Chasing Paris Page 7

  He rolled out of bed and stretched. From the pocket of the shorts he hadn’t bothered to change the night before, he pulled out the note Kim had written to him.

  “The planets are aligned,” he muttered.

  “Are you talking to yourself again?” Chris mumbled, eyes closed and half-asleep.

  “Yeah,” Will said, scratching his head and then shaking it. “Remember when we saw Kim last night? Right before that, I ran into her, Jocelyn, and some guy Jocelyn is dating. It was awkward, and I guess Kim felt bad about it.” He waved the napkin in the air. “She wrote me a note, like she was trying to make me feel better. Go back to sleep.” Will ripped the top layer of the napkin off and stuck it into the Renaissance poetry book resting on his nightstand. He began walking toward the living room.

  “Hey,” Chris called, his eyes still closed.

  Will stopped in the doorway and looked toward his roommate.

  “You and Jocelyn broke up months ago,” he continued. “Who cares?”

  “I didn’t say I cared. I was just telling you what happened.”

  Chris sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Okay, buddy. Whatever you say. Sounds good.” He looked at the clock. “You want to pack up and head home as soon as possible?”

  Will nodded. “The sooner the better.”

  NINE

  T

  hree hours later, Will and Chris were on the freeway heading north toward their hometown. Friends since junior high, they played on the same soccer teams for six years, they took the same high school classes, and when they both received acceptance letters from UCLA, they immediately knew they would live together the following four years. They met Brian and Ralph in the dorms their freshman year, and soon their duo became a foursome. But with every trip they made back home for summer vacation, the foursome reverted to a duo, and Will and Chris became the Northern California boys they were at heart.

  When Will found out that Amy was from Northern California as well, he was relieved. He knew there was a good chance she was from California as most UCLA students were, but he never expected her to be so close to home. Returning the book was going to be easy.

  Of course, if they made it home. With the way Chris was driving—weaving in and out of slower cars—Will wasn’t sure they would make it. After a couple hours, they were past the Los Angeles traffic and past the point of being nice on empty stomachs. San Jose was still hours away, and Will was getting tired of yelling at Chris to slow down. He suggested they stop for food before they went to blows over Chris’ reckless driving.

  A half hour later, they pulled off the freeway and into the parking lot of their favorite fast food restaurant: In-N-Out. They hadn’t spoken since Will suggested lunch, and their silence continued while standing in line, while ordering food, and while finding a spot to sit. Once in their booth waiting for food, Will grabbed his cell phone and tapped its screen a couple times to access his email.

  “What are you doing?” Chris asked, finally breaking the silence.

  Eyes on his phone, Will answered, “I emailed Amy’s sister this morning. I’m looking to see if she emailed me back.”

  “You what?”

  Will continued watching his emails load. “Professor Hollings said that Amy’s sister was a kindergarten teacher. So I searched the internet for kindergarten teachers with the last name Winthrow. I found one in the Los Gatos school district. I figured there was a pretty good chance she would be Amy’s sister. How many Winthrows teaching kindergarten could there be, especially in the Bay Area? Anyway, all the teachers had contact information listed on the school website, and so I sent her an email about Amy’s book. It couldn’t hurt to try.”

  “What did you say in the email?”

  Will put the phone on the table. “She didn’t write back.”

  Chris grabbed it and tapped the email icon. Under his breath, he read, “Dear Ms. Winthrow, I have a book that your sister Amy lost. I’ve been unable to locate Amy directly. Would you mind forwarding her my contact information and letting her know I would be happy to return the book in whatever manner is most convenient for her? Thank you for your time, Will Chase.” Chris closed the email and slid the phone across the table to Will. “Not a bad idea.”

  “It’s a school day, so I figured she’d check the account sometime soon.”

  Over the restaurant loud speaker, Will and Chris heard their order number called.

  “I’ll get the food if you get napkins and ketchup,” Chris said.

  They both slid out of their booth, returning moments later with trays piled with food and condiments. The sight of burgers and French fries made Will’s stomach growl.

  “I’m surprised you’re doing this,” Chris said, continuing the conversation from before. He bit through his Double-Double Cheeseburger. “Returning the book, I mean.” He chewed slowly. “I can’t remember the last time you followed through with one of your dumb ideas.”

  Will smirked at his own cheeseburger before taking a bite. “I know. I told you that I was going to turn things around this year.”

  “I thought you meant you were going to get better grades. I didn’t think you’d grow a conscience.” Chris pushed a couple French fries into his mouth. “You owe me twenty bucks for that book, by the way.”

  “If you had sold that book back to the bookstore, you would have gotten a dollar. I just bought you lunch. Let’s call it even.”

  “Fair enough.” Chris swallowed. “So what happens if Amy’s sister writes you back and puts you in touch with her? What are you going to do then?”

  “What do you mean? If I get in touch with her, I’m going to give the book back. That’s it.”

  “But what are you going to say? Hey Amy, I’m this weirdo who tracked you down because I wanted to give you a book. Here you go, and have a nice day. I mean, really, what will you say?”

  Will dipped some French fries in ketchup. “I haven’t gotten that far.”

  “And what if she did mean to sell the book back?”

