Chapter One, Episode 25 - From Here to There - Situationally Theirs

May 31, 2020

Review, Edit and Update

In From Here to There, Emmie's conversation with her sister Dez from the previous night has woken her early. Their discussion continues when Dez is awake and up; Emmie still becoming aware of what she does have in her life.

This Episode only required a bit of fixing:  a couple of typos and the addition of some detail. Otherwise, a pretty good read.

From Here to There

It was early morning. The sun slanted through the mudroom window, throwing a broad patch of brilliance through the kitchen door onto the well worn hardwood floor. Emmie came out of her room, pulling her blond hair back into a pony tail. Oddly, she wore an oversized grey t-shirt and loose fitting green plaid flannel pants, rather than her silk pyjamas. She had kept some of Mike’s things to wear when she was missing his love and belief in her. Emmie was in deep thought. Mechanically, she put water in the coffee machine, counted out scoops of coffee, put the pot under the spout and turned it on.  Resting her hands on the cupboard she hung her head, then straightened her shoulders and looked around. Bread for toast. I’ll have some toast. I need to get Cook back here to make more bread. I think this is the last loaf. Her forehead wrinkled. She wiped her hand across trying to smooth the worry down. She muttered something to herself, whispering so she wouldn't wake Dez. While she waited for the coffee to finish burping and dribbling she put the bread in the toaster. Without looking, she opened the blue cupboard door. A plate. I need a plate for my toast. This one will do. White with tiny blue flowers circling the rim, it was usually reserved for a serving plate. The butter and a knife are right here. Did I get those out? But there’s no jam. Emmie opened another cupboard door and reached for a mug. Before closing the cupboard door, she hesitated and stared into the cupboard as though looking for something. She closed the door gently. The coffee ready, she filled her mug with the steaming aromatic liquid. With her coffee in one hand, she picked up her plate of toast and set it down at the long kitchen table. Sitting down, she smoothed imaginary wrinkles on the table top, looked up and down its length as though she was trying see everyone. All those people she had employed that had shared a meal or just a cup of tea or coffee. Laughing and talking. 

“Emmie? What are you doing up so early? It’s just after seven." Dez yawned and stretched.

“oh, hi, Dez. I just couldn’t sleep so I thought a cup of coffee would be nice. When I saw Cook’s bread, I thought I’d have some toast. Did I wake you?”

Dez smiled as she combed her fingers through her long brown curls. She leaned back against the door jamb, knocking the frame of Martha’s precious pictures askew. She straightened it, then with a shiver she said “I’m cold. Let me grab my hoodie. Did you make enough coffee for both of us? That’s actually what woke me up ~ that and the toast. Put a couple of slices in for me, would you?” Dez leaned into Martha’s room, grabbed her deep purple hoodie pulling it over her head. “That’s better. Thanks. That coffee smells so good. Now tell me what’s wrong and don’t tell me nothing’s wrong because I won’t believe you.’

“Where do we start, Dez? I couldn’t stop thinking about everything you said last night. That I hadn’t taken everyone or everything into consideration when I wanted set up something for a couple of health care workers. So they could come here and not have to take the possibility of infection home to their families. How could I ask the rest of you to expose yourselves to satisfy my whim? I still want to do something. I can’t just sit out here and do nothing while you have to work and I’ve got so much.”

“That’s where we start then, Emmie.”

Emmie looked at Dez blankly. “What do you mean?”

“Come on, Emmie, you can’t be serious. What I mean is look at what you have, and I don’t just mean the money Mike left you.” Dez was, in fact, irritated that Emmie only thought about dollars and that seemed to be all she knew. Dez struggled to make ends meet. Had to be real creative many times about what she could do with what little she had. Here was her sister, feeling sorry for herself and not knowing what to do next. But, she would be patient. Her big sister was wrestling with not knowing. Not being in control. 

