Nolan overhears this and shoots me a grateful smile.
“Holding up?” I ask him, as the woman collects her six books.
“Just,” he says. “Just.”
The quaint lampposts Alex has managed to position on either side of the signing table cast Nolan’s face in shadow, and I resist the urge to press the pad of my thumb against the scrunch between his eyebrows. I want to take him away, to tell him he will never have to sit behind a table and be stared at by people again.
Instead, I briefly squeeze his hand beneath the table, and ask, “Does it help or hurt to know that all of these people are carrying around a version of Avery and Emily?”
As if conjured by my question, two young girls step eagerly to the table. It’s obvious they’re sisters, the younger a shorter carbon copy of the other. The little girl can’t reach the top of the ticket jar, comically straining on tiptoe. Her sister plucks the tickets from her outstretched hand and deposits them with her own. With that taken care of, the little girl zooms around the table and wiggles between Nolan and me.
“Can I sit here?” She points at a frozen Nolan’s lap. “I can’t see over there.” Her voice is a little too loud and much too brazen in a way only young children’s can be. The look in her eye makes me think of the glint in Ainsley’s when she first sees Orman.
The folding table we set up for the signing isn’t tall, but she’s right—it’s just high enough that she can’t get a clear view of Nolan, especially in the dim lighting. To her, it probably seems like a perfectly ordinary solution, born of a lifetime of being hoisted onto shoulders and bent knees.
I’m about to kindly let her down, to guide her back to where her sister stands, shifting foot to foot, embarrassed, when Nolan leans forward in his chair and addresses the little girl directly.
“Do you have a book for me to sign?”
His voice is so warm and gentle it makes me pause.
The girl points over the table to her sister. “We share,” she says. “She reads. I listen. She says I read too slow.”
“You’ll get faster.” Nolan laughs as he rises from his chair to slide onto folded knees next to the little girl. “Can you see now?”
She looks hard at his face and twists her mouth, pointing a chubby finger back at her sister. “Jennifer thinks you’re cute.”
Nolan blinks in a way that makes me think he wants to scoot this little girl back to her side of the table, but she plows on.
“What happens to Emmeline and Ainsley? Jennifer says if we were in Orman she would feed me to the sirens to get some quiet, but that doesn’t happen, right?”
“Julie,” the red-faced older sister warns as she hands Nolan a pristine copy of his second book. “Let Mr. Endsley sign our book so he can meet the other people, okay?”
But little Julie will not be deterred, and I’m starting to think this will end in a tantrum—Julie’s or Nolan’s—when Nolan cups his hand around Julie’s ear.
As he whispers, Julie’s face glows, the sun peeking through clouds after days of rain. They sit this way for at least a minute, and it takes a curious glance from Jennifer to remind me of my role as event photographer. I snap a picture of this pilfered moment in the grass.
Nolan and Julie melt away. Inside the lens, they shift, and Nolan whispers to another little girl, one that shares his dark waves and seafoam eyes, and he’s an older brother revealing the location of the hidden holiday gifts.
Nolan doesn’t see this little girl as Ainsley of Orman. To him, she is Avery Endsley.
There is a very good chance that this exact photo exists somewhere else in the world, with these players in these poses, but it’s this context that makes it special. It’s because it is Nolan and Julie in the damp grass while quiet Jennifer looks on that makes the photo worth taking at all.
As Nolan pulls away to sign the book, I break my rule and take three photos in quick succession. I can’t resist capturing all the moments of Julie spelling her name aloud while Jennifer shyly gazes at Nolan. The photos are no less real or special for being one of many.
There’s no time to ask Nolan what he whispered to Julie. The line of people is getting restless. He signs for what feels like hours more, and even though he’s strained from interacting with this many people, he handles it well. Since the sisters left, the squint between his eyes has eased.
When I lower my camera from what must be at least the three hundredth photo, I find Alex at my side. His curly hair is sticking up in all directions and I smooth it into place as he pushes a cold water bottle into my other hand. Alex and I are now associates on the Care and Keeping of Nolan Endsley team and I am happy.
