Before and Again - Hardcover

Delinsky, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250119499 ISBN 13: 9781250119490

Verlag: St Martins Pr, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

From Barbara Delinsky, the New York Times bestselling author of Blueprints and Sweet Salt Air, a brand-new novel about a woman in hiding finding the courage to face the world again.

Mackenzie Cooper took her eyes off the road for just a moment but the resulting collision was enough to rob her not only of her beloved daughter but ultimately of her marriage, family, and friends—and thanks to the nonstop media coverage, even her privacy. Now she lives in Vermont under the name Maggie Reid, in a small house with her cats and dog. She’s thankful for the new friends she’s made—though she can’t risk telling them too much. And she takes satisfaction in working as a makeup artist at the luxurious local spa, helping clients hide the visible outward signs of their weariness, illnesses, and injuries. Covering up scars is a skill she has mastered.

Her only goal is to stay under the radar and make it through her remaining probation. But she isn’t the only one in this peaceful town with secrets. When a friend’s teenage son is thrust into the national spotlight, accused of hacking a powerful man’s Twitter account, Maggie is torn between pulling away and protecting herself—or stepping into the glare to be at their side. As the stunning truth behind their case is slowly revealed, Maggie’s own carefully constructed story begins to unravel as well. She knows all too well that what we need from each other in this difficult world is comfort. But to provide it, sometimes we need to travel far outside our comfort zones.

From a multimillion-selling master of women’s fiction, Before and Again is a story of the relationships we find ourselves in—mothers and daughters, spouses and siblings, true companions and fair-weather friends—and what kind of sacrifices we are or aren’t willing to make to sustain them through good times and bad.

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Barbara Delinsky is the author of such New York Times bestselling books as Before and Again and Sweet Salt Air. She has been published in twenty-eight languages worldwide. A lifelong New Englander, Delinsky earned a B.A. in psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in sociology at Boston College. She lives in Massachusetts with her husband, more books than she'll ever be able to read, two tennis racquets, and enough electronic devices to keep in close touch with her children and their families.

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Before and Again

By Barbara Delinsky

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2018 Barbara Delinsky
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-250-11949-0

CHAPTER 1

The trouble with waking up in the morning is that you look like who you are. That's great if you like who you are, but not so great if you don't.

I don't. My face is pale and my eyes haunted. Five years have passed since the accident, but after a night with my head on the same plane as my heart, the scar on my forehead is a bright red. At least, it looks that way to me. When I touch it, I find a smooth ridge, but my fingertips remember the earlier roughness. And then there's the picture taped inside the medicine chest, where I'm sure to see it when I reach for toothpaste.

Mug shots are never pretty. Heartache is written all over mine. Size-wise, the print is small enough, but that doesn't dilute its impact. It's a reminder of what I did, a little dose of daily punishment.

Duly tweaked this Thursday morning, I closed the medicine chest and leaned into the mirror. I dabbed a long-wearing concealer over the scar and under my eyes once, twice, then a third time because last night was a bad one. After setting it with a breath of powder, I applied foundation, then a blusher. Both were creams, applied with a sponge. Moving up, I turned haunted eyes into stylishly smoky ones by skimming a gel pencil along both waterlines, smudging shadow into the corners, and separating my lashes with mascara.

Satisfied, I straightened and stood back, brushed my hair, fluffed my bangs. Then, as I did each day, I turned away from the mirror wearing my new face and tried to forget the old one. Was this honest? No. But it was the only way I could survive, and survival was key.

* * *

This day, the rising March sun was paper thin but promising. I felt no threat, no premonition, not the slightest sense of unease as I coasted down Pepin Hill over frozen ruts and cruised toward the center of town. After crossing the river, I passed the elegant Federal-style homes of the town founders and turned left where the road I was on ended and South Main began.

The usual string of cars lined the block fronting Rasher and Yolk. Some were pickups with mudstained skirts that labeled them locals. Others were clean SUVs with New York plates, but with the state line only thirty miles away, I thought nothing of it. Rasher and Yolk served the best breakfasts around. Every New Yorker who knew Devon knew that.