“Really, Dez, I am serious. I don’t know what you mean. I’ve been given or bought everything all my life. Even when we were kids, I got most of what I wanted.” Emmie grinned. “I did have to do a lot of talking sometime.”

“I know. I watched you twist Dad around your little finger. You were pretty good at that. But seriously. Grab your coffee and come with me.” Dez headed up the oak stairs to the second floor. 

“Where are we going? Why are we going upstairs? I went through everything up there yesterday.”

“Stop asking questions and follow me. It has nothing to do with the upstairs. Here. Stand in front of this window.” Dez had set her coffee down on the dining room table and opened the curtains that faced west. The sun was sending tentative fingers around the house beginning to light up the scene before them. “Look.”

“Look at what? What am I supposed be seeing?”

Dez had to take a deep breath ~ in fact she had had to take a lot of deep breaths around Emmie this last while. “You’re supposed to be seeing what I’m seeing. The huge garden you have and the land around it.” 

“What good is all of that? .,,,,,,,,Oh……I think I get it?” The light was dawning slowly in Emmie’s eyes. “But I haven’t had the gardener and yard man here for ages. I don’t even know if anything got planted. There probably isn’t anything much in the ground yet because it’s only April. I’m not a farmer or a gardener but I think it’s still too early. But I have another question, Dez. What if this Covid thing is over before we’re ready be of any help?” 

Another deep breath. This is my older sister, right? Right. And I’m supposed to be the wise one in all of this? “Let’s go back down to the kitchen where it’s warmer. I don’t think you have to worry about this ‘Covid thing’ being over any time soon according to the experts, but if it is there will still be a lot of people needing someone to help them out. What’s important is that you have what so many don’t have, and I’m not talking about the dollars. I’m talking about the land. You have a garden that is only taking up a small part of your 30 acres. If you made a bigger garden….but I’m getting ahead of myself. I just wanted you to see what is right around you.”

“My original idea was to provide at least two beds for healthcare workers to use so they won’t have to go home. You showed me that I hadn’t really thought about it all. And now you start talking about the land? You’ve just made this bigger than even I thought about. Now I really don’t know where to start.” Emmie poured another cup of coffee. “Where I’ll start is where we left off yesterday. I need to talk to Digby, Martha and Cook and see what they think of my idea, and whether we can make it work. Digby will know how to contact the gardener/yardman to see what work he will be starting. I hope and want them all to be well. I’ll see if there is a website, maybe you can help me with that, for volunteers for providing extra beds and what rules need to be followed.” Emmie’s coffee growing cold, she had her notebook and was busily writing all of this down as she talked. Dez just sipped on her second cup of coffee, watching her big sister take control.

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. 

You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.”

Dr. Seuss,  Oh, the Places You’ll Go

Chapter One, Episode 24 - Let's Talk - Situationally Theirs

May 30, 2020

Review, Edit and Update

In Let’s Talk, Dez Eliot and Emelina Beaufort, had been isolated in Emelina’s home. Emelina had  a big idea and started writing out a plan. Dez, her younger sister, challenged her assumptions, as she had since they 'were kids’.

There were few repairs to be made in Let’s Talk  - sentence structure, punctuation. Regarding sentence structure in relation to dialogue, I hesitate to make changes to any awkward sentences spoken by a character. My question to myself is: “Would that particular character have spoken in that manner?”. 

Let's Talk

“I did get rid of that horrible painting from Mike’s den. I hope he doesn’t come to me in my dreams to chastise me tonight.” Emelina’s husband Mike had passed away five years before, and until now Emelina had not wanted to change anything in his den. She had someone else take his clothes out of their room because she just couldn’t do it. After her two day exploration of her house, she decided it was time she went a little further. Besides she had really exciting plans. A notebook and pencil at the ready, she listed things in each room as she went through them. Items to Stay.  Items to Go. Undecided Items. Her sister, Dez, had come out from Hartley on her day off from Mr. Jorgenssen’s DryCleaning and Laundry where she had had her fill of shelves of stock items and long lists. Emmie was full of energy and ready to take Dez through the house with her.

