Once she was there she sat in the rocking chair on the porch. Closed her eyes. Breathed in the early spring air. When she opened her eyes, she wasn’t anywhere near that awful road. There was only one thing she could see, in the middle of a strange field.
It was a skyscraper—so tall it appeared to go up endlessly through the sky. And the sky wasn’t blue—the blue was left for the grass, rolling fields of deep azure. The sky was yellow, dotted with stars in every color of the rainbow.
There was a sign above tall golden doors: THE AFTERWORLD.
Could her mom be here? Marigold walked up to the building and eased the doors open, stepping into a silent atrium lined with expansive windows. Then she heard footsteps and turned quickly to see who was approaching.
The boy was about her age, with dark brown skin and bright golden eyes.
“I’m Colton,” he said, staring at her. “Are you lost?”
—EXCERPT FROM LEMONADE SKIES, BOOK 1: GIRL IN THE AFTERWORLD
I didn’t have much time with Liam before kicking off my Between Two Worlds tour that Tuesday, the day the book was out for the world to read. I’d be gone fifteen days—first Illinois, then Minnesota, Colorado, California, Washington State, North Carolina, Massachusetts, and DC, wrapping up with a big hometown show in Philly. It would be a nonstop blur of planes and trains and classrooms and bookstores and fans, with school assignments from Dad filling any small windows of downtime Zenith’s schedule permitted me.
Liam came over at five in the morning just before our car to the airport arrived, and I could barely string two words together I was so surprised. Especially when he left me with a plastic bag of tightly folded paper footballs—notes for the tour, he’d said, one to open up each day I was gone. “Seriously, only one a day. No cheating. I know how much you really hate this part of it, so I wanted to make it better,” he’d said, and then hugged me good-bye.
Dad had asked me not to tell Liam about our secret, said it was safer that way. I promised him I wouldn’t and then immediately broke that promise, telling Liam the truth as soon as we signed on with Susan Van Buren. I’d told him before the book deal, before the New York Times bestseller list, before people all across the world cared about Marigold Maybee’s fate. Before it became my whole universe. I don’t regret it. Liam and I don’t keep secrets. We never have. Liam doesn’t love that I have to pretend—doesn’t love that I have to lie—but he supports me. Liam’s nice enough to my dad’s face, but he blames him for starting this whole mess. Of course, we’ve never told my dad that he knows. Dad keeps up the charade when Liam’s at the house, covering his writing tracks.
Liam’s notes got me through the tour, the smiling and signing and talking about books I didn’t actually write to rooms filled with adoring fans. I’d read one note just before each event, and it was as if I had Liam with me, even if he was hundreds of miles away.
Remember that summer we were maybe eight or nine and out of our minds bored, and you pinned me down and smeared peanut butter on my face for Lucy to lick off? She was so fierce about that PB I remember thinking she’d probably end up chewing my lips off. But we were both laughing so hard, and finally you ended up peeing a little in your pants, screaming about it just as your dad walked in. I mean literally peed your pants. We could both see the stain soaking through. SO AWESOME. I laughed even harder and then I started peeing MY pants. Man. Your dad thought we were crazy. But I’m not sure I’ve ever laughed harder than I did then.
Remember that Halloween we were fighting because we both wanted to be aliens? And I said it’d be nerdy to be matching and you got hurt and said, “Fine, aliens are so last year, anyway.” I knew you didn’t mean it. And I also knew you weren’t a big fan of Halloween, but went trick-or-treating for me. So when you told me you were dressing as a slice of pizza instead, I begged my mom to help me look like a can of root beer because you ALWAYS insisted on drinking root beer with your pizza. I looked pathetic—we painted aluminum foil brown and wrote “Root Beer” on it and wrapped it on a big paper tube that I wore. I had about a thousand dents in me. You didn’t care, though. You were so happy. That was my favorite Halloween ever.
