Nine Lives - Danielle Steel Page 0,26

see Big Sur, and the Napa Valley, and the Golden Gate.” They were all locations in or close to San Francisco.

“Anyplace else in the U.S.?”

“No, we went to a lot of cities for Brad’s conventions. I think we’ve hit all the high spots.”

“Europe?” Helen asked her, enjoying the game. Maggie was starting to get into it too, in spite of herself, even if she never took a trip in the end. She didn’t really intend to. She was humoring Helen.

“I’ve never been there,” Maggie admitted, and Helen looked shocked.

“Never?”

“Never. Brad wasn’t a big traveler unless he could justify it for business. He promised me that we’d travel after Aden left for college. I’m not sure he meant it, or would actually have done it.”

“Okay, here we go. London?”

“Maybe. It looks cool and I speak the language,” Maggie conceded. Helen wrote it down after San Francisco.

“Paris! You can’t go to Europe and not go to Paris. It’s fantastic.” Helen wrote it down even before Maggie nodded. “Rome. Ohmygod. The food is so incredible and the country is so romantic. Florence is wonderful too, but less fun alone. And Venice is the most romantic city ever, maybe you should save that.” She wanted to say for her next honeymoon, but didn’t. “There it is. Four of the most fantastic cities in the world, if you eliminate Florence and Venice. You can do them in three or four weeks, and it will change your whole life and perspective. It beats the hell out of sitting around here watching TV, being bored, and feeling sorry for yourself. You said you can afford to travel. Call your travel agent.”

“And I just go by myself?” Maggie was skeptical and nervous about it. And she didn’t want to take all those flights alone.

“I’d go with you, but Jeff disintegrates if I leave him on his own with the kids for two days when I visit my mother in Detroit. Four weeks would probably kill him.”

“It might kill me too,” Maggie said, smiling.

“You can always come home,” Helen reminded her again. “You’ll never forget a trip like this, Maggie. And you have nothing else to do.” Her son didn’t need her anymore and there was no one else.

“I have to go to parents’ weekend at BU in a few weeks.” Maggie grabbed at a weak excuse.

“And after that, he won’t be home till Thanksgiving. He won’t even think about you by next month. You have plenty of time to travel. Grab it. Maggie, I swear to you, you won’t regret it.” Helen hoped she was right, if she decided to do it.

Maggie mulled it over all that night, and feeling utterly crazy, she called her travel agent the next morning and figured out what it would cost her. It was expensive, but she could afford it. And on the spur of the moment, she told her to set it up. San Francisco, from there directly to Rome, Paris, London, and then home. Four cities, four weeks, flying business class and staying at very good hotels, where she’d be safe. She had never done anything like it in her life, but she wondered if Helen was right and she should just do it. It was so out of character for her. But what else was she going to do between now and Thanksgiving except cry over Brad, miss Aden, and call him too often?

She was going to leave for San Francisco three days after parents’ weekend in Boston. She’d miss Halloween, although she had no one to celebrate with. The travel agent told her that September and October were the best months to travel in Europe. It wasn’t as crowded and the weather was still beautiful. She suggested a weekend in the South of France between Paris and London, but Maggie decided she could always add that once she was in Europe. The price for the whole trip was steep, but not totally insane, particularly given what she had now, and she was traveling in the best possible conditions, in total comfort at famous hotels that she had heard about and never dreamed she would actually see. She would never have gotten to Europe with Brad. It just wasn’t on his radar, and he didn’t have an explorer’s nature. He thought a weekend in New York was as exotic as he wanted to get. It had taken ten years to get him to Miami, to show him where she had lived as a teenager, and he’d only