Tattle and Wrye - July 2009

FROM THE DESK OF
DONA PENZA TATTLE, ESQ.
AND
ASSOCIATE WRYE BALDERDASH

Penza struts with puce feathers bouncing into the office with a twirl of her long skirt and a brilliant smile. “It is a perfect day, m’friend, for a Love of Literature Leap."
“Ready,” he says, pops up, and then slides an elegant saber into a sheath at his hip and watches Penza procure binoculars from a desk drawer. “Why the nouveau accessory, we never view from afar, one and only Queen of Tittle-tattle.” Leaning back in his chair, legs propped up on the replica of an eighteenth century desk, arms folded behind his head, and eyes semi-closed, Wrye utters, “Hmmm? Bird watching are we?”
Reacting appalled, "I am not a twitcher or birder or ornithologist."
"My quidnunc you are more the busybody ornivoyeur."
Ignoring, she quips, “Ah, but this time, there is a war afoot, and I would much prefer the top of a grassy knoll to a confederate campsite.” She pauses as she caught the effect of her bopping curls in the mirror and patted them with approval.
Wrye holds out his hand palm down in a sweeping gesture, offering first jump to Tattle, “After you, Mon Ami Wary.” Bows, "Jump for joy... of reading!"

They appeared just where Penza had predicted, a hilly spot above a Confederate campsite within the pages of Melissa Blue’s, WITHOUT REGRET MY LOVE.
"Civil War, ah ha, if this is a murder mystery then the Rhett Butler did it." Wrye's brow becomes a worrisome display as he squints into the distance, “That woman seems to be completely out of place, even more so than us.”
Setting herself upon a large rock, Tattle spreads out her skirt before peering though her spy glasses. “Ah, so true, Master of Observation, Marissa is a nurse from the 21st century, who has been tossed 144 years into the past. Time travel, you see.”
"Speaking of travel, remember when we were in Korea and the sign in English read, special cocktail for ladies with nuts. Is that woman nuts? Actually, I could see a whole lot better if a particular damsel shared,” Wrye hinted pursing a pouting lip.
"Puppy-dog, here!" She hands him the binoculars. He flips his spectacles over his wavy wealth of hair and positions the instrument just so. “A tasty rare beauty, and to the gents of this time period, she must appear very inappropriately dressed.”
“Dress matters not to Confederate Officer Dr. Craig Langston, he is quite impressed with her, as well as her medical skills. Crayon him very much smitten. Watercolor her yearning for the good doctor, longing for home, and her own century.”
Wrye still watching the story’s drama unfold, he offers, “Quite the dilemma.”
“There’s more…” She flips ahead. “See, something sinister this way comes.”
One hand tightens on the saber's hilt as serious infects his tone. “Not good.”
Pages get tossed until they can see almost to The End. “How is that for a twist?”
“Unexpected, indeed!”
"Then there's the rumor that she is a traitor, which puts her in grave danger, which causes him to..." Her words dry up. Wrye's shock dissipates as alarm invades.
"What?"
"Read, m'boy."
His blade Xs at the air. “Penza chum, does it appear that the battle is getting a little too close?”
“Oh, my, yes! Leap?” She hikes her skirt to run more easily showing Nikes.
Accepting the valor of retreat, he takes her by the arm and escorts her away.

