The crowd murmurs with interest, but the tray in my hands doesn’t stop shaking. This time, though, the tension I’m feeling is from anger rather than apprehension.
He’s not going to mention me at all, then? Not even a single acknowledgment of how I helped him come up with the main plot line?
Elliot continues talking, addressing Levi now, instead of me. He talks some more about his great-grandfather, and his connection to Bramblebury. Behind him, his assistant/publicist/whatever she is glows with excitement. This is the first time anyone’s ever heard the story behind the book — or the part of the story Elliot’s willing to tell them, anyway — and it’s absolute gold, as far as book sales are concerned. I can practically see the dollar signs in the woman’s eyes as she thinks about how all of this will play out in the book press tomorrow; how excited readers ofThe Snow Globewill be to find out it’s a true story.
They won’t know thewholetruth, though, will they?
“We have time for just one more question,” says Little Black Dress, glancing at her watch. “And then we’ll have to get on with the signing.”
A slightly smaller selection of hands go up this time, but it’s Paris who Elliot selects for the final question.
“I was wondering about the snow globe,” she asks, twirling a braid around her finger. “The one the book’s named after, I mean, not the book itself. I just wondered … given that you’ve just told us the story was based on a real one, does that mean the snow globe was real, too? Was there ever anactualsnow globe? And do you still have it, if so?”
For the first time, Elliot’s confidence seems to falter.
“I… um…” he begins, sounding more like the man I used to know. “I… yes. Yes, there was, actually. I bought it here in Bramblebury; at a Christmas market very like the one I passed on the way here, actually. But no. No, I don’t still have it. I don’t know what happened to it. I wish I did.”
Once again, his eyes find mine in the crowd, but this time his gaze seems to hold a challenge of some sort.
I think I’ve had enough now.
I place the tray of champagne carefully down on top of a pile of Vivienne Faulkner books — the sight of which does absolutely nothing to calm me down — then turn abruptly on my heel and march into my office at the back of the shop, closing the door firmly behind me, then collapsing into a chair, my mind an alphabet soup of emotions.
I can’t believe he did that.
I can’t believe he looked at me as if he was daring me to say something.
I can’t believe he wrote me out of the story of The Snow Globe.
And I can’t believe I care.
WhydoI care?
I sit at my desk, rubbing my temples wearily as I try to make sense of this. I’ve spent 10 years trying to disassociate myself from Elliot and his book. It makes no sense at all that I’d suddenly want to be acknowledged as the woman in the story.
And I don’t.
Not by the rest of the world, anyway.
As I sit there, though, the low hum of conversation from behind the door telling me the question-and-answer session has come to an end, and they’ve moved on to the signing, it occurs to me that Iwouldlike to be acknowledged by Elliot himself.
And he didn’t.
He just pretended I had nothing to do with it; as if I didn’t even exist.
And now I guess it’s time for me to do the same with him.
12
PAST
DECEMBER, 10 YEARS AGO
“Dad, you wouldn’t happen to know how I could go about finding out who the woman in this photo is, would you?”
It’s later the same day, and I’m working a shift at the bookstore while Elliot goes back to his hotel to do some more work on his book, and call his family back home.
Dad takes the photo from me readily enough — he loves this kind of thing — then looks at me suspiciously as he clocks the U.S. army uniform on the man in the shot.
