Read Online The Woman Who Fell From Grace by David Handler - Free Book Online

1812 beckons, mother intended that John Raymond, husband of Evangeline Grace, himself be elected president of the United States. A truly magnificent story, is it not?”
    “It is. How detailed are her notes?”
    “Not very,” she confessed.
    “I understand you also have some ideas of your own.”
    “They are not my own,” she insisted. “They are Mother’s. Mother speaks to me.”
    “Want to tell me what she says?”
    “That Vangie should have an illegitimate child with Napoleon,” she replied firmly. “A beautiful girl.”
    “Good idea,” I said.
    “Do you really think so?” she asked, pleased.
    “I do. She could arrive in America as a young woman toward the end of the story. Cause her mother no end of problems.”
    “Excellent, Hoagy,” Mavis exclaimed. “You impress me right off. You breathe narrative.”
    “Yeah, I’m full of it. What else?”
    She hesitated. “There’s a certain … perspective that is missing. I feel — that is, Mother and I both feel — Oh , Shenandoah and Sweet Land of Liberty are but a small section of a much larger, more cosmic canvas.”
    “Cosmic?”
    “Evangeline Grace is not merely a figure of the American Revolution, Hoagy. She is a woman of the ages, one who has led many lives. She was Cleopatra and Lucrezia Borgia and Anne Boleyn. She was Joan of Arc. Fictionalized, of course —”
    “Of course.”
    “And before all of this, before she led these many fascinating lives, Vangie came here from far, far away.”
    “How far away?”
    “Venus, before the greenhouse effect poisoned its atmosphere several million years ago and made it uninhabitable.”
    “So you’re saying … ” I said slowly, “that Evangeline Grace, the heroine of Oh , Shenandoah , is actually an alien?”
    Mavis nodded. “And that I intend — that is, Mother intends — to reveal this now, in Sweet Land . The entire story. It is vital. I insist upon it.”
    No wonder the lunch-pail writers had quit on her. The wonder was how they’d kept this giddy little literary morsel under their hats. Their silence must have cost the Glaze brothers plenty.
    Mavis leaned forward now, anxious for my reaction. She was just like every other celebrity I’d ever met. Armor on the outside, tender, mortal ego underneath.
    I waited her out. I sat back and took off grandfather’s Rolex and rubbed at a scratch on its crystal. I put it back on, checked the, time, and calculated what it would be in Greece, in Fiji, in Kokomo, Indiana. And then, with just a hint of awe in my voice, I finally said, “It’s my turn to be impressed, Mavis. I didn’t realize you had such a rich, bold imagination.”
    “Mother,” she countered. “Not me. Mother.”
    I shook my head. “No, Mavis. Alma Glaze would never dare dream this big. This isn’t Alma talking. This is your own voice crying to be heard. This is the you that no one knows. The primitive you. The sensual you. People fear you. They think you’re some sort of tight-lipped martinet. They’re wrong. I see that now. You’re someone who has poetry inside her.”
    She gulped. The woman positively gulped. “Do you … do you really think so?” she asked breathlessly.
    “I do.”
    “My brothers think I am mad.”
    “Naturally. They’re businessmen. Earthbound, so to speak. You can’t expect them to comprehend you.”
    “But you do?”
    “I do.”
    “And you agree that this belongs in Sweet Land ?”
    “May I speak frankly, Mavis?”
    “Please. Hold nothing back.”
    “I think it’s powerful stuff. Too powerful. I see Sweet Land as a traditional, old-fashioned American vehicle — a Schwinn one-speed with foot brakes. Strap a jet engine onto it and you’ll only total it.”
    “But —”
    “This is another book, Mavis. Your own book. Not your mother’s. Yours . And you will write a book, a book even bigger than Oh , Shenandoah . I believe that. And I think you do, too, deep down inside. But Sweet Land , I think you have to leave it be. This book is