by Claire Cook
I Skyped and chatted with lots of book clubs while writing and rewriting this book, and I thank you all for choosing my books and for never failing to surprise me with fresh insight. And, of course, for the many laughs.
Alphabetical, but no less heartfelt, thanks to Karin Beyer, Jackie Blem, Joanne and Caitlin Doggart, Beth Hoffman, Robin Kall, Joan Lang, Allie Larkin, Mary Marken, Jill Miner, Karen Vail, and Wendy Wax for support and inspiration. Thanks to the artists kind enough to chat with me at fairs and shows and festivals. Thanks to the friends who shared fears and phobias. Thanks to the bloggers, booksellers, librarians, and members of the media who continue to give me the gift of this midlife career of mine. You all rock.
Thanks to Jake, Garet, Kaden, and the rest of my family for always being there, and to Daisy Mei for literally always being there with the steady sound of her snoring while I work.
Thank you once again to my incomparable literary agent, Lisa Bankoff, and to ICM’s Dan Kirschen, Josie Freedman, Lisa Farrell, and Katie O’Connor, as well as to Helen Manders and Sheila Crowley at Curtis Brown, UK. You’re simply the best.
Many thanks to the fabulous Sally Kim, editorial director at Touchstone, for her insight and energy, and to her wonderful assistant, Allegra Ben-Amotz. A big thank-you to my terrific publicist, Ashley Hewlett—it’s so nice to hear raves about you from everyone you reach out to—and to marketing dynamic duo Ana Paula De Lima and Meredith Vilarello for your creativity and talent. Thanks to Cherlynne Li for all your hard work and another brilliant cover design. A big thank-you to Stacy Creamer, David Falk, Shida Carr, Linda Sawicki, and the rest of Team Touchstone. More thanks to Simon & Schuster’s director of marketing, the amazing Wendy Sheanin, to Joy O’Meara and Claudia Martinez for interior-design perfection, and to Kristy Ojala for blog support.
Another big alphabetical thank-you to high school classmates Susan Baize, Eileen Casey, Liz Giacomozzi, Anna Holmes, Polly Kimmitt, Carol Donkin Lareau, Hollis MacArthur, Joni Padduck, Pamela Padley, Susan Priestman Perry, Barbara Rhind, Diane Ridley, Deb Stelzer, Lee Terzis, and Sheryl Trainor for sharing memories and photos, and thank you to all of my SHS classmates who’ve stayed in my life, as well as those I’ve been lucky enough to reconnect with. See you at the reunion!
PHOTO BY DIANE DILLON
CLAIRE COOK wrote her first novel in her mini-van when she was forty-five. At fifty, she walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of the film adaptation of her second novel, Must Love Dogs, starring Diane Lane and John Cusack. She is the bestselling author of nine other novels and divides her time between the suburbs of Atlanta and Boston.
www.ClaireCook.com
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ALSO BY CLAIRE COOK
Wallflower in Bloom
Best Staged Plans
Seven Year Switch
The Wildwater Walking Club
Summer Blowout
Life’s a Beach
Multiple Choice
Must Love Dogs
Ready to Fall
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Touchstone
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Claire Cook
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Touchstone hardcover edition June 2013
TOUCHSTONE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Designed by Claudia Martinez
Jacket design by Susan Zucker
Jacket photograph © Rubberball Photography/Veer
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cook, Claire, 1955-
Time Flies / Claire Cook.—First Touchstone hardcover edition.
pages cm
“A Touchstone book.”
1. Separated women—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. 3. High-school reunions—Fiction. 4. Self-realization in women—Fiction. 5. Road fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.O55317T56 2013
813'.54—dc23
2012045269
ISBN 978-1-4516-7367-8
ISBN 978-1-4516-7369-2 (ebook)
Contents
Epigraph
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
About Claire Cook