Petra's Passage

 

Writing as a calling can lead to storytelling adventure after storytelling adventure and take you places you could never imagine ending up. This project began 20 years ago when I became aquainted with someone, Petra Palmerova, who had come to America from the Czech Republic, overstayed a visitor's visa, and ended up on a gentleman's club stage to make ends meet. We connected, I began interviewing her, and produced the original Petra's Passage, telling her story, struggling to find work, being exploited, and eventually ending up as an exotic entertainer. Unfortunately, Petra left the area and did not promote her book. So, it was sitting on the shelf waiting to be resurrected.

At that same club, On The Border, I met another dancer, Amy Ford, we connected and worked together to produce her memoir, Shave Slowly, an inspirational and revealing read chronicalling a year in the life of an exotic entertainer. Despite the fact that it had outstanding market potential, again, Amy burned out on the life and escaped to another state so she was not able to promote it. 

As a publisher, I knew I had gold just lingering on the shelf and it came to me to modify Shave Slowly and add the copy to the original Petra's Passage, now fiction, with what happened to Amy now part of Petra's manuscript. The result, the updated Petra's Passage, is a remarkable read if I do say so myself.

Since neither author is available, my marketing plan is to offer the books to a literary agent and let them find a publisher with distribution connections.

More Magical Synchronicity...

 

Last night the writing team supporting Hawthorn Moon author Lisa Minneti, her Heritage Press editor, RL Morton, and her coauthor and twin sister, Lori Minneti, got together to polish and shape Chapter 3 of her sequel to Hazel Moon, Hawthorn Moon.

In the past, when actively working on the manuscript for Hazel Moon any number of remarkable, magical events of Synchronicity made it clear that some forces beyond our comprehension were seemingly rewarding the storytelling team for their efforts to share a moving tale with the Universe. For that reason I refer to them as the...Storytelling Fairies.

If you look through the early Hazel Moon blog posts you'll find many examples of the Synchronicity I'm referring to, the most notable example is the day I edited a scene involving $20 bills, and hours later I was walking up the driveway of the home of one of the authors, looked down, and there was a $20 bill!

So, again, only hours after working on Hawthorn Moon I was watching an online walking tour of the Isle of Capri and saw the sign above for Hotel Luna. For any of you who've read Hazel Moon you'll immediately recognize one of the most lovable characters in the book, Lady Luna!

I'm quite sure there will be more of these remarkable Synchronicity events and when they arrive I'll post them as well!

Find Chapter 3 of Hawthorn Moon below.

3

DINNER PLATE DAHLIAS

So I made a big mistake,

Try to see it once my way…

                                  Alice in Chains

Sonny was breathing heavy…in a reggae sort of riff. Being indoors on a sweet-smelling May day was not his stick to fetch. Marcus, who was looking back at Sonny with a puppy-love face, began to breathe to a similar Bob-Marley-and-the-Wailer’s Jamaican beat. Sonny had seen that look before—his master was never one to be once bitten twice shy. He was more like the pooches at the park, sniffing on the possible prospect of being smitten—that was his drug of choice.

Marcus started humming to the Bob Marley tune, "No Woman, No Cry," and knew he was drifting from his romance addiction rehab promise. He had come so far, but once an addict, always an addict. Had he come here with a pure heart, or had he pushed the envelope just a little too far?

Marcus got off his rad Buell Roadster right as Sonny jumped out of the sidecar, in a display with the choreographed split-second synchronicity of the Supremes. Marcus had been training Sonny with unusual Kung Fu poses along with exaggerated verbal phrasings instead of the typical commands like heel and come.

Marcus had a certain air about him when he was with Sonny—that superior feeling twins sometimes have sensing that together there are few obstacles they can’t overcome. When Sonny was with November he acted one way, like the good dog he was, willing to please and partake of the falafel and sarma, but with Marcus a Charles-Bronson alter ego emerged.

Back at the hipster indie mall, a young Japanese girl, sporting stylish pigtails and tube socks laced with citron stripes, was in an animated back-and-forth with fragrance girl, Angela Gonzales, grasping a bottle of Eternity while soulfully acting out a very sad story about a baby who died, was on the verge of a crying jag and it looked like Angela was right there with her.

