Saturday, June 11, 2011

Sneak-Peek Saturdays: Excerpt Forty-Nine

A NOTE BEFORE READING: I began sharing weekly excerpts from my novel, The Somebody Who, on June 26, 2010. If you want to begin at the beginning, go here. If you want to read the book in its entirety, head over to Amazon and purchase a copy. (There’s a button on the left that will take you there).

III

“Claudia!” Evelyn says, entering the kitchen to see how dinner preparations are coming along, “I’ve been making Thanksgiving plans.”

“What’s that?” asks Davy, looking up from The New Yorker.

“Thanksgiving,” Evelyn says. “We make turkey and enjoy our family and friends.”

“Okay,” he says. “I can do that.”

“And you will! And Claudia,” Evelyn says, leaning into the counter and smiling, “I was wondering if you and Gabriel would like to join us. Not to work, but to be our guests.”

“Oh,” says Claudia, genuinely taken aback and rather touched. “That’s very nice. I’ll ask Gabriel. I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

“Or you can let me know next week!” Evelyn says. “Just know that you’re invited.”

“Am I there, too?” Davy asks.

“Yes, Davy, I am also inviting you to Thanksgiving. Do you plan to attend?”

“I could try, I guess.”

“Good. Because I’m also planning to invite your friend Gus. Maybe you and he could do a little musical improv.”

“We could?”

“You might! Anyway, I’m going to call the piano tuner tomorrow and schedule an appointment. Just in case.”

“But I don’t have it,” Davy says.

“You don’t have what?”

“A piano.”

“We have one in the living room.”

“Okay."

IV

Evelyn decides to empty the dishwasher before heading up to the Quilt Room. She is amazed by her energy. She feels light and focused, as if a three-year fog has lifted and her vision is clear.

She listens to the television with which Davy is sleeping. Sounds like a sit-com. Tame enough. But she knows that the line-up could change before she checks in on him again, so she goes into the family room and turns the volume down a bit.

In the dining room, she reaches for the one remaining bottle of wine. And when she has retrieved it, she realizes, much to her chagrin, that this is the cheap stuff Angie brought. “Oh well,” she says to the nondescript label, grabbing the corkscrew and relieved, in a way, that this bottle actually has a cork.

The sound of the pop is not exactly encouraging, and she sincerely hopes that she will not soon be tasting something that would make a semi-decent salad dressing. She pours a taste into her glass and then raises the glass to her lips.

“Hmm,” she says, after a moment. “That’s not as bad as I expected.”

She fills the glass and repairs to the second floor.

Before entering the Quilt Room, she goes into Adam’s room, crosses to the windows and opens one. She leaves the door to his room open so that the breeze will touch her back throughout the next few hours.

* * *

to be continued on June 18th.

In the meantime, if you want to read a short piece about the back story, click here.

1 comment:

Lydia Kang said...

I love those little details, like keeping the window open for the breeze, or the feeling of that fog lifting... they make the story come alive!