“I know.” Charlene grinned back, pleased with herself. “But that’s beside the point. I think you love him, too. Don’t you?”
“Yes,” Lucy said. “Yes.”
“Well, then,” Charlene said, “when we hit the airport, I’ll drop you off at the terminal. You can run in while I park. Maybe you can catch him before he gets on that plane.”
In the romantic comedies Lucy adored, there was almost always a scene at the end in which the hero realizes he loves the heroine and races to the airport to catch her before she gets on a plane and flies out of his life forever. Or sometimes the heroine would run after the hero, kicking off her high heels, barreling through the crowd, pushing other travelers out of her way and getting to the gate just in time. But in real life, Lucy soon discovered, a person couldn’t just beg her way through security.
“You could buy a ticket,” the uniformed TSA officer told her when she reached the front of the line.
As she ran to the ticket counter, Lucy dug in her purse for the credit card her parents had given her when she left for college; maybe her father hadn’t canceled it yet. At this time of night, the line was surprisingly short. But when the ticket agent called out “next,” Lucy remembered her passport, which was sitting in the top drawer of her desk back at the dorm.
“Oh, crap,” Lucy said. “Can I get through security without a passport?”
The ticket agent pursed her lips. “I’m afraid not,” she said.
“But you don’t understand.” Lucy’s voice cracked. “There’s this guy. He’s getting on a plane to Rome. I need to stop him.”
The ticket agent looked at her appraisingly, then reached for her phone. “What’s his name?” she asked. A moment later, her voice was echoing over the PA. “Paging Etruscan Airways passenger Jesse Palladino. Jesse Palladino, please report to a courtesy phone in Terminal A.”
Just then, Charlene arrived at Lucy’s side. “They won’t let you through?” she asked.
“No passport,” Lucy said.
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Charlene bonked herself in the head. “Anyway, I checked the monitors,” Charlene said. “His plane is boarding.”
“What if he’s on it already?” Lucy asked.
Charlene addressed the ticket agent. “Can we reach a passenger who’s on the plane?”
The lady looked doubtful. “Only for an actual emergency.” She glanced down at her watch. “Besides, by now the plane has probably left the gate.”
But Charlene, who never backed down from a fight, wasn’t about to wimp out now. “Probably?” Her nostrils flared grandly. “Can’t you tell for sure?”
The lady noisily clicked a few computer keys. “Flight 376 is listed as departed,” she said.
Lucy slumped against the counter. “Never mind,” she told Charlene. “We did our best.”
“Maybe 376 isn’t even his flight,” Charlene said. “Is there another flight to Rome tonight?”
“Not with Etruscan Airways,” the woman said. “Maybe you should try another airline.” And leave me alone, her expression said.
“He said he was flying Etruscan,” Charlene said. “And that it was a direct flight to Rome.”
“That must have been the one, then,” Lucy said sadly.
“Could you check the passenger list to make sure he got on board?” Charlene asked. “He might have gotten stuck in traffic,” she said to Lucy.
“Not likely,” Lucy answered.
“But possibly,” Charlene said.
“There was no traffic. Remember how quickly we got here?” Lucy said.
The woman looked back and forth between them, following their conversation, her gray hair so lacquered into place it didn’t move when her head turned.
“Let’s have the nice lady check anyway,” Charlene told Lucy.
Charlene’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on the ticket agent. “I’m not permitted to give out that information,” she said, her voice acidic. Then she looked past Charlene and Lucy to the handful of passengers who had gathered in a line behind them. “Next,” she called.
The ride back to campus seemed to take forever. Now that there was no need to beat the clock, Charlene was back to her usual self, driving in the slow lane and speaking in full sentences. “You could probably track down Nello’s family in Naples,” she said hopefully. “The Bertolini might have their number. Nello might know how to reach him.”
“Who are we kidding? He won’t want to hear from me.” Lucy flopped her head back, letting it rest against the vinyl seat. “He was so disappointed in me this morning.” She sighed. “Maybe we just weren’t meant to be.”
“You really believe that?” Charlene asked.
The reality of the situation—that she would never see Jesse again—hit Lucy like a cold ocean wave, making it hard to think or even breathe. She looked at her friend, panic in her eyes.
“It’s a long flight,” Charlene said. “By the time the plane lands, he’ll have had plenty of time to cool down. A few phone calls, and you’ll have his number.”
“This has been the worst day.” Lucy filled Charlene in on the conversation with her father.
“Your father won’t really make you drop out of Forsythe, will he?” Charlene sounded shocked. “After all that business about wanting you to go here in the first place?”
“He’s a big believer in keeping his word,” Lucy said.
“Where will you live when the semester’s over?” Charlene asked.
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “I‘ll figure something out.” All she could think of was Jesse flying over the dark Atlantic, believing she didn’t care enough about him to break up with Shane, getting farther away from her with each passing second.
Charlene stopped the car in the circle in front of Woodruff Hall.
“Thank you.” Lucy leaned over to give Charlene a hug. Whatever had been difficult between the two of them was now in the distant past. “I really mean it. What you did today was just…” She trailed off, unable to find the right words.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t catch him,” Charlene said. Then she chuckled. “I should have climbed over that ticket counter and put that woman in a choke hold.”
Despite herself, Lucy laughed. “You definitely could have taken her.” She released her friend, opened the car door, and stepped out into the night.
As Charlene drove off, Lucy waved good-bye. The campus all around her was eerily quiet for a Saturday; it seemed everyone but Lucy was off somewhere, partying. Lucy was feeling in her clutch for her key card when she heard steps behind her on the path. She whirled around to see someone tall and masculine, with dark hair and a long-legged stride, hurrying in her direction, his face obscured by darkness.
She held her breath. Could Jesse have missed his plane after all, either deliberately or on purpose? She thought of the other times he’d stepped out of the night to surprise her, times when she’d been more alarmed than happy to see him. If only by some miracle this was Jesse, she would run to him, throw her arms around him without reservation, and tell him how she felt, holding nothing back.
The guy drew closer, saw Lucy watching him, and shot her an overconfident smile. No, he wasn’t Jesse—not by a mile. She looked away quickly, fumbled with her key card, and stepped into Woodruff Hall’s lobby. It was empty except for the motherly guard behind the desk.
“You in for the night, sweetheart?” she asked Lucy. “It’s so early.”
“It’s too late for me,” she told the guard, and her words had the ring of an awful confession.
XXVII
On the opening night of the Forsythe University Players production of Rent, Lucy waited backstage, paralyzed with terror. To dispel the preshow jitters, Cleo, Matteo, and the other cast members were joking around, playing pranks on one another, while Lucy stood in the wings, trying to summon her inner downtown diva. Even her costume—black leather boots, skintight pants, and a sleeveless leopard-skin blouse—wasn’t helping. I should have dropped out of the show, she tho
ught, doing a nervous little dance in place. What if I ruin it for everybody else? Ever since that terrible phone call with her father, his words would echo in her ears at the worst possible times. In the middle of rehearsal, or at two AM when she couldn’t sleep, she’d hear them again: Yes, you’re moderately talented. Maybe somebody else would be happy to be called that, but not Lucy. She’d always prided herself on being truly talented—on being real Broadway material—but what if she’d been wrong? What if she seized up again and ruined the play? More than once she’d given serious thought to stepping aside and giving up acting, for good this time.
“You can’t do that,” Britt had told her over the phone, and then in person when she finally came back to school. “This play means everything to you. Now you want to throw it away?”
The only thing that had gotten Lucy through dress rehearsals had been Britt, Matteo, and Cleo urging her onward, telling her she was good, really good. Whenever she started to panic at the thought of opening night, Britt would urge her to take deep breaths, promising that everything would work out okay if she only believed in herself half as much as all her friends believed in her.
