Verwandte Artikel zu Between You and Me: A Novel

Between You and Me: A Novel - Hardcover

McLaughlin, Emma; Kraus, Nicola

 
9781439188187: Between You and Me: A Novel
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 1439188181 ISBN 13: 9781439188187
Verlag: Atria Books, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

From the authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Nanny Diaries comes a new novel that takes readers behind the scenes of stratospheric celebrity—what it means to be worshipped by millions and still feel loved by none.

What happens when you are followed by millions . . . and loved by none?

Twenty-seven-year-old Logan Wade is trying to build a life for herself far from her unhappy childhood in Oklahoma. Until she gets the call that her famous cousin needs a new assistant— an offer she can’t refuse.

Logan hasn’t seen Kelsey in person since their parents separated them as kids; in the meantime, Kelsey Wade has grown into Fortune Magazine’s most powerful celebrity. But their reunion is quickly overshadowed by the toxic dynamic between Kelsey and her parents as Logan discovers that, beneath the glossy façade, the wounds that caused them to be wrenched apart so many years ago have insidiously warped into a show-stopping family business.

As Kelsey tries desperately to break away and grasp at a “real” life, beyond the influence of her parents and managers, she makes one catastrophic misstep after another, and Logan must question if their childhood has left them both too broken to succeed. Logan risks everything to hold on, but when Kelsey unravels in the most horribly public way, Logan finds that she will ultimately have to choose between rescuing the girl she has always protected . . . and saving herself.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus are the authors of The Nanny Diaries, which was made into a major motion picture, and three New York Times bestselling novels: Dedication, Citizen Girl, and Nanny Returns. They live in New York City.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter One

“Okay, we’re coming up on our final hill.” Sandra, my instructor, puffs into her microphone, reaching out from her bike to dim the spin room’s lights even further. “I know it’s crazy cold out there, folks.” She takes a jagged breath as she prepares to urge us on. “I know the sun’s not even up yet. But you are. And you’re here. And you’re going to make it—harder. Let’s make it harder! Give me a full turn to the right in . . . five, four, three, two, one . . . go, go, go!”

This was a huge mistake.

Reluctantly, I turn the dial and bear down with my heels, trying to shift the work to my hamstrings, trying to pull my focus up—up from the sizzling pain in my legs. But it goes to my eyebrows, behind which is a dull throbbing with a pointy wake, like a wine with full top notes and an acidic finish. Fucking bourbon. Fucking Jeff. I tug my towel off the handlebars, swiping my forehead to keep the sweat from stinging my eyes. How many drinks did I even have? One right when I got to the bar. One when he texted he was running late. One when he said he was getting on the subway. And one when I finally decided the subway ate him.

I grab my New York Sports Club water bottle, squeeze another Emergen-C-laced stream into my mouth, my eyes darting to my dark phone tauntingly resting above the resistance dial. Nothing—no word. I thought for sure he’d call around two with some implausible-slash-charming excuse. Or cut straight to leaning on my doorbell.

“And get ready to stand in . . . four, three, two—come on, up, up, up!”

I heave myself erect and immediately feel like cayenne pepper’s been dropped into my airways. I gasp, trying to focus on exhaling to clear the carbon and acid.

“We’re gonna hold it here. Just hold it here. Find the pace, find the rhythm, one, two, one, two.” She exhorts us to speed up. Or maybe just me. Maybe everyone else feels like they’re getting their hair shampooed. I glance around, taking in the expressions of agony and determination.

“I want you to give your all. Don’t hold back!” she shouts at us. “I want you to push yourselves to exhaustion!” As if I’m going home to sleep after this. As if this isn’t just the first in a long series of things I have to accomplish before I can crawl into bed tonight. The quarterly report, the teleconference with the Houston office, the projection spreadsheet, the second teleconference to recap the first. And dammit, finding five minutes to fix the smudge on my thumb because I ran to the bar instead of waiting for the polish to dry. Why didn’t I just buy the bottle at the salon? Whatever. But not whatever if Jeff’s coming tonight. He has to come tonight. Not coming to my party would be—he’s coming. I’ll just move my one o’clock back and grab a polish fix instead of lunch. My Power Bar backs into my throat. Probably expired. Fucking crazy Charlotte and her crazy fucking stale Power Bars. How my roommate can spend half her time carrying around that ratty Tiffany’s catalogue with the corners turned down, plotting her next purchase, and the other half at the dollar store buying translucent toilet paper I will never—I’d much rather use Charmin and eschew shopping in Midtown.

