I nod. Close my eyes and think of all that was lost and all that came about because it was lost. “I wouldn’t have had my career if I’d kept my baby. I would have had another life, maybe even a really good one, but I wouldn’t be the me I am now, and that would be a loss, too.”
“It would be,” she agrees.
“I really don’t want to live in a world without you, Phoebe.”
“Really?”
I look at her, open my arms. “You are my person. You always have been.”
She flings herself into my hug, and it’s a tight, tight embrace. I feel the years, the months, the days, the hours rush through us, Phoebe at twelve and twenty and forty-five, myself at the same ages. I see us eating, and laughing, and shopping for our birthdays, and writing letters and notes and diaries. I see fights and making up and cooking some more.
“I love you,” I say.
“I love you more,” she says.
“You’re right,” I say, and we both laugh.
“It’s freezing out here,” she says at last.
“Want some tea? I have some fresh oolong.”
“Absolutely.”
NOW
F*CKING PERFECT
Chapter Thirty-One
Suze
A light snow is falling beyond the windows of the bedroom I’ve taken over as my office. A desk, built to match the Wright-era furnishings in the house, is tucked under a wide window overlooking the same view as the kitchen and the bedroom, endless ocean and rocks, and I had an open grid built just outside so that my seagull can join me while I work—he and his many friends. I don’t feed them, but they’re curious and like to watch me work anyway.
After the dearth of good scripts through the fall, I decided to form a production company of my own, teaming with four other industry women to find scripts centered on women over fifty. Once we started looking for original material, there was a lot of it—and we’re also optioning several books. I am writing a script, too. I don’t know if it’s anything at all yet, but it feels good to stretch my creative muscles in a new way.
The man who attacked me was an LNB wannabe. He’s awaiting trial, and I have no doubt he’ll serve some time. I am still on the LNB lists and that won’t go away, but Joel has installed major security features around the house, including cameras and motion sensors and an alarm system worthy of museums. It’s what we can do. Living can be dangerous, but I refuse to hide from it.
Joel comes to the door. “You ready?”
“Yes.” I add three words to the sentence, save, and shut down the program. Joel waits. He doesn’t live with me, but things are easy, and sexy, and good, and I suspect it won’t be long until he does. We’d be fools to turn our backs on such a dramatic second chance. He looks particularly good in a red shirt and jeans, his hair shiny and pulled away from his face. “You’re looking fine.”
He smooths a hand down his shirtfront. “Good?”
“Very.”
We drive to Astoria, a beautiful small town at the mouth of the Columbia River. Neither of us speaks much, and it’s okay—we’re both reliving memories and dreaming of the future. It’s a soft winter day, sometimes snowing a little higher up, sometimes drizzling below. The idea had been to go to a park, but it’s too cold and instead we’re meeting at a shopping mall.
I take a breath. Joel takes my hand and squeezes it. My heart is pounding, but with anticipation. “Let’s do it,” he says.
We walk to the food court and stand by a window, looking around anxiously.
A woman who has been sitting at a table stands. She has the darkest black hair, cut in a short, modern style that frames a face that could have been molded from Joel’s. She’s taller than average, and lanky, as we both are. She waves tentatively, and takes the hands of two children, about eight and nine.
“She’s so beautiful,” I breathe, and Joel squeezes my fingers. We move toward her.
“Veronica?” I ask as we reach her.
Her eyes are filled with tears that suddenly spill down her father’s face. “When you said Suze, I didn’t know you’d be Suze Ogden. You’re famous,” she says. “I hope you didn’t think—”
“Never,” I breathe, and, impulsively, lean in to hug her, tears streaming down my face, too. I smell her hair—she smells of apples, and I can feel the tiny weight of her baby self in my arms and all the years in between, both there and not there. A piece of me I didn’t even know was missing falls into place.