“What did you do with the painting?” Dez was curious. In the short time they’d spent with each other while self isolating, she’d never seen her sister quite so animated. “Are you sending it to a thrift store?”

“Oh, Dez. Of course not. I may not have liked it but it is a valuable piece of art. One of the other members of the Arts and Culture board took it and will be putting up for raffle or donation. If we decide to raffle it the proceeds will go to the Food Bank. Or some of the proceeds will come back to me for the supplies that we’ll need.” Emmie flipped open her notebook to the back page and made a quick note.

“What are you talking about, Emmie? What supplies? And if you and I didn’t like that painting, what makes you think that anyone else will?”

“Well, Mike loved it and there were a lot of others that were trying to buy it. I didn’t tell you about the supplies we’ll need yet, did I? Digby keeps a master inventory for the household that he, Martha and myself go over regularly. I’m afraid I’ve not paid much attention. I don’t know where my mind has been. Anyway, if we take people in and I use the den for my bedroom……’

Dez gently took the notebook from Emmie. “Emmie, slow down. What are you thinking? Where do you think these ‘people’ are coming from?”

“Well, health care workers of course that are working with Covid19 patients and need to protect their families, of course.” Emmie tried to get the notebook away from Dez. Dez held the notebook in the air and backed up. Emmie sat down in resignation.

“No. You’re not doing this. Let’s talk about it first. It’s a wonderful idea but don’t you think you’re going about this too fast? Don’t cry, Emmie. I just want you to think about what the realities are for you. You want the rest of us to just go along with this half-baked scheme……no, I don’t mean it’s a bad idea, just you need to take more time to do it right. If I’m right, and assuming we’re all going to jump in this with you, if even one of us says ‘no’ then your whole plan falls apart. And if the one that says no is one of your employees will that put their job in jeopardy?”

Emelina was silent. She took a deep breath. “Are you saying that you don’t want to help me ‘fix this’. That’s what you said a couple of days ago that ‘we could fix this’. So you didn’t really mean that?” 

Dez sat down across from Emelina. “That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is that this is not as simple as supplies and rooms and raffles. We ~ and I mean all of us that you want involved in this ~ have just been through self isolation from this virus. Martha from her grandchildren, Digby at home alone, you and I living together after 10 years apart and not even sure we'd like each other. Your plan to get some life into your home, is actually bringing the potential of this deadly virus in here. It could destroy everything that you have, and the employment you have given several others.”

“ When you put it that way, it makes me sound selfish, when all I wanted to do was something good. Even when we were kids you would ruin all my plans with your stupid logic.” If Emelina had been eleven years old, she would have been stomping her feet, tossing her blond hair and storming out of the room. “Okay, is my whole idea wrong and ridiculous?” 

“No. I just think you haven’t thought about how it might affect the rest of us ~ assuming that we'll all buy into your idea. What rules would we need to make it safe? I’ve worked a lot of different jobs ~ cleaned a lot of toilets, worked in offices and waited tables. And that’s the short list. The places that had a good solid plan were great to work for. The others that just hoped everything would be alright ~ those jobs I only took because I needed a paycheque, but I got out as soon as possible. You’ve been an employer for a long time. You keep your staff.”

“What does that have to do with it? They are good people and I pay them well. They have health benefits. Of course they have stayed with me. I can’t imagine any of them leaving.”

“It’s quite easy to fall under the spell of assumptions.”

~ Steven Redhead, Life is Simply a Game

Chapter One, Episode 23 - Stock Taking - Situationally Theirs

May 29, 2020

Review, Edit and Update

Most of us, in this Covid19 situation, have had our lives stripped bare. This is especially true for single people - women and men. Episode 23, Stock Taking, asks Emelina Beaufort to examine her own life in the midst of pandemic restrictions. 

