The Perfect Escape - Softcover

Konen, Leah

 
9780593085448: The Perfect Escape
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593085442 ISBN 13: 9780593085448
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

The perfect girls' weekend turns deadly in this twisty unforgettable thriller that is perfect for fans of Shari Lapena and Riley Sager.

A girls' weekend to die for.

New friends Sam, Margaret and Diana are thrilled to be getting out of the city for a girls’ weekend—they’ve bonded over their messy divorces, and every mile on the odometer feels like another step towards putting their exes in the past. But when car trouble halfway into their trip strands them in the most unlikely of mountain towns, they come face-to-face with the hurts and betrayals they were so desperate to leave behind.
 
When Diana doesn't return home after a night out, Sam and Margaret's search for her reveals just how little they know about their friend. As eerie coincidences and secrets begin to pile up, and an ex-boyfriend arrives in the tiny town, the women realize that their detour may not have been a mistake...and that someone wants to guarantee that they never make it out.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Leah Konen is the author of All the Broken People and of several young adult novels, including Love and Other Train Wrecks and The Romantics. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied journalism and English literature. She lives in Brooklyn and Saugerties, New York, with her husband; their daughter, Eleanor; and their dog, Farley.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Sam

The slice of skin was angry and pale-it looked almost sickly, framed in ridges, the flesh obscenely puffy around it.

My dirty little secret, exposed for all to see.

I'd never taken my rings off, not since Harry put them on my finger.

I loved and hated them in equal measure.

The band was made of clean, unmarked platinum. The guy at the shop had told us it would last forever, while I stared at shiny things on royal-blue velvet and Harry pulled out his Amex. Platinum was as pure as love, and it didn't take a single bit of upkeep, not like silver or white gold.

My finger traced the inside, and I could see the words without even looking. Etched into the interior, etched into my brain: For my darling, Sam. From your darling, Harry.

Should his cheesy inscription have been the first sign? Diana had laughed when I told her he always called me "darling," asked if Harry was some guy out of the 1950s-and I guess I would have to hold back an eye-roll if she or Margaret said that Brandon or Lars almost exclusively referred to them as "darling." But to me, it had never sounded like some bad actor playing at Cary Grant. Harry's words were so easy to love, his voice somehow gruff yet smooth, strong as whiskey. My darling. My Sam.

The engagement ring was even nicer. It had scrollwork and a bunch of tiny diamonds, a whopping stone in the middle. I'd always thought of myself as the anti-diamond type-they seemed way too traditional-but when push came to shove, the butterfly wings had beat in my stomach just as they had for all those other women. I did draw the line at something absurdly overpriced-no Cartier, thank you very much-and ostentation wasn't Harry's style, either. Still, he'd paid extra for Canadian diamonds because they were supposed to be cruelty free.

Wanting, and wanting badly, was one of Harry's many effects on me. Not just his love but everything-meeting him had stretched out my world like taffy. All these things I'd never known I could dream of were suddenly open to me. I was trading my shitty railroad apartment and its sounds of cars whizzing by-urban waves-for the luxury condo with Manhattan views that Harry kept around just for crashing in the city. I was getting my first real facial-one gifted to me by Harry shortly after we were engaged. I was honeymooning at the Four Seasons in Anguilla. I'd always been more of a backpacker, a rough-and-tumble traveler, but sitting on an Adirondack chair parked in bright white sand, one hand in Harry's and the other wrapped around a seventeen-dollar pi–a colada, it was impossible to object. Who would, when it came down to it?

Standing in front of my dresser, I let the rings clank into the ceramic dish, the one my mom had gotten me to hold them especially: Harry + Sam. May your love bless you forever.

One year. That's how long it took to change me, our union marking my body like a warning, turning the skin of my finger pale. Three months of engagement. Seven of marriage. Two of being apart.

