“Birdie!” she shrieked and threw herself over the bar in a single bound, like Tom Cruise inCocktail, ifCocktailhad been set in a dingy dive in the middle of nowhere California. Mona barreled into her best friend, and Birdie was surprised at how much she needed it. She reached her arms around Mona’s neck and hung on tight until Mona pulled back and stared at her. “What? How? I don’t— Wait, come sit. Let me pour you a drink. Actually, I don’t even care what or how! I’m so damn happy you’re home!” She linked her elbow into Birdie’s and marched her to a stool, squeezing her shoulders as Birdie sat, as if Mona needed to ensure that her friend was solid, real, and wasn’t going anywhere. Mona then slipped behind the bar and reached for the gin, pouring a heavy glass doused with tonic. Then she slid it across the bar and plopped her elbows down and leaned over with wide eyes.
“So tell me everything. If you’re home, it must be a real shitstorm.”
Birdie dug into the enormous side pocket of Andie’s Costco jacket for the letter, which she’d folded up and tucked away for safekeeping.
“It’s a five-alarm shitstorm,” Birdie conceded.
“So an extremely gross shitstorm. You can’t take a step without landing in it. “
“An accurate summation of my past few weeks. As you probably know. And... I’m sorry for not being in better touch. My team...” Birdie drifted as if she wasn’t sure what she wanted to say. Her team hadn’t kept her from texting Mona. She’d simply been too swept up in the whirlwind of everything to seek advice from the one person who probably would have looked out for her. She’d gotten used to self-reliance, and when she’d gotten tired of self-reliance, she’d gotten used to listening to Imani and Sydney. She could see the mistake of that now. “Anyway, yes, it’s been an absolute massacre of a shitstorm.” She nodded. “And also, I needed to show you this.”
She thrust the folded envelope toward Mona, who frowned and opened it like she used to back in middle school when she’d find a note in her locker from a girl who inevitably wanted an introduction to Elliot or a boy who wanted to mock her over her undying belief in UFOs.
“What am I looking at?” Mona asked.
“An unsigned love letter,” Birdie said.
“An unsigned love letter?” Mona’s eyes grew wide, and Birdie saw her friend’s cheeks flush with excitement. This was exactly the sort of thing a romantic like Mona, a grown woman who still got swept up in Valentine’s Day, would adore. “When didthishappen? Tell meeverything!”
“This is... as much as I know. Also, are we still doing this?”Birdie flapped a hand at the Valentine’s decorations behind her best friend. “Love is dead, Mona. Didn’t you know?”
“Birdie Maxwell,” Mona chastised, and Birdie knew she was in for an earful about her cynicism, but then the door swung open behind them and a blast of cold air jetted in, and Mona lost focus. She raised her palm to wave to a group of locals, then to a second group right behind them. Birdie swiveled on her stool, keeping her head down while trying to scope out a few of the faces as they milled past and plunked down in the side booths. No one took note of her just yet. Still, she sneered at Nelson Pratt, who had ruined her prom with Elliot. And she scowled at AnnaMarie Baker, who she was pretty sure had taken Elliot’s virginity and now, last Birdie heard, had four kids yet was still at Monad’s on a Sunday night. Birdie, even to this day, loathed AnnaMarie Baker for no other reason than she got to sleep with Elliot first.
“So an anonymous letter!” Mona sang, returning her attention to the paper in her hand, her eyes coasting over the paragraphs, then resting back on Birdie. “This is exciting? Or terrifying? Which do you want me to feel? I will feel whatever you want but I have to say that I’m leaning toward thrilled. Titillated? Already too far out over my own skis with possibilities?”
Birdie grabbed her gin and tonic and tipped a long sip down her throat. “I’m thinking I want to find the man who sent it.”
“Yes!” Mona cheered.
“I’m thinking that maybe that will help remind people that I’m likable, that I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”
“And I’m thinking that’s... brilliant,” Mona said. “Though I never took you for a romantic, even though I tried my hardest, god knows.” She had. It had been Mona’s idea that Elliot takeBirdie to prom, after all, even though she’d suggested it platonically, completely platonically, ridiculously platonically, as a kindness since Mona already had a date in Nelson Pratt, who was her lab partner in AP Bio but also not-so-secretly loved her, and Elliot could have had his pick of anyone, the cheerleading squad, the math club, the orchestra kids.
“Which is why I came to you,” Birdie said. “Becauseyou’rethe one with the good heart.”
“No, your heart is goodness too, Bird,” Mona said, then held up a finger toward one of the back booths as if their beer order was urgent but not as urgent as an anonymous love letter that could save her best friend’s life. “You just sometimes forget that.”
“My heart is half-goodness, half-bullshit, let’s be real,” Birdie said.
“The perfect combination for Hollywood,” Mona replied. “Me? I’m still holding out hope that you’ll base a movie on a small-town girl who runs the local watering hole until a brilliant scientist wanders in one day and makes all of her dreams come true.”
“Your dreams involve waiting in Monads for, like, a biologist to sweep you off your feet?”
“Well, it’s that or Nelson,” Mona said, nudging her chin toward her prom date. “He asks me to marry him at least every four months, but I think he mostly likes that I give him free beer sometimes.”
“People have married for less.”
“People have. But not this gal,” Mona said, then shouted to the booth, who were now hollering in her direction, “One goddamn second, you will not wither from dehydration without a pitcher in your hands at this exact moment!” Her eyes slid back to Birdie. “So, this letter. Who are your suspects?”
“None of them? All of them?” Birdie honestly didn’t have aclue. She wasn’t sure she’d truly even loved many men, other than Elliot—who was the one secret she had kept from Mona, and, she hoped, the one secret Elliot had kept from her as well—they’d agreed upon as much before he bolted from her place seven years ago after their regrettable night together. There was Kai, of course, but given all that had unraveled with his brother, how he hadn’t reached out these past few weeks to even tell her privately that he was sorry for Sebastian’s unhinged behavior, she couldn’t stomach even entertaining that he’d made a play to win her back. Cutting Kai Carol out of her life was, other than watching Elliot walk away, the single hardest test of willpower she’d endured. Likely harder than Elliot because with Kai, she had a choice. His door was always open. But with Elliot, he closed it firmly behind him, so there wasn’t even a road back to him if Birdie wanted it.
“The chef!” Mona snapped her fingers. “He’s a possibility.”
“Ian.” Birdie said and thought about how Ian used to bring her leftovers from the restaurant because he didn’t want her getting too skinny.
“Or the tennis guy—from Santa Barbara,” Mona noted. She and Mona had spent a week in Santa Barbara celebrating her thirtieth birthday, and Carter had been the tennis pro at the resort. Carter, who was genuinely lovely and, last Birdie had heard, lived in Los Angeles. Theirs hadn’t been a great love affair, but she wouldn’t mind seeing him again, sleeping with him again either. They’d had absolutely spectacular sex.
“Oh, what about Simon?” Mona asked.
