E. A. Fournier - Writer
Excerpt #1 from Her Lost Diary (Romantic Suspense)
The heavy sounds of a snowplow passed by on the street below; the truck’s warning lights flickered across his ceiling. Chayce’s eyes snapped open. “Oh my God! I didn’t set the alarm!”
His body swept the covers aside and sat itself on the edge of the bed. The room was frigid. His mind lagged behind the morning routine, still processing the digital numbers glowing on the clock, figuring distances and speed. “Okay, I’m not quite late yet.”
Body and mind finally merged into sync. Chayce raced through the bathroom, threw on a change of clothes, grabbed his laptop, phone, keys, and billfold, and shoveled them into a backpack. Bounding down the worn stairs of the old row house, he stuffed his arms into a heavy coat, checked the pockets for gloves, slung the backpack, and bumped open the front door.
Freezing wind slapped him full in the face. Groaning, he turned away and flipped up his hood. He tipped his head forward to breathe warm air from inside his coat and kept moving. His feet left furrows on the unshoveled sidewalk. His first goal for the day was to slog through six blocks to Bruiniks Hall and the registrar’s office before Harrington could show up whining for class lists.
Chayce waved his U-card at the reader on the double doors and heard a satisfying click. Always great when it works, he thought. Entering the controlled chaos of a new session, the first thing he noted was the glorious heat, but he permitted himself scant seconds of paradise before moving on. He swam through a bevy of busy staff and pushed from the hallway to a larger room. There, in an array of waist-high cubicles, he zeroed in on Stacy Walters, his harried registration contact for Engineering.
Stacy’s eyes flicked up from her computer screen as he arrived. She covered the tiny mic on her phone headset and smiled. “Hey, Chayce. Like the surprise snowstorm?”
“Hey, Stace. Yeah. It’s Minnesota, so... whatever. Busy?”
“Always.” Dings from her computer signaled new messages hitting her inbox. She glanced at the screen and then back to Chayce. “Your laptop should already have access to the latest names, if that’s what you’re gonna ask. Updates’ll refresh by class time—”
“Yeah, I know. You do a great job. I’m fine, but Dr. Harrington always wants his own hard copies for each class and... last time we—”
Stacy rolled her eyes. “Right. Right. Now I remember.” She made a gargling noise in her throat. “What a Luddite! He’s the one who chewed your ass last session. Gimme a minute.” She clicked on the keyboard and moused around. “Harrington... Harrington... Mech Engineering, right?”
Chayce nodded. “Yeah. Principles of Materials Science, Thermodynamics, and Fluid Flow.”
“Okay. Right. Here they are.” She opened the files to verify they were correct. “Separate sheets for each class?”
“If you don’t mind. He—”
“Doesn’t want ‘em mixed together. Yeah. How could I forget? What a baby! Probably isolates food on his plate, too.”
Chayce smirked. “Wouldn’t know. Doesn’t dine with lowly TAs.”
“Lucky you, I’m sure.” She pushed a few keys as additional messages chirped from her computer. “Can you retrieve ‘em yourself?” Her phone buzzed. “They’ll be at printer RME-2 over in the print room.” She waved vaguely over her shoulder. “I made two copies of each, okay?”
Chayce sighed in relief. “Perfect. Stace, you’re a lifesaver!” He raced away.
“I know,” she replied to herself as she answered the phone. “Registrar’s office, Engineering, how may I help you?”
Excerpt #2 from Her Lost Diary (Romantic Suspense)
Eunice’s house exhibited a far more controlled version of her eclectic shop. The unusual color accents and surprisingly complementary decorations tracked to her unique vision. The end result was a harmonious mixture of relaxed warmth and fresh discovery. Esteffi found it pleasurable just to be inside her house and look around.
Supper had been simple and lovely. Esteffi insisted on helping with cleanup. She rinsed plates and glasses before handing them to Eunice, who loaded the dishwasher in an effortless, predetermined sequence. The comfortable kitchen featured marble counters, a grey tile backsplash, and modern recessed lighting. A restored butcher block island with drawers and storage cabinets occupied the center. Everything fit seamlessly together to define a space as conducive to food prep as it was to hanging out. Across the room a soft-edged wood table with six gleaming chairs sat before bay windows that overlooked a sheltered backyard. When Esteffi stepped close to the glass, she could make out bird feeders in the trees.
