His Second Chance (Love Comes To Town)

“But Josie—”

“I’ve already talked to the nursery. They’re okay with me taking a few months off if I need to. God knows, I’ve saved enough of their practically dead plants that they owe me.”

When I don’t say anything, she says, “Just think about it.”

“What if...”

“Don’t start like that.” She’s already shaking her head. “‘What if’ never got anyone anywhere useful, unless it was for science.”

“Or history,” I add.

She rolls her eyes. “Disregard everything I say, why don’t you.”

I turn to look at her.

It’s weird. Sometimes, I see expressions on her face that I’ve seen in the mirror on myself.

“You really think I should go?” I ask quietly.

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

Her smile isn’t convinced. “Yes, you do.”

“But, Jos—”

“There’s no buts. You either make a go of it or you don’t. What do you have to lose?”

“I made a decision.”

“You can’t make another one?”

Her words make a lot of sense. It doesn’t help that they’re saying the same thing as the thoughts in my head.

“It’s just so sudden,” I add.

Josie looks at me steadily. “Just admit it. You’re afraid.”

“And you wouldn’t be?”

“I didn’t say that.”

And then we sit there in a silence that’s another name for waiting. Finally, I get up. “I should head back in. Jessica’s waiting. I can call you, though. Tonight?”

Josie’s already off the picnic bench and two steps away. “All right. And Wyn?”

“Yeah?”

“Just make sure you don’t go with fear and rename it logic.”

Now I’m the one rolling my eyes. “Thanks, Socrates.”

She winks. “Later, gator.”

And I’m left to my thoughts and more wisteria.

It’s a kind of meditation, tattooing. The canvas of the skin. The buzzing of the needle. My attention, like its own sort of hyper-focused needle.

Afterward, I head home. I make some lasagna. I successfully avoid thinking about it.

Until I am, and I know the only thing there is to do.

“You really are a pain, you know that?” is the first thing I say to Josie when she picks up the phone.

“Hello to you too,” she says, and I can hear the smile in it. “So, you’ve come to your senses?”

“Meaning?”

She sighs. “When am I coming over?”

I grin. “Tonight too early?”

She grins too, I can just tell. “Hell no.”

**

Twelve hours later, and I’m there. Who would’ve thought? In Paris, France. At the Philharmonie de Paris.

Watching Emerson Storm play the piano up on stage.

I’m surrounded by people with their friends and lovers. I’m by myself, but I don’t feel alone.

I’ve never felt all that alone, not when there’s music.

And here, oh, what music.

The kind of music to reach inside you and strum. Emerson plays piano like I didn’t know it could be played.

My stomach growls for the candy apple stand I keep smelling, though I dare not go there. There’s such a wall of a crowd between me and it.

Besides, I’ve got a man to watch. Music to listen to.

It’s nighttime and cool enough that the breeze is pebbling my bare arms. I knew I should’ve brought that stupid hoodie.

But I wanted to look good for this. Not that he’ll see me. What are the odds? I’m deep in the crowd, far from the front, and not tall. I keep having to shuffle from side to side to see around the big-headed fourteen-year-olds ahead of me.

I’m having the time of my life.

I’m scared. Terrified, actually. And yet, there’s a relief in it.

I’ve made my choice, and maybe it will bury me, but at least I’ll know.

Whether second chances are for real or for suckers. Whether Emerson’s words were just that, words, or if they were staircases to somewhere real.

The crowd and I, we watch, listen. Emerson plays and plays and plays.

And then it’s the end, and they’re bowing.

And her, that girl, she leans in too close to him and says something, and he chuckles, pulling away, his gaze elsewhere. And then it stops.

On me.

He can’t—

He can.

He does.

Emerson’s looking at me. I can see his lips move—Is that—but can’t hear what he’s saying over the noise.

And then he strides to the microphone, grabs it. “Wynona?”

And he’s looking straight at me.

The crowd is a sea of heads turning to look where he’s looking.

“Wynona,” he says into the microphone, his voice booming over the crowd. “Come up here.”

The crowd is a sea of bodies stepping aside for me to walk through.

I almost laugh out of sheer terror and embarrassment and surprise.

This isn’t real. This is the kind of thing that happens in books and movies to girls who are cooler and have better lives than me.

And yet, here I am.

I walk in the dream to him, this man who I’m not sure what he is anymore. All I know is that he’s got a smile like it’s Christmas and New Year’s and Easter all at once.

And I’ve got it too.

I walk into his arms. He takes the microphone, and amid the cheers, he says, “This is my girlfriend. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the girl I’m going to marry someday.”