Portrait of Words

It's mid-December, time for Jeff B's monthly Portrait of Words Challenge. Jeff offers a set of photos - each with a specific assignment: three wild cards, only one of which must be used, a purpose, a main character, and one essential item. The challenge is to craft a story incorporating these photos. Not so easy. Please visit Jeff's blog, A Word in Edgewise, to read his story and then follow Mr. Linky to all the clever stories written by other participants.

THE GAMBLE

Vegas was Nicky Johnson's last hope to save the buildings he had nurtured for his whole adult life. He was the antithesis of a slum lord. Fifty years earlier when he had inherited - at the tender age of 21 - three buildings on New York's Lower East Side, he had been mortified by the squalid conditions. He had known his father was a cold and distant man, but he had not begun to imagine that anyone- let alone his own father - could in good conscience take money from people when he was letting them live in such deplorable conditions. So at twenty-one, he had taken it upon himself to atone for his father's sins. He had enlisted the tenants to help clean the place up, paying them for their labor and refusing to take any rent from them until the buildings were pristine and beautiful. Every apartment was painted, re-floored and given new windows and appliances. Working alongside them, he had grown to love these people whom his father had treated as so much refuse. He become an uncle or father-figure to many of the children, insuring that they got educations. He found his beloved wife Cora Anne among these struggling people. He had fallen in love with her passion for justice and beauty and change. She had spurned his advances initially, not taking them seriously until he presented her with two dozen of the most beautiful yellow roses she had ever seen...

For 55 years they had been blissfully happy. In the last five years, she had faced down cancer with her usual courage and good humor. Six months ago, she had died as she lived - with matter-of-fact honesty. She had had the courage to both laugh and to cry. Even though it was she battling cancer, it seemed to him that it was she caring for him and not the other way around. She had been an awesome woman, an awesome human being. He had loved her with his whole being. He had no doubt that she was safe in God's arms now. How could God manage with out her? They had been so blessed - and he still was. After his Cora died - quietly, smiling in his arms whispering that it would be ok - the tenants - the huge extended "family" they had created with their love and generosity, swooped in and held him up as he had so often held them up in dark times. They had sat with him, cried with him, remembered with him. They had brought him yellow roses and prepared meals for him. They had kept him going.

Alas, in the last days of Cora's illness and the months afterwards he had not been paying attention to the stock market, had not seen the disaster coming. Now his life's work, the well-being of own home and that of so many other families was imperiled. He knew gambling was a fool's risk, but it seemed to him the only way. If that didn't work, well he would find a way to join Cora and let his life insurance protect the buildings. He had already groomed young Willie Norris to be caretaker and since he and Cora left no heirs, his will left the properties to the tenants. Perhaps that would be best. But he knew Cora would be angry with him for thinking like that.

He knew others would think him crazy, but he felt her with him today. They had honeymooned at this hotel... in this room. He would have dinner with her - well, with her presence - and in the morning he would go downstairs and with some luck and maybe his late wife's help - he would save his buildings. He had ordered yellow roses, candles and dinner for two. He was being fanciful, not crazy. Lighting a candle, he raised poured a glass of her favorite wine and raised it to her empty chair. "Cora, babe... I need your help... The whole family needs your help. Unless I can win big tonight, we'll lose the buildings and all our lifetime of work, making a home for them will be destroyed. I'm going to gamble tonight for the first - and hopefully the last - time in my life. Watch over me. Blow on the dice, turn them over... do what you can to help. And if I lose, forgive me for what I must do. I love you."

Dinner over, he picked up the phone and talked to his banker... Tomorrow he would head downstairs to the roulette tables and bet everything he had left to his name in an effort to save his buildings. He was frightened, but he felt Cora with him. It would be OK, he thought. He had an angel on his side and she would not let him fail. He would save the buildings and then... one day soon, he would join her and together they would watch over all those they loved. For tonight, though, he would sleep with the sweet scent of yellow rose petals on his pillow and he would dream of Cora's arms.

