Once and for All - Hardcover

Dessen, Sarah

 
9780425290330: Once and for All
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0425290336 ISBN 13: 9780425290330
Verlag: Viking Books for Young Readers, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

From Sarah Dessen, the beloved New York Times bestselling author of SAINT ANYTHING and JUST LISTEN, comes a new novel set in the world of wedding planning!

Is it really better to have loved and lost?  Louna's summer job is to help brides plan their perfect day, even though she stopped believing in happily-ever-after when her first love ended tragically.  But charming girl-magnet Ambrose isn't about to be discouraged now that he's met the one he really  wants.  Maybe Louna's second chance is standing right in front of her.


 Sarah Dessen’s many fans will adore this latest novel, a richly satisfying, enormously entertaining story with humor, romance, and an ending that is so much more than happily-ever-after.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sarah Dessen is the author of twelve previous novels, which include the New York Times bestsellers Saint Anything, The Moon and More, What Happened to Goodbye, Along for the Ride, Lock and Key, Just Listen, The Truth About Forever, and This Lullaby. Her first two books, That Summer and Someone Like You, were made into the movie How to Deal.
 
Dessen’s books are frequently chosen for the Teens’ Top Ten list and the list of Best Fiction for Young Adults. They have been translated into twenty-five languages. Sarah Dessen is the recipient of the 2017 Margaret A. Edwards Award from the Young Adult division of the American Library Association, recognizing her significant contribution to young adult literature.
  
Sarah Dessen graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with highest honors in creative writing. She lives in North Carolina with her family.

Visit Sarah at sarahdessen.com. 

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CHAPTER 1
 
WELL, THIS was a first.
 
“Deborah?” I said as I knocked softly, yet still with enough intensity to convey the proper urgency, on the door. “It’s Louna. Can I help you with anything?”
 
According to my mother, this was Rule One in dealing with this kind of situation: don’t project a problem. As in, don’t ask if anything is wrong unless you are certain some­thing is, and as of right now, I was not. Although a bride lock­ing herself in the anteroom of the church five minutes after the wedding was supposed to begin did not exactly bode well.
 
From the other side of the door, I heard movement. Then a sniffle. Again, I wished William, my mother’s partner and the company’s appointed bride whisperer, was here instead of me. But he’d gotten hooked into another crisis involving the groom’s mother taking issue with preceding the bride’s mom down the aisle, even though everyone knew that was how the etiquette went. Work in the wedding business long enough, however, and you learn that everything has the potential to be a problem, from the happy couple all the way down to the napkins. You just never know.
 
I cleared my throat. “Deborah? Can I bring you a water?”
 
It wasn’t ever the true solution, but a water never hurt: that was another one of my mother’s beliefs. Instead of a response, the lock clicked, the door rattling open. I looked down the stairs behind me, praying I’d see William ap­proaching, but no, I was still alone. I took a breath, then picked up the bottle I’d grabbed earlier and stepped inside. Hydration for the win.
 
Our client Deborah Bell (soon to be Washington, ide­ally), a beautiful black girl with her hair in a bun, was sit­ting on the floor of the small room, her fluffy white dress bunched up around her. It had cost five thousand dollars, a fact I knew because she had told us, repeatedly, during the last ten months of planning this day. I tried not to think about this as I moved quickly, but not too quickly, over to her. (“Never run at a wedding unless someone’s life is liter­ally in danger!” I heard my mother say in my head.) I’d just opened up the water when I realized she was crying.
 
“Oh, don’t do that.” I eased down into what I hoped was a professional knees-to-the-side squat, drawing a slim pack of tissues from my pocket. “Your makeup looks great. Let’s keep it that way, okay?”
 
Deborah, one false eyelash already loose—some lies are necessary—just blinked at me, sending another round of tears down her already streaked face. “Can I ask you something?”
 
No, I thought. Now we were at nine minutes. Out loud I said, “Sure.”
 
She took in a shuddering breath, the kind that only comes after you’ve been crying awhile, and hard. “Do you . . .” A pause, as another set of tears gathered and spilled, this time taking the loose eyelash with them. “Do you believe that true love can really last forever?”
 
