Tag: love

I do declare: Rosalee and Carol are going to end up in my novel one day

Today I’m starting a new feature for the I Do Declare posts, which I’ll post on the fourth Monday. It’s called “This is going to end up in my novel one day,” and by “This,” I mean a person, event, situation, or some crazy thing I witnessed in the course of my day.

When I sat down to think through ideas for this feature, it didn’t take long for Rosalee to come to mind. Here’s how I met her:

Photo: Dreamstime

One day a while back – and I do mean a while back, because we had phones that hung on the wall with answering machines beside them. What do you mean, am I that old? Where are your manners?

Anyway. As I was saying, one day a while back, I came home from running an errand and saw that I had a few messages.

The first was the voice of an elderly woman: “Hi Carol. This is Rosalee. I can’t come in to work today. I have to go to the doctor because my leg is hurting and I can’t clean your house very good if I have to hobble around. I will see you tomorrow.”

Clearly this woman had dialed the wrong number. I hoped the second message was her calling back to say, “oops, sorry, dialed wrong number” … but it was someone trying to sell me something.

At that time, the answering machine recorded only the message, not the number. And I couldn’t do the *69 call-back because she wasn’t the last call to come in. Yes, it was a really long time ago. Go stand in the corner until you can show some respect for your elders.

Back to the story: With no other information, there was nothing I could do. I just hoped Rosalee’s employer would believe that she actually had called in.

A few weeks later, I had another message from Rosalee. “Hi Carol. This is Rosalee. I can’t come in to work today because my stomach is upset. I don’t know if it’s the flu or something I ate, but I don’t want to bring it to your house. I will see you tomorrow.”

As before, it wasn’t the last call and I had no other details.

Over the next few weeks, Rosalee left several messages, mentioning various ailments. A sore hip that was giving her problems. A cramp in her back where she must have twisted it sleeping wrong. A bout of “reumatiz.”

I had been concerned about whether she’d be able to keep her job after all the no-shows (because Carol wasn’t receiving her messages), but now I was starting to worry about her health.

One day, the phone rang and guess who it was? Yes! Rosalee was on the line. I was excited.

“Rosalee! Oh my gosh, I’m so glad to hear from you!”

I told her she’d been calling the wrong number for quite a while, and she gave a merry laugh when I said I’d been worried about her health.

I asked what number she’d been trying. It turns out she was one number off. (How she managed to get one number off all those times was a mystery, but I left that part of it unsolved. The poor woman had health issues to deal with.) I was glad to have Carol’s number.

I asked how she was feeling and listened while she recanted her doctor’s orders and the miserable state of her health insurance.

Before we ended the call, I asked for her number – so I could call now and then to see how she was feeling, I said.

The following week, there was another message. “Hi Carol. This is Rosalee. I can’t work today because I have to go to the doctor for my follow-up. I will see you tomorrow.”

Oh dear. I picked up the phone to call her back but decided to call Carol instead. I got her answering machine.

{{{This is Carol. Please leave a message. BEEEEP.}}}

“Hi Carol. My name is Shelia, and I just wanted to let you know that Rosalee has been calling my number by mistake to let you know she couldn’t make it to work. Thought you’d like to know that she really has called in.” I left my number in case she had any questions.

Carol called later, and we giggled over the situation. I told her I was worried that she’d lose her job over what looked like less than stellar work ethics. She said not to worry: Rosalee was a true gem and her job was safe.

Rosalee continued to misdial my number for several more months. Whenever she called, I listened to the message, complete with symptoms and treatments, then I simply called Carol and relayed the message.

It was the least I could do for a worker who was a true gem.

I found one of my best characters by paying attention and taking notes

One of my readers once asked how I come up with the complex characters for my novels and give them their particular mannerisms. The answer is complex: a mixture of research, a study of traits and personalities, close observation of people, watching their habits and quirks.

Many articles and books and creative writing courses have been written about character development, and my initial thought was to refer to those sources.

But as I thought about the question, I realized I had a good short answer: I listened to my dad talk. Thoughout his life, Dad invariably found himself connecting with the most curious and remarkable characters and, being the fabulous storyteller that he was, he loved telling the stories of these people.

In a book I wrote with him – “If You Can’t Pay Attention, Take Notes,” a collection of his sea stories – one of the vignettes highlights Dad’s friendship with an undercover NIS agent, completely unaware of the agent’s identity.

I was so intrigued by this character that I put him in a series of novels I wrote (the “Para Team 1” series) that involve an agent with a special unit of Naval Intelligence.

Here’s Dad’s account of the inspiration for my character, as told in his sea stories (more info about the book here):

When I was stationed in Norfolk, I met a fellow who worked in the Beachmaster unit with me. Mike was a second class boatswain’s mate and had been for a long time. You could tell by the stripes up his arm that he’d been taking the first class test for a while and obviously hadn’t passed it yet. The boatswain’s mate first class test was hard to pass.

That didn’t seem to bother him, though. He was a nice, easy-going guy – loved to tell jokes and play cards and fish. We had a lot in common.

Mike was married and had two kids. We went fishing all the time, and he and his wife came over and played cards with me and Pat. Over the course of a year, we got to know them pretty well. We even went on vacation together.

One day two military police came to the door of our building. Mike was standing between them. The MPs asked to come in to talk to a particular chief who was on duty. I told them it was a secure building and I couldn’t let them in, but if they would wait there, I’d go get him.

I found the chief and took him to the door, and the MPs arrested him. The whole time Mike didn’t look at me. I was worried about what kind of trouble he was in.

I found out from some others in the building that the chief they arrested was suspected of selling answers to the first class test. Now I was really worried about Mike.

As soon as I got off duty, I went to his house to see his wife and let her know I was going to the brig to see Mike. But when I got there, the house was completely empty. All of it was gone – the furniture, their clothes, the food in the refrigerator. Nothing was left. No moving boxes, nothing in sight.

By this time I was thoroughly confused, but I made my way over to the brig and asked if I could see Mike.

He wasn’t there. In fact, they had no idea who I was talking about.

When I got home, I told Pat about it. She was shocked. She had just seen Mike’s wife in the commissary the day before.

When I got to work the next day, I found out that Mike had been working undercover with Naval Intelligence. They had known for a while that someone was selling secrets to the test, but they weren’t sure who it was. Mike – obviously not his real name – had been working on the case all that time.

Several years later I was stationed in Charleston. One day I was walking across the base, when I passed someone who looked familiar. I turned around; he turned around. We stared at each other for a moment.

It was Mike.

But he was no longer a second class boatswain’s mate. Now he was a chief engineman.

He looked surprised, like he didn’t know what to say, but then he extended his hand.

“John, how’s it going?” he asked.

“It’s going good,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to call him, so I hesitated. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m stationed on the Sierra,” he said.

I didn’t ask him why. I figured he probably couldn’t tell me, and whatever he did tell me wouldn’t be true.

So we talked about fishing. After about ten minutes, he went on his way and I went on mine.

About a week later, I heard about a drug bust on the U.S.S. Sierra. I wasn’t surprised at all.

I never did see Mike again. At least I don’t think I did. Might depend on whether he got good at disguises.