The Heirloom - Softcover

Rosen, Jessie

 
9780593716052: The Heirloom
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0593716051 ISBN 13: 9780593716052
Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

AN INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER

The answer to the biggest question of her life lies in someone else’s past.

Shea Anderson’s beloved Nonna had endless rules for a happy, healthy life: avoid owls, never put a hat on a bed, and never, ever accept a marriage proposal that comes with an heirloom ring. Happily ever after is hard enough without bad karma in the mix.

Naturally, panic sets in when Shea’s boyfriend, John, proposes with an heirloom ring. Yes is her answer, but Nonna’s warning sets Shea on a mission to ensure the ring contains forever energy: She will find its previous owners wherever they may be. With the help of her long-suffering big sister and a nosy journalist eager for a big story, Shea embarks on a journey that takes her from Los Angeles and New York to Italy and Portugal.

Sophisticated, cinematic, and full of lively observations, The Heirloom is a diamond-sharp read for everyone who’s ever tried to make their own good luck.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jessie Rosen got her start with the award-winning blog 20-Nothings and has sold original television projects to ABC, CBS, Warner Bros., and Netflix. Her live storytelling show Sunday Night Sex Talks was featured on The Bachelorette. She lives in Los Angeles.

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One

Up until the moment John proposed, I didn't know the human body was capable of feeling two opposite emotions in the exact same second. The tips of my fingers tingled with elation, and yet my legs felt like newly hardened cement. I was squarely inside pure joy and somehow watching it all unfold from above, so tense I felt dizzy. On one knee before me was the man I loved, asking a question I'd hoped was coming for months. He'd picked the perfect spot-the quietest corner of the High Line, my favorite five square feet in all of Manhattan. He'd somehow found a way to get us here from Los Angeles without me suspecting a thing. And the universe delivered him a pink-skied July where the city air was still somehow crisp. But more than all that, John was choosing me as the one person in the world he wanted to commit to for the rest of our lives. Tears clouded my eyes. Yes was what I should have been screaming as I leapt into his arms. But instead I was staring at the only bad part of the surprise, the one in his hands.

"Shea . . . you haven't answered me," John said, words absolutely no man wants to say after Will you marry me? He held the ring box up to my still-frozen face. Inside its silk-lined top were the three words that had triggered my panic: Hudson Vintage Collectors. They sat above what should have been the more important item inside: a gleaming emerald-cut engagement ring. But it was not shiny with brand-newness, according to the vintage in the jewelry store's name. It was an heirloom passed down from another woman-from another marriage. A stranger's marriage, because I knew there wasn't any jewelry being passed down from John's family. That made this a deeply meaningful piece of jewelry with a completely unknown origin. An object filled with a lifetime of karma that I was now expected to wear into my own hopefully happily-ever-after. And most important, my personal proposal nightmare.

Two

This was not supposed to be happening this way. In fact, I'd done my part to prevent it since the day John and I met.

"There are four, and only four, truly nonnegotiable things about me," I'd said on our first date. "Do you, John 'Middle Name' Jacobs, want to know them?"

We hadn't gotten to middle names by that point. We were three hours into what would be a twelve-hour date that started because my mouth was, per usual, working faster than my brain. I saw a man reading No Country for Old Men several stools down the coffee bar from me and couldn't resist telling him I thought the movie was better. It turned out the book's reader was the most attractive man in the room, if not all rooms. Meanwhile I was a sweaty post-workout mess. That was rare; I always gym-showered post-workout. And my coffee bar sit-down was rare; I'm a preorder-on-the-app type. But oddest of all was John "Middle Name" Jacobs's reaction to my unsolicited comment: he picked up his coffee and said, "Prove it."

