Excerpt: 'What's Never Said' by Susan Shapiro

Susan Shapiro shares an excerpt from her romantic novel, What's Never Said (out today!).

About the book (courtesy of Heliotrope Books):

It's dangerous to search for an old flame you never got over. What if you find him—and he doesn't remember you? In her captivating new novel, Susan Shapiro explores the perils of revisiting past passion. Lila Penn leaves Wisconsin for graduate school in the big city, where she falls for her professor Daniel Wildman. Decades after their tangled link, she arranges a tête-à-tête in downtown Manhattan. But the shocking encounter blindsides Lila, causing her to question her memory-and sanity. Switching between Greenwich Village and Tel Aviv, the saga unravels the sexual secret that's haunted Daniel and Lila for thirty years.

Susan sets the scene for us …

Susan: Lila Penn is standing in line at Barnes & Noble, nervously excited to see her old professor — and former flame — Daniel Wildman, who just a won a Pulitzer Prize. She hasn't seen him in three decades. She knows it's risky to be there, since they're both married, and Lila never really got over him.

EXCERPT

Jittery all day, Lila had left work early to get her hair done, having her highlights frosted ash blond, her original color. She'd put on the black silk dress and Prada high heels she'd bought at Bergdorf's. As the line winding around the huge bookstore crept closer, she scanned all the college kids in jeans and sweatshirts, feeling overdressed. She should have worn Levi's and loafers, to look like seeing Daniel again was no big deal. Handing him the envelope in her purse felt too dangerous.

Even half-obscured by a pillar, his chiseled face was regal. He was powerful before the grand audience, more self-assured than he used to be. As she reached the head of the line, the clerk, who'd been marking names on Post-Its to show the author what to sign, had disappeared. Lila stood before Daniel, separated only by the thin table. Her hand sweated as she held out his slender book, feeling elated, a grad student again, younger, completely unveiled.

"Thanks for coming." Unlike the last time they'd been this close, he was serene and sober.

"My pleasure. You killed," tumbled out of her mouth, as if she were still his coed.

"Thanks." He looked up at her. "To whom should I inscribe it?"

"To me," Lila said.

He tilted his pen on the page, glanced up sideways and asked, "Your name?"

What? He didn't know? Her breath stuck in her throat as he stared at her blankly. He was near seventy now. Was his eyesight failing?

"Sign it to Lila Penn." She stared at him, waiting for her name and face to jar his recollection.

"One N or two?" he asked in a monotone.

"Two N's," she answered, dumbfounded, pushing her hair behind her ear. He didn't know how to spell her married name? She felt flushed and frazzled. Maybe he'd inherited what he'd called "the forgetting disease" that had afflicted his father.

"With that last name, I hope you're not a writer," he said, looking pleased with his quip, the same cheesy joke every other idiot made.

"No, I'm a teacher." She inverted their connection, trying to trick him into a reaction. But it was a lie. She'd recently been asked to teach a class, but still hadn't responded.

"Okay, thanks for buying my book," he said by rote.

Her eyes fell on his inscription: "To Lila Penn, All the Best. Daniel Wildman." As if she were any stranger. Her forehead was hot, her heart knotting up in her chest.

Had he seduced so many students he couldn't even recall who she was? She must have overblown their relationship in her head. Could she be the one whose memory was addled? Lila's best friend Sari had insisted she had a distorted self-image. The teenage girl next in line, who had a pirate tattoo on her arm and a metal ring piercing her lower left lip, hovered right behind her, staring. Lila felt ashamed, as if she were just exposed as a pathetic hanger-on, an imposter.

"My maiden name is Lerner." Lila blinked back tears, not believing he'd erased her. The whole room blurred.

"My wife kept hers," he said smoothly, no recognition in his eyes. Then he reached his hand out for Lip Ring's book and opened it. "Who am I signing it to?" he asked the youthful interloper, flashing the same polite grin, finished with Lila.

"To my mother, Mary Jonas. She studied with you a million years ago."

"I know Mary! You look like her." He laughed aloud, the big, hearty full-bodied laugh Lila used to love. "Must have been at least two million. Do you have a name too?"

Lila caught her reflection in the framed store poster, focusing on the faint marionette lines around her mouth, mortified to suddenly realize she'd lost her youth and beauty. She usually still saw herself as attractive. Yet she was obviously no longer a head-turner, the woman Daniel had called "his luscious muse." Had she changed that much? The older suitor who'd adored her, exalted her looks more than any other male she'd known, had no idea who she was. But Daniel, you were the one who accepted me, discovered me, drew stars in the margins of my rough drafts.

She shouldn't have lied to her husband about coming. She slinked to the register, fumbling for her wallet, so flustered his book fell to the floor. The rule: If you drop a book, kiss it, sacred like the Torah echoed from her childhood. She crouched down and quickly scooped it up, humiliated, invisible. As she went to pay, Lila spied the envelope she brought in the pocket of her purse, but it was too late to give to him. She had clearly overestimated her effect on him, her place in his romantic lexicon.

Out of all the conflicting scenarios she'd envisioned for almost thirty years, Lila had never once imagined that Daniel Wildman wouldn't remember.

Find out more about Susan and her books at www.susanshapiro.net.