A Song For Terri Ross

This novel is about a beautiful young lady from a small Iowa town whose longtime college sweetheart becomes a famous NBA basketball star, and how this affects her own hopes and dreams. This is more than just a smart love story. It's also about friendship, family, and the unexpected surprises in life. It's set in San Francisco in 1982. Terri Ross and Harold Tomlin have lived together since college, and they intend to marry someday. But after Harold signs his big pro contract he begins to change to the detriment of their relationship. It hurts Terri deeply to watch him become a different person before her very eyes. It pains her to hear the other players' wives and girlfriends talk behind her back about how badly Harold's treating her. "Terri's so sweet, but for the life of me I can't understand why she takes that shit from Harold. I would've left him a long time ago," one of them said about her. Harold hasn't always been like that. When he first came into the NBA, he was fresh, innocent and unspoiled. Being from a very poor family, when in college he worried about the welfare of his mother and his brothers and sisters. When he graduated from Iowa and went high in the draft, he bought his mother a nice home in the white suburbs with his big signing bonus. "You deserve it, Ma," he told her. Terri was very proud of him. That was the Harold she had fallen in love with right out of high school. Now Harold seems like a hostile stranger, and Terri feels trapped and isolated in his world of jocks, admiring fans and pretty groupies. She hates the glare and glitter of big-times sports. One day Terri meets a handsome, successful songwriter named Peter Shepherd. About the same age, he and Terri become good platonic friends, and he shows her a side of San Francisco she didn't know existed. He introduces her to a new world view that she finds utterly fascinating. In the process Terri changes. Peter falls in love with her, and writes a song about her, which doesn't come easily for him since Terri is such a complex person when seen in her own right. In the end, she has to decide between Harold and Peter.