“Shake Down the Stars” by Renee Swindle
Excerpt:
It’s two in the afternoon, and I’m already nursing a bottle of scotch I took from the banquet hall where my sister’s engagement party will take place. I’ve spent the last thirty-two hours with my family and figure if anyone deserves an early-afternoon drink, it’s me.
Mostly I’ve been hanging out in one of two libraries. Margot’s party is being held in an actual mansion: a now-defunct gentleman’s club high up in the Oakland hills. The place is
straight out of The Great Gatsby with its expansive lawns, indoor swimming pool, smoking room, the aforementioned libraries, and lookout tower covered in ivy. There are thirty rooms in all, two
stadium-sized banquet halls, and a twenty-four-hour butler for VIP guests like my sister and her football player fiancé.
After filling my glass, I go to the window and spy my sister outside on the lawn, bitching at the gardener and his assistant. It’s late September, and the sky is turning a foreboding gray; the
wind is in a foul mood, lashing out at all the carefully placed freesias and gerbera daisies strung around the gazebo and attached to the back of every single chair on the lawn—all three hundred of them. Margot has it in her head that her guests will be distracted by the lopsided bushes just behind the gazebo, when, frankly, I suspect they’re going to be more distracted by the rain that
will surely fall on their heads if a storm breaks out.
Whatever.
**About author, Renee Swindle:
Renee Swindle is the author of Shake Down The Stars (NAL/Penguin) available now.
Her first novel, Please Please Please, was published by the Dial Press/Dell. Please Please Please was also published in Germany as Mehr Mehr Mehr and published in Japan. Please Please Please was an Essence Magazine bestseller.
Renee Swindle earned her BA from UC Irvine and MFA in creative writing from San Diego State University. She lives in Oakland, California.
**Contact Renee: Website
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