by Nancy Thayer
Donna had announced that after Thanksgiving, she was taking a cruise with her friend Joann. It was a “Winter Wonderland” cruise, going down the Danube, stopping to visit all the cities and towns lit up like fairy tales for the Christmas season. Donna would buy them all Christmas presents from the winter markets. Sebastian and Keely would take over the Maxwell house, and part of their responsibility was to tend to Al, who was speaking more clearly now and attempting to walk, wobbly, just a few steps, helped by a cane.
Eloise would come over every day to help Sebastian with physical and speech therapy.
Brittany would start to toddle. She’d scream with glee when she saw her grandfather tottering into the room, as if recognizing someone from her very own tribe.
Tommy would shop for a larger fishing boat and begin the paperwork and website for the deep-sea fishing business that he would commence next May.
Keely had turned in her third novel, and Juan had loved it. Soon she’d start another book in her contract.
Donna spent hours sorting through the trunks and boxes and bags in the attic. Sebastian and Keely took the discards to the dump.
Donna had invited Eloise to come on the cruise with her, but Eloise declined. She was much happier on the island, helping with Al. She had also taken on a few private nursing assignments, which added money to her wallet and a spring to her step.
Keely had privately debated whether or not to take Sebastian’s last name. Should she remain Keely Green? That was her professional name. But she liked the idea of being a Maxwell. Legal arrangements had already been made to put ownership of the wonderful old house in Keely’s and Sebastian’s names. It was, in a way, a protective measure, in case something happened to Donna on her travels or Al never quite recovered all his faculties. Already Keely had made changes to the house. She’d redone Donna and Al’s master bedroom first thing—it would be bizarre to make love with Sebastian in his parents’ bed. She rented a humidity- and temperature-controlled storage locker and filled it with much of Donna and Al’s furniture to go into their new home when they’d found it. She’d bought new, sleeker furniture to replace the dark Empire furniture that Donna and Al had favored.
Now Isabelle and Keely returned to the kitchen to double-check on the turkey. The windows were steamed over, and the aroma of onion and chestnut stuffing was irresistible.
“It needs another hour,” Isabelle said.
“Let’s drive out to Surfside for a quick walk,” Keely suggested. “Everything’s set here. I need a walk.”
“Good idea.” Isabelle untied her apron and lifted it off. “Let’s see if anyone else wants to go.”
Tommy, Sebastian, Al, and Brittany were in the family room, watching a football game. Brittany was asleep on Tommy’s lap.
“We’re going for a quick walk at Surfside,” Keely announced.
“Have fun,” Sebastian called without taking his eyes off the screen.
Keely and Isabelle pulled on sweaters and wool caps. The wind was picking up. The temperature was falling. They climbed into Isabelle’s old Jeep. The town was quiet—everyone else was probably watching the Patriots, too. Most of the trees had lost their leaves, but bushes everywhere blazed with scarlet and orange leaves. Isabelle parked in the empty lot at the top of the bluff.
“Nobody else is here,” she said.
“I’m not surprised. It feels like it’s going to rain any moment.” Keely eyed the sky doubtfully.
Isabelle lightly slugged Keely’s arm. “Don’t be a wuss. Come on, let’s have a quick stroll. That way we’ll be really hungry for dinner.”
Keely ran behind Isabelle down the hardened sand path to the beach and the water. Today the ocean was a great rumbling indigo creature, flinging its waves up on the shore.
With the instinct gained from years of walking on the beach, Keely and Isabelle started their stroll facing into the wind, so it would be behind them on the return.
“So!” Isabelle said. Reaching out, she took Keely’s hand.
“So?” Something was up, Keely could tell.
“So New Frontiers Press has bought The Island. And they want a young adult series.”
Keely slammed to a halt in the sand. “Get out of town! Really? Isabelle, that’s fabulous!”
“I’m going to sign a contract with an agent, and I’m going up to Boston—New Frontiers is in Boston—to meet my editor.” Isabelle’s face lit up like the sun. “My editor!”
“Isabelle, I just knew you’d get that wonderful book published!” Keely said.
“Keely.” Isabelle was glowing. “We’re both writers, just like we’d hoped.”
“I know! Wait till we tell the writers’ group!”
“I’ll tell them, thank you very much!”
“Mrs. Atwater will explode!”
“They don’t even know I’ve been working on a young adult novel.”
“You’re good at keeping secrets.”
“We both are.”
“That’s true.” Keely grinned. “Because I’ve got news, too.”
Isabelle took Keely by the shoulders and stared into her eyes. “You’re not!”
