Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 103119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Trapped, cursing herself for not taking the long way, Hallie shifted onto the balls of her feet. “I just thought I would go for a little moonlight stroll.”
“What? Where?”
Why did her ideas always sound worse when they were spoken aloud? Like, every single one. “Down Julian’s jogging path,” she mumbled.
After a moment, Lavinia banged a fist down on the table. “He’s written you, hasn’t he?”
“Everything all right in there?” Jerome called through the door of the storage closet.
Hallie pressed a finger to her lips.
“All’s well, love. Just bumped my elbow!” Lavinia reached back to untie her apron, a somewhat maniacal look in her eyes. “I’m coming with you.”
There would be no stopping her. Apron removal meant business. “I’m not reading you the letter. It’s private.”
Lavinia rocked back on her heels, considering those parameters. “You don’t have to read it to me word for word, but I want the general temperature.”
“Fine.”
“Going out for a smoke, love,” Lavinia shouted, the door banging behind the two women on their way out into the alley. “How do you know he’s written back?”
“He told me.”
“He told you . . .” Lavinia drew out.
“Yes.” She hugged her elbows tight, then realized she looked defensive, so she let them drop. “And yes, I realize that means he isn’t interested in real-life Hallie. Only the Hallie from the letter. I’m just going to read his answer to satisfy my curiosity. That’s all.”
“I might trust you on that.” Lavinia jogged to keep up. “If you hadn’t sworn to me you wouldn’t write these letters in the first place.”
“Did you see the new awning on Corked?”
“Your ability to distract us from an actual problem is unparalleled, but I’ll bite.” Lavinia tilted her head. “A new awning? What happened to the red one covered in pigeon shite?”
“It’s gone. And I think it was Julian who arranged it.” Hallie snagged Lavinia’s wrist and guided her down the private path leading to Vos Vineyard. “I traced those promo business cards for Corked to their table at Wine Down. That has him all over it, too, right? I realize this is all beginning to sound very Scooby-Doo.”
“Ooh. I’m Daphne. She gets to shag Fred.”
“You can have him. I have a healthy distrust of blond men.”
“I don’t want to trust him, I want to bang him. Where am I losing you?”
Hallie covered her mouth to muffle a laugh. “You aren’t. The fact that we’re sneaking around in the dark discussing sexual relations with a cartoon character—one who wears a sailor suit, no less—is exactly why we’re friends.”
They traded a wry smile in the moonlight. “Back to the case of the mystery awning, then. We think Julian is responsible.”
“Yes.” Hallie sighed, despairing over the zero-gravity sensation in her breast. “I could have walked away mostly unscathed if he wasn’t prank call champion of the universe. If he didn’t keep making these . . . these gestures that remind me why I was infatuated with him in the first place. Why I spent so long hung up on him.”
Lavinia made a sound of understanding. “He’s got you dangling from a fishing hook, all gape-mouthed and wiggly.”
“Thank you for that flattering comparison.” Hallie laughed, stopping in front of the tree stump, frowning. “This is where the letter should be. Wedged in between the crack.”
“What a coincidence. That’s right where you’d like Julian to be.”
Hallie overcame her blush. “You’re not totally wrong.”
They each took out their phones and turned on the flashlights, searching the ground around the stump. “Could he have taken it back?”
Why was she dizzy with hope over that possibility? “No. Why would he do that?”
“Maybe he realized you’re his dream girl—” Lavinia’s beam of light landed on something white behind a brambleberry bush. “Ah, no. Sorry. Found it. Must have blown over.”
“Oh,” Hallie said, too brightly. “Okay.”
She approached the envelope the way one might approach a lit puddle of kerosene and picked it up, commanding her stomach to stop pitching. “All right, so I’ll just bring this home and read it.”
Several seconds ticked by in the foggy stillness.
Hallie tore open the envelope.
“Exactly,” Lavinia said, sitting down on the tree stump. “I’ll be right here, awaiting any bread crumbs you choose to throw me.”
She barely heard her friend’s quip over the pounding in her ears. Pacing a few steps away, she shined her flashlight down at the letter and read.
Hello.
I don’t know where to begin. Obviously this is all quite unusual. After all, we are communicating as two people who know each other, but we have never met. It feels like we have, doesn’t it? I apologize for talking in circles. It’s not easy to expose oneself on paper and leave it out in a field where it could fall into the wrong hands. You were brave to go first.
In your letter, you mentioned having too much space to think. I always thought I wanted that. Lots of space. Silence. But lately it has become more of a force field to keep you people out. I’ve had it activated so long that anyone brave enough to come inside feels like an intruder, rather than what you they really are. An anomaly. A fork in the road of time. The thing that pulls me from distraction and forces me to become the next version of myself. And isn’t it ironic that I teach the meaning of time for a living and, yet, I am staunchly fighting the passage of it? Time is change. But letting it move you forward is hard.