Scroll down to read the stories of our prize winners.
First Place: "Unanswered" by Sylvia Wong, Redwood Writers
Does every girl want to go to the ball with the Prince? And does every girl get a chance? Other than the glass slippers, I got the whole fantasy.
I met Tony Danetela at the University of Michigan’s all women’s dormitory cafeteria. I was an under-graduate working in the kitchen as a waitress and Tony was a busboy there. He didn’t need the money, but he enjoyed getting away from his medical books and doing something physical.
Maybe he also liked being the celebrity of the dining room. Tall with a distinguished forehead that turned his face handsome rather than cute, he was “Mr. It”—a mega Italian chick magnet. He had a keen intelligence and his great wondering eyes feasted on his surroundings with awareness and curiosity. His self-deprecating humor kept him from being egotistical and vain which can make many good-looking men appear vacuous and tiresome.
I think he noticed me because I was clueless and near-sighted as I didn’t wear my contacts when I was setting tables. Shy and barely noticed in high school, I had an under-developed social radar system. When he started making friendly overtures, I gave him my blank Asian look. It was only when one of the girls saw me talking to him and said, "I see you've just been doing what every red-blooded American girl in the dormitory is dying to do,” that I perked up. I began to notice that Tony was indeed the "John F Kennedy, Robert Redford" type, though not in the White House or on a movie screen, but right here in the Victor Vaughan Dormitory, washing the dishes and interested in me.
At first it was little flirty stuff, with Tony saying, “Jean, you’ve got a button missing,” as he eyed my form-fitting waitress uniform buttoned all the way down the front accentuating what he later called my “tough” body. Or he’d grab a strand of my waist-long hair and give it a little shake while I was trying to stuff it into a tiny hair net. He’d kid around with a relaxed approach that was spontaneous and disarming. He had a sure touch—not a boy, but a man.
Like two warriors, we settled down to the basics. He was a pre-med student, member of a prestigious medical fraternity. His family came from the wealthy Detroit area of Grosse Point. He was the perfect target for someone like me with my argumentative nature to try to knock down.
“How do you know you want to be a doctor?”
“What do mean, how do I know?”
“You’re probably just trying to be successful and make money just to please your dad.”
“Hey, what’s wrong with money and success?”
“Nothing, if you know you just want to be a contented pig wallowing in mud.”
So that was our dynamic. He may have sensed he was locked into a prescribed path toward achievement and was attracted to my “unexamined life not worth living” mindset. It didn’t hurt that I often refused to go out with him when he called. But only because I was always dieting and was inaccessible when I deemed myself too fat to be seen.
Dense as I could be concerning so many social interactions, I did know how to be cool and not expose the tremors of my nervous system. So there was lots of bantering and hanging out before our first kiss. Even now, the memory of his head bending down and my hand reaching up to touch his face gently stirs my heart—sweet, simple, exquisite. The world spun and flopped about.
Tony had an apartment off campus. We would spend time there, go to a movie, or take a walk. Fall moved into unthinkably cold Michigan days and though we weren’t officially “going together,” we’d gone beyond the beginning surface chatter. It didn’t hurt that we both had a sense of humor and felt free to tease each other. He called my hamburgers “sugar” burgers when I brushed them with my soy and catsup sauce. I called him the “organizational man” due to his disciplined study habits. We spoke about our families, their expectations, the kind of talk that comes up when you trust someone to hear you. We were both good listeners and the differences in our backgrounds kept us intrigued.
One night after he drove me home and walked me to the door of the dormitory, he said. "Jean, I love you and that's about the most honest thing I can say." He then quickly turned and walked back to his car.
I was stunned. That night was the first time in my life when I couldn't sleep at all. He loved me! His pronouncement felt like a royal proposal of marriage and I was the chosen princess. I was thrilled, but confused. What did this mean? Where would it all lead? What about the whole racial issue? I couldn't quite imagine his Grosse Pointe family being charmed with my Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? appearance.
I’m a casual, even sloppy dresser. College life was perfect for me as everyone just wore jeans and tennis shoes. If I lived in Tony’s world, would I have to wear tailored clothes and heels. I had long black hair which I usually wore down, maybe a pony tail and if I was feeling playful, pigtails. But I cut my own hair. If Tony and I ever actually got married, would I also have to be suitably coiffed? These thoughts sifted through my mind, incessant and unexpressed.
