In All Deep Places

A Novel

IN ALL DEEP PLACES

By Susan Meissner

For
Bob,
who would follow me

to the deep and back again

if love required it

“Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be

in the
end a very distinct place.

I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven,

will turn out to have been, all along,

only a region in Hell:

and earth, if put second to Heaven,

to
have been from the beginning

a part of Heaven itself.”

C.S. Lewis
—
The Great Divorce

Whatever the LORD pleases He does —

in heaven and in earth, in the seas and

in all deep places.

Psalm 135:6

T
he young woman in green, silent and attentive, neverthe
less spoiled Luke Foxbourne’s favorite speech as surely as if
she had climbed atop the table where she sat and shouted the Gettysburg Address. Though she barely moved any part of her body
and made no sound, she was Luke’s sole distraction all the same. He stammered through his folksy lecture entitled “Finding Your
Writing Voice” like someone with a sudden case of stage fright,
though he had given the speech to countless other audiences flawlessly. It wasn’t the dimmed lights, the clinking of dessert forks on china plates, or the occasional, obligatory cough from somewhere in the back of the ballroom that shattered his concentration. Every
badly timed pause in his delivery was caused by the sight of the
young woman seated off to his left, and he knew it.

Luke’s eyes were drawn to her as if she were the only person
there, though the dining room was filled to capacity. The elegantly attired, assembled members of the New England Mystery Writers
Association seemed to collectively pity him as he stood there at the podium, alternately prefacing every other sentence with “um” or “ah.” His colleagues—some known to him and some not—blinked
and nodded, leaning forward in their chairs as if this would aid him: him, the award-winning murder-mystery writer who surely
must seem to have been stricken with sudden short-term memory
loss.

But Luke could not help it. The woman looked just like he imagined his character Eden Damaris looked, right down to the
shape of her long, graceful fingers and the soft gray hue of her
eyes. It was startling, to say the least, how much the young woman
resembled the lady who lived only in his mind. The only apparent difference was that the woman in the green dress was most certainly not deaf.

She leaned forward on an elbow and rested her left cheek in her hand. Her slender fingers were slightly curled as if in frozen caress, and her neck was delicately bent as she gave the weight of her head fully to her upheld arm. She seemed quite at ease; she gave him her
full attention, turning her head only once during his bumpy ora
tory to listen to a whispered comment from the gentleman who sat
next to her. Luke wondered as he fumbled if she was the writer or
the guest. Had the man brought her to the annual banquet or was
it the other way around? Was she the wife, girlfriend, or mistress
of the man who leaned toward her and spoke into her ear? Was he saying something like, “Can you believe this guy has actually been
on the
New York Times
bestseller list?” Or, “Thanks for coming tonight, darling. I know how boring this must be for you.” Or, “Promise me when you get rich and famous you won’t forget how to talk to people.”

Luke forced his eyes
away and sought the familiar, comfortable image of his wife, Téa, seated at a table just below the podium. She
was leaning forward, too, on both elbows, her arms making a tri
angle over her nearly finished slice of chocolate cherry cheesecake. His own chair was next to hers—his napkin over the back of it—as was his untouched dessert. He had planned on eating it after he gave his speech. “Don’t let the waiter take it,” he had whispered to Téa twenty minutes earlier when he had stood to resounding applause. “Or my coffee cup.” He wasn’t sure now he would want to
eat it after all.

Téa’s eyes
met his, sought his. She cocked her head and smiled
at him. Her eyes said, “You’re doing great, honey.” He grinned in
spite of himself at the absurdity of such a kind, silent—and clearly fallacious—message. And remarkably, grinning seemed to improve his overall delivery, at least the last five minutes of it.

With effort, Luke kept his eyes off the woman in the green dress, staring instead at his notes, then at the clock at the back of the room, and then at the line of waiters waiting for their cue to retrieve the dessert plates. He felt the end of his speech coming
and he relished it, finishing his remarks with the Françoise Sagan
quote—“I shall live bad if I do not write and I shall write bad if I do not live”—that he had always thought made for a nice close. As
the people in the room began to politely clap their hands, he mur
mured his thanks and grabbed his single page of notes. He willingly stole one last look at the woman in green. He wasn’t sure if he would ever see her again, and that thought oddly unnerved him.

