“But I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone,” she repeated again slowly.

“People do it all the time,” I reiterated.

“Do they?”

I mean, yeah. Maybe not exactly like this. But I have to think it happens.

That was when I handed her the check.

Her eyes got wide. I had the feeling that she had never held a check that big before. I hadn’t, either, so I understood how she felt. She shook her head. “This is yours.”

I tried to explain that I would just endorse it over to her. She looked at me blankly. Now I’m worried. What if Amelia was right? Maybe I should have just said no to begin with… Maybe I should just say no now. But I have so much left in me, so much to pass on.

Greer’s Golden Goodness. That’s what the readers nicknamed my column. Because everything I touch turns to gold. I believed it once, I really did. I was the king maker. I wore the crown. I started to think, like they did, that everyone I touched turned to gold, too. Now, as I stood with Amelia, asking a total stranger for the biggest favor I would ask anyone, I reached out to take her hand. To touch her, a last attempt to hope that she, that this project, would turn to gold.

My legacy, my secrets, my future, all placed on this one woman. Could I trust her? Could she trust me? She squeezed my hand. She nodded. And that’s when I knew.

Amelia GREAT LOVE

I WANTED TO STAY IN our bubble. I wanted to carry on flying to Palm Beach, Parker coming to New York, long dinners and walks in the rain and movie marathons and sending books back and forth in the mail with notes in the margins. I wanted the surprise flowers at work and the writing of real love letters. I didn’t want any of that to be over. Which is why, as I spritzed my neck with perfume in my childhood bedroom, I said, “Hey Siri, text Parker Thaysden, ‘Not tonight.’ ”

She replied, “Texting Parker Thaysden: ‘At twilight.’ ”

I sighed, picked up the phone, and typed the message myself.

Maybe it was all so perfect because it wasn’t real. Our parents didn’t know; a lot of our close friends didn’t even know. So we didn’t have to field the questions about marriage, which I didn’t want, and babies, which I couldn’t have. We could stay in our little cocoon of love and not face anything real. The real part was when it got sucky. I liked this—the lovely in-between, where I didn’t have to worry.

I reached up and touched one of the hot rollers in my hair and, feeling that it had cooled, removed the metal clip, holding the curl in my palm. There was a knock at the bathroom door, and I called, “Come in!” just as my phone vibrated on the counter with You sure? You know we have to get it over with sometime…