Page 50 of The Incredible Kindness of Paper

Chloe

Chloe’s fingers hovered over the keyboard on her phone as she stood next to the Shakespeare statue in Central Park the next morning, waiting for the New York Times reporter and photographer.

She itched to text Oliver—she hadn’t talked to him since the gala and the brief exchange of messages immediately after—but she didn’t know what to say.

I’m still thinking about the rooftop? I like both of you and I’m so confused?

Why didn’t you come back into my life earlier, before I met Zac?

But it wasn’t just that Chloe didn’t know what to say to Oliver. She wasn’t clear on how she felt about him, either. Obviously, the chemistry was there. But how much of her wanting him was based on the current, grown-up Oliver? And how much was an idealization of an unfinished first love?

Chloe wasn’t stupid. She was well aware that, being thirty-two, she existed in the prime demographic for nostalgia, where she was experienced enough—and still single enough—to look back and wonder if maybe the pure, all-consuming love of adolescence wasn’t somehow better.

And being primed for nostalgia meant she might be more susceptible to seeing Oliver through rosier lenses than if she’d just met him today on an app or in line at a café or at the grocery store.

Come to think of it, what did Chloe know about Oliver now? She knew that he lived somewhere in New York City and worked for Hawthorne Drake. But that was it, really. Until the gala, Chloe hadn’t even known for sure that Tolly was Oliver.

Then there was the eight-hundred-pound ghost in the room that he wouldn’t talk about: What happened sixteen years ago? Why had Oliver and his family disappeared without a trace? And if he’d truly loved Chloe, why hadn’t he written or picked up the phone and called?

And perhaps the most crucial questions of all: Why was Chloe willing to forgive him so easily for demolishing her heart? And was she really going to let Oliver return without any explanation or apology?

But she already had, hadn’t she?

“Ms. Quinn?” A woman in a sleek silk tank and slacks held up her press credentials badge. “Wanda Silverberg, New York Times . And this is one of our best photographers, Michael Taylor.”

Chloe’s eyes nearly fell out of their sockets.

Michael was her college boyfriend, the one she’d moved to New York with.

He looked about the same as the last time she saw him three and a half years ago, after they’d broken up—medium height, medium brown hair, generally good-looking in a medium sort of way.

Well, his receding hairline was more pronounced now and he was a little heavier, but otherwise, the same.

“Hey, Chloe.”

“Wow… Hi, Michael.” It was crazy that he’d popped back into her life now, on top of the recent drama with Zac and Oliver.

Chloe half expected the rest of her dating history to show up—the musician from the tiki bar.

The social media manager from that start-up whose entire premise was giving umbrellas to children.

Heck, maybe even Charles Childress from high school would make an appearance.

“You know each other?” Wanda, the reporter, asked.

Michael gave Chloe a hug. “We met in college and dated for a while. But obviously Chloe is the more successful of the two of us now.” He smiled genuinely, and it gave Chloe a small thrill, because when they’d come to New York, Michael had been the one with his act together while she had still been floundering through the mind-numbing job of dusting sculptures in a museum storage room.

Not that she had her act together now. Technically, Chloe was unemployed. But maybe the best things in life were stumbled upon accidentally.

“Well,” Wanda said, “do you want to walk and talk? And afterward, we can swing by the tables where your origami-making operation is set up and Michael can take some photos?”

“Sure,” Chloe said. “I’ve never done an interview before, so I’ll follow your lead.”

“All right, then.” Wanda began a leisurely stroll through the park. “Mind if I record this? And ignore Michael—he’s going to get shots of you while we’re chatting. I’d love to begin with the origin story for these paper roses, and whether you knew it would become a global phenomenon.”

Chloe cocked her head. “A global phenomenon? I mean, we have a small group of regulars folding flowers every day here in the park, and I heard there were some social media videos out there, but I hardly think that counts as viral.”

Wanda let out a bark of a laugh. When Chloe didn’t laugh as well, Wanda’s jaw dropped. “Wait, you’re serious? You don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“That your paper rose movement has spread to several major cities in the U.S.—San Francisco, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. This morning I heard they’d made their way to Fort Worth, Texas. And there are even small groups popping up abroad in Europe, Asia, and South America.”

“What?” Chloe stopped in the middle of the path. She heard Michael’s camera shutter clicking away, capturing her gaping like a fish blowing bubbles.

