Cover

Praise for

Life and Other Inconveniences

“Deeply touching, real and raw, but infused with the love and hope that make life possible, despite everything.”

—Abbi Waxman, author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

“Master storyteller Kristan Higgins deftly balances humor and heart in this latest tale of a young woman navigating her relationship with a dying grandmother who long ago abandoned her when she needed her most. . . . Another must-read from Higgins, who has long been an auto-buy for me.”

—Colleen Oakley, author of Close Enough to Touch and You Were There Too

“Higgins is a mastermind of family dynamics in this poignant novel about two different generations of women struggling to find common ground. I couldn’t put it down!”

—Emily Liebert, author of Some Women and Pretty Revenge

“Higgins brings hope and humor to intensely personal dramas and makes them everyone’s story.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr

“Readers will be riveted as the well-drawn characters uncover one another’s hidden depths and heal old wounds.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Praise for

Good Luck with That

“Masterfully told, Good Luck with That is a story with which every woman will identify. We all deal with body image, self-esteem and acceptance of love at one time or another. Bravo, Kristan Higgins, bravo!”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Kristan Higgins is at the top of her game, stirring the emotions of every woman with the poignant reality of her characters.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr

“Wholly original and heartfelt, written with grace and sensitivity, Good Luck with That is an irresistible tale of love, friendship and self-acceptance—and the way body image can sabotage all three.”

—Lori Nelson Spielman, New York Times bestselling author of The Life List

“I LOVED Good Luck with That! It’s hilarious, heartbreaking, surprising and so true to life.”

—Nancy Thayer, New York Times bestselling author of A Nantucket Wedding

“Higgins writes with her trademark heart, humor and emotion, addressing the serious and somber subject of body image. . . . Highly recommended.”

—Library Journal (starred review)

BOOKS BY KRISTAN HIGGINS

If You Only Knew

On Second Thought

Good Luck with That

Life and Other Inconveniences

Always the Last to Know

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Huntley Fitzpatrick,

strong and kind, brilliant and fierce.

I am so very, very glad to be your friend.

Acknowledgments

At Berkley, my profound gratitude to my brilliant editor, Claire Zion, for her keen eye and big heart, and to the rest of the brilliant Berkley team: Ivan, Christine, Jeanne-Marie, Craig, Erin, Diana, Bridget, Jin, Angela, Anthony and every single person in art, sales and marketing.

To my agent, Maria Carvainis, who has shaped my career with dedication, enthusiasm and an unwavering eye on the future, thank you, Madame.

Thank you to Mel Jolly, for always remembering what I forget and knowing what I don’t, and for being a lovely person in addition to all that. Thanks to my funny, smart, hardworking intern, Madison Terrill, for her innovation and insight these past two summers.

— —

I had no idea what this book was about until I slipped off to Cape Cod in the cold winter and hid for a month, just me, my laptop and my good dog. Thanks to the owner who rented her beautiful house to me; to Luther, the most loyal and sweetest dog, who kept me company and got me outside for walks every day; to Ivan of the Red Sox hat and gold tooth, who helped save a dolphin with me that blustery, cold day, and to the marine wildlife rescuers who actually knew what they were doing, and again to Ivan for driving Luther and me home, even though I was sopping wet and covered in sand.

— —

Thanks and love to my sister, Hilary Higgins Murray, who listens so well and showed me how to fix all the problems with one word—amputate. Who knew? She did!

To Laura Francis, my town’s first selectman, for helping me understand just how much there is to do in a small town;

To the folks at Gaylord Specialty Hospital, for the information they provided on stroke and brain injury;

To Stacia Bjarnason, for her time, insight, friendship and laughter;

To Jackie Decker, sister of my heart, for her insider information about painting and art;

To Terence Keenan, the love of my life and my best friend, all in one rather adorable package;

To Flannery and Declan, who are such remarkable, wonderful people and fill my heart with love every single day;

And thank you, readers, for the gift of your time.

CHAPTER ONE

Sadie

You’re engaged? Oh! Uh . . . huzzah!”

Yes. I had just said huzzah.

You know what? I couldn’t blame myself. Another engagement among the teachers of St. Catherine’s Catholic Elementary School in the Bronx. The fifth this year, and yes, I was counting.

I couldn’t look away from the diamond blinding me from the finger of Bridget Ennis. The stone was the size of a bumblebee, and my hypnotized eyes followed her hand as she waved it in excitement, telling the rest of us teachers—six women, one man—about how romantic, how unexpected, how thrilling it had been.

I had nothing against Bridget. I even liked her. I’d mentored her, because this was her first year teaching. She was twenty-three as of last week; I was ancient at thirty-two (or so it felt in teacher years). It had been raining diamond rings, and despite my having had bubbly hopes on my own last birthday, the fourth finger of my left hand remained buck naked.

