Page 12

Story: The Page Turner

Chapter Twelve

I am lying on the beach, arms over my head, the book I am reading perfectly positioned to block the sun as well as the thoughts ricocheting through my head.

I feel someone staring at me. I flip on my stomach.

Sun is blinking off the little dormer windows in Eyebrow Cottage. The breeze whistles across the sand. I shut my eyes.

The cottage is saying goodbye.

When I open them, I swear I can see a face in an eyebrow window.

“No!” I suddenly say, sitting up, unable to face the truth.

A woman walking the beach veers into the water, startled by my outburst.

I study the cover of the next S. I. Quaeris book I plucked from my bedroom.

Can a Woman Who Has Lost Everything Find Herself Again?

Secrets of the Shore

The cover image is a woman standing on the beach before a glorious pink sky, her hand outstretched as if she’s attempting to grab the setting sun. I narrow my eyes behind my sunglasses. Her other hand is clenched tightly.

She reminds me of…me.

Is she hiding a secret?

I have not heard from my family since my outburst. I have heard from a few of my interviews: I have been offered two positions, including one—shockingly—from The Mighty Pages. I think my parents feel as if they must have me close by so they can keep me out of trouble. I have also heard from VV asking for my manuscript.

And I have a plan. Part of it requires doing nothing for a hot moment except keeping my mouth shut. Men like Marcus, I realize, are unnerved by silence. They can bully and pick a fight, but narcissists require attention, even if it’s negative. They thrive on it.

But remove that attention—be as still as a gull over the water—and they will crack because they did not get the reaction they desired. I gave him the reaction he wanted, and he won. I remove it, and I believe I have a chance to win. Or at least neutralize his power over me for a moment while this pantser becomes a plotter.

I just hope my parents didn’t already buy that Hamptons home yet. I check the Zillow listing every hour, making sure it’s still on the market and doesn’t show an offer pending.

I think of my parents’ love for all that is new: homes, ventures, beginnings.

I glance at the cottage and think of my love for all that is old.

My eyes wander back to the book I’m holding.

Am I too stuck on the past?

But there is just something about vintage book covers, like there is about vintage clothing. Vintage book covers are like old album cover art. Vinyl is back, you know. Everything comes full circle. Even ’80s hair and makeup.

Before social media and online design, great thought and skill went into creating book and album covers to create a mood. Artists painted, calligraphers produced ornamental writing. The covers artistically told us what was contained within.

My father’s most recent book cover, by contract, was attractive, but it was not original: a burning globe Photoshopped against a baseball glove.

I recently checked my father’s BookScan numbers: less than a thousand copies sold.

I can’t help but feel as if my family is running out of time before we’re placed in the bargain bin and sold off.

How do I deal with Marcus Flare? How do I avert a deal with the devil, and rewrite a storyline straight out of Damn Yankees ?

Right now, I just need to escape. That’s the reason for beach reads, right?

I flip to the back of the book and read the Author’s Note.

The Acknowledgments seem so…familiar.

I sit up again.

Wait just a minute .

I grab my beach bag and squirrel through it, digging past a towel, sunscreen, lip balm. There, on the bottom, is the previous novel I’d been reading. I open the book and compare the pages.

Exactly the same. Word for word.

Why would the author do that?

Overwhelmed? Creature of habit? Tight deadline? Superstitious? Simply loved what they had written?

I lie back on the sand once again and continue reading, arms overhead to block the sun.

The novel begins in the 1920s with a young daredevil diving off the top of a thirty-five-foot lighthouse to impress a girl on the beach. The lighthouse keeper runs out in an attempt to shoo him away—worried about his safety due to the current, proximity to the piers and passing boats—but is instead suddenly swept off the catwalk by a massive, surprise wave. The daredevil attempts to save him.

I stare down the shore at the lighthouse.

This is too close to home.

Literally and emotionally.

I flip the pages hurriedly.