Improved sentence structure was the biggest repair job to be done. Detail was added or expanded. Some punctuation, and at least one typo was fixed.

Stock Taking 

When Dez sat down on the sun dried wooden bench, she leaned against the wrought iron arm rest. Her only plan for the day was to drink her coffee, apply for employment insurance, contact her previous boss and go home. For now, she would sit in the cool air and warm sun. Her short list gave her the luxury of enjoying the birds, soaking in the rays and listening to the trickling of the stream. Staying inside was a big part of the precautions, but fresh air, sunshine and the world outside of walls were a big part of sanity maintenance when her apartment seemed to have shrunk to the size of a postage stamp. Dez almost felt guilty when she thought of Emmie’s place. Sure it was beautiful, in a glossy magazine manicured sort of way. Too tidy! Even though over the weeks of no gardener, grass looking a little ragged and weeds popping up in the usually pristine flower beds, it still looked manicured. Just in need of a manicure to polish things up. Draining the last of her coffee, Dez was about to get up and get going on her day when her phone rang.  Dez had not chosen a typical ring for her phone. In fact it wasn’t a ring at all…… ‘Don’t stop believin’ ’…..her favourite song. Always got her humming and wanting to dance. Emmie's name popped up. She hadn’t heard from her big sister in a couple of days. Emmie had returned to The Mansion. Dez was only mildly sarcastic when she said The Mansion like that. In fact she was more than mildly jealous, but knew that their different life paths, had brought different things into their lives. Dez was still single, but had not been in short supply of male company. Emmie married into wealth. Exactly what she had always expected for herself. When they last talked, she seemed quite unsure whether she still wanted all the trappings of that childhood dream. 

Dez checked the time. It was almost 9am when the EI office would open. Pretty early for Emmie to be making phone calls. After that silly bank fiasco thing and the jail time, they had been self isolated together in Emmie's kitchen. She often didn’t get up until noon. Her sister definitely was not a morning person. 

“Emmie? Is everything ok? You’re up early!’

“Ok? Oh, yes. Everything is just fine. I’m coming into town this afternoon. Are you going to be home?“

“Sure. I’ve got a couple of errands this morning and then I’ll be home. You know the saying: Stay Home and Stay Safe! I'm using lots of hand sanitizer while I deal with this important stuff like my car and EI. Washing my hands as often as I can. Yes,I’ll be following orders. Emmie, you sound pretty serious. Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes, Dez. Everything really is just fine. I just have a lot on my mind and I need to talk with you about it. It’s about the house and what I want to do with …..what I might do with it.”

“Me? I don’t know anything about real estate except that I can’t afford to buy anything. I can barely afford rent.”

“Well, that’s part of what my plans are.”

“Don’t keep me in suspense. What are your plans?

“I’m not going to give you anymore details right now. Just be home this afternoon, I should be at your place around 2:30. Apply for your EI, but I hope you’re not making any other big plans.”

