Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas Read Online Free PDF Page A

this. She definitely hadn't been ready for Suzanne.
Or Nicholas.
And especially not Nicholas, Suzanne, and Matt.
“This is so crazy and so bad, Guinny,” she said to the cat. “I've gotten myself into such a mess. God, what a disaster.”
Katie got up and wandered around her apartment. She had always been so proud of it. She had done much of the work herself, and liked nothing better than to throw on a T-shirt, cutoffs, and work boots, then build and hang her own cabinets and bookcases. Her place was filled with authentic antique pine, old hooked rugs, small watercolors like the one of the Pisgah Bridge, just south of Asheboro.
Her grandmother's jelly cabinet was in her study, and the interior planks still held the aroma of homemade molasses and jellies. Several vellum-paged, hand-sewn board books were displayed in the jelly cabinet. Katie had made them herself. She'd learned bookbinding at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina.
There was a phrase she loved, and also lived by--Hands to work, hearts to God.
She had so many questions right now, but no one to answer them. No, that wasn't completely true, was it? She had the diary.
Suzanne.
She liked her. Damn it, she liked Suzanne. She hadn't wanted to--but there it was. Under different circumstances they might have been friends. She hadfriends like Suzanne in New York and back home in North Carolina. Laurie, Robin, Susan, Gilda, Lynn--lots of really good friends.
Suzanne had been gutsy and brave to get out of Boston and move to Martha's Vineyard. She had chased her dream to be the kind of doctor, the kind of woman, she needed to be. She had learned from her near-fatal heart attack: she'd learned to treasure every moment as a gift.
And what about Matt? What had Katie meant to him? Was she just another woman in a doomed affair? God, she felt as if she should be wearing the Scarlet Letter. Suddenly she was ashamed. Her father used to ask her a question all the time when she was growing up: “Are you right with God, Katie?” She wasn't sure now. She didn't know if she was right with anyone. She had never felt that way before, and she didn't like it.
“Jerk,” she whispered. “You creep. Not you, Guinevere. I'm talking about Matt! Damn him!”
Why didn't he just tell her the truth? Had he been cheating on his perfect wife? Why hadn't he wanted to talk about Suzanne? Or Nicholas?
How could she have allowed Matt to seal off his past from her? She hadn't pushed as much as she could have. Why? Because it wasn't her style to be pushy. Because she didn't like being pushed herself. She certainly didn't like confrontations.
But the most compelling reason had been the look in Matt's eyes whenever they started to talk about his past. There was such sadness--but also intimations of anger. And Matt had sworn to her that he was no longer married.
Katie kept remembering the horrible night Matt left her. She was still trying to make sense of it. Had she been a fool to trust someone she thought she loved?
On the night of July 18, she had prepared a special dinner. She was a good cook, though she seldom had the time to do this kind of elaborate affair. She'd set the wrought-iron table on her small terrace with her beautiful Royal Crown Derby china and her grandmother's silver. She'd bought a dozen roses, a mixture of red and white. She had Toni Braxton, Anita Baker, Whitney, and Eric Clapton on the CD player.
When Matt arrived, she had the best, the most wonderful surprise waiting for him. It was really great: the first copy of the book of poems he'd written, which she had edited at the publishing house where she worked. It had been a labor of love. She also gave him the news that the printing was 11,500 copies--very large for a collection of poems. “You're on your way. Don't forget your friends when you get to the top,” she'd said.
Less than an hour later, Katie found herself in tears, shaking all over, and feeling as if she were living a horrible nightmare that couldn't