The Search Angel (25 page)

I
sabelle lies in the dark and claps her hands. When the light goes on, she sits up. Pulls on a robe and pads down to the kitchen to heat the kettle. As soon as it whistles she shuts the burner off and stares at the steam curling up from the spout. With a shake of her head, she climbs the stairs back to her room. She lays the robe over the foot of the bed and climbs under the covers. Honestly, she never should have let Eleanor Sweet into her life. She was managing just fine. With a loud clap, the light goes off.

“Lunacy,” she says.

Right away, she claps again. Throws off the covers this time and marches into her closet. Pulls on a v-neck sweater and houndstooth trousers. A pair of boots capable of keeping her hips from shattering as she leaves Battersea Road to traipse hither and yon through the snow.

In the kitchen, she sits at the island, her purse on her lap. Here she waits for the clock to strike nine. When it does, she stands. Makes her way to the front hall, where she pulls on a wool coat. She looks at herself in the mirror, then slips a scarf from the drawer and ties it around her neck.

It’s like a child raising a child, this Eleanor dousing her
baby girl in bubbles, wheeling her about the city in the middle of the night. She has all the sense of an aardvark. Later this morning, Isabelle will stop by the store. She owes it to that poor child to get involved.

But first, she has a stop to make.

The Sidecar Diner looks like a San Francisco trolley that was hoisted from its tracks, shipped across the country and fastened to the base of the Channing-Breyers building. Then, in an effort to make it feel less West Coast, less Golden State, it was coated in decidedly non-weather-resistant black paint, as evidenced by coiled strips of alkyd peeling off its body like bark from a dying willow.

Isabelle steps inside, removes her gloves and jacket. Her scarf she leaves on. Fortification.

This is no trendy reproduction diner. The black and dingy-white floor is greasy enough that she’s already slipped twice. The air smells of bacon, strong coffee, cigarettes being smoked out the back door, and a mop so sour Isabelle almost volunteers to head to the store to pick up a quart of bleach.

Her eyes roam the room. There, in the last booth, sits a woman with short hair and a face clear of makeup. From the bench across from her, two freckled boys stare at Isabelle and bounce with excitement.

She pulls herself up to her full height, tilts her chin a bit higher and starts toward them.

E
normous thanks to people who helped along the way: search angel Marilyn Waugh, Deborah Jiang-Stein, Gail Konop Baker, Danielle Younge-Ullman, Barbara Annino, Evan McIntosh, Marlon Hershkop, Joseph Hershkop, Bruce Urquhart, Johnny Pigeau, Karen Elliott, Dean Andrews, Keith Cronin, Joanne Levy, Judy Merrill Moticka, and John MacDonald.

As always, to my literary agent, Daniel Lazar, and my film agent, Kassie Evashevski. At Writers House, Victoria Doherty-Munro and Maja Nikolic. At UTA, Johnny Pariseau. My brilliant editor at HarperCollins Canada, Jennifer Lambert. Also at HarperCollins Canada, Melissa Zilberberg, Leo MacDonald, Cory Beatty, Kaitlyn Vincent, Vikki Vansickle, Noelle Zitzer, and Allyson Latta.

Most of all, best of all, Max and Lucas.

TISH COHEN is the author of both YA and adult novels, including
The Truth About Delilah Blue, Inside Out Girl
, and Town House. The last two works have been optioned for film.

WEB: tishcohen.com

FACEBOOK: Tish Cohen

TWITTER: @TishCohen

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

“
In The Search Angel
, Tish Cohen explores how the things one desires most are often linked inextricably to our pasts. Eleanor Sweet’s story is told with compassion, humour, and intelligence—all the ingredients you look for in the best of books.”

CATHERINE MCKENZIE
,
author of Hidden

“Beautifully written and populated with achingly real characters,
The Search Angel
strikes a delicate balance between incisive humour and the sadness and joy that are the inevitable by-products of love.”

SUSAN JUBY
,
author of The Woefield Poultry Collective

“
The Search Angel
is a page-turner. I could not put it down, and those are the only clichés you will read with regards to this book. A funny, sad, touching, and original story that shouldn’t be missed.”

COLIN MOCHRIE
, actor and comedian

“Filled with exquisite phrasing and quirky characters,
The Search Angel
is an impossible-to-put-down novel about finding a family on the way to finding yourself. Tish Cohen writes like an angel!”

CLAIRE COOK
,
author of Must Love Dogs and Time Flies

FOR ADULTS

Town House

Inside Out Girl

The Truth About Delilah Blue

FOR CHILDREN

The Invisible Rules of the Zoë Lama

The One and Only Zoë Lama

Little Black Lies

Switch

The Search Angel
Copyright © 2013 by Tish Cohen.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

EPub Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9781443410847

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

FIRST EDITION

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
2 Bloor Street East, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4W IA8

www.harpercollins.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request

ISBN 978-1-44341-082-3

RRD 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1 Auckland,
New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com