Danielle Steel - Happy Birthday

Also by Danielle Steel

44 CHARLES STREET LEGACY FAMILY TIES BIG GIRL SOUTHERN LIGHTS MATTERS OF THE HEART ONE DAY AT A TIME A GOOD WOMAN ROGUE HONOR THYSELF AMAZING GRACE BUNGALOW 2 SISTERS H.R.H. COMING OUT THE HOUSE TOXIC BACHELORS MIRACLE IMPOSSIBLE ECHOES SECOND CHANCE RANSOM SAFE HARBOUR JOHNNY ANGEL DATING GAME ANSWERED PRAYERS SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ THE COTTAGE THE KISS LEAP OF FAITH LONE EAGLE JOURNEY THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET THE WEDDING IRRESISTIBLE FORCES GRANNY DAN BITTERSWEET MIRROR IMAGE HIS BRIGHT LIGHT: The Story of Nick Traina THE KLONE AND I THE LONG ROAD HOME THE GHOST SPECIAL DELIVERY THE RANCH SILENT HONOR MALICE FIVE DAYS IN PARIS LIGHTNING WINGS THE GIFT ACCIDENT VANISHED MIXED BLESSINGS JEWELS NO GREATER LOVE HEARTBEAT MESSAGE FROM NAM DADDY STAR ZOYA KALEIDOSCOPE FINE THINGS WANDERLUST SECRETS FAMILY ALBUM FULL CIRCLE CHANGES THURSTON HOUSE CROSSINGS ONCE IN A LIFETIME A PERFECT STRANGER REMEMBRANCE PALOMINO LOVE: POEMS THE RING LOVING TO LOVE AGAIN SUMMERS END SEASON OF PASSION THE PROMISE NOW AND FOREVER PASSIONS PROMISE GOING HOME

Happy Birthday 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.

Copyright 2011 by Danielle Steel

All rights reserved.

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

D ELACORTE P RESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Steel, Danielle.
Happy birthday : a novel / Danielle Steel.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-440-42331-7
1. BusinesswomenFiction. 2. Mothers and daughtersFiction.
3. SportscastersFiction. I. Title.
PS3569.T33828H37 2011
813.54dc22
2010052831

www.bantamdell.com

Jacket design: Shasti OLeary Soudant
Jacket photograph: Shelby Ross/Getty Images

v3.1

To Beatrix, Trevor, Todd, Nick,

Sam, Victoria, Vanessa,

Maxx, and Zara

May Why not? be an answer

that brings you joy, happiness,

and new horizons. May life

be kind and generous with you,

may the people at your side be gentle

and loving, and may you always

be greatly loved!!

I love you so much!

Mommy/d.s.

Life, a good life, a great life is

about Why not?

May we never forget it!

d.s.

N ovember first was a day Valerie Wyatt dreaded every year, or at least for the last two decades, since she turned forty. She had successfully staved off the potential ravages of time, and no one who saw her would have guessed that she had turned sixty when she woke up that morning. She had been discreetly shedding years for a while and it was easy to believe her creativity about her age. People magazine had recently said she was fifty-one years old, which was bad enough. Sixty was beyond thinking and she was grateful that everyone seemed to have forgotten the right number. Valerie did everything she could to confuse them. She had had her eyes done for the first time when she turned forty and then again fifteen years later. The results were excellent. She looked rested and fresh, as though she had been on a terrific vacation. She had had the surgery done in L.A. during a summer hiatus. She had also had her neck done when she was fifty, giving her a smooth, youthful neckline with no sag anywhere, and her plastic surgeon agreed that she didnt need a full face-lift. She had great bones, good skin, and the eye and neck work had given her the effect she wanted. Botox shots four times a year added to her youthful looks. Daily exercise and a trainer three times a week kept her long, lean body toned and unmarked by age. If she had wanted to, she could have claimed to be in her forties, but she didnt want to seem ridiculous, and was content to knock nine years off her age. People also knew that she had a thirty-year-old daughter, so she couldnt stretch the truth too far. Fifty-one worked.

It took time, effort, maintenance, and money to maintain her appearance. It served her vanity, but it was also important for her career. Valerie had been the number-one guru of style and gracious living during a thirty-five-year career. She had started as a writer for a decorating magazine when she got out of college, and she had turned it into an intense dedication. She was the high priestess of how to entertain and for everything that went on in the home. She had licensing arrangements for fine linens, furniture, wallpaper, fabrics, exquisite chocolates, and a line of mustards. She had written six books on weddings, decorating, and entertaining and had a show that had among the highest ratings on TV. She had planned three White House weddings when presidential daughters and nieces got married, and her book on weddings had been number one on the New York Times nonfiction list for fifty-seven weeks. Her arch-competitor was Martha Stewart, but Valerie was in a class unto herself, although shed always had deep respect for her rival. They were the two most important women in their field.

Valerie lived exactly the way she preached. Her Fifth Avenue penthouse, with a sweeping view of Central Park, and an important collection of contemporary art, looked camera ready at all times and so did she. She was obsessed with beauty. People wanted to live the way she told them to, women wanted to look the way she did, and young girls wanted a wedding just the way Valerie would have done it, or as she instructed them to do on her show and in her books. Valerie Wyatt was a household name. She was a beautiful woman, had a fabulous career, and lived a golden life. The only thing missing in her life was a man, and she hadnt been involved with anyone in three years. The thought of that depressed her that morning too. No matter how good she looked, the age on her drivers license was what it was, and who would want a woman of sixty? Even men in their eighties wanted girls in their twenties now. With this birthday, Valerie felt she had become obsolete. It wasnt a pleasant thought, and she wasnt happy today.

She looked in the mirror intently as she prepared to leave her apartment that morning. She didnt have to be in the studio until noon for a taping, and she had two appointments before that. She was hoping the first one would cheer her up. And the only thing keeping her from a major panic attack was that at least no one knew her right age. But she was depressed anyway. She was relieved that the image she saw in the mirror reassured her that her life wasnt over yet. She wore her blond hair in a chic well-cut bob that framed her face, and had it colored regularly. She never had roots. It was the same color it always had been, and her figure was superb. She carefully selected a red wool coat from the closet to put over the short black dress she was wearing that showed off her spectacular long legs, and she was wearing sexy high heels from Manolo Blahnik. It was a great look and would be elegant and fashionable when she taped her show later that day.

The doorman hailed a cab for her when she left the apartment and she gave the driver an address on the Upper West Side. It was in a seedy neighborhood, and she noticed the driver looking at her admiringly in the rearview mirror. She was pensive as they sped through Central Park. The weather in New York had turned chilly two weeks before, the leaves had turned, and the last of them were falling off the trees. The red wool coat she was wearing looked and felt just right. Valerie was looking out the window of the cab as the radio droned on, and they exited from the park on the West Side. And then she felt an electric current run through her as she heard the announcers voice.