I did. I plopped down and made myself comfortable on his knees.
The page rustled in his hand and he said, “This here, it is one of my early stories,” and out of his notebook he started reading, like, Leonard was first introduced to Lana at his boss’s house...
At once I thought, Leonard? Why Leonard? The name sounded too important, to formal to my ears. Plain Lenny would have been so much better, because after all it was his voice, and the story was clearly about him.
Them writers, sometimes they play these kinds of games, and use code names, I reckon, to distance themselves from themselves.
Anyway, I didn’t hardly say anything, ‘cause me, I was glad, so glad that this time, he let me in, and here I was, awful close to him. I’d known him, on and off—more off than on—for ten years, and in all that time I’d never, ever heard him read from his notebook for me. Strange: since the beginning he’d been a bit vague about his writing, slippery even. And I didn’t mind. No really, I didn’t, because... Well, because I accept Lenny. He is what he is: the keeper of secrets.
As it happened, I didn’t hear his story last night either. This time, it was my fault. Right after the first few words I relaxed, and felt so at ease, and so warm inside, that I caught myself yawning.
My head lolled to one side, then another, and I think I dozed off—but anyway, Lenny didn’t mind this time, not at all, “Because,” he said, “it must be because you are pregnant. And the bleeding, too, must take a lot out of you.”
He let me slip off his knees, and then moved aside so I could share the seat with him. “Your eyes,” he said, “they are glazing over. Lean on me, right here. My God, Anita, you look so pale, so tired. Well, who can blame you?”
Which was kinda good, ‘cause he didn’t have a clue that it wasn’t just me being pregnant, and tired, and what not—but on top of everything else, it was his writing, and all them words, the fine words he used, which confused me and made me drowsy.
Lenny was like, delighted by his own writing, and by me being there, silent, without butting in, because according to him Natasha, his ex-wife, had laughed at him more than once, in the early years, the years of her success, during which he was out of a job. He hadn’t forgotten the insult, but managed to swallow it, somehow—only to spit it out now, so many years later. She would say, like, Who does he think he is, Dostoyevsky?
Unlike her I just clung to him, and took in the moment, and tried to listen, as best I could, first hearing the sound of his voice and then, deep inside, the throbbing of my heart.
And then... Then I closed my eyes.
About the Series
Each of the books in this series can be read as a standalone, but you will gain a more complete appreciation of the characters by following them from one generation to the next, across the borders of several countries, see them through their eyes and the eyes of the other characters.
#I: My Own Voice
Ten years ago, Anita started an affair with Lenny, in spite of knowing that he was a married man. Now married to him and carrying his child, how can she compete with Natasha’s shadow, and with her brilliance in the past? Lenny tries to transform Anita, despite her rough slang, regardless of what happened to her in the past. He wants her to become Natasha. Can she survive his kind of love?
Faced with his compelling wish, and the way he writes her as a character in his book, how can Anita find a voice of her own? And when his estranged son, Ben, comes back and lives in the same small apartment, can she escape the love triangle? Can she keep the balance between the two men, whose desire for her is marred by guilt and blame?
#II: The White Piano
Coming back to his childhood home after years of absence, Ben is unprepared for the secret, which is now revealed to him: his mother, Natasha, who used to be a brilliant pianist, is losing herself to mysterious disease, which turns the way her mind works into a riddle. His father’s new wife, Anita, looks remarkably similar to her—only much younger. Feeling isolated, being apart from love, how will Ben react to these marital affairs, when it is so tempting to resort to blame and guilt? “In our family, forgiveness is something you pray for, something you yearn to receive—but so seldom do you give it to others.”
Behind his father's back, Ben and Anita find themselves increasingly drawn to each other. They take turns using an old tape recorder to express their most intimate thoughts, not realizing at first that their voices—his eloquent speech, her slang—are being caught by his father. What emerges in this family is a struggle, a desperate, daring struggle to find a path out of conflicts, out of isolation, from guilt to forgiveness.
