Last Known Address
Thelma and Louise for The Empty Nest generation! Get ready for the trip of a lifetime in this endearing new novel from the author of Second Chance.Ever fancied escaping your normal life? Then join three friends as they take the road trip of a lifetime and pick up a few strays along the way …For best friends C.C. Byrd, Meg Bartholomew and Shelly Kostens, middle age is feeling awkwardly familiar: fluctuating hormones, heartbreak and romance and believing no one understands you.CC must cope with widowhood after the sudden death of her husband while Meg rues the day she ever met hers after he ditches her for a younger model. Even the ever-confident Shelly is facing money worries.In a bid to forget their problems, the three woman head south to fix up and sell C.C.'s newly-inherited childhood house.Meeting unsuitable men, stray dogs and a few home truths along the way, the women re-discover their own identities and their friendship and learn that love - in all its forms - can make any address a home.Thelma and Louise for the young at heart, this heart-warming and captivating tale will delight fans of Maeve Binchy, Cathy Kelly and Marley & Me.
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ELIZABETH WRENN
Last Known Address
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
AVON
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Copyright © Elizabeth Wrenn 2008
Recipes copyright © Elizabeth Wrenn 2008
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Source ISBN: 9781847560155
Ebook Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007334988
Version: 2018-06-19
To all my girlfriends; you know who you are! With special love to my first and most enduring girlfriends: Ali, Peggy and Jenny. And to girlfriends everywhere, of every age.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN The Guy in the Tent
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Guy in the Tent
C.C.’s huge suitcase lay open on her bed, looking like a collapsed buffet guest. It was already too full to close, primarily due to the brand-new velour sweatsuits, tags still on, neatly folded and fanned on top of the bulging mound. Even so, C.C. turned a slow circle, scanning for anything she might have forgotten. She could tuck an item or two into the trunk of Meg’s car.
Should she take the third of a bottle of Happiness perfume on her dresser? No. One orange foam earplug on the bedside table? She tossed it over the bed toward the wastebasket. When it arced right in, she grinned. ‘That’s a good omen!’ She bent to pick up an old paper bookmark lying forlornly on the floor. She walked over and dropped it directly in with the earplug. Bookmarks didn’t fly well, and if she missed the wastebasket, well…Best not to tempt the fates.
Looking around the room, she mostly saw what wasn’t there. The other earplug. The rest of the perfume. And most of all, Lenny, who had bought her the perfume, for whom she’d worn the perfume. And whose snoring had made her reach for the earplugs each night.
She stepped to her dresser, picked up the picture of the two of them, its chrome frame glinting in the stark light of the nearly empty room. She had already packed the smaller picture, the one of Lenny and Kathryn and Lucy on the couch on Christmas morning, Lenny’s long arms embracing both her girls amid a litter of colorful paper and ribbons. She’d wrapped it in a short-sleeve cotton top, placed it in the middle of her suitcase, safely tucking it away, ready for the trip.
The trip. That seemed too small a word for this big…adventure. She laughed a little, all by herself there in her quiet bedroom. C.C. and Shelly and Meg’s Big Adventure.
She stared at the picture in her hands. It wasn’t a great picture, but it was the last one taken of just the two of them, at the Iowa Accountants Labor Day picnic two years ago. They were in front of a big oak tree, had their arms around each other, hers on Len’s thin waist, his hanging over her shoulder like a friendly snake. The light around them was peach-colored, and lovely, but they were both squinting into the setting sun. Like they were trying to see into the future or something. She’d left this picture out of the boxes till the last possible moment, to keep her company, and give her resolve. She touched Lenny’s smile. She could imagine him telling her,
