Choosing Sophie

by Leslie Carroll

  “It’s been quite a journey—on several roads,” I said, glancing at Sophie and trying to keep a straight face in light of her remark. After all, this was a serious interview. “I gained a struggling ball club and a grown daughter in the same year, and I can’t say which has been more of a handful sometimes. If you’re going to put that in print, make sure you write that I winked at you when I said it. It’s all been a wonderful hayride, and this isn’t the end—we’re barely out of the barn. I look forward to trouncing the Jersey Jerseys in the playoffs next week at least as much as I look forward to being a grandmother.”

  Sophie turned to me, utterly shocked, a crimson flush creeping into her cheeks. “How did you know?!” she gasped.

  “I didn’t. You just told me.” I lowered my voice and cupped my hand over her ear. “I was speaking to the press in the abstract, figuring that since you’d considered a quickie marriage, you might want kids. Sooner rather than later, actually,” I whispered.

  Then the delayed reaction hit with all the force of a grand slam. “Oh my God—you are?! Pregnant? Oh, Sophie! Excuse me folks—can you give us a moment alone?”

  I put my arm around my daughter’s shoulder and we trotted out to the pitcher’s mound. “I can’t believe I didn’t ask you—after you and Kyle returned from Las Vegas—if you were pregnant, I mean. But then you’d told me you knew what you were doing when I asked you about using birth control, so I assumed that meant you were. Using it, I mean.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be a mom; and I think Kyle will make an awesome dad—don’t you? If she’s a girl, Kyle agreed we’d name her after you,” Sophie said, beaming.

  I threw my arms around her. “Oh, congratulations, my baby!” I patted Sophie’s flat belly. “And my baby’s baby,” I blubbered. Funny, how we’d both ended up, at more or less the same age, pregnant by a baseball player, even skipping town for Las Vegas—yet how different our situations were. Sophie was planning to marry and get settled down, sort of—there was still the matter of renting their own apartment—and knew what she wanted out of life. She had a lot of rudders to guide her: Glenn and Joy, me, even Dusty. I’d been a tillerless mess with long legs and half a business degree.

  “Here, Mom,” Sophie said, handing me a tissue she’d fished from the pocket of her dress. Your mascara’s running and you’ll be totally homicidal if they take a picture of you that way.”

  “You’ll have to be my mirror,” I told her.

  “Then let me do it.” Sophie moistened a corner of the tissue with a bit of spit and gently wiped my face. It was then that I knew she’d sail smoothly into motherhood. Sophie was a natural.

  Arm in arm we strolled back toward the knot of reporters.

  The following day, the story was all over the papers about the Cheers’ wild-card victory, and their plans for the playoff games. The headline on the back page of the Daily News’s sports section read BERTH OF VENUS.

  They were right in more ways than one.

  And as Sophie would say, “It’s all good.”

  Author’s Note

  In my research for Choosing Sophie, I came across a plethora of information on what’s called the “adoption triad” of birth mothers (or birth parents), adoptees, and adoptive parents. I tried to get the dynamics right and still remain true to the lighthearted spirit of the novel and its plot. Choosing Sophie is not, per se, a book about adoption, but it explores the theme of what the concept of “family” or even the word itself means to different people, and in different circumstances.

  Acknowledgments

  I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to MZR—astute mentor, dear friend, and baseball aficionado—who did take me out to the ball game multiple times over the years, bought me Cracker Jack, ate my peanuts, and always picked up the phone to answer my baseball questions as I worked on CHOOSING SOPHIE.

  Thanks to my two all-stars: my fabulous editor Lucia Macro and agent Irene Goodman for encouraging me to indulge my passion for the game on paper; a fastball down the middle of the plate to Gail Matos, fellow Mets and Cyclones fan, who cheered for me every page of the way; and a walk-off home run to my California Angel of a husband Scott, who brought me to beautiful Breckenridge (even if it was forty-seven degrees in late July) to show me a double rainbow.

  About the Author

  Native New Yorker LESLIE CARROLL is a multi-published novelist of contemporary women’s fiction, and the author of several works of historical fiction under the pen name Amanda Elyot. She is a professional actress as well as a novelist. On stage she has played classical and contemporary virgins, vixens, and villainesses, has appeared in short films, daytime dramas, commercials, voiceovers, and talking books.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  By Leslie Carroll

  CHOOSING SOPHIE

  HERSELF

  SPIN DOCTOR

  PLAY DATES

  TEMPORARY INSANITY

  Credits

  Cover design by Raina Tinker

  Cover photograph by Ryan McVay / Getty Images

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  CHOOSING SOPHIE. Copyright © 2008 by Leslie Carroll. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  ePub edition December 2007 ISBN 9780061741265

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)

  Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  55 Avenue Road, Suite 2900

  Toronto, ON, M5R, 3L2, Canada

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

  P.O. Box 1

  Auckland, New Zealand

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  77-85 Fulham Palace Road

  London, W6 8JB, UK

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  10 East 53rd Street

  New York, NY 10022

  http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com