Spring hit Ann Arbor, a generous apology for winter’s harshness. Color took over with splashes of bright yellow daffodils, pink and purple peeps of anemones, and the quiet blue charm of scilla blossoms. Lilacs filled the campus with their scent and loveliness. Life was teeming with growth and energy and the air felt charged with potency and passion. I’d spent a delightful weekend with Tony and Sunday night I cooked a fine dinner at his apartment. Snuggling in bed in the candle-lit darkness, Tony turned to me and said, "Jean, do you love me?"
I replied... "No." Complete silence. The silence continued for the next few seconds, ticking slowly into minutes. It stretched into an hour and endlessly lengthened throughout the night as we finally both fell asleep. The silence was miserably present when we woke up that morning, got dressed, and he drove me back to the dormitory. Our goodbye was perfunctory and brief, even though we would never see each other again,
Did it occur to me during that silence to say, "What I mean is I'm not sure I love you." Or, "Yes, I do love you but I'm afraid," or, "Love, you! Are you kidding? I'm smitten with you! or, "I don't mean I "don't love you," but... "
A million thoughts raced through my head on that night and I've had no end of time to wonder about that silence. Did I not care about him? My recurring dreams for the next couple of years where telephone calls with him are abruptly interrupted or meetings are missed proved the importance of our bond.
Sometimes I think I was just a coward. I was intimidated by Tony, his glamour, and his world. I didn't have the confidence to feel that I could ever fit in. Afraid that he’d want me beautifully thin and fashionably dressed, I was uneasy about falling short of his high standards. I remember going out to dinner with him and searching desperately for a topic when the conversation started to lag. Was I clever or interesting enough? Sure, we’d had some great conversations, but I felt like I had to draw on all the reserves of my intelligence and wit to deliver a command performance and keep him interested. Being with him was more like being summoned by a king rather than feeling laid back and giggly with my best friend.
At other times, I flatter myself that some deep, wise part of me took over. I didn't have the voice to articulate it, but I sensed that this kind of dazzling schoolgirl crush was not to be trusted. I loved him but not for the right reasons. It was the longing to be a part of his star quality that had my head spinning. I would have spent years trying to live his worldly values rather than discovering my own lifestyle and way.
As my mind scans each nuanced layer of that inexplicable silence, I wish I could hand in my excuse on a piece of paper and have it stamped "granted." I'd like to be judged on the side of sagacity and reason and not be accused of idiocy and lost chances. But I suspect that an unequivocal “right" or "wrong" will never be gleaned from the crystal ball, and that this long-ago quandary will continue to faintly echo with a barely audible, unanswered pulse.
Second Place: "A Memory of CSUN" by Ceasar Camarillo, Redwood Writers
I waited decades after completing my undergraduate degree before starting post graduate work at the age of 40. In 1997, I was teaching in Glendale, CA. After two years of juggling work and grad school, I was delighted to receive the Master's in Educational Administration at California State University Northridge (CSUN). I completed the orals and exams with high marks, and was graduating with “Distinction,” a badge of academic honor I wore quite proudly. I had to because, apparently, the various cum laudes were unavailable that day. Maybe they were busy.
Two months before graduation, CSUN sent me a confusing letter so I called for clarification. A young man (a fine undergrad, I believed) said, “Sir, our records show that you never took the Writing Proficiency Test required for entry to the master's program, so you can’t graduate until you take the test.”
I patiently explained that, actually, I was graduating in about a month, but he persisted.
"You need to take this test."
Thinking him now a struggling student, I said, “You want me to take a writing proficiency test to determine if I can get into the master's program that I just spent two years completing, and am now graduating from With Distinction?” I hit with that term of academic prestige, thinking that it should be worth something. He hemmed and hawed and said, “Yes, well, you still need to take this writing exam.”
“To get into the program,” I repeated.
“Yes.”
“...that I’m graduating from,” I reminded him, thinking him now an addled high schooler.
Prior to becoming a teacher, I had spent a decade as a Security Specialist at Jet Propulsion Laboratory writing federal agency manuals and guidelines. If I learned anything at all about bureaucracies, it's that resistance is futile. I could hear my cop father in Texas saying, "Boy, you can't fight city hall!" I knew I would waste money, time and effort trying to correct this, so I agreed to take the test. Sure, why not? It’ll be fun, I thought.
That Saturday, I joined dozens of anxious applicants who nervously hoped to rise to the occasion. But me? Please. I was graduating...with distinction.
