“I’m going to miss you, my baby. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for bringing me back here.”
“I love you, Mommy.”
I can feel Beckett slide his hand around my waist. He gives me a gentle squeeze.
I hold up the urn to the wind.
“I love you more, Pretty Girl,” she whispers.
I close my eyes and feel her disappear into the mist.
Epilogue
We leave the following Friday. Beckett upgrades us to first class.
When we get back to the States, Beckett and I are deluged by an onslaught of media inquiries and requests from bookstores. BookScan numbers show that sales forHoliday Islandhave skyrocketed. I’ve never heard Evan so excited in the whole time I’ve known him.
“Cabaret’s going to have to do another print run!” he exclaims when I finally get to speak to him on the phone.
“I can’t believe you talked toPeoplemagazine without me.”
“Not my fault, Mel. It was a hundred percent the idea of your beau.”
“He’s something else,” I say.
We discuss events on a Zoom call at my dining room table. The call includes me, Beckett, Evan, Shelby, my publicist Adriana, and the entire marketing team at Hudson Yards. I share that I have one bookstore appearance left on my calendar: a little shop on Cape Cod called the Brewster Book Store.
“I’d like to keep it, if that’s okay,” I tell everyone. “They believed in me when no one else did.”
“We envision a big tour, though,” the Hudson Yards head publicist says. “The Ripped Bodice, Meet Cute in San Diego, the Last Chapter in Chicago, Grump and Sunshine in Maine, Happily-Ever-After in Toronto,the Strand in New York City. We’ve got a call with Books-a-Million set up for next week and Barnes & Noble the Monday after that. People fall all over themselves at a real-life happy ending.”
I look at Beckett. He shrugs. “I’d like to do the Cape one too,” he says, squeezing my hand under the table.
“Of course, B,” Shelby says. “It’s already a thing. What was the date for that?”
“End of this month. The 27th,” I say.
“That can be your kickoff date, then,” Adriana suggests.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t understand why this feels like such a rush,” I ask.
“Gotta capitalize on the moment,” Evan explains. “Right now, you’re the ‘it’ couple. And it’s summer. Readers will flock to stores to see you. Also, out of respect for your job, Mel, we don’t want to push into September when you go back to school.”
“Oh. Right.” I nod.
“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Adriana goes on. “Two authors writing essentially the same book, you know? It’s a big deal.”
So they do their thing. They plan a crazy tour. We’ll be in seventeen different states during the last five weeks of the summer.
As promised, the Brewster Book Store, an adorable little shop in the inside elbow of Cape Cod, is our first stop. And, true to their word, the line is around the block. There’s a table set up in the front where a sweet girl named Emma hustles to give out Post-it notes and collect people’s names and inscription requests. The owner, Jessica, hides me and Beckett in a gorgeous apartment above the shop with a lovely charcuterie board and a four-pack of High Noon lime-flavored vodka seltzer on ice, because I’m picky and don’t like wine. She chats with us about our books, rehearses some of the questions she’s going to ask us in the garden behind the shop where the event will be held, and thanks us profusely for making her our first stop.
“It’s my pleasure,” I say. “To be honest, you were the only bookstore that didn’t pull out on me when the whole world thought I stole his book,” I say, pointing at Beckett.
“I read both of your books,” Jessica replies, “and I knew there was more to the story.”
“There usually is,” Beckett offers, smiling.
“Well,” Jessica says, checking her watch. “I’d say it’s about time. Is there anything else you need before we head downstairs?”
