Chapters (38)
- one
- two
- three
- four
- five
- six
- seven
- eight
- nine
- ten
- eleven
- twelve
- thirteen
- fourteen
- fifteen
- sixteen
- seventeen
- eighteen
- nineteen
- twenty
- twenty-one
- twenty-two
- twenty-three
- twenty-four
- twenty-five
- twenty-six
- twenty-seven
- twenty-eight
- twenty-nine
- thirty
- thirty-one
- thirty-two
- thirty-three
- thirty-four
- thirty-five
- thirty-six
- thirty-seven
- epilogue
When I met Violet I was a scared kid, untethered, insecure, and unsure about anything in my life. She’d loved me and encouraged me and somehow I’d turned into what she’d thought I was all along.
I was the person who could tell her story like no other.
I walked to my bedroom and took Violet’s angel bracelet out, turning it over and over in my hand. I hung it on the corner of the photos I’d framed side by side and placed on my dresser. Violet beamed at me from her school’s entry arches in the one on the left. She shined even more brightly on the right, next to a grinning Johnny, pretending to dance in her “perfect” world.
I sat down and started to type. The first thing I did was change the opening sentence of Violet’s first chapter to: “Johnny pulled his daddy’s shiny new black DeSoto to the curb in front of Violet’s house.”
epilogue
RONNI
Six Months Later
“You’re not getting white or silver. Too hard to see on the road.” Rick pulled his head out of a green Honda Accord, the thousandth car we’d looked at today.
I rolled my eyes. “Maybe bright red with lime green stripes?”
“Laugh all you like. I want you safe. How do you feel about school bus yellow?”
“Fortunately, Honda wouldn’t do that to me. Not even an option. Maybe another deep red like Ruby.” I nodded wistfully at my beloved car across the lot, who was suffering from transmission problems and needed new brakes, too.
In the end we chose a shiny black Acura TL and I named him Melvin.
Two weeks after I sent my revised and expanded manuscript, Jennifer Meyer had called and given me the name of a literary agent, Mark Forbes. Mark and Jennifer had negotiated a $110,000 advance on my book, plus a generous royalty deal on future sales. Melvin was the first major purchase I made.
“You realize,” Jennifer told me, “you’re going to go on a cross-country tour to launch your book. That will mean a leave of absence from your job, or quitting altogether. We’ll schedule it for spring of next year so you’ll have plenty of time to make arrangements.”
I’d called Deanna at our usual three o’clock that Saturday, when I knew she wouldn’t be babysitting Lacey, The Center of the Universe.
“I can’t believe it! I am so proud of you, Ronni, and I know my mother would be, too. You’ve worked so hard. I can’t wait to read it.”
I felt a little stab at the things Deanna would discover. “I hope you like it,” was the best I could manage.
“I have some big news, too, Ronni.”
“What? Are you coming to visit?”