Always and Forever by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal: Excerpt

“An elegant, slow-burning portrait of quiet heartbreak and enduring love.”

–Kirkus Reviews

Summary: Three decades ago, a tragedy ignited a chain of events that devastated two New York City families and still haunts them today. Even their youngest members, Suzanne Starek and Jay Darnell, haven’t been left unscathed. 

Suzanne is at the end of her twenties and has been plagued by misfortune, including her parents’ ill-fated union and the abrupt demise of her promising childhood career. Although she treasures her lifelong bond with Jay, being his best friend isn’t enough. She has spent years hiding her feelings for him and trying to understand her mother’s cryptic warning to keep him at a distance. 

Suzanne wavers between staying safe and reaching for love while she helps Jay cope with his own mother, a glamorous and troubled widow. But when a clash between the families reveals shocking truths, Suzanne must decide how she will move forward from the heartbreaking past. 

Excerpted from Always and Forever by Lorraine Zago Rosenthal. Reprinted with permission.

Someone can win an Oscar, or earn a gold medal at the Olympics, or be on the cover of Vogue, and end up with nothing but a souvenir that has to be sold at a pawn shop in exchange for cash to fix a broken-down car. A person can start out feeling special and important but become no better than ordinary. Average. Even less.

“Professor Starek?” 

I wasn’t a professor. I was an adjunct instructor teaching American History 101. “Please,” I said, breaking out of my thoughts to look at a student in the front row, “call me Suzanne.”

He nodded and asked a question about the final exam that he and the rest of the class had on their desks. I answered him, he went back to work, and my phone vibrated inside a pocket of the black pants I wore with a matching blazer and a fitted blouse. It wasn’t the most comfortable outfit for a humid morning in May, but I had to look especially competent today. 

I pulled out the phone and read a text. How did it go?

A few words from Jason Darnell never failed to perk me up. I typed a message back. 

Okay, I hope. Thanks for asking, Jay.

He responded immediately. I’m sure you knocked them dead. Want to have lunch? 

Yes, I replied. Where?

He suggested an Italian restaurant here in Lower Manhattan. We chose a time. Then I swiveled in my chair as I scrolled through pictures on my phone: Mom in her scrubs, a shot of Central Park I’d taken on a snowy day last January, a selfie of me and Jay inside his car. His dark hair was thick, his shoulders were broad, and his head leaned against mine.

“Have a good summer, Ms. Starek.”

Ms. Starek felt pretentious. Stuffy. Old. Maybe that was how my students saw me, though. Twenty-eight probably seemed ancient to college freshmen. I’d told them repeatedly to call me by my first name, but I didn’t correct the student who left her exam on my desk.  

I smiled at her, dropped my phone into my purse, and stayed in my chair until the room was empty and I had a stack of tests to grade. I added them to the pile from my other three sections of the same course, and I lugged everything with me when I left the Borough of Manhattan Community College. The tests were in a tote bag that kept slipping off my shoulder as I walked out of the building and into a cloudy Friday.

I combed my fingers through the straight, light-brown hair that brushed against my shoulders. I’d styled it into a bouncy blowout early in the morning, and it quickly turned limp from the muggy air. 

I wished there was time to fix myself up before meeting Jay. I tried not to think about that when I headed down Harrison Street, past a row of restored nineteenth-century homes. I maneuvered through the lunch-hour crowd on the sidewalk, walking by buildings that had once been tenements overflowing with misery but now held trendy bars and boutiques. 

I reached the restaurant and went inside, my eyes shifting from stone columns to ornate lighting fixtures until I spotted Jay, who waved to me. I adjusted the bag that kept slipping off my shoulder and strolled to where he sat at a corner table with a half-empty scotch glass in his hand. 

He put it down and stood up from his chair, looking stylish and sophisticated in the gray suit he wore with a pastel-blue shirt. A wisp of hair skimmed his forehead, and a gold ring glimmered on one of his fingers. He never took the ring off. 

“Suzanne,” he said in his deep, velvety voice, “you look great.”

He was the only one of us who looked great. We sat across from each other, I left my bag on the floor, and I tried to subtly fluff my hair after a waitress came by and took my drink order.

When she was gone, Jay leaned toward me, and I stared into his eyes. They were brown like mine but much darker. 

“How was your presentation?” he asked. “I bet you aced it.”

I exhaled a tired sigh as my empty stomach growled. “I was prepared, but…I stumbled. I got flustered by a couple of questions from the faculty, and I didn’t give the best answers.”

“You’re being too hard on yourself, as usual.” 

