Ten weeks to the day from her near hanging death on a Santorini cliff, Cher got off a plane at O’Hare. It was Christmas Eve, 2008. She was halo-free. Hallelujah! she was halo-free! She was also sister-free, but this old bad thought didn’t stir in that moment. That would come later when the taxi crawled down the lit street and slowed in front of the house where they built snowdogs when they were girls. Then it would lumber up, some massive beast, so heavy her head would bobble on her tender neck before she got control, whipped the great mass of grief back down and take one next step, and the next.
What came now was the first biting wind assaulting a narrow strip of her face still exposed between pulled down hat and pulled up cashmere scarf. The open-skin strip was no more than what Geordie La Forge’s VISOR would hide, but in that half minute it took for the taxi doors to get opened and her luggage thrown in the back, Cher would’ve welcomed just such a device to shield her eyes. They felt like frozen grapes, her eyeballs did, just that fast.
She gave the driver her parent’s address. He said, “Settle back, we’ve got some traffic problems in two directions but I’ll try to work out a way -”
“Take your time.” How odd this might seem to the driver never entered her head. She dreaded the turn onto their block. The feel of pale carrot colored bricks and the mortar connecting them underfoot. The radiating half-moon steps up to the verandah. Their initials frozen in a mortar track on the far left. The foyer. The landing. Christmas Eve. The past. How she and Sunny spied, neither girl ever fooled by the myth of Jolly, at least not in their collective recollections, at least not ever admitted to.
As the driver suggested, she settled back, and light in from the terminal signs lit up her lap, her hands, her lap, her hands, by turns with columnar shadows. On her ring finger, right hand, there was a heavy, gold ring that hadn’t been there when she flew off to Greece. She did not want to think about that now, either. Cher did not want to think about anything. Nothing would be good. Nothing would be very good. She slid the ring off, dropped it inside her deep coat pocket, put her glove back on. Anastas would not be pleased about his gold shifting from left hand to right and right hand to pocket – or, maybe he wouldn’t care. Cher hardly knew him enough to tell. And did not want to think about that. Did not. And consequently, didn’t.
~
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Lynn: I’m not sure what to say. I get so caught up in your beautiful prose that I lose track of what’s going on, and I don’t sense the urgency necessary for a crime story. I don’t know if it’s because I’m reading off the computer or if it’s my linear brain at work or if I’m basically a lowbrow unable to appreciate literary novels.
But then, that’s what you get for putting your first draft online. Maybe I’ll rethink my plans to do the same!
I’ve been working on the opening parts with Cher, in Greece, Athens, in the hospital — developing who she is a bit more earlier on. This additonal material is a direct result of comments you’ve made. They may not help in the end, but then again, they might make the character of Cher more memorable so that when reader arrives at this place in the overall story they’ll have a clue as to who lives/lived in this house — they might even have a care for Cher’s loss of her sister. Yes, yes and yes, there are many drawbacks to putting first draft online. But, when I can receive one comment from one intelligent reader offering honest criticism, then I am helped by knowing how the story might be better served.
The prose, while I am gratified that it is beautiful to you and grabs you up, needs also to transport you along the story, not lose you. Can’t thank you enough for your patience with me and this “project”.
Regarding what Bertram said: “I get so caught up in your beautiful prose that I lose track of what’s going on, and I don’t sense the urgency necessary for a crime story.”
It is not a crime story yet, but soon enough I think, the urgency will come. Telling the story of their mundane lives gives the reader an investment that pays off at the denouement.
A roller coaster takes an awful long time to get to the top. Then there’s the hesitation and a hell of a downhill ride back to level ground.
PS I want to hold this book in my hands. Feel the spine and the pages.
The check has been cut by my accountant, lavonne; expect it any day now. In the mean time, more praise?
thanks, L.