-I wrote the following novel nearly two decades ago. In the years between then and now I've honed my craft, and my perception of this world; my thoughts and ideas; have changed dramatically. However, I still enjoy the premise and have decided to do an overhaul of revisions and rewrites, though likely not until sometime next year. (Though I'm sure I'll do a little as I post chapters)
For now I hope you will enjoy a glimpse into my book writing beginnings...
They are the closest of friends though they have never met in waking life.
Prologue-PT1 Prologue-PT2 Chapter 1
Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10
Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13
Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18 Chapter 19
Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Four
The four of them walked purposefully toward town. The girls stayed slightly behind, Amy pointing out old friend’s houses, favorite delis, and the “world’s best bagel shop”. The town they lived in was called Patchogue, and her house was only a couple of blocks away from the Long Island Sound. They were moving in the opposite direction towards town, but Amy told her that later on they could walk down to the pier at the little public park on the bay.
“Oh look, we’re almost there.”
The shops began on the corner, and from there they could see tables with canopies lined up and down the street. The sidewalks were full of browsing people, and Aliyah smiled at the city accent they all had. She tried to mimic it talking to Amy for the next few minutes and sent her friend into gales of laughter.
“Hey, that’s pretty good, you could almost pass for a Long Islander.”
They followed Amy's mom and aunt from one stand to the next looking at small selections from inside each of the stores on the street. There was jewelry of all kinds and sizes, makeup and the smell of perfume from samples had mixed together to form a sort of flowery lemony smell that Aliyah would always remember and associate with this day. There was furniture, clothing, candy, and on every corner food booths were set up like a fair, with vendors offering peanuts, pretzels, cotton candy, hotdogs, cold drinks, kabobs, candy apples, Sno cones, pizza, and various other fast food type products.
“Ooh, I’m getting hungry for some pizza,” Amy exclaimed. “And a hotdog.”
“Pizza and a hotdog, interesting combo...aren’t you still stuffed?”
“No, I didn’t over do it. You have got to try them both Aliyah, but as a warning once you do you will be spoiled from all other dogs and pizza for the rest of your life.”
“That good?”
“Oh yeah. Hey mom,” she called, “I’m hungggry.”
“Sweetie, we just had lunch.”
“I know, but Long Island pizza and hotdogs!”
“I’ll tell you what, we’ll order pizza for supper. Than tomorrow when we head to the beach we’ll stop at one of those fantastic hot dog stands for lunch.”
Amy pouted, “Okay mom, I guess I can wait.”
Aliyah laughed. “That’s good because I’m still full and I want to get the total enjoyment. What is it with Long Island food, because the lunch meat was so good I’ll be dreaming of it for years to come!”
“If you feel that way about some bologna, just wait ‘till you try the pizza.”
They meandered down the sidewalk, and Aliyah stopped abruptly in front of a stand sporting prints of paintings. Right in the middle was a large picture of the woods with a path heading into it beyond where you could see. The pine tree needles had a bit of a sparkle, as if it was someplace magical. It reminded her so much of the place in her dreams that she felt rooted to the spot and transfixed.
“Helloo, Aliyah, are you okay, yoo hoo?” Amy waved her hand in front of her friend’s face and Aliyah turned to her.
“That’s the place I go to in my dream. Or at least part of it,” her voice felt far away to her, so she shook her head to clear it. “Excuse me,” she sought the attention of the clerk, “How much for that picture?”
“Oh, we have an awesome deal on that one today. Isn’t it nice? Twenty dollars and it’s yours.”
“Twenty? Okay, I’ll take it.”
“Wait, Aliyah, it’s huge, how are you going to carry it around?”
“Oh that’s no problem miss, we’ll give her a receipt and she can return for it later on, whenever she gets a chance.”
Aliyah dug the money out of her pocket and handed it to the guy, and he handed her back a receipt. He took the picture down, put sold on the plastic covering, and slid it underneath a table with others that were awaiting pickup. She would hang the picture right over her nightstand on the wall directly in front of her bed. She imagined she could hear two people talking around the bend in the path where she couldn’t quite see them and smiled.
When they walked away Amy said, “Twenty dollars Aliyah, ouch.”
“No way. Not ouch, if he had said fifty I would have gone without for the rest of the weekend. Do you think that your mom will mind coming to pick that up later? That was probably the one thing I should’ve asked you.”
“Oh I’m sure she won’t. If it was me she might mind, but a guest, nah.”
“That’s good. I just love it. I can’t believe how much like my dream it looks! I can’t wait to tell him about it! I wonder who originally painted it? It should be on there, if so then I’ll tell him and maybe he can find it too. That would be really cool to think that he and I own the same picture.”