“Okay, guys, almost done. We’ve just got a last hill and then a one-minute sprint to the finish.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Seriously, I am going to puke expired Power Bar right over the handlebars. My legs are burning, my lungs are burning, my arms are going wobbly, I can’t, I can’t—

“Okay, guys, let’s see some joy!” Sandra adjusts the dial on her iPod. Two beats in, I sense everyone perk up. Kelsey Wade detonates out of the speakers, and heads begin to bob, set mouths murmur lyrics, legs speed up. “I’m unstoppable, unbreakable, unbendable. When you look at me my heart stops—unmendable.” I’m not thinking about my throbbing brow or my screaming shins or even Jeff Stone. Around me, women’s wheels whir as their thought bubbles inflate with ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, ex-bosses . . .

Sandra presses her microphone right to her lips. “What do you have left?” She lets the question hang, looking meaningfully at all of us before screaming, “Don’t hold anything back!” Her voice reverberates over Kelsey’s, echoing the essence of the song. “Give it all!” And we do. I turn the resistance dial farther, digging deep, letting the adrenaline carry me, the lyrics, the beat. “Can you do it? Can you?” We don’t know, but we’re trying, we’re trying, we’re trying—

“And . . . done,” Sandra says on the last beat. “Spin out your legs.” She scrolls to Kelsey’s latest ballad, and we all sit back, smile wearily at one another, and chug our water. My silenced phone lights up. Not Jeff. Los Angeles area code.

I guarantee no one else is listening to this song and getting a call from this number right now.

“Okay, bring your bike to a complete stop, and let’s stretch.”

No sooner does that call go to voicemail than my parents’ number sets the phone vibrating again. I hit ignore.

We finish cooling down, and I unlock my shoes and dismount, grabbing my bottle and towel. I hit play on the second message. “Happy birthday to you,” my mother sings. “Happy birthday, dear Logan . . . ” I can picture her, an inveterate early riser, sitting with her finger poking through the coiled cord of the ancient beige phone she refuses to replace. “Twenty-seven,” she adds after the song. “I cannot believe it. How did you get so old?” She laughs awkwardly. “I’m going to Babies R Us today—Helen’s daughter’s having her third,” she can’t help telling me, and I immediately feel bad. Bad that I’m not currently giving her grandchildren and bad that she can’t be more accepting of the life I’m building, one that will get me there eventually. God—and maybe Jeff—willing. “Anyway, call me when you get some free time.” She always says this. As if my bon-bon window is coming up in a few hours. “Tonight I’m helping out at the church, but I’ll be home by eight if you’re home.” On my birthday? “ ’Bye!”

Sandra notices the contraband phone at my ear and raises an eyebrow before ripping open the Velcro on her shoes. “It’s my birthday,” I explain. “I was using the wishes to keep me going.”

“Happy birthday! How old?”

“I’m heading into my night-cream years.”

She smiles as we both make our way to the door. “You looked fierce today.”

My eyes widen, and I laugh. “Oh, my God, Sandra, I was dy-ing. Dying. Like carry-me-out-on-a-stretcher dying.”

“Well, Wade.” She shrugs. “No one could tell.”

Skipping lunch continues my totally-wrong-call streak marking this auspicious day. How could I have known that my boss would forget to book a room for the teleconference, leaving our team of financial analysts to meet in the one with the relentless heater, which brings out the carpet’s Christmas-parties-of-yore aroma? That getting out of there for everyone would hinge on my having to prematurely share the spreadsheet I’m generating? Which, after tearing my bag down to the lining, I decided had evaporated,...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Atria Books
Erscheinungsdatum
2012
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1439188181
ISBN 13 
9781439188187
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar