“Yes?”
“Can we just agree to smash the invisible wall for good? It’s done nothing but keep us apart, and I don’t want it up anymore. I’d rather be hurt than feel nothing at all. But right now, I’m just tired of missing you. Are you tired of missing me?”
“So very tired,” I whisper.
“Then I need to tell you one more thing. Come here and listen.”
Lucky reaches for my face, and I lean my cheek into his hand, solid and warm and familiar. Gravity tugs me into him, and his arm comes around my shoulders. He winds himself around me and pulls me closer, and we cling to each other. He’s heavy against me, a brick wall, and nothing has ever felt so good.
He doesn’t speak, but he says everything I need to know. That I’m forgiven. That it’s okay.We’reokay. That there’s a bond between us that’s changed into something different and stronger.
My best friend. My lover. My boy.
The one person in the world I can talk to without even saying a single word.
NOW LEAVING BEAUTY. HAVE A BEAUTIFUL DAY AND COME AGAIN SOON: Roadside sign on the highway north of Beauty, Rhode Island.(Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Chapter 26
October
There’s a long-held belief in my family that all the Saint-Martin women are romantically cursed: unlucky in love, doomed to end up miserable and alone.
But as my grandmother would say, that’s a load of bull.
The only thing we’re cursed with is terrible communication skills, and that has nothing to do with any kind of witchy hex. Somewhere along the line, one of the Saint-Martins was a lousy communicator, and she taught the bad habit to her daughter, who then led by example and taught it to hers. And now here we are, three generations of women all facing the fact that we’ve been repeating the same mistakes that our stupid ancestors passed down to us.
All we can do is wake up. Be better. Admit when we’re wrong, try to fix our mistakes, and smash all the invisible walls we can.
Who knew that would start with smashing a department store window?
Sometimes doing the wrong thing can point you in the right direction.
Sometimes being a little bad can turn out good.
And sometimes the places we think are portals to hell are actually just things we fear.
“Ugh. I’m not sure if this is the best idea.…” Mom frets near the old printing press in the Nook, brushing the front of her dress for the umpteenth time. “Maybe I should change. Or just leave town forever. Maybe I should just do that?”
“No,” Evie says from behind her paperback, perched on our non-squeaky stool behind the bookshop register. “That color looks good on you. It’s too brisk outside for the other dress. You’re just nervous, which is understandable. But it’s just a date.”
“Not even a date,” I assure her. “A double date isn’t a date.”
“Oh, it’sdefinitelya date,” Lucky says as he leans against the printing press, flipping the page of a book about ironwork in Victorian England. He looks up to see us all staring at him. “Hey. I’m just telling it like it is. It’s a real date. Drew is ridiculously nervous too, if that helps. He’s been pacing around the blacksmith studio chanting positive affirmations, driving me up the wall.”
Mom clutches her stomach. “I’m going to be sick. I can’t do this.”
“Sure you can,” he assures her. “My parents will be there to hold up the conversation.”
The double date was Evie’s idea, and the only way my mom would agree to go. Funny that a woman who’s spent the last few years right-swiping anonymous strangers would be terrified. But she deleted her online dating apps, and right now, I’ve never seen her so nervous.
“It’s going to be fine,” I tell Mom. “All we’re going to think about is what a fun, easy-breezy time you’re going to have at the fall Renaissance Faire—”
“Revolutionary,”Lucky corrects. “This is Beauty.”
“At the Rev Faire,” I say. “A fun, easy-breezy time, laughing at people dressed in Revolutionary War costumes mingling with people dressed in Renaissance costumes, eating giant turkey legs, and cheering on jousting contests. It’s all perfectly weird and wacky, and you’re just … reconnecting with an old friend.”
“Who may or may not still be madly in love with you after all these years,” Evie says.