In walked the proctor. She told a few jokes to put us at ease, then said, “Your writing prompt for this essay is as follows: Think about something that you accomplished for the very first time. Perhaps the first time you went skydiving, or attended an opera, whatever. Tell us all about it.” She gave us a time limit and we began.
Eazy peezy! Back then, I had recently published a feature for an outdoor-adventures publication. The article described a weeklong backpack I'd done that began with a train ride aboard one of the last four steam trains in America, the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad.
In an open-air car, we travelled north along the Animas River with its incredible backcountry of fourteen-thousand-foot peaks in the distance. We entered the Weminuche Wilderness amid jaw dropping vistas as we crossed old wooden bridges that spanned emerald green canyons below.
The train dropped us at the Chicago Basin, a backcountry access point to enter the San Juan Mountains. My friend and I ascended the Columbine Pass and made camp at two twin lakes at 12,000 feet elevation. From that hanging valley, we summited two 14,000-foot peaks, Mounts Windham and Sunlight, but failed to ascend a third peak when we were caught in a hail storm. We scurried off the trail and sequestered in our tent, drinking rum and playing cards while the storm raged into the night.
Sometime after midnight, the noise stopped. It was the silence that woke us. We exited the tent beside these twin lakes to see that the night sky had cleared. Above us was a bright white moon in a cloudless sky; a million stars shone brightly. All the hail that lay at our feet reflected the moon and starlight, and it seemed as if we were standing in a sea of diamonds.
That was my first time riding a steam train. It was also my first foray into the Wimenuche Wilderness. It was a story worth retelling, so this was what I wrote about that morning. The trip remains the most memorable outdoor adventure I have ever enjoyed in the mountains, and it was a pleasure to share it once more. I turned it in and happily resumed my graduation plans.
Later that week while at school, I received a phone call from CSUN. The young man I spoke to informed me that I had failed the test.
I spit out my coffee.
“What...did you say?” I asked him, certain that he has misread the results, or confused me with someone else.
“You failed the writing test, sir.”
“What (insert expletive) are you talking about?" I spelled out my name, making certain he had the right one.
"I failed the exam? What the hell does that mean?”
He sensed my disappointment. Ok, maybe some indignation. He explained that because I had failed, I now needed to sign up to take an entry-level Freshman writing class.
I could be wrong, but I believe people will generally agree that I am quite the congenial fellow, even tempered and quick with a smile. Patient. But as I dealt with this error, teachers fled the staff room as I introduced them to the other me, the one with, apparently, an anger-infused personality disorder.
With some volume, I demanded that this village fool on the phone pick up my paper and tell me exactly what was wrong with it. Tell me one thing I did in error, I insisted. He said he couldn’t do that. Gathering what civility I could still muster to mask my homicidal intents, I calmly asked him his name and his current location. Law enforcement officials and clinical psychologists might have advised otherwise, but he complied.
I was supposed to be teaching that day, but I stormed into the principal’s office and ranted while she slowly inched backwards. Instinctively, she knew better than to argue with angered Tex-Mexicans. She told me to leave and to go take care of it.
I drove like a madman, white-knuckled through LA traffic as I made my way to CSUN and to this office where the university's administrative simpleton was waiting. I found him wide-eyed, sitting at a desk, holding my paper.
I picked it up and said, “All right, I'm here. Tell me what’s wrong with it.” He babbled a bit but grew mute as I insisted, “Find me one thing that’s wrong with this paper.” He said he couldn’t do that.
"Then change the grade!"
He said he wasn't authorized to do that.
Leaning in, I asked, “Then, who do you work for?”
Over the next hour I was forwarded to a department supervisor, and then the manager, and then to the department head. No one could find an error or explain the failed grade. And apparently, no one at this fly-by-night university was authorized to change the grade.
With each confrontation, I demanded, “Then, who do you work for?”
Unbelievably, this academic fiasco was escalated to the highest office to explain why I had failed. By late morning I found myself sitting in the Dean’s office, grinding my teeth, waiting for her to arrive. Trust me, I was prepared to ask who she worked for.
Sitting quietly beside me was a nervous looking assistant Dean, no doubt a real-life example of the Peter Principle. He was holding my crumpled paper in his hand when the Dean walked in, a stately looking woman clearly in a hurry.
“Is that her? Is that the Dean?” I asked as I stood.