Bridget was talking about save-the-date magnets and paper quality and color schemes and flower arrangements and the seventy-nine dresses she was already torn between. Another woman falling victim to wedding insanity. Bridget was the only child of wealthy parents. This did not bode well for me, her sort-of friend. Was it too late to distance myself? Please don’t ask me to be a bridesmaid. Please. Please. I am way too old for this shit.

“My daddy said whatever I want, and I want it to be perfect, you know?” Bridget looked at me, and I felt the cold trickle of dread. “Sadie, obviously I want you as a bridesmaid.” Her pure green eyes filled with happy tears.

Oh, the fuckery of it all.

“Of course!” I said. “Thank you! What an honor!” My cheek began to twitch as I smiled.

“And you, Nina! And you, Vanessa! And of course, Jay’s three sisters and my gals from Kappa Kappa Gamma. And my cousin, because she’s like a sister to me. Do you like violet? Or cornflower? Off the shoulder, I was thinking, but I think my dress might be off the shoulder and . . .” I stopped listening as she began speaking in tongues intelligible only to those addicted to Say Yes to the Dress.

This was not my first time around the bridesmaid block. Bridget’s would be my sixth stint, and I knew what was coming. Engagement party. Bridal shower. Dress shopping for Bridget. Dress shopping for me and the other eleventeen bridesmaids. A lingerie shower. A household goods shower. Meeting(s) of the families. Bachelorette weekend in some city that caters to large groups of drunken people—New Orleans or Vegas or Savannah, which meant a flight and hotel. Rehearsal dinner. The wedding itself. Brunch the next day. All with or without Alexander Mitchum, my boyfriend, who had not yet proposed, despite his references to a future together, his onetime question about if I’d think about changing my last name from Frost to Mitchum—“hypothetically,” he’d added—and the deliberate slowing of my footsteps whenever we passed Cartier on Fifth Avenue.

“You don’t have to say yes, idiot,” came a low voice next to me. Carter Demming, my best friend at St. Catherine’s.

“She’s sweet,” I murmured back.

“Oh, please. Let her sorority sisters be her bridesmaids. Show some dignity for your age.”

“I’m thirty-two.”

“Your most fertile years are behind you.”

“Thanks, Carter.”

“Miss Frost? I need you for a second,” Carter said loudly. “Mazel tov, sweetheart,” he added as Bridget brushed away more glittering tears.

We left Bridget’s cheery classroom and went to the now-empty teachers’ lounge, where we teachers discussed which kids we hated most and how to ruin their young lives (not really). Carter posted the occasional Legalize Marijuana sticker somewhere, just to torment our principal, the venerable and terrifying Sister Mary.

I was the art teacher here. No, I could not support myself on a teacher’s salary at a Catholic school in New York City, but more on that later. I loved teaching, though it hadn’t exactly been my dream. Just about every kid loved art. If I didn’t have the same stature as the “regular” teachers, I made up for it by being adored.

“So you’re thinking about marriage and why you’re still single,” said Carter, pulling out a chair and straddling it.

“Yep.” I sat down, too, the normal way, like a human and not a cowboy.

“So propose already.”

“What?”

“Propose marriage to your perfect boyfriend.”

“Meh.”

“Why should men have to do all the work? Do you know how hard it is to buy the perfect ring, pick the perfect moment and place, say the perfect words and still have it be a fucking surprise? It’s very hard.”

“You would know.” Carter had been married several times, twice to women, once to a man.

“Listen to your uncle Carter.”

“You’re not my uncle, unfortunately.”

“Some men need a shove toward the altar, honey. Shove him. Do you really want to go out into the Tinder world again?”

“Jesus, no.”

“Don’t become a statistic. Kids are getting married younger and younger these days. Your window is closing. Match and eHarmony worked fifteen years ago, but now they’re filled with criminals. As you well know.”

“He was a minor felon, and it wasn’t exactly listed in his profile. But yes, I see your point.”

Alexander (not a felon) and I had been dating for a couple of years. Ours had been the classic rom-com meet-cute. I turned around on a wine night with my friends and sloshed my cabernet onto his crisp white shirt. He laughed, asked for my number, and called a few days later. We’d been together ever since.

We had a marriage-worthy relationship by any measure. Maybe it was the distance factor—he was a traveling yacht salesman (someone had to do it)—so we weren’t bothered by the slings and arrows of daily life together. He was constant—we saw each other almost every weekend. He brought me presents from his travels—a silk scarf printed with palmetto leaves from the Florida Keys, or honey from Savannah. He’d met my parents, charmed my mother (not an easy task), chatted with my father and wasn’t in awe of my older sister, which was definitely a point in his favor. Alex had great stories about his clients, some of them celebrities, others just fabulously wealthy. He was, er . . . tidy, a quality that shouldn’t be undersold.

