Lisa Unger
Smoke
The fourth book in the Lydia Strong series, 2005
Copyright © 2005 by Lisa Miscione
Preface by Lisa Unger
I was nineteen years old when I first met Lydia Strong. I was living in the East Village, dating a New York City police officer, and attending Eugene Lang College, the undergraduate school of the New School for Social Research. I was sitting in a car, under the elevated section of the “1” line in the Bronx, waiting-for what I can’t remember. But in my mind that day, I kept seeing this woman running past a church. She was in New Mexico. And all I knew about her was that she was a damaged person, someone in great pain. Running, for her, was salve, religion, and drug. That was Lydia.
I pulled a napkin and a pen from the glove compartment and started writing the book that would become
In spite of a first-rate education, a career in publishing, and a strong desire to write fiction, I didn’t know much of anything when I was writing my first novel. I don’t think you
I was fortunate that the first novel I ever wrote was accepted by my (wonderful, brilliant) agent Elaine Markson, and that she fairly quickly brokered a deal for
I followed Lydia from New Mexico, to New York City, to Albania, to Miami, and back. We trekked through the abandoned subway tunnels under Manhattan, to a compound in the backwoods of Florida, to a mysterious church in the Bronx, to a fictional town called Haunted. It was a total thrill ride, and I wrote like my fingers were on fire.
I am delighted that these early novels, which I published under my maiden name, Lisa Miscione, have found a new life on the shelves and a new home with the stellar team at Broadway Paperbacks. And, of course, I am thrilled that they’ve found their way into your hands. I know a lot of authors wish their early books would just disappear, because they’ve come so far as writers since they first began their careers. And I understand that, because we would all go back and rewrite everything if we could.
But I have a special place in my heart for these flawed, sometimes funny, complicated characters and their wild, action-packed stories. I still think about them, and feel tremendous tenderness for even the most twisted and deranged among them. The writing of each book was pure pleasure. I hope that you enjoy your time with them as much as I have. And, thanks, as always, for reading.
Part One. The Lost Girl
– RUSSIAN PROVERB
One
Lydia Strong wanted a cigarette to celebrate the defeat of her enemy. She leaned back in her chair and looked at the manuscript that sat fat and neat on her desk beside her computer. She felt like a prizefighter who had finally, after a brutal showdown, sent her opponent to the mat.
Maybe it was because in the writing of it, she had to let go of things she’d been clinging to for years. Maybe because, as painful as those things were, they were comfortable, familiar, and a part of her didn’t really want to see them exorcised. But now they were safely incarcerated in the pages of her manuscript. Soon they’d be edited and revised, edited and revised again. Then they’d be exposed to the light of the world. And, like all demons, in the sun they’d turn to piles of dust.
She laughed a little, just because of the lightness of her relief. She got up from her desk and tossed around the idea of going out for a pack of cigarettes. Maybe if Jeffrey wasn’t lying on the couch reading the Sunday
“I’m done,” she called, walking out of her office and through the loft. But he wasn’t on the couch; he was standing at the counter that divided the kitchen from the living room, talking on the phone.
“Oops, sorry,” she said when she saw him.
He looked at her strangely when she walked in. She hadn’t heard the phone ring. She took a frosty bottle of Ketel One vodka from the freezer and poured herself a lowball, trying and failing to be quiet as she put some ice in the glass and squirted some lime juice from one of those little plastic bottles shaped cutely like a lime.
“I see,” he said, lowering his eyes to the floor beneath his feet, tapping a pen on the countertop. “No, I’d rather tell her, David, if you don’t mind.”