Page 69 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
Wanda let out a bark of a laugh. When Chloe didn’t laugh as well, Wanda’s jaw dropped. “Wait, you’re serious? You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That your paper rose movement has spread to several major cities in the U.S.—San Francisco, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. This morning I heard they’d made their way to Fort Worth, Texas. And there are even small groups popping up abroad in Europe, Asia, and South America.”
“What?” Chloe stopped in the middle of the path. She heard Michael’s camera shutter clicking away, capturing her gaping like a fish blowing bubbles.
“I suppose I’m not entirely surprised that you’re unaware,” Wanda said. “I couldn’t find you online anywhere, which is surprising in and of itself in this day and age. You could have been famous already. Why not create a platform?”
Chloe shook her head. “I don’t want the attention. This isn’t about me. I think the paper roses should be exactly what people need them to be, without my ego or minor celebrity attached to them. I didn’t actually even want to do this interview, to be honest.”
“But why not?” Wanda started walking again. “Your brand could be worth millions. Once we publish this article and reveal your identity—which, let me tell you, people are wondering about to Banksy-like proportions—the phone will be ringing off the hook for you, not only to partner on the paper roses, but also for name and likeness deals. Don’t you want to amplify all this to maximize your potential?”
“Not really.” Chloe shrugged. Zac would definitely disagree with what she was about to say, but it’s how she felt. “I don’t want to make money off the paper flowers. And I don’t care that people around the globe are copying my creation. Chasing after them and demanding licensing fees would be the complete opposite of what I’m trying to do.”
Wanda squinted at her, as if unable to process what the point of all the work was, if not for profit or fame.
“All I want,” Chloe said, “is more joy in the world, more small moments of lightness and hope for as many people as possible. Maybe that’s naive. Maybe I’ll look back and regret that I didn’t try to start a fashion line or a home décor line based on the origami. But I don’t think so.”
She went on. “It seems like these days, there’s an expectation that anything you do needs to be monetized, needs to become a side hustle. You can’t just make pottery for fun anymore; you have to put it on Etsy. You can’t sing in an eighties cover band for the hell of it; you’re expected to book gigs and promote online and become a star—anything less is seen as a waste of time.
“But why can’t we just do things because we want to? Even if there’s nothing in it for us, other than being nice? When did we start being revenue-maximizing machines and stop being human?”
Wanda blinked at her. Then, after a long moment, Wanda quietly said, “Yeah.”
After Michael had taken a bunch of pictures of the tables—Bonnie and Mary were particularly tickled at having a photo shoot—Wanda promised that she would write the story quickly and submit it to her editor by this afternoon, because she was too revved up to let it sit. The article could hit the online edition of the newspaper as soon as tonight.
“Make sure you print a photo of my good side,” Bonnie joked with Michael.
“All sides are your good side.” He winked, and Bonnie laughed.
“It was good to see you again,” Chloe said to him.
“Same. I’m real proud of you, Chloe.”
“You’ve done pretty well for yourself, too.”
“New York worked out for us,” Michael said, smiling. “Keep in touch, okay?”
Chloe nodded. She probably wouldn’t—they had nothing in common anymore, and the hour spent doing this interview had exhausted what they had to say to each other—but running into him had been unexpectedly instructive. Because she’d felt zero attraction to Michael, unlike that thrum inher core whenever Oliver was near. So now Chloe knew that it wasn’tonlyrosy nostalgia-tinged glasses that made her feel the way she did for Oliver.
When Chloe returned to her apartment later that afternoon, she opened the refrigerator for a snack, and found a familiar paper rose awaiting her on one of the shelves labeled with her name.
Her stomach flipped, in the anticipatory good way like on Christmas morning after Santa arrived. She took the chilled flower out of the fridge and quickly unfolded the gold-foil-striped rose to see what her mystery pen pal had written.
Do you think it’s ever possible for scarred hearts to heal?
In the past, the answer might have been difficult for Chloe. But this year, she’d helped lots of kids with scarred hearts and seen how incredible the human soul was, how it could hold pain in its memories yet still move forward in the world with optimism and joy.
And then she thought about being reunited with Oliver, and how she had surprised herself at the way she felt, despite all the confusion and sadness of the past. That she could want to forgive him and bring him back into the fold of her life.
Maybe it was because Oliver was on her mind that Chloe was struck by an idea as she wrote back to her mystery correspondent. Instead of just penning the words this time, she also whispered them into the paper, something she hadn’t done for a letter in a very, very long time.
Do you think it’s ever possible for scarred hearts to heal?he had asked.
I do. My heart was shattered once, but over time, I was able to put it back together. But the key, I discovered, is you have to take risks, even if it means a chance of getting hurt.
And on the other side of risk is the very real possibility of happiness.
