NEW
GIRL AT LITTLE COVE
Author:
Damhnait Monaghan
ISBN:
9781525811500
Publication
Date: May 11, 2021
Publisher:
Graydon House Books
Book
Summary:
Take a literary trip to Newfoundland: the island of
the world’s friendliest people, the setting for the award-winning musical Come From Away, and home of the
delightfully quirky and irresistibly charming debut, NEW GIRL IN LITTLE COVE (May 11; $16.99; Graydon House Books) by
Damhnait Monaghan! After being utterly scandalized by the abrupt departure of
their school’s only French teacher (she ran off with a priest!) the highly
Catholic, very tiny town of Little Cove, Newfoundland needs someone who doesn’t
rock the boat. Enter mainlander Rachel O’Brien —technically a Catholic
(baptized!), technically a teacher (unused honors degree!)— who is so desperate
to leave her old life behind, she doesn’t bother to learn the (allegedly
English) local dialect. Stuck on an island she’s never known surrounded by a
people and culture she barely understands, Rachel struggles to feel at home.
Only the intervention of her crotchety landlady, a handsome fellow teacher, and
the Holy Dusters – the local women who hook rugs and clean the church – will
assure Rachel’s salvation in this little island community.
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Excerpt Sneak Peek:
1
September 1985
Little Cove: Population 389
The battered sign came into view as my car
crested a hill on the gravel road. Only 389 people? Damn. I pulled over and got
out of the car, inhaling the moist air. Empty boats tilted against the wind in
the bay below. A big church dominated the valley, beside which squatted a low,
red building, its windows dark, like a row of rotten teeth. This was likely St.
Jude’s, where tomorrow I would begin my teaching career.
“You lost?”
I whirled around. A
gaunt man, about sixty, straddled a bike beside me. He wore denim overalls and
his white hair was combed neatly back from his forehead.
“Car broke down?” he
continued.
“No,” I said. “I’m
just … ” My voice trailed off. I could hardly confide my second thoughts to
this stranger. “…admiring the view.”
He looked past me at
the flinty mist now spilling across the bay. A soft rain began to fall, causing
my carefully straightened hair to twist and curl like a mass of dark slugs.
“Might want to save
that for a fine day,” he said. His accent was strong, but lilting. “It’s right
mauzy today.”
“Mossy?”
“Mauzy.” He gestured
at the air around him. Then he folded his arms across his chest and gave me a
once-over. “Now then,” he said. “What’s a young one like you doing out this
way?”
“I’m not that young,”
I shot back. “I’m the new French teacher out here.”
A smile softened his
wrinkled face. “Down from Canada, hey?”
As far as I knew,
Newfoundland was still part of Canada, but I nodded.
“Phonse Flynn,” he
said, holding out a callused hand. “I’m the janitor over to St. Jude’s.”
“Rachel,” I said.
“Rachel O’Brien.”
“I knows you’re
staying with Lucille,” he said. “I’ll show you where she’s at.”
With an agility that
belied his age, he dismounted and gently lowered his bike to the ground. Then
he pointed across the bay. “Lucille’s place is over there, luh.”
Above a sagging
wharf, I saw a path that cut through the rocky landscape towards a smattering
of houses. I’d been intrigued at the prospect of a boarding house; it sounded
Dickensian. Now I was uneasy. What if it was awful?
“What about your
bike?” I asked, as Phonse was now standing by the passenger-side door of my
car.
“Ah, sure it’s grand
here,” he said. “I’ll come back for it by and by.”
“Aren’t you going to
lock it?”
I thought of all the
orphaned bike wheels locked to racks in Toronto, their frames long since ripped
away. Jake had been livid when his racing bike was stolen. Not that I was
thinking about Jake. I absolutely was not.
“No need to lock
anything ’round here,” said Phonse.
I fumbled with my car
keys, embarrassed to have locked the car from habit.
“Need some help?”
“The lock’s a bit
stiff,” I said. “I’ll get used to it.”
Phonse waited while I
jiggled in vain. Then he walked around and held out his hand. I gave him the
key, he stuck it in and the knob on the inside of the car door popped up
immediately.
“Handyman, see,” he
said. “Wants a bit of oil, I allows. But like I said, no need to lock ’er.
Anyway, with that colour, who’d steal it?” I had purchased the car over the
phone, partly for its price, partly for its colour. Green had been Dad’s
favourite colour, and when the salesman said mountain green, I’d imagined a
dark, verdant shade. Instead, with its scattered rust garnishes, the car looked
like a bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Still, it would fit right in. I
eyeballed the houses as we drove along: garish orange, lime green, blinding
yellow. Maybe there had been a sale on paint.
