Judith’s Reviews > Valencia and Valentine > Status Update

"...fermata. It’s a symbol, a parenthesis turned on its side overtop of a dot. When it’s placed above a rest in a piece of music, it makes the rest last longer; it’s called a grand pause. Composers often put it right before a really beautiful section. Like everything in music, it’s always intentional. Fermata emphasizes the beauty of what’s going to happen next."

"And then Valencia did another very brave thing. This is how brave things work, after all—they lead to more brave things and more brave things."

"She might need to ask some of these questions out loud in case he didn’t catch the subtleties. Men, she knew from extensive television viewing, often didn’t."

"Shaking, she tipped her head to the side, gesturing slightly to the bench a few feet away. “Do you want to sit?” Do you want to sit? The scariest thing she’d ever done. A loaded question. A question that asked more questions. Do you want to sit? With me? And talk? Will you be my plus-one to Grace’s wedding? Will you be my plus-one to our wedding? How many children should we have?"

"You up for that? What a crazy thing, to think of my characteristics mixed with yours and all the little permutations possible—hey, are you sleeping?” ☺

"blowing us all down into the sharp rocks, imagined the incredible sound of all those popping balloons, and found that the thrill in my belly this time was less one of terror and more one of excitement. The realization made me proud. I was becoming brave."

"From there we went to Turkey, where we rode in a hot air balloon through Cappadocia, a breathtaking land of fairy chimneys and church ruins and houses carved from the soft rocks of volcanic deposits. The sky was filled with hundreds of balloons, silhouetted against the warm glow of the sunrise. The needlelike volcanic spires below looked especially threatening in contrast. I imagined a sudden wind..."

"“Was it . . . were you expecting it? I mean, was she sick?” Grace asked gently. “No,” said Valencia. “She stepped on her cat and fell down some stairs.” Valencia didn’t know where this came from—some colorful quadrant of her brain that wasn’t getting enough exercise."

"but men seemed to love it, having their shoulders pushed on by women who were also laughing flirtatiously. And then he’d laugh and she’d laugh harder, and she’d kiss him, even though this was an office and even though they hadn’t even verbally established the existence of a mutual attraction. And it wouldn’t faze her, because in this daydream she could be one of those people who didn’t care about germs."

"If she had more air, more nerve, more old-fashioned gumption, she’d laugh in a flirtatious way and say, You know what? I think the whole point of a first impression is to be memorable. Otherwise we’d just call it a first meeting, and I’d have forgotten your name already.