Left to Chance
Page 22
* * *
My phone clattered with Josie’s new ringtone.
“I’m up,” I said.
“Be ready in about half an hour,” Josie said. “You know, I’m really going to miss you.”
“I’m coming back Columbus Day weekend to stay with Shay, while Miles and Violet go to New York for a mini-moon, courtesy of Simon.”
“Wow. I should get married again if it means a free vacation.”
“And if I win that contest…”
“I can be your plus-one to the award dinner! I’m a really great date.”
“I’m sure you are.”
“It won’t be the same here without you.”
“You can visit me whenever you want, but I’ll never get out of here if I don’t get off the phone and finish packing. See you soon.”
“Be waiting outside, okay? I don’t want to have to drag you out of there.”
“Oh my God, Jos, yes, I’ll be waiting outside.”
* * *
A half hour later I stepped out onto the porch for the last time. Next time I’d be staying with Shay. The time after that, I’d promised Josie I’d stay with her. I made her promise that her book club would read a book and that the gossip girls wouldn’t be invited. I felt hollow as I watched the quiet street, drumming my fingers along the railing with impatience. I was going to miss this place and these people. I always had.
I left my bags near the steps and walked back inside, ran my hand along the mantel, the back of the settee. I could walk around the garden one more time.
A blue compact car drove down Lark Street and parked. It wasn’t one of Josie’s cars. Maybe Beck had booked another guest. Maybe one of the Wagoneers had thought to bring me a goodie bag for my flight. Then, Cameron stepped out of the car, turned, and smiled. He walked around the car toward the sidewalk. His pace quickened and I sprung down the steps and onto the path, where I scampered until we met, somewhere, but not exactly, in the middle.
“You’re back from Akron.”
“I came back last night.”
“I know.” I laughed.
“In Chance, someone always knows.” We both said it and snickered. I forced myself to stop.
“Josie?” Cameron asked.
“Deanna,” I said.
He shook his head and chuckled. “Beck texted me. He explained that things were cool between the two of you. I also got a call from Simon and one from your assistant, Annie. Josie has texted me about two dozen times and has launched an all-out campaign to make me understand the confusion on that porch.” He pointed as if accusing the porch itself for the mayhem. “I also know you’re going to Portland for a week.”
“People in Chance aren’t known for being subtle.”
“Or discreet.” Cameron held his arms behind his back. “A lot of people love you, Teddi Lerner.”
I blushed. “Josie’s on her way.”
“No, she’s not.”
“She better be or I’ll miss my flight.”
“I’m going to drive you to the airport if that’s okay.”
“It is.” God bless Josie.
“I’ll be back in Oakland in about a month. Maybe we can have lunch? Or go for a walk?”
I nodded again. “I’d like that.”
Cameron brought his arms around front, and when he opened his hand, I saw a small stone. “Bet you never thought you’d have a stone all the way from Akron.”
“How did you know about my stones?”
“Because you put me to shame at Jasper Pond. How quickly you forget crushing my stone-skipping soul.”
“I will treasure it.” I said it without an ounce of sarcasm, but then I inhaled and told Cameron about Shay and the cemetery, and about writing on twenty-two stones for Celia.
He lifted my right hand, laid the stone in it, and closed my fingers around it. “I wish I’d known her for longer,” he said.
“I wish I’d known her longer too.”
I reached into the pocket of my dress, released his stone, and pulled out another. This one I’d picked up in the garden right before The Porch Invasion. I opened my hand and showed the smooth stone to Cameron. It was not flat enough to skip in the pond, but sat perfectly still in the middle of my palm, as if floating.
“Maybe you’ll leave that one for Celia one day,” he said.
“I will when I come back. It won’t be the same if I don’t carry it around for a while first.”
“Maybe by then, you’ll have written my name on it.”
I already had.
* * *
I’d been back at work for a month, but today was different. Today I walked into the lobby of the San Francisco Hester Hotel carrying a briefcase. I reasoned (or was easily swayed) that as creative director of Hester Properties, I needed this accessory. Josie had helped me choose the perfect indulgence—Burberry in mineral blue. We’d shopped online in tandem, Josie sending photos and links across the country as if she were whisking me around the mall.
“Good morning, Fiona.” I stopped at the round glass table in the center of the lobby and waved to the hotel’s morning manager. Yellow, lavender, pink, and peach tulips dipped in unison over and around the sides of a glass vase large enough to hold a watermelon. “There must be two hundred tulips in here.”
“At least.” Fiona smiled. “I wonder who could have said she liked tulips.”
“I wonder who!”
“Someone starting in her new position today, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” I walked to Fiona and laid my hands on the counter. “Thank you. It was a nice surprise.”
“Don’t thank me,” she said. “Simon wanted to make sure that your first official day was perfect.”
