Page 72 of P.S. It’s Always Been You
“Hunter.” My name is a plea. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything. Let’s go exploring.” I take her hand in mine.
She squeezes back. “I do have something to say.”
“The floor is yours.”
She dusts a kiss onto my cheek—the sweetest kiss. “Thank you.”
And like that, I’m floating on hope.
A few minutes later, we head to option number one. The Castle Theater is currently home to Raiders of the Lost Ark: the Musical, a huge production known for its spectacle and its big rolling boulder.
“I bet the Valentinas never imagined the theater would house such a huge show,” I say.
“They probably couldn’t conceive of it,” she adds.
Something about that nags at me. Something I don’t want to be true. But I soldier on. “Want to slip inside and grab some Junior Mints and moon pies?”
“Let’s go moon-pie hunting.” She steps into the lobby, but I catch sight of a plaque outside the theater, bronze and gleaming like it’s new, sitting proudly to the left of the marquee.
And yep. The nagging hunch was correct.
The year of the theater’s founding is etched on the plaque: 1991.
My heart sinks as I tug Presley’s hand and pull her over. “It’s not this theater. Edward and Greta died in the late seventies. We didn’t check the dates the theaters opened. This one is too new.”
Her shoulders sink low, then she blows out a stream of air and props herself back up. “It’s okay. It’s fine. There are two others.”
As we walk to the Atlas Theater, a block away, I google it. Reception is sluggish here, but I don’t need a search engine to tell me what I can see for myself as the theater comes into view. It’s built inside a hotel. It’s too new.
“That leaves us with one more theater in their holdings,” Presley says. “The Folklore.”
I flinch like someone just shocked me. “Folklore.” It tickles my memory, not a rare word, but not a common one either. “Didn’t Pat say something about folklore earlier today? ‘Some things are just folklore.’”
“That has to be it,” Presley says, and speeds her pace. “The way he was feeding us clues, that must be where it is. It’s right around the corner.” She searches for the founding date as we race.
“It opened in 1941. This could be it. It’s one of the old-time theaters here.”
When the marquee comes into view, it advertises Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
“That show was done recently,” she says, breathless. But her brow furrows. “Or . . . was it?”
There are no crowds. No throngs of theatergoers streaming in.
She gulps. “I’m guessing The Folklore isn’t simply the only theater without a Saturday-night show.”
“Looks like there isn’t a show here any night.”
A sign strung across the lobby doors says it’s the future home to a three-story shopping center, anchored by a Forever 21 store.
There are no more theaters for the Valentinas’ last performance.
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Presley
My breath comes too quickly, like it’s racing to escape my body. I’m shaking with frustration. Or maybe it’s sadness. My stomach twists like it did when I learned The Forgers had been remaindered, but worse.
Because this matters more.
Which scares the hell out of me.
I shouldn’t care so deeply about a bunch of old love letters.
I shouldn’t, and I can’t, and I won’t.
Raising my chin, I tell myself it’s fine.
I say it aloud, so I can convince myself. “It’s going to be okay. It’s just a letter. It’s just a story. It’s just words intended for someone else. We’ve found enough,” I say flatly as we walk away, the shuttered theater falling behind us.
I can’t even look back at it, knowing Edward and Greta performed there, knowing this couple who—stupidly, ridiculously—feel like patron saints of true love, of second chances, stepped foot in that place.
Did someone else find the last letters? Have they already been scooped up? Or will they wither beneath a store that peddles midriff-baring tops and thigh-skimming skirts?
Wincing, I imagine the tale of Edward’s return to Greta crunched in the maw of a bulldozer or tossed haphazardly into an industrial-size dumpster.
“A goddamn mall,” Hunter mutters as he marches toward—where else?—Caribaldi’s Curiosities. He points to the shop like he wants to stab it. “He could have told us. He could have told us The Folklore was closed.”
He’s right, and in a split second, his fury becomes mine. I drink it down in one thirsty gulp.
“Exactly,” I spit out. “It was like he wanted us to find a dead end while unloading that pointless moon-pie sign on us.”
“That sign is a joke. He jerked us around to make a sale.”
My heels click angrily against the sidewalk. “I’d like to stuff a piece of moon pie in his face.”
“I’d like to leave a whole carton of moon pies stacked outside his door so he can’t open the shop tomorrow,” Hunter says, flashing me a furious grin.
