Halfway to You by Gold Jennifer

Author:Gold, Jennifer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Published: 2023-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

ANN

Manhattan, New York, USA

April 1993

Todd and I didn’t discuss maintaining a long-distance relationship so much as we simply sank into one—and miraculously, it worked, at least for a while. Todd took vacations to Italy, or we met in some other city—London for Christmas, Montreal for Todd’s birthday—and in between the bright spots of our international meetings, we wrote letters and racked up long-distance phone bills, and the longing became a part of our love. The longing made the moments of connection so much sweeter.

Believe it or not, Maggie, we did this for two and a half years.

We were, of course, distracted by our own pursuits.

Dreamer Bookstore was doing better than ever, so Todd had extended the open hours, adding evening book clubs and author events to an already packed schedule.

I dove headfirst into getting my English-teaching credentials so I could legitimize my tutoring business. The program was a welcome distraction from my crushing self-doubt over my second novel, which had morphed into a terribly mawkish melodrama. Adding salt to the wound of my sophomore slump, Chasing Shadows was in its second movie-option process after the first fell through, so Keith and the film people were calling constantly.

Todd and I were so busy that months slipped past practically undetected. Each visit was a lighthouse flash across the ocean of my life.

Then came April 1993. I was invited to New York to meet with our executive producer and screenwriter and sign the papers that would make my book a movie. I asked Todd to meet me there, and of course Keith was delighted to have a reunion in his city.

The meeting was a big deal. I’ll never forget walking into the room and having everyone turn toward me as if I were the big shot. They asked me to sit at the head of the table, and someone passed over a plate of cookies. I was out of breath, dizzy, as if I’d just climbed a mountain and now stood higher than the clouds. Everyone else seemed comfortable at these heights—confident, even—but I kept thinking, Do they know how far I’ve come? That the elevation makes me queasy?

I felt like they were all just humoring me. Chasing Shadows wasn’t mine anymore: it belonged to the readers, the audience, and these executives. The script was superb. I didn’t have more to say. I just wanted to ride the elevator back down to the ground floor, where I could breathe again.

After the meeting, Keith and I exited the skyscraper into the honking, shouting chaos of Midtown. He was wearing a suit that accentuated the broadness of his chest and the extra ten pounds he’d gained since Iris was born. I loved how the same he looked. The curly russet hair and all those freckles. He still had that Santorini glint in his eye, all these years later.

“You didn’t hear a word she said in there, did you?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“You okay?”

“I think so, yeah. It’s just . . . crazy.”

“It is.”

“You did this, Keith.

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