Alexander lived on the Upper East Side, which I tried not to hold against him. His apartment was impressive but soulless. Every time I stayed over, I felt like I was staying in a model home—a place that was interesting and tasteful, but not exactly homey. He’d bought it furnished. Some of his art came from HomeGoods, and since I’d been—correction, was still—an artist, that did make me wince.

Sex was great. He was good-looking—his hair a shade I called boarding school blond, which would get nearly white in the summer. His eyes were blue and already had the attractive crow’s-feet you’d expect for a guy who sold boats. In a nutshell, he looked like he’d stepped out of a J. Crew catalog, and why he was dating me, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. “You have no idea how hard it is to find a nice girl,” he said once, so I guess it was that.

But I wasn’t really a girl anymore, not like Bridget. Already past my prime fertility years, according to Uncle Carter, who did tend to know everything.

“Hello?” he said, scratching his wrist. “Sadie. You’re in vapor lock. Make a move.”

Another fair point. I’d been at St. Cath’s for eight years, painting on the side, living in a nine-hundred-square-foot apartment in Times Square, the armpit of Manhattan. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure. I could do it. We’re seeing each other tonight.”

“See? Written in the stars.” He winked at me. “Now, I have to go wash the grime from these little motherfuckers off me because I have a date. A sex date, I want you to know.”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Josh Foreman,” he said, referring to the security guard who worked at St. Cath’s.

“Please stop.”

“His hands are so soft. That smile. Plus, he screams like a wildcat in bed.”

“And . . . scene.” I brought my hands together, indicating cut. Carter grinned and left the teachers’ lounge.

More evidence of Alexander’s plans to marry me someday flashed through my head. Once he’d said, “Margaret’s a nice name for a girl, don’t you think? I wouldn’t mind a daughter named Margaret.” Another: “We should look at property on the Maine coast for a summer place. It’s so beautiful up there. And Portland has a great art scene.”

Maybe it was time for me to take action. Juliet, my sister, older by almost twelve years, enjoyed lecturing me on how I floated through life, in contrast to her color-coded, laminated lists for How to Be Perfect and Have Everything. (I jest, but not by much.)

It was just that when I pictured being married, it was never to Alexander.

The vision of a black-haired, dark-eyed boy standing in the gusty breeze came to mind. My own version of Jon Snow, clad in Carhartt instead of wolfskin.

But Noah and I had tried. Tried and failed, more than once, and that was a long time ago.

Carter was right. Why wait? Alexander and I had been together long enough, we had a good thing going, we both wanted kids (sort of, maybe). We weren’t getting any younger. I loved him, he loved me, we got along so well it was almost spooky.

Bridget’s bumblebee ring flashed in my mind. Call me shallow, but I wanted a big diamond, too. My materialism ended there. (Or not . . . Was it too soon to picture buying a brownstone in the Village? Alexander was loaded, after all. As for a wedding, we could elope. No color schemes or Pinterest boards necessary.)

He was due in around four, depending on traffic. Where was a romantic place in New York in January? It was freakishly mild today—thanks, global warming!—so maybe down on the Hudson as the sun set? The High Line was pretty, and I could go to Chelsea Market and buy some nice cheese and wine. We could watch the sunset and I’d just say it: “I love you. Marry me and make me the happiest woman on earth.” And the tourists and hipsters who frequented the High Line would applaud and take pictures and we’d probably go viral.

I imagined calling my dad tonight. He’d be so happy. Maybe we wouldn’t elope, because I wanted my father to walk me down the aisle. Fine. A small wedding, then. I’d wear a white dress that Carter could help me pick out. Brianna and Sloane could be my flower girls, even if they were a little old for that. I was their only aunt, so may as well. Plus, it would make my prickly mom happy.

Yes. I’d propose tonight, and enter the next phase of my life, where I was sure Alexander and I would be very, very content.

— —

As luck would have it, the temperature took a plunge, as weather in the Northeast is cruel and fickle. What had been sixty-two was the low forties by the time Alexander met me in front of the Standard, an odd-looking hotel that straddled the High Line. “God, it’s freezing,” he said as the wind blew through us. “I found a parking spot on Tenth, but I didn’t know it would be this cold.”

“Oh, it’s not so bad!” I said. I had a plan, and I was sticking to it. “Just brisk! The sunset will be gorgeous.” Or it wouldn’t. There was only one other couple who seemed to be sightseeing, everyone else hunched against the weather and hurrying to wherever New Yorkers hurry.

