{"id":343,"date":"2010-10-15T11:02:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-15T11:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/lady-in-waiting-by-susan-meissner.html"},"modified":"2010-10-15T11:02:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T11:02:00","slug":"lady-in-waiting-by-susan-meissner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ceceliadowdy.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/lady-in-waiting-by-susan-meissner\/","title":{"rendered":"Lady In Waiting By Susan Meissner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5480264388542368882\"<\/a><\/a>It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour<\/a><\/span><\/strong> book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old…or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Today’s Wild Card author is: <\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

Susan Meissner<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

and the book:<\/span> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Lady In Waiting<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

WaterBrook Press; Original edition (September 7, 2010) <\/p>\n

***Special thanks to Cindy Brovsky of WaterBrook Press, a division of Random House, Inc., for sending me a review copy.***<\/p>\n

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:<\/span> <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n

\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527359116520883842\"<\/a>
Susan Meissner has spent her lifetime as a writer, starting with her first poem at the age of four. She is the award-winning author of The Shape of Mercy, White Picket Fences, and many other novels. When she\u2019s not writing, she directs the small groups and connection ministries at her San Diego church. She and her pastor husband are the parents of four young adults. <\/p>\n

Visit the author’s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Product Details:<\/p>\n

List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: WaterBrook Press; Original edition (September 7, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0307458830
ISBN-13: 978-0307458834 <\/p>\n

AND NOW…THE FIRST CHAPTER:<\/span> <\/strong>
<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"id=\"BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5527358933306088562\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jane<\/p>\n

Upper West Side, Manhattan<\/p>\n

ONE<\/p>\n

The mantle clock was exquisite even though its hands rested in silence at twenty minutes past two. <\/p>\n

Carved\u2014near as I could tell\u2014from a single piece of mahogany, its glimmering patina looked warm to the touch. Rosebuds etched into the swirls of wood grain flanked the sides like two bronzed bridal bouquets. The clock\u2019s top was rounded and smooth like the draped head of a Madonna. I ran my palm across the polished surface and it was like touching warm water.<\/p>\n

Legend was this clock originally belonged to the young wife of a Southampton doctor and that it stopped keeping time in 1912, the very moment the Titanic sank and its owner became a widow. The grieving woman\u2019s only consolation was the clock\u2019s apparent prescience of her husband\u2019s horrible fate and its kinship with the pain that left her inert in sorrow. She never remarried and she never had the clock fixed. <\/p>\n

I bought it sight unseen for my great aunt\u2019s antique store, like so many of the items I\u2019d found for the display cases. In the year and half I\u2019d been in charge of the inventory, the best pieces had come from the obscure estate sales that my British friend Emma Downing came upon while tooling around the southeast of England looking for oddities for her costume shop. She found the clock at an estate sale in Felixstowe and the auctioneer, so she told me, had been unimpressed with the clock\u2019s sad history. Emma said he\u2019d read the accompanying note about the clock as if reading the rules for rugby.<\/p>\n

My mother watched now as I positioned the clock on the lacquered black mantle that rose above a marble fireplace. She held a lead crystal vase of silk daffodils in her hands.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should be ticking.\u201d She frowned. \u201cPeople will wonder why it\u2019s not ticking.\u201d She set the vase down on the hearth and stepped back. Her heels made a clicking sound on the parquet floor beneath our feet. \u201cYou know, you probably would\u2019ve sold it by now if it was working. Did Wilson even look at it? You told me he could fix anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

I flicked a wisp of fuzz off the clock\u2019s face. I hadn\u2019t asked the shop\u2019s resident and unofficial repairman to fix it. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t be the same clock if it was fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be a clock that did what it was supposed to do.\u201d My mother leaned in and straightened one of the daffodil blooms. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis isn\u2019t just any clock, Mom.\u201d I took a step back too.<\/p>\n

My mother folded her arms across the front of her Ann Taylor suit. Pale blue, the color of baby blankets and robins\u2019 eggs. Her signature color. \u201cLook, I get all that about the Titanic and the young widow, but you can\u2019t prove any of it, Jane,\u201d she said. \u201cYou could never sell it on that story.\u201d<\/p>\n

A flicker of sadness wobbled inside me at the thought of parting with the clock. This happens when you work in retail. Sometimes you have a hard time selling what you bought to sell.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m thinking maybe I\u2019ll keep it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t make a profit by hanging onto the inventory.\u201d My mother whispered this, but I heard her. She intended for me to hear her. This was her way of saying what she wanted to about her aunt\u2019s shop\u2014which she\u2019d inherit when Great Aunt Thea passed\u2014without coming across as interfering. <\/p>\n

