The Museum of Heartbreak - Meg Leder Page 0,18

after a few more seconds of pretend conversation, I said good-bye and handed the phone back to Grace.

Miles immediately grabbed it, listened for a second, and held it out to the couple. “For you. Emily Dickinson doesn’t just call anyone, you know?” he said. “This is an honest-to-god once-in-a-lifetime moment. Only one dollar!”

Grace slid a neon-green flyer across the table to me. “You should check out our journal, Nevermore. . . .”

Miles nudged her. “Gracie, Gracie, tell this guy Emily is worth one hundred million dollars, let alone one.”

She waved good-bye to me, and I smiled, folding the flyer carefully and placing it in a safe spot in my bag. Maybe I would check out the literary magazine. Maybe I could write something, or maybe they needed readers.

I could do things without Eph and Audrey.

I thought of Audrey on the Ferris wheel, her face glowing, her surprise that something so terrifying could be so lovely.

Party invitation

Convivii invitatio

Saint Bartholomew’s Academy

New York, New York

Cat. No. 201X-6

THE NEXT MONDAY AFTERNOON, THE miracle happened.

I opened my locker, and there, on the top of my Spanish book, was a small, folded white square.

I read it, and read it again.

Sunlight burst through the ceiling and illuminated the hall, in certified angels-singing-above-a-manger miracle style.

It was an invite to Keats’s First of October party that Saturday.

The invite was on smooth white card stock, and the instructions—address, time, BRING ONE GUEST ONLY, COSTUMES MANDATORY—were perfectly minimal, crisp capital letters stamped into the paper. Only the top left corner was dinged up, like it had gotten snagged in my locker slot, and there was a smear of blue ink on the back. But it had found its way to me.

Keats had invited me to his party.

I’d won the Willy Wonka Golden Ticket.

Keats invited me to his party.

I wanted to hug the acne-ridden freshman passing by; I wanted to dance with the football dude laughing at a dirty joke across the hall. I wanted to burst into a full musical number, complete with a choir of singing unicorns and my cat, Ford, tap-dancing across the hall with a top hat and a cane. I wanted to kiss a baby on the cheek, draw chalk tulips on the sidewalk, and buy grape Popsicles for everyone in the city of New York.

Keats invited me to his party!

My veins were filled with tiny carbonated bubbles, joyfully rising, making my throat tickle not unpleasantly. I wondered how he knew where my locker was. I wonder if he’d asked Audrey or Eph.

Shoot.

Eph.

Saturday.

Coney Island.

But Eph would understand; he’d have to. We’d been to Coney Island a few times already during the summer. And when I told him how much this meant to me, how fate was finally giving me a chance, he’d get it. In fact—stroke of genius—why not bring him? The invitation called for a plus one. Problem solved! Everything was turning up roses. Acres of roses without thorns, the smell so heady it made me dizzy.

I sprinted to Eph’s locker, hoping to catch him before he left for the day.

When I rounded the corner, I skidded to a stop.

A tiny girl with white-blond dreadlocks and clunky steel-toed combat boots was standing across from him, pointing aggressively at his chest. “You knew I wanted to go to that!” She stopped and saw me, folded her arms defensively in front of her. “Is this her?”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, backing up, raising my hands in front of me.

Eph was leaning against his locker, his slouch a mix of irritated and resigned.

“Autumn,” he said. “There is no her.”

The girl was still shooting me a stink eye, but her eyes were also welling up. I remembered meeting her briefly in Central Park a few weeks ago, how she was sitting in Eph’s lap, her legs tangled in his, her laugh like bells. Now she looked both furious and broken, wiping her sleeve across her face.

“I’ll leave,” I said quickly.

“We’re pretty much done here anyway,” Eph said wearily.

She whirled back around, trying to stifle a sob. “You don’t know a good thing when you see it, Ephraim O’Connor. And one of these days, you’re going to end up”—and here she pointed at him with each word, like she was holding a sword—“totally fucking alone.”

She picked up her backpack and hugged it to her chest.

“Autumn,” Eph said, trying pull her back toward him.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” she shrieked, and I cringed; people around us were stopping to watch. She pushed her way through them, and everyone started to move again like nothing