Land of Second Chances (eBook)

Mary Anne Kelly (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
296 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3178-2051-0 (ISBN)

Infos

When Claire spots a Haitian girl stranded on Juno Beach, she's going to be the one to save her. Isidor can help but is she- or he- to be trusted? What about Claire's glamorous nemesis, all set to take up with Claire's boyfriend. And just how decadent is the mysterious aristocrat who lives in the penthouse? Somewhere obscure there's an integral trove of genuine antique timepieces but it's murder that brings them all together before retired NYPD detective Johnny Benedetto shows up.

Mary Anne Kelly grew up in Richmond Hill in Queens, New York, and is a former model and lyricist. Before settling in Rockville Centre, New York, and Juno Beach, Florida, with her husband, Mary lived in Germany, drove a van to India, and traveled to all the Tibetan refugee camps. Her early published works include 'Park Lane South,' 'Queens,' 'Foxglove,' 'Pack Up The Moon,' 'The Cordelia Squad,' 'Keeper Of The Mill,' 'Jenny Rose,' and 'Twillyweed.' Her short stories include 'Angelina' and 'Cemetery Plot.'

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Claire and Morgan fly to Florida to bury his father, a noted horologist. That same night, six young Haitian girls arrive aboard a sampan in the hopes of becoming party boat hostesses. Claire spots one girl stranded in a towering bramble of sea grape and she's determined to help, no matter how it will complicate her life with self-absorbed Morgan, but she'll need the help of Isidor- who is not what she- or he- appears to be. Upstairs, the mysterious aristocrat who lives in the penthouse is eager to help. Claire's glamorous nemesis- a girl who lives to torment- turns Morgan's head and implicates her in a murder. Meanwhile, an integral trove of genuine antique timepieces are nowhere to be found. Out of the blue magnetic, retired NYPD detective Johnny Benedetto shows up.

Textauszug

CHAPTER TWO

‘Can you bring these clothes down to the dumpster?’ He’s standing inside his father’s closet, surrounded by folded piles in cartons. There are hangars all over the floor. Fully dressed, he must have been up for ages. The classical music he loves encompasses the small space. Morgan is a fan. And she is appreciative. She is. Most of it is lovely. She’ll sit through the entire Pagliacci just to catch the haunting, Vesti la giubba. But really, if she hears the Ring Of The Nibelung one more time she thinks she’ll kill someone.

‘Och,’ he watches her affectionately, ‘Yerr a wee tousled.’ He hands her his coffee.

‘Something woke me up.’ She rubs her eyes. ‘I went back to bed, but I couldn’t sleep.’

Well, you seem to have made up for it,’ he smiles, ‘It’s going on ten.’

‘Really?’ the coffee is black, which means she won’t drink it, but thanks anyway. He wouldn’t have thought to go out for half & half when she’s the only one to use it.

‘You certainly hit it off with the prince.’

‘We were both happy to be speaking German. It’s been so long…’

‘Yet you know that that’s particularly rude in company.’

‘Yeah, yeah. Did you know he read the Classics at Cambridge? Thus his excellent English.’ She leans over and begins to smooth the bed covers.

‘They say he made his money in publishing,’ he says.

The wind from the opened porch stirs and there’s the sound of the waves. It’s a beautiful day. She moves to take Morgan in her arms but he bristles. Then he says, ‘You looked very smart last night,’ and she softens. He goes on, ‘It’s always better to be underdressed in such a casual environment.’

She peeks into the boxes. ‘Morgan? There’s nothing wrong with these clothes!’

‘Claire. Stop. They are a dead man’s clothes.’ The way he says it. Sure.

‘That’s it!’ he rustles the last of the shirts into a box. ‘I’m off to take a jog around the lake. Where have I put my trainers?’

She pulls them out from under the bed and hands them to him. Amazing how they don’t smell. Not even his dirty clothes smell. It’s weird. The moment he leaves and she hears the door click, she changes the channel to the Latin Soul. For a moment she just stands there, letting the music take her back. She and Johnny used to love Cuban music. She leaves it on in a kind of shunt to rebelliousness, hugging the memory to herself. They used to stand in the middle of the room and dance to Pia Leyva and Ruben Gonzales, Arturo Sandoval. Hardly moving, just dance. She shakes away the memory and moves, wisely, on.

*

At the recycle bin Claire runs into a short, curvaceous young brunette in flashy yoga clothes. She’s carefully fitting cardboard into brown paper Trader Joe’s shopping bags. Claire, approving of all recyclers, smiles and says hello. She starts to open her own boxes.

‘You’re not throwing those out?’ she sounds horrified.

Claire sighs. ‘I was just thinking I’ll leave them here on top in case anyone wants them.’

The girl strikes one hand on a hip and in an unmistakable Brooklyn accent reprimands, ‘What are you, nuts?’ She takes a Made In Donegal tweed jacket from the top of the pile.

‘This is quality stuff.’ She pulls out a not even wrinkled seersucker jacket. ‘Why don’t you take them over to the Hospice Thrift Shop and donate them?’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Right across US 1 on Donald Ross. Behind the Dunkin’Donuts.’

Claire looks puzzled but notes the idea of Dunkin’ Donuts.

