2. Snuggles with our own little miracle, who showed her proud grandparents that Mummy was not a forty-something fuck-up for whom time finally ran out.
Snuggles with my niece, who showed her proud Auntie Nell that loss is all part of life, that love is infinite, and that nobody knows what’s going to happen in the future but whatever it is she’ll be just fine.
3. A successful, high-flying career that provides both satisfaction and a six-figure salary, which I will spend on lovely clothes I see in magazines, and not spend hours trying to find a cheaper version on eBay.
All the lovely listeners of my podcast, Monty’s play which is opening in the West End in the summer, my role in Monty’s Mini Libraries scheme that Cricket is rolling out, and my new newspaper column. It isn’t how I used to define a high-flying career, but it’s pieces of different things that I love and give me fulfilment, and together pay my mortgage and allow me to still look for things on eBay, because seriously, who pays those crazy designer prices?
4. A Pinterest-worthy home in which to host lots of lovely grown-up dinner parties for all my friends, who are amazed by my flair for interior design and conjuring up delicious, nutritious meals, and teasingly call me the Domestic Goddess.
My little flat, in which I intend to squash all my friends for a housewarming when I finally get the keys, where they will exclaim over my clever mix of junk-shop finds and IKEA while eating takeout off their knees, because I will never be a domestic goddess and that’s why God made Deliveroo.
5. This feeling of strength and calm that comes from doing yoga in my new Lululemon outfits, and knowing I am finally where I want to be and am not going to die alone in newspaper shoes.
This feeling of strength and calm that comes from realizing you’re never really going to know what the hell you’re doing but it’s never too late to start over. Because it’s only when you are ready to surrender the life you thought you were going to live that you finally get the life you were always meant to live. * *
Obituary of a Forty-Something F##k Up
Nell Stevens, who fought a long and brave battle against feeling like a forty-something fuck-up, has died. Never one to mince words, Stevens, a lover of gin and tonics and cheese puffs, was a woman who never really knew what the hell she was doing or how on earth she’d got here.
As a young girl, life seemed so full of potential. After graduating from Manchester University with a BA Honours degree in English Literature, Stevens found a job at a renowned publishing company where she was quickly promoted to Senior Commissioning Editor in the children’s books department, a role that saw her move to the bright lights of New York City.
Yet while her professional life was a success, love seemed to elude her, until a chance meeting with successful chef Ethan DeLuca, as she was hurtling panic-stricken through her late thirties, resulted in an engagement and a subsequent move to California. A happy ending seemed guaranteed; alas, a failed business, huge overdraft and broken engagement put paid to
that and saw Stevens return to the UK, where her inability to get a mortgage, do any yoga poses, or find any joy in clearing up the mess that was her life, saw her renting a room, wearing a bit of a sleeve and weeping into her iPhone.
Once she was quoted as saying her life could be summed up in just three words: Eat. Scroll. Weep.
Never married, with no children, and without the sense to have bought property in the nineties, for a large part Nell Stevens seemed to stumble through life. Unlike all her married-with-children friends, she went through a variety of relationships and a series of terrible online dates, which provided grist to the mill for her podcast, but resulted in what she perceived as failure.
However, this forty-something had both determination and an ability to laugh in the face of it all, and in the last year of her life she made new friends and found new paths that led to unexpected joy. Her feelings of things not working out as she’d planned, time running out, and having a life that didn’t resemble that of any of her friends (or those
portrayed on social media) and a body that no longer resembled that of her twenties, saw her begin a podcast of the same name which went on to become a huge success.
More so, the recent production of Monty Williamson’s award-winning play, which she edited, and the successful Monty’s Mini Libraries project, of which she was a co-founder, saw this forty-something fuck-up appearing not to be a fuck-up at all. In fact, as she enjoyed the delights of becoming a homeowner and choosing scatter cushions for her lovely new flat, she also found what had eluded her for so long: real true love, with Edward Lewis, owner of a successful environmental software company, who described Nell as ‘a shining light – literally, as she leaves all the lights on’.
Yet despite her yearlong battle to turn things around, the cause of death for this forty-something fuck-up was not failure, but falling in love with her life. A life that, on her deathbed, she explained she only discovered when she was brave enough to embrace it.
Moreover, while this new life may have appeared in her many recent magazine interviews to be a success, it was still messy and flawed and complicated. In her most recent podcast episodes, Stevens let it be known that there would no doubt be plenty more times when she would feel like she was fucking up and failing, when she would turn a corner and run into The Fear, when she would look in the mirror and think FFS; as this is just life.
As her dear friend Cricket, who visited her before she took her last breath, declared:
The Forty-Something Fuck-Up is dead. Long live the Forty-Something Fuck-Up.
Nell Stevens is survived by her proud parents Carol and Philip, annoying little brother Richard, gorgeous niece Evie, and her sense of irony at this crazy thing called life.*
Acknowledgments
A huge thank you to my truly fabulous and talented editor, Trisha Jackson, and the incredible team at Pan Macmillan. From the very beginning they got Nell and her story and I am so very grateful for everyone’s enthusiasm and hard work. I am over the moon that my book has found such a wonderful home.
It takes a village to publish a book and I’d like to say a special thank you to Sara Lloyd, Stuart Dwyer, Hannah Corbett, Leanne Williams, Sarah Arratoon, Natalie Young and, on the Rights team, Jon Mitchell, Anna Alexander and Emma Winter. A big thank you also to Jayne Osborne for all her invaluable help and Mel Four for creating such a brilliant cover.
