Authors: Michaela Wright
“Have Sarah call me directly. I’m extremely interested here, Georgia. Extremely interested. We’re talking seven figures.”
With that, he stepped back, giving a grand gesture of goodbye as Georgia tried desperately not to choke.
“No one is going to believe me. This is my life. I mean, are you kidding me?”
Cassie was over the moon, still reeling from her lunch with the great Germaine Ross. She fawned the whole ride back to the apartment – how perfect he was, how sultry his voice was, how spectacular he’d look dressed as a bootlegging pirate. Georgia just smiled quietly in the back seat of the sedan, smiling to herself.
She didn’t want to say what she was thinking out loud.
Still, as they arrived back at the apartment, Georgia couldn’t get a certain thought out of her mind - Germaine Ross might be dreamy, but he wasn’t her Douglas MacCready. She’d already met the real thing.
Georgia flinched at these words as they played through her mind.
Stop it, Georgia. You met him once, he never called. He can’t be your Douglas MacCready if the fucker never calls!
Even if he does have the greenest eyes you’ve ever seen.
Cassie disappeared into her bedroom, regaling her mother with news of her celebrity lunch date as Georgia slipped into her bedroom to pack for the flight home the next morning. She laughed several times, listening to Cassie retell the tale three more times before she hollered down the hallway at her. “This isn’t headline news, Cass. No one is supposed to know any of this.”
“Oh shit!” She heard Cass exclaim, but she then quickly recovered with more gushing over just how tall and dreamy Germaine Ross was in person.
Georgia didn’t begrudge her the appreciation; Germaine Ross was one of the finest examples of male beauty she’d ever encountered in person. Yet, the spell he cast over Cassie didn’t work on her. With each flirty look and witty bit of banter, Georgia simply smiled wider, not because Germaine had won her over, but because he didn’t compare.
He just couldn’t compare. What have you done to me, Garrett?
Georgia glanced at her phone – It was 7:45 PM. It would be before noon in Scotland.
Georgia listened to Cassie imitating Germaine’s accent, and pulled up the keypad of her phone. She typed from memory.
“Hello, you’ve reached Burns Book Shop, Inverness. Our hours are -”
Georgia’s breath caught in her throat. She’d heard that voice barely two weeks earlier, whispering soft nothings in her ear with the gentle rhythm of a lover. Hearing it again now nearly stilled her heart.
Stop it, Georgia. Chill out. Chill the fuck out!
Beep.
“Oh, shit. Hi. Hey. Um, this is Geo, err – this is Victoria Mason calling for Garrett MacCauley. My number is 617 – shit. I mean – sorry, it’s 978-555-2233. Oh, and that’s an American number, so it’s 1-978-555-2233. At least I think it is. I don’t know the country code, I’m sorry. Sorry! Alright, if you could have Mr. MacCauley call me back, that would be -” She took a deep breath, mortified with embarrassment at how poorly this message was going. “- that would be really great. Really great. Ok. Thank you.”
With that, Georgia hung up the phone and slumped down onto the bed, fighting the smile that pulled at her lips.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Garrett tucked the last box into the back of his hatchback. Fionnula was settling the few cardboard boxes inside, many of the older books being donated to the library. The two weeks following the papers being signed had been a whirlwind of movement – a closing sale on whatever books were left, a going out of business clearance after that, then finally hiring a lorry to come and take the last of the shelves and books away. Garrett had packed up the contents of his desk with more than a little nostalgia. He’d been aching to leave Inverness since his mother passed, but now that it was happening, it felt like having a limb amputated.
Fionnula stood in the doorway of the shop, looking into the darkened place. “Gonna be sad no having a book shop like this downtown anymore.”
The Burns Book Shop sign was no longer hanging over the window. It was packed up neatly with the last of the boxes in the hatch of his car.
“Aye, glad I won’t be here tae see what becomes of it.”
He closed the trunk of his car and began fiddling with his keys.
“Well, give us a cuddle then, before ye go?”
Garrett forced a smile and moved around the car to let Fionnula hug him. He wrapped his arms around the small woman, and felt his chest grow tight. Fionnula was a year older than his mum would have been had she lived to see the shop close. He fought to swallow the lump in his throat as Fionnula rubbed his back.
