Angels All Over Town - Softcover

Rice, Luanne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553568264 ISBN 13: 9780553568264

Verlag: Bantam Books, 2007

Inhaltsangabe

New York Times bestselling author Luanne Rice made her triumphant debut with this delicately drawn but emotionally powerful portrait of a woman's extraordinary journey of the heart and soul-a timeless story of love, sisterhood, and the hope that emerges even out of heartbreak....

Una Cavan doesn't believe in ghosts. But ghosts seem to believe in her. At least, her father's ghost does, walking into and out of her life as casually as if he were entering and exiting a room. Una has always believed the Cavan women had the power of witches, and from the beaches of Connecticut to the bustle of New York City they've shared the special unbreakable bond of sisters. No man has been able to come between them...until Lily marries the "perfect" man and begins to drift away and Margo gets engaged. With another failed relationship behind her, and a thriving career as an actress ahead of her, Una wonders if she's destined to be alone-or if there isn't something more, something magical that life has in store for her. Then an unexpected encounter gives her the answer she's been seeking....

From the Trade Paperback edition.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Luanne Rice is the author of twenty-five novels, most recently Last Kiss, Light of the Moon, What Matters Most, The Edge of Winter, Sandcastles, Summer of Roses, Summer’s Child, Beach Girls, and her soon-to-be-released new hardcover, The Letters, written with Joseph Monninger. She lives in New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

The problem was not that I believed in ghosts. I did not believe in ghosts, but I was visited by one. I could not deny it. When I least expected to, I would see my father, solid of body, curly of hair, in true corporeal splendor, even though he had died months earlier. Once I saw him across the floor at the Rose Room in the Algonquin Hotel. I spotted him from behind. He was dining with two other men, and his graying golden-brown hair looked as springy as ever. I made no attempt to speak to him. I sat in my seat, not eating my chef's salad, watching his familiar movements: the way he drank his martini, smoked his cigarette, gestured expansively. I guessed that he was trying to sell some land to his table companions. I had no doubt that he would pick up the tab.

The next time I saw him was at the apartment I shared with my sisters in Newport. It was a small, dingy, second-floor walkup, made cool by a breeze off the harbor. One close August morning Lily and Margaret had left for the boatyard where they worked, and I had just finished another cup of coffee. I grabbed an old Redbook and headed for the bathroom. There I found my father, seated on the toilet, reading the New York Daily News.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, backing out and slamming the door behind me.

"Hang on a sec, I'm almost through," he called. My heart was racing, but from embarrassment, not shock. I did not ask myself how my father, a man who had died wearing two colostomy bags, could be taking a normal shit. Nor did I wonder why he was reading the Daily News, a tabloid he had considered vulgar in life, and which, besides, was not readily available in Newport. I just sat at the kitchen table and waited.

Presently he flushed the toilet and opened the door. He wore a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of faded madras shorts. Now that detail shocked me: he had pale, bony, freckled legs covered with curly reddish hair, and I had never seen him wear shorts.

"Sweetheart," he said, opening his arms to embrace me.

I raced toward him and gave him a huge hug. "Dad, are you real?" I asked, feeling queer for asking: he felt solid and sweaty.

"Yes, sweetheart, I am. Unfortunately, I can't stay long." He checked his watch, a cheap Bulova, the one he had worn ever since I could remember.

"Tell me everything. What has it been like?"

We sat opposite each other at the kitchen table. Lily's plastic birth-control Pilpac was open beside the pepper shaker, and I tried to surreptitiously glide it under a napkin. My father waved his hand.

"Don't bother doing that," he said. "I've seen it already. That's the sheer hell of it. I can see everything, the good along with the bad, and I can't tell you a damn thing about what to do."

Instantly my mind was flooded with images of things, the good along with the bad, that I had done since he had died. Alastair "Boom-Boom" Brady's face kept swimming to the forefront, and I kept blinking my eyes to push it away.

"That puke you're thinking of now, for instance. What is he, Australian?"

"Yes, he's a sailor. He's the bowman on a famous racer."

"I don't give a goddamn if he won the America's Cup, for godsakes. He's no good. You're a fine actress, even if it is for a soap opera. If you aren't going to have respect for yourself . . ." He patted his breast pocket and removed a pack of L&Ms. He glanced around, and I handed him a matchbox from the Candy Store. Examining the logo, one gilded mermaid with two graceful tails, he lit his cigarette and handed the matchbox back to me. "And you should stay away from that place. The Candy Store. A bunch of guys with their hands in the cookie jar."

I fought to keep my mind blank. "Mom's good," I said.

"I know. I like the way she finished the living room. Tell her the beam's sagging, though. She'd better get a brace. In fact, have her call Creighton Albemarle

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Bantam Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2007
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0553568264
• ISBN 13: 9780553568264
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar