EMBOUCHURE and THREE STORIES by BARBARA R. DRAKE a THESIS PRESENTED to the GRADUATE SCHOOL of the UNIVERSITY of FLORIDA in PARTI
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EMBOUCHURE AND THREE STORIES By BARBARA R. DRAKE A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF FINE ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2004 Copyright 2004 by Barbara R. Drake For Jorge ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the University of Florida and the Creative Writing Program for the opportunity to study and for their financial support. I would also like to thank certain faculty: Jill Ciment, who opened my eyes to story and novel structure; Michael Hoffman, whose remarkable mixed-forms class inspired me to complete my first novella; my thesis committee members Kenneth Kidd, for his support and goodwill; Sidney Wade, whose enthusiasm and critical eye gave me a new understanding of how to knit together poetry and prose in a single piece; and, finally, my director David Leavitt, who gave generously of his time, insights and peerless editing skills, and who won me over to the serial comma. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................... vi TOWN & HILLOCK...........................................................................................................1 THE GIRL SCOUT VARIATIONS: TWELVE MEDITATIONS ON THE 1913 HANDBOOK FOR GIRL SCOUTS..........................................................................20 Theme: The Girl Scout Law .......................................................................................20 I: Portrait of Myself, Age 8.........................................................................................21 II: How to Carry the Injured .......................................................................................22 III: Tests for First Class Scout, 1913..........................................................................25 IV: Badges: Memories of a Girl Scout Circa 1972.....................................................26 V: How to Secure a Burglar with Eight Inches of Cord.............................................30 VI: Cookies.................................................................................................................31 VII: Frontier Life ........................................................................................................37 VIII: When I Light a Match........................................................................................38 IX: All the Dangers Begin with ‘D’ ...........................................................................42 X: Modesty .................................................................................................................43 Favorite Game, Age 4..........................................................................................43 Drawing, Age 5 ...................................................................................................43 Taking a Bath, Age 8...........................................................................................44 Going to Camp for the First Time, Age 9 ...........................................................44 Rock ’n Roll TV Comic-strip Song, Age 9 ½ .....................................................45 XI: Cabin Fever: Camp Madeline Mulford, Age 10...................................................46 XII: The Girl Who Became a Stream .........................................................................49 HOW TO MARRY A SOUTHERN MAN .......................................................................51 EMBOUCHURE................................................................................................................63 Part One ......................................................................................................................63 Part Two......................................................................................................................77 Part Three..................................................................................................................118 Coda..........................................................................................................................160 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...........................................................................................164 v Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts EMBOUCHURE AND THREE STORIES By Barbara R. Drake August 2004 Chair: David Leavitt Major Department: English The four prose works in this thesis collection represent two years’ work in the creative writing program. The heart of the thesis is a 100-page novella, written in my last semester. It is preceded by two short stories and a hybrid work of creative nonfiction, which incorporates poetry, found text and autobiographical narrative. The settings of these pieces range from 1970s New Jersey and Western Massachusetts to contemporary Santa Barbara, California, and Ocala, Florida. “Embouchure,” the short novel, is about a fifteen-year-old flutist who breaks her jaw in a bicycle accident and falls in love with her oral surgeon. “Town & Hillock,” a semi-surrealist tale, skewers the world of shelter magazines and explores the perils of getting what you want. In “How to Marry a Southern Man,” a phone psychic from Manhattan flees to Northern Florida, where she buys a horse ranch and finds herself unexpectedly smitten with southern rhetoric. In “The Girl Scout Variations” I investigate my own girlhood, and American girlhood in general, through the frame of the original 1913 Girl Scout handbook and the ten Girl Scout laws. The twelve variations in this piece cover moments in my own brief, but highly vi competitive “career” as a Brownie and Junior Girl Scout -- selling cookies, earning badges, going away to camp -- contrasted with instructional text from the 1913 handbook on topics ranging from how to tie up a burglar with eight inches of rope, to how to live a wholesome, productive life. vii TOWN & HILLOCK They’re photographing the house today. I can’t wait. Mr. Bill Bradford, the editor, tells me they’ve been looking for ages for a home in Santa Barbara with a view of the valley and a neo-Georgian cupola to boot. “It’s perfect!” he screamed when Rona Gould took him into my son Tommy’s old room, that first time. It was our annual holiday party, and my husband Richard and I were out back on the deck with the dogs, mixing Pisco Sours. “Don’t you dare do a single thing to this house, Adele Fisher,” Mr. Bradford shouted over the barking. “I’ll have my team over for the next issue.” I was immediately all for the idea; Richard, of course, dug in his heels. “Hold on, Adele,” he said in that cautious, administrator voice of his. “Do we really want a bunch of strangers running all over the house, taking pictures? This could be trouble.” Honestly, I could have smacked him right then and there; thank god Mr. Bradford took me aside and explained that the husbands nearly always resist, at first. Let him talk to Richard privately, out in the gazebo. He’d bring him around. Sure enough, an hour later Mr. Bradford materialized behind me and, squeezing my waist just a little too hard, whispered: “We’re on, Adele! Get ready for fabulous!” Well, that was eight months ago. I have been sitting on my down-filled, Donghia- covered couch ever since, waiting for the phone call, telling my husband, no nachos in the living room, use a coaster, no wet towels on the bed. Eight months, not a word from Town & Hillock. And all that time, Richard a perfect roller coaster of moods: edgy and excited at first, then oddly subdued, then wanting to call the whole thing off, and then, 1 2 last month, investing $40,000 in a Virilite security fence. (As if anyone reading Town & Hillock notices what kind of fence you have!) Eight months of this. Then last night, out of the blue, Mr. Bradford’s croaky voice is informing my answering machine that the crew is coming this morning at seven, and to please crate the animals. I have been up all night signing and faxing back the release forms, pages and pages of miniscule print; God knows what it all means. I cannot believe how many trucks and people there are when they arrive. Women in dark colors and chatty young men and no-nonsense types with tools. And bringing up the rear, Mr. Bradford himself, with his hair in a King Arthur pageboy and orange pants and a humongous three-ring binder, Post-it notes falling out everywhere. He plunks down on the couch and feels a pillow: “Out with the old,” he announces. So all the assistants and the assistant assistants go back outside and start directing this enormous moving van into my driveway. The neighbors are gawking at their windows when this other trailer leaps over the curb and drives onto my front lawn, right into the Japanese magnolia. Did my heart leap! Thank goodness it wasn’t any worse, just some broken branches and a crushed birds’ nest that I thought was abandoned. Fortunately, these people are creative; they can get around any catastrophe. A young man with a Nikon picks up several speckled-blue eggs, the ones that aren’t broken, and lines them up on the railing of the front porch. “Mrs. Fisher, over this way. You’re blocking the light,” says a girl with thick tortoiseshell glasses, as if I didn’t live here, as if this weren’t my house. Click click click: The photographer