Remember that time my parents surprised us with a trip to Disney World for my eleventh birthday, and the second day there you got a fever and were throwing up everywhere? (Ugh, that chili dog from the night before did NOT look pretty coming up.) My mom said she’d stay and watch you so I could still do the park, but I refused to leave. We spent more time at the hotel than on rides, but it didn’t matter. We were allowed to watch movies ALL. DAY. LONG. And that felt like a freaking awesome vacation to me. You and Back to the Future (parts I, II, AND III), what more could I have wanted?
Liam didn’t make any grand, sweeping declarations. No I love you! I’m IN love with you! Be mine forever please, Thistle!!! (I only slightly expected this reveal on the last day.) But still, that didn’t mean it wasn’t true. Because, of course, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that conversation I’d overheard. What Liam’s mom had said and what he hadn’t said.
Maybe he was waiting for tonight. My big Philly bookstore finale. Dad and I got home too late last night for me to see Liam, and I’d slept in this morning past the time he leaves for school. But tonight. Liam and his parents always come with us to lend moral support at local events.
I had saved my favorite new dress for this appearance. Bright yellow top—all my tour outfits are in marigold colors—with intricate, shimmery beading swirling along the neckline, and a short gold-tinted tulle skirt that flares out when I walk. I bought heels, too, and I never wear heels—gold, open toed, with thin straps that wind around my ankles.
Maybe Liam will take my hand after the event, tell me that he—
My dad knocks on my bedroom door, ripping me from a lovely image of Liam and me, moonlight on my gold tulle, looking at each other in a very unsibling-like way.
“Thistle, I need you in the office. We took way too much time off with the tour. I don’t have to remind you that we have just over two weeks to nail down this conclusion. I’m still thinking Marigold should bring Colton back with her mom, too, that they test out the portal and…”
I follow him, but I’ve stopped listening. It doesn’t really matter—he’ll write the ending he wants to write.
One more year.
One more year and the last book will be out in the world. I’ll tell my fans that I’ve decided to stop writing so I can go to college. I don’t care what I study, as long as it isn’t English. Environmental studies. Biology. Botany. Maybe I’ll become a professional gardener, spend my day with plants and soil. No paper, no ink. No words.
One more year. And then I’ll have my life back.
Dad promised.
* * *
I blow-dry my hair and get dressed. I even put on new gold eyeliner that may or may not be way too much. I wish I had a mom to help me with my makeup, my clothes. But then again, if Mom were still alive, I wouldn’t be parading around at a book event—I wouldn’t be doing any of this at all.
The doorbell chimes. I race down the stairs, only narrowly avoiding a wipeout in my heels, and smooth down my curls before grabbing the doorknob.
Liam. My stomach flips like it’s been two years, not two weeks, since I’ve seen him.
He has on an orange-and-blue-plaid button-up shirt, brown corduroys, and the tan suede shoes he only wears instead of his beat-up Adidas Sambas for very special occasions. His usually messy hair is combed back, still wet from a shower, and his face is freshly shaven, his skin smooth and silky looking. I want to touch it, but I can’t.
“You look nice,” I say softly. I feel too shy now after the days apart. The notes. The hope. “That shirt looks new. Is the orange for me or Marigold?”
He smiles, flashing his bright white, almost too-perfect teeth. “Of course it’s for you. And I, uh—I wanted to bring flowers, too, but nothing I
could find looked as nice as anything that’d come out of your garden. So I—I bought you some bulbs instead.” He pulls a small paper bag out of his pocket. “Tulips. The lady at the flower shop said they’re still okay to plant this time of year. The idea seemed so cool at the time, but now, handing you a brown paper bag instead of a bouquet, I…it feels lame.” He’s blushing, his eyes focused on the faded red welcome mat that we’ve probably had since before I was born.
Liam has never given me flowers—or bulbs—before. Not for last year’s tour. Not for a birthday. Not ever.
I reach out for the bag. “Li, this is perfect.”
He glances up at me, still not convinced.
“Seriously. Perfect. I can wait until spring for your flowers to bloom.”
We stare at each other, and I suddenly forget how to use words.
“You look nice, too,” he says finally. “You look beautiful, actually.”
Beautiful. He’s also never called me beautiful before. He’s never called me anything.
