Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

This New Year's Eve column has become a tradition at the book clubs. Happy New Year!

My most memorable New Year's Eve was the year my dress fell apart. Well, actually it was shedding. We'd just moved to Florida and some new friends invited us to their New Year's Eve party. We didn't know anyone else at the party, but I made, without a doubt, a big first impression. I was wearing a brand new, black velvet dress--purchased just for the occasion (and it wasn't cheap)--but it started shedding. Everywhere I walked, I left a trail of huge, black fuzz clumps behind. The dress was literally falling apart from the inside out.

I wasn't aware of what was happening until I visited the bathroom. The floor had two huge, white rugs, so it instantly became apparent that I was leaving a trail. I was horrified. I picked up my "droppings" and headed back to the party.

When I walked back into the kitchen, I looked down at the floor and sure enough, there was my dress, all over it. No one else seemed to notice the trail that I'd left around the house. But like a run in your stocking, I was sure they were aware and not saying anything just to be kind.

My first thought was to walk around the kitchen--shuffling my shoe along the floor--so I could sweep up my black fuzz balls. But then I realized that as fast as I was rounding up those little buggers in front of me, I was leaving a new crop behind. My backup plan was to find a dimly lit spot and stay put. And I did, until we left. 

I can only imagine what that couple must have thought the next day when they cleaned up from the party! Maybe they thought I'd brought a pet.

* My gift to you this holiday season is the ‘Getting Ready for 2023’ Year-End Giveaway. Enter today's drawing to win a 2023 Spiral bound weekly and monthly planner, solid black (6.3" x 8.4"), click here.

Thanks for reading with me (this past year). It's so good to read with friends.

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@firstlookbookclub.com

P. S. This week we're giving away 10 copies of the book Phaedra: A Novel by Laura Shepperson. Click here to enter for your chance to win. 

(continued from Thursday)

A new mood spread over our party. We were no longer willing tributes. Instead, we were revolutionaries, fighters, united behind the good Prince Theseus.

"We need someone to take the bowls back," the Cretan guard said suddenly. "Who . . .?" he looked at us. I didn't dare volunteer, but I leaned forward subtly and made eye contact when everyone else was looking away. It worked. "You, girl," he waved at me. I stood up, trying not to look too eager.

"Take these plates to the kitchen," he instructed me. I raised my eyebrows slightly.

"She has no idea where that is," the Athenian guard said, his tone light. "Down the corridor, turn right at the fountain, then right again at the mural of the bull—the white bull with silver horns," he said quickly before I could raise my eyebrows again. This place was full of murals of bulls. We had had a bull on our farm, but it was an old, decrepit beast that was good for nothing except fathering offspring on unwilling cows. "Once you get within spitting distance of the kitchen with the bowls, someone will pull you in anyway."

They stacked me up with bowls. I could have used a hand, but they didn't suggest it, and I didn't want a companion. This was my opportunity to explore the palace, after all.

I staggered down the corridor, peering around my bowls, looking for the fountain, then the mural of the bull. The fountain was huge and possibly the most beautiful manmade feature I had ever seen, incandescent drops of water shimmering in the sunlight. The guard had been right; I had no sooner taken a step around the corridor than a serving woman appeared to snatch the bowls away from me. My task was done here.

I should have headed straight back. The route was simple enough. But perhaps I could claim ignorance and explore a little further. I didn't plan on getting too lost. Instead of going back the way I had come, I turned right, then right again, and found myself facing yet another bull, the painted beast rearing above me. I turned to go back towards the chamber where my fellow tributes were waiting, and bumped into a solid mass of a man.

I knew as soon as he grabbed my arm that I wasn't going to get out of this easily. I cursed myself for letting my guard down. I would never have made such a mistake in the Athenian palace, but then, in a hovel, you assume that the men will be pigs. I'd allowed the ostensible sophistication of Knossos, with its running water and pretty painted walls, to fool me, but men were still men.

He pulled my arm up above my head and sneered at me. I opened my mouth to scream, but at that moment we were interrupted by a soft female voice.

"Let her go at once!"

My attacker and I both looked in the direction of the voice, and it is hard to say which of us was more surprised. He dropped my arm and bowed clumsily to the person running down the colonnade towards us.

"Your Highness," he said. Then he turned on his heel and left. I leaned against the wall and looked at my skin, a sour red mark encircling my upper arm.

"That looks painful," the girl said. "You should ask a physician about it." I looked at her. She was one of the princesses. The younger one. 'The less pretty one,' I thought nastily.

"Yes, Your Highness," I said, raising myself off the wall, ready to go. She remained standing in front of me.

"Do you know that man?"

"No, Your Highness." Why, by Zeus and all the Olympians, would I know him?

"Well, are you going to tell someone about him?" she demanded, her tone imperious.

"Tell someone?" I tried not to laugh. "Tell whom? And what would I say?" We must have been about the same age, but her naivety made her sound like a child.

"He really hurt you. We don't allow behavior like that at Knossos!"

"I did not know, Your Highness. I have recently arrived from Athens." I tried to keep my voice level. It wouldn't do for her to realize I was laughing at her.

"Then you must know that we require a higher code of conduct here. He is one of my father's men. He should mind his manners."

"Your Highness, I must go. I am expected back with the other tributes." I gestured vaguely towards the direction I might have come from.

"I don't understand why you're not more upset about this," she burst out. "He really hurt you. Did you want him to do that?"

"No, Your Highness," I said, and this time I couldn't prevent my tone from sounding exasperated. It was one thing for me not to be more upset about a little grope that came to nothing. It was another thing entirely for her to imply that I had sought his attention.

"Then what is it that you are not telling me?" She was frowning, that pretty peach nose wrinkling in a fashion that I was sure all the courtiers found most charming. Perhaps they even composed poetry about it. But I wasn't a courtier myself. I was just a farm girl, and I told it the way I saw it.

"Your Highness, perhaps your father's men have a better code of conduct in public or when they are in the presence of women they deem their social equals. But behind closed doors, I can assure you that they are every bit as much animals as the men out there in those fields behind you. More so, because those are family men with their wives and children, and these so-called courtiers have left their wives behind to come to the palace for drinking and backslapping and whoring."

An ugly red flush appeared at her neck. "I could have you killed for speaking to me like that," she said slowly.

"You could. And then you would have done me more harm than the man you rescued me from." I raised my chin defiantly.

"What can I do?" she asked, her voice small and her shoulders slumping.

I shook my head, suddenly tired. "Nothing, Your Highness. Do not concern yourself."

There seemed to be nothing more to say. She watched me as I stepped around her to return to the other tributes. I made my way down the colonnade, then turned and looked back at her. She looked so sad, I wanted to say something to comfort her.

"Princess, you are . . . kind, and I'm sorry I was curt with you. Knossos is beautiful. I'm glad I came here."

She smiled, then said, "But that man . . ."

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