I’m sorry, hon. I love you. Dinner tonight?
Just thinking of how I get to have my freedom and Mark and Trisha makes me feel rebellious and silly. There’s a definite bounce in my step after the event, and when I see Becky approaching I suspect she’s going to ask what kind of drugs I’m on.
Instead, Becky does the impossible: She hands me a small, sturdy box with a familiar sticker on its side, and my blood freezes. It’s a calligraphy V in the middle of an open book.
Val’s.
My heart is pumping too fast.
“Another package for you, Amelia. You really should give them your home address. We’re not a post office, you know.”
“Sure,” I say. My mouth is on autopilot as my brain tries to summon whales to carry away the memories of Nolan Endsley that are leaking into my bloodstream, making me feel hopelessly warm. The whales don’t come, so for a moment I sit and let them wash over me: Nolan laughing and choking on wine as Alex talks of swords and phones. Nolan insisting I draw stick figures like it’s the most important thing in the world. Nolan kissing me in the Orman room. Nolan reading to me. Nolan, exhausted but triumphant, promising me that if he can conquer his fear, I can conquer mine.
“Amelia? Are you okay?”
I don’t bother trying to sound normal as I shoulder my camera bag, holding the box between my hands like it’s a life raft and these memories are a raging ocean.
“Sure, Becky. Thanks.”
I don’t even make it a foot out the bookstore door before I walk between buildings to a small square of brown grass with a wilting tree that the bookstore employees use as a break room. Dirt gets under my fingernails as I hastily sweep away cigarette butts and bottle caps and sit with my back against the trunk.
The box tape is sturdy, but it’s no match for my curiosity. It takes me only a couple of seconds to rip the flaps open, but I sit for a full minute staring at the contents.
On top of crumpled packing paper is an envelope beside a plain black photo album with a plastic frame on the front. The photo in the frame is grainy. Alex must have taken it on his phone before we boarded the doomed dinner voyage.
It’s already my new favorite picture.
Nolan’s arm is wrapped around me and I can barely make out the pieces of my long hair stuck in his. We’re not kissing, not even about to, but the trash condition of the photo can’t hide the look of pure awe on our faces as we stare at each other.
My lips are open in laughter, eyes squinted over my rounded cheeks, but Nolan’s warmth is contained in his eyes. He’s looking at me, to quote Alex, like I’m the sun and I’m shining only for him.
I reluctantly stop staring at Nolan’s face to open the album and suddenly I am back at the bazaar: Mr. Larson sitting in a folding lawn chair, an ankle resting on his knee, as he knits. Valerie smiling after Alex as he bustles by on some mission. A younger teenage boy sneezing into his funnel cake, powdered sugar rushing toward his face. He’s lit just right by the twinkling tree lights.
I linger on the photo of Alex and Nolan’s bromance, and the one of Nolan signing little Julie’s book while her sister blushes in the background. Even with the rush of confused feelings boiling in my stomach, I’m stunned by the quality of my own work, especially since I spent more time at Nolan’s signing table than taking photos.
These are actually good.
I flip through the entire album once more before turning to the letter. The envelope feels plump in my hands as I work my finger beneath the flap and tear it open. I tell myself to go slow, but years of reading have made me a hare, not a tortoise, and my eyes are gulping words whole before I can stop them:
Amelia,
When I overheard the great N. E. Endsley being soothed by a girl in sparkling tights at CCBF, I caught her as she was leaving and offered to send her a signed copy of an Orman book. I figured I owed her for not taking advantage of Nolan in such a vulnerable state. She asked if I could send it to her best friend instead, the one who introduced her to the books. She gave me the address of the local bookstore (she wasn’t keen on handing out a home address to a complete stranger) and said she’d make sure her friend received it.
I should have told you I was the one who sent the book when you called the store or when you left to go back to Dallas. I didn’t tell you because I felt guilty for bringing you—unintentionally, but still responsible—to Lochbrook, like I had accidentally summoned a fangirl demon to haunt my friend.
