Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Choosing Valentine’s Day for a romance novel event was rather on the nose, but the little makeshift stage at the center of the bookstore and its backdrop made from thousands of handwritten valentines was pretty cute.
Bryn followed Vivian and the bookshop manager to a “green room” that was obviously a staff break room.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea? Half a bottle of coquito left over from the Christmas party? It’s really good.” The woman from the bookstore dried her hands on her jeans like she was so nervous she didn’t even notice she was doing it.
Bryn smiled at her, hoping to project a little calm. “The water is perfect, thanks.” She looked back at Vivian who had sat at the chipped round table and taken refuge in her phone. “She’ll burst out into show tunes after a drop of booze.”
Vivian looked up, expression flat, but the woman laughed. “Okay, just give me a shout if you need me.”
“We will,” Bryn promised.
When the woman was gone, Bryn took the rolly chair next to Vivian. “Try not to charm the pants off everyone you see, Vivian, jeez. I do get jealous, you know.”
Vivian shot her a glance. The one she liked. The one that had inspired an entire Siren series about an impossible to please college dean and a very eager professor. Before Bryn could get lost in it, the green room door opened again.
It took several seconds to place the petite woman with the baseball cap over a mane of curly hair and the energy of a rumbling volcano. She barreled inside, closing the door behind her while two people were still talking to her.
Bryn stood, unsure how to greet someone who walked like a battering ram, head down and tiny shoulders squared as if she was used to cutting through crowds without bothering with pardons.
“Bryn, hi, I’m Yenni.” She stuck out her hand.
“Oh, hi,” she replied like a startled pigeon.
When Yenni turned to Vivian, her demeanor changed. She slowed, a lightning strike suspended in the sky.
“Vivian del Castillo,” Yenni said with audible reverence. “You probably think I’m the biggest pain in the ass you’ve ever met.”
Caught off guard by the unexpected greeting, Vivian relaxed. She stood, offering her hand before Yenni did. Most people would deflect or make a joke or offer platitudes. Vivian just shook Yenni’s hand and replied, “Not the biggest, but you get an honorable mention.”
For the nanoseconds that passed without Yenni’s response, Bryn held her breath. And then Yenni laughed. Laughed.
“Next time I’ll try harder to make the top of the list,” Yenni joked.
“Listen, I want to thank you both.” She spared a glance at Bryn, but all her attention was on Vivian.
“I wrote Magpies a decade ago,” she explained, making it clear just how long it had taken her to get it published.
“It is the story of my heart. The only thing I want to live beyond me after I’m turned to dust and shot into space.
And all I’ve ever wanted was to hear my words in Vivian del Castillo’s voice.
” She smiled, but it was sadder than Bryn expected.
“You have no idea how many other stories I had to write and sell. How many times I had to get to the top of the New York Times before I proved I could write. Proved that if I sold the truest story of two women falling in love, people would read it.”
Vivian cocked her head to one side. She was listening.
“I know it was a lot with the recording and re-recording, but I knew you would find Jo.” She shifted. “I’d written her for you without realizing it.” She glanced at Bryn. “You, Maggie, surprised the fuck out of me, but now she’ll never be anyone else.”
Bryn chuckled nervously. There was something mercurial and unpredictable about Yenni’s energy. Something that made her afraid of saying the wrong thing.
“It’s nice to have the clout to make the romance hit of the summer sapphic, huh?” Her grin was nothing short of conspiratorial. “Thank you for making my little gay dream come true.” She grabbed each of them by the hand. “Now for the next book, I’m thinking—”
“Next book?” Bryn couldn’t help asking.
“Oh, yeah.” Yenni gave her a squeeze. “There’s no Yenni Montoya romance without Bryn and Vivian, are you nuts?
I already wrote it into my new contract.
Don’t tell anyone, or they’ll sue me. I’m done with anything but sapphic romance, and I can’t imagine anyone voicing the imaginary Barbies kissing in my head other than you two. ”
“We’d have to discuss—”
“Oh, Vivian, I’ll give you whatever the hell you want.
Negotiate for this one too, huh? Her rate is too low.
” She looked at Bryn again, but this time she really looked at her.
“I don’t care how busy you get, you make space for me, okay?
” Yenni said it like Bryn didn’t still have three jobs.
Like Yenni hadn’t just signed a seven-figure deal.
Bryn nodded.
A knock at the door interrupted the strangest interaction of Bryn’s life, and she’d once consoled a woman who couldn’t revive her variegated Monstera.
“We’ve let the attendees in and we’re ready when you are,” a voice came through the crack in the door before it closed again.
The hour went by in a blur, and there were so many questions they ran into a second hour. By the time the three of them sat at a long table to meet fans and sign whatever items they’d brought, Bryn could tell Vivian was tired. Tired but not drained.
“You okay?” Bryn asked, mindful of not getting too close. Of not sparking rumors. Everything between them was far too new to risk making it public.
Vivian gave her a quick nod, and Bryn leaned away. She was muscling through to get to the end and Bryn didn’t want to make it worse by putting a spotlight on it.
They’d been signing and hugging and taking selfies for so long, even Bryn’s extrovert batteries were feeling the strain. Her face hurt from smiling and the strangest thing she’d signed was a styrofoam mango.
The signing line had thinned, and the bookstore folks were trying to get people moving toward the exits because the event had run well over the advertised time. No one seemed to be in a hurry, but there were a pair of women whispering and staring at Vivian.
Seated between Bryn and Yenni, Vivian kept looking at the women obviously whispering about her. The more they stared, the more uncomfortable Vivian was. Bryn could feel the rigidity in Vivian’s spine in her own tensing stomach.
A flash of glossy paper hit the overhead lighting, and horror dropped Bryn’s body temperature to below freezing. Had someone brought the nude centerfold? No one would do that. Would someone do that?
One woman finally shoved the one holding the magazine, and they started toward the table. Bryn stood. She was no Vivian at putting people in their place, but she wasn’t going to let anyone embarrass her. Not allow them to even get close enough to shame her.
But there was something about the bright red face and nervous expression that made Bryn pause. That made her wait just a second.
When she approached, Bryn got a better look at the magazine the woman was clutching to her chest. It wasn’t what she was expecting, unless there was a nudie mag with a cityscape on the back.
By the time the woman reached the table, her eyes were on the floor and her entire body was visibly shaking. Bryn wanted to jump to her feet again, but this time it wasn’t to fend off a creep, it was to hug a stranger.
“Would you like her to sign that?” Bryn suggested to the woman who looked like she might faint before she managed to open her mouth.
She looked at Bryn and nodded with tangible gratitude. “My name is Leslie.” She cleared her throat. “I was such a fan of your show.”
“She taped every single episode,” her companion chimed in for her.
Vivian smiled. “That’s very kind. Thank you.”
“And she’s seen every made-for-TV movie you were in,” her friend added. “Recorded those too.” She nudged Leslie. “Tell her, honey. I promise it’s not weird.”
Bryn and Vivian exchanged looks. Non-weird things didn’t usually have to be labeled accordingly, but no one moved. No one rushed them along.
“I, um, I didn’t exactly know why you were my favorite actress.” Leslie opened her eyes in horror. “I mean, I—”
“I know what you mean,” Vivian said with a gentle voice Bryn had never heard before.
“Well, then, I was in an airport in Toronto when I was looking at colleges, and I saw this.” She placed the magazine on the table in front of Vivian, cover on full display. A photo of Vivian, sitting on a generic sit-com set, but it was zoomed out to show all the behind the scenes equipment.
Even after all her research, Bryn had no idea that Vivian’s public coming out had been in a Canadian magazine.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Leslie muttered with tears in her eyes.
“After so many years, I understood why I felt so connected to you and I think it’s because I saw something about myself I didn’t have words for.
And I read every single word of this interview, over and over until it taught me the language for everything I was feeling.
Until I figured out that I was gay.” She tried to swallow and catch her breath at the same time.
“And even when my coming out didn’t go so well, I just kept coming back to this article, and then your audiobooks, and it all helped me feel less alone.
It helped me feel less lost until I found my community and my friends and myself. ”
This time when Leslie faltered, it was Vivian on her feet. She whipped around the front of the table and opened her arms.
“Can I hug—”
Vivian hadn’t gotten the question out before Leslie was folding into her. Until she was crying. And then Bryn was crying. Until Yenni swatted at her own flushed face and muttered, “Well, fuck.”
Vivian held her for a surprisingly long time. When they finally separated, Vvian signed the magazine, scrawled something inside, and posed for the teariest selfie of the day.
“Thank you,” Leslie whispered, hugging Vivian again.
“No,” Vivian muttered. “Thank you.”
When Leslie and her friend were gone, the bookstore manager gave them the all clear to leave.
Yenni stood, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Well, that’s how you end a signing.” She squeezed Vivian’s shoulder once, the only gentle thing Bryn had seen her do, and headed for the door.
“You okay?” Bryn asked, risking a hand on Vivian’s back. Given the emotional display, she didn’t think anyone would question a lingering touch. Plus, the staff was too busy setting the store back to normal to pay attention to them.
Vivian turned to her, and there was something raw in her expression. Something that made Bryn’s chest tighten.
“I never believed,” Vivian said quietly, “that any of it mattered.”
Bryn wanted to tell her that of course it mattered. That if she ever opened the links she’d sent her, she’d see that she’d impacted hundreds of lives, if not thousands. That she’d been a role model and a beacon. She’d been hope and pride personified.
But Vivian was looking at her like she’d just discovered something fundamental about the world, and Bryn couldn’t find words big enough for what she was feeling.
So she just stood there, hand still on Vivian’s back, and understood with sudden, breathtaking clarity what it meant to witness someone becoming who they were always supposed to be. Understood what it meant to want to be there for every moment after this one.
And the tingle in her chest turned into an undeniable shockwave.