Liam’s parents, Frankie and Aileen, step out onto their front porch, and Dad yells from the office that our car should be down the block. I turn to put the bulbs on the table in the hallway and then grab my jacket. Now I’m the one blushing.
This. Us. I can’t think about it—I need to put my mask on. For the next few hours at least, I need to be Thistle Tate, wildly successful prodigy author. Not Thistle Tate, moony and desperately crushing seventeen-year-old girl.
It’s a silent car ride to the bookstore, except for my dad rattling off the latest sales updates for Liam’s parents. I’m published in thirty-five countries now, apparently.
The driver drops us off just as I’m supposed to be starting. Which is fine, because I don’t like to get there early—I much prefer to head straight up front, put on my grand rehearsed show, sign some books, and call it a night. Avoid any excessive mingling. The pretending: it’s way too exhausting. I don’t know how professional actors do it every day.
We walk into the bookstore and maybe two seconds later I hear her, that sharp, needly voice—“Thistle! Darling! Surprise!”
Susan Van Buren. Her glossy silver hair is pulled back in a severe chignon, and her deep orange—no doubt Prada—dress is in stark contrast to her usual wardrobe of black and dark gray. “Only for you do I wear such a garish bright color,” she says, and laughs. But I know it’s not a joke.
Her direct opposite, my editor, is just behind her, wearing a yellow suit that I have no doubt is part of his regular rotation. Elliot is an eternally sunny, happy man. At least he has been, ever since Marigold made it to the top of national bestsellers lists.
I look around for Liam and his parents, but they’ve disappeared into the crowd. Dad is still here, of course, greeting Susan and Elliot like they’re all lifelong best friends.
“We wouldn’t miss your last night for anything in the world,” Elliot says to me, leaning down to kiss my cheek. “Standing room only, zero tickets left.”
“And it’s your second week hitting number two on the New York Times series bestseller list! We had to celebrate our rock star!” Susan says, wrapping an arm around my dad as they both gaze at me with a look of pride. “I can’t wait to see you shining up there tonight. It’s all so fabulous. Fabulous!”
They talk around me as we move toward the audience. Planning, strategizing, raving about the third book as if it’s already complete—as if it’s already the best book yet. My dad is chiming in a little too much and a little too loudly.
“Thistle is so excited for you to read it soon,” Dad says. “She’ll be glad to finish, I think. Glad to start on something new.”
I freeze. Something new. The words tear at me like tiny icy fingers. It’s not happening again. I can’t let it. I won’t. Last time was different. I didn’t understand the consequences. I know better now.
“Ooooh, Theo,” Susan practically squeals—and Susan is not the squealing type—“that’s wonderful news!” I don’t have to look up to see the glint in her eyes. The hunger.
“A new book!” Elliot squeals back. “Best news of the night! Is there anything more you can tell us, Thistle, hmm…?”
I have no idea how to respond, so I say instead, “We should probably start the event, right?”
My dad pats me on the back. “Of course. You got this, sweetie. I love you.”
I keep moving toward the front, trying to take deep breaths. I should be used to it at this point, two books in: the crowds and the fanfare, my larger-than-life face beaming on the banner strung from the ceiling. Giggling, whispering thirteen-year-old girls—dressed in all shades of gold, orange, and yellow T-shirts, dresses, scarves, hats—their wide eyes mesmerized as I step up to the podium.
It’s her! It’s Thistle Tate! It’s really her!
But no. Still just as scary. Just as surreal. My heart feels like it’s a pump or two away from beating itself right out of my chest, skyrocketing into the audience.
While the owner of the bookstore introduces me, I think about my first reading, at the New York City launch for Girl in the Afterworld last year. It was the worst day of my life. Apart from the day my mom died. I had been sweating rivers through my too-frilly new orange dress—which was appropriate for a seven-year-old girl going to church on Easter Sunday, not for a supposedly sophisticated sixteen-year-old-prodigy author, but Dad had insisted. It set the perfect tone, he’d said, sweet and young, in case anyone managed to somehow forget just how old I really was. Susan and Elliot and their entire team had been huddled together in the front row, watching, waiting, expecting. Expecting so much. Too much. The lying had felt excruciatingly painful that night—physically so, not just emotionally, as if my stomach was being sawed in half while I stood up there at the podium, tripping over the words I was reading from my “own” book. I had to excuse myself halfway through the Q&A to dry heave in the bathroom for ten minutes. Stage fright, I’d said afterward, nervously laughing for the crowd. They seemed to warm to me even more after that, because now I was just a normal girl—shy and stuttering and insecure. I was real to them. Marigold Maybee was a happy dream, smoke and light and glitter. But Thistle Tate was flesh and blood.
