Wish Upon a Star (58 page)
Authors: Olivia Goldsmith
‘It would have been a fiasco.’ He looked around. ‘So, I’ll have it painted, shall I? Magnolia?’ Before she could answer he had turned back to her. ‘The view of the back garden is very nice. Come and see it.’
They went into the empty bedroom and peered out of the window. ‘It’s more than a bit overgrown,’ Nigel said. ‘Mother used to love to keep it up but the gardener is lax.’
‘Could I work on it?’
‘Of course. If you like.’
Claire turned to him. ‘Oh, I’d love to!’
Perhaps it was her enthusiasm, or the way the light played on the side of her face. Perhaps it was because he had been longing to do it for quite some time. But for whatever reason, Nigel Venables took Claire in his arms and, to her complete surprise, kissed her. To her even greater surprise he kissed her long and well.
You might believe that Claire lived happily ever after. Of course, nobody ever does but if you’d like to believe that Claire was the exception, you’re free to do it. The flat was lovely and furnished with family pieces from Claire’s Aunt Gertrude, as well as the antiques that Claire bought.
You’re free to imagine Claire, working away at her book in the box room that she turned into an office. You might also believe that Claire’s book was a big success, and that she not only went on a national tour, signing copies in bookstores, knitting shops, and ladies’ clubs all around the country, but that it was also a success in Canada and the United States. And that Leonora Atkins convinced Claire and Nigel to open knitting shops across the UK and that they prospered.
You might choose to believe that Mrs. Venables lived a long time and stayed well until the very end, when she died at home, in her own bed, holding Claire’s hand on one side and Nigel’s on the other. You may also believe that Nigel and Claire wound up married to one another and that it was a good match, built on mutual respect, shared interests and more than a moderate amount of lust. Both the marriage and their daughter had made Mrs. Venables’s last years particularly happy, and she did knit a layette for her grandchild.
Whether Claire ever went back to New York, served as maid-of-honor at Tina’s wedding and made a kind of peace with her mother are, again, choices you might want to make. Along with the belief that much later Safta got her degree from Cambridge, Mrs. Patel remarried and that Claire finally made it to Nice. In fact, you might feel that everything came to a fairy tale ending all because someone made a wish upon a star.
Choose that if you will, but all novels are, in a sense, fairy tales. They are pulled from the air and create the magical illusion that the characters you read about are real, are living and the lives that are described have happened. The novelist imagines and conjures but, when the narration ends, has no more idea of what happens to the characters than you, the reader, does. Fiction is so often preferable to life because, sadly, only in fiction can you write the magical incantation at the end: ‘And they lived happily ever after.’
Sadly, Olivia Goldsmith died after completing
Wish Upon A Star
. Her close friend and assistant Nan Robinson remembers her:
At the time we met, Olivia lived in a historical Vermont stone house that she had renovated. She frequented a small diner in town. It was through her waitress, Etta Kennett, that Olivia and I came to work together. She asked Etta if she knew of anyone who could help with typing. Etta responded, ‘I know a little girl who always has a laptop with her and works on manuscripts when she isn’t driving a school bus.’ With that, Olivia left a diner napkin that had her name and number on it with Etta.
When Etta gave me the napkin, I was so excited by the possibility of actually being able to give my opinion on a writer’s work I called and made an appointment to meet Olivia a few weeks after she had returned from the book tour for
First Wives Club
, her huge bestseller. She told me about her work, what she expected and then sent me up to her office to ‘fool around with the Mac’. When I went back downstairs to let her know I was finished, she handed me a copy of her book along with the manuscript for her second. ‘Learn my style by reading and then make any comments you’d like on
Flavor
.’ That’s how we started working together.
The winter of ’93 brought an offer from HarperCollins U.S. for a worldwide three-book deal. Olivia and I were on our usual morning beach walk in Hollywood, Florida. Olivia said she wouldn’t do the deal without me. My response: ‘Well, it seems like a fun thing to do.’ She laughed. Obviously, I don’t know how to count, do I?
Wish Upon A Star
is her eleventh novel.
Olivia was a strong believer in: ‘Have pen will travel.’ So we did. Paris twice, Italy three times, England at least six times, India, Wyoming, a road trip of the California coast, not to mention other places within the United States while on book tour, and for speeches and public appearances. When we weren’t traveling the reward system worked for us best: hot fudge sundaes or shopping at designer outlets. As for our adventures in Hollywood—that’s a whole other fairy tale. I can say that Olivia was proud to see her ‘words turned into flesh’ with the movie
The First Wives Club
. Having it hailed a phenomenon was a definite bonus.
As if book writing wasn’t enough construction, Olivia also loved to remodel. She worked on her stone house; a classic six co-op; a three-story townhouse; two lofts and a cottage but her most challenging endeavor was
Beaver Hall
—a Georgian mansion on the Hudson River in upstate New York.
For more serious realities I have to thank her for being there when I became seriously ill four years ago before being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
I haven’t even made a dent in thanking Olivia for all the impact she’s made on my life and continues to make. If life could mimic fairy tales then I would wish upon a star for my best friend to come back so I could ‘live happily ever after’.
I hope you enjoy
Wish Upon a Star
—Olivia had a love affair with London and this is a fitting tribute to it.
Nan Robinson
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