“No, a painter.”
At the same time, we both said, “Artist.”
LATER, AS WE were exiting into the jetway, the man waved good-bye and then turned back and said, “I hope it’s everything you want it to be.”
“What?” I asked.
“The rest of your life.”
I thought it was a nice sentiment, but I couldn’t help but say, “Well, we won’t really know until the very end, will we?”
“Touché,” he said.
As I waited in the rental car line, I texted Jase for his address and he sent it to me. I told him to be expecting a delivery in about thirty minutes.
I rented a subcompact car, and to my absolute delight, the Avis guy pulled up in a shiny red jelly bean, just for me.
Jase’s beach house was a small cottage at the end of the world, right on the edge, where you can see only ocean and the vast nothingness of empty skies. I jogged to the front door right as he swung it open.
“Jesus, fuck, took you long enough,” he said.
“I’m here.”
“Man, you read slowly. We have to work on that.”
Right there in the doorway, we kissed and kissed and kissed until I pulled away, yanked his stupid book out of my purse, and said, “This isn’t us!”
“It could have been, though,” he said.
“But it won’t be.”
Epilogue
We live in that little cottage to this day. We write and we kiss and we do other stuff too. There are no TVs in our house. Jase taught me how to look out at the ocean and imagine whatever I wanted to.
About three months after I moved in, he said, “Do you want to live here with me forever?”
“At least nine months out of the year.”
“What will we do for the other three?”
“You can still do math, doofus. I’m impressed.”
We were sitting in chairs, watching the sun go down. “Your hair is flying everywhere, Medusa. If I touch it, will it bite me?”
“You never had abs. I still can’t believe you wrote that.”
He chuckled. “It’s fiction, baby. What’s on your mind? Why can’t we travel more?”
“We can travel during the summers, but during the school year, we’ll have to be home.”
“I thought you were giving up teaching,” he said.
“It’s not for me.”
“I wouldn’t be caught dead in a classroom, you know that.” He was laughing. He already knew. Jase always had foresight, and we weren’t characters in anyone’s book.
“Not for you either,” I said.
He leaned in, kissed me, and then put his hand on my belly.
He already knew.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to my devoted readers, some of whom I now call friends. There’s nothing I love doing more than writing. I’m so grateful to you for keeping me at it.
To Judith, Jhanteigh, Tory, Jackie, Jin, and the rest of the Atria gang, thank you for getting behind my books and giving me this opportunity.
Christina, you’ve been here from the beginning and I appreciate your hard work so much. I’m also mind-blown by your vast knowledge of idioms.
And of course, thank you to everyone at Jane Rotrosen for all you do.
To my friends and family, from now on, I’ll try to keep it to thirty seconds. That’s a promise, but you know how much I love to tell a story. Thank you for loving me and for listening to my meandering tales.
Thank you to Crystal and Dani for making sh@# happen. You’re both rock stars. Period.
To Sam and Tony, Mommy isn’t crazy. I’m just formulating the next chapter . . . sometimes out loud . . . to myself . . . while I make pancakes. You ARE the joy of my life and the best teachers I’ll ever have. I love you.
Finally, to Anthony, it really IS true! You are, were, and will always be the just one person I write for.
© JACK AND LOLA PHOTOGRAPHY, 2013
RENÉE CARLINO is a screenwriter and the bestselling author of Sweet Thing, Nowhere but Here, After the Rain, and Before We Were Strangers. She grew up in Southern California and lives in the San Diego area with her husband, two sons, and their sweet dog, June. To learn more, visit ReneeCarlino.com.
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ALSO BY RENÉE CARLINO
Sweet Thing
Nowhere but Here
After the Rain
Before We Were Strangers
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Renée Carlino
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First Atria Paperback edition August 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
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ISBN 978-1-5011-0580-7 (ebook)
Swear on This Life Page 25
