Again, if you'd like to read a longer (though earlier) sample, please go "look inside" at Amazon.
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Max’s line rang a few times, more often than
usual. He must be busy with his own activities. That was good. Sauce for the
goose and all that. Though she could hardly help wondering what he was doing,
and if he was doing it with people she knew or with new people.
“Thea!”
He still answered by almost shouting her name, that special joyous lilt in his
voice.
These calls had a routine, by now. They
took turns telling the other about what they’d done that day. Did he ever tailor, or
even censor, his accounts? Had she been doing the same, without altogether
realizing it?
Thea listened to Max’s account of yet another
pitch session, one that didn’t sound likely to lead to a job, and of the
neighborhood cookout at which he’d proudly taken charge of the grill. The most
surprising news: he’d started taking surfing lessons. He’d always declined her
offers to teach him, saying he’d rather watch and sketch her instead. Damn—she’d
have liked to be his teacher. “So who’s teaching you?”
He looked faintly uncomfortable as he
responded, “Just
one of the neighbors. No one you’ve met. They moved in later.”
She noted the pronoun with amusement. Max
tended to use gender-specific pronouns, probably because he was old-fashioned
straight in his preferences and couldn’t help noticing gender before many other
characteristics. So the neighbor was probably female and cute. The time might
be coming to discuss how they should deal with their sexual needs in the
future.
But this woman had better be careful about
Max’s
safety! “Gotten hit in the head with the board yet? Or thought you were
drowning?”
Max chuckled. “Yes to the first, no to
the second. It’s all good,
except the water’s still a little cold. I tried on
your wetsuit, but it’s too loose. No matter. Now your turn. What have you been up to?”
“Well,
I just came back from another meeting. We’re taking a break from the
new-community development and preparing for the next elections. We each took an
elected position or a likely ballot issue and talked about the options we
expect to have. It’s something of a waste of time, I suppose, since we don’t
actually know what the options will be. But I presented the issue of raising
local taxes to fund public support for artists.”
Max um-hummed along as she spoke. When she
paused, he threw in, “That’s
a subject you already know inside out. If you want to follow up, I can send you
the letter you wrote last year, explaining why artists shouldn’t depend on
public funding. You could bring it to the next meeting, or distribute it
beforehand.”
Thea sat back, stunned. Max had been
looking to one side, no doubt searching for this supposed letter on a split
screen, but her continued silence made him glance back at her. “What’s wrong?”
“Hon
. . . are you sure that’s what I said? Could you be misremembering it?”
“I
don’t think so. I remember because you got interested in something political
for a change. And because you made your point so well. There were a bunch of
comments about that. You changed some minds. . . . Here it is! I’m sending it
now.”
Thea waited, holding her breath, until her
mail program pinged a moment later. She skimmed the message, then read it
again, her heart pounding. “You’re right. That’s what I said. And I sounded very sure of my
ground. So why don’t I remember?”
And why had she been so casually and
confidently presenting the opposite position?
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