A Voice In The Night by Brian Matthews Read Free Book Online Page A

so poor she had one cotton dress hanging alone in the closet. She wore it every day to the new high school where the surfer boys and pretenders talked behind her back. She was utterly lonely, never spoke, and walked the three miles home every day while the others rode in their cars.
    At first she didn’t notice the car that was pacing her walk along the side street near home, a Cadillac Eldorado. The man inside was older than her father. He smiled, beckoning by pushing the passenger door open. She stood looking for a moment but knew she would go to the gleaming chrome and leather. She liked the way he talked to her but she said nothing. An hour later, he dropped her near home, driving away with things of hers she could never regain. But she had submitted to what he made her do in the front seat of that car. It left her with a power she could use, and a shame she would never escape.
    She was popular at school the following year.
    Jake didn’t tell anyone about the book because he didn’t think he could carry it off. But he started writing every day about what had happened on the air the night before. To his surprise, the words spilled out on paper easily. Years of directing others in the studio and on the phones had given him a keen ear and deftness with words. Somebody had to get this down from a first-hand perspective and Luke was a mess at the moment, barely functioning, feeling too deeply.
    “What’s this?”
    Sandy had tiptoed in, hoping to wake him up with some half-asleep sex. Instead she side tracked to the strewn papers on his makeshift desk. Jake stirred, his hair tangled and covering his face until he pulled it back.
    “Ah, just some notes on what’s been happening.”
    “Fuck, it is. This is a book.” Sandy, despite her beach girl looks, had earned a fine arts degree, grinding it out with seven years of night classes. But most people didn’t bother to look beyond her thoroughly appealing surface to discover a razor sharp mind and discerning taste.
    She crashed into a chair and pulled out her glasses, settling in for an evaluation. An hour later she looked up. Jake had been watching her for a sign while she picked through the pages. “This is incredible. Do you have any idea what you’ve got here?”
    “Just some ideas. It’s pretty rough.”
    “No. It’s got everything. This could be the book of the century for crisakes. Now what you’ve gotta do is tell Luke about it. Put both your names on it and have it ready to publish. The first book out is going to have an advantage and you can be sure there are already a dozen writers working on this story already. But you guys are first-hand. Now you have to keep it right up to date. Maybe even start a publisher typesetting it as you go.”
    Her estimation of Jake had shifted with the reading of the pages. The subtlety of emotions he described and the poignancy of the prose caught her by surprise. There was deep religious and historic context too. She had miscalculated badly. He was gifted and he didn’t know it. Jake noticed the change in her as they sat in the shaded half-dark of his apartment. She spoke to him now with an undertone of respect. Control of their relationship had subtly shifted to him. Maybe she wouldn’t be a disposable pain in the ass. Maybe she could be a friend, after all.

Chapter 12
    They sat over dinner. She was pregnant again and beginning to show. Luke remembered what she looked like the last time. She was so small that he’d kidded her then that she was a pregnancy with feet. But she looked so beautiful he would stare at her for long minutes.
    “What?”
    “Look at you. You look like a sunset, all pink.”
    “Well, don’t tease me about this when I’m big as a house, but I really like being pregnant. I just wish we could go out more and show off.”
    “Did you send the pictures to your folks and my mom?”
    “Yep, and they’re gonna flip when they see those side views. My mother is out of control again. She thinks