable to that, maybe in the beginning having a limit on the number of collective members using that business model. But over time, it could outgrow the traditional publishing industry entirely. If I really want the foundation to continue, I think we need to be open to all possibilities.”
That was that Anais and Bianca were going to refine all the ideas and type it up. Then it’d be up to me to read it, and bring it to Eve and ask Eve to make any changes I wanted or ask her to explain something that I didn’t understand. Then all I had to do was to sign it. I am almost positive this is what my aunt would have wanted. Her son was the chief of police, he had a decent salary, a pension and owned his own home. She had loved the store and the collective, she had been a driving force getting the whole thing started. So I have to believe that she also would have wanted to keep it going as long as was feasible. I was thinking of naming the Foundation after her, but upon reflection, she would have hated that, so instead we settled on the LP Writers Collective
We didn’t define the LP as Lake Placid because Bianca pointed out that we could be wildly successful and expand beyond the borders of Lake Placid. As long as we remained an exclusive Lake Placid entity people would assume the LP stood for Lake Placid. To me LP would forever mean Long Play as a record album or vinyl as the kids call it today . So I like the idea of a collective lasting a long time, but being more about play than about work.
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I went down into the store, Lucy was waiting for me behind the counter and she didn’t look happy for someone who had made the biggest sale in store history. At least the store history I knew of.
“How much was the order total?”
“Forget about that we have a problem?”
“What problem?”
“More a warning than a problem but bad nonetheless.”
“In the marginalia?"
“Yep, maybe you should take it to the cops and they can really take prints, not like you and Amy playing around.”
“Hey, we got your prints for elimination, if I remember correctly. Which I always do. Where is it?”
“It’s right here, but I’m serious, Laura, you should take this down to the cops and have them run it for prints.”
“Sometimes I think that Amy and I are more professional then the police, Lucy. But after I see what it says I’ll call August and if he asks me to bring him the book I will. But first I have some questions for you. What’s your best guess of when that was written?”
“Anytime between eleven am yesterday and today.”
The marginalia was “Stop investigating or the next shot will be bye, bye bookseller.”
“Okay that narrows down the timeline to late afternoon to eight pm yesterday and ten am through eleven am today. So did you see Kai or Karen Benoit or Detective Jones in here, late yesterday or early today.”
“No, I haven't seen any of them.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“Someone threatens you and that’s all you have to say, that’s unfortunate.”
“Well Jones is my number one suspect, so it only makes sense that I’d be disappointed that he wasn’t seen here in the store writing marginalia. But I have one more suspect. Let me see if I can pull up a photo.”
I navigated to the volunteer fire department’s site. I’m pretty sure they have a group photo of the whole department. I found the photo I was looking for and zoomed in on Annette’s face and handed my phone to Lucy.
“Was that woman in the store Lucy?”
She looked at the photo for a good, thirty seconds.
“I’m not sure Laura, she might have been. If it wasn’t her it was someone who looked a lot like her. Who is she?”
“That is Annette Jones, not a fan of Faiths and apparently not mine either. I believe she is at the fire station so I’ll go over and ask her. But you still haven’t answered my question, how much did your sale total up to?”
She finally smiled, “Nine hundred and twenty seven dollars, before the tax. One thousand and one including the tax.”
“You know when I started working here, when I was around your age. That would probably be a month or two’s sales totals. The whole year we probably only sold five to ten times that amount. We should send something to Willow. If it wasn’t for her agreeing to team up with us. You never would have had the opportunity to make the sale. Do you have any idea what she might like?”
“As a matter of fact I do, but it’s a little pricey.”
“What is it?”
“I want to get her a fifty dollar gas card”
“Why?”
“I invited her to visit over the weekend. My father is leaving on Friday morning so I invited Willow to come for the weekend but she said it depends on how much cash she can scrape together for gas and tolls and stuff. I was going to take it out of the money I’ve been saving up for a new laptop.”
“No, we’ll send it to her from the store. Like I said we owe the girl big time. You both can eat here with the writers, so you won’t need any money for food. I’ll go pick up the gas card right now and drop it back here, send it overnight shipping and she’ll have it with two days to spare.”
So I ran to the gas station and bought a hundred dollar gas card, drove back to the store so that Lucy could package it up and send it when the delivery company came to pick up today's shipments. Lucy already had a stack of orders for Lis to pull and ship when she arrived later this afternoon. I just hope Willow’s store is making some money from sales we are sending her way.
Then I drove to the firestation, hoping that Annette was still on the schedule, covering the phones.
“I thought I told you to get out yesterday. I feel even less like talking to you today.”
“Then why leave me a calling card?”
“What are you talking about?”
“The marginalia.”
“What is marginalia?”
