EPILOGUE WINNIE

EPILOGUE

WINNIE

“I am a seagull.”

Only I do not symbolize destruction, the way Treplev demolished the seagull in Chekhov’s play.

I represent freedom, and healing, and tranquility.

I once read somewhere that seagulls are one of only a few species on Earth that are able to drink saltwater. How amazing it must be. To defy nature like that.

The theater lights pound over my face hotly as I finish my monologue, Rahim by my side. My feet are firm on the stage, and I know that’s where I belong.

And when I deliver my closing line, when the curtains are drawn, when the audience is on its feet, giving us a standing ovation, and I hold my colleagues’ hands—my second family’s, home away from home—I know I made the right choice. That staying in Mulberry Creek was never my calling.

“Can’t believe you almost gave all of this up,” Rahim whispers in my ear, as if reading my mind.

“Can’t believe you didn’t run after me to stop me.” I squeeze his hand in mine.

He laughs. “There were moments I was tempted to.”

Backstage, Ma, Dad, Lizzy, and Georgie are all waiting for me. Georgie jumps on me, knotting her legs around me in a sloth hug, as always. “Oh my God, you don’t even suck a little bit. What’s the opposite of embarrassed?”

“Proud?” I murmur, squashed to her chest.

“Yes!” she exclaims. “That’s how I feel about you right now.”

“Georgie!” Ma chides, peeling my sister off me as I laugh breathlessly. “What a terrible thing to say to your sister.”

Momma gives me a fierce hug, and I tremble a little in her arms. Lizzy’s and Dad’s turns are next.

“Y’all can give it to me straight if I need to find a new day job,” I say. I don’t mean it, though. I could have the acting chops of an expired Twinkie, and I still wouldn’t give up this dream of mine. Especially as Lucas was kind enough to give it back to me before he found out I’m about to be the owner of Calypso Hall.

I don’t like you one bit, Winnie, and I want you to know that. But no one does Nina better than you.

As it turned out, I learned how to like myself in the process, because now my hands are going to be full. I’m also opening a theater class in Brooklyn, free of charge, for at-risk youth.

“You did amazing, honey,” Dad says.

“So good I cried three times!” Lizzy bellows.

“You always cry,” Georgie points out, side-eyeing her. “You literally cried when they ran out of your favorite peanut butter at the grocery store.”

I’m about to turn around and look for the one person I long to see now, but Chrissy and Arya—the latter holding little Louie in her arms—charge toward me from the distance like possessed rugby players.

“It’s so good to have you back!” Arya kisses my cheeks.

“Literally,” Chrissy adds, plucking Louie from Arya’s arms and cooing at him. “I thought Lucas was going to commit murder if he didn’t find a new, suitable Nina. You know he used to call me five times a day asking if I could bring you back? At one point he suggested we should sedate you.”

“I’m here, and I’m getting my butt kicked for ditching him.” I laugh, stealing a sleepy Louie from her hands, breathing the sweet toddler in.

Lucas has been making me stick around after shows for a daily minitalk, just to assure him I’m not going anywhere. He also changed The Seagull’s poster so that the entire cast is featured before me. That’s fair. He shouldn’t have given me a second chance after what happened in the first place.

“Damn straight. I might forgive you for what you did, but I’ll never forget.” Lucas materializes out of nowhere, draping an arm over my shoulder.

Craning my neck, I try to see through the forest of people surrounding me.

“Looking for someone?” Chrissy teases. “You look distracted, Win.”

She knows exactly who I’m trying to find.

“Where is he? Is he late?” I demand, willing my heart not to beat so fast and hard just at the thought of him.

“Never.” The coarse, dark voice I know and love rasps behind me. He creeps up to me, kissing my shoulder blade, then bends down and kisses Louie’s cheek while he is in my arms. We are the picture of a perfect family.

Arsène and I managed to freeze a few of our embryos but decided to wait until after our wedding to try to have children. We don’t have a wedding date just yet, but he did propose, with a beautiful ring that belonged to his late mother. It is an honor to be wearing Patrice’s ring, and it will be a greater honor to make this magnificent woman’s son happy as his wife.

And if the embryos won’t do? Well, there are more ways to create a family, and I’m willing to explore all of them.

My head falls across my fiancé’s chest, and he bends down, capturing my mouth with his in a kiss.

“Aw. Gross.” I hear Riggs, Arsène’s friend, making gagging sounds. “There are literal children here.”

“You’re not that young anymore,” Christian, Arya’s husband, deadpans. He approaches me, taking Louie from my hands. “You know, just in case your little hello is going to turn into something less than PG-13 friendly.”

I turn around to look at my future husband.

“Tell me something out of this world.” My lips move over the skin in the hollow of his neck.

“Planets can float through space for eternity without a parent star. They just drift through the galaxy. Astronomers believe they got ‘kicked’ out of their family system at some point. They’re like rebels with a backpack and fifty bucks to their name, but somehow, they survive.”

“Well, you won’t have to drift anymore.” I kiss his chin, his cheek, his nose. “You have a home planet now. You have me.”

ARSèNE

“It’s not safe,” I clip out through clenched jaws. This may very well be the understatement of the century. Winnie and I are standing on the top of the roof of the Corbin mansion. The very same one I sold to Archie Caldwell as a consolation prize for not getting Calypso Hall. I’m glad to get rid of this concrete box of bad memories. Bonus points: the juju in this place is so bad it’s not even like I’m doing him a favor.

“Humor me!” Winnie steadies herself on the edge of the rooftop, stretching her arms horizontally.

“It’s a little hard when every bone in my body tells me to pounce on you and yank you back to safety,” I murmur bitterly. “Just get down from there. We can still make it to the six o’clock show if we leave now.”

“I don’t want to go to the movies.” Winnie makes an adorable face. The one that disarms me to submission. “I want to play a game of tightrope one last time before you evacuate this place. For old times’ sake.”

“The old times sucked,” I remind her.

“Well, let’s make one great memory here before we leave.”

I see what she is trying to do, and I appreciate it, I do, but if she hurts herself, I will goddamn lose it.

“Are you timing me?” Winnie whips her head around, watching to see if I’m taking the time. The woman is nuts. Fortunately, she is my nutcase.

I’m contemplating my next move when an idea pops into my head.

“I’ll time you. But I want to go first.”

She tsks. “Ladies first.”

I look around myself. “No ladies I can see from here. Let’s set the rules: if you win, if you finish before me, I’ll give you whatever you want.”

She hesitates, then relents. “Fine.”

She makes her way across the ledge and props herself against the chimney, then pops her phone out of her pocket. “Ready? I’m timing you.”

Placing myself at the center of the edge, I swing my arms in the air, stare ahead, and take a breath. “Ready when you are.”

“Go.”

I take a lazy step forward. Then, after a few seconds, another one. I’m going to finish walking this tightrope in ten minutes if I can, just to make sure she doesn’t rush it. This one, I can’t afford to lose.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Winnie laughs behind my back, delighted. “I thought you said you guys were competitive! You’re moving at a turtle’s pace.”

“Time is relative, Bumpkin.”

“Don’t Bumpkin me! Are you deliberately being slow?”

“Is that how you know me?” I bark out. “I never play to lose.”

“Hmm,” is all she says, when I’m not even a quarter through my journey to the other chimney. She will have a lifetime to cross her way to safety. A whole goddamn hour, if that’s what she needs.

Because there is one thing Winnifred doesn’t know about me. Doesn’t need to know.

And that is that I will always let her win.

The End