by Meg Cabot
The Stewarts’ eldest son, Marshall Stewart, 32, co-owns Stewart Realty Company, along with his wife, Carly.
Last week Stewart Realty announced the sale of the old Bloomville Elementary to Reed Stewart, who—with the help of Becky Flowers, 28, president of Moving Up! Senior Move Management Consultants—will be renovating it and turning it into a junior golf academy.
Flowers, in Orlando to assist the elder Stewarts with their move, said she believes Stewart hopes his golf academy will inspire others to find the same love for the game that he has.
“Did Reed want to give up?” Flowers asked. “I’m sure he did. But he didn’t. That’s a valuable lesson for all of us who might feel like quitting from time to time.”
Next week, Stewart will be playing for what is traditionally referred to as “the green jacket,” the PGA’s “Masters tournament” at Augusta National, a $1.8 million prize.
When reached by phone for comment—in the same hotel room as Flowers—Stewart blamed his previous losses on “failing to follow my heart.”
“Sorry for the tears,” Stewart said, apologizing for what appeared to be a sudden post-victory burst of emotion. “I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not exist without the help of so many talented, hardworking people that I couldn’t possibly list them all here (without going over the data limits on my phone). But here are just a few to whom I am endlessly grateful:
•The tireless crew at William Morrow, including Lynn Grady, Brian Grogan, Nicole Fischer, Doug Jones, Jennifer Hart, Rachel Levenberg, Carla Parker, Liate Stehlik, Molly Waxman, the unflappable Pamela Spengler Jaffee, and my extraordinary editor, Carrie Feron.
•Friends and media consultants Janey Lee, Ann Larson, and Nancy Bender.
•Authors Michele Jaffe and Rachel Vail.
•Beth Ader and Jennifer Brown.
•My mom, Barb Cabot, who is nothing like the mothers in this book (except in good ways).
•My ever-patient agent, Laura Langlie.
•And finally, my husband, Benjamin Egnatz.
ALSO BY MEG CABOT
The Princess Diaries series
The Mediator series
Heather Wells series
The Boy series
Overbite
Insatiable
Ransom My Heart (with Mia Thermopolis)
Queen of Babble series
She Went All the Way
The 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU series
All-American Girl series
Nicola and the Viscount
Victoria and the Rogue
Jinx
How to Be Popular
Pants on Fire
Avalon High series
The Airhead series
Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls series
From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess series
CREDITS
Cover design by Emin Mancheril
Cover illustrations © Shutterstock
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COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE BOY IS BACK. Copyright © 2016 by Meg Cabot, LLC. 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.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition December 2016 ISBN 9780062669780
ISBN 978-0-06-237877-4 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-06-266120-3 (Schuler signed edition)
ISBN 978-0-06-249077-3 (hardcover library edition)
16 17 18 19 20 DIX/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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MEG CABOT
For Benjamin
Many thanks to Beth Adler,
Ingo Arndt, Jennifer Brown,
John Henry Dreyfuss,
Benjamin Egnatz, Carrie, Feron,
Michele Jaffe, Laura Langlie,
and Greg and Sophia Travis
CONTENTS
THANKS
BEGIN READING
WANT MORE…
COPYRIGHT
Travel Diary of
Holly Caputo and Mark Levine
On Their Elopement
Composed by Jane Harris, Witness
aka Maid of Honor
aka Holly’s best friend since first grade and
roommate since freshman year at
Parsons School of Design
Dear Holly and Mark,
Surprise!
I know neither one of you would bother to keep a record of your elopement, so I’ve decided to do it for you! This way, when you’re approaching your twentieth anniversary and your oldest kid has just wrecked the Volvo and your youngest has just come home from her cushy Westchester private school with head lice and the dog’s thrown up all over the living room rug and, Holly, you’re asking yourself why you ever moved out of the righteous East Village pad we shared for so long, and, Mark, you’re wishing you’d stayed in resident housing down at St. Vincents, you can open this diary and go, “Oh, so THAT’s why we got married.”
Because you two are the grooviest couple I know, and totally belong together, and I think eloping to Italy is a BRILLIANT idea, even if you did steal it from Kate Mackenzie in Human Resources.
The eloping part, I mean. Not the Italy part.
But she HAD to elope. I mean, with in-laws like hers? What CHOICE did she have?
But you two are doing it for the pure romance of the thing—not because you HAVE to, because both your families are perfectly respectable.
Well, I guess there is that teensy religion thing with your moms.
But whatever! They’ll get over it.
Anyway, that’s what makes your elopement so special.
And I plan to record every detail of that special-ness, starting now, before we even get on the plane. Before I even meet you guys at the gate. Which, by the way, where ARE you, anyway? I mean, we were supposed to get here three hours before our departure time. You know that, don’t you? I mean, it says that right on the ticket. For international travel, please arrive no later than three hours prior to departure time.
So. Where are you guys?
I suppose I could email you on my new BLACKBERRY, but as you keep reminding me, Holly, it’s for WORK PURPOSES ONLY, which is the only reason the IT guys let you have them (thanks for mine, by the way. I mean, it’s nice of Tim and those guys to think of me, even though I don’t exactly work
there anymore).
God, I hope nothing happened to you. I mean, on the way. People drive like maniacs on the expressway.
Wait—you didn’t change your minds, did you? About getting married? You can’t. That would be awful! Just AWFUL! I mean, you two are so perfect for each other… not to mention, it would be totally unfair to cancel on me. My first trip to Europe, and my travel companions ditch me? As it is, I can’t even believe I’m really doing it. Why did I wait so long? Who turns thirty without having been outside the continental United States at least once in her life? No Paris with French class in the 11th grade. No “Cabo” for Spring Break in college. What’s wrong with me, anyway? Why am I such a non-transcontinental flying freak?
And okay, seriously, what is with the guy with the cell phone over there? I mean, he’s cute and everything. But why is he yelling? We’re going to Italy, dude. Italy! So chill.
Okay, ignore the guy on the cell phone. IGNORE THE GUY ON THE CELL PHONE. I can’t believe I’m wasting the first pages of your travel diary on him. Who cares about him? I’M GOING TO EUROPE!
I mean, WE’RE going to Europe.
I think. If you two aren’t lying in the twisted wreckage of your taxi to the airport on the Long Island Expressway.
Let’s just assume you were running a little late this morning and that you aren’t dead.
Thank God you two are making me do this. You and Mark, I mean, Holly. I’m finally crossing the Atlantic, and for what better REASON? God, it’s so romantic—
(Oh, wait, that’s the same guy who was in front of me at the duty free! The one who was rolling his eyes because I bought all those bottles of Aquafina. Obviously he hasn’t read this month’s Shape. They say air travel is very dehydrating, and that you should drink half your body weight in water during the course of your flight if you want to avoid jet lag.)
And okay, they have water on the plane and all, but is it good water? I mean, as good as Aquafina? Probably not. I saw this thing on Ask Asa on Channel 4 where they sent the water from a plane to a lab and it was filled with all these microbes! And okay, it was the water from the tap in the plane bathroom, and no one would really drink that, but still.
Not that MY mom and dad wouldn’t kill me if I did what you’re doing, Holly. Elope, I mean. And to ITALY, of all places.
But it’s just so totally you, Holly. God, you’re lucky. Mark is so… grounded. And Mark, I know I give you a hard time about being such a sci-fi geek and all, but seriously, if I could meet a guy as—
(Oh my God! Cell Phone Guy just practically threw his phone at one of those little carts with the old people in it! The one taking them to their gate! And just because the guy driving it made that backing-up-truck sound to warn him he was in the way. God, what’s got his panties in such a bunch? Although he hardly looks like a panty-wearing type of guy. Jockeys, more likely. Or maybe boxers.
Oh, no. How can I give this diary to Holly and Mark if it’s full of musings about some random guy’s underwear????
NOW what am I going to give them? I can’t give them candlesticks or something. This is HOLLY. It has to be something SPECIAL.
Okay, well, one mention of underwear. You guys don’t mind, do you? I mean, it’s just underwear.)
Where was I? Oh yeah. Mark. So cute, in spite of the Star Trek Next Generation marathons he makes you watch, Holl. So responsible, with the whole doctor-and-health-column thing. Which reminds me, I need to ask him about this mole on my elbow. God, Holly’s so lucky, she can get her moles checked for free anytime she wants. Why can’t I find a boyfriend with a useful skill like that? All Malcolm can do is beat me at Vice City. And what good is that? Can a high score on Vice City save you from a life-threatening carcinoma? No.
Okay, now I totally can’t give this to Holly and Mark. What is wrong with me?
Cell Phone Guy just hung up on whoever it was he was talking to. I just heard him go, “That is inexcusable,” but that was all I could get because they’ve got CNN turned up so loud in here. Now he’s got out his Blackberry. He’s typing into it furiously. I will never be able to type that fast into mine.
