Driving With the Top Down Read online

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at:

  us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  To Paige Harbison, for helping immeasurably with this book and cheering me along.

  To Jack Harbison, who has shown great grace and maturity in the face of hardship.

  To my mother, Connie Atkins, for helping us all through everything, all the time—you are the most generous spirit I have ever known.

  And finally, this book is dedicated to the memory of the wonderful Matthew Shear. You will be forever missed, but your laughter lives on.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Charlie Ugaz, you’ll never know what your help has meant to me. Also all the little kindnesses—John will appreciate the flowers. Love, Long Legs ☺.

  Thanks to Mary Rast for coming back into my life with your calm, cool, collected self and hitting the road to NYC with me. We could have been in this book!

  Much gratitude to Cinda O’Brien for your friendship and generosity and the occasional dose of sanity, when needed.

  AFIL, I’ll always be your ADIL.

  Connie Jo Brown Gernhofer, you have been a lifesaver. One of these days we have got to go to this store I’ve heard about called T.J.Maxx.…

  Chandler, what fun times we’ve had! Our wine fest in Gettysburg was the best!

  Kim Nash Amori and Dana Carmel, even in the worst of times we are still our old selves, aren’t we? Thank God (and Colonel Kieffer) for you guys, the best of friends.

  Marianne Williams, this will probably surprise you, but you and your zest for life inspire me hugely.

  Jordan Lyon, thanks for bringing your bright light into our house and lives.

  Brian Hazel, thank you always for being such a great and positive friend—you are the bomb-diggity!

  Jennifer Enderlin, thank you for your patience and brilliant input.

  Annelise Robey, I am blessed to have you as an agent and a friend.

  Meg Ruley, do you know it’s been twenty-four years since Tina Isaak suggested you look at my manuscript? Thank you for taking me on!

  Jen Lancaster, you raise the bar—not just for writing but also in furniture rehab. God bless Annie Sloan! See you in rehab … which I picture as your workroom, with lots of wine and old furniture and paintbrushes.

  Quinn Cummings, I will never be as funny as you, and that makes me sad. But then I read your books and FB notes and they are funny, so that makes me happy. Quite the dichotomy. ☺

  Denise Whitaker, you’re the coolest long-lost cousin ever, and a great counselor as well!

  Thadious Brookheimer, we’ve certainly been through hell together. Thanks for being there for me.

  And Devynn Grubby, you’ve been a rock. A very witty rock. Thank you for bringing something wonderful into a difficult year—and welcome to the world, Miss Sadie Rose!

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Also by Beth Harbison

  About the Author

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  Once upon a time, there were three happy girls, all born into charmed, sunshiny, shampoo-commercial lives. If into each life a little rain must fall, for these three, it fell after midnight, and by morning—as in the song from Camelot—the fog had flown. Though their lives were different from one another’s and they lived in different towns, each enjoyed the best their world had to offer.

  Each one could have come from central casting.

  * * *

  THE PERFECT HOUSEWIFE and mother—pretty, blond, thirty-four-year-old Colleen—leans against the Carrara marble countertop in her pristine white kitchen, one hand on her still-twenty-eight-inch waist, the other holding the latest, thinnest iPhone to her ear.

  “Yes, let’s get together soon!” She idly runs a finger along the bubble-glass front of her new cabinets, the perfect way to show off her grandmother’s Spode Stafford Flowers china, the full set! “Maybe we can even do a little antiquing!” Laughter. A private joke. Their husbands always rib them good-naturedly about their antiquing trips. Their acquisitions were meant to stock Colleen’s shop, Junk and Disorderly, but Colleen always kept much more of the stuff she purchased and fixed up than she ended up selling on the showroom floor. “All right, Stephanie, I’ll see you on Thursday!”

  She hangs up, and just as the phone beeps off, the oven announces with a ding! that her neighborhood-famous pot roast is ready.

  “Piper!” she sings up the staircase.

  A moment later, a bedroom door scuffs open overhead, and Colleen’s daughter, Piper, flies from the room and down the steps, their golden retriever, Zuzu, trailing her ankles. “Is it time?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  Piper is sixteen now. Still a little lanky and not quite filled out. But seemingly before Colleen’s eyes, her nose has begun to thin out, she has lost her squeezable chipmunk cheeks, and beneath them, cheekbones have begun to appear. She pads into the kitchen in the knee-high tube socks she splurged on at American Apparel last week. Colleen doesn’t have the heart to tell her that tube socks didn’t always cost twenty-five dollars—they used to be tossed in with gym clothes and considered a truly dorky fashion item.

  Colleen takes the pot roast out, raises the temperature on the oven, and brings the KitchenAid mixing bowl over to her daughter. “Drop the cookies on the pan, not in your stomach. You can’t stay home from school tomorrow because of a cookie-making illness.”

  Piper raises her eyebrows innocently. “I’m not going to!”

  She gives Piper a knowing look. These battles, Colleen knows not to fight. They are life’s lessons, not hers to hand out. Piper would either be fine, or learn the hard way. She glances at the clock. Six forty-five. Kevin should be home any minute now.

