Part 27 - a smackdown in Under Armour.

Oh Shane, my section is precious. I read it greedily over my bowl of morning oatmeal (oatmeal - not a luxury, but unfortunately I still don't find it particularly tasty), and would have laughed several times out loud, was it not for my mouthful of breakfast. And what a miserable morning it is; I had been looking forward to our field trip to Staten Island but standing around in a suburban wasteland in rainy 45 degree weather sounds terrible.

Which reminds me I need to buy some Under Armour leggings for my trek this upcoming January. I think we've bonded before over our hatred of cold weather and every additional year I spend away from subtropical climate, I am reminded that I am a creature of warmth.

None of what happens in my five pages makes sense, but I was so desperate for a change of pace - something other than the lovesick pining of a 24 year old girl - that every single delicious detail was savored, licked and swallowed whole.

Our Rowan awakes, groggy and in pain, finding herself gagged and tied at the wrists and ankles, in the shack where the generator is in the back of the Greenhouse. She finds a Korean gardener guarding her ... um, weren't they all supposed to Chinese gardeners? are we all interchangeable in 1960's America? And who else! It's Reshevsky! Dum dum dum de dum... ominous 'I knew it!' music plays... He barks at the gardener, telling him that the orders have changed, and he, Reshevsky is supposed to be in charge of the girl now. While this exchange takes place Rowan kicks herself for betraying herself to Reshevsky while simultaneously worrying about Matt. Was he being tortured? is he bound and gagged? is this supposed to turn into a weird erotic novel as I had proposed it would in the beginning?

Just as Rowan begins to worry about Matt she overhears Reshevsky imperiously tell the Korean to go tend to the other man with the questioning (and the Korean obeys, just as 'his peasant ancestors no doubt obeyed their Emperor').

Its interesting to note that Rowan never doubted that Matt was also in custody. If I suddenly found myself poisoned, gagged and held prisoner in a shack I have a feeling I would think everyone was in on the plot - but then again maybe I've never been in love with Matt Cater.

Reshevsky then proceeds to remove her gag and in the manner of the James Bond villain proceeds to tell her everything about the evil plot. What a wonderfully convenient plot device, especially as we only have 30 pages left in the novel. One tasty little morsel we discover is that Reshevsky wishes Kee would use scopolamine (a truth serum!) on Cater, rather than traditional pain.

Reshevsky, like all gentleman villains, of course confesses he thoroughly enjoyed Rowan's company, and considered her a real friend. And like all gentleman villains, he has a dark past which has forced him into his current role - apparently he dabbled in espionage (much like someone would perhaps dabble in recreational drugs?) when younger... he flippantly references some sort of 'treaty'. It was Rowan's aunt who found him, and manipulated him, which would be a fairly standard plot turn, if it not for the fact that Reshevsky reveals that her aunt is a heroin addict! A junkie! This was the cause of one of my near-breakfast accidents with the oatmeal.

Ah ha! it all comes together ... the found needle... her aunt's odd emotional turns... Could it be? Have her aunt and Kee been shipping heroin, or perhaps poppies, out of the greenhouse? Are they the modern Taliban?

It was that needle that Rowan found that made her aunt want to kill her (although exactly why Rowan needs to be tied up, and Matt tortured and interrogated is still beyond me - its not like Rowan had figured anything out). It seems like Kee and the aunt have a habit of eliminating characters though - Ah Sing's disappearance was credited to Kee, and in a crossed out section I'm able to make out that Milly's predecessor (who is that by the way?) also had a habit of 'listening at keyholes', thus necessitating an elimination.

Anyway, this is fun stuff. I'm looking forward to your next section. I have no clue how on earth Rowan's aunt, who is apparently a junkie gardener trying to smuggle things clandestinely from her greenhouse, would even bother with the trouble of killing Rowan.

Part 8 - mushrooms, Occidentals and the Brooklyn Botanical Garden

Caroline,

So sorry about the delay in getting part 8 to you. In my hasty departure for Los Angeles on Friday I accidentally took the wrong sections of the manuscript with me. I just got back this morning - took the red-eye and am barely here right now. I would wait until I am more alert to give you my next section, but I feel bad that I'm behind as it is.
LA was pleasurable. We went wine tasting in Paso Robles for a day, ate at some Jack-in-the-Boxes and drove around a lot...which seems to be what one does in Los Angeles.

"Oriental" is indeed a funny way to circumscribe a group of people; you never heard the term "Occidental" thrown around even when Oriental was in its prime. And it's strange how the modifier sticks in the case of non-human things but progresses in terms of people. It kind of demonstrates some of the politics involved the ethnic nomenclature. Groups are described by color, region, and direction (so strange). I think we should define groups by time instead of place, then we could only be bigoted toward people who aren't around anymore. Imagine being time-ist toward people born before 1920....I think ideas like that are why I should avoid throwing my hat in the social ethnography ring.

That's so funny about the poisonous plant plot point (say that five times fast), because a poisonous plant show just opened at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. I'm going to see it this weekend and get acquainted with all those sinister Oleanders.
http://www.bbg.org/exp/wickedplants/amystewart.html

My section is actually fairly packed with plot details, though it seems that mine are lacking the non-typewritten traces of our author and editor. I'll bet you get a 37 year old jelly stain....or a fingernail...or a maybe even a booger. Wow, that'd be awesome!

My first paragraph contains the following line: "She pointed out with particular pride her large assortment of mushrooms, from the familiar Death Angel that had been the bane of my biology class in high-school, to more esoteric fungi." This confused me; I couldn't tell whether the class was 'shroomin and thus became overwhelmed by the subject matter; whether they were poisoned to death, and as a result failed biology, or whether the taxonomic complexity of this family of mushrooms had alone resulted in a poor academic performance.The beginning of my section is essentially a short trip through "poisonous botany 101." The exchange about deadly plants is then interrupted by two stocky workers approaching Kee and aunt Lucy, alerting them that someone tried to break into the storage room. The two men didn't see the person trying to break in, but did see a car drive away. Lucy then gets angry and directs Ah Sing to dock the pay of the watchmen for their lax effort.

Next, we get a wonderful tell-don't-show sentiment from Rowan as she remarks about coming to her aunt's home for peace and finding only tumult and tragedy. She then notes that the events did "bring her out of herself." So, the tone shifts; the stormclouds overhead recede and the sun shines bright yellow light on the farm, the Greenhouse and its poison crop.

The final cascade of events and conversation are fairly complex, with many suggestive passages. Aunt Lucy is painted in a kinder light, and Rowan admits to warming up to her a bit. James Kee snaps at Lucy because she desires to call the police about the two successive "incidents." He suddenly seems sinister. This seems to be a Scooby Doo-like device to take the focus off Lucy and to bring in another suspect as a focal point. Rowan muses before dinner that things on the farm were getting more pleasant and when they sit down to dinner Aunt Lucy suggests that Rowan should get around the city so she's not cooped-up all summer. This raises the eyebrow of Reshevsky (literally) and brings Rowan to recall the conversation they had by the harpsichord. Rowan responds that she never planned on staying the entire summer, to which Lucy says to leave the option open. The final few lines are odd, with Reshevky quizzically, and perhaps defensively, wondering how the police could think that the events of the previous night were anything but an accident. He then says that the police have no reason to ask any of them to remain in the city.

This last line was strange because I don't remember a precedent indicating that the authorities were going to prevent anyone from leaving. I'm wondering if this becomes a Murder-by-Death type of deal, where everyone's sequestered in an old mansion and they start dropping like flies.
Whew, that's a lot to think about. A plot as thick as frozen oatmeal.

tag, you're it.
-Shane