Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89183 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“But once it happened to me, I suddenly understood how we believe the people we love. He worked as a salesman, and he was always on the road. Or so I thought, anyway. I would see him once, maybe twice a week when he was in town. And he always told me how he was getting ready to switch jobs so that he could settle down with me. He frequently told me I was the love of his life and had made him rethink his career and his goals. And of course, dumb me, I rolled out the red carpet whenever he was in town. He had gone to an Ivy League school on the East Coast and wore sharp suits and took me out to the fanciest restaurants we had in Coeur d’Alene. I felt so lucky that he chose to be with me when he could have stayed in Boston and been with anybody else.” She rolled her eyes. “What a fool I was—he had.”
“You can’t blame yourself,” Mari insisted. “You are neither dumb nor a fool. From what you’re saying, it sounds like he did everything he could to set up the narrative that you were his one and only. I don’t know anybody who wouldn’t be fooled by a plausible story told by someone they love.” She put her hand on Josie’s shoulder for a moment, then said, “I’m really sorry you went through all of that.”
“I am too.” Josie sighed. “Coming out of such a screwed-up relationship makes me feel like I’ll never be able to trust a man again. Because no matter how great he seems on the surface, how can I trust he isn’t telling me a pack of lies?”
Mari didn’t reply for a moment. “I could say a bunch of platitudes about how not everybody is a liar and how there are a lot of great guys out there, but while both of those things are true, that doesn’t negate what you’ve been through. Nor do I blame you for being suspicious the next time you’re on the verge of being in a relationship with someone.”
Josie shook her head at that. “Nope. There are not going to be any verges or budding relationships. I am perfectly happy being footloose and fancy-free. And although I know this might sound strange, telling you my horrible relationship story is actually a very long-winded way of explaining why and how I started to put on reading retreats.” She paused to take another sip of tea. “I was so beat up inside over what happened that I couldn’t find solace in anything. Not until my mother came to my house, carrying a suitcase full of books. Turned out that she had booked me into a hotel for a week. Her prescription for me, in the hopes that it might help me find some joy again, was to just do nothing but sit and read for a week.”
“Your mom sounds great.”
“She is. And she was right. I was a freelance editor at the time, and I still do some work for my favorite clients here and there, but I was so down over finding out that I’d been duped by a married man that I didn’t even think I could concentrate on a single book. And maybe I wouldn’t have been able to if my mother hadn’t done such a great job of choosing books that she knew would make me happy. There were several Mathilda Westcotts in there, of course,” she told Mari with a small smile. “Along with some of my old favorites. It was a curated list of novels about women who had bad things happen to them, yet who overcame hardship to thrive. Gone With the Wind, Jane Eyre, of course. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, and a stack of others, including some newer titles too.”
She stopped speaking for a moment as she thought back to that week inside her head and her heart. “Sure, there were love stories running through some of the novels, but in every case, the woman at the center of the story triumphed through her own wits and hard work. It was a message I really needed to hear.
“I went into that hotel stay as one person and came out as another. I was sad and dejected at the beginning of the week, and though things obviously didn’t completely heal while I was reading, so much did. Coincidentally, that was when I found an article about two women who were putting on reading retreats in Vancouver. It got me thinking about whether I might be able to do that too. So I reached out to them and asked how they set them up. They were so kind to share their hard-won knowledge with me, because like any book lover, all they wanted was to spread the love of books. The best part was when they invited me to come and experience a reading retreat for myself.” She took another sip of tea, then said, “So that’s what brought me to creating reading retreats. Heartbreak and betrayal. Just like all good stories, right?” When Mari nodded, Josie added, “Everybody has a story. I know I’m not unique in having gone through something difficult.”