The tea kettle whistled from a gas stove. Eunice poured bubbling water into two mugs with waiting tea bags. “I don’t do the whole English teapot thing, but I do know the importance of steeping, so I use a shortcut.” Fishing out two small bowls from a cupboard, she inverted them and covered each mug. “There, now we let them steep, until they’re nearly perfect.” She retrieved a bottle of honey. “This is locally produced. In fact, I’m sure their bees visit my flowers.” She nodded warmly to Esteffi. “Once we add a few drops, the tea will be perfectly perfect.”
As promised, Eunice hadn’t asked Esteffi any further questions about herself, nor even mentioned her tears. On the other hand, Esteffi had been treated to an inside view of her employer’s turbulent marriages, and the toll those relationships had exacted from her. Eunice now lived a solitary life. She had always been an independent-minded woman, a strength that had fatally threatened her first husband. And she could never carry a child to term, a sad repeated reality that had soured her second husband’s hopes, along with his affections.
For Eunice’s part, she took life as it came, dealt with what she could, and shook from her shoulders those things beyond her control. Her shop had become a surrogate for all she had lost. She loved the smell of it, the sounds the old beams made when the weather changed, and the way the sun reached into its corners. She relished the push-and-pull of retail, the discovery of one-of-a-kind items, and deals at a profit.
She’d developed a personal network of unique finders and specialists who could locate a myriad of rare, unusual, or hard-to-find baubles. The satisfied grins of pleased patrons were simply add-ons. Although she was drained by the end of a workday, more now than ever before, Eunice still felt somehow regretful every evening when she locked the doors.
Going home was a letdown. No matter how she fussed over embellishing her house, it had never become a home. And with no one there to welcome her, it seldom beckoned. She sometimes worried about what would be next for her, but typically kept herself so busy she had little time to ruminate. If pressed about her current life, she would say she was not unhappy.
Excerpt #1 from Still Breathing (Women's Fiction)
Lizzie and Birungi walked a path beside the road near the school. The bright sun was high overhead and it was past time for lunch, even though Lizzie’s battered body remained unconvinced. The only thing her lagging mind seemed to crave right now was sleep. Oblivious, Birungi was focused on food and had assured Lizzie that she knew a safe place to eat nearby.
Walking steadily, they passed rows of tiny street shops with their wares spilling out next to the pathway. The smells of dust, diesel and vegetables teased their noses. Lizzie gave a wide berth to a lean bike mechanic crouched in the dirt and guiding a shrieking grinder across the metal edge of a frame. Cascading waves of dazzling sparks danced on the ground, bouncing in every direction. Out of habit, Lizzie’s mouth popped open in alarm and her mind provided angry safety complaints and judgments, but just as swiftly, she recalled where she was, and clamped her lips shut again.
The open air bike shop displayed a crowd of rusty frames and mounds of old tires in front of a windowless shack. She noticed another worker casually holding a broken welder’s mask to his face while he tig-welded a plate to strengthen a used frame. Lizzie whipped her head away, fearing for her eyes. She caught a glimpse of Birungi’s back in the loose crowd, striding on ahead, without hesitation or concern. Lizzie increased her pace.
People were walking everywhere she looked. Mothers carried their slinged babies on their lower backs, leaning forward with their arms behind and hands under the infant. Men idly wandered around with their arms folded over their heads, like wings at rest. Young boys in shorts or worn jeans pushed each other and showed off their faded American sport shirts: LA Lakers, Denver Broncos, and the Yankees. Here and there appeared the sudden blare of women in bright colors: red, yellow, orange; and always children were underfoot, playing games in the dirt, hitting each other, laughing and crying – quick smiles, white teeth, big eyes.
“Here it is,” Birungi pointed ahead. Lizzie saw a shop with red and white vertical blinds across its opening. Two scratched plastic tables with mismatched chairs sat out in front under a floppy blue tarp.
Birungi ducked inside, flicking the blinds aside with a practiced wave of her hand. Before following, Lizzie paused long enough to study the fat fonts on the sign above: The Pork Palace.
