“Why, if it isn’t little Marcy Hanlon, as I live and breathe.”
Marcy looked up from her breakfast in the Hanlon House dining room on Friday morning to see Mrs. Pendleton Barclay, Endicott’s society grand dame, smiling down at her. Okay, well, not so much smiling down, since Mrs. Barclay probably didn’t even top five feet these days, but she was smiling. She was a study in pastels, from her yellow top and green sweater to her blue cat-eye glasses and pink hair. Marcy smiled back at the vision. Everyone in town had a soft spot for Mrs. Barclay, even the ones who’d been absent for years, like her.
“Hi, Mrs. Barclay, how are you?” Marcy replied.
“I’m fine, dear. Just surprised we haven’t run into each other before now. I was hoping to get to speak to you.”
“Well, this is a busy time for Endicott, after all,” Marcy replied. “And for you, too, I imagine, what with the Galaxy Ball tonight.”
The ball tonight, she echoed to herself. The one she and Max were supposed to have attended together. Not that that was going to happen now. Not that anything more between them was going to happen now. Or ever.
The older woman glanced meaningfully at the empty chair to Marcy’s right, then back at Marcy again, silently angling for an invitation to join her. The last thing Marcy wanted at the moment was to have to feign cheerfulness when her life was going down in flames around her...again. She still hadn’t quite processed everything that had happened between her and Max this week, still hadn’t been able to figure out how everything had gone so terribly wrong. And she still didn’t know what to do about any of it.
Even so, she swept her hand to the right and said, “Do you have a few minutes to join me?”
Mrs. Barclay’s smile was dazzling. “I’d love to. Thank you.”
Marcy still remembered the big bash Mrs. Barclay threw at the last Welcome Back, Bob Comet Festival fifteen years ago, and how much fun it had been for the youngest generation of comet kids to be invited to such a swanky event. Although Marcy’s family might have been the wealthiest in town, her parents hadn’t entertained very often, and when they did, they never included the Hanlon offspring. Maybe Mrs. Barclay’s house hadn’t been as large or as old or as stately as the Hanlons’, but it had been every bit as luxurious. And it had been far more welcoming, with personal touches everywhere, and a whole aura of warm invitation the Hanlons’ house had lacked. She remembered the big ballroom, its ceiling painted with a mural of the cosmos, Comet Bob front and center, and how she and her friends Amanda and Claire had sat at a table on one side, taking it all in.
Mostly, though, Marcy recalled looking at Max, who’d been sitting with Felix and Chance and Chance’s older brother, Logan. She’d never seen any of them in suits before, and Max’s had clearly been a hand-me-down from a cousin or friend, because it hadn’t fitted him at all. Not just in size, but in mien, either. As handsome as she’d thought him in it, ill-fitting or no, Max just wasn’t the suit-wearing type. Not then, not now. It had somehow seemed wrong back then, seeing him in something that just wasn’t...him.
She remembered again how he told her he always thought she was perfect. Something that wasn’t her, either. They’d both made mistakes about each other—in the past and now. But where she was at least willing to try to do whatever it took to move forward—because she very much would have liked to move forward with Max—he couldn’t get past the fact that she wasn’t the perfect paragon of his dreams. And perfect was something Marcy would never be, even if she wanted to try.
He’d told her he loved her Wednesday night. She knew she had heard that correctly. But now she realized it wasn’t her that he loved. He loved the idea of her that he’d created and nurtured in his head since they were kids.
Mrs. Barclay scooted forward in her chair just as a passing busboy approached, and she called him over by name and asked if he wouldn’t mind very much bringing her another cup of tea, please. He nodded with a smile and told her he’d be right back, then went off to fetch one. The boy looked to be about fifteen. Marcy wondered if he was a comet kid who would be attending the ball tonight.
Mrs. Barclay smiled at Marcy and, as if reading her mind, she said, “That’s Dante. He was born the last time Bob came around. He’ll be at the party tonight.”
“Mrs. Barclay, I think you must keep track of every kid in town who’s born in a comet year,” Marcy said. “I remember when I came to your party last time, you knew every single one of us by name.”
“Well, I’ve been here for seven of Bob’s visits,” she said. “You might say I’m his official registrar at this point.”