THE END

Portrait of Words Challenge

(Please scroll down for today's Gratitude Post.)

Time for Jeff B's monthly Portrait of Words challenge. I wasn't sure I was up to it this month, but I missed last month and I decided to give it a try. Each month Jeff gives us a set of 7 photographs, each of which has an assigned function in whatever story one comes up with. We get about three weeks to think about it and a span of three days in which to post 0ur story. I really threw this together pretty quickly so it's not very good, but I wanted to participate... So here it is, for better or worse... which actually kind of fits the story that I came up with. (Eeek a pun.) It may not be good, but at least it's short and sweet.... When you finish here, please go over to Jeff's A Word in Edgewise blog and check out the other participants too.

A Fairy Tale Romance

It had been love at first sight, like in some bad movie. Sam and Samantha. Destined for one another. Walking their identical dogs in the park just as the sun was setting over the lake. It couldn’t have been more romantic. The dogs – both golden retrievers – had been first, dragging their owners towards each other. He was handsome, she beautiful. They sat on the bench, watching the setting sun and each knew that life was different, that fairy stories actually had a grain of truth. They met for coffee the next day and now, here they were, six short months later, surrounded by friends in the same park, on their wedding day. It was a gala affair. It would be featured in the local papers in the days to come. As though to continue the fairy tale quality of everything about them, the day was glorious. Bright sun, not to hot or too cold, the fragrance of Spring flowers wafting on the gentlest possible breeze. She was beautiful in her gown, he handsome in his tux. Their cake was a masterpiece of modern art, all angles and shapes, as unique and creative as they themselves. The dogs were there decked out in wedding finery and had their own cake made of dog biscuits. It was a grand party. Four other couples met and fell in love.

At days end, they left the dogs in the care of friends who would give them a fine honeymoon on their farm and drove off in their fine gray Mercedes convertible for their own honeymoon adventure on the high seas. And true to the fairy tale beginning of this story, the couple opened their own coffee emporium – Sam’s Place - which they ran together in wedded bliss for the next 50 years. If you’re very lucky and you allow yourself happiness, life sometimes really can be like a fairy tale.

Portrait of Words: Challenge #1 - Helena's Song

Jeff B over at A Word in Edgewise is offering a very challenging writing meme called Portrait of Words. Jeff has provided us with a collection of pictures, each with an assigned description, which must be incorporated into the story. That's an awful explanation. Sorry. I'm having as much trouble with the introduction to this post as I had writing the story. We got a month to think about this daunting task and then all participants were asked to post their stories between the September 15 and 17th. I am just squeaking in here under the wire and as I typed this realized that I failed the test because I used all three wild cards but forgot the "item". I thought about trying to rewrite but I barely got this far, so I'm just going to go with what I've done and hope to do better next time. At least I tried. So I'm going to stop trying to explain and just post the pictures and my response and go read the wonderful stories of the other participants who probably all did it right. Sigh.

HELENA'S SONG

Music had been everything to Helena from the time she was a small child. At three she had sat at the piano and started playing and she had never stopped. A prodigy. A modern day Mozart. A genius. She had become the center not only of her parents’ universe but of a wider musical circle. Everyone wanted to be “know” her, in hopes, she imagined that they could tap into the endless reservoir of sound that flowed from her as water flowed from a broken tap. She had not minded. She had been rather oblivious actually. It was all she had ever known. Nothing but the music had mattered to her. Nothing else had been real to her.

Until the day in last August when her agent had decided they should travel to Europe by ship. Less concern with terrorism, he had said. And she had agreed. She would play concerts on the passage and they would travel for free. Her agent had forced her to buy a bathing suit and sunglasses and had hoped too that maybe being at sea would force her to rest. And it had. Unable to pratice her usual seven hours each day, she had begun pacing the decks and eventually – after much coaxing by the aforementioned manager – had gone to sit by the pool and even put her toe in at one point before settling back onto a lounge chair to practice in her head.

Initially, she was irritated when a deep male voice disturbed her focus and then when she opened her eyes handed her chilly glass with the words.

