Chapter 31

On the day Nora had posted the invitation for Jack to meet her, her hope and anxiety were painfully balled up in the pit of her stomach.

She checked her social media post that morning as she always did, expecting nothing. But to her surprise, something had happened, seemingly overnight—the shares had almost doubled on her posts. She didn't know what to make of it. What did that mean? What if Jack appeared today? What if he didn't? But Nora couldn't obsess about it, because if she did, she would convince herself of the worst—she was a master at that.

At some point during the day, James texted her to say he'd made some discreet inquiries around the office and had a few leads for her.

At twenty to six, dressed in her Darth Vader T-shirt and jeans for the meet-up, Nora pulled up outside the November and Sons offices and texted James to come down. He appeared a few minutes later with his satchel slung over his shoulder. He leaned down and propped his arms on the open passenger side window and handed her a yellow piece of paper. "Not much there, I'm afraid."

Of course not. Her luck had not been trending toward the positive. She tucked the paper into her garden tote. "Thank you. Hey, you want to go see if the corner store guy shows at my meet-up?"

James's eyes lit up. "That's today?"

"In, like, twenty minutes."

"Hell yes. Are you kidding?" He opened the door and got in.

The neighborhood around the corner store was notorious for a lack of parking, and they ended up about four blocks away. James linked his arm through Nora's and they pretended to skip à la Dorothy and the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz ... until they rounded the corner and saw the crowd of people in the store parking lot.

"Damn," James said.

"Could they be here for something else?" Nora asked. "I thought there'd be a couple of trolls, but this is crazy."

"Here for what, a barbecue? A concert? It's the parking lot of a corner store, Nora. They're here for your meet-up. There are at least thirty people."

Her anxiety immediately shot up. That was thirty people to watch her crumble if Jack didn't come. Her instinct for flight had always been much stronger than her instinct for fight, and she thought about turning back, but what if by some miracle he was here? Was she really going to let her anxiety take this chance from her? No. The new Nora didn't have time for anxiety. "Okay," she said, ignoring the slight tremble in her voice. "Okay. We're doing this."

"Correction. You're doing it. I'm only here for moral support."

"Right." Nora turned to James and clamped her hand on his arm, holding tight. "How do I look?"

His gaze moved over her body. "You look great. Healthy. I'm going to say it—you even look sane."

She smiled. "Finally!" She pressed a hand to her belly in a vain attempt to contain her nerves. And then somehow she made herself turn toward the crowd and begin to move. James had her flank.

No one noticed them at first. But as they neared the front door, someone recognized her. "I think that's her!"

The crowd turned like a single organism toward her. Most, she was relieved to see, were beaming at her, apparently excited about the possibility of witnessing a reunion.

James gave her a not-too-gentle push forward into their midst.

"Um... hi," she said nervously to the eager faces. She didn't see Jack in the crowd. But the clerk—the same clerk—was standing in the doorway, his shoulder against the frame, scowling. He'd put up orange cones to keep the crowd from mobbing the store entrance. Behind him, curled on a stack of water flats, was the cat.

"Is he here?" someone shouted at Nora.

"I don't... I don't know," Nora stammered. The buzz began to bubble up her throat and she coughed. The crowd moved closer. There were so many people. A woman with a mic shoved her way to the front, followed by a guy with a camera mounted on his shoulder. The light shone directly in Nora's face, forcing her to blink. "Oh," she said and put up a hand to shield her eyes. "What..."

"Hi there," the woman said. "I'm Megan Sommers from KXAN. And you're..." The woman thrust her microphone into Nora's face.

"Nora."

The woman nodded, apparently waiting for the rest of her name.

"November."

"Nora November. Any relation to the November and Sons law firm?"

"Um... yes."

Again, Megan waited.

"That's my father."

Someone in the crowd gasped. A murmur started, people repeating, "November and Sons."

"Oh my God, your dad will not be happy," James muttered behind her.

Nora could only nod—she was trying desperately to fill her lungs.

"Nora, according to your original ‘Lost and Found in the ATX'post, you were in this store when it was robbed last winter, is that correct?"

Nora sincerely hoped the lump in her throat didn't turn into projectile vomit. A shadow slipped behind the reporter, and she thought of Jack, his eyes and his smile. He would have loved this. They would have laughed about it. "Yes. I was."

"Can you tell us what happened?"

