The Girl I Used to Be

by Heidi Hostetter

Genres: Holiday books; Literary Fiction; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Owen Lawry is days away from leaving Gansett Island to attend the trial of his father, who is charged with assaulting his mother almost a year ago. He has spent his entire adult life trying to outrun his violent past, but the upcoming showdown with the father he hasn’t seen in more than a decade has him spending far more time in the past than in the present. His biggest challenge is convincing his pregnant fiancée, Laura McCarthy, to sit out the trip. The last thing he wants is to expose the woman he loves to the pain of his past. Laura is determined to stand by Owen’s side throughout the trial and into the life they have planned together. The trial and her final divorce papers are the only things standing between them and the wedding they have looked forward to all year. Can she convince Owen to let her in and allow her to help him through this difficult time? And what will become of the man she loves if his father walks free? As Owen and Laura prepare for the emotional battle with his father, his mother finally comes clean about her violent marriage, letting Charlie Grandchamp, the man who has been her friend and companion for months now, know what happened. How will Charlie react to hearing her secrets, and will their relationship move forward now that he finally knows the truth about why she can’t bear to let him touch her?

Release date: May 11, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

The only thing worse than arriving late for an appointment is arriving early.

Arriving early smacks of desperation, and Jillian DiFiore Goodman was not desperate. She was, however, beginning to perspire. She’d parked her car across the street from her appointment, in the shade of a leafy tree, and had cracked the windows, but the late September sun was merciless. Worse, the cicadas humming in the trees overhead meant the day would only get hotter. Jill shifted her position, feeling the cool leather seat underneath her, and breathed in the new-car smell, still a whisper in the air. She swatted a gnat from her face and glanced at the clock on the dashboard.

Twelve minutes more.

Across the street was the Brockhurst mansion, the site of her interview. Stately and imposing, it was one of the original homes in this upscale New Jersey neighborhood. A stone castle tucked behind sturdy iron gates, filled with mystery and old money. The front of the house was covered with ivy, a wall of boxwoods lined the front garden, and a lacy Japanese maple anchored the courtyard. The rumor was that the Brockhurst money came from the gold rush out west and had been brought east to buy respectability for an otherwise unremarkable family. Of course, no one would dare question their wealth now, because the Brockhurst money had bought respectability, and everyone wanted a piece of it.

Within the stone walls lived Georgiana Brockhurst, matriarch of the family. A formidable woman, she was said to be a generous philanthropist and noted patron of the arts. Her reach was wide, and her personal taste influenced much of the art world along the East Coast. She sat on the boards of the finest museums and galleries in the tri-state area. She’d promoted literacy and education programs too, but her passion was firmly within the arts. In fact, Georgiana Brockhurst was known to mentor emerging artists and that made Jill nervous. Because Georgiana Brockhurst was who Jill was scheduled to meet.

Jill glanced at her portfolio on the passenger seat again, if only to reassure herself that she’d brought it, that she had everything she needed. Then she placed her palms on her stomach to quiet the butterflies. They’d gotten worse in the minutes leading up to the interview and Jill had to remind herself to breathe.

At least Libby would be there.

Libby Brockhurst, the only granddaughter of Georgiana Brockhurst, was engaged to a man from an equally prominent family, and Jill wanted to photograph Libby’s bridal portrait.

The wedding would mark the union of two of the East Coast’s finest families. The planning alone had taken the better part of a year, and details had been mentioned in society pages in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut at least half a dozen times. The affair would start at the Brockhurst mansion with a private party for family and close friends. St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City had been reserved for the ceremony, and rumor had it that guests were expected to fill the pews to capacity. They’d booked the Plaza Hotel for the reception, where Jill had it on good authority that all three ballrooms had been reserved, with separate catering and entertainment in each. Afterward, family and close friends would return to the Brockhurst summer home in East Hampton for a final reception.

