Always the Last to Know Read online

  Praise for

  Life and Other Inconveniences

  “Deeply touching, real and raw, but infused with the love and hope that make life possible, despite everything.”

  —Abbi Waxman, author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

  “Master storyteller Kristan Higgins deftly balances humor and heart in this latest tale of a young woman navigating her relationship with a dying grandmother who long ago abandoned her when she needed her most. . . . Another must-read from Higgins, who has long been an auto-buy for me.”

  —Colleen Oakley, author of Close Enough to Touch and You Were There Too

  “Higgins is a mastermind of family dynamics in this poignant novel about two different generations of women struggling to find common ground. I couldn’t put it down!”

  —Emily Liebert, author of Some Women and Pretty Revenge

  “Higgins brings hope and humor to intensely personal dramas and makes them everyone’s story.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr

  “Readers will be riveted as the well-drawn characters uncover one another’s hidden depths and heal old wounds.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  Praise for

  Good Luck with That

  “Masterfully told, Good Luck with That is a story with which every woman will identify. We all deal with body image, self-esteem and acceptance of love at one time or another. Bravo, Kristan Higgins, bravo!”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

  “Kristan Higgins is at the top of her game, stirring the emotions of every woman with the poignant reality of her characters.”

  —#1 New York Times bestselling author Robyn Carr

  “Wholly original and heartfelt, written with grace and sensitivity, Good Luck with That is an irresistible tale of love, friendship and self-acceptance—and the way body image can sabotage all three.”

  —Lori Nelson Spielman, New York Times bestselling author of The Life List

  “I LOVED Good Luck with That! It’s hilarious, heartbreaking, surprising and so true to life.”

  —Nancy Thayer, New York Times bestselling author of A Nantucket Wedding

  “Higgins writes with her trademark heart, humor and emotion, addressing the serious and somber subject of body image. . . . Highly recommended.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  BOOKS BY KRISTAN HIGGINS

  If You Only Knew

  On Second Thought

  Good Luck with That

  Life and Other Inconveniences

  Always the Last to Know

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  penguinrandomhouse.com

  Copyright © 2020 by Kristan Higgins

  Readers Guide copyright © 2020 by Kristan Higgins

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Higgins, Kristan, author.

  Title: Always the last to know / Kristan Higgins.

  Description: First edition. | New York: Berkley, 2020.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019050000 (print) | LCCN 2019050001 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593199855 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780451489456 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780451489463 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Domestic fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3608.I3657 A79 2020 (print) | LCC PS3608.I3657 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050000

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019050001

  Berkley hardcover edition / June 2020

  Berkley trade paperback edition / June 2020

  Cover image by Cristina Velina Ion / Arcangel

  Cover design by Anthony Ramondo and Emily Osborne

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  pid_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Praise for Kristan Higgins

  Books by Kristan Higgins

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Epilogue

  Readers Guide

  About the Author

  This book is dedicated to Huntley Fitzpatrick,

  strong and kind, brilliant and fierce.

  I am so very, very glad to be your friend.

  Acknowledgments

  At Berkley, my profound gratitude to my brilliant editor, Claire Zion, for her keen eye and big heart, and to the rest of the brilliant Berkley team: Ivan, Christine, Jeanne-Marie, Craig, Erin, Diana, Bridget, Jin, Angela, Anthony and every single person in art, sales and marketing.

  To my agent, Maria Carvainis, who has shaped my career with dedication, enthusiasm and an unwavering eye on the future, thank you, Madame.

  Thank you to Mel Jolly, for always remembering what I forget and knowing what I don’t, and for being a lovely person in addition to all that. Thanks to my funny, smart, hardworking intern, Madison Terrill, for her innovation and insight these past two summers.

  * * *

  — —

  I had no idea what this book was about until I slipped off to Cape Cod in the cold winter and hid for a mon
th, just me, my laptop and my good dog. Thanks to the owner who rented her beautiful house to me; to Luther, the most loyal and sweetest dog, who kept me company and got me outside for walks every day; to Ivan of the Red Sox hat and gold tooth, who helped save a dolphin with me that blustery, cold day, and to the marine wildlife rescuers who actually knew what they were doing, and again to Ivan for driving Luther and me home, even though I was sopping wet and covered in sand.

