Read the first chapters of 'Instant Karma' here!
From Instant Karma: The day it happened
I am super-excited to be sharing with you the Prologue and first two chapters of Instant Karma: The day it happened - to be published around the world in English next Wednesday, 9th November.
The book is what’s known in the business as “high concept,” meaning that its premise can be summed up in a few sentences:
What would happen if we woke up one morning and found that karma had become instant? If every positive or negative thing we did resulted in a positive or negative result for us within, say, half an hour, how quickly would we notice? What impact would it have on our behaviour? What would the world look like after 24 hours of instant karma?
I had a lot of fun time exploring the roller-coaster of exactly this scenario. There’s plenty of darkly comedic moments, and even a cameo role that will please my cat-loving readers!
I’ve been really heartened by the response of early readers who feel is it very right for our volatile times. I was also chuffed by the following from a Publishers Weekly reviewer:
Instant Karma is an astute story with an amusing, life-changing plot about the consequences of our actions. The bold, unique subject matter, featuring the teachings of a Buddhist guru and a literal application of the idea of instant karma, makes this novel stand out from the crowd. While Instant Karma does show both the positive and negative impacts of societal change, the book's focus on kindness and hope is refreshing.
Instant Karma is being published simultaneously in hardback, paperback, Kindle and audio formats on Wednesday 9 November. So whatever your preferred format, we’ve got you covered.
I am especially happy about the hardback edition, the first of my books to come out in this format for a while - just in time for that luxe Christmas gift!
The book has already been published in French and Italian, with many other foreign editions underway. There has even been some TV interest, so fingers and toes all crossed!
You can pre-order a copy in whatever format at the following links. Just click on the country where you live: USA, UK, Australia, Canada, South Africa, France, Italy.
Alternatively, if Apple, Nook, Kobo or other e-format alternatives are what float your boat, please click here.
If you’d prefer to listen to the early chapters, rather than read them, click the link below. You will find Chapters 1 and 2 listed below this one.
Prologue The day before Omni, Colorado
No one could remember when the guru came to live at the top of the mountain. Some distance out of the small but picturesque town of Omni, his home was little more than a summer shack. He had no phone, TV or radio. He subsisted on an austere diet of vegetables and who knows what, from the modest stipend he earned teaching meditation. He drank no alcohol, nor was he ever seen buying the kind of tasty indulgences that most people found necessary for a feeling of contentment. A man of indeterminate age who looked 50-something but may well have been older, he was a being of few needs. But if asked who was the happiest person they knew, the good townsfolk of Omni – and even the not-so-good ones – would immediately and unanimously have answered: “Lama Tashi.”
Although his home was secluded, not far from Rocky Mountain National Park, the guru was no recluse. He held weekly classes at the Lone Pine Meditation Center. A few times a month he’d come into town to collect his frugal provisions. Guiding a shopping cart round the grocery store, when he encountered another person he always made eye contact, nodded in acknowledgement, and smiled. And at such moments, a remarkable thing happened. The person meeting his eyes would melt.
It didn’t matter what state of mind they were in. Whether they were hurrying or weary or diligently working their way through their shopping list. When they encountered Lama Tashi they experienced a sudden jolt. An unexpected and powerful reminder about who and what they truly were. It was hard to put this experience into words. How, with a single glance, they came to recognize an important truth about themselves. It was as if this man effortlessly saw beyond the appearance they usually took themselves to be, and reflected back a more panoramic reality. Whatever trials they may be facing, whatever the constraints that so preoccupied them became like mere froth on the ocean surface – ephemeral and inconsequential compared to the boundless reality below. And so benevolent was Lama Tashi’s expression, so wholehearted his acceptance that they’d feel an up-welling of joy. In his warm, brown eyes was all the reassurance they needed that, beneath the surface, all was well.
Such was the effect of Lama Tashi’s presence that, even in the early days, he was never on the receiving end of the apprehension which members of small communities often felt about outsiders. Lama Tashi had Asian features, wore red robes and never made any pretense that while living in their world he was self-evidently not of it. But he was never shunned for being different. On the contrary, he was actively sought out.
Pauline Taylor, who lived with a menagerie of rescue animals on the outskirts of town, kept an eye out for Lama Tashi’s ancient, lime-green Volvo on the road into town, leaving home at the most opportune moment to engineer an encounter with him. Tears welling in her eyes, she told anyone who cared to listen that she had never felt such unconditional love as the time she’d first bumped into Lama Tashi in the Household Detergents aisle.
Professor Hawke, retired from Princeton, who refused to slum it intellectually with just about everyone, used to collar Lama Tashi any time he saw him, insisting he join him for coffee at The Good Roast, and demand answers to arcane questions of quantum mechanics.
Even Margarita Moore, whose staunch views on anyone who wasn’t Born Again, heterosexual, and a vigorous supporter of the Second Amendment were well known, was once seen holding hands with Lama Tashi outside her church, ardently agreeing that there is only one ultimate reality, and if we wish to experience it, first we must let go of our tightly-held view of self. In that moment, what the guru said seemed - even to her - to be so overwhelmingly obvious that she couldn’t possibly disagree.
Within hours, as the impact of his presence began to dissipate, she slid back into her habitual convictions. But at the time what an extraordinary vision it had been to behold!
So popular was Lama Tashi around town that people joked how an endorsement by the guru on the mountain would guarantee electoral success. When someone had questioned if he might himself consider running for office his face had crinkled, silvering goatee wobbled, and he had belly-laughed with appreciative gusto, as if the suggestion was deliberately and hilariously idiotic. Which in a kind of way it was. But in another kind of way, wasn’t.
The idea of having Lama Tashi as their representative in City Hall or Congress or even – why the heck not? - the Senate, was an idea that once suggested refused to go away. From time to time someone would ask him, “Would you consider being our Mayor, Lama Tashi?” Or “Would you run for Congress?” And he always replied in the same, cryptic manner. Meeting his questioner in the eye with a warmly encouraging expression he would say, “You are asking the wrong question, my friend. It is important to ask a useful question if we wish to receive a useful answer.”
While Lama Tashi was no hermit, he didn’t dawdle when he came to town, nor did he frequent the coffee shops or restaurants unless practically dragged there by the likes of Professor Hawke. As a result, no one had much idea about the practices that had given rise to his particular presence, that seemingly magical aura he emanated wherever he went. Over the years, on the few occasions he had been asked what he believed, he answered in a way designed to benefit the person asking, using words offering that most precious of all gifts: hope.
To Kathy Branton, a young woman who concealed an abused childhood beneath a prickly exterior, he said simply that he believed in loving-kindness. Had anyone else mouthed such a saccharine sentiment, Kathy would have bristled. But so unfeigned was the guru’s presence, so unreserved the compassion in his eyes, that she came away feeling curiously uplifted.
Asked by Maria Flavio, a lapsed and very guilty Catholic, he had pointed upwards to where the spring sky was a vaulted sweep of pure blue from one horizon to the other. ‘We are like this,’ he told her. ‘Perfectly clear. No matter what clouds pass through, or how long they remain, they have no power to taint our true nature. That always remains pristine and radiant.’
As Maria had walked away from the encounter she felt a sublime lightness, as if a burden she had been unwittingly carrying around on her shoulders for her whole life had been suddenly and unexpectedly removed.
Sometimes, Lama Tashi didn’t use words at all. Beckoned by Darius Styles, Gwen and Angelo’s teenage son who suffered from cerebral palsy, Lama Tashi stepped over to where the boy was slumped in his wheelchair in dappled sunshine outside a convenience store, waiting for his mother. Physically, Darius’s body was misshapen but there was little wrong with his mind. He had seen Lama Tashi around town before, in his distinctive robes.
As the guru approached, Darius asked a question in sounds the lama couldn’t possibly unravel – at least, not by way of hearing. But it didn’t matter. Lama Tashi reached out, taking him by his right hand, and looked into his eyes.
To begin with Darius was awkwardly self-conscious, and not simply on account of being in the presence of a stranger wearing strange clothes. Being more sensitive than most to non-verbal communication, there was something about the simple goodness of the guru he found, at first, almost too much to bear.
But after a while, Darius looked up to meet his gaze. And when he did, it wasn’t long before he was smiling also. Still holding onto the lama with his own right hand, he shifted himself in his chair so that with his left he was able to reach up and, with the tips of his fingers, touch his heart.
Lama Tashi nodded.
It had been one of the very few unchaperoned exchanges Darius had had in his life. And the most meaningful.
In such ways, Lama Tashi’s constant offering to the people among whom he lived, was his gift of hope. Hope to inspire insight and self-acceptance. Hope to create positive change.
Just as he defied the usual conventions of belief, there was similar ambiguity about why he had chosen to be part of their particular community. To participants at the Lone Pine Meditation Center he would say that he was there to help them experience the true nature of their own minds. To Tom and Tina Jackson, his Vulture Peak Drive neighbors, he explained that his cabin was an ideal place to meditate.
The only being to whom he revealed more of the truth was his cabin companion, a Siamese cat named Shanti. Like so much else in Lama Tashi’s life, Shanti hadn’t arrived through any deliberate act on his part and instead had spontaneously appeared. One day she simply stepped through the open window when he was meditating and curled up next to him. She never chose to leave.
From time to time Lama Tashi reached out to where Shanti was basking in the summer sun on his windowsill. Or, in the evenings, to where she might be toasting herself in front of the fire.
‘Ah yes, this is the most beautiful place to wait, isn’t it, my dear Shanti?’ he stroked her luxuriant tummy. ‘The most perfect place to bide our time.’
What, exactly, they were biding their time for was not a subject on which he elaborated. Nor did she much care, so long as he continued biding it with her. And stroking her tummy, of course.
The afternoon before that most extraordinary of days, Lama Tashi set off in the direction of his neighbor’s house. Living at the furthest end of Vulture Peak Drive, somewhat higher than the Jacksons’ residence, meant that when he’d first moved in he had become quite familiar with the Jacksons, from a distance, some weeks before they had actually met. Tom, tall, broad-shouldered and ramrod straight carried an air of invincibility about him, looking every inch the recently retired, high-ranking military man. Tina, trim, vivacious and plucky, was always on the go. When she wasn’t creating extravagant floral arrangements for weddings, baptisms or other milestones in the community, she was tending to her plants. In particular, she took great joy from the gorgeous salvia blossoms that flourished in the hanging baskets which ranged along the full length of their balcony.
The Jacksons were the kind of people whom other friends from the forces constantly dropped in to see. Their home was Party Central. During those early years there had seldom been a weekend night when their balcony - overlooking the same panoramic vista as Lama Tashi’s modest porch - wasn’t filled with former comrades and their spouses, with much back-thumping, shoulder-pounding conviviality among the men.
Unflagging entertainment along the mountain didn’t disrupt the lama’s routine. The occasional few stray bars of music, or laughter that carried on the night breeze was never enough to keep him from sleeping – he was usually in bed by 9 pm. And when he woke for his first meditation session of the day at 3 am, surveying the pristine tranquility of the moonlit valley, it was as if he was the only person in the world.
Over the decades, the socializing next door had fallen away, Tom had begun to stoop and Tina slowed down. There was no escaping the aging process, not that ageing alone accounted for the changes that had come over Tom – and, as a consequence, Tina. There was a more troubling reason why the former Colonel would spend so many solitary hours on the balcony staring into the night, a tumbler of bourbon beside him.