“Ye never heard from that Georgia, then, ae?”
Garrett frowned. “Nae, no word, sadly.”
“Well, keep tryin, yeah? Ye never know if one of the messages will get through.”
Garrett gestured toward the store. “I’ll have to. This was the only number she had for me.”
“Oh right. Reminds me,” Fionnula said, pulling a small scrap of paper from her pocket.
“What’s this, then?”
“Last few messages from the machine. Thought I’d clear it before we left.”
Garrett glanced down at the paper, doing his best to make sense of the woman’s scribbles. Her capacity for script was waning as the arthritis set in. He recognized many of the contacts – the post calling to confirm the mail being terminated, a salesman calling to pitch him some foolhardy security system alternative, and a strange word he couldn’t quite read.
“What does this say?”
Fionnula snatched her reading glasses from around her neck and took a closer look. “Ah, yes. That one there was some writer callin bout a signing she did. Sounded like she was havin a go. Woman couldn’t even remember her own number. Took her three tries to say the bloody thing. I just deleted it.”
Garrett closed his eyes. “What was her name?”
“Victoria, if I ken. Can’t rightly have a book signin without books, ae?”
Fionnula smiled wide at him, but Garrett felt so utterly defeated, he couldn’t even find the strength to be upset with her.
Georgia. He’d tried so many different ways to get in touch with her those past two weeks that he felt almost exhausted just thinking about it. Yet, here in Fionnula’s shaky script was Victoria Mason’s name. She had called and he still couldn’t reach her.
“Ye take care, now. Go do great things.”
He exhaled in a half laugh, trying to hide the emotion he felt. “Dinnae know about that, but I’ll take care.”
“Good then.”
With that, Fionnula turned away quickly, brushing her finger under eyes and headed past Costas, pulling her coat tight around her middle as she disappeared around the corner. Garrett piled into his car and took off down the road as though being chased.
The apartment was packed up, all his most important belongings now crammed into the tiny hatchback with him. Barry was already off in Thailand for some festival, and the only other person in Inverness he knew well was an ex-girlfriend he’d rather never see again. He could go back to the apartment, spend his last night in Inverness camping in his empty studio apartment, or he could hit the road now.
He turned his hatchback onto the A9 and headed south. The road was quiet, few cars to keep him company as he blasted out of town. The parked cars and tall buildings quickly gave way to dark fields and stone walls framing the sides of the road. He glanced into his mirror, watching the lights of Inverness in the distance.
Garrett thought about the last time he’d seen that view, coming home from St. Andrews in the middle of the night, barreling through the dark to get to Raigmore Hospital, praying he would get there in time to say goodbye to his mother. She didn’t die that night. She didn’t die for another two years, working in her little book shop with Garrett at her side until she couldn’t walk anymore. She finally passed a week later.
Garrett never went back to St. Andrews. Somehow, his Master’s Degree didn’t feel so important anymore.
He fiddled with the radio, searching for something to drown out these thoughts - these things that were battling for his focus, filling his chest until he felt he couldn’t breathe. He was no more than fifteen minutes out of town when he pulled over onto a side street, his vision growing blurry from tearing up.
Garrett parked the tiny car along the side of the road and slammed his back into the seat. He’d fight these feelings, damn it. He wasn’t going to let this get him. Garrett glanced at his cell phone – 10:04PM. His mother wasn’t around to call anymore, anyway. He turned to the passenger seat, the last box tucked in there by Fionnula before sending him on his way. Garrett took a glance inside and felt his ribs buckle at the sight of its contents. He fought off the emotion with a laugh, and pulled the coffee stained copy of
The Seafarer
from inside the box.
If an object could be treated with more reverence, he’d be surprised. Garrett ran his thumb over the warped edge of the cover. He’d wanted to read these books, but with his life imploding around him, he had little time to think, let alone read. Still, now was as good a time as any, he thought.
Garrett opened the front cover, running his fingers over the words, ‘To the Perfect Man,’ and began to read the first page. He could hear her voice, hear the cadence of how she spoke even in her written words. It made him smile. He quickly turned to the second page and a tiny flash of white slipped from the pages and onto his lap. He glanced down.