He had been even less himself since the festival (I think he felt defeated) but sometimes I would catch him staring out the window and I knew his mind was somewhere else and I couldn’t go there to fetch him back.
But you could, Amelia. You gathered up your army of kindness and empathy and marched through his darkness to bring back my friend when I could not.
Jenna would be proud of you. So very proud. I know, because I am so proud of Nolan, even if he sometimes acts like an idiot.
I thought you should have these—your photographs are just like you: They capture something only you know how to retrieve.
Whatever you decide, should you wish it, there will always be a job and—my mother said to mention—a bedroom with its very own sink waiting for you in Lochbrook. I have taken the liberty of enclosing a few photography programs in the area.
Forgive me for not telling you the whole truth, Amelia.
Forgive him for not writing to tell you he misses you himself.
Astra inclinant, sed non obligant,
Alex
P. S. Please read the packing paper. But don’t ever, ever tell him I took them from his secret room, or he’ll ban me from using the WiFi. Or stab me with a ridiculous bejeweled sword.
I smooth out a piece of crumpled paper I assumed was only there to protect the box’s contents. I don’t expect to see line after line of Nolan’s messy, frustrated scrawl.
Amelia, I miss
Dearest Amelia
My dear Amelia
Amelia
This wasn’t in our sketchbook
Dear Amelia,
Wally misses you.
I can’t see the whales when you’re not here
I lay the wrinkled pages faceup, corners overlapping so that it resembles a paper bouquet from above, place the photo album gently in the middle, and stand. One photo, I tell myself. I call it Nonsense and Nonsensibility, pack the contents back into their box, and head home to get ready for dinner with the Williamses.
A train slows down enough for me to catch it. I have a plan.
* * *
Mark and Trisha agree to stay at the hotel while I go to the bookstore alone.
They have come with me under the guise of needing a vacation, but I know they’re coming to check out Lochbrook and Val’s and …
Nolan.
The Michigan sun is setting and everything is golden, like I’m exploring some fictional world. The burgundy door with its cool metal handle is part of an elaborately crafted book. The tinkle of the bell that sounds overhead as I step into Val’s signals that magic is near.
But it’s not magic that comes barking down the stairs, toenails scraping for purchase on the tile before hitting carpet and flinging itself at me in a furry whirlwind of excited keening.
I manage to get out a single unthreatening “No!” before he hits me, and I find myself in the unfortunate position of being flat on my back in Val’s entryway once more.
Alex doesn’t come to my rescue this time, but his mom does, standing imperiously over me like a Roman goddess and extending a graceful hand.
“You are late,” she says.
I rub the back of my head to inspect for knots. “Late?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Amelia, what did I say about fools?”
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
She raises the other eyebrow. “What can I do for you, Miss Griffin?”
I try to summon the whales, but maybe they’re jet-lagged from flying alongside the plane.
“Where’s Nolan?” I a
sk.
Valerie looks at me hard before raising her eyes to narrow them at something over my shoulder.
“It’s Wednesday,” another familiar voice says.
I twirl to see Alex beaming at me, arms open for a hug, which I gladly run into.
“Fort day?” I grin.
“I’ll take you,” he says. “If it’s okay with you, Mom. I’ll need to close the café.”
Valerie appraises us, and I feel my joy slipping beneath her stern countenance. She hasn’t smiled at me once since I got here.
Her tone is commanding when she asks, “Will you be available to take photos of our Christmas party?”
She wants to know if I’m staying. My face lights up.
“Put me down for the next two Christmas parties,” I tell her.
She still doesn’t smile, but her eyes are kind when she looks to her son and says, “All right. Take her to see the boy. And take that mongrel with you.”
* * *
“I have to get back to the café,” Alex says, when I don’t open the truck door. “I mean, not really, but if you two are going to touch faces, I’d rather see you later.” Wally has already leaped out the back and is running past the blue house and down toward the fort and out of sight.
