I didn’t know whether Ralph bothered to read any of the magazines he added to the archives every month. He probably hadn’t seen Elliot’s latest Charm dispatch, but maybe he had. At the very least he must have noticed Elliot had been scarce around the building. I’d thought back to the smirk on his face the night I’d left the office with Elliot, and I’d constructed all these scenarios for what he’d say to me now. It went something like “He didn’t deserve you” or “I could have told you he was no good months ago” or “In your honor, I’m going to rip that page out of the archival copy.”
Of course he didn’t say any of those things.
“Dawn,” he said, putting out his hand for a shake, “it’s been a pleasure working with you.”
He wasn’t smirking now. He was smiling warmly, though there was still something not entirely straightforward about it. Suddenly I realized I’d miss Ralph. Chances were the little lingering something in his smile was the fact that he’d miss me too.
“I have the key for you,” I said.
“Terrific,” he answered.
“I also have something else for you,” I said. I juggled my bags and pulled a plastic-wrapped pie from the canvas tote on my arm.
“It’s pumpkin, probably not as good as your pecan, but I did my best.”
He took it graciously, his head slightly bowed, as if I were handing him something noble like an heirloom family sword.
“Anytime you need anything from the archives, you just call me,” he said. And then, just like he’d walked me in a few months earlier, Ralph now walked me out. He gave me a little hug at the door, and I noticed that he’d shaved his neck hair.
_________
When I finally e-mailed Abigail to tell her about the fire, I made it sound like a big, funny story. Which it wasn’t quite yet, but was on its way to becoming.
A couple of weeks after I moved in with Lily, Robert got around to calling me back. When he appeared on my caller ID, Lily was in the kitchen and I was in my bedroom. I could have easily flipped open the phone and closed my door. But I didn’t. Once, I might have screened out that first call and then eventually called him back, and we would have begun our whole stupid cycle again. Now I didn’t call for a week, and then another week, and then a month. I still haven’t called.
Lily wants to sign us both up for TheOne together. I haven’t said yes yet, but I’m considering it. I told my mom, and she promised she would if I would. It’s winter now, but it won’t be forever, and Lily and I are also making plans for a garden on the terrace. Or more properly, I am making plans for the garden, Lily is making plans for garden parties. “I know it’s crazy,” I’ve told her, “but I want to have at least one planter full of grass, even if I have to trim it with scissors.” She has assented.
I got my first real paycheck for my new job, and I groaned when I saw the after-tax amount. I was a grand total of forty dollars a week richer than I was when I worked in the basement. And XADI hadn’t been lying—the job was largely an exercise in secretarial drudgery. But at least I was on a path. Not a straight shot to literary fame, but it was like so many of the Ten Girls to Watch women had told me—each door you pass through opens the next, and sometimes you don’t know what’s on the other side till you get there. Saying no to law school had led me to Lawn Talk, which had miraculously led me to Regina. Now I was officially part of Charm. Someday an assistant editor position would open up, and although working at a magazine wasn’t the same as writing novels, for now, it was a way to write and get paid.
In the meantime, I was doing my best to inch myself along from explorer to creator. I finished my new and improved and radically fictionalized version of the Sound of Music story and sent out two copies: one in an e-mail to Helen, the other in a crisp manila envelope to a little lit mag called 17th Letter. With Helen’s I included a note. “Remember this story? I decided not to follow your advice. It’s more fictional than ever. Huge mistake? I’d love your thoughts.”
She wrote back that very night. “Ignoring me was a genius move! This has turned into a gorgeous piece!” I beamed with pride.
A few weeks later, I got a rejection in the mail from 17th Letter, but at the bottom, after the standard thanks-but-no-thanks text, there was a note, scrawled in blue ink:
This isn’t quite right for us, but please send more. I like your voice. You’re a writer I’ll watch for.
The editor’s name was signed below. Not an acceptance, not even exactly the promise of a future acceptance, but an editor out there thought I was someone to watch.
_________
Maybe the real progress started when I met Regina, or Lily, or when I spoke to my first Ten Girl, or on some other small occasion I hardly noticed at the time. In fact, I’m sure it did. But I felt so up and down during all those months that I couldn’t see what was happening. In fact, I don’t think I saw how far I’d actually come until I peeked out of the bombshell crater of Elliot and my apartment fire.