“Ma'm, my name is (insert unhinged person's name) and I would like…”
Having been previously briefed, she was having none of it. Walking quickly to her office she waved her hand dismissively and said, “No, no, just hand me his paper. Give it to me! Give it!”
She snatched up my paper, entered her office and slammed the door.
It grew quiet. After several minutes I heard her laughing. I had inserted a few humorous moments from the trip and I really wanted to know what she was reading. Whatever I had written was clearly working some magic, as was the intent.
Suddenly her door flew open and she handed me my paper. Her eyes were sparkling. She had a gracious smile on her face as she said, “This was wonderful, thank you for sharing it with me.”
She looked at the administrative minion who had accompanied me and said in a withering voice, “Give this man an 'A' and get him out of my office.”
She could’ve shattered glassware with that stare. I was never prouder of my writing as I was at that moment. God bless that woman.
Unbelievably, CSUN occasionally requests an alumni donation. I always respectfully refuse, explaining that I've unfortunately contracted Mexican Alzheimers.
These days, I seem to forget everything but the grudges.
Third Place: "The Crossing" by Nicki Ehrlich, Central Coast Writers
The more I read about solo sailing, from Joshua Slocum to Tania Aebi, the more I wanted to taste that freedom—the solitude, being in the moment, bound to nature. Forty loomed on the horizon, an age that meant little to me but came up in conversation as a time to settle, take stock, choose a direction. I chose to ignore it.
Summer on the Puget Sound offers fluctuating winds, if any, but I set off from Gig Harbor in my 30-foot Catalina sailboat to solo cruise to Port Townsend, bound for the San Juan Islands. As I glanced at the wind vane on top of the mast, a pair of eagles nesting in the tall pines just outside the harbor caught my attention. I felt pangs of parental guilt, missing my daughter who was spending time with her grandparents while I enjoyed solitude. The cradle that was the boat and the song of the auxiliary diesel engine lulled me into introspection.
Washington’s Puget Sound displays a labyrinth of forested islands, attracting the adventurous by land and sea. The Straits of Juan de Fuca separate mainland Washington from the idyllic San Juan Islands and the utopia of the Canadian Gulf Islands beyond. Once clear of Pt. Wilson, I’d keep an eye out for Smith Island on my way to Cattle Pass and the San Juan Channel. Nothing but twenty nautical miles of water stood between me and a solo journey into paradise.
Early morning in Port Townsend, I woke cocooned in the aft berth. My mind opened to a tranquil dawn on the first day of Fogust. My boat yawned lazily at the dock. The fog horn sang a morning lullaby, no rush. Sometimes, fog gathered at dusk as the daytime air cooled. Sometimes, it crept in overnight, creating, as it did that morning, a blind greeting when I opened the hatch.
I welcomed the fog at home; with nowhere to go, I found it soothing. Like closing the drapes in the afternoon, an opportunity to become private. But out on the water, fog could present an exhausting conundrum. Hidden logs could pop up in front of an unwary sailor, sound could play tricks on the ears, warnings coming from scattered directions. No one left port in the fog.
I walked to the cafe where the smell of coffee and bacon mixed with the sea air as I eavesdropped on the locals. “It’ll clear by noon,” they said. “Maybe.”
One can’t be in a hurry when traveling by sailboat. I’d sailed in the San Juans before, but this was the first time on my own boat, sailing solo. I did my homework and marked my charts. I rigged the sails and secured the cabin. The boat lay ready.
The fog began to lift around ten o’clock. I smiled at its early dissipation, believing I’d have extra time to settle in at Friday Harbor, my next stop. Having gotten this far, I felt a bit smug. I untied the boat, motored out, and found my heading.
I should have had another cup of coffee in the diner. I might have heard sailors, saltier than I, talking about a phenomenon that can occur exiting Admiralty Inlet off Pt. Wilson. There, a monster hides dormant beneath the waves until tide and currents mix just right, luring a naive sailor, falsely confident, into its trap.
Just outside the harbor, the straits beckoned, placid, flat. No wind, so I kept the diesel engine running. Remnants of morning mist wafted before the bow, camouflaging what came next—a sudden undersea tempest.
Here I stood, my first crossing of the Straits solo, the reality of sailing hitting me smack on the bow. I thought back to my first roller-coaster ride, the pregnant pause at the top, getting a glimpse of the downhill side, the bottom about to be pulled out, wanting to get off. I thought back to giving birth; all the dreams and fantasy tossed in the wind by torment and fear, you want to quit—but you cannot. You’re all in.
