How Would You Fight a Lion is free from January 30 to February 3.
Melissa’s new Wall Street job is saving her. She’s climbing out of debt, she’s getting her life together… and the boss’s son is cute. But a mysterious email threatens to destroy everything. Is Melissa working with a killer? She must discover who’s lying, who’s dangerous, and who’s just out for themselves in this smart, modern Wall Street tale.
The detective who’s been investigating the entirely accidental death of my uncle Myron Xavier Schwartz is a little cute. I don’t know if I ever mentioned that.
The detective who questioned me about the supposed poisoning of Sabina is, on the other hand, so unattractive that each time I see him, I think I’m meeting him for the first time.
Finally, the detective who questioned me about the insider trading case is ethnic.
My future ex-husband and I are finally on speaking terms again. It took a while after I punched him the face – and I admit it’s a relief since Daddy isn’t speaking to me either after the initial evidence implicates me of poisoning his fiance. Even my stalwart Charles hasn’t returned my last two phone calls and Mother is on a cruise somewhere with fjords. With a little luck, Nonna Pessia hasn’t died and I still have one ally.
You want to hear something weird? The only person who doesn’t seem to be angry at me or avoiding me is Elvis, Sabina’s ten-year-old son. He calls me at least once a day to tell me something banal, like how much he loves the fish robots he got for Christmas or how his mother is walking again. Perhaps Daddy and Sabina are sheltering him from the charges against me. Or maybe he simply doesn’t believe them. Either way, I don’t get his angle.
It would be a stretch to say that I’m starting the New Year with a clean slate, so instead I’ll just say that I hope to be cleared of all pending charges against me in 2014. Of course, I’d still like to break up the relationship between Sabina and my father, but I’ll have to put that on the back burner for now. She’s still using a walker, so I can’t imagine there’s any rush there.
Meanwhile, while I was in an Opana Xanax haze, Elvis somehow convinced me to take him to the movies, which I am going to do now. Chow, darlings.
“It is better to give than to receive.”
- Axl Rose
So here’s my new story, all wrapped up in red ribbon for you, my darlings. Jewish Christmas will be free December 18-22. Happy Holidays.
Jewish Christmas
by Jasmine Schwartz
A thirty-something woman’s playful, poignant Wizard of Oz-inspired journey on the streets of Manhattan:
It’s Jewish Christmas in Manhattan, which means Chinese takeout and a movie. Melissa Morris’s life is a mess, but she’s hiding the truth from family and friends, pretending that everything is just fine. When an old friend drags her downtown on a chaotic mission, Melissa finds herself involved in a burglary and kidnapping. In the end, she has to find the courage to face herself.
GET THE STORY
As my readers know, my future ex-husband has been spending time in a place called Queens. He goes there to visit an old girlfriend of mine named Lysette who just had a baby. He claims that when he enters her apartment, he feels a sense of calm he’s never felt before.
Some women might be insulted by this situation, but personally I’m more mystified than anything. Why would a person willingly subject themselves to spending time with something that spits up when they could be eating foie gras brule at Jean Georges?
No, it’s not these baffling excursions that got to me.
It’s also not the fact then whenever he returns from visiting Lysette, he starts talking about wanting a baby of his own. When he and I met, he was even more virulently against children than I was. It’s one of the qualities that attracted me in the first place. What woman wouldn’t fall for that?
No, readers. None of these infractions put me over the edge. It’s that when he got home, I told him about the phone call I’d just had with Daddy, how he’d accused me of poisoning Sabina, and how my Opana Xanax cocktail wasn’t working anymore.
I also told him that the detective in charge of the investigation into uncle Myron’s death left a message to tell me that a new piece of evidence was discovered and that he needed to schedule a meeting with me and my lawyer right away.
Finally, I told him that Charles called and told me that something unthinkable had happened to my portfolio and could I please come to see him tomorrow. I begged him to tell me, but he just said I should stop being histrionic in spite of my Levantine blood.
I told him all this. And do you know what he said to me? Go ahead. Take a guess.
“Mercury is in retrograde, Jasmine.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” I said.
“Just lay low for another day,” he said. “It will all be over soon.”
And that’s how it happened. I punched my future ex-husband in the face. I know any of you would have done the same.
