Milly Houston Pt. 02

The older version of Elaine was still recognizable and the shriek thought the restaurant was vintage Elaine and their hug came close to being a wrestle. They settled down and caught up over a cocktail and then Elaine got down to business over her tuna salad.

"Darling I still love you but you must realize I must maintain professional standards."

"You mean as a whore?"

Elaine collapsed into laughter that momentarily disturbed patrons and had the maitre d' coming their way until Milly waved him away and she told Elaine to cool it.

"I wouldn't want you to judge my proposal in anything less that a professional manner. Christ, we want the book accepted by the public as a worthy read and some promo to ensure they buy it in huge numbers."

"Doesn't every author wish for that?" Elaine murmured.

"Darling I've approached you purely to get behind the iron wall publishers place between themselves and new authors and of course because you know the woman, or at least of her."

"So your biography is about a woman?"

"Yes."

"And I know of her?"

"Yes. Think Miss Jessop."

"What, that strict dried-up old bitch. She never lifted a finger to deserve a biographer take an interest in her."

'Concentrate; Miss Jessop, 11th grade, the woman she introduced us to during our studies of notable women who emerged immediately after World War 11 -- one of her heroines."

"Golda Meir?"

"Great guess, and yes Miss Jessop idolized her. But no, an adventuress who left home on vacation and forgot to return, taking her father's camera with her."

"Oh I know. But she'll be dead by now. Um...crap, me mind's stuck."

"Gloria..."

"Got it, Miss Gloria Isobel Cameron and she had a Leica camera and became famous for her photos of displaced families -- especially her images of mothers and children."

"She's eight-four, very much alive and I'm living with her."

"Milly, let me see your proposal."

"No, not now. We are having lunch," Milly said, hoping to stoke up her old friend's interest.

When they were having coffee Elaine almost whined, "Now?"

"No, back at your office."

After reading the proposal Elaine's eyes opened wide as Milly handed her a photocopy of the painting.

"Wow, this alone all but gets you a contract. Do you have full rights to the painting?"

"Gloria does."

"Please excuse me. I need to consult."

Ten minutes later Elaine returned smiling. "The executive editor appears well-pleased there is an editorial board meeting in the morning."

"Fine, I have booked to remain here tonight."

"Great, come back here at 6:00. I'd like to take you home to meet my family and stay for dinner."

As Milly turned to shut the door, Elaine called, "My guess is I'll be authorized to offer you a contract darling."

* * *

Milly arrived home late, to find Gran and Katherine waiting for her.

"Carlson has returned to his cabin. Snow is expected tonight. My daughter and her husband are due home tomorrow."

"Everything's happened," Milly said, looking hard at Katherine who lowered her gaze.

Milly handed the contract to Gran, who took it with shaking hands.

"An advance of $20,000 for you to deliver a completed manuscript in four months and a $15,000 payment for me to assign to the publisher full rights to my story and full intellectual wrights for my writings, diaries and photographs though they will remain in my possession for my personal use only."

"Yes, and you need to sign with an attorney as witness."

"No problem."

"That is amazing, really amazing Milly," Catherine said.

"The editorial board decided although the setting of this story is from the 1930s and through into the 1960s, there are huge numbers of potential readers who lived through those times as young adults who remember those times. The decision has been made to publish the book, when produced to the required standard, in English, French, German and Italian editions."

"I could suggest more languages," Gran said excitedly.

"Let's wait and see Gran. The publishers will now what to do if demand eventuates."

Milly presented her gifts and received enthusiastic responses.

"This is French underwear, very expensive."

"As is this perfume," Gran said.

Milly said, "I consider you guys family," aware that Gran and Katherine had exchanged glances. She then said, "Off to bed please Gran because in the morning we begin our work in earnest."

Milly was in the kitchen haven coffee when Katherine came in, looking slightly sheepish.

"Well?"

"Today I spoke to both men and explained why I was dumping them both, although I was much kinder in my wording than that. I have finished with both guys. They both seemed confused although Shane did say he had half-expected it, believing I'd cooled off on him so thought something might be in the wind."

"You gave him no chance to try to change?"

"No, he won't leave his parents and give himself a chance to toughen up. What would you have done?"

