Page 82 of Never Your Valentine

“I can’t eat,” I say, throwing off his hands. “My card was on TV! The art. The words. Truly Penrose showed everyone. She made Kimmel laugh. She said my name.” I gesture wildly toward my cards, my computer, my mess. “I have so much to do.”

“You still have to eat.” In two strides, Grant is standing in the kitchen, looking into the fridge and then the cupboards. “How about toast and eggs?”

“Yes?” I won’t taste them, but he’s right. I should eat. “I’ll make coffee. No, I don’t need coffee. I’m already buzzing.”

Grant puts down the frying pan. He takes my shoulders again and steers me to a kitchen chair. “This is going to be a long day and who knows when you’ll be able to eat again. So sit. Call June. Put her on speaker so I can talk to her too. But please, don’t do anything else until I’ve fed you.”

Chapter 32

Grant

I’m shoveling out the side lot where Annabelle and I park our cars. I don’t mind shoveling in the coldest part of winter, when the snow is all powder and easy to move. But in March the snow is heavy enough to break your back. I chip away at it a bit at a time.

I’m more than halfway through when Annabelle comes out to tell me that she’s been invited to Los Angeles. Someone from Western Greetings saw her card on Kimmel, which led them to her website, which lead to a job offer.

“My very first designs were modeled after cards from Western Greetings,” she says. “And now they want me.” She’s bundled in her parka, her boots dusted white, her breath fogging the air as she talks. She holds her phone like evidence.

She’s been famous for a week. It started with the celebrity gossip sites and then spread to mainstream magazines and newspapers. Two other greeting card companies have been nibbling at her, but this one comes with a contract.

“Los Angeles.” It comes out like I’m saying “Mars,” or “Atlantis.”

“They want to fly me out,” she says. “Tour the facility. Talk numbers.”

“That’s big news,” I say. It’s the kind of thing you say when you’re being careful not to say anything else.

“They can scale.” Annabelle sounds like she’s practiced this speech. “Printing, distribution, licensing. I can’t do that on my own.”

“I thought you liked working for yourself.”

“It’s not about me. It’s about my cards. I want more people to see them. I want them to be loved by the people who receive them.”

“People already love them. That’s why Western Greetings wants to buy you.”

“You mean, buy my designs.”

I pause, shovel blade resting against the ground. “If they think they can make money off your designs, why can’t you make money off your designs?”

“Because it doesn’t work like that,” she says patiently. “Not at that level. Cards from Western Greetings are everywhere. Walgreens. Barnes and Noble. Small gift shops.”

I can’t argue with that. Not without becoming the guy who wants to make her smaller so she fits into his life. I refuse to be that guy. The thought of her leaving makes me feel like I’ve slipped under lake ice, but I’m not a man who tells a talented woman to pass up a real opportunity simply because it inconveniences him.

I shovel again. The rhythm steadies me.

“Anyway,” she says to my back. “It’s just a meeting. They might not like me.”

They’re going to love her. Everyone does. She’s like the sun rising. Inevitable. Annabelle exists, therefore Annabelle is loved.

“I fly out of Marquette on Tuesday,” she says. “They’re paying for everything.”

Of course they are. Los Angeles is welcoming her to the land of palm trees and swimming pools while I’m trying to move enough snow so I can drive six blocks to the hardware store.

She nudges my arm. “Say something.”

What should I say? Don’t go? Stay here with me in this town full of almost, where everyone knows everyone, and winter can last six months, and we accidentally fell into whatever this is between us? Maybe I could remind her that lakes are better than swimming pools. I could tell her that she’s never tasted anything like a cherry picked ripe off a tree. I could say that nobody in Los Angeles knows how much peanut butter to put on her toast, or why that joke about Kermit the Frog gets her every time. They don’t know that she dissolves into color and light when she’s drawing, as if she’s one with her creations.

Or I could keep my damn mouth shut and let her live the life she’s always wanted.

“You ever been to L.A.?” I ask.