“It’s a note left inside a book. You were seen at my store, but you didn’t buy anything so I can only assume you were just there to write the message.”
“I’ve never been in your store and whoever said that they saw me is a liar. Now like I said, get out or I will call the cops and tell them some crazy old lady is harassing me at the firehouse.”
“You didn’t shoot at my car yesterday?”
“I don’t own a gun, I’m a fire fighter, not a gun fighter.”
“Your husband is a cop, he's got a gun and probably a rifle too.”
“Yeah he has a gun for work, when he comes home, he puts it in the gun safe. I’ve never touched it in my life. We don’t own any rifles, he’s not a hunter. Now will you get out of here?”
It didn’t prove anything but I think I believe her. She sounded like she had a genuine dislike of guns. So I went out and called August.
“What can you tell me about the bullet?”
“Nothing Laura, we can’t comment on an active investigation. You know that.”
“What about the sheriff, is he in?”
“I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”
“You are a real fount of information, as usual August. So let me just be clear, Moe and Larry should reserve a table at the diner for lunch Thursday so you can both read about the other stooges' exploits, assuming of course that the three stooges ever learned to read.”
“I did everything you asked me to do, Laura. Faith has twenty four hour protection until tomorrow night after her trial. The officers who have been guarding her have seen zero trouble. No one hanging around, no stalkers, not even a strange or threatening phone call.”
“Maybe he plans to get her enroute to the courthouse tomorrow.”
“Only a mad man would shoot at a cop car, Laura.”
“Besides I’m telling you, this isn’t Jones. He just doesn’t have it in him. Not the skills, nor the ambition. He may think he’s hot crap, but in reality he’s just crap and I'm pretty sure that deep down he knows that.”
“We’ll see tomorrow I guess.”
I hung up, I was frustrated. I had no idea who had planted the marginalia. The one person Lucy thought might have been in the store denied it vehemently and I hated that I believed her story. So I drove back to the store and started calling junk yards looking for a rear window to my car. No one had one. The ones that did said that they were cracked and therefore wouldn’t pass inspection. I’d be better off buying a new one, that will pass inspection when that comes due in four months.
Then Anais came down from upstairs with paperwork still warm from the laser printer. I read through what she had written and it was just as discussed. I was about to sign it, when Anais stopped me.
“No, you have to do that in front of Eve. I think she is upstairs in the living room, writing.”
“Thanks for doing this Anais.”
“Your welcome and I’ll be back at four thirty to pick up you and Amy, for gods sake be on time, or for anti gods sake be on time. Whatever atheists use as an oath.”
“Don’t even mention atheists today. I saw an interview with Ian McEwan on world science today and it turns out. The whole problem with religion, I thought I was fighting against. Nope, just the opposite.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Story, the thing that I devoted my life to. I always thought that it was the antidote to religion. Who needs religion when you have the Lord of the Rings. But McEwan said something that I had never considered before. First came story and that evolved into mythology and then mythology evolved into religion. The thing I have championed all my life is the root cause of religion. The human desire to hear a story. We don’t care that it’s not true, in fact I always preferred fiction to non-fiction. But those men that wrote the bible were just making up stories. But then someone gathered a lot of stories together and said. These aren’t stories, these are true, these are things that happened.”
“Laura, you have always said that. You always said that they just made up the stories and then cobbled them together. Like the story where god stopped the sun from moving across the sky. Which in effect means that the earth just stopped spinning on its axis abruptly. Meaning that everyone and everything on Earth would have been flung eastward instantly at hundreds of miles per hour. Everybody would be dead. So yeah, you always knew it was a story. What shook you was because you always think in the direction religion, myth, story. He just reversed the order on you. You love Lord of the Rings, you probably wish that Middle Earth is really just Earth but so long ago that everyone forgot it. But somehow, Tolkien found Bilbo’s Red Book. That it was all true.”
“Yes, you're right, when I was younger I did wish it was true.”
“Laura, you’re not the only person who wished it was true. I remember reading graffiti all over school. ‘Frodo Lives’.”
“I wrote a lot of that graffiti. I scrawled it on every bathroom stall. But not because I believed it was real, even though I must admit I wanted it to be. But the characters were so well written, they really were alive for me, in their fictional world. Thanks Anais, I’ll see you at four thirty. I’ll even be on time.”
I went up and found Eve. She scanned through the document then I signed it. We got it notarized and I felt a lot better. I could die right this minute, but my dream, inherited from my aunt’s dream, would live on now no matter what happened to me. Sure there are lots of things I still want to do with my life but if it were cut off right this very second it’d be alright. I made good use of the time I had. I would try to make good use of any additional time I have coming to me. I don’t want the story to end, but every story, just like everything else eventually does.