Jill’s best friend Ellie Monahan had been hired to help and had inside information. Among other things, she’d told Jill that every wedding vendor within two hundred miles had been competing for a chance to work the Brockhurst wedding. Competition was so fierce, she’d said, that the Brockhursts had hired private security just to keep them away.

Jill wanted a chance too, but she knew better than to stand in that line.

She had another way in.

It was true that she and Libby Brockhurst didn’t share the same social circle, but they did share a spin class. Three mornings a week they began their day on a stationary bike in an air-conditioned studio overlooking the Village Green. One day after class, had Jill plucked up her courage and invited Libby for coffee in a nearby café. Jill had done her research beforehand—she’d googled the wedding photographer the family had hired and visited his website to study his work. So when the time was right, over non-fat lattes, Jill proposed a unique approach for Libby’s bridal portrait. She’d found an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn, with crumbling brick walls and exposed pipes, where sunlight filtered from antique windows onto original hardwood floors. The texture and the setting would provide the perfect counterbalance to Libby’s heirloom gown. Jill envisioned stark black and white for some portraits, then a transition to color, adding ferns and delicate ivy to soften the effect of the stark backdrop. Jill had concluded her pitch with a Pinterest board created especially for Libby, and Libby had loved it.

But they both knew the final decision—that all decisions—rested with her grandmother.

A few days after that coffee, Jill had been invited to the mansion to present her ideas for Libby’s portrait to Georgiana Brockhurst. And that was why, at this moment, she sat across the street from the Brockhurst mansion, sweating through an ivory silk blouse and coordinating Marc Jacobs tweed blazer: for a chance.

With eight minutes until her interview, Jill turned the ignition on. After allowing herself a moment to enjoy a blast of blissful air conditioning, she drove across the street to the Brockhurst gates and was buzzed into the courtyard. She parked in the shade, then retrieved her portfolio and got out. Filled with purpose, if not yet confidence, she crossed the cobblestone courtyard to the front door and pressed the bell.

The carved mahogany doors were opened almost immediately by a uniformed member of the Brockhurst staff.

“Mrs. Goodman?”

“Yes.”

“Mrs. and Miss Brockhurst are expecting you. If you’d follow me please, I’ll let them know you’re here.”

He led Jill to a sitting room off the main foyer. It was bright and elegant, decorated in classic shades of French blue and pale yellow that reminded Jill of a jeweled Fabergé egg. The wallpaper was hand-painted in a soft blue that served as a canvas for everything else in the room, from the crown molding on the ceiling to the cherrywood bookcases flanking the windows on the far wall. Jill stepped closer to the windows, marveling at the panes of antique leaded glass and how they absorbed then softened the bright morning sun. Beside the windows were rich damask draperies in soft yellow, tied back with a navy tassel braided with gold thread. But the impressionist art on the wall was the most striking thing about the room, intricately framed and lit from below. Jill wondered if the paintings were original, then decided they likely were. In addition to her work with art museums, Georgiana Brockhurst was known to have one of the finest impressionist art collections in New Jersey.

Because she hadn’t been told where to sit, Jill made her way to a chair covered in rich silk damask. The upholstery was so luxurious that Jill couldn’t resist running her fingertips along the fabric. The pattern of deep yellow honeysuckle flowers and bright green hummingbirds was so intricate that it could only have been hand-embroidered. Curious as she was, Jill turned her focus to the door. It wouldn’t do to have Mrs. Brockhurst enter the room to see Jill turning over the furniture to examine the quality of the fabric.

Instead, Jill sat down gracefully, crossing her legs at the ankle, as she’d seen on television. If Mrs. Brockhurst’s office was wired with security cameras, as Marc’s was, what the video would show was someone who knew how to conduct herself in polite society.

