“That’s so cool.”
Harriet wondered if it was cool. She wasn’t sure. “Do you mind if I drive?”
Sepp handed her the keys. “Be my guest.”
…
It felt good to put her hands on the steering wheel, to put her beeping and chirping iPhone in the backseat, and just drive. It was relaxing. The scenery was changing, the mountains in the distance looking pretty instead of the oppressive and foreboding hills in the desert. Of course that might’ve been because she didn’t have a dead writer in the backseat. That kind of thing can color your perception.
Sepp reached over and patted her knee. He seemed happy. Content. It was amazing. He could just go with the flow no matter what was happening.
Harriet didn’t know if this thing with Sepp was going to work out in the long run. Opposites attract, obviously, but do they stay together? When the infatuation and sex wore off, what would she be left with? An amiable lunkhead? A trophy husband? Would she be okay with that? Maybe that’s the thing about love—you don’t know, nobody knows.
Sepp turned to her. “I’d like to read a book.”
“What made you think of that?”
Sepp shrugged. “Well, you really like reading books so, like, I thought maybe I should check it out.”
Harriet reached over and ran her hand through his hair. “I’ll pick out a couple of books you might like when we get to Denver.”
…
As they neared Colorado Springs, Harriet noticed a big mountain in the distance. “That’s Pikes Peak.”
“Yeah? How do you know?”
Harriet tapped the GPS. “It’s on the map.”
“What do you know about it?”
Harriet thought for a moment and realized that she didn’t know a thing about Pikes Peak; she didn’t know it was named after Zebulon Pike or that it was made of pink granite and stood more than fourteen thousand feet above sea level, and she didn’t know that it was famous for having the world’s highest cog railway. Pikes Peak was a mystery to her. A complete blank.
“Nothing really.”
Sepp leaned forward to get a better look out the window. “I’ve never even been to Colorado.”
They drove in silence for a while, up Interstate 25, heading north to Denver. The sun was beginning to set in the west, the golden rays streaking across the sky, the mountains turning slate and indigo as they withdrew into shadow. Harriet knew it was a cliché, a conceit made famous in every western ever made, but she couldn’t resist it.
“You want to check it out? We’ve got time.”
When they got to the junction with Highway 24, which is the road to Pikes Peak, Harriet took it, leaving the main interstate and heading west, into the sunset, toward the mountain and something she’d never read about in books.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank Julie Buxbaum and Cate Dicharry for their early reads, insights, and encouragement; Marc Weingarten and Lamar Damon for giving me a behind-the-scenes look at the world of reality television; Gen Rigpa for dharma lessons; Brian Lipson for being the best lunch companion a writer could have; and Mary Evans for everything she does.
Big ups to Judy Hottenson, Deb Seager, Isobel Scott, Hilary Baribeau, Amy Hundley, Dara Hyde, Charles Rue Woods, Gretchen Mergenthaler, and everyone at Grove/Atlantic for their continued enthusiasm and friendship. Also thanks to Rachel Vogel, and Bart Heideman, and Baker Montgomery.
And special thanks to Diana Faust, Olivia Smith, and Jules Smith.
Table of Contents
Cover
RAW
Also by Mark Haskell Smith
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Acknowledgments
Back Cover