"Oh my god, you wait here sweet one, I need to get you something…flowers...right now…lots of flowers. I am so sorry to hear about the baby!" lamented Angela, empathetically shaking her Bridget Fonda locks. When things like this went down Angela would forget anything she was supposed to be doing, like even working, and find a way to somehow make things right—that’s just how she rolled. At that moment nothing else mattered, she let go of her own issues, her marriage mess, and her four children, ran out of the store, Fragrance and Flannel, to the mall's sky-lighted innovative open market slamming full frontal into Marcus Dupree.

"Ohhhhh girl…you cool, I mean you okay?"

"Not really, I am a grieving mess," wiping her eyes, smearing her Great Lash mascara, "a lovely girl I just met said her sweet baby has died and my heart shatters...again," shared Angela, running backwards to keep talking to him, "it glues back together you know, but then it changes, like deciding at a rummage sale, and right now all that matters are flowers and that sweet mother."

"Don't feel bad about your patch-worked heart, I think mine is dyslexic, always switching, on and off like a stoplight...anyway I like the way you reveal yourself—you put it right out there," Marcus revealed.

“Sometimes I feel like a tadpole…back legs growing out, changing who I am, and it’s almost time to leave behind my safe world and I’m thinking how much I would rather just stay in the water…know what I mean?”

Angela started twirling her hair around her finger while staring at her fingers.

He knew it was happening again, his problem, giving his heart away, too much, too often, maybe his mom and Auntie Blueberry shouldn't have adored him so much. Right then and there Marcus Dupree fell a little bit in love, once again, in another romantic instant that would not be denied.

Angela put her hand over her mouth, hiding a smile, blushing from a compliment directed at her from this handsome stranger, but her eyes were misty.

"You gotta name…so me and my partner here can be your friend and help you if and when you break?" Marcus asked, looking at Sonny who nodded like the loyal wing man that he was.

"Angela, like the word angel, only with a little something extra added, “so, anyway, your dog looks crazy familiar?”

"Everyone says that…Sonny is all dog, he looks and lives like the lovable mongrel everyone would want to have. Okay Miss Angel with an, A, then...you’re looking at Marcus, like Aurelius."

Sonny's ears pinned up and his whole face became larger as he went into a wolf man like howl of pure gleeful joy.

"Right on…right on, let’s keep it together," said Marcus, watching Angela skip towards the mall's trendsetting, skylight lit marketplace  in break-dance fashion 

Driftwood beams and hemp-wrapped bushel baskets gave the market a woodsy vibe, but the real celebrities were the natural ripe vegetables—the golden rod squash and huge burpless cucumbers. 

Marcus watched this girl he’d just met, selecting dinner plate-sized dahlias in ripe colors like heirloom-tomato red and butternut-squash yellow, holding them like a magic wand and then positioning huge, billowy white hydrangeas around the outside of the arrangement.

Angela was flushed with a face full of love—the white flowers reminding her of the sweetness of diapers and cotton balls. She was always a primary-color girl but all that white circling around the intense colors seemed so full of soul. She wiped her eyes as the sales girl, wearing a knitted rainbow skull cap, asked her, “What color ribbon?”

“Do you have Bahama Blue?"

Angela, remembering her wedding color, and forgetting she was in a public place, bent her head down, madly shaking it to fluff her hair before returning with a smile to the sales girl who said, "We have Superman Blue…will that work?"

Sonny got a whiff of something fun and ran in the direction of the sparkly flagship store at the mall, Fragrance and Flannel.

Marcus had been staring starry-eyed at Angela, not sure if she was going to be his next love-nester—November’s longtime best friend no less. Another gift he was blessed with, Marcus could compartmentalize and rationalize, and still somehow keep it all together for himself and everyone concerned—maybe he would just worry about that little romantic glitch ruminating inside his head tomorrow, and like Scarlet tomorrow is another day.

Snapping back to the moment, Marcus heard old Sonny's yelps of pleasure while sprinting gleefully free down the mall hall—you know, like the ice water at McDonald's.

"Sonny…where you goin’ brother?"

Marcus did a Tai Chi Elvis-Presley pose and sure enough Sonny stopped dead in his tracks, tail wagging, waiting for Marcus right on the threshold of a store entrance wafting an intoxicating mall smell heaven, dense with luscious aromas like honeysuckle and hawthorn and skullcap, so much so that Sonny was having a hard time staying steady, staying swell—the composed kind of canine he usually always was.

Meanwhile Mall Maven hostess with the mostest, Rosa, had taken Angela’s place and was exchanging consoling words with the mother whose baby had died. Regal and proud, her free fingers armed with her signature collection of chunky men's watches, always worn on her left wrist. She used the Armenian pinky-roll hand gesture to greet Marcus and Sonny as they approached.

Marcus did a double-take and said, "I have to say, has anyone ever told you that you…”

“I hear it all the time," interrupted Rosa, “Liza, Liza, Liza, and when I had long hair, it was Cher. If you were thinking Cher, thanks for the complement, I wish I had her money, but she can keep her current husband—seems like he’s just using her.”

Letting go of the lady’s hand, Rosa gave her a little reassuring tap on the head. Spraying a customer scent card, in her blackberry rayon blouse and her frosty caramel lipstick, Rosa was as shiny and classy as her famous fragrance products.

"Experience the magic of Eternity," she declared, handing Marcus the card while smiling her smoky eyes at him before going behind the counter to get her knock-‘em-dead Sharpie-black fedora—one she’d borrowed from her husband long ago, so long ago she now had forgotten that trifle detail and instead told people it was a gift from an admirer.

"Hey thanks," said Marcus accepting the card while giving her a wink, then, giving it a sniff before passing it on to Sonny who proceeded to, what else, eat it.

"I actually thought you might be the sister of a woman I just met...Angela with an A," Marcus shrewdly suggested.

"Oh, you met my little girl? Well I am her proud Mama, and her name fits her doesn't it. The moment I first saw her sweet face I knew she had some angel in her. Let me tell you, I pray this world lets her keep her childish soul—that’s her gift. Mine was feeding people I love. A spoonful of lasagna is almost as good as…well it’s been a while since I’ve cooked anything." 

Rosa paused and put her ring finger to her lips very lightly, not smudging anything, before adding, "My lovely daughter rushed off to get this young girl flowers. She has a thing about babies, with four beautiful children of her own, but they are not babies any more and she misses that. My girl could hold a crying baby like it was a china doll for hours and feel as if she was in maternity seventh heaven!" tilting her fedora while getting out the last word.

Meanwhile, Angela took a deep breath, trying to smell the flowers she was about to buy, but not really sensing anything special. Sometimes from working fragrance real odors were hard to distinguish from the powerful perfumes. She put her teeth over her lower lip, an old girlish habit—something she did before turning eighteen. At times Angela wished she was seventeen again, before all the marriages and the children, and she could just be herself again. 

Meandering along the mall hall in a daze, she fantasized about marrying the man she’d just met, Marcus, erasing the past and starting a new life—with him.

"OH CHEMISTRY," Angela shouted in dismay, “why can’t I resist its magic? I know…November…maybe she can come up with a tonic or spell or something to help me with my imagination—she always has in the past."

Lost in her childish dreams while navigating the mall hall, arriving back at the fragrance area, opening her eyes, there he was…there was Marcus—perfect, like Richard Roundtree.

"There's a full moon tonight, are you a moon girl?" he asked.

"Oh no…I’m a sun worshiper, yes…we have a great relationship and some day I would like to live on the equator so we could be even closer—not much sun here in Seattle, you know."

Marcus wasn't listening. It was her mouth that had captured his full attention—all ruffled and looking heart-shaped like on one of those poker playing cards from the 1880s—a queen of hearts to be exact.

Intern at Heritage Press

Hello, my name is Carolina Cuevas MS Global Health , BS Nutritional Sciences. 

It was a dark, stormy night when I arrived to the USA at the age of 12. I had nothing in my pocket but a bag of dreams, primarily the hope to achieve the American Dream.

The only way to cope with the stabbing and gruesome changes of my life and attempting to heal from generational trauma…was and is…writing. 

Words are powerful, words are medicinal, words are seductive, they ignite adrenaline, ecstasy, and even melancholy. The melancholy that brought me peace and understanding of the complexity of being a brown, porcelain-like symbol in the land of the “opportunity." 

The universe was exhausted of my pain, the Milky Way heard my screams and tears, and she has responded. Her answer is to liberate suffering through words. 

She knows where I have always belong. “You cannot lie anymore, I will take you back to where you come from and spit you out, even if you confront. Words are yours, and words will only be the way for you to return."

 

 

Well, there are times when the drama surrounding the writing and publication and marketing of a book involves more emotion and plot twists than what's in the actual story.

What am I talking about, Heritage Press set up a publication contract with Kathryn Bencriscutto, who just happens to be related to me, to write a memoir about her illustrious father, Mike Bencriscutto, a legendary golf instructor, course manager, and successful player, beloved father, and cherished husband.