"The same as you; dumped them both. I think you should look for a charming young doctor, if they exist."

"They do, and that's what I plan to do. Can you read minds?"

"Want to sleep with me tonight?"

"I'm so grateful to you and had thought of asking that. I do feel a little shaky. I mean only to hug and fall asleep."

"Nonsense. Let mess around. Tomorrow you mom arrives home and we'll probably have difficulty getting together unless we go away. I want to taste you."

"Oh Milly. I've lacked the courage to ask to make love to you."

"It's not love; it's a girly fuck," Milly grinned and I can't think of a nicer person to do it with."

Katherine flushed in pleasure. "My bed or yours."

"Yours, it's farther away from Gran to hear you toes drumming on the headboard."

"Oh God," Katherine said, swamped in a huge blush.

CHAPTER 5

The Cameron's arrived home in Larry's SUV that Katherine had driven up to Colorado Springs to meet them. At Gran's suggestion Milly waited in her room until Katherine came to fetch her to Gran's apartment.

"Mom is in such a good mood, glad to be home."

Jennifer looked Milly up and down rudely and without expression while Larry tugged at the side of his moustache and stared at her breasts. Milly though Jennifer was the ruder of the two.

"Hello Milly," Jennifer said. "I was annoyed you had been appointed without my authority but can see your have made things happen. You have secured a wonderful contract, mother looks ten years younger apart from her troublesome leg and under your influence my daughter appears to have blossomed and matured at last and my mother credits your influence."

"Thank you Mrs Cameron. Welcome home."

"Mother wants me to allow you to call me Jennifer."

Milly asked coolly, "And what do you wish me to call you?"

"You're sassy," Jennifer smiled. "Jennifer is fine and Larry can be Larry but please make sure that's as far as your intimacy with him goes."

"I don't understand?"

"Clever as well as sassy. Perhaps I might like you after all."

"I would be pleased if you did Jennifer. I had gotten your family in the habit of having an aperitif before dinner. Would you kindly join us at 5:00? Larry, please deal with the luggage."

Larry looked at Jennifer.

"Oh didn't I speak loud enough Larry?"

Larry shot at startled look at Milly and left the room.

"I hope you took all of that in Katherine," Jennifer said. "It's male tutelage at its best."

When Larry finished with the luggage he came to Milly and said, "We'll be struck by driving snow within hours and your beautiful car is out in the open. May I park it in the barn?"

Milly fetched the keys and smiling said, "I'm so grateful Larry." Larry almost panted like a wee lap dog.

Later there was a row between mother and daughter. Jennifer insisted everyone come to her dining table for the meal but Katherine dug in and said, "If you cook a meal and it's a special occasion Gran, Milly and I will eat with you. Otherwise if you wish to eat food I cook it will be served at Gran's table."

The standoff dissolved when Jennifer marched into Gran's room to request Gran to eat her meals in the main house.

"No thank you Jennifer, I'm happy eating here. Katherine and Milly of course may eat anywhere they wish."

"I want you all to eat at my table."

"I have told you Jennifer, the girls are free to eat where they wish. This is not the army."

"I demand you all eat at my table."

"Thank you for voicing your rejected request again Jennifer. Was there anything else?"

Realizing she was now up against three women -- Gran being her stubborn self, Katherine apparently now with a huge independent streak and the unshakable Milly -- Jennifer said, "Larry and I will eat in here this evening."

It was game over because they ate lunch and dinner in Gran's apartment except when entertaining visitors. It was just a little thing but as Katherine said to Milly, the back down was virtually the end of her mother's home rule.

Larry began skulking about after 4:30, coming in to ask Gran almost pointless questions such as how were the cattle. She answered she hadn't been out of her room for three weeks so perhaps he would call the man who would know, his farm manager. Milly twigged what this was about and told Gran so at the end of Larry's third visit she said kindly, "Would you like to drink your pre-dinner beer each evening in here with the ladies Larry?"

He accepted and left the room looking very cheerful. Gran told Milly, "He's a funny man. Loves getting into fights in bars when he's half-drunk but is really under the knuckle of his wife and gives me the impression he finds comfort in that."

