Dust of Snow by Indra Vaughn

Blurb:

‘T is the season. Greg’s nights are silent and his bells don’t jingle.

This time last year his boyfriend broke up with him, and he’s determined to get through these holidays with only minor bruising. So what if he lives with a cat and his best friend is his mother? Peace and quiet: that’s life how he likes it.

Nothing is going to blindside him this year, no sir. Especially not a rogue secret Santa.

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I started writing Dust of Snow during a typical, brutal Michigan winter. After living here for six years I thought I was used to it, but last winter was something else.

We had icicles taller than me hanging off our roof, I had to rescue my dog Neo from a snow drift twice (and carry his 55 pound ass inside), there were days where we couldn’t go outside at all because with wind shear it felt like minus 50.

So instead of dreaming up beach holidays like a normal person, I decided to write about it. Gregory walked into my head fully formed, perpetually cold, and a little bit broken.

 

 

I set the story in Rochester, which isn’t far from where I live. The Municipal park exists, but it sadly doesn’t offer iceskating and hot chocolate or mulled wine stands (yet!) when the little pond freezes over. A wasted opportunity if I ever saw one…

 

All the forecasts are telling us we’ll have a winter just like it this year, but (and watch me touch wood, cross eyes-fingers-toes, throw salt over my shoulder, run around the table backwards three times, as I say this) they also predicted snow at the end of September and we had 70 degrees on October 25th. So maybe we’re in for a lucky break and we’ll have no snow at all…It’s not that I mind the cold or snow so much, it’s just that winters here last so long.

 

One thing Michigan does do well, is a beautiful fall. He doesn’t say it so much in the book, but one of the reasons why Greg doesn’t just pack up and leave (apart from his dear mother), is because of how gorgeous Rochester can be when those leaves start to turn.

 

He has a lot of healing to do after his boyfriend David broke up with him right before Christmas last year. In fact, his confidence is at such a low, he thinks someone is playing a joke on him when he finds mysterious gifts on his desk. He doesn’t want to be noticed, he doesn’t want to stand out. All he wants is a quiet Christmas, and for spring to start already.

Until Ashley catches his eyes, anyway…

I’d arranged to take Mother out to dinner that night, and I felt as if I could breathe again after the massage. The Christmas lights had been lit in Rochester, giving Main Street a cozy, fairy-like glow. We went to a new all-organic restaurant where we ate freshly made mushroom ravioli and drank surprisingly good organic red wine.

“Have you heard from Dad?”I asked as always while I eyed the chocolate mocha cheesecake.

“No,”Mother said. Her head was down, and she played with a ring on her middle finger. I noticed the wedding ring she’d never taken off in as long as I’d known her was nowhere to be seen. The indent of it, as well as the paleness of years of missed sunlight, was still starkly visible. “But there is something I should tell you.”

“Oh?”I refilled our wineglasses, afraid of what had her shoulders so stiff, her mouth so pursed.

“I’m seeing someone.”

“Oh, thank fuck.”I knocked back the entire wineglass in one go, coughing a little as it burned on the way down. “Pardon my French.”

Mother’s eyes twinkled like she was laughing on the inside. “What on earth did you think I was going to tell you?”

“That you’d be getting back together with Dad. I don’t think I could stand the thought now that I know he’s—”

“Gregory!”

“Sorry, Mother.”She was grinning though, and after I’d washed the wine down with some water, I grinned too. “So, who is he? Where did you meet? You sure he isn’t after your fortune?”

“I’m sorry to inform you there is no fortune, Gregory. I know it’s a shock.”She waited until I stopped laughing. “And it’s not…a he.”I dropped the napkin I’d been patting my mouth with, but Mother barreled on. “I met her at the pool. We started to talk, and we had a lot in common, so we went for a few lunches. They became dates.”

I gaped, and my brain attempted to process this. Mother the lesbian? “I didn’t—I didn’t know…”I croaked. “That you, uh…”Licked the other side of the stamp, Patricia’s voice echoed in my head. I suppressed a giggle that would have sounded slightly manic.

“Neither did I, and I don’t know if I am, it’s just…We get on so well, and she makes me feel so good, Gregory.”

“That’s great.”I really did think so. “It’s great she makes you happy.”

She leaned forward. “Yes,”she said, voice low. “But that’s not what I meant.”Oh God, no. “She’s so full of life, so vibrant, so skilled.”

“Can I have another bottle of wine, please?”I accosted the waiter who passed our table. “Actually, make that two.”He didn’t hear me, or ignored me, because I certainly sounded like a desperate drunk.

“She did this thing with her mouth the other day…Gregory, I had no idea—”

“CHECK PLEASE,”I bellowed and scrambled desperately for my wallet. I practically ran from the restaurant, dragging Mother behind me to the car.

“Gregory,”she huffed. “That was uncalled for.”

“I’m sorry.”My voice was two octaves higher than usual. “You took me by complete surprise.”

“I understand,”Mother said demurely, hands folded in her lap as I clicked my seatbelt on. “But all that aside, she does make me happy, and I’d love for you two to meet.”

“O-kay.”

“And maybe you could bring a date too. You really need to get back out there, Gregory. Forget David and meet someone who’s worthy of you.”

“Uh-huh.”A double date with Mother and her new lesbian lady friend? I laughed, even though I felt so close to crying my vision blurred. I thought of Ashley, but that was stupid. He was probably straight after all anyway.

 

 

Indra Vaughn moved from Belgium to Michigan in 2008, leaving everything behind that wouldn’t fit in a single suitcase. She now lives in the suburbs of Detroit with a dog who thinks he’s a toddler and a toddler who resembles Bam Bam in more ways than one.

 

Indra’s professional background is in nursing and Chinese medicine, but she prefers to spend time making up stories about mysterious men and their unrequited love.

 

If you ever meet her, ask her about that teenage angst-infused poetry collection. That’ll break the ice for sure.

 

Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, E-mail: indravaughn@gmail.com

 

Indra is giving away a copy of her release “Dust of Snow”

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