My mother thinks she tries very hard not to interfere. But it is one of her talents. Interfering when she thinks she\u2019s not. It drives my younger sister Leslie nuts. <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you want me to take it back to the store?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo! It\u2019s perfect for this place. I just wish it were ticking.\u201d She nearly pouted.<\/p>\n

I reached for the box at my feet that I brought the clock in along with a set of Shakespeare\u2019s works, a pair of pewter candlesticks, and a Wedgwood vase. \u201cYou could always get a CD of sound effects and run a loop of a ticking clock,\u201d I joked.<\/p>\n

She turned to me, childlike determination in her eyes. \u201cI wonder how hard it would be to find a CD like that!\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI was kidding, Mom! Look what you have to work with.\u201d I pointed to the simulated stereo system she\u2019d placed into a polished entertainment center behind us. My mother never used real electronics in the houses she staged, although with the clientele she usually worked with\u2014affluent real estate brokers and equally well-off buyers and sellers\u2014she certainly could.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I\u2019ll bring in a portable player and hide it in the hearth pillows.\u201d She shrugged and then turned to the adjoining dining room. A gleaming black dining table had been set with white bone china, pale yellow linen napkins, and mounds of fake chicken salad, mauvey rubber grapes, and plastic croissants and petit fours. An arrangement of pussy willows graced the center of the table. \u201cDo you think the pussy willows are too rustic?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

She wanted me to say yes so I did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think so, too,\u201d she said. \u201cI think we should swap these out for that vase of Gerbera daisies you have on that escritoire in the shop\u2019s front window. I don\u2019t know what I was thinking when I brought these.\u201d She reached for the unlucky pussy willows. \u201cWe can put these on the entry table with our business cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

She turned to me. \u201cYou did bring yours this time, didn\u2019t you? It\u2019s silly for you to go to all this work and then not get any customers out of it.\u201d My mother made her way to the entryway with the pussy willows in her hands and intention in her step. I followed her.<\/p>\n

This was only the second house I\u2019d helped her stage, and I didn\u2019t bring business cards the first time because she hadn\u2019t invited me to until we were about to leave. She\u2019d promptly told me then to never go anywhere without business cards. Not even to the ladies room. She\u2019d said it and then waited, like she expected me to take out my BlackBerry and make a note of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have them right here.\u201d I reached into the front pocket of my capris and pulled out a handful of glossy business cards emblazoned with Amsterdam Avenue Antiques and its logo\u2014three As entwined like a Celtic eternity knot. I handed them to her and she placed them in a silver dish next to her own. Sophia Keller Interior Design and Home Staging. The pussy willows actually looked wonderful against the tall jute-colored wall. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere. That looks better!\u201d she exclaimed as if reading my thoughts. She turned to survey the main floor of the townhouse. The owners had relocated to the Hamptons and were selling off their Manhattan properties to fund a cushy retirement. Half the d\u00e9cor\u2014the books, the vases, the prints\u2014were on loan from Aunt Thea\u2019s shop. My mother, who\u2019d been staging real estate for two years, brought me in a few months earlier when she discovered a stately home filled with charming and authentic antiques sold faster than the same home filled with reproductions. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou and Brad should get out of that teensy apartment on the West Side and buy this place. The owners are practically giving it away.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her tone suggested she didn\u2019t expect me to respond. I easily let the comment evaporate into the sunbeams caressing us. It was a comment for which I had had no response.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s gaze swept across the two large rooms she\u2019d furnished and she frowned when her eyes reached the mantle and the silent clock. <\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I\u2019ll just have to come back later today,\u201d she spoke into the silence. \u201cIt\u2019s being shown first thing in the morning.\u201d She swung back around. \u201cCome on. I\u2019ll take you back.\u201d<\/p>\n

