Flip; the page was shaded entirely black with crayon, and in the center there was a gnarly depiction of a dragon exhaling glitter-paint plumes of fire.
‘King Caleb was confronted by a terrible monster.’
Flip.
‘The king knew that the monster would hurt the people that he loved the most. So, in order to protect his beloved queen, the king lied. He told the monster that Daisy was just a teacher.’
Flip.
‘The king had told the lie to protect his queen from the terrible monster, but Daisy was hurt. She ran away, before the king could explain himself.’
I flipped to the next page, where King Caleb was speared by his sword, his face twisted in agony.
‘King Caleb realized that he had lost the only woman he had ever loved. Without his queen, the family was incomplete…’
Flip.
‘King Caleb vowed to never stop searching for his lost queen.’
My eyes were already dripping with tears and I felt my entire body prickling with the rush of e
motions. Both the reminder of sadness and the sudden exhilaration of renewed hope.
I flipped to the final page in the book, and this time there wasn’t a typed passage or illustration. There was just a note, penned in deep black ink.
‘Daisy, I can’t beg you to understand or forgive me… all I can do is beg that you’ll give me the chance to explain myself. I thought I was protecting you, but it’s obvious to me now that I only managed to hurt you. The truth is, I would have been proud to call you mine that day. I asked for your trust, and I hope you’ll give me the opportunity to earn it. If you’re willing to give me another chance, you can find me where we shared our first date. (That’s right… I called it a date).’
‘Sunday night. You pick the time… I’ll be there, waiting for you. If I don’t see you by midnight, I’ll accept that you’ve moved on and I won’t bother you again.’
I was staring at the words, and then the realization hit me. Sunday night. That’s tonight.
Caleb was waiting for me, right now, at the NoMad Hotel. I clicked on my phone, bringing the home screen to life. It was 11 pm. That meant that I had less than an hour, less than an hour to shimmy out of my sweatpants and make it from Brooklyn to midtown.
I felt a dose of panic added to the emotional stew brewing inside of me, and then I jumped from the bed, downed the rest of my wine, and reached for a pair of jeans and my MetroCard.
In this fairytale, the queen is taking the subway to find her king.
20
CALEB
I pushed up the sleeve of my suit jacket, revealing the face of my Rolex in the dim light of the NoMad Hotel bar.
It was11:59, and I knew she was not coming. I knew it at 6 pm, when I got here. I knew it at 7, when I finished the gin and tonic that I was sipping. I knew it at 8, when the bartender asked if I wanted a magazine and I slipped him a stack of hundreds to leave me the hell alone and keep my glass full. I knew it at 9, and at 10, and I became certain at 11… she wasn’t coming.
Still, I clung to my foolish hope that I’d be wrong. It got harder to hope as the night went on. And then, at 11:59, I had one minute of hope left; one final granule of sand in the hourglass that was tonight.
I pushed the gin and tonic away on its soggy coaster and I leaned forward on the bar, willing myself to stand up and accept defeat. I made an effort. That was all I could do. Maybe it had been wrong to involve Emmy and get her hopes up; watching how eagerly my niece had illustrated my rewritten ‘fairytale’ had only confirmed how much Emmy missed Daisy. I had no idea how I would fill the void left in my own life, let alone in Emmy’s.
12:00 my watch ticked. I slid forward off the barstool and threw a final hundred dollar bill onto the bar, then I turned towards the door and step straight into a black suit.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” the man bumbled, taking a step backwards, and I deduce from the gold name badge inscribed ‘concierge’ that he was hotel staff.
“Don’t worry about it,” I mumbled, stepping around him.
“Erm… are you Mr. Preston, by chance?” he called after me.
I glanced back, then I glanced around the rest of the bar. Besides a couple making a baby in a corner booth and a pair of Midwest thirty-something soccer mom tourists who came to New York hoping for their Sex and the City experience, the bar was empty. No other potential Mr. Preston’s there.