  “I haven’t gotten that far yet, either. That would be pretty anticlimactic.”

  “No kidding. You would have grown a conscience for nothing.”

  “You keep mentioning my conscience,” Will said, “but you know, I don’t see this as really being about having a conscience. This is more of like, I don’t know, like doing something out of the ordinary.”

  Chris looked at Will through narrowed eyes. “I bet you have an ulterior motive somewhere. You think she’s going to be cute or something, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, Chris. That’s right. I’m doing this on the off chance that she might be cute. We never see cute girls at school, so this could be my only opportunity to find one.”

  Chris crammed the rest of his cheeseburger in his mouth and said, “That’s exactly what I figured. Now stop talking and finish eating. We have to get back on the road.”

  Will polished off his burger in two more bites. They cleared their table and left the restaurant. Back on the road, Chris stopped cutting off cars while driving, and Will finally relaxed.

  As the afternoon wore on, he checked his email more frequently, thinking that Amy’s sister might write back after her kindergarteners went home for the day. A little after three o’clock, a reply appeared in his inbox.

  “She wrote back,” Will said. “Amy’s sister wrote back.”

  “What’d she say?”

  He opened the message and read, “Hi Will—Are you from the coffee shop on the strip? Amy’s been looking for a book she lost there, and she’ll be happy to get it back. Her cell phone number is 408-555-9987. If you text her and let her know when you’ll be working next, I’m sure she’d be happy to swing by to pick it up. Thanks, April.”

  Will reread the message silently. “Huh.”

  “Sounds like she loses a lot of books,” Chris said.

  Will nodded. He copied Amy’s phone number into a text and typed Hi Amy—my name’s Will, and I found your lost book. Want to pick it up at the coffee shop? I can bring it by
whenever.

  “What’d you write?” Chris asked.

  Will read him the message.

  “You’re going to let her think that you’re talking about the book she left at the coffee shop?”

  Will shrugged.

  “Probably better this way,” Chris continued. “You come off as less of a weirdo. How do you know which coffee shop to go to?”

  “There can’t be too many in the area.” He paused, thinking. “I can only think of one on the main strip in Los Gatos. Can you think of more?”

  “I can’t even think of one. The only time I’ve been in Los Gatos is at night when we’re going to bars. Not coffee shops.”

  Will stared out the windshield, still thinking about North Santa Cruz Avenue, the main thoroughfare through downtown Los Gatos. “If there’s more than one, then I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. I’ve figured it out so far.”

  “Are you going to drop it off there for her? Or are you going to set up a time to meet her?”

  “I don’t know.” He paused. “I kinda want to meet her.”

  “Of course you do. After all this, I almost want to meet her. Almost.”

  Will’s phone beeped as a new text came in. He looked at it and smiled. “She said: Really? Great—thank you! I can swing by after work today about 5:30. Do you work there? Will you be in today? If not, I can come by any day this week. Thank you again.”

  Chris looked at the clock on the dashboard. “Huh. Five-thirty. That’s just about the time we’ll be back in the Bay Area. You’re going to want to go straight there, aren’t you?”

  Will grinned. He began typing, reading the message as he went. “I’ll be around. It’s no problem for me to get the book there by 5:30.”

  Chris shook his head.

  TEN

  LOS GATOS

  A

  my stepped into the coffee shop, and seeing that there was no line, walked up to the counter.

  “Hi Beatrice,” she said to the girl at the register. “Someone named Will contacted me today and said that he had a book for me. I don’t know if he works here or not, but he said he’d bring the book by. Have you heard anything about that?

  Beatrice looked under the counter and shook her head. “I haven’t heard anything, and I don’t see anything under here for you. Not yet.”

  Amy looked at the oversized Victorian clock on the wall. She was a couple minutes early. “In that case, I’d like to order a non-fat chai and a large cup of whatever the most popular drink is this time of day.”

  “Okay,” Beatrice said slowly, punching buttons on her computer screen. “A non-fat chai and a large decaf iced vanilla latte.”

  Amy paid for the drinks, and when they were ready, took them to the outdoor patio. She sipped her chai and looked across the street. The sun felt warm on her shoulders, and she wished her job didn’t keep her inside all day. In college, she spent as much time as she could outside when studying. Something about the fresh air and laughter of passersby kept her focused. Little of that existed in her office building.

  Just as she did whenever she had a free moment, she pulled two pieces of paper from her bag and read them.

  To my granddaughters—

  My greatest sadness is in not knowing you. This I cannot change, but I do hope that you can forgive my absence. I have loved you from afar, and I have cherished the pictures and stories about you that Eva has shared with me. Please accept the gifts coming to you as a piece of my heart.

  Elizabeth Hathaway

  She set the note on the table and stared at the street, focusing on nothing in particular. Then she looked at the second piece of paper.

  Dear Mr. Winthrow:

  I have neither the time, nor the energy, nor the desire to retrieve the books your phone message detailed. Should you feel it necessary to carry out the terms of Ms. Hathaway’s will, you may bring the books to my Monterey residence yourself. Otherwise, feel free to dispose of them by any means you deem fit.