As we passed the
church, Phonse blessed himself, fingers moving from forehead to chest, then on
to each shoulder. I kept both hands firmly on the steering wheel.
“Where’s the main
part of Little Cove?” I asked.
“You’re looking at
it.”
There was nothing but
a gas station and a takeout called MJ’s, where a clump of teenagers was
gathered outside, smoking. A tall, dark-haired boy pointed at my car and they
all turned to stare. A girl in a lumber jacket raised her hand. I waved back
before I realized she was giving me the finger. Embarrassed, I peeked sideways
at Phonse. If he’d noticed, he didn’t let on.
Although Phonse was
passenger to my driver, I found myself thinking of Matthew Cuthbert driving
Anne Shirley through Avonlea en route to Green Gables. Not that I’d be
assigning romantic names to these landmarks. Anne’s “Snow Queen” cherry tree
and “Lake of Shining Waters” were nowhere to be seen. It was more like Stunted
Fir Tree and Sea of Grey Mist. And I wasn’t a complete orphan; it merely felt
that way.
At the top of a hill,
Phonse pointed to a narrow dirt driveway on the right. “In there, luh.”
I parked in front of
a small violet house encircled by a crooked wooden fence. A rusty oil tank
leaned into the house, as if seeking shelter. When I got out, my nose wrinkled
at the fishy smell. Phonse joined me at the back of the car and reached into
the trunk for my suitcases.
“Gentle Jaysus in the
garden,” he grunted. “What have you got in here at all? Bricks?” He lurched
ahead of me towards the house, refusing my offer of help.
The contents of my
suitcases had to last me the entire year; now I was second-guessing my choices.
My swimsuit and goggles? I wouldn’t be doing lengths in the ocean. I looked at
the mud clinging to my sneakers and regretted the suede dress boots nestled in
tissue paper. But I knew some of my decisions had been right: a raincoat, my
portable cassette player, stacks of homemade tapes, my hair straighteners and a
slew of books.
When Phonse reached
the door, he pushed it open, calling, “Lucille? I got the new teacher here. I
expect she’s wore out from the journey.” As he heaved my bags inside, a stout
woman in a floral apron and slippers appeared: Lucille Hanrahan, my boarding house
lady.
“Phonse, my son,
bring them bags upstairs for me now,” she said.
I said I would take
them but Lucille shooed me into the hall, practically flapping her tea towel at
me. “No, girl,” she said. “You must be dropping, all the way down from Canada.
Let’s get some grub in you before you goes over to the school to see Mr.
Donovan.”
Patrick Donovan, the
school principal, had interviewed me over the phone. I was eager to meet him.
“Oh, did he call?” I
asked.
“No.”
Lucille smoothed her
apron over her belly, then called up the stairs to ask Phonse if he wanted a
cup of tea. There was a slow beat of heavy boots coming down. “I’ll not stop
this time,” said Phonse. “But Lucille, that fence needs seeing to.”
Lucille batted her
hand at him. “Go way with you,” she said. “It’s been falling down these twenty
years or more.” But as she showed him out, they talked about possible repairs,
the two of them standing outside, pointing and gesturing, oblivious to the
falling rain.
A lump of mud fell
from my sneaker, and I sat down on the bottom step to remove my shoes. When
Lucille returned, she grabbed the pair, clacked them together outside the door
to remove the remaining mud, then lined them up beside a pair of sturdy ankle
boots.
I followed her down
the hall to the kitchen, counting the curlers that dotted her head, pink
outposts in a field of black and grey.
“Sit down over there,
luh,” she said, gesturing towards a table and chairs shoved against the back
window. I winced at her voice; it sounded like the classic two-pack-a-day rasp.
The fog had
thickened, so nothing was visible outside; it was like watching static on TV.
There were scattered cigarette burns on the vinyl tablecloth and worn patches
on the linoleum floor. A religious calendar hung on the wall, a big red circle
around today’s date. September’s pin-up was Mary, her veil the exact colour of
Lucille’s house. I was deep in Catholic territory, all right. I hoped I could
still pass for one.
Excerpted from New Girl in Little
Cove by Damhnait Monaghan, Copyright © 2021 by Damhnait Monaghan
Published by Graydon House Books
Author Bio:
|
|
DAMHNAIT MONAGHAN was once a
mainlander who taught in a small fishing village in Newfoundland. A former
teacher and lawyer, Monaghan has almost sixty publication credits, including
flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and short stories. Her short prose has
won or placed in various writing competitions and has been nominated for a
Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions. Her Lessons in Little Passage placed in
the top six from more than 350 entries in the 2019 International Caledonia
Novel Award. |
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Links:
Twitter: @Downith
Instagram: @Downith1
Facebook: @AuthorDMonaghan
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