  * * *

  — —

  Thanks and love to my sister, Hilary Higgins Murray, who listens so well and showed me how to fix all the problems with one word—amputate. Who knew? She did!

  To Laura Francis, my town’s first selectman, for helping me understand just how much there is to do in a small town;

  To the folks at Gaylord Specialty Hospital, for the information they provided on stroke and brain injury;

  To Stacia Bjarnason, for her time, insight, friendship and laughter;

  To Jackie Decker, sister of my heart, for her insider information about painting and art;

  To Terence Keenan, the love of my life and my best friend, all in one rather adorable package;

  To Flannery and Declan, who are such remarkable, wonderful people and fill my heart with love every single day;

  And thank you, readers, for the gift of your time.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sadie

  You’re engaged? Oh! Uh . . . huzzah!”

  Yes. I had just said huzzah.

  You know what? I couldn’t blame myself. Another engagement among the teachers of St. Catherine’s Catholic Elementary School in the Bronx. The fifth this year, and yes, I was counting.

  I couldn’t look away from the diamond blinding me from the finger of Bridget Ennis. The stone was the size of a bumblebee, and my hypnotized eyes followed her hand as she waved it in excitement, telling the rest of us teachers—six women, one man—about how romantic, how unexpected, how thrilling it had been.

  I had nothing against Bridget. I even liked her. I’d mentored her, because this was her first year teaching. She was twenty-three as of last week; I was ancient at thirty-two (or so it felt in teacher years). It had been raining diamond rings, and despite my having had bubbly hopes on my own last birthday, the fourth finger of my left hand remained buck naked.

  Bridget was talking about save-the-date magnets and paper quality and color schemes and flower arrangements and the seventy-nine dresses she was already torn between. Another woman falling victim to wedding insanity. Bridget was the only child of wealthy parents. This did not bode well for me, her sort-of friend. Was it too late to distance myself? Please don’t ask me to be a bridesmaid. Please. Please. I am way too old for this shit.

  “My daddy said whatever I want, and I want it to be perfect, you know?” Bridget looked at me, and I felt the cold trickle of dread. “Sadie, obviously I want you as a bridesmaid.” Her pure green eyes filled with happy tears.

  Oh, the fuckery of it all.

  “Of course!” I said. “Thank you! What an honor!” My cheek began to twitch as I smiled.

  “And you, Nina! And you, Vanessa! And of course, Jay’s three sisters and my gals from Kappa Kappa Gamma. And my cousin, because she’s like a sister to me. Do you like violet? Or cornflower? Off the shoulder, I was thinking, but I think my dress might be off the shoulder and . . .” I stopped listening as she began speaking in tongues intelligible only to those addicted to Say Yes to the Dress.

  This was not my first time around the bridesmaid block. Bridget’s would be my sixth stint, and I knew what was coming. Engagement party. Bridal shower. Dress shopping for Bridget. Dress shopping for me and the other eleventeen bridesmaids. A lingerie shower. A household goods shower. Meeting(s) of the families. Bachelorette weekend in some city that caters to large groups of drunken people—New Orleans or Vegas or Savannah, which meant a flight and hotel. Rehearsal dinner. The wedding itself. Brunch the next day. All with or without Alexander Mitchum, my boyfriend, who had not yet proposed, despite his references to a future together, his onetime question about if I’d think about changing my last name from Frost to Mitchum—“hypothetically,” he’d added—and the deliberate slowing of my footsteps whenever we passed Cartier on Fifth Avenue.

  “You don’t have to say yes, idiot,” came a low voice next to me. Carter Demming, my best friend at St. Catherine’s.

  “She’s sweet,” I murmured back.

  “Oh, please. Let her sorority sisters be her bridesmaids. Show some dignity for your age.”

  “I’m thirty-two.”

  “Your most fertile years are behind you.”

  “Thanks, Carter.”

  “Miss Frost? I need you for a second,” Carter said loudly. “Mazel tov, sweetheart,” he added as Bridget brushed away more glittering tears.

  We left Bridget’s cheery classroom and went to the now-empty teachers’ lounge, where we teachers discussed which kids we hated most and how to ruin their young lives (not really). Carter posted the occasional Legalize Marijuana sticker somewhere, just to torment our principal, the venerable and terrifying Sister Mary.

