Flabbergasted (Flabbergasted Trilogy Book #1) , livre ebook

Baker Publishing Group - Ray Blackston

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168 pages

English

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When Flabbergasted stormed on the scene in 2003, the reviews came fast and furious:"Good writing and an ample dose of humor make this as charming as Bridget Jones's Diary from the male point of view."--Library Journal"Blackston's novel will tickle your literary taste buds with a relational gumbo of quirky characters."--Christian Book Previews"Amazing. A novel that is simultaneously serious, hilarious, and impossible to put down."--The Dallas Morning News"With a colorful cast of quirky characters and a plot full of surprises, this is one of the feel-good novels of the year."--CCMNow this summertime favorite about a single stock broker looking for love in the murky waters of the southern church singles scene is repackaged with a hot new look.

Informations

Publié par	Baker Publishing Group
Date de parution	01 mai 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781441211774
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	3 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0202€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

© 2003 by Ray Blackston
Published by Revell a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2012
Ebook corrections 04.15.2016 (VBN), 11.28.2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
ISBN 978-1-4412-1177-4
The epigraph on page 265 is taken from C. S. Lewis’s A Grief Observed (London: Faber and Faber, 1961), 83.
The characters and events written about in this book are fictional.
“Years ago I had the occasion to change Ray’s diaper. Then around the time he finished college, I taught him how to catch fish in the surf. His writing talent comes from my side of the family, so maybe that’s why he stuck me in his book.”
My name is Asbury, and I live on Pawleys Island
“When Ray first asked if he could use my car in his novel, I declined, thinking everyone in the South would just be honking at me for the next fifty years until I was old and deaf. Well, not only did he use my car in the story, he had the audacity to use me!”
My name is Darcy, and I am tall and blonde
“I just had to be in this book, so I offered Ray powdered donuts and lots of dating advice. He’s a pushover.”
My name is Lydia, and I am a short redhead
“Had to wedge my way in, too. So I gave Ray a ride to the beach in my Jeep.”
My name is Steve, and I kill bugs
“As a bribe to get me in his book, Ray offered me a root beer and a turkey sandwich. I just happened to have left my lunch at home that day, so I took a second swig and said, ‘Yeah, okay Ray, go ahead, but only if I get to do something fun, something besides mop floors.’ He shook my hand and agreed.”
My name is Maurice, and I am a church janitor
“Ray-dude can still be found hanging out on my end of the beach. Like Steve Cole, he’s sorta uncoordinated, but at least he wears cool shorts.”
My name is Ransom, and I am a surfer
“Ray traveled more than four thousand miles to interview me. He even got stopped and interrogated at a small South American military outpost before finding my location. Then he spent two days begging for permission to use me as the female star of his novel. I bit into a mango and told him only if I got to drive Darcy’s car. After all, she’s my best friend.”
My name is Allie, and I work for God
“Welcome, dear reader, to Flabbergasted.”
My name is Jay, and I will be your narrator
For Mrs. Kretzer, my second grade teacher, who liked my stories and poems and was the first person to encourage me to write
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Endorsements
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
Act 1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
Act 2
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
Act 3
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Thank you, reader
Back Ads
Back Cover
In his heart a man plans his course, but the L ORD determines his steps.
—Proverbs 16:9
Prologue
This is not my story to tell. Even if I wanted to, I could not tell it. Two dozen orphans, a remote locale, and lack of paper allowed me to write only this brief introduction, and even it had to be scribbled hastily in pencil and sent via snail mail. My letters take two weeks to reach the United States.
If you guessed that I am a missionary, you are correct. If you guessed that I am in my mid-twenties and have brown hair, then you are clairvoyant. If you guessed that I am about to tell you why I’m bending your ear instead of the story’s rightful owner, then you need to be patient and spend a moment pondering yesterday’s lesson in the village.
Yesterday I tried to explain to the children that life is full of ups and downs, and that some of the downs are actually ups, and some of the ups, downs.
They only wanted to know how far is down.
I said it depends.
Depends on what? they asked.
I told them it depends on if you view the downs as a green valley or an endless abyss.
After I explained what an abyss was, they said that was way too far down and that they hoped our village would never play soccer or eat jungle muffins in an abyss.
