preview of Wendy Wax’s latest novel
WHILE WE WERE WATCHING DOWNTON ABBEY
Available now from Berkley Books
Chapter One
As a child Samantha Jackson Davis loved fairy tales as much as the next girl. She
just hadn’t expected to end up in one.
Every morning when her eyes fluttered open and every night before she closed them
to go to sleep, Samantha marveled at her good fortune. In a Disney version of the
airline passenger held up in security just long enough to miss the plane that goes
down, or the driver who runs back for a forgotten cell phone and barely avoids a deadly
ten-car pileup, Samantha averted disaster in the once-upon-a-time way: she married
the prince.
Over the past twenty-five years Samantha had sometimes wished she’d spent a little
more time and energy considering alternatives. But when your world comes crashing
down around you at the age of twenty-one, deep thinking and soul-searching are rarely
your first response.
There was plenty of precedent for prince-marrying in the fairy-tale world. Sleeping
Beauty had not ignored the prince’s kiss in favor of a few more years of shut-eye.
Cinderella never considered refusing to try on the glass slipper. And Snow White didn’t
bat an eyelash at moving in with those seven little men.
It wasn’t as if Samantha had gone out searching for a man to rescue her and her siblings
when their world fell apart. She hadn’t feigned a poisoned apple–induced sleep or
gotten herself locked in a tower with only her hair as a means of escape. She hadn’t
attempted to hide how desperate her situation was. But the fact remained that when
the handsome prince (in the form of an old family friend who had even older family
money) rode up on his white horse (which had been cleverly disguised as a Mercedes
convertible), she had not turned down the ride.
The fact that she hadn’t loved the prince at the time he carried her over the threshold
of their starter castle was something she tried not to think about. She’d been trying
not to think about it pretty much every day for the last twenty-five years.
* * *
Samantha smiled sleepily that early September morning when her husband’s lips brushed
her forehead before he left for the office, but she didn’t get up. Instead she lay
in bed watching beams of sunlight dance across the wooden floors of the master bedroom,
breathing in the scent of freshly brewed coffee that wafted from the kitchen, and
listening to the muted sound of traffic twelve floors below on Peachtree Street as
she pushed aside all traces of regret and guilt and renewed her vow to make Jonathan
Davis happy, his life smooth, and his confidence in his choice of her unshaken.
This, of course, required a great deal of organization and focus, many hours of volunteer
work, and now that she was on the downhill slide toward fifty, ever greater amounts
of “maintenance.” Today’s efforts would begin with an hour of targeted torture courtesy
of her trainer Michael and would be followed by laser, nail, and hair appointments.
Since it was Wednesday, her morning maintenance and afternoon committee meetings would
be punctuated by a much-dreaded-but-never-complained-about weekly lunch with her mother-in-law.
Which would last exactly one hour but would feel more like three.
Samantha padded into the kitchen of their current “castle,” which took up the entire
top floor of the Alexander, a beautifully renovated Beaux Arts and Renaissance Revival–styled
apartment building in the center of Midtown Atlanta.
When it opened in 1913, the Alexander, with its hot and cold running water, steam
heat, elevators, and electric lights, had been billed as one of the South’s most luxurious
apartments. Like much of mid-and downtown Atlanta it had fallen on hard times but
had been “saved” in the eighties when a bottom-fishing developer bought it, converted
it to condos, and began the first of an ongoing
WHILE WE WERE WATCHING DOWNTON ABBEY
Available now from Berkley Books
Chapter One
As a child Samantha Jackson Davis loved fairy tales as much as the next girl. She
just hadn’t expected to end up in one.
Every morning when her eyes fluttered open and every night before she closed them
to go to sleep, Samantha marveled at her good fortune. In a Disney version of the
airline passenger held up in security just long enough to miss the plane that goes
down, or the driver who runs back for a forgotten cell phone and barely avoids a deadly
ten-car pileup, Samantha averted disaster in the once-upon-a-time way: she married
the prince.
Over the past twenty-five years Samantha had sometimes wished she’d spent a little
more time and energy considering alternatives. But when your world comes crashing
down around you at the age of twenty-one, deep thinking and soul-searching are rarely
your first response.
There was plenty of precedent for prince-marrying in the fairy-tale world. Sleeping
Beauty had not ignored the prince’s kiss in favor of a few more years of shut-eye.
Cinderella never considered refusing to try on the glass slipper. And Snow White didn’t
bat an eyelash at moving in with those seven little men.
It wasn’t as if Samantha had gone out searching for a man to rescue her and her siblings
when their world fell apart. She hadn’t feigned a poisoned apple–induced sleep or
gotten herself locked in a tower with only her hair as a means of escape. She hadn’t
attempted to hide how desperate her situation was. But the fact remained that when
the handsome prince (in the form of an old family friend who had even older family
money) rode up on his white horse (which had been cleverly disguised as a Mercedes
convertible), she had not turned down the ride.
The fact that she hadn’t loved the prince at the time he carried her over the threshold
of their starter castle was something she tried not to think about. She’d been trying
not to think about it pretty much every day for the last twenty-five years.
* * *
Samantha smiled sleepily that early September morning when her husband’s lips brushed
her forehead before he left for the office, but she didn’t get up. Instead she lay
in bed watching beams of sunlight dance across the wooden floors of the master bedroom,
breathing in the scent of freshly brewed coffee that wafted from the kitchen, and
listening to the muted sound of traffic twelve floors below on Peachtree Street as
she pushed aside all traces of regret and guilt and renewed her vow to make Jonathan
Davis happy, his life smooth, and his confidence in his choice of her unshaken.
This, of course, required a great deal of organization and focus, many hours of volunteer
work, and now that she was on the downhill slide toward fifty, ever greater amounts
of “maintenance.” Today’s efforts would begin with an hour of targeted torture courtesy
of her trainer Michael and would be followed by laser, nail, and hair appointments.
Since it was Wednesday, her morning maintenance and afternoon committee meetings would
be punctuated by a much-dreaded-but-never-complained-about weekly lunch with her mother-in-law.
Which would last exactly one hour but would feel more like three.
Samantha padded into the kitchen of their current “castle,” which took up the entire
top floor of the Alexander, a beautifully renovated Beaux Arts and Renaissance Revival–styled
apartment building in the center of Midtown Atlanta.
When it opened in 1913, the Alexander, with its hot and cold running water, steam
heat, elevators, and electric lights, had been billed as one of the South’s most luxurious
apartments. Like much of mid-and downtown Atlanta it had fallen on hard times but
had been “saved” in the eighties when a bottom-fishing developer bought it, converted
it to condos, and began the first of an ongoing
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