  I was the art teacher here. No, I could not support myself on a teacher’s salary at a Catholic school in New York City, but more on that later. I loved teaching, though it hadn’t exactly been my dream. Just about every kid loved art. If I didn’t have the same stature as the “regular” teachers, I made up for it by being adored.

  “So you’re thinking about marriage and why you’re still single,” said Carter, pulling out a chair and straddling it.

  “Yep.” I sat down, too, the normal way, like a human and not a cowboy.

  “So propose already.”

  “What?”

  “Propose marriage to your perfect boyfriend.”

  “Meh.”

  “Why should men have to do all the work? Do you know how hard it is to buy the perfect ring, pick the perfect moment and place, say the perfect words and still have it be a fucking surprise? It’s very hard.”

  “You would know.” Carter had been married several times, twice to women, once to a man.

  “Listen to your uncle Carter.”

  “You’re not my uncle, unfortunately.”

  “Some men need a shove toward the altar, honey. Shove him. Do you really want to go out into the Tinder world again?”

  “Jesus, no.”

  “Don’t become a statistic. Kids are getting married younger and younger these days. Your window is closing. Match and eHarmony worked fifteen years ago, but now they’re filled with criminals. As you well know.”

  “He was a minor felon, and it wasn’t exactly listed in his profile. But yes, I see your point.”

  Alexander (not a felon) and I had been dating for a couple of years. Ours had been the classic rom-com meet-cute. I turned around on a wine night with my friends and sloshed my cabernet onto his crisp white shirt. He laughed, asked for my number, and called a few days later. We’d been together ever since.

  We had a marriage-worthy relationship by any measure. Maybe it was the distance factor—he was a traveling yacht salesman (someone had to do it)—so we weren’t bothered by the slings and arrows of daily life together. He was constant—we saw each other almost every weekend. He brought me presents from his travels—a silk scarf printed with palmetto leaves from the Florida Keys, or honey from Savannah. He’d met my parents, charmed my mother (not an easy task), chatted with my father and wasn’t in awe of my older sister, which was definitely a point in his favor. Alex had great stories about his clients, some of them celebrities, others just fabulously wealthy. He was, er . . . tidy, a quality that shouldn’t be undersold.

  Alexander lived on the Upper East Side, which I tried not to hold against him. His apartment was impressive but soulless. Every time I stayed over, I felt like I was staying in a model home—a place that was interesting and tasteful, but not exactly homey. H
e’d bought it furnished. Some of his art came from HomeGoods, and since I’d been—correction, was still—an artist, that did make me wince.

  Sex was great. He was good-looking—his hair a shade I called boarding school blond, which would get nearly white in the summer. His eyes were blue and already had the attractive crow’s-feet you’d expect for a guy who sold boats. In a nutshell, he looked like he’d stepped out of a J. Crew catalog, and why he was dating me, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure. “You have no idea how hard it is to find a nice girl,” he said once, so I guess it was that.

  But I wasn’t really a girl anymore, not like Bridget. Already past my prime fertility years, according to Uncle Carter, who did tend to know everything.

  “Hello?” he said, scratching his wrist. “Sadie. You’re in vapor lock. Make a move.”

  Another fair point. I’d been at St. Cath’s for eight years, painting on the side, living in a nine-hundred-square-foot apartment in Times Square, the armpit of Manhattan. “Yeah,” I said. “Sure. I could do it. We’re seeing each other tonight.”

  “See? Written in the stars.” He winked at me. “Now, I have to go wash the grime from these little motherfuckers off me because I have a date. A sex date, I want you to know.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “Josh Foreman,” he said, referring to the security guard who worked at St. Cath’s.

  “Please stop.”

  “His hands are so soft. That smile. Plus, he screams like a wildcat in bed.”

  “And . . . scene.” I brought my hands together, indicating cut. Carter grinned and left the teachers’ lounge.

  More evidence of Alexander’s plans to marry me someday flashed through my head. Once he’d said, “Margaret’s a nice name for a girl, don’t you think? I wouldn’t mind a daughter named Margaret.” Another: “We should look at property on the Maine coast for a summer place. It’s so beautiful up there. And Portland has a great art scene.”

  Maybe it was time for me to take action. Juliet, my sister, older by almost twelve years, enjoyed lecturing me on how I floated through life, in contrast to her color-coded, laminated lists for How to Be Perfect and Have Everything. (I jest, but not by much.)