LITMIR.BIZ

      GRAHAM CORBETT stopped by the radio station at nine the next morning. His plans for the day included working on his book, the first self-help book he’d ever set out to write. He already had a contract with a major publisher; because of the nationwide broadcasts of his radio show, not to mention a few appearances on national television talk shows, his name recognition—and face recognition—had helped to sell this first project, Life—and Love—with Graham Corbett.

      He had noticed the irony, given that his own love life was thin on the ground. He knew all the reasons that was the case. Briony’s death had left him shaken. Not the grief—he had experienced the grief, lived through it. No, it was the way he’d come unraveled, the destruction he’d allowed his emotions to wreak on his life. After a thing like that…Well, he was uneasy about truly binding himself to a woman again.

      Uncharacteristically, Mary Anne Drew was at the station when he arrived. He gathered, from her interaction with Jonathan Hale, that she’d just recorded one of her essays. The essays were great. They painted Appalachian life in familiar colors and seemed to always strike an emotional chord. The woman could write and she had a good radio voice, a distinctive alto.

      But what did she see in Jonathan Hale? As he stopped near his In basket, Graham could almost feel the longing in Mary Anne…for Hale. She was desperate, no doubt because of the engagement.

      Well, whatever.

      He stared at his In tray. In it sat a white plush rabbit with vinyl fangs. It was the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but it wasn’t his. He picked it up bemusedly and addressed Mary Anne and Hale, the only other people at the station. “Whose is this? It was in my In tray.”

      “Then, it must be yours,” Hale replied. “Perhaps you have a secret admirer.” He chimed in then with a near-perfect imitation of the appropriate section of the movie. Mary Anne laughed, and even her laughter, Graham noticed, seemed desperate.

      Graham held the rabbit toward Mary Anne. “Do you know anything about this?”

      Her face flushed, but it was probably because Hale had just put his hand on her shoulder and said, “Great essay.”

      Mary Anne shook her head at Graham.

      Graham shrugged and tucked the rabbit under his arm as he collected the other things in his tray. Better not pay too much attention to Mary Anne. She didn’t like him, and it bothered him that she had gotten under his skin a bit. Being attached to a woman was something he didn’t need. Occasional dates, sure. But the rest…

      What had happened after Briony’s death still made him ashamed. Drunkenness, failure to appear at appointments or for studio engagements, random couplings with virtual strangers, a sort of unconscious yet full-power course of life destruction. One morning, he had actually awoken naked and hungover on the university athletic field with a broken ankle, like a character from a Tennessee Williams play. And why this descent into debauchery? Because he’d loved her so much? Even after half a year in a grief group and hours of counseling he wasn’t sure. He thought it was the shock of death itself. That someone could be there—then gone. His father had passed away a year after Briony, but that had touched him less. His father’s life had been a celebration, and it hadn’t shocked Graham when an eighty-year-old man slowly dying of asthma had stopped breathing and then become free. Briony’s death had been a different situation. A young woman, vibrantly, almost indecently healthy, an athlete, her life so alive…Then, gone.

      And so he’d had to live to the extent of life, had to live so as to constantly court death.

      In any case, now his life was ordered as he liked it, and he wanted to hold on to those things that were most precious—his work, his close relationships, his commitment to all that mattered to him.

      Jonathan Hale headed for his office, the only actual office at the station—a small room with a view of Stratton Street. Mary Anne said, “Um, Graham. I wanted to talk to you.”

      He lifted his eyebrows. Mary Anne never voluntarily spoke to him. And maybe that was part of what needled him about her. Not to mention the sheer waste of her infatuation with Hale.

      He stepped toward her. For all his teasing of her, Graham had to admit that Mary Anne Drew was an extraordinarily good-looking woman. She was tall, strong like an Amazon, with straight Florida surfer-girl hair. She could easily have been a model on the basis of her face. Lush dark eyebrows and eyelashes, green eyes, defined cheekbones and chin, generous mouth, a few freckles on that skin that always looked honey-colored. Yeah, he gave her a hard time about her butt, yet it was only because he knew that was the part of her body she disliked the most. He liked it. You could see her glutes, and she wasn’t all skin and bone, like her scrawny cousin.

      “I wanted to compliment you on your show yesterday,” Mary Anne said.

      He lifted an eyebrow.

      Her cheeks took on color as he watched.

      “Your advice to that girl was so good. It’s the kind of thing a lot of women need to hear.”

      “Thanks,” said Graham. This was unprecedented. And a little strange.

      “And I wanted to do you a—or ask you for—”

      She stumbled around incoherently.

      Graham said, “What do you want?”

      “I wanted to offer to set you up with Cameron.”

      “Your cousin,” he clarified.

      “Yes. She’s really nice and she directs the women’s resource center, which I’m sure you know. She’s had some counseling training, and I thought the two of you might get along.”

      Graham scratched his head. This was all so strange. “You think I can’t get a date?” he asked.

      “No.” She actually stamped her foot. A small stamp of frustration, but a stamp nonetheless. “I just thought you’d like each other. I thought you could go to Jonathan’s party together.”

      Things were getting more and more weird. “Did she put you up to this?”

      “Of course not. Cameron’s not like that. She doesn’t need male attention. She gets plenty of that without help. But she does think you’re nice, and I thought the two of you might hit it off.”

      He squinted. “Cameron…What’s her last name?”

      “McAllister. Our mothers are sisters. Cameron is really great. I know you’d like her.”

      Strangely, Mary Anne seemed every bit as desperate in her quest to unite him and her cousin as she was to earn Hale’s approval. Graham decided to forgo the “whys.” Did he want to go out with Cameron McAllister?

      He was selective in choosing dates. He sometimes had trouble getting rid of women after he’d taken them out a few times. One or two had even taken to dropping by the radio station, finding excuses to walk past his house—which wasn’t even in town but out in Middleburg, near Mary Anne’s grandmother’s house. It made him uneasy. He was a public figure. Like it or not, his voice and his radio show, his appearances on television and more, had made him a public figure.

      “I really don’t know her, Mary Anne,” he said. Then, added impulsively, “I have an idea. Why don’t I take you to Jonathan’s party?”

      Mary Anne appeared to be considering some serious dilemma in her mind. He could hear the wheels turning and wished he could read her thoughts.

      “I—I’d

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