But there was no answer. I glanced at the phone, the visible message another variation of Let’s-talk-about-this-please-call-me.
I drove back to the city, drawing up a game plan to avoid Miles. It involved parking a block away, pulling on a hoodie I’d swiped from my dad’s closet, and slinking in through the back door. I could hear the clatter from the kitchen as I skimmed up the back stairs, but no one poked their head out as I made it up to the second floor. Chloe’s parking space was empty, so I had the apartment to myself. I wasn’t in the mood to talk about this anymore. Or maybe ever again.
I’d tucked the letter into the drawer of my nightstand, so I grabbed it and my song notebook and headed back out, not drawing a deep breath until I’d made it safely to my car. I reached the causeway in record time, Miss Mary’s letter staring at me from the passenger seat the whole way.
What could she possibly have needed to tell me that required three months of time and distance before she was ready for me to hear it? What had she seen coming?
The question had me pushing my car faster toward my parents’ house, and when I pulled into the driveway, I didn’t even bother getting out of the car before I slid my thumb under the seal and pulled the letter out.
Seeing the elegant cursive I knew so well from her “Daily Special” chalkboard made me homesick for Miss Mary.
July 15
Hey, honey.
If you listened to directions, it’s been three months since I closed my café and left to enjoy time off with Douglas. I promise you, I know already that these have been some of the best three months of my life, and I haven’t even lived them yet. Don’t believe me? Check my Facebook and see if I’m lying. I bet you I’m having more fun than a decent woman should.
Anyway, if my Facebook proves I’m telling the truth and I know a little bit about what may be coming, it’s not because I fool with the Sight. I don’t have it. What I do have is an abundance of common sense and a pretty good read on human nature.
You are going to fall in love with that boy again, Ellie. It’s written all over your face, and I know as I write this that you don’t see it coming yet, but I know as sure as you’re reading this that it’s already happened.
Here’s what you may not know: that boy is already half gone on you, and unless I miss my guess—and I won’t—he’ll be as crazy for you as you are for him.
This is going to go one of two ways. Either you’ll let yourself feel it, and by the time you read the advice I’m about to give you, it will be a moot point. I hope that’s what happened.
But I’m afraid the second possibility is more likely, which is that you’re going to get in your own head too much, and then you’ll get in your own way. In some ways, your tendency to overanalyze has made you successful at work. But in your personal life...it holds you back.
Don’t let it. If you’re reading this and the two of you have not gotten together, or even worse, got together and fell apart, I want you to listen to me: Miles is the goods.
Go back and read that again.
Read it one more time.
He is a good man. Steady and true, like my Harold. He’s more guarded than people realize, but I’ve seen glimpses beyond his impeccable manners and charm, unguarded moments when he watches you, or when I can tell he’s drifted on a daydream as he rearranges my café into the club of his dreams.
Don’t get in your own way on this one, Ellie-girl. You deserve to be happy, but you get in your own way because of how this very same man burned you when he was a boy. But I believe he has done as the apostle said and put away his childish things. The lesson you took from back then was to only put your trust in things you can quantify and measure. But that’s not how love works.
And this is love. Or it will be if you let it.
Let it, Ellie. I love you like one of my grandkids, and I’m telling you, even though I love