The scene, fascinatingly, is not told from the men’s point of view at all but rather the two women on the shore—the wife of the lighthouse keeper and the girlfriend of the daredevil—who are watching this drama unfold before their eyes. The book shifts between the current, past and future, omitting names and certain details, leaving the reader wondering if the men actually survive and who the women end up with. Was it either of them, no one or someone else? It’s heartbreaking, eye-opening and an allegory about how women were not truly in control of their lives during that era.

I turn my head and stare at the cottage. I can still hear GiGi laughing when I told her of the Bechdel Test in college.

“You don’t need a class for that, Emma,” I can hear her say. “It’s called life. It’s always been dominated by men. It always will be. We don’t need a test to prove that. We need women who test those rules. And the best way for you to do that is to write that book you always wanted, a book that celebrates the power of women. Isn’t that why you’re there? To write? To break the mold?”

“I feel like I’m drowning,” I say aloud.

“Then let’s go for a swim,” I can hear GiGi say.

“But you’re not here to save me,” I say.

“Be your own daredevil, Emma.”

I get up and edge my way toward the water. I have waded in the lake, I have run on its shoreline, I have collected rocks and I have floated on an inner tube, but I have not entered the lake alone to swim since…

I step into the water.

I recall the first time I jumped off a diving board at the local pool. It felt like I was jumping off the top of the Empire State Building. I was terrified but thrilled.

I wade into the lake until I’m waist-deep.

Lake Michigan’s water still has a chill to it in the middle of summer, and goose pimples explode on my body. I need to recapture that girlish excitement again, that time when there was no fear. I need to tackle my biggest obstacle so that I can be prepared to overcome any obstacle—real or imagined—that stands in my way. I need to trust myself, all alone. I need to jump without overthinking, without hesitation.

And so I do.

I take a breath and leap into the lake.

Water goes up my nose, and I open my eyes to see sand dance beneath me.

I come up laughing and let the sun dry my face.

But there is still one thing more I must do today: I must surrender.

I inhale fully and float on my back.

I can feel GiGi’s hands beneath me.

I lean my head up and stare toward the deck of Eyebrow Cottage.

Suddenly, a memory of me and GiGi flashes.

It was a summer day much like this.

I had stayed out too late with friends and slept in one morning. When I finally woke up, it was eerily quiet. GiGi was on the deck, book in hand, head slumped, and I thought she’d fallen asleep. I could see her coffee steaming, and I didn’t want to bother her. She got up so early, still worked so hard, got so little peace. She needed the rest.

I made breakfast, took a shower, and when I came back downstairs, she hadn’t moved.

“GiGi?” I called.

She didn’t respond.

I went onto the deck and touched her arm. She was cold. No heartbeat. I just sat there, weeping, holding her hand, hating myself for all those wasted moments when I could have saved her life.

I was so in shock that I had no idea what to do. I just knew I needed more time with her.

And then I remembered. I knew what she needed. I knew what I needed.

So I did the exact same thing GiGi had done when she found my grandfather: I read aloud to her from the book in her hand. When I finished that chapter, I realized she was almost done with the book, and I wanted her to know how it ended, so I read the next chapter to her, and then the next, until I had finished it.

Then I called 911.

“You saved my life, but I couldn’t save yours,” I say to the lake.

I lay my head back on the water and fill my lungs with air again.

I feel a shadow cross my face, the sun blocked, and at first I think it is a cloud.

I open my eyes.

A gull is flying directly above me, floating to and fro in motion with my body on the water.

It dive-bombs and lands beside me on the water.

As I float on the lake, it sails on the current.

We stare at one another.

“Jonathan?” I ask.

It cocks its head and stares at me. Its eyes are the color of GiGi’s, its feathers and wings her white hair.

“GiGi?” I ask.

The gull opens its beak and mews at me, not an alarmed squawk by my presence but as if I’m an old friend.

In its call, I swear I can hear GiGi say, “You don’t need saving. You never have.”

And then the bird takes off, flying higher and higher, until it becomes a cotton-candy cloud in the heavens.