Introduction

“Cross How Stella Got Her Groove Back with Under the Tuscan Sun, and you've got Gaining Visibility, a novel that is at times beautiful, at times heartbreaking, and ultimately uplifting.” –Wendy Webb

Julia Berkwith’s daughter has moved to Alaska, her beloved mother-in-law is in a nursing home, and her ex-husband is in Hawaii—with a younger woman. In her late forties, Julia is now used to being invisible. But even if she has to do it alone, she’s determined to celebrate her victory over breast cancer by hiking Italy’s Cinque Terre. And while she’s there, she can scout out treasures for her interior design business back in Kentucky.
 
Invigorated by the beauty of the Italian countryside, Julia seems unstoppable, until she’s injured by a rock—one that happens to belong to thirty-something stone mason Vitale DeLuca. Reluctantly, Julia accepts Vitale’s insistent offer of lodging while she recovers. But in his home, amid his exquisite sculptures, Julia sees beyond his charm and looks to something special: a talent she must bring to the world’s attention. And once she does, she plans to step aside to leave him in the spotlight. But Vitale has seen something in Julia too, something she is no longer able to recognize in herself. And he is determined to find a way to show it to her.
 
Poignant and uplifting, Gaining Visibility is an exhilarating story of one woman’s realization that even the deepest scars have a beauty of their own—and that it’s time to take her place in the sun once more.

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Excerpt

GAINING VISIBILITY Excerpt

By Pamela Hearon

During the three-hour drive from Paducah to the airport in St. Louis, Julia sang loudly with each song that came on the radio—no need of her playlist to make her happy this day. And later, tethered to the airplane by a seat belt, she still felt like a kite set free, literally soaring above the earth, on her way to a new place, ready for a new experience.

Anything was possible.

The two-hour weather delay in Chicago didn’t dampen her spirit either, even when she struggled to get her carry-on into the overhead storage compartment.

“Here, let me get that for you.”

Played against the surrounding drone of muffled murmurs, the vibrancy in the voice caught her off guard. Her body stirred at the brush of the hand that grasped her case and the male body that leaned in to her to give it a shove.

She turned to find herself staring at the pocket of a dress shirt and had to lean back slightly to make eye contact with the speaker, a payoff well worth the effort.

Fringes of dark blond surrounded jade-green irises in a pair of eyes that crinkled at the sides when he smiled. In fact, his whole face crinkled when he smiled. Deep dimples creased the jawline at the sides of his mouth, and a cleft staked its claim in the middle of his chin.

The whole effect was engaging and warm and, Julia couldn’t keep from noticing, directed entirely at her.

He saw her.

She flashed him a smile of gratitude. “Chivalry’s alive after all. Thanks so much.” She edged past the first two seats to the window seat she’d been assigned, and her heart launched into a three-two beat when he settled into the middle seat beside her.

She didn’t even try to hold back the smile that sprang onto her lips. The next eight hours might prove to be very interesting.

“I’m Lancelot, by the way.”

Lancelot? Julia choked on the laugh that bubbled in her throat.

Poor guy. “Do people call you Lance?”

She ran her thoughts back to her chivalry comment. “Well, my real name is Guinevere, but my friends call me Julia.”

“Then Julia it is.” His face broke once again into a pleasant mass of dimples and grin wrinkles that somehow enhanced his features rather than detracted from them.

Men were so lucky. People would be chasing her down armed with Botox guns if her face wrinkled like that, yet on him it looked charming.

He slid the book he was carrying into the pocket of the seat in front of him. “And you’re obviously on your way from Camelot to Italy.”

Julia nodded, getting her travel necessities out of her bag before shoving it under the seat in front of her.

“Business or pleasure?”

He punctuated the word pleasure with a flash of dimples that sent a tingle into places she’d all but forgotten.

“Both.” She buckled her seat belt, enjoying the feel of tightening it around a stomach thirty pounds lighter and much firmer than it had been a year ago. “I’m in interior decorating, so I’ll be on the lookout for unique pieces for my clients. But before I get to the work part, I’ll be hiking the area around Lerici and the Cinque Terre.”

Howard’s eyes squinted. “What’s the Cinque Terre?” He seemed genuinely interested, or else he just wanted to talk to her. She liked either option.

