Could it be Frump, missing his best friend? Maureen, missing her fictional son? Could Rapscullio’s comments about the new version of the story not working out be only the tip of the iceberg? Could Seraphima—stuck with a guy like me—be dreaming of the prince she used to have?
It’s hard to believe that I could be just as much of a disappointment in the world of this book as I was in reality.
Frump clears his throat, the way he does when he is commanding us to start rehearsal. “It appears that all of us arejustfine.” He tilts up his chin. “But enough about us. How areyou?”
A slow grin stretches over Oliver’s face. “This place,” he says, “it’s everything I dreamed of. There are so many people in this world I can’t name them all. When I talk to them, I have absolutely no idea what they’re going to say. Every day since I’ve been here has been different—there are so many scenes you could spend your life trying and never see them all.” His eyes cut to Delilah. “And of course,” he says, “the company is rather enchanting.”
Oliver takes Delilah’s hand and kisses the back of it. To my right, I hear Seraphima draw in her breath, and Frump moves slightly closer to her.
“How’s my mom?” I blurt out. Until I’ve said that, I don’t realize how much she has been on my mind. I wonder if she can tell that Oliver isn’t me. It’s really hard to think that I’m missing her but she has no idea she’s supposed to be missing me.
“She’s perfect. Except when she tells me to clean my room.”
My chest gets tight. “She does that. A lot.”
A strange expression must cross my face, because Oliver’s gaze narrows on mine. “Edgar,” he asks, “are you all right?”
I open my mouth, about to tell him the truth: I miss my mom. I miss my home. Nobody likes me here; nobody likes my story; nothing is going the way I planned. But all that comes out is “Great!” My face tightens into what might pass for a smile.
“Well, if you’re sure . . . ,” Oliver replies. “Delilah’s mother is about to serve supper.” He hesitates. “I miss you all. I miss you . . . a lot. There are many people in this world, but none like you.” Then he tosses us another smile. “All right, then. Hang on tight.” As he starts to close the book, as we tumble through the pages, I hear his voice fading away: “I promise I’ll read you later.”
As the characters disperse, I listen to their chatter. Socks walks with Captain Crabbe. “He looks great, doesn’t he? So handsome.”
“He lookshappy,” Maureen adds. “What more could a mother ask for her son?”
The mermaids slip into the shallows of the water. “I guess you can eat, breathe, and sleep true love,” Kyrie says, “but I’d go for the chocolate, the oxygen, and the featherbed instead.”
Seraphima is the only one frowning. She walks off the pageslowly, her arms wrapped tightly around her body, as if she’s hoping to hold herself together.
I sit down on the beach, tossing the remaining sand dollars from the poker game into the water. When Frump comes up behind me, I’m surprised. I thought I was alone.
“You did a good thing, Edgar,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re not the only one hiding something to make him happy.” Frump turns around, lifting up the back of his shirt, to reveal a long brown-and-white tail. He faces me again, sober. “Rapscullio may be more right than he knows. It’s not just the characters who want to return to the original story. It’s the book.”
Think about the last time you got a new shirt.
What made it new?
That the tag still itched? That it smelled like the store and not detergent? That you weren’t used to seeing it hanging in your closet when you opened the door? That you wanted to wear it more than any of your other clothes, because it was unique?
At some point, that shirt stopped being so special.
At some point, it became just another shirt in your wardrobe.
When does something stop being new? When does it start just being . . . yours?
OLIVER
There’s a treadmill in Jessamyn Jacob’s spare bedroom, where she runs for an hour every day, going absolutely nowhere. This, Delilah has informed me, isexercise.To me, it seems pointless.
There’s a little red wristband she wears while she’s running in case she falls off the moving walkway or gets hurt. If this happens, a cord on the wristband makes the machine stop dead.
I imagined that is exactly what happened when I left the book. I pulled the cord, and everyone else stayed frozen in the moment, static, waiting for me to start them up again.
But I suppose I was just kidding myself.
