9781439125007

What happens after happily-ever-after fades? Can the answer be found one flight up? India, Abby, Esme, and Monique have all been friends since their days at Manhattan's Sibley School for Girls. From the outside, these four women all grown up now seem to be living ideal lives, yet each finds herself suddenly craving more. India Chumley is a whip-smart divorce lawyer who routinely declines the marriage proposals of her charming French boyfriend, Julien. She's taking the first plunge by moving in with him, but she's keeping her own apartment and keeping it a secret from him. Abby Rosenfeld Adams is an irrepressibly upbeat gallery owner who married her WASP college sweet heart, a passionate but tormented sculptor. When she suspects he is cheating on her, she realizes that perhaps there's more to life than reassuring her husband of his artistic brilliance.Esme Sarmiento Talbot is a Colombian Scarlett O'Hara, bored with her proper Connecticut life and her tame, all-American husband. In order to satisfy her sensuality, she escapes to Manhattan and distracts herself with casual encounters. A card-carrying member of Harlem's thriving buppie-ocracy and a successful gynecologist, Monique Dawkins-Dubois is married to a powerful but dull financier who barely notices her anymore. When an attractive coworker beckons, Monique can't help but be flattered.The most straitlaced of them all, India is dismayed by her friends' illicit activities. That is, until her ex-fiancé, the love of her life and the destroyer of her heart, reappears in New York and she finds herself caught between the dependable man she thought was her future and the man she never quite let go of. Dazzling and sexy, One Flight Up is an irresistible comedic romp through the boardrooms, bedrooms, and ballrooms of Manhattan and Paris.

Susan Fales-Hill is an award-winning television writer and producer (The Cosby Show, Suddenly Susan, and A Different World) and the author of One Flight Up and the acclaimed memoir Always Wear Joy. She is a contributing editor at Essence, and her writing has also appeared in Vogue, Town & Country, and Good Housekeeping. Susan lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

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chapter one

At the wise old age of thirty-seven, India Chumley, Esquire, wholeheartedly believed that women should manage their personal lives using logic and reason as their guides. Yet as she looked across the gleaming expanse of her desk at her favorite pro bono client, a majestic, careworn blonde in the autumn of her years, she was reminded that few women could compel their hearts to follow a mission statement, let alone a five-year plan. It never ceased to mystify and sadden India that women could command armies and run Fortune 500s, yet in their personal lives, the best and brightest of them were as hapless and lacking in willpower as Eve herself, who threw Paradise away for a Red Delicious. Hoping to help her “sisters,” India had opted to become a divorce lawyer.

India’s eyes traveled from her client to the lone family photograph on her desk: a three-quarter-length portrait of an elderly African-American woman in judges’ robes, her paternal grandmother, the Honorable Lydia Chumley. Nana Chumley embodied all the qualities this client lacked: discipline, sound judgment, and moderation. It was India’s sworn ambition to follow Nana’s example and serve as a credit to people of color and to womankind itself.

India was all too aware that for a woman, the smallest misstep in her personal life could lead down the slippery slope to perdition. The wrong man could turn a potential Supreme Court justice into the permanent resident of a psych ward. Experience had taught her that women should avoid the mean, the financially sloppy, and, most of all, the devastatingly seductive who turn out to be as emotionally reliable as quicksand. India herself had almost fallen prey to the latter category of cad but saved herself just in time. Six years later, she no longer dated snakes; she accessorized with them. She had a brilliant career, her dignity, and a closet full of reptile purses—the spoils of her victory over herself. Most important, though she was still single, she had no regrets.

India’s eyes wandered over the slightly sagging folds of her client’s ivory flesh, propped up by cheekbones as pronounced and perfectly symmetrical as if a sculptor had chiseled them in marble. Elizabeth had sacrificed her beauty and a considerable portion of her sanity trying to steady a marriage harder to navigate than the North Sea during a perfect storm. India placed a cafÉ au lait hand on her client’s pale arm and gave a tender squeeze.

“You must make a decision,” she nudged gently, her large brown eyes conveying compassion.

“I’ve got it!” Elizabeth exclaimed at last in a nicotine-tempered British purr. “It’s cruel and unusual treatment!”

“It’s called ‘cruelty.’ And you used those grounds in the summons we sent him last year. And the one we sent him the year before,” India patiently reminded her.

“Then we know it’s effective. Besides, he’ll never remember,” Elizabeth argued.

“He’s a writer. They remember.”

“Well, I can’t bear ‘irreconcilable differences.’ That’s just stating the obvious. Of course, they’re irreconcilable. That’s what gives our marriage its zest,” Elizabeth declared with a dramatic toss of her arm.

“How about ‘abandonment’? We’ve never used it. It’s fresh,” India proposed.