“Hi, I’m Maddie Edwards, I was told…I mean…I hear you’re a writer,” a young woman of no more than twenty said
while standing at the entrance to my home office. She was so jittery, her eyes
fluttered about constantly. I suspected from personal experience that maybe she
was hopped up on way too many coffees.
“Would you like a seat?” I got out
of my swivel chair and offered her a folding chair that I keep propped against
the wall for guests.
She smiled as she sat down, and I
wondered for a moment why it took her so long to just have a seat. I suppose
that figments of your imagination don’t really have a feeling of place until
you give it to them.
“So, when I talk to you, is there
some sort of understanding about confidentiality?” she asked her arms crossed
over her chest and her voice still wavering quite a bit and I found myself
curious how much she would actually tell me about whatever situation brought
her to me in the first place.
“If you mean like doctor-patient
confidentiality, I can’t really promise that.” She abruptly seemed deflated. “Why
did you come to a writer if you don’t want to tell a story for me to share it
with others?” I answered as best I could to sound as rational as one can when
talking to a budding fictional character.
Much to my surprise, she chuckled a
bit, first looking down, and then looking straight at me. “Point taken. The
story I want to tell you is a bit of a mystery, do you like mysteries?”
“Sure, I love a good mystery, I
used to read Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew as a kid, and have been a fan of
Sherlock Holmes my whole life.”
“Cool. I like Nancy Drew too.
Holmes is great, I especially like the BBC show. There is no greater master of
the whodunit in my opinion,” she rubbed her hands together and her nerves
seemed to be subsiding every so slightly.
“True. Is this tale you wish to
share with me a whodunit as well?”
“Actually, I think whyhedidit is a
better way to classify it.”
“Okay, you have my attention, but
what does that mean?”
“I’ll just tell you the story. Trey
Goodsby, this guy I grew up with is dead. He was nineteen. His best friend Sean
McIntyre found him motionless in the bathtub.” As she said dead, I reached for
my yellow legal pad that I kept by my computer monitor and my pen from WBZ in
Boston.
“Holy cow. Was he murdered?”
“No, all signs point to either
accidental or suicide. So, I guess it’s like I said before, more of a
‘whyhedidit’.”
“Oh, I know what you mean now. What
else can you tell me?”
“I don’t know all that much. But, I
think Sean can tell you a lot more. One problem though, he’s a bit shy.”
“Is that why you’re here instead of
him? Did he want you to come to me first to break the ice so to speak?”
“No, he doesn’t even know that I’m
here,” Wind whistled gently through the pine trees outside my window, and she
glanced over at them suspiciously.
“Why were you so concerned about
confidentiality if you were just going to have me talk to your friend about
this Trey guy’s death?” I tapped my blue pen on the pad, she watched me nervously,
then her eyes locked onto mine.
She went on to explain about why
though she and Sean hadn’t been in communication for a while, he would be a
better person to tell this story. While she had limited memory where she only recalled
certain things in life due to some traumatic event in her early childhood, he
apparently had eidetic
memory where he could remember complete details of experiences. She suggested I
don’t need to do any research beforehand. The story would best be served if I just
let him tell Trey’s tale, almost like dictation.
“How do I know you’ll have him come
in here if you didn’t want anyone to know you were here?”
“I wanted to see if I could trust
you first. It takes me forever to open up to someone. However, I am a good judge
of character, so when I finally talk to Sean again, I’ll let him know to come
in and talk to you when he’s ready.”
* *
* *
Several months
later, when I was starting to work on a romantic comedy screenplay
involving two characters on a road trip, guess who came a knocking at my door. A
non-descript guy who could’ve been as young as seventeen and as old as
twenty-one walked right in and got in my face, but not in a threatening manner.
I suspect it was more of a way to observe me. He continued looking at me as if
waiting for me to speak first.
“Hi, can I help you?” I asked, not
knowing what else to say.
“Yeah, how are you doing? I’m Sean
McIntyre. I want to tell you about Trey Goodsby who died in my apartment just
about a year and a half ago. My friend Madeline told me if I tell his story I
can possibly help some folks who are contemplating suicide or those affected by
it.”
“Sure. Do you mind if I take
notes?” I asked reaching for the very same yellow legal pad I jotted down notes
on during Maddie’s visit.
“I’d rather just tell the story to
you straight, if that’s okay.” I remembered her telling me to just do dictation
when he told the tale.
I nodded and leaned down to turn on
the tower to my Mac. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see he’s looking at his
feet. This may take awhile, I think
to myself.
As I open up a new Word document on
my screen, I say, “Okay, we can begin whenever you’re ready.” He shrugs, so I
know I should try my best to make it easy on him, “Do you have a title in
mind?”
“Isosceles. It’s gotta be named,
Isosceles. Trey would have wanted it that way,” a small mournful grin crept
across his face.
“Good title, shall we begin?” I
said patting him on the shoulder. He took a deep breath. While I looked solely
at the blank screen, and my fingers were ready to go on asdf and jkl;, he began
to speak . . .
The novel takes the reader on a journey through the thirteen-year
friendship between Sean McIntyre and Trey
Goodsby and up to the tragic end of Trey's life, then goes into what effect his
death has on Sean and those closest to the two boys.
About the Book:
When he finds his best friend Trey Goodsby dead and almost
completely submerged in a bathtub filled with bloody water, Sean McIntyre is
determined to find out if it was an accident or suicide. Did his death
accidental or intentional have anything to do with Madeline Edwards, the woman
who came between them constantly through their thirteen-year friendship? The
tale begins with the death of Trey Goodsby, and explores his relationships with
family, friends, his romances, and which of the circumstances he found himself
in that led to the tragic event, and the repercussions for those he left
behind.
If you have
that feeling that you're coming up short...what will it take to feel equal?
Publisher: MuseItUp Publishing
eBook ISBN: 978-1-77127-239-1
Publication Date: January 2013
Genre of Book: Young Adult- Coming Of Age, Mystery/Romance
Places where available for sale: MuseItUpPublishing.com,
Amazon.com, Bookstrand, Omnilit, Kobo, Smashwords and B&N
About the Author:
While this is his first novel, he wrote and directed a
dramatic feature, co-wrote and directed a documentary and wrote for an online
magazine. He’s also a trained voice, stage, and screen actor. In addition
to his creative pursuits, he is passionate about healthy living. He follows a
mostly self-directed fitness quest consisting of weight training, walking,
swimming, yoga, and hula hooping. When not working out, he also enjoys cooking
healthy gourmet meals as well as playing board games with family and friends
with plenty of coffee brewing to keep the fun going until the wee hours of the
morning.
Follow Scott R. Caseley at
Twitter URL: twitter.com/scottrcaseley
