I am Rizla and this is my story. It is the day before yesterday and I am dead. The day of my death was 14th February 1960, Valentine's Day, in Brighton. 'I'm floating 200 yards off the coastline in the icy waters of the English Channel. My final glimpse of life is through the top of the water. It is a pier. A beautiful woman is looking down. She's laughing at me. There's a man. He's also laughing. His arm is around her shoulder.
Maggie vowed to never marry a man who can’t laugh or dance, but when she and the dull new doctor in town, Everett Dulanis, wind up spending the night together in an abandoned dugout house, all that changes. Her father is the best man and his shotgun is the bridesmaid at the wedding where a union has been made, but there’s certainly no unity. Everett was engaged to Carolina Prescott, a southern lady in...