Taking one last glance he was aware of a ridiculous urge to run
up to her and say, “Eden! What on
earth
are
we going to do about Bowles?” He looked away again, quickly, forcefully, eyeing the
steps that led off the stage. He silently scolded himself as he made his way to them.
That woman is not Eden Damaris. Eden Damaris does not exist! Eden Damaris is a fictional deaf character employed by a fictional detective agency who lives in a fictional brownstone in New York with other fictional employees of the fictional Red Herring Detective Agency. Murder suspect Randolph Bowles is fictional too, for that matter!

Then, in the midst of his silent reprimand, while he descended
the three stairs to the ballroom floor, Luke had a revelation. It suddenly made sense why seeing this woman had unsettled him so. She was simply a vivid reminder he had hit a wall. Seeing the very
personification of Eden Damaris had awkwardly reminded him of
the one thing he daily tried to minimize: He was desperately behind schedule with his new book. The July 1 deadline loomed in front of him like an invitation to oral surgery without anesthesia.

It was late May. He was stuck squarely in chapter ten—the halfway
mark—and had been for three weeks. That was surely the reason.

He took his chair next to
Téa
, who rewarded him—to his chagrin—with a motherly smile full of I’m-so-proud-of-you senti
ment. The president of the association reappeared at the podium and began to thank Mr. Luke Foxbourne for his inspirational and timely message. Luke pushed his dessert plate away.

The president’s closing comments fell about him unheard as he folded the page of notes and slipped it into Téa’s purse, on the floor
in between their chairs.

“It’s really yummy,” Téa whispered to him, motioning with her head to the slice of cheesecake resting atop an elaborate drizzle of
dark chocolate.

Luke shrugged. “Guess I’m not hungry for it after all,” he whis
pered back.

More applause followed as the president wished everyone a safe journey home as well as a year of unmatched creativity and success. The applause died away and was replaced with dozens of conversa
tions as people rose from their chairs and began to chat with those near them.

The other officers of the association, who had shared the dinner table with Luke and Téa rose too, and began to thank him for
speaking.

“It was my pleasure,” he lied. Well, actually, accepting the in
vitation to speak at the banquet had been pleasurable. Practicing
his favorite speech the past week had been pleasurable. The lamb
in mint sauce had been pleasurable. The first few seconds of deliv
ering his favorite speech had been pleasurable. Then he had seen
the alarming apparition and pleasure had gone out the window.

Time to go.

“It was very kind of you to ask me,” Luke said to a board
member of the association as he reached for Téa’s arm. It was the
move of a man about to escort his date to the door, to the car, to
home.

“Lovely to see you again, Téa!” one of the wives was saying.

“Yes, it was. Hope to see you again soon!” Téa replied even as
Luke began to propel her away.

“You have another pressing engagement?” she said under her breath, but maintaining a smile as she placed the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

“I just want to go home,” he replied, smiling also and moving
her forward.

But Luke was stopped every few seconds as they made their way to the doors by fans, well-wishers, and hopeful agents who
handed him their business cards.

He spent several minutes in polite but strained conversations, answering questions, accepting praise, and offering advice.

Then he was aware that the image of Eden Damaris was just a few yards away. He had caught a glimmer of green as he listened
to the woes of the unpublished man in front of him. He looked
toward the flash of emerald and there she was, in conversation just
like he was—but she was laughing and enjoying herself. She was
explaining or describing something to the little cluster of people she was near, and her hands were a part of her story as they moved
to the beat of her voice. He could not hear what she was saying
but he was transfixed nonetheless. Those hands he knew so well mesmerized him: They were the same hands Eden Damaris used to give meaning to her thoughts. Those were the hands Eden used to speak to the other characters in his books. The ones she used to
speak to him.

“I said, do you think I should send a registered letter telling them I’m withdrawing my manuscript?” the man was saying.

Téa nudged him. Apparently the man had asked this once al
ready.

“Yes… yes, by all means,” Luke said. “Six months is a long time
to wait. If they were really interested I think you would have at least had some kind of response.”

“Well, that’s what I’m thinking. You know, they haven’t an
swered one e-mail from me since that first one. Not one.”

“Yeah,” Luke said, trying to pull his eyes away from the ballet of hands. A man stepped in front of the woman in green, obscuring his vision, making it easier. “Not a good sign. I think I would look
for another agent.”

“Well, I think I just might. You know, I’m not getting any
younger.”

“Nice to have chatted with you,” Luke said absently, wanting more than ever to get home. He started to move away.

“Good luck to you,” Téa said to the man as she followed, and
Luke winced. That was usually his line. He knew what it was like to
feel
like a writer, to have already written a complete manuscript
and be unable to find anyone in the industry willing to read it. He
had told Téa once he would always give whatever encouragement
he could to undiscovered writers.

Definitely time to go.

Luke wove his way through the crowd, avoiding eye contact,
especially with people he knew. He and Téa emerged from the
ballroom, and he led her down the carpeted steps to the hotel’s
glistening lobby. He walked over to the valet parking counter and handed the man his receipt.

“Let’s wait outside for the car,” he said to Téa as he walked back to her. She took her shawl off her arm and draped it across her
shoulders, saying nothing.

They stepped outside. The late May sunshine had given way to a warm, starry night with only a slight chill in the air. Luke wrapped his arm around Téa’s waist as they waited, and he felt her
snuggle into his one-armed embrace.

At least I’ve managed to do one thing right tonight,
he thought, grateful he had suddenly considered Téa might be cold standing
there next to him.

The silver Jaguar he had bought three years ago—when he finally came to terms with being a rich man—appeared at the curb, and
a smiling young driver hopped out, beaming like he had the best
job in the world.

“Thanks,” Luke said, handing the young man a ten-dollar bill and then helping his wife get in. He walked quickly over to the
driver’s side and slid in.

Neither one said anything as he negotiated the heavy downtown
Boston traffic. When they were at cruising speed on the freeway, headed home toward Connecticut, Téa spoke.

“So, you want to tell me what’s bothering you?”

Luke thought for a moment. Did he? He wasn’t entirely sure
he knew. He decided he would just mention the result, not the cause.

“That was the lousiest speech I have ever given,” he said.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Téa said, laughing just a little.

“It was still the lousiest speech I’ve ever given. You know it
was.

She slid her hand over to his knee and rubbed it gently. “Maybe you’re just getting bored with that one. Maybe it’s time to come up
with something new.”

“People like that one,” Luke replied, not really knowing why he was defending his speech. It almost seemed like he was lying to her.
Keeping something from her.

“Yes, they do, but maybe
you
don’t like it anymore. Maybe you
need a fresh topic to work with.”

Luke sighed and reached down to hold his wife’s hand as it rested on his knee. He had given Eden Damaris his wife’s hands. They were delicate, small-boned, and artistically beautiful. They were the first thing he had noticed about Téa when he saw her
playing the violin at his college roommate’s wedding reception at Cape Cod nine years ago. He was not dating anyone at the time
and had instead been engrossed in the wonder of having the first book published in his Red Herring Detective Agency series. Téa had been sitting in a half-circle of unbelievable talent; one-fifth of a string quintet all dressed in black velvet. It was her instrument that
seemed to sing above all the others. She had told him later that it was because she had the melody line. But he never did think that was the reason. Luke didn’t know enough about classical music
then to know what tunes the quintet was playing. He only knew he was fascinated by the golden-haired violinist with the amazing
hands, because everything she played seemed to be the music of heaven itself. He hovered nearby, waiting for the musicians to take
a break, waiting to speak to her. Within minutes of introducing himself he found himself asking her for a date.

She was hesitant to accept an invitation to dinner, first telling him she was too busy and then making it seem like her responsibilities with the Boston Philharmonic were too difficult to work around. But Luke had persisted, and he’d taken her to dinner the next week and the week after that and the week after that. By au
tumn, they were seeing each other exclusively, and his first book,
Slight Imperfections,
had found a place on the
New York Times
bestseller list. Six months later, on a breezy day in June 1997, they married and set up housekeeping in an apartment just outside of
Boston. After the release of his second book, which hit the
Times
bestseller list in its fourth week, they bought a fashionable town-
house. A year later, when the third one hit the list in its first week,
Luke and Téa moved with their then infant daughter, Noelle, to a beautifully restored manor home in rural Connecticut. Téa began giving violin lessons to keep her fingers limber and to have some
thing to do, but Luke’s royalties soon elevated them to a financial
state neither one had dreamed possible. Then a year after Noelle
was born, Téa gave birth to another daughter, Marissa.

Book four, published last year, earned him the celebrated title
of Mystery Writer of the Year and his first contract for screenplay rights. It was book five that awaited him, unfinished, at home.