Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“Do you wanna come in and make Jell-O?”
“We’re having a serious conversation here, Miss McBride.”
“I realize that.”
“I have no idea what Jell-O has to do with anything.”
“It’s a thing I do for the kiddie tent. They sell Jell-O squares for a nickel. But I had forgotten because you’re such a fuckin’ distraction. So I need to make some Jell-O before I go to bed tonight and I thought I’d invite you in to help me do that so you didn’t have to look like a sad little puppy who just lost his mama.”
“Is that what I look like?”
She doesn’t answer. Just opens the door.
Of course I will not say no. And she knows this.
I smile at her as I pass through and enter McBooms. But then I remember something. “Were you crying?”
“Of course I was. I just lost my best friend. Again.”
“You didn’t lose me.”
“I sent you packing.”
“But I’m not leaving.”
She walks past me to the couch and flops down. There’s a boom box on the cushion next to her. I guess she had turned the music off when I knocked, but she turns it back on now and Fleetwood Mac resume their lament about dreams.
“I thought we were makin’ Jell-O?”
“We are.” But she doesn’t get up. Just turns the music down a little so it’s not interfering with our talk.
I take the hint and sit down. Not too close, but not too far, either.
“I thought you were goin’ bowling, Collin?”
“I’ll show up later, maybe.”
“They’re gonna pick shirts without you.”
I smile. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
She turns to me and her mouth is poutin’. “I want to trust you. And love you like you never left. But… it’s hard, Collin.”
“What’s gettin’ in the way? My past actions? Or is it more the uncertainty of my future ones?”
“Future.”
“You think I’ll take off again.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I literally just bought fourteen houses eight miles out of town.”
“That’s not enough.”
My eyes widen in surprise. “It’s not enough?”
“No. Not for me.”
“Should I propose?”
I get a teeny, tiny smile from her. “No.”
“You don’t want a husband.”
“Nope.”
“Should I… give you a promise ring?”
“Hmm.”
“Oooh. I’m gettin’ warmer. Should I… write you a love poem?”
Her smile is big now.
“Damn, woman. You want me to write you a poem?”
“You do have such lovely words. A letter would suffice.”
“Words, in written form, can fix this?”
She presses her lips together, smiling. Nodding. “But you can recite it. You don’t have to write it.”
“Right now? Do I have to do it right now?”
“A rough draft would go a long way.”
Now it’s my turn to smile. “OK. How about this?” I clear my throat. “Dear Lowyn. No. My dearest Lowyn.” I pause to think, but the memory comes right up, like it’s been waiting for this moment since the very day it happened. “I was in Bali one early morning. I had been up all night working—three days, actually—and I was so tired, I could barely make it back to the hotel from my post. So I took a shortcut through the fruit and flower market and the scent of it all, it struck me dumb. For about ten seconds, I just stood there, in the middle of the market, and slowly turned in a circle.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I look right at Lowyn. “Because I smelled you, that’s why.” She smiles. “It was the flowers. Baskets filled with little flowers. They call them jepun there in Bali, but they’re called plumeria here.”
“Oh.” She smiles bigger now. “I love plumeria.”
“I know. You wore that scent every day in high school. But the story gets better. Because an old woman saw me, and came up to me, and asked me who I was missing.”
“Did she speak English?”
“No.”
“You speak Balinese?”
“No.”
Lowyn laughs. “Then how did you know what she was saying?”
“I dunno. But I did. I didn’t answer her, though. Because, obviously, I don’t speak Balinese. So then she said, ‘Come with me.’ Then she took my hand and took me out of the market to a tree filled with pink and white flowers. The trunk was goin’ this way and that and the top was shaped like an umbrella. A pink umbrella. The old woman said, while waving her finger at me, ‘You don’t pick them. You gather them.’ And she pointed to the ground. There were children there too, picking up flowers that had fallen off the tree. But there were so many flowers, there was more than enough for all of us. So I picked up the flowers and…”
Lowyn tries to be patient, but I’ve caught her imagination now and she can’t help herself. “And what? What happened?”
“I woke up.” She smacks me. Playfully. “I woke up, Lowyn. In my hotel bathtub, surrounded by those same pink and white flowers.”
“What? I don’t understand. It was a dream? Or it was real?”
“I don’t know. But I was thinking of you, and those flowers, and the next thing I know, magic happened. You’re my magic, Lowyn. And that’s my love letter.”