There were no flashbulbs, just smartphones held in the air, lenses pointed in her direction. Boop stared straight ahead. This time she didn’t run.
“It’s time,” Natalie whispered.
Wasn’t it over?
“The pageant, it’s time.” Natalie led Boop back to her chair.
Time trickled forward as twenty teenage girls marched across the stage. They were both more mature and more naive than Boop had been at the same age. They turned and twirled, answered questions about their goals and education, and noted their connections to South Haven as they posed in front of the judges, wearing modest summer dresses.
After computer calculations, Boop was handed a card with the winner’s name.
“Miss South Haven 2017 is . . .” Boop cleared her throat and double-checked the card. “Ms. Jennifer Morgan.”
As clapping thundered, the petite, green-eyed, blond, Michigan State trumpet-playing agri-business major gasped, covered her face with her hands, and then lowered them to reveal a wide smile. Boop outstretched her hand and Jennifer stepped next to her.
Boop placed the sash over Jennifer’s head and laid it on one shoulder. It was time someone else wore this title. “A little advice from an old lady?” Boop asked.
“Of course.”
“Save all this. Even when you don’t think it’s important anymore.” Boop tugged lightly on the sash and glanced at the tiara. “A long time from now, you might be very glad you have them.”
Jennifer nodded as she turned toward the crowd. Then she looked back at Boop. “I will! I promise! This is the best day of my life.”
Boop smiled but hoped that wouldn’t end up being true. God willing, Jennifer’s best was yet to come.
Was it possible that the best—or something close to it—was yet to come for Boop as well?
Hannah walked up onto the stage, hugged Boop, and helped her down the steps. “You did great.”
“Thank you for coming,” Boop said. “And I’m glad you brought Clark. Does this mean what I think it means?”
“It means we’re together,” Hannah said. “The rest is to be determined.”
“Sometimes it takes a long time to get things right,” Boop said.
Hannah looped her arm through Boop’s. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Boop and Hannah sat at the back of the auditorium, watching Piper and Natalie collect discarded programs and carry recycling bins outside. Clark and Georgia had driven the Lighthouse girls home.
“I don’t know how to say this,” Hannah said.
Boop’s thoughts flitted from tragedy to tragedy. She knew Hannah wouldn’t keep a secret if her dad or sister were sick, or in trouble. She’d just said she and Clark were together, although tenuously. Georgia was healing. Was this about Doris?
There was no way Georgia would have kept something from Boop about their friend. Not now.
That left Abe.
She’d ignored that she’d asked Hannah to look for news about Abe. Boop chose to believe Hannah was looking and hadn’t found anything. But that was presumptuous—with a heaping helping of a rosy outlook on the side. It was something Betty would have done.
Boop’s heart hammered against her chest. That couldn’t be a good thing. “You found Abe.”
Hannah nodded.
“And he’s dead.”
“No!” Hannah shouted, her voice echoing through the room. “He’s nearby.”
“Nearby where?” Boop’s voice faltered.
“He’s spent the past fifty years or so in South Bend. I found his granddaughter. Her name is Becca and she lives near him and sees him all the time. I told her you were an old friend who was looking for him.”
Boop’s heart fluttered in a way it hadn’t in ages. It was not a medical episode, but affection and warmth, tinged with nervousness. She’d felt it the first time Abe had looked at her from across the lawn. “Did she tell him?”
“Yes.”
“Does he remember me?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“We’re in our eighties, yes, I have to ask.”
“Of course he remembers you.”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She hadn’t expected that. Not after so long. “How is he?” Boop asked.
Hannah kissed her cheek, stood, gazed behind Boop, and nodded. “You can see for yourself.” She walked away, and Boop shivered, despite the midsummer temperatures.
A sob collected in her throat. She couldn’t turn around. This was what Betty had longed for, what Boop had packed away. Mourning Marvin had been sad and arduous. Boop was too old to turn and face more heartache.
But she had to turn around. For Betty’s sake. For her own. For what was, and wasn’t, and what might have been.
Boop shuddered, then turned.
And after all this time, he still looked like William Holden.
Even from a distance Abe’s blue eyes pierced her. They weren’t ordinary blue—nothing about Abe had ever been ordinary—but a special blue that matched the lake in the early morning. She shivered and her heart pounded from fear and excitement. She recognized the patter of her youth. That was Betty’s heart pounding, though decades earlier she’d painstakingly detached it from her consciousness. Now it thumped loud and strong. Betty’s heart had been part of her all along. And now it beat freely. Abe had been Betty’s heart, and his proximity enlivened her beyond the words stuck in her throat, beyond the sadness that lingered in her thoughts.
Abe pushed aviator glasses up on the bridge of his nose. The style was both outdated and on-trend. Either way, they magnified his eyes, and Boop’s insides prickled. His circle of hair was as white as if it had been bleached. He moved toward her. He smiled and dimples emerged, deeply cushioned in his skin.
“I’d recognize you anywhere, Betty.”
She warmed with a flush. His voice was the same. No, it was better—deep and familiar but with the tenor of a life well lived. “No one has called me Betty in a long time.”
“What should I call you?”
With Abe she would always be Betty. “Betty is fine.”
“May I sit?”
Boop nodded.
Abe sat, leaving a chair between them. “Where shall we begin?” he asked.
Boop had always considered a conversation with the Abe she had known—not an old-man Abe. She had pictured
