“True,” she says with a knowing smile.
“A few minutes ago, you said that Josh is crazy about me.”
“Yes, obviously,” she says with a nervous laugh.
I turn my head and stare off into the maze of trees around us, closing my eyes for a brief moment to listen for the waterfall set to reward us just a bit farther down the path.
“When I was sixteen, we spent the summer in Maine with some family friends,” I start. “I fell in love for the first time with this sweet guy, Marshall. Marshall from Maine. It was special in a lot of ways. He was my first and really important to me. At the end of the summer, I went to my cousin, who was home from college, for advice. I asked all the usual stuff—how do we make this work, what’s long distance like, is he going to break my heart? She listened to me blather on for about ten minutes—kind of like you right now. And then she looked at me and said, ‘Gracie, sometimes you just need to let summer be summer.’ ”
I see Felicity’s usual neutral expression drop ever so slightly, like she’s about to be disappointed by what comes next.
“And she was right. Because as hard as it was to get on a plane at sixteen and feel my heart break into a million pieces, I still to this day think of that summer as pure magic. It was the summer I went from girl to woman, and it’s cocooned in this safe little box in my mind. If I had tried to make it something more, I’m certain it would feel very different now. We would have tarnished the shine, the magic. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I do and I get that, Gracie,” she begins. “But you’re not sixteen, and Josh does not look at you like it’s just for the summer—and you don’t look at him like that, either. There’s a naturalness to the way you two interact. It feels rooted, Gracie, not temporary. There’s so much potential there.”
“I know and I feel that, too, but what if I’m not really the person that this summer has allowed me to be?”
“Can I say something very honest to you as a friend, not your agent?”
I nod, sensing a seriousness that I haven’t yet seen in Felicity.
“Don’t make summer an excuse. Frankly, don’t make excuses at all. I think you feel stuck because you aren’t letting yourself move on. And yes, I know that’s a bullshit phrase, but you physically bristled when I said ‘I like the new Gracie’ yesterday—don’t think I was too drunk to notice. You have to figure out who you are after this book and after this summer. These two things are related, girl. And no one can tell you who you are meant to be. You’ve got to figure that part out. It feels like there is still something holding you back.”
“It’s strange to have time with my own thoughts,” I tell her. “It’s like I traded worrying about the kids with all this existential dread for myself. I think I prefer being a worried mom all the time.”
“Gracie, you had the top one percent shittiest midlife crisis possible,” she says, her facial expression soft again and pivoting us to our comfort zone of joking about disaster. “Cut yourself some slack, and let’s keep walking.”
A few minutes later, we emerge into the clearing with the waterfall. We quickly glance at each other and run around the waterfall and pool with childlike enthusiasm. Nature has washed away whatever seriousness we were carrying down the path a few minutes ago.
“I really needed a break like this,” Felicity says sincerely, grabbing my hand. “Thanks for the invite and thank you for writing a bestselling book. I’m so proud. You are going to figure this all out.”
—
Felicity insists thatI don’t need to walk her into the airport, so I throw the blinkers on and illegally park in the lane for a minute so we can say our goodbyes.
“Two things I want to say before I leave you,” Felicity says. “First, you still need a prologue. Don’t forget that.”
I nod and tell her that when I deliver the final manuscript in a few weeks, both my version (which I haven’t written) and Jeannie’s requested version (which I need to write for the fourth time) will be in the mix.
“Second, you’ve got this. All of it,” she says, reiterating what she told me on our lunch date at the start of the summer.
“The next time I see you, it will be as an author who has formally submitted her very first manuscript,” I say to Felicity, making her light up at the thought. We hug across the seats and she jumps out, ready to go back to her normal life while I try to figure out what in the hell is going on in my new one.
Chapter 26
I’ve snapped out of whateverweird emotional funk I was in, and in no time at all, Josh and I are back at a Friends’ Night Out gathering together. We skipped the last one because it was so early in, well, whatever this is that we have, that we weren’t quite ready for prime time. So much has happened in the last month, it’s hard to believe we’re here again—this time as two people who definitely have something going on. Are we officially a couple? Boyfriend and girlfriend? I’m not sure, because we haven’t really talked about it. We’re just two planners who have decided to throw caution to the wind and spend every free moment together. It’s special but undefined for now. We both know there is nobody else in the picture, so why stress?
We say hi to a few people, including a couple that I haven’t met yet, before posting up at a high-top table near the edge of the patio. I wave at Kendell when she and James arrive a few minutes later. They are immediately intercepted by different friends for hugs and quick chats. I imagine that those two are the main glue that holds the broad group of friends together.
Josh and I talk about the dwindling number of to-dos left on the project list for the house. Earlier today, I told him how much I can’t wait to see my kids’ reactions—especially to their rooms—and he got emotional about it. It all just feels so special.
As Kendell and James slowly get closer to us, Josh gives me a quick kiss and runs inside to get drinks for the two of us. The server on the patio is totally overworked and won’t make it over to us anytime soon. Not a minute after he goes inside, a new person that I’ve never seen shows up, and everyone who is with the friends’ group is immediately distracted by her. Lara slides over to me quickly and quietly to tell me, “Oh my gosh, that’s Katrina.”
In all of my excitement and bliss with Josh over the last month, I’d managed to put my half-baked knowledge that his ex could be back in Canopy out of my mind. I compartmentalized to ensure the fear of that potential situation wouldn’t ruin what we actually have going on.
Some people have a type. They move from one relationship to the next with slightly different variations of the same personality. Ben’s and Josh’s personalities aren’tthatdifferent, so I could probably be accused of having a type to some degree. Josh, however, is not one of those people. He’s told me enough about his ex-wife, Tessa, for me to know that she and I are very different. And now, with the ex-fiancée standing just across the patio, I realize she is nothing like Tessaorme. I truly can’t imagine how anyone, maybe even Josh himself, would put into words the type of woman he’s looking for. One of those rare “no type” sort of people, I decide.
Her hair is dirty blond and wild. Before even hearing a word from her you can tell that she will not be tamed. A quiet expression of shock ripples down the patio. Everyone is surprised to see her,except for Sunny, who walks over to give her a polite hug. Knowing Sunny, she did some digging after we chatted and found out that Lenny’s dubious gossip was actually true. She’s the only one prepared to meet the moment.
