Congratulations, scott!

I hear you finished your novel yesterday, Scott! Glad to hear it. (I'm disregarding the little matter of the missing 30,000 words... you wrote 50,000 and they are amazing.) And Jackie's making good progress and almost done, and we, Esmondes and Wannabes, rock.

I just wanted to write and say hi, and I'm sorry I missed yesterday's celebration. Can we pick a date for our awards ceremony, sometime in August? Jackie, can you post the dates when you will be gone, and others, post dates when you are already busy? Maybe we can combine with the Mawson reunion - do that in the afternoon, then go back to Dad's for an evening party?

Anyway, an excerpt - i am having a very hard time remembering what I've posted and what I haven't, so forgive me if this overlaps with anything else. In this piece, Seth has been up all night, then moved in to Miss Pettigrew's boarding house, was woken up by the Suns of Ipswich trying to kidnap her, and is still pretty sleep deprived, while sitting around Miss P's house eating sandwiches.

Three sandwiches and two steaming cups of tea later, Seth sat sleepily on the settee – the same one that had been her bed the previous night – and wished for a blanket. Opposite her, Miss Pettigrew sat darning a sock, and on the horse-hair divan to her right, Laura and Miss Mayle had just taken their places.

Seth’s internal censor had shut off. Any thought that entered her mind was in danger of spilling right out into the midst of this cozy family circle in the parlor.

“Miss Mayle, how did you know I was here?” she asked. Crystal, who had just taken a sip of tea, snorted and spewed tea all over Miss Pettigrew’s shiny oak occasional table. With a long-suffering sigh, Miss Pettigrew carefully laid down her darning hook and sock, pulled a handkerchief out of a cleverly concealed pocket in the side of her dust-colored dress, and mopped up the spill.

“Sorry, Miss P,” Crystal said cursorily, but her eyes were still glinting. She turned to Laura. “You gonna introduce us?” she asked.

“Haven’t I? So sorry, darlings. Seth Kayte, this is Scrap. She’s just got the one name, but no one knows if it’s hir first or hir last. Ze won’t say a word. But you’re right, Seth darling, Scrap also goes by the name Crystal Mayle when ze’s a she, and the name King Lightning when ze’s a he and on stage.”

“Not just on stage!”

“Come, darling, being called King when one is not on stage is a little much to ask.”

“I saw the Prince of Wales the other day,” interjected Seth, who, I must remind you, had lost the internal editor who might have stopped this non sequitur from entering the conversation. “The Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Duke and Duchess of York. Oh!” Seth said dreamily, seeming to be talking only to herself at this point. “Is that what Dee meant by The Duchess?” She was so tired, it all made a perfect, dream-like sense that Scrap was three people rolled into one, two of whom she had met the previous day without realizing they were, in fact, the same person.

“Certainly not!” Scrap looked at Seth as if she were the village idiot. “Dee brought you to Jackie’s Place to see The Duchess. She knew you’d be kicking yourself if you missed it. No one misses The Duchess when she comes to town, and frankly, honey, you still look a bit of a rube. Did you fall of the turnip truck yesterday?”

“Mmmm, turnips.” Seth loved turnips. “I wish I fell off a turnip truck. Then maybe Miss P., sorry, Miss Pettigrew, would let me make some turnips for breakfast.”

“Miss P is fine, honey,” said Miss P as she darned away.

“Seth, it’s time you learned that turnips are more appropriate for dinner. On the farm. Not here in this cosmopolitan capital of drag royalty. No one should see you eating turnips ever again. But anyway, that’s besides the point. When I said fell off the turnip truck,” Scrap continued in a schoolmarmish manner, “I meant that you seem very, well, rural, to put it politely. That may be what The Duchess liked about you, but she’s not going to be pleased if you keep this up.”