Living Out Loud (Austen, #3)(24)
I nodded, unable to speak.
“But we have an opportunity here, now, and even though it’s scary and strange, it’s wonderful, too. Fanny aside.”
I smiled a little at that. “She really is a miserable cow.”
“She is. But I have a bad feeling she’s not going anywhere. We’ll just have to endure her, and we will, just like we’ve endured everything else.” She cupped my cheek. “I love you, Annie.”
“I love you too, Mama.”
She let me go, her face soft and pretty and sad. “I’m gonna read for a little bit before bed.”
“Let me know if you need anything, all right?”
“I will. Night, baby.”
“Night,” I said as I left her room in search of Elle.
I found her in her room, turning down her bed.
“Hey,” she said with a smile. “Mama okay?”
“Sorta. She’s trying to be at least.” I climbed into her bed, and she shook her head, smiling at me. “Are they gone?”
“No, they’re still out there. Meg and I didn’t stay long.” She slipped in next to me so we lay facing each other. “Well, it was an eventful night.”
I snorted a laugh. “If by eventful you mean unbearable, I completely agree.”
“It wasn’t all bad. You played for us, which was the highlight of my night.”
“Only because Fanny shut up for a whole thirty minutes.”
She chuckled at that.
“And anyway, you mean to tell me that Ward wasn’t the highlight of your night?”
A flush crept into her pretty cheeks. “Annie, don’t be silly.”
“You like him!” I crowed. “I knew it the second you said hello. I think he likes you too.”
“I don’t even know him. We only exchanged a few sentences.”
“Why should it take more than that? I think, when you find your someone, it happens the second you see them. Like getting struck by lightning or hit by a bus.”
“So falling in love is a lot like dying, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean. That moment when you meet him and time stops and the sun shines on you and the angels sing the hallelujah chorus.”
“I think two people need time to feel affection for each other. You’ve got to get to know each other, learn what kind of fabric the other is made of, what they love and what they don’t, what they believe and what they want out of life.”
“I think to love is to burn, and I want to set my heart on fire. Like Tristan and Isolde or Romeo and Juliet.”
She snickered. “All of those people died.”
“But it’s in how they died,” I insisted. “They couldn’t live without each other.”
“And Romeo and Juliet were teenagers,” she noted.
“Romeo and Juliet were fictional—and not the point.”
“Right, the point is that you think Ward and I should jump into a volcano together.”
I shrugged my free shoulder. “I mean, if the spirit moves you.”
“He might be my boss come Monday morning.”
“So use the opportunity to get to know him so you can maybe, possibly decide if you think he’s amiable or affable or perfectly fine or some other dull thing.”
She laughed softly and let it go without even trying, whereas I would have liked to argue until the sun came up. “I might have a job, and you’ve already gotten one. Meg loves her school, and Mama seems to be doing better. Things are looking up. I mean, think about it, Annie. You’ve got a real job.”
“I know! What is my life? I live in New York in a fancy penthouse with a cook and a maid, and I got a job at a bookstore. This has to be a dream.”
“We have a lot to be thankful for,” she said quietly, her smile fading.
Mine slipped away too. “We really do. It’s easier to see now that we’re here. If we were back home…”
“I’m glad we’re not.”
“Me too. There was nothing left for us there. And here, we’ve been afforded so much. You’ve got a job too, if you want it. I mean, not just any job—a job at Nouvelle. It’s got to be one of the most famous fashion magazines in history, next to Bazaar and Vogue.”
“It’s madness,” she said with wonder. “We’ll see if I can actually do it.”
“You can. I know you can.”
“Look at us, a couple of independent women,” she joked.
“Daddy would have been proud,” I said softly and took her hand.
She smiled and said, “Yes, he would have.”
And that almost made the pain a little easier to bear.
6
The List
Annie
I’d never been afraid of hospitals.
I knew people had this thing about them because, unless they were having a baby, most people would only go there when something bad happened. It was associated with anxiety, even for happy occasions like having a child—What if something goes wrong? What if the baby is sick? What if there are complications?—but worse than that, it was associated with death.
People went to hospitals when they were going to die. And even the people who weren’t dying were afraid the doctors would find something to change that.