Franklin barks from his spot on the kitchen floor by her feet, weighing in. “He feels the same way. He wants to know. Who is she?”
I give her an impish shrug. “No time to get into the details. I have plans to put in motion.”
She clasps her hands in prayer. “Are you moving home?”
I give her a salute. “See you later, Mom.”
Then I spring out of the house, down the steps, and into my waiting Lyft. Once inside, I unfold my letter. The one I keep with me. I skip straight to the lines I need to brand on my brain.
* * *
There are some chances that only pass your way once, and you have to grab them. You have to seize them, clutch them, and hold them tenaciously with all your might.
* * *
I need to give the woman what she wants. I call my cousin, since he knows everyone, and Josh answers right away.
“Are things becoming even more clear?” he asks.
“Like crystal. And I need your help. You know everyone in New York, right?”
“Pretty much.”
I tell him what I need and ask how quickly he can line it up for me.
“I’ll make some calls right now.”
“I need it ASAP.”
“No shit, Sherlock. I figured that much. Did you forget I’m used to dealing with billionaire athletes who need everything yesterday? I’m on it.”
He hangs up, and I check my phone every few minutes for a message from him while the car makes for Times Square.
Then, as we weave down Broadway, my phone pings with a text message.
* * *
Josh: Working it. Almost there.
* * *
Hunter: Knew I could count on you.
* * *
Tension spreads through my bones because I want hard facts now. I want to prove to her that I’m serious. But I’ll have to wait a little longer.
As the car pulls to the curb on Forty-Fourth, I thank the driver and get out.
It’s Saturday night in Manhattan, and the streets are swimming with theatergoers, some in charcoal suits and black dresses, some in yoga pants and jeans. That’s Broadway for you.
I scan the throngs, searching for the woman I’m willing to make changes for.
Then I see burgundy, the color of a cabernet sauvignon. All the breath rushes from my lungs as my eyes travel up the dress that hugs the curve of her hips, the swell of her breasts. Then up farther to pink-glossed lips and eyes like a cloudless sky. Her hair is pinned up in a twist, and her neck . . . my God, her neck.
Presley doesn’t see me at first. She’s scanning the crowd. There is something so tantalizing about catching a glimpse of your woman before she sees you, catching that moment of surprise.
I walk over to her, my hands itching to touch her, my lips needing to kiss that delicate skin. She must sense me because she turns as I reach her.
“Hi,” she says, taking me in. “Nice tux. I bet you own it.”
“A man should.”
“It’s working for me. The whole look is working for me.”
“Every single thing about you is doing it for me.” I run a hand down her arm, savoring the feel of her skin.
Then we kiss. It’s soft and tender, and it completely blows my mind. The lip-gloss taste of her, the honey smell of her hair, the feel of her melting against me—this is a chance worth taking. This is what I can’t lose.
When the world’s greatest kiss ends, she blinks, breathes, and says, “Hi, again.”
I don’t waste time. I don’t need to wait for Josh. I’ve got this. “I’m getting a place in New York. My cousin is helping me. When I come home, I can see you.”
Her eyes widen, glowing like a neon sign. “You are?”
“I know that’s presumptuous. But you asked how this is different. This is how. When I’m not on the road, I’ll come here instead of Los Angeles.”
“You will?”
In her question, I hear uncertainty. I need to respect that.
“It’s not often, Presley. I’m on the road a lot. I have months of shoots and travel already on the schedule, but I want to make time for us. I want to do it right and find a way to make us work. Home will be here, where you are, and we’ll start from there. Let’s make a go at it for real, no last-minute changes.” I set my finger against her lips, since I don’t want her to feel pressured to answer. “Think about it for now. But I want you to know what I’ll do for you. For us. To show you this time is different.”
“Hunter.” My name is a plea. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Let’s go exploring.” I take her hand in mine.
She squeezes back. “I do have something to say.”
“The floor is yours.”
She dusts a kiss onto my cheek—the sweetest kiss. “Thank you.”
And like that, I’m floating on hope.
A few minutes later, we head to option number one. The Castle Theater is currently home to Raiders of the Lost Ark: the Musical, a huge production known for its spectacle and its big rolling boulder.
“I bet the Valentinas never imagined the theater would house such a huge show,” I say.
“They probably couldn’t conceive of it,” she adds.
Something about that nags at me. Something I don’t want to be true. But I soldier on. “Want to slip inside and grab some Junior Mints and moon pies?”
“Let’s go moon-pie hunting.” She steps into the lobby, but I catch sight of a plaque outside the theater, bronze and gleaming like it’s new, sitting proudly to the left of the marquee.
And yep. The nagging hunch was correct.
The year of the theater’s founding is etched on the plaque: 1991.
My heart sinks as I tug Presley's hand and pull her over. “It’s not this theater. Edward and Greta died in the late seventies. We didn’t check the dates the theaters opened. This one is too new.”
Her shoulders sink low, then she blows out a stream of air and props herself back up. “It’s okay. It’s fine. There are two others.”
