{"product_id":"once-in-a-lifetime-isbn-9780440166498","title":"Once in a Lifetime","description":"Millions adored Daphne Fields, for she shared their passion, their pain, their joy,  and their sorrow. But America's most popular novelist remained a closed book to the  world — guarding her life with a fierce privacy no reporter could crack. \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Her life  hides a myriad of secrets. The husband and daughter she lost in a fire.  The son  who barely survived it and would be deaf forever. The victories, the defeats, the  challenges of facing life as a woman alone and helping her son meet the challenges  of his handicap.  A strong woman, she would not accept defeat, or help from anyone...  until she found she could no longer face it alone.\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\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\u003eCountry, Prodigal Son, Pegasus,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eA Perfect Life, Power Play, Winners, First Sight, Until the End of Time, The Sins of the Mother, \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\u003ea memoir of her work with the homeless; \u003ci\u003ePure Joy, \u003c\/i\u003eabout the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children’s book \u003ci\u003ePretty Minnie in Paris.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When it snows on Christmas Eve in New York, there is a kind of raucous  silence, like bright colors mixed with snow.  Looking at Central Park from a window,  you can see the snow fall steadily, shrouding all in white.  Everything looks so  still, so quiet...but down below, in the streets, there are the inevitable sounds  of New York.  Horns bleating, people shouting, the clatter of feet and traffic and  excitement, only muffled, somewhat dimmed.  And in the last-minute furor of Christmas  Eve, there is something more, a kind of wonderful tension waiting to explode in laughter  and gifts...people hurrying home, with packages stacked high in their arms, carolers  singing, the innumerable Santa Clauses, tipsy and red-faced, celebrating their last  night in the deadly cold, women holding tight to children's hands, admonishing them  to be careful not to fall, and then smiling, laughing.  Everyone in a rush, in high  spirits, in unison for this one night of the year...Merry Christmas!...doormen waving,  happy with their Christmas tips.  In a day, a week, the excitement will be forgotten,  the gifts unwrapped, the liquor drunk, the money spent, but on Christmas Eve nothing  is yet over, it has only just begun.  For the children it is a culmination of months  of waiting, for the adults the end of frenzied weeks, of parties shopping, people,  gifts...bright hopes as fresh as falling snow, and nostalgic smiles, remembering  distant childhoods and long-forgotten loves.  A time of memories, and hope, and love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As the snow fell steadily the traffic began to thin at last.  It was bitter  cold, and only a few hardy souls were walking in the snow as it crunched beneath  their feet.  What had turned to slush earlier that day had now turned to ice, which  slid wickedly beneath the six inches of fresh snow.  It was treacherous walking,  and by eleven o'clock traffic had all but ground to a halt.  For New York it was  unusually silent.  Only an occasional horn sounded in the distance, a random voice  calling out for a cab.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sound of a dozen people leaving the party at 12 East  Sixty-ninth Street rang out like bells in the night.  They were laughing, singing,  they had had a wonderful time.  The champagne had been abundant, and there had been  hot buttered rum and mulled wine, a huge Christmas tree and bowls of popcorn. Everyone  had been given small gifts as they left, bottles of perfume, boxes of chocolates,  a pretty scarf, a book.  The host was a former book reviewer of \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times, \u003c\/i\u003ehis wife a celebrated author, their friends an interesting crew, from budding writers  to concert pianists of repute, great beauties and great minds, all crushed into the  huge living room in their town house, with a butler and two maids passing hors d'oeuvres  and serving drinks. It had been planned as their annual Christmas cocktail party,  and as always it would go on until three or four.  The group that left just before  midnight was small, and among them was a tiny blond woman wearing a large mink hat  and a long dark mink coat.  Her whole body was enveloped in the rich chocolate fur,  her face barely peeking above her collar in the wind as she waved for a last time  at her friends and began to walk home.  She didn't want to share a taxi with them.   She had seen enough people for one evening, she wanted to be alone. For her, Christmas  Eve was always a difficult evening.  For years she had stayed at home.  But not tonight.   Not this year.  This time she had wanted to see friends, at least for a while.   Everyone had been surprised and pleased to see her there.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Nice to see you, Daphne.   You're back.  Working on a book?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Just starting one.\"  The big blue eyes were  gentle and the delicate sweetness of her face belied her age.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What does that mean?  You'll finish it next week?\" She was notoriously prolific, but had been working on  a movie for the past year.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She smiled again, this time with more mirth.  She was  used to their teasing.  A touch of envy...curiosity...respect.  She was a woman who  inspired all three. Daphne Fields was intensely private, hardworking, ambitious,  determined, visible in literary circles, and yet even when she was present, she wasn't  always really there.  She always seemed as though she was just one step back, just  out of reach, and yet when she looked at you, you could feel her touch your very  soul.  She seemed to see everything, and yet at the same time, she didn't seem to  wish to be seen.  She was different than she had been ten years before.  At twenty-three  she had been gregarious, funny, outrageous...protected, safe, happy.  She was quieter  now, the laughter of the past only showed now in glimpses in her eyes, its echo buried  somewhere in her soul.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Daphne?\" She turned around quickly at the corner of Madison  Avenue as she heard footsteps behind her, muffled by the snow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yes, Jack?\"  It  was Jack Hawkins, the editorial director of her current publishing house, Harbor  and Jones, his face red from the cold, his eyes a brilliant blue and watering in  the wind.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Don't you want a ride?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She shook her head and smiled, and it struck  him again how tiny she was, buried in the huge mink coat, her black suede gloved  hands holding the collar close. \"No, but thanks.  I really want to walk.  I live  just down the street.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It's late.\"  As always, when he saw her, he found himself  wanting to take her in his arms.  Not that he ever did.  But he would have liked  to.  So would a lot of other men.  At thirty-three she still looked twenty-five,  and sometimes twelve...vulnerable, fresh, delicate...but there was something more.   There was a loneliness in the woman's eyes, which tore at your very soul, no matter  how spectacular her smile, how warm her eyes.  She was a woman alone.  And she shouldn't  have been.  If life were fair, she wouldn't have been.  But she was. \"It's midnight,  Daff...\"  He hesitated before rejoining the others walking slowly west.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"It's Christmas  Eve, Jack.  And it's cold as hell.\"  She grinned, her sense of humor leaping to her  eyes.  \"I don't think I'll get raped tonight.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He smiled.  \"No, but you could slip  and fall on the ice.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Aha! And break my arm and not be able to write for months,  is that it? Don't worry.  I don't have another deadline till April.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"For chrissake,  come on.  You can come home with us for a drink.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She stood on tiptoe and kissed  his cheek as she patted his shoulder with one hand.  \"Go on.  I'm fine.  But thanks.\"   She waved him off then, and turned and walked quickly along the street, burying  her chin in her coat, looking neither right nor left, not glancing at the shop windows,  or the faces of the few people who walked past her.  The wind felt wonderful on her  face, and as she made her way home she felt better than she had all night.  It had  been an exhausting evening, it always was at parties like that, no matter how pleasant  they were, how many people she knew, they were always the same.  But she had wanted  to be there tonight.  She didn't want to be alone in her apartment, she didn't want  to hold on to the memories this year...didn't want to...couldn't stand it anymore....   Even now, as her face tingled in the snow, the same memories came back to her, and  she walked faster as though to outrun them, as though she ever could.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Almost instinctively  she ran to the corner, glanced to see if there was any traffic, saw none, and assumed  that the light was green...as though if she ran fast enough, if she crossed the street,  she could leave the memories behind. But she always took them everywhere with her...especially  on Christmas Eve.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Running faster across Madison Avenue, she almost lost her footing  as she slipped and then regained her balance as her arms flailed wide.  The corner  met, she turned rapidly left, to cross the street, and this time she didn't look  up in time to see the car, a long red station wagon filled with people, hurrying  through the last of their green light, her red.  There was a shriek from the woman  sitting beside the driver, a thump, another scream from within the car, and a strange  sliding noise as the car ground across the ice and stopped at last.  For an interminable  instant, everything was silence.  And then all the car doors opened at once, and  half a dozen people rushed outside. There were no voices, no words, no more screams  as the driver hurried toward her and then stopped, staring down at the woman lying  like a small broken rag doll, cast face-down into the snow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Oh, my God...oh, my  God...\"  He stood there helplessly for a moment, and then turned frantically toward  the woman standing beside him, a look of terror mixed with fury, as though someone  had to be blamed for this, anyone but him.  \"For chrissake, call the cops.\"  He knelt  beside her then, afraid to touch her, to move her, yet even more afraid that she  was dead.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Is she...alive? Another man knelt in the snow beside the driver, bourbon  still heavy on his breath.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"I don't know.\"  There were no plumes of icy vapor from  her breathing, no movement, no sound, no life.  And then suddenly the man who touched  her began to cry softly.  \"I killed her, Harry.... I killed her...\"  He reached out  toward his friend and the two men hugged in silent agony as they knelt there, as  two cabs and an empty bus stopped and the drivers ran out.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"What happened?\"  Suddenly  all was action, talking, explanations...she ran out in front of the car...never looked  up...didn't see her...icy...couldn't stop...\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Where the hell are the police when  you need them?\"  The driver cursed as the snow fell around him...thinking, for no  reason he could understand, of the carol they had sung only an hour earlier...\"Silent  night, holy night\"...and now this woman lay in the snow in front of him, dead or  dying, and there were no damn cops.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Lady?...Lady, can you hear me?\"  The bus driver  was kneeling beside her, his face next to hers, trying to feel her breath on his  face.  \"She's alive.\"  He looked up at the others.  \"You got a blanket?\" No one moved.   And then, almost angrily, \"Give me your coat.\"  For a moment the driver of the station  wagon looked shocked.  \"For chrissake, man, the woman may be dying.  Take your coat  off.\"  He hurriedly complied then, as did two others, and they buried Daphne beneath  a multitude of coats.  \"Don't try to move her.\"  The old black bus driver looked  as though he knew what he was doing as he tucked the heavy coats around her and gently  cradled her face, to keep it from freezing in the snow. A moment later the flashing  red light appeared.  It was a city ambulance and they'd had a busy night so far.   They always did on Christmas Eve.  A police car was just behind them, its eerie  whooping siren screeching hideously as it arrived.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The ambulance attendants hurried  at once to Daphne, the police moved more slowly as they took in the scene, and the  driver of the station wagon hurried toward them, calmer now, but trembling horribly  from the cold, as his coat lay on the street.  The bus driver watched as the ambulance  attendants gently rolled Daphne onto the gurney.  There was no sound from her, no  consciousness of pain.  He saw now that her face was skinned and cut in several places,  but there had been no bleeding as she lay face-down in the icy snow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The police  took a report from the driver, and explained that he would have to take a sobriety  test before he could be released.  All the others clamored that he was sober, that  he had drunk less than anyone that evening, and that Daphne had run out in front  of the car without even looking, and against the light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Sorry, it's routine.\"   The policeman showed no particular sympathy for the driver, nor did he show any  emotion as he glanced at Daphne's face.  Another woman, another victim, another case.   He saw worse than that almost every evening.  Muggings, beatings, murders, rapes.   \"She alive?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Yeah.\"  The ambulance driver nodded tersely.  \"Just.\"  They had  just slid an oxygen mask into place, and pulled open the mink coat to check her heartbeat.  \"But we're going to lose her if we don't hurry.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Where's she going?\" The policeman  was scribbling on his report, \"white female of undetermined age...probably mid-thirties.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The ambulance driver called over his shoulder as they closed the door on Daphne.   \"We're going to take her to Lenox Hill, it's the closest.  I don't think she'd make  it farther than that.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Is she a Jane Doe?\"  That would be another headache.  They'd  already sent off two unidentified murder victims to the morgue that night.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"No.   She had a purse.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Okay, we'll follow you.  I can copy it down there.\"  There  was a terse nod as the driver disappeared to get his charge to Lenox Hill, and the  police officer turned back to the shivering driver as he struggled back into his  coat.  \"Are you going to arrest me?\"  He looked terrified now.  His Christmas had  turned instantly into a nightmare as he remembered the vision of Daphne lying face-down  in the street.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Not unless you're drunk.  We can give you the sobriety test at  the hospital. Have one of your friends drive and follow us there.\"  The man nodded  and slipped back into his car, nodding at one of his friends, who slipped rapidly  behind the wheel.  There was no talking now, no gaiety, no laughter.  There was only  silence as they followed the double wail of sirens toward Lenox Hill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Excerpted  from \u003ci\u003eOnce In A Lifetime\u003c\/i\u003e by Danielle Steel.  Copyright © 1982 by Danielle Steel.   Reprinted by permission of Dell, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group,  Inc.  No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or republished without permission  in writing from the publisher.","brand":"Dell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46299996094693,"sku":"NP9780440166498","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440166498.jpg?v=1767734139","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/once-in-a-lifetime-isbn-9780440166498","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}