Marcy remembered Max telling her the town had celebrated Mrs. Barclay’s ninetieth birthday in June. Ninety was divisible by fifteen. That meant Mrs. Barclay—
“Yes, I’m a comet kid, too, dear,” she said, reading her mind again. “Except in my day, we called ourselves ‘children of the comet.’ I guess that got too old-fashioned-sounding, though. Who knows? In another ninety years, comet kids will be calling themselves something else more suited to the times.”
Marcy was smiling now, too. “It never occurred to me that you might have been born in a year of the comet. I don’t know why. It makes perfect sense, though, why you’ve always thrown the party and had us all over. It’s nice of you.”
She waved a hand airily. “It’s nice of all you young people to humor me.”
Dante returned with her tea, told Mrs. Barclay he was looking forward to tonight, then returned to his duties. As she unwrapped her tea bag to dunk it in the water, she eyed Marcy pointedly.
“You’re coming tonight, too, yes?” she asked.
Marcy had scrapped her plans to attend the gala last night, the minute she’d seen the way Max was looking at her after she called him a bigot. Which maybe had been a little too harsh on her part, but she hadn’t been able to help it. He was a bigot of sorts, turning his back on her because she strayed from his expectations and preconceptions of her and wasn’t—gasp—perfect. Maybe he was right that she hadn’t seen him as honestly as she should have. But she realized that now, and she was working on fixing it. But he hadn’t seen her as honestly as he should have, either. And he wouldn’t even admit it or try to work on fixing his views. So, no. There was no reason for Marcy to go to the party tonight. The last thing she wanted was to see everyone excited about the wishes they’d just made or the ones they’d made last time and how they’d come true. Marcy’s wish wasn’t coming true. There was no way it would now, with things being the way they were between her and Max. Bob had let her down in a big way. There was nothing for her to be celebrating tonight.
“I haven’t decided yet,” she said, dodging the question, for now.
But Mrs. Barclay would clearly have none of it. “What? Why not? You have to come. All the comet kids and children of the comet will be there. Some have come from literally the other side of the world to be here.”
Bucky Klopnik, Marcy concluded. She’d heard earlier this week that her former classmate was calling Australia home these days.
“I know, but—”
“No buts,” Mrs. Barclay said decisively. “You’re coming.”
In spite of all the ickiness that had been coiling inside her for two days, Marcy smiled. “Yes, ma’am,” she replied. But she still wasn’t sure what she would do.
“Now then,” Mrs. Barclay said, “tell me how your family is doing. I haven’t heard a word about your mother or father for years. Or your brothers. None of us has. It’s like they’ve fallen off the face of the earth.”
Which was exactly how they all wanted to keep it, Marcy thought. She quickly gave Mrs. Barclay the highlights—the ones that didn’t include her father’s indictment, conviction and prison time, and focused instead on her parents’ retirement in Panama—and told her where her three brothers had landed and what they were doing.
“And how about you, dear?” Mrs. Barclay asked. “When is your next book coming out?”
It was a question that had come up every time she’d seen an old acquaintance in passing this week, but Marcy still had no idea how to answer it. There was a part of her that had hoped by coming home to her roots for the festival and reliving what had been one of the few highlights of her youth, she might be inspired in some way, and that ideas and words would just come flowing into her brain. There must be as many stories in the community right now as there were people, and she’d been vaguely optimistic that at least a few of them might find their way into her brain for her to write about. But her idea well had been drier this week than it had been in her entire life. She was beginning to think she just didn’t have any stories left to tell.
“I’m kind of on hiatus,” she told Mrs. Barclay evasively.
Mrs. Barclay seemed way more interested in that statement than she should have been. “Really? I was always under the impression that people who wrote books did so because they couldn’t not write books. As if it were an obsession of sorts.”
“It was, in the beginning,” Marcy admitted. “But everyone needs a little break from their livelihood sometimes. I’ll get back to it.”
Eventually, she added to herself. Probably. At some point. Whenever her damn muse felt like coming back from wherever the hell it was muses went when they wanted to torture their creators. The little jerks.
“Well, I hope you come back to writing soon. I’ve very much enjoyed your books.” She arrowed her silver eyebrows down a bit. “Although I thought the last two could have used a little...polishing.”
And poof went Marcy’s delusion that maybe her readers had been able to see past the lack of Marcella Robillard in the stories and still enjoy the books.
“They were still good,” Mrs. Barclay quickly reassured her when she must have detected Marcy’s disappointment. “Just not quite...you.”
