Orlando, Florida
Congratulations Danette!
Danette’s Bio:
Danette Haworth was first published at six-years-old, when she created a comic book series starring Peter Pan. Each comic book featured a green stickboy, a red stickman, and all the hair-raising conflict a six-year-old can conjure up. These marvelous adventures usually ended with a defeated Captain Hook raising his sword, shouting, “I’ll get you, Pan!” Danette’s mother still has the first edition, so carefully colored and stapled all those years ago.
After earning a BA in English, Danette landed a job as a technical writer, which was a fun position because she got to play in tank simulators and explain to scientists that possessive its does not have an apostrophe. She later worked as a travel writer for a well-known automobile club, one of the best jobs she’d ever held; she read history books, interviewed people on the telephone, looked at travel brochures, and got paid for doing this!
Danette cannot remember a time when she did not write. But she has stopped illustrating, at least until the market is ready for some really good stickmen.
Her middle-grade novel, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, is due Fall 2008 with Walker Books For Young Readers.
Visit Danette at her website, Danette Haworth: http://www.danettehaworth.com, or her blog, Summer Friend: http://www.summerfriend.blogspot.com.
Intersection
I pull up to the red light behind the SUV I’ve been following the past couple miles. White stick figures, the kind that represent family members, are stuck on the back windshield. A boy, two girls, and a mom.
I lean forward and squint. I can see remnants of the dad sticker, slivers of the place he once held in the family.
I snort and sit back. Divorced. Wonder what he did. Probably didn’t pay enough attention to her. A workaholic. Maybe an alcoholic. Late every night, whiskey on his breath. I shake my head. What about the kids? And the support check—late every month, the bastard.
Oh wait, maybe he died. She finally peeled his sticker off, unable to bear any reminders, but still, thank God the boy looks just like him. She faces the world brave and alone, noble in her widowhood.
I wipe my eyes and catch the couple on my left. There’s a high school pregnancy in the making. She’s driving, so it must be her car. He probably doesn’t even help pay for gas. Even so, I blame her—she’s got the car, but he’s the one taking her for a ride. He leans into her and I can’t see what his hand is doing, but his upper arm and shoulder move rhythmically. He’ll have had four new girlfriends before the baby is born. College, business—his future will remain unchanged. She, on the other hand, will weep in her room after using the pregnancy test.
What can she do? She looks like a nice girl and her car is clean. She will keep the baby. But all her plans will be ruined. Her parents will not stick by her. She will end up on welfare while he graduates college and becomes a lawyer.
I blare my horn while staring directly at them. They startle and disentangle. She adjusts her blouse. He shifts into his own seat and glances my way. I purse my lips and glare at him—I’ve got my eye on you.
When I face forward, the widow in the SUV with white stickers looks at me in her side view mirror. I wave, smile and shake my head: I wasn’t honking at you. Lord knows I don’t want to add to her troubles.
The trucker on my right is up so high, only his shoulders, chest, and muscular arm are visible to me. I wonder what parts of me are visible to him. The angle would be right for him to see my legs. Has he been looking at them? Or does he not even pay attention? He thinks I’m just a mom in a van. But I don’t have big hips or thighs. My legs still look good. It wouldn’t kill him to look at my legs.
Just as I glance in the rearview mirror, the light turns green. We press our gas pedals and move forward together.
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