Page 17 of The Luck of Finding You
“How was school?” I move a pillow to get comfortable on my bed. It’s barely eight and I’m already in my pajamas. My face has been washed and moisturized, and I’m ready for a nice evening talking to my sister and then reading a book.
“Today was another day that reminded me how grateful I am to teach art,” Holly tells me, pausing her show. “Mr. Rossi, the teacher across the hall from me, teaches some regular history classes along with some art history classes, and he seems to have it rough. Art is at least fun.”
I know better than to comment on her calling Drew “Mr. Rossi.” They are in the same friend circle, but whenever she brings him up, she only calls him Mr. Rossi, never Drew. I secretly think she’s got a crush on him because she always turns bright red whenever I tease her about it. “Didn’t you minor in art history?”
“Fun for the kids, I mean,” Holly clarifies. “Most freshmen hate art history. It’s not exactly fun for everyone. Art though, art is fun for everyone. Because the act of creating art can be fun, even if it turns out badly. Art history isn’t really everyone’s thing.”
“Right.” I don’t always get it when she talks about the art stuff. I am not a super creative person, though Holly tells me occasionally how creative my blog is. It’s not really though. I feel like it’s just me spouting out my random thoughts after I read books and sending it off into the online abyss, wondering if people actually read it and whether I care if they don’t.
Holly and I are wildly different. The only things we share are our matching blue eyes that we got from Dad and the fact that we both love rom-coms because Mom did, though I don’t watch them as much as Holly does. But unlike me, Holly is still holding out hope for her perfect love story.
“So, what’s up?” Holly asks me. “Other than Marsha leaving you her store.”
“I might have left out a pretty big detail.” I groan. “Or two.”
Holly stares at me, waiting for me to continue.
“NoahisMarsha’s grandson. That’s why he was in the meeting.”
“Just like you always hoped!” Holly says this like it’s the best news in the world. I might have mentioned that Marsha told me about a grandson named Noah and said something like, “Wouldn’t it be crazy if they were the same person?” But I wouldn’t really call that me hoping for them to be the same.
“No. Not like I’ve always hoped,” I mutter.
She frowns. “This is bad?”
“Super bad. She left both of us, and Noah’s sister, the store and some money. Okay, a lot more money than I’ve ever seen at once in my bank account, but we only get the money if I work with either him or his sister at the shop for a year. His sister can’t because she’s got her dream job in New York, so I’m stuck with Noah.”
“What’s his last name? I want to see what he looks like. Does he have an Instagram?” Holly’s phone glows in her hand, then her laptop must slide off her lap because I get a nice view of her bright yellow pillow.
“Holls.”
“Right. Sorry.” Holly adjusts her laptop and puts her phone down. “You have to work with Noah and you’re freaking out about it.”
“Pretty much.” I don’t want to tell her about Mo, but I have to. “And Mo asked if we could meet in person.”
“That’s HUGE!!!” Holly seems to share the same excitement level as Olivia exuded earlier when I told her about Mo. It’s not that I’m not excited about meeting him. I’ve been wondering if we should for a while now. But today it’s all too much. “Did you say yes?”
“I haven’t responded.”
“But you want to meet him, right?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” I sigh. “If he’d asked me yesterday, I think I would have been much more excited. But after running into Noah, everything in my brain is all jumbled. Why did Marsha do this to me?”
Holly pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, which is something that’s so familiar and so much like Mom that I’m hit with a wave of grief. I miss Mom. And right now, I miss Holly and wish she weren’t ten hours away from me. “Is there any possible way she knows about the kiss?”
I sigh. “I never told her.”
“Could he have?”
“I don’t know. I’m not going to ask him. We decided before any of this even happened that we were going to pretend the kiss never happened.” Though we should be talking aboutkisses.
“Sounds like you’ve got yourself a love interest,” Holly says, but instead of laughing with her, I frown. We both inherited Mom’s ability to fall in love or at least fantasize about a future. I grew out of it, mostly. Holly did not. “Or two.”
“Holls, this isn’t funny. This is my life. Suddenly, this guy who walked out of my life just after he got in it is back, and he’s all smug and cheerful and thrilled about being here. He acts like he knows everything about running a bookstore, but I don’t think he’s ever worked in one and now I’m stuck with him for a year. I don’t know what to do.” Even as I’m saying the words, I know they aren’t a fair assessment of Noah. He did mention moving the romance section near the front, which made me mad at the time but was actually not a bad idea.
Holly is quiet, eating her ice cream and thinking. “I’m sorry,” she finally says. “What can I do?”
“Help me not fall in love with him.” That, I am sort of joking about, but she knows my history of fantasizing about marrying random strangers, so she also knows there’s a part of me that’s serious. She can’t be here to help me get through the next year because that would be impossible. I can’t just ask her to uproot her whole life, even though I really hope that someday we’ll at least live in the same state.
