B J Radcliffe

I Could Always Be a Waitress B J Radcliffe

This is the comic story of Joan Baldwin as a young mother in E. R. A. 1977 life and then as an older woman living in a small Atlantic coast town in Florida, struggling all her life to find her voice and her place in the midst of her overbearing and controlling husband, self-centered daughter, withdrawing son and a baby grandson named Excelsior (dumped into her life by their ever- running-away daughter Susan). Joan, now in 2011 a mental health counselor, tries to keep her granddaughter Emily from attaching herself one of Joan's clients--a sociopathic charmer named Derreck, who belongs to an organization so secret "that the C. I. A. doesn't even know of its existence". Everpresent at the edges is Banana Bay, Florida, a tropical paradise kept in check by asphalt and concrete, just waiting its chance with its alligators and snakes to revert back into jungle. Then there's Annabella, the Marilyn Monroe lookalike; Fr. Wolfe, the Episcopalian ex-football star who "punts for the Lord"; his wife Margaret who bakes a coconut cake which Banana Bay's oldest inhabitant accidentally chokes to death on, the town dentist who yearns to go west and ride a horse; his gossipy wife; and at the center Joan, who must hide her shameful secret that as a mental health counselor she only has one client. Add a hurricane, a smelly dog, a murderous Key lime pie and Joan's agorophobia, and enjoy this taste of Florida life.