As we walk to the Atlas Theater, a block away, I google it. Reception is sluggish here, but I don’t need a search engine to tell me what I can see for myself as the theater comes into view. It’s built inside a hotel. It’s too new.
“That leaves us with one more theater in their holdings,” Presley says. “The Folklore.”
I flinch like someone just shocked me. “Folklore.” It tickles my memory, not a rare word, but not a common one either. “Didn’t Pat say something about folklore earlier today? ‘Some things are just folklore.’”
“That has to be it,” Presley says, and speeds her pace. “The way he was feeding us clues, that must be where it is. It’s right around the corner.” She searches for the founding date as we race.
“It opened in 1941. This could be it. It’s one of the old-time theaters here.”
When the marquee comes into view, it advertises Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
“That show was done recently,” she says, breathless. But her brow furrows. “Or . . . was it?”
There are no crowds. No throngs of theatergoers streaming in.
She gulps. “I’m guessing The Folklore isn’t simply the only theater without a Saturday-night show.”
“Looks like there isn’t a show here any night.”
A sign strung across the lobby doors says it’s the future home to a three-story shopping center, anchored by a Forever 21 store.
There are no more theaters for the Valentinas’ last performance.
33
Presley
My breath comes too quickly, like it’s racing to escape my body. I’m shaking with frustration. Or maybe it’s sadness. My stomach twists like it did when I learned The Forgers had been remaindered, but worse.
Because this matters more.
Which scares the hell out of me.
I shouldn’t care so deeply about a bunch of old love letters.
I shouldn’t, and I can’t, and I won’t.
Raising my chin, I tell myself it’s fine.
I say it aloud, so I can convince myself. “It’s going to be okay. It’s just a letter. It’s just a story. It’s just words intended for someone else. We’ve found enough,” I say flatly as we walk away, the shuttered theater falling behind us.
I can’t even look back at it, knowing Edward and Greta performed there, knowing this couple who—stupidly, ridiculously—feel like patron saints of true love, of second chances, stepped foot in that place.
Did someone else find the last letters? Have they already been scooped up? Or will they wither beneath a store that peddles midriff-baring tops and thigh-skimming skirts?
Wincing, I imagine the tale of Edward’s return to Greta crunched in the maw of a bulldozer or tossed haphazardly into an industrial-size dumpster.
“A goddamn mall,” Hunter mutters as he marches toward—where else?—Caribaldi’s Curiosities. He points to the shop like he wants to stab it. “He could have told us. He could have told us The Folklore was closed.”
He’s right, and in a split second, his fury becomes mine. I drink it down in one thirsty gulp.
“Exactly,” I spit out. “It was like he wanted us to find a dead end while unloading that pointless moon-pie sign on us.”
“That sign is a joke. He jerked us around to make a sale.”
My heels click angrily against the sidewalk. “I’d like to stuff a piece of moon pie in his face.”
“I’d like to leave a whole carton of moon pies stacked outside his door so he can’t open the shop tomorrow,” Hunter says, flashing me a furious grin.
He’s in this with me. He wanted this as much as I did. He’s mad as hell too, and ready to get some answers.
Too bad the sign slapped on the front door says “Returning Monday morning. Until then, follow the path that points to curiosity.”
“Oh, please,” I growl, shooting balls of fire at that hokey sign from my angry glare alone.
Hunter sneers at it. “As if I need his Yoda-isms.”
“If I wanted affirmations, I’d get on a Pinterest board,” I say.
“Please. That’s not worthy of a dime-store coffee cup.”
“Why don’t you follow this path to curiosity?” I say to the store. Then I do something out of character. I flip the bird. To the sign. To a freaking sign. Because Pat led us on a wild-goose chase with goose shit at the end.
Hunter joins me, flubbing his lips at the notice, gesturing dismissively. “Enjoy your date night, Pat. I hope your wife likes it when you talk in circles.” Hunter turns to me, his mouth softening, his anger fading. “Except . . . I wanted the letters, Presley.”
The way he says it, it’s like he’s cracked his rib cage open for me. All my frustration drifts into the breeze. I let it go. “Me too.”
“I wanted them so damn badly. I never thought I’d be chasing love letters. But here I am, wishing we’d found them.”
“Why did you want them so badly?”
He brushes the backs of his fingers along my cheek, leaving a trail of want in his wake. “I wanted to show you what we could do together. What we could accomplish. The adventures we could have. Now we’ve been thwarted.”
Despite myself, I laugh. “Thwarted.”
“What’s so funny?”
“It’s a funny word, ‘thwarted.’”
His lips curve into a grin. “It fits, then, because I’ve had more laughs with you than I’ve had in a long time.”
I lift a shoulder and give him a coquettish look. “Maybe you need to hang out with funnier people.”
“Maybe I do. And maybe that’s why I wanted the letters. They brought me back to you. And I wanted to finish their story with you.”
His words are wondrous, but terrifying, as an awful thought skids into my head. I worried before—is this secondhand love he’s feeling? Is he falling in love with me because of these heartfelt letters from a century ago? Will he fall out just as easily when we go home empty-handed, bereft of the final chapter in their love story?
“But what if we never find them?” I ask.
He shrugs and holds out his hands, showing they’re empty. “Sometimes I want dessert. Doesn’t mean I love the meal any less.”
A laugh bursts from my chest. “Am I the meal?”
“Honey,” he says, his eyes twinkling with mischief as he takes my hand. “You’re the champagne, the appetizer, the dinner, and the dessert.”
I scrunch up the corner of my lips. “You’re kind of setting me up right now to say Eat me up. You know that, right?”
He smacks his lips. “You seem to enjoy being eaten, if memory serves.”
This man.
He makes me laugh, he makes me swoon, he makes me think, and he makes me feel.
But thinking is what I have to do most of all. I have to think about his offer.
“Let’s get to the gala,” I say. “If we can’t have letters, at least we can have champagne.”
“Champagne is an excellent start.” He hails a cab easily, and when we’re inside, he takes my hand. “You know, Presley”—he runs a thumb along my knuckle—“we can do things like this. We can go to events or museums or dinners.” Then across my wrist . . . “Or we can stay home and just do nothing together, or nothing but each other. We’ll figure it out.” Over my palm. “Even if it’s only the occasional long weekend for the next several months. But we start there and build on it. See where we are when my travel lightens up, and then decide what’s next, together. Hell, we can write letters.”
He’s not promising me everything.
But I don’t want him to give up what he loves. I want what I wanted before. For him to come home to me.
I don’t know if this will be enough. But maybe he’s right and it’s a start. And if letters worked to keep the flame brightly burning for Edward and Greta, perhaps they can work a century later.
I stop thinking. Because I’m feeling. I’m feeling everything as he touches me.
This isn’t ten years ago.
He’s not making empty vacation promises.
He’s stepping closer to me. He’s showing his hand and asking for mine.
Do I want more of him than an occasional long weekend? Hell, yeah. Will a night or two a month be enough for this ravenous girl? Probably not. But this is the man I’ve fallen in love with. Plenty of women and plenty of men have made long-distance relationships work. Why can’t we?
If I’ve learned anything from the patron saints of true love, it’s that you have to work for it. It doesn’t arrive packaged on your doorstep. You fight, and you try, and you learn, and you grow.
And you make a choice.
Sometimes all you have is a little something, and you’d be a fool to let that go.
Maybe that’s the lesson of the love letters. We’ll never find that last one, but their story changed my heart.
And now it’s been unlocked, freed from its cage. It flies to him. It’s always been his. Maybe the reason I’ve have bad luck with men is I never wanted to fall for anyone else. Maybe I couldn’t. Because my heart was given a long time ago. It’s been his for years.
I run a hand through his hair. “I’m done thinking,” I say, as the cab slaloms past a bus.
His smile lights up the night. “And your conclusion is?”
“You’re mine. I want more than a weekend with you. But if that’s all I can have, I’ll take what I can get. For now.”
His smile is magnetic, bursting with joy. “And if you liked my love letters before, wait till you see what I deliver now.”
Remembering his swoony words from the first time around makes my insides flutter. “I can’t wait.” I’ve also learned the power of the pen on paper when it comes to holding a couple together.
“And I’ll make those weekends worth your while, I promise.”
“Hell, yeah, you will.”
“I’ll take your ‘Hell, yeah,’ and I’ll raise it to a place in Murray Hill. Josh came through. He already snagged it for
me from a realtor friend. I just heard from him. We won’t see each other often enough, but we can make this work. Because you’re mine too.”
“We definitely can,” I say, sending a quiet thank you to two lovers from long ago.
Then Hunter arches a brow. “Actually, I have an idea.”
34
Hunter
When she says we can do anything, it hits me. There’s more we can do. More I can do.
As the cab winds along Central Park, I meet her gaze. “This might be crazy, but would you want to come with me?”
She blinks. “What?”
“On my expeditions. We’ll have a blast. We can be together more than an occasional weekend.”
She shoots me a look like I’ve gone nuts. “I have no interest in Everest or the Bering Sea. No matter how good in bed you are.”
I shake my head quickly. “I know, but you wouldn’t need to climb anything or cross any river or what have you. But we could be together more. We could travel together, and you could work on your next book. You could explore art and artifacts all over the world and write about them. You could go to Paris while I do the Alps.” I smack my forehead. “You could go to Florence, and I’ll do extreme heli-skiing. This is brilliant. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. It solves everything.” She has to say yes. How can she say anything but yes?
She sighs sweetly. “I think that sounds lovely, but I like my job. Highsmith has struggled, but we’re starting to turn it around. I want to keep working in auction houses and museums.”
All the air leaks out of me. “You don’t want to write?”
“I do. Of course I do. But I’ve only wanted to write to further my career as an art historian. A book makes me more credible, increases my value. I’m not like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve done everything. You’ve climbed every mountain, you’ve written massive best sellers, you produce and star in your own TV shows—you’ve left your mark. My God, you’ve saved a life. Probably more than one. But me?” She taps her chest. “I’m still trying to figure out what my mark is. I’ve been radioactive in my field, it feels like, but finally my luck might be turning.”
PS It's Always Been You Page 21