Perfect Fifths_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [104]
Marcus spits, then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Jessica is overpowered by love, not just for him but for the life she’s living right now. She can’t wait to tell Sunny how lucky she is to be awake and alive, how much she has to look forward to in life, that there’s nothing more beautiful than choosing to spend that life with someone, sharing everything that is intimate and icky and in between. She can’t wait to tell Hope in person about everything that has happened over the last eighteen hours, certain her best friend will understand why she didn’t blurt it out over the phone, as best friends understand these things. She can’t wait to tell Marin that maybe, just maybe, the breathless answer to her own question will turn out to be true.
I can’t wait! I can’t wait! I can’t wait! When she looks at Marcus, she feels just like a child bursting with big news, desperate to shout it loud enough for the whole world to hear. He turns his head and returns her goofy grin, a simple gesture that instantly tames the incorrigible mantra bouncing around her brain. I can wait, Jessica thinks. I have waited. I don’t have to wait anymore.
And it’s all at once—between thoughts of dental hygiene, devotion, friendship, life, and death—that Jessica becomes convinced that everything that has happened to her and Marcus for the last ten years—whether through strange-but-true coincidence or cosmic design, she doesn’t really care—has led them right here.
“That banner is just like us,” he says.
“I was thinking the same thing,” she says.
And these two—Jessica Darling and Marcus Flutie—nod in wordless affinity, both knowing that this is the perfect ending for the story they’ll tell time and again, year after year, decade after decade, whenever anyone asks, “How did you know?”
And so it is.
Many thanks go out to:
Everyone I’ve ever acknowledged before. You were there when I needed you then.
Heather Schroder at International Creative Management and Tina Constable, Suzanne O’Neill, Sarah Breivogel, Annsley Rosner, Mary Choteborsky, Patty Berg, and Heather Proulx at Crown, for being here now.
Rachel Cohn, Patty McCormick, and Carolyn Mackler, who wanted more for me.
Puthea Chea at UCLA, Samantha Keefe and Zeta Gamma at Wellesley College, Kelli Plasket and everyone from ED2010 at the College of New Jersey for letting me entertain you. Callie Freitag, Maggie R. Borders, Rachel Simon, Kathryn Gaglione, Ariel Reinish, Casey Freedman, Georgia Wei, Rhoda Feng, Colleen Conedy, Vania Xu, Stella Deng, Samantha Wildfong, Allyson Townsend, Megan Wible, Tara Turley-Dean, Camille Hamilton, Maniza Ahmed, Tanya Seal, Sophie Sumrall, Hannah Tennant, Rachel Lamar, Tatiana Christian, Heather Taylor, Brittany Lewis, Rochella Villamil, Caroline Donnelly, Mallory Tuckey, Whitney Moon, Rebecca Prowler, Justine Anne DeAngelis, Jessica McKeever, Anna Ssemuyaba, Tiana Sidawi, Jordan “Butch” Sondler, Elaine Chau, Madeleine Douglass, Aimy Tien, Mallory Carra, Amy Bydlon, Sara DiSalvo, Jenna Zenk, Annie Shields, Cassandra Leveille, Brianne Kennedy, Errin Mitchell, Tara Powers, Anna Najduch, Stephanie Thomson, Sandy Cox, Audrey Barlow, Jessica Tackett, Sara Blaney, Elissa Shortridge, Zoe Vrabel, Kailey Bennett, Samar Khan, Erica Michelle Vona, Sara Wegman, Jaclyn Rapadas, Sara Blaney, Kelsey Light, Natalie Reed, Leigh Purtill, Caitlin Yates, Katherine Blaney, Megan Mihans, Lynn Rickert, Christi Cook, Andrea Sanow, Zhenzhen Gong, Sharon Hoffman, Alexa Laudenslager, Alisa McQuaid, Tiffany Medeck, Connie Bisesi, Sarah Nishanian, Jessie Schuster, Lauren Brignone, Britni Puccio, Cecilia Rahme, Jodi Lehman, and Madeline Jones, for sharing your stories.
Yaz, W. Somerset Maugham, and Sir Winston Churchill, for providing quotes embedded in chapter twenty-three.
Alastair Gordon, author of Naked Airport, for providing the inspiration for the “EXCUSE OUR APPEARANCES …” quotation.
Barry Manilow, because he is the Showman of Our Time.
And last—but never least—my two favorite nerds. I love you always. And forever. And