THE COAT THAT HID MY SECRET by Ellen Byron

Jenn McKinlay: As always, I am ever delighted to welcome our dear friend, award winning mystery author, Ellen Byron, to the Jungle Reds and, boy, does she have a story for you. Take it away, Ellen!

Ellen Byron: Before I began writing mysteries, I wrote for TV and film—sitcoms mostly, like Wings and Just Shoot Me, to name a couple you’ve heard of as opposed to the many shows I worked on that died a quick death. I wrote as half of a team, my partner being a friend I made in a sitcom writing class. Eventually we each got married and then segued into parenthood. She had a baby first, a glorious little boy. And we quickly learned that nobody wanted to hire new mothers, even if you had a perfectly great childcare plan in place, like she did. So when I became pregnant, I made a choice I hoped would help us land a new job. I hid my pregnancy. Not for the first trimester, like many do. I hid it for eight months.  

I was lucky on one count. As I gained weight, I gained it all over. I wasn’t one of those pregnant women who aside from looking like they swallowed a bowling ball, remained slim. Every part of me puffed out, which allowed me to present as rotund rather than expectant. I went to a thrift store and bought a giant black men’s overcoat that I’d wear to meetings to hide myself from the neck down. We met for a position on Sex and the City when I was at eight and a half months along, and to justify my girth, I blathered on about how excited I was to move back to my hometown of NYC and eat my way through the city. But by that point, my poor coat was busting at the seams. We didn’t get the job.

 

Attendees to my baby shower were sworn to secrecy. My husband didn’t even tell his coworkers we were expecting. Then preeclampsia put me in hospital and dictated a delivery three weeks before my due date. My husband rushed to the hospital, sharing the news that his wife was about to give birth with his stunned work friends on his way out the door.

 A secret shower, a giant coat over a burgeoning belly - my pregnancy was straight out of the sitcoms I wrote for. In my new release, LONG ISLAND ICED TINA, events at a baby shower set the mystery in motion. But I spared the poor mother-to-be in the book my own nutty subterfuge. Still, writing it brought back a lot of memories. 

 

Recently, I took a stab at Marie Kondo-ing a closet and in its farthest reaches I found that old black overcoat. Aside from a few loose buttons, it was in great shape. Debating whether or not to donate it, I asked the classic Kondo question: did the coat give me joy? The answer was yes. Crazy as those eight months of my pregnancy were, they brought me the joy of our daughter —who turned twenty-one two weeks ago. 

I kept the coat.

 

Readers, do you have a piece of clothing that has a special memory attached to it? Comment to be entered to win a copy of LONG ISLAND ICED TINA.

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LONG ISLAND ICED TINA SYNOPSIS - KENSINGTON

 

In the second installment of Maria DiRico's new Catering Hall Mystery series, Mia Carina is back in the borough of Queens, in charge of the family catering hall Belle View Banquet Manor and keeping her nonna company. But some events--like murder at a shower--are not the kind you can schedule...

Mia's newly pregnant friend Nicole plans to hold a shower at Belle View--but Nicole also has to attend one that her competitive (and mysteriously rich) stepmother, Tina, is throwing at the fanciest place in Queens. It's a good chance for Mia to snoop on a competitor, especially since doing a search for "how to run a catering hall" can get you only so far.

Mia tags along at the lavish party, but the ambience suffers at Nicole's Belle View shower when a fight breaks out--and then, oddly, a long-missing and valuable stolen painting is unwrapped by the mom-to-be. Tina is clearly shocked to see it. But not as shocked as Mia is when, soon afterward, she spots the lifeless body of a party guest floating in the marina . . .

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty awards for Best Humorous Mystery. She writes the Catering Hall Mystery series, which are inspired by her real life, under the name Maria DiRico. Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like WINGS, JUST SHOOT ME, and FAIRLY ODD PARENTS. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. 

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