“There are these five villages in Liguria that are connected by a trail overlooking the sea. They’re called the Cinque Terre, and people hike from one to the next. That usually only takes five or six hours, but then there are extra trails running from the villages up into the hills. I plan to hike most all of them.”

Howard let out a low whistle and those jade irises did her a quick once-over. “You must be in great shape.”

Julia’s face grew a tad warm, in what she hoped was a becoming blush. “I’ve been training for a while, but it’s not that bad really. Five to seven miles a day. And the terrain isn’t too rugged.”

“Well, I’m impressed. Training for a while for the fun part of a vacation? I admire that conviction.”

Admire? What a great word. She hadn’t been admired in years. This guy was totally flirting with her and it felt marvelous—like someone had popped the cork on a champagne bottle inside her.

How long had it been since she’d had a fun, flirty conversation with a man? She was forty-eight, had married when she was twenty- three. Twenty-five years? No wonder it seemed so foreign. She’d forgotten how exhilarating it could be.

The flight attendants encouraged the passengers standing in the aisles to find their places quickly with reminders that the flight was already late.

Julia settled back into her seat for the ride. Howard propped his arm on the armrest between them, and when the tight setting brought their arms into contact, the temperature in the plane vaulted several degrees. Julia readjusted the vent above her head so the air streamed directly onto her face.

“So tell me more about these hikes you’ll be taking.” Howard shifted his posture toward her as much as possible with his long legs scrunched against the seat in front of him.

“Well, I have a couple of short hikes in the area around Lerici planned for the first two days. After that I’ll be playing it by . . .”

A willowy brunette with smooth, olive skin plopped into the aisle seat. Her black tank top clung to a pair of breasts that had no need of a bra to support their ample size. Denim short shorts showed off perfectly shaped, tanned legs that must’ve started at her shoulders.

“Scusi,” she murmured in a soft Italian accent.

Howard’s attention diverted so fast, Julia wondered if he would suffer whiplash. “Well, hello there.”

“. . . ear.” Julia finished her sentence, speaking to the back of the chair in front of her.

Howard extended his hand and introduced himself to the new seatmate. The fact she was native Italian must have fascinated him as he immediately started to bombard her with questions about her country, none of which mentioned hiking, his all-consuming interest three minutes before.

And with the appearance of Miss Italy, Julia once again vanished before her own eyes.

She told herself to ignore the slight. She should be used to it by now. But she wasn’t. Something short-circuited inside her every time it happened. More than once she’d noticed how the streak of gray hair running from her left temple looked ominously like burned wires. How long would it be before her motherboard burned out completely? Before she was just a gray box of dead, worn-out wires and fuses?

She reached inside to pinpoint the emotion churning there. It wasn’t jealousy precisely. Watching people fascinated her, and nothing was more intriguing than two beautiful people coming together for the first time. The magic. The spark. She saw that with Melissa and Michael and prayed every day it would continue for them and that the years wouldn’t extinguish it the way it had for her and Frank.

But at that moment, it was the obvious twenty-year age difference—at the very least—between the two people beside her that disgusted her. Men who’d reached the age of Howard and Frank should be interested in more than a woman’s physical makeup. Shouldn’t they have developed an “inner eye”? One preferably located somewhere other than their penis?

Her clenched jaws couldn’t exactly be chalked up to envy either. She didn’t want Howard, didn’t want what anyone else had, except in a general way.

If she had to put a name to it, it would simply be . . . longing.

She so longed to feel full again—full of love and desire and life.

Of all the things she resented Frank for—his weakness, his abandonment of her when she needed him, his self-absorption—she shed the most tears over the loss of the life she used to know. The loss of who she used to be.

Now she was a white sneaker in a world of stiletto view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. The word visibility has two different meanings. It can refer to how well something can be seen (Her book’s visibility at the front of the book store thrilled the author’s family.), or it can refer to the range of view from the perspective of the viewer (The pilot’s visibility increased by twenty miles when he dropped below the clouds.). In what ways does the author focus on each of these definitions during the course of the story?

2. The main theme of a book can be thought of as the most important life lesson learned by the main character over the course of the story. What do you consider to be the main theme of Gaining Visibility? What other themes presented themselves to you as you read?

3. Julia and Vitale both deal with issues of “invisibility.” In what ways are their issues similar? In what ways are they different?

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