Kris Radish - Tuesday Night Miracles

Each of your books has shown me a dozen new ways to appreciate myself, my relationships, my past, and my future. I truly thank you, Kris, for moving me beyond a clich and into a life of my own making. You, Kris, are a gift.

A NN W. A.

Thank you for the amazing gift of words, which often give us the courage to find our wings and soar again. Thank you from the woman I am today but deep gratitude from that little girl I lost when I left Cuba. I have given her a rightful place in the mosaic my life is now.

M ARITZA P.

Your book has soothed my soul and helped me to feel so much better about needing and pursuing happiness and passion in my life. You named the dreams of my heart and helped me feel far less crazy! Here is to dancing in the moonlight.

P ATRICIA C.

I have read all of your books and love, love, love each and every one of them. When I think of how I want to live my life (with joy), and how I dont want to live my life (in fear), its the characters in your novels who speak to me. I cant wait to read your next book.

D EBBIE S.

Your books make me want to find myself and experience all that Ive been afraid to challenge in the past. They inspire me to find the true me and the meaning of my life. And of course, they make me want to run naked in the middle of the day which I did!

P AT M.

I began reading your novels at a crossroads in my life and needless to say, I began on the road less traveled. Your inspiring words not only accumulate into fantastic books, but begin a lifestyle full of openness and joy. I encourage any woman regardless of her background to hop on this train.

S AM B.

Tuesday Night Miracles is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Bantam Books eBook Edition

Copyright 2012 by Kris Radish

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ANTAM B OOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53241-1

www.bantamdell.com

Cover design: Olga Grlic

Cover images: esthAlto/Laurence Mouton/

PhotoAlto Agency RM Collection/Getty Images (woman),

Meg Takamura/IZA Stock/Getty Images (dog)

v3.1

T he three manila files on Olivias dining-room table have been opened and closed so many times that the edges are stained with coffee, several varieties of pasta sauce, more than a few red-wine streaks, and the dark imprints of each one of her tiny fingers.

Before she grabs them this time she brushes her hands along her well-worn navy bathrobe, leaving a long white trail of pretzel salt down both sides. When she glances at herself in the hall mirror on the way to her favorite living-room chair, she laughs out loud, because the dark bathrobe that grazes her ankles and leaves her large white fluffy slippers exposed makes her look like a human-size blue penguin.

If Olivia Bayer could change one thing about herself, even this late in the game, it would be her stumpy legs. Forget about the bad knee, her inability to qualify for LASIK eye surgery, or the twenty other physical tragedies that manifest themselves pretty much 24/7. She wants gams long enough to let her reach the top shelf.

Tonight the top shelf is the least of her worries. Olivia hasnt even met the three women whose words are waiting for her inside the thin files, but she has a veterans suspicion that this is not going to be a walk in the park. A naked run through a land-mined street is more like it.

Come on, Phyllis, she says to the gorgeous tan cocker spaniel sitting in the doorway. Phyllis would follow her mistress to the ends of the earthand she does. Weve got work to do.

She grabs the silver half-glasses that are held together by three rubber bands, pulls down the reading light above her head, turns it on, takes a breath to steady her thoughts, and picks up the first file:

Its not like this happens every day. Im sorry, okay? What gets me angry is people who dont do what in the hell they say theyre going to do. Waiting for someone else to do something. Crooked lines that should be straight. I dont have much time in my life to sit down and think about things like this. Obviously Im also mad at the economy or this would never have happened.

Good Lord.

As Olivia moves to the next file, she reaches down and runs her palm across Phylliss calm back. The three pieces of paper inside are written in handwriting so large and bold, and with a hand that pressed so hard, she sees holes when she holds the pages up to the light:

Im really pissed at my mother, for starters. Why now? It doesnt take a genius to know my brothers make me furious, and if there is a step beyond furious they push me there, too. Cheapskates. Deadlines. Empty wine bottles. The Vietnam War. Is this the kind of thing you mean?

Olivia cant bring herself to move beyond page one in this file. She almost fears the file might rise up and slap the living hell out of her all by itself.

The third file, the last file, has been her favorite since the beginning of this interesting mess. When shes not in her bathrobe, Olivia calls the mess a challenge, but here, in her home, its a mess. At least this file, with its five pages of lovely cursive writing, offers a glimmer of hope. Either that or the writer has this kind of exercise already figured out:

so maybe its just that sometimes you simply forget and go too far. You know? Whoever you are, I bet you knowespecially if youre a woman. But thats avoiding the question. I get that. So: Loud music, obviously. Men who cheat. Fad diets. Those things get me angry.

This isnt bad for starters. Olivia quickly reads through the other pages again until she comes to something she must have missed. How could this be? Is she reading this correctly or does she need new glasses again? Is all hope lost?

that doesnt give people younger than us the right to disobey us, to cross the lines we have drawn, to disrespect our generation. Sometimes these things work both ways. Sometimes someone has to make a stand.

She drops the third file into her lap with the other two and then pushes them all to the floor. She watches as they land on top of one another like large playing cards.

Olivias done this so many times it would be impossible for her to count. Years and years of files. Years and years of the faces and then the blinding reality of the failures mixed in with the successessometimes too few successes.

And now this.

These three files and these three women and this chanceone last chance to take a moment, a series of moments, perhaps a lifetime of moments, and create a miracle. How many miracles are left? How many more times can Olivia risk it before her own miracle card expires? She thinks about all the years of white lies when she gave someone an extra chance, tried something no one had ever thought of trying before, scorched her own heart yet again when her professional skills came so close to crossing the boundarya boundary that these three women in the files have obviously crossed. Is it even possible for a person to bring one kind of life to an end and finally start out in a new direction?