The night of the fire and Elliot and the gala, at the bar with Regina, Gerri, XADI, and Helen, there’d been a moment when someone or another’s laughter had blown out the small candle on our table. The waitress struck a new match, the flame returned, and all our faces glowed again. It was just this tiny moment. I’m sure no one else noticed it. I probably only did because I was half drunk with fatigue and famous-person sensory overload. But I remember thinking that it was the exact opposite of my naked and glowing TheOne nightmares. I wasn’t exposed or alone. There were all these wonderful women, and we were glowing together. I remember leaning back in my chair and feeling an actual ache of relaxation move through me. The voices at the tables around us blurred into an easy din, fading into the music.
In spite of the moment and the glow of the table and the warmth of the women around it, I knew I would wake up the next day and the day after that, for who knew how long, unsure of almost everything. And it’s true. That’s exactly how I wake up, still unsure. Still young and scared. I wake up in a nicer apartment now, and I go to a nicer office, and I have forty more dollars and a future in sidebars. Also health insurance. And when I get home, I have a roommate who not only wears a bra and eats all her ice cream with a spoon, but who is also an actual friend, I hope for life. But still, I’m muddling my way through at best.
That night at the candlelit table, though, I looked over at Helen, Helen who was so sure everything was going to be okay. When she finally looked back at me, I gave her a small smile and held her gaze, long enough, I hoped, for her to know that maybe, just a little bit, I was starting to believe her.
THE END
Acknowledgments
The greatest debt of gratitude goes to my dear friend and agent, Kristyn Keene, for her patience, intelligence, sensitivity, and willpower. She believed in this book more than anyone, and it exists because of her.
I am grateful to everyone at Atria Books for taking a chance on me, but especially to Judith Curr, for her incredible support of the book, and to my brilliant and wonderful editor, Sarah Cantin, for bringing her transformative insights, grace, and energy to bear on the manuscript. My special thanks also go to Jaime Putorti for all her work on the design, and to Hillary Tisman, Julia Scribner, Diana Franco, Cristina Suarez, Stuart Smith, and Lisa Keim for their love of this book and the great efforts they’ve put into sharing it.
I am grateful to Glamour, in particular to Cindi Leive, Susan Gooddall, Lauren Smith Brody, Katherine Tasheff, Lynda Laux-Bachand, and Daryl Chen, who gave me the nonfictional opportunity to connect with fifty years of amazing women. And to all those amazing women themselves, for their generosity in sharing their stories and their wisdom.
My thanks to the college professors who made me hyperventilate over the course catalog in real life, Elaine Scarry and Laurel Ulrich; and to my actual thesis advisors, Suzanne Berne and Marjorie Sandor, both of whom have been better teachers and mentors than any character I could ever dream up.
Another huge thank-you goes to my wonderful friends, especially Ke
lly Irwin, who has talked me through every high and low; Erika Decaster, who knows the Kelly Burns side of me better than anyone; Desiree Lyle, my amazing coworker; Wendy Oleson, my ideal reader; Matt Swanson, who asked to read my stories way back when and believed in me enough to drive me all the way to Oregon; Aimee Schick Hardy and Eliot Schrefer, each of whom provided great insights on drafts along the way; Nicolette Rabadi Jaze, who shared her harrowing apartment story with me; and Helen Thomas, who was sure this was going to happen long before I was.
To my family, thank you not only for reading early drafts, but also for laughing at all the bad jokes in them (and in real life).
Finally, thank you to my husband, Greg Starner, for his love, his humor, his support, and his unfailing encouragement. The night we first met, I made him listen to a full synopsis of the plot of this novel. He asked me out anyway. I am outrageously lucky.
Photo Credits
—Helen Thomas: Barkentin/Mademoiselle/© Condé Nast
—Kathy Knowlton: MacWeeney/Mademoiselle/© Condé Nast
—Jean Danton: Calhoun/Mademoiselle/© Condé Nast
—Ellen Poloma: Ford/Mademoiselle/© Condé Nast
—Jane Smith: Calhoun/Mademoiselle/© Condé Nast
—Patricia Collins: Barkentin/Mademoiselle/© Condé Nast
—LeAnne Marston: © Robert Michael/Corbis
—Sandra Seru: © moodboard/Corbis
—Tanya King: Tomas Rodriguez/Corbis
—Alexandra Guerrero: © Ocean/Corbis
—Candace Chan: © TongRo Image Stock/Corbis
—Teresa Anderson: Forlano/Glamour/© Condé Nast
—Tanisha Whitaker: © BNI/OJO Images/Getty Images
—Danni Chung: © anouchka/Vetta/Getty Images
—Geraldine Van Steenkiste: © Jack Hollingsworth/Blend Images/Corbis
INTRODUCTION
Dawn West knew life would be hard when she moved to New York. She just didn’t know it’d be this hard. On top of being broke, jobless, and living in a shabby Brooklyn apartment—complete with a slob of a roommate who won’t pay rent—Dawn is struggling to get over her ex-boyfriend Robert, who is blissfully dating a girl Dawn wants to hate. Making a pittance from her gig writing for a lawn care website under a pseudonym, Dawn is thrilled when a chance to freelance for Charm magazine comes her way. Her assignment? To track down the past winners of Charm’s annual Ten Girls to Watch contest and plan an event to honor their achievements.
