Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar (29 page)

To: [email protected]

March 2 9:08 p.m.

From: [email protected]

Subject: Awesome Sunday!

Nayra—OMG u wil not believe it! U know I had to go to the reopening of the patio at my grammas place today. It was a private party so Daniel and I could go. And it was REALLY cool with lots of people and a band and dancing. There were kids that I’d met before. A few from school. Mia Carson from Daniels class was there with her parents and Mrs. Ramirez’s grandkids who I knew from her restuarant. It was pretty neat. Everyone knew Daniel and me. They were mostly friends of Red and Cam and people who come to the bar all the time.

Karl, he is the bartander fixed me an actual drink! It was called a Shirley something and it had a merrychino cherry and an umbrella in it. I felt totally like a teen or something.

So I am thinking that this is it. Nice afternoon party and my mom actually dances with a couple of guys. It’s cool, but ordinary. And then Cam gets up on stage and he thanks everybody and all and then he says he’s got a surprise that he hopes everyone is up for. And he picks up his fiddle and he starts playing and it is like dum-dum-da-dum dum-dumda-dum, u know like here comes the bride and here comes Red down the apartment stairs. She is in like a long dress with flowers in her hair and carrying a bowkay. And she gets me and Daniel and Mom and Aunt Phyl and we all go up on the stage and they have a wedding. It was insane!

Everybody was cheering and shouting. I could not believe it! I asked Cam afterward if now I call him Grandpa. He said he would be honored. But I think he will always be just Cam to me.

The weirdest thing they added one extra vows to their vows. They did the regular ones better/worse and sickness/health and anyway the extra vow was something like I promise to always dream like I will live forever and live like I will die today.

Pretty cool.

Livy

We hope you enjoyed this novel
by Pamela Morsi.

See the discussion questions on the following page to further enhance your reading enjoyment.

1. Embracing uncertainty is a little unusual in what is basically a love story. Would a “happily-ever-after” ending be more or less satisfying to you as a reader?
   
2. Like Bridge, sometimes we are asked to do things that are in conflict with the responsibilities of taking care of our family. How do we forgive ourselves for that?
   
3. Red got a second chance at being a mother, but did she really blow the first chance or was that only her impression?
   
4. Gentrifying neighborhoods happens everywhere. How does your community balance needed change with preservation?
   
5. Olivia and Daniel handled their mother’s absence in very different ways. Do you think birth order or expectations play the bigger part in these differences?
   
6. Red imagined that if her father had not died, her life would have been very different. How common is it for our life direction to be drastically changed by events out of our control?
   
7. Events out of their control was the reality for most characters in this story, from Red, Cam and Bridge, to the children, even Aunt Phyl and Kelly, Sean and Kendra. Is control of our own lives actually just a myth?
   
8. As soon as he turned eighteen, Cam sought answers to his genetic makeup. With the stakes so high, would you want to know? Why or why not?
   
9. When Cam asked Red to face the future with him, he knew how much he was asking. Should he have asked? And would you take this on? Would you want your daughter, mother, sister to take it on?
   
10. Is being designated the “bad grandmother” a criticism or a badge of honor?
    

ISBN: 978-1-4268-3534-6

RED’S HOT HONKY-TONK BAR

Copyright © 2009 by Pamela Morsi.

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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