What Alice Forgot

Today at Barnes and Noble I stole five pages from a book while sipping my Starbuck’s mocha latte Tall with cinnamon. It was a delightful pleasure to luxuriate within those pages. Like a bubble bath of words. I learned a new word – squidginess. I also learned that the word ‘besotted’ could be one of the most romantic words in the English language when used adoringly by the right person. When I was done with my mocha latte I realized I had a decision to make. Come back another time and steal more pages or give up my life of thievery and purchase the book. I chose to purchase it. Because after only five pages I could not stand the idea of not knowing what would happen to Alice and her unborn child. Indeed, I needed to know what had already happened to them and why someone had needed to dial 000. So I stood on line and paid full hardcover money to finish reading “What Alice Forgot” because Mr. Moriarty, clever writer that he apparently is, was capable of drawing me in so fully over a cup of coffee that I couldn’t imagine leaving the store without his novel. Barnes and Noble is also rather clever for allowing us to sit and peruse their books as if it were a library. Invariably, some of us do succumb to the mysteries on the pages and pay the price of admission.