As always, a big, big thank you to my agent Stephanie Cabot. I can’t believe it’s been twenty years since I first walked into her office and am forever thankful for her loyalty, encouragement and wisdom. Thanks also to Ellen Goodson Coughtry, Will Roberts and everyone at The Gernert Agency in NYC.
Special thanks to my friend and fellow author Chris Manby for her tireless encouragement when I needed it the most.
Thank you also to Elizabeth Gilbert for giving me permission to use her wonderful words as the epigraph to this novel.
It’s a strange job being a writer, creating characters and stories from your imagination and daring to hope that other people might enjoy them too. To all my readers, all over the world, I’d like to thank every single one of you. It’s because of you I get to do the job I always dreamed of. You have no idea how happy it makes me to receive all your lovely messages.
Finally, to my beloved AC for his continued love and support and always believing in me; my mum and sister who encourage and inspire me every single day; my dad whose photograph sits on my desk cheering me on; and the rest of my tribe: thank you from the bottom of my heart. I couldn’t do any of this without you.
I’m also grateful for:
* My wood-burning stove and whiskey, for getting me through a winter spent hunkered down, writing.
* Elton, for no longer chewing the cushions and being the best canine companion an author could have.
* All of it.
Footnotes
New Year’s Day
* Otherwise known as BITL. It used to be thirty-nine. Then it crept up to forty-two. Now it’s w
hatever age you can get away with in good lighting.
The Next Day
* But just in case, I will wear a hat.
An Unexpected Guest
* Otherwise known as TL. This is the terrifying fate that awaits you if you don’t get your shit together BITL. It’s the scary monster that keeps you awake at night. Like the bogeyman, only with bad fillers and Botox.
The Baby Shower
* Disclaimer: not all baby showers are awful. I went to one for a work colleague in Upstate New York that was a really lovely celebration; no gifts or games were allowed, but instead we got to make pizzas and wishes for the baby, which we wrote on scraps of paper and threw into the firepit where they were carried as sparks into the future. And yes, I know it all sounds a bit hippy dippy, but it really was as lovely and hippy dippy as it sounds.
* I saw Annabel’s swimsuit selfies on Instagram later. Forgetting my swimsuit was no accident.
Failing
* Just to be clear, this is a metaphor and I’m talking speed not size.
It’s Complicated
* Which is very different from the humblebrag of feeling #blessed.
Not Junk!
* Otherwise known as a bloody, goddam, bona fide, with the only man I’ve been attracted to since Ethan, DATE.
School Sports Day
* Of course she tripped me up, but this is a gratitude list and no place for murderous thoughts.
Be Happy
* Though I confess there was a rather beautiful sunset involved.
Panic and Potential
* Well, maybe sometimes, when I read one of those scary articles, but I think that’s normal (and fully their intention).
The Horrors of Overhead Lighting
* Actually, he can still ghost me, but I won’t know about it, so two negatives make a positive.
Fab Female Friday
* Trust me, this goes much, much further than a no-make-up selfie. Also, I’m using ‘we’ in the royal sense of the word, as maybe it’s just me with the messy, flawed, unfiltered life. And perhaps my twenty-seven listeners (it used to be thirty-two but I seem to have lost five).
The Package
* She made a good point about the chickens.
Life Moves On
* I swear it was the size of a tarantula. Which proves that, of course, mums always know best.
Halloween
* At least, I bloody well hope so.
Bonfire Night
* Though listening to other people’s dreams might come a close second. Sorry, Edward.
Tea and Biscuits
* If you’re wondering, I had four.
Things I’ve Learned from Cricket
* Failing that, tequila.
Frankenstein and Myrrh
* Because of course I did not think of an extremely witty comeback. In fact I thought of no comeback at all, witty or otherwise, but instead exchanged polite pleasantries before excusing myself to the loo. Where of course I thought of loads of brilliant things I should have said, but by then it was too late.
* But who cares. Because more important is that when I saw him I felt nothing. Except perhaps a mild irritation. And the realization that he was wearing mom jeans.
This Year’s Gratitude List (Revised)
* And it doesn’t involve yoga.
* But does involve Edward, who told me to stop worrying about newspaper shoes, as I can always borrow his wellies.
Obituary of a Forty-Something F##k Up
* Correction: Since going to print it has been confirmed that this fuck-up is in fact not dead as first reported, but living her best forty-something fuck-up life. Sincerest apologies to all concerned.
confessions of a forty-something f##k up
Yorkshire born and raised, Alexandra lived for several years in LA before settling in London with her Californian husband and their Bosnian rescue dog. As a bestselling author of romantic comedies, she has won the Best New Fiction Award at the Jane Austen Regency World Awards and been short-listed for the Romantic Novel Awards. When she’s not writing or travelling, she’s getting out into nature, trying not to look at her phone and navigating this thing called mid-life.
Visit her at www.alexandrapotter.com
www.facebook.com/Alexandra.Potter.Author/
@alexandrapotter
Also by Alexandra Potter
What’s New, Pussycat?
Going La La
Calling Romeo
Do You Come Here Often
Be Careful What You Wish For
Me and Mr Darcy
Who’s That Girl?
You’re The One That I Don’t Want
Don’t You Forget About Me
The Love Detective
Love From Paris
First published 2020 by Macmillan
This electronic edition first published 2020 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
The Smithson, 6 Briset Street, London EC1M 5NR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-5290-2281-0
Copyright © Alexandra Potter 2020
Cover design: Mel Four / Pan Macmillan art department
Author photograph © (to come)
The right of Alexandra Potter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Quotation from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Facebook page. Copyright © Elizabeth Gilbert, 2014, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.
Confessions of a Forty Something F##k Up Page 37