Date Published: 10-06-2021
Publisher: Indies United
Escaping from her childhood, Sheela, flees her aunt's motel where she is forced to work as a cleaning maid and provide ‘favors’ for wealthy guests and winds up in Miami in Kit Malone's fancy brothel. Beautiful and stately, Sheela becomes a high-class prostitute, a millionaire’s mistress and a Billy Rose showgirl. When she meets the love of her life in Manhattan, the charming but naïve Julius Clark, life blossoms into something both frightening and titillating. But when Sheela gives birth to her daughter, Fanny, it is this shadowy and stormy relationship that alters the course of both of their destinies and defines their future.
Chapter Three
No
one saw Darryl again in Clearwater, Florida, for several years. Rena never said
a word when Sheela came back from the park with red eyes and torn clothes. She
just stared at the girl and nodded.
Her
sister’s elbow jabbed her in her ribs. “Oh, shit,” Sheela heard her whisper.
Their
aunt picked up a hammer from the kitchen drawer and dashed up the stairs. They
heard the yelling and took off toward the back, where they crouched behind a
trellis and stared up at their aunt's bedroom. They never saw Daryl again after
that day. Although it was a relief not to have him lurking about, Sheela was
constantly afraid he would show up again and kill her.
“Oh,
don’t worry,” Leda said. “I’m sure Aunt Rena has hammered him to death by now
and fed his body to the fish.”
Rena
must have divorced Darryl at some point because she found a new husband within
three months of his disappearance. Chester Moody was a beefy man who liked to
sit on the front porch and take naps in the rocker. He brought the girls to
fierce hysterics because he snored so loudly the guests raised their eyebrows
and politely glanced in another direction. Rena talked to him constantly, even
when he appeared to be asleep. She put him to work in the kitchen, along with
Leda and Sheela, and hired a girl to clean the rooms. A much nicer arrangement
for Sheela and Leda because even though they had to clean
up after him, they got to lick up all the chocolate sauce from the pots.
Sheela
had a boyfriend in her senior year named Calvin Woods. He was always holding
her hand and carrying her books, and he would come by every evening to sit with
her on the porch of her aunt’s motel.
“Come
on, Sheela, let’s go down to the beach,” he’d say.
Sheela
would check to see whether Aunt Rena was around and quickly jump the porch
railing to run off with Calvin.
She
thought he was the best-looking boy she’d ever seen. His hair was a fine soft
brown that hugged his neck in wisps that fell onto his collar, and best of all,
he had deep dimples that showed up in his cheeks every time he smiled.
Every
boy in Clearwater thought Sheela was the prettiest girl they’d ever seen up
close and envied Calvin the luck of winning her heart.
“What
do you see in him, Sheela?” they’d shout. “He’s a weirdo, so shy he stutters.”
“That’s
precisely what I like about him.” Sheela wasn't so young she couldn't tell the
difference between a bunch of roughnecks and a true gentleman.
She
found it endearing that Calvin blushed around her so much of the time. He was a
bookworm, too. He liked to read her chapters from favorite novels, passages he
would underline in red. Calvin Woods wrote her so many love letters, they
filled her chest at the motel. Sheela loved that he was so tall and lanky he
had to duck through doors, and his knees were so high when he sat that even the
cats didn’t know where to find his lap.
“Marry
me, Sheela,” he whispered in her ear, then fell to his knees on the sand, and
searched her eyes. “Be mine forever.”
Sheela
contemplated the ocean and a boat so far away it looked as if she could hold it
in her hand.
“I
can’t,” she whispered. “But I love you, Calvin. Don’t ever forget that.”
He
looked at her sadly and rose to his feet. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll wait.”
Most
everyone thought they would get married after graduation. So it came as quite a
shock when Sheela disappeared. Pensive and despondent for a while, Calvin
eventually wound up marrying a girl from Orlando whom he’d met on a trip. There
was a rumor in Clearwater that Sheela wrote Calvin a letter right after leaving
town, telling him that she’d never come back to marry him. There was another
rumor going around as well. People said that Sheela went and met herself a
millionaire in Miami and didn’t have the time of day anymore for a poor boy
like Calvin.
About the Author
Vera Jane Cook was born in New York City and has been a city girl ever since. As an only child, she turned to reading novels at an early age and was deeply influenced by an eclectic group of authors. Before Jane became a writer, she worked in the professional theatre and appeared on television, in regional theatre, film and off Broadway.
At the age of fifty Jane began to write novels. Some of her titles include Dancing Backward in Paradise, winner of an Eric Hoffer Award for publishing excellence and an Indie Excellence Award for notable new fiction, 2007. The Story of Sassy Sweetwater and Dancing Backward in Paradise received 5 Star ForeWord Clarion Reviews and The Story of Sassy Sweetwater was named a finalist for the ForeWord Book of the Year Awards. She has published in ESL Magazine, Christopher Street Magazine and has written early childhood curriculum for Weekly Reader and McGraw Hill.
Jane still lives on the upper west side of Manhattan right near Riverside Park where she takes her delightful dogs for a jog, Peanut and Carly. She comes home to her spouse of thirty years and her two cats, Sassy and Sweetie Pie.
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