A Sinner in Paradise Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  About the Author

  A Sinner

  in Paradise

  a novel

  deborah hining

  Copyright© 2013, by Deborah Hining

  Deborah Hining

  [email protected]

  dhining.lightmessages.com

  Published 2013, by Light Messages Publishing

  Printed in the United States of America

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1-61153-057-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61153-058-2

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 International Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  In memory of Marynell Wells Griffitts, my mother,

  who believed that love really is all you need.

  Acknowledgements

  When a book has been over 25 years in the making, there are many, many people who have had a hand in it. I started writing it, oh… around 1987 or so, and between fits of furious scribbling and long stretches where it languished in a drawer, I scattered bits around to friends I could sucker into reading it. I read portions of it aloud to my students, some of whom were brave enough to perform a scene or two in public. I begged fellow writers to critique it; some were kind, some were not, rightly so. I even foisted manuscripts onto gracious clients who, astonishingly, agreed to read the draft of a novel written, by all people, their financial advisor. They didn’t even ask what I thought I was doing. Many went to the trouble to edit portions, and one even offered to serve as an agent for me. I asked my husband to read draft after draft and always felt a thrill when I caught him laughing or tearing up. What I discovered during this long process was not that I had the makings of a great novel, but that I have wonderful, caring, intuitive friends and loved ones who are willing to do far more for me than I deserve.

  All this is in the way of thanking those of you who were a part of my life during this process, which did not seem so terribly long at all. We all were just living and creating and sharing and loving, and somehow, in all this jumble of goodness, this novel came into being. I am grateful to you all, and you all know who you are.

  But I owe a big and specific thank you to my editor, Elizabeth Turnbull, who actually became enthusiastic about the story and made me finish it, made me rewrite it, and made me do things I never wanted to do. Thanks to her, her constant encouragement, and her hard work, this sloppy piece of fiction was whipped into shape until it became something I am proud to put my name on.

  One

  Geneva hated cats. She didn’t know why she had so many of them. Four had been bad enough, but now here she was sitting in the floor of her closet in the middle of the night, watching Evangeline squeeze out her third kitten. This would make seven cats altogether. Damn! She hadn’t even known the cat was pregnant.

  This had to be Howard’s doing. All Geneva’s toms had been neutered, and she had always made sure none of the cats had ever gotten out, but knowing Howard, he had let them escape while she was away. That would be just like him, the passive-aggressive, undermining, conniving prick. He had hated her cats, even though they had never done anything to hurt him, ever—except for the one time Dr. Zhivago had pooped in his shoe. But that didn’t warrant letting out—or more likely, throwing out—Evangeline so she could get pregnant. No doubt the father was some ugly, scraggly tom, and Geneva would never be able to get rid of the kittens.

  Kitten number four was making its appearance. It was ugly, all right. Men. They can ruin your life even after you’ve gotten rid of them.

  Not that Geneva had actually “gotten rid” of Howard. As a matter of fact, it had sort of been the other way around, and his leaving had been one of the worst moments of her life. No, actually the worst moments came later. Right after he had committed the awful treachery (I think we ought to postpone the wedding, darling. Maybe call it off for awhile. You know, so we can be really sure… blah blah blah.), she had the fleeting pleasure of throwing things at him and watching them splinter around his cowardly head.

  Fortunately she had had the presence of mind to throw the cheap wine glasses she had gotten free for subscribing to a romance book club and not the Waterford. And that had felt good. It also had felt good to abandon the rarefied façade she had so carefully cultivated over the past few years and unsheathe her native West Virginian tongue slashing Howard with a few modified nouns he had never heard before. She smiled at the memory. How he had cowered, throwing his arms up to protect his pretty face! Fueled by his mincing and ducking, she hadn’t stopped until she had thrown all seven glasses at him. The eighth, unfortunately, was not yet in her arsenal. It wouldn’t appear for a couple more weeks, when the next installment was due.

  But the sweetness of that little episode had been short lived. After that, and for the longest time, she gulped misery with her coffee every morning and slept in the arms of misery every night. She was lost, devastated, and haunted with pain. Heartache became her constant companion.

  She pondered the alliteration. Haunted by heartache. Devastated with despair. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she thought, tears trickling. No, that was overused. Waterfalls washing. Nah, the image wasn’t good. Tears tumbling. Hmm, yes, that was better. Tears tumbled down her wan, beatific face…. She nodded to herself. That image fit the situation nicely.

  The pink nose of kitten number five emerged, pulling her thoughts back from the literary. Oh, God! There was something wrong with it. It was smaller than the others, and even after Evangeline had licked it thoroughly, it just laid there, barely moving. All the other kittens had already vigorously attached themselves to Evangeline’s underside, but this one remained limp and pitiful. Geneva felt her stomach heave. Oh, please don’t die, you poor little thing! She nudged the other kittens aside and tried to nuzzle the tiny creature against a choice-looking teat, but it would not suck. It shivered and gave a weak mew, and the sight made Geneva more miserable than ever. She wrung her hands, then cried, and finally threw herself on the floor and sobbed violently.