Not quite you. It was a phrase that had been tumbling through Marcy’s head a lot this week. Probably because it was so meaningless. She didn’t even know what was supposed to be her. Who was she? Marcy Hanlon, Midwestern teenager? Marcella Hanlon, urban party girl? Marcella Robillard, continental novelist and viscountess? Marcy Hanlon Robillard, washed-up everything? Or maybe she was just some combination of all those identities. Maybe she was none of them.
And why did it matter, anyway? She would be leaving Endicott in a matter of days. She could go anywhere she wanted to go, be anything she wanted to be. Just what she wanted—another chance to reinvent herself again. Maybe this time, it would stick.
Then she realized she didn’t want to reinvent herself again. She’d started kind of liking herself this week. She’d liked how right it felt being back in Endicott. And she liked how she’d felt whenever she was with Max. She felt like she belonged here. This week was the first time in a long time she’d been comfortable, truly comfortable, anywhere. She’d felt happy this week. Relaxed. Pleasant. Mostly because of Max, but not entirely. Endicott had been her home longer than anywhere else. It was the place that formed her. It was the only place that had ever actually felt like home. Even with the not exactly ideal family life she’d grown up with, this town was still the only place where she’d been happy. She didn’t want to leave now.
But how could she stay? Even if she wasn’t broke, she couldn’t live where she would see Max on a regular basis, knowing how much he hated her and how much she lo—How much she cared for him.
“Well, I won’t keep you, dear,” Mrs. Barclay said as she set her empty mug on the table. “I just wanted to say hello and catch up a bit.” She stood, then tucked her chair back under the table. “And to remind you that I’ll see you tonight at the gala.” She smiled. “You have a wonderful day, Marcy.” And then, for reasons Marcy couldn’t begin to understand, she added, “And bring that nice Max Travers with you.”
Mrs. Barclay laughed lightly and shook a finger when she saw Marcy start to deny their involvement. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said without letting Marcy speak. “I saw you two together at Mr. Aizawa’s talk on Tuesday night, and you both looked just as adorable together then as you always did whenever I saw the two of you at the library when you were in school. You two always just seemed so perfect together.”
And then, with a wave, she was turning and making her way out of the room, leaving Marcy dumbfounded. There was that word again—perfect. And it made no more sense coming from Mrs. Barclay than it had when Max said it last night.
Max couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so nervous. He never got nervous. About anything. Even things most normal people got nervous about—public speaking, flying, dentist appointments, the menu at the Cheesecake Factory—didn’t bother him at all. Yet, tonight, standing in a gorgeous house with his two best friends since childhood, staring out at a crowd of perfectly nice people, many of whom he called friends and acquaintances, Max felt like he was going to throw up. Because the moment he entered Mrs. Barclay’s ballroom, his gaze had immediately lit on one member of that crowd in particular—Marcy Hanlon, who was standing less than half a room away with her old friends Amanda and Claire, chatting with much animation, as if no time at all had passed between the three friends.
And she was wearing a blue dress again, this one slim and figure-hugging and made of some silky fabric that left her shoulders bare. She was as beautiful as she had been the last time he’d seen her in this room, fifteen years ago. Back then, she’d had her long hair twisted up on top of her head, and she’d been wearing makeup. He’d never seen her in makeup before that night. Or so dressed up. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her. She’d just been so perf—
No. Not perfect. Beautiful, yes. Dazzling, yes. Kind, smart, funny, yes. But not perfect. He had to stop thinking of her that way.
“Dude, is that Bucky Klopnik?” Chance asked beside him, pulling him out of his thoughts. “I was wondering if he’d make it.”
Chance had brought as his dates for the party tonight his niece and nephew, but they were happily ensconced in the children’s room with the other kids of guests, all of them contributing to a papier-mâché solar system that would be revealed at the end of the night. Felix had brought an actual date, his elusive—and very interesting—neighbor, Rory Vincent, who he was suddenly introducing as Rory Venturi for some reason he said he’d explain later, but, whatever. Max had no idea how the two of them had gone from cool acquaintances to clingy lovebirds within a matter of days, but...
Oh, wait. Maybe he did know that. He was just trying not to dwell on it at the moment. Especially not with Marcy in the room. Not even noticing him.
Anyway.
“Holy crow, Bucky came all the way from Australia for this?” Max asked, trying to at least pretend he was keeping track.
