Page 146 of Intermission

I can barely wrap my mind around it. He came back for me.Twice.

I’m bursting with a thousand variations on the theme, “I love you, Noah Spencer,” but Mom picks that moment to return with the first aid kit and a broom and dustpan, so I say, “Thank you,” instead.

As soon as Mom has swept away enough of the broken jar that we can safely stand, I help Noah hobble over to the dryer, and he boosts himself slightly up to sit on it. While I see to Noah’s foot, Mom runs the vacuum over the floor to pick up any stray glass fragments, and then she makes a quiet exit.

“Your mom is different than I expected her to be.”

“The part where she let you in the house was different. That’s for sure.” My tone is dry but not bitter.

He nods. “People change.”

“Yes. They do.Wedo.”

He exhales a long breath. “Two years is a long time.”

“It seemed like fifty while I was in it, but now that you’re here... not so much.”

“Can we pick up where we left off?”

“Like you said, we’ve changed.” I taste the trueness of my words. “We’re not the same idealistic young dreamers who met at the waterfall. Picking up where we left off doesn’t really seem possible.”

Noah’s eyes cloud. “Oh.”

“But,” I add, squeezing his hand and smiling because I don’t recall when our fingers entwined. “Someone once told me that dreams can go through a metamorphosis and come out bigger and fuller on the other side. And there’s no one in the world I’d rather build a big, full dream with than you.”

The spark returns to Noah’s eyes. “It’ll take time, getting to know each other again. Especially with me in New York and you in Michigan.”

“Yes. But we’ll have technology at our disposal now. And I’ll have school breaks.”

“My contract with the production company is going to keep me busy for almost a year.” Noah groans. “Ayear.”

“What’salmosta year compared to the past two years?”

“Ask me that a week from now.”

I’m not sure if music begins to swell, and I can’t name the exact moment Noah wraps his arms around me, but when our lips meet, I know that somewhere, beyond this temporal stage on which we stand, in a realm wecan’t quite see, a sold-out crowd has leapt to its feet and is shouting for an encore.

We comply.

THREE YEARS LATER

A not-quite-packed house turns to watch me escort Faith’s mother to a front row seat at the Leopold Opera House. Once I’ve seated her next to my mom, I turn to the stage and ascend the stairs to where Pastor Bryan waits, grinning.

I give a nod to Dr. Jeremiah Hitchings. He lifts his baton, directing the Leopold Community Theatre’s small pit orchestra to begin “Ten Minutes Ago” fromRodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella.

Ushers open two sets of doors at the rear of the auditorium, allowing a short stream of silver-gowned bridesmaids and their tuxedo-clad counterparts to waltz—literally—down the aisles, toward the stage. Of the six waltzing couples, only one and a half needed help with the choreography—Ryan, Danielle, and Gretchen Prescott—but a quick lesson from one of the other bridesmaids, an aspiring choreographer, took care of that yesterday. The Prescott members of the wedding party are, perhaps, not dancing as smoothly as the others, who—like Faith and me—are all theatre nerds of one variation or another, but they’re doing all right.

It took Faith only about two and a half years to finish her degree, thanks to the college credits she earned in high school. I proposed eight months ago—the same day she moved into her first New York apartment. Next week, while we’re on our honeymoon, some of the guys who share this stage with me now will be moving Faith’s belongings into hersecondNew York apartment. Mine.

Ours.

While I wait for the star of this show to make her entrance, I mentally rehearse the lines I’ll recite—perhaps the most important lines of my life—in just a few moments.

The theatre seats are filled with a colorful mix of family, friends, and strangers—an interesting blend of locals, school chums fromLondon and Michigan, and theatre friends from New York, as well as several business associates of the Prescott family and sponsors of my parents’ mission work.

A pause in the music and . . .

There she is. My own Cinderella. My bride.