Текст книги "The Beauty of Lies"
Автор книги: Brinda Berry
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The Beauty of Lies
Brinda Berry
Sweet Biscuit Publishing LLC
Contents
Copyright
Also by Brinda Berry
Epigraph
1. Toe the Line
2. Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
3. Worse Comes to Worst
4. Catching a Tailwind
5. Another Think Coming
6. Grandma Lulu’s Litmus Test
7. Passing Strange
8. Silver Lining
9. Canary in the Coalmine
10. Resting Bitch Face
11. Playing By Heart
12. Nosy Harper
13. One Fell Swoop
14. Perfect Storm
15. The $64,000 question
16. Olive Branch
17. Catch-22
18. Sleight of Hand
19. Pay the Piper
20. Get Religion
21. Cover All the Bases
22. Eleventh Hour
The Fiction of Forever
Preview of Chasing Luck
Did you enjoy this book?
Also by Brinda Berry
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright Warning
EBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared, or given away. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is a crime punishable by law. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded to or downloaded from file sharing sites, or distributed in any other way via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 (http://www.fbi.gov/ipr/).
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
The author acknowledges the trademark status and trademark owners of My Little Pony, WD-40, IKEA, iPod, iPad, and Starbucks.
Published by Sweet Biscuit Publishing LLC
Edited by Nancy Cassidy of www.redpencoach.com
Cover Credits
Design:Najla Qamber of www.najlaqamberdesigns.com
Model: Hollis Chambers
Photographer: Scott Hoover
Courtesy of Ellie of lovenbooks.com
The Beauty of Lies
All Rights Are Reserved. Copyright ©2015 by Brinda Berry
First electronic publication: October 2015
Print ISBN-13: 9780692529393
Also by Brinda Berry
Adult Novels
Chasing Luck (A Serendipity Novel, #1)
Tempting Fate (A Serendipity Novel, #2)
Seducing Fortune (A Serendipity Novel, #3)
Serendipity Boxed Set (Books 1-3)
The Beauty of Lies (A Stand By Me Novel #1)
The Fiction of Forever (A Stand By Me Novel #2)– coming soon
And Then He Kissed Her: A Contemporary Romance Boxed Set (Sweet Romance)
Young Adult Novels
The Waiting Booth (Whispering Woods #1)
Whisper of Memory (Whispering Woods #2)
Watcher of Worlds (Whispering Woods #3)
The Waiting Booth Boxed Set (Books 1-3)
Wild at Heart II (An Anthology)
Lore: Tales of Myth and Legend Retold (An Anthology)
For release news, subscribe at http://bit.ly/Brinda_Berry
Website: www.brindaberry.com
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
1
Toe the Line
Leo Jensen
I scroll down the list of unopened emails and wonder why bat-shit crazy seems to follow me.
“SUBJECT: You must like getting your toes sucked.” The subject line alone forces me to grimace. I can guess what’s coming next. I’ll open the email and find some misguided blog follower who wants to rant at me for my latest post. Or maybe the sender is making an offer.
At least my toes would be getting some action.
Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about a teacher who was fired for inappropriate behavior. Why did she lose her job? She’d chronicling about toe affection on her personal, yet public, blog. A fetish post for certain, but pretty tame by internet standards.
I wrote that her romantic preferences were her business, and certainly didn’t merit getting canned. It’s not like she fondled a student’s little piggies. Teachers certainly don’t deserve scarlet letters for admitting they have a love life.
Love and romance.
These are topics I have no business talking about, since I’m officially on strike when it comes to women. My A Torrid Toe Affair post garnered over two hundred comments, some more snarky than others. Blog traffic spikes with sex-related topics.
Last week, I exposed a restaurant owner taking advantage of underage employees. The week before, I featured a postcard submission from a woman who’d been fired by her employer for not letting him give her dictation. Naked. Him, not her.
I seem to be a regular employee advocate this month. The month before, my posts were all about politics.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a masked marauder for justice. No cape in my closet. My talent for revealing truth seems to be accidental. It’s not what I really want out of life. I want to write books that entertain and thrill and keep you awake at night, turning pages.
I spend all my daytime hours working on my paying gig using my pseudonym, Mr. Expose. In the middle of the night, I hammer out my latest manuscript called The Incident, a political thriller on its third rewrite.