A white piece of notepad paper lay there innocently, the words Georgia Kilduff written across it in familiar handwriting, and beneath that, Georgia’s number.
Garrett snatched up the paper, holding it to the light to be sure of what he was seeing. His every muscle tensed and he couldn’t stop himself as he scrambled for his cell phone and dialed the numbers.
“American phone number, ye twat!”
He dialed again, and it rang once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello,” a rough voice growled into the phone.
“Ehm, sorry. Is this Georgia Kilduff’s number?”
“No, it ain’t! You know what time it is? This ain’t her number anymore. And it ain’t no fucking Victoria’s either, if you’s askin! I ain’t had this number more than two days and I’ve had two dozen of you assholes calling me! Don’t call me again!”
With that, the angry American woman growled to someone on the other end and the phone went dead.
Garrett sat there with his cell in his hand, the cherished piece of paper in the other. He swallowed, staring at the quiet phone. Then he chucked it into the dashboard with all his might, and with his forehead pressed to the steering wheel, wept on the side of the A9.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“You’re supposed to be talking me down, here,” Sam said, sipping gracefully at her glass of Pinot Noir.
She looked drop dead gorgeous in a long, black cocktail dress. Her hair was darker than Georgia’s, and stick straight, falling gracefully down her back. Dad was in another part of the house, regaling his guests with a tale of one thing or another as he always did. Georgia was dolled up for the occasion, a first for her. She’d worn a purple, portrait collared gown, something a posh creature of the 1950’s might’ve worn, and by Sam’s account, she looked like sex on legs. She felt like a slab of beef in a hot pan.
Georgia gave Sam a jovial glare. “You’re going to do great.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
Samantha Kilduff was twenty four hours from taking the bar exam, and despite being a genius, and a model student, she was scared shitless.
“Seriously, I need the vote of confidence. God, I wish Nana was here. I’d have her read my cards.”
Georgia smiled, remembering their grandmother, Minnie Longfellow Kilduff. She’d worn shawls and smelled of incense and patchouli, and often cooked up potions and soaps to solve their problems.
Georgia elbowed her sister. “I just did give you a vote of confidence! I can’t read your cards, but I can give you a dose of reality.”
“Totally, not helpful. And bull shit! You’re like Nana. Do some juju or something.”
“I don’t do juju.”
“Oh right. Everybody knows that everything you write comes true. Go write me into a firm or some shit. Be useful.”
Truman Kilduff sauntered into the room, throwing his arms wide to greet various guests as he made his way through the house. This party was meant to be thrown in Georgia’s honor, but the truth was Truman had a gorgeous house, and his new wife Stephanie was always ready to hold a gala therein. Truman was wearing a navy blue suit, light blue shirt, and a burgundy tie. He greeted various gray haired peers from business or neighborhood living. Georgia and Sam hunkered down for most of these parties, hiding from the ‘dignitaries’ by becoming one with the wallpaper. It worked when they were children, but now that Georgia’s face was in the pages of Entertainment Weekly, it was becoming a bit harder.
“Georgia, sweetheart. There are some people in the living room I’d love for you to come say hello to.”
“Do I have to?”
Truman gave her a stern smile. “Well, I’d certainly appreciate it.”
“I’ll send her your way when I’m done with her,” Sam said.
Truman shot Sam the same stern smile. “Is she chewing your ear off over the exam that she’s going to ace tomorrow?”
“But of course. Drama queen,” Georgia said.
Sam shook her head. “I’m seriously freaking out. It’s not funny.”
Truman turned back for the double doors that led into the study. “Come find me when she’s done.”
Georgia nodded and watched Sam down the rest of her glass of wine in one go. “And this fucking party is giving me hives.”
“Samantha, watch your language.”
They both jumped at the sudden arrival of Stephanie as their father’s forty something year old wife made her way through the room with a woman in a mother of the bride type dress.
“So fucking sorry, Stephanie. I’ll try harder.”
Stephanie glared at them both and led her friend out of the room, before Georgia started laughing.