When I stepped out of the elevator on the twelfth floor, home of my new office, a vase of red tulips stood on the dark wooden hall table beneath a large round mirror. My hair was down and loose. I set my briefcase on the floor between my legs and adjusted the crew neck of my simple peach knit A-line dress. I smoothed the pockets, flat and empty.
I walked into Annie’s new space, a converted alcove, decorated with sleek wood furniture and a soft green settee—a definite upgrade from a cubicle. A vase full of peach and yellow parrot tulips sat at the edge of Annie’s desk.
“The tulips are amazing. I’ll have to thank Simon later.”
“He’s in Miami until Wednesday. He said to tell you to enjoy the view.”
“It really feels like the first day of something brand new and exciting,” I said. “Like everything up until today has been leading right to now.”
“Because it has.”
Annie walked over and hugged me and I hugged her back. She was my assistant, now an executive assistant, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t be real friends to some degree. She was fifteen years younger and always made me laugh, as well as question my pocket-dress style, with her lavender pixie-short hair meant to show off her unalome tattoo on the back of her neck, a spiral that opened to the left and meant female spiritual enlightenment. In contrast, as always, Annie’s dress was a conservation navy-blue knit wrap, her shoes nude vegan pumps. Only I knew she had a pair of one-dollar flip-flops tucked under her desk.
Annie nodded and tipped her head toward my office door. I opened it and stepped inside. The unadorned wall-width window faced downtown and a summer sky had settled on top of the skyscrapers. In the middle of my teak desk sat an oversized glass vase packed with pink roses and tulips, accented by deep green leaves. I stepped back into the alcove.
“Those flowers are gorgeous, Annie. Thank you. I didn’t expect more!”
“They are gorgeous,” she said. “But don’t thank me.”
I walked back into my office and shut the door. As if possessed, my desk chair swiveled around. And there was Cameron. He smiled a crooked smile and pushed his hair away from his eyes.
“You’re here.” My voice cracked and my hand touched my chest as if I were saying the Pledge of Allegiance. I blushed, but in that moment I also knew I needn’t be
embarrassed at all. “I thought we were having lunch next Tuesday.”
“We are. I hope.”
“Oh, yes, absolutely.”
“I don’t have to be at school till this afternoon, so I thought…”
“I’m glad you did.”
Cameron gently tugged a tulip from the arrangement, walked around to the front of the desk, and handed the flower to me. I buried my nose in the bloom, knowing tulips had only the faint scent of freshness. I felt Cameron’s stare and looked up.
I inhaled a deep breath of emotional courage and talked fast. “I’m glad you’re here now. I would have been carrying around my phone for the next week in case you called—waiting for you to call—hoping you weren’t going to cancel—and driving Annie, and Josie, crazy.”
“Then I’m really glad I didn’t wait. The world does not need a crazier Josie.”
I laughed. “Agreed.”
“But that’s not the only reason I’m here. I have something to show you.”
Cameron pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to me. It had already been opened. “It’s from the Union County Art Council. It was mailed to Shay, and Miles sent it to me. She wanted you to see the official letter, but not to read it alone.”
I didn’t win.
And it didn’t matter.
What mattered was I was part of Shay’s life, and not just once a year. Josie and I texted every day and had chosen a book for our new Web chat book club. I’d started apartment hunting and only looked at units with two bedrooms. Cousin Maggie and Lorraine planned to visit in November and my parents were coming in December. I even thought about Beck, just for a second, and exhaled a peaceful sigh. I noticed a photo of me and Celia, one that Annie had apparently taken out of storage and placed on my bookshelf in a simple frame. Best friends’ arms draped over each other’s shoulders, heads thrown back in unsuspecting laughter. I smiled and shifted my gaze to the tulips and roses on my new desk, then to the man standing in front of me with hair in his eyes and a pencil behind his ear.
Picture perfect.
ALSO BY AMY SUE NATHAN
The Good Neighbor
The Glass Wives
About the Author
Amy Sue Nathan lives and writes near her hometown of Philadelphia. She is also the founder of WomensFictionWriters.com, named a Writer’s Digest Best Website for Writers 2015–2017. Amy is the mom of a grown son and daughter, and hard at work on her fourth novel. Visit her at AmySueNathan.com, or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Also by Amy Sue Nathan
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LEFT TO CHANCE. Copyright © 2017 by Amy Nathan-Gropper. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Cover design by Danielle Christopher
Cover photograph of dress © 3 photographers / Offset.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Nathan, Amy Sue, author.
Title: Left to chance / Amy Sue Nathan.
Description: First edition. | New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017026876 | ISBN 9781250091116 (softcover) | ISBN 9781250091123 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Self-actualization (Psychology) in women—Fiction. | Self-realization in women—Fiction. | City and town life—Fiction. | Homecoming—Fiction. | Domestic fiction. | GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3614.A85 L44 2017 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017026876
e-ISBN 9781250091123
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First Edition: November 2017