chart?” Stacy repeated, feeling a rising annoyance at Ryan reneging on a promise to her for something that seemed so insignificant. “Can’t you do that from the lobby of the dance studio? I’m sure they have Wi-Fi.”
“If I can’t find Jeff, they’ll stick me with more than just building the chart, Stace,” Ryan said as he turned his attention back to the screen. “He’s got user data from the past quarter and we need it for the next release of funding.” Ryan tapped on the screen of his cell phone, then looked up. “But if you need me to take Sophie, I will. I’ll figure something out.”
“No, it’s fine.” Stacy took a deep breath as she rinsed the cutting board. Her nap would have to wait. “I’ll take her.”
“I can take her next week, I promise.”
“This is the last week of lessons. The recital is Thursday.”
“Good to know,” Ryan said absently. “By the way, did you know the pinks are different? Apparently, it matters.”
“What do you mean, ‘the pinks are different’?”
“I passed Sophie in her room earlier. She said the tights you laid out are the wrong color.” He shrugged, returning his attention to his work. “Last year’s practice color was ‘baby pink’ and this year’s is ‘princess pink.’”
“So she’s unpacked the ballet bag?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you stop her?”
Ryan looked up. “Was I supposed to?”
Stacy leaned against the countertop, pressing her palms on the surface. “She’s four, Ryan, and she can’t put on tights by herself, so yes, you should have stopped her.” As she left the kitchen to see about her daughter, she turned to ask the question that had just occurred to her. “How do you know the names of the ballet colors? That seems like an odd thing for you to know. Did Sophie tell you?”
“Nope. Jessica Steinman told me a couple of weeks ago. Her kid doesn’t like the colors mixed up either.”
“Jessica Steinman?” Stacy repeated, giving Ryan her full attention. “You talked to Jessica Steinman?”
“Sure. She’s nice.” Ryan shrugged as he sipped his coffee. “We had a whole conversation one week about shades of pink.”
“Jessica Steinman is not nice. She’s never said a single word to me. An entire year and not a single word.”
Ryan gestured to the tote Stacy carried to ballet every week. It had just enough room for whatever book she was currently reading, a thermos for her decaffeinated hazelnut coffee, and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. “You think that might have something to do with it?”
Parents weren’t allowed in the practice rooms during lessons, so many of the mothers waited on chairs in the lobby. The atmosphere was clique-y and tense, and in the center of it all was Jessica Steinman, holding court. Early on, Stacy had recognized she had nothing in common with any of the dance mothers, so she had decided to spend her time with a good book and a strong cup of coffee.
Still, the implication that Stacy wasn’t doing her best for her daughter stung.
“I’m re-reading A Winter to Remember and it’s a masterpiece, I’ll have you know. Almost a full year on the New York Times bestseller list when it was first published, and it’s about to hit it again because the second book in the series comes out in the fall,” she said.
“And the world can thank my brilliant wife for discovering Billy Jacob’s remarkable talent,” Ryan declared as he smiled.
Discovering Billy Jacob’s manuscript in the slush pile was one of Stacy’s proudest career accomplishments. Her first real job after graduation was as an assistant editor at Revere Publishing in Boston. Mostly she made coffee and ran errands, but occasionally she was allowed to pull submissions from the slush pile, and that was where she came across A Winter to Remember. The writing had been somewhat stilted and tended to veer off track, but the story itself was magical. She devoured the entire book, almost six hundred pages, in a single weekend, then rushed into her supervisor’s office the following Monday. It took a lot of persuading, but eventually Stacy was allowed to work on the manuscript with Billy, provided she did so on her own time. When the story was finished the editors would read it again, with the understanding that even after all that work, the story might still be rejected.
But it wasn’t.
The staff at Revere loved the story. So much so that it was fast-tracked and published just after Connor was born. She’d heard the sales were great and Revere intended to offer a