It Had to Be You, Georgia Clark [phonics reader TXT] 📗

him with her New Yorker tote bag and screaming she had syphilis (a lie). Even her own cheating husband’s funeral was something Liv Goldenhorn had been determined to get through.

But standing by Eliot’s casket, she was realizing that Liv Goldenhorn was just an idea of a person. And ideas about people could change.

More words were said. The casket was lowered. Handfuls of soil were tossed on the polished wood. And just like that, it was over. The mourners started drifting toward the street. There was a lightness in their voices and shoulders. Their brush with mortality was over; life was back to normal. Liv’s entire world had been obliterated in just one week—her routine, her sense of safety, her livelihood, all snatched away. There was no more normal.

She wrapped both arms around her son, holding him as he finally broke down and cried. Ben was eight but looked younger. His features were fine and expensive-looking, like a porcelain dinner set viewed behind glass.

“I’m here, baby,” she whispered over and over again. “I’m here. I’ll always be here.”

It was the sort of lie done out of kindness.

She held her only child until he quieted, smoothing his dark hair off his fevered face. Her miracle baby. The baby who defied all odds. Conceiving Ben was supposed to have been the great challenge of her life. The absolute hardest thing. And then Eliot died, and four years of IVF seemed like a relaxing holiday.

Liv’s mother must’ve seen something off in her face because she took her grandson’s hand and said something about meeting them by the car—C’mon Benny, let’s give Mom a moment—then they were gone.

Liv stood at the cemetery gates, wondering if she was going to cry but instead feeling an endless absence of everything. A feeling without a horizon.

She didn’t know where to put her hands. What time it was. What had just happened.

A week ago, she was married.

A week ago, everything was predictable.

For better, or for worse.

Eight days later, Liv was hauling a bag of mindlessly purchased groceries from the trunk of her car when someone behind her tentatively spoke her name.

Liv’s instinct was to ignore them. She did not need yet another pity lasagna. But the safety of her brownstone was half a block away.

A young woman stood on the sidewalk. She appeared both apologetic and, oddly, optimistic.

Liv squinted, momentarily mesmerized by the woman’s flawlessly heat-styled doll-blond curls. Liv hadn’t washed her own hair in over a week.

The girl was talking to her. First pointing to the brownstone, where Liv intimated she’d been waiting, then saying something about being sorry for your loss. She was slathered in so much makeup she looked like a frosted cake. Through layers of lip gloss, she spoke the slippery syllables of her name. With a Southern lilt.

The realization of who this person was cut into Liv’s mind so fast she almost dropped the groceries. It was like realizing that the dark shape in the water wasn’t a rock. It was a shark.

Liv’s heart started beating fast, roaring blood into her ears.

Now she was saying something about emails: “… didn’t reply to my emails or voice mails. I’ve already come by twice.”

Between them, a thick white envelope. The girl’s hand was steady as she offered it. Her fingernails were painted translucent pink.

Liv let the groceries fall to the sidewalk. Her fingers felt as thick as sausages as she ripped open the envelope and unfolded a sheaf of good linen paper.

It was a copy of Eliot’s will. They’d both written wills after their son was born; Liv hadn’t returned her lawyer’s recent calls because she knew Eliot had left everything important to her, and Ben. But this will appeared to have been updated. Three weeks ago. Liv tried to scan the tight black font. She recognized her name. Eliot’s name. And, another name with slippery syllables.

She refocused on the girl. There was a pimple near the corner of her mouth, expertly concealed with foundation.

“What,” Liv said, “does all this mean?”

Savannah Shipley’s glossy lips pulled into a smile. “It means that… well, Mrs. Goldenhorn, I guess you’re looking at your new business partner.”

It was such a ludicrous statement, Liv couldn’t get her head around it. The girl’s smile turned hopeful. She appeared poreless, like a balloon. Liv imagined popping her. The way she’d whip around midair, deflating, before landing in a soft, spent heap on the concrete.

“That is impossible.” Liv handed back the will. “There is no more In Love in New York.”

The girl’s eyes widened. Of course they were the color of the Mediterranean. Of course they were. “But the will says—”

Liv grabbed the groceries and slammed the trunk, obliterating her words. She hurried across the street and up the brownstone’s steps, retreating into the safety of her house and its locked front door.

Liv’s hands were shaking as she glugged white wine into a glass, hoping to erase the last few minutes from her memory. Praying she’d never see or hear from that girl ever again.

PART ONE

IN LOVE IN THE CATSKILLS

1

THREE MONTHS LATER

The first day of Savannah Shipley’s new life dawned cloudless, as if there was absolutely nothing standing in her way. The scrubbed-clean March sun that blasted the cold streets of Brooklyn seemed bold and ready to work.

At first, Savannah was stunned that Eliot Goldenhorn had left her half his business. Yes, she’d interned at An Event to Remember, Lexington’s most popular event-planning company, for two whole years. She’d met Eliot six months before he died, when she volunteered to give the consultant from New York City a tour. Knowing his line of work, she’d gushed about how much she adored weddings—the way they brought people together, the beauty of tradition. Eliot wasn’t the most attractive man she’d ever met, but he hummed with magical, big-city energy. Their conversations started in the office, graduated to dinner, and culminated in bed. The sex felt experimental on both their parts. He, “newly separated” (which she now knew