of our factories are out of line.”
“I just want to be sure.”
“I know. We’re as sure as we can be. If anything changes, I’ll let you know. How long will you be in London?”
“Till tomorrow.”
“I’m going back to the city tomorrow too. I’ll see you in the office next week. Have a safe flight home.”
“Thanks, Peter. It was nice of you to call me.” She had been feeling lonely when she got to London. Getting back to real life seemed harsh now without her kids. She was even missing Joe. It had been nice to hear a familiar voice when Peter called. “I’m checking out the remodel of the London store.”
“I figured that was what you were doing. I hope your re-entry won’t be too tough.”
“Hopefully not. Enjoy the last of your vacation too.”
“Thanks.” They hung up then, and she ordered a bowl of soup from room service. She wasn’t even hungry. Nothing seemed like any fun now without her kids.
And an hour later, she was off to the London store. It tugged at her heartstrings to see the old familiar location, and she spent the afternoon looking at the remodel and meeting the new manager of the store. He was taking her to see their new warehouses outside the city the next day, and then she was catching a flight home.
When she got back to Claridge’s at eight o’clock that night, she was too tired to even order dinner. She had just turned seventy, a fact she tried to ignore and which seemed hard to believe, but she felt a hundred years old that night. All she wanted was to go back to the boat and start the trip all over again. Or better yet, rewind the film all the way back to the beginning of her life, and do it differently this time. But there was no rewinding the movie. She just had to go forward, and do the best she could. The rest of how the story turned out was up to Sophie and Alex, and their children after them. She was just a link in the chain. She and Joe had started something, and their grandchildren would finish it, or their children. And for now, all she could do was move ahead, and keep building the empire for them. She had nothing else to do.
Chapter 11
When Liz got back to the house in Connecticut, it was so empty and silent that it seemed morbidly depressing. Like her mother, she had loved being with her kids, and it was painful to no longer be with them. She looked in the fridge and it was empty. She made herself a cup of instant soup, opened her suitcase, and decided to go to bed. She called Carole and Sophie, and both of them were out with their friends, respectively in New York and Boston. The lives they had come home to were far more entertaining than hers. All she had to do was two weeks of laundry, and as she lay in bed with her mug of soup, she remembered the manuscript in her bag. She took it out and looked at it again. She could see a dozen places she already wanted to change. And she found herself wondering again if Sarah was right about it. Maybe her mother had just been kind to her. She was suddenly filled with self-doubt again.
She fell asleep too early that night, because of the time difference, and she was wide awake at six o’clock the next morning, and read the manuscript again. She didn’t know if she had the guts to call her agent, and by nine o’clock, she was in a state of total nerves. She decided to put it off till the next day, until she got a text message from her mother. All it said was “Did you call your agent yet? Do it! The book is great! I love you, Mommy.” Liz smiled when she read it, and gritting her teeth, she called her agent at ten.
She waited to hear the familiar voice of her agent and was startled when a clipped British male voice answered instead.
“Is Charles Halpern there?” she asked politely, and the British voice sounded as startled as she had. There was a long pause before he answered.
“No. He died two years ago. This is Andrew Shippers, I bought the agency from him when he got sick. Is there something I can do for you?”
They kept surprising each other. “My name is Elizabeth Grayson.