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Chapter Twenty-Three

I sit in the dark reading the letters that GiGi’s readers sent her over the years.

Some are handwritten, faded ink in looping cursive. Some are typewritten. Postcards contains notes and photos.

There are letters from women who have lost their parents or children. Women whose husbands and sons died in war. Men who had lost their jobs. A woman who could not have children; another whose child had been stillborn. So many women undergoing chemotherapy.

But most readers simply wanted to reach out to my grandmother and say thank you.

Thank you for your books!

Your books gave me hope!

Your books made me forget!

I found your books when I needed them most!

The envelopes were sent from every part of the US, Kansas to Kentucky, Maine to Missouri. Letters were sent from all over the world as well.

Marcus writes for power. GiGi wrote for connection.

All of these readers—so very different—sought out my grandmother’s words as a way to make sense of this often senseless world.

And they were calmed. Given hope. A reason to go on.

I touch the handwriting on the letters and envelopes, wondering how many are still alive. How many are still being touched by GiGi’s stories.

I wonder how my grandmother lived with such strength and wrote with such power even though she must have felt trapped her entire life.

I hear a flapping noise outside.

There’s a moth trapped in a porch light I forgot to turn off last night. I watch it flail wildly, banging itself against the light.

There is only one way free, but it can’t seem to find it, and so it repeats this pattern of madness over and over.

Is this a sliver of how GiGi felt every day of her life? Waking up expecting to see the man who was trying to harm her and her family, then desperately seeking any light she could find?

Her family was her light, her source of power.

I go outside to the porch light.

I cup my hands together gently and capture the moth.

“You’re okay,” I say, setting it free.

I head back in and turn on the TV, waiting for another morning of Marcus. For the last week, he has been popping into my world to wreak havoc like Beetlejuice. The light from the television bounds eerily around the cottage.

I mindlessly click the remote.

The movie Wild , based upon Cheryl Strayed’s memoir, is on.

I think of my father, and realize I have to tell him—in this rare instance—the movie was as good as the book.

I mean, how often do you read a book or see a movie where the main character ends up with no man, no money, no home and yet has a happy ending?

“I’m about to find out,” I say out loud again.

I watch for a bit and then click the remote again and happen upon Legally Blonde .

It’s all Reese this morning.

I turn up the volume.

Most current books and movies still fail the tried-and-true Bechdel Test, but not Wild and Legally Blonde . The main characters rely upon themselves to make it.

So must I.

Marcus is my Pacific Crest Trail. He is my Professor Callahan.

And no one in their right mind thinks I will come out on top. Save for, perhaps, my friends.

Gin and Juice used to tell me that most Michigan students were book smart, but that wasn’t enough.

“To be successful in life,” they said, “you have to be street-smart as well. And you, Emma, are both.”

I grab my cell and text BAT SIGNAL! Good morning, Angels! Can we FaceTime?

Gin and Juice—up as early as I am—immediately call. I smile when I see their faces. Their expressions droop when they see me.

“Are you okay?” Juice asks. “You look awful.”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Oh, no,” Gin adds. “Another monstrous morning with Marcus?”

I nod. “But that’s great use of alliteration for so early in the morning.” I scan their faces on my cell. My heart hiccups. “I miss you two. And I need your help?”

“Anything!” they respond at the same time.

“Is there any way you two might be able to use your street smarts and book smarts to get some intel on Marcus Flare?”

Juice actually cackles. “My whole life has led up to this moment. What do you need?”

“I can’t say too much yet, but, Gin, I’m looking for you to use your journalistic skills to dig up any info you might be able to find about a Jeannette Marcuzzi from Michigan whose son was named Avery. Her husband was Ignatius. He went to jail.”

“I’m on it!” Gin says.

“And, Juice, I know this is a long shot, but I’m wondering if there’s anything you can find out about Marcus’s finances. I know you know people who know people who know things about very rich people at your firm, but I don’t want you to get in any trouble.”

“Let me worry about that,” she says. “What do you need?”

“We know he’s rich, but does he have debt? How much? Is he overextended with his business ventures? Does he owe people money? I actually have the name of his financial advisor and attorney in New York. My sister got them from the contract he signed for the new imprint. Anything you find might just save my life and my family’s life.”

“Well, that’s no pressure at all,” Juice says with an anxious laugh.

“Are you in danger?” Gin asks. “I mean, real danger? Because I will cut a bitch.”

“And I will help bury the body,” Juice adds.

“And now we’re all going to jail,” I say. “I am in some danger. And I’ll likely be in a lot more very soon.”

“Remember, ‘there are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie,’” Juice says with a smile, reciting a line from Scream , which we watched every Halloween as we got dressed up to head out to the parties.

I smile.

“‘Not in my movie,’” I say reciting Neve Campbell’s famous line where she finally takes down the killer. “Or should I say book .” I nod convincingly at my friends. “I know what I’m doing.” I stop. “I think.”

They laugh nervously.

“We will do anything we can for you,” Gin says.

“Anything!” Juice adds.

“Thank you for taking my SOS,” I say. “I know you have to go. Have a great day!”

They blow kisses, and the call ends.

I put my cell down, relieved to have friends who would do anything to protect me.

Street-smart. Book smart.

If there’s anything I’ve learned in my life, it’s this: you better bury a body way deeper than any acorn.