That had also been a two-week tour, but it felt like two years. Two eternities. My dad never left my side—we slept in the same room, ate every meal at the same table, rode side by side on planes and trains and in smooth black cars. My lips and cheeks felt broken by the end, bruised from the inside out from too many fake smiles.
I take a long sip of water and stare at the audience. My hands are shaking and a drop of water splashes on my dress. If only Marigold were real. If only she could be up here instead of me, addressing her adoring fans. It’s Marigold these girls love. Their moms, too, and the scores of twenty-somethings and above who read these books. My books. The bookstore owner is shushing them all as they eagerly await my first word.
“It’s so good to see you,” I say, plastering on the dazzling but still humble smile I’ve practiced for hours in my bedroom mirror. “And so great to be back home in Philly.”
There are some cheers here—pure Philly pride.
“For those of you who are new to the books,” I start, dreading the intro my dad has insisted I use for each event. The heartstring hammer, he calls it, to make fans feel closer to me. I keep my gaze just above the front row of the audience and force myself to keep going. “Marigold’s story was created very much from my own life. Just as Marigold loses her mom in a car accident in the first book, I lost my mom the same way when I was a little girl.”
I look around for Liam. I need his eyes to reassure me. I say the same exact words in every city, but they feel more real here, more horrible. This was her city. Our city.
When I find Liam, he’s sitting with his parents, but he’s not watching me. His eyes are squeezed shut and his face is tilted upward, toward the ceiling. If you didn’t know him, you might t
hink he looks thoughtful, like he’s carefully considering my words. I know better, though. He’s anxious for me. Worried. He knows how much I hate being up here.
A loud cough comes from the audience, throaty and purposeful. My dad. It’s not the first time he’s used that particular cough to nudge me along.
I start again, smile switched back on. “I wrote about Marigold because she…she can do what I only dream of doing. Because she can go to the Afterworld. Where her mom is. Marigold can search for her—she can have the hope that she’ll find Violet, see her again.”
My eyes lock with the eyes of a boy who looks to be about my age, in the front row. Shaggy bright red hair down to his shoulders, hundreds—thousands, maybe—of freckles scattered across his pale face, his neck, his arms. He’s wearing a black T-shirt with the name of what’s probably an obscure band I’m not nearly cool enough to have ever heard of, tight black jeans, black boots. Black messenger bag at his feet. Susan would approve of his choice in wardrobe, at least. I can’t look away because his type is so unexpected here—far too young to be a father escorting an enthralled daughter, but too old to openly admit to reading my books for himself. He’s at the end of the row with an empty seat next to him, so he’s seemingly on his own. No girlfriend dragging him along.
“Marigold,” I start again. Shoot. What had I even been saying?
The boy is smiling now, and there’s a smugness to it that I don’t like. He’s amused, apparently, by my lack of cool. I keep my eyes on him, determined to show that I’m capable of being poised and professional.
“Marigold will hopefully have a second chance with her mom. If only the real world were like that, right? If only we had just thirty more minutes to sit down and talk to a person we loved and lost. I was three when my mother passed away. There were so many words, ideas, and feelings I wasn’t capable of expressing yet. So many important conversations that my mom and I will never have. I wrote these books so that I could live vicariously through Marigold—feel her excitement, her hope. But still…it’s not enough. Not really. I’d give everything to trade places with Marigold. Swap out my real life for fiction.” I take a deep breath as I finish, feeling strangely triumphant. I even managed to end my speech with truth.
The Undoing of Thistle Tate Page 3