Warmed by omelet thoughts, I continued south for two more blocks before turning left toward the river again. The pottery studio was in a cavernous mill that had straddled it for a century. Like the Inn upstream, the mill had endured its share of Vermont blizzards and the ensuing spring floods. The fact that the old mill was built of wood, rather than the Inn's stone, made its survival all the more magical. Not even the hurricane that had washed out so much else on the river two Septembers before had harmed the mill's ancient oak.

I found this inspiring. To live through trauma and thrive? That was my goal.

The pottery studio did thrive. I was one of a dozen sculptors here today, and it was barely eight in the morning. Half were students, in town for a week of clay immersion that was offered by the studio's owner in partnership with the Inn. The rest were experienced artists, drawn to Devon for its appreciation of fine craft. Some were throwing pitchers and pots to be sold at the studio store in town. Since moving to Devon four years ago, I had sold things there myself. None were billed as Mackenzie Cooper art, and I deliberately tried not to replicate that style. Little bits slipped; I couldn't fully escape myself. But my current work was more subtle than spirited, and I never sculpted the family groups for which I had been known. Understatement was what my life in Devon was about. I was happy to fly under the radar.

Devon was a perfect place for that. A small town in south-central Vermont, it was known for upscale art galleries, VIP sightings, and the Spa's signature hot stone massage. Though the best-worn path to town was from Manhattan, more distant visitors came to rub shoulders with the rich and famous. All were welcome. Guests kept the town afloat.

How to tell a guest from a predator? Should a clean SUV outside Rasher and Yolk have caused suspicion? Or a lone tourist wandering on South Main taking pictures with his phone have raised a red flag?

Not in Devon. We were definitely used to strangers coming and going.

Buy a house in our midst, though, and we were cautious. It had been months before the wariness that met me when I first came faded — and that quickly, only because I had done repeated makeup applications for the library trustee chair, the Town Manager, and the head of the Garden Club. These people had bonded with me. The fact of my bare hands on their skin was conducive to that, but the emotional clinched it. A makeup artist was like a therapist, listening quietly to a client who arrived barefaced, with defenses down and a need to vent.

I knew about venting to a therapist, and I could certainly relate to wanting to feel better about oneself. What I loved most about my job was that I could make it happen for others, if only until bedtime, when the new face washed off.

So I listened. I didn't offer opinions beyond whether to use corrector or concealer, blusher or bronzer, matte shadow or glitter, and I never groaned, sighed, or frowned in response to what was shared with me. Hell, who was I to judge?

I also understood vanity. As far from the mainstream as Devon was, there were occasions when a woman wanted to look her best. Most of us had spent time in the city. We appreciated fine makeup, right along with craft beer, high-tech down jackets, and good cell phone reception.

The pottery studio was an exception to the last. Cell phones were useless within its wood walls. Potters knew they were leaving the world behind when they came here. For me, that was part of the appeal.

I had used the studio enough to be known by the local potting community, which knew me as Maggie Reid, not the full Margaret Mackenzie Reid, certainly not Mackenzie Cooper. Mackenzie was the artist, the wife of a venture capitalist, the mother. Maggie was just Maggie. Her hair was a deeper auburn than Mackenzie's had been and was colored at the roots to hide new wisps of gray. She used makeup to soften grief lines and bangs to hide her scar. Wearing base layers of wool under a sweater and jeans, a voluminous scarf, and fleece-lined boots, she was more concerned with warmth than style. She also weighed ten pounds more now than when she had been in the news.

She? Me. I could blame being thin on nerves, but even before the accident, I had been that way. It was the look of the elite, to which, for a time, my ex-husband and I had belonged. I had put all that behind, as well.

"Hey, Maggie," one of the regulars called in greeting as I headed for the supply bins.

I smiled and waved but didn't stop. Many of us were here before going to other jobs, which meant time was short. Besides, my need today was less for people than for clay.

Clay was in my blood, the smell of it alone a balm. Granted, March meant mud season, which lent an earthiness to the entire town. But potting clay was earthy in a different way. It didn't spatter my truck or cause ruts deep enough to make my tires spin climbing up to my cabin each night. Potting clay held promise. A world of wonder could come in a few hands-on minutes, and I had spent far more than that in my thirty-eight years. I'd been first drawn to clay when I was eight. By the time I...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St Martins Pr
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2018
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1250119499
• ISBN 13: 9781250119490
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 408
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland