Fueled by renewed energy and a surge of confidence, I set up a shoot for a new author photo, meeting with a renowned photographer in St. Louis who initially deemed me “too skinny” and advised I “eat some steak” to prepare for the appointment. (Definitely the first time in my life I’d been called “too skinny” by anyone.) The makeup artist flipped out my “anchorwoman hair” in a very cool, messy style that I ended up adopting postshoot. Not only did I get some great photos out of that session (which I’ll be using until I’m ninety-three and pushing a walker), but I felt reborn, like the new, improved me!
That photo session occurred in July of 2005, four months shy of my forty-first birthday; yet I felt younger than ever, both inside and out. Inspired by the positive changes in my health and body—and the forward trajectory of my writing career, sparked by surprisingly good sales of Blue Blood and the release of my second series mystery, The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder—I had a newfound desire to step out of my comfort zone. I would carve out precious time to try new restaurants, see exhibits at local museums, and expand my social circle as well as my horizons.
That included a conscious decision to be more open about the men I met and not shut anyone down just because they didn’t look a particular way or wore funny shoes (my mom likes to remind me of a brilliant guy I dumped in high school because of his fondness for desert boots). To be honest, I’d spent a lot of time in my adult life avoiding the dating scene, preferring to be alone—say, reading a good book—rather than waste my time with some random dude just for the sake of going out. Not being much of a drinker, I was never big on the bar or club scene.
But as forty-one came and went, and I was still single—albeit happily—I figured it wouldn’t hurt to change my list of “must haves” regarding men, which hadn’t altered much since high school. I needed to look less at the physical package and more at what was inside. My criteria basically came down to this:
Does he make me laugh?
Do we have plenty to talk about?
Does he keep me on my toes?
Does he smell good?
Does he eat with utensils?
Does he drive his own car and not live with his mother?
These new criteria certainly opened up a brave, new dating world.
It inspired me to say yes more often than no, and my social life blossomed. Still, I didn’t seem to meet anyone who floated my boat. Perhaps I was meant to be a modern-day Amelia Earhart, albeit flying without a copilot (and minus the “disappearing from the face of the earth” part).
My boyfriendless state concerned my family far more than it did me, as one of my male cousins approached me privately during the weekend of my brother’s wedding and asked, “Are you a lesbian? Because if you are, that’s okay.”
I told him that, while I wasn’t a lesbian, I appreciated that he was so open-minded.
“I just can’t find the right guy,” I confessed, thinking surely I couldn’t be the only single woman over forty on the planet who hadn’t yet met her Prince Charming.
Call me Pollyanna, but I didn’t dwell on my state of singlehood often. My days were filled with writing the books I loved, my weekends were often spent traveling, and my friends and family filled any space between. Yet no matter how I expressed my satisfaction with my life, my mother feared that I was destined to become a crazy cat lady (though I only had two cats!), shuffling around in bathrobe and slippers, cleaning litter boxes in between book deadlines.
I think it made her even more nervous that I wasn’t afraid of being alone for the rest of my life. My philosophy: if that was how it worked out, that was how it worked out. It wasn’t like I was going to mail-order a groom from Russia or Thailand. I didn’t feel like I was missing out, even when I got cards and e-mails from friends with photos of their spouses and children. Not everyone is meant to go the marriage-with-two-point-five-kids route.
Surely I wasn’t the only female who didn’t obsess over weddings or buy bridal magazines and pore through them, picking out wedding dresses well before finding my mate and falling madly in love.
Perhaps I was just being practical, having read a study that insisted a woman over forty had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than she did of getting hitched. Or else I was too set in my ways, content with doing things on my own terms, never having to compromise (not a bad thing!).
Yes, there were times when I pondered how lovely it would be to have a committed hand to hold and adoring eyes to gaze at over candlelight, a best friend slash lover who understood me like no one else.
“So you’d get married if you found the right man?” my mom would ask now and then, just to reassure herself.
“I would certainly consider it,” I’d say. “So long as I was really in love and we could live in a duplex so I could lock myself inside my half when I needed privacy.”
“I’m sure that would be just fine,” she’d reply and pat my hand, a hopeful—or was it delusional?—smile on her face.
I realized quickly enough that Mom’s deep-seated need to marry me off was bound tightly to her desire to have a grandchild. Though my younger brother was newly married, he and his bride seemed in no hurry to pop out the rug rats. So I think my mother was putting all my eggs in her basket.
What happened next is something straight out of a TV sitcom: my enterprising mom took it upon herself to send an e-mail to St. Louis Magazine, at the time searching for a new crop of “top singles” for their November 2005 issue. If I had the e-mail right now, I’d share it, but, unfortunately, I don’t. All I know is that she said something akin to “Please, find a man for my daughter so she doesn’t end up a crazy cat lady.”
The magazine took the bait and sent me a questionnaire as they narrowed down likely candidates. It wasn’t but a few months later that I learned I was one of ten women selected (only two of us over forty). They chose ten men as well (one over forty). Reminding myself of my promise to broaden my dating horizons—and the fact that I had a third mystery coming out, The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club, appropriately enough—I figured, “What have I got to lose?” And I jumped in wholeheartedly.
At the September photo shoot with the other nineteen singles, I met a handful who would become friends throughout the process. One of them, Jeremy Nolle, was a software applications engineer. Not only was he smart, but he was very good-looking (I hadn’t realized they made computer geeks that appeared to have leaped off the pages of GQ!). He was also twentysomething, too young for me. But there were no rules against having younger male friends, right?
The party to debut the 2005 “Top Singles” issue on November 3, 2005, was held at the Contemporary Art Museum in downtown St. Louis. Somehow, I managed to find Jeremy amidst the three hundred or so people in attendance. I wanted to set him up with my older sister, who happened to be (um, still happens to be!) a serial dater of younger men. I was chatting with Jeremy when several of his coworkers showed up. One was tall and slim with dark hair, a shy smile, and warm brown eyes. “This is Ed,” Jeremy said, and we aimlessly babbled over the very loud music.
Though I had no idea at the time, meeting Ed that night would change my life.
P. S.
Insights, Interviews & More . . .
About the author
Meet Susan McBride
SUSAN MCBRIDE is the author of Little Black Dress, a Literary Guild bestseller and a Target Recommended Read. She has also written The Cougar Club, named a Target Bookmarked Breakout Title and one of More Magazine’s “Books We’re Buzzing About.” Foreign editions of Cougar have been published in France, Croatia, and Turkey. Susan lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband, Ed, and their daughter, Emily. You can visit her website at http://susanmcbride.com.
About the book
Discussion Questions for The Truth About Love and Lightning
1. What do you think is worse: telling lies, like Gretchen, or being so blunt it’s hurtful, like Annika? Have you ever told a lie to spare someone’s feelings?
2.
How is Abigail’s situation similar to her mother’s situation nearly forty years before? How does Gretchen’s raising her as a single parent affect the choices Abby makes?
3. Why do all the Brink women jump to the conclusion that the stranger who “fell from the sky” is Sam Winston?
4. Have you ever had someone from your past—a lost love, perhaps— appear from out of the blue? How did it affect you?
5. How does the loss of one sense cause other senses to sharpen? Do you think Bennie and Trudy see themselves as anything other than normal, since clearly Gretchen finds their heightened senses extraordinary?
6. Are there really magic men (or women), like Hank Littlefoot, who can make it rain or otherwise influence our surroundings? Do you believe in the supernatural?
7. What is it about the walnut farm that keeps drawing its inhabitants home? Is it something paranormal or more of an emotional pull?
8. What is the significance of the weather throughout the story, particularly the “walnut rain”?
9. Have you ever realized you truly loved someone only after it’s too late, as is the case with Gretchen and Sam? Do you believe in soul mates?
10. Was Gretchen wrong to not tell Abby the truth in the end?
Read on
Have You Read?
More by Susan McBride
LITTLE BLACK DRESS
Two sisters whose lives seemed forever intertwined are torn apart when a magical little black dress gives each one a glimpse of an unavoidable future.
Antonia Ashton has worked hard to build a thriving career and a committed relationship, but she realizes her life has gone off track. Forced to return home to Blue Hills when her mother, Evie, suffers a massive stroke, Toni finds the old Victorian where she grew up as crammed full of secrets as it is with clutter. Now she must put her mother’s house in order— and uncover long-buried truths about Evie and her aunt, Anna, who vanished fifty years earlier on the eve of her wedding. By shedding light on the past, Toni illuminates her own mistakes and learns the most unexpected things about love, magic, and a little black dress with the power to break hearts . . . and mend them.
THE COUGAR CLUB
Meet three women who aren’t about to run and hide just because the world says they should be on the shelf and out of circulation.
Kat: Her life seems perfect until she loses her high-powered advertising job and catches her live-in lover in a compromising position—with his computer!
Carla: This sexy TV news anchor is in danger of being replaced by a twentysomething blond bimbo. Wasn’t it just yesterday that she was the up-and-coming star?
Elise: A married dermatologist, Elise thinks her plastic surgeon husband is playing doctor with someone else.
Kat firmly believes that aging gracefully isn’t about giving up; it’s about living life with your engine on overdrive. So this unofficial “Cougar Club” quickly learns three things about survival of the fittest in today’s youth-obsessed society: true friendship never dies, the only way to live is real, and you’re never too old to follow your heart.
TOO PRETTY TO DIE
They call them “pretty parties,” and they’re the latest rage among Dallas debutantes—get-togethers with light refreshments, heavy gossip, and Dr. Sonja Madhavi and her magic Botox needles. Former socialite Andy Kendricks normally wouldn’t be caught dead at such an event, but she’s attending as a favor to her friend Janet, a society reporter in search of a juicy story. And boy does she find one when aging beauty queen Miranda DuBois bursts into the room—drunk, disorderly, and packing a pistol.
Miranda’s wrinkles have seen better days, and she blames it all on Dr. Madhavi. Luckily, Andy calms her down and gets her home to bed . . . where she’s found dead the next morning. The police suspect suicide, but Andy knows that no former pageant girl would give up that easily. She’s determined to find Miranda’s killer herself, but she’ll have to be careful. After all, Botox can make you look younger, but it can’t bring you back from the grave.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEB
Renegade rich girl Andy Kendricks isn’t the belle of any Dallas ball—and that’s just the way the debutante dropout likes it! She’s got a good life and a great man: her defense attorney boyfriend, Brian Malone. Brian’s such a straight arrow that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a close friend’s bachelor party at a sleazy local “gentleman’s club.”
So why is the groom-to-be saying that Brian left the bacchanal arm in arm with “the hottest body in the Lone Star State”? And what was that hot body doing stone-cold dead in the trunk of Brian’s car? And where is Brian anyway? The cops are looking for Andy’s allegedly unfaithful/ possibly homicidal beau, who hasn’t been seen since the party. But Andy can’t believe her upstanding lover is a murdering fool, and she’s determined to prove it—though she might end up with a lot more broken than just her heart.
THE LONE STAR LONELY HEARTS CLUB
Wealthy Texas widows need loving too . . . which is why Bebe Kent joined a dating service for “discriminating” seniors soon after relocating to the swanky Belle Meade retirement community. Unfortunately, Bebe didn’t live long enough to meet “Mr. Right.” And though doctors declared her death totally natural, extravagant blue-blooded Dallas socialite Cissy Blevins Kendricks believes her old friend’s demise was hastened—and she’s ready to check herself into Belle Meade incognito to prove it.
Cissy’s rebellious, sometime-sleuthing daughter, Andrea, wants no part of her mother’s glittering social whirl—and she’s anything but pleased to have Cissy muscle her way into Andy’s milieu. She has no choice, however, but to join her mom in search of the truth—especially when more well-heeled widows start turning up dead . . .
BLUE BLOOD
To the dismay of her high-society mother, Cissy, Dallas heiress Andy Kendricks wants no part of the Junior League life—opting instead for a job as a website designer and a passel of unpedigreed pals. Now her good friend Molly O’Brien is in bad trouble, accused of killing her boss at the local restaurant “Jugs.” Though no proper deb would ever set foot in such a sleazy dive, Andy’s soon slipping into skintight hot pants and a stuffed triple-D bra to gain employment there and somehow help clear Molly’s name. But Andy’s undercover lark is soon bringing her into too-close contact with all manner of dangerous adversaries—including a shady TV preacher, a fanatical Mothers Against Porn activist . . . and a killer who is none too keen on meddling rich girls.
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Praise for the books of Susan McBride
“I’ll read anything by Susan McBride.”
—#1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris
“Written with touching insight into family relationships and what we call home, Little Black Dress is a lovely and entertaining journey into the magical side of things. I bet you’ll never look at your closet the same way again.”
—Sarah Addison Allen, bestselling author of The Peach Keeper
“Little Black Dress is a delightful, emotional, and thoroughly engaging exploration of the connections that bind women together and the magic that’s created when mothers, daughters, and sisters learn to open their eyes and hearts to their truest desires.”
—Marilyn Brant, author of Friday Mornings at Nine
“With a deft hand and a sensitive heart, Susan McBride spins a magical tale. A bittersweet, Gothic past melds perfectly with a tender and revelatory present. Part mystery, part love story. Emotionally satisfying, Little Black Dress is an enchanting escape into a magical and wonderful world. A delight to read.”
—M. J. Rose, internationally bestselling author of The Book of Lost Fragrances
“Little Black Dress is a luminous story filled with magic and hope. I loved this tender, touching, and enchanting saga about the unique bond of mothers, daughters, and sisters.”
—Ellen Meister, author of The Other Life
“Little Black
Dress is big on heart, secrets, and magic. This enchanting novel is a bookshelf essential.”
—Karin Gillespie, author of the Bottom Dollar Girl series and coauthor of The Sweet Potato Queen’s First Big-Ass Novel
“Susan McBride’s Little Black Dress sparkles with magic! It’s part love story, part mystery, part family saga, all wrapped together in the wonder of an amazing little dress that will leave you crying and cheering. I loved this book!”
—Judy Merrill Larsen, author of All the Numbers
“I’m madly in love with this full-of-surprises story about secrets, family ties—and one magical little black dress. One of my favorite novels of the year.”
—Melissa Senate, author of The Love Goddess’ Cooking School
“With sparkle and wit, Susan McBride crafts both a family saga of painful secrets and a modern story of a woman who thinks she’s got it all under control—until everything she thought she knew blows apart. Little Black Dress is a beguiling story of fate, love, and magic.”
—Kristina Riggle, author of Keepsake
“The Cougar Club is funny and irreverent. Fans of First Wives Club and Sex & the City will love this new take on gals and guys and games lovers play.”
—USA Today bestselling author Pamela Morsi
“Susan McBride delivers her trademark ‘can’t put it down’ storytelling with style, sex, and humor. Kick off your Louboutins and stay in for the night. The Cougar Club will charm you and surprise you, right up to the last page.”
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