Grace Note
ZOE STEPPED OUT of the door of Halcyon House, one hand in Grandpa Sam’s, on her way to Arabelle’s for a violin lesson, and stood on the porch looking out at the bright garden.
Things had changed. It was like she had had wings before, but they had been curled inside her. She had not even known about them.
Now, she was held aloft by colors, which were sounds. The thoughts and dreams of others had colors, and their colors tinged her wings and gave them strength. Her wings were even strong enough to hold aloft her parents, Bitsy, Abbie, and Whens, and even her Grandpa and Grandma. Even her new friend, Aunt Eliani. She felt their heavy past, but it supported her instead of pulling her down. It was a new way of thinking, a new music that she could write and play. This all took only a few seconds, a few notes, to think.
“Ready?” asked Sam.
“I think everything is music,” she said.
“I think you’re right.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THOMAS E. GOONAN, my father, generously contributed a small portion of his self-written and edited memoirs to In War Times. In This Shared Dream, Sam Dance’s “notebook entry” about the Squounch Club is my father’s work, as are other “notebook entries” herein. Thank you, Dad, for all the music, and for your enormous contribution to my life in literature. You and Mom made books my world from the very beginning.
The Serendipity Book Store at Pickett Shopping Center in Fairfax, Virginia, was opened, operated, and owned by Steve and Danni Aloi, a wonderful community-oriented couple, in the late 1960s. It was a popular, wide-ranging bookstore filled with anything you could possibly want, or we would order it immediately. I met the Alois around 1966, and worked in the main store and at all the branches until that dream ended when the original store was destroyed in a tornado on April 1, 1973. The other branches did not remain open for much longer after that.
Many thanks to Steve Aloi, and to the memory of Danni.
Salutations, as well, to those with whom I worked there. You know who you are.
The only remaining book vestige of the Serendipity Crew, that I know of, is Mike Nally’s Hole in the Wall Books in Falls Church, Virginia.
Diane “Danni” Aloi passed away on July 4, 2003.
The Serendipity Book Store in this novel is nostalgically named after the original.
The original Halcyon House, after which I have named the Dances’ house, was the name of my friend Marilyn Bott’s family home on Staten Island.
Thanks to Ann Wobil for her help with the African chapters, and for countless other, more important acts of dedication and kindness. Thanks to Sage Walker and Steve Brown for reading countless early iterations. And finally, many thanks to David Hartwell and Stacy Hague-Hill for seeing this novel through all its changes.