No Dark Valley
Page 60
“And . . . ?”
“Well, that would make a great thing to stick in the ending somewhere—you know, driving off into the sunset and all.”
Celia shook her head. “Enough already.”
“No, one more thing. I have the perfect closing sentence for our book.”
She sighed. “What?”
“‘And they lived happily ever after.’”
She moaned.
Bruce smacked his palm with his fist. “No, think about it! Christians everywhere should rise up and reclaim that ending for their stories. We’re the ones who really will live happily ever after. That’s what eternal life is all about, right?”
One thing she knew for sure. Life was never going to be boring living with Bruce.
Bruce snapped his fingers. He also had an idea for a good title for their book, he said.
“You mean the one we’re not going to write?”
Yes, that one, he said. To go along with the fairy tale ending, they could use something like The Prince’s Good Fortune.
“The prince being you, I assume?”
Yes, he said, and the “good fortune” part could mean so many things—for starters, wasn’t it in the opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice, something about a single man with a good fortune?
Celia nodded and held up her left hand. “Although, of course, you made a considerable dent in your good fortune when you bought this.”
But the word fortune went far beyond mere money, Bruce pointed out. The Prince’s Good Fortune would be a wonderful, multidimensional title, including a spiritual reference to the fact that the title character was a son of the King, with a capital K. Furthermore, he hurried on, it would indicate a love story, since a prince would necessitate a princess.
“So I’m the good fortune in the title?” Celia asked, and when he nodded, said, “Okay, I don’t mind being somebody’s good fortune.”
And then there was the whole future implication of the word, too, he said, your fortune being your destiny, your ultimate success, and all that. “So there you go, we’re back to living happily ever after. See, it’s a great title.”
She smiled. “And it adds one more cliché to the pot—the title with tricky multiple meanings. That’s something amateur writers really go in for.”
Bruce scowled. “You’re a very critical woman, you know that? Very hard to please.”
Celia laughed. “Okay, you’ve got the title and ending. Now I’ll do the beginning: ‘Once upon a time a tall, dark, handsome prince knocked on Celia’s door and asked for a toilet plunger.’”
He suddenly grew serious. Was she sure, he wanted to know, that she could live with a man like him?
Celia appeared to be considering this. Well, to tell the truth, she said at length, she didn’t see how she could live without him.
JAMIE LANGSTON TURNER has been a teacher for thirty-two years at both the elementary and college levels and has written extensively for a variety of periodicals, including Faith for the Family, Moody, and The Christian Reader. Her first novel, Suncatchers, was published in 1995. Born in Mississippi, Jamie has lived in the South all her life and currently resides with her husband and son in South Carolina, where she teaches creative writing and literature at Bob Jones University.
Books by
Jamie Langston Turner
Some Wildflower in My Heart
A Garden to Keep
No Dark Valley
Sometimes a Light Surprises
Winter Birds
Suncatchers
By the Light of a Thousand Stars