“Still,” I said, “competition for full-time teaching positions on the college level is intense. Most of the other candidates went to more prestigious schools.”

“Hey,” he said with a grin, “there’s nothing wrong with Queens College. I went there too.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I—”

“Of course,” Jay went on, “I don’t have a master’s degree like you do, and I didn’t get my bachelor’s until I was twenty-seven.”

“Better late than never. I didn’t graduate from college at the age I was supposed to, either.”

“Just one year late,” he reminded me. “That wasn’t your fault.”

I looked down at the table. The waitress came back with my soda, Jay ordered an appetizer for us to share, and then he picked up his scotch and quickly finished it off. I was surprised, because he usually didn’t drink much. His mother did enough of that.  

“So,” he said, plunking the glass down, “I have to tell you something.”

A female voice called his name. We both turned toward a young woman walking our way. Her hair was long and blond, and her face was pretty. Jay stood up after she stopped at our table. 

“Good to see you again,” he said. 

She smiled at him. “You too, Jay. I didn’t see you for years, and now we’ve run into each other twice in one month.” She glided her eyes in my direction. “How are you, Suzanne?”

She knew my name, but I didn’t know hers. I glanced between her and Jay, confused. 

“I’m Gabbie,” she said, pointing to herself. “Remember? Gabbie Spiros from Elmhurst. I guess you don’t recognize me…but you look exactly the same as you did in senior year.”

She didn’t look the same. She used to be a brunette. I knew her from my old neighborhood in Queens, and I hadn’t seen her since we were kids. She wasn’t among the classmates I wanted to forget, the ones who’d said things I still remembered. She’d never said much of anything at all. 

I fiddled with my long bangs, trying to pull them further down my forehead. “Oh. Well, I…it’s nice to see you,” I said as I noticed the enormous diamond engagement ring she wore with a wedding band. “What are you doing here?”

“I met with a friend,” she said, “and now I’m heading back to work.” 

“Oh,” I repeated, not sure what else to say. “That’s…nice. Where do you work?”

“Channel 7 Eyewitness News. I’m on weekdays, and I cover the weekend sometimes. Maybe you’ve seen me? I took my husband’s last name, so I’m Gabrielle Wentworth on TV.”

Gabbie Spiros was Gabrielle Wentworth on TV?  My right hand jerked; it toppled my glass, spilling ice and Pepsi. 

“Oh,” I said for the third time, feeling my face flush as Jay grabbed a napkin to clean my mess off the table. “I’ve seen you, but I…I didn’t know that was…you.”

She laughed. “I’ve changed a little…thanks to hair dye and a nose job. But you haven’t changed since high school, Suzanne.”  

She’d already told me that. Was it supposed to be a compliment? And why was the restaurant so hot? I opened one of the top buttons on my blouse.  

“You’re on TV,” I said. “That’s…I…I mean, it’s such an accomplishment.”

“You should know,” she said. 

I looked at Jay. He was stuffing ice cubes into my glass. 

“Well,” he said, turning toward Gabbie, “maybe we’ll run into each other again soon.”

She nodded. “I’m not surprised to find you two together. You were constantly together.”

I forced a smile. Then she was gone, and the waitress dropped off a fresh drink for me and the appetizer Jay had ordered for us, and we were alone again. 

He pointed to the dish of fried calamari on the table. “Have some,” he said from his seat.

I wasn’t hungry anymore. “No, I—” 

“You should eat. You look very thin.”

I glanced at my arms and my legs and the belt I’d tightened around my waist because my pants were loose. I had unintentionally lost a few pounds lately. 

 “You skip meals when you’re anxious,” he said. “I’m sure you were worried about the presentation this morning…and I bet you haven’t eaten all day.”

He was right. He knew me so well, and I loved that.

—

Always and Forever will be released by Tribeca Press on November 11, 2025.

Pre-order:  https://tinyurl.com/46pzhkvf

ARC available to request from NetGalley: https://www.netgalley.com/catalog/book/705593

In addition to her latest novels, Always and Forever and Charmed, Lorraine Zago Rosenthal is the author of Other Words for Love, published by Random House (Delacorte Press), New Money, and Independently Wealthy, both published by Macmillan (St. Martin’s Press). 

Lorraine was born and raised in New York City, and she is a graduate of the University of South Florida. She earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and master’s degrees in education and English. She currently lives near Cincinnati, Ohio, with her husband. 

Website: lorrainezagorosenthal.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lorrainezago

Twitter/X: https://x.com/LorraineZago

 

Category: On Writing