Something inside me sparkles at having a friend and a common cause, but I force my voice to be casual when I ask, “Rough night?”
Alex shrugs. “It’s going surprisingly well. There were some popcorn issues and Wally was stealing hot dogs from an open cooler, but besides the guy that complained about Mr. Larson’s coffee, most everyone seems to be having a good time.”
“I saw your mom earlier,” I say. “She was pretty happy about only being on piano duty.”
I step forward to moderate a gaggle of young boys who want Nolan to sign their books at the same time. I take their photo, hand Nolan the rest of the water, and return to Alex.
“Rough night?” Alex asks me my own question. He hasn’t looked away from the line still stretched out in front of the signing table.
I shrug and smile. “Surprisingly well. I don’t feel comfortable leaving him, though. The crowd…” I trail off. There’s no need to explain to my many-years-senior associate.
“I hated to leave him,” Alex says. “But I hated it less, knowing you would turn up.”
There’s something odd about his tone, so I stay quiet, uncertain.
“You know,” he says, “and I mean this with all sincerity, I’m not saying it to make you stay, but you’re maybe the best thing that’s happened to Nolan in a really, really long time.”
Stay. No, no, no. I will not let the weight of my leaving crush this evening where Nolan Endsley is smiling at me and Alex is treating me like a real friend and my camera is not collecting dust but is helping me breathe again. I push away the closeness of tomorrow and make myself focus on the whales to keep the unwanted thoughts away.
I try to blow it off. “It could have been anybody. He just needed someone to see him as himself instead of as N. E.”
Alex turns his head downward to look at me. “Yes, because I’m sure he would have told any random girl about his sisters after only three days.”
My eyes leap to Nolan. The small furrow between his brows disappears completely when our eyes meet, and he smiles in my direction. I wave at him with one hand, a goofy smile covering my face before I can stop it.
Alex watches this exchange with his know-it-all smile and I want to punch him in the throat.
“It’s not like that,” I tell him. “We’re friends.”
Lies. Alex isn’t buying it.
“Amelia, don’t be an imbecile. Friends don’t touch other friends’ faces and stare into their eyes like the sun is shining out of their every pore.”
I loll my head toward him and try to ignore the pitter-pattering of my heart when I think of Nolan looking at me like that.
“That’s beautiful, Alex. Have you considered taking up writing? Nolan could use the competition.”
He grins. “Computers are more my thing. Much more straightforward. I have enough drama from keeping after Nolan. I don’t need to invent more.”
“Am I part of that drama?”
He taps a finger against his chin, pretending to consider. “You certainly were an unexpected addition, yes.”
And even though everything has become so convoluted, because it’s the last night and I still want to know, I ask, “Do you really not know who sent me the book? Who brought me here?”
He looks away, playfulness gone. “If you ask me, it’s fate.”
I frown. “Fate isn’t
real. It’s for storybooks and Disney movies. I refuse to believe it’s real.”
“Fate doesn’t need to be believed in for it to be true.”
I roll my eyes. “Did I miss a chance to photograph the fortune cookie booth? Fate has nothing to do with any of this. I don’t know how she did it, but Jenna arranged for me to get that book. I showed up, and—”
“It wasn’t Jenna, Amelia. It was fate.”
Alex and his stupid walls. Now I’m trapped in the festival behind his eyes and in the one he’s created in real life, and it’s as if he’s determined to keep me inside and make me believe in things I’ve long since abandoned.
I gave up on fate when I learned that Jenna was dead.
I’m about to tell him so, to push Alex away with a few sharp words about what he can do with fate, when he says, “I hope you two didn’t have any ideas about making out in the Orman room tonight, because I need your help. When the bazaar is over, meet me at the marina. Bring Nolan.”
I’m grumpy, but too curious not to ask, “What’s at the marina?”
Alex winks. “You’ll see.”
As he walks back toward the bazaar, I ask, “How do you know I’ll come?”