“I’m just going to track down my old boss to see if I still have a job, but I have no other plans in the works. Doesn’t seem much point in setting too much up right now anyway. I’ll be here when you get here. I hope you’re telling me the truth about everything being just fine.”

~~~~~

Dez did get her application in and she did track down her boss. He was actually quite glad to see her.  An older man, Mr. Jorgenssen had run this business for almost twenty five years. But his small business was now jeopardized. He could keep it open for a limited amount of customers and his hours of operation also had to be curtailed. Mr. Jorgenssen and one employee would be doing a very thorough inventory, finding stocks of supplies that he would carefully ration. He was closing the Dry Cleaning and Laundry for a day so that he and one employee would do a deep clean of his establishment. Although, he could only pay very slim part-time wages, he was keeping two of his best employees on. Dez was disappointed in the pay, but glad that her job was still hers. The EI or the other relief money from the government would keep her afloat while this old world was in such a mess.

Emmie was waiting for her when Dez got home. “Come on, up Emmie. I’ve got tea, water and wine. Which one do you want? The wine isn’t fancy and it’s red. I don’t have any white wine.”

“I’d like some wine, but only a half glass. I will have to drive home tonight and I don’t need to be pulled over for drunk driving.”

Emmie seemed more relaxed since the morning’s phone conversation when she seemed tense and nervous. She had said everything was fine but Dez didn’t really believe her.  

“So what is this plan that you may or may not have? Is it anything I’d be interested in?”

“I hope you’ll be interested in it. I still have to talk to Digby, Martha and Cook about it. Giles will probably have a place in it too. While I was home, I went through the entire house to see what was there, rather like an inventory. Not that I didn’t know what I owned, but I needed to see it again. Really see it. What I saw was a big empty house. Yes it’s nice, nice furnishings and decor, but no people. The only place I felt the warmth of people’s lives was in the Downstairs. You and I must have left our mark, but Cook, Martha, Digby…all of my employees… were imprinted in so many little touches. The way Cook owns the kitchen and not just with food preparation. She requests, very assertively specific types of pots and pans, whisks, ladles and carving knives. I own the walls, but Cook owns the kitchen. And then there’s Martha. Cook won’t let her put her grandchildren’s pictures on the refrigerator, so Martha has a frame on her door ~ you’ve seen it ~ for all their pictures and poems and cards. Digby, for as quiet as he is, has a presence felt in the way he hangs up his coat, the way he places his shoes just so when he has finished for the day, the books that he reads. I suppose because I stayed in his room for the couple of weeks you and I were in our ‘kitchen house’, I felt his presence just a little bit more. But Upstairs……empty. My bedroom had some hint of my personality, but otherwise it was empty. Has been since Mike died.”

“That’s quite a speech, Emmie! So what have you got in your head to put life back into the Upstairs? Did you seriously think of a Bed and Breakfast?  No. There’s nobody traveling these days, anyway.”

“Well, you are sort of right, Dez. What I have in mind would operate more like a boarding house, but it wouldn’t really be a boarding house. And you’re right, no one is traveling these days. That’s where Digby, Martha and Cook come in. I  - I mean we - if you want to do this - will need to talk with them first. For another reason, I talked with my fellow board members. Our conversations gave me an idea. The community needs more beds or places for people to quarantine, or have a place away from their families while they have to work. What do you think?”

Dez was quiet when Emmie finished. “I don’t know what to think Emmie? Except maybe you’ve finally really lost it? It might be a good idea? Or a real dangerous one. There’ll be a lot to do to get the Upstairs ready.” Dez wasn’t going to admit it, but she was more excited about this than anything else in the last many years. 

“Constantly take inventory of what’s important to you.”

~ Dave Chappell

Chapter One, Episode 22 - Dreams and Reality - Situationally Theirs

May 27, 2020
Review, Edit and Update:
We visit the apartment home of Desperanza Eliot, the rather amusing character that opened Situationally Theirs before it even became the saga that evolved. Dreams and Reality - Episode 22, shows Dez's experience with another aspect of difficulties created by the Covid19 pandemic situation. This writer has repaired typos, added detail and improved sentence structure. 

Dreams and Reality

Dez fell asleep reading the latest issue of Artist’s Brush. But when she turned over into the couch cushions and stretched out, the lap blanket slid to the floor, one corner still tucked under her legs. Clutching her magazine as though it were a doll, she scrunched it up.

