By Any Other Name(67)

“Lanie?” The voice on the other end sounds surprised. “How’s Italy?”

“Meg,” I breathe. “Check your email.”

I forward her Noah’s op-ed then wait on the phone as she reads it.

“Ohmigod,” she says. “Ohmigod. OhmiGOD. Lanie, do you know what this means? He likes you back! That last line? That’s . . . wow.”

“What?” I say. “That’s your takeaway? Meg, put on your publicist sombrero. We need to make plans. ASAP. Besides, he explicitly said he thinks we could be friends. Has there ever been a clearer kiss-off in the history of unrequited romance?”

“Speaking as your friend,” she says, “I’ll agree to disagree. Speaking as Noa Callaway’s publicist . . .” There’s a long pause on the line. Then a sigh. “Well, as mea culpas go, it’s not the worst. I’m not saying there won’t be hell to pay, but ultimately, my prediction, after I do my job of course, is that there will be no permanent cancellation of Noa Callaway.”

“Really?”

“Give me a few hours. Let me see what I can do.”

“What about Sue? Should I—”

“You should enjoy the Amalfi Coast,” she says firmly. “There’s nothing more you can do from there. I’ll meet with Sue today. We’ll circle back later. I mean it, Lanie. Hit the pool, sip a cocktail, leave this to me.”

“Thank you, Meg.”

When we hang up, I’m shivery with nerves. How can I leave this alone? How can I not obsess over Sue’s reaction when she reads this op-ed? How am I not going to be fired?

But . . . if anyone can handle this, it’s Meg. And she’s right, it is a good apology, as far as apologies go. I picture Noah writing it. I picture his hands on the keyboard. I picture—

Pool, I tell myself, gazing down over my balcony at its infinity in the moonlight. Cocktail.

Sure. But first, Chapter One.





CHAPTER ONE


Edward waited at the stone bench in Central Park, his stomach tied in knots. He had been longing for this day for two years. He had been dreading it, too.

When he saw her—Dr. Elizabeth Collins, in her Fendi suit, striding elegantly toward the chess house—he fought an urge to run. If he could get out of here, he could perpetuate the lie a little longer. But the reality of Elizabeth stopped him cold. She was so similar to the photograph he carried. And yet in life, the way she moved, like a ballet dancer, was so much more vibrant than any fantasy.

He saw her looking around, for Corporal Richard Willows, of course. The tall, blond, handsome soldier whose chin she had stitched after a bar fight two days before Willows shipped out to Vietnam. The soldier she’d had one date with, a walk in Central Park, two years ago. The soldier she believed she’d been corresponding with ever since. The soldier who had died in Edward’s arms during their first week of combat.

As Richard slipped toward death—Edward would never forget this—the man had produced a photograph and two letters from Dr. Elizabeth Collins of New York. As well as a half-completed letter he was writing back to her.

“Tell her,” he begged Edward. “Tell her if I’d had the chance, I know I would have loved her.”

Edward meant to do just that. He barely knew Willows; they had shared a few beers over a game of chess, but that was it. He had sat down at camp that night, shaking and filthy and starving, and attempted a letter breaking the news to Dr. Collins. He had pored over her own two letters to Willows. And that photograph. She was sitting on a picnic blanket. Smiling. Squinting into the sun.

Edward still couldn’t believe what he’d done next.

He lied. He had no beautiful girl to write to back home. Had no hope of correspondence with a wit such as Dr. Elizabeth Collins. He was as lonely as any other soldier, young, and scared, and far too far from home.

He would tell her the truth in the next letter, but first, he’d try Richard Willows on. Just to see what it felt like to write to a woman like that.

Only, Edward never did tell her. And somehow two years passed, and what happened was he wrote to Elizabeth every single day he was at war. He wrote her poetry. He wrote of his childhood and his family. He told her things about himself he’d never told anyone else. He signed them Corporal Richard Willows, feeling sick with guilt—until her next letter came. And then he read her words, hungrily, and the cycle just continued. He was too amazed—by her sense of humor, her intelligence, and her spirit—to stop writing Elizabeth back.

They fell in love.

And now he had to break her heart.

“Dr. Collins,” he said, rising from the table at the chess house. To be so near her after all this time—it made it hard to speak. It made it hard to breathe.

Her eyes settled on him for an instant, then passed on. Of course. She was looking for the man she loved. Not the shorter, dark-haired man before her. It crushed Edward, but he persevered.

“Dr. Collins,” he said again. “You’re here to meet Richard Willows?”

She turned to him again, her beauty overwhelming. “Yes. Who are you?”

“My name is Edward Velevis,” he said, summoning all his courage. “Mr. Willows . . . can’t be here today. He gave me a message for you. I have carried it too long. Will you please sit down?”

Elizabeth sat. She waited. She was quiet. Edward could tell she was alarmed. He must choose now or never to tell her every truth that he’d been hiding.