“Yeah, didn’t you hear what he wished for?” Felix asked.
“Something about revenge, I think?” Max said.
“Oh, yeah,” Chance assured him. “Remember, back when we were in middle school, and Gordy Wooldridge swindled Bucky’s mom out of her late husband’s life insurance and disappeared, to never be seen again?”
Max nodded. “That guy was such a prick.”
“Yah, well, Bucky wished Gordy would come back to town this year, turn himself in to Judge Cecil, repay his mom every penny he stole from her, plus interest, and that he’d do it all wearing nothing but a neon green G-string and a sign on his back that said, ‘Kick me, I’m scum,’ and that all he would have left to his name would be a Hello Kitty thermos full of rancid apple juice and a bad case of the clap.”
“Wow, that’s...specific,” Max said.
“Yeah, Bucky was pretty steamed,” Felix replied. “And you know how creative those drama kids could be.”
This was true. “So did he get his wish?” Max asked.
“Yep,” Felix told them. “Right down to G-string and the Hello Kitty thermos. I heard it from Deb at the diner, who told me that Veronica at the vintage shop overheard Mr. Kapileo at King Klothing telling Mr. Tucker from the train shop all about it.”
“Well, then, it must be true,” Chance concluded. “Because the Endicott telegraph gossip line is never, ever wrong.”
And there it was, Max thought. Another wish coming true for someone. He reminded himself that his had come true, too. He just hadn’t worded it well enough. He couldn’t fault others for winning their fifteen-year-old hearts’ desires. He should have been as specific with his wish as Bucky had been with his. Then maybe Marcy would have seen him as, say, the kid who wouldn’t even think of stealing anything from her family. Or the guy who would be there for her whenever she needed him. Or the person she couldn’t live without. Or the man who would love her forever.
Yeah, that last one. That would have been nice. Because, the thing was, Max was going to love Marcy forever. He’d realized that at some point as he watched her walk down his long, long drive the night before, never looking back at him once. And as he’d been lying in bed last night, replaying every word of their exchange, he’d realized that, on some level, she’d kind of been right about him. Not so much that he was a bigot as that he was unfair. Unfair for forcing her into some idealized version of herself she could never be. Unfair for expecting her to conform herself to his definition of what she should be, not her own. All because that was what he wanted her to be.
Hell, hadn’t he gone off on her for doing the exact same thing to him the night before that? Trying to make him into something he wasn’t to make herself feel better? The difference was that she had acknowledged her mistake and apologized for it. The difference was that she had extended an olive branch and tried to work things out. The difference was that she was a big enough person to admit her mistakes—because she wasn’t perfect—and learn from them and try to do better. While Max...
Well. Max wasn’t perfect, either. He was willing to learn from his mistakes and try to do better, too. He just hoped he wasn’t too late. Because he did love Marcy. No matter who she was. No, she wasn’t perfect. But she was perfect for him. He just hoped he hadn’t messed things up so badly between them that he couldn’t make amends.
“Hey, I gotta go talk to somebody,” he told his friends.
As one, Chance and Felix looked at Marcy, and Rory’s gaze trailed theirs. Obviously, they’d seen her, too. He’d told them about what happened. About how Bob had granted his wish, the same way the comet had granted theirs, just not quite with the same happy outcome. They looked back at Max now.
“Don’t screw it up, man,” Chance told him. “Say everything you need to say.”
Wise words, Max thought, coming from a man who’d just seen a woman he cared a lot about go back to a life that didn’t include him. The twins’ temporary guardian Max had met at Chance’s earlier in the week had gone back to Boston, leaving Chance more than a little heartbroken. Though, after what Max had seen between the two of them even in the short span of one evening, it made him think their story wasn’t quite finished yet. Even so, maybe right now, Chance was thinking he should have said more to her, too.
“Yeah, mijo,” Felix added. He looped an arm around Rory’s waist, pulling her close with much affection. “It’s amazing, the power words can have.”
Rory leaned into Felix, and she smiled. “Just be yourself,” she told him. “That’s pretty powerful, too. And good luck,” she added softly.
