Karaoke in Portland

Copyright © 2022 by Marika Armstrong.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/21/2022

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

840983

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Challenge

Chapter 2 The Oregon Connection

Chapter 3 Out of Iowa

Chapter 4 Life Maintenance

Chapter 5 Growing up McPherson

Chapter 6 College

Chapter 7 Romance

Chapter 8 Marriage

Chapter 9 The Expanding Family

Chapter 10 Children and Other Animals

Chapter 11 Adjustments

Chapter 12 Disintegration

Chapter 13 Tune in Tomorrow

Chapter 14 Adjustment

Chapter 15 Community

Chapter 16 Art and Life

Chapter 17 New Year

Chapter 18 Reckoning

Chapter 19 Finale

Cast of Characters

Chapter 1

The Challenge

Never underestimate the power of blackmail to change a life. When I awoke to the sound of rain that October morning, I considered staying in bed for the rest of the day. I had no job to go to and a doctor’s appointment I would rather skip. Getting up seemed like too much effort, and pretending to be productive was exhausting. Burying my face in the pillow, I tried to ignore the thought that was slowly pushing its way to the forefront of my mind.

Oh yes, lunch with Kate. If I didn’t show up, she’d drive over and drag me out of the house. I groaned and stumbled to the kitchen to make coffee. Disgusting, I thought. The sink was full of dirty dishes, and clothes and sports equipment were piled on every available surface. Somebody hadn’t been doing their chores.

*     *     *

Three hours later, I sat in Kate’s gleaming kitchen, drinking tea and griping. It’s not fair, I said. I live with three other adults. We have a chore schedule, but the place is still a mess. The only organizing that gets done is done by me. Me! The person least equipped to do it. I should have been a bear, peacefully hibernating in her cave, buried under a pile of leaves or something.

Knowing you, a big pile of something, she said. As I remember, you threatened Roxie’s life the last time she tried to rearrange your kitchen.

I chose to ignore that. I’d come out to forage in the spring, after it stopped raining.

You’d starve, she said. It never stops raining in Portland.

Kate could be maddening. I’d have gotten a degree in ursine studies, I continued. A double major in ursine studies and social work. I could have worked for a zoo and made a lot of money running socialization groups for bears.

You already live in a zoo, she pointed out, and you’ve spent years trying to socialize bears. It’s called child-rearing. You’re done, and now you need an outlet for your creative weirdness. Like this. She shoved a folded newspaper in my face and jabbed her finger at an article. It’s called NaNoWriMo. People all over the country are going to write fifty thousand words in November. They count your words, and if you write fifty thousand, they’ll give you a certificate.

Now that’s an incentive, I said. Only fifty thousand words in a month, you say. As I have better things to do and November is only five days away, I think I’ll decline. It’s not as if I have anything to write about anyway.

Quit whining, she said. Write down all those stories you’ve been talking about for years. You’ve got the time, and since I’m feeling generous, I’ll extend your deadline until April 1. If you don’t finish it by then, Roxie and I will drag you off to a karaoke bar and make you sing ‘Boots.’

Only fifty thousand words. Kate had that self-satisfied look on her face that she gets when she’s just rearranged someone’s life. I didn’t bother to argue. Ours is an unlikely friendship. She’s everything that I’m not—beautiful, decisive, and successful. Bossy. Unlike me, she makes all the right choices. Despite this, we’ve been friends forever, even moving to Portland and eventually raising our children together.

I sighed. I’d better start writing, or she and Roxie would drag me up to the microphone and force me to sing in front of our friends. They’d do it because my daughter, Roxie, is a conniving brat, and Kate has the blackmail material that only a college roommate can have. Of course, she’d already told my kids a lot of the stories, so what difference would a few more make? Seeing her smirk, I dismissed the idea.

*     *     *

I fell for a journalism major in my freshman year. He should probably have been in theater since he was the star of his own drama. I spent my first semester giddily orbiting around him until he decided he needed a new leading lady. Sighing tragically, I retreated to my bed with a bag of Tootsie Rolls and spent the next week writing bad poetry and gaining five pounds. By Friday night, Kate had had enough. Stomping into our dorm room, she began rummaging through my clothes. What are you doing? I asked listlessly.

I’m trying to find you something presentable to wear, she said. She shook her head at the selection. You’re going out.

"No, you are going out, I said. Now!"

You bet! It’s the weekend, there’s a party, and you’re coming with me, she said as she grabbed the Tootsie Rolls. I snatched them back and growled.

I never had a chance. She has five younger brothers whose lives she still directs from a distance. Before I knew it, I was wearing one of her shirts and listening to music with a beer in my hand. Not long after that, my former boyfriend walked into the room with his newest acquisition—a sorority girl with perfect blonde hair. I seethed as I watched them whispering together and laughing as they looked in my direction. The nerve of them.

Straightening my back, I sat up in my chair and smiled. As I watched him posturing, I wondered what I had seen in him. In another five years, he’d be fat and doing a comb-over; yet there he sat, preening as if he were God’s gift to a grateful feminine populace. Danny boy was overdue for a lesson, and I was just the person to teach it.

I don’t really drink—maybe a glass of wine occasionally. There’s a reason. That night, I sat back to wait and had a beer whenever someone offered me one. When they played These Boots Are Made for Walking, I knew that lessoning time had arrived. Thanks to Mom, who had played it over and over for months, I knew all the words.

When I pushed my chair away from the table and wobbled to my feet, Kate tried to push me back into it. Ignore him and sit down! she hissed.

