had been funny the first time, while we passed around two stolen-from-home cans of Narragansett Tall that tasted like watered-down skunk. The rest of the group waited in the car while Finn walked me to the door. When he kissed me, somebody leaned on the horn.
On Monday, Finn carried my books to my classes. He called me after school. And the next weekend, he ditched his friends and borrowed his own family car and let me pick the movie. He was nice. Attentive. A little bit boring maybe, but who was I to talk?
I threw my yogurt into the trash. So hard to remember: Did this go on for a few weeks? Longer? At one point I broke his heart, but how?
Yikes. By telling him I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I cringed as I remembered delivering this, the lamest of brush-offs. On the phone, no less, holding the receiver to my ear and stretching the long curly black telephone cord until it reached the privacy of the bathroom, because I didn’t have the guts to say it in person.
Looking back, the truth might have been that he’d never stood a chance. From the start I’d thought there must be something wrong with him because he seemed to like me so much. Maybe steady kindness was too subtle for a young girl to appreciate. But now, all these long years later, it sure as hell looked like some kind of wonderful.
How lucky I was that Finn Miller had emailed his way into my life again. How incredible that our worlds had imploded simultaneously,that the universe was giving us this opportunity to rise from the rubble and build something better together.
Everybody knew that old magnetism never died. You could walk into a room decades later and still feel the pull. Physical attraction was chemistry, science. The shape of a face, the pitch of a voice, the scent of your perfect match.
I’d been such a little fool all those years ago. But I was older and wiser now, and I knew what was important in a relationship—kindness, stability, invulnerability to women named Crissy .
I’d appreciate Finn Miller the second time around. And when we saw each other again, this would be our chance to finally get it right.
The only thing standing between us was getting from Point A to Point B. Anxiety gripped my chest as I tried to picture making it all the way from the suburbs of Atlanta to the suburbs of Boston. I could only hope that love really did conquer all—including fear of highways.
To: Melanie
From: Finn Miller
Subject: Re: Re: Reunion
Save the last dance for me.
CHAPTER 10
To: Melanie
From: B.J.
Subject: It’s Never Too Late to Make a Reunion Time Capsule!
Do inform your classmates in advance so they can bring an item that represents an important memory. Think: never-returned textbooks, old report cards, record albums and 8-track tapes, as well as condoms (unused only, please) and other prom memorabilia.
Don’t overlook the importance of choosing the right container for your time capsule. Even you and (most of) your aging classmates will hold up longer than a flimsy cardboard box. Should one of you have a professional connection, a simple casket works perfectly. Leave open and place in a prominent location at the reunion.
Instead of dreaming about Finn Miller, I dreamed about artist and former nun Corita Kent, who created the famous LOVE postage stamp. In high school, or maybe it was junior high, she became my hero when she designed the rainbow of swashes that was painted on one of the enormous storage tanks along the Southeast Expressway and changed the commute to Boston forever. Not only was it pop art and the coolest thing evah , but rumor had it that she’d snuck the profile of Ho Chi Minh into the blue swash as a protest against the Vietnam War.
She died when Trevor and Troy were still little, but in my dream she showed up at my house in Georgia and asked me to touch up the tank for her.
She was wearing her nun’s habit again. I wondered if it was a last-minute religious reconversion before she died, but I didn’t
On Monday, Finn carried my books to my classes. He called me after school. And the next weekend, he ditched his friends and borrowed his own family car and let me pick the movie. He was nice. Attentive. A little bit boring maybe, but who was I to talk?
I threw my yogurt into the trash. So hard to remember: Did this go on for a few weeks? Longer? At one point I broke his heart, but how?
Yikes. By telling him I wanted to spend more time with my friends. I cringed as I remembered delivering this, the lamest of brush-offs. On the phone, no less, holding the receiver to my ear and stretching the long curly black telephone cord until it reached the privacy of the bathroom, because I didn’t have the guts to say it in person.
Looking back, the truth might have been that he’d never stood a chance. From the start I’d thought there must be something wrong with him because he seemed to like me so much. Maybe steady kindness was too subtle for a young girl to appreciate. But now, all these long years later, it sure as hell looked like some kind of wonderful.
How lucky I was that Finn Miller had emailed his way into my life again. How incredible that our worlds had imploded simultaneously,that the universe was giving us this opportunity to rise from the rubble and build something better together.
Everybody knew that old magnetism never died. You could walk into a room decades later and still feel the pull. Physical attraction was chemistry, science. The shape of a face, the pitch of a voice, the scent of your perfect match.
I’d been such a little fool all those years ago. But I was older and wiser now, and I knew what was important in a relationship—kindness, stability, invulnerability to women named Crissy .
I’d appreciate Finn Miller the second time around. And when we saw each other again, this would be our chance to finally get it right.
The only thing standing between us was getting from Point A to Point B. Anxiety gripped my chest as I tried to picture making it all the way from the suburbs of Atlanta to the suburbs of Boston. I could only hope that love really did conquer all—including fear of highways.
To: Melanie
From: Finn Miller
Subject: Re: Re: Reunion
Save the last dance for me.
CHAPTER 10
To: Melanie
From: B.J.
Subject: It’s Never Too Late to Make a Reunion Time Capsule!
Do inform your classmates in advance so they can bring an item that represents an important memory. Think: never-returned textbooks, old report cards, record albums and 8-track tapes, as well as condoms (unused only, please) and other prom memorabilia.
Don’t overlook the importance of choosing the right container for your time capsule. Even you and (most of) your aging classmates will hold up longer than a flimsy cardboard box. Should one of you have a professional connection, a simple casket works perfectly. Leave open and place in a prominent location at the reunion.
Instead of dreaming about Finn Miller, I dreamed about artist and former nun Corita Kent, who created the famous LOVE postage stamp. In high school, or maybe it was junior high, she became my hero when she designed the rainbow of swashes that was painted on one of the enormous storage tanks along the Southeast Expressway and changed the commute to Boston forever. Not only was it pop art and the coolest thing evah , but rumor had it that she’d snuck the profile of Ho Chi Minh into the blue swash as a protest against the Vietnam War.
She died when Trevor and Troy were still little, but in my dream she showed up at my house in Georgia and asked me to touch up the tank for her.
She was wearing her nun’s habit again. I wondered if it was a last-minute religious reconversion before she died, but I didn’t
Similar Books
