Countdown! (And a Cookie).

OMG! In just four hours and thirty-six minutes from when I am writing this it will officially be DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS release day! So hard to believe that it has really happened and I get a little misty-eyed thinking about it. Must keep head and wits about me. Must not go off the deep end.

A few people have wanted to see an excerpt from the book. In order to kill a few of those 276 minutes, I'll post one here. Flipping pages....flipping pages. No, that one won't make any sense. That one gives too much away. Go back....okay, Chapter 2. 9am.

After spending all night at Kaylie's going over every detail, I stood at the bottom of our cracked cement walkway the next morning, the ache in my stomach starting the minute I saw Mom's car in the driveway. She must have switched schedules with someone at work again. Just when I'd counted on her to be gone.
I really wanted to be alone to think about the party tonight - get it sorted in my head so I wouldn't make any big mistakes, but if Mom was home, the hassling would start the minute I hit the front door. Kaylie was excited about the whole Steve and Josh double-dating angle and was going to spend the day figuring out what we were going to wear. It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement. Josh had asked me to come to a party. Me. To a party. Where his band was playing. Unbelievable.
Kaylie's mom didn't have to be to work until late, so she'd given me a ride home on the way. Like always, I waited until she had driven around the corner and was safely out of sight before I headed for the front door. Our little gray and white house really didn't look that bad from out here. If you were paying attention, you could spot the black mold gathering along the edges of the living room windows and the way the curtains were pressed against the glass by stacks of boxes. Those were just small hints about what was really behind the shingled walls, but nobody on the outside ever noticed.
I kicked at the tufts of grass as I slowly made my way toward the porch. Even though Mom had to park the car in the driveway because of all the junk that filled the garage, from out here the house looked pretty normal.
All of our secrets started at the front door.

There. That killed some time. Now just four hours and nineteen minutes to go.

On this date: In 1982, Late Night with David Letterman premiered.