If I didn’t know the Earth was round, I could have believed I stood ready to fall off the edge of this fluid planet. My boat bucked a six-foot chop, rising to a gut-flipping airborne sensation of flight, crashing into a resistant trough. This wasn’t a rhythmic wave sequence; this water and I shared a confusion devoid of understanding. Lost in the depths of each trough, finding the horizon again on the peak of each wave, all I could do was hold on to the wheel, gape at the foamy crests, and hope the fiberglass hull proved as strong as advertised.
The sea, a watery face of nature unconcerned with petty human emotions, rages without anger, calms without love; she simply is. I couldn’t blame her. And from where I balanced at the helm, I couldn’t see a way out of this ordeal. To turn the boat around would risk taking the seas side-on, rolling us for sure. I saw no choice but to keep pushing forward. Speed equals distance divided by time.
Training and instinct took over the mechanics: steering, holding on, keeping the rpm up. The headsails, still lashed to the deck, dipped into the waves with the bow. The propeller, somewhere under my feet, struggled between dead air and surging seas.
My subconscious, clinging to sanity, considered all the times I’d made choices that changed my life. Moving to Gig Harbor with my ten-year-old daughter, to live aboard a thirty-foot sailboat, breached the surface.
I thought of Tsonoqua, a mythological spirit of the Pacific Northwest’s Kwakiutl tribe. I’d read about her disparate reputation for good and evil—an ability to bestow great wealth, in contrast with her penchant for luring and snacking on wayward children. Could I have been caught in her legendary spell?
Looking away from the maw of surrounding seas, like one would a terrible accident, my face turned toward the heavens. I searched for an eagle. Or God.
Like a cliché, I braced at the helm, frozen. I’d heard the stories before, the ones sailors haul back from the sea, stowed belowdecks until the next salty pub, waiting for the question, “How was it out there today?” The answer no one ever gives: “I was scared stiff; my life flashed before my eyes.”
Bits of my history splashed in my face, tiny disconnected points in time, like a movie rewound and then fast-forwarded. Raised in the mid-west near the ancient Cahokian mound builders, I followed the Oregon Trail west, took a right, and landed with a thump on that final wave. Distance equals speed times time.
A helicopter flew overhead. Was it here to pluck me from this turbulent nightmare? As I leaned toward the locker that held my flares, I felt the boat settle. My hands broke the weld that clamped them to stainless steel. Fingers relaxed and stretched. I checked my watch. Two hours had passed. Time equals distance divided by speed.
Before me lay what I would later nickname “Lake Juan,” a vast, calm expanse of blue. I looked behind me, trying to glimpse the trial I had just escaped, but only a wispy mist covered my tracks. No other boats to either side. No wind on which to raise a sail. The engine hummed. I scanned the chart and sat on the raised side of the cockpit, lightly touching the wheel. Not until then did I notice the warning printed on the chart. Where I had plotted my course, the pencil mark obscured the words, tide rips. I would never again fail to see those words.
I patted the fiberglass on which I perched as if it were a living, breathing being. And she was. We had spent time together, exploring the Puget Sound’s liquid playground, but we had never suffered together like we had today. I had made mistakes, gotten past them, and emerged richer. I thought of my daughter, the need to protect her; that impossibility creates an irrevocable bond. She would make her own mistakes, create her own life, amass her own wealth.
In the distance, a sailboat drifted toward me—a seaworthy wooden sloop that had been where I was going. Its headsail fluttered in the lack of wind. As it bobbed closer, I could make out four people, maybe five. Another half hour and they floated into shouting range.
A young man stepped jauntily to the bow, barefoot and shirtless. “How’s the weather up ahead?” he hailed.
I looked up, squinting my eyes at the unveiled sun. I observed the world around me, breathed in a renewed confidence, a raw anticipation. I realized a reborn relationship with what surrounded me. There was no weather to speak of, but there was something that lay beneath us—and beyond us. Tides change, currents settle. Those behind me vanished. The haunting call of Tsonoqua can instill fear or lead to joy.
“Fine!” I yelled back. “You’ll be fine!”
Honorary Mention: "Miss Lisa and the Okree Ladies" by Martiscia Davidson, Fremont Writers
Story not published at author's request.
For questions, contact napavalleywriters@gmail.com.