 So, Kathy was supposed to send me 40,000 words on August 1st, 2023, when it didn't arrive, and I did not hear from her, I knew something was terribly wrong. Feeling it was imperative to get this done, I pulled the materials we had been working with together, got to work, and four months later Our Life in Golf was produced and published.

 

As things turned out, she had gotten terribly sick, and struggling to simply survive everything else had to be put on the back burner. The days went by, I'd completed her memoir, Our Life in Golf, and sent her some copies of the book not knowing if she was alive or had passed. 

 

From what I learned from Kathy, she was all but on her deathbed when the books arrive, refreshed her Spirit, she sent me an email, and not only is she on the mend but Kathy had a contact with a mover and shaker in Hollywood who knew about her father, had already made a film about golf, and told Kathy that he wanted to read the book and adapt it into a film!

What can I say...why do the best things seem to happen when you least expect them!!

 

 

As the editor and manager of local publishing concern, Heritage Press, I am winding down operations after 30 years of providing regional authors with a path to publication. As a compliment to a lifelong career in education, though local publishing is typically never a lucrative business, helping to shape stories and produce books has been most satisfying. As a result much of my adult life has been spent in the serene environment of various coffee shops working on these projects. I wanted to share some of the details of my last three books because I feel they can inspire others to pursue their dreams to tell their stories, no matter their age. Currently, I have either finished or am in the process of completing the editing and production of three books written by authors still sharing stories in their 90s. 

 

The first book, Journeying Toward Justice, was written by Sister Lois Aceto, her first edition came out when she returned from missionary service as a Dominican Nun from Bolivia in 2008. Last summer she was honored in a Journal Times article on her 91st birthday for her service to the Racine Criminal Justice Community. When I noticed that the book mentioned in the article was out of print I contacted her for permission to edit and produce a Second Edition for her, which I did. Oh, by the way Sister Lois I first knew as Sister Giovanni, my beloved 4th Grade teacher at St. Mary's Catholic School in downtown Racine. 

 

Next, Dolores Foster Williams, formerly a Milwaukee Catholic boarding school student at St. Benedict the Moor, now living in Chicago, contacted me in her 80s to produce her first book. Now, 94, we are completing her sequel, both books encouraging the Catholic Church to organize more diverse parishes. She is currently attending a model diverse Catholic parish, St. Benedict the African, and credits her pastor priest, Father David Alan Jones, for working well with their diverse parishioners. 

 

Finally, John C. Ellis is an inventor who has written a memoir, The Faraday Twins, telling the story of how he came to develop a new form of water with remarkable healing and other physical properties. I am in the final stages of completing the editing and production of his Second Edition. Now 93, John continues to spread the good life-saving news of his groundbreaking accomplishment in print.

 

And so, as I wind down Heritage Press operations after many years of service to our community, let me encourage anyone reading this who has a story to tell and a message to share...no matter your age get out there...It's Not Over Till It's Over!

Sister Lois Aceto was...Sister Giovanni

 

 10/26/22 Update...Just completed editing the Second Edition, finalized the new cover, and ordered a proof! For all you writers out there, a second pair of editorial eyes is always a good idea. In my case, I sent a proof copy to one of Sister Aceto's friends at her residence, the Siena Center, and asked her to send me any typos she finds. So, in a few weeks her memoir should be authorized to be published!

I'd settled into my usual spot at Mocha Lisa, about to resume my current most pressing Heritage Press project, author, Ron Kranig, was about to break a case open connected to the book I published for him, A JUDAS KISS FOR JUSTICE, when I looked on the deck and saw a familiar face.

Sister Lois Aceto had just turned 91 and was celebrated in her hometown, Racine, and in our greater Southeastern Wisconsin area for her selfless volunteering. I first met her back in the late '50s when she was Sister Giovanni, my beloved 4th Grade teacher at St. Mary's Catholic School.

 

https://journaltimes.com/news/local/watch-now-youthful-offender-facility-honors-sister-lois-acetos-91st-birthday/article_17cca736-bf59-11ec-857f-071c5ff368b4.html

When I saw her picture and story in our local Journal Times newspaper, and learned she'd written a book, I went online to buy one, saw that it was $83 new and $30 used, I knew it was out of print, and so, being a publisher I contacted her and offered to resurrect her book, putting it back in print.