Without turning, Alex calls, “It’s your fate.”
chapter fifteen
After the fireworks are over and the twinkle lights blink off, Nolan signs his last signature and slouches onto the table with a low groan.
I pat his shoulder half comfortingly, half jokingly, and his hand reaches up to cover mine, holding it in place. Neither of us says anything. The thread between us glows bright and I know what this means to him. A curse has been broken, and Alex, Valerie, and I are probably the only ones who understand what this night has cost Nolan.
We listen to plastic chests full of slushy melted ice and water being poured into flower beds, the sleepy mutterings of cotton candy machine operators, and—distantly—a barking Wally who has eaten his fill of discarded nachos and hot dog buns. Alex is still dancing along the periphery of the bazaar, collecting blue pouches of cash and tickets.
“You okay?” Nolan asks, his voice hoarse from talking to the entirety of Lochbrook and then some.
“I am,” I say. My surprise at this truth warms my voice. “Are you?”
He looks up at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners when he says, “I guess not everything sucks.”
When Nolan recuperates enough to rise from the table, we stand close together, the tips of his fingers nudging my side as we look up at the stars through the puffs of firework smoke lingering in the sky. I slip my hand firmly into his and ask, “What did you tell her? That little girl?”
He laughs. “What she wanted to know, of course.”
I drop his hand without thinking and turn to face him, but his gaze stays focused on the heavens.
“You told her what happens to the girls in Orman? Really?”
He’s quiet for a minute. “You never asked why I agreed to the signing,” he says in answer.
“To help Alex,” I say.
“No.”
“To help Valerie?”
He drops his gaze to me, his mouth quirking. In this light, his cheekbones almost look as sharp as they do in his author photo.
“Because if I can do that”—he points at the signing area—“you can do anything.” He reaches down and nudges the camera where it hangs below my chest. “Anything.”
We’re silent, Nolan staring at me until I drop my gaze to fiddle with the camera lens.
“It’s not that simple,” I say. I can’t meet his eyes, so I speak to the camera. “It sounds cheesy, but it’s true. If your sisters had asked you to do one thing before they died, something totally in your power, that wouldn’t hurt you and might even help you … wouldn’t you do it? For them?”
Nolan doesn’t answer. It is answer enough.
“I have to go tomorrow,” I say. “I can’t stay, Nolan. You know that, right?”
He reaches down and squeezes my hand.
“Nolan,” I try again. “I need you to—”
“Shh,” he says. “Pretend with me.”
And with Nolan’s warm fingers between mine, I do. I let the whales swoop in on a wind much cleverer than I, and I don’t think of what it will cost me to leave this snow globe tomorrow.
* * *
It’s a walkable distance to the marina, where boats of all shapes and sizes bob on gentle waves. Our footsteps echo across the wooden planks as Nolan guides me to a modest blue pontoon boat, his tight hold on my hand the only indication that he’s bothered being near the water.
“Okay?” I ask.
He squeezes my hand. “I’ll always be okay when I’m with you, Amelia.”
When I look up at him, his dark hair blends into the night sky and his eyes become tiny constellations. I want to look at him forever, but tomorrow’s departure is settling into my stomach like a stone and I’m having a hard time forgetting.
“You’ll have to be okay after I’m gone, you know,” I say.
He tilts his head to look at the sky. “I know,” he says quietly. A pause. “I talked to my editor this morning.”
I suddenly become very interested in our linked hands.
“And?” I whisper.
He nudges my chin up and I try to trace the patterns of the stars in his eyes.
“It does help.” His voice is soft. “It helps that others can know shadows of who Avery and Emily were by reading about Orman. It helps.”
There’s a significant pause.
“I’m sending them the final book.”
“Nolan.” I breathe. “Are you sure? Really?”
His smile is lopsided, and he looks down at our feet, embarrassed. “I am. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t have to be. It’s … for them.”
I throw my arms around his neck and I’m kissing him. Not a drowning kiss, not a final-good-bye kiss, but a kiss of wonder and surprise.