"He probably endured years of enduring a sharp tongue telling him what he'd done, was doing or was about to do was wrong that he gradually capitulated and found peace."

Gran shook her head and declared, "I think that's it. You are so intelligent."

The storm struck just after 11:00 with huge ferocity but the exposed house was built for the conditions. Twice wide-awake Milly heard severed tree branches being hurled against the house. Then the wind eased and appeared to change direction and the temperature dropped and Milly thought it would now be snowing. The lights were out so she felt her way to Gran's bedroom where she found a spirit lamp burning at low setting. Milly saw Jennifer was asleep in Gran's arms. Katherine told Milly next morning Gran was scared of nothing while Jennifer was scared of everything and always ran to Gran whenever there was a storm, which was often. It was two days before power was restored but cooking was okay because the stove in the main kitchen operated on bottle gas for that very reason.

Work on the biography progressed well, the decision being made to write it in chronological order. Elaine had suggested that was easier to readers and well as the writer. Milly sent the first seven chapters to Elaine as arranged and Elaine called her, highly excited. She had just found she was pregnant with her third child.

"Darling, you'll get your script back full of editing marks. Many of them are points of style or corrections of inadvertent inconsistencies. Don't worry. Your writing style is crisp and fluid -- the majority of our authors only have one or the other rather than both -- and now that young Gloria has left Boston to begin her grand adventure we are all looking eagerly to read more. This is a real credit to you and Miss Cameron as other editors are rarely interested in a work in process. I have a copy of the proposed cover hanging on my office wall with your suggested title 'Gloria Forgot to Return Home'. The senior editor immediately rejected that as the title but methinks she's coming around. I find it's growing on me and as one of my assistants pointed it the cover will sell this book, not the title."

"Oh thank you Elaine. You are so supportive but I'm looking back in dread at getting my script back with all those editing marks. Perhaps I should hire an assistant to do that tedious work?"

"Why not use Miss Cameron's daughter."

"What?"

"The daughter will be computer literate won't she?"

"Well yes, but she doesn't really like me."

"But she likes her mother doesn't she?"

"I don't think so but then do I really know? Actually that's a great suggestion as if daughter won't granddaughter will."

"We need to get this stated in the book darling so I have to ask. Is the daughter illegitimate?"

"Well I had thought I'd avoid writing about that but Gran has told me she was married to the father. But she is coy about that."

"Darling many readers are not dumb and if they feel a writers is treating them as if they were, their love-affair with the writer, should it exist, will collapse."

"Jesus."

"I kid you not darling. Readers expect a biographer to be 100% truthful and to right warts and all."

"Right, I get that message loud and clear."

"Darling, may I say something you're going to like?"

"Yes of course Elaine. I've taken a bit of a battering."

"These first chapters have exceeded my expectation."

"Oh really. Oh really! Darling may I say something I've thought about after meeting you in New York and now amplified by your latest news?"

"Yes of course. Oooh, what will it be?"

"I think your children will find you are a really great mother; you have that special way of looking at things, dealing with things. Once for some months I was really in love with you and after all these years since college some of that love still remains. I rather like the thought your children will come to know their love for you."

"Darling, I must go, bye," Elaine said with a suggestion of a sob.

Although aware of the value of friends in high places Milly was glad she'd said that. In lonely times she'd often thought about her years growing up with best-friend Elaine and knew there had been one thing left unsaid that Elaine now knew. She too felt the emotion of the occasion. More than ever before Milly knew where this was leading...she wanted stabilization by forming her own family.

On Sunday Katherine's new friend, recently qualified Dr Mark Haggerty came to lunch and Gran had a chat with her daughter. As a result Jennifer only asked Mark about his work and his interests and wasn't at all intrusive. That led to Katherine relaxing, Mark felt that and become rather outgoing and in the end Jennifer probably had all the information she wanted, achieved without boring in for it like a hawk over a road-squashed carcass.

Just the one comment from Milly in the kitchen -- "Katherine, he's gorgeous" -- filled Katherine's sails and she glided through the afternoon in great happiness. A ranch hand arrived with two horses and she and Mark went off riding, Larry warning them to keep to ground relatively clear of snow and not to ride up the slopes.

With Jennifer humming as Milly assisted clearing away it seemed a good time to ask.

