{"product_id":"fine-things-isbn-9780440200567","title":"Fine Things","description":"\u003cb\u003e#1 \u003ci\u003eNEW YORK TIMES\u003c\/i\u003e BESTSELLER\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSmart, likable Bernie Fine was the wonder boy of Wolff’s, New York’s most glamorous department store. A senior VP on the way up, he arrives in San Francisco to open a West Coast store. His career is skyrocketing, but his life lacks a center. When he looks into the wide, innocent eyes of five-year-old Jane O’Reilly, and then into the equally enchanting eyes of her mother, Liz, Bernie knows he has found what he has been looking for.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Bernie thought he had found love to last a lifetime, but when Liz is stricken with cancer, time becomes painfully short. Alone with two children, Bernie must face the loss and learn that life has other fine things to offer.\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Danielle Steel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Steel is one of the best!”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Few modern writers convey the pathos of family and material life with such heartfelt empathy.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Steel pulls out all the emotional stops. . . . She delivers!”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What counts for the reader is the ring of authenticity.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eDanielle Steel\u003c\/b\u003e has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 650 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include \u003ci\u003eFall from Grace, Past Perfect, Fairytale,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThe Right Time, The Duchess, Against All Odds, Dangerous Games, \u003c\/i\u003eand other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of \u003ci\u003eHis Bright Light\u003c\/i\u003e, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death; \u003ci\u003eA Gift of Hope\u003c\/i\u003e, a memoir of her work with the homeless; \u003ci\u003ePure Joy\u003c\/i\u003e, about the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children’s books \u003ci\u003ePretty Minnie in Paris\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePretty Minnie in Hollywood\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was almost impossible to get to Lexington and Sixty-third Street.   The wind was howling, and the snow drifts had devoured all but the largest cars.   The buses had given up somewhere around Twenty-third Street, where they sat huddled  like frozen dinosaurs, as one left the flock only very rarely to venture uptown,  lumbering down the paths the snowplows left, to pick up a few brave travelers who  would rush from doorways frantically waving their arms, sliding wildly to the curb,  hurling themselves over the packed snowbanks, to mount the buses with damp eyes and  red faces, and in Bernie's case, icicles on his beard.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It had been absolutely impossible  to get a taxi.  He had given up after fifteen minutes of waiting and started walking  south from Seventy-ninth Street.  He often walked to work.  It was only eighteen  blocks from door to door.  But today as he walked from Madison to Park and then turned  right on Lexington Avenue, he realized that the biting wind was brutal, and he had  only gone four more blocks when he gave up.  A friendly doorman allowed him to wait  in the lobby, as only a few determined souls waited for a bus that had taken hours  to come north on Madison Avenue, turned around, and was now heading south on Lexington  to carry them to work.  The other, more sensible souls had given up when they caught  their first glimpse of the blizzard that morning, and had decided not to go to work  at all.  Bernie was sure the store would be half empty.  But he wasn't the type to  sit at home twiddling his thumbs or watching the soaps.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And it wasn't that he went  to work because he was so compulsive.  The truth was that Bernie went to work six  days a week, and often when he didn't have to, like today, because he loved the store.   He ate, slept, dreamed, and breathed everything that happened from the first to  eighth floor of Wolff's.  And this year was particularly important.  They were introducing  seven new lines, four of them by major European designers, and the whole look of  American fashion was going to change in men's and women's ready-to-wear markets.   He thought about it as he stared into the snowdrifts they passed as they lumbered  downtown, but he was no longer seeing the snow, or the stumbling people lurching  toward the bus, or even what they wore.  In his mind's eye he was seeing the new  spring collections just as he had seen them in November, in Paris, Rome, Milan, with  gorgeous women wearing the clothes, rolling down the runway like exquisite dolls,  showing them to perfection, and suddenly he was glad he had come to work today.   He wanted another look at the models they were using the following week for their  big fashion show.  Having selected and approved the clothing, he wanted to make sure  the models chosen were right too.  Bernard Fine liked to keep a hand in everything,  from department figures to the buying of the clothes, even to the selection of the  models, and the design of the invitations that went out to their most exclusive customers.   