  Why had Howard forsaken her? What was wrong with this kitten? It was dying, and it was all his fault! She had been the best thing that ever happened to that man! Her sobs subsided a bit as she remembered how glorious their past had been.

  Four months ago her life had been perfect. She searched for a metaphor to express it: Love had alighted, folding its gossamer wings and nesting in her soul. After a lifetime of searching (and searched she had, diligently, industriously) she had finally found the perfect mate, practically made to order—the one she had constructed in her imagination years earlier. Howard Whittaker Graves III was handsome, educated, sophisticated, and wealthy. Well, she hated to admit that wealth was important, but all that stuff Howard had given her had been nice. And she really needed the new car he had promised. A BMW. Her old Mazda was getting cranky, and she didn’t know what she was going to do about getting a new one.

  She watched Evangeline struggle and strain, and she watched the sick kitten shiver.

  Oh, God, she prayed. Don’t let this k
itten die! And help me get through this night. The prayer was sincere, one of a long string she had uttered since Howard had left her. Remembering the solace of her childhood conversations with God, she found it comforting to send her pain and her requests heavenward once again.

  She had at one time been one for long and diligent daily prayer, but somewhere along the line she had abandoned this habit after she had realized that she was bright and beautiful and ambitious enough to get whatever she wanted without divine intervention. But now she was a broken vessel, and she needed all the help she could get.

  Not long ago, she had prayed for Howard to be struck dead by some awful, agonizing malady (What Biblical character had died with his bowels gushing out?) but later, when she realized that she really just wanted him back, she prayed that he would come crawling, repentant, and begging for forgiveness. Neither prayer had been answered, but that didn’t stop her from taking her grievances before the Lord on a daily basis.

  Kitten number six, large and greedy, had made its way into the world and managed to shove aside the runt. He latched onto the teat Geneva had tried to reserve for the little guy. She poked around to find another teat and, cradling the weak kitten, mashed his face up against it. He whimpered and coughed, then wobbled his head a little and laid it down. The other kittens pushed it aside, wiggling against Evangeline’s milk bar like the last call had been rung. Knowing that the poor thing would surely die if it didn’t get some nourishment soon, she threw on her clothes with panicky hands and rushed out to the all-night pharmacy for baby formula.

  Aside from the pimply, slack-jawed cashier there were three people in the store, and Geneva reckoned there might have been enough brainpower among them to maybe pass a basic literacy class. She grabbed a canister of Babies Only Milk-Based Formula and raced to the cash register. Too late. The three intellectual giants had already beaten her there. Talking to the cashier was a ragged man with trembling hands and a week’s worth of growth on his face.

  Behind him was an extraordinarily tacky looking blonde couple. Well, she thought he was blonde—his eyebrows were, anyway. His actual hair was purple and spiked into what he surely thought of as a magnificent mohawk. The girl had streaks of purple and red in her ratty do. Each of them clutched a box of condoms, and they were intensely arguing over the merits of the different brands. She wanted the pink ribbed ones, but he was adamant that they should get the ones designed for a more “natural” experience. Geneva wanted to rip out his purple troll hair spikes, and she hoped they would choose ones that would render them both sterile for life.

  The sad-looking man in front of the line was having trouble coming up with enough money for the bottle of prescription pills lying on the counter.

  “I’m a little short,” he said sadly, looking at his dirty cuticles.

  There was silence. The girl in front of Geneva snorted and slouched, elaborately crossing her arms over her chest. The cashier looked at the man without interest.

  After a long moment, Geneva groaned, “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Then, when nobody responded, she spoke again. “How short are you?” she asked, too loudly. The girl with the pink condoms snickered. Geneva glared at her and asked again, but more kindly, “How short are you?” The girl snickered again, and threw over her shoulder, “Oh, I’d guess about five or six inches right now, from the looks of him.” The guy with her guffawed, and the girl looked pleased with herself.

  Geneva elbowed her way to the front of the line, plunked down her formula and said, “Here, I’ll pay for it, and this, too,” and threw two twenties on the counter. The cashier gave her an idiotic stare, but rang up the sale while Geneva turned and smiled wickedly at the couple behind her. It was worth it to spend an extra $24.95 to break in front of them. Scooping up her change, she turned to go, then recoiled when the ragged man pulled at her sleeve.

  “Thank you, Miss. God bless you,” he said softly, haltingly. He had tired, kind, brown eyes, with deep wrinkles radiating out like star bursts. When he smiled at her with genuine gratitude, Geneva suddenly felt her throat constrict and a vast chasm open up in her heart. The world was a cruel, cruel place. She managed a tight little smile and nod, then impulsively thrust the change she still held in her hand into his grimy one and rushed out the door before the tears began.

  She was so distraught and in such a hurry that she tripped on the curb outside her apartment, ripping the bag and dropping the cardboard cylinder full of dehydrated formula on the sidewalk. As she fell, she felt the insubstantial container give way under her knee and then the soft, powdered grains impressing themselves into her kneecap.

