Love in the Time of Serial Killers(75)
I propped myself up on my elbows. “Wait, how—?”
“I Googled you,” Sam said. “Anyway, then he’d amble back up the driveway, his gait making it clear to the whole neighborhood that his daughter was strong and empathetic, smart and hilarious, and gorgeous. When he chucked all the mail directly in his outside garbage can, his regret was painfully obvious, that he couldn’t find a way to tell you all those things himself.”
My throat burned as I said, “All from a walk to the mailbox, huh?”
“He did it every day,” Sam said. “What can I say, I’m observant.”
I snuggled into him, pressing a kiss to his shoulder. “You’re sweet,” I said.
“Sweet on you.”
I groaned at the cheesiness of that line, giving him a playful swat. But the truth was that it wormed its way into my heart regardless. It made me dream, for one night at least, of something I hadn’t even dared to as a young girl lying in this same bed—that all the pink heart valentine, sappy love song stuff might be real, and be something I could have.
TWENTY-TWO
THE MORNING OF Conner’s proposal dawned with about sixty-eight texts from Conner about the logistics, when I was going to pick up Shani to take her to lunch, what time we had to be at the park, even what I should wear. (I know you have a lot of goth shit, but maybe for the pictures a color???)
It hadn’t even occurred to me that I needed to be in any pictures. The eventual wedding was going to be fun.
Sam was very cutely excited and nervous, too, and he had to leave early to get everything set up. Not only had he arranged the thirty-something kids who were going to do the dancing, but he was bringing out his sound system and hooking it up so “Tubthumping” could be heard at a suitably horrifying volume.
“I need to pick up some cheese and crackers and apple slices at the store, too,” Sam said, typing it into his phone. “Something both the kids and parents will eat. Maybe some water and Capri Suns.”
“Make sure they’re Pacific Cooler,” I said, folding myself into the chair at my desk and opening up my laptop. Dr. Nilsson had said she’d get me comments on my last chapter by today, and I was hoping to have a chance to take a look before all the festivities started.
“Phoebe,” Sam said. “I’ve been working with kids for years. Trust that I know the superiority of Pacific Cooler by now.”
He came from behind to press a kiss to the top of my head, and then he headed out, leaving me alone with Dr. Nilsson’s email and Lenore, who’d graduated at least to hanging out in the same room as me. I’d turned an empty box on its side, and she liked to crawl in and out of it before eventually settling down to rest.
“Let’s see what we have here,” I said, opening up the email. I couldn’t deny that I’d still talked to myself before Lenore, but her presence definitely made it happen more often. Only now I could justify it as talking to her.
Dr. Nilsson started with a bit about how she’d heard from Dr. Blake and was happy I’d set up the interview, et cetera. Then she launched into her feedback on my In Cold Blood chapter, and it was my own blood that immediately turned cold. Phrases like not your best work and rambling and disjointed and needs more robust scholarship flashed before my eyes before I could even bring myself to read the whole block of text from beginning to end.
I double-clicked the file to read her comments, and the sheer amount of red made my eyes tear up, whether from stress or the harsh glare of the color itself on my laptop screen. There were positive comments in there, too, although Dr. Nilsson tended to be fairly brusque with those—a Good in a little bubble next to a single point could count for a lot—but mostly I saw all the places where she’d slashed something as tangential, or asked for more evidence from outside the text itself to back up an argument. At the very end, she’d included one final comment.
As sheer textual literary analysis, this isn’t bad. But it fails to make the necessary connections to theory and cultural context that would elevate it to doctorate-level rhetorical study. You’re in the home stretch—don’t let yourself go off course now.
Those words created a pit in my stomach that lasted all through getting ready and into lunch with Shani, although I did my best to present a happy face in front of her. She was so pleased that I’d invited her out, making several comments that she’d always thought we should see more of each other, that I felt guilty that it had never occurred to me to do so before my brother had asked me to as part of his ruse. She really was a good person, and fun to talk to, with lots of stories from her job at the hospital or the many times my brother had been an idiot.
That idiot is going to propose in less than an hour, I kept wanting to say, but I was very proud of myself for keeping the secret. If I blew it at the last minute, I’d never forgive myself.
My pretense for stopping at the park was supposed to be that I remembered it from childhood and just wanted to drop by and take a walk down memory lane. But it used to be nothing but trees and a couple benches, I’d typed back to Conner. Why would I care that they put a playground in here now? To which he’d replied, SHANI WON’T KNOW THAT BUT SHE EATS UP NOSTALGIC SHIT JUST DO IT PLEASE. In case I was wondering if he’d gotten any more relaxed with the second go-around.