“Is Ronan Farrow single?” my cousin Milagros Schwartz said to me today. “He’s so hot.”
It’s so like Milagros to want to date someone just because he’s Frank Sinatra’s son. You should have seen her when Prince Harry came to town, bribing her way into the Greenwich Polo club and threatening Chris Christie’s secretary.
“You’re such a star fucker,” I told her.
“What about you and Axl?” she said.
“That was completely different,” I said. We were having egg caviar at Jean-Georges but I got up and walked out. It’s a subject I refuse to discuss.
Obviously, I’m sympathetic to anyone who’s celebrity obsessed. What are we worth if we’re without some kind of attachment to fame and fortune? I tried to explain this to my future ex-husband a few minutes ago. He’d just gotten back from visiting Lysette and her new baby in Queens and he was going on and on about how empty he’s been feeling and how he wishes there were more to life than just having money and making money. He missed something so essential – spending money – but I didn’t rub it in his face. You’d think he would have been grateful, but he never even thanked me.
Ever since my meeting with badly-ageing literary agent Elaine Totsky, I admit that I’ve been giving the meaning of existence some thought. I guess being sued for defamation of character is making me doubt myself.
Yes, I’m being sued. It seems that there’s a real person named Melissa Morris out there and she’s upset by my portrayal of her in the detective novels. I don’t know why she’s so bent out of shape. She’s a “Oxfam fundraiser”, whatever that is. You’d think she’d be happy to depicted as something more interesting. Really, people are just selfish. I know there’s only one way out of this mess and it’s to figure out how to mix my Opana and Xanax in the most effective way possible. I will let you know how it goes. All advice is welcome.
Yesterday, while we were having our Highballs, my future ex-husband said to me, “Jasmine, what if it happened to you? What if you lost everything?”
“Do we have another case of Dalmore, or should you run down to Sherry Lehmann?”
“I’m serious Jasmine,” he said. “Nothing is permanent. Tomorrow you could wake up and discover that everything you had was gone.”
All I can say is, thank goodness Lysette finally went ahead and had her baby. Maybe she’ll finally leave my future ex-husband alone and stop filling his head with arcane ideas. Ever since that horrible night in Queens, he’s unrecognizable – reading books and thinking and talking about the meaning of … oh Shit. I just remembered. We are out of Dalmore.
If you’re curious to know how it all worked out, Sabina is in stable condition but still in a coma ever since she collapsed at the engagement party Elvis and I threw her in July. Really, it’s just a matter of time before Daddy forgets she ever existed and moves on with his life.
All this means I’ll have time to focus on other things, like finally getting together with my badly-ageing literary agent Elaine Totsky. We’ve scheduled two meetings and I’ve missed both of them, but I don’t see how I can be expected to remember her existence at all, what with her refusal to see my plastic surgeon.
“I don’t think your father will forget Sabina,” my future ex-husband says. He’s reading over my shoulder, again. “Elvis is staying with him until she recovers.”
“You mean ‘If’…” I say, ever optimistic.
But I admit that this news comes as a bombshell. Elvis is living with Daddy. How can this be? I never got to live in the same house as Daddy. What’s that little twit have that I haven’t?
“A mother that your father loves,” my future ex-husband offers. He’s insufferable. What I really need to do is somehow get my father out of the country. Technically, I’m not supposed to leave the country, but I’m sure I could get around that with a little help.
Maybe I should plan a ski trip this winter. Those always seem to go so well for our family.
For the record:
At the engagement party for Sabina and my father, I never called Sabina a “gold-digging, contaminated whore.”
The person who sent Elvis down to our storage space in the cellar of the building to bring up another case of Dalmore was not me. Nor did I lock him inside. Finally, when Elvis didn’t return to the penthouse for over an hour, I did not reply to Sabine, when asked about his whereabouts, that he was “probably just taking a nap.”
I most definitely did not spike Sabine’s gin rickey with a mix of valium and Opana. Does that even sound like something I would do?
When Elvis finally shlepped in covered in dust and crying, I absolutely never said, “Where the fuck is my Dalmore?”
When Sabine collapsed and someone suggested we call 911, I couldn’t have taken the battery out of all the available mobile phones, because at the time I was yelling at my errant architect, Marc Muellem, who has yet to finish renovating the bedroom. When the medics arrived, I did not fondle the biceps of one of them and aggressively insist that he drink a mint julep.
