Présentation de l'éditeur
A radiant debut novel about stumbling through the early years of adulthood—and a love letter to the role models who light the way.
Like so many other recent graduates, Dawn West is trying to make her way in New York City. She’s got an ex-boyfriend she can’t quite stop seeing, a roommate who views rent checks and basic hygiene as optional, and a writing career that’s gotten as far as penning an online lawn care advice column.
So when Dawn lands a job tracking down the past winners of
Charm magazine’s “Ten Girls to Watch” contest, she’s thrilled. After all, she’s being paid to interview hundreds of fascinating women: once outstanding college students, they have gone on to become mayors, opera singers, and air force pilots. As Dawn gets to know their life stories, she’ll discover that success, love, and friendship can be found in the most unexpected of places. Most importantly, she’ll learn that while those who came before us can be role models, ultimately, we each have to create our own happy ending.
Extrait
The Ten Girls to Watch
The Internet told me the temperature in Brooklyn was ninety-three degrees, but my fourth-floor apartment wrapped those ninety-three degrees in ancient plaster, a sweaty hug that pushed things that much closer to triple digits. The large windows could have helped, but this was a day when flags hung limp on their poles. Instead of offering a breeze, all the windows did was lap up sticky sunshine. Even standing motionless in front of my blaring fan, perspiration trickled down my temples and pooled around my waistband. Still, before I dialed, I flicked off the fan. I didn’t want to risk missing a word, and the beauty of phone calls is that the other person can’t see how damp you are.
I rehearsed what I’d say to whomever answered the phone. Hi, this is Dawn West. Regina should be expecting my call. Too formal. Hi, Regina asked me to give her a call this morning. My name is Dawn West. I said that one over and over a few times. If I got the words out fast, it sounded okay. And what to say to Regina? Hi, we met this weekend? You said to phone your office Monday? Why was I making everything sound like a question? And surely she’d remember me. It’d only been a day. Cross-legged in the corner that got the very best cell reception, I punched the numbers slowly, my mouth moving as I checked each digit against the ones on the card I held between my fingers: Regina Greene, Editor in Chief, Charm.
Her assistant answered on the first ring.
A whole new line of sweat bloomed on my upper lip. The words blurred together. “Hi Regina asked me to give her a call this morning my name is Dawn West.”
“What was your name again?” the assistant asked. I wiped my lip and enunciated a bit more clearly.
Moments later, Regina was on the line. “Dawn!” She answered like we were old friends. “So glad you called!”
Since college graduation more than a year earlier, I’d applied for 116 jobs. (I knew the exact number because I’d kept scrupulous track of every application in Excel.) I might as well have been paper-airplaning my many résumés into the Grand Canyon for all the good my rigorous applying had done me. But now, I was on the phone with Regina Greene, and surely she hadn’t asked me to call just to say hello. I could feel disappointment poised and ready to fire—after all those months of trying and trying and failing, I was riddled with bullet holes—but right there beside the potential dashed hopes was so much pulsing want and need that even if it had been fifty degrees, I would have been sweating.
We exchanged a pleasantry or two, and then she got right to it.
“Have you seen our Ten Girls to Watch issue, Dawn?”
Regina explained that every year Charm picked ten remarkable college women—violin prodigies who also discovered vaccines, Olympic archers who also ran orphanages, things like that—and this year marked the contest’s fiftieth anniversary.
“We’re looking to do some special coverage for
