For the next five minutes she rambled on about smelling a diary at a garage sale, her crush on some kid who played football, and how she’d had no idea the diary was written in when she bought it. By the time she took a breath, I even knew how much she’d paid for the damn thing fifteen years ago.

I just kept staring at her, trying to keep up and waiting for her to get to the point. Though Stella didn’t seem to notice. Then she looked at me like she wanted to make sure I was following her. So I nodded. “Okay…”

“I realized I’d bought a used diary, and I wasn’t going to read it, but my curiosity got the best of me. It turned out to be a thirty-year-old diary written by a girl a year older than I was at the time. In the first few entries, she wrote about a boy she liked and her first kiss. I was hooked and couldn’t stop. I read the entire thing in one night. After that, I checked every garage sale I went to for six months, trying to find another diary. But I never did. I’d pretty much forgotten about diaries when I stumbled upon one on eBay a few years later. That’s when I learned there was an entire market for used diaries. I’ve been buying them ever since. Most people watch a show or two before they go to bed; I like to read an entry or two a night.”

“So your friend bought you a used diary for his birthday?”

“Actually, I bought the diary. But it’s written in Italian. Fisher had it translated for me for his birthday.”

I processed that for a moment. “Out of curiosity, what does a diary like that set you back on eBay?”

“It varies. If you buy a woman’s diary, it’s usually anywhere from fifty to a hundred dollars. Some people sell photocopied diaries, and those are cheaper since they can sell it to multiple people. Original diaries from the eighteen hundreds can go for a lot more, and men’s, no matter how old they are, are always a premium.”

“Men’s? Men write in diaries?”

“Some do. But they’re rare and can get pretty expensive.”

I was dumbfounded. An entire world existed that I knew nothing about. I lifted my chin toward the drawer where she’d tucked the diary away. “Who does the one you have belong to?”

“His name is Marco. He lives in Italy.”

“What’s his story?”

“I’m not sure yet. I haven’t started reading it. But I’m really excited to. I’m going to have to be strict about only reading an entry a night, or I’ll wind up finishing it in one sitting. Italian diaries are the best. The people there are so passionate about everything.”

“If you say so. You know your hobby is a bit strange, right?”

“I do. But so what? It makes me happy.”

It struck a chord, the way something so simple could make her happy. There hadn’t been much that had done it for me the last few years since my divorce—not even the women I went out with. Maybe I was a little envious.

Regardless, we had work to do. So I cleared my throat. “Why don’t you show me what you wanted to discuss when you came to my office?”

Stella and I worked through her questions and fixed some errors the purchasing department had made while prepping product orders. I had an afternoon meeting to get to, so I told her to let me know if she needed anything else and stood to go.

At the door, I realized I hadn’t told her the good news. “I almost forgot—I used a connection to talk about your product with the executives at a home shopping network.”

“Really? Did they like it?”

“A lot, actually. Both the head buyer and the host of one of the shows loved the concept. They want to see it in person. Robyn invited us to have lunch tomorrow. I hope you don’t have plans.”

Her mouth hung open. “Robyn? As in Robyn Quinn? The queen of the Home Shopping Channel?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh my God! This is huge! How could you have come in here and let me babble for the last hour and not mention that sooner?”

“I guess I forgot. Listening to your stories makes my brain power down.”

She shook her head. “I’m going to let that slide and not punch you again since you scored an appointment that could be life changing.”

I smiled. “Robyn’s going to email me with the time and details. I’ll forward it along when I get it.”

“Okay! Wow. This is turning out to be a great day. I might have to celebrate by reading two entries from Marco tonight.”

“You’re a real wild woman.”

She shrugged. “I might not be, but sometimes the people in my diary are.”

CHAPTER 13

 

Stella

 

Seventeen months ago

 

“It could be them.”

I pointed to a couple sitting a few steps down from where we were eating our lunch on the library stairs.

Fisher’s brows knitted. “They could be who?”

“Alexandria and Jasper.”

His forehead wrinkled. “The couple from that new diary you’re reading? The one your roommate gave you for your birthday?”

I nodded. “It was really sweet of her.” I hadn’t even realized she knew it was my birthday, yet she had given me the most incredible diary as a gift. I was obsessed with it.

Fisher unwrapped his sandwich and took a large bite. He spoke with his mouth full. “I thought you didn’t know the boyfriend’s name.”

“I don’t. But I decided to call him Jasper since she refers to him as J. It makes him feel more real in my head when I think about them.”

“Honey, you know I love you. But most of the shit that goes on in your head isn’t real.”

I elbowed him playfully. Lately, I’d started coming to sit on the stairs at the library for lunch—the exact stairs where so much of the story playing out in the diary I was reading had occurred. I liked to read my daily entry allotments here and imagine that some of the people sitting nearby were the ones on the pages in my hands.

“This diary is the best thing I’ve ever read. One day last week, Alexandria’s husband came home early from work to check on her. The night before she’d told him she hadn’t been feeling well when he’d tried to initiate having sex. But the truth was, she’d had sex with Jasper just a few hours earlier, so she wasn’t into sex with her own husband. Anyway…when he came home to check on her, she was taking a nap because that morning she’d gone yet again to meet Jasper, and she was physically wiped out. Her husband always works late, so she hadn’t thought anything about leaving her phone out on the kitchen counter charging. But when he walked in, he happened to catch a text message popping up on her screen. It was Jasper telling her when to meet him the next day. Luckily, he was only in her phone contacts as J. When her husband asked her about the text, she told him it was related to a surprise for his birthday, and he bought it. The poor guy still seems clueless about her affair. But she’s become paranoid about where she leaves her phone now.”

Fisher shook his head. “Poor guy? You mean poor schmuck.”

“I know. I feel bad for her husband. Their wedding was right here at the library.” I held my hands out. “And now she sometimes meets Jasper on these very steps so they can go screw in the alley around the corner behind a dumpster. I don’t get it. She seemed so in love with her husband last year before the wedding.”