It was all part of the package to him.  Everything mattered.  It was no different  from U.S.  Steel as far as he was concerned, or Kodak.  They were dealing in a product,  in fact a number of them, and the impression that product made rested in his hands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The crazy thing was that if someone had told him fifteen years before when he was  playing football at the University of Michigan that he would be worried about what  kind of underwear the models had on, and if the evening gowns would show well, he  would have laughed at them. . . or maybe even have busted their jaw.  Actually, it  struck him funny now, and sometimes he sat in his huge office on the eighth floor,  smiling to himself, remembering back then.  He had been an all-around jock when he  was at Michigan, for the first two years anyway, and after that he had found his  niche in Russian literature. Dostoevski had been his hero for the first half of junior  year, matched only by Tolstoi, followed almost immediately by Sheila Borden, of slightly  less stellar fame.  He had met her in Russian I, having decided that he couldn't  do the Russian classics justice if he had to read them in translation, so he took  a crash course at Berlitz, which taught him to ask for the post office and the rest  rooms and find the train in an accent which impressed his teacher enormously.  But  Russian I had warmed his soul.  And so had Sheila Borden.  She had sat in the front  row, with long straight black hair hanging to her waist romantically, or so he thought,  her body very lithe and tight.  What had brought her to the Russian class was her  fascination with ballet.  She had been dancing since she was five, she had explained  to him the first time they talked, and you don't understand ballet until you understand  the Russians.  She had been nervous and intense and wide-eyed, and her body was a  poem of symmetry and grace which held him spellbound when he went to watch her dance  the next day.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She had been born in Hartford, Connecticut, and her father worked  for a bank, which seemed much too plebeian to her.  She longed for a history that  included greater poignancy, a mother in a wheelchair. . . a father with TB who would  have died shortly after she was born. . . . Bernie would have laughed at her the  year before, but not in his junior year.  At twenty he took her very, very seriously,  and she was a fabulous dancer, he explained to his mother when he went home for the  holidays.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Is she Jewish?\" his mother asked when she heard her name.  Sheila always  sounded Irish to her, and Borden was truly frightening.  But it could have been Boardman  once, or Berkowitz or a lot of other things, which made them cowardly, but at least  acceptable.  Bernie had been desperately annoyed at her for asking him the question  she had plagued him with for most of his life, even before he cared about girls.   His mother asked him that about everyone.  \"Is he Jewish. . . is she. . . what was  his mother's maiden name?. . . was he bar mitzvahed last year?. . . what did you  say his father did? She \u003ci\u003eis\u003c\/i\u003e Jewish, isn't she?\" Wasn't everyone? Everyone the Fines  knew anyway.  His parents wanted him to go to Columbia, or even New York University.   He could commute, they said.  In fact, his mother tried to insist on it.  But he  had only been accepted at the University of Michigan, which made the decision easy  for him.  He was saved! And off to Freedomland he went, to date hundreds of blond  blue-eyed girls who had never heard of gefilte fish or kreplach or knishes, and had  no idea when Passover was.  It was a blissful change for him, and by then he had  dated all the girls in Scarsdale that his mother was crazy about and he was tired  of them.  He wanted something new, different, and a trifle forbidden perhaps.  And  Sheila was all of those.  Besides she was so incredibly beautiful with huge black  eyes, and shafts of ebony hair.  She introduced him to Russian authors he had never  heard of before, and they read them all--in translation of course. He tried to discuss  the books with his parents over the holidays, to no avail.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Your grandmother was  Russian.  You wanted to learn Russian, you could have learned Russian from her.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"That wasn't the same thing.  Besides, she spoke Yiddish all the time .  .  .\"  His voice had trailed off.  He hated arguing with them.  His mother loved to argue  about everything.  It was the mainstay of her life, her greatest joy, her favorite  sport.  She argued with everyone, and especially with him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Don't speak with disrespect  about the dead!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I wasn't speaking with disrespect.  I said that Grandma spoke  Yiddish all the time .  .  .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"She spoke beautiful Russian too.  And what good  is that going to do you now? You should be taking science classes, that's what men  need in this country today. . . economics .  .  .\" She wanted him to be a doctor  like his father, or a lawyer at the very least.  