I click the boxes of at least twenty emails. Delete, delete, delete. I have more pressing things to do than read this shit.
The postcards on my desk pull at my attention. I pick up the top one. It’s a plain, white postcard with a picture of a crow on the front. I flip the card over to study the back. The sender’s handwriting tells me that he or she was in a hurry. The connective strokes between each letter are broken and thready. Barely there. The breaks between the letters indicate the person is impatient.
Handwriting analysis experts say our writing is like a fingerprint. The lines and curlicues can reveal the personality of the sender—whether they are open and honest or if they’re hiding something.
I took a class on graphology, because writers are like that. We like to know what makes people tick.
Some people don’t like my requirement for a postcard submission. They say my rule is archaic. That an online columnist shouldn’t act like a Luddite. The requirement does stop most impulsive people who would send an electronic submission in the same way they post a Facebook status—without taking time to think about repercussions.
The world is full of crazies.
Case in point. My cursor hovers over a new email in a thread of messages from one particular woman over the course of the past month. Even though I should delete these as quickly as I do the other spammy emails in my box, I don’t. I can’t help myself. Sometimes, it’s good to read one or two to remind myself of the reason I stay anonymous.
From: [email protected]
Mr. Expose,
I submitted a postcard to your blog. After sending it, I realized I shouldn’t have. May I request that you return the submission to me? I’ll be sending a self-addressed envelope to your postal box where you can send the postcard back. I believe I signed my name as ‘Betrayed Woman,’ or ‘Angry Woman.’
I apologize for my error and hope I’ve written you in time.
Thank you,
Angel
From: [email protected]
Dear Angel,
Thanks for following my blog and sending in a submission. I regret it’s against my policy to return any items sent in. I get frequent requests similar to yours. As you know, I have no real way of identifying you, since submissions don’t contain real names.
You can rest assured that no one will know you submitted the postcard. I am very serious about the privacy of my sources.
I’m happy to say I’ve received over 500 postcards already this year. Chances are yours will not be selected for a blog post on Mr. Expose. I hope this allays your fears.
Sincerely,
Mr. Expose
From: [email protected]
Mr. Expose,
I don’t think you understand. It’s important to me that I get the postcard back. Its return is crucial to my well-being. I couldn’t sign my name since your guidelines tell us not to, but you can easily pick my card out of a pile. It’s pink with some flowery things on the back. I’m putting a self-addressed envelope in the mail to your box. Please return my postcard.
Many lives will be damaged by my thoughtless and selfish submission if it is selected for a blog. Consider this more of a plea than a simple request.
Angel
From: [email protected]
Angel,
I do understand there is a measure of urgency to your request. Still, I cannot break policy. I could spend all my time with administrative tasks such as this.
In the future, I suggest you think through your actions more carefully. Impulsiveness is the downfall of many.
Please do not email again.
Mr. Expose
From: [email protected]
It’s not like I’m going to prison if I don’t get my card back, but I absolutely need to take care of destroying the postcard myself. Hindsight is 20/20 multiplied by a million. I completely see my mistake now. My thoughts were a jumbled mess when I wrote the postcard and revenge was my only goal. But I have no quarrel with the person my postcard will affect and I need to stop the publication. I am really, really sorry, but I must demand that you respond to my request.
From: [email protected]
Mr. Expose,
Did you receive my last email? I think you must have lost it or it’s in your spam folder. Please reply.
Angel
From: [email protected]
Mr. Expose???!!!
I’ve sent the envelope so you can return my postcard. I am begging you to be human. I realize you must think I’m irrational to want something you obviously consider unimportant, but come on. I know from reading your blog that you attempt to correct the wrongs of the world by exposing those who would be dishonest.
This postcard and information will only do harm at this point. You will destroy lives.
Angel
From: [email protected]
Mr. Expose,
I can’t keep writing you. You keep blogging and posting pics from random postcards, so I know you are in your stash of postcards often enough to do me the courtesy of a reply.
You are a postcard hoarding a-hole.
Yours truly,
Angel
My cell phone pings with an incoming message. I glance at the cell’s display and tap the message from my ex-girlfriend.
