Page 12 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
Or maybe it was my two golden retrievers—Rex and Cookie—dying only days apart, Rex from kidney failure and Cookie from a broken heart.
That confluence of life disasters was the gut punch I needed. When I saw the flash sale on flights, I went on a shopping spree and bought plane tickets for Alaska, as well as Europe in the spring. (I was finally going to travel there! And my sister, Katy, wanted to come, too, which seemed like a perfect incentive to hunker down and write my novel:Finish Manuscript = Eat Éclairs With Katy While Strolling Through the Gardens at Versailles.)
Maybe my mom is right, and everything does happen for a reason.
Still, my therapist told me it’ll take a while for the traumas of the past to stop haunting me. Months, years even.
But I’m impatient. I’m eager—desperate—for my new life to begin, for the old one to disappear.
Burn it away. All of it. Ashes.
Eventually, everything will smolder: the anger, the hurt, and the sadness. And then new trees will sprout from the ruins of the forest fire. My new life.
I pour two heaping spoonfuls of sugar into my coffee, because Merrick isn’t here to judge me anymore. I rip off another fat hunk of fruitcake and eat it with my hands, licking every single crumb off my fingertips. Food isn’t supposed to be comfort, the health experts all say. But the truth is, food is absolutely comfort. It is self-care, it is meditation, it is healing. When I have a pastry or cookie or other sweet, I know for certain that I’m not the timid, beaten-down Helene anymore. I am a woman who eats cake, whenever and however she pleases.
When the cake is gone, I consider buying another piece. I’m starting to feel better, although I’m not 100 percent there yet, and another slice might help.
But then I see Shipyard Books through the window, and I realize how I can feed two birds with one scone: I’ll go buy myself a new novel to read—that always lifts my spirits—and I’ll also pick up a book on how to write fiction, since the purpose of me being in Alaska is to work on my own novel.
As I leave the coffee shop, I pass by the man-who-isn’t-Merrick and grin as I say, “Have a great day!”
He startles, again unsure what to do with me, but I don’t care.
New Helene does not care.
SEBASTIEN
I live an hour outsideof Ryba Harbor—I like the solitude of the forest when I’m not on theAlacrity—but before I drive home, I decide to stop by the bookstore on Main Street. I always carry a paperback in my coat pocket, so if I get stuck in a long line at Costco or elsewhere, I have something on hand to entertain myself. I’m too old-fashioned to see the appeal of filling downtimewith a glowing screen; I don’t even own a cellphone. Besides, reading reminds me of my publishing days, although that was a long, long time ago.
The bell rings as I step into Shipyard Books. It’s a cozy shop, with a blazing fireplace near the entrance to thaw frozen fingers and toes. The front door is decorated with a porthole, and the interior walls are painted in nautical stripes. A thirty-foot papier-mâché Moby Dick hangs from the ceiling in the middle of the main room.
Angela Manning, the silver-haired owner, glances up from the novel she’s reading behind the register. “Hello, Sebastien. Good to see you again. Can I help you find something today?”
“Yeah. I’m looking for a couple books—”
But I stop short because an elderly couple, Margaret and Andrew Ullulaq, emerges from the shelves and slowly strolls arm in arm toward the register. She’s wearing a hand-knit purple sweater, and he has on suspenders that match. They’re always a matching set. Even now, with arms linked, Margaret and Andrew each carry a novel in their free hand, bookish mirror images.
Beside me, Angela lets out a deep sigh full of admiration. “Can you believe it? Today is their sixty-fifth anniversary. They met in a bookstore, you know. Now, on every anniversary, they come in here and buy each other a book. Isn’t that the sweetest tradition? I love that they’ve kept it up all this time.”
I have to close my eyes as a sharpness slices through me, like a blade slashing through a canvas sail. Other people’s wedding anniversaries remind me that Juliet and I didn’t make it a week past our vows. And because of the curse, we will never have a chance at even five years, let alonesixty-five.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to grow old with Juliet, to share such sweet anniversary traditions, to ultimately die peacefully in each other’s arms.
What I wouldn’t give to be able to die at all, to put an end to the curse.
I thought, perhaps, I had managed to break the cycle when I walked away from Avery Drake back in 1962. Our paths crossed in Kenya—she was a wildlife photographer about to set off on safari,and I a cartographer on assignment to update the rivers on maps of Africa—but as soon as our mutual friends introduced us in that palm-shaded café in Nairobi, I fled and abandoned my job.
Avery went on to great success. I purposely avoided news of her to avoid the temptation of seeking her out again, but every so often, I’d come across one of her photographs—on the cover of aNational Geographicleft on someone’s coffee table, on a poster in the window of a home furnishings store, and, finally, on a set of commemorative stamps issued by the U.S. Postal Service after her death.
To my great relief, Avery Drake had lived into her fifties, twice as long as most Juliets. And even more important, more than thirty years after she metme.
I believed that meant I’d finally broken the curse. I believed it might mean that, I, too, could finally die.
But I didn’t.
And now in front of me are Margaret and Andrew, this couple that’d spent contented decades together, and I can only yearn for a drop of what they’ve known, and for how they will eventually get to shuffle off this mortal coil while I remain ensnared in its never-ending twists and turns.
Angela doesn’t notice my pain, though, because she’s still watching the happy couple. I force a smile back on my face as they approach, and I step aside to allow them to go ahead of me at the register.