Suddenly the door opened, and two women entered the room. The first to enter was Georgiana Brockhurst, wearing an original Chanel suit, dove gray with a cream silk blouse and a layering of pearl and gold beaded necklaces that were probably worth more than Jill’s first car. Mrs. Brockhurst looked older in person than she did in her pictures, though she was no less commanding. She had an air about her, a confidence about her place in the world. Jill rose from her seat immediately, resisting the temptation to curtsy.

Libby followed in her grandmother’s wake. The smile she flashed Jill was wide and reassuring, and Jill felt herself relax. As Libby crossed the room, it occurred to Jill that she’d only ever seen Libby in bike shorts and the faded Radcliffe sorority T-shirt she wore to spin, and it was striking how different Libby looked outside class. She was a younger version of her grandmother, in a simple gray sheath dress and a single strand of pearls, and just as confident. It occurred to Jill that Libby might be training to take over her grandmother’s philanthropy work in the future. She’d be good at it, Jill decided. Despite her wealth and influence, Libby was very down to earth. She’d listened to Jill’s ideas, looked at Jill’s work, and had arranged this meeting because she liked what she saw. For that, Jill was grateful.

Mrs. Brockhurst made her way to the chair behind the desk, and Libby sat beside Jill.

Libby leaned toward Jill and lowered her voice to a whisper. “You look nervous. Don’t be. This will be so much easier than Dave’s 6 a.m. class.”

Jill smiled in return, reassured.

When Mrs. Brockhurst was settled, the meeting began.

Libby’s tone changed, becoming more formal. “Jill Goodman, may I present my grandmother, Mrs. Georgiana Brockhurst?” Then Libby addressed her grandmother. “Grammy, this is Jill Goodman, the photographer I told you about.”

“I’m honored to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Brockhurst.” Jill winced at her awkward and stiff tone. The only part of this meeting she hadn’t rehearsed was the greeting. Clearly, she should have.

“Jill Goodman.” The older woman’s gaze sharpened, though not unkindly, and Jill found herself wondering what Mrs. Brockhurst had been like when she was younger. Newspaper accounts mentioned that she wasn’t born into privilege, but they didn’t provide much background on her life prior to her marriage to the much older Franklin Brockhurst III. “Are you related to Marc Goodman, the developer for the Summit Overlook neighborhood? The one that borders the arboretum?”

Jill tensed. The neighborhood Marc had developed four years ago was divisive. The land had originally been a green space, a parcel the state no longer wanted and had offered for sale at auction. Most people had assumed it would remain a park and so there hadn’t been much interest in buying it. Marc and his partners had snapped it up at a bargain price, and bulldozers had arrived almost immediately to clear the land, surprising local residents and sparking months of protests and lawsuits. Neighbors had hurled insults and accusations from their car windows as they’d driven by.

In the end, the land commission had apologized for the quick sale but insisted that no laws had been broken. Marc had won the fight, but he paid a price. Affluent clients who may have been interested in his custom builds were put off by the news reports, so Marc had had to work harder to find clients, and the development had taken longer to finish than he’d anticipated. In the meantime, the Goodmans had been pariahs in their own neighborhood.

“Yes, he’s my husband,” Jill answered, as neutrally as she could.

“Interesting.” Her expression gave nothing away, cordial and polite, but not friendly. “I understand you’d like the opportunity to photograph my granddaughter.”

“A wedding portrait, Grammy,” Libby gently interrupted. “I mentioned this before.”

“Yes, I remember, but I’d like Mrs. Goodman to speak for herself please,” Mrs. Brockhurst replied. “I’m sure she knows how.”

“I do.” Jill ignored the butterflies and straightened in her chair. Libby Brockhurst may be the bride, but the wedding was very much her grandmother’s to plan. “Libby and I share a spin class, as she may have mentioned. I showed her my work one day after class and shared an idea I had for her bridal portrait. Libby liked it and asked me to come here to meet with you.”

“I see. That was very resourceful of you.” Mrs. Brockhurst’s gaze shifted, though it appeared to be more curiosity than judgment. “Tell me about your background. I’m sure you won’t mind me remarking that you look quite young to have much career experience. How long have you been interested in photography?”