Tori: Don’t be King of the Assholes. Answer my calls. If you don’t, I will come in person.
King? I’m honored. Between the crazy woman texting me, and the one emailing about her postcard, there’s a consensus.
I’ve gone my entire life being known as the nice guy. Not anymore. I’ve wandered to the dark side. Maybe this is where I’ll find solitude, a place to get my manuscript finished for the agent who requested it.
Tori isn’t going to harass me into calling, and Angel Girl isn’t going to force me to dig out her postcard. I don’t hesitate this time when my cursor hovers over the email message.
Delete.
2
Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
Harper Angel Wade
Letting myself into a stranger’s apartment isn’t the worst of sins. Mr. Expose has something that belongs to me, and I intend to get it. I’m not a real criminal. I committed my last illegal act in grade school when I shoplifted a My Little Pony for a friend. Later, regret set in and I imagined being hauled away and thrown into the slammer. I took the toy back to the store and slipped it onto the shelf. Incarceration didn’t scare me as much as a tongue-lashing from my daddy, the town pastor.
Breaking and entering is my first official crime of adulthood. My decisions these days have returned to the devil-made-me-do-it variety.
I push a desk drawer closed and continue to search through the paperwork in a box on his desk. A water bill, a flyer, a grocery list.
There’s a pamphlet for renter’s insurance. Boy, does he ever need some. There are all kinds of nut jobs in this world who would rob him blind. If I could advise the guy on how to avoid this situation in the future, I’d be sure to tell him that his apartment was a break-in waiting to happen. He conveniently left a key for me right under the welcome mat; as if that isn’t the first place a burglar would look.
And, while I’m handing out advice, I’d caution him not to be so assholey. His recent emails to me were downright rude and as short as my attention span during Sunday sermons.
In fact, his replies weren’t at all like his introspective musings on the Mr. Expose blog. No. Those are poetic masterpieces that dig into the psyche and pull back the curtain on evil.
But Mr. Expose blogger, also known as Leo Jensen, refuses to return my postcard. He recited all this baloney about policy and not mailing things back when people change their minds. Yada yada.
I blame him for my foray into the dark world of thievery. Harper Angel Wade—one account of felony, stealing a postcard.
The scraping sound of a key in the door lock has me frantically searching for a place to hide. My heart thrashes around in my chest like a trapped animal. I slip around a corner and slide underneath Leo’s bed like a runner into home base, a slight friction burn setting my left leg on fire.
The space underneath is shallow and barely covered by the cream comforter. In my limited vantage point, I make out movement near the apartment entrance. It will be a miracle if he doesn’t notice me. My head skims the bottom of the bed frame. My weight loss this year is the only thing saving me from being wedged under this bed like a piece of barbecue in your back molars.
Minutes tick by and a teeny drop of sweat escapes my hairline. It tickles against my hot face while taking its sweet time to meander centimeter by centimeter, eventually dripping into my eye. I strain to catch a glimpse of Leo. He’s walking around in the next room, each step squeaking as if his soles are too clean against the spit-shined floor.
Does Mr. Perfect sense something is amiss in his judgmental, I’m-too-spectacular-for-myself world?
The disturbing protests of his noisy shoes end, but he’s still moving around the apartment.
A dreaded June bug scuttles along the baseboard at my eye level. Just kill me now. I can handle anything but a June bug. I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and try to forget about the Starship Troopers movie—the one that convinced me bugs are evil.
His feet linger at the side of the bed. There’s a clattering noise as he drops some stuff onto the nightstand. I lose a little dignity and concentration as I stare at Leo’s ankles. The squeaky shoes have been discarded somewhere.
His feet aren’t bad. Not bad at all. Usually a guy’s feet give me the heebie jeebies—a residual phobia from the summer I worked in a men’s shoe store. But his bare feet are actually nice. No callused, cracked heels or Bigfoot hairy toes.
After our email exchange, I pictured him as some cranky old fart who lived with twenty cats and stacks old newspapers in the corner. The newspapers would, of course, be hiding the stacks of postcards.
On the contrary, it appears Mr. Expose has good grooming habits and a very tidy apartment. No errant socks or dust bunnies share my hiding place. The June bug scuttles along the baseboard, daring me to look away. I can’t blame him for the June bug. They have a mind of their own.
But this guy isn’t perfect or predictable. Although he’s stuck to the same schedule every day this week, today he failed to eat lunch at the bar on Printer’s Avenue.
One would think he knew I was going to show up.
I suppress a sigh and crane my neck from side to side, looking for a comfortable position. The June bug has disappeared to the opposite side of the room. Leo’s feet move out of view, but he’s still in the bedroom. I inhale deeply, the scent of his woodsy cologne reaching my nose. Nice.
The bed sags a little over my head. No way. He’s going to take a nap?
Resting my forehead on the floor, I allow myself a bit of self-pity and picture my rap sheet. It’s a bad hair day for a mug shot. The humid Nashville weather will make me appear a likely felon.
Clickety-clickety-tap-tap. He’s pounding the keys on his laptop and I imagine the worst. Prayer is not out of the question here. If he’s working from his bed instead of the fantastic desk in the other room, I’m going to scream. He works for hours straight. Why did he skip lunch to work on his computer?
The tapping stops. There’s some movement on the bed as he gets comfortable.
The television clicks on. I need to cough. It’s as if my mouth has dried and been filled cotton balls. Dry, tickly cotton balls. The sounds of a soap opera meet my ears. It’s unbelievable, but also a little amusing that he deviated from routine so he could watch daytime drama. Perhaps this is where he learned his poetic, yet dramatic writing style for his blog.
Ruining lives by exposing one postcard at a time.
My muscles ache from holding still as a two-by-four for an entire hour. Checking my watch, I try not to panic. Finally, the television clicks off and Leo leaves. I take my time extracting my stiff body from underneath his bed.
If he decides to do what he normally does at this time, I’ll have less than an hour to finish rifling through his apartment. At 1:00 in the afternoon on every Tuesday and Thursday, Leo visits the Nashville Library. I haven’t followed him inside, but he always goes in with a handful of paperwork and leaves empty handed. This excursion ranks high on his list of puzzling routines, but no more mysterious than most of the facts about him.
His apartment reminds me of a library. Everything has an organized spot, which makes the location of his blogging material sort of mind-boggling. Postcards for his Mr. Expose blog should certainly be beside his desk, an area I’ve already searched.
I look around the bedroom, partitioned off from the living room in his loft apartment. This place totally lacks storage space. One armoire sits in the corner, and a trunk lies underneath a long set of windows. The guy doesn’t have much stuff. This should be easy.
I open the double doors of the armoire to find the wooden space packed with jeans, one black suit, and some long sleeved shirts. Shoes are piled at the bottom. I close the doors and move on to the trunk.
“If I were a postcard, where would I be? Yes. Here.” I lift the lid. Crapola. The trunk is filled with t-shirts folded neatly into perfect squares of the same diameter. Did Leo get his training at The Gap? I squish my hands down into the spaces between shirts to make sure there isn’t anything else hidden.
I slam the lid and bump against a side table. A coffee mug tips over and liquid drizzles over the surface and onto the edge of a magazine. My heart taps double-time in my throat.
Oh, come on, Mr. Tidy. You couldn’t have put your mug in the sink? I grab the edge of my T-shirt and wipe at it before coffee can soak into the magazine.
I look down at the once white material. Ruined. Oh, Leo Jensen, you are truly a pain in the patootie. I like this shirt and living out of a suitcase doesn’t allow me one to spare.
I walk once more back through the open living area and kitchen. One wall has a bookshelf filled completely with hardbacks. I search the cabinets beside the refrigerator and another set built into the bottom of the island bar.
He has little food and only a few appliances, pots, and pans. No wonder he eats lunch most days in the bar.
No postcards hidden in the kitchen.
I catch a glimpse of someone in the large window lining one wall. A bolt of fear zings my heart like I’ve been electrocuted.
I’ve been caught.
Then I recognize the image. Wild hair that’s escaped my usual ponytail during the excursion under the bed. Frazzled expression. It’s only me, my crazy, mug shot-ready reflection. There is no way I’m getting trapped in here again. With a sigh, I let myself out, lock up, and return the shiny gold key to its place under the mat.
