Summer Secrets (37 page)
Authors: Jane Green
Doesn’t
everyone
look so much better with a tan?
I have lost some weight, which isn’t a bad thing. Not that I was unhappy, particularly, but I am always convinced that if I were ten pounds lighter then everything in my life would be perfect, and lo and behold, when I went to try on the skirt I was thinking of wearing for the date tonight, it was swimming on me.
Instead I go for the really-much-too-small-for-me skinny stretch jeans that are very dark, and very tight, and possibly, at this point, at least two rather than three sizes too small for me. It takes me about ten minutes to inch them up my legs. They’re so tight I have to wear a very loose sweater with them to hide the muffin top, and I already know that within about an hour and a half I will have such bad gas I may have to cut the evening short, but for that hour and a half, I will look absolutely fantastic.
As long as I don’t sit down.
Much.
I am nervous. I have just finished putting some makeup on, not too much, it is only the Queens pub, after all, when my phone rings, and it is Sam.
“Change of plan,” he says.
“What plan?”
“The plan where you’re writing about middle-aged online dating. It’s been done to death anyway. I want you to write another piece for us.”
“Fine. I hadn’t written much anyway. What’s the piece?”
“I want you to write about people who get divorced, who still love each other, then get back together.”
I say nothing.
“Hello?” says Sam. “Are you there?”
“O-kay,” I say, because we had a night out a couple of weeks ago, and I told him about what happened, and it does seem a little … insensitive, to ask me of all people to write this particular piece given what is going on in my life right now.
“In fact, I’d like to get a bit more specific, if that’s okay. I want you to write a piece about a woman who only gets sober once her marriage is over, and then realizes how much she threw away when she was drinking, and once her husband realizes she actually is a different person, she has changed for the better, he realizes that she’s always been the only person he has ever wanted to be with, and they go out for dinner, to Odette’s, at eight o’clock tonight, and then they live happily ever after. Do you think you could do that for me? By the end of the week?”
There is a very long silence. “What?” I say eventually, because I really don’t know what else to say. “What the fuck?” I follow up with, which wouldn’t be very professional with any other editor, but it is only Sam, after all. “What the fuck are you talking about?” I am deeply confused.
I can hear the smile in his voice. “Jason called me. He is desperate. He has no idea how to talk to you, and he still loves you, so this is what you’re doing. You’re going to put on your nicest clothes and get your arse to Odette’s at eight o’clock this evening, where your former and hopefully soon-to-be-again husband will meet you, and the two of you can finally figure this thing out. Okay?”
“No!” I say. “I have a date tonight.”
“A date?” He is both aghast and intrigued. “Who with?”
“With bloody Matthew who I met on Match.com thanks to the original article I was writing for you.”
“So cancel it.”
“I can’t! I feel really bad.”
“Please tell me you’re joking. The love of your life and I have conspired to bring you back together tonight, and you would rather meet a lanky, balding, boring guy called Matthew who you don’t know?”
“How do you know he’s lanky, balding, and boring?”
“I don’t. It’s a guess. But whatever he is, he’s not Jason. You love Jason. And Jason loves you. That’s about as happy an ending as anyone could wish for. Go, and enjoy. And write the piece.”
“I don’t know what to say.” I don’t. I am in shock.
“Nothing needed to say. That’s what friends are for. And by the way, this is exactly what should happen. It’s clear to everyone who knows you that the two of you are supposed to be together. I’m just relieved that Jason finally decided to do something about it.”
“Wait! Do you really want me to write this as a piece?”
“No. It’s not very us. But it’s very
Daily Mail.
Why don’t you offer it to them?”
My mind is still racing. “Sam, one more question. When you say he still loves me, are you sure you don’t mean as a friend? Because I’m the mother of his child, so he’ll always love me, or do you mean—”
He interrupts me. “I wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if it was anything other than the real deal. Go. And phone me tomorrow morning. I expect every single detail.”
I put down the phone and squeal as I dance my way up the corridor, my heart threatening to burst out of my body with joy. I pause by the full-length mirror outside Annie’s room, and I look at my reflection. I look into my eyes and see how full my life is, how happy, and calm, and present I am. How I am a good mother, a good friend. A good person. And I have never felt that about myself before. I look into my eyes and I see how far I’ve come.
And smile as I think of how far I have to go.
JANE GREEN
is the author of seventeen bestselling novels. Originally from London, she now lives in Westport, Connecticut, with her husband, children, and a menagerie of animals. Visit her at her Web site, at
www.janegreen.com
, or join her on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/authorjanegreen
. Or sign up for email updates
here
.
ALSO BY
JANE GREEN
Promises to Keep
The Beach House
Dune Road
Second Chance
Swapping Lives
The Other Woman
To Have and to Hold
Babyville
Bookends
Mr. Maybe
Jemima J
Straight Talking
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CONTENTS
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SUMMER SECRETS.
Copyright © 2015 by Jane Green. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover photograph by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
eBooks may be purchased for business or promotional use. For information on bulk purchases, please contact Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department by writing to [email protected].
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-04734-2 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-4774-3 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466847743
First Edition: June 2015