“Christ. I didn’t dress for this.” Alexander wore a brown leather jacket over a blue oxford shirt and bulky sweater, khakis and expensive leather shoes. I’d dressed to be beautiful—pretty black knit dress, hair in a ponytail (now being undone by the wind), the necklace he’d given me for Christmas and a cute red leather jacket that did nothing to keep me warm. Should’ve worn pants. And a parka.

“Well, come on,” I said. “We don’t have to stay too long. It’ll be fun.”

He followed me down the sidewalk, past clumps of grass and dead flower bushes. Come spring, this most elegant of New York’s parks would be filled with color and life, but as it was, it was a little, uh, barren.

Shit. Well, I’d make it quick. “Sunset’s in ten minutes,” I said.

“I’ll be dead by then.”

“I’ll revive your cold, hard corpse. Or at least give it a really strong attempt, then go into the Standard and drown my sorrows at the bar.”

He laughed, and my heart swelled a bit. He really was a good, kind person. Great husband material. Never too demanding, always cheerful . . . the opposite of Noah, which was probably no coincidence, and I shouldn’t be thinking of Noah, I reminded myself. I glanced at the other couple. Would they film us when I got down on one knee? Also, should I get down on one knee? These were my only black tights.

“I cannot believe you’re saying this!” Ah. They were fighting. Not a great sign.

I really wanted the light of the sunset to spill onto us, which it would in about six minutes. Being a painter who had once loved skyscapes, I was an expert on natural light. “How was your day, hon?” I asked, trying to kill time.

“Oh, fine,” he said, putting his arm around me. “Pretty sure I nailed down a sale to a hedge fund guy. He wants it made from scratch, of course.” He detailed the many requirements this guy had for his boat—private master deck, helipad, indoor garden, sauna, steam room and gym.

“So just a little wooden boat to paddle around in, then,” I said.

He smiled. “It’s a living. Are we about done, babe? I’m starving.”

“I bought cheese.” I pulled the block out of my bag. Shit. We’d have to bite right into it, since I didn’t have a knife.

“Hon. It’s forty degrees out here. Maybe thirty-five. It’s supposed to snow tonight.”

“It’s not so bad. See? That other couple’s brave. Plus, we’re Yankees. This is practically summer.”

He glanced at the other couple. “They have winter coats on.”

They did, both dressed in those down coats with patches that announced them as explorers of Antarctica. The woman crossed her puffy arms. “Are you shitting me, Dallas?” she practically yelled.

“Oh,” murmured Alexander. “Maybe this will be fun after all.”

“I never said I wanted to be exclusive! That was all in your head!” the unfortunately named Dallas answered.

“How many women have you been seeing, you cheating bastard? Belinda? Are you seeing that whore again?”

“She’s not a whore!”

“So that’s a yes! Jesus! We’re done, asshole. If I have an STD, I will slit your throat and burn your apartment to the ground.”

She stomped past us, cutting us a look. “Hi,” I said.

“Fuck you,” she snapped.

Alexander laughed. The cheater skulked past us, arms folded, head down against the wind.

“Okay, so that was fun,” Alexander said. “They do have the right idea about leaving, though. This cheese is almost frozen, and I don’t really see eating it here. What do you say, babe? Shall we go? Grab a drink somewhere with heat?”

Do or die. “Right. Okay.” Shit. We were sitting. I scrambled to my feet. “Um, can you stand up for a second?”

“About time. Do you want to go out for dinner?” The cold wind whipped his blond hair, and his ears were bright red.

“Just one thing first.” I looked into his eyes, which were watering a little from the wind. Just then, the sun slipped behind a bank of clouds that had come out of nowhere. So much for fiery skies burnishing the moment.

It didn’t matter. I loved him. He was rock solid, this guy, and we . . . we had such a good thing going. Before I changed my mind, I knelt down. Felt my tights catch on the rough surface of the walkway.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Alexander Mitchum, will you marry me and make me the happiest man—shit, I mean woman—alive?” The wind gusted again, blowing my hair into my face.

“Uh . . . what are you doing, Sadie?” His face was incredulous.

“I . . . I’m proposing.” My heart felt like the sun, abruptly swallowed in clouds. Do not make me go back on those dating websites, Alexander Mitchum.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to propose.”

“Okay! Sure. Go for it.” Thank God.

He laughed a little. “Well, babe . . . I’m not ready. There are things I need to have in place. A ring, for one.”

“We can get one later. Cartier is open till seven. Probably. Not that I checked.”

He laughed. “Well, I’d like to surprise you. When the time comes.”

“I’m down on one knee here, Alexander.”

“Get up, then! This is crazy.” He pulled me to my feet. I felt my tights tear. “You nut. It’s the man’s job to propose.”

Sexist, really. “It seemed like a good idea. I mean, we’ve been together two years. We’re the right age.” I forced a smile.

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