  There was a moment of pain followed by indecision. Should she go back for more? The kitten could die in the meantime, and besides, she didn’t want to run into the condom couple again. They may have figured out by now that she had broken in line in front of them. Swiftly, she searched her purse and found a small, plastic ziplock bag containing bobby pins and elastic bands and another that held the brooch she had planned to have repaired. These accessories she dumped into her purse, then she carefully scooped as much of the formula as she deemed still sterile into the bags. It was plenty for a three-ounce kitten.

  By the time she made it home, the poor little fellow was off by himself in the corner, cold and shivering. With a breaking heart, Geneva mixed the formula from one of the bags, picked him up, and gently and painstakingly squeezed dropperful after dropperful into his minuscule mouth. All the while, she fumed at Howard. Here she was losing sleep over a cat that she didn’t want, and he was at home, sleeping peacefully without an inkling of the misery he had caused. And when the kitten died at sunrise, she sobbed passionately, stroking his tiny body and trying her best to comfort Evangeline. Evangeline was such a sweet, sensitive kitty. Her favorite, really, and Geneva knew the poor thing would grieve over this loss.

  After a while, she realized that Evangeline was taking it pretty well, so she turned her consolations toward herself, telling herself that she hated cats anyway—but this one was exceptionally pretty—all white with black paws. He reminded her of a snowy dancer wearing black ballet shoes. And the loss of such beauty was horrible to her. It seemed that everything fine and beautiful and delicate was shattering all around her. It was not fair! Life was not fair! Only the ugly and painful seemed to survive unscathed, survive and grow and multiply, despite how carefully she crafted and nurtured the things she found beautiful. Before she knew it, she had cried herself to sleep.

  She awoke to the Saturday sun streaming through cat hairs floating in the air. They refracted the light curiously, even beautifully. Her pillow was soggy from last night’s tears, and the first thing Geneva thought was that she was going to have to quit crying into it because she was sure all that salt was affecting the condition of her hair. Then she thought about Howard again, and the kitten, and began to cry anew. After awhile, she forgot why she was crying and thought only that it felt good to cry. But then she realized that it was beginning to feel less good than it had the night before. That confused her.

  She rolled over and mused about how she had been betrayed, until her growling stomach drew her attention. There was, she realized, a small recompense for the broken heart in the fact that she had lost ten pounds within a month of Howard’s departure. Well, actually, a largish recompense in that, she decided. No great loss without some small gain, she thought, remembering one of her mother’s homespun expressions. No, in this case, a great loss and a great loss. Hey, that was pretty good. She could tell her mom that. She tossed cats and covers off her slender frame and smiled down at her concave stomach and her delicate, tiny wrists.

  As she thought about her mother, a sudden wave of homesickness swelled and engulfed her heart. She wanted her loved ones around her right now to comfort her, and she wanted to be home among open spaces and green mountains and to feel clean wind on her face. She missed her mother’s arms and her father’s smile; indeed, she missed her whole family scattered over the mountains like stands of study hickory and fra
grant spruce. At home in the dappled shade and clean sunshine, she might be able to renew herself, to gather strength from the mountains, to forget Howard, and to learn how to live all by herself, celibate, the surface of her life smooth and untroubled by the vagaries of men.

  She made a sudden decision: she would go home! She would quit her job, give away her cats (well maybe not Evangeline, since she was a new mother), rent out her chic apartment, and spend the summer, perhaps the fall, among her high, clean mountains. She knew that such a respite would equip her to resume her life and her brilliant career when she returned.

  As for Howard, ha! She would show him! He would no doubt realize how foolish he had been; consumed with guilt and regret for his loss, he would spend months searching for her. When he finally found her, he would throw himself at her feet and beg for forgiveness. Then she would straighten her spine, give him her strong, sure smile and tell him to take a flying leap off Buttermilk Knob.

  She lay very still, considering the image, and decided that she liked that scenario much better than the one she had been mulling over since February, which placed Howard sobbing bitterly at her bedside as she lay pale and dying, her heart mortally wounded. Besides, she had relived the scene so often, embellishing it with each recounting, that she had run out of possible accoutrements and had worn it to a thin, no longer comforting, shred. She sat up with dignity. So long, little Eva. Hello Brunhilde!

  Rolling to the edge of the bed, she dialed her parents’ number in Tucker, West Virginia, and waited with pounding heart, formulating the most effective salutation. Perhaps, Mom, I’ve had it in this awful city. I’m coming home! Then her mother would gasp, and say, Oh, honey! and make those nice little motherly, comforting noises that Geneva liked to hear whenever she was feeling small and wounded.

  The phone rang until Geneva finally admitted that there would be no answer. And no answering machine, either. Dammit. She’d given her parents an answering machine last Christmas, but they never bothered to turn the thing on, claiming they could not figure out how to work it. But she knew they just didn’t like anything that intruded upon the serenity of their lives. Sometimes they even turned the ringer off for days at a time when they wanted to enjoy a particularly serene autumn or a spectacular thunderstorm season. Impatiently, she let it ring once more, then slammed the phone down, bitterly complaining to herself about the way events always seemed to conspire to thwart her most romantic impulses.