When my cousin Milagros Schwartz suggested that the wedding night have to be postponed in light of the news that Sabine had fallen into a coma, I positively did not improvise a version of the Haka after singing a refrain of “Glory, Glory Hallelujah!”.
There you have it. I hope that clears everything up. All in all, I think Elvis and I threw a very successful party. And since it is August, we’re off now to my future ex-husband’s place on Meadow Lane. I hope you’ve found a swimming pool in which to immerse yourself, and I’ll see you soon, darlings.
What’s an alter-ego? Who has the time to look these things up? I certainly don’t. But if you’re curious to know all of Jasmine’s deepest, darkest secrets, or at least her views on sex, money, yoga and gay men, here’s a podcast to enlighten you. There’s very little profanity here, so apologies in advance.
Never fight with your doorman. That’s the lesson I learned today after he let Elvis up to the penthouse.
Yes, you read it right. After weeks of calls and emails and text messages, that little runt managed to get to my front door. I knew what he wanted, which is why I’ve been avoiding him, but then there he was and as he’s only ten I could hardly punch him in the face without risking yet another law suit.
“Your Dad bought the ring!” he said. “They’re officially engaged now!”
“Go away,” I said. “I’m not hungover but I will be soon.”
“Let’s make them a party together!” he said. “We’ll have it here! Your house is so big.”
What a brown-nosing little sycophant.
“Tell you what,” I said. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks to pretend this conversation never happened. I’ll give you a thousand if you can break them up.”
“I’ll start buying decorations!” he said, grabbing the C-note. “You can make the invitation list.”
Oddly, the trait of ignoring some questions while answering the ones you expected to be asked is a trait that my father has mastered. Which means my father may like this dreadful person.
“He’s horrible,” I said after I finally got Elvis to leave. “Everything is horrible. How am I going to stop this marriage?”
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but the thoughts about the situation,” my future ex-husband said. He was on the couch reading a book, and I think he was actually quoting from it. It was one of the books that Lysette gave him. I think they’re meeting secretly.
“It’s not a secret,” he said, reading this post over my shoulder. “I told you at least a dozen times. Besides, Lysette is pregnant. And what about all your drunken binges with Charles? I never ask you about those.”
Now I’m planning an engagement party for my father and that Kosovan, gold-digging dye-job Sabina. My badly-ageing literary agent Elaine Totsky wants to have a meeting with me – she says she has news. And I still haven’t found a good lawyer to represent me in the murder case. On top of it all, I’m out of Opana. A package was supposed to arrive yesterday, but, as I mentioned, my doorman is currently hostile. What should I buy him? I need my special cocktail now more than ever – All advice is welcome.
How Would You Fight A Lion? That’s the name of my new short story.
Though the story has just come out, my readers, ever enthusiastic and faithful, have been flooding me with suggestions about how they’d go about it.
Sarah from Wasilla, for example, would shoot it with a Remington 870 Pump, and then mount the head over her fireplace. Good for you Sarah! Jasmine likes an unreconstructed approach to most things.
Lindsey from Merrick, on the other hand, would punch it between the eyes. Mel from Sydney would complain that it’s Jewish and Brett from Los Angeles would bait it with cocaine. Both ideas are creative, don’t you agree, and each, in its way, just slightly old-fashioned. Laura N. from Brooklyn would “give it a cookie”. I think we can all agree that she’s toast.
And what about you? Imagine that you’re there, in the savanna, staring into those amber eyes. Would you run, readers? Would you understand that this is the greatest moment of your soon-to-be-ended-in-horrible-fashion life?
It’s such an evocative question and really, I think the answer tells you more about a person than you’d like to know. But if you’re curious to learn how to really fight a lion, check out my new story, and stay out of the jungle, my darlings. Not all of us are equipped to brawl with the beast.
Jasmine Schwartz writes a detective series about Melissa Morris, a thirty-something New Yorker whose search for herself is constantly interrupted by the discovery of dead bodies. Jasmine Schwartz is also the pen name and personae of another writer.
© 2014 Jasmine Schwartz. All Rights Reserved.
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