And because Jill had always met a challenge head-on, she decided to be truthful. “I’ll be twenty-seven years old in November. I have a business degree from Rutgers—”

“A business degree? Not an art degree?” Mrs. Brockhurst pressed. “Why not an art degree, if photography is what you have planned as a career?”

In for a penny, in for a pound, as Jill’s Aunt Sarah used to say. Jill squared her shoulders and answered this question truthfully as well. “I’ve always been interested in photography, but a business degree looks better on a résumé and back then my future was uncertain.”

Majoring in art wasn’t an option for Jill, though she would have loved it. The very idea of spending entire semesters abroad languidly studying the Old Masters was like a dream to her. Imagine, passing whole days doing nothing but wandering great cities, awaiting inspiration. But that wasn’t in the cards for Jill; her reality was very different. She worked two jobs to pay tuition and cobbled together a patchwork of student loans and work-study to pay the rest. Work had always come before anything else, and unyielding budgets were a way of life for her. Opportunities to study abroad weren’t for kids like her, and it was hard not to feel resentful at having missed them.

“So no, I don’t have a formal art degree,” Jill concluded. “What I do have is creativity—imagination and a fresh perspective. I think that’s just as powerful.”

“I’m sure you’re talented,” Mrs. Brockhurst allowed. “My point is that a formal art degree provides the foundation of one’s craft. Technique is a difficult thing to learn on one’s own.”

“I agree. I’ve taken photography classes at the community college and workshops at Parsons School in Manhattan. But I believe the most important thing a good photographer can bring to her work is a critical eye, and I think I have it.” She brought her portfolio to her lap. “May I show you?”

Mrs. Brockhurst inclined her head. “Please do.”

Jill had spent three full days organizing—and reorganizing—the photographs she wanted to present in this meeting. Now was her moment. She unzipped her leather case and opened it to the first image. She rose to place it on the desk then reclaimed her chair. Other photographers might have elected to explain each piece, turning the pages as they went, but Jill purposefully decided not to. Mrs. Brockhurst knew enough about art not to have it explained to her, and Jill wanted her work to speak for itself.

Even so, the wait was nerve-racking. Jill sat quietly, squeezing her hands together in her lap while Georgiana Brockhurst flipped through the pages and examined her photographs. After what seemed like forever, she paused at one of Jill’s very favorite ones.

“This one here.” Mrs. Brockhurst tapped a neatly manicured fingernail on the image. “Tell me about this.”

Mrs. Brockhurst had chosen the photograph that Jill had shown Libby, that day in the coffee shop. Libby had loved it, and the story behind it was the reason Jill was in the Brockhurst study now, interviewing for the job. So it was a very good sign that Mrs. Brockhurst had paused to notice that one.

“It was taken at the end of a week-long workshop at Parsons last year. The assignment was to bring a fresh perspective to a traditional composition. I chose bridal portraits because they’ve been photographed the same way for years and I knew I could do better. I wanted something that you might see on a runway or in an upscale fashion magazine. I found an old warehouse in Brooklyn and got permission from the owner to shoot there.”

Jill straightened, remembering how excited she had been to find the space. While the rest of the class had headed for the lush green spaces of Central Park or to the gritty industrial tunnels of the subway, Jill had wanted something different. Even after the others had finished shooting and returned to the studio to develop, Jill hadn’t found a place that spoke to her. When she finally did, her imagination sparked, and she worked straight through. Fueled by the euphoria of purpose and creativity, she finished a week-long assignment in record time. Finding that space and turning in the finished photograph was the happiest she’d ever been.

“Interesting composition,” Mrs. Brockhurst murmured.