The next morning, I’m up later than usual. My cell alarm flashes 10:30 am. I push damp hair from my forehead. The hotel building lacks modern heating and air conditioning. Finally, cool air pushes up from the floor unit. I pull the string on the light-blocking curtains. A film of condensation obstructs my view momentarily, and I wipe my palm across the glass. The unit blows frigid air into the bottom of my oversized T-shirt and forces the fabric to billow bell-shaped around my thighs. I shudder.
Cold. I hate being cold. My mind flashes to another city. I detested Tacoma with its never-changing, dark horizons. My entire life turned blue and gray last winter. But I can’t blame everything on the weather.
Tacoma’s climate and people matched my life with Wesley—cold, distant, and lonely. A person on the outside, looking in with my nose pressed to the window. Tacoma was the perfect place to hide a wife and keep her estranged from family, far away in Texas.
Her family and his.
The view through my window isn’t the greatest, but it’s one I’ve studied for days—one rooftop below my fifth floor window, a busy street with lots of noisy traffic, and a row of restaurants and bars on the opposite side of the street.
Movement across the street reels my attention back to the present. Leo Jensen opens the coffee shop door and allows a girl to exit. She stops and spends several seconds smiling and talking to him. His classic All-American profile shines from all the way over there.
“Leo, you seem nice. Why were you so mean in the emails?” I step back and grab my binoculars from the nightstand before returning to the window. The two of them pull into focus.
The girl, a cute, twentyish brunette, shifts subtly closer to Leo. He backs away. I shake my head. Body language doesn’t lie. Lady, are you blind? The girl across the street obviously is, and keeps inching toward him.
Leo points toward the west, gives her a smile, and enters the coffee shop. The girl walks away, but I can still see her smiling long after he disappears inside.
I quickly get dressed and find my phone. Evidently, I slept like the dead, because I’ve missed several calls. My mother’s voicemail urges me to call my daddy. She doesn’t say what he wants, but I know he’s going to try to persuade me to move home.
The second voicemail is the one I dread listening to even more than my mother’s. I stare at the number that belongs to Isabella Warren—Wesley’s legal wife and the mother of his beautiful daughter, Charley.
Wesley. Dead, but still reaching out from the grave to affect us.
“Harper? I wanted to talk when you have time. You’re the only one who understands what I’m going through. Charley and I have a museum visit today, but you can call back anytime after nine. Hope you are doing well.”
I swallow the lump I get every time I imagine Charley missing her dad. Wesley.
It’s still hard to reconcile the Wesley who kept me in Tacoma with the Wesley that seven-year-old Charley knew—a kind, caring father. Trying to make the mental picture work is like squashing a one-foot-square block into an ant-sized pinhole.
First, I need to visit Dog Ears Bookstore, a cute little place only a couple of blocks from my hotel. The hotel concierge said Dog Ears stocks the best resources for books about the neighborhoods and places to live in Nashville.
I take my time, enjoying the scenery as I stroll the five blocks. Nashville feels like home. The city’s not exactly like Austin, but a close cousin. A cousin with more of a swagger—louder and more worried about getting your attention. Still, the music and the people are of the same family.
Colorful objects fill the bookstore window. There’s an elaborate tea set with hardback books stacked under various colorful cups. On closer inspection, it’s clear that all the books deal with tea.
Taking a deep breath, I enter and look around for an employee. There’s only one, apparently, and she’s with a customer, so I turn to the nearest shelf and pick up a book. The bookstore opened an hour ago and most aisles appear empty.
A buoyant voice startles me. “I see you’ve found Fifty Ways to Please Your Lover,” the girl says, the same girl I spotted talking to Leo a day ago at the bar. Lucky coincidence? She gives me a cheerleader smile to match her voice.
“Excuse me?” I shift uncomfortably.
She cocks her head to the side and looks at the book in my hands. “Wrong book?”
“Oh,” I flip the book to the front. The cover, a naked couple locked in an incredibly acrobatic embrace, causes me to avert my eyes. “I…um…picked it up by mistake.” I shove the book back onto the shelf.
“What brings you in today? By the way,” she gives a devious smirk, “that book you picked up is a New York Times bestseller. I sell at least a copy a day.”
