by Barbara Hall
I am starting to understand the meaning of this, as I lie very still next to my twenty-eight-year-old lover, whose soft breathing sounds like a primitive kind of music. Music is everywhere. He breathes in a constant, steady rhythm, as it makes sense for a bass player to do. And maybe that is where rhythm comes from, I think. Our earliest understanding of rhythm. The sound of our own breath, the beating of our own hearts.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to the people who helped me find the music: Dave Marsh, Howard Yearwood, Michael Guidry, Jonathan Grossman, Laurie Gunning Grossman, Jeffrey Allen, Adam Levine, and all the Enablers. Thanks to the people who wouldn’t let me stop: my editor, Chuck Adams, and my agent, Cynthia Manson. Finally, thanks to the people who put up with me for free: Karen, Faith, Lyla and Sharon, Craig and Jen, Kevin, and Troy.
Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225
a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014
© 2009 by Barbara Hall. All rights reserved.
First e-book edition, October 2012.
This is a work of fiction. While, as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA IS AVAILABLE
E-book ISBN 978-1-56512-672-5
Also by Barbara Hall
Adult Fiction
A BETTER PLACE
CLOSE TO HOME
A SUMMONS TO NEW ORLEANS
Young Adult Fiction
SKEEBALL AND THE SECRET OF THE UNIVERSE
DIXIE STORMS
FOOL’S HILL
THE HOUSE ACROSS THE COVE
THE NOAH CONFESSIONS