‘Want me to take you?’

‘I’d love it… If we can stop for coffee. I’m Claire, by the way. Claire Breslinsky.’

‘Gina.’ She reaches across the boxes with a firm grip. ‘Eugenia Albanese. But you just call me Gina. Nice to meetcha.’

‘Gina,’ says Claire, folding the clothing back into the box. Gina has a lot to say and Claire tries to keep up.

‘See, my parents met where mother worked as a waitress in a café on the waterfront in Sheepshead Bay- that’s in Brooklyn- but they was defying both sets of parents- one set Sicilian and the other Napolitan- you keepin’ up?’ she peers menacingly at Claire, who nods submissively, ‘so when they decided to marry- the whole gagootz was upset. And then my parents were killed in a car crash-

‘Oh, no!’

‘Yeah. And I was in that car. I was. Anyhow, my gramma pretty much raised me. I was always shuffled between two sets of warring grandparents, shuffled back and forth, y’know, but I turned out okay because a my gramma. Her and I got on great. It was like we was twins. Like cut from the same cloth, ya know? I’d start a sentence, she’d finish it, ya know? And I mean, she could cook. Sunday sauce? Nobody better…’

Gina goes on and on, hardly taking a breath.

Undaunted, Claire is happy to have the cheerful company. Gina, a lot younger than Claire, talks the entire way there, mixing Sicilian slang with her Brooklyn-ese. She talks to the Dunkin’ Donuts’ person, congratulating her on the state of the marvelously clean shop. Then she talks to the people on line waiting to purchase extraordinarily mundane objects at the Hospice Thrift, taking hold of the lady collecting donations, advising her where to go to get a better frosting job on her hair- actually picking up the woman’s locks and scrutinizing them closely, then dropping them with a displeased shake of the head. For some reason no one takes offense, probably because her intentions are so obviously well-meaning that she’s captivating. She has those fiery Sicilian eyes under elegant expressive brows and a hurried and coquettish, if judgmental, pouting mouth. She walks and talks with a sort of rolling theatricality in a voice pleasantly hoarse. Her strong, thick nails are filed to sugary white points and she drums them impatiently on the counter. She wants that capiamonté vase there in that locked cabinet. ‘Miss! Miss, can you get that case open so I can look at it if there ain’t no cracks?’

Claire spots- in a basket of new arrivals about to be placed on an ordinary shelf- two porcelain figurines rubber-banded together. The one is a chipped and gaudy female, but the other a rather interesting little man with a tilted, questioning head. His face looks almost real. He holds a fastidiously painted blue fan and wears golden shoes on a white pillow that, when turned over, reads Occupied Japan. She picks up a white and silver brocade case holding a pair of small vintage Japanese opera glasses, gold and blue enamel. A tiny white tag fastened to a red string reads an astonishing $18 for the opera glasses and $4 for the pair of figurines. Apologizing silently to the little lady figurine she leaves her there and takes the man along with the binoculars to go pay. There are too many people bunched up on line and their impatience is unnerving the distracted cashier, a magnificently coiffed lady in a ruby vintage Chanel jacket. ‘You have to give me a minute!’ she cries in a frazzled shriek, ‘I’m just the temporary!’

Claire has to wait for Gina anyway; she relaxes into waiting position behind a grumbling man with an armload of second hand dresses.On the counter before Claire the customers are presented with a basket filled with necklaces and rosary beads, all sticker-ed 99 cents, one tawdrier than the other and there, peeking from beneath a conundrum of fake Hermes bracelets but half sticking out she spots an old watch face on a neon plastic band. She frowns. Not trusting her eyes, she shuffles it onto the top. It’s old all right; the face is yellowed in a 1930’s way. Is that a moon phase? It is. She turns it around and fishes it out and adds it tum ti tum to her acquisitions. Just then the man in front of her loses control of his bundle and in an explosion of hangars he’s down on the floor picking everything up. ‘Next!’ cries the woman, ‘Step up!’ and Claire hands her her three items, which the woman duly rings up, the 99 cent watch swiped, when paid for, into a Publix deli bag. Claire takes her stuff and goes outside to wait in the doorway before someone wakes up, changes her mind and comes running after her. Carefully, she takes the watch out- almost afraid to look, and puts her reading glasses on. The hands on the ivory face beneath a domed crystal are brass, delicate and whittle fine. It’s a triple date calendar moon phase watch, the second hand as thin as a whisker. Around the face are the numbers of the days of the month, indicating each day by a semicircle on a wand. At the bottom of the piece a half moon opens to an array of golden stars. At its edge is a partially visible half moon in descent. Two windows at the top clearly state the weekday and the month. Below them is the name: Leonidas. It won’t work. Of course it won’t. But she gives it a little tickle of a wind and studies it as the second hand sweeps confidently in bumping clicks around the face. Excitedly, she slips the watch into her pocket. A find. She can hardly wait to open it up from the back. She’s never had a vintage moon phase watch. Not an authentic one.

Gina bumbles from the shop in a fury. ‘You ran out so fast you didn’t get your tax write off!’ she cries, waving...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 21.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3178-2051-0 / 9798317820510