  Very truly yours,

  William Strath

  She laid the second note next to the first. When read separately, the messages were intriguing. Read together, they were troubling. The pain in each—sorrow in one and anger in the other—seemed to bleed across the paper, and Amy wondered if the notes were simply variations of the same bleeding pain.

  She pulled out a pen and her notebook and drew circles across a blank page. Circles within circles, circles over circles—circles that began to look like figure eights, then like lopsided j after j after j. Two lines down, she wrote, Why is Billy so mean?

  Inside the coffee shop, Will approached the counter.

  “Hi,” he said to Beatrice. “I’m returning a book to someone who comes in here often, I think. Her name is Amy—”

  “She’s outside,” Beatrice said, nodding toward the back door. She leaned over the counter to get a better view of the patio and pointed. “There she is. Right in the middle, on the far side. The one writing in a notebook.”

  “Thanks.” He walked to the door and surveyed the groups of people sprinkled across the patio. People chatted and laughed at the surrounding tables—and there she was, in the middle of the chatter and laughter, silently scribbling away. Professor Hollings’ description had been right on. Her hair was light and curly. It fell halfway down her back in controlled disarray with a few bobby pins pulling it away from her face.

  Will approached, suddenly feeling awkward and uncertain.

  “Amy?”

  She looked up, sliding her notebook over the correspondence from Billy and Lizzie. Not so casually, she dropped her pen and spread her hand across the paper she had been writing on. Will opened his mouth to say something but stopped short after noticing her fingers stretched over the notebook. He wondered what she was hiding—

  “Will?” She smiled.

  The sound of her voice tore his eyes off the table, and he smiled back at her. “Yes, hi.”

  She motioned for him to sit down. “Thank you for bringing my book back. I thought I left it here, but the owner said they hadn’t found it. By the way,” she pushed the vanilla latte toward him, “I don’t know if you drink coffee, but this is for you. It’s decaf since it’s so late in the day. Thank you for going out of your way to bring the book to me.”

  Will sat down. “Oh, thanks. You didn’t have to do that. And no problem about the book.”

  He took a sip of the drink and said to himself, okay, this is it.

  “Here you go.” He placed the book on the table and pushed it toward her.

  Amy stared at it. “This isn’t—” She paused. One, two, three seconds passed as she tried to register the picture of Queen Elizabeth on the front cover. Will watched her, reading the changing expressions on her face. Confusion came first. Then recognition. Then disbelief. “No way,” she breathed, picking it up. “This is my book.” She thumbed through it, and then looked at Will, disbelief still coloring her face. She snapped the book closed, held it to her chest, and leaned toward the table. “I was expecting something completely different. Where—? How—?” She paused, poised to finish her question, but no words came.

  “I should explain,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “I’m a student at UCLA. Last quarter, my roommate bought your old book for an English class—a class with Professor Hollings, actually. I’m an English major, and one night he needed my help on a paper he was writing for Hollings. When I opened your book, I saw all the notes you had written in the margins—”

  Amy felt heat rush to her face. She closed her eyes, cringing, but she didn’t say anything.

  “And I sort of figured you didn’t mean to sell it back to the bookstore. Of course I didn’t know whose it was at the time, but still. Whoever sold it back, I figured, probably did it by mistake. I mean, I took Hollings’ 151 class myself, and I know those weren’t notes on his lectures.”

  “Oh no,” Amy said, the heat on her cheeks increasing as she closed her eyes tighter. She dropped her forehead to the table’s
metal surface. Curls fell around her, covering the notebook she had so intently tried to hide when Will first approached. When she looked back up, her face had peaked in its redness. “How awful—all the awful stuff I wrote in there. I was afraid someone would see it, but I didn’t think it was possible for someone to bring the book back to me.” She dropped her head to the table again and groaned.

  “You didn’t mean to sell it back, did you?” he asked.

  She shook her head, rolling her forehead across the table. “No.”

  Will hadn’t expected her to be so embarrassed. He didn’t know what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t this.

  “Is it okay that I brought it back? I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable or anything.”

  Amy looked up—past Will and down the street—her eyebrows high and her abashed smile wide. “Of course it’s okay you brought it back. Thank you,” she said. “Now, luckily, no one else will see it. I was so, ugh, I don’t know. Ridiculous.”

  “You—ridiculous?” Will said. “No. Not ridiculous.” He sipped his latte and then chuckled. “What you wrote made more sense than half the poetry in that book.”

  Amy scrunched her nose, still avoiding his eyes.

  “Do you still write?” He glanced down at her notebook.

  She placed the book on the table. “That wasn’t really writing. I don’t know what it was. How did you find me?” The redness on her cheeks had softened to a mild pink. She drew her eyes toward him, feeling better now that some of the color had drained away.

  Will smiled. “I can’t take all the credit for that. Finding you was my friend Kim’s idea—”

  “How many people did you show the book?” Just as quickly as the red in Amy’s cheeks faded, it returned.

  “Oh, just Kim. No one else. My roommate who bought the book didn’t crack it open all quarter, not even to read the poetry. I’m pretty sure Kim and I were the only ones who saw it. And I only showed her because I ran into her on campus while I was reading your notes—”