Excerpt from Plan B: Boyfriend

I like to post an excerpt of upcoming books here, but this time I'm torn. The opening scene is all the heroine's. It's a good scene (I think), and makes a fine excerpt. The issue is that I love the hero, Charlie McNulty. He's why I wrote the book. So...I'm posting the opening scene here, but there's a link at the bottom to my website where there is a second excerpt that's all Charlie. :-)

Sarah Finley examined herself carefully in the mirror on the back of the closet door in her front hall. The gleaming walnut woodwork surrounding the mirror provided a dark counterpoint to her “hip, yet involved and respectable mother” outfit—a knee-length charcoal skirt with a slight flare at the hem to soften it, crisp, white shirt patterned with pale pink circles from the newest Talbot’s catalog, and a cropped black knit jacket with chunky, artistic buttons.

She was debating about the abstract print scarf. If she wore the scarf would it say “I’m taking this issue seriously” or “I’ve just come from shopping?” She’d never faced this situation before; wasn’t confident she was approaching it correctly. She seriously doubted, however, if even Emily Post knew the exact dress code for meeting with the school principal to discuss the possible expulsion of your first-grader.

Sarah bit back a semi-hysterical laugh. She couldn’t allow that laugh. Not now. That laugh had burst out inappropriately with increasing frequency ever since Erik left her eight months ago. For a while she’d thought she was managing. But the repeated appearance of the laugh and its distressing tendency to morph into a sob made her wonder just how well she was coping. Not well, she was beginning to suspect.

Which was bad.

Because Sarah was a coper. It was her claim to fame. Her hallmark. It was why she was always the vice-president or the volunteer coordinator rather than the president of groups like the PTA, the pool association, even the block party committee. Sarah Finley could cope with anything.

Except, apparently, her husband’s infidelity, her resulting divorce, and the fact that Simon, her well-loved if perplexing six-year old, was in danger of being chucked out of Carol Ryan Memorial Elementary before he’d mastered alphabetical order.

Sarah ripped the scarf off her neck and stuffed it into her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle the laugh. Which did turn into a sob. Which she was only able to control by thinking of Simon. Her baby. Currently in lock-down in the principal’s office on what Jessica Jordan, the school secretary, had ever so sweetly informed her was a weapons violation.

Oh, Simon.

Sarah dropped the scarf, grinding it under one tasteful, black sling-back as she headed out of the house.

Note: Go here to read Charlie's excerpt.