Boston Classics

When a socially awkward finance-hotshot—aka me—grudgingly walks into Boston's famous Cheers bar to do happy hour with the insufferably misogynistic guys from work, I don't expect the cute bartender to salvage the rest of my never-ending workday with a cleverly disguised mocktail. I especially don't expect him to talk Shakespeare to me.

I'm embarrassed to admit that it took my dad having a heart attack to get me back to Boston. Surprisingly, it's been a welcome break from the zoo of my life in Los Angeles. Some guys might relish being ogled by women all over the globe, but landing a role with a little Boston Shakespeare theater brings me much closer to fulfilling my dream of being a real actor than posing for the camera in my underwear. Facing the reason I went west in the first place? That’s another story.

1988 doesn’t end well for me. In just one week I turn thirty, get fired from my day job, and lose the role of Ophelia to a younger actress. But Jessica Abraham does not give up on her dreams without a fight, and I manage to score a part at a theater outside Boston. But when I learn that my costume could be taken from Cosmo’s Don't columns, I'm not so sure this career move will work, because I won’t be able to rely on my carefully managed physical charms. Only my craft will count.

I may be a hard-working nobody of a single mom now, but I was a celebrity at age ten before my first kiss, my first date, or my first sip of alcohol. In my early twenties, I played the bad girl in New York City—both on and off set. A role I still regret. But now, back home in Boston, with my checkered past behind me, all I want is to raise my six-year-old far away from the spotlight.

In this friends-to-lovers, marriage-pact holiday novella spanning the last decade of the 20th century, life forces a playboy and a playgirl grow up—and grow apart—before giving them a chance to create a happy-ever-after they can actually be happy about.