Meeeeeee-OW!
Blinking groggily, I saw that Bernadette was calling.
“Hello?” I croaked.
“Where are you?” she screeched. “It’s eight o’clock and I’m down in the lobby where you said you’d meet me. The festival starts at nine o’clock and we have our first panel right after that and the author bus is coming any minute and there’s no sign of you.”
Kittens! “I’ll be right there.”
I leaped from the bed and into the shower, then threw on makeup and whatever clothes I could find that were the least wrinkled, which turned out to be a black sundress topped with a jean jacket, last night’s mules, and sunglasses to cover the terrible job I ended up doing on my eyeliner in my haste to apply it.
When I got downstairs, I saw that everyone was in the dining room enjoying what appeared to be a full buffet breakfast, complete with eggs, bacon, waffles, mimosas, and an enormous fruit salad that included fresh mango. I knew this not because I had some, but because Kellyjean, who looked bright as a newly gathered bouquet of wildflowers, called out as soon as she saw me, “Oh, Jo, I’m so sorry I forgot to wake you! But you just have to try the fruit salad. The mango is so fresh!”
In response I could only shake my head—my hair was still wet from my shower; I hadn’t had time to dry it and so had again pulled it back in a ponytail—poured coffee into a togo cup, then grabbed a chocolate croissant from a basket of baked goods, noticing that Frannie had been wrong: they did have bagels on Little Bridge Island, and they looked just as good as bagels from New York.
“There she is,” Garrett cried when he saw me. He had on his cargo pants again, along with a T-shirt that read Dark Magic School Grad, and Crocs. The man was wearing Crocs to an event at which he was a paid speaker, and he wasn’t doing a cooking demonstration. “Good morning, sunshine!”
I wanted to tell him to shut up, but that seemed unnecessarily rude. Instead I added cream and sugar to my coffee and mumbled, “Sorry I’m late,” to Bernadette, who looked fabulous as always in a tiger-striped shirtdress along with her dagger necklace and black leather booties, her purple hair standing in carefully gelled spikes.
“It’s okay.” Bernadette, organized as ever, had a coffee to go in one hand and the book festival guide open in the other. “Although by rights I’m the one who should have had trouble getting up. It’s five in the morning in San Francisco right now. But anyway, here’s the lowdown. You and I are doing a panel on female empowerment in the children’s novel. From Little Women to Teenage Assassins in Space, How Young-Adult Literature Focused on the Female Point of View Has Developed and Changed Through the Years. Molly is moderating. This should be a breeze. We’ve done plenty of panels just like this before. How do you feel?”
I assessed myself and was surprised by the answer. “You know, it’s weird. I don’t feel that bad, actually. Maybe it’s the fresh sea air.”
“Or the fact that you finally told Will Price where to get off.”
“Well, I don’t think I’d go that far.”
“Wait.” Bernadette eyed me. “You didn’t tell Will to go screw?”
“I mean, kinda. But he basically apologized before I got the chance.”
“Oh, right. The ‘I was going through a difficult time’ apology. Did we figure out what the difficult time was?”
I pulled out my phone. “No. I texted Rosie last night to see if she knew, but she hasn’t written back. It’s a bit early for her, and also the weekend, so I don’t know if—”
“Good morning.” Frannie came sailing up behind us looking as if she’d just had her hair and makeup professionally done, wearing all black except for a red scarf tied jauntily around her neck, a to-go cup of what I knew would be jet-black coffee in her hand. “I can’t wait to hear you two speak. Saul and I are really looking forward to it.”
I smiled at her. Frannie dragged Saul to every author’s panel at every book festival or con they attended, even though he was only expected to show up for the ones at which he was a panelist. Frannie was extremely supportive of other authors, and Saul was extremely supportive of Frannie.
“I hope you’re going to come to my panel, too.” Garrett had crept up with the many things he was carrying with him to the festival, which for some reason included his fishing pole, the festival swag bag, and the ukulele in the case I’d seen him pick up on the airport tarmac. “Kellyjean and I go on right after Bernadette and Jo. We’re doing World Building: Making the Magic Happen.”
Barf. Magic, again?
“It’s going to be so good.” Kellyjean drifted over, wearing another floaty maxi dress, but this time with more sensible shoes, having apparently learned her lesson, and carrying an enormous straw beach bag along with an equally enormous straw beach hat. “I can’t wait to hear more about the Dark Magic School. But they don’t really practice dark magic, do they, Garrett? Because you know children really need to be learning that what they cast out into the universe will come back at them, times three.”
Garrett laughed. “That’s only in cheesy teen witch movies.”
Bernadette and I side-eyed each other. We both knew this was the wrong thing to say to Kellyjean, who took her magic very seriously.
“Of course that’s not just in movies,” she cried. “I hate to think what kind of negative energy you’re out there teaching kids to draw to themselves with your books.”
“Oh, wow.” Jerome came up behind us, holding a coffee and looking mildly excited. “I see there’re already sparks flying between two panelists and the festival hasn’t even officially begun. This is going to be some day.”
Silently, I agreed with him, but I didn’t want to add any more fuel to Garrett and Kellyjean’s fire. Instead I took a bite of my croissant, relieved to see that the author bus was pulling up outside. “Oh, look,” I said. “Here’s our ride. Let’s get going.”
But my relief turned to another feeling entirely when the doors to the minibus slid open to reveal that the driver this time wasn’t Molly or her husband, but someone I recognized instantly by his overlong curls, broad shoulders, too-small mouth, and night-dark eyes.
“Good morning,” Will said cheerfully from his perch behind the wheel.
I stood there frozen, my coffee in one hand and croissant in the other, staring up at him. What was happening? Was I still asleep? Was this a nightmare … or a dream?
No. Definitely not a dream.
Because even in my dreams I wouldn’t have pictured a bus driver who looked as delicious as this. Unlike Molly, Will filled the seat, looking large and absurdly competent for someone I knew perfectly well didn’t make a habit of going around driving mini-shuttles in his daily life.
Still, he had the sleeves of the pale gray button-down he was wearing rolled up like he was just some ordinary transit worker, driving his daily route—though those rolled-up cuffs revealed muscular forearms that I knew had become toned from regular workouts in his home gym, not hauling the luggage of passengers.
To my astonishment, he was smiling. Not the fan-friendly smile I’d so often defaced in airplane magazines, but a smaller, less assured smile that seemed to be saying, Hi. I know this is awkward, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’m hoping this is all right. Is this all right?