Probably not without a lot of stammering and perspiring, but with a steady hand from James on her arm, Nora managed to find her bearings. She began to talk. Someone shouted at her to speak up. She raised her voice, told Megan, and by association the crowd, about Darth Vader, and how they'd been ushered to the storeroom, and how they couldn't help but laugh at Darth Vader's attempt to rob the store because they'd never imagined anyone could be so bad at it. Someone in the crowd pointed at her shirt. She said she thought Jack would find it amusing. Everyone laughed.

She told them they'd talked all night and how she'd felt a connection to Jack like she'd never felt before.

"Can you elaborate on that?" Megan asked.

"Not very well," Nora admitted. "It was like... finding a ray of light when everything else feels dark. Like some ancient wisdom was revealed and I just knew."

"That is so awesome," a girl said. "You can't get that connection on dating apps."

"Well, I wouldn't recommend a hostage situation either," Nora said.

Everyone laughed again. But with her. That was new, and it emboldened her.

"It's really hard to meet people," another man said. "It's luck, that's all—you have to be in the right place at the right time." His remark was met with murmurs of agreement. "He could be here now."

People in the crowd began to look around, presumably for Jack.

"I don't see him," Nora admitted, and the disappointment felt heavy on her heart. She'd known this was a shot in the dark, but she'd clung to hope.

"Didn't you exchange numbers?" Megan asked. "Why didn't you get together after that harrowing event?"

"Why?" Nora repeated. "Well... you know how it is. After something like that happens, you wake up, and you hope you didn't dream it because it was so remarkable, and then you get busy with your job and your life, and you think, I'm going to call him tomorrow, but then again, he hasn't called, and you start to question yourself, and maybe it was just youwho felt that thing, and maybe he was just relieved we weren't killed, and maybe you don't really deserve that sort of connection, you know? And time marches on, and you lose the number, and another month goes by, and then you start to think, No, it was real, and Girl, you are so dumb, you let him get away. And you know you let him get away because you were afraid, and you should have called, but you didn't, and now it's too late. And then something miraculous happens, something that makes you rethink everything you ever thought you knew about life, and you discover that you have these terrible regrets. At first, they seem so small, but then they become really big, like, so big that you know you have to do something about them or you'll lose your mind. Because you finally understand that happiness and joy are what matters in life, and it's not the best job or making the most money or having the most things. It's really the small things, like a cool guy in a corner store. So you decide, I'm not going to be afraid anymore, and I'm going to find him, and I'm going to say thank you and tell him, ‘Wow, I think you might have been the one.'"

At that point, Nora stopped allowing every thought in her head to tumble out of her mouth so she could drag breath into her lungs.

At first, no one said a word, and she supposed they thought she was ridiculous, and honestly, she was thinking that herself. She didn't know if what she'd said had made sense or sounded deranged. She looked to James for help.

But then someone clapped. Others joined in.

"Why are they clapping?" she asked James.

"I'm not sure," James whispered in return.

"What was his name?" Megan asked.

"Jack. His name was Jack."

"It doesn't appear that Jack is here," Megan said. "Are you going to continue your search for him?"

"Yes. I have no choice—he's where my heart is, and I have to find him." Okay, she wasn't sure where that had come from. But it was the truth, wasn't it? She wouldn't rest until she found him.

Someone awwwedin the crowd.

Megan lowered her mic and the cameraman turned off the light. "I wish you luck, Nora. I still think about the guy I let get away fifteen years ago." She began to put things away. "This will be on our website tomorrow. Maybe it will help you find him."

More people came forward to share their own experiences with her, or to offer their advice on where to look next, or to wish her luck. The buzz slowly faded. No one outwardly seemed to think what she was doing was dumb or a waste of time. Everyone seemed to be rooting for her.

It felt wonderful to have people on her side in this way.

The crowd stood around until the clerk yelled at them for blocking the entrance to the store. People moved on to a nearby bar or headed inside to pick up a few things.

Nora turned to James. He was staring at her like he was seeing her for the first time. "That was... I mean, I never knew..."

"I know." She smiled sadly. "Should we get a drink or something?"

"We absolutely should." He grinned. "You are full of surprises, Nora November."

James chattered all the way back to her car. Nora was grateful that he had come. His presence helped her, for the space of the next couple of hours, anyway, to avoid the hard truth.

Jack hadn't come.

And she'd run out of ideas for finding him.

She'd blown her real opportunity all those months ago, and now the haystack with her needle kept getting bigger and bigger. She could feel the sink of despair in her chest, a hole that grew when she lost hope. She tried to focus on James, but she could feel that hole burning in the center of her chest.