If You're Out There
Page 22
Subject: Re: THAT’S IT. I’M DONE WITH BACON!
Ahaha I’m here! I’m not gonna to read all that yet because I need to see your face—DO NOT LOG OFF! Long story but we JUST got power back. The kids may fight me for this computer but so help me GOD I’m Skyping you now. Stand by!
* * *
From: Zan Martini
To: Priya Patel
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 9:02 am
Subject: Re: THAT’S IT. I’M DONE WITH BACON!
Damn you, internet. Work! Trying again. Also, where’d you go? I would feel better with confirmation that you are still there. Are you still there???
* * *
From: Zan Martini
To: Priya Patel
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 9:04 am
Subject: Re: THAT’S IT. I’M DONE WITH BACON!
YESSSS! It’s ringing!!!!!! God we have so much to talk about. Are you there? Well? Are you???
* * *
From: Priya Patel
To: Zan Martini
Date: Fri, Aug 30, 9:04 am
Subject: Re: THAT IS IT! I’M DONE WITH BACON!
Yeah, ZanaBanana.
I’m here.
Acknowledgments
I am an emotional person with the very best people and there aren’t enough pages to express my thanks, but I will try.
Jennifer Mattson, my agent, thank you for believing in me, and this book, and for being generally lovely and hilarious. I can’t imagine having a better person in my corner. What a journey it has been!
Donna Bray, you brilliant mind, you! Never have I had so much fun writing as I have going back and forth with you. I am in awe of your brain, and so grateful for the fact that you somehow managed to make this book feel even more “me” than I thought possible. Thank you for everything.
To the many publishing masterminds who helped make this thing a book, I am forever in your debt. Bethany Reis, Laura Harshberger, Michelle Taormina, Alison Donalty, Bess Braswell, Aubrey Churchward, Patty Rosati, Alessandra Balzer, Tiara Kittrell, and the rest of the Harper team, thank you thank you thank you! The same goes for Taryn Fagerness, my foreign rights agent, and Philip Pascuzzo, for giving me the cover art of my dreams.
Huge weepy thanks to my amazing friends, from Cambridge to Bowdoin, Chicago to Brooklyn, who I thought of so much while writing this book. You are the people who grew alongside me at all different stages of life, and who always seem to click in no matter how long it’s been or how far apart we may be. I am especially grateful to the very gentle friends who read early drafts (Alex, Rebecca, Sara, Abby, and Julia), and to the many more who were therapists and cheerleaders through this process. I’m so lucky to have you guys.
To Nicole Panteleakos, who I met, by some miracle, just weeks after moving to New York, both of us nannies on a playground in the right place at the right time. All I can say is, where on earth would I be without you? You taught me how to Twitter, and what a query was, and sat beside me in cafes across Brooklyn while we both scrapped old projects and tried again. I’m so happy to have gone down this road with you. I still can’t believe we got offers on the same day.
To my whole extended family, thank you for your love, encouragement, and support. You are the best, and I have no doubt that the Loutzenhiser/Catt/Christo/Addisons will have significant influence over the sales of this book. (Also, Gram, I still use my LOL mug from you every day at my desk, and consider it to be my writing good luck charm.)
Little Peter, my much-cooler-than-me teenage brother, thank you for being such a great kid, and for putting up with the never-ending book discussions. I hope we never stop watching movies and playing board games, and I fully expect you to continue keeping me relevant as I get older.
Big Peter, thank you for being a friend and for all those trips to the Inn.
To my dad, who is the weirdest and the funniest, thank you for letting me treat you like a human dictionary growing up. Your opinion means more to me than just about anyone’s, and though I was too embarrassed to tell you back then, your belief in this book was enough to make me cry.
To my mom, exuberant co-mermaid and Louise to my Thelma, thank you for always being the voice in my head, cheering me on and propelling me forward. I try so hard to be like you. Most people see all the ways something might not work. You always see how it could.
To my husband, Bobby, who has long since accepted seeing himself in my work (because how could I resist? He is just too damn charming and wonderful): there is no thank you big enough. During all those years nannying and working odd jobs, you called me your “lottery ticket.” It would be my greatest honor to one day make you my trophy husband.
And of course, thank you, dear reader! Without you, all of this would just be ink on a page.
About the Author
Photo by Celeste Sloman
KATY LOUTZENHISER is a graduate of Bowdoin College who trained in comedy with the iO and Second City theaters in Chicago. If You’re Out There is her first novel. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. Visit Katy at www.katyloutzenhiser.com.
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Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
IF YOU’RE OUT THERE. Copyright © 2019 by Katy Loutzenhiser. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Cover art © 2019 by Philip Pascuzzo
Cover design by Michelle Taormina
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018014218
Digital Edition MARCH 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-286569-4
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-286567-0
1920212223PC/LSCH10987654321
FIRST EDITION
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