by women whose names I did not know. They were some of the most emotional passages I had ever heard; they spoke of Heidi as though she had been their sister. But Heidi didn’t have a sister. By the end of the night, I wasn’t as angry anymore.
We were in the kitchen, Stacy and I, a few days later when I remembered those words and I asked who had written them. That was when Stacy told me that Heidi, during her illness, had developed these incredibly intense relationships with a group of women from a cancer support website, women she called her “breast friends.” She died without ever actually meeting any of them, but they loved her and cried for her and wrote of her, again, like she was their sister. Which, in a way, I suppose she was.
So that is where this book came from, and that is who it is for. It is for Adam and Walker and Georgia, and Bobby and Natalie and Bob Sr. and Carole, and all the rest of Heidi’s family. And it is for all the other husbands and sons and daughters and brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers living with holes in their lives that will never be filled. And, most of all, it is for Heidi. If there is any justice in the universe, we will ski with her again someday.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are always people without whom a book would not have been written. In this case, however, there are several without whom the book could not have been written, beginning with Jacques de Spoelberch, my literary agent, golf companion, and friend. A month or so after I began to write, I awoke one morning in a cold sweat, convinced I was wasting my time. I sent what I had written to Jacques, with instructions not to spare my feelings. I asked him to tell this sportscaster he had no business trying to write a novel in three distinct female voices. To my astonishment, he called the next day and said: “Mike, I think you have it, keep going.” That was the beginning. And every day, from that one until this, he has been a tireless champion of this project and of Heidi’s Angels. Jacques is the best friend and agent you could ever ask for, and Lou Oppenheim of Headline Media Management and Peter Benedek from United Talent Agency are exactly the sort of agents you dream of having, the kind who care more about your happiness than anything else. I am very lucky to have Jacques, Lou, and Peter on my side.
This book could also not have been written without Dr. Richard Zelkowitz from the Whittingham Cancer Center in Norwalk, Connecticut; he was Heidi’s doctor. The last months of Heidi’s life were difficult, but Dr. Z made them better, as much better as they could possibly be. He is a doctor in the way we all imagine we want our doctors to be; he treats his patients the way he would treat his family. When I began to write I knew I needed Dr. Z to help me get the medical parts right. Anything I did get right is thanks to him.
This book next found its way to the hands of a yoga instructor named Sarah McGrath and an artist named Elaine de Spoelberch, who, along with my wife, Stacy, read it when I was halfway through and showed me all the parts I had gotten wrong. Elaine told me: “Forget the men; I want to read about the women.” And Sarah, quite bluntly, told me that no twenty-eight-year-old woman would use the word “blouse.” They also wrote the ending for me with their ideas, even if they didn’t mean to. I adore them both; thank you, ladies.
As for Kate Nintzel from William Morrow, there aren’t words. Or, if there are, I don’t know them. From the instant we met she understood what this book meant to me and she knew how to make it the best it could be. You can’t do a job any better than Kate edited this novel, and you can’t do it with a cheerier disposition, either. Thank you, Kate, you are the reason this happened.
Thanks, too, to Richard Koenigsberg of Spielman Koenigsberg & Parker, Mark and Jason Bradburn of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, and Michael Prevett of the Gotham Group for their valued counsel, assistance, and friendship.
I would like to thank my colleagues at ESPN, all of whom work so hard to support the V Foundation, and especially my partner of fourteen years, Mike Golic, who has taught me more than he’ll ever know. I am very proud to have had the seat next to Mike’s for all these years, and forever proud to have the letters ESPN attached to my name.
Finally, I should explain that I invented the phrase “Heidi’s Angels” with no celestial connotation in mind. The nickname was derived from the show Charlie’s Angels and Heidi loved it. I used it to describe the three friends who came together for her in a way I had never seen before and would never have believed possible had I not seen it for myself. The unconditional love these women demonstrated was worth writing a book about. This is not that book, I couldn’t write that book. All I can say is that I will live the rest of my life in awe of the way three women rallied around their friend and never wavered, no matter how hard it became. And so, again, this book is dedicated to them, and to all the other angels everywhere.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MIKE GREENBERG is cohost of ESPN’s Mike & Mike in the Morning and the author of two previous New York Times bestsellers. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and a native of New York City. He lives with his wife, Stacy, and their two children in Connecticut. In conjunction with the release of this book, Mike and Stacy have created a foundation called Heidi’s Angels, through which all of the author’s profits from the sale of this book will be donated to The V Foundation for Cancer Research to combat breast cancer.
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ALSO BY MIKE GREENBERG
Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot:
The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad
Mike and Mike’s Rules for Sports and Life
CREDITS
Author photograph by Pamela Einarsen
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ALL YOU COULD ASK FOR. Copyright © 2013 by Mike Greenberg. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greenberg, Mike, 1967–
All you could ask for : a novel / Mike Greenberg.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-06-222075-2 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-06-222076-9 (pbk.)—ISBN 978-0-06-222077-6 (ebook)—ISBN 978-0-06-223981-5 (audio) 1. Women—Fiction. 2. Female friendship—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3607.R4496A79 2013
813'.6—dc23
2012027371
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EPub Edition APRIL 2013 ISBN 9780062220776
13 14 15 16 17 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Table of Contents
Dedication
Epigraph
Part I
Part II
Heidi
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Mike Greenberg
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher