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Once she’d been a comedian and an actress. She’d been
someone’s mother but now she was dressed in a pilfered shirt
from an electronics store, driving a stolen truck and trying
to con somebody into paying for a box of rocks because the
rent was due and she didn’t have it. The man putting gas in
his expensive car looked like an easy mark.
He had a bruise over his eye, which was fine: she had a
bruised heart. She offered the box for sale and he handed
her the money, knowing full well that it was a con. He also
handed her a business card with an Orange County number
before he drove off. She knew he wouldn’t get far; L.A.
traffic was backed up, police were everywhere, sirens
blasting. Her boyfriend wasn’t answering his phone, so she
dialed the man’s number to explain that conning really
wasn’t what she was all about.
He was skeptical. She challenged him to meet her at a diner.
Dinner was strained but pleasant, a get-to-know-you where
very little information was exchanged. She didn’t want to be
alone; he didn’t want to go home to a wife he no longer
loved, so they went to a movie before he kissed her in a way
she’d never been kissed. She was the first to mention a
hotel. He paid for the luxury room.
She thought she’d been in love before: with the father of
her daughter, certainly with her daughter but she’d never
been with a man who did to her what the man from Orange
County did. He made her moan and call out things that she
didn’t know she had a voice for calling.
It was only supposed to be a one-night stand. But she wasn’t
being entirely truthful with him. And he definitely wasn’t
telling her everything, either…
Let’s start here: One Night is steamy. Like,
burn-your-mind, hott-with-two-Ts steamy.
But it’s not just that. Author Eric Jerome Dickey
ekes this novel out slowly, minute-by-minute, like a slow
dance between two people who aren’t forthcoming with facts
to one another – or to readers. That can be snail-like, but
it’s also fascinating: we know there’s something we’re not
quite seeing, but we’re too distracted by the tryst to
figure it out – that is, until Dickey repeatedly interrupts
the action with smartly-timed shocks that reset everything.
There are a few moments of silliness in this book but
overall, I couldn’t let it go and if you can handle the
lengthy bedroom scenes, you won’t be able to, either. For
readers who crave a boatload of spice with their novels,
One Night is worth two looks.
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