Part 45 (2/2)

”Whoop! I didn't quite hear any of that, Isabel. You're crackling in and out now. Can you speak up?”

”I'm in PENNYROYAL. GREEN. By the TREES.”

”You're . . . utting . . . out . . .”

”PENNYROY-”

Alas, the connection was toast.

”Americans,” snorted a woman strolling by. ”Always shouting about something.”

She irritably flicked the sleekest sheet of blond hair Isabel had ever seen over her shoulder, so dangerously s.h.i.+ny she could have blinded fighter pilots with it, and Isabel stepped aside lest she be lashed like a lazy peasant.

She bit back a wicked urge to shout an apology after the woman.

Or perhaps she ought to yank her own hair from its chignon and give it a violent retaliatory flick: En guarde! Surely a few of her forebears had dueled?

But her own hair was curly. It would likely merely snap back and hit her in the face. In her experience, surrendering to impulses generally did metaphorically just that. Which was how words like ”irrepressible” (the magenta hair episode) and ”alarming” (the self-administered tattoo) had ended up in her case file. Neither word was entirely fair or accurate, though she'd thought ”irrepressible” was funny because it made her sound like a tap-dancing Broadway musical star: ”the Irrepressible Isabel Redmond!”

In truth, incidents like those were a bit like exhaust from an internal combustion engine. The inevitable byproduct of ruthlessly stifling nearly everything she thought and felt. No mean feat, given that she was her mother's daughter.

She'd figured out by the time she was nine years old that she was to be at the mercy of subjectivity and other people's adjectives, and she would just have to wait it out.

Her jewelry designs now benefited from her years of ruthless self editing: She trans.m.u.ted wildness into exquisitely simple shapes, seductive curves, startling materials, sharp points. (All words, coincidentally, Mark had used to describe her.) A number of exclusive boutiques in the Bay Area had begun to sell her work. She was now making enough money to get by without a day job.

The blonde woman tossed a final pretty, quelling frown over her shoulder at Isabel. She swished her tall, willow-switch slim self up the street, her hair swinging in metronome counterpoint to the little shopping bag swinging from her hand.

An unmistakable bag.

Isabel went still.

Only graphic design nerds (and Isabel was one of them) knew the narrow deep green stripe edged in hair-fine silver was meant to represent the view of the sea as you looked out over the Suss.e.x downs. But everyone knew what those tiny silver letters-P-O-S-T-L-E-T-H-W-A-I-T-E-'-S-kerned across that green line really meant: I am made of money.

Postlethwaite's fifteen stores worldwide curated the simple, the exquisite, the startling, the confusing (also words Mark had used to describe her), and catapulted artists and designers into stardom.

Olivia had bought the very gold watch now tucked into Iabel's pocket from the first Mr. Postlethwaite here in Pennyroyal Green.

And even though Isabel was certain she currently couldn't afford to buy a single thing in there, she intended to convince them to sell her jewelry.

Or her name wasn't Isabel Redmond.

She wanted to be brave. The way Olivia was brave.

Isabel had read that diary in one marathon sitting, awaking groggily the next morning, eyes sandy, fully intending to text Olivia to see if she was free for lunch. That's how vivid and familiar and endearing her voice was.

She was stubborn, very funny, self-righteous, fiercely smart, pa.s.sionate.

A lot like Isabel.

But the differences between them where what bothered Isabel a good deal.

She might have in common with Olivia an urge to leave and the nerve to do it.

But Olivia's courage to leave everything she knew behind had been rooted in love. For her family. And for Lyon.

Her love for Lyon had all but set the pages of the diary on fire.

Whereas Isabel moved easily because she'd always been unmoored, and because she wanted to leave before she was left.

She wasn't certain this counted as courage.

She was somehow certain that diary held some secret she needed to know.

Either that, or it had given her yet another reason to leave.

She was suddenly absurdly conscious of her heart knocking hard at her breastbone, like a door-to-door salesman who knows, just knows someone is home.

”Olivia,” she whispered. ”I'm here. You walked right on this spot on your wedding day. Remember?”

She felt a little foolish. But only a little.

She didn't have to edit anymore.

She transferred her phone into her left hand and looked about surrept.i.tiously. She was utterly alone at least for the moment. So she surrendered to an impulse.

She cautiously, gently, laid a hand against the tree. As if feeling for its heartbeat.

She exhaled and closed her eyes. She couldn't decide whether she felt grounded or dizzied. Perhaps both.

She stood like that for perhaps thirty seconds before a motorcycle roared up the road.

She squeaked and leaped backward.

And her phone shot from her hand like a squeezed bar of soap.

She whirled to watch it sail through the air in what felt like excruciating slow motion, right on schedule to be run over and crushed to bits.

She hunched, as if she herself were about to be crushed, slapped her hands over her eyes, and waited.

The murderous crunch never came.

But over the hammering of her heart, she thought she heard the motorcycle cut its engine.

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