Max inhaled a deep, fortifying breath, then made his way into the crowd. By the time he reached Marcy, Claire had drifted off to rejoin her partner, and Amanda was heading to the bar. Marcy turned around, then halted when she saw Max standing there. For a moment, she looked at him the way she had earlier in the week, before everything went to hell, taking in his khakis and gray jacket and the button-down shirt striped with both colors. He’d actually made his sister, Lilah, come over that afternoon to dress him, because he’d wanted to make a good impression tonight. And in that first moment Marcy looked at him, he could tell he had. Then her expression soured a bit, and the temperature around them seemed to drop.
“Hello, Max,” she said frostily.
“Hey, Marcy,” he replied warmly.
Between the two of them, the temperature seemed to adjust a bit. At least she stopped frowning at him.
“Um, could we talk?” he asked her.
Her eyebrows shot up. “The way I wanted to talk last night, but then you told me we don’t have anything to talk about? That way?”
He knew he had the rebuke coming. And he knew he deserved it. It didn’t make it any easier to handle.
“Yeah, like that,” he told her. “Only, this time, I will have something to say.”
She met his gaze levelly. “Unless it’s ‘I’m sorry, Marcy, I was wrong,’ then I don’t think there’s any point in—”
“I’m sorry, Marcy, I was wrong,” he interjected.
She still had her mouth open at his admission, but then closed it. She looked at him silently for another couple of uncomfortable seconds, then said, “Oh. Well, then. I guess we could talk.”
“Thanks.”
The crowd around them seemed to have doubled in size during just that short exchange, so Max gestured toward a set of open doors he knew led out to a terrace and, beyond that, a garden. Marcy fell into step beside him and, taking a chance, he reached for her free hand and wove her fingers with his. At first, she kept hers stiff and straight. But after a couple of seconds, she relaxed them, settling her hand comfortably into his. Then they were heading outside, into the cool September night.
A little too cool maybe, he realized when the breeze wafted over them. Not only could he feel the chill, but he also saw Marcy’s skin pebble with gooseflesh. Without a word, he took off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders, and, without a word, she let him. Then, after a moment, she pulled it closed around herself. And in that moment, Max almost felt like it was him who was embracing her.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You’re welcome,” he told her.
As if in tacit agreement, they tangled their fingers together again and continued to walk. Past the handful of people mingling on the terrace, past the few more mingling on the path, until they were nearly at the edge of the garden. Max led her to a bench near a gathering of lobelias—he knew they would be there, because he planted and took care of Mrs. Barclay’s garden, too—and they both sat down. When Marcy saw the flowers there, she smiled. Then she seemed to remember that she was still mad at him—fair enough—and the smile vanished. But its brief appearance gave Max a ray of hope to cling to, and for the first time in days, he felt like maybe, just maybe, his wish really would come true the way he’d hoped it would fifteen years ago.
“You were right last night,” he said without preamble. “Not so much that I’m a bigot,” he clarified. “But I am biased. And I am unfair. Or, at least, I was. I always expected you to behave in a way that’s stereotypical and archaic.
“The alabaster goddess of all that’s good who’s just not capable of or allowed to make mistakes,” he added, injecting a woo-woo quality into his voice. Then he sighed. “Put it down to reading too many bad fantasy novels as a kid. Put it down to just being a kid. A dumb kid, at that, one who never quite outgrew the idea that the girl he liked at fifteen was perfect. No one is perfect,” he conceded. “Not you. Not me. When I was telling you to take a better look at yourself, I should have told myself that, too. I’m sorry I was so narrow-minded. And biased. And unfair.”
She studied him closely for a moment, as if she was digesting everything he’d said and aligning it with her own words and thoughts and feelings of a couple of nights ago. Then, softly, she said, “I’m sorry I was all those things, too. I didn’t mean to be. I guess, like you said, some things we just take longer to outgrow than others.”
“But you know what?” Max said. “The beauty of making mistakes is that we can learn from them. And we can do better next time.” He hoped he didn’t sound like a cringey fifteen-year-old when he added, “If, you know, there is a next time.”
Nope, he totally sounded like a cringey fifteen-year-old. But Marcy didn’t seem to mind. She laughed lightly. “I’d like for there to be a next time. I’d like for there to be a lot of next times. I think you and I have a lot to learn about each other. And I’d like very much to learn everything I can about you, Max.”
Only when she said that did Max realize how very much he’d been fearing she would tell him to shove off. He didn’t kid himself that the two of them didn’t still have a bit of work to do. But it was good work. And they’d be doing it together. And that...
Well, he hated to say it but...that was kind of perfect.
“I want to learn everything there is about you, too,” he said.
