Page 83 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
Adam ignores her and fixes his stare on me. “Get. Out. And don’t you dare stop by Colin’s if you’re not going to be his captain anymore. He looked up to you, and you don’t deserve his admiration.”
I glance at Dana. She shakes her head sadly. I can tell she wants to help us get through this, but at the same time, she has to stand by Adam. And I’m clearly the asshole here anyway.
I push my barstool under the counter and lay some cash on the counter for the beer.
“I’m sorry,” I say to both Adam and Dana. And then, just to Adam, “I’ll transfer the costs for the crew’s wages and the lost catches into the company’s account this afternoon.”
He doesn’t even acknowledge me, just crams more chicken into his mouth. He’s furious, and he has every right to be.
“Take care of yourself, Merculief.”
I trudge out of the Smokehouse less a crew, a job, and a friend. The curse always comes with steep costs.
HELENE
I don’t know what happenedbetween Sebastien and Adam, but I know something upsetting went down, because for the next couple of months, Sebastien doesn’t need to go to the harbor. Instead, while I’m writing, he buries himself in the kitchen, cooking as if he’s in that novelLike Water for Chocolate,where the protagonist’s emotions flavor the food. I can taste the angst in Sebastien’s Bolognese, the guilt in the beef bourguignonne, and even the melancholy in his fish-and-chips.
My middle gets noticeably pudgier. I tell myself I’m eating everything he makes because it’s my way of showing support for whatever he’s going through, but let’s be honest—I’m eating because I love food, and I’ve never lived with a gourmet chef before. (Sebastien, I discover, worked in the royal kitchens of Monaco in the late 1800s.)
When I try to talk to him about Adam, though, Sebastien clams up.
“What can I do to make you happier?” I ask.
“Write your novel,” he says. “That’s all I want. If you’re happy, I’ll be happy. Go. Write.”
I don’t believe him, but since it’s the only thing he’ll tell me, I do as he wants. I throw myself into the story, and finally, in the quiet solitude of Sebastien’s house, I begin to make progress. The manuscript is a messy, ugly thing full of plot holes and purple prose, but at least it’s taking shape. Besides,The Craft of Novel Writingsays that the rough draft is supposed to be clumsy and illogical and meandering, because it’s really the author telling herself the story. Only after I’ve gotten to know the characters and wandered through many wrong turns of the plot will I know what the novel wants to be.
With the help of all of Sebastien’s journals, I am piecing together our story.
My time in the library isn’t all joyful discovery, though. While my vignettes were happily ever afters, all of Sebastien’s were tragedies. Some days, I’m able to pretend that the couples in hisjournals were other people, not us, and then I can focus on using the material for the purpose of writing my book. But other days, the weight of our past is too real and too much.
If the curse still holds, how much time do I have? I could die tomorrow. Or anytime in the next two years. That’s the longest any past reincarnation of me has had. It’s unsettling, to say the least.
I try to push the thought away. But it flits in and out of my mind, like a fly in the house. You think the fly’s gone—maybe it escaped out the door that one time you opened it—but all of a sudden, it’s buzzing around in your kitchen while you’re eating breakfast or in your bedroom when you’re trying to fall asleep.
The one solution I’ve found that works to shoo the thought of the curse away, though, is touching Dad’s broken watch. Because whenever I hold on to it and look at it, I remember what he said: If you live with one eye fixed on the end, you’ve already lost.
I won’t lose. And I refuse to accept that Sebastien and I are done for.
SEBASTIEN
I try to deliver Helenewhat I promised—letting her live her life. I show her how to shovel snow, how to build a snowman, how to spot white foxes and white rabbits in the winter landscape. She plays the guitar by the fireplace, teaches me the lyrics to folk songs her mom has written and laughs at her own inability to stay in key, and points out constellations in the sky, telling me all the legends and myths behind them. And I don’t bring up the curse anymore, because I don’t want her to feel the scythe poised over her head.
I can never forget, though. Sometimes, I’ll be watching her do something pedestrian, like washing the dishes, and I’ll suddenly find myself on the verge of breaking down because I can already imagine her gone, my kitchen empty. Or I’ll be brushing my teeth and see two toothbrushes on the counter, and the knowledge that soon there will be only one will kick me in the chest and knock me backward onto the tiled floor. I miss her when she’s still present, and then I have to stop and yell at myself—She. Is. Still. Here.
There ought to be some comfort in knowing that Juliet willeventually return to me. But what comfort there is, it’s far outweighed by the grim nature of the curse. Juliet will suffer and die each time. It makes it no better for her that her soul had previously inhabited another body; every version of Juliet is a real and separate person who has to endure the agony of disease or a brutal, sudden death, and all the terror that comes with it. And I have to watch it happen. I have toknowit will happen.
And afterward, there is always the chance that Juliet won’t come back again. That that reincarnation was the last one. Because the fact is, I don’t understand what the curse is, how it works, or if it’s forever. I only have a theory about Mercutio and evidence from centuries of repetition. Death makes no guarantees, however.
Which is why I can’t waste this precious time. This moment, right now, is Helene’s.
And so I put in the effort every day of shoving aside my storm clouds. Some days it’s easier than others. But I try.
Today, however, is a harder day. I am sitting outside on the cold bench on the porch, fancy envelope opened on my lap. It’s March but still winter—spring comes late to Alaska—and I shiver as I hold the pearlescent card to read again.
Dana and Adam are getting married!
Come celebrate our happiness (and Dana’s giant honking ring)
