On Sunset Beach: The Chesapeake Diaries by Mariah Stewart

Author:Mariah Stewart [Stewart, Mariah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Contemporary, Contemporary Women, Sagas
ISBN: 9780345546753
Google: ehuBAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0345538439
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 2014-06-30T14:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

“WHAT I want is for you to write your article and print it out for me,” Grace replied after Ford called to ask her what she wanted him to do with the notes from his interview with Carly. “And use fourteen-point font so that I can read it. And I want two copies. One single spaced, the other triple spaced.”

“Why—”

“So that I have enough room to correct your grammar.”

“What makes you think I don’t know how to write using correct grammar?”

“Well, since I hardly ever saw a letter from you, I don’t have much to judge by, do I?”

She’s on her way back, Ford mused as he hung up the phone. Almost herself again.

He wrote the article and printed it out as she had instructed, and took both copies to her in her hospital room. He was feeling pretty good about it, thinking he’d done a bang-up job on the article. It wasn’t something he’d particularly enjoyed doing—he wasn’t the writer in the family, and he’d never had any aspirations to follow in his mother’s footsteps, but still, he was pretty sure she’d be delighted with his effort. After all, he’d had a pretty special subject to write about. So he was unprepared for his mother’s reaction.

“Try again,” she said, waving the sheets of paper at him with her left hand.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, for one thing, it reads with as much verve as a phone book. For another, you need to learn how to properly use commas.” She sniffed. “We still use the Oxford comma at the paper, dear. Some feel it’s passé, but I prefer it.”

“What’s the Oxford comma?” He frowned.

“There’s a book on proper usage on the shelf in my office at the paper. Strunk and White’s Elements of Style.”

“Anything else?” He folded his arms and tried not to appear petulant, though he was feeling much like a chastised child at that moment. He couldn’t believe she was criticizing his work because she didn’t like the way he used commas.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.” She adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose and glared at him through the lenses. “You say very little about Carly, and what you do say, well, you could be talking about anyone.”

“The article is about Carly.”

“Supposedly. But we get to the end and we don’t know her, and that’s the whole point of the article. We want the people in St. Dennis—the intended readers of the piece—to feel as if they know her.”

He stared at her blankly. “I’m sorry. I don’t get it.”

“I read your article three times. I don’t know what she looks like, I don’t know what her voice sounds like. I don’t know how she feels about the project. Is she enthused, or is she just going through the motions? You did give me some facts, but you didn’t give me Carly Summit. You didn’t even give me a photo. Try again.”

“Mom …”

“Oh, you can do this, Ford. Don’t look at me like that.

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