“The space inside the warehouse was absolutely amazing. It’s a pre-war building so the windows are floor to ceiling, but the wind comes from the naval yards, bringing smoke. The soot on the windows filters the sunlight in the most amazing way. And the floors,” Jill gushed, unable to contain her excitement, “the floors are original hardwood, warped and scuffed from almost a century of use. The woodgrain is beautifully layered, and the texture shows up with the right exposure. The brick walls are old and crumbling but the color of the brick is warm, and it absorbs the sunlight—that almost never happens.” She breathed, then paused, suddenly aware of the flush on her face and the juvenile excitement in her voice. She pressed her lips closed and lowered her gaze, embarrassed by her enthusiasm. It was one thing to be excited in front of other students, but this was a job interview and she wanted to be taken seriously.

After taking a minute to compose herself, she raised her gaze. To her surprise, she was met with smiles from both Libby and her grandmother.

“Please, go on,” Mrs. Brockhurst said, gesturing. “Genuine enthusiasm for one’s work is refreshing and should be treated as the gift it is.”

Encouraged, Jill steadied herself and continued. “The image you’re looking at now is one of a pair I shot that day. There’s another that I like even better. It’s on the next page. May I show you?”

“Yes, please do.”

Jill’s favorite shot from that warehouse was honestly breathtaking. She’d taken it at a perfect moment, the elusive golden hour that comes just before dusk, when sunlight melts into honey tones and everything is bathed in magic. And just like magic, those moments were fleeting and you had to be ready for them. On that day, Jill’s model had assumed the fading light meant they’d finished work for the day, so she’d relaxed her pose. In a completely unguarded moment, she’d buried her face in her bouquet, breathing in the scent of pink peonies, and the joy she’d experienced was reflected in her expression. Jill had been there to catch it.

“You can see here that I softened the brick hardscape by filling the space with delicate stephanotis flowers and a tumble of variegated ivy. I draped a sheer curtain panel across the broken window—see how the fabric billows in the breeze from the river? Do you see how the ivory material picks up the colors in the foliage and even the lighter shades of grout between the bricks? Here and here?” Jill pointed, then realized she’d been explaining amateur photography to one of the state’s greatest art patrons, exactly the thing she’d told herself she wouldn’t do. Her face flushed again as she drew her hand away from the print.

“You’ve quite an eye,” Mrs. Brockhurst commented.

“Thank you.” Jill’s heart thumped in response. She might just get this job after all, and what a prize that would be! What a coup for her budding career. “What I imagine for Libby is something similar. Her hair color would be striking against the warm brick, but instead of an afternoon shot, I’d like to set up early in the morning. The sun rising over the river will wash everything in shades of pink and would pick up her skin tone. Libby’s bridal portrait will be beautiful and completely original.”

Jill was encouraged by Mrs. Brockhurst’s thoughtful examination of the photograph. She followed the older woman’s gaze as it swept the image, and when she noticed that Mrs. Brockhurst lingered on the same elements that Jill liked, she took it as a good sign. What if Mrs. Brockhurst took an interest in Jill’s work? That might lead to other opportunities, and wouldn’t that be wonderful?

Then, to her horror, Jill realized that Mrs. Brockhurst had noticed the very thing that Jill had hoped she wouldn’t. A mistake. During the shoot, Jill had laid down old bedsheets to protect the bride’s white gown, but she’d misjudged the amount of dust and grime that had accumulated on the floor from years of disuse, and a simple cotton bedsheet hadn’t been nearly enough protection. If she’d gone back for something sturdier, she’d have missed the light—and her opportunity—so she’d decided to press on. After the shoot, there were a few smudges on the hem of the dress where it had dragged on the floor, and on the cuff of the sleeve where the model had placed her hand on the hardwood to steady herself. Blemishes in the otherwise perfect photograph were unprofessional. They were easy enough to digitally remove, but Jill hadn’t noticed that she’d included the wrong prints until this morning. By then, it was too late to fix them.

She cringed at the sight of Mrs. Brockhurst’s fingertip resting on the smudge.

The mistake.

“The dress is fine—the dry-cleaners got the dus. . .