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Overview
Every day is like Christmas for Caroline, a young blond editor at Presents, the shopping magazine. Every day brings more free Guccis and Pradas for her magazine and her closet. But the actual Christmas is a drag: everyone gets presents. And Caroline is feeling the loss of her mysterious father more than ever. Her fabulous designer mother is in dumpy Branson, Missouri, her redheaded assistant Ursula Heep is scheming behind her back, that creepy receptionist Mrs. Defarge won't stop with the knitting, and a 6' 7" football player named Tiny Tim is obsessed with her.
On Christmas Eve, the ghost of Caroline's dead roommate, Carly, returns to warn that three more spirits are coming. Caroline begins a trip to Christmases past, present, and future, but though she has nine closets, she doesn't have a thing to wear.
Performed by Nanette Savard
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780061741296 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Publishers |
| Publication date: | 10/13/2009 |
| Sold by: | HARPERCOLLINS |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 320 |
| File size: | 949 KB |
About the Author
Kyle Smith is the author of Love Monkey, the hit novel that was adapted into a CBS television series starring Tom Cavanagh and Jason Priestley. He is also a movie critic for the New York Post, which posts his reviews online each week at nypost.com. He lives in New York City.
Read an Excerpt
A Christmas Caroline
A NovelBy Kyle Smith
HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Kyle SmithAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0061119873
Chapter One
The thing that started it all was that furry boots were dead. I don't mean a little dead. One glance at the woman's shaggy footwear, and it was like, "Where do I send the condolence card for your look?" Or, "Your look is so quaint! I have such fond memories of when that was in." Or, authoritatively, "Somebody get me some yellow tape--I'm declaring this a fashion crime scene." Or--sniffing the air dramatically and addressing no one in particular--"Is it just me or does this elevator stink--of last season?"
The other thing was Carly. She was actually kind of dead, too. She had died this very day, Christmas Eve, one year ago exactly, under circumstances that were still too painful to contemplate. So Caroline didn't contemplate them. Contemplation? She wasn't a fan.
Staring in fascinated horror at the furry boots in the last place you'd expect to find them--the center of the heart of the sun of the fashion universe, the Belle Connerie building--Caroline felt her heart leap and frolic with a jingly little touch of Christmas malice, deep under her fox-trimmed Balenciaga military coat and her blush-colored Chloé tea dress. The BC headquarters was where, just yesterday, Caroline had swept into the building wearing her Mantalini sunglasses and had, personally, gotten a silent nod of approval from the Editrix heading out the door. The Editrix,who was noted not only for running the most exclusive fashion book in the galaxy but for hiding her own aging eyes behind light-expunging discs the size of hubcaps, did not notice just anyone. With a nod from her you could practically launch your own fall line. It was the nod of arrival.
This, Caroline thought as she stood smirking next to the lady with the unmentionable footgear, has been a very tough morning. But things are looking up.
That assessment turned out to be as horribly wrong as a floor-length denim skirt with a big front pocket for holding your circle-a-word puzzle book. It was wrong as wearing a T-shirt with a humorous saying on it. It was as wrong as the Jaclyn Smith collection from Kmart.
The morning had been completely mental. Caroline was in the habit of beginning each day with vigorous exercise: an argument with her mother. La had knocked Caroline out of bed with the usual slightly-too-early phone call and the two had, like a sadistic pair of long-distance workout partners, quickly fallen into the usual pattern of stretching out their vocal cords followed by several reps of angry accusations and a session of emotional kickboxing. Caroline had scored the final points of the fight, as she often did, by reaching down into the past and pulling up the usual dead weight: the subject of Caroline's father. La never wanted to talk about what had happened to him, and Caroline needed to get in the shower anyway. Conversation over.
The whole time she was on the phone Caroline's face felt as if it had been shrink-wrapped onto her skull by heat lamps. A quick look at the placement of her bathroom creams and essential potions turned up disturbing evidence. She remembered that when she'd finished with the small gray and black bottle of Honeythunder moisturizer she had applied to her face right before going to bed, she had put it next to her Buzzfuzz wax-and-razor relief oil. But next to the tube of Buzzfuzz that morning there was a gray and black sample bottle of Verisopht shampoo. The stuff she had put on her face was not moisturizer. It was shampoo. Result: raisin face.
Her mother. What had gotten into the woman? This morning's fight had really just been a horrible sequel, the Grease 2 of phone calls. The original problem had begun when La had called to discuss the plan for the holidays. She'd ordered Caroline to guess where La and her boyfriend of the month were going.
"Okay, Mother." Caroline rolled her eyes so vigorously that the motion was nearly audible. "Tasmania."
"Hee hee! No."
"Reykjavík."
"Uh-uh-uh!"
"Okay, London." Duh. It was always London when things were normal. Same old hotels where they tried to make you eat bangers, like it was some kind of quaint Olde Worlde thing to ingest disgusting fat into your pristine bodily ecosystem.
"We thought we'd try someplace new this year," La said. "Branson."
"Bransonne?" said Caroline, her mind scrolling through all the travel magazines she read. New place, she decided: southwest France, maybe?
"Oh Mommy, you know comme j'adore la France!"
"It's not in France," said La. "And did you just call me 'Mommy'?"
Okay, then Switzerland. Caroline hoped it would be the cool part of Switzerland, i.e., not the German part. Germans always made Caroline think of The Sound of Music, and The Sound of Music made her blood ice over. That scene where the poor kids were forced to wear clothes made of curtains? Needlessly graphic.
"We've never done Switzerland before," Caroline said, "but I think it would be fine."
"No no, Caro. It's--" Her mother's cell phone broke up in a cloud of static. "crackle--zoorcrackle."
Zoor? Or Soor? That sounded almost Dutch--or, God, no, so much worse!--Belgian. Belgium was afflicted by packs of government bureaucrats, droopy gray skies, and practical footwear. It made Albany look like Río de Janiero.
"Did you say Belgium, Mother? Can we talk about that a little?"
"Zooree-crackle--flight--crackle, crackle--day," said Mother's end of the phone.
Caroline brightened. "Branzouri?" she said. "Is that like Italy? Oooh, I haven't been skiing in the Italian Alps in years! Please say we're going to the Alps!"
"Can you hear me now?" La said, switching channels.
"Loud and clear," Caroline said.
"It's in Missouri."
"I didn't hear that at all," Caroline said.
"Missouri," said La.
Caroline scrolled through her mental database of similar words looking for likely matches. Missoni? Maserati? Moschino?
Caroline gave up. "I'm just not getting this word you keep mentioning."
Continues...
Excerpted from A Christmas Caroline by Kyle Smith Copyright © 2006 by Kyle Smith. Excerpted by permission.
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