Something he had been able to rationalize, suppress, or ignore through most of his working life was taking advantage of the stillness of his retirement to emerge from its basement trunk and slide into waking consciousness. Something that had only ever revealed itself before in his worst nightmares would creep out at unexpected moments - and once glimpsed, devour all of his attention. Horrific, sickening, misery-inducing, it was something he found hard enough to admit to himself let alone anyone else.
Lama Tashi had seen it clearly the very first time they’d met. That occasion had been a couple of months after his arrival, wheeling his trash can to the end of the road for the weekly collection. Tom had just transported the Jackson’s own can on the back of a macho-looking pick-up truck. Turning to find his new neighbor approaching, he had instinctively assumed his unassailable, military man pose.
When Lama Tashi met Tom’s clear blue eyes, he immediately saw what was in his heart – and his expression was filled with compassion.
Abashed, Tom hadn’t known how to respond. Never had he found himself so completely transparent, especially with regards to that worst of all horrors. He was so successful at hiding it, he doubted that anyone even suspected it was there. Now, caught unawares by a man of self-evident virtue, he didn’t know how to react. He certainly wasn’t prepared for the rush of benevolence from Lama Tashi’s heart, which made him feel both awkwardly self-conscious and utterly unworthy. So he had retreated behind a veil of elaborate courtesy, insisting on giving Lama Tashi a ride back to his house, talking all the way about the city’s garbage collection policy.
From the next week on, Tom always stopped by to collect his neighbor’s trash can and return it to him, once emptied, later in the day. After the worst winter snowfalls, he’d clear away the snow on Vulture Peak Drive, not only to his own front door, but to the lama’s too.
Had he been asked to explain himself, Tom would have drawn himself up and spoken about the importance of being a good neighbor. But it went very much deeper than that. Once, when repairing his own stone fence Tom had, without prompting, spent a week repairing Lama Tashi’s. And when the lama had gone on a two month visit to the Himalayas, to reconnect with his elderly guru, his colleagues and family, he had returned to find his cabin newly and securely insulated, protecting him from the worst of the arctic winter freeze as well as the summer heat.
Lama Tashi always expressed his heartfelt appreciation for his neighbor’s kindness, although both he and Tom knew that it wasn’t his gratitude that Tom yearned for. It was instead something he had so far been unable to bring himself to express.
Lama Tashi had tried to reach out to him over the months, then years. There had been exchanges when he’d as good as physically yanked Tom away from the mesmerizing specter. The irony didn’t escape the lama that it was the man who lived closest to him, who did more than most in practical ways to support him, and who was in the direst need of his guidance, who was also the most impervious to his efforts.
Enough! Understanding the unprecedented, seismic shift about to occur, Lama Tashi knew that Tom was about to have the best chance he ever would to be rid of the monster that was slowly crushing the life out of him. Past encouragement had failed. Time to change tack.
Lama Tashi knocked three times on the Jackson’s front door. It was a while before the lock turned and Tom was standing in the doorway. Once again, there was the same meeting of eyes. The same recognition in Lama Tashi’s expression as he reflected, with deep concern, how pervasive the darkness in Tom had become.
Tom showed him through the hallway, a light-filled room with a high, windowed ceiling, in the center of which stood a large table. In former times the table would have been dominated by one of Tina’s sweeping floral arrangements, a festival of vibrant blossoms and verdant greenery. Today, it stood bare, a great, empty, highly-polished slab. Tom led him to the lounge which opened onto the balcony, the room which had once been the epicenter of the Jackson’s social whirl. Its walls were bedecked with photographs of battleships, striker aircraft and, mounted in pride of place, a pair of Enfield muskets from the Civil War. In a far corner stood an upright piano, never played. The balcony outside was open and strangely stark, denuded of the once-lush hanging gardens of Babylon, as Tom had ironically referred to his wife’s creations.