  She gets the ice-cold beer mug from the freezer and then pops open a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. She hasn’t even finished pouring it—carefully down the inside of the mug, to avoid too much foam—when the front door opens and she hears the familiar sounds of her husband coming home.

  He might as well be Hugh Beaumont. Ward Cleaver.

  A moment later, he comes into sight and says, “There they are—how are my two favorite girls?”

  “Sup, Big D?” says Piper, holding up her hands in two mock gang signs, really sign language for “I love you.”

  “Whattup, lil’ P?” He gives an upward head nod at her. This is some inside joke of theirs, its origins a mystery to Colleen.

  Colleen looks at her husband. All these years, and she is still as in love with him as ever. Her heart pounds.

  A moment later, their son, Jay, comes in the back door. He is twelve. Still young enough to be c
alled adorable, but old enough to hate it.

  Jay puts down the basketball he has under his arm and comes into the kitchen, heat radiating off him from the last few hours he has spent playing basketball in the fading sun with his friends down the road.

  “Is dinner ready?” he asks. “I’m starving, but I need to take a shower first.”

  “Yeah, you smell like gym socks,” Piper agrees.

  “I’ll go take off this monkey suit and make sure he’s back down within five minutes.” Kevin heads up the stairs after his son. Colleen hears them talk upstairs in the hall, something about a football player being traded—could they believe it?

  Colleen takes a fingerful of dough, Piper does the same, and they pop each into their mouths, relishing the deliciousness of raw cookie dough and a happy childhood.

  She has the best family in the world.

  * * *

  IN A HOUSE an hour south, Tamara—Teenage Girl–Prom Queen Type—sits on a couch, her hand holding popcorn she hasn’t yet been able to shove in her mouth in the usual fashion, because she and her best friend are laughing too hard to even breathe.

  It doesn’t even matter what exactly they are laughing about. This is how it is with Tamara and Lily. Always laughing. Always having a joke.

  “Oh my God,” says Lily. “That … was … hilarious.” She catches her breath at last and glances at her phone, which illuminated for a moment like a firefly. She hits a button to read the screen. Her eyes go wide. “Oh my gosh.”

  “What?” asks Tam, finally eating the popcorn.

  “Mike and Ben are on their way here.”

  Tam almost spits the popcorn out. “No. Way. What?” She needs to put on makeup! Change out of her cat pj’s! Take her hair out of this lazy ponytail and make it more Victoria’s Secret!

  Lily’s eyes go wider. “I think Ben’s going to ask you to prom!”

  It’s Tam’s turn to go wide-eyed. Her heart pounds like a jackhammer. “No way! We have to go get pretty. Immediately!”

  They both fly from the couch with the kind of speed mustered only when two teenage girls find out their crushes are about to come over in the middle of the night—and they have about thirty seconds to get ready.

  Tam’s layered hair spits out of her ponytail spunkily, and she pulls the band out, her hair falling into haphazard waves of dark honey. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it was pretty good. She looked like herself. Felt like herself. If Ben didn’t like her for that, then he wasn’t the kind of guy she’d like anyway. That’s how her mother has raised her.

  Lily tries a little harder, putting on a little mascara and blush.

  “Don’t look like you’re trying too hard,” Tam cautions.

  “Easy for you to say—you always look perfect.”

  “That’s not true.” But Tam’s cheeks warm with pride at the idea.

  “Oh, please, name me one guy who doesn’t want to take you to prom this year.”

  Tam rolls her eyes. “I’m not going to sit here and name six hundred reasons my self-esteem should suck.”

  Lily give her an a-ha! look. “Because you can’t!”

  “Shut up.” But inside, Tam is on top of the world. Lily’s exaggerating her draw to the opposite sex, but if she’s one-tenth as attractive to Ben as Lily would have her believe, then she just might score the guy of her dreams.

  Lily’s phone goes off again, and they both squeal—and then cover their mouths not to be heard and wake Tamara’s sleeping parents.

  “They’re here!” announces Lily. “They say to meet them next door at the soccer field.”

  Whenever the two of them “sneak out,” this is where they go: a hill right next door at the elementary school, within screaming distance of not only her own protective parents, but about twelve other equally attentive and caring suburban moms and dads too. So it’s hardly a decadent escape. Sometimes they roll down the hill like little kids, or they lie back on a blanket and stare at the sky. They always have fun. One time, it even started raining, and they just ran around, laughing and getting drenched, not caring at all.

  They meet the boys on the hill. Ben is looking nervous by the distant yellow glare of the school’s outdoor halogen lights. With a butterfly flutter in her stomach, Tam notes his quick breath and the slight tremble in his voice.

  “So,” Tam says to him, hands clasped behind her back, “what’s up?”

