Stolen Grace
What people are saying about
Stolen Grace
:
“I couldn’t put it down, and am aching not only to re-read it, but to instigate reading it with a group or book club where I can challenge others to deliberate their own life tenets through the engaging storyline, shocking plot turns, and surprising conclusion. Five exhilarating, thought-provoking and courageous stars!”
—
The Book Enthusiast
“A very dramatic, spellbinding, and out of the box success for Ms. Richmonde!! I LOVED every minute of it!!”
—
Kawehi Reviews
by
ARIANNE RICHMONDE
Mendacity. You know what that is? Lies and liars.
Tennessee Williams
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
All rights reserved. This book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any form without prior written permission of the publisher, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible maybe liable in law accordingly.
Arianne Richmonde 2014
Copyright © Arianne Richmonde, 2014.
The right of Arianne Richmonde to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) 2000
This book is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover photograph © Arianne Richmonde
Cover design © Okay Creations
Editing by: Precision Editing
Formatting by:
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An Interview with Arianne Richmonde
Questions and topics for discussion
Sylvia
“S
o you’re definitely going to Los Angeles then?” Sylvia asked. She knew what the answer would be but the words still tumbled out of her mouth. She needed to break the silence which had been festering in the air all day.
Tommy’s eyes swept over her, and she wished she wasn’t wearing an apron.
Not the glamorous Sylvia I married,
is that what he was secretly thinking? Sylvia used to feel so graceful, so elegant, but now it was as if that grace had been stolen from her, snatched from inside her like the Devil taking someone’s soul.
“Yes, of course I’m going,” Tommy answered, his British accent sounding more clipped than usual. He was leaning against the fridge, drinking a beer.
Sylvia fumbled with the apron knot and untied the strings, but then didn’t take the apron off. What was the point? He watched her as she wiped the table. His gaze still affected her, still made her heart flutter, even after all these years of marriage.
Tommy’s lips curved up just slightly, perhaps a small attempt to cajole her into believing that he was doing something worthy. He added, “What makes you think I’d pass up an opportunity like this? I’ll make more money in two weeks than I have all year.”
They were standing in the roomy kitchen of their Wyoming log home, a soft May breeze wavering through the open backyard door, the grassy scent of an almost-summer lingering with the sweet smell of apple pie. Sylvia was baking. She never baked. She hoped that it would, in some way, fix things. She abandoned cleaning up the mess of flour and globs of dough, and focused her eyes on their huge kitchen window and to the landscape beyond. She observed a moose in the distance, its curved muzzle bent to the ground, droopy lips foraging for food, its antlers flat like a doubled-clawed hat. By September those antlers would be massive—over five feet across—then the creature would shed them in winter.
Winter—she dreaded that time of year. When early wet snow would freeze and cattle couldn’t break through to the grass. The mud—boots on, boots off—heavy coats and gloves to brace the hissing wind. Then the howling Wyoming wintry nights would sneak up, Sylvia’s breath puffing faintly warm in the icy air. The hardships of country life were not what she had signed up for, not what she had left New York City for.
She looked back at Tommy and studied his beautiful, dark brown eyes; it was hard to gauge his expression. Flecks of golden afternoon sun lit up his face, making his sandy hair blonder, his defined jaw softer. Was he telling the truth, she wondered? Was it really just a job offer and no more? A part truth, yes, but
the truth
? She doubted it. She wished she didn’t feel the pit of her stomach pine with emptiness—then it would be easier.
Easier to watch him lie.
It was a shock when she had realized, just six months before, that Tommy could be duplicitous—the awful discovery that the kind, trusting man she married had changed. She’d never snooped or pried, had always taken his word for everything, but she began to snatch his Smartphone whenever she could—her hands trembling, fumbling, searching for snippets of evidence while it lay like a potent, dark secret on a table in the bathroom or kitchen, with only minutes of spying time before he came back into the room.
But Sylvia, green as a sapling trying to push through a mass of bramble to a blue sky, had worn herself out, and now she was trying to make things better. Hence the pie.
“So how long will the job last?” she asked, trying not to sound too despondent.
“I told you. Two, three weeks. Depends on the weather and stuff,” he replied, standing strong, his legs assertively astride, all six feet, two inches of him. This very same stance could make her go weak with butterflies. If she allowed herself. Right now, her armor was on. Would she, she wondered, trust him again? Enough to let herself feel that all-encompassing love once more?
She brushed her hands on her apron. “But it’s May. You’ll have guaranteed sunshine in LA at this time of year.”
“Yes, but you never know.”
“No, you don’t ever know,” she muttered.
Funny thing, sunshine,
she thought
. One minute you have it and the next it’s obstructed by a storm cloud. Unexpected—out of the blue, yet with a faint hope that it will vanish . . .
Sylvia glanced at Tommy again. Grace’s painting of Mrs. Paws, the neighbor’s white cat, was just to the right of him, stuck on the fridge door with a magnet. A reminder. What the hell had he being playing at, jeopardizing their family life, risking losing her and Grace? Temptation by way of Facebook, the modern-day Jezebel?
Ugh!
She turned her eyes again to the window to hide her resentment.
That time-wasting Internet addiction. The thief that was swamping people’s lives, robbing people of their creativity. Robbing relationships.
There were some people with a thousand so called “friends” usurping tangible, flesh-and-blood friends. Real feelings. Touch, smell, humanity. The cyber world was making children insensitive (all those violent video games), and husbands and wives unfaithful. Her old school friend Bob, for instance, who just a month before, had been dumped like a hot brick. His wife had reunited with an old flame from college. With a click of a button, she fell in love all over again, leaving her husband an empty, bitter man, fighting to see his children.
Sylvia’s internal ramblings pattered on in her head.
Love like fast food. Want to find an ex? Type his name in the Facebook search bar. Want to hook up with that pretty girl you saw at a party? Bingo, there she is. Ask her out, why don’t you? You could even find her on Twitter. Easy, no phone call necessary. Just send a message.
Tweet, tweet.
“So it’s a fashion shoot, you told me?” she asked with a faint smile. “Do you know who the models are?”
“Not really.”
“Not really? What’s with the ‘
really
’?” She turned back to the window. She didn’t want to see Deceit, with a capital D, on her husband’s face, but still, she couldn’t drop the conversation.
“I got sent a couple of photos of some girls but nobody’s been chosen yet.”
“Who chooses? You or the magazine?”
“Both, I suppose.”
“So
she
isn’t part of the parcel, then? Or is this whole trip an excuse to see
her?
”
There, she said it.
He let out an exasperated groan, walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. “Of course not! This is a
photography
job—they need a model for a clothing line. It has nothing to do with her, she’s an actress.”
“No, she isn’t.” Sylvia wanted to add that the girl was a
wannabe
actress, that she’d never had a professional acting job. Hadn’t even been to drama school. A wannabe actress who fancied herself as a model, posting photo after photo of herself on Facebook, so men could drool over her. But she and Tommy had been through that tired argument already, so Sylvia held the tip of her tongue between her teeth to stop herself from lashing out.
As if reading her thoughts, Tommy mumbled, “Give the girl a break; she’s embarking on her career, she’s only twenty years old.”