Message in a Bottle - Nicholas Sparks [16]
“How come I’ve never heard of it?”
“I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t get much attention because of Myrtle Beach, but it’s popular down south. The beaches are beautiful—white sand, warm water. It’s a great place to spend a week if you ever get the chance.”
Theresa didn’t respond, and Deanna spoke again with a hint of mischief in her tone.
“So, now we know where our mystery writer is from.”
Theresa shrugged. “I suppose so, but there’s still no way to tell for sure. It could have been a place where they vacationed or visited. It doesn’t mean he lives there.”
Deanna shook her head. “I don’t think so. The way the letter was written—it just seemed like his dream was too real to include a place he had only been to once or twice.”
“You’ve really given this some thought, haven’t you?”
“Instincts. You learn to go with them, and I’d be willing to bet that Wrightsville Beach or Wilmington is his home.”
“So what?”
Deanna reached over to Brian’s hand, took the cigarette, breathed deeply, and kept it as her own. She had done this for years. In her mind, because she didn’t light it, she wasn’t officially addicted. Brian, without seeming to notice what she had done, lit another. Deanna leaned forward.
“Have you given any more thought to having the letter published?”
“Not really. I still don’t know if it’s a good idea.”
“How about if we don’t use their names—just their initials? We can even change the name of Wrightsville Beach, if you want to.”
“Why is this so important to you?”
“Because I know a good story when I see one. More than that, I think that this would be meaningful to a lot of people. Nowadays, people are so busy that romance seems to be slowly dying out. This letter shows that it’s still possible.”
Theresa absently reached for a strand of hair and began to twist it. A habit since childhood, it was what she did whenever she was thinking about something. After a long moment, she finally responded.
“All right.”
“You’ll do it?”
“Yes, but like you said, we’ll use only their initials and we’ll omit the part about Wrightsville Beach. And I’ll write a couple of sentences to introduce it.”
“I’m so glad,” Deanna cried with girlish enthusiasm. “I knew you would. We’ll fax it in tomorrow.”
Later that night, Theresa wrote out the beginning of the column in longhand on some stationery she found in the desk drawer in the den. When she was finished, she went to her room, set the two pages on the bedstand behind her, then crawled into bed. That night she slept fitfully.
The following day, Theresa and Deanna went into Chatham and had the letter typed in a print shop. Since neither of them had brought their portable computers and Theresa was insistent that the column not include certain information, it seemed like the most logical thing to do. When the column was ready, they faxed it in. It would run in the next day’s paper.
The rest of the morning and afternoon were spent like the day before—shopping, relaxing at the beach, easy conversation, and a delicious dinner. When the paper arrived early the next morning, Theresa was the first to read it. She woke early, finished her run before Deanna and Brian were up, then opened the paper and read the column.
Four days ago, while I was on vacation, I was listening to some old songs on the radio and heard Sting singing “Message in a Bottle.” Spurred to action by his impassioned crooning, I raced to the beach to find a bottle of my own. Within minutes I found one, and sure enough, it had a message inside. (Actually, I didn’t hear the song first: I made that up for dramatic effect. But I did find a bottle the other morning with a deeply moving message inside.) I haven’t been able to get it off my mind, and although it isn’t something I’d normally