His father was a throat surgeon  and considered one of the most important men in his field.  But it had never appealed  to Bernie to follow in his father's footsteps, even as a child.  He admired him a  great deal.  But he would have hated being a doctor.  He wanted to do other things,  in spite of his mother's dreams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Russian? Who talks Russian except Communists?\"  Sheila Borden. . . that was who. . . . Bernie looked at his mother in despair.  She  was attractive, she always had been.  He had never been embarrassed about the way  his mother looked, or his father for that matter.  His father was a tall, spare man  with dark eyes and gray hair, and a frequently distracted look.  He loved what he  did, and he was always thinking of his patients.  But Bernie always knew he was there,  if he needed him.  And his mother had been dying her hair blond for years, \"Autumn  Sun\" the color was called, and it looked well on her.  She had green eyes, which  Bernie had inherited from her, and she had kept her figure well.  She wore expensive  clothes that one never really noticed.  They were navy suits and black dresses and  had cost an arm and a leg at Lord and Taylor or Saks.  Somehow she just looked like  a mother to him.  \"Why does that girl study Russian anyway? Where are her parents  from?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Connecticut.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Where in Connecticut?\" He wanted to ask her if she was  planning to visit them.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Hartford.  What difference does it make?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Don't be  rude, Bernard.\" She looked prim and he folded his napkin and pushed back his chair.   Eating dinner with her always gave him stomach pains.  \"Where are you going? You  haven't been excused.\" As though he were still five years old.  He hated coming home  sometimes.  And then he felt guilty for hating it. And then he got mad at her for  making him feel guilty for hating it.  .  . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I have some studying to do before  I go back.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Thank God you're not playing football anymore.\" She always said things  like that that made him want to rebel.  It made him want to turn around and tell  her he'd gone back on the team. . . or that he was studying the ballet with Sheila  now just to shake her up a little bit.  .  .  .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"The decision isn't necessarily  permanent, Mom.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ruth Fine glared at him.  \"Talk to your father about it.\" Lou  knew what he had to do.  She had already talked to him at length.  If Bernie ever  wanted to play football again, you offer him a new car. . . . If Bernie had known,  he would have gone through the roof, and not only refused the car, but gone back  to playing football immediately.  He hated being bribed.  Hated the way she thought  sometimes, and the overprotective way she treated him, in spite of his father's more  sensible attitudes.  It was difficult being an only child, and when he got back to  Ann Arbor and saw Sheila she agreed with him.  The holidays hadn't been easy for  her either.  And they hadn't been able to get together at all, even though Hartford  was certainly not the end of the world, but it might as well have been.  Her parents  had had her late in life, and now they treated her like a piece of glass, terrified  each time she left the house, frightened that she would get hurt or mugged or raped,  or fall on the ice, or meet the wrong men, or go to the wrong school.  They hadn't  been thrilled at the prospect of the University of Michigan either, but she had insisted  on it.  She knew just how to get what she wanted from them.  But it was exhausting  having them hang all over her.  She knew just what Bernie meant, and after their  Easter holidays they devised a plan.  They were going to meet in Europe the following  summer, and travel for at least a month, without telling anyone.  And they had.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It had been blissful seeing Venice and Paris and Rome for the first time together.   Sheila had been madly in love, and as they lay naked on a deserted beach in Ischia,  with her raven black hair falling over her shoulders, he had known that he had never  seen anyone as beautiful.  So much so that he was secretly thinking of asking her  to marry him.  But he kept it to himself.  He dreamt of getting engaged to her over  the Christmas holidays, and married after they graduated the following June. . .  . They went to England and Ireland too, and flew home from London on the same plane.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As usual, his father was in surgery.  His mother picked him up, despite his cable  not to.  Eagerly waving to him, she looked younger than her years in her new beige  Ben Zuckerman suit with her hair done just for him.  But whatever good feelings he  had for her disappeared as she spotted his traveling companion immediately.  \"Who  is that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"This is Sheila Borden, Mom.\" Mrs. Fine looked as though she might faint.