Hearts on a String: A Novel - Softcover

Radish, Kris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553384759 ISBN 13: 9780553384758

Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

Bestselling author Kris Radish delves deeply into the emotions of five very different women who are thrown together by chance—only to discover that they have more in common than they ever could have imagined.
 
Holly Blandeen has always cherished the story her grandmother told her about the thread that connects all women, tying them forever in sisterhood. It’s a beautiful idea, but with all the curveballs life has thrown her way, Holly has often felt isolated, different from other women. That starts to change when she meets four strangers in an airport and they agree to share a luxury hotel suite because a powerful spring storm is barreling across the country, stranding travelers from California to Florida. What begins as a spur-of-the-moment decision becomes an unlikely, unexpected, and sometimes reluctant exercise in female bonding, as these five exceptional women—each at a crossroads—swap stories, share secrets, and seek answers to the questions they’ve been asking about life, love, and the path to true happiness. A storm may have grounded them for the moment, but after this wild adventure in which anything can and does happen, they’ll never have to fly solo again. 

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kris Radish, author of six novels, now lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where she is at work on her new novel, which Bantam will publish in 2010.

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Chapter One


The Airport

Early Sunday Afternoon

he soft rumble of the toilet sucks away the people, places, events, and details of her life as Nan’s iPhone slips from her pocket. It splashes into the white porcelain toilet in Airside A at Tampa International Airport and turns Nan Telvid into a woman possessed. “Son-of-a-bitch!” Nan screams as she bends at the waist, drives her hand into the toilet bowl, and tries to rescue her lifeline. Then, “Shit!” she yells as she begins kicking the pedestal of the toilet.

The four other women in the restroom freeze as if someone has just slapped them. Then they turn to face Nan’s stall. Two are at the sinks, hands dripping. One has just walked out of the stall next to Nan’s. The fourth woman clutches her lipstick as if it is a weapon. She takes a timid step forward.

Whatever is going on in stall number three sounds serious. It’s early afternoon on the first Sunday in April and every single one of these five women would rather be anywhere but in the bathroom across from the Jose Cuervo Tequileria in yet another airport. The busy terminal is a madhouse of men, women, and children coming to the beach, leaving the beach, heading back to reality after another interminable business trip, or just leaving for one. And all the women in this bathroom at this particular moment could suddenly turn vicious from the stress of simply standing still amidst the swirling masses. The now ancient joys of airplane travel, minus airport bars, have all but vanished for them.

The profane woman in the center stall obviously needs help and the brassy blonde with the lipstick in her hand makes the first move.

“Nan, what in the world is going on in there?”

The blonde clicks her lipstick shut, throws it into a purse large enough to hold a small child, and pushes her bony hip into the side of the metal door. “Nan?”

“I dropped my damn phone into the toilet and it’s wedged down there,” comes the snarl on the other side of the door. “I bet Steve Jobs never bothered to measure the width of a public toilet drain when he designed this wonderful phone,” Nan seethes.

“Open the door,” the blonde commands.

The women can hear Nan step backward, unclick the door, and then, before the blonde can move, one of the women at the sink shouts, “Nobody flush!”

The other two women move without thinking to block the other stalls in case someone new comes into the bathroom.

“I dated a commercial plumber once,” the woman at the sink shares. “He told me the suction from these public toilets could rip off my underwear if more than a few of them were flushed at the same time. My name’s Patti, by the way.”

Patti has a voice that demands attention. It’s a throaty, sexy rumble that would make even a dying man want to take off his clothes. Nan decides right away that Patti’s either a singer or has been working as a test smoker for a tobacco company most of her life. She looks like she’s pushed past sixty but she’s one of those older women who clearly gets more attractive daily. Patti the plumbing expert has on a two-piece blue suit that looks hand-stitched; whoever dyes her hair is a goddess because the specks of gray blend perfectly with her light brunette tones; her bracelets, necklace, and rings are lovely strands of gold; and there’s a funky bold scarf around her neck that says, “I’m hip but don’t push your luck, honey.”

“I’m Cathy,” the blonde says. “Do you by chance have any plumbing tools in your purse?”

“No, sweetie,” Patti answers, without blinking an eyelash. “The plumber took his tools with him when he left. And let me tell you, he didn’t need a very big bag when he packed.”

One of the women guarding two other stalls starts to laugh, just as a newcomer pushes into the restroom, sees Nan, Cathy, and Patti standing in one stall and two other women with their backs pressed flat against two of the other five stall doors, as if they are about to be frisked. The newcomer freezes. “Is this a kind of restroom theatrical play or something?” the woman at the door asks. “Can I pee in here?”

“We’re having a bit of a crisis,” the woman who’d laughed tells her. “It’s probably best if you go down the hall. There’s a bathroom right across from Sam Snead’s Grill & Tavern. They’re having a pre-boarding happy hour that I highly recommend.”

“Well, aren’t you a fun group,” the woman at the door snips as she turns away. “You five look like a bunch of fruitcakes.”

Everyone laughs but Nan. Patti peels off her jacket, hands it to Cathy, and orders someone to figure out how to block the door before another cranky woman with a full bladder tries to pop in.

“I’ll do it,” the laughing woman tells Patti. “I’m Margo.”

“That leaves me.” The fifth woman speaks so softly it’s almost impossible to hear her. “I’m Holly.”

“Nice hair,” Margo says, looking at Holly’s wispy spikes and lovely frosted tips. The curves of Holly’s hair seem to dance perfectly whenever she moves her head.

“I did it myself. I’m a hairstylist.”

“Okay, girls,” Patti announces. “Enough about the hair already. Let’s think about this. I’m a bit older than most of you but even I’m addicted to my damn cell phone, especially when I travel. Not so much when I’m not on the road, but unfortunately I travel a lot. I do have to tell you that for three cents I’d throw my phone in there. Phones are nothing but a waste of time, unless, of course, you really need one.”

Margo asks if anyone has gum or anything sticky in their purse. She yanks a piece of paper out of a notebook, scrawls Closed for Repairs on it. When Holly hands her a stick of gum, she chews it for a second, sticks it on the back of the note, and thumps it on the outside door. Margo is about as big as a large toothpick but somehow she pushes a big garbage can against the door so no one else can open it.

Holly with the perfect hair looks as if she’s spotted a dead relative. She’s trying very hard to decide what to do. She turns nervously to look at herself in the mirror and wonders how these women, all obviously older and more capable, see her. What she sees is a sort of slightly overweight woman under the age of thirty with really great hair who wouldn’t know how to fix a toilet, keep intruders out of a bathroom, or organize a bunch of unknown frequent flyers to do any or all of the above if someone held a gun to her head.

“Geez,” she mutters under her breath, not loud enough for any of the others to hear her. She’s thinking that from the looks of things each of these women has more of a life than she does. Styling hair in Aberdeen, Ohio, is probably not on any Top Ten List of career experiences. Holly darts her eyes from one woman to the next and assumes she is not just outclassed but already in over her head and she’s not even near the toilet bowl.

“Hey,” Patti says, turning to look at Holly. “Can you hold the stall door open while Margo there guards the garbage can?”

Holly obediently pushes her weight against the door. Patti is now standing in front of the toilet, hands on hips, looking exactly as if she’d pee like a man if she had the proper equipment. Nan is to her right, hands dripping toilet water and red in the face from panic and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0553384759
• ISBN 13: 9780553384758
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 337
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar