Starting from Scratch

Dear Reader,

Thank you for joining me on my newest adventure, which is a woman's journey into awareness. By the time most people enter their fifth decade of life, they usually figure that “This is it.” Their lives, for better or worse, are set. At forty-six, Elisha Reed knew there was no Prince Charming riding into her life, no children to raise. She was a high-powered editor working for a well-respected publishing house and felt her life was good.

And then her world gets turned upside down. Her brother dies and leaves her with his two daughters to raise. Suddenly, it's a whole new world, with new choices to make and new insecurities to face. Nothing is set in stone. As she struggles to find her way along this new path, Elisha discovers help and support from an unexpected quarter. She also finds that love takes on many shapes and wears many faces. And it's never too late to fall into it.

The main lesson here, for Elisha, for you and for me is that life isn't over until the very last breath is taken.

Thank you for being there and, as always, I wish you love.

Marie Ferrarella

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

CHAPTER 36

CHAPTER 37

CHAPTER 38

CHAPTER 39

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

CHAPTER 42

COMING NEXT MONTH

B
y her own inner clock, she was running late.

By everyone else's method of timekeeping, she was ahead of schedule. But Elisha Jane Reed had gotten to her present position of senior editor in the exclusive publishing firm of Randolph & Sons by following, to a good extent, Henry David Thoreau's advice about marching to a different drummer. She marched to that drummer, in double time, so that she could elude his other equally famous phrase, the one about most men leading lives of quiet desperation.

Because the line applied equally, perhaps even more truthfully, to women, as well.

Desperation, as contemplated by the late nonconformist, came to her only in the wee hours of the night, when everything bad was magnified by the shadows in the room and everything good was obscured behind the dust motes. It was then that she took stock of her life, measuring it by the old-fashioned standards that refused to die even in this day and age. The standards that had been laid down for all women since Eve had opted for a more extensive wardrobe than just her long hair and a random fig leaf. Namely, a husband and tiny miniature copies or combinations of herself and the man who had won her hand and her heart.

In that column, as far as her life went, was a very large zero. No children, no husband, not even an ex-husband buried beneath disparaging rhetoric. As far as she was concerned, marriage was the name of a mythical realm into which she had never traveled, never even been invited to tour.

Desperation of the more common garden variety existed for her by the truckload within the halls of Randolph & Sons. This more familiar desperation, coupled with exasperation, involved deadlines, temperamental and at times overpaid authors, not to mention the constant, daunting influx of market statistics, which, even when good, were never as good as Hayden Randolph, the seventy-five-year-old retired, but never-quite-out-of-sight, head of the publishing company, desired them to be.

The old man, as she secretly called the publishing magnate, was going to be there tonight, Elisha thought as she searched in vain for the mate to the diamond stud earring she'd wanted to wear to the party. He made it a point, despite the retirement party he'd authorized to be thrown for him last year, to have his finger in every pie that came out of the Randolph & Sons oven. He didn't seem to trust his own son to preside over the festivities despite his twenty-four years in the business. Tomorrow, Sinclair Jones's latest thriller,
Murder By Moonlight,
hit the bookstores. Tonight was the book's coming-out party.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Elisha coaxed in an impatient, singsong voice. No diamond stud appeared in reply.

The diamond studs were her lucky earrings and although she wasn't superstitious by nature, the one time she hadn't worn them to one of these affairs, the author's book had sold abysmally. She would take no chances. Someone had once told her that as an editor, you were only as good as your author's current book.

Carole Chambers would really love for her not to find her earrings, Elisha thought, taking the wide, rectangular jewelry box and dumping the contents out on the top of her bureau. Carole Chambers was the assistant that Hayden's son, Rockefeller, had saddled her with about six months ago. She remembered the day well. She thought of it as Black Monday.

“I want you to train her, Elisha. Make her a junior version of you. Not that I expect anyone to ever be as good as you,” he'd said to her in that light tenor voice. “But Dad wants this to happen. So it's either have you train Carole or we kidnap you in the dead of night, whisk you off to some mad scientist's laboratory and have them create several dozen clones in hopes that at least one will be enough like you to satisfy him.”

Smiling at the scenario he'd created, Rockefeller Randolph, Rocky to the select few who numbered among his friends, had raised and lowered his eyebrows and rubbed his hands together like the imaginary mad scientist's slightly madder assistant. She'd said yes because what choice did she have?

Elisha sighed in disgust and reached for one of the twelve pairs of reading glasses—all with slightly varying prescriptions—that she kept scattered throughout her penthouse apartment. She hated needing glasses. But where once she could have made out every single detail of every single piece of jewelry spread out on the honey-colored bureau, now entire pieces melded in a semicolorful glob. Colors were no longer as intense as they once were and letters had become black specks on a surface.

Getting older was the pits, she thought, putting the glasses on. She began sorting through the pieces.

Rocky would be at the party tonight, too. Probably sitting off in some corner of the room, communing with glass after glass of whatever wine they were going to be serving. Elisha shook her head. He always seemed to shrink to half his lanky size whenever he was in the same room as his father. Rocky was a very talented, sweet man, but he was considerably short on self-confidence, especially whenever his larger-than-life father was anywhere in the vicinity.

“Too bad the man can't stay retired,” Elisha murmured. A necklace had formed a threesome with a pair of her dangling earrings. She gave a halfhearted attempt at separating the pieces, then moved them aside. The tangled ensemble joined the realm of “projects to do” when she got half an hour of downtime. Which by her calculations should come into being around the next millennium.

Rocky had been the one who'd hired her twenty-four years ago. She'd begun as a proofreader for the company and later found out that hiring her had been Rocky's first official act for the company.

Because he enjoyed making his son jump through hoops, Hayden Randolph had almost unhired her the very next day in a fit of temper that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his wife's discovery of his latest mistress's existence. Rocky had mustered up his courage, intervened on her behalf and she was back on the payroll before she was ever actually removed. She remembered feeling as if she'd been standing up in the first car of a roller coaster as it took its first hill.

The memory came back to her in large, neon lights. She looked up into the oval mirror over the bureau. “God, was that really twenty-four years ago?” It didn't seem possible. “Almost a quarter of a century ago.”

Saying the words out loud created a sudden shiver that slid down her Donna Karan–clad back. A quarter of a century made her sound ancient.

A quarter of a century. She doubted Carole Chambers was much older than that.

Without realizing it, Elisha frowned. Carole made her think of Anne Baxter in
All About Eve.
Except that in the movie, Anne Baxter hadn't initially come across as devious. One look into Carole's baby-blue eyes had been all she'd needed to know that leaving her back exposed to the younger woman would be a fatal mistake. In another life, Elisha had no doubt, Carole Chambers had gotten from place to place by slithering on her belly.

“Finally!”

Feeling every bit as triumphant as a big-game hunter who had bagged his prey, she held up the diamond stud she'd finally located. Somehow, it had gotten hidden beneath a chunky gold bracelet. Her mood brightened considerably. She pushed her glasses on top of her head. All in all, she'd spent only a little more than ten minutes searching for the second stud. Not really that much time in the grand scheme of things.

Angling her head and watching herself in the mirror, Elisha fastened the second stud into place. A whimsical smile played on her lips.

“If only the other kind of stud was as easy to find.” She dropped her hands from her ear and stared at her image in the mirror. “I just said that out loud, didn't I?” She sighed, and shook her head. “God, I've got to get myself a pet so it at least I can pretend I'm talking to another life-form instead of just myself. They lock up people who talk to themselves constantly.”

Crossing back to her king-size bed, she slipped on the black pumps that she'd left there, then picked up her wrap. It was black, just like her dress. The thought occurred to her that perhaps she should have put on something more festive, but black was slimming and she needed that right now. Somehow or other, five pounds she neither knew or wanted had decided to make themselves at home on her body. It wasn't the first time. When she was younger, dieting was a matter of closing her eyes and loudly declaring, “Be gone.” That and a week of skipping lunches did the trick. Now, skipping food for a month wouldn't bring about the same results. Just acute hunger pangs that could only be dealt with with the massive influx of food.

She was going to have to exercise, Elisha thought. The notion did not make her feel all warm and fuzzy. She didn't like sweating. Besides, where would she find the time? She'd already used up her extra ten minutes for the month looking for her second stud.

Adjusting the wrap around her shoulders, Elisha slowly surveyed herself in the wardrobe mirror that ran from one end of the bedroom wall to the other. The wardrobe mirror gave the illusion that the bedroom was twice as large as it was. Luckily, it didn't have the same effect on her.

“Not bad,” she decided. “Maybe even elegant.”

The price tag that had been on the outfit was certainly elegant, but money had long since ceased to be an object. Her job paid very well, and her needs, other than a centrally located Manhattan apartment, were reasonable and few. She didn't even take long vacations to recharge anymore, the way she once had, because now it was work, not downtime, that recharged her batteries.

Besides, vacations somehow underscored the fact that there was no one in her life to share a sunset with since she and Garry had gone their separate ways. She to her work and he to the arms of some tight-skinned, nubile size four named Kelly. Kelly, it had turned out, was exactly the same chronological age as some of his ties.

Elisha picked up her clutch purse from the coffee table and took out her key. A bitter taste rose inside her mouth. It always did when she thought about Garry Smallwood.

There was a time, in the beginning, when she'd thought that she and Garry might wind up facing eternity together. But as time progressed, the fabric of that belief had begun to dissolve until it was completely gone. She'd given Garry seven of the best years of her life and he had given her a migraine headache—her first—that had lasted three days when he'd left.

That was six years ago.

“You're dwelling much too much in the past, 'Lise,” she berated herself. She glanced again at her reflection in the mirror. A corner of her mouth rose slightly. “Maybe that's because in the past, you had less skin.”

For a second, she was tempted, but then resisted. She wasn't going to get caught up in that, wasn't going to place her fingertips along her cheekbones and push up, ever so slightly, the way she'd once seen her mother do. Her mother had been contemplating a face-lift at the time. Her father had come up behind her, kissed the back of her neck and declared that she wasn't to change anything about the woman he loved.

Elisha sighed. They didn't make men like that anymore, men who loved you and your extra skin. And she had made her peace with that. She had a perfectly good life that a lot of people would kill for.

People like Carole Chambers.

If she didn't hurry, the little scheming witch would get there ahead of her, she thought.

Elisha quickly let herself out of her apartment. She left the light on.