 

So, that was the background when I looked out on the Mocha Lisa deck and saw Sister sitting there! Hopefully, within a month her book, the chronicle of her legacy as a Force for the Greater Good...a lifelong Servant of God's Glory, will be back in print!

 

Hawthorn Moon Meets...The French Open 2022

 

Hawthorn Moon's author, pen name, Lisa Anne (Lisa Minneti) is scheduled to stop at my Mocha Lisa Coffee Shop office today, a rare event. She comes by to work on her book once, maybe twice a year. 

Why do I mention that, because what I'm about to share had me shaking my head once again as the delightful Storytelling Fairies seem to be blessing the efforts of Heritage Press and author, Lisa Anne, to tell good stories.

So, I'm watching the coverage of the 2022 French Open today, the rare day I'm going to meet Lisa Anne to work on Hawthorn Moon, and one of the commentators whimsically described a controversial call as a "French Kiss" when the tennis ball just barely touched a line.

 

Now, I'm quite sure, although I can't be certain, that during the 10 or 20 years I've been following the French Open, I've never heard an announcer say those words..."French Kiss." Well, my editor's mind, crammed with details from all the manuscripts I've shaped, remembered instantly that Hawthorn Moon's Chapter 14 is titled, FRENCH KISSES! I stopped, shook my head, and realized I'd just been..."Kissed" for the umpteenth time by the delightful...STORYTELLING FAIRIES!!!

...find CHAPTER 14    FRENCH KISSES...below

 

I want to be the girl with the most cake...

                                                 Hole

The concrete felt good on the back of my thighs. Dependable. The video was over. I was not thinking about the video, instead, my mind was dancing with shenanigans, the mischief escapades that went on behind the sheets and or with the sheets.

My heart was torn then stitched like a random crazy quilt, my rum raisin tinted lipstick...like everywhere. How many men did I just French Kiss—all so different, but I liked them all. I can't say I felt happy about it, but I definitely was not sad.

The full Hawthorn Moon was rising, performing a ritual between the clouds that reminded me of snakes eloping. I always felt at home outdoors. Luna would often warn, "Do not trust the indoors."

Tonight's moon, the Hawthorn Moon, I would French kiss too if I could—a glorious apricot jam hue surrounded by a vanilla ice cream glow. Damn...it was beautiful. The surrounding sky was that comfortable neighborhood drugstore pink.

My mom always wore a similar shade of pink. She would put on lipstick, was not a fan of rouge or mascara, but her mouth, that was different—not too dark, not too light, but not too innocent, either.

I took off running in the direction of the rising Hawthorn Moon, so impressively low and bellowing I could hardly breathe—I'm thinking...if only I wasn't such a spaz, more of a fast track athlete type, maybe I could actually get there.

Caressed by the sweet Hawthorn Moon May wind, gently urging me on, my soul was open to forgiving everything and everyone in need of forgiveness, including myself. I wanted to devour the moon, like I would a thick slice of Sentry supermarket wedding reception cake, and block out all the questionable things I'd just done.

Those kisses, that last French Kiss, feeling like I was being strangled and smothered, yet somehow I sort of enjoyed it—that tight...gripping sense of being fused together...not so bad, really. Primal passion is part of the human experience, you know, like in the Eric Carmen song, "Hey Let's Go All The Way."

I'd inhaled that last French Kiss—the effect hitting me like the intense scent of Paco Rabanne Phantom Cologne. Gosh, do I need so much love?

The amorous aroma of spring...the pungent sweet floral smells get in your hair and teeth—coming from nowhere, but especially at night attacking your senses.

My lips were bruised eggplant purple. He'd gripped me so tight and his forceful French Kiss, I remember not being so sure I liked it, but then it was so damn interesting—like his whole life was contained in that one kiss.

Did anything matter more to him at that moment—his family, his brother, Dominick, or even his mother's car collection.

As with Rhett Butler, their sexual chemistry boiling over, after he'd aggressively whisked Scarlett up the grand staircase of their postwar Atlanta mansion, Jacomo's kiss was hungry—like he hadn't kissed anyone else that way, that day...that week...perhaps even ever.

All the French Kisses...

Being outside, and it being May, somehow made everything seem okay, natural...just what girls do. The wind caught my hair, flying everywhere. I felt fearless, my thoughts going chronicle as I recalled French Kiss #1.

