MUSE MONDAY
Today on Fearless Friday, Alice Orr gives us the account of her fearless decision. And we're glad she followed through. Tell us about it, Alice...
Have You Lost Your Mind?
Marissa
asked that question at her usual indiscreet volume. I responded by wishing I
could tell her to pipe down, but that would only encourage her to attract more
attention. Marissa loved attention. We’d settled into the palm-shaped bar seats
that are the trademark of a popular bistro on Manhattan’s posh Upper Eastside.
I
usually felt decadent in those seats, as if I were allowing my backside to be
publicly caressed in a giant, black leather embrace. Right then, I only felt
uneasy. It takes talent to create a lull in the conversational rumble of a
place like this in a city like New York at cocktail hour, and Marissa's comment
on my mental health had done just that, at least among our closest neighbors.
She’d
played minor characters in a couple of minimally successful off-Broadway
productions, and she really knew how to project. I could tell she was truly
enjoying this particular theatrical moment as she lifted her Kir Royale from
the gleaming black marble bar in a perfectly staged motion.
My
Pomegranate Cosmo remained untouched on its dark red cardboard coaster. Marissa
had already twice pronounced Cosmopolitans out of fashion, first for the
amusement of the bartender and a second time to emphasize she was all about
fashion, as if I could possibly have forgotten. What prompted her to question
my sanity was the opposite of fashionable in her opinion.
"Let
me make sure I heard you correctly," she went on.
Marissa
swiveled her palm seat at an oblique angle so she could appear to be talking to
me while actually scanning the room for better companion material. Her legs
were crossed, which hiked her narrow skirt far enough above her knee to show
her health club tightened calves and expensive spike-heeled pumps to best
advantage.
"You
intend to close down a successful business and move to the dark side of the
moon?"
"There's
more to it than that," I said.
"Oh,
yes. How could I omit the punch line? You are off to Nowhereville to become a
babysitter. I can hardly imagine a more brilliant career move."
A flash
of anger warmed my face, and in that instant I understood why I was sharing one
of the most cataclysmic choices of my life with someone I could barely
tolerate. I’d set up this scene for Marissa the actress to follow my cues, and
she didn’t disappoint. I could have bet a bundle she’d say something smug and
infuriating, then make an equally safe side wager on my reaction.
I’d
clamp on my best suit of ego armor and mount an impregnable verbal defense. All
of which Marissa would fail to notice, but that mattered little to me because
she wasn’t my real target audience. The armor and defensive attitude were
strictly for my own benefit in my battle to convince myself Marissa was wrong, that
I had not in fact lost my mind.
Until
that afternoon, Marissa and everybody in my life had known me in the same
context I knew myself, as a literary agent with my own firm. I’d worked hard for
that identity. Yet, I was casting it aside, along with the city on Manhattan
Island I loved in the marrow of my bones, and trekking to a very different
island in Puget Sound to help raise our two-year-old granddaughter.
No wonder
Marissa tossed me an insincere smile and sauntered off toward better conversational
pickings. I downed my unfashionable Cosmo in a long, single gulp. Everything
she’d said was true, except for what she left out. I was a grandma now, and
that identity ran deeper than my bones. It had taken over my heart and soul.
And, yes, maybe it had caused me to lose my mind.
Alice Orr – http://www.aliceorrbooks.com
A Villain for Vanessa and all of Alice’s books are available at http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Orr/e/B000APC22E/ and other online retailers.
A
Villain for Vanessa by Alice Orr
A story of tangled roots and
tormented love.
Two families are shaken to their roots. Vanessa Westerlo must find
her roots. Bobby Rizzo is torn between Vanessa and his true roots. They are all
tormented by love – past and too present. Meanwhile a man has been murdered.
And that is the most tormented tangle of all.
A Villain for Vanessa is Book 4 of the
Riverton
Road Romantic Suspense series set in remote Riverton, New York. This story
features the Kalli family and the fortunate people who find safety and welcome
at the Kalli homestead on Riverton Road. A Wrong Way Home is Book 1 of the series and A
Year of Summer Shadows is Book
2. A Vacancy at the Inn is Book 3 and introduces the Miller family
of Riverton Road Hill.
"Alice Orr is a brilliant writer who has a number
one best seller in her pocket," says one Amazon reviewer. Alice loves to
write. Especially romantic suspense novels and blog posts. She’s been a
workshop leader, book editor and literary agent. Now she lives her dream of
writing full-time. So far she’s published fifteen novels, three novellas and a
memoir – either traditionally or independently. Alice wrote her nonfiction
book, No More Rejections: 50 Secrets to
Writing a Manuscript that Sells, as a gift to the writers' community. A
revised edition is now in progress. Amazon says, "This book has it
all." And calls her novels, "Delicious well written suspense spiced
with a love story." Most of all, Alice is thrilled to hear from readers.
Visit her at her website http://www.aliceorrbooks.com. Alice has two grown children and two perfect
grandchildren and lives with her husband Jonathan in New York City.
Alice Orr – http://www.aliceorrbooks.com http://www.facebook.com/aliceorrwriter http://www.twitter.com/AliceOrrBooks
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