The Home for Wayward Supermodels (17 page)

“You’re going to Paris?” she said. “I’m going to Paris!”

“What? How?”

“Jonathan Rush wants me to go,” she said. “To research next season’s line.”

“Oh my gosh! We’ll be there together!”

“I’m scared shitless,” said Desi. “What if I get lost on the subway and nobody speaks English? What if I need to go to the bathroom and don’t know how to ask?”

“I’ll help you,” I assured her, though the only thing I’d have on her was a week in Paris before she arrived and a little extra confidence. That, however, might be enough.

Everyone went with me to the airport, even Bobby and Tati and their baby, newly released from the hospital. Tati had, in the end, wanted to name him Bobby Jr., though Bobby said his real name was Robert, and the baby should really have a Ukrainian name. So he was called Boris Robert Duke Patty Billings, and got his picture on the front page of the
News-Review
for being the longest, thinnest baby ever born in Vilas County.

Bobby actually rented a beautiful old lodge on Big Secret Lake where he and Tati and the baby were staying, though they spent a lot of time with Mom. When Dad was negotiating my return to Awesome, he also worked out amnesty for Tatiana, who planned to go with Bobby and baby Boris later in the fall to New York. As soon as she secured her divorce from her Ukrainian husband, she and Bobby planned to get married in spectacular style. She was already slimmer than she’d been before she got pregnant, and ready for any catwalk.

After I checked in for my flight, Tom and I went outside to spend a little time alone together before I had to leave. Even though it was still September, fall had definitely arrived. The trees were blazing and it was so nippy I pulled my sweater tightly around my body. Tom put his arm around me to warm me up and led me across the lawn toward the little grove of trees, pebbles and twigs biting into my feet through my sock monkey slippers, which I was wearing this time for luck.

We perched together atop a rock and sat there close together, Tom’s arm still tight around me.

“Will you marry me?” Tom said suddenly.

I turned to him, my mouth open in shock, afraid he’d misunderstood everything that had passed between us over the past few weeks, worried that he might not even realize where I was going today.

“I was thinking maybe 2011,” he said lightly. “Early September. We could boat everybody over to the island.”

I began to smile, nodding. “2011. That’s a possibility. Though I might not be available until 2015.”

Tom waggled his head. “I might be able to do 2015. Though I’d definitely want to firm things up between us by 2020.”

“Let’s see,” I said. “In 2020, I’ll be thirty-one. I guess that would be the upper limit of when I’d want to get married and start having babies.”

“And I’ll be thirty-five,” said Tom. “Bobby Billings’s age.”

“That’s a good age to have a family.”

“Okay,” said Tom. “Then it’s settled. To seal the deal, I brought you this.”

He reached into the front pocket of his green wool shirt and drew out a long gray feather.

“What is it?”

“A whisky jack feather. From the island.”

“Oh, Tom.”

“And this,” he said, reaching into a pouch on his new fishing vest and drawing out a round black rock, about the size of a donut hole.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a meteorite.” He grinned. “I found it in the snow when I was tracking an elk last year.”

“Wow,” I said, turning it over, thinking how much more special it was than anything you could buy in a store. “I was going to buy you a boat.”

“Thanks, Amanda, but a guy can’t let his girlfriend buy him a guide boat. Besides, I’m going to be able to buy my own. Bobby wants to invest in my business. Get some high rollers from New York out here to fish, charge them ten times what I charge now. He’s talking to those developers about buying the whole island, turning the place into a high-class ecologically friendly fishing camp.”

I looked hard at Tom, whose face was lit up with delight. “That’s fantastic, Tom,” I said. “Really.”

“Yeah. Maybe one of these days I’ll even make as much money as you.”

Was there resentment in that statement? He continued to look happy and innocent, but I couldn’t help feeling a tad defensive. “Models are like football players,” I told him. “They make a lot because their career span is limited.”

Tom lifted his arm from around my shoulder and took my hand.

“I know,” he said. “I may be a regular guy, but I’m trying not to be stupid.”

“It’s all right,” I said, patting his hand.

“No,” he said, sitting up taller. “It’s not. Maybe I can’t be the guy who goes to Paris or New York with you, Amanda, but I want to love you in other ways that matter. And right now, I know that means letting you go. Letting you go to pursue your career, and find your French father, and do…whatever else you want to do. And I just hope that in 2011 or 2015 or 2020 you’ll want to come back here to be with me.”

“I hope so too,” I said. Sincerely.

We kissed then, not a big dramatic kiss but the kind of solid kiss that seals something. Our kiss was interrupted by the roar of a plane descending from the east and swooping down onto the runway just beyond where we sat. It was my plane, bound for Chicago, where I’d catch another directly for Paris.

Eight Things I Was Going to Miss

1. Tom’s kisses.
   
2. My mom’s wisdom, and her apple pie.
   
3. The sense of peace and plenty in the bait shop.
   
4. Watching little Boris grow.
   
5. Bratwurst, fried walleye, and hot fudge milk shakes.
   
6. The absolute quiet you could find within fifteen minutes of wherever you found yourself in northern Wisconsin.
   
7. Understanding everything everybody around you was saying, even when they weren’t saying anything.
   
8. Feeling sure about what was going to happen next.
   

Eight Things I Was Looking Forward To

1. Seeing the Eiffel Tower.
   
2. Seeing Alex again.
   
3. Showing Desi the new world I’d just discovered.
   
4. Finding out more about my biological father. I hope.
   
5. Eating a croissant in a place where everyone knew how to pronounce it.
   
6. Staying at a fancy hotel.
   
7. Actually being part of the best fashion shows in the entire world (although if I let myself think about this too much, my feet started to sweat inside the sock monkey slippers).
   
8. Being alone on the plane with time to meditate, and nothing to look at but ocean and sky.
   

This time, everyone was gathered at the gate. Tom and Dad hugged and kissed me, and did not hurry off. Tati and Bobby and even the baby hugged and kissed me, three new people in my life to love. And Mom hugged me longest of all, since she was not coming with me this time. I said good-bye to everyone, and went through the gate alone.