And that’s how we managed to escape arrest. Because it turns out the security guard was a hopeless romantic. Lucky us.
After we’d posed for the last picture—Duke standing on the carousel next to me while I held up my left hand in the classic Envy me, for now I am anengagedwoman pose—the guard said he would need to escort us out before we got him fired.
And so Adam—that was the guard’s name—led us to the main gate, chatting the whole time about how excited he was to witness the proposal, that the other guards would be jealous.
“Usually when something weird shows up on the security cams,” Adam said, “it’s two elk making baby elk by the ice cream shop.”
“Who doesn’t like ice cream?” I said.
We reached the entrance.
“Thank you for being so understanding, Adam,” Duke said at the gate.
“You betcha,” he said. “I hope you two are very happy together for a long time. Come back and show me wedding pictures. But let’s wait until the park’s open next time, all right?”
“We absolutely will,” I said. “Promise.”
Duke held out his hand to Adam.
When the guard took Duke’s hand to shake it, a strange look came over his face.
“You…” he whispered to Duke. “Do I know you?”
—
Adam’s eyes widened,and he froze as if under a spell. This happens sometimes when a reader of a story meets a character face-to-face. Like all Book Witches, I possessed a special power, and I used it right then. Narrowing my eyes, I reached out to see Adam and Duke’s past together…
I saw a sleek leather sofa in a starkly minimalist apartment in Portland. I saw a man in sweatpants, the beginnings of a beard on his face and the start of a drinking problem showing around his red-rimmed eyes. A case of toilet paper sat by the front door, and bottles of hand sanitizer lined the coffee table like dominoes.
And I saw it was Adam on that sofa, staring at his phone, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling his life away. Unshowered. Unshaven. Unhappy. Alone.
And then, as if it were my own phone in front of my eyes, I saw what he was seeing.
A friend he follows has posted a book review. A Duke of Chicago book. The post’s caption reads,Latest five-star read. I loved these books when I was a kid. Glad to see they hold up. And man, it was nice to escape 2021 for a day.
This post reminds Adam of something, that he, too, loved the Duke of Chicago books when he was a kid.
And, God, does he want to escape 2021…
So he closes whatever social media app it was that was sucking his soul from his body through his eyes and opens his library app.
Quick thumbs pull up what he wants, and in an instant, Adam has downloaded the very first Duke of Chicago book.
He begins to read…
In the first chapter of the first book, the Duke stands by the graves of his three brothers in the rain. He’s just inherited a title he never coveted and an estate so large it feels like a millstone around his neck.
The sight of his brothers in the ground reminds him of Ebenezer Scrooge being shown his own lonely grave by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. In a moment of clarity, he realizes he is next. Even if he doesn’t die physically, even if the wars and diseases and disasters sparehim, he will die another way. His dreams will die, and like a failing heart or brain, they will take the rest of him with them.
His mother, the dowager duchess, stands next to him and coldly says, “It’s all yours now, my son.”
And in a moment of quiet rebellion the Duke speaks a line that became a kind of protest anthem for fans of the books, akin to Bartleby the Scrivener’s famousI would prefer not to.
Duke simply says to her…
“No, thank you.”
Then he turns on his heel and walks away. By the next chapter, he’s in Chicago, starting his new life as a private detective whose only qualifications are that he’s rich, charming, and handsome, which, unsurprisingly, turns out to be his superpower.