But Lucy worried, and not just about Rent and her acting abilities. She worried about what would happen when the semester ended and she had to find a job and move out of her dorm. And sometimes she worried about Jesse, and how she would never see him again. She’d taken Charlene’s suggestion and tried calling the Bertolini to get Nello’s phone number in Naples, but the desk clerk she’d spoken with had refused to give it out. Besides, even if she could have found a way to track Jesse down, what could she possibly say that would make up for her hesitation, her failure to choose him over Shane?
Jesse was gone for good, and Lucy knew she needed to get on with her life, and let him get on with his. But how could she when he kept making cameo appearances in her dreams? Over and over, she’d wake up and be forced to remember how she’d hurt him. Still, Lucy had managed to get through the last several weeks of school and rehearsals. She’d even convinced herself she would be fine once the play opened. But she hadn’t counted on her usual opening-night jitters turning into full-blown panic, the kind that closes over a person like a tidal wave, washing her lines clear out of her mind. Now she paced back and forth in the backstage shadows, too preoccupied to think how crazy she must look.
Cleo’s voice came from behind, startling her. “Hey, Luce. Why are you lurking here all by yourself?”
Lucy read concern in her friend’s warm brown eyes. “I’m just psyching myself up,” Lucy said. “Trying to become Maureen.”
“That’s what you’re doing?” Cleo sounded unconvinced.
Lucy nodded, a little too vehemently. “I always pace,” she lied. “It’s my preshow routine.”
“If you say so.” Cleo pointed to where Matteo was giving them both a little wave. “We’ll be over there if you need us.”
Lucy waved back at Matteo. “I’m fine,” she said. “I swear.”
But as the moments ticked away, Lucy realized she was distinctly not fine. She could hear the blood whooshing in her ears, could feel it speeding through her veins. There’s no backing out now, she told herself, too frightened to even pace anymore. Become Maureen, she ordered herself, picturing the downtown performance-artist diva she’d always wanted to be.
Just after eight, the play began. Lucy waited for her cue. Eyes shut, she prayed over and over again that the magic would somehow happen.
Surprisingly enough, it did. When Lucy stepped onto the stage, her walk wasn’t her own; it was Maureen’s slow, high-heeled strut. When she spoke her first line, her voice rang out to the back of the theater, and the play itself—the gritty, bohemian, East Village world of Rent—seemed to open its arms and gather her in, the way she’d desperately hoped it would.
When Lucy looked out into the audience, she kept her gaze above the heads of the crowd. Only once did she let herself scan the crowd for familiar faces. But she didn’t see a single face she recognized. Where was Britt? Where were Sarah and Glory? It hurt to know that for the first time ever, her parents weren’t in the audience, proud of her, wishing her well.
Don’t think about that now, Lucy commanded herself. Don’t lose focus.
One heartbeat later she was Maureen again, intent on reciting her lines and hitting her marks. The rest of the play passed in a flash. When the cast gathered onstage for the show’s final number, their voices blended and built to fill the theater. Lucy looked to her left and saw Cleo singing her heart out; she looked to the right and met Matteo’s eyes. This is my family now, she thought.
Only when it was all over and she was Lucy again, when the audience had jumped to its feet and was applauding, when she ran out, hand in hand with Cleo, for her curtain call, did she allow herself another sweeping look into the crowd. This time, she saw them in the center of the auditorium: Britt, Sarah, Glory, and even Charlene, all on their feet, applauding. Nearly swooning with relief, Lucy blew her friends kisses while the applause went on and on and on. And then, farther back, not far from the exit, she caught sight of a face she hadn’t dreamed she’d see in the crowd: her mother’s, smiling almost shyly.
Backstage, Lucy didn’t waste time changing out of her costume, washing off her makeup, or even chatting with her castmates. Though she was flushed, sweaty, and covered in goop, she dashed straight into the hallway where the audience was filing out and milling around. Still in Maureen’s high black boots, Lucy craned her neck to see over the crowd. She spotted her mother standing near the glass double doors, anxiously twirling her silver watch around and around on her wrist. When she glimpsed her daughter, her face lit up.
Lucy struggled through the crowd. “You came,” she said. And though she’d spent the last two hours projecting her lines to the back of the auditorium, her voice now emerged in a whisper.
Lucy’s mother flung her arms around her daughter. She smelled like Chanel No. 5, and the scent—so familiar from childhood—made Lucy’s heart twist with love. “I sneaked out. Your father thinks I’m at my book club.”
But you’re a grown woman, Lucy thought. You shouldn’t have to sneak out. You should be able to go wherever you want.
“He’ll come around sooner or later,” Lucy’s mother continued. “I’ve been planting the seeds, but he has to believe it’s his own idea. You know your dad.” She patted her handbag. “Besides, I’ve got a secret weapon now.” Her brown eyes twinkled. “I used my camera to take a video of you performing. You were so beautiful up there, sweetheart. And you did such an amazing job, really professional.” She brushed a stray curl out of Lucy’s eyes. “I’ll wait till the moment’s right and show it to your father. He’ll come around.”
“Will he?” Lucy asked. “Do you really think so?”
“Oh, honey,” her mother said. “I know so.” On tiptoes, she kissed her daughter’s cheek. “It’s so good to see you, Lu. I’ve missed you, more than you can know. But I need to get home. My book-club meeting usually breaks up by ten.”
As Lucy watched her mother walk away, tears filled her eyes. But then Cleo and Matteo ran up, laughing, engulfing her in a double hug. Before long, Britt, Glory, Sarah, and Charlene surrounded her, too, and Lucy was introducing Charlene to her castmates and suitemates and absorbing everyone’s congratulations, her heart swelling with their praise. Of course her friends would only say good, kind things about her; of course they weren’t objective about her acting. But in her heart of hearts, Lucy knew she’d done well. She believed—no, she knew—she was more than just moderately talented.
Lucy was glowing with pleasure when she happened to look up and see another familiar form. A clutch of vivid yellow sunflowers tucked in the crook of his arm, he took a step closer, his gaze darting from face to face, finally landing on hers.
It was Jesse. But how could it be? Lucy fumbled for words and, not finding any, threw herself into his arms and buried her face in his leather jacket.
“You’re really here?” she asked. “Te
ll me I’m not imagining this.”
Jesse didn’t answer, but she felt his warm breath on her neck and smelled crushed mint and almond mingled with the green, summery scent of sunflowers.
“Charlene said you’d gone back to Italy,” she said. “We tried to catch you at the airport.”
“You did?” Jesse’s dark eyes scanned the small crowd surrounding Lucy. He’s looking for Shane, Lucy realized. She opened her mouth, but before she could explain, Jesse was telling her how he’d meant to leave for Rome that night, how he’d gone to the airport and even passed through security, but at the last minute he couldn’t make himself board the plane. Instead, he’d caught a bus to his parents’ house in New Jersey. He’d holed up in his bedroom writing songs and trying to work up the desire to return to Europe.
“But I couldn’t go,” he concluded. “I had to stay until opening night, even if I was just some guy in the back row. Even if I had to see you with your boyfriend afterward. I had to be here, even if it hurt.”
While Lucy’s friends looked on as if this latest development was just a final, surprise act in the evening’s performance, she confessed how she’d broken up with Shane that very day, how she’d finally realized she didn’t love him and never would. “I wanted to tell you,” she said. “But I waited too long. And then you were gone.”
“Tell me now.” Jesse’s voice was husky.
So she did. “I’ve never loved anyone but you.” And then, not caring what onlookers would think, she wrapped her arms, crushed sunflowers and all, around Jesse’s neck. Losing herself in his kiss, she hardly even noticed when her circle of friends burst into a round of applause.
CODA
Florence
The Bertolini looked just as Lucy remembered it—the plush, cherry-red carpet, the old-fashioned light fixtures, and the brochures fanned out near the entry. When she and Jesse stepped up to the check-in desk, the woman on duty greeted Jesse like he was family returned from a long journey, exclaiming in rapid Italian. Jesse answered in only slightly less rapid Italian, with Lucy following along so intently she almost didn’t notice when they switched to English.