Looking For Ward 3/1/07

Hi! Today I am posting the first of 31 daily installments of my e-serial, Looking For Ward. Keep coming back throughout the month of March, it's going to be a great story. Also, feel free to comment!

-Laurel

To: bethanyjones45@hotmail.com
From: mailto:Chloe@origingifts.com
Date: March 1, 2007
Subject: Something weird has happened
Hey Bethany…
I need your help. You need to tell me I’m freaking out over nothing. I’m having a day that can only be described as crunchy, like when you think you’re getting a smooth PB&J, but you bite into it and there are all these unwanted chunks. Everything I do, think, feel, or see is just off and it scares me.
Why, you may ask.
Well, this morning my entire world was flipped upside down like the loosing side in a coin toss.
I’ll elaborate.

Last night Ward came over, we had dinner and talked about the wedding. He seems to forget that it’s in a month, and I wanted to figure out the seating chart and talk about our vows. So I made Chicken Kiev and opened a bottle of wine, and soon things were finer than Hugh Jackman in a wet t-shirt. Afterwards we watched CSI and went to bed (although we didn’t go to sleep, wink, wink, for sometime after). This morning he got up, took a shower, kissed me on the cheek, and said he’d call me later.

So I went to work. The store needs to be restocked, but I was in a lazy mood and things were slow, so I wasn’t doing much – except checking my e-mail. My mom still e-mails a kazillion times a day about the wedding. ANYWAY, at about 10 am, Ward sends me this (I cut & pasted):

Chloe,
I have to go away. I’ll explain later, but I’m not sure when that will be. I love you, and if you love me in return you’ll let me have this time, and you WON’T look for me. If you do decide to track me down, I won’t come back at all.
Please forgive me, and know I’ll be thinking of you constantly.
Love,
Ward

I e-mailed back, but there’s no response. I called his cell, same thing. Then I called his work, and they said he hasn’t come in today, and he doesn’t have any clients booked for the NEXT MONTH! He’s the most popular personal trainer at the Y, so can that be?

Maybe this is a joke? If so - not funny! I mean, obviously the wedding means more to me than it does to Ward, but I would hope the marriage is important to him. And if he has a problem, why wouldn’t he say something instead of just sending a cryptic e-mail? I really don’t get it.

Unless he’s in danger? Or something terrible has happened? But who would want to harm Ward, and what terrible thing could happen that he wouldn’t be able to tell me about? True, he’s always been an enigma of sorts; do you think this could have something to do with how he spends his mysterious Saturdays?

Please write back and tell me I’m over-reacting. Say that everything is going to be okay, and Ward is just having a moment of kookiness that will disappear soon.
Thanks…
Love,
Chloe.

Review Of Goodbye Jimmy Choo

Goodbye Jimmy Choo
By Annie Sanders

Izzy and Maddy are both feeling stuck. Izzy’s husband Marcus is out of work and their marriage is in trouble. Maddy doesn’t know what is going on with her husband, but he has been working late quite a bit and seems distant. To make matters worse, both Izzy and Matty have been forced to live in the English countryside, in a community where they both feel out of place.

When they meet each other at a child’s birthday party the two women feel an instant connection and decide to become friends. Then tragedy strikes and they become even closer as they battle adversity. Yet it is when they go into business together, marketing beauty products from decades old French recipes, that Izzy and Maddy form a bond that is as important and more unbreakable than any other relationship in their life.

Goodbye Jimmy Choo celebrates the power and strength of friendship between women. This book also offers a peek into the world of cosmetics, offering both an English and French flair. There are also some interesting supporting characters, including Izzy’s husband Marcus, who is brilliantly flawed but at times sympathetic as well.

However, the story does become a little bogged down in the middle, when it feels like nothing is really happening for chapters at a time. The book could have easily been shorter without detracting from the story. Also, a lot of the plot is told through description when dialogue or character action would have been more effective.

That aside, Goodbye Jimmy Choo is a wonderful book to curl up with on a rainy day. It is definitely a feel-good read, with strong female characters, humor, and a touch of the exotic. After reading this book you’ll feel like you traveled to England with your best friend, and it will have been well worth the trip.

Review by Laurel Osterkamp
originally posted on OnceWritten.com