Mr. Nightquist and I exchanged knowing glances, and I suspected that dear Miss Wiskerton was a woman who could hold her own against the terror of a boy. And even more surprised was I when Charles came back with the bonnet and then hugged her.
Indeed, she was just what he and Mr. Nightquist needed.
“You wanna cookie, Polly?” Miss Wiskerton offered.
I sighed. “I will have to decline. My soul is tremulous at what I must do now, and I am afraid if I partake of food, I will indeed become quite sick.”
“Well, maybe you could stop by tomorrow and we could talk about Pride and Prejudice?”
I allowed a smile to grace my face. “Indeed, I would be most delighted.”
And after offering good-byes, I departed for Fran’s home.
A knock upon the door made me want to swoon, but I forced myself to remain vertical. I needed to be strong.
The door opened, and Mr. Fisk stood before me.
“Oh dear,” I declared, not sure what I would say to the man whom I had most likely ruined.
“Hi, Polly,” he said. “Come in.”
Though I don’t know how my feet moved forward, they entered, and I found myself inside with Ruthie Carmichael sitting on the couch. Her wrists were free of the shackles of iron I had placed upon her. “Oh, dear,” I declared once more.
Neither spoke, and I became even more disheartened. “I’ve come—” I faltered. “I’ve come to say sorry.”
Mr. Fisk took a seat beside Miss Ruthie and grasped her hand in his. “We’re listening, Polly.” And the smile he offered encouraged me to proceed.
I coughed into my hand, willing the words to make their way from the depths of my heart to my mouth. “My dearest friends,” I said, assuming a prostrate kneeling position with my head bowed low. “I am so very sorry,” I said, recalling the events of that dreaded night. The weeping that overtook me could not be stopped. I pled for their forgiveness. “I am dreadfully sorry for the pain that I have caused you. Miss Carmichael, I beseech you to forgive me for calling the police and having you arrested. I hope this will not reflect badly on the Fisks, who have loved me since I was young. I was not in the right.”
Ruthie smiled and placed her hand on my head, which I felt to be a very elegant gesture indeed. “It’s all right. And actually, it’s nice to know that George and Fran have such a concerned and caring friend, though I wish I didn’t have to be arrested to find that out.”
I grasped her hand in mine at her act of forgiveness. “And dear Mr. Fisk, you who have loved me like one of your own; you who forgave me when I almost got you killed at the hands of Miss Penny’s suitor. Please forgive me. I haven’t been very considerate of you or Fran and I’ve tried to control things as if you were in a book. I’ll never do anything like that again, I assure you.”
Mr. Fisk smiled very gently, which brought fresh tears to my eyes. “Well, Polly. Things did get quite out of hand. Thanks for apologizing. I know you’ve learned your lesson. Just leave the romance stuff to me. I still have a few tricks up my sleeve, even if I do work on computers.”
“Indeed, I resign myself to this fate. No, even more so. I am convinced of this fate,” I said.
Silence fell between us at the question that lingered on my tongue, but I could not utter it in fear I would cry once more.
Mr. Fisk seemed to sense this and shook his head. “She’s not here, Polly. Sorry.”
My heart was wrenched in two.
She did not wish to see me, and I could not blame her.
With a dejected heart I arose from my knees and bade them good-bye. “Thank you for bringing relief to a troubled mind and a burdened soul.”
“Polly?” Mr. Fisk called out after me. “If you want to come back around dinner, she should be here.”
“Thank you with all of my heart, dear Mr. Fisk. Though I do not expect my apology to be accepted, I know that I, indeed, must give it if I am to find any more rest in this life or the next.”
And at that, I left the home of my once dearest and closest of friends and sought refuge in the Haven of Heaven. Perhaps the breeze flitting through the leaves and sounds of birds chirruping their delight in summer’s warmth would soothe my tormented heart.
It was true, I had been forgiven by my sister and pardoned by Mr. Fisk and Miss Carmichael, but knowing that my bosom friend was perhaps lost to me forever was a thought that brought tears to my eyes and a bleeding wound to my heart.
I reached the Haven of Heaven, which was in beautiful bloom. The bright green of the leaves and the blossoming flowers that scented the air were indeed nourishing, though they could not fully take away my inward turmoil.
And that is when I saw her.
Fran! My bosom friend!
She sat beneath the shade of the Old One, twisting and pulling the embroidery thread on the start of a new bracelet. I stopped, wondering what to do.
Though words and thoughts had never been hard for me to find, in this instance I was speechless.
I did not want to scare her away, but I needed to speak with her. And so I willed my legs to move me forward.
“Hi,” I said in a whisper not much louder than the leaves brushing together in the wind.
She looked up, her face blank of all emotion, and then stood. “Hi.”
“Please don’t run away yet,” I pleaded, for it looked like she was about to dart off.
She sighed. “Do you know what you almost did? I mean, Polly Madassa, you almost ruined my entire life. And even besides the whole ‘get my best friend’s father’s girlfriend in jail’ thing, you’ve been just a plain old lousy friend! You never listen to a thing I say and you have no idea what it feels like to have not had a mom. And … ugh.”
I began to cry at that point, remembering how I’d acted toward her and how I’d treated her and her father. Knowing that being without a mother had been so agonizing for her crushed me deeply … knowing I had not listened well to her as a bosom friend was pain my heart could not bear. “I know,” I sobbed. “I was kinda treating you and your dad like … like the characters in the books I love so much.”
She placed her hands on her hips. “Kind of, Polly?”
“Okay.” I sniffed. “I was treating you that way. And I’m sorry about not listening and for thinking I understood and could fix things when I don’t understand and I just can’t fix things to how I want them.” I covered my face with my hands, sat, and leaned back against the Old One. “I’m a wretched, horrid friend. I’m so very sorry for what I have done and the pain I have caused you.” She sat beside me, picking at the green grass around us. “So, whether or not you can continue to be my friend, please say that perhaps in the future there might be a chance that I will be forgiven by you.”
We sat in silence, each moment making that forgiveness seem more and more impossible.
She turned to me. “All right, Polly. I’ll forgive you—”
“Really?! Oh, Fran—”
She held up her hand to silence me, and I quickly closed my mouth. “But, there are a few conditions.”
“Anything, dearest friend. Name it and I shall perform it. Remaining bosom friends is all that I—”
“One,” she stated, cutting off my sentence. “You have to promise that you’ll try really hard to listen and not just talk all the time.”
“Consider it done, my dearest friend.”
“Two. No more matchmaking.”
“But Fran, I’m not quite sure,” I began. “Perhaps this is not the course I could devote my life to, but indeed I—” I stopped at once, noticing her eyes narrowing at me with a very menacing look. “I will matchmake no longer.”
“And three. You’ve got to swear, promise, vow … whatever, that you will not get in the way of my dad and Ruthie.”
“I promise,” I declared, grabbing a lock of my hair. “Do you wish me to seal my vow with one of my silky tresses?”
She rolled her eyes. “No, Polly. I don’t. And the word is hair, not tresses.”
�
��Oh, but Fran, tresses is so much more romantic. Don’t you think?”
“Not really,” Fran said, once again resuming her bracelet-making.
I nodded. “Yes, Fran. I can see that we are strangers living side by side,” I said, repeating one of my favorite lines from Anne of Green Gables. “But not in a bad way, right?”
Fran wrapped her arm around my shoulders and hugged me to her. “No, not in a bad way at all.”
I took up a bundle of embroidery thread so that I might make a bracelet alongside her. “Beloved friends forever?” I asked, feeling the weight of my iniquities lifting off my burdened shoulders.
“Yep, best friends forever.”
As dusk settled upon my bedroom and enveloped me in a romantic glow from my open window, I picked up the piece of stationery that had led me on this journey of love and discovery. “Love in the Making,” I read aloud, and sighed.
Indeed, love was not a book and I had seen it manifest in ways I had not dreamt, but still it had mysteriously come just the same. And with that I was greatly pleased.
Besides, it had gotten me into quite a lot of trouble and had hurt those whom I loved most.
It was not worth it in the least.
And so I took up the paper, folded it neatly in half, and placed it in a small wooden box I kept hidden under a loose wooden plank on the floor.
Having it too near would only serve as a temptation, I feared, but I did not wish to burn it, for it also reminded me to never, ever go down that path again.
Once I placed the floorboard back into place, I sat upon my bed and breathed deeply the salty breeze that lifted my curtains with its delicate hands.
And then, leaning against my bed, I took up Jane Eyre, and got lost at once in the noble woman’s life and in the stormy eyes of her lover, Mr. Rochester.
Epilogue:
In Which I End My Tale
Fran clanked her spoon against the side of her crystal glass, and I did the same, gazing upon Mr. Nightquist and his bride as they kissed each other lightly upon the lips.
Charles’s manners had not improved much. He was now using the reception area as a racetrack and poor Melissa Anne was on her fifth or sixth lap around.
I tore my eyes away from them, trying to bring my mind to a more pleasant place. “I hope that my husband has lips the color of a pink grapefruit,” I said, imagining my own dear Bradley, who was at that moment filling up a goblet with punch for my refreshment. Indeed, he was quite a gentleman. We had spoken quite often since that night when he and Mr. Nightquist pulled me from the sea. He had even escorted me to dinner one night, and under candlelight we shared a most delicious cheese pizza. “Indeed, I would absolutely adore a man whose lips were the color of a grapefruit. Wouldn’t you?”
Fran knocked me in the shoulder. “Maybe, but not if he tasted like a grapefruit, right?”
“Of course not, Fran. That would be absurd.” She laughed and I gazed about the room, drinking in the sights and sounds around me.
My mother and father swayed back and forth next to Mr. Fisk and Ruthie Carmichael on the dance floor. Clementine was wrapped in the arms of her newest beau and … what was this?
I noticed a dashing young gentleman standing next to Bradley by the refreshment table and eyeing Fran in her lavender dress. Though she had forbidden me to work my romantic magic on another person, and I too had renounced “love in the making,” I had been overcome the past week after finding the perfect date for Mrs. Miller, the lonely piano teacher. He was a well-bred real estate agent who frequented the bakery and in whose arms she was now locked in embrace.
I had also aided Clint, who was now happily in the arms of a girl named Sophia. And Edward was with Tracy—the girl who had stolen his heart from the first. But my greatest wish by far was for my dearest friend. Yet there were not many suitors who were worthy of her.
But this young man, he was surely a vision who would bring my bosom friend the same joy that I felt with my dearest Bradley.
“You know,” I said to Fran, gesturing to the suitor, “that young man has been unable to take his eyes off your delicate beauty. I fear that he is much in love with you. Leave it to me, my dearest. I will have the two of you conversing and bonding within moments.” I had gotten up and started toward the gentleman when I was suddenly grasped from behind.
“Oh, no you don’t. You promised me. That”—she pointed to Jack the Nipper, tied to a chair leg by a short red leash—“is the only kind of romance you are allowed to arrange, got it?”
I laughed and studied the little dog. “Yes, you are right, my dearest friend. And I noticed a beautiful dachshund just this morning trotting by the bakery. Still, he is a very handsome boy indeed.”
“No, Polly. If I want to talk to him, I will.”
I nodded. “Very well, I wash my hands of the subject.”
“Good,” Fran said. “Now try to think of a doggie friend for Jack. That should keep you busy for the rest of the year.”
“Yes, about that dachshund, do you think she would like a scone or a croissant? Really, I want to give the dachshund a good impression of Jack, since he does have abundant faults.”
Fran laughed, her face bursting with red, and I couldn’t help but join in her laughter, though really, the thought plagued me throughout the rest of the evening. When I got home I wrote up, in my best calligraphy, a plan to unite the canines.
And settled on a scone.
acknowlegments
Just as a fine, deliciously baked pastry has many ingredients, so did this story have many ingredients as it was measured, mixed, rolled, and baked into the book you hold in your hands.
To my wonderful, amazing agent, Rebecca Sherman, who took a chance on me and made my writing—and therefore, this book—ten times better than I thought it could be.
To my editor, Elizabeth Law, who understood Polly so perfectly and who asked all the right questions, and laughed at all the right parts.
To the entire Egmont USA family: Doug Pocock and Regina Griffin, for a wonderful steak dinner and welcoming me with so much kindness. To Mary Albi, Alison Weiss, Nico Medina, Greg Ferguson, Rob Guzman, and Jeanine Henderson. I am one girl who knows how very lucky she is.
To my online critique mates who first read Polly’s elaborate story and who thought she was funny and endearing enough to reread over and over again. The Cudas: Lisa Amowitz, Cyndy Henzel, Cathy Giordiano, Kate Chell Milford, Dhonielle Clayton, and Linda Acorn. And Elitecritiquers: Jean Reidy, Shannon Caster, Julie M. Prince, Lauren Whitney, and David Macinnis Gill. You all are more amazing than I can ever say. Thank you for your praise, your honesty, and your friendship.
To my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Jan Baughman, who believed in my first story about a lion named Walop. Wherever you are in the world, thank you!
To my close friends here in Colorado who make me laugh, cry, and who have allowed me to become a part of their lives, their families, and their stories. Phil and Anne Gallagher, Kent and Melissa Gledhill, Kirk and Sarah Livesay, Chris Gygi, Jen Morgan, and Bruce and Katie Buller. And to Audrey Buller, who first gave Polly her voice. I love you all!
To my parents, Chris and Wendy Devlin. Words cannot ever tell the world enough of what you gave me and continue to give me each day. I hardly consider you as my parents now. You are so much more than that. Thank you for always believing I could do it, even in fifth grade. I love you both so very much.
To my older sister Alisa, who is the real writer and artist. Thanks for letting me tag along with you when we were little and look up to you now that we’re real, live grown-ups. You are a barrel of fun.
Those who know me best know that, above all else, I love to laugh. And therefore one of the people I love above all else is my younger sister Suzanne. You are my kindred spirit, my bosom friend!
To Gracie, Isaac, Ella Jane, and Noah. Thank you for every single moment with you. I love you with a ferocious and undying love!
And to John, always to John. You make my heart beat faster.
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