Inside the dark and noisy room, Lizzie’s eyes took a moment to dilate. She slowly discerned many tables of people in a tight space. Most of their eyes were now brightly staring back at the only muzungu in the room. Embarrassed, Lizzie turned away, but the pleasant aroma of roasting pork had already caused her stomach to rethink its confusion on the time of day. Lunch was sounding more appealing by the second.
Mrs. Birungi stood talking Luganda in an open doorway at the back of the shop. When Lizzie came up, she saw that the door led outside where two large black women worked beside a pair of smoking charcoal stoves. A few young girls slid quickly in and out of the shop doorway, delivering paper plates of pork on slices of crusty bread. Birungi stepped through the opening to get out of the way and moved closer to the cooking women. Lizzie slipped through the door and stood beside her. Several children were playing games on the yellowed grass under everyone’s feet. It made Lizzie nervous to see how close the giggling youngsters were to the sizzling stoves, but no one else seemed to pay any mind. A sturdy table held a shoulder of steaming roasted pork. One of the women rapidly carved from it, wielding a wide, wickedly sharp knife, while talking and laughing with Birungi.
The conversation at an end, Birungi flipped open a nearby cooler and grabbed two plastic bottles of water. She called out an airy comment in Luganda to the cooks and they responded with nods and laughs before she waved at Lizzie. “Come. We will sit out front and talk. They will bring.” Nana immediately vanished back inside.
Lizzie started to follow her but was waylaid by a word from the lady at the carving table. “Wait.”
Lizzie turned.
The woman flashed her knife in a swirl and a small cutting of pork appeared, balanced on the tip of her blade. Her damp black skin gleamed in the sun, her hair pulled tight with a dark cloth knotted at the top. She smiled with an open mouth, “Small eat.”
Lizzie opened her hand and held it out. With a sudden flick of the knife, the woman dropped the succulent morsel of pork onto her palm. Lizzie popped it into her mouth. Her tongue reveled in the moist, spicy meat and, without even thinking, she groaned in pleasure. The cook beamed.
The other woman joined her and carefully studied Lizzie. “Like?”
Lizzie looked at their round, sweaty faces and nodded.
Birungi suddenly reappeared in the doorway from the shop and feigned irritation. She waggled her finger at the laughing cooks, shouting and pretending to rebuke them. As she gathered Lizzie by the arm and urged her to the door, she explained. “I told them to stop bewitching you with their sneaky tastings or you will never leave.”
“Thank you for saving me.”
Birungi grinned at her as they passed back into the shop. “And what do you think of the pork?”
Lizzie licked her fingers and grinned back. “We can live another day.”
Excerpt #2 from Still Breathing (Women's Fiction)
Exiting the terminal doors, Lizzie was immediately confronted by smiling and waving Ugandans. They called out in English, or Luganda, or one of their other dialects, and there was much pointing and hugging as they greeted their arriving friends and relatives. Despite the early hour, many members of the crowd were dressed up in their cultural finery. Older women wore their Gomesi, floor-length, brightly colored dresses with a square neckline and short, puffed sleeves. The dresses were tied with wide sashes placed below the waist and over the hips. Lizzie was pleasantly surprised by the generous size of most of those hips, and immediately felt better about her own appearance.
Some of the men wore suitcoats over long flowing garments. The rest of the members of the excited crowd were dressed in a hodge-podge of clothing types and levels of quality. American T-shirts seemed to be one of the staples with the boys, along with jeans and flip-flops. Many of the young women wore stylish European outfits and braids with vivid color accents. The public lighting outdoors was sparse but the locals came prepared with flashlights and kerosene lanterns.
Lizzie’s eyes swept futilely over the noisy crowd. She prayed for the tall presence of Pastor Kajumba. Many of the Ugandans held signs with hand-written names and they continually waved their lights across them. She checked each one just to be sure, but her name wasn’t there. Lizzie’s exhaustion was rapidly sliding into panic. What should she do?
