Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Acknowledgements
RIVERHEAD BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2008 by Rebecca Flowers
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or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do
not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation
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Published simultaneously in Canada
The author acknowledges permission to reprint lyrics from
“Thunder Road” by Bruce Springsteen. Copyright © 1975 Bruce Springsteen,
renewed © 2003 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP). .
International copyright secured. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Flowers, Rebecca.
Nice to come home to / Rebecca Flowers.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-1-4406-3380-5
1. Single women—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. 3. Family—Fiction.
4. Adams Morgan (Washington, D.C.)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3606.L686N
813’.6—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Andrew,
as in all things
One
Prudence Whistler was at a conference at the Sheraton on Connecticut Avenue when she saw the woman she was supposed to be by now.
Pru was trying to persuade the executive director of an important nonprofit to give her a job. She’d followed him out of the Gerald R. Ford Room, where he’d been giving a talk called “Follow the Money!” The conference (“A Passion for Mission!”) was for fund-raising professionals, and as if to compensate for the dullness of the proceedings, everything ended with an exclamation point.
As soon as he’d seen that an attractive woman wanted something from him, the executive director scooted right in close to Pru, one hand sliding along her back. He’d pushed a fleshy ear practically into her mouth, although the hallway was empty. Pru tried not to stiffen. She needed a job. She’d been without one for ten days now, the longest she could ever remember. Soon it would be two weeks. Two weeks, with no job. She took a deep breath. He was way inside her personal bubble. He was, in fact, looking down her personal bubble’s shirt.
The executive director began fingering the back of her bra strap while Pru blathered on, hardly aware of what she was saying. She still wasn’t used to the game. She had hoped that the nonprofit world would be a decent place, full of well-meaning people working shoulder to shoulder for a noble cause. Like how she had first envisioned a Communist society: men and women working together as equals, in matching unisex jumpsuits and caps. She’d had a lot of illusions like that when she’d gotten her first nonprofit job, more than ten years ago, after graduate school. But she’d found that this world, too, had its share of huge egos, inflated salaries, and horrendous working conditions. And also little power games, like this one.
“Prudence,” he said, interrupting her spiel. He bent to squint at the small, neat print on the name tag pinned to her chest. “Is that your handwriting? Am I supposed to be able to read that?”
She was barely able to refrain from sighing audibly. She looked at him, trying to find something likable. She tried to imagine him as a younger man. He must miss those days, she thought, high school or maybe college, back when girls would flirt with him because he was cute and played football. Or no; the girls never flirted with him, until he became the executive director of a $20 million-a-year international relief agency. He wasn’t super-attractive, but he dressed nicely and his shoes (tasseled loafers—Jesus) were polished. She approved of that, anyway.
“I don’t know, maybe you need glasses,” she said. It was a pathetic attempt, but he brightened. She was being cheeky with him, a known big shot.
“Hey,” he said. The hand on her back now gave her upper arm a friendly squeeze. “Are you calling me old? I bet I’m not so much older than you. What are you, thirty-five, thirty-six?”
The fake smile she’d been holding slid from her face. She could feel angry tears stinging her eyes. Was he kidding?
“Uh-oh,” he said, laughing. Had he even bothered to shave off five years, as politeness demanded? Gripping her arm more tightly, he said, “You don’t look it, I swear. Listen, I was going to go somewhere better than this for lunch. Come with me. My treat. Come on, let me make it up to you.”
He was so close she could feel his breath on the side of her face. That was when she looked up and saw a woman who could be her twin. Tall and broad-shouldered, like Pru, the woman was striding toward her from the other end of the