#III: The Music of Us
In 1970, Lenny can no longer deny that his wife is undergoing a profound change. Despite her relatively young age, her mind succumbs to forgetfulness. Now, he goes as far back as the moment he met Natasha during WWII, when he was a wounded warrior and she—a star, brilliant yet illusive. Natasha was a riddle to him then, and to this day, with all the changes she has gone through, she still is.
“Digging into the past, mining its moments, trying to piece them together this way and that, dusting off each memory of Natasha, of how we were, the highs and lows of the music of us, to find out where the problem may have started?”
To their son, Ben, that may seem like an exercise in futility. For Lenny, it is a necessary process of discovery, one that is as tormenting as it is delightful. He often wonders: can we ever understand, truly understand each other—soldier and musician, man and woman, one heart and another? Will we ever again dance together to the same beat? Is there a point where we may still touch?
#IV: Dancing with Air
Serving on the European front, Lenny longs for Natasha, the girl who captured his heart back home. He writes bogus reports, designed to fall into the hands of Nazi Intelligence. To fool the enemy, these reports are disguised as love letters to another woman. This task must remain confidential, even at the risk of Natasha becoming suspicious of him.
Once she arrives in London, Lenny takes her for a ride on his Harley throughout England, from the White Cliffs of Dover to a village near an underground ammunition depot in Staffordshire. When he is wounded in a horrific explosion, Natasha brings him back to safety, only to discover the other woman’s letter to him. He wonders, will she trust him again, even though as a soldier, he must keep his mission a secret? Will their love survive the test of war?
In the past Natasha wrote, with girlish infatuation, “He will be running his fingers down, all the way down to the small of my back, touching his lips to my ear, breathing his name, breathing mine. Here I am, dancing with air.” In years to come, she will begin to lose her memory, which will make Lenny see her as delicate. “I gather her gently into my arms, holding her like a breath.” But right now, during the months leading up to D-Day, she is at her peak. With solid resolve, she is ready to take charge of the course of their story.
About the Author
Uvi Poznansky is a bestselling, award-winning author, poet and artist. Her romance boxed set, A Touch of Passion, is the 2016 winner of The Romance Reviews Readers' Choice Awards. Her writing and her art are tightly coupled. “I paint with my pen,” she says, “and write with my paintbrush.”
She earned her B. A. in Architecture and Town Planning from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. During her studies and in the years immediately following her graduation, she practiced with an innovative Architectural firm, taking part in the design of a large-scale project, Home for the Soldier.
Having moved to Troy, N.Y. with her husband and two children, Uvi received a Fellowship grant and a Teaching Assistantship from the Architecture department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. There, she guided teams in a variety of design projects and earned her M.A. in Architecture. Then, taking a sharp turn in her education, she earned her M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
During the years she spent in advancing her career—first as an architect, an
d later as a software engineer, software team leader, software manager and a software consultant (with an emphasis on user interface for medical instruments devices)—she wrote and painted constantly. In addition, she taught art appreciation classes.
Her versatile body of work can be seen on her blog, which includes poems, short stories, bronze and ceramic sculptures, paper engineering projects, oil and watercolor paintings, charcoal, pen and pencil drawings, and mixed media. In addition, she posts her thoughts about the creative process, excerpts from her writing, reader reviews, and author interviews. She engages readers and writers in conversation on her Goodreads group, The Creative Spark.
Uvi published a poetry book in collaboration with her father, Zeev Kachel. Later she published two children’s books, Jess and Wiggle and Now I Am Paper, which she illustrated, and for which she created animations. You can find these animations on her Goodreads author page.
My Own Voice, The White Piano (woven together in Apart from Love), The Music of Us, and Dancing with Air are volume I, II, III and IV of Still Life with Memories, a family saga with love stories that develop in the face of hardship and illness over two generations, starting at the beginning of WWII with Lenny, a soldier, and Natasha, a rising star.
Rise to Power, A Peek at Bathsheba, and The Edge of Revolt are volume I, II, and III of The David Chronicles, telling the story of David as you have never heard it before: from the king himself, telling the unofficial version, the one he never allowed his court scribes to recount. In his mind, history is written to praise the victorious—but at the last stretch of his illustrious life, he feels an irresistible urge to tell the truth.
A Favorite Son, her novella, is a new-age twist on an old yarn. It is inspired by the biblical story of Jacob and his mother Rebecca, plotting together against the elderly father Isaac, who is lying on his deathbed. This is no old fairy tale. Its power is here and now, in each one of us.
Twisted is a unique collection of tales. In it, the author brings together diverse tales, laden with shades of mystery. Here, you will come into a dark, strange world, a hyper-reality where nearly everything is firmly rooted in the familiar—except for some quirky detail that twists the yarn, and takes it for a spin in an unexpected direction.
Home, her deeply moving poetry book in tribute of her father, includes her poetry and prose, as well as translated poems from the pen of her father, the poet and author Zeev Kachel.
Most of these books are available in all three editions: ebook, audio, and print.
Find her Books, ask to get them Autographed, and subscribe to her Newsletter.
Follow her on these sites:
Blog
Amazon Author Page
Amazon Author Page UK
Goodreads Author Page
Goodreads group: The Creative Spark with Uvi Poznansky.
Twitter
Google+
Pinterest
Facebook
A Note to the Reader
Thank you for reading this book! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, I invite you to check out more books from the same pen. There is always a new project on my drawing board, so come back to check it out.
I would love to hear what you thought of this book. You have the power of bringing my work to the attention of more readers. One thing you can do to help me spread the word is this: please tell your friends about my work. How else will they hear about the story? How else will the characters, who sprang from my mind onto these pages, leap from there into new minds?
Books by Uviart
Still Life with Memories
(All the volumes in the entire series)
Ebook: Kindle, Nook, kobo
My Own Voice
(Volume I of Still Life with Memories)
978-0984993215
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Audible US,
Audible UK, iTunes
The White Piano
(Volume II of Still Life with Memories)
978-1517049447
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Audible US,
Audible UK, iTunes
The Music of Us
(Volume III of Still Life with Memories)
978-0-9849932-9-1
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK
Audible US, Audible UK
Dancing with Air
(Volume IV of Still Life with Memories)
978-1536896534
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: Amazon US, Amazon UK, Audible, iTunes
Apart from Love
(Volume I and II of Still Life with Memories, woven together)
978-0984993208
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK
Audible US, Audible UK
The David Chronicles
(Volume I, II, and III)
Rise to Power
(Volume I of The David Chronicles)
978-0-9849932-4-6
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,
Audible US, Audible UK
A Peek at Bathsheba
(Volume II of The David Chronicles)
978-0-9849932-7-7
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,
Audible US, Audible UK
The Edge of Revolt
(Volume III of The David Chronicles)
978-0-9849932-8-4
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
A Favorite Son
978-0-9849932-5-3
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,
Audible US, Audible UK
Twisted
978-0984993260
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords
Audiobook: iTunes, Amazon US, Amazon UK,
Audible US, Audible UK
Home
978-09849932-3-9
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords
Audiobook: Amazon US, Amazon UK,
Audible US, Audible UK
Children’s Books by Uviart
Jess and Wiggle
978-1494920968
Paperback: Amazon
Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords
Now I Am Paper
978-1494919429
Paperback: Amazon, Barnes&Noble
Ebook: Kindle, Nook, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords
The Wrong Girl ©2016 Uvi Poznansky
All rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
This novel can be read as a standalone novel, as well as a part of Still Life with Memories, a series describing events in the life of a unique family from multiple points of view.
Published by Uviart
P.O. Box 3233 Santa Monica CA 90408
Blog: uviart.blogspot.com
Email:
[email protected] First Edition 2012
Printed in the United States of America
The characters in this book are fictional. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Book design, cover design and cover image by
Uvi Poznansky
ISBN 978-0-9849932-0-8
ASIN: B006WPITP0
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