Eventually, she cleared the crowd of greeters and now faced a collection of Ugandan cab drivers, hawking their services. The taxis consisted of two types: white vans with a row of blue squares painted around their middles, suitable for taking multiple people to various destinations; and small private cars, mostly white, which were called special hires and took one person to one destination. Some of the vans were doing a brisk business loading up newly arrived Ugandans and their hosts. Fat suitcases and boxes were muscled onto the worn cargo racks on top. Full vehicles were pulling out in a blare of horns, and the happy crowd was rapidly thinning. The arrival of Lizzie, however, with her bags in tow, and a lost look painted across her face, brought new hope to the collection of disgruntled drivers still waiting for a fare.
Calls of “Muzungu! Muzungu!” could be heard as they rushed toward her, jockeying with each other for her attention. Since all the taxis faced the terminal and most of their headlights were on, Lizzie only saw silhouettes of the men calling and gesturing at her. The headlights glared in and out of her eyes as the men passed back and forth in front of them.
“Muzungu, over here!”
“Cheap taxi, lady!”
“Mumerika, over here! Look!”
One suddenly blocked her way. “Hey muzungu, where to? Let’s go!”
She turned and angled around him.
Another pulled on the handle of her bag. “Best taxi, yes?”
“Ogenda wa, nnyabo?” shouted another as he grabbed the other side of her bag and tugged against his rival.
Lizzie jerked back control of her luggage with an audible grunt. She turned away from them all, but the drivers pursued her.
“Where you need ride to, lady?”
“We help. Come with us.”
“No problems, lady.”
Lizzie finally glared at them and shouted. “Stop it! Stop talking and listen!”
Shocked at the outburst, the drivers stood still.
“I need to go to Kampala. Wobulezi School. Do you hear?”
There was a lull. At first no one responded. Then a few called out, “Kampala, okay!”
Lizzie persisted. “No! Not just Kampala. I said the Wobulezi School in Kampala. Who knows?”
A few voices echoed back, sounding puzzled. “Wobulezi? Wobulezi?”
A nearby driver stepped up. “No problem, get in, we ask.” He pointed to his van and bowed lavishly like a hotel doorman.
A few of the others started up again, not to be outdone. “No! We can ask. Lady! Over here!”
Soon they were all once again shouting and struggling to regain Lizzie’s attention.
One of the men from the special hire cars pushed through the noisy van drivers and placed himself in front of them. He was middle-aged and had his hair cut high and tight. His eyes were large and he was better dressed than the rest of the men. He wore a grey baseball cap and doffed it before addressing her in a polite tone. “Madam, did you say Wobulezi School? The one in Makindye District?”
Lizzie looked at him with unabashed relief. His English pronunciation was excellent. “Yes, that’s right.” Her voice was failing and her throat was dry. “Do you know it?”
“Of course. I have a young cousin who went there.”
Lizzie beamed with sudden hope. “Really? Do you know Pastor Kajumba or Mrs. Birungi?”
The man shook his head gently. “No. I am sorry.”
Lizzie let out a frustrated breath. “But you could take me to the school?”
“Of course.”
“How far is it?”
“About forty-five minutes.”
Lizzie was momentarily shocked but shook it off. She had no idea that the school was that distant.
The other drivers saw their fare slipping away and made some last appeals. “This is special hire driver – not taxi!”
“Too expensive, lady.”
“Don’t believe him.”
The special hire driver’s eyes flared and he took a threatening step toward the van drivers. “Vva mu kino! Osise ekira! Genda!”
Shocked at the anger, Lizzie looked confused. “What are they saying? Aren’t you a taxi?”
“Yes, lady. I am for hire, same as them.” The other drivers had backed off but their expressions were foul. “They have van taxis and they pile in riders, each one paying part of the fare. That’s why they say they’re cheaper. But it’s crowded and makes many stops. I am a special hire car. You are my only passenger and I take you directly to your destination. I am more expensive but also safer, more private and faster.”
“I see. How much will you cost?”
“From the airport to the school…maybe, 100,000 shillings.”
One of the nearby drivers called out, “Too much, lady. We do for 70,000.”
Another shouted, “No trust him, lady.”
The special hire driver glared back at them. “Kitte, Mbwamwe! Wange! Zikira bwoba omanyi kyoyagala!” The muscles in his jaw pulsed in anger and then relaxed.
He turned back to Lizzie and calmly motioned for her to walk with him away from the other taxis. “Perhaps we could go to a quieter place to talk. You look so tired.”