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You've been traveling together all this time?\" They had given him enough money  for six weeks.  It had been his twenty-first birthday present from them. \"You've  been traveling \u003ci\u003etogether\u003c\/i\u003e so. . . so. . . shamelessly. . . ?\" He wanted to die as he  listened to her, and Sheila was smiling at him as though she didn't give a damn.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It's okay. . . don't worry, Bernie. . . I have to get the shuttle bus to Hartford  anyway .  .  .\" She gave him a private smile, grabbed her duffel bag, and literally  disappeared without saying goodbye, as his mother began to dab at her eyes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Mom.  . . please .  .  .\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"How could you lie to us like that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I didn't lie to you.   I told you I was meeting friends.\" His face was red and he wanted the floor to open  up and swallow him.  He wanted never to see his mother again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"You call \u003ci\u003ethat\u003c\/i\u003e a  friend?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He thought instantly of all the times they had made love. . . on beaches,  in parks, next to rivers, in tiny hotels. . . . Nothing she ever said could take  away that memory and he stared at his mother belligerently.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"She's the best friend  I have!\" He grabbed his bag and started out of the airport alone, leaving her standing  there, but he had made the mistake of turning back to look at her once, and she had  been standing there crying openly.  He couldn't do it to her.  He went back and apologized  and hated himself for it afterwards.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Back at school in the fall, the romance had  flourished anyway, and this time when they came back for Thanksgiving, he drove up  to Hartford to meet her family.  They had been cool but polite, obviously surprised  by something Sheila hadn't said, and when they flew back to school, Bernie questioned  her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Were they upset that I'm Jewish?\" He was curious.  He wondered if her parents  were as intense as his own, although that hardly seemed possible.  Nobody could be  as intense as Ruth Fine, not in his eyes anyway.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"No.\" Sheila smiled absentmindedly,  lighting a joint in the back row of the plane on the way back to Michigan.  \"Just  surprised, I guess.  I never thought it was such a big deal I had to mention it.\"  He liked that about her.  She took everything in stride.  Nothing was ever a big  deal, and he took a quick hit with her before they carefully put out the joint and  she put the roach in an envelope in her purse.  \"They thought you were nice.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I  thought they were nice too.\" He lied.  Actually he had thought them boring in the  extreme, and was surprised that her mother had so little style.  They talked about  the weather and world news, and absolutely nothing else.  It was like living in a  vacuum, or enduring a perennial live commentary of the news. She seemed so unlike  them, but then again she said the same thing about him. She had called his mother  hysterical after the only time they met, and he hadn't disagreed with her.  \"Are  they coming to graduation?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Are you kidding?\" She laughed.  \"My mother already  cries talking about it.\" He was still thinking of marrying her, but he hadn't said  anything to her.  He surprised her on Valentine's Day with a beautiful little diamond  ring he had bought for her, with money his grandparents had left him when they died.   It was a small, neat emerald-cut solitaire, it was only two carats but the stone  was impeccable.  The day he bought it his chest felt tight he was so excited all  the way home.  He had swept her off her feet, kissed her hard on the mouth, and thrown  the red-wrapped box in her lap with a careless toss.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Try that on for size, kid.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She had thought it was a joke, and laughed until she opened it.  And then her mouth  fell open and she burst into tears.  She had thrown the box back at him and left  without a word, as he stood with his mouth open, staring after her. Nothing made  any sense to him, until she came back to talk about it late that night.  They both  had rooms, but more often than not, they both stayed in his. It was larger and more  comfortable and he had two desks, and she stared at the ring in the open box on his.   \"How could you do a thing like that?\" He didn't understand.  Maybe she thought the  ring was too big.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"A thing like what? I want to marry you.\" His eyes had been gentle  as he reached out to her, but she turned away and walked across the room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I thought  you understood. . . all this time I thought everything was cool.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What the hell  does that mean?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It means I thought we had an equal relationship.