But maybe that’s a good thing. Cell Phone Guy is a classic example of a Type A personality, as illustrated in lastmonth’s Shape. I can practically SEE his blood pressure going up. I hope he doesn’t stroke out on the plane.
Although I wouldn’t mind giving him CPR.
Oh my God, I can’t believe I just wrote that.
But he is kind of cute. I mean, if you like the tall, rugged, sandy-haired, razor-stubbled-with-piercing-blue-eyes-who-knows-how-to-use-a-Blackberry type.
Okay. Now I definitely won’t be able to give this to Holly and Mark as a wedding present.
Oh, wait, I can just rip out the pages with Cell Phone Guy comments. Or black them out with a Sharpie.
Or maybe I should just get Holly and Mark a nice silver frame from Tiffany’s instead. But that seems like kind of a lame present to get for someone who has held your hair back while you were throwing up tequila shooters as many times as Holly has for me.
Although of course I’ve done it for her often enough, most recently Friday night when the entire art department took her out for a bachelorette party. For two people who are supposed to be eloping, Mark and Holly told an AWFUL lot of people beforehand.
!!!! On CNN it says a plane is being held at the San Francisco airport under suspicion that a passenger aboard it has a highly contagious virus that they’re worried will spread worldwide!!!!
You know what this means:
I need more snacks for the plane.
Seriously, those people have been on board that plane for TWO HOURS with no food service. If I go two hours without eating, I get that weird thing where I can’t see out of one eye. And Toblerone won’t do it. I need something with protein. Like smoked almonds. And maybe some cheese popcorn. Which I bet they don’t even have in Italy. I better go back to the duty free and stock up, just in case….
* * *
To: Tara Samuels
Fr: Cal Langdon
Re: Travel Services
Where is everybody? I’ve been calling for the past half hour, and nobody there is picking up. Does Travel get half days on Fridays through September, or something, while the rest of us slobs have to give them up on Labor Day?
I asked you guys to book this ticket a month ago, but I’m at the airport now and they claim I’m in coach, not business class.
In a middle seat. For a seven-hour flight.
Freaking Frodo wouldn’t last for six hours in a seat that small. How is a six-foot-four, two-hundred-pound man supposed to do it?
Someone had better pull some strings or you’re going to have one very unhappy journalist on your hands.
C. Langdon
* * *
To: Dolly Vargas
Fr: Cal Langdon
Re: Last night
Thanks for last night. However, I think moving in together might be a little precipitous. And I don’t think your husband would really appreciate it.
Let’s just keep things casual for now, and see how things go. Okay? I’m off to some podunk part of Italy no one’s ever heard of because Levine has some idiot idea he’s going to get married there, but I’ll be in touch when I get back in a week.
C.
* * *
To: Cal Langdon
Fr: Tara Samuels
Re: Travel Services
I’m SO sorry, Mr. Langdon, we were in a budget meeting, which is why no one picked up. I’ve been calling the airline ever since I got back, and they’re booked solid. I could get you in business class on another flight… but not until tomorrow. Would that be all right?
Again, I’m so sorry about the misunderstanding. I can’t imagine how you ended up in coach. We ALWAYS book you in business class, as you know. Except of course when the plane y
ou’re taking is so small, there isn’t a business class. Which isn’t the case here. I can’t apologize enough, really. Could we upgrade you to a suite when you get to your hotel?
Tara
* * *
To: Cal Langdon
Fr: Dolly Vargas
Re: Last night
There you are! I’ve only left ten messages on your cell phone. How COULD you have snuck out like that this morning, without even leaving a note?
And Peter and I aren’t married, sweetie. We have an understanding—the same one you and I have.
And of course I wasn’t asking you to move in permanently. Just offering you the spare guest room until you find a place of your own. I know how brutal the New York real-estate market can be.
Not that you’ll have any problems, the way sales are going for Sweeping Sands. In fact, the penthouse across from mine just went up for sale, a steal at two million. Interested? I could speak to the co-op board on your behalf….
In any case, darling, call me when you get back from Mark’s little elopement.
XXXOOO
Dolly
Travel Diary of
Holly Caputo and Mark Levine
Jane Harris
OK, I asked Cell Phone Guy to watch my stuff for a minute while I ran to buy snacks, and he was TOTALLY rude about it. He said, in this very snarky way, “I highly doubt anyone is going to steal your water, miss.”