Wanting Rita by Elyse Douglas Spotlight and Excerpt for Pump Up Your Book

Elyse Douglas will be touring July 2 – August 24 with her new women’s fiction novel, Wanting Rita.

About the Book:

When his high school sweetheart experiences a devastating tragedy, Dr. Alan Lincoln reluctantly returns to his Pennsylvania hometown to see her. It’s been 15 years. Rita was a small town beauty queen—his first love whom he has never forgotten. He was a nerd from a wealthy family. Her family was poor. They formed a strong connection during their senior year, but Rita married someone else, and the marriage ended tragically.

Alan’s marriage of three years is disintegrating, and he sees in Rita the chance to begin again with the true love of his life. Rita has been mentally and emotionally shattered, but she reaches out to Alan and fights to build a new life with him. During a passionate summer, however, the past and present converge and threaten their rekindled love, as Alan and Rita must struggle with old ghosts and new secrets.

361 pages

You can visit Elyse’s website at www.elysedouglas.com.

About the Authors:

                             

Elyse Douglas is the pen name for the married writing team Elyse Parmentier and Douglas Pennington.  Elyse grew up near the sea, roaming the beaches, reading and writing stories and poetry, receiving a Master's Degree in English Literature from Columbia University.  She has enjoyed careers as an English teacher, an actress and a  speech-language pathologist.  She and her husband, Douglas Pennington, have completed three novels: The Astrologer's Daughter, Wanting Rita and a Christmas novel to be released later this year.

 Douglas grew up in a family where music and astrology were second and third languages.  He attended the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and played the piano professionally for many years. With his wife, Elyse, he has helped to pen The Astrologer's Daughter and Wanting Rita. 

When asked how they write a novel together, Doug often answers, "Well... If Elyse is dismissive and quietly pacing, then I know something's not working.  If I'm defensive, dramatic and defiant, then I know Elyse will soon be scowling and quietly pacing.  We remind ourselves of Rita and Alan James in our novel, Wanting Rita.  How the books get finished, I don't know."

Elyse Douglas live in New York City.  

Book Excerpt:

“She’ll be there, Alan,” Mrs. Fitzgerald said, in a quiet, hopeful voice.  “She’ll be at Jack’s Diner.  She’s been working there for a month now.  It…well, it would just be a good thing…a nice thing if you could…” Her voice trailed off, then grew weak and brittle.  “You’re the only person she’s asked about.  But… you must be so busy.  I mean, I know doctors are always busy.  Of course, you’re busy, but… Well, if you could just go and see her…”

Then there was desperation.  “I’m sorry to call you at your office, but I just thought…well, if she saw some old friends.  She needs to…get out and…”

I’d heard that voice frequently working in the ER during my residency.  A voice stripped of pride by a mounting panic.

“She’ll be so glad to see you again, Alan.  I just know it.   She was always so fond of you, you know.”

Just as I was about to end the conversation, she broke down, repeating the story of Rita’s tragedy in deep sighs and choking sobs.  I waited, impatiently.  She rambled and paused, hoping for a response.  I didn’t offer any, so she continued on with a weepy intensity, with anger, remorse, and an occasional hacking cough.  I listened coolly, aloof, frequently checking my watch.  I was already behind.  Patients were complaining to reception.  I had mountains of paperwork to do and I hadn’t eaten lunch.

Mrs. Fitzgerald persisted, with surging emotion.  Her pace became a desperate sprint to the finish line, jumping from self-pity to scorn, to cursing, to rage.  She trampled on all my efforts to cut her off.  So I waited for the end of emotion; for the end of her confessions; for the shattered voice that finally fell into a withering and feeble “Oh, God… please go see Rita… Please…”

I wasn’t moved in that hollow silence.   My heart contracted with an icy chill—with the rush of unwanted memories.  I wasn’t even moved when she timidly called my name to see if I was still there.

“Yes… I’m here, Mrs. Fitzgerald, but I have to go now.  Thank you for calling.”

I hung up, abruptly, without another word.  I wanted to erase her—erase the entire population of Hartsfield, Pennsylvania—from my mind.

I’d already heard the story.  My sister, Judy, had called eight months before, stunned, teary and grateful to share.  Two hours later, an old friend from high school, whom I hadn’t heard from in six years, called me stammering, shocked, and depressed.  Then my father had called, using cold, sharp words.  “They were trash.  Didn’t you date that girl a couple of times?  What was her name… Rita?”

It had briefly hit the national news, I was told, although I didn’t see it because I was in Barbados on vacation when it happened.  Of course it upset me.  It would upset anyone, but I had never been particularly fond of Mrs. Fitzgerald when I was a kid.  And when I was a kid living in Hartsfield, she’d never been particularly fond of me.  But then, with few exceptions, nobody was.  Except Rita.  Rita, at least for a fleeting miraculous time, had been fond of me.  Perhaps, she had even loved me.  And I, without a doubt—any doubt—had loved her.

In the last two years of high school, Rita had blazed with a beauty and magnetism that burned through a crowd like wildfire.  She possessed a kind of languid rapture and soft exotic glow that I compared to the starlets of the 1940’s and 50’s; that mysterious mixture of fire and ice that arrested the eyes and heart in a breathless expectation.  She was art, with her refined aristocratic nose, long chiseled neck, and voice like pure unraveling silk.  Her lips were red, full, and often parted, as if in want of a kiss, though there was no pretension in this.  At least, I never thought so.

She was full-figured and statuesque, with honey blond hair that fell in waves over thin ivory shoulders, in a longing, really—in a natural invitation to touch and caress.  And she moved in an easy rhythm, as if hearing distant pagan music, with a gentle sway of her hips that sent ripples of fervent pleasure through any gathering of guys, and a humid jealousy through any crowd of gals.

Rita had been the town treasure.  The prom queen.  The beauty queen.  The trophy.  Men with cigars on the Courthouse steps jerked nods of agreement that Hartsfield could produce more than just thermal underwear.  They produced Rita Fitzgerald: beauty, talent and personality.  She’d go somewhere, New York, LA, and become somebody, and they’d be the proud town fathers who had supported her, nurtured her and helped her along.  She could sing and dance, and she wrote poems and short stories that were published in the local paper.  She was even going to write a novel about Hartsfield.  For weeks after this fact was published in the Sunday paper, I observed that teachers, neighbors and town folk all had broader smiles, softer dispositions and kind words, where few had been offered before.

Whenever she had shined her large sea-blue eyes on me, I saw tenderness, wonder and intelligence; and when she took me into them, fully, and held me for a time, I felt primitive and exalted.  During those rare moments when Rita and I had been close and I felt her soft breath on my cheek or in my ear, and whenever she leaned into me and I smelled the spring scent of her and looked into her blue eyes, wide with magic, I saw them break into prisms of fire so magnificent that I often went dumb and silent with desire for her.

As I stared vacantly ahead at the garish neon lights of Jack’s Diner, I felt the rise of apprehension and dread.  Surely Rita had changed.  Had the tragedy blunted her beauty and zest for life?  Did I really want to see her defeated and small, working as a waitress at Jack’s Diner?  Did she really want to see me?