The Writer's E-Zine Home

Writers' Village University - F2K: Free Fiction Writing Course - ePress-online
Writers' Village University Membership Information

Signs of Life

Nancy L. Horner

Elvis is in the House

The weekend of my romance writers group's retreat was nearing and I was excited. I planned to head out by mid-afternoon on Friday to make sure I made it to the bed-and-breakfast in tiny Leakesville, Mississippi before dark. As the weekend approached, I wrote up my packing list and began to gather things together in preparation for the retreat. I was double-checking the list on Thursday evening when my husband called me outside and motioned for me to sit in the driver's seat of our Toyota.

"I've programmed the GPS," he said. He plunked his Global Positioning System unit on the dash and plugged it in. "Turn on the car and I'll show you how to set it."

I'm notorious for making wrong turns—although I've always managed to find my way to my destination—so the GPS was a welcome addition for the four-hour drive by myself in an unfamiliar part of Mississippi. David showed me how to turn on the GPS and set it for both my original destination and the return trip. Then, just to be on the safe side, he took an old-fashioned, fold-up map and highlighted the entire journey. You'd almost think he expected me to get lost.

The next day, I finished packing and set out for Leakesville.

Apart from two bizarrely unmarked major turns at which the GPS practically screamed at me, "Turn now, turn now, turn now!", the journey was fairly uneventful. I pulled into the gravel driveway of the bed-and-breakfast and joined my friends from Magnolia State Romance Writers on the screened porch.

After a bit of chit-chat, I hauled my suitcase inside and looked around a bit, totally overlooking the most interesting part of the house.

You could hardly miss it. Later, with plate in hand, I ended up transfixed in the dining room. I was staring at the gigantic framed monstrosity that my romance buddies dubbed, "The Glitter Last Supper," when one of them walked up and stood next to me.

"Isn't it awful?" she asked.

"Yeah. I was just thinking," I replied, "how gauche." The rest of the room was remarkably tasteful, by comparison, with the usual magnolia prints (always a mainstay in Mississippi) and a few roses thrown in here and there. One had to wonder what on earth the owners were thinking when they hung such an idiosyncratic monument to tackiness on the wall.

The Glitter Last Supper consisted of an oversized print of the Last Supper done almost entirely in red, green, and beige with a wide border of gold glitter, a tabletop of silver glitter, and mirrored tiles over Jesus and the apostles' heads. Nobody could quite figure out what kind of dried-up-looking fruit sat wilting on the table, but one woman observed that the tablecloth must be new because the artist had painted fold lines and another noticed that the wine was in clear glasses, rather than opaque decanters of wood or clay.

"They're dressed for Christmas."

"Oh, yeah, all that red and green."

"Did they even use tablecloths in Jesus' time?"

"Maybe the wrinkled things are figs."

All sorts of theories about the details of the print were batted around. Some of the members of MSRW had been to the bed-and-breakfast when it was under different ownership and knew that the print had been up on that same wall for years. They wondered aloud about the possibility that there was a huge hole in the wall that the print covered.

"Maybe," said one of the ladies, "it's in the contract that The Glitter Last Supper has to remain on that wall."

"Or maybe there's some sort of big flaw underneath and it's the only thing big enough to cover it."

After we played a trivia game and worked on helping one of our members plot her next novel, I found myself staring up at the print, again, arms folded.

One of my writer friends walked up beside me. "I was thinking," I told her, "that The Glitter Last Supper would be very much at home with one of those paintings of Elvis on black velvet."

"Oh, Elvis is in the other room," she replied without skipping a beat.

"You're kidding."

"No, he's up on the wall over the window. He's not on black velvet, though."

I walked to the small living area to take a peek at Elvis. As it turned out, Elvis was only one of about a dozen very subtle pencil portraits hanging on the living room wall. Naturally, the other walls were covered with a further cacophony of magnolias and roses, both painted and in floral arrangements. The decorating scheme was definitely unique in that house.

After a weekend full of plotting, chattering, and restful fun, I loaded my car and headed home with the GPS reset. I absentmindedly pondered The Glitter Last Supper as I drove north on the highway. Or maybe I was headed west. Not that it mattered which way I was headed, I thought, as the GPS began to shout at me. "Turn now, turn now, turn now!"