“Ow!! What?! What’s going on?”

It took a minute for Dez to realize that she had a paper cut about to drip on the upholstery. Faded upholstery, but it didn’t need any blood spots on it. She kicked her legs out from the banished lap blanket, and knocked over the glass of water that had been on the coffee table. Dez was not unfamiliar with four, five and six letter words and let go a string into the night air. 

“What time is it?”

No one answered. After a quick pat down of the couch and looking under the coffee table, she dug her cell phone out from between the couch cushions. “Midnight! I have to be at the impound early, so I’d better get to bed.” But Dez had to pick up the water glass and mop up the water on table and floor. She thought about leaving it, because after all, it was just water. But she got up and went to the kitchen for a bandaid for her finger and paper towels to mop up the worst of the water. All my paint things are still out and I won’t get back to them until tomorrow - I guess it is tomorrow - so the day after that then. She was about to take the painting down from the easel when she saw a spot that needed fixing. This will only take a minute. I’ve got the right brush in my hand and my colours haven’t been put away yet. Four hours later, when birds outside her window were welcoming the coming dawn, Dez rubbed ultramarine blue across her forehead. She looked at her finger. “Damn! That's pretty sore. And I need some sleep if I’m going to get my car in the morning.” Dez had forgotten all about the water spill. She just put her brushes in to soak, covered the paints and her canvas and stumbled off to bed.

She slipped easily into a dream that she’d had when sleeping on the couch. It didn’t happen often but, once in a while she would dream, wake up for some reason, and then go back to the same dream. This dream made her smile. She was with Sergeant Eye Candy, the officer that had helped her get in touch with Emmie. He was taking her out to dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant that he apparently owned. He was also the Head Chef. In this dream, Dez had to wait while Luigi - Sergeant Eye Candy - went into the kitchen to make Veal Carbonerra. While she waited she painted a new sign for the restaurant. Cut to dancing on another planet and she was telling him they couldn’t because they were supposed to be distanced. Then a train whistled. It was coming right at them. Luigi disappeared and Dez sat straight up in bed, still asleep. But the train whistle wouldn’t stop. Dez sat up again and shut her cell phone alarm off. She was wide awake and hungry. There was no time to get even a bowl of cereal. 

Dez caught the bus that would get her within four blocks of the Impound Lot. She didn’t like taking public transit while the restrictions were on, but there was little choice. She certainly didn’t have the time to walk the 2 km. to get there. There was only money enough for gas and for coffee, until she could  get to the bank. It was a very lovely morning, so a short walk would clear her head before she had to drive. Her plan was to go to the park, that wasn’t really a park, with her coffee and wait til the Employment Insurance Office was open at 9am. Dez picked up where she left off the previous night wondering what she would do with her life. She gazed out the bus windows at the still sleeping houses passing them by. Few people were up and going to work these days. And I’m almost 45 years old and still trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up.  Dez laughed a silent laugh. Doesn’t look like I’m going to grow up, so I’d better stop waiting for that to happen. 

Dez pulled the cord for the next stop. As she walked away and towards the Impound she ran through all the jobs she had had over the years. In her mind she labelled ‘Like’ ‘Hated’ and ‘Not too Bad’. There was the one in a restaurant - she was hired as a dishwasher, but did a whole lot of other jobs. The one she liked was the waitress. She really didn’t get to do that very often unless they were really short handed. And then there was delivering newspapers. She had done that off and on since she was a kid. Emmie would help her with it sometimes. Those were fun times. Not much call for that any more. Cleaning houses…that one was not too bad, but the company that hired her didn’t pay very well and she had to buy all her own supplies. Dez practically ran into the fenced in Impound she was so intent on her mental lising. 

“Oh, hi. Are you Kevin or Jim?”

“I’m Jim. Kevin won’t be in for about an hour. Can I help?”  

Jim’s a nice young man. “Yes. I’m Desperanza Eliot and I’m here to pick up my car - it’s a 2010 Ford Escort.”

“Can I see your driver’s license and can you tell me your license plate number.?

Dez pulled out her Driver’s License and at the same time, rattled off her license plate number. She handed the Driver’s License to Jim. 

