Page 171 of Total Dreamboat
I know it’s a risk. I know there are a thousand variables I can’t control, and she can’t either, despite our best intentions. That it will be work and compromise and might end badly.
But I want it anyway.
She snuggles up to me. “I love you too much too. And maybe this is just how we roll. Fast and furious.”
“I do have one stipulation,” I say.
“What’s that?”
“The wedding must be on a cruise ship.”
She nods seriously. “Officiated by an Elvis impersonator.”
“Only conch on the menu.”
“I’ll wear my coral caftan as a wedding dress.”
“Honeymoon at Atlantis.”
She rolls her eyes back into her head. “All my dreams reallyarecoming true.”
I pull her close to me. “I’m dead serious about this.”
She looks me in the eyes. “Me too.”
EPILOGUETwo Years Later
LONDON
Hope
Do you know what’s really great about having a best friend who’s a minor celebrity? She can get alotof people to buy your debut novel. So many, in fact, that it hits number eight on theSunday Timesbestseller list the third week it’s out.
And do you know what’s great about having a husband who owns a pub? He can furnish a free place to throw your book party.
And it’s a good thing that the Smoke and Gun moved to a bigger space last year, because we need both floors and the whole garden to accommodate all our guests. My friends and teachers from the literary fellowship I did last year in London. Fellow authors from the writer’s retreat in Cornwall where I finished the final draft of my book. New friends I’ve made through Felix, Pear, and Prue and old ones I met in grad school. My team from my publisher. My parents, here from Vermont. Lauren and Colin, here from Ireland. All the Segraves, and their cousins, and their godparents, and probably their neighbors.
I didn’t have a wedding, but this kind of feels like one.
My editor, the legendary Aurora Smythe-Pines, launches herself ass-first onto the bar and dings a bottle of champagne with a fork. “Gather, gather, people!” she commands. “Fill your glasses, for I’m afraid I’m about to indulge in a toast.”
No one would dare defy Aurora Smythe-Pines. People cram in from outside and upstairs until it’s hot and standing room only.
“I am thrilled,” Aurora says, “to be here today to celebrate the brilliant Hope Lanover and her tour-de-force novel,Doomed Bourgeois Marriage. From the instant this manuscript arrived on my desk I knew I had to have it, and that is why I, forgive the boast, outbid five less fortunate editors to acquire it. And I’m absolutely chuffed to tell you that we expect even greater things for it come awards season.”
I blush as she goes on about my searing insights into professional frustration, domestic ennui, and the perils of romantic love, the propulsive nature of my writing, and the gorgeous but always playful styling of my prose.
It’s the kind of praise from the kind of person I have craved respect from since I was a teenager, and I feel like I’m floating.
But it’s not just the book.
It’s the people around me, who bring me connection and laughter and joy every day.
It’s the extended family, big and warm, that I never thought I’d have.
It’s my best friend, who is livecasting this from the corner beside her charming partner, who donated all the whiskey.
It’s our dog, Priscilla, running around between people’s legs, excited to have so many hands to lick.
It’s the home I’ll return to tomorrow, in the quiet of Devon, where I can stare at the sea and work on my next novel.
And it’s the man beside me, with whom I live fast and furious, fighting for ever more dreams to come true.
