24-Karat Kids: A Novel - Softcover

Goldstein, Dr. Judy; Stuart, Sebastian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312343280 ISBN 13: 9780312343286

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin, 2007

Synopsis

Meet Dr. Shelley Green, newly minted pediatrician. After graduating from medical school at the top of her class, Shelley is hired by Madison Pediatrics, the most exclusive practice on New York's Upper East Side. Hyper-parenting has reached epidemic proportions, and Madison Pediatrics is its over-privileged epicenter. Shelley, a superb doctor with a kid-friendly touch and a genius for diagnosis, quickly becomes the Upper East Side's latest must-have accessory, the darling of the fabulously-wealthy-with-kids crowd. Now this self-described "schlumpy girl from Jackson Heights" is slimming down, dressing up in Fendi and Prada, and weekending in the Hamptons, and Arthur―her adorable schoolteacher fiancé―is left baffled by the changes.
Enter Josh Potter, the blue-blooded hunk who never seems to have his check book around. What he does have is charm, connections, and enough sex appeal to set Shelley's head spinning. Before long, Shelley's plate is way too full: men, medicine, and meddling mothers. Can she handle it all without losing her soul―and her fiancé? Dr. Judy Goldstein and Sebastian Stuart have teamed up to deliver a delicious dose of fiction, brimming with acerbic wit, dead-on-satire, and, finally, poignancy and heart.

About this title

About the Author

Dr. Judy Goldstein is one of the leading pediatricians in Manhattan and has appeared in New York magazine's "The Best Doctors in New York" in 1999, 2000, 2003, and 2005. She was selected as one of the Best Doctors in America in 2005-2006. She has a thriving Upper East Side Practice.

Sebastian Stuart has written screenplays, business books, and has had dozens of productions of his plays. His first novel was The Mentor, a psychological thriller.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

"What is that?" I asked the waiter, looking down at what looked like four giant gumballs floating in tomato soup. The waiter was young and had a nice smile, but I quickly realized that he spoke less English than I did Azerbaijani. Mom piped in before I had a chance to resort to sign language.

"Shelley, be adventurous," she said, looking at me over the top of her glasses-on-a-string. She stabbed a gumball with her fork and popped it in her mouth. I thought I detected an instant of shock before she gamely chewed... and chewed... and chewed. "Fascinating," she pronounced.

"Mother, if I want fascinating, I’ll go see a foreign documentary at the Film Forum. I’m here to eat." Not that I’d had time to go to a movie in seven years, but I had a point to make.

"Eat? Nonsense, we’re here to celebrate," my father said, leaning over, grabbing my face, squeezing it all out of shape, and planting a kiss on my smushed-forward cheek.

Which was true. My reward for finally finishing four years of college, four years of medical school, and three years of pediatric residency was this: a family party around an enormous round table at Queens’s finest, and no doubt only, Azerbaijani restaurant. Mom had picked Baku Buffet because it sounded "intriguing." Intriguing, fascinating, and remarkable were Mom’s three favorite words, and she was in permanent pursuit of new experiences that would allow her to use them. This had turned her into a Learning Annex junkie, obsessively taking courses on everything from "Folk Art Milking Stools" to "Insects, Eunuchs, and Euripides." I was amazed that one brain could hold the breadth of information that hers did.

This was a pretty typical gathering for my family. All around the table aunts, uncles, and cousins were shouting and laughing, eating off each other’s plates, drinking out of each others’ glasses, acting like we weren’t separate people but a single-bodied behemoth: The Green Family. My brother Ira, a rugged individualist, was huddled in an alcove by the restrooms talking to his bookie on his cell phone. Ira had a little gambling problem---in the same way Orson Welles had a little weight problem. Ira also had a thing for marijuana---with his breakfast coffee. And did I mention the alcoholic binges in seedy motels with ladies you could rent by the hour?

I reclaimed my face from Dad’s grip and looked across the table at Arthur, the man I’d been dating for two years. Arthur had been grinning for the past hour, and I wondered why he was in such a good mood. Actually, Arthur had been grinning for the past two years. It was one of his many charming qualities, but sometimes it got on my nerves. How could anyone be so endlessly cheerful, especially when dating me? He gave me a sympathetic look and mouthed, "I love you, pumpkin."

