Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Praise for Sara Shepard
- Also by Sara Shepard
- Dedication
- PART ONE
- —
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- PART TWO
- Piper
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Piper
- Eighteen
- Piper
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Piper
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Piper
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Piper
- Thirty-Four
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Then her phone rang, and she turned. Mom, read the screen. Andrea ran her tongue over her teeth, then checked the clock. No polite East Coaster would ever call the West Coast at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time, but her mother seemed to have an uncanny knack of knowing Andrea’s circadian rhythms. She took a deep breath before answering.
“Hi,” she said, tucking the phone between her ear and shoulder. “Everything okay?”
“Oh. Hello.” Cynthia Vandermeer, tight and sour. This was a knee-jerk response to the way Andrea’s voice had modulated into something more feminine now that she was living as a woman. I don’t like your new lady voice, Cynthia had said once. You sound like a cartoon character.
“What’s that awful sound in the background?” Cynthia asked. “Are you in a pool hall?”
Like her silver-spoon mother had ever been to a pool hall. Andrea gazed across the room. The Power Rangers were in a heated battle. “It’s just a kid’s show. We’re at home.”
“Why are you awake at such an ungodly hour? Don’t tell me you’ve found a job.”
“Well, I have a job, thanks.” Andrea fiddled with a loose thread on a tea towel hanging over the oven handle. Ten seconds in, and Cynthia had already managed to get in so many digs. “I’m trying to get Arthur on a schedule. He officially starts school tomorrow, and they start early.”
“Oh. Right. How’s that going?”
“Good! I mean, we only had a getting-to-know-you day so far, but he really liked it.”
“And you aren’t attracting any attention?”
Andrea stared out at the horizon for a moment’s peace. When she was young, she occasionally caught Cynthia watching her, one eyebrow raised, an unasked question on her lips . . . but she’d never ask it. Then again, Andrea’s family wasn’t an introspective bunch. Were any wealthy, WASPy families? Of course, Andrea’s family was wealthier and WASPier than most—her father was a New York real estate scion, in the leagues with Robert Durst or a man he postured to know better than he actually did, Donald Trump. Andrea had grown up with anything a boy could want: lessons of all kinds, camps of one’s dreams, vacation homes, ski trips, a rotating cast of nannies. Her older brother, Max, soaked it up—even now, in the tabloids, he’d developed the reputation as a sort of a rich-boy James Bond, always heli-skiing and flying prop planes and dating supermodels.