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Faith Orion's Field
"We have a saying in my family - embrace the crazy. You see, it's like this,
everyone in my family needs a straight jacket. The most industrial one they
can make. Something that would have confounded even Houdini."
Chef Faith Orion, star of the FoodWorks Channel, has no intention of
"embracing" her family's motto about craziness. Ashamed of her small town
roots, Faith has spent the last twenty years hiding from her past and family.
When Faith's mother dies from
lupus, she must return to Mulberry Field,
Arkansas to attend the
funeral and reunite with her family, a bizarre mixture of lovable characters.
There is Granny D, who flies her pajama bottoms atop a hillside every year to
signal the sale of her mulberry jam. Faith's sister Gracie Ann is a new age
follower who makes designer bed sheets for celebrities. Brother-in-law Glen "Jonesy"
Jones is a self-proclaimed film auteur who makes B-movies and always says "Hot
tamales and get your lemons!" when he gets excited. A "magnetized" grandpa, a
transvestite uncle, and a niece in love with
Patrick Swayze round out
the family. But it is motorcycle-ridin', guitar-playin', mechanic Eddie Field,
a former high school classmate, who helps Faith cope while she helps him deal
with the loss of his dead wife.
Join Faith Orion and the rest of the delightful
cast of characters in
this small Southern town as they "embrace the crazy." Charming, witty, and
melancholy, the second novel by Michelle Cushing will leave readers looking to
the stars, saying a soft prayer for those they miss, and embracing the ones
close by.
Read an excerpt below
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Chapter 1
We have a saying in my family – embrace the crazy. Grandma Dunley embraced it
at every opportunity. You see, it’s like this, everyone in my family needs a
straight jacket. The most industrial one they can make. Something that would
have confounded even Houdini. Except me. Not good ol’ stable Faith. I fought
the crazy both tooth and nail,
which is an expression Granny D always said, too. You have to fight everything
"tooth and nail." Any hardship, take it on tooth and nail. It doesn’t even
make sense, but it is an accurate description of Granny D. Tough as
tooth and nails.
I half-expected her to be waiting for me at the
train station, but she
couldn’t do that. She was in jail. The police station is a little ways outside
of town and services three small, rural areas. The only way to get to Mulberry
Field, Arkansas is via
the train. You can fly into
Little Rock and drive the rest of the way, but for as long as I can
remember this is how it’s done. Go northeast, past Keo, past Scott and you’ll
find it. Small farming community dotted sparsely with big brick homes of the
farmers doing well and trailers for the ones who are not. There are vast
endless fields of cotton, the main commodity of the people in town for
generations. Busted barns, dilapidated rusted silos, scraggly dogs, and kids
on bicycles aren’t exactly scenic, but you’ll see it everywhere you look.
There’s a Safeway, a Subway, a Little Caesars Pizza, and a video rental place
called BlockMaster, a terrible rip-off of the popular chain, but I’m sure they
would find Mulberry Field a scooch too small to actually open a store. The
only things in the town center are a post office and a community center. One
strip mall is nearby that houses a beauty salon, flower shop, and both a
discount shoe store and dress shop. The schools are lined up like a strip mall
too. All three are right next to one another. Graduating from elementary
school, you move over to the next building. If you need groceries and don’t
want the hassle of Safeway, then there is always Maude’s, the local
mom-and-pop shop owned by a woman who has to be at least one hundred years old
with boobs that hang low like two potatoes in a pair of pantyhose. The rest of
the town is littered with a couple of gas stations, which are still known as "fillin’
stations" to many of the elderly locals. One service station is used by
everyone,
Edward Field’s Auto Repair. He can fix anything. He’s probably close to
one hundred years old, too. You get the feeling he could probably fix a Model
T. Then, of course, there is the train station, a one platform strip of tracks
on your way to someplace else. It’s managed by a guy named Bob. He has a
toothless smile, but wears an immaculately pressed suit that looks like
something Buster Keaton
would have worn in the 1920s. Impressed with it, Granny D always called the
outfit "smart."
Some people might think what my Granny D did wasn’t too smart. She was hauled
in for flying her pajama bottoms up an abandoned flag pole on Mulberry Pointe,
the highest hillside in town. Some say it’s an Indian burial mound, but it’s
really just a big bump in the ground, the remnants of a very old construction
site. There’s a forgotten flag pole atop it, and that’s where Granny D flies
her PJs every year to signal the sale of her mulberry jam, but it wasn’t jam
and jelly season this time around. My mother had succumbed to lupus.
I was at the office when I got the news. My secretary Brad thinks every phone
call must be taken immediately. Taking a message is a mortal sin. If they take
the time to call, he believes I should take the time to answer. I’m usually
too busy to take calls. That’s why I have Brad. He’s normally pained when I
ask him to take a message, but he ran into my office as if the place were on
fire. My grandmother had been arrested. "Arrested!" he had yelled like I
should have passed out at the thought. I took the call, calmly. That’s how I
found out Mama had died. Can you imagine being so out of touch with your
family that you didn’t realize your own mother was dying?
(Copyright © 2008 Michelle Cushing, Mulberry Bark Publishing.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the
Publisher, except where permitted by law.)