Diana, a self-branded self-destructive, always the one among the group to suggest a third glass of wine or a side of French fries or one measly cigarette on the patio, had understood why I hesitated to take my rings off. I'd met Diana about a year and a half ago-she was sitting at the bar at the place on Tenth Avenue I used to go after work. She'd introduced herself and suggested we pair up to take full advantage of the two-for-one old-fashioned special. We had, and we'd killed more than one round of strong drinks, and over cigarettes purchased on impulse from the deli next door, I'd told her all about the crush I had on Harry. She'd gotten it then, and she got it now.

Margaret, a semi-neurotic copywriter I'd worked with on and off for years, and by far the most practical of our little trio, had been much pushier. I needed to take off my rings, take a "step toward acceptance," as she put it. On this trip, at least, we were going to put our pasts behind us, as much as we could.

I turned away from the dresser, the shitty fiberboard model I'd picked up in IKEA that had served me over nearly a decade in New York, one of the few items that had made the trek from my old place to Harry's. On the bed, my suitcase lay open, sundresses, sweaters, and underwear spilling out. I must have packed the thing five times. I knew I was probably putting way too much pressure on this trip, nothing more than a long weekend of wine and-let's be honest-more wine, up at a cabin in Saratoga Springs. It was just Diana, Margaret, and me-it didn't matter what I wore at all-still, it was my first time leaving the city since Harry had left me.

Well, my first time except for that once.

It was going to be brilliant, so help me.

Like Margaret said, I was going to take the first step toward acceptance and leave my past behind.

I glanced at my watch, snakeskin leather and an oversized gold face-another gift from Harry, for my birthday last year. Diana and Margaret should be arriving any minute. I flipped the lid of the suitcase, and, pressing down hard, zipped it as best I could, then dragged it off the bed.

I pulled the duvet up, covering Harry's imprint in the bed. They didn't tell you that about memory foam-it doesn't forget, never ever ever. It captures bodies, forces you to look at the person you thought you knew, day in and day out.

I rolled the case down the hall and past the nook I'd taken to using as my home office, my desk piled to the brim with unpaid invoices and contact sheets from one of my projects, already two weeks overdue to my client. When I'd taken on the assignment several months ago, art direction for the launch campaign for a new wedding-planning app, Harry had been here. Diana and Margaret didn't even know each other. Everything was different then.

My phone buzzed. It was a text to the group chain, lovingly titled Sgt. Diana's Lonely Hearts Club in all our phones.

From Diana:

I made a snap decision and stopped at the shop for a couple more bottles of vino before going to Margaret's-running ten late, but you know it's worth it-I have a feeling we're going to be
getting messy

I laughed. We certainly would, if Diana had anything to do with it, and getting messy with them felt a lot less shameful than doing so on my own.

I shrank into a cardigan, zipped up my boots, and grabbed my handbag. I should make my way downstairs, maybe stop for a coffee at the deli, wait for them outside.

On impulse, like a sharp, quick tug, I turned away, traipsing across the apartment, my boots click-clacking against the unswept hardwood, back to the bedroom.

The rings still sat in the dish, glimmering.

Like a cat, I snatched them, slipping them into the pocket of my linen dress. Secret rings, tucked away where no one could see.

It can't hurt, I told myself, perhaps a little desperately.

At least it can't hurt anyone but me.


Diana was leaning against the SUV, phone in hand, when I got downstairs. In the pinky late-afternoon light of the city, her silver hair gleamed against the rest of her dark brown strands. She was nearly half-gray, though she wasnÕt even thirty-five. She was wearing a black dress and black leggings-she almost always wore black, and it had the effect of accentuating her rather abundant curves and making her uncolored hair even more striking.

With creamy skin, a strong nose, hazel eyes, and lips always painted red, Diana looked like a Renaissance woman, someone Botticelli would have painted. She glanced up and beamed like she always did upon seeing me. "I have good news and bad news," she said in lieu of a greeting.

"Bad first."

"Such a masochist," she said. "Okay, so I just realized I completely forgot the OJ...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2022
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593085442
ISBN 13 
9780593085448
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
400
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
49078
Deutschland

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