  “Nothin’ much…” He runs a hand through his perfect brown hair, leaving it just messy enough. “Uh, so I kinda wanted to ask you somethin’.…”

  Prom. Lily was right. He’s going to ask her to the prom! She will have this memory, and the great memories to come, for the rest of her life. This is it—this is her life blooming into full color, like that scene in The Wizard of Oz when the house blows out of Kansas and into the Land of Oz.

  But this time? No witches.

  Just dresses and pictures and limos and dinner and dancing to a song they will always always always remember as their own.

  Her mom will take her dress shopping. She will help her do her makeup, working that cool two-color eye thing she was so good at. She’ll get Tam new shoes!

  She tries not to grin, biting her lip, responding with a go on nod.

  “I think you’re the prettiest girl in school, and I think you’re really smart and funny, and … I can’t imagine anyone that I’d like to go to prom with more. Would you … Would you wanna go with me?”

  Finally not able or needing to hold back the grin, she nods and says, “Yes!” She throws her arms around him and he responds with his own arms before they both pull away, and they have their first kiss. They stand in each other’s arms under the starry sky, and Tam thinks to herself: Everything is perfect. Everything is perfect.

  She is the happiest girl in the world.

  * * *

  MEANWHILE, DEEP IN Winnington, North Carolina, Wilhelmina Nolan Camalier (formerly “Bitty”—a nickname referring to her trim figure) is speaking on the dais at a DAR meeting, discussing her husband’s great-great-great-great-etc.-grandmother Rose Hampton and her brave acts during the Revolutionary War. Wilhelmina has made a study of the woman’s life and works, and thanks to her efforts, an elementary school has been named in Rose Hampton’s honor in the fine little town of Winnington.

  She finishes her speech and asks if there are any questions. Everyone is surprised when the question session goes on longer than the speech itself, leading to a lively chat with lots of laughter and fun sprinkled in.

  That’s what everyone says about Wilhelmina Camalier—that she is an engaging public speaker and positively gifted when it comes to interacting with people. In fact, she is in such demand on the DAR circuit, as well as at historical societies in North and South Carolina (and bordering states occasionally), that she says no more often than yes. She has to—she has a family to take care of.

  Family comes first.

  Always.

  She steps down from the podium and makes her way over to the table where her movie-star-handsome husband, Lew, waits for her.

  “You are amazing,” he whispers in her ear after kissing her cheek when she sits. He puts his hand on her shoulder and pulls her closer for a moment, heedless of the impropriety of sharing so intimate a gesture in public. “I can’t wait to get you home and into bed. We’re going to have a howler of a night, baby.”

  She feels her face flush and knows it looks good on her, because one of the many compliments her husband has given her over the years is how pretty she always is, whether she’s trying or not.

  Once, when they were watching It’s a Wonderful Life, he even commented that she cried pretty.

  “Lew!” she whispers now in mock scorn. “You know the kids are there, we’ve got to be careful.”

  “Pfft.” He waves the notion away and continues his own stage whisper. “We’ve got a babysitter and we’re in the nicest hotel in town. Let’s just hire her to stay over with the kids while we get reacquainted.”

  She chuckles softly. She’s he
ard this exact same proposition before. Frequently, in fact. “Didn’t we get reacquainted at the Hilton in Raleigh a few weeks ago?”

  “I can’t remember.” He kisses her cheek again, then moves his hand to give her thigh a subtle squeeze under the table. “Guess we’ll have to do it again. And again.”

  She can’t help but laugh. “Oh, Lew.”

  “Come on, baby.” He takes out the phone and pushes speed dial, then hands it to her. “See if the sitter can stay over.”

  Giving him a mock frown, she takes the phone and puts it to her ear, getting up and stepping outside the room to talk in the hall. A small voice answers. Lew Junior. Lewie. “Hi, sweetheart!” she says, her heart filling with a warm, familiar pride.

  “Hi, Mommy!” He’s eight. She wonders how long he will continue to be so happy to hear her voice.

  “Whatcha doin’?” she asks, lingering in the moment.

  “Lara and I are playing Monopoly with Miss Wendy. We both keep winning!”

  She speaks for another moment to Lewie, then to Lara, who is every bit as happy with the evening’s events as Lewie is; then she asks to speak with Miss Wendy, who happily agrees to stay the night. The guest room of the large Camalier ancestral estate is very comfortable, so she says she’ll welcome the chance to do her back the favor.

  Bitty thanks her and goes back to the dinner, trying to arrange her features into an expression of mock disappointment.

  Lew sees right through her. He knows her so well, she can never fool him, she can’t even hide Christmas presents from him; she always asks the maid to do it so she doesn’t know where they are either.

  “We’re on,” he says. A statement not a question. He takes her hand in his. “Let’s blow this popsicle stand. I have a wife to adore.”

  She is the luckiest woman in the world.

  * * *

  THREE STELLAR EXAMPLES of the female sex. Three perfect lives. The ones they’d always envisioned for themselves, manifested like magic from their childhood hopes and dreams.

  Three certainly happily-ever-afters.

  Unfortunately, these are not the lives any of them really ended up with.

  CHAPTER ONE