“I suppose I’m not entirely surprised that you’re unaware,” Wanda said. “I couldn’t find you online anywhere, which is surprising in and of itself in this day and age. You could have been famous already. Why not create a platform?”

Chloe shook her head. “I don’t want the attention. This isn’t about me. I think the paper roses should be exactly what people need them to be, without my ego or minor celebrity attached to them. I didn’t actually even want to do this interview, to be honest.”

“But why not?” Wanda started walking again.

“Your brand could be worth millions. Once we publish this article and reveal your identity—which, let me tell you, people are wondering about to Banksy-like proportions—the phone will be ringing off the hook for you, not only to partner on the paper roses, but also for name and likeness deals. Don’t you want to amplify all this to maximize your potential? ”

“Not really.” Chloe shrugged. Zac would definitely disagree with what she was about to say, but it’s how she felt.

“I don’t want to make money off the paper flowers.

And I don’t care that people around the globe are copying my creation.

Chasing after them and demanding licensing fees would be the complete opposite of what I’m trying to do. ”

Wanda squinted at her, as if unable to process what the point of all the work was, if not for profit or fame.

“All I want,” Chloe said, “is more joy in the world, more small moments of lightness and hope for as many people as possible. Maybe that’s naive. Maybe I’ll look back and regret that I didn’t try to start a fashion line or a home décor line based on the origami. But I don’t think so.”

She went on. “It seems like these days, there’s an expectation that anything you do needs to be monetized, needs to become a side hustle.

You can’t just make pottery for fun anymore; you have to put it on Etsy.

You can’t sing in an eighties cover band for the hell of it; you’re expected to book gigs and promote online and become a star—anything less is seen as a waste of time.

“But why can’t we just do things because we want to? Even if there’s nothing in it for us, other than being nice? When did we start being revenue-maximizing machines and stop being human?”

Wanda blinked at her. Then, after a long moment, Wanda quietly said, “Yeah.”

After Michael had taken a bunch of pictures of the tables—Bonnie and Mary were particularly tickled at having a photo shoot—Wanda promised that she would write the story quickly and submit it to her editor by this afternoon, because she was too revved up to let it sit.

The article could hit the online edition of the newspaper as soon as tonight.

“Make sure you print a photo of my good side,” Bonnie joked with Michael.

“All sides are your good side.” He winked, and Bonnie laughed.

“It was good to see you again,” Chloe said to him.

“Same. I’m real proud of you, Chloe.”

“You’ve done pretty well for yourself, too.”

“New York worked out for us,” Michael said, smiling. “Keep in touch, okay?”

Chloe nodded. She probably wouldn’t—they had nothing in common anymore, and the hour spent doing this interview had exhausted what they had to say to each other—but running into him had been unexpectedly instructive.

Because she’d felt zero attraction to Michael, unlike that thrum in her core whenever Oliver was near.

So now Chloe knew that it wasn’t only rosy nostalgia-tinged glasses that made her feel the way she did for Oliver.

When Chloe returned to her apartment later that afternoon, she opened the refrigerator for a snack, and found a familiar paper rose awaiting her on one of the shelves labeled with her name.

Her stomach flipped, in the anticipatory good way like on Christmas morning after Santa arrived. She took the chilled flower out of the fridge and quickly unfolded the gold-foil-striped rose to see what her mystery pen pal had written.

Do you think it’s ever possible for scarred hearts to heal?

In the past, the answer might have been difficult for Chloe. But this year, she’d helped lots of kids with scarred hearts and seen how incredible the human soul was, how it could hold pain in its memories yet still move forward in the world with optimism and joy.

And then she thought about being reunited with Oliver, and how she had surprised herself at the way she felt, despite all the confusion and sadness of the past. That she could want to forgive him and bring him back into the fold of her life.

Maybe it was because Oliver was on her mind that Chloe was struck by an idea as she wrote back to her mystery correspondent. Instead of just penning the words this time, she also whispered them into the paper, something she hadn’t done for a letter in a very, very long time.

Do you think it’s ever possible for scarred hearts to heal? he had asked.

I do. My heart was shattered once, but over time, I was able to put it back together. But the key, I discovered, is you have to take risks, even if it means a chance of getting hurt.

And on the other side of risk is the very real possibility of happiness.