As Dawn tracks down each of these extraordinary women, while experiencing the highs and lows of being twentysomething in the big city, she begins to question much of what she thought she knew about success, friendship, love—and ultimately—about herself.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Read each of the Ten Girls to Watch profiles interspersed throughout the novel. What do you think Dawn learns from each of these women when she speaks to them, years after those profiles were printed? In your opinion, does she successfully take their advice to heart? What story or piece of advice stayed with you?
2. Of all the prior Ten Girls to Watch winners that Dawn interviews, who was your favorite? Why?
3. Rebecca, one of the contest winners, tells Dawn: “ ‘I had a revelation after I became a professor here, and it’s basically this: sometimes there are excuses, and sometimes there are reasons. . . . I don’t know why most women blame themselves first, but we do, and it was a total revelation for me to look outside myself and see some other folks who deserved some blame.’ ” Do you agree with Rebecca’s conclusion? Why or why not? Do you think Dawn is too quick to blame herself ?
4. Reflecting on her sister, Dawn says, “Sometimes I felt I was living in New York for both of us. And sometimes I thought I was in New York out of some sort of perverse sibling rivalry.” What do you think of Dawn’s view of Sarah, their relationship, and her own reasons for being in New York? Does their relationship remind you of any in your own life?
5. How do the themes of sisterhood, friendship, and female empowerment that emerge through the stories of the Ten Girls to Watch winners relate to the relationships in Dawn’s life? Consider Abigail, Lily, XADI, Sarah, Helen, and Dawn’s mother.
6. At the Ten Girls to Watch gala, Regina says: “ ‘Turns out there’s just something about women who enter a contest. Once they enter one, they’re going to be entering them again and again, formal and informal, for the rest of their lives. Women who are willing to compete are the women you want on your side!’ ” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Do you consider yourself to be a competitive individual?
7. How did you react to the way Dawn handled her relationship with Sylvia? How did their interactions speak to Dawn’s character? What would you have done if you were Dawn? Were you reminded of any similar roommate horror stories?
8. At one point in the book, Dawn reflects: “Robert had solved all his problems by finding the right person. And I, the wrong person, was left with all of mine.” How does Dawn amend this statement by the end of the novel?
9. Dawn has two romantic relationships through the course of the novel—Robert and Elliot. Compare and contrast the two men. How does Dawn change as a person when she is with Robert? With Elliot? What do you think Dawn learns from the two relationships? What does she learn about being single? Do you think she should do as Lily advised and fire back at Elliot for the awful way he ended their relationship? Would you?
10. The philosophy behind Rachel’s dating site is to assign people to different parties based on the data and personal information they provide. Do you think this is an effective way to match people? Why or why not? Would you ever go to a party hosted by TheOne?
11. What potential do Lily, Regina, and Helen see in Dawn that she has a hard time seeing in herself? How does Dawn’s own perception of herself change as the novel progresses?
12. Ten Girls to Watch offer snippets of advice that the contest winners wish someone would’ve given them when they were twenty-one. What advice would you give to someone ten years younger than yourself?
ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB
1. Write your own winning Ten Girls to Watch profile, as it would’ve read back when you were eighteen. Then, create your profile as it would read today. Compare the two. Are you surprised by how similar or different they are?
2. If Ten Girls to Watch was being made into a movie, whom would you cast for each role?
3. Dawn’s grandmother was inspired by The Sound of Music, which in turn inspired Dawn’s writing. Get together for a Sound of Music movie night, complete with some of Dawn’s snack foods like popcorn and Cap’n Crunch. End it by listening to the “Flower Duet” from Lakmé, the song performed by Danni and Jessie at the gala.
4. Author Charity Shumway writes a blog about “growing and cooking in the city” called Spade & Spatula (www.SpadeSpatula.com). Browse through the posts and choose either a planting project to do with your book club members or a recipe to cook for your next meeting.
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