“You’re way to beautiful to be sitting here alone. May I join you?”

She had not answered, hoping he would go away – but much to her own surprise – hoping also that he wouldn’t. This was such a totally new experience for her that she absentmindedly took a sip from the glass in her hand to calm her nerves.

Another new experience. This wasn’t water, nor was it the cranberry juice she normally drank. It was bubbly and had an odd taste. “What is this?” she asked. “I think I like it.”

“What’s your name, beautiful?” he asked in that amazing musical voice. “My name is Jean-Paul Le Beau. Oh… and your drink is a gin and tonic.”

“Gin and tonic,” she muttered. “Very good. Thank you.”

“You are welcome. Is your name a secret?”

“Secret? No. Everybody knows my name. It’s Helena Franklin.”

“Are you an actress then?”

Baffled, by his question, she looked at him for the first time and felt her heart flutter. He was very handsome. She didn’t know quite how she knew this, but she did. “I’m a pianist,” she responded finally.

“Ah,” he replied. “I’ll bet you’re a good one. Would you like to go for a swim?”

And suddenly for the first time in her life, Helena realized that there was something else besides music. For the first time in her life she looked around and saw the rest of the world. For the first time in her life she felt empty. “I would,” she replied, “but I don’t know how.

All I’ve ever known is music.”

“Well, we must fix that,” he replied.

And that was how it began. A love that was as deep and passionate and forever as her music. Jean Paul taught her to swim, he awoke her to food, to art and color and the beauty of nature. He bought her sneakers and awoke her to the movements and mysteries of her body. But he never pushed her, only guided her gently where her curiosity took her. For all the attention she had receive her whole life, she felt as though no one had ever actually seen her before. But how could they have? She had never seen herself. She had only seen and heard the music.

So when Jean Paul – this man who had in a way given her life beyond her music - asked her to marry him, she said yes without a moment’s hesitation, without really knowing anything about him.

But who was this Jean-Paul, this man who was, in the eyes of some, too good to be true? For not everyone was delighted by Helena’s awakening to a fuller life. Her parents and her agent had thrived both financially and psychologically on her gift. She had made them rich and she had made the reflected glow of her genius had made them feel important. For the denizens of the music world, she had like a magical toy they could play with and study. This was not because they were bad people. They had been as swept away by her gift as she herself had been. But while the awakening Jean Paul had brought to her life expanded her world, others felt robbed and angry. “He’s a fortune hunter,” they had asserted. “You wait.“

But sometimes the Universe protects the innocent and for all her lack of worldliness, Helena had good instincts. Jean-Paul, it turned out, was anything but a fortune hunter. He was one of the richest men in France, a count whose family estate remained in tact. He too had spent much of his life being seen only as a fragment of himself, being courted for what rather than who he was. As he had introduced Helena to her greater self, so she had opened his heart and shown him his own deeper aspects. He was truly in love.

And when he took her home after their wedding it was a fairy tale continued - a vast stone estate with long sun-lit corridors, high windows, a huge canopy bed where they made love and rested in each others arms. And then he showed her the grounds – beautiful woodlands and fields where magical sturdy horses with great fluffy ankles danced like unicorns. She was truly happy.

And lest you fear that Jean-Paul stole the music from her, you would be wrong again. The estate had a vast conservatory and a grand piano where she could not only practice to her heart’s content, but give performances. She still went on the road from time to time. And those who had thought her genius complete discovered that she played now with an even greater depth.

Over time, as her children came, she taught them to play and sing – and also to laugh and live and enjoy the fullness of life. What was best of all – was that those who told her she would have to choose between music and a full life were proven wrong. She had chosen with her heart and her heart had guided her wisely. Her music and her life now carried the magic of love. And love – as we all know – multiplies all things.

And that my friends, is Helena’s song, which started out as a haunting melody and grew into a wonderful polyphonic symphony of joy. May your life too be a rich, harmonic song and may you live it with as open and joyful a heart as Helena and Jean-Paul.