We stepped out into the April sunshine and to her Lexus parked across the street along a line of townhouses just like the one we\u2019d left. As we began to drive away, the stillness in the car thickened, and I fished my cell phone out of my purse to see if I\u2019d missed any calls while we were finishing the house. On the drive over I had a purposeful conversation with Emma about a box of old books she found at a jumble sale in Oxfordshire. That lengthy conversation filled the entire commute from the store on the seven-hundred block of Amsterdam to the townhouse on East Ninth, and I found myself wishing I could somehow repeat that providential circumstance. My mother would ask about Brad if the silence continued. There was no missed call, and I started to probe my brain for something to talk about. I suddenly remembered I hadn\u2019t told my mother I\u2019d found a new assistant. I opened my mouth to tell her about Stacy but I was too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what do you hear from Brad?\u201d she asked cheerfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s doing fine.\u201d The answer flew out of my mouth as if I\u2019d rehearsed it. She looked away from the traffic ahead, blinked at me, and then turned her attention back to the road. A taxi pulled in front of her, and she laid on the horn, pronouncing a curse on all taxi drivers. <\/p>\n

\u201cIdiot.\u201d She turned to me. \u201cHow much longer do you think he will stay in New Hampshire?\u201d Her brow was creased. \u201cYou aren\u2019t going to try to keep two households going forever, are you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I exhaled heavily. \u201cIt\u2019s a really good job, Mom. And he likes the change of pace and the new responsibilities. It\u2019s only been two months.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, but the inconvenience has to be wearing on you both. It must be quite a hassle maintaining two residences, not to mention the expense, and then all that time away from each other.\u201d She paused but only for a moment. \u201cI just don\u2019t see why he couldn\u2019t have found something similar right here in New York. I mean, don\u2019t all big hospitals have the same jobs in radiology? That\u2019s what your father told me. And he should know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because there are similar jobs doesn\u2019t mean there are similar vacancies, Mom.\u201d<\/p>\n

She tapped the steering wheel. \u201cYes, but your father said . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know Dad thinks he might\u2019ve been able to help Brad find something on Long Island but Brad wanted this job. And no offense, Mom, but the head of environmental services doesn\u2019t hire radiologists.\u201d<\/p>\n

She bristled. I shouldn\u2019t have said it. She would repeat that comment to my dad, not to hurt him but to vent her frustration at not having been able to convince me she was right and I was wrong. But it would hurt him anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry, Mom,\u201d I added. \u201cDon\u2019t tell him I said that, okay? I just really don\u2019t want to rehash this again.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she wasn\u2019t done. \u201cYour father has been at that hospital for twenty-seven years. He knows a lot of people.\u201d She emphasized the last four words with a pointed stare in my direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he does. That\u2019s really not what I meant. It\u2019s just Brad has always wanted this kind of job. He\u2019s working with cancer patients. This really matters to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the job\u2019s in New Hampshire!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, Connor is in New Hampshire!\u201d It sounded irrelevant even to me to mention the current location of Brad\u2019s and my college-age son. Connor had nothing to do with any of this. And he was an hour away from where Brad was anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you are here,\u201d my mother said evenly. \u201cIf Brad wanted out of the city, there are plenty of quieter hospitals right around here. And plenty of sick people for that matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was an undercurrent in her tone, subtle and yet obvious, that assured me we really weren\u2019t talking about sick people and hospitals and the miles between Manhattan and Manchester. It was as if she\u2019d guessed what I\u2019d tried to keep from my parents the last eight weeks.<\/p>\n

My husband didn\u2019t want out of the city.<\/p>\n

He just wanted out.<\/div>\n

I’m about half-way through this book, and here’s my dilemma. I’m enjoying the contemporary portion of the book, but, when the story jumps back to the sixteen or seventeen hundreds, I’m not very entertained! I’m not sure why? This comment has nothing to do with the author or the book! I’m sure it’s just me!<\/strong> While reading, I discovered that I think I’m just not interested in that time period. The death of the queen, the mourning, the bowing and curtseying, the upper-class people, the court, being submissive\/honoring superiors….I just can’t get into that timeframe. Now that I think about it, I notice that I usually don’t read historicals that have nobility as characters. I didn’t really realize that about myself until I read this book. <\/p>\n

I’ve enjoyed Susan’s other works like The Shape of Mercy <\/a>and Blue Heart Blessed<\/a>. The Shape of Mercy even made my list of Incredibles<\/a>! I really wanted to enjoy this book as much, and I think I could have if she’d chosen another time and other people in history to focus on! I’ll probably end up skimming the historical pieces and just focus on the contemporary part for the remainder of the book.<\/p>\n

If you enjoy Susan’s other works, then I’m pretty sure you will enjoy this book, too.<\/p>\n

~Cecelia Dowdy~<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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