What you need to know is, by North America’s standard of logic, what happened to the narrator of this story also involved something of an abyss. Call it a deep plunge.
The strange thing is that during my last furlough—home to visit the South, the beach, the seafood—I witnessed his plunge. Well, at least the beginning of it.
At the last second he tried to reach out and grab my hand.
I refused.
But I did wave.
Now, whether the young man’s down was really an up, I’ll let you decide.
As for the orphans and the residue of yesterday’s lesson, we settled on something shallower than an abyss, and with a red magic marker I wrote our lesson on a small section of plywood. It hangs on the wall of my hut:
There are potholes on the road less traveled. Some deep, some not so deep, some you dig yourself. Most are filled with mud. Many contain rocks. Once in a while, however, you’ll be walking along and step in one a bit more accommodating . . . shabby, green, and pulsing with life.
It’ll tickle your feet, like clover.
Act I
Ninety percent of life is just showing up.
—Woody Allen
1
At a quarter past midnight I set my paint roller in the pan, the pan in the tub, my bathroom the latest victim in a week of odd-hour renovations.
Hands scrubbed, teeth brushed, I walked down the hall, cut off the lights, and fell prostrate across a mattress in my spare bedroom. A whiff of khaki latex seeped into the darkness, drifted past my pillow, and reminded me to be up at 8:00 A.M.
In the fuzzy state between sleep and awake, I reached to set the alarm on my digital clock. But I held the button too long and had to wait for the eight to come around as I dozed and saw the numbers, saw the numbers then dozed, and around again went the numbers.
The rumbling of a car engine woke me. It was Sunday morning. I sniffed the air, and above the fresh paint I detected the scent of females four miles away at North Hills Presbyterian Church.
The wind strained to cool my Blazer when I ran the yellow lights, and I ran three. Greenville was an unfamiliar city, and it bloomed green across my new geography, the upstate of South Carolina.
Sprawled between two office buildings on the uppity side of downtown, North Hills appeared manicured and popular. A tiny steeple rose from the red brick sanctuary.
The lot was filling fast. I parked in the back row, pausing there to watch well-dressed couples with immaculate children hurry toward the building. I checked my hair in the mirror and wondered who might be inside.
Understand that I did not resort to such tactics without good cause—and the cause was not that unusual.
Modern communication was the cause.
Kimberly Hargrove had communicated to me, by e-mail, that she was now interested in a surgical resident at West Dallas Hospital and would no longer be requiring my attention. This humbling piece of news arrived just six days after I had moved halfway across the country. Her contribution to this story ends here. Just know that what had looked promising had totally unraveled with two Thursday afternoon e-mails.
Relational rope burn.
Maybe you can relate.
Now, I’m aware that being dumped was poor motivation for what I was about to do. But what I was about to do would not have happened had it not been for a second piece of communication.
From an older woman.
No, not a romantic interest.
The real-estate lady.
Having just been transferred, I knew not a soul in Greenville, S.C.—until she had agreed to meet me at a mistreated three-bedroom in the middle of a suburban cul-de-sac. I had signed the contract on the hood of her Saab as she stood beside me in her gold jacket and black heels, looking over my shoulder and drooling for commission. Seconds later she had tromped through the yard, proudly slapped a SOLD sticker across her FOR SALE sign, and nearly turned her ankle in the process.
“So where do the single people hang out in this town?” I inquired, noting that the sellers had even uprooted the mailbox.
“Well, Jay,” she said, leaning over to brush grass clippings from her black heels, “there’s the occasional outdoor concert, and in the fall there’ll be plenty of football, but your best bet is in the same places where I find clients. I usually rotate between Baptist and Methodist.”
“Churches?” I asked, not sure of her meaning.
She pulled off her left shoe and shook out the grassy contents. “You know . . . the networking thing. Although sometimes it looks good to tote along a Bible, just to fit in.”
“You use churches to network for clients?”
“Almost exclusively.”
“Is that, um, legal?” I had a finance degree, and this sounded like the spiritual equivalent of insider trading.
“Who knows. But half the city does it.” She paused to empty her other shoe. “You don’t have a girlfriend? You look like the type who would have a girlfriend.”
“I used to. She sorta dumped me.”
“Well, is it ‘sorta,’ or is it permanent?” She was quite aggressive, the real-estate lady.
I walked over to peer into the mailbox hole. “Feels permanent.”
“And she did this recently?”
“By e-mail.”
“Sounds like an airhead to me.”
After this brief exchange, she leaned against her Saab to check over the contract. She thanked me, tore off my copy, and got into her car. I was inspecting a bent drain spout as she backed out of the driveway. She honked twice, then stopped and stuck her head out the window. “Ya know, Jay, if you really want to meet people, try the Pentecostals.