Maybe This Time Read online

  Maybe This Time

  ALSO BY JENNIFER CRUSIE

  Bet Me

  Faking It

  Fast Women

  Welcome to Temptation

  Crazy for You

  Tell Me Lies

  Maybe This Time

  JENNIFER CRUSIE

  ST. MARTIN’S PRESS

  NEW YORK

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  A Reading Group Guide

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  MAYBE THIS TIME. Copyright © 2010 by Argh Ink, LLC. All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.stmartins.com

  ISBN: 978-1-4299-3097-0

  First Edition: September 2010

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is for

  Sarah and Cecilia

  who want cereal for breakfast every day

  and who fill those days with joy.

  My Thanks To

  THE GLINDAS and the ARGH PEOPLE,

  who suffered through this book with me

  GAIL HOGAN,

  who helped me with the TV research and who is nothing like Kelly O’Keefe

  HEIDI and DAN CULLINAN,

  who suggested the salvia

  BROOKE BRANNON, SUE DANIC, MOLLY HASELHORST, LANI DIANE RICH, ROXANNE RICHARDSON, and ANNE STUART,

  who beta read brilliantly

  RACHEL PLACHCINSKI,

  who gave me the original house that became Archer House, a picture of herself as a small child that became Alice, a translation of American English into British English for one character, and constant support throughout the writing of this (as in, “Hurry up and finish the [British expletive deleted] book, Crusie”)

  JODI REAMER and AMY BERKOWER,

  who went above and beyond the call of agenthood . . . again

  JENNIFER ENDERLIN,

  the finest editor an author can have

  and

  HENRY JAMES and TRUMAN CAPOTE,

  who were here first.

  Maybe This Time

  This book takes place in 1992.

  Because.

  One

  Andie Miller sat in the reception room of her ex-husband’s law office, holding on to ten years of uncashed alimony checks and a lot of unresolved rage. This is why I never came back here, she thought. Nothing wrong with repressed anger as long as it stays repressed.

  “Miss Miller?”

  Andie jerked her head up and a lock of hair fell out of her chignon. She stuffed it back into the clip on the back of her head as North’s neat, efficient secretary smiled at her, surrounded by the propriety of his Victorian architecture. If that secretary had a chignon, nothing would escape from it. North was probably crazy about her.

  “Mr. Archer will see you now,” the secretary said.

  “Well, good for him.” Andie stood up, yanked on the hem of the only suit jacket she owned, and then wondered if she’d sounded hostile.

  “He’s really very nice,” the secretary said.

  “No, he isn’t.” Andie strode across the ancient rug to the door of North’s office, opened it before the secretary could get in ahead of her, and then stopped.

  North sat behind his walnut desk, his cropped blond hair almost white in the sunlight from the window behind him. His wire-rimmed glasses had slid too far down his nose again, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up over his forearms—Still playing racquetball, Andie thought—and his shoulders were as straight as ever as he studied the papers spread out across the polished top of the desk. He looked exactly the way he had ten years ago when she’d bumped her suitcase on the door frame on her way out of town—

  “Miss Miller is here,” his secretary said from behind her, and he looked up at her over his glasses, and the years fell away, and she was right back where she’d begun, staring into those blue-gray eyes, her heart pounding.

  After what seemed like forever, he stood up. “Andromeda. Thank you for coming.”

  She crossed the office, smiled tightly at him over the massive desk, decided that shaking his hand would be weird, and sat down. “I called you, remember? Thank you for seeing me.”

  North sat down, saying, “Thank you, Kristin,” to his secretary, who left.

  “So the reason I called—” Andie began, just as he said, “How is your mother?”

  Oh, we’re going to be polite. “Still crazy. How’s yours?”

  “Lydia is fine, thank you.” He straightened the papers on his desk into one stack.

  A lot of really big trees had died to make that desk. His mother had probably gnawed them down, used her nails to saw the boards, and finished the decorative cutwork with her tongue.

  “I’ll tell her you asked after her.”

  “She’ll be thrilled. Say hi to Southie for me, too.” Andie opened her purse, took out the stack of alimony checks, and put them on the desk. “I came to give these back to you.”

  North looked at the checks for a moment, the strong, sharp planes of his face shadowed by the back light from the window.

  Say something, she thought, and when he didn’t, she said, “They’re all there, one hundred and nineteen of them. November nineteen eighty-two to last month.”

  His face was as expressionless as ever. “Why?”

  “Because they’re a link between us. We haven’t talked in ten years but every month you send me a check even though you know I don’t want alimony. Which means every month I get an envelope in the mail that says I used to be married to you. And every month I don’t cash them, and it’s like we’re nodding in the street or something. We’re still communicating.”

  “Not very well.” North looked at the stack. “Why now?”

  “I’m getting married.”

  She watched him go still, the pause stretching out until she said, “North?”

  “Congratulations. Who’s the lucky man?”

  “Will Spenser,” Andie said, pretty sure North wouldn’t know him.

  “The writer?”

  “He’s a great guy.” She thought about Will, tall, blond, and genial. The anti-North: He never forgot she existed. “I’m ready to settle down, so I’m drawing a line under my old life.” She nodded at the checks. “That’s why I came to give you those back. Don’t send any more. Please.”

  After a moment, he nodded. “Of course. Congratulations. The family will want to send a gift.” He pulled his legal pad toward him. “Are you registered?”

  “No, I’m not registered,” Andie said, exasperated. “Technically, I’m not even engaged yet. He asked me, but I needed to give you the checks back before I said yes.” She didn’t know why she’d expected him to have a reaction to the news. It wasn’t as if he still cared. She wasn’t sure he’d cared when she’d left.

  “I see. Thank you for returning the checks.”

  North straightened the papers on his desk again, and then looked down at the top paper for a long moment, as if he were reading it. He’d probably forgotten she was there again because his work was—