The Prophet of Paradise

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

DANELLA KERNAN ROCKETED through the hotel lobby and bounced onto the chair across from Janey Musgrove.

“How was the flight down from New York?” Janey asked.

“Fine. You know, it seems like every time I come to Virginia, they’ve put up three more buildings around here. A few more years, and Tysons Corner will be as crowded as Manhattan.”

“Only without the charm,” Janey added.

“Right. Sorry, but I’m on a pretty tight schedule, and I know you have a morning class to teach. So let me get to the point. What I’m hearing back from editors is that the subject matter has been played out. It was amusing at first, and your approach was fresh and entertaining. But after two books, what’s left to cover? The pitch for a third just isn’t flying.”

“Maybe I can tweak it,” Janey said. “Find some angle that gives it a different spin.”

“Look, as your agent I want you to succeed. But, honestly, I don’t think it’s the angle so much as the material. I mean there are only so many ways you can write about fringe religions. You did a great job on your first two books. But how many times can you go to that well? New religions just aren’t popping up every day.”

“There are still others I haven’t covered.” Janey’s eyes brightened behind her thick glasses as she recited examples from her latest research. “There’s the Church of the Jedi Knights. Some people consider it a parody but others are taking it as a serious religion. There’s a new movement in Argentina that worships a famous soccer player as a god. Doesn’t that relate to the way many sports fans feel about their idols? Just the use of the word ‘idol’ suggests a form of worship.”

“All very good and interesting points. But is there enough to flesh out an entire book? Something original enough that you’re not just rehashing the first two? Maybe you should consider submitting more journal articles, or just focus on your academic work for a while. The job at George Mason is going well, isn’t it?”

“Yes, okay, I guess. But I’m a long way from getting tenure. They could drop me from the faculty whenever they want.”

“You keep plugging away on your research. When you’ve built up a sufficient amount of new material, or come up with a new angle, we can try again.”

Janey’s gaze drifted around the lobby. Deep in thought, she only vaguely noticed a set of old-fashioned foxhunting prints on the wall. The hotel’s décor paid homage to the horse-centered past that had once thrived in that area.

“A new angle…” Janey mused.

“That might help,” Danella said. “Something more timely perhaps. Or something a wider audience could relate to. Santeria was interesting, particularly your coverage of the controversy over animal sacrifice. Wicca and the typical New Age belief systems are easy to classify among the ‘fruit and nuts’ set. I did find the section about the natives in New Guinea who worship Prince Philip amusing. But the politically correct forces are making it difficult to write anything that appears to belittle ‘primitives.’ We have to respect their society even if they believe the Royal Consort is their white-skinned god.” Danella could not suppress a smirk at the recollection of the photo in Janey’s second book of a small, nearly naked South Seas islander, a deeply reverent look on his aged face, cradling a portrait of Prince Philip in one arm, a British flag draped over the opposite shoulder.

As they rose to leave, Janey looked again at one of the hunting prints. This time it caught her attention. Several bewhiskered gentlemen wore scarlet coats and top hats. Ladies sat mounted in sidesaddle finery. The huntsman stood at the center with a pack of hounds gathered around his horse. An enticing bucolic scene rolled off into the distance, verdant fields festooned with freshly cut haystacks.

Janey absently waved a hand toward the print. “Isn’t that lovely?”

Danella was already running tight for her next appointment, a clandestine meeting with a former Capitol Hill staffer pitching a tell-all exposé. She paused momentarily by Janey’s side, the fifty-something firecracker literary agent and the forty-ish professor/author, both diminutive and trim, one sporting the latest New York chic daytime business fashion, the other in slightly ill-fitting discount outlet garb and practical shoes.

“Yes, lovely,” Danella agreed, and then started toward the door.

Janey remained in place. “I think I might like to have lived back then. It must have been a gentler time, people lived closer to nature, were more in touch with real life, not all the artificiality we have around us today.”

Danella stopped and took a half step back. “Yes, a wonderful period to have been alive… if you were a white male who owned property and had been born into the right family. None of those ladies were allowed to vote, racial segregation was the law of the land, even slavery in some areas, medical science hadn’t advanced much beyond the Middle Ages, high infant mortality, no social welfare net. But, as you said, none of today’s artificiality to worry about.”

A Mid-Westerner by breeding and a pragmatist by nature, not inclined to bathetic sentiment, Janey chuckled at her own naivety. “Well, okay, maybe not back then. Still, though, these folks would have made an interesting cultural study. But I guess I’d need a time machine for that.”

“No, actually, you wouldn’t. There are people who still do this. And not far from here.”

“Really? Do you know them?”

“Only one of them. As it happens, you know him too. Or at least met him once, at my Christmas party last year. I’m sure you’ve seen his name on my website. Thaddeus Billington.”

“Rings a bell. History?”

“Yes, US history, politics, that sort of thing. He’s from a very old Virginia family, lives somewhere out in the hinterland on a big estate.” Danella adopted an aristocratic British accent. “Rides to hounds, doncha know.”

“People who still do this sort of thing, and in the twenty-first century. Mmmm, maybe there’s something… some angle that...”

“Let’s not lose sight of the fact that your field is comparative religion, specifically of the fringe variety. You’re not a cultural anthropologist.”

“Yes, you’re right, of course. Well, I’ll think of something, some new angle to make publishers sit up and take notice.”

“I’m sure you will.”