of them, “maybe we can have those two sit at another table? Instead of just the one guy sitting by himself. We’re trying to make it real. Plus, look how flash they’re dressed, like they’re already in costume.”
“Fine,” Pagaro said. “Call Florence. Ask her to bring the paperwork right away.” He addressed Ashton and Zakiyyah. “What do you say—want to be extras on your friend’s movie?”
“I dunno,” Zakiyyah said. “Who’s got that kind of time?”
“Oh, let’s do it, Z,” said Ashton. “We can always go to Disneyland tomorrow.” He smiled at Mia. “You two want to join us?”
“Disneyland? Ashton, are you out of your mind?” Mia said.
“You’ll be fine, we’ll put you on It’s a Small World with Z,” Ashton said. “I’m not telling you to go on the Tower of Terror, am I?”
Across the table, Julian and Mia gazed tearfully at each other.
“Florence! Sometime this century, please! She’s got one job—casting. Why isn’t she here doing it? Does she even understand the concept of time? Florence!”
In you is every woman I have ever loved.
Julian reached for Mia’s hand, looking at her with all the emotion there ever was on the prefab streets and painted sets of this fakest and realest of cities. Their time for irresistible grace had come. And they were both in place to receive it. Turned out there was something stronger than death. Their brief ecstasy had been remade into enduring glory. Love is the only perfection, Mirabelle, Julian wanted to say but was too overwhelmed to speak, and it wears the shiny robes and swaddling clothes of immortality.
Their story continued. It wasn’t finished. Julian knew all too well: only the storyteller was left behind, only his telling of it was finished. Yes, the curtain fell, but the story itself never ended, the story of what it was to live a life, and to love another.
That’s it, ladies and gentlemen! Thanks so much for joining us!
Make it real.
Make it last.
Make it beautiful.
Acknowledgments
I spent so many years alone in my room, working on making the End of Forever books come to life that I forgot how many people were outside that room, advising, cajoling, inspiring, bolstering, believing. I’d like to gratefully acknowledge their help and support.
Many thanks:
To Carl, my first husband, for introducing me to London and for giving me my first child, Natasha, when we were both so young.
To Natasha, who has brought me so much joy and who has grown up into such a remarkable young woman, who, among many other things, kept the running lists of hundreds of titles we considered for the EOF books, and who very early on said, “I love Julian,” when she read The Tiger Catcher, and I knew then we were going to be okay because she is a tough critic.
To my last child, Tania, who kindly allowed her mother to drive her to school every morning at 7:30 and therefore get to her studio early; otherwise these books might have taken another five years to finish.
To my sons, Misha and Kevin, for banding together and keeping the household machinery running and the jokes flowing.
To Lee Sobel, for his friendship and advice in good times and dire, and to Declan Redfern, for his invaluable counsel.
To Jennifer Richards of Over the River PR and to Fiona Marsh and Kate Appleton of Midas PR, my U.S. and U.K. publicity teams, for their tireless efforts on behalf of the End of Forever books.
To Lorissa Shepstone, my website, graphics, and design guru, who’s created some real artifacts from my imaginary places.
To Nicole and Sissi, my constant devoted readers and friends, for running my fan club, my social media support groups and for being my cheerleaders both online and in life.
To Zakiyyah Job, a beautiful young woman who appeared on my driveway in 2015 as if by magic because she loved The Bronze Horseman and lent me her name for End of Forever, enriching my fictional world by her real-life presence.
To Kasia Malita, my Polish translator extraordinaire and my friend, for mailing me chocolates to keep me going, and for weeping when she read A Beggar’s Kingdom and calling me “a sorceress.” I hope she means the good kind.
To Shona Martyn, my publisher for fifteen years, who said to me in 2016, “You write it however you can, and whatever it will be in the end, we will figure out a way to publish it.”
To Michael Moynahan, who in 2011 spent considerable professional and personal resources to start me on this remarkable journey.
To Brian Murray—who made it all possible.
To Kevin, who for the last five years, the last 25 married years, the last 38 “best friends” years walked every day of both the real and creative life with me, which so often amounts to the same thing. Kevin is the one who said the books are everything. Just have faith.
Sometimes I joke with my readers that the only true happy ending to a Russian is when at the end of her journey, she finally learns the reason for her own suffering.
Well, these three End of Forever books are the reason and the end of the story of the last five years of my life.
I hope they bring you some happiness.
Paullina
2019
About the Author
PAULLINA SIMONS is the author of Tully, The Bronze Horseman, and other beloved novels. Born and raised in the Soviet Union, she immigrated to the United States in the mid-seventies. She has lived in Rome, London, and Dallas, and now lives in New York with her husband and a dwindling number of her four children.
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