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“Ah, shoot,” Elise said. Her heart darkened slightly. “I don’t want him to be unhappy.”
“Happiness is all about perspective,” Mia affirmed. “And I’m sure he can wake up every day and find some kind of happiness. I just have to tell you. You seem to have found a much better brand of happiness in Michigan’s Wayne Tanton.”
Elise’s cheeks heated up as she glanced back toward Wayne, who seemed to be in a heated discussion about the NBA.
“Girls, I should really tell you what I’ve been up to,” Elise said slowly.
Mia and Haley exchanged glances.
“I mean, it’s pretty clear, right?” Mia said, tilting her head back toward Wayne.
Elise chuckled. “He’s a byproduct of a bigger game.”
“Huh.” Haley gripped the stem of the wine bottle and poured herself another hefty glass. “Okay. I guess I’m ready to hear whatever your scheme is...”
As Elise told them, her best friends went through stages of shock, of awe, of love, of regret. They pined over the romantic affair between Dean and Allison Darby and dropped tears when they heard of Alex’s cancer and Mandy’s days spent at the hospital.
“It’s all so complicated,” Haley breathed. “And you’re right smack-dab in the middle of it. You had no idea.”
“It’s pretty strange, isn’t it? That you discovered all this because of a film about time travel?” Mia said. “It’s like you were able to dig into your mother’s past and find out exactly what she was up to.”
“Do you think she wanted you to find that diary someday?” Haley asked.
Elise considered this with a sly smile. “It’s difficult to say. But I don’t really like to think of her as being so, so far away. I can still feel her in me. I still see her in Penny’s performance on stage. And strangely, I can feel her crazy lust for life in all of my recent decisions. The old Elise might never have made it work with Wayne. I think the old Elise would have been a tiny bit too scared. But now? Now, I’ve made up my mind to spend a lot of my time out east. I write better there. Ilovebetter there. And I can’t give that up.”
Neither Haley nor Mia was entirely thrilled with this news; in retrospect, Elise imagined that she wouldn’t have loved it, exactly, if they’d been like, “Cool! Have a good time!” without any kind of regret or pause.
Still, in time, both of them announced that they would find ways to come visit her.
“As soon as the snow melts,” Haley said, wide-eyed.
“I second that,” Mia returned.
“And I’ll need you girls’ to help on my script,” Elise said. “Once it sells, they’ll need rewrites, and I don’t trust anyone else with my vision. That’ll mean frequent Skype calls, trips back to California, all before filming begins.”
“You know we’ll welcome you back any damn time you want,” Haley said. Already, her words slurred together, and her eyes were glassy with tears. “You’re our girl, Elise. We love you through every decision, through every screenplay, in all walks of life.”
