Girl Talk on NoHo Noir

The plot thickens in NoHo Noir as Lyla Fox and her new beau, dentist Rob Cervantes, double-date with his business partner Tim McIlhenny and Tim's pregnant girlfriend Erika.

Erika left her husband, James Garrett for Tim and is now pregnant with his child. She's recently moved in with Tim, which annoys James. It's also created anxiety for her son Ty, a smart kid who loves astronomy and animals and his dad.

The illustration is by Mark Satchwill. Here's the opening of the story:

When Lyla Fox saw Rob’s business partner enter the restaurant with his pregnant girlfriend, her first thought was, What’s wrong with this picture? Tim McIlhenny—like the people who make Tabasco he said when they were introduced—was a beefy redhead with skin the color of uncooked tilapia. It wasn’t that he was ugly, exactly, he was just utterly, completely …
A word surfaced in her memory, schnorbelie. It was a word her college roommate Connie had used to describe people like Tim and even though it was a nonsense word, you knew exactly what it meant.
Tim McIlhenny was schnorbelie. Erika Garret, on the other hand, was gorgeous. If Tim had been a movie producer, Lyla wouldn’t have thought twice but a dentist? How’d that happen?

Ca’Del Sole
4100 Cahuenga Blvd.
Toluca Lake, CA 91602
9:20 p.m.

It was clear Tim couldn’t quite believe his luck either. He established his claim on Erika every chance he got. He couldn’t keep his meaty hands off her and nuzzled her all through dinner. He was solicitous to the point of annoyance. I wonder if he’s going to cut her meat for her, Lyla thought as the entrees were served.
Lyla had gotten the mezzalune, which is what she always ordered. Rob had selected the gnocchi with duck ragout. They toasted each other with their forks before they started eating. Erika dug into her meal with the ravenous relish Lyla remembered from her own pregnancies. Tim inhaled his fish and continued the monologue that had begun the moment he sat down. She found herself staring at him with horrified fascination as he talked with his mouth full.

When Rob had first suggested a double-date with Tim and his girlfriend, Lyla had gotten a little giddy. It wasn’t exactly “I want you to meet my family,” but after a month of dating, it was a good sign that their relationship was more than an elongated one-night stand. Now, after listening to him pontificate on everything from the revolution in Egypt to the nuances of the pricey bottle of wine he’d insisted on buying for the table, Lyla was starting to get a headache. When he started talking about a restaurant he wanted to invest in, Rob suggested Tim consult with Lyla on the financials. Tim had smirked. “I’ve got my own money guy,” he said. “No offense Lyla.”
She’d smirked back. “None taken.”
Why do they always want to invest in restaurants? Lyla wondered. Not a week went by that one of her customers didn’t tell her about some great place on Melrose they wanted to buy, dazzled by the notion of being a restaurateur and completely oblivious to the reality.
Even her ex-husband hadn’t been immune to the fantasy. When his first series blew up, the first thing he wanted to do—after buying the Ferrari—was put some of his money into a French bistro in a strip mall in Eagle Rock. She’d told him he’d be better off buying a couple of Subway franchises in Hollywood but back then, she was just his cute little wife who was good with numbers.
“If you cook it they will come,” he’d said, a riff on the famous Field of Dreams line. He’d been an extra in the film, playing one of the ghostly ball-players, and Burt Lancaster had encouraged him to follow his dream to Hollywood.
Her ex had lost a fortune on the restaurant. He’d consoled himself by having an affair with the restaurant’s pastry chef, a sloe-eyed beauty named Laure.

You can read the rest of the story here.

I (Heart) Writing Contests

Over at the Novel Novice, one of my favorite blogs, they're having a Literary Lovers Mash-Up Contest that ends Monday, Valentine's Day. The idea is that you take two lovers from different books and write a love scene between them in 500 words or less. (Edward Cullen meets Jane Eyre?) Everybody who enters gets a little prize and the best stories will be published on the site. Here are the details.

I Want Candy

Speaking of fudge, as we were a few minutes ago (see below), check out Kat Parrish's story "Sweet Tooth" over at Dark Valentine Magazine.

Oh Fudge....

So I know what you're thinking. You're thinking it's nearly Valentine's Day (plan ahead people) and this year you don't want to get just ordinary candy. You want to give a gift of deep, delicious fudge. But not just any fudge. (Which reminds us of Miss Eudora Welty's wonderful novel The Ponder Heart in which a character sniffily dismisses a trifling character as "eating the kind of fudge anyone can make." But I digress.)

I am an honorary member of "Michiganders in L.A." which has a memorable Memorial Day picnic every year. A highlight of the picnic is a trivia contest and the prizes always include a box of fudge from Mackinac Island Fudge Shop. (Mackinac Island is where they filmed the movie Somewhere in Time.) I have never won this fudge (though it is worth boning up on Michigan trivia for) but I have sampled it. And it's that good...

Deadline for Valentine's Day shipping is February 9th. (I told you to plan ahead.) Details here.

The time has come ...

Speculative fiction has been a literary orphan since the genre first sprang from the fertile brains of writers like H.G. Wells. This thoughtful article from the Guardian analyzes the chances this year will be the year the prestigious Booker Prize will go to a novel in that genre.

Soul Food Done Soulfully

My roots are in the south, culinarily speaking, and I get all the newsletters out there purporting to celebrate Southern food. Some of them take a very (extremely) broad view of what constitutes "Southern" but to each his own. One newsletter that never ever disappoints is Willie Crawford's Soulful recipes, which comes once a day (sometimes more). You can sign up for the newsletter at his site. You can thank me later, when you're full of collard greens with neckbones, red velvet cake and macaroni and cheese that has nothing to do with Velveeta.

A lot of the recipes show up pretty regularly (like a pound cake made with 7-Up) but this is the real deal y'all.

Tigerbone Wine

In honor of the Year of the Rabbit, I've posted my story "Tigerbone Wine" over at Dark Valentine Magazine. Here's the link.

Here's a sample:

When Bailey returned to camp he saw the monkeys had been at the food caches again. Supplies were flung helter-skelter across the clearing where he’d set up his tent. The shiny sealed packages of freeze-dried stew and soup and pasta had been ripped open and shredded, strewn around the area like ticker tape after a parade. The canned goods had been looted but left behind. It was a good thing he liked fruit cocktail. He wondered how it would taste with barbecued monkey meat. He looked forward to finding out … soon.
Bailey freaking hated monkeys. He loathed their wrinkled little faces.
He despised their spidery little hands. He abhorred the whole simian reality of their existence.
The last time they’d been on a trip together, Lina had made a pet of a golden-furred macaque, cooing over it like a child. She’d named it “Bobo,” and told Bailey he was good company when she was left alone while he was out hunting. He let her keep the thing as a pet because it kept her from nagging him about having a baby. As if they could afford another mouth to feed. And besides, Bailey hadn’t had much of a father and he sure as hell didn’t have the father gene in him. Lina hadn’t understood, had kept after him, the way women will, and sometimes he had to get mean to shut her up. Bailey loved Lina, so if keeping the damn thing made her happy, he was happy enough to live and let live.

Read the rest at Dark Valentine Maqazine.

The tiger photo is by Israeli photographer Slavik Gormah.