Now someone was coming up the stairs. From the sound of it, though—large steps, lumbering, with a fair amount of huffing and puffing already audible—it wasn’t William. “True love?”
 
“Yes.” She reached up—God, no! I thought, too late to stop her—rubbing a hand over her eyes and smearing eye­liner sideways up to her temple. The steps behind us were getting louder; whoever they belonged to would be here soon. Meanwhile, Deborah was just looking at me, her eyes wide and pleading, as if whatever happened next hinged entirely on my answer. “Do you?”
 
I knew she wanted a yes or no, something concise and specific and if this were any other question, I probably could have given it to her. But instead, I just sat there, silent, as I tried to put the image in my head—a boy in a white tuxedo shirt on a dark beach, laughing, one hand reached out to me—into any kind of words.
 
“Deborah Rachelle Bell!” I heard a voice boom from be­hind us. A moment later her father, the Reverend Elijah Bell, appeared, fully filling the space of the open doorway. His suit was tight, the shirt collar loosened, and he had a hand­kerchief in one hand, which he immediately pressed to his sweaty brow. “What in the world are you doing? People are waiting down there!”
 
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Deborah wailed, and then I saw William, finally, climbing the stairs. Just as quickly he dis­appeared from view, though, blocked by the reverend’s girth. “I just got scared.”
 
“Well, get it together,” he told her, stepping inside. Clearly winded, he paused to take a breath or two before continuing. “I spent thirty thousand nonrefundable dollars of my hard-earned money on this wedding. If you don’t walk down that aisle right now, I’ll marry Lucas myself.”
 
At this, Deborah burst into fresh tears. As I put my hand out to her, helplessly patting a shoulder, William managed to squeeze past the reverend and approach us. Calm as always, he didn’t look at me, his eyes on only the bride as he bent close to speak in her ear. She whispered a response as he began to move his hand in slow circles on her back, like you do for a fussy baby.
 
I couldn’t hear anything that was said, only the reverend still breathing. Other footsteps were audible on the stairs now, most likely bridesmaids, groomsmen, and others com­ing to rubberneck. Everyone liked to be part of the story, it seemed. I’d understood this once, but not so much anymore.
 
Whatever William said had made Deborah smile, albeit shakily. But it was enough; she let him take her elbow and help her to her feet. While she looked down at her wrin­kled dress, trying to shake out the folds, he leaned back into the hallway, beckoning down the stairs. A moment later the makeup artist appeared, her tackle box of prod­ucts in hand.
 
“Okay, everyone, let’s give Deborah a second to freshen up,” William announced to the room, just as, sure enough, one bridesmaid and then another poked their heads in. “Rev­erend, can you go tell everyone to take their places? We’ll be down in two minutes.”
 
“You’d better be,” the reverend said, pushing past him to the door, sending bridesmaids scattering in a flash of laven­der. “Because I am not coming up those stairs again.”
 
“We’ll be right outside,” William told Deborah, gesturing for me to follow him. I did, pulling the door shut behind us.
 
“I’m sorry,” I said immediately. “That was beyond my skill set.”
 
“You did fine,” he told me, pulling out his phone. With­out even looking closely, I knew he was firing off a text to my mom in the code they used to ensure both speed and privacy. A second later, I heard a buzz as she wrote back. He scanned the screen, then said, “People are curious but there is a minimum of speculation noise, at least so far. It’s going to be fine. We’ve got the eyelash as an explanation.”
 
I looked at my watch. “An eyelash can take fifteen minutes?”
 
“It can take an hour, as far as anyone down there knows.” He smoothed a wrinkle I couldn’t even see out of his pants, then adjusted his red bow tie. “I wouldn’t have pegged Deb as a...

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Verlag
Viking Books for Young Readers
Erscheinungsdatum
2017
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0425290336
ISBN 13 
9780425290330
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
368
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
VTech Electronics Europe B.V
https://www.vtech-jouets.com/

Fahrenheitstraat 22
DC Weert
6003
Niederlande

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