To my trusted crit partners, you know who you are.
To my family, for your support and love.
To my readersâwithout you, Iâd have no success. Thank you.
I donât write books without music. My thanks to the artists and musicians who make it possible for me to sit at my computer day after day and make worlds and the people who populate them. Please support their work through legal sources.
Don McLean, âEmpty Chairsâ; Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, âIt Ainât Me, Babeâ; Joshua Radin, âCloserâ; Justin King, âSame Mistakesâ; Lifehouse, âWhatever It Takesâ; Meredith Brooks, âWhat Would Happenâ; Rufus Wainwright, âHallelujahâ; Sarah Bareilles, âGravityâ; Schuyler Fisk, âLying to Youâ; She Wants Revenge, âThese Thingsâ; Tim Curry, âS.O.S.â
Sometimes, you look back.
He was coming out. I was going in. We moved by each other, ships passing without fanfare the way hundreds of strangers pass every day. The moment didnât last longer than it took to see a bush of dark, messy hair and a flash of dark eyes. I registered his clothes first, the khaki cargo pants and a long-sleeved black T-shirt. Then his height and the breadth of his shoulders. I became aware of him in the span of a few seconds the way men and women have of noticing each other, and I swiveled on the pointed toe of my kitten-heel pumps and followed him with my gaze until the door of the Speckled Toad closed behind me.
âWant me to wait?â
âHuh?â I looked at Kira, whoâd gone ahead of me. âFor what?â
âFor you to go back after the dude who just gave you whiplash.â She smirked and gestured, but I couldnât see him anymore, not even through the glass.
Iâd known Kira since tenth grade, when we bonded over our mutual love for a senior boy named Todd Browning. Weâd had a lot in common back then. Bad hair, miserable taste in clothes and a fondness for too much black eyeliner. Weâd been friends back then, but I wasnât sure what to call her now.
I turned toward the center of the shop. âShut up. I barely noticed him.â
âIf you say so.â Kira tended to drift, and now she wandered toward a shelf of knickknacks that were nothing like anything Iâd ever buy. She lifted one, a stuffed frog holding a heart in its feet. The heart had MOM embroidered on it in sparkly letters. âWhat about this?â
âNice bling. But no, on so many levels. I do have half a mind to get her one of these, though.â I turned to a shelf of porcelain clowns.
âJesus. Sheâd hate one of those. I dare you to buy it.â Kira snorted laughter.
I laughed, too. I was trying to find a birthday present for my fatherâs wife. The woman wouldnât own her real age and insisted every birthday be celebrated as her âtwenty-ninthâ along with the appropriate coy smirks, but she sure didnât mind raking in the loot. Nothing I bought would impress her, and yet I was unrelentingly determined to buy her something perfect.
âIf they werenât so expensive, I might think about it. She collects that Limoges stuff. Who knows? She might really dig a ceramic clown.â I touched the umbrella of one tightrope-balancing monstrosity.
Kira had met Stella a handful of times and neither had been impressed with the other. âYeah, right. Iâm going to check out the magazines.â
I murmured a reply and kept up my search. Miriam Levy, the owner of the Speckled Toad, stocks an array of decorative items, but that wasnât really why I was there. I could have gone anyplace to find Stella a present. Hell, sheâd have loved a gift card to Neiman Marcus, even if sheâd have sniffed at the amount I could afford. I didnât come to Miriamâs shop for the porcelain clowns, or even because it was a convenient half a block from Riverview Manor, where I lived.
No. I came to Miriamâs shop for the paper.
Parchment, hand-cut greeting cards, notebooks, pads of exquisite, delicate paper thin as tissue, stationery meant for fountain pens and thick, sturdy cardboard capable of enduring any torture. Paper in all colors and sizes, each individually perfect and unique, just right for writing love notes and breakup letters and condolences and poetry, with not a single box of plain white computer printer paper to be found. Miriam wonât stock anything so plebian.
I have a bit of a stationery fetish. I collect paper, pens, note cards. Set me loose in an office-supply store and I can spend more hours and money than most women can drop on shoes. I love the way good ink smells on expensive paper. I love the way a heavy, linen note card feels in my fingers. Most of all, I love the way a blank sheet of paper looks when itâs waiting to be written on. Anything can happen in those moments before you put pen to paper.
The best part about the Speckled Toad is that Miriam sells her paper by the sheet as well as by the package and the ream. My collection of papers includes some of creamy linen with watermarks, some handmade from flower pulp, some note cards scissored into scherenschnitte scenes. I have pens of every color and weight, most of them inexpensive but with somethingâthe ink or the colorâthat appealed to me. Iâve collected my paper and my pens for years from antique shops, close-out bins, thrift shops. Discovering the Speckled Toad was like finding my own personal nirvana.