“Nooo!” Tattle screams as horrific images enfold her, empathy pulling concern.
Without thought to peril, he grabs her, yanking her free of her predicament.
She prissily pats her brow with a monogrammed handkerchief that Wrye had provided. “Jump calculations were off. Gracious.” Tattle places a hand to her throat. “Poor Sara... I have just glimpsed a traumatic nightmare that she has consistently.”
“Sara?” He takes back the linen hanky, notices the eye make-up and glares.
“Mark’s wife, his life, his heart. They are the protagonists of the award winning FORGOTTEN CHILDREN by Michael W. Davis, Champagne’s Author of the Year.”
Wrye re-slips the linen to Tattle, looks about the rural seemingly serene town of Lawton, Virginia. “How could such a tranquil environment induce chronic nightmares?”
"A maze of intrigue." Tattle links her arm in the crook of his as they walk along, captivated by the vista. “Lethal danger. A series of deaths. One a former professor.”
"Death?" They pause as Wrye views the street with suspicion. “Ah, isn’t this also the place where all too many children are being born with a rare genetic disease?”
“Why Wrye, you have been reading ahead?” Scolding with a swat of the hanky.
His chin bobbed a notch. “Of course, my snoopy-snoop comrade in prattle.”
They offer a moment of respectful silence to the tragedy solidly buried within the gripping, suspenseful mystery, and then Penza Tattle whispers, “Here's the boggle. All this is happening while Mark and Sara are trying to conceive. Don't you say it.”
“No!” He understood, she understood, he was about not to abstinent the ribald.
“Yes,” Tattle’s head bobs empathically. “And unbeknownst to all, Sara holds the skeleton key to the truth of political and corporate transgressions, shame-shame, which at tome's end has the randy couple battling for their lives and sheet-time.”
Wrye scampers ahead, trying to hurdle clauses through to the last few pages.
Grasping his suspenders, “Oh no, you don’t,” Penza says, “You have to read it a page at a time like the rest of us.” She releases the braces and he stumbles.
"But I have to know if Mark's a papa." As a graduated Evelyn Wood's speed reader he starts eating pages.
"Ok, naughty rascal, you just want to read about the horizontal tango."
"Of course, Michael is the Author of the Year."
"So you think you can dance? We've much to do. Let's Rumba out of here."

“In that case!” He pulls her into a Viennese waltz, box stepped, and spinning her, until they twirl through a leap and into Donica Covey’s BETRAYING CHASE.
“Gun!” declares Tattle, pointing toward a woman who appears weapon free.
“Saber!” proclaims Wrye, stepping in front of Tattle with utter gallantry as his weapon breaks free of its sheath. “Duh, I come to a gunfight with a saber."
“The gun is still hidden, Mr. Reactive,” placing her hands on her abundant hips.
Saber re-sheathed. “But of course... know the story.” Flicks sweat with a finger.
“Pray tell, you do?” She offers the hanky, but he declines.
“Do.” Taking her shoulders, Wrye positions Tattle in front of him and waggles a sweaty finger, which she wipes. “That is Brandy Montgomery, a hired gun for Ramior Gonzalo Sancho Rivera, a wheelin’, dealin’ drug lord.” He turns Penza in a different direction. “And there is Chase Willet a DEA agent, who she has been hired to kill.”
“Kill? A detail. I didn't get the memo. Why didn't you FYI me?”
“Moi? Naw… but imagine how confused Chase becomes when he finds out Brandy had been all saucy-seductive so the kill would not be suspected.”
“How lewd, rude, and socially unacceptable!”
“She ends up falling for the hunky Chase. She chased him until he caught her.”
“How complicated. The-hit-babe-meets-agent Love Story... Ironic iconic.”
“When he falls the shat hits the fandemonium of all those who enjoy Covey.”
“How confusing.”
“That’s what I had said because obscurity was in play."
“So, what happens, poet my poet?”
“Chase feels betrayed, and Brandy offers to help him get Rivera... Right!!!!”
“But how can he trust her?” Winks bounce Tattle to Wrye, Wrye to Tattle.
“Bingo!”
“So, does he?”
“That, my inquisitive quidnunc partner-in-poking-about, to quote someone you know very well, ‘You have to read it a page at a time like the rest of us.’”
“Let’s leap.”

An instant later, the two appear in their office overlooking a calm, lazy river. “As always, it has been wonderful sharing a peek at Champagne author’s stories. Next month we’ll be visiting K. M. Tolan’s BLADE DANCER, Ciara Gold’s ON THE SILVER EDGE OF TIME, and HITTING THE HIGH NOTES by Nancy Arnold. Until then, my book darlings, keep your noses in the prose but leave the busybody spying to us."


Double-cheek kisses,

Dona Penza Rutabaga Tattle, Esq.
And Associate Wrye Balderdash
Of Blather City, Wannachat
Created and written by
Angelica Hart and Zi
KILLER DOLLS ~ September 2009
SNAKE DANCE ~ February 2010
Champagne Books
angelicahartandzi.com