I did, or at least I proved something, enough for John to suggest we keep the conversation going with a stroll to a second spot: a bookstore with a wine bar, the right kind of cheeky. It was one of the many gold flags I'd clocked, golds being the opposite of reds. There was the magnified blue of his eyes. The fact that he had some-but-thank-God-not-too-much product in his wavy hair. The way he tucked his corporate-ish shirt into his tight-ish jeans but knew adding a belt would have been one step too far, especially for a Saturday. And actual important stuff too, like how polite he was to the server who came by our table a bit too often and his responses to questions he asked me about my life while still sharing just enough about his own. That's why I decided it was time for me to share the four life-defining things-or the conversational thread I'd been using as first-date detective work for a decade.

"Fine," John said. "But if one of the four is that you're cats, not dogs, I'm out."

It was the kind of response I was always finger-crossing to hear: cute, but not in a condescending way-a Harrison Ford-character response.

"I'm dogs," I said. "And thing number one is that I will live in Italy someday."

John's eyebrows did a little rise-and-fall. It made me want to kiss him immediately. "Why's that?" he asked.

"First, I'm one hundred percent Italian on my mom's side. Second, if I could live inside a movie it would be Roman Holiday. But mostly because my nonna and pop once took my sister, Annie, and me there for an entire month. We stayed on Nonna's family farm outside Salerno, picked wine grapes every day, and made pasta every night, and I swore on the plane ride home that I'd live there someday."

"Noted. And approved," said John, then quickly, "Not that you need my approval." This guy is good.

"Moving on to number two," I said, sliding ever-so-slightly closer to John in the circular booth we were sharing. "If I had any real singing ability-and I do not-I would be a singer. Like drop-out-of-college-to-tour-shitty-bars-across-the-country style."

"But you said you work at a film festival. Why not in music?" John asked, demonstrating excellent listening skills.

"Too painful," I joked.

"Gotcha. So this second one is more a warning if you someday wake up from a coma with the voice of . . . ?"

"Kelly Clarkson," I said.

"Kelly Clarkson," John repeated, eyes honest-to-God twinkling. "All right, so far, I'm not running away. Gimme number three."

This was where the rubber usually met the man never calling me again.

"Three: I think extreme wealth is immoral. Or is it a-moral? I never remember."

"I think it's i-, not a-, and how rich are we talking?"

"Bezos, Musk, and Zucks, obviously. This hedge-fundy cousin Stew on my dad's side. Essentially people who've amassed more than they'll ever need and hoard it. That's one reason I love my job: we take money from big brands and use it to help small filmmakers."

"Interesting," John said. My mind rushed back to the details he'd shared so far: middle school math teacher hadn't screamed trust fund. Then a second stat flashed: hometown, Costa Mesa, California. Orange County. His parents probably owned a chain of luxury car dealerships and sat on the board of "the club." In that case, this was potentially the last moment John "Middle Name" Jacobs and I would share together. I considered smooching him before it was too late.

"Well, I spent seven years working for a hedge fund run by a guy like this cousin of yours before the market crashed," he started. "Probably seven years too long by your standards, but the whole thing was so gross that I went back to school to become a teacher."

"Oh good. Very good!" I said.

"Are these things of yours some kind of test?" John asked, wisely.

"Yes," I said, because I was too buzzed off sauvignon blanc and this man's pitch-perfect answers to lie. "Now, I want to issue a disclaimer for the fourth and final thing: it's about marriage, but don't read into it."

John leaned his very solid body in, squinted his baby blues, and said, "Try me." My heart actually fluttered in my chest. I'd always thought that was just an expression.

"Number four: I am superstitious about many things, but most important among them is heirloom jewelry. I don't like it. I don't trust it. So if someone was to propose to me with an heirloom engagement ring, I would say no."

"What's an heirloom engagement ring?" John asked.

"An antique ring you buy at a vintage jewelry store that was previously worn by an unknown woman in an unknown marriage."

"And what is there to be superstitious about?"

"Bad karma. I believe the ring carries the energy of the previous wearers' marriages."

"And then what? Gives it to you?"

"Exactly!" His quick grasp of the concept was reassuring.

"Okay, but why?" John asked.

"I'm...

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Verlag
Penguin Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593716051
ISBN 13 
9780593716052
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
320
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Verantwortliche Person
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