The Love of Her Life - Softcover

Evans, Harriet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1439113157 ISBN 13: 9781439113158

Publisher: Downtown Press, 2009

Synopsis

From the author of A Hopeless Romantic and Going Home comes an engaging new novel about a young woman who suffers loss and heartbreak—only to regain a chance at happiness when she least expects it.

Thirty-year-old Kate Miller fled London two years ago when her life fell apart spectacularly. Living in New York with her mother and stepfather and working half-heartedly as a literary agent, Kate must return to London when her father, a famous classical musician, undergoes a kidney transplant. She’s only returning for a short visit, or so she thinks. But once in London, she faces the friends who are bound with her forever as a result of one day when life changed for all of them. What really happened before Kate left London? And can she pick up the pieces and allow herself to love her own life again?

Witty, smart, and entertaining, Evans’s heartwarming tale, which was a bestseller in the United Kingdom earlier this year, will delight readers who enjoy novels by Cathy Kelly, Hester Browne, and Marian Keyes.

About this title

About the Author:

Harriet Evans is the internationally bestselling author of Going Home, A Hopeless Romantic, The Love of Her Life, I Remember You, Love Always, Happily Ever After, Not Without You, A Place for Us, The Butterfly Summer, The Wildflowers. She lives in London. Visit her website at Harriet-Evans.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

One

New York

2007

Her father wasn't well. They kept saying she shouldn't worry too much, but she should still come back to London. He had had an operation -- emergency kidney transplant; he'd been bumped right up the list. He was lucky to get one, considering his lifestyle, his age, everything. They kept saying that, too. Kate had even been tested, to see if she could be a donor. She couldn't, which made her feel like a bad daughter.

It all happened so suddenly. It was Monday afternoon when she got the call telling her it had happened, the previous day, after a kidney miraculously became available. He'd been unwell for a few years now, the diabetes and the drinking -- and the stress of his new life, he was busier than ever -- but how had it got to this, got so far? Apparently he had collapsed; the next day he'd been put at the top of the transplant list. That afternoon, Kate's stepmother, Lisa, had rung to let her know.

"I think he'd very much like to see you." Lisa's rather nasal voice was not improved by the tinny phone line.

"Of -- of course," Kate said. She cast around for something to say. "Oh God. How...how is he now?"

"He's alive, Kate. It was very sudden. But he's got much, much worse these last few months. So he's not that well. And he'd like to see you. Like I say. He misses you."

"Yes," said Kate. Her throat was dry, her heart was pounding. "Yes. Yes, of course."

"He's going to be in intensive care for a few days, you know. Can you come next week? You can get the time off at the office, I presume." Lisa made no other comment, but a variety of the comments she could make hung in the air, and rushing in next to them came millions of other guilty thoughts, all jostling for attention in front of Kate till she couldn't see anything. She rubbed her eyes with one hand as she cradled the phone on her shoulder. Her darling dad, and she hadn't seen him for eighteen months, hadn't been back to London for a real visit in nearly three years. How the hell...? Was this emergency, his rapid decline, was it her fault? No, of course it wasn't, but still, Kate couldn't escape the thought that she had made him ill herself, as certainly as if she had stuck a knife into him.

Out of the window, Manhattan looked calm and still, the gray monolithic buildings giving no clue to the arctic weather, the noise, the hustle, the sweet crazy smell of toasted sugar and tar that hit you every time you went outside, the city she had grown used to, fallen in love with, the city that had long ago replaced London in her affections. Kate looked around the office of the literary agency where she worked. It was a small place, only four full-time members of staff. Bruce Perry, the boss, was in his office, talking on the phone. Kate could see his head bobbing up and down as he violently agreed with someone and what they were saying. Doris, the malevolent old bookkeeper from Queens who openly hated Kate, was pretending to type but in reality was listening to Kate's conversation, trying to work out what was going on. Megan, the junior agent, was in the far corner, tapping a pencil against her keyboard.

"Kate?" said Lisa, breaking into Kate's thoughts. "Look, I can't force you to come back, but..." She cleared her throat, and Kate could hear the sound echo in the cavernous basement kitchen of her father and Lisa's flashy new home in Notting Hill.

"Of course I'll come," Kate heard herself say, and she crouched into herself, flushed with shame, hoping Doris hadn't heard her.

"You will?" Lisa said, and Kate could hear incredulity and something else -- yes, pleading -- in her voice, and she was horrified at herself, at how cold she was capable of being to Lisa. Her father was ill, for God's sake. Dad.

It was time to get a grip and go back home. And so Kate put the phone down, booked a flight for Saturday evening, getting into London on Sunday morning. Then she went into Bruce Perry's office to ask for two weeks off. No more. She wasn't staying there any longer than she had to.

Bruce had grimaced a bit, but he'd been fine about giving her the time off. Perry and Co. was not exactly the fast-paced business unit it might have been, which is why Kate had got her job as assistant there in the first place. In fact, to the outside eye, but for one author, Anne Graves, it would seem to be a mystery that they managed to stay in business, employing as they did five people, and with no books sold to any major publisher, no scripts sold to any studio, for years and years, so it would seem.

