“I’m honored that you and Wolf chose me to write the score for this documentary. It is a dream come true in so many ways.”
“But…?” she prompted.
“But I’d like to write the rest of the score the same way I’ve written everything else so far. From my home studio. I’ll study the footage Wolf sends me so it’s just like I was in the room. But my best work is not done on the road, ma’am. I can’t give this score the full attention it deserves when my heart wants to be someplace else.”
He waited for her to respond, maintaining eye contact as she considered his request. His heart pounded in his chest and he thought he might be sick if she made him wait much longer.
“Who are they?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye.
He smiled, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “Her name’s Callie. She’s a librarian, actually, and a composer, too. And I can’t be without her for the next three months. Not if you want something other than sappy, depressed love songs,” he added with a self-deprecating smile.
She looked thoughtful. “Wolf seems to think it’s necessary for you to be on location with the crew.”
“I know. But I think I’ve proven that’s not true. Wolf’s process might work for some but not for me.”
“Hmm,” she hummed. “Do you know the only thing I have ever regretted about my career?” He shook his head. “It’s not the late nights or the long hours or the seemingly endless battles to fight. It’s never the times I spent working. It’s always the times I didn’t spend with my wife.”
She considered him again, that keen eye assessing him.
“I’ll make you a deal. Two days a month on the campaign trail—just our biggest and most important appearances. And the rest of the time you write from home.” He could hardly contain the joy bursting within him, fresh hope bubbling up for the first time since he’d walked out of Callie’s condo a week ago. She stood, and he did the same. “If you can continue to produce music like what you’ve sent me so far, then I don’t care where you do it from.”
He shook her hand more vigorously than was necessary, but he was too excited to care. “Thank you.”
She winked at him, a knowing smile on her face. “Go on. My scheduler will be in touch, and I’ll see you in Iowa.”
He thanked the senator again and practically floated back to his hotel room. Part one of his plan was complete. Now he just had to hope Liv came through with part two.
I’m coming for you, Calico.
Chapter 29
Callie was running late. She’d been planning the Fall Into Reading costume party at the library for the last four months and now she was going to miss half the damn thing because the stupid zipper on her stupid costume was stuck. That’s what she got for ordering a cheap pre-made costume from a discount Halloween store rather than putting together an outfit from thrift store finds like she usually did. But it didn’t matter now. The zipper wasn’t budging and there was no way the dress was going to fit over her head. She tore through her closet for something—anything—that would work. She couldn’t go to her own costume party without a costume.
At the back of her closet she found a dress she hadn’t worn in years—a faux-brocade dress with a full skirt and a low, ruffled neckline. In the center of the chest, a long-forgotten sticker had practically fused with the fabric:Hello, My name is: Bernadette Farthingworth.She fingered the lace at the neckline, remembering the last time she’d worn this particular dress. It would have to do. She was out of time and she couldn’t very well wear the only other costume in her closet (a sexy Daphne costume fromScooby Doo) to a work event.
By the time she pulled up to the library, the parking lot was full and golden light spilled from the tall windows across the pavement. She rushed up the front steps, practically running right into a group of teenagers in wizard robes on their way out.
The main hall of the library was packed with people of all ages. Children squealed with delight in one corner as they posed with giant cardboard cut-outs of superheroes and perused picture books and comics. Teenagers, too cool to show their enjoyment, congregated around the snack table, but Callie noted that most of them had a book or two tucked under their arms. At the far end of the room, adults browsed a selection of books, all discarded from the library’s collection, wrapped in brown paper with a teaser quote lovingly written on the outside beneath a sign that declared: “Blind Date with a Book.” Best of all, the boxes by the entrance collecting gently used books for donation to local senior centers and schools were overflowing.
“Hey, Callie! This is amazing!” her co-worker Kristin said as she pulled Callie in for a hug. “Where did you find a life-sized Frankenstein?”
Kristin gestured to a room just off the main hall that had been decorated like a haunted house, an homage to horror. Each reading room was decked out to represent a different genre. The sci-fi room featured a giant UFO hanging from the ceiling; the mystery room looked like the inside of a film noir detective’s office; and the romance room had been turned into a regency-era ballroom.
“That little thrift shop next to the diner,” Callie said. “He had a life-sized Dracula, too, but some teenager bought it before I got there.”
“Okay, and how did you pull this off,” Kristin said, pointing to the ceiling of the main hall. “I can barely get IT to update my antivirus.”
Callie glanced overhead, not sure what Kristin meant, and was met with a ceiling covered in stars. She gasped, turning around in circles to take it all in. The entire ceiling of the great hall had been transformed into a night sky, stars twinkling and a shooting star occasionally floating across the room. You could hardly see the drop ceiling tiles through the projected image.
“I didn’t,” she stammered. “I don’t know…”
She was so focused on the impossible image on the ceiling that she almost missed the buzz of her phone in her leggings pocket. With a glance to be sure no one was looking at her, she reached beneath her skirt and extracted the phone, her heart stopping when she saw it was a text message from Noah.
The photo was dim and from an odd angle but it was unmistakably a photo of a cluster of stars, edited to have a circle drawn around them.
Noah:I found a pelican.
Callie laughed as she typed out her reply.
