Paullina Simons - A Song in the Daylight

PAULLINA SIMONS

Harper

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2009

Copyright © Timshel Books, Inc 2009

The Society of Authors as the Literary Representatives of the Estate of Virginia Woolf

Lyrics by John Lennon/Paul McCartney © Sony/ATV Tunes LLC/Northern Songs All Rights Reserved

Paullina Simons asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780007241545

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2015 ISBN: 9780007353156

Version: 2015-03-09

To Sara Belk, a mother, a thespian, a theologian,

a friend, a woman extraordinaire

… Do not lose heart … Outward man is perishing, yet inward man is being renewed day by day … We do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16–1

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue: Friday Night (Almost) Like Any Other

Part I. The Stonemason

Chapter One

1. Things Trains Bring

2. Che

3. Maggie and Ezra

4. Jared

5. Jared’s Wife

6. King’s, Ye Olde Market

7. Burial Grounds

8. 99 Red Balloons

Chapter Two

1. Things Which Are Seen

2. Othello

3. Aisle 12

4. “Moisten Your Head with Lubricant”

5. Between Childhood Friends

6. Loose Change

7. Ezra’s Boredom

8. A Birthday Gift

Chapter Three

1. 0–60 in 4.9 Seconds

2. Winter Gold

3. Perpetual Change

4. Waiting for Godot

5. The Navigation System

6. Much Ado About Nothing

7. Explanation of the Navigation

8. Auditing Safeguards

Chapter Four

1. Glad in the Guilt

2. A Dance to Lighten the Heart

3. All Else Shall Vanish

4. Jared and Larissa’s Dry Week

5. Kai’s Prayers

6. Surveillance, Electronic

7. Surveillance, Human

8. Much Ado on the Stage

Chapter Five

1. Split Rock

2. Spilled Milk

3. Simi and Eve

4. Family Fun in the Poconos

5. The Cagesweepers

6. Miami

7. Dracula

8. Love

Part II. Scylla and Charybdis

Chapter One

1. The Disappearance of Tenestra

2. Jonny and Stanley

3. Middle of the Night

4. Larissa the Epicurean

5. Doug’s Jaguar

Chapter Two

1. Paolo and Francesca

2. Stories on the Ceiling

3. Chris Chase

4. “Shall We Go?”

5. The Mungo Wilderness

Chapter Three

1. Heart Strings and Alice Springs

2. Mothers

3. Scylla and Charybdis

4. Fever Swamps

5. Before you Go

Part III. “Everything Must Go”

Chapter One

1. And Now for Something Completely Different

2. All Things Under Heaven

3. Lillypond

Chapter Two

1. Parenting Plus

2. Private Investigations

3. The Runaway Child

Part IV. Miss Silver City

Chapter One

1. The Walker

2. A Motherless Child

3. The Play

4. Happiness

5. Jared Stark

6. Land of the Dry Lakes

7. Pooncarie

8. Demon Ride

9. The Seven Ages of Larissa

Epilogue

Keep Reading

About the Author

Also by the Author

About the Publisher

“Yes, it’s mainly desert lands, nothing but dry creeks,” Doug was saying, relaying to Jared his torrid experience in the Australian bush, “but when it rains five hundred miles away, you get an astonishing twenty feet of water pouring through the arid lake beds and salty playas. Doesn’t happen very often, though, the deluge. And even when it does, it quickly evaporates. The stasis is earth, waterless and scorched.”

“Hmm,” Jared muttered, impatient fingers tapping on the desk. He wanted to get back to their conversation about the Yankees’ middle relief pitching. But Doug had recently come back from a trip to the Australian outback and for weeks straight had insisted on telling Jared all about it.

Jared had had a busy afternoon of capitalization meetings before the long Memorial Day weekend, and at 3:30, his assistant, Sheila, said that Emily had called and needed him to call back right away . He was going to do that but he got swamped with a Tokyo call, an emergency round-up about a possible bankruptcy filing for one of their affiliates, a Hong Kong call, and finally the usual Friday-night banter from Doug, when at 4:45 the phone rang again.

“Dad!”

“Oh, sorry, Em. I’m snowed under. What’s up?” He motioned Doug not to leave; he had one more thing to add to their revolving argument on the dire pitching prospects for the Yankees’ sinking (stinking) season.

“What’s up ,” Emily said with all stridency, “is I have a volleyball game today at five and Mom is not home to drive me!”

“Volleyball game when ?” Jared’s hand with the index finger out was still raised.

“In fifteen minutes,” said Emily, apparently through her teeth. “And did I mention Mom’s not home to drive me?”

“Where is she?” Jared was waving to Doug, to say, wait .

“Dad? Are you even listening? I don’t know where she is. I’ve been calling you since 3:30!”

“I’m sure Mommy will be right back, Em. Isn’t Michelangelo with her?”

“I thought he was, but Tara just brought him home.”

“Who’s Tara?”

Emily drew a long breath. “Our neighbor two doors down. Our neighbor for seven years.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Apparently he had a playdate with Jen and Jess. So here we all are, except for Mom—who’s not here. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but I have a MEET in fifteen minutes!”

Jared’s finger was still up for Doug, just one minute . “Call her cell.”

“Dad, what do you think, I didn’t call her five thousand times before I called you? And then Asher helpfully found her cell phone ringing on her makeup table in the bedroom.”