Gutter picked me up, straight up, like I was his favorite fruit-flavored Popsicle, lifting me way up over his head, and at that moment instead of being upset all I wanted to do was bury my face in his hoodie—golden with marigold stitching and oversized.

I was liking his strength as he slowly lowered me...such crazy teenage fun—fountain-soda light and refreshed. Then, the kiss. At first soft and sweet, while I was still being held high, just a little tongue, then, as if we were principals in an MGM Fred Astaire musical, he twirled me round and round in ballroom-dancer fashion.

"I didn't know you could slam dance moves like that," I said, nuzzling his neck, swimming in Calvin Klein Eternity.

"So, you like my Gene Kelly?"

Being with Gutter was this crazy, dizzy buzz that the now was all there was. His look, an attractive mix of German Shepard with the powerful presence of a bouncer at Studio 54, late '70's, when the disco-driven club was so popular that anything and everything went on and the bouncers had to be able to handle anything and everything.

For Gutter's next French Kiss he put his hand behind the low curve of my head, tossing my hair aside, and fetchingly said, "Spice, you are precocious...I've always like that in a girl," his eyes sparkling with anticipation.

Then it hit me, all men look like some kind of animal close up—some like dolphins, warm and serene; some like tigers, predatory and powerful, but this was the first time a guy looked to me like a stuffed animal...in Gutter's case, a cuddly teddy bear. I imagined a life with him would be...musical, soft shoe, and buttered popcorn.

The second French Kiss I stole from Gutter—just couldn't help myself.

High school crushes are hard to get over, even in your 30's. That Genoa City sweetie, super tall Pauley, simply the best bass player ever...period, and he was here in Seattle. How did she do it?

The video shoot was over, but Luna's band was just wrapping up a rehearsal for another gig coming up later. I was sitting close to the stage in the bowling alley hall where the shoot had just taken place.

Pauley just couldn't help flirting with Luna, batting his doe-brown god-gifted eyes at her as she flirted back, winking while snuggling up to her microphone in that sultry way of hers. Moving toward him, she began stroking the shaft of his bass. That was too much. I had to shake that up.

Why was Luna coming on to my secret crush? All the men she's had and would have, couldn't she leave mine alone? Oh god, Pauley's noticed me...and now he's coming over...bass guitar and all.

"Hey there, November...been a long lonely time."

His smile was silly cute and I couldn't help but notice that he had said something in a complete, full sentence—when I recall he never used to string that many words together at one time.

"You look swell, Pauley, exactly as I remember you—still have your The Taken cool swagger from that band you were in."

"And you...you look really nice...but different. I'll always remember you in the audience at our gigs wearing that old army jacket, your face so serious, but sweet, like you were in church. Keep it real, November—that's your jam."

That deep observation, coming from...him...swelled my already bursting heart and I threw my arms around both Pauley and his guitar. The wine giving me courage, I couldn't resist giving him a warm welcome-back-in-my-life kiss...with a just a touch of French—this special someone who...dines with the angels.

He returned my affection with a growing secret smile, cut short when Lady Luna spoke up, still glowing from a glorious stage presence.

"Are you enjoying this lusty month of May?" she asked me.

Smiling like a naughty child impervious to scolding, Luna went on while putting her hand on his shoulder as if to claim her property, "Sweet Pauley...isn't there a song that sounds like Pauley, why yes, a Nirvana tune, "Polly," a slow one, you know, Polly wants a cracker...sing it with me, Pauley, for fun."

"Let's roll," he happily agreed.

I was now having an awkward situation with Luna for squelching the growing amorous moment Pauley and I were about to have.

Watching them stroll back to the stage, I could see they were an obvious couple, roughhousing a bit as lovers often to—happy. Before beginning the song, Luna blew a kiss to Pauley, then, looked at me as if to say...he's mine.

While Pauley opened with a long bass riff, Lady Luna, using her considerable psychic powers, sent me a message I heard in my mind loud and clear—it seems you've had some fine boy cuisine on your dining table today, but you only seem to want the entrées you can't have.

I felt like such a trollop. What was I doing, trying to snag someone else's man? That wasn't me...or was it? I just couldn't watch any more and went outside, full of questions.

The rising, full, now yellow Hawthorn Moon might have the answers. Anyway, searching the heavens on the night of a full moon always gave me strength, so while they sang I scanned the sky.

Drifting back to the video shoot, the next French Kiss was from...and even thinking of his name made me want to sort of die and surrender to love, like forever. He'd caught me at my best, right after the last take of the shoot. I was holding the wooden chalice Gutter handed me filled with red wine.

I didn't usually drink red wine. I think it's sort of heavy, fattening, at least for Italian girls. I've always been a white wine girl and in the '80's I loved Rhine wine, but now Chardonnay was okay.

So there I was on the sidelines during the video shoot, sipping from the chalice, when Marcus came up and gave me that...look of love—sautéing in me an insane chemistry casserole.

He lowered his left hand, the one bearing the Jesus ring he wore on his middle finger, and forced me into him, so tight I gasped with familiarity—he knew I loved this. His gorgeous hazel eyes were now staring right into my soul. I began to wilt but Marcus held me even tighter. It was then that he launched into our ritual of clinging so tight that you felt like dying if the other person wasn't hugging you back just as tight...like we would never let each other go, and just wallow there in endless love-sickness as we exchanged all the energy and love our souls had to share.

I recalled faintly hearing Luna singing, "It's Over Now" and how she killed it during the video, belting out the lyrics...stop when you see me.

It was during that song when Marcus began his French Kiss assault...first with some soulful upper lip sweetness, followed by some lusty lower lip, then moving into full blown French everything, but actually I couldn't be sure if it was lips or tongue.

Then, both dizzy and delirious, I think he moaned, "Love you, Moonbright...and I'll never forget our day at the beach—how could I...one of the naturally happiest days of my life."

We were all over each other soaking in the hot summer sun that day...twisting our sweaty intertwined bodies into the shapes of most of the letters of the alphabet.

A woman nearby, a bowling alley bystander taking in the shoot, watching us, decked out in a baseball hat and flamingo-pink pants suit, looked at me, wide-eyed, being held so closely, and declared, loud enough for me to hear, but soft enough as to not disturb the take, "You're smitten, aren't you? I do miss making out, but then...you get married."

I knew what she was talking about...paused, then, pure-like replied, "Yep, that's why we aren't..."

I think that annoyed her. I do that to people, but it was not my intent, heaven knows. Her swarm of lovesickness was the same mess I was stricken with right at that moment.

Our French Kiss make-out session over, Marcus said, "Thanks for the nice friends-with-benefits hug," his backing away leaving me totally dazed and confused. Then, he added, "I wanted to thank you for the reveal. I always knew you as such a regular girl, Novi, but in the hotel room, that was good, too," delivered in his quiet, deep, divining voice.

What the...so, I put on a little melodramatic spectacle exiting our hotel tryst as an excuse to escape on my terms after his fond of you remark pissed me off.

What does it mean, anyway, when someone seems to like your faults?

He stood there proud as his loyal fan base made their way to us—Zigarmello and Loyalty...La Famiglia.

"Don't mean to interrupt you two kids, but I'm taking our girl, Loyalty, here home for something to eat, would you like to join us?" Zigarmello asked.

Food was the last thing on my mind, but I did want to say something to Loyalty before she left, got her attention and said right from my gut, "You were sweet perfection in the video; your skating and dancing...thank you for sharing your magic."

"I just do what I love," she replied, still in her skates, her eyes sparkling like those rarest of the rare blue diamonds, then, she added something that stunned me for a moment, "maybe you should try that sometime, November."

Without waiting for a reaction from me, turning to Marcus Loyalty asked, "Did you like my routine?"

"Who is better than you...and you know I don't always tell you that?"

His affectionate and respectful reply got her smiling and the two close siblings broke out into some funky celebratory dance moves.

Zigarmello nodded me to come over and shared, "November, you and Marcus remind me so much of what Khloe and I had when we were young—keep having fun and do stay true to who you are. That's all you have to do...and the Lord will do the rest."

I paused to reflect, then finally thoughtfully replied, "Zigarmello, the Good Lord knows...you are the man, but I'm not quite ready for a face-to-face with the Holy One...not sure what He'd think of me just French Kissing four different guys in the short span of only forty-four minutes.

I smile, a no-teeth not-sure-about-this smile, but my eyes were full of both a genuine love for him, along with my also genuine Christ-is-the-Way anguish.

Marcus, following all of this banter, stepped in with a salutation solution to the awkward moment, "Bless you Dad, and Loyalty, tell Mom I'm happy."

"You got it, son," Zigarmello replied, smiling, then added, "and it doesn't get any better than this."

Zigarmello paused, tipped his fedora, and left us with, "Checkmate."