Paullina Simons - A Song in the Daylight

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From the author of the top five bestseller ROAD TO PARADISE comes a novel of love, betrayal and redemption against the oddsHow well can you ever really know someone?If anyone asked Larissa's husband, children or friends if she was happy, they would say yes. Sometimes too busy, sometimes irritable - but really, what in her wonderful life could be wrong? She has a happy marriage, a dream house, and everything she ever wanted at her fingertips.Yet a chance encounter with a young man new to town hits her like a lightning bolt. Their connection is electric. Suddenly her lovely home life seems claustrophobic, and the familiar mundane. Irresistible passion drives her to contemplate the unthinkable. But if she dares to make the impossible leap, what will her life be then? Whatever choice she makes, someone will be betrayed…

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“No, no. I’m fine.” She averted her eyes, not for any reason other than she tried not to make prolonged eye contact with male strangers, especially male strangers wearing bikes and jeans and boots and shiny helmets. “Thanks, anyway.”

He got off his bike and came toward her.

“How long in a cast?”

“Uh—about four weeks, I guess.”

“You broke it at Christmastime?” He whistled. “Bad luck. How’d you do it? Skiing?”

“Skiing? No. I don’t ski. I just—it’s silly.” She still wasn’t looking at him, but she did slow down. Not stopped—just slowed down. “It’s my ankle. I tripped coming out of the hair-dresser’s.”

Now he laughed. “You tripped coming out of the hairdresser’s ? Oh, that’s rich.”

“Well, I didn’t think so at the time.”

“You’re right—that is worth laughing about.”

“Really?” she said noncommittally, wanting to breathe into her cold hands. “That’s not why—” the image inside her head still of her slithery tongue stuck on the metal bars. God! She stopped walking.

“I’ve noticed,” he said with a teasing air of forced formality, “one thing about women based upon years of careful observation …”

Years? ” Larissa muttered, drawing attention to his youth. “Really.”

His chuckle was easy. “Yes, really. I grew up with a mother, a grandmother, and two older sisters. So. As I was saying. After years of observation, I’ve concluded that women take great care with their hair.”

Larissa forgot for a moment how cold she was. “You don’t say .”

The boy refused to be baited. “Even in the neon supermarket on a shotgun Monday afternoon, women take more care with their hair than with any other part of their appearance.” He spoke of it like he was reading poetry, like it was his life’s philosophy, while Larissa wanted to button her coat so he wouldn’t catch a glimpse of her frumpy sweats. He spoke of hair the way Ezra spoke about the metaphysical reality of the soul!

“It’s always clean,” he continued, “it’s styled, moussed, gelled. Women think about hair. No one just gets out of the shower in their empty house and towel dries.”

“What did you say?” She squinted. Empty house? “Not even you ?” His hair was sticking out every which way till Sunday. He took off his helmet to show her his kinky helmet head, thin brown-blond hair frizzing in all directions.

“Except for me,” he replied cheerfully. “But women think more about their hair than about anything else, would you agree?”

“I don’t agree.”

“No? You don’t think about what to put in it, how to curl it, thin it, thicken it, style it, shape it? How to put it up, how to braid it?” He pointed to an older woman pushing her cart past them through the thick cold. “Take a look,” he said. “She’s wearing a sheepskin rug for a coat, and her husband’s loafers, but her hair is blown dry and immaculate and shining! No makeup, but the hair is perfect. Like the Werewolf, baby.”

Werewolf! Larissa stared at him, wondering at what point to take offense and at what point to laugh. His eyes were merry. He clearly thought he was being clever. “I don’t mean it as a criticism,” he assured her. “I mean it as a compliment. Hair rules the world.”

Okay, she’ll play on this cold Monday. Why not?

“Hair and shoes,” she said.

“Yes!” he heartily agreed. “Everything in the middle, you can pretty much not waste your time or money on.”

It was true. Did anyone care that she spent twenty-seven bucks on Chanel mascara instead of six bucks on Maybelline?

She didn’t say anything, just squinted in the sunlight. He put the helmet back on his head. In the few seconds of silence between them, Larissa’s mind traveled from hair to boots, from mascara to jeans and in between belts and necklaces saw the other thing that both men and women noticed. Probably third after hair and shoes.

The swell between the breasts. Cleavage.

“I’ll tell you a little secret,” he said. “Men never notice shoes.”

“Some men.”

“Not straight men.”

She laughed. “So not shoes but hair?”

“Yes,” he said. “Hair we notice.”

And breasts. She hoped the sunlight would keep him out of the expression in her eyes. But he said nothing—in that pointed way people say nothing when they’re thinking about things that can’t be said.

“Jewelry?” She was fishing for other things in the water.

“If it’s sparkly, come-hither jewelry, yes.”

Come-hither jewelry! Now she said nothing in that pointed way people say nothing when they’re thinking about things that can’t be said.

He inclined his head toward her; Larissa inclined her body away and pushed her cart forward. “Well, have a great day.”

“You sure you don’t need help?” Stepping away from his bike, he put his hand on her shopping cart. Was he allowed to do that? Wasn’t that like putting your hands on someone’s pregnant belly? Against some sort of Super Stupid food shopping etiquette? “I’ll help you put your 12-pack of Diet Coke into your car. You far?”

“No, no.” No, no was to the help, not the far. He wasn’t listening, already pushing, as she walked next to him, slow. Before she found the unlock button on her key ring, a thought flashed: is he safe? What if he’s one of those … I don’t know. Didn’t she hear about them? Men who abducted girls from parking lots?

And did what with them?

Plus he wasn’t a man.

Plus she wasn’t a girl.

He looked exotic, his brown eyes slanted, his cheekbones Oriental. He looked sweet and scruffy. Who would abduct her from a parking lot? And, more important, why?

And even more important, how did she feel about being abducted?

And was that a rhetorical question?

And furthermore, how come all these thoughts, impressions, fears, anxieties, reactions, flashed in her head before her next blink, like a dream that seems to take hours but is just a couple of seconds before the alarm goes off? Why so much thinking?

And was that a rhetorical question?

She lifted the back hatch and he said with a whistle, “Awesome Escalade. All spec’ed out.” Like he knew.

It took him all of twenty seconds to load her groceries into her luxury utility vehicle. Slamming the liftgate shut, he smiled. “You okay now?”

“Of course, yes.” She was okay before, but didn’t say that. It sounded rude.

He began to walk back to his bike. “Have a good one. And stay away from hairdressers,” he added advisedly. “It’s not like you need it.”

When Larissa got home, she left her bags in the car, left her purse in the car, crashed through the house from back door to the front, limped to the full-length mirror in the entry hall and stood square in front of it.

She wore a lichen parka, gray sweats from college, a taupe torn top. She had not a shred of makeup on her face, and her pale hair was unwashed a day and unbrushed since two hours ago. Her lips were chapped from the cold, her cheeks slightly flushed and splotchy.

Whatever could he possibly mean? She stood in front of the mirror for an eternal minute until she startled herself back into life, and rushed out, Quasimodo-style, to pick up her youngest child from school.

8

99 Red Balloons

While Michelangelo cut and pasted for school, and munched his cup of dry Cheerios, a string cheese, a cookie, a glass of milk, and a fruit cup, Larissa puttered around, looking inside her freezer, realizing belatedly that she hadn’t bought meat. Now she was searching for some ground beef she could hastily defrost for a casserole or a pie. Maybe she could leave Michelangelo with the two oldest; they should be home any minute—

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