I sighed. “More evidence to support the claim that Connor McCallister is perfect…”
“Connor McCallister is not perfect,” Erica replied, then affectionately poked me. “But I think he might be perfect for you.”
I was powerless against the extreme heat flooding my face. Not even the sudden breeze could cool me off.
She gave me a look. “Iknow thatyouknow that I haven’t cared for any of the boys you’ve spent time with,” she said. “Probably becauseyouthinkIthink they’re dorks.”
Dork, Maisie’s code fordouche.
Ha, who was my sister kidding?
“A few of them were, to be clear,” she added. “But that’s not it.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What is, pray tell?”
“It’s that they’re people you knew you wouldn’t let in, or at least let in enough tomatterto you. People you can happily leave before they leave you, before they can break your heart.”
My eyes instantly welled up.
“I am so deeply sorry about your mother and Pops…” she said slowly. “And Annie, in her way, but losing them doesn’tprophesize that everyone in your life is going to leave you.” She laughed. “You have been unfair to me, Olivia, and at times, properlyvicious, but dammit, I will not be deterred!” She wrapped an arm around me as a couple crocodile tears escaped. “I love you so much, and I’m not going anywhere.”
All I could do was nod.
“And neither is Connor McCallister,” she whispered, squeezing me tight. “Believe me, and trust him.”
I wanted to. I desperately wanted to.
“Anyway,” she said, “one of my scrapbook pages was an ode to my siblings’ hideous childhood haircuts.”
I found it in myself to laugh. “Was a photo of you among them?”
“Of course not.” Erica shook her head. “Because Peggy learned a thing or two by the time I came along. Instead of a pageboy cut, I had a Posh Spice–style bob.”
“Hey, that’s one plus of being the way-youngest,” I pointed out.
“You know, I never thought of it like that.” She giggled. “But I guess it is…”
Twenty-eight
A few weeks later, I had gotten back into the groove that was my normal life. I ran my morning loop around Haddonfield with Swede, went back to work at Inkwood Books, and goofed off with Maisie and Bryce after visiting Annie. I even took the train into New York to see my friends. “Have you heard from Connor?” Gwen asked the first weekend in August. The city was stifling so our plan was to do a “museum crawl” to cool off. Stop #1 was the Neue Galerie, the home of Gustav Klimt’s famousPortrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, otherwise known as “The Woman in Gold.”
It was one of Annie’s all-time favorite paintings.
“Nope,” I said, and thankfully Gwen and Quincy left it at that. They hadn’t been the biggest fans of my decision to snip whatever we’d started, but they understood.
Or at least they’d said they did.
Connor hadn’t called or texted me since that one night, and I knew it wasn’t fair to him if I reached out.What do you want from me, Olivia?I could hear him asking.
To start over, I imagined answering.And for you to promise to stay.
But Erica said I had to trust him, and I still hadn’t fully wrapped my head around Christian Fox’s theory that, if we wanted it enough, we could manipulate timing.
So I thought a lot about Connor, and how much I missed him, and what a mistake I’d made, but I didn’t do anything. Instead, I stewed.
Several days after our museum crawl, I presented Annie with the Gustav Klimt pictorial book I’d bought at the Galerie’s gift shop. It was Wednesday, and I’d brought it to Elkins on Monday, too, but it had been an easy visit…so I’d kept it to myself, saving it for a not-so-good visit.
I didn’t usually visit during the dinnertime, but Erica, Maisie, and I’d spent the afternoon lounging at the pool and just couldn’t bring ourselves to roll up our towels. Annie had refused to eat in the dining room, so Kai brought a tray to her. Everything had gone to shit when my grandmother accidentally spilled chocolate milk on her sling. “I don’t know why this is here in the first place,” she insisted. “If you check my menu”—she brandished her light pink sheet of paper with her good arm—“I orderediced tea, not chocolate milk!”
