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3WW: blurred, illegal, match: fiction: Dinah's journey

May 28, 2008 By pia

These are true first drafts, and more outline than complete story. I can’t apologize for spending much time walking on the beach. My friends are here so this is kind of a holiday.
Thanks Bone for the words.Pia Savage Fiction
This is a continuation of Dinah‘s story.

When Dinah was another person the only South she knew was South Florida. She had been just 50 and floundering in 01. One day her husband announced he was leaving. It was the first time a man left her.

The books she edited were considered archaic. Interesting but limited in audience appeal. Fewer magazines wanted the articles she wrote. Dinah knew she needed a change, but New York was the constant in her life. She owned a small house in East Hampton and saw all the same people she saw in Manhattan.

After 9/11 she wasn’t allowed in her Tribeca loft for six months She could have lived in the East Hampton house but so many people had fled to the Hamptons and she was letting her second to last husband, Bernie, his flaky wife, and two very young kids live in her house They weren’t allowed back in their Battery Park City apartment and the kids were constantly screaming. Their therapist said it was normal, and Dinah understood. All the lines that said “normal” had been blurred. Five people living in her three bedroom house were three too many. Dinah liked privacy.

When Janey, her best girlfriend since kindergarten suggested they do a Thelma & Louise, without the ending, road trip Dinah found herself really psyched for the first time in years. They drove to Vancouver, down the coast, through the South West, Texas and the South visiting friends, friends of friends and even relatives everywhere.

Seven months into the trip, they stopped for a few days in a small town on the South Carolina coast. Bernie’s cousins, the ones Dinah had always liked lived there. They stayed in a sun drenched pink Charleston type hotel, in the Porter’s Inlet suite or the only one. Dinah liked how she could walk from the beach to town. There was something peaceful about the town, something that made her feel alive. After so many months on the road she might have been ready to find home.

One day she was in Kroeger’s comparing coffee’s. Good coffee was essential to Dinah’s life. A man asked if she had any suggestions for a strong yet not acidic robust brew. She was a bit shocked when she realized he was flirting as the last time she had been in the deep South many years before her parents had lectured her on the importance of seeming less hippie like to Southern cops. They would, her parents were sure, naturally assume Dinah was doing something illegal. Her first couple of husbands never found an illegal substance they couldn’t somehow ingest.

All these years later Dinah could pass as more WASP than thou, though there was something mischievous about her eyes, or so Mac the town sheriff said later.

He accepted her for who she was. After he realized she was the Dinah for whom so many songs were written, he freaked but just a bit. She was Dinah who wouldn’t live with him but would be with him. Dinah who decorated her house differently, and he thought nicer, than any other person in town. Dinah who wore clothes all the other women would imitate, but never Mac thought as well.

Dinah couldn’t believe she found nirvana in a small South Carolina beach town nobody had ever heard of, Porter’s Inlet. So different than New York, she had finally found her home.

Dinah, Porter’s Inlet and Mac were a perfect match.

Filed Under: 3WW, Fiction Tagged With: 3WW

« This is my year
My apartment better sell for the lowered price »

Comments

  1. texasblu says

    May 28, 2008 at 10:37 am

    Sounds like a great match – good engrossing story Pia… 🙂

  2. Doug says

    May 28, 2008 at 10:47 am

    Dang, Dinah sounds so familiar!

    I’m so glad you’re writing these.

  3. AnthonyNorth says

    May 28, 2008 at 11:13 am

    You find things can be just right just where you never expect them.

  4. Punky says

    May 28, 2008 at 11:58 am

    What a great story. Sometimes something bad has to happen for something even better to come along.

    Great story. I love happy endings.

  5. paisley says

    May 28, 2008 at 6:38 pm

    well i am just wondering how much time a girl is spending in the coffee isle at the local krogers……

  6. Zouxzoux says

    May 28, 2008 at 7:46 pm

    Ah, the allure of a southern beach town. This was delightful reading.

  7. Redness says

    May 28, 2008 at 9:25 pm

    Thanks for the visit Pia … you know nothing about me so it’s best not to be judgmental or to assume … I am offended by you calling me nasty… I’ll accept controversial … gotcha!

    It’s wise to remember that people outside the US blog too!

  8. christine says

    May 28, 2008 at 9:57 pm

    I love your fast-paced style of writing, with a natural flow of details, emotions, and events. Great story!

  9. cooper says

    May 29, 2008 at 12:06 am

    Great stuff, as always.

    I hope you are enjoying the time with your friends.

  10. gautami tripathy says

    May 29, 2008 at 6:27 am

    You got natural talent for modern flash fiction!

    slaves to whom?

  11. Tammy says

    May 29, 2008 at 10:19 am

    Wonderful story Pia! Enjoy your vacation with your friends.

  12. sage says

    May 29, 2008 at 10:58 am

    You’re digging your southern roots, Pia! When I read about songs written about Dinah, I thought about being a kid and singing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” with “Someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah”

  13. TC says

    May 30, 2008 at 10:20 am

    I laughed at the Thelma and Louise without the ending line… I never could get into that movie because of the ending. The premise was great… and the canyon is gorgeous… you’ve made me want to road trip now.

  14. OneMoreBeliever says

    May 30, 2008 at 1:23 pm

    ..it’s never too late for love dinah… pia, always enjoy stoppin by… thinkin of dorothy w/her sparkling red shoes clicking “thrz no place like home, thrz no place like home….”

  15. Amarettogirl says

    May 30, 2008 at 7:41 pm

    As usual I enjoy stopping by too, as usual great piece of writing and I loved the continuation of Dinah’s story… I hope you have some luck with the apartment soon and its great the way you’ve been able to inspire writing out of it!!!

  16. Amarettogirl says

    May 30, 2008 at 7:41 pm

    As usual I enjoy stopping by too, as usual great piece of writing and I loved the continuation of Dinah’s story… I hope you have some luck with the apartment soon and its great the way you’ve been able to inspire writing out of it!!!

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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