Chapter Twenty-One
Twenty-One
The sound of the crowd in the auditorium rumbled backstage.
It vibrated through Audrey’s feet, her chest, her fingertips, the low-grade hum of thousands of people talking punctuated by cheers rising periodically higher for someone as they crossed the stage.
Air horns.
Shrill whistles.
Whooping screams and enthusiastic catcalls.
The cries of big families, large friend groups, every proud supporter here and celebrating as the graduates crossed the stage and left school behind for good, off to pursue new lives and careers on fresh horizons.
It had been a few weeks since Theo’s reconciliation with his mom.
They were actively going to therapy, but he’d scheduled those extra sessions in the mornings while Audrey worked, so she saw him a little less at the café than usual—a huge departure from their routine earlier in the fall. But that was all right.
Because these days, she spent all her free time with him.
Every day, he picked her up from the café after work if he wasn’t already there waiting for her shift to end.
Every evening, he cooked or bought her dinner.
And every night, they slept together, alternating between making love in his luxurious king-sized bed or chastely cramming themselves into her tiny bottom bunk.
Violet let them break the one roommate rule they had in place on the condition that Theo bought or made her dinner when he was there, which he was only too happy to do, and she’d nearly died laughing the first time she watched him squeeze his wide frame into Audrey’s twin bed.
Both of them were unwilling to sleep separately now that they knew how good it was together.
But they couldn’t keep this up forever. It was time for things to change. Really change.
And now Audrey was graduating.
She’d given notice at the café that morning.
She folded the corner of the note with her name scrawled on it back and forth, over and over, wearing a deep, frowning wrinkle into the thick cardstock.
One chapter closed, and another just beginning.
It was so strange to even contemplate leaving the place that had saved her five years ago when she failed her first semester and lost her precious scholarship.
She hardly knew what to do if she wasn’t pulling espresso shots, and it hardly mattered that she’d had several interviews at reputable engineering firms and startups over the last few weeks—none of it seemed real.
Not even when she gave her capstone presentation in front of a bunch of industry people invited by her professor to critique her work while Theo grinned beneath his mask in the audience, his eyes crinkled the entire time he looked at her.
Not even when the representative from her dream company approached her afterward and asked to see her résumé.
Not even when she’d finally received a call with an offer to be a junior engineer at a green energy startup firm.
Not even when Josh squealed and grabbed her when she told him, twirling her around on the spot.
“I’m so proud of you, Audgepodge!” he cried. “Maybe I’m next, huh?”
“Next big Broadway star Josh Lemaire?” She waggled her eyebrows at him. “I think your big break is right around the corner.”
He beamed at her, wide and gleaming.
“Certainly doesn’t hurt that ya boy was cast in Les Mis!” He bounced her again. “Grantaire! Can you believe it!”
“Yes!” She buried her face in his neck and laughed.
“I can! And so can Diego, I take it?” Theo’s best friend had been coming around to the coffee shop a lot more lately, leaning over the counter while he flirted with the cute barista with the flawless mahogany skin and the brilliant smile.
These days, he was lingering over his coffee to write while glancing back up at the register. Frequently.
A lot like how Theo had.
“Oh, well…I—I don’t know.” Josh’s cheeks reddened.
That was a first.
She’d never been able to embarrass him about a crush before. Must’ve meant he really liked him.
It was nice to turn the tables a little for once.
“Erin Thalia Acosta, bachelor of arts in English, summa cum laude.”
The graduate a few places in front of her stepped onto the stage to raucous cheers and Audrey folded the corner of her card over one more time, barely stopping herself from ripping it off entirely.
All these people with huge, loving families, gaggles of friends, and certainty about their futures, and here she was with none of that.
She peered anxiously out into the crowd from the wings of the stage, but the faces were drowned in shadows from this angle.
Theo was out there somewhere with Violet and Diego, that much she knew.
Josh said he’d try to come if he could swap shifts.
Some of her professors were gathered on the stage in their full academic regalia, their silly hats and tassels and garish robes with striped hoods hanging down their backs like some strange relics of bygone institutions, broken out of dusty storage just for the occasion.
But that was it. Audrey only had, what? Three or four people to her name?
More cheers for the next graduate erupted.
She looked down at her card again before handing it to a waiting staff member.
It didn’t matter that her section wouldn’t be as loud as the others.
The people she did have were the absolute best.
Quality over quantity anyway.
Life was happening. Things were changing, and changing so fast. She felt like she was standing at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, deciding if she should jump and wondering how cold the water below would be.
The idea of having a job not as a barista was exciting—and terrifying.
Audrey stepped up to the side of the stage.
The girl in front of her crossed next, beaming at the sounds of an air horn blaring through a gaggle of wild screams from her friends and family, smiling even wider as she shook the dean’s hand and grasped her diploma, pausing for a quick photo before continuing.
“Go ahead, honey,” the staff member said, nudging her forward. “You’re up.”
“Audrey Marie Adams, bachelor of science in electrical engineering, cum laude.”
The crowd was quieter for her than it had been for the others. She stepped out and squinted, blinded by the bright lights while she made her way across the stage toward the waiting, smiling dean of her school.
She slid her hand into his and shook it.
“Congratulations, Audrey.” He handed her a leather folder. They both smiled and the flashbulb of a camera popped, blinding her anew.
Then she heard it.
A shrill whistle pierced through the low hum of the crowd, loud and strong. She turned her head, looking for the source of it, her eyes finally adjusting to the lights.
And there he was.
Theo, with his face bare, both pinkie fingers shoved into the sides of his wide mouth, his whistle bold and robust.
Then there were the cheers. Everyone was there: Violet, her sister, their parents, Josh, Diego, everyone who mattered to her here in New York, everyone had come.