I shoved her away and exclaimed, No! I’m gonna sing along with Nancy. I have never had any problem projecting. When we were kids, my brother used to complain that he could hear me all the way down the block. Kate knew when to back down.

I suppose I got a bit creative with the lyrics. I remember people laughing and yelling, You tell ’em, girl! By the time I finished with a triumphant growl, One of these days, these boots are gonna walk all over you, the frat guys were howling like wolves, and Dan was staring straight ahead. The blonde looked like she wanted to crawl under the table. I took a bow, blew them a kiss, and exited with a womanly strut.

Unfortunately, I ruined the effect by tripping over the feet of a good-looking guy. He gave me an appreciative look, helped me up, and said, That was the best show that I’ve seen in a long time. He told me later that he decided he was going to be careful to stay on my good side, because there was no telling what I might do.

He should have remembered that. It would have saved us both a lot of trouble.

*     *     *

Returning to the present, I demanded, Why are you so determined that I do this?

Kate stared into her teacup and said quietly, I’ve been worried about you. It’s as if you’ve been slowly fading. I’m afraid that if you don’t do something soon, the woman I’ve known will disappear.

I blinked rapidly and grabbed a cookie. All right! I said. I’ll write it. It’ll serve you right if I hand you my journal.

Ooh, juicy, she said.

You’ve got it. It will be full of the scandalous adventures of Kate Myles. I’ll put them in a blog, - as soon as I get Nick to show me how. Then you and Roxie will sing the dinosaur song in front of all those people I know you’re going to invite.

She laughed. I don’t think so. My cat’s more tech savvy than you are, and your son would never let himself be trapped in a room with you and a computer. I’m going to record you, and we’ll play ‘Boots’ on special occasions.

Dream on, I said, and start practicing the dinosaur song.

So, - that’s why I’m sitting in front of a computer, participating in the great NaNoWriMo.

CHAPTER 2

The Oregon Connection

McPhersons

I was meant to live in Portland. Sara, my gardening friend, would say God transplanted me back into the family plot. Maybe. I suspect that He had more important things to think about. A more likely explanation is family background and conditioning. I tried the conditioning on my kids with very little success. Oh well.

Dad was an old Oregon boy. According to family stories, his parents, James and Margaret McPherson, moved to the eastern part of the state a year or two before the Crash. They intended to lead a peaceful life, farming and raising cattle. Most people who knew my grandfather thought it a strange decision, considering he had worked in the family store from the time he could stand on a box and see over the counter. However, it made perfect sense to me, considering what I knew about his family.

It was the old story—an overbearing father and a stubborn young man, each convinced of their own infallibility. Old Hiram McPherson held the lives of his family tightly in his righteous grasp, with the exception of his youngest son, James. Grandfather’s relative independence probably stemmed from the fact that he had spent a lot of time on his uncle Josiah’s farm, helping out during planting season and harvest. The time spent in that relatively relaxed household must have seemed like a glimpse of breathtaking freedom. He fought his father’s control at every opportunity, and his father retaliated by doing his best to intimidate his son and daughter-in-law.

Years later, Grandma told my mom, You know, I grew up on a farm and was happy to leave all that work behind when I got married. But after a year, if James had told me he wanted to raise camels in Timbuktu, I would have agreed for the sake of a little peace. He and his father were like a pair of mules, constantly kicking and braying at each other.

With uncharacteristic anger, she continued, Nobody who saw his father sitting in church, or shaking hands after the service would believe what a tyrant he was at home. His wife was a poor downtrodden creature, and his children didn’t have an ounce of gumption between them. James was the only one who wouldn’t let their father walk on him, so the old man did his best to make our lives miserable.

Instead of Timbuktu, they chose Oregon. After Granddad withdrew his carefully hoarded savings, the two of them packed up their worldly possessions and drove away. The sound of his mother sobbing and his father roaring prophesies of ruin and starvation followed them down the road. They bought land cheaply, - and held on to the farm longer than anybody would have thought. The fact that they survived at all was a testament to a stubborn determination to prove the old man wrong.

Concern for Grandma finally convinced my grandfather to sell. She had given birth to two children, one of them stillborn, and had not been able to recover her strength. Sorrow and never - ending work had worn her down. Granddad was an optimist, but finally, even he was forced to admit he made a better storekeeper than farmer.

A grocer in town had been talking to him about entering into a partnership. Reid was old, with no family to help him, and was ready to slow down a little. As shopkeeping was beginning to sound good to my grandfather, he hesitantly asked Grandma what she thought of the idea. Before he could finish the sentence, she shouted yes! kissed him enthusiastically, and sat down at the kitchen table to write one of her brothers, who was looking for land. The idea of moving to town restored her hope and energy. As soon as the farm sold, she had their possessions packed and ready to move before you could say, Whoa, Margie!

The early years were both hard and exciting. They had two more children, and managed to buy Mr. Reid’s share of the business. One month after he dug the dusty bottle out from the back of the closet to toast their success, the old man died in his sleep. That morning, Margie knocked on the door to check on him, and found him rolled up in his blankets, seemingly asleep, with a smile on his face.

Over her protests, he had given her instructions about what to do in the event of his death. Now, tearfully following orders, she reached under his bed and pulled out a box. When she and Grandpa opened it, they found Reid’s will and most of the money they had paid him. He had left them the house and everything he owned. They buried him in the churchyard, and placed a tombstone over his grave inscribed with his name, dates, and the single word, Friend.

James and Margaret prospered and became pillars of the community and of the First Baptist Church. Grandpa served on the school board, while Grandma presided over a series of