The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett(50)

I disagreed. Movies were movies, whether they were old or new. They always captivated me, pulled me into worlds where anything was possible. Worlds where there were adventures and surprises, and life was never dull.

The only thing I didn’t like about movies was when the credits rolled and returned me to real life. At least, that was how I used to feel. Leaving a movie world wasn’t so painful anymore. Spending time with Enzo made me realize anything could be an adventure if you looked at it the right way.

One day, when the only horror movies playing were ones we’d already seen, Enzo let me watch a short film he’d made during his brief time in college. It was black and white and tried to imitate a French new wave film. Mostly, it depicted a little boy running through a cornfield with drums beating in the background.

“I don’t really get it,” I told him when it ended.

“That’s why I gave up film,” Enzo said. “No one ever got what I was trying to say.”

Sometimes, Enzo wrote short stories. One of them was about a man who worked in a fortune cookie factory, whose job was coming up with the fortunes to put on the little slips of paper. One day, he realizes he’s spent his whole life telling other people what to expect in their futures without ever thinking about his own. So he sets out to discover his true fortune, which can’t be found at the center of a cookie.

“What does he find?” I asked.

Enzo shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s where the story ends.”

“I hate it when you do that to me,” I said with a groan.

Enzo thought ends were disappointing. He said when you were really immersed in a story, you started to have expectations. And the end was never as great as you imagined it could have been. Even though I mostly agreed with him, I couldn’t help wanting to know everything. I was always looking for more.

“But you must know what happened next,” I said about the fortune cookie story. “Even if you didn’t write it.”

“You’ll just have to use your imagination, kid.”

Enzo had a lot of stories—and a lot of different ways to tell them. He’d tried writing, painting, filmmaking, playing in a band. I asked him if it was overwhelming to have so many things he wanted to do. He said the storytelling was the important part, not the medium.

I wondered if I had my own story to tell, and if so, what medium I would use. I’d never wanted to be an artist, but I could see the beauty in the idea.

Later that night, I brought it up with Sundog. He said that we’re all born with our paths already in place; our job is simply to find them.

I imagined my dad would disagree. When I went to my room, I found a stack of college catalogs on my bed. There was a sticky note on the top one that said, “It’s time.” I shoved the catalogs under my bed without looking through them.

Unlike the man who worked in the fortune cookie factory, I wasn’t ready to find my future. For once, I was enjoying the present.





Chapter 22


On the Threshold of Everything

Enzo and I went to the thrift store because he liked looking for messages in books. He had a collection. He looked for school books with doodles in the margins. Or inscriptions in books that had been given as gifts. Those were the saddest, because why would someone give something like that away? Enzo had even found one book with a forgotten letter tucked between the pages.

“These notes are little pieces of history no one cares about,” Enzo told me. “But they remind you you’re not the first person to hold that book. Someone else owned it first and read the exact same words, and one way or another, it impacted them. We’re all connected.”

“That sounds like something Sundog would say.” I liked the sentiment though. It made me want to write messages in my own books.

Dusty Roses was the only secondhand store in Layton, and there were only a few other shoppers that morning. I trailed behind Enzo, watching him open books and flip through pages, then I got bored and wandered off on my own.

I could see what Enzo meant. It was weird to think about how everything there had once belonged to someone else. Why had they gotten rid of it? Did they ever think about someone else using their dishes or sitting on their couch or wearing their beat-up fedora? It felt like giving away memories.

I walked through the section of women’s clothes, running my hands along the racks as I passed. Everything smelled funny. I wondered how many of the people who shopped there didn’t have any other choice than to buy something another person considered old or broken. It made me feel a little guilty about my own closet, stuffed with clothes I seldom wore. Though that was largely my mom’s fault for continuing to buy me things that were hideous.

Out of the corner of my eye, I got a flash of hot-pink tulle. It was pretty much impossible not to see. I parted the hangers to get a better look.

The dress was a monstrosity. It must have been worn to a prom in the 1980s and spent the intervening decades forgotten in someone’s attic. In addition to all the tulle, the dress was covered in lace, with a ridiculously poofy skirt that stopped at the knee. It was so absurd that I couldn’t help but grin. I had to try it on.

I didn’t bother taking off my jeans or tennis shoes—I just pulled on the dress over them. It was a perfect fit. I admired myself in the mirror. I spun, and yards of lace flared up like a tutu.

Enzo was still examining books when I walked up behind him.