Fourth Comings (30 page)

seventy-nine

T
he train is pulling into the Princeton station.

And so I must bring this notebook to its abrupt end with a page or two left to spare.

I have to get up, get off, get going. I have to move, move, move before the doors shut, before this train reverses itself, before it returns me to the place I started from.

Oh, please forgive me, Marcus, for indulging in one last extended metaphor.

(I know you will.)

September 15, 2006

My dear Jessica,

Not only do I forgive you, I thank you.

I know that sounds odd under the circumstances, but I’m grateful for what you’ve given me. As difficult as your notebooks were to read at times, you were only sharing the truth as you saw it, and as I asked for it. As you noted, even your superficial confessions are significant if only because you were compelled to share them with me.

I’ve read them, and now I’m returning them. They belong to you.

I was tempted to leave annotations in the margins, but it’s too late for such revisions. I promised to honor your request, knowing how difficult it was for you to make. I respect you for being a stronger person than I am, and for doing what I was unable to do all those years: let you go.

Before I do, I hope you don’t mind if I use the remaining pages of this notebook to share a story of my own:

When I was thirteen, the same age as you and Hope when you played your innocent game of hypotheticals, I decided I needed a tattoo. Heath had Asian calligraphy crawling around his bicep and I decided to get something like his. I didn’t even know what language it was—Chinese? Japanese? Korean? It just looked cool.

I went to the same guy as Heath, who did all his work out of one of those weatherbeaten bungalows off the Seaside Heights strip. He didn’t hesitate to ink me up, though it was obvious that I was both underage and under the influence. I don’t remember the guy’s name, or even what he looked like beyond a basic, cartoonish “Asianness.” Was he Chinese? Japanese? Korean? Again, to my immature, uncultured mind, it didn’t matter.

He spat all his words. “What you want?”

I hadn’t given much thought to the design because I couldn’t sit still long enough to give much thought to anything. I was more excited about getting the tattoo than having it.

“Dunno.”

“You dunno what want on arm forever?”

My mind was so malleable that if he had said, “You dunno what want on arm, dumbass?” I might have requested the translation for “dumbass.”

“For. Ever,” I answered. I exaggerated the pronunciation, thinking it would eliminate any chance of miscommunication. “For. Ever. For. Ever.”

“You want repeat around arm?”

“Sure,” I said. “Whatever.”

“What. Ever?”

“Yeah, Tat Man,” I said. “What. Ever…”

A painful hour or two later, it was done. I had my FOREVER tat. I was stoked for about a week. Then I got bored with it, like everything else, and it was just something that was there, on my arm, easily forgotten unless it behooved me to show it off to a dizzy, fizzy girl. (Not you. Never you.)

I’m sure you’re aware that the main street in Pineville was recently renamed the Avenue of Americanism. Our hometown is not known for being a welcome host to anything foreign. It wasn’t until I went away to school in California that I made friends from other countries and cultures. And with my interest in Buddhism, a great many of them were of Chinese descent. Not too long after I moved in with my cottagemate, Topher, he pointed to my bicep.

“What’s that supposed to say, anyway?” he asked.

“What?”

“The tattoo?”

As I said, I often forgot it was there.

“I got it when I was young and dumb,” I said. “It says FOREVER.”

Topher laughed. “No it doesn’t.”

He picked up a pen and illustrated the difference between what I thought I had and what I actually did:

  
=
FOREVER

  
=
WHATEVER

I got what I deserved.

My proposal to you could not have been more sincere. But it seems that my life is imitating badly executed skin art, turning my intentions for FOREVER into something else altogether. And so I’ll let you go, and let it be.

Whatever, Marcus

Acknowledgments                         
                                    

Many thanks to:

Joanna Pulcini, for dispensing the wisest advice when I needed it most.

Kristin Kiser, for giving me the freedom to go in the strange, surprising directions of my dreams. Steve Ross, Stuart Applebaum, Min Lee, Philip Patrick, and Tina Constable for having my back. (You are the closest I’ve ever come to having a posse.) Lindsey Moore and Lindsay Orman for not getting annoyed when I got confused and sent the right e-mail to the wrong person. (Or vice versa.) Christine Aronson, Donna Passannante, Sarah Breivogel, and Shawn Nicholls for your brilliant ideas and committed follow-through. Lynn Goldberg and Megan U. Beatie of Goldberg McDuffie Communications, for respecting my point of view and helping me put it out there. And Elizabeth Carter for providing another pair of eyes.

The countless readers and writers—most of whom I’ve never met—who offered candid words of encouragement. Meg Cabot and Sophie Kinsella, whose e-mails made me laugh when nothing seemed funny. Rachel Cohn, Sarah Dessen, Julia DeVillers, Piet Hut, Erika Rasmusson Janes, Jeannie Kim, Carolyn Mackler, and Monica Ryan deserve special thank-yous for wisdom and general “awesomeness.”

Dr. Helen Fischer, anthropologist and author of several books, including the fascinating
Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love,
for developing the real science behind the fictional iLoveULab. I’ve never met you, but I would love to have lunch with you someday.

Justin Timberlake, who brought the sexy back during the intense revisions phase. I’ve never met you either, but…

My mom and dad, who prove that parenting doesn’t suddenly end when your kid turns eighteen.

The Fitzmorris and McCafferty families, who always come through for me.

CJM and CJM, for everything, forever.

About the Author                         
                              

Megan McCafferty
is the author of the hit Jessica Darling novels
Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings,
and the
New York Times
bestseller
Charmed Thirds
.

A
LSO BY
M
EGAN
M
C
C
AFFERTY

Sloppy Firsts

Second Helpings

Charmed Thirds

Sixteen (edited)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2007 by Megan McCafferty

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McCafferty, Megan.

   Fourth comings…ovel / Megan McCafferty.—1st ed.

   1. Darling, Jessica (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Young women—Fiction. 3. Periodicals—Publishing—Fiction. 4. Brooklyn (New York, N.Y.)—Fiction. 5. Chick lit. I. Title.

PS3613.C34F68 2007

813'.6—dc22

2007010818

eISBN: 978-0-307-40563-0

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