Grace Grows
Praise for
Grace Grows
‘I loved this novel, and not just because of the dogs.
Grace Grows
is enormously fun and tender, a new take on the whole opposites attract approach to love . . . and sex.’—
Julie Klam,
New York Times
bestselling author of
You Had Me At Woof
‘Grace Grows is a funny and romantic page-turner with a swoon-worthy hero and a wonderfully down-to-earth heroine. A great read, and original songs are a cool bonus!’—
Melissa de la Cruz,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Blue Bloods
and
Witches of East End
‘Grace Barnum is a charming and relatable character torn between playing it safe and going for it. You’ll find yourself smiling and swooning as you fly through Sumners’ witty, honest and delightful novel about taking a chance on love . . .’—
Elisabeth Robinson, author of
The True and Outstanding
Adventures of The Hunt Sisters
‘Shelle Sumners’ sparkling debut novel is romantic, funny and wise. You will root for Grace Barnum as she lets go, takes a chance and falls in love. You will swoon as a troubadour wins her heart the old fashioned way, through poetry and persistence . . . and to think he’s from the Poconos. You just never know.’—
Adriana Trigiani,
New York Times
best-selling author of the
Viola
series and
The Shoemaker’s Wife
‘The story’s focus on its frustratingly stubborn heroine, her well-developed family ties, and the confusing dance between longing heart and shuttered psyche creates a slow yet satisfying, engaging quality that keeps the pages turning.’—
Publishers Weekly
First published in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin in 2013
First published in the United States in 2012 by St Martin’s Press
Copyright © Shelle Sumners 2012
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian
Copyright Act 1968
(the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.
Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: [email protected]
Web:
www.allenandunwin.com
Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au
ISBN 978 1 74331 392 3
Cover design: Lisa White
Cover illustrations: Lisa White and James Gulliver Hancock
Printed and bound in Australia by Griffin Press
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
for my husband and daughter,
who take me to love school every day
HOW TYLER WILKIE WRECKED MY LIFE
and what I thought I’d do about it
an exploratory memoir
Because you’re going about your life—you get up, brush your teeth, spill your coffee, go to work. Then one day everything changes. And how are you supposed to make sense of it all?
Contents
day zero: my unravelment begins
(unravelment:
is that a word?)
The first time I met Tyler Wilkie, I was dressed like a call girl.
By pure, titillating coincidence, my strategy for work that day was cleavage. The big guns. Or, in my case, the medium, B-verging-on-C ones. Because yesterday, having dressed like a Mennonite librarian for our meeting with the textbook lobbyists from Texas, I’d sat there mute and limp while imagination was besieged by the powers of ignorance.
Forbes and Delilah Webber loved my blouse with the Peter Pan collar. Delilah called me “the sweetest little thing” and “precious.” They promised to recommend our middle school
Teen Health
textbook for statewide adoption if we agreed to:
a) Remove all information regarding condoms.
and
b) Change the word
imagine
to
suppose
.
Imagine
being “too like the word
magic
—it might upset some people.”
They also asked us to get them orchestra seats to
The Lion King
.
After the meeting, I begged my boss to refuse the Webbers. My traitorous coeditor Edward, who happens to be from Texas, capitulated and offered to do the edits, reminding me that we “don’t mess with Texas” and its four-hundred-million-dollar book-buying budget.
We were meeting with the Webbers again today, to show them the changes. I didn’t know what I could do to stop the anti-imagine machine. I had tried to come up with a plan all the sleepless night, and I had nothing. This ship was going to sink, but I decided that I, their “sweetest little thing,” could at least try to look taller going down. I could project confidence and strength. Defiance. Sex. A tall, cruel, European dominatrix vibe.
It was so not me.
I donned the black pin-striped suit my mother gave me for Christmas two years ago, which I have worn exactly once. To a funeral. Only I hiked the skirt up a couple inches and wore my push-up bra. Found an ancient pair of stockings in the back of my drawer. Then I squeezed into the black, four-inch-stiletto-heeled, pointy-toed shoes I bought on sale at Lord & Taylor to go with the suit. I pulled my hair into a low, severe knot, and put on mascara and lipstick. Red.
I pulled on my raincoat and grabbed an umbrella, my laptop, and the twenty-pound green leather shoulder bag that contained All I Might Conceivably Need, which might include (but was not limited to):
keys
wallet
cell
agenda
lip balm
hairbrush
hair band
big hair clip
tissues
book (
Lolita
, it happened)
iPod
bottle of water
bag of raw cashews
70% dark chocolate bar
apple
black pen
red pencil
black Sharpie
red cardigan sweater
tacky vinyl zipper bag with photo of fuzzy kitten on it,
stocked with:
various-sized Band-Aids
small tube of antibiotic ointment
antihistamine and antidiarrheal tablets
Tylenol
Tylenol with caffeine
Tylenol with codeine
Advil
nail file
tampons
water lily oil
hand lotion
travel-size Shower Fresh Secret
and:
tea light and matches
mini-flashlight
tiny fold-up scissors with needle and black thread
ginger tea bags
earplugs
pocket copy of Strunk and White’s
The Elements of Style
, for grammatical emergencies (memorized, but sometimes a tired mind becomes uncertain)
Oh, and one more thing: the silver pocket angel Edward gave me, wedged deep into a rip in the lining of the bag.
Thus aggressively attired and equipped for any eventuality, I headed down the three flights of stairs to the lobby.
Big dogs, barking.
I came around the last bend in the stairwell and saw them—our across-the-hall-neighbor Sylvia’s prize-winning giant schnauzers—tugging at a guy who sat at the bottom of the steps with their sparkly leashes wrapped around his hand. He heard me coming and moved to one side, murmuring “sorry,” as I stepped carefully around him.
When I reached the door, God help me, I looked back. Might as well have gone ahead and turned to salt.
He was rubbing his face.
“Everything okay?” I chirped, willing him to say yes so I could go. The dogs shifted their Batman-like ears toward me.
“Uh, not really. She left me a note.” He spoke with a slightly countryish kind of drawl that reminded me, unpleasantly, of the Webbers. “Blitzen and uh . . . Bismarck here have just been groomed for a show and I’m not supposed to get their feet wet.”
Clearly Sylvia was even more insane than I had suspected. And the guy looked pathetically bleak.