For another moment, they only looked at each other in silence, almost as if they were seeing each other for the first time. Then, ever so slowly, Marcy scooted a little closer to Max. So Max moved himself a little closer to her. She scooched a few more inches toward him. So he pushed himself the last couple of inches toward her, until their bodies were touching.
“Hey, look at that,” he said. “We met right in the middle.”
Marcy smiled. Max smiled. Then, as one, they dipped their heads toward each other. This time, when they kissed, it was almost as if they were two kids doing it for the first time. Tentatively, slowly, experimentally. Again and again, their lips brushed against each other, until Max felt the heat rising inside him to the point where he knew they were going to need to be alone together soon. So, reluctantly, he pulled away. Marcy, too, seemed to have been as moved as he was by the gentle gesture. She cupped his cheek in one hand and touched her forehead to his. For several moments, she said nothing. Then she sat back again and gazed at him, in a way that made him feel as if she was seeing him for the first time.
Finally, he asked, “What are you thinking about?”
She expelled a soft sound that was a mixture of marvel, contentment and relief. “I’m just thinking about what a great job Bob did making my wish come true. I didn’t think it was going to happen for me. But it did, just now.”
Max realized his wish had come true, too, finally. At least in the way he had wanted it to fifteen years ago. “What did you wish for?” he asked Marcy.
She hesitated a moment, but finally told him, “I wished Bob would give me someone who could make everything okay. The last time he came around, I felt like everything in my life was terrible, the way a lot of fifteen-year-old girls do. Just the usual melodramatic ups and downs of adolescence that seemed so much more important than they really were. So I wished for Bob to give me someone who could make everything okay.
“Then, this year, when everything in my life really was falling apart, I knew I needed that wish to come true more than ever. So I came back to Endicott to see if Bob would grant my wish. And he did. Because you, Max, you make everything okay. Better than okay. You make everything...” She smiled. “Perfect,” she said with a light laugh. “At least, you make it perfect for me. I think maybe I kind of...love you.”
The warmth that had been rising in Max went incandescent at that admission. His wish to Bob really had come true. Marcy saw him as someone who could make everything okay. She saw him as someone who was perfect for her. The same way she was perfect for him. She saw him as someone she loved.
“I love you, too,” he said, hoping the words didn’t come out in the rush it felt like. Then he kissed her again. And then he looked up at the sky. “Thanks, Bob,” he said.
She looked up, too. “Yeah, nicely done.” Then she looked at Max. “Wait, you never told me what you wished for.”
He’d been fearing she would ask that. “Yeah, it’s kind of complicated,” he told her. “I’ll explain it all later, if you’re not doing anything after the gala.”
“I’m not doing anything after the gala,” she said immediately, her words rushed, too. Then she added, “At least tell me if your wish came true.”
He nodded. “Better than I ever could have hoped.”
“I look forward to hearing all about it,” she said. “After the gala. Which should be ending soon.”
“Maybe we could go back to my place for a little while,” he suggested.
“A little while,” she echoed with another smile. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”
He had a moment of panic at her words when he remembered how she had hinted at the possibility that she’d be leaving town soon. Surely, she wasn’t still planning to do that. Was she?
“I mean, you can stay for longer than a little while,” he quickly amended. “It’s not like I have any plans to go anywhere any time soon.”
His panic must have been showing in his expression, because she lifted her hand to his cheek again, brushed a quick kiss over his lips and told him, “I’m not going anywhere, either. I’m staying here in Endicott. Amanda generously offered me the use of her spare room for a week or two, until I can find a place of my own. And Mrs. Jeffs at Jeffs Jewelers made me a nice offer on my wedding band, which I so don’t need anymore.” She smiled. “I’m not sure exactly what I’ll do yet, but Hanlon House had a notice up that they’re hiring. Maybe I can get something there until I start writing again.” She looked troubled for a moment. “If I ever start writing again,” she added.
The comment confused him. “Why wouldn’t you start writing again?” he asked.
But she just shook her head. “That’s complicated, too. I’ll tell you all about it at your place later. Anyway, I’m pretty sure a Hanlon could get a job at Hanlon House in some capacity.”