Even Theo’s mother, Eleanor, was there, standing quietly at the end of the row Audrey’s motley family had claimed, clapping with a wide smile on her face.
But a voice, one she hadn’t heard in person in years, broke through all of it.
“That’s my babygirl! My sweet Nuggie!”
Audrey froze. “Gladys?” she whispered. She looked up at the dean and felt a tear tumble down her cheek. “My—my foster mom is here?”
He shrugged, but Audrey couldn’t stay to explain.
“Um…thank you.”
She gripped her diploma and tore off the stage, black robes flying behind her while she ran.
She couldn’t believe it, but the image was already seared into her mind, unmistakable and solid and real.
It was really Gladys Kane, the foster mother she’d loved so much, and somehow she wasn’t in Tampa, she was here, standing next to Theo with her pure, snow-white hair contrasting against her dark brown skin, looking so much tinier and more wizened next to him than the last time Audrey had seen her more than five and a half years ago.
Even her Coke-bottle glasses had somehow gotten thicker, but she was still just as remarkable, just as kind, smiling just as proudly as she had been when she’d taken Audrey to the airport to fly to college.
Audrey barreled through the line of graduates waiting backstage and ignored the staff members trying frantically to direct her back to her seat, turning instead and sprinting into the auditorium through one of the side doors.
It bounced open on its hinges, banging into the wall behind it, and Audrey ran up the sides of the aisles, heading straight toward where her rowdy, ragtag gaggle of friends and family waited, screaming even louder for her as she approached.
But she didn’t have far to go. Gladys saw her coming and had already made her way to the end of the row. She stood there, waiting for her with her arms spread wide.
Audrey threw herself into them and melted into a blubbering mess, her shoulders heaving while she sobbed.
“My girl,” Gladys murmured, gripping her with a strength that belied her years and rubbing circles soothingly on Audrey’s back the way she always had when she was younger. “Look at you! Graduating with honors! I’m so proud of you, baby!”
“What are you doing here?!” Audrey finally managed to hiccup between sobs. “I never thought you’d be able to come to New York.”
Gladys pulled away from her with a smile and lifted a wrinkled, weathered hand to wipe the tears away from Audrey’s cheeks.
“You know, I didn’t answer the first few times that man of yours called me.
I didn’t know a Theo Sullivan and didn’t have that number in my phone, so I thought it might be a scam when he offered to fly me up here.
You know how they get you by promising you free vacations and the like?
At my age, you have to be careful.” She chuckled.
“But after his third voicemail, I looked him up on Google and finally called him back. And I thought to myself, you know what, Gladys?” She tapped a pensive finger against her cheek.
“Maybe you could use a bit of a trip to go see your Nuggie.” Her smile widened.
“You’ve never been to New York, and it could be really nice seeing snow this time of year too.
Just in time for Christmas. Good change of pace. ”
The tears hadn’t stopped falling, and Audrey dried her face with the sleeve of her robe, sniffing through a laugh.
Theo sidled up behind Gladys, his grin shy and his hands jammed into his pockets as he looked down at Audrey. “Surprise, sweetheart.”
His mask was nowhere in sight.
“Theo, your mask! And you—” Audrey covered her mouth and sobbed again, looking between the two of them. She hardly knew what to do. “You did this?” she finally asked him. “How did you find her?”
He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at their row.
“Violet helped me. She went digging in your phone for the contact info when you were in the shower, and she slipped it to me a few weeks ago. It took some convincing, but once I hired a professional nanny for the week to make sure everything at home with the kids would be okay, Gladys agreed to come up.”
Her foster mother leaned forward and cupped a hand around Audrey’s ear.
“It wasn’t the nanny that did it,” she whispered.
“He’s a fine-looking man, Audrey. You’ve nabbed a handsome one.
I came across his college lacrosse photo online and decided I needed to judge for myself how attractive New York men might be, if they’re all cut from this same cloth.
” She squeezed Audrey one more time before drawing back with a wink.
“Now get your ass back down there!” Gladys shoved playfully at her back.
“You still need to toss your cap, or whatever the traditional nonsense is! Get back to your seat so I can take some videos for my friends on Facebook!”
Audrey barked another laugh but didn’t obey—not just yet. Instead, she leaned around Gladys and reached out for Theo. He stretched forward and took her hand in his.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice still shaking. “I love you.”
“I know.” He grinned and squeezed her hand. “I love you too. You’ll get plenty of time with her. We’re all going out to dinner afterwards.”
“We’re really going out to a restaurant?” He’d staunchly refused to tell her anything about what he had planned for today. Now she knew why.
But they still had never been out to eat at a restaurant together, not with how uncomfortable he was about his scar.
Theo nodded. “I made reservations weeks ago.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.” His grin was as crooked as she’d ever seen it. “We’re getting Italian at Carmine’s so Gladys can see Times Square.” He brought Audrey’s hand up to his mouth and brushed the back of it with his lips, a kiss so gentle and delicate, it was almost fragile.
But she felt every bit of what he wanted her to through it. She could barely contain it herself.
It amazed her how a gesture so small could contain such multitudes.
“I’ve been practicing not hiding my face in public so I could do this today.
For you.” He ran a hand through his hair and shrugged.
“You were right. People don’t really give a shit.
” He glanced back at the stage and shooed her away like Gladys had.
“Now go back! You’re missing your own graduation! We’ll find you after!”
Audrey did as she was told.
She was a weepy mess while she twisted her tassel from one side of her cap to the other and then tossed it in the air with everyone else in her winter graduating class.
She never thought she would feel so light closing the chapter of this part of her life.
Maybe it was because the next one shone so very bright.