While I'm continuing this experiment, I'm also considering a different name for this podcast. If you have suggestions, let me know. Thanks.
I have cycled to start this story in a different place. Enjoy!
The transcript:
I’m Johanna Rothman, and this is 60 Seconds of Johanna’s WIP for January 25, 2024, where I read an excerpt of just a minute of some writing in progress.
This excerpt is from an unusual Valentine’s Day story.
Cosima Waterhouse loved her job at the LocalPharm—yes, the local pharmacy in her little Arlington neighborhood, just west of Cambridge and all those universities in the great state of Massachusetts. Except for today, the day before Valentine’s Day.
That’s when, she swore, everyone and everything went nutso.
First, there was the pervasive odor of canned roses. She didn’t know how Mark Mason, her manager, had discovered that odor, but it was a mix of old canned green beans, possibly from the previous century, combined with stale roses. Ugh. Cosima liked both canned green beans—as long as they were reasonably recent—and fresh roses. But these odors together? It was a Great Big Wrongness.
Worse, that odor had triggered her coughing and sneezing. The rose odor got stuck in her nose, so she sneezed. Then, she’d cough. She didn't leave her water bottle near her spot at the first register on the left. No. She carried it with her, throughout the store.