"Where will you stay?" Bruce asked. "Will you go to your dad's?"

"No," said Kate firmly. "I've...I've actually got a place there." Bruce raised his eyebrows, and Kate could see Doris put down her ledger and look up, intrigued.

"Your own place?"

"It's...kind of," Kate told him. She cleared her throat. "I part own it. I was renting it out, but they've just left. Last month."

"Good timing," said Bruce, pleased. "That's great!"

"Yes," said Kate. She wasn't sure that it was good timing, the ending of Gemma's rental lease coinciding with her father's emergency kidney transplant, but still, look for the silver lining, as her mother was always telling her. She shook her head, still trying to come to terms with it. "Wow," she said out loud. "I'm going back to London. Wow." She bit her thumb. "I'd better see if I can get hold of Dad. Lisa said he'd be awake in a little while...."

"Well, what will we do without you," Bruce said, more for effect than sounding like he meant it. He stood up languidly. "Hurry back, now!"

"I will," said Kate, although she was kind of sure she could simply not ever appear again and all they'd need to do after a few weeks would be to hire a temp to filter through the fan letters to Anne Graves. "I'm sorry to leave you in the lurch like this -- "

"Oh, honey," Doris said, standing up and coming over. She patted Kate's arm. Kate reared back in horror, since usually Doris wore a murderous expression when she came near her. "Don't you worry about that. My niece, Lorraine, she can cover for you. She'll do a real good job, too, you know it, Bruce."

"Great idea!" Bruce said happily.

He went back into his office, whistling, as Kate swung back around toward her computer. She bit her lip, not sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry.

Kate walked home that night, the twenty-odd blocks that took her back to her mother and Oscar's apartment, a slight feeling of unease hanging over her about the task that lay ahead of her, and the conversation she would have to have with her mother and stepfather. It was a milder March night than it had been thus far that year, and though it was dark and the clocks wouldn't go forward till Sunday, there was still a sense that spring was in the air. She walked up Broadway, following its slicing path through her beloved Manhattan. She didn't try to think about anything, just walked her usual walk, drinking it all in. This was her home. Here she could walk the streets and be part of the glorious, jostling mass of humanity, anonymous even if she wore a pink wig and rode a giraffe. No one here cared, no one here recognized her, knew her. Here she bumped into no old school friends, work colleagues; here she saw no ghosts getting in her way. Just the wide stretch of the road, leaving midtown behind her, as she headed up past Lincoln Center, watching the lights get dimmer, a little cozier, seeing people out running, walking their dogs, living their lives in the thick of the metropolis -- that was what she loved best about New York.

She knew she was nearly home when she got to Zabar's. The huge, cheery famous deli was as busy as ever. Families doing latenight shopping, solitary coffee drinkers hunched over a paper in the cafe. Warmth, light, color bursting out of every pore. Kate stared in through the window. They were advertising gefilte fish for Passover, only a few weeks away in mid-April. I'll be back by then, she thought. Only a couple of weeks. Really, that's all it is.

Dad's going to be fine, she told herself as the traffic purred beside her and she looked wildly around, wondering where she was for a moment. She thought about him for a minute, considering with terrified fascination what it would be like to see him again. Her father, so tall, so commanding, so handsome and charismatic, always the center of the room -- what would he be like now, what would his life be like after this operation? What if the kidney didn't work? How had it come to this, that she could push down the love she had for him, push it down so far inside her she had been able to pretend, for a while, that it was all ok?

But she knew the answer. She'd become an expert at the answer, since she'd left London.

Deep inside her came a stabbing pain at the top of her breastbone. Kate gently rubbed her collarbone, as her eyes filled with painful tears. But she could not cry, not here, not now. If she started, she might never stop.

I'll go back, see Dad, make sure he's OK, check on the flat, try and find a new tenant.

And I'll see Zoe.

At the thought of seeing her best friend after all this time, Kate felt the hairs on her neck stand up, and though the memory of what had happened still sliced at her, she smiled, a small smile, until she realized she was grinning through the window at a rather bewildered old man with thick white hair, who was trying to read his paper in peace. Kate blushed, and hurried on.

It was Oscar's sixtieth birthday in a few weeks, and Venetia, Kate's mother, had given him his present -- a brand-new baby grand piano -- early, back in January. As Kate arrived at the apartment building, on Riverside Drive, the window of Venetia and Oscar's apartment was open, and Kate could hear the sound of the piano floating down to her on the sidewalk.

"Hello there, Kate!" Maurice, the doorman, called happily, opening the door for her into the small marbled foyer. He pushed the button for the elevator. Kate smiled at him, a little wearily.

"How are you, Maurice?" she said.

"I'm just fine," said Maurice. "I'm pretty good. That spray you told me to get, fo...

About this edition

• Publisher: Downtown Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1439113157
• ISBN 13: 9781439113158
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448