Amy looked at her friend strangely for a moment. She had often wondered what it would be like to dream of someone you didn’t know year after year, to become friends and not even know their name or anything that could help you to find them. She envied her a little on one hand, and felt sorry for the frustration she must feel on the other.
“Anyway,” Aliyah was saying, “I can’t wait to take a walk to the bay. I’ve never been to a bay. But I really can’t wait to go to the ocean. My mom says we went when I was little, but I don’t remember it.”
“It will definitely be an experience like no other. I’m so glad I get to be with you when you see it for the first time!”
They stopped a moment and looked around for Amy’s mom and aunt. “There they are,” Amy pointed across the street. They were browsing a craft’s table.
They had to walk up to the crosswalk and wait a few minutes for cars before they could go over.
“It’s funny how even though things are so close around here they still take forever to get to.”
“I know, my cousins complain every time they visit us upstate that everything is so far away, yet it takes just as long to drive twenty miles there as it takes to drive about five here.”
Mrs. Hurnard waved at them with a big smile as they neared.
“So, did you find anything special?” she asked.
“Actually, I hope you don’t mind too much, but I bought a big picture and it’s something I couldn’t carry around so the guy told me I could pick it up later.”
“Oh sure honey, what is it of? A handsome young actor?”
Aliyah wrinkled her nose and laughed. “No no, it’s a scenic picture of a forest with a stream running through it.”
“Oh how nice! You are so mature for your age, have I ever told you that?”
“I believe you have once or twice.”Aliyah smiled.
Mrs. Hurnard turned to Aunt Jane. “This young lady has an incredible vocabulary. She is years ahead of her time. She was nine when Amy and her became friends and I could have sworn I was talking to a teenager.”
Aliyah reddened a little and turned away. She knew it was true, but it still embarrassed her a bit, people would talk about it and look at her as if she was a little freakish-not in a bad way of course, but still…
“Do you like to read Aliyah?” Aunt Jane asked.
“I love to read.”
“Which would probably explain your extensive vocabulary. What kind of books are you interested in?”
“Well, I don’t really have a particular genre, I like all manner of fiction unless it is a cheesy romance novel. I guess I might prefer thrillers like Stephen King’s newer stuff and I love Robert McCammon.”
“Oh yes, Robert McCammon, one of my favorite authors. Have you read “A boy’s life?”
Aliyah nodded, “Actually I’ve read all of his books. That book was great, but my personal favorite was Swan Song. I’m still working on reading everything King ever wrote. So far I loved The Stand, It, The Green Mile, and most of his short stories,” Aliyah hesitated before going on. “Let’s see, another great author is Bill Bryson, he wrote “A walk in the woods”, not at all a thriller, based on a true event actually. He’s hilarious and informative.”
“Oh yes, I loved “A walk in the Woods”!”
“And then there’s well, I probably shouldn’t say this, but I read a book called Another Roadside Attraction. My parent’s definitely would not approve if they had read it.” She waited to see if Aunt Jane would know the author, not many people did.
“Another Roadside Attraction, hmm. Oh wait a minute, isn’t that Tom Robbins?”
“Yes!”
“Oh my. I read something by him years ago called Jitterbug Perfume. He certainly is a bit advanced for someone your age. In fact he’s a bit advanced for most people at any age. That’s amazing! Well you keep it up, being well read is the most important thing you can ever be as far as academics are concerned.”
Aliyah smiled and nodded. They all headed back to the car, Aliyah fell in step behind the adults with Amy.
“Well my genius friend sure impressed my aunt.”
“Stop.”
“I’m serious, did you see how wide her eyes got when she realized it was Tom Robbins? What does he write about anyway?”
“Oh, it’s kind of strange, there’s a lot to it. I always think that I would love to be a writer, but a book like his would probably take years to write. He puts in all of these subtle jokes and references, if I were to tell you the basic story line you would think it sounded silly but you would have to read the book to understand what I mean.”
“Well, maybe I will, you have me intrigued. How did you happen to pick up a book like that anyway?”
“Actually Dark eyes was reading a book called “Still Life of a Woodpecker” by him and mentioned how great he thought it was. I was at a library book sale and the only book of his I found was Another Roadside Attraction.”
“Whoa. Okay, he told you about an author you have never heard of, how could you even have a doubt about him being real somewhere?”
“I don’t really. Actually I’ve thought about that, the fact that we should tell one another about things the other couldn’t know about. It would definitely be one way to make our separate existences hard to deny. But then when I’m in the dream…it’s like I can think just like I do right now, except that I don’t always remember things that I want to say. Somehow the conversation steers away from some of my questions, and I’m sure it has something to do with keeping one another’s identity a secret. But like you said, God obviously does not want us to meet just yet, so I have to be patient.”
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