"Have you tried the gumballs?" I asked him.

"They’re actually sheep testicles," he informed me.

"Well, that makes me feel better," I said, pushing my plate away.

I was hungry and exhausted and anxious and wanted nothing more than to be at home in my closet-sized Manhattan studio watching some mindless reality show and working my way through a pint of Chunky Monkey. More or less my entire adult life up to this point, all the years of education and training and sleepless nights, had been leading to this moment, and now, instead of kicking up my sensible heels, I just wanted a little peace and quiet to think things over and make some decisions.

Arthur got up and walked around the table to where I was sitting. He kneaded my shoulders with his warm wonderful hands, finding my familiar knots and rubbing them with a gently circular motion, working his two thumbs up the back of my neck. A deep, involuntary sigh poured out of me. The back rubs were one of his charming qualities I never got tired of. Arthur was an English teacher at a public high school in Brooklyn. He was kind, dependable, almost six feet tall with gray-green eyes, and an amazing kisser. But what I loved most about him were those magic hands. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head, "Just relax, munchkin."

"Oh, Arthur," I said, "I’m trying. You don’t know the half of it."

I’d been looking for a position in a well-established practice in neighborhoods like the Upper West Side and Park Slope. There was a lot of competition for the few openings that came up, and so far I hadn’t had any luck. And I was facing a quarter of a million dollars in student loans. That was the half Arthur did know.

The half he didn’t know was that three days earlier I’d received a call from Dr. Marge Mueller, the head of Madison Pediatrics, one of the best practices on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Dr. Mueller, who had been forwarded my résumé by a doctor at a Park Slope practice, had invited me in for an interview. I’d asked her for a few days to think it over. I wasn’t sure I was a good fit for the Upper East Side. And I hadn’t told Arthur about Dr. Mueller’s call because the job would mean working with the kind of overprivileged families that he disapproved of, and I didn’t want him making my decision more difficult by cluttering the process with his guilt-inducing biases.

Biases or not, my relationship with Arthur had been the most serious of my life. He was just the sort of kind, generous, lovable man I’d always been told I would one day meet and marry. Just as I’d always been told I should get good grades, keep my head down, earn gold stars, be polite, do my homework, and finish everything on my plate, even if it meant eating sheep testicles. The problem was, I sometimes felt a little crowded by Arthur, the same way I sometimes felt crowded by The Green Family behemoth and its expectations.

It was as if I’d been living in a hermetically sealed bubble since I was about nine, a bubble marked ‘good studious Shelley.’ Inside, secretly, I’d always felt a certain admiration and envy of the more rebellious girls, the ones who blew off their homework, who dressed with flair and flirted with panache, who exuded an easy sensuality and confidence. Nothing came easily to me, especially fun. My only guilty pleasures were food and an obsession with celebrity and pop culture that took the form of E! channel marathons and InStyle binges. I dreamed of bursting out of my good-girl bubble, of going to glamorous parties and drinking too many mohitos and dancing with abandon and going skinny-dipping in the moonlight and making love in the dunes---just having some cut-loose bad-girl fun. My relationship with Arthur could not be filed under bad-girl fun---under lots of other, probably ultimately more important things, yes, but not guilty pleasure. And I felt I’d earned the right to a little fun before I settled down.

"Shelley, you’re a wonderful wonderful doctor, you love kids---you’re going to have a job in no time."

Arthur was always so reassuring, but I’d felt like I’d been holding my breath for the past three years, and before I could finally exhale, I needed to be settled and building my own practice.

"Thank you, honey," I said, leaning up and kissing him. The relationship was right on the cusp of seriously serious, but that was on hold for me, too. Before marriage and motherhood, I needed to be earning a good living. Dad was a mailman, a sensational super-mensch mailman, who’d had the same Upper East Side route for thirty years and was loved by everyone, but mailmen don’t make a lot of

About this edition

• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0312343280
• ISBN 13: 9780312343286
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304