Page 83 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper
And then Oliver’s breath caught as he saw something else in the box. The ceiling light glimmered off their surface, and he almost didn’t believe they could be real until he wrapped his fingers around them.
“Yes…” he said.“This.”
He knew now exactly what to say to Chloe. His flight back to New Yorkwas soon, though, and he had to leave for the airport. Yet, Oliver couldn’t wait a second longer. He grabbed a pen and wrote on the square of gold-foil-striped origami paper. Then he placed what he’d found in the memory box in the center and refolded the yellow rose around it.
But then he realized that wasn’t enough. He had so much more he needed to say.
Oliver would need more origami paper to do it.
As soon as he landed in New York, Oliver went to seven different stationery stores, but none of them sold origami paper. Finally, he found one in Little Tokyo that online reviews said had a great supply.
It was on the same street where he’d run into Chloe a few weeks ago.
But when he arrived, the shopkeeper was flipping the sign in her window from Open to Closed.
“Wait!” Oliver shouted as he ran to the door.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said. She was petite—barely five feet—with black hair interwoven with snowy white. “I’m closing for the evening.”
“Please,” Oliver said. “Do you have origami paper? I’ve been all over what feels like half of New York, and I desperately need some.”
The woman looked him over from jiu jitsu T-shirt to practical athletic shoes, amusement crinkling the corners of her eyes. “This isn’t because of the whole paper rose thing, is it? You don’t strike me as the flower-disciple type.”
But that’s where she was wrong. Because hewasa disciple—Oliver would follow Chloe to the ends of the universe.
“Itisbecause of the paper roses, but not what you think,” he said. “The woman behind them—Chloe Quinn—she’s my childhood best friend. We lost touch because of mistakes I made, but I want to fix them now. I love her… I always have.”
The shopkeeper pressed her hand to her heart. “Oh my. That wasn’t what I expected at all. But I don’t understand why you need origami paper?”
Oliver reached into his wallet and pulled out the folded paper rose with its gold foil stripes. “These flowers have been traveling back and forth between us. I don’t know how. But we wrote notes to each other in them—notknowing who it was on the other side. Now I know it’s her, though, and I need to write her back.
“But I have too much to say to fit onto the small space that’s left here. I need more yellow paper to make more roses. Because I need to tell Chloe what I’ve held back for the last sixteen years—everything I should have told her then. Everything I should have told her in between. And everything I want to tell her now.”
The shopkeeper smiled. “Romance isn’t dead.”
Oliver shook his head. “I would never have bet that I would be the one to keep it alive, though. Will you help me?”
“It happens that I have a new shipment of yellow origami paper that came in this afternoon. I’ve had a hard time keeping that color in stock, precisely because of this paper rose sensation. Come in and take your pick. Anything you want is on me. It’s the least I can do for love… And for the woman bold enough to try to make the world a better place.”
Chloe
Her parents picked her up from the Kansas City airport in the ice cream truck. Despite her misery, Chloe couldn’t help herself. She laughed.
“It must have been hell to find room at the curb to park that beast,” she said, gesturing at the behemoth pastel truck.
“I gave some free ice cream to the traffic officers,” her dad said with a wink. “They magically made a space appear for us.”
“Don’t worry,” her mom said with a smile. “I leaned out the window and also handed free ice cream sandwiches to all the drivers who were asked to move.”
“Of course you did,” Chloe said. This was who her parents were and why she loved them so much. She allowed herself to be buried in her parents’ incoming group bear hug. They smelled comfortingly of chocolate and fruit and cream.
“We love you to pieces, Lo-Lo.”
Dinner was Chloe’s favorite meal. The minute she’d gotten off the phone this morning in New York, her dad had fired up the smoker and started a brisket so that when Chloe arrived in Kansas many hours later, she could have his world-famous (really, neighborhood-famous) burnt ends. Her mom whipped up some cheesy corn, garlic green beans, and fluffy biscuits. And for dessert, they had peach cobbler out on the back patio, enjoying the summer night while citronella candles burned all around them to keep the mosquitos at bay.
“We missed you, sweet pea,” her dad said. “It’s good to have you back.”
She leaned over in her chair and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “There’s no place like home.”