It’s another too perfect moment, made all the less real by my leaving tomorrow. It makes me hesitate and I draw back, but before Nolan can ask what’s wrong, Alex is thumping his way down the dock.
Wally gets to us first, licking our knees before crashing onto the pontoon boat, standing on the worn plush seats and barking at nothing and then rushing busily to the back of the boat and out of sight.
Alex’s face is that mixture of exhaustion and relief that comes at the end of a particularly long day. His hair is askew again, and when he sees me looking, he leans down so I can brush it back into place. He straightens and claps his hands together.
“You’re probably wondering why I summoned you to the dock. The bad news is we are sadly bereft of a floating vessel. The good news is Mr. Larson agreed to loan us his for the evening.”
“But what about Nolan’s—”
Alex cuts me off with a wave.
“We don’t have to leave the dock. But I figured it would be nice to have dinner under the stars instead of in the store.”
Nolan’s hand tightens in mine. “We can take it out,” he says. When he sees our doubtful faces, he adds, “Really. It might be fun.”
I can tell Alex doesn’t want to risk upsetting Nolan, but I ask, “Will it help you or hurt you if we are out on the water?”
His hand lets go of mine, and he pulls me softly to his side. Alex studiously ignores us, looking down at his phone.
“I think it’ll help,” Nolan whispers. “Maybe we’ll wash up on an island somewhere and you’ll have to stay.”
“Or we’ll get stranded on Orman,” I say, because this is the best kind of pretend.
“God, I hope not.” Alex laughs, giving up the pretense that he isn’t listening in. “Wally wouldn’t last five minutes against a tree knight.”
“You wouldn’t last five minutes against a tree knight,” Nolan says.
The two of them keep bickering as Alex unties us from the dock and starts the engine. Lights flicker on around the edge of the boat, but even so, Alex says we can’t go too far at night.
True to his word, he kills the engine when the shore is still well within sight. It would be swimmable, if need be, but it’s far enough away from Lochbrook and Val’s to make us feel we’re somewhere else entirely.
We’re all staring up at the stars when Nolan says, “This is perfect.”
“Nothing’s perfect,” Alex says.
I smile. “This is.”
* * *
Perfection lasts about two minutes before Alex announces that Wally has peed on the cooler, contaminating our elaborate dinner of wine, cheese, crackers, and little rolls of lunch meat.
“Alex, there was hardly enough food in here to feed a rabbit anyway,” Nolan says, peering into the urine-soaked cooler.
“It was supposed to be a charcuterie plate. Besides, rabbits are herbivores.”
“Hardly the point.” Nolan sighs. “I’m starving.”
Wally, sensing the change in mood, is sitting shamefaced behind the wheel of the boat. I suspect if he had opposable thumbs, he would have steered us back to the dock.
I lean around Nolan to gaze upon the damage wrought by what must be the world’s most idiotic dog. “Is charcuterie French for ‘after-school snack’? Because that’s what this looks like.”
“I mean, most of it is packaged in plastic,” Alex says, fishing out a baggie of cheese cubes. “Maybe it’s okay to eat?”
A glistening drop of pee trembles on the edge of the bag, and Nolan and I both lean backwards.
“Fine,” Alex says. “Fine. We won’t risk the food. But look!” He holds a shiny bottle triumphantly above his head. “The wine is one hundred percent okay to drink.”
Nolan eyes the glistening bottle, damp from ice or pee, and nods. “Fine, but you’re pouring.”
The sky is the kind of pitch-black dark that makes you feel too small, where you can only just make out hazy puffs that might be clouds or distant galaxies.
I go home tomorrow, but here the whales can take a night swim and splash me into forgetting about everything except my growling stomach and the way Nolan’s back looks solid and strong even though he’s hunched over with his elbows on his knees, the wine bottle dangling from a hand. It had to be wiped clean because Alex forgot the paper cups, though he blamed their absence on Wally, too.
Amelia Unabridged Page 19
