Excerpt from Ecstasy by Ivy Pochoda, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"The look on your face, Mom. You look deranged."

Lena cranes her neck hoping for one more glimpse. She rises again. Her head swiveling-a frantic pinwheel. Her hands, once so graceful. Her body-they had called it musical.

"Stop, now." Drew's hand on her again. "They should have a separate terminal for drunk vacationers. Separate airlines."

"They do." Drew's wife, Jordan. Picture-perfect in a white linen dress, straight black hair, gold sandals. Not pretty though. Too cold for true beauty. "They fly low cost. À la carte drinks and no frills. It's a good business model. But with some flaws. For instance ..."

Drew's hand leaves Lena and reaches for his wife. "Every business model has shortcomings."

"Yes, but," Jordan says. Yale undergrad and JD/MBA from Harvard. Her father the CFO of British Airlines, her mother a former flight attendant. "The low-cost model is beset by both employee strikes and unresolved passenger complaints, not to mention scaling baggage policies, which has led to-"

"The real problem," Drew says, "is allowing them to share terminal space. It's like waiting for a limo and having to watch a Greyhound bus arrive. Dad would be horrified."

But "Dad" is dead. Found on the beach dune below the hotel he was developing. Like he'd been struck down, the worker who discovered him had reported.

The island coroner ruled his death a heart attack.


The airport is noise and congestion. Anxious summer travelers. Hungry children. Irritated adults. Everyone in the here and now-checking the time, checking the monitors, worried about delays and connections-nothing like the women who just passed through.

"I don't mind the terminal," Lena says. Too many years of being cloistered and sequestered. The loneliness of luxury. Private dining rooms. Blacked-out windows of town cars. Cab-to-curb service.

"You grew up flying coach, so that tracks," Drew says.

"Drew." Jordan bristles. "Don't be such a snob."

"Pointing out facts is not snobbery. It's facing reality. My mother grew up flying coach."

"I enjoyed it," Lena says. "It was an adventure. Something you'll never understand."

Despite flying first class from San Francisco last night, her back is sore. Her calves are tight.

"At least on the island, we'll be kept away from women like those," Drew says, removing his hand from Jordan and waving toward the airport exit. "Whatever they got up to on their vacation, they're too old for it."

Vacation-as if it's a dirty thing done by dirty people.

Jordan and Drew don't vacation-they travel.

"Too old for what?" Hedy has returned from the smokers' lounge, her eyes hidden behind large designer sunglasses-saucersized tortoiseshell frames that forbid entry.

"Too old to be so drunk in public."

"No one is too old for anything," Hedy says, patting Drew's head before sliding off to talk to the gate attendant.

Drew smooths his hair. "Those sunglasses make her look hungover."

Jordan waves a hand in front of her face as if Hedy brought all the smoke from the lounge with her.

"She's going blind," Lena says. "Macular degeneration."

"I've heard," Drew says.

"She shouldn't smoke," Jordan says.

Lena watches Hedy chatting with the gate attendant, waving an arm stacked with cheap bangles. "No one should smoke."


Thirty-five years ago, Hedy burned so bright she was blinding. A party unto herself. A late night that turned and turned and never wore out. She and Lena had met in the company of the Frankfurt ballet. Lena was a workhorse-the best dancer in Ohio-but not as naturally talented as the others, always aware of her limitations. Hedy had no limits except those of her own making-the ones that led to weight gain and injury. That led to giving up shortly after Lena was let go.

So they traveled. They hitchhiked to Morocco. They accepted invitations to New Year's in Moscow. They put Ibiza to shame.

Excerpted from Ecstasy by Ivy Pochoda. Copyright © 2025 by Ivy Pochoda. Excerpted by permission of G.P. Putnam's Sons. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.