"I need some help Jennifer and wonder if you might assist. The first submitted chapters of Gran's biography are due back any day and will be heavily edited. Making the changes from paper to the computer file will be tedious work, taking me away from my writing. I was thinking about hiring a woman..."

"I'd love to do it and feel honored you have asked me. I had the impression you weren't at all interested in me but were only in dialogue because I'm Gran's daughter?"

"Oh? I'm sorry to have given that impression. I er was worried you'd resent I was here and have become so close to your mother."

"You have been a great tonic for her. She is really bubbling."

"Do you ride Jennifer?"

"Yes, and love it and must get back into it. Do you have something in mind?"

"With the snow disappearing fast I wonder if you could take me out riding to gradually show me all over your land, even up the steep country. I grew up riding horses and loved cross-country riding. It's been sometime..."

"Let's go to Durango tomorrow and get you fitted out into winter riding gear. The good boots will last year the rest of your life if you care for them. Oh it will be lovely having a companion when out riding."

Gran liked the idea and thought doing that a couple times a week would help keep Milly fresh. "It will also be good for Jennifer to have company. You may use my saddle -- I'll call Stan to have it dusted off and conditioned and tell him to include my varmint rifle when saddling. He's been using it and caring for it. I'll probably never use that gear again but like knowing it's there."

* * *

The weeks rolled into months. Katherine was now on to her third hospital doctor and was passionate about Stephen Carter-Monk. "I'll never find one who loves me," she told Milly in despair."

"Don't force it; it will happen one day," was Milly's advice.

The day finally arrived when Milly had finished her work. She and Jennifer had worked at the kitchen table for three days solid making final edits to the script of the final five chapters.

"I've learned more my about my mother through your writing thanks to your interviews with her than I knew. Yet it was all there; I only had to ask and even be interested enough to read her diaries. It's an amazing story."

They women hugged spontaneously as they often did these days. Hours in the saddle had brought them very close. Gran teased Milly that she was attempting to adopt a mother. Milly gradually stopped attempting to throw off at the teasing and Gran stopped it, accepting there was some truth in her joking. Often Milly would look up when in deep conversation with Jennifer and find Gran smiling at them. She'd wink at Gran and watch the smile on the deeply lined face deepen.

"When will you leave?" Jennifer asked.

"Gran suggested I stay till the end of next week and give myself time to relax and to really decided where I want to go rather than back vaguely I'm going back home. She knows I have no home and I have no wish to return to the newspaper."

"Well stay here as long as you wish. We all regard you as part of the family. You have been wonderful to Katherine and you have brought mom alive. She'd talking about going to the book launch in New York."

"I know, she talks about it every day. Thank you for that kind offer but I must turn a new page of my life. I've decided to go to New York to the christening of a friend's new baby -- my editor Elaine. She wants me to be the child's godmother."

"Oh that's lovely, what a great honor. You showed me the photo Elaine sent of her and Lilly."

"Oh yes, of course. I remain anxious about the title. Some idiot has suggested 'Travels With My Leica' and has support.

"That's a terrible title."

"I know."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Make representations and complain and go stronger and object. I've been through all steps but have been told the writer doesn't decree what title will be used and my contract states that very clearly."

* * *

Jennifer went in and said to her mother, "Has Milly told you her concern about the title of our book?"

"Our book?"

"Um, well yes. I have played a minor role."

"Yes, that's true and thank you for that work. Milly was horrified at the thought of having to do it. So what do we do?"

"We write a stern letter."

"That's a good idea. In my day we would have walked in with whips or perhaps even a gun."

"That's wistful thinking mother. I'm off to write the letter. We'll both sign it."

"Well that's better than sitting on our hands and moaning."

Half an hour later Gran read the terse note to the senior editor at Bestow & Johnson Publishing:

'My daughter and I are most disturbed to learn that a suggested title for my biography -- 'Travels With My Leica' -- is gaining support within your establishment. We think that title is absurd and we hate it and if adopted will almost certain be a kiss of death to expectations of good sales of this book. We earnestly request that you consider adopting this title, The Memoirs of Gloria Isobel Cameron LOVE, DUST & MAYHEM as being a true representation of my biography.