EXCERPT (from Chapter One)

Peter Jennings and the Bear

That September, Anchorage had more moods than a menopausal woman. The sun shone one day and disappeared the next. The leaves began to turn russet and gold, but instead of falling hung on to branches, unwilling to let go. When the first frost came, and the last of the columbines shriveled, people sighed with relief at the return of what seemed like normal autumn weather. Then, a week later, it was warm again, and pansies close to the earth shamelessly opened their petals to take in the shine. Perhaps most troubling of this out-of-season business was the bears. By the end of the month they were usually bedded down for the winter, and stayed that way until spring. This year, however, bears ventured out long past their usual hibernation dates. Programmed to fill their bellies i preparation for sleep, they got into trash, foraging like ravens, and were seen taking dog food from dishes left out for retired huskies. The newspaper's gardening column warned bird lovers like Beryl Reilly to hold off filling feeders with thistle and sunflower seeds for the chickadees for fear of attracting ursine visitors. A bear encounter was the last thing Beryl wanted. Life was hard enough already.

She sat on the leather living room couch with her journal in her lap. It was a small book, its cover a map of the world. For the last five years she had marked in red pen every place she and Earl had traveled. The western United States, their slow drive through the South and up to New York and Canada, and then beyond the Atlantic, where the line stopped, and they'd flown to Europe. Earl wasn't the "see the British Isles tour" kind of traveler. Despite his casual clothes and fondness for diners, he flew first class wherever he went. He knew cutting-edge places to eat, where to shop for French jeans, and most of all, where to listen to the best live music to be found. He had friends in far-flung places, places he often traveled to on a moment's notice. But since the middle of summer, when he'd announced that he wanted to stay home for a while, Earl had spent most of his time in the basement, which he'd converted to a music studio.

Beryl uncapped her pen and wrote down exactly what she was thinking:

Earl's going to leave me. He thinks I don't know, but a woman can tell. . . . .