“Thank you, miss. Come around here with me. There is an exit on the other side of the lot so you’ll be able to drive right out.”

At first Dez couldn’t see her little car in the midst of pick ups, SUVs, CRVs, service vans, Mustangs and Jaguars. But then she recognized her rather bulky looking little car. It needed a paint job and the front right fender had a huge scratch  from a cement post in a parking lot. But it was her car and she loved it. Dez, winced at the charges, used her credit card to pay the Impound fee and drove back into town. They had charged a lot of money but they had filled up her gas tank, so she could drive straight to the park. The park was a long green space that meandered through the small city of Hartley. A trickle of a stream had been widened and deepened for water to flow more easily from underground. Grasses and cattails grew along it’s banks. Songbirds and fireflies busied the air around the stream. Dez picked up coffee on the way from the Impound lot, and sat in the sun. The bench she chose had been moist with dew until the sun warmed the day and all around it. The air was still a cool breeze. Dez sat quietly and took a drink of her cooling coffee, the mental list in her head still brewing.

“We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even 

if it is only picking grapes or sorting the laundry.”

~ E.B.White

Book Review: A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

My first e-book!

Count Alexander Illych Rostov, born into Russian aristocracy was, if you were to ask him, a gentleman. But as a gentleman, he was confronted by the overthrow of the aristocracy in the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Count Rostov was given a life sentence, not in Siberia but in Moscow’s Metropol hotel. Although not able to leave the hotel, he enjoyed all the conveniences. All but the spacious suite of rooms he had occupied previously where he had, much reduced in number, treasured family furnishings. He was moved, at the butt of a gun by two military officers and a further reduced number of family furnishings, to a garrett room on the sixth floor. The hotel staff, from the concierge to the bellhops to the restaurant staff treated him with the respect that was his due. Count Rostov was confident in his vast knowledge of  literature, philosophy and any other topic of conversation. That is until, one day at lunch, a nine year old girl dressed all in yellow, came to his table and changed his gentlemanly and well ordered world. Nina, curious and precocious, lived in the hotel with her governess. She had obtained, surreptitiously no doubt, a master key to all the rooms in the Metropol. From there she opened the Count’s world from his aristocratic confines to the intrigue of anytime forays into different parts of the hotel, from top to bottom. Not for pilfering or destruction, but to look out the windows, eavesdrop on meetings and in general explore a world he knew nothing about. Nina, who has left her indelible mark on the Count, leaves the story briefly, but returns several years later and leaves her young daughter with the Count, promising to return within a relatively short period of time. But she does not return and is never heard from again. So the Count was to raise this child, Sofia, to adult hood in this hotel, from his garrett room, and with the support and help of the hotel staff. The Count is friends with all ~ there is Emile, the chef and Vasily, the Concierge, Arkady, who manned the front desk, Marina the seamstress are but a few. A new waiter, that he names the Bishop because of his 'ecclesiastical' bearing, does not seem to know the appropriate wine for a meal. He rises to different positions in the Metropol, despite his apparent lack of knowledge and unsophistication. The Count and this 'bishop' have an immediate and continuing dislike and distrust of each other. 

Our book club met over Zoom yesterday afternoon for discussion of this wonderful novel. Originally canceled due to our present stay at home circumstance, our little group of 70 + ladies learned a thing or two about keeping in touch electronically. In Count Rostov’s time (1922) he was confined to a hotel at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution. We are confined to our homes in this time of our own global crisis. Count Rostov provided us insight into the gracious acceptance needed when circumstances - or young children - change one's world. Discussion of this novel full of intrigue, Russian history, romance and just plain fun was a real bright spot for each of us.

“For standing at the edge of his table was the young girl 

with the penchant for yellow - studying him with 

that unapologetic interest peculiar to children and dogs.”

Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

Title: A Gentleman in Moscow

Author: Amor Towles

Copyright: 2016 by Cetology, Inc

Publisher: Penguin Books 2019

Type: Novel

Format: Fiction

ISBN: 9780670026197 (Hardcover)

ISBN: 9780399564048 (ebook)

ISBN: 9780735221673 (International edition)

LCCN: 2016030082