Keely nodded, smiling and tearful at the same time. “I am!”
“Does Sebastian know?”
“I haven’t told him yet. I haven’t told anyone but you.”
“This is wonderful!” Isabelle pulled Keely into a hug.
“I know.” Keely’s skin was covered with goose bumps—from the wind? From pure amazing life. “We are so creative!”
“In more ways than one!”
“The sand’s blowing into my teeth!”
“Mine, too. Let’s go back.”
They spun around.
“Have you started throwing up yet?”
“Only once. I wake up feeling kind of green.”
“Keep saltines on your bedside table.”
“I will—after I tell Sebastian.”
“I have lots of pregnancy books and maternity clothes you can use.”
“Fab! Hey, I’m hungry! I want turkey and stuffing and sweet potatoes and…”
“Pumpkin pie with whipped cream!”
They dug their feet into the sand as they climbed the long rise from the beach. Keely reached out to take Isabelle’s hand. “I just had an idea! Let’s write a book for children!”
“Yes!” Isabelle cried. “No! Let’s write a series of books for children!”
“What should we call it?”
“The Young and the Hungry,” Isabelle joked, and they laughed all the way to the car.
For
Merry Anderson
&
Jill Hunter Burrill
&
Robb Forman Dew
&
Dinah Fulton
Can you believe it’s been 40 years?
Do you know how much I love you?
I love you four—arms spread wide like we did
with our children—this much!
This book is dedicated to the four women who were my best friends when I was writing my first novel so many years ago. They were all beautiful, glamorous, generous, and funny. Someone said that a good friend will help you when you’re down, but a best friend will help you celebrate. Believe me, they knew how to celebrate! I decorated the top of a long bookcase with empty champagne bottles.
Strangely, all my dearest friends are people I envy. I even envy my husband. It’s a selective envy—I wish I had Charley’s eyes, or Jill’s quick mind, or Merry’s thick hair, or Dinah’s laugh, or Robb’s soft, seductive Southern voice.
Or maybe by envy I mean admire. Admire to the sun and back.
I’m grateful to all my friends, old and new, young and old, on and off island, who inspire me with their wisdom and their humor and their kindness.
I’m enor
mously grateful to all the people who work in the glamorous and turbulent world of publishing. My editor, Shauna Summers, is like a book jeweler, finding the flaws and the sparks and patiently guiding me as we polish my novel. I send thanks to the wonderful Ballantine team: Gina Centrello, Kara Welsh, Lexi Batsides, Allison Schuster, and Karen Fink. I am enormously grateful to Jennifer Rodriguez. Kim Hovey, I know you know I love you.
I’m full of gratitude for my literary agent Meg Ruley and her associate Christina Hogrebe at the Jane Rotrosen Company.
Sara Mallion and Chris Mason, techies extraordinaire, thank you for your help!
Charley, Josh, David, Sam, Tommy, Ellias, Adeline, Emmett, Annie—you fill my heart with joy.
I’m grateful to all the bookstores, libraries, and Facebook, where I meet my brilliant (of course!) readers.
Someone once said, “How do I know what I think unless I’ve heard what I have to say?” Writing a novel somehow brings thoughts to the surface that I didn’t know I had. In Surfside Sisters, I write that a certain man didn’t have a lot of money, but his life was his fortune.
That’s how I am. My life is my fortune, and I’m thankful every day.
by nancy thayer
Surfside Sisters
A Nantucket Wedding
Secrets in Summer
The Island House
A Very Nantucket Christmas
The Guest Cottage
An Island Christmas
Nantucket Sisters
A Nantucket Christmas
Island Girls
Summer Breeze
Heat Wave
Beachcombers
Summer House
Moon Shell Beach
The Hot Flash Club Chills Out
Hot Flash Holidays
The Hot Flash Club Strikes Again
The Hot Flash Club
Custody
Between Husbands and Friends
An Act of Love
Belonging
Family Secrets
Everlasting
My Dearest Friend
Spirit Lost
Morning
Nell
Bodies and Souls
Three Women at the Water’s Edge
Stepping
about the author
NANCY THAYER is the New York Times bestselling author of Surfside Sisters, A Nantucket Wedding, Secrets in Summer, The Island House, The Guest Cottage, An Island Christmas, Nantucket Sisters, A Nantucket Christmas, Island Girls, Summer Breeze, Heat Wave, Beachcombers, Summer House, Moon Shell Beach, and The Hot Flash Club. She lives on Nantucket.
nancythayer.com
Facebook.com/NancyThayerBooks
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