Kathleen Gilles Seidel - Maybe this time

Color

Text Size

MAYBE THIS TIME

By

Kathleen Gilles Seidel

Contents

PRAISE FOR KATHLEEN GILLES SEIDELS

Finally! Kathleen Gilles Seidel is back and writing better than ever. Reading MAYBE THIS TIME is like pampering yourself with a cozy fire and a warm cup of tea. It feels wonderful!

Susan Elizabeth Phillips

Kathy has written a wonderfully realistic book about friendship, love, personal growth and self-realization totally involving, sparkling with humor, understanding and warmth. Kathys talent for showing the special and memorable qualities in all of us shines in every word.

Iris Johansen

MAYBE THIS TIME is a sensitive, insightful story of love, compassion and friendship a novel that celebrates the power each of us has to make changes and to find happiness.

Jayne Ann Krentz

There is no finer, more resonant voice in womens fiction today than that of Kathleen Gilles Seidel a haunting novel takes us deep into the hearts and souls of her characters.

Romantic Times

An evocative and endearing novel that warmed my heart, made me laugh and kept me guessing about the characters deepest secrets. A reader cant ask any more from a book than that.

Brooke Hastings

POCKET BOOKS

New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

For Dory and Lily

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Most of all, my baby-sitters. Cassie Vilsack told me every embarrassing thing that had happened to her in high school. Perhaps this would have been a better book if she was the sort to whom more embarrassing things happened. Heather Handerson proofread, listened to the plot, told me what I was hearing in a piece of music, and taught a toddler to dance. I wish this book had more of her grace.

Valerie Hart brightened the final months of this book with her laughter. Heather Muchow, Kathleen Dolan, Meagan Vilsack, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Rae Callen were also wonderfully helpful.

Barbara Ratchford and the staff of The Yorktown Sentry, who let me watch them being themselves, were helpful. Caren Kinder, Sara Fitzgerald, Judith Voder, Casey Stuart, Dennis Schrock, Ann Salitsky, my parents (as always), and the staff of WAVA, Power 105 in Arlington, Virginia, seemed happy to be pestered with questions. Gary Curtis and Rhydonia Ring got the worst of it, but thats their fault for seeming so interested.

My editor, Claire Zion, and my agent, Adele Leone, worked so hard on this project that its a shame that it wont be covered on the final. Beverly Sommers, Karen Van Der Zee, Anne Stuart, and Pamela Regis all read and thought. Kathleen Ligare read the manuscript with such attention and insight that she might be embarrassed if I acknowledged how indebted to her I am.

Two people did not help at all. From nearly the moment of their conceptions onward, they made the writing of this book immeasurably difficult. Nonetheless, to them it is dedicated.

Emily Gordon had spent the last week visiting gyms, seedy, inner-city gyms smelling of towels and rope.

She went to such places to talk to amateur boxers. They were very young men; most were inarticulate, some were illegal, but all wanted to fight their way to a better life. Emily was searching them out to tell them that if they were as good as they thought they were, Hemphill and Associates, the sports management agency she worked for, could help. You, too, was the message of her clothes, her limo, her driverYou, too, can have all this.

While she enjoyed her expensive clothes, Emily didnt care much about the limousine. She liked to drive herself. She was good with maps; she could always find the headlight switch on rented cars. But the limousines on this trip werent only for show; they were also for safety. These gyms in Baltimore and Atlantic City, Philadelphia and Detroit, were on streets that werent very comfortable for a woman alone with a Hertz ear-But at OHare on Sunday night, there was no uniformed driver waiting for her at the end of the concourse, holding a neatly lettered sign with her name on it. The trip was over, Chicago was home. It was back to the taxi line with everyone else.

* * *

A pro got to work an hour before his show, or so believed the man who called himself Cal Kirkland. A good deejay used that hour to check his mail, see what was on the wire, look over the program log, and chew gum. Chewing gum loosened up the tongue muscles, built up the saliva. Not an attractive sight, perhaps, but that was the nice thing about radio; you didnt have to worry about attractive sights. You did have to talk without stuttering and stumbling.

But more Sundays than not, the man who called himself Cal Kirkland didnt even get to work early enough to chew gum in peace. He would squeal into his space in the station parking lot, ripping open a pack of Doublemint as he barreled into the building. Chewing furiously, he would read what memos he could between the reception area and the studio, and then would throw out the rest.

To: Cal

From: George R.

Good news!! WRJR in Chicago just picked up the Cal

Kirkland Show. Congrats!! And yes, theyre doing it live. So keep that request line open.

* * *

Emily put her bag in the taxi. A jagged line of silver duct tape crisscrossed the back seat, patching the vinyl upholstery. A spray of red plastic lilies grew out of the ashtray. The Sunday real estate section of the Sun-Times was in a heap on the floor. This did not happen in limousines. The driver turned to ask her where she was going. He left his radio on. This, too, did not happen in limousines.

Emily gave him the address of the condominium that she rented on the Near North Side, and sat back as the cab pulled out of the airport traffic. The driver said something about the weather; she mumbled an answer. There was a commercial playing on the radio. Emily wasnt listening. She was tired.

Then out of the radio came a bass guitar rocking back and forth in a circle of fifths. A lead guitar twanged in. It was Eight Miles High.

The driver shot onto the Kennedy. You want me to change the station?

No, this is fine. Emily liked the song. She leaned her head against the back seat. Her hair snagged on the duct tape. When the song ended, the disk jockey came on, telling her that she had indeed been listening to Eight Miles High by the Byrds. He went on, talking about how the Beatles had become more intellectual because of the Byrds. Emily thought his voice sounded a little familiar.

What station is this? she asked the driver.

He leaned forward, peering at the radio dial. It looks like RJR.

Emily rarely listened to that station. Do you know who the deejay is?

Nope. But Ive been listening to him since I got on. He knows a lot.

The cab changed lanes; traffic wasnt bad. The deejay continued to talk.

and then Roger McGuin went on to

Emily knew that voice, but not from the radio. It wasnt a voice she associated with radio. Now alert, she frowned, trying to remember. A toothpaste commercial came on.