Before
Prologue
Someone always asks.
People word it differently. They shuffle phrases, tweak diction, add their own spin. In the end, the syntax never matters; the meaning stays the same. Regardless of the city, the venue, or the size of the event, everyone—everywhere—wants to know one thing.
What advice would you give your younger self?
Tonight, a woman—early twenties, wire-rimmed glasses, her insecurities hanging from her like a too-big dress—approaches the microphone. “Hi.” She flinches, pulls back her head. “S-sorry. Hello.” Even from a distance, it’s clear she’s uncomfortable hearing her voice amplified, like it’s a recording and she’s wondering if this is how she really sounds. It’s common. At times, it feels unnatural to listen to yourself. “My question is ...” Her words tremble, while her cheeks flush pink. “Now that you know how life turned out, if you could go back ...”
Grace Whittaker, two days shy of thirty-three, sits at the front of the packed bookshop. She wears stylish sandals, a loose maxi dress, and a sweater draped over her shoulders. Her mother, Birdie, taught her this trick.Always bring a light layer, Cece. Even in August.
It’s come in handy.
The last eight weeks, she’s lived in Ubers, on planes, and in every Marriott known to man. In each new setting, the temperature fluctuated as much as her hormones.
Like Grace, they’ve been all over the map.
This season, rather than lounge at the beach with a cold beer and a good paperback like she once loved—once practicallylived—to do, Grace has zipped back and forth across the country. The jet lag has been terrible, but worth it. For years, she poured herself into her debut novel, now a bestseller and the reason for all the travel. Lately, she’s lucky to sit beside a window in a hotel lobby and feel the glow of daylight on her face. Her hair—once long, wild, and sun-bleached this close to Labor Day—is shoulder length, neatly trimmed, and dyed a rich medium brown. The bottom of her bag is free of sand. No freckles or tan lines graffiti her skin.
Things change. People change.
She feels exhausted, a little nauseous, and grateful for all of it.
Five years earlier, Grace was a different person. Different apartment. Different job. Different hopes. Different fears. Different wardrobe. Different dreams. Different friends.
Five years before that? She’d been someone else entirely.
It kept stretching back.
Over time, it was as if she’d been a hundred different people, all housed inside the same body. Each one searching, asking the same questions:Who am I? Where am I going? What do I want? When will I figure things out?
But that was a long time ago.
After years of looking, Grace has found herself.
Today, she understands not only who she is but also where she belongs.
In the morning, Grace will fly away from this Midwestern city and back to the East Coast. Adam—solid, dependable Adam—will meet her at JFK. Together, they’ll drive to their new home in the New York suburbs, their apartment on the Upper West Side already a memory. Birdie, having made the two-hour drive from Grace’s hometown in Pennsylvania, will already be there, unpacking boxes, putting away groceries, finding other small but meaningful ways to help welcome her daughter into this bright new chapter of her life.
WhatwouldGrace say if she had the chance to see her younger self again now? Since June, she’s been asked this question dozens of times and thus has compiled a mental list of stock answers.Have patience. Keep going. You’re almost there.But tonight—this last night of her inaugural tour—a new, more truthful thought bubbles in her mind.
“To be honest,” Grace finally says, leaning forward on her wooden stool and allowing herself to be a touch more vulnerable than she has been at previous events, “I don’t have a single clue what I’d tell her.”
A wave of quiet laughter ripples through the crowd. The audience members understand. Despite their respective ages, they were all young—younger—once, too.
“It’d probably depend on which version of her I got to see.” She twists her wedding band, which she first slipped on last autumn, grounding herself in this moment—in the person she is right now. “They all needed such different things.”
For a beat, Grace pauses while her words hang in the air like stars. She looks—reallylooks—at the girl at the microphone. They don’t resemble each other. Still, it’s like staring into a mirror. Not in terms of appearance, but in energy. The quiet longing. The uncertainty. The unspoken hope that someone else’s story might light the path to her own.
“But maybe it wouldn’t matter.” Grace’s hand drifts to her collarbone, her fingers brushing against her old nameplate necklace—the one she’s worn forever, that’s seen dozens of incarnations of her. “Really, I’m not sure it’s advice I’d give my younger self at all.”
In the aisle, the woman clings to every word.
“I’d make her a promise.”
Time folds in on itself. It’s as if Grace is both there at the microphone and here at the front of the room, her present and her past coexisting in this space.