“I don’t want to please a lover.” I lower my voice to right above a whisper. Is my declaration a Freudian slip buried deep in my heart? Can the other customer hear this conversation?
She grins.
I want to crawl behind a shelf. “I don’t have a lover.” I am not helping the situation, but cannot seem to stop myself. “I don’t need a book for that.”
She bobs her head in agreement as if she deals with awkward customers every day. “OK then. Wonderful. My name is Josie. Can I help you find a great read today?”
The only other customer in the store exits and I refocus on Josie. “I’m browsing.”
“Sure. Let me point out some sections of the store. We have self-help in front of you. Popular fiction books on all these stands near the front middle. Popular non-fiction near the back. Fiction organized by genres and then author on the walls.” Josie points to a poster mounted behind the counter. “There’s a map of the store. Or ask me.”
“Non-Fiction. Is there a book about Nashville?”
“Too many to list. Follow me.” She leads the way to the left wall of the store. “Are you looking for a travelogue? Or a historical?”
I lift my shoulders, attempting a casual shrug. “I’m visiting. It’s my first time.”
She glances over at me before striding to the end of the shelf. “A Nashville virgin. You’ll want tourist stuff then. There’s so much to do that you’ll have to be selective.”
“I’m thinking about sticking around. Moving here, if I can find a job and a place to live.”
“Really? We must’ve made some impression on you. You aren’t a musician, are you?”
“No.” I pause for a minute. “I think I’ve seen you before. Were you eating lunch at Dastardly Bastards the other day?” I deliver my words slow enough to sound uncertain.
“Oh yeah. I eat there all the time. Good burgers.”
“You were at a table near me. I think you might’ve been with your boyfriend.”
She snorts. “Leo? No. He’s my brother. But you just reminded me of something. Are you looking for a house? Or an apartment?” Josie pulls a book about Nashville restaurants from the shelf and hands it to me.
“What?” I’m confused.
“You said you need a place to live. There’s an apartment in Leo’s building that’s empty. It’s for rent if you’re interested. The rental has these amazing high ceilings. Leo’s been hoping it doesn’t rent because the last renters were partiers and drove him insane. But you don’t seem the type to swing from the—”
“Can you give me the info? I’ll check it out. That would be amazing.” I pull out my phone. Some things are meant to be and I know without any doubt, I’ve been handed a plan.
“Let me see what info I’ve got.” She leaves to search on her laptop.
“I’m so glad I stopped in here.” I walk to stand in front of the counter and pick up a brochure that I have no intention of reading.
“I found the number. There’s a couple of guys who own a bakery and the apartments. Here’s you go.” She flips a Dog Ears Bookstore business card over and writes on the back, then hands it to me. “The apartment is above the bakery. I thought about renting it myself, but I don’t want to live so close to my brother. I love him and all, but…you know. I need some privacy. But he’s great,” she adds. “You’ll love him for a neighbor.”
“Is your brother a singer? I mean, he looked familiar. Maybe I’ve heard him play.” I’m reaching for anything to keep the conversation going about Leo.
“No. He’s a writer.”
“Oh.” I take a minute to grab a book from the shelf. “So, what kind of stuff does he write?”
I’m waiting for her to tell me all about the blog. Suddenly I’m not sure this is going to be easy. It’s not likely that she’ll just outright tell me where he stores his writing inspiration.
“Oh, he wants to write the next great American novel. We’ll see. He’s actually pretty good.”
She’s not answering my question. I want to talk about Mr. Expose, but I can see it isn’t going to happen. I slip the card into my pocket. “I’ll call as soon as I leave here. Thanks. And I’ll take this book.” I slide the hardback across the counter.
“So, the apartment’s small. It’s just you? No husband or kids?” Josie asks.
My pulse quickens at the thought of Wesley and how I begged him for a baby. No wonder he didn’t want a child. He already had one and a wife to spare. I shift and look at my left hand. “No husband. I’m a widow.”
“I’m so sorry.” She has a funny expression on her face. That awkward look people get when they wish they could suck back the words they’ve said earlier. I know the feeling. Explicitly.
She concentrates on her register and rings up the book. “That’s $24.99.”
I hand her my credit card. “It’s only me, starting a new life.”
A life without regrets and with my eyes wide open.
