Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [106]
A classified envelope arrived in the mail for Jeffrey today, delivered by a hippie on a beat-up red bicycle. He’s frowning as he leafs through the pages. And Lydia has been in front of the computer for hours, putting the finishing touches on the book she’ll call Angel Fire. Bernard Hugo had one prayer answered, at least. He’ll have his book.
And as she sits out on the lanai drinking a whiskey sour that evening, Jeffrey comes to join her. The sunset is just finished, the sky still orange and black like a sleeping tiger. He takes the glass from her hand and sips from it, then hands it back to her. He notices that she isn’t smoking but says nothing.
“I guess we’ll need to head back to New York next week. Something has come up.”
“All right. I have to turn in my manuscript anyway. Besides, there’s something I want to look into. Your place or mine?”
He smiles. He had been reluctant to bring it up, unwilling to break the spell they’d been under here.
He’d wondered whether they would stay together for a while or if she’d be off on another story when she was feeling more like herself again. Either way, it would have been okay. Because he is home for her now and that is all that ever mattered.
Acknowledgments
There are so many people that have had a part in the writing and publishing of this book. And for each of them I feel a unique and heartfelt gratitude:
To Heather Mikesell, in everything I have written since I met you, I have counted on your keen insight, eagle eye, and unwavering support—but have never taken it for granted.
To Carolyn Nichols, for taking the time to look at my homeless manuscript and see beneath the flaws to something better, and for bringing it to the attention of literary agents.
To Elaine Markson, my agent, for taking me on, and shopping this book with unflagging enthusiasm, finding the best possible home for it, and for enduring my neuroses with endless patience.
To Kelley Ragland, my talented and inspiring editor, who made this book better than I ever thought it could be, who, with careful guidance led me to my own voice, taking me beyond being a writer to becoming an author.
To Marion Chartoff, Tara Popick, and Judy Wong, who always believed that this day would come, even when I strayed far from my dreams.
an excerpt from
darkness, my old friend
by Lisa Unger
coming in August 2011
chapter one
Jones Cooper feared death. The dread of it woke him in the night, sat him bolt upright and drew all the breath from his lungs, narrowed his esophagus, had him rasping in the dark. It turned all the normal shadows of the bedroom that he shared with his wife into a legion of ghouls and intruders waiting with silent and malicious intent. When? How? Heart attack. Cancer. Freak accident. Would it come for him quickly? Would it slowly waste and dehumanize him? What, if anything, would await him?
He was not a man of faith. Nor was he a man without a stain on his conscience. He did not believe in a benevolent universe of light and love. He could not lean upon those crutches as so many did; everyone, it seemed, had some way to protect himself against the specter of his certain end. Everyone except him.
His wife, Maggie, had grown tired of the 2:00 a.m. terrors. At first she was beside him, comforting him: Just breathe, Jones. Relax. It’s okay. But even she, ever-patient shrink that she was, had started sleeping in the guest room or on the couch, even sometimes in their son’s room, empty since Ricky had left for Georgetown in September.
His wife believed it had something to do with Ricky’s leaving. “A child heading off for college is a milestone. It’s natural to reflect on the passing of your life,” she’d said. Maggie seemed to think that the acknowledgment of one’s mortality was a rite of passage, something everyone went through. “But there’s a point, Jones, where reflection becomes self-indulgent, even self-destructive. Surely you see that spending