The wind picked up again, and Marcy pulled his jacket closer. When Max suggested they go back inside, she readily agreed. They found Chance and Felix and Rory sitting at a table on the other side of the ballroom and joined them, Max introducing the two women for the first time and Felix and Chance echoing their delight at seeing Marcy again. Not long after that, the children who had been working on their solar system, including Chance’s niece and nephew, Quinn and Finn, entered the ballroom with their creation. They, in turn, found their way to their uncle and scrambled onto his lap, chattering with much excitement about all the new friends they’d made.
Max couldn’t help thinking how all three men’s lives had changed so much in less than a week’s time. But none of them seemed to mind the changes much. Or, you know, at all. Bob had been generous this year. He wondered where they’d all be the next time the comet came around.
He was about to speak the thought aloud, but he was interrupted by overhearing a trio of voices at the table beside them sharing what was the most often uttered question at the party tonight: What did you wish for? When he turned in his seat, he saw three girls he guessed to be around fifteen years old talking among themselves the way teenage girls tended to do at big parties—loudly.
“Shut up!” said one. “You did not wish you would be Seamus O’Connor’s, uh... What did you say you wished you would be for Seamus O’Connor again?”
The girl sitting next to her sighed deeply. “His grá fíor,” she said in a dreamy voice. “I wished I would be his grá fíor. It’s Celtic, or maybe Gaelic—I can’t remember—for ‘true love.’”
“Are you sure that’s what it means?” the third girl asked.
“Of course, I’m sure. I googled it.”
“Do you think Comet Bob speaks Celtic or Gaelic?” the third girl asked. “And are you sure you pronounced it correctly? ’Cause, not gonna lie, it kinda sounded like you wished you would be Seamus’s great fear.”
Max bit back a chuckle. To her credit, the second girl seemed a little concerned. Before she could say anything, though, the first girl looked at the third and asked, “What did you wish for?”
The third girl sat up proudly in her chair. “I wished I would be the greatest pastry chef in the world. Easy-peasy.”
“Easy-peasy,” the first girl echoed dubiously. “Heard that before. From you, as a matter of fact. Right before that croquembouche blew up in your face in food science class. Now, I ask you. How do you blow up a croquembouche? How does that even happen?”
“That was then,” the third girl answered without concern. “This is the future. I’ll be a much better baker by then. What did you wish for?”
The first girl looked smug. “I wished for something really good. I wished for something that we’ll all benefit from.”
“Uh-huh,” said girl number two, clearly unimpressed. “What was it?”
Girl number one looked first at one friend, then the other. “I wished something fabulous would happen in this town for once.”
Max nearly lost it at that. He looked at Marcy and, when he realized she had overheard the conversation, too, he smiled.
She smiled back. “Don’t you dare say it to them,” she cautioned him.
He feigned innocence. “Don’t say what?”
“Do not tell them that they better be careful what they wish for, because they might get it.”
“Now, why would I do something like that?”
“Max...” she said, her warning unmistakable.
He opened his mouth theatrically, as if he was going to shout that very warning to the rooftops. Then he closed it again. “Nah. Let them learn that for themselves in fifteen years. Like we did.”
“And then they can thank their lucky stars. Like we did.”
She smiled abruptly, in a way he’d never quite seen her smile this week. As if she’d suddenly become delighted by something she hadn’t expected.
“What?” he asked her. “What are you thinking?”
She didn’t say anything for a moment but seemed to be deep in thought. She held up a hand, one finger extended, as if she would answer that question in just a second, as soon as she...
As soon as she pulled out her phone and started frantically typing?
“What?” Max asked again. “What are you doing?”
She held up the finger again, for just a nanosecond, then went back to furiously writing something down on her phone. He waited as long as he could for her to finish, but at the rate she was going, it would be morning before she told him anything.
“Marcy, what are you doing?” he asked again.
Still furiously typing, she told him, “I’m making some notes. Hearing those girls talk, I got a really good idea for a book. This great coming-of-age story about three girls and a wish-granting comet. Just...gimme a couple minutes to get some ideas down. It’s like they’re just pouring into my brain. And...don’t talk to me until further notice.” Without looking up, she gestured at the others sitting at the table with them. “Talk amongst yourselves.”
Max chuckled. Was this what it was going to be like, living with a writer? He couldn’t wait.
He looked up at the ceiling, at the whimsical painting of the solar system with Comet Bob at its center, surrounded by glittering stars. And he sent another silent thank-you to the heavens above. Life was good. For all of them. Thanks to a wish, and a comet, and a little bit of luck from the stars.