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Of course  we do.  What does that have to do with anything?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"We don't need marriage. . .  we don't need all that traditional garbage.\" She looked at him disgustedly and he  was shocked.  \"All we need is what we have right now, for as long as it lasts.\" It  was the first time he had heard her talk like that and he was wondering what had  happened to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"And how long is that?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Today. . . next week .  .  .\" She shrugged.   \"Who cares? What difference does it make? But you can't nail it down with a diamond  ring.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Well, pardon me.\" But he was suddenly furious.  He grabbed the box, snapped  it shut, and threw it into one of his desk drawers.  \"I apologize for doing something  so innately bourgeois.  I guess my Scarsdale was showing again.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She looked at  him as though with brand-new eyes.  \"I had no idea you were making so much of this.\"  She looked puzzled by him, as though she suddenly couldn't remember his name.  \"I  thought you understood everything .  .  .\" She sat down on the couch and stared at  him as he strode to the window, and then turned to look back at her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"No.  You  know something? I don't understand anything.  We've been sleeping with each other  for over a year.  We basically live together, we went to Europe together last year.   What did you think this was? A casual affair?\" Not for him.  He wasn't that kind  of man, even at twenty-one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Don't use such old-fashioned words.\" She stood up  and stretched, as though she were bored, and he noticed she wasn't wearing a bra,  which only made things worse.  He could suddenly feel his desire mounting for her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Maybe it's just too soon.\" He looked at her hopefully, led by what he felt between  his legs as much as what he felt in his heart, and hating himself for it.  \"Maybe  we just need more time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But she was shaking her head.  And she didn't kiss him  good night as she walked to the door.  \"I don't ever want to get married, Bern.   It's not my bag.  I want to go to California when we graduate and just hang out for  a while.\" He could suddenly just imagine her there. . . in a commune.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What kind  of life is \"hanging out'? It's a dead end!\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She shrugged with a smile.  \"That's  all I want right now, Bern.\" Their eyes held for a long time.  \"Thanks anyway for  the ring.\" She closed the door softly as she left, and he sat alone in the dark for  a long, long time, thinking about her.  He loved her so much, or at least he thought  he did.  But he had never seen this side of her, this casual indifference to what  someone else felt, and then suddenly he remembered how she had treated her parents  when he had visited them.  She didn't really seem to care a whole lot about what  they felt, and she always thought he was crazy when he called his folks, or bought  his mother a gift before he went home.  He had sent her flowers on her birthday and  Sheila had made fun of him, and now it all came rushing back to him.  Maybe she didn't  give a damn about anyone, not even him.  She was just having a good time, and doing  what felt good at the time.  And up until then he had been what had felt good to  her, but the engagement ring did not.  He put it back in the drawer when he went  to bed, and his heart felt like a rock as he lay in the dark thinking of her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And  things hadn't improved much after that.  She had joined a consciousness-raising group,  and one of the subjects they seemed to love to discuss most was her relationship  with Bernie.  She came home and attacked him almost constantly about his values,  his goals, his way of talking to her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Don't talk to me like a child.  I'm a woman,  goddammit, and don't you forget that those balls of yours are only decorative, and  not too much so at that. I'm just as smart as you are, I've got just as much guts.  . . my grades are just as good. . . the only thing I don't have is that piece of  skin hanging between your legs and who gives a damn anyway?\" He was horrified, and  even more so when she gave up ballet.  She kept up with the Russian, but she talked  a lot about Che Guevara now, and she had taken to wearing combat boots, and accessories  she bought at the army surplus store.  She was particularly fond of men's undershirts,  worn without a bra, with her dark nipples showing through easily.  He was beginning  to be embarrassed to walk down the street with her.#1 New York Times bestseller","brand":"Dell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300889841893,"sku":"NP9780440200567","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440200567.jpg?v=1767726910","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/fine-things-isbn-9780440200567","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}