‘I’ve come to ask if you would do me a favor,’ began Lama Tashi, once they were sitting. ‘I may be needed elsewhere from tomorrow, for a few days. I wonder if you could please visit the cabin, and if I’m not there, feed Shanti?’
Tom nodded. ‘Of course.’
For a few minutes they discussed details of timing, where Shanti’s food was stored, and her preference for variety. Her water, and the means by which she came and went from the cabin. Then talk turned to general chit chat about the early warmth of spring this year and its effect on the black bears who were coming out of hibernation earlier than usual.
The small talk ran its course. There was an awkward silence. It was now or never.
Lama Tashi turned, gazing toward the balcony where Tom sat alone, night after night. ‘I see you in the evenings,’ he said.
Tom followed his eyes as if joining him to study the diminished version of himself, slumped in his chair.
‘I like a bourbon,’ he observed, tilting his head in the direction of his bar in the corner of the room, showcasing a row of spirit bottles lined up in regimental precision against a mirrored wall.
Lama Tashi surveyed the many bottles. ‘Alcohol,’ he nodded, sagely. ‘Sometimes, I think, the effect is like meditating.’
Tom’s eyebrows twitched sharply upwards. ‘How d’you get that?’
‘It doesn’t change a thing,’ he explained. ‘But it may change the way you feel about a thing. Temporarily.’
Tom knew exactly what Lama Tashi was up to, trying again to lever open that particular door. He made no reply, looking instead at the floor with an avoidance that had become reflexive.
‘It helps you sleep, yes?’ the lama attempted.
Tom didn’t say anything for a long while before grunting, ‘Anesthetic.’
Lama Tashi nodded. ‘Pain relief.’
‘You’re probably going to tell me I should meditate instead,’ Tom flashed a look of open defiance. ‘But sitting still for hours isn’t my bag. I’m a man of action.’
They were on the same page now. The subject of Tom’s pain acknowledged along with his recalcitrance. And only because of his heartfelt compassion, Lama Tashi did the last thing Tom expected. While Tom studied him through blue eyes so light they were almost vacant of color, Lama Tashi reflected back an altogether different reality.
Gone was the benevolent acceptance with which Tom was familiar and instead was power in a gaze the likes of which he had never felt before. More intimidating than the most threatening he’d encountered in the military. More ominous because it confronted him with the reality he’d spent decades trying his utmost to avoid: the torment of his own mind. An unfathomable horror to which he’d been witness decades earlier and from which there was no escape. A to-the-bone dread which had become his all-consuming preoccupation. In his neighbor’s eyes, this was all reflected back to him with an objectivity that conveyed an urgent and powerful warning. No longer could he avoid the appalling recognition that however deeply troubled he felt right now, it was as nothing compared to what lay ahead if something didn’t change.
What would he do when there was no balcony to sit on, no bourbon to anesthetize? After he died when his mind, instinctively drawn to the horror, became completely absorbed in it? Unfettered from a body, without anchor to a place where he could return for even temporary relief, he was confronted not so much by some Hieronymus Bosch nightmare as by his own future. Was this not the very definition of hell – the relentless experience of intense pain without cessation? One he may have glimpsed and tried to discount before but which was reflected inescapably in the overwhelming wrathfulness of Lama Tashi’s gaze.
‘I agree that action is needed,’ Lama Tashi said after a while, in what felt like from a different lifetime.
Deeply disconcerted, Tom saw his neighbor’s expression segue back to its usual tranquil demeanor. Never had he guessed that the mild-mannered guru possessed such core-shaking power. With a shudder, he recognized why Lama Tashi had always shown him such compassion - not only because of what tormented him now, but because of what he understood lay ahead. It was going to get even worse.
Lama Tashi knew that he had Tom’s undivided attention. ‘Nothing in the future is decided,’ he said, speaking directly to his thoughts. ‘It is up to you to create the causes for the effects that you wish to experience. You create your own reality.’
There was a lengthy pause while Tom absorbed what had just happened. Staring at him he asked, ‘What are you suggesting?’
Later, before going to bed, Lama Tashi stood outside his home looking into the darkness – the space which, for his neighbor, was a theatre of horror. The source of baleful specters that came to torment Tom, that held him transfixed by dread, yet somehow compelled to return night after night, bourbon in hand.
Lama Tashi’s own experience could hardly be more different. To him the hours of darkness were a time of wonder, when dazzling brightness and activity subsided to reveal more subtle realities which pointed to a wondrous purpose. The gurgling stream beyond the lip of the mountain, the source of the verdant pastures that surrounded them, became audible only when the noises of the day dissolved and the constant promise of life could be heard flowing sweet as a lullaby. Up above, the moon and stars hidden until after nightfall, spangling the sky in cosmic patterns miraculous with possibilities.
From this vast, interdependent spaciousness all things would arise, abide and pass. Ceaseless in motion, for him the ephemeral dance of the elements was an ever-present reminder of transience. For if nothing was permanent, then everything was possible. The only certainty was change.
Shanti appeared at the cottage window and meowed, rubbing the side of her head luxuriantly against the frame. Lama Tashi picked her up, gently holding her to him so that the two of them were sharing their warmth as they gazed into the bountiful night.
‘Yes, my dear, all must change,’ he said. ‘The only question is: how?’
Wake up and smell the coffee!
Friday
8:00 am (Eastern Standard Time)
6:00 am (Mountain Standard Time)
5:00 am (Pacific Standard Time)
Chapter 1 Wall Street, New York City
Amy Robbins dropped a coin in the homeless man’s cap. As she did most Fridays. The same guy sat in the same shop entrance, wild and unkempt, cheeks raw from exposure.
‘God bless!’ he said today, as he always did when her coin clinked against others in the cap.
‘You too,’ she murmured.
A short distance along the pavement was the coffee shop. On a Friday she’d come in early to buy a cappuccino as a reward for surviving another week in the city. A modest reward maybe, but on her junior analyst’s salary she had to be careful.
There were three people ahead of her in the line at Brew Ha. Behind the espresso machine, Jordan caught her eye with a grin and raised his eyebrows.
She nodded, smiling.
Over the months he’d got to know her order so that by the time she’d paid, her cappuccino was right there on the counter, complete with her name spelled out in the foam. The first time it had happened she’d been thrilled, and not only because tall, rangy Jordan had evidently remembered her name. It was also the first time she’d felt acknowledged as a regular. Someone from around here. A person with as much right to call herself a New Yorker as anyone else.
Up till then, she always felt like the proverbial country mouse. Her pretty face, bright-eyed perkiness and neat figure might have opened doors back home in Aubrey, Texas, but she’d felt like an imposter even trying to make a life for herself here. There had been times she wondered why she kept on at it – the grungy apartment, the daily commute, the low pay. Except that she was driven by a greater purpose. Like countless others before her, she’d hoped that by simply being here she would discover a way to bring her deepest wishes into reality.
Until then, Brew Ha was her sanctuary, her feel-good place. For as long as it took to drink her cappuccino, every Friday she would reflect nostalgically on the good things back home in Aubrey, like Mr. Deal and the horses she used to care for at Bluegrass Horse Sanctuary, especially her beloved Flash, who she’d ridden since childhood. She’d also remind herself why she was here.
Friends back home had always been complimentary about how she’d styled her bedroom in a way that was contemporary and chic, even if they didn’t have the language to describe what she’d done or how it made them feel. She had the right eye, they’d say. She knew how to put things together. Which was why she’d set her heart on getting into interior design someday, once she’d got to understand how things worked in New York City and found the confidence to bring her dreams to life.
On weekends Amy would walk round her new Brooklyn neighborhood and pause outside some of the buildings and wonder about what it might be like to live there. One in particular, the spectacular art-deco Woodrow Wilson building was her all-time favorite. She was so drawn to it she’d even walked into its gracious, marble lobby and marveled at its landscaped gardens. Apartments in the building started out at half a million plus, with two bedrooms costing at least double that. She’d have to be a trader at Sharma Funds before she could even think of earning enough.
Just one person away from the counter that particular morning, Amy felt a vibration in her coat pocket. Taking her phone out, she opened her messages. And was so astonished by what she found that she didn’t even realize she’d moved to the front of the line. Both Jordan and the girl on the register had to call out her name, in unison, to bring her back to the here and now.
When she looked up, she was wearing an expression of bewildered exhilaration.
Chapter 2 Omni, Colorado
Margarita opened the passenger door and carefully placed the cardboard tray containing two, large Americanos on the seat. Single origin from Huila, Columbia, the coffee was Bob’s favorite. A bonus to accompany her early return.
She’d been scheduled to fly home from New York later today, but the week’s meetings had gone so well that she’d decided to return yesterday afternoon, spending last night at her sister’s in Denver before getting up early. She hadn’t told Bob, wanting to give him a surprise. Both of them had been working long hours of late. Being the end of the week, perhaps they could take this opportunity to push back? Go somewhere scenic for lunch and take the rest of the day off to do whatever – she had a few ideas.
Closing the passenger door, she stepped round the front of the SUV to the driver’s side, smiling as she recalled the last time she’d stopped for coffee. Just like now, she’d got home earlier in the day, arriving home with Bob’s favorite single origin coffee. Whether it was her recent absence, or the coffee, or a combination of the two she couldn’t say, but the effect on her husband had been unexpectedly arousing. Delightfully so.
Over 25 years of marriage the fire of their passion for one another had inevitably receded to something more like a muted glow. But that early-morning coffee run had had the same effect as throwing fuel on the embers, provoking an entirely unexpected blaze of desire that had seen them using several surfaces of their home in ways they hadn’t since they’d first dated. It was a good thing that Gabby had moved to college earlier this year!
Margarita couldn’t help wondering if her arrival home today would unleash the same vigorous exuberance. Flicking down the driver’s visor, she checked her appearance in the mirror, always at its most merciless this time in the morning. She ran her hands through her short cropped dark hair, her gaze resting briefly on her bronzed cheeks before inspecting the mascara which focused attention on what Bob had always told her were her most alluring feature - her vivacious Latina eyes. Her complexion may have faded and lines deepened through menopause, and she was sometimes despairing of the unstoppable changes that had come over her. But sexual attraction had turned out to be a most curious thing, the spark of desire was evidently capable of being re-ignited even given the reality of thinning skin and sagging breasts. Physicality, it seemed, was only part of it. Snapping the visor mirror shut, Margarita pondered for a while on how this particular life force, one she had imagined consigned to her past, was capable of making such a sudden and welcome late-life resurgence.
Not that she pondered for very long.
Opening the driver’s door to step inside, the most familiar figure caught her eye. He was quite some distance away – a couple of hundred yards down the street at the top of an outdoor staircase. But even if he had been twice the distance, even if he hadn’t been wearing the jungle green jacket they had bought in Costa Rica last year, she would have recognized him in an instant. What on earth was he doing stepping out the door of the apartment above Paige Turner Books? And so early in the morning?
The questions were still forming in her mind when a figure appeared behind him. As he turned back, Margarita could make out the pink of a bathrobe. A woman’s hands around his shoulders. He was kissing her – and not in the manner of a cordial farewell. The intimacy of their embrace was unmistakable. Moments later, he was stepping back inside, shutting the door quickly.
Behind the steering wheel, Margarita was too shocked to move.
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I had preordered and already received my kindle copy. So looking forward to reading it. The concept is so intriguing. I do wish instant karma was in force...
Happy Book Launch day David
looking forward to reading more.....will order my copy today.
Hope you got to see the beautiful full moon eclipse it was lovely here in Victoria
Thank you and best wishes Trisha