Good Eggs
Page 32
As soon as Kevin’s out the door, Aideen grabs her grandmother and pulls her into the gleaming new kitchen.
“Close your eyes.”
“What?” says Millie.
“It’s a surprise. Just close your eyes.”
Millie stands dumbly peering at her granddaughter. “You look gorgeous. Is that mascara?”
“Gran! Close!”
She finally does as she’s ordered, but only because it’s Aideen doing the ordering. She feels something small and soft, like velvet, in her hands—one of JJ’s handcrafted pouches, and there’s some object, something with heft, inside it.
“OK, now open.”
“Very bossy today, Duckie.”
“Go on.”
So Millie does. She opens her eyes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to Lisa Erbach Vance, a true partner, as kind and steady as she is funny and brilliant.
And to Daniella Wexler, who guided this story with immense care and wisdom, improving it immeasurably.
I am very grateful to the hardworking team at Atria, especially Loan Le, Jade Hui, Felice Javit, Carla Benton, Kayley Hoffman, Kyoko Watanabe, Jim Thiel, Isabel DaSilva, Gena Lanzi, and Paige Lytle.
Thank you to Kate Ballard for her enthusiastic championing of this book as well as Ed Faulkner and the whole gang at Allen & Unwin.
Deep gratitude to Deborah Goldstein and C. J. Prince, the original loafers, for their encouragement, insights, and laughs. Your turn.
Thank you to early readers Tina Dall, Mark Hardiman, Shala Anastasio, Dorri Ramati, Roger Rosen, Alix Clyburn, and Ben Strouse. And, for their help and encouragement, Tara Jerman, Robin Hardiman, Ben Hardiman, Bonnie West, Peter Ahern, Rob Dall, Laura Smyth, Tara Parker, Joanne Serling, Jami and Marc Kurschner, Victoria Rowan, Diane Spechler, and Wendy Bihuniak.
Special gratitude goes to MaryAnne Briggs and Jeanne Sterling for tolerating my nonsense, and to Michael Slezak, Mitch Rustad, Alexis Auleta, and all the crazy Queens for their years of abuse. Allevia!
I am profoundly appreciative of the heroic force of nature that is my mother, Patience Humphrey, and my brother, Ben Jerman. Bulls buy.
And thanks most of all to the GOATs: Declan, Zac, and Simon, and my husband, Alex, fiercely intelligent, wickedly funny, patient, and kind—a good egg through and through.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca Hardiman is a former magazine editor who lives in New Jersey with her husband and three children. Good Eggs is her first novel.
SimonandSchuster.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Rebecca-Hardiman
@AtriaBooks @AtriaBooks @AtriaBooks
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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 © 2021 by Rebecca Hardiman
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First Atria Books hardcover edition March 2021
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Interior design by Kyoko Watanabe
Jacket design & illustration by Jonathan Bush
Author photograph © Ron Holtz Studio
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.
ISBN 978-1-9821-6429-4
ISBN 978-1-9821-6431-7 (ebook)