“Amelia?”
“Hmm?”
Alex’s eyes are kind when he takes my hand. “He’ll be thrilled to see you.”
My heart is beating in my throat and I can’t imagine what it will do when I knock on the door of the boathouse.
I have to stall.
“But I haven’t thanked you for the box and the album, and we haven’t even talked about what Jenna told you at the festival, and—”
Alex’s finger doesn’t touch my lips to quiet me, but his intention is clear.
“We have time for that later, okay?”
My heart slows a little, and glows. What a luxury time is, what a gift.
I look out the passenger window.
“How can you be sure he doesn’t hate me, since I didn’t call or anything?”
I hear rather than see Alex’s smile. “Fate. Now get out of my truck. There’s less than three hundred forty days until the next bazaar and I’m a very busy man.”
* * *
Nolan is not in the fort.
I see him as I descend the slight hill that slopes into the sand of the beach. He’s standing knee-deep in the water, looking out at the pearl pink sunset.
Wally sees me first, and his welcoming bark startles a few gulls. The clamor of their wings and Wally’s incessant yelps as he takes off after them cover the sound of my feet splashing into the water, shoes and all.
His spine is straight, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and I want to know what he’s thinking. I’m desperate to read his face, to trace the lines on his palm, to see if his lips are as soft as I remember, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll have to tap him on the shoulder. Then I feel the thread go tight between us.
His shoulders tense, his hands easing out of his pockets, he slowly turns to face me.
Nolan Endsley does not say a word, but I can feel our connection humming with energy. I have to say something, anything, to break this terrible, terrible silence. All the words I rehearsed, all the scenarios I played out in my head, disappear.
“You’re in the water,” I say.
Nolan says nothing. I regroup. I try to put words to the tingling sensation in my fingers, the loud thrum of my heart.
“There’s a photo,” I say, “of two people, and they’re looking at each other.”
Nolan says nothing.
I’m already crying. I swallow thickly and press on. “They … it’s stupid, and it doesn’t make any sense, because they’ve only known each other for a few days, and everyone will make fun of them when they say it out loud, but I think they might be the kind of forever you read about in books.”
His eyes blaze in the sunset’s orange light.
“But more than that,” I say, “they love each other’s secrets. She loves his journals and he loves her photos. She tolerates his brain-damaged dog and he lets her sit closer than he’s used to letting people near him.”
Nolan takes a step forward, hand outstretched.
I lunge for it, trip over a rock in the lake, and right myself against his chest. I don’t care how cheesy it is. Neither does he.
“There’s a photo,” I say, as he lowers his lips to my forehead, his eyes fluttering closed, “of a girl wearing headphones, and her favorite book balanced on her knees, and she loves you. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to meet you, and it’s going to be the very best of beginnings.”
He stares at me and I realize he is looking at me to pull courage, like I am his whale. It’s a burden and a privilege I will gladly bear, and I try to tell him that with my smile, my eyes, the thread pulsing between us.
He kisses me then, because of course he understands. And later there will be time, time for hungry missed you kisses and I’m never leaving you again kisses and everything in between, but for now it’s enough to stand by the lake that is not the sea and let the clever wind ruffle our hair and be.
epilogue
If my life were a book, I would start the next part here, standing behind the camera tripod, taking pictures of Alex and Nolan maneuvering my boxes around the sink in my newly permanent residence in Val’s spare room.
But this isn’t a book; it’s our story. Nolan and me.
And, for now, that means community college in Michigan—taking photography classes and fencing classes and even an intro to microbiology course because why not—and working at Val’s. It means weekly video chats with the Williamses and the occasional phone call to my mother, who never turns off the TV when I call, but at least she answers.
It means long nights in the Orman room, reading side by side with Nolan, who frequently puts his book down to lean over and touch my wrist to make sure I’m staying, to which my heart says, I am. I am. I am.
Later, it might mean holding hands at our wedding on the lower level of Val’s, with Alex officiating and Mark walking me down an aisle lined with our favorite books and people. It might mean endless nights spent alternating between Nolan signing his latest book for legions of fans and photo galleries with my name printed beneath every whimsical frame.
It could mean soft sobs from me and resolute tears from Nolan as we say good-bye to Wally, who dies at the ripe old age of sixteen and—Nolan says—years of deserved brain trauma. It might mean the same resolute tears and soft sobs, but reversed, when Val dies of cancer a few years later, her last words spent telling us to not be idiots and that she’s quite overdue for a visit with George.
It could mean a strange existence where we take over running the bookstore and rent a room to a piano player named Michael, who is very odd but can absolutely be trusted to keep up Val’s piano studio. It might mean framed photographs of Val, of Jenna, of Avery and Emily, on the bookstore’s fireplace mantel.
It could mean a meaningful glance between Nolan and me, one stormy afternoon, when a young woman blows in the front door on the back of a gusty wind and marches up to Nolan and asks if we have any job openings because she’s tried everywhere and doesn’t know what else to do.
Everyone has a story about when they first read the Orman Chronicles, and this is mine.
I don’t want to read ahead.
acknowledgments
First, all the thanks to Thao Le, the greatest agent in all the land and my fiercest champion. I’m still pinching myself that we get to work together. Your enthusiasm, immense publishing knowledge, and extensive guidance for this newbie is such a gift. Thank you for everything.
Thank you to Vicki Lame who believed in my characters (and defended Wally) from the beginning and who also didn’t make fun of my Game of Thrones theories as the last season unfolded. Unlike that season, this story has benefitted from your keen editing and expertise, and I am forever grateful.
Endless gratitude to the Wednesday Books team
: Jennie Conway, Jessica Katz, Anna Gorovoy, and Jeremy Haiting. Special thanks to Kerri Resnick for designing the whale-tastic cover of my dreams and to Beatriz Naranjalidad for her illustrations. I’m still in awe. Many thanks also to Lexi Neuville and Brant Janeway for their marketing expertise and Sarah Bonamino for her publicity wrangling. I’m so happy to have y’all on my team and I’m forever thrilled to be part of the Wednesday family alongside so many wonderful authors.
Thank you to Alaysia for her insightful comments, and to my multitude of most-excellent writing friends: Lindsey, Karina, Ash, Amy, Kim, Meg, Clara, and Kiara. Thank you for all the writerly and moral support. You kept me sane. Extra special thanks to Jenna N., who let me borrow her name, even if she’s still salty about her namesake’s fate. (Sorry, Jenna.)
Many thanks and laughs to Cristin, Beth, Lynn, and all my Wordsmith Workshop friends for their endless love and willingness to answer hundreds of questions: Y’all are the absolute best, even if our time together is 99 percent chicken cutlets and weirdo documentaries and 1 percent writing. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Shout-out to the professors who made my time at UNT a touchstone for my craft and my life. Particular thanks to Dr. Armintor for being the world’s best McNair mentor and letting me research young adult literature, Dr. Elrod for believing in me from the beginning, Amos Magliocco for teaching me to tell it slant, Dr. Rodman for encouraging me to write to my passions, Dr. Skinnell for making the study of rhetoric more fun than it ought to be, and Dr. Upchurch for his medieval maps and encouragement to pursue my writing.
Cassie, you get a paragraph all your own. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the long phone calls where one or both of us are eating in the other’s ear, dubious fortune-teller card readings (whale and horse forever), chocolate shop visits when things are good, and flowers waiting on the doorstep when things are less good. You are the critique partner and friend of dreams and someday we’ll live geographically close to each other and our productivity will be doomed. Your fingerprints are all over this story, and it’s the better for it.
Amelia Unabridged Page 24
