Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
“I was honestly worried I was going to need to call my mom, tuck my tail between my legs, and go home to Maine in January. Look for work from there,” I say, but then once those words come out, I want to flick a pistachio shell at myself. “Actually, I might still have to do that. Of course that’s what I’ll have to do.” A burst of panic curls inside me, rising higher. “What am I thinking? There’s no guarantee I’m getting this grant. Or even a job here. I should be realistic and assume I won’t and figure I’ll go home and live with my parents while I look for work, like any other person my age these days. Plan for any contingency.”
“You’re right. You might not get the job you want,” Maeve says with supreme focus while she glues in the final tile. Then she looks up. “But thinking positively harmed no one.”
Her attitude doesn’t entirely settle my new worries, but it does distract me. “Maeve, are you a closet optimist?”
“Maybe I am,” she says, dusting one palm against the other. “Especially because I think we tell ourselves not to put our dreams out into the universe, like we’re afraid they won’t happen if we dare to whisper them. But that has nothing to do with whether they come true or not. Look at me—I sell lamps from old liquor bottles at the night market, and I told you eight months ago I wanted to do that.”
I flash back to when I visited her in March, while I was on spring break. Maeve loves painting, but she also loves making art. We visited the market she wanted to get a spot at for the lamps, and she pointed to it, and said, “I want that to be mine so badly.”
Then she did the work and landed the spot recently.
“And look at you now.”
“Well, I’m still catering but I’m getting closer to my dreams. And honestly, I think it’s because I say them out loud. There’s this media company that creates videos to inspire change, and one of the things they did a couple years ago was build a massive custom megaphone. Like twenty-feet long, and they set it up in Union Square with a sign that said Shout Your Dream to the World, and they recorded videos of people doing it all day long. And it’s beautiful,” she says, then pops up on the couch, tracks down the video and shows it to me. In it, people of all shapes, sizes, ages, and colors shout through the megaphone to tell the city, and the world, what they long for. Love, a job that fulfills them, to live debt-free, to make art, to find the love of their life, to travel the world…everything feels possible after I watch it.
When it’s done, Maeve says, “You should put your dreams out there.”
That sounds well beyond my comfort zone. So I say yes.
The next day, I do the interview and it goes well. I’m prepared, engaged, and full of questions. So is Violet. That night, I gather Maeve, Fable, and Everly, and we head to the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge with a megaphone that Fable borrowed from the Renegades. It’s not a twenty-foot custom megaphone, but it’ll get the job done. Everly didn’t travel with the team this week—one of the guys in the PR department did—so she joins us.
Fable waggles the megaphone. “Who volunteers as tribute?”
My bold outgoing Maeve grabs it first, then turns toward the Pacific Ocean where the waves crash against the rocky shores then stretch all the way to the edge of the inky night horizon.
“The ocean can carry our dreams,” she says, then squares her shoulders, brings the megaphone to her mouth, and shouts, “I want to make art that matters.”
My heart swells, and I squeeze her arm in support.
She gives it to Fable, who takes a deep breath, then goes next, muttering this is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy. Then she says, “I want to launch my own jewelry line.”
The words echo across the sky and over the water, and I imagine the sea catching them in gratitude.
Everly’s next, and a sadness crosses her eyes, but a steadiness too. A certainty. “I want to live my best life, especially for those who can’t.”
My heart clutches, and I flash back to what she said when we went grocery shopping. Had a friend. I drape an arm around her. While I’d never try to replace anyone, I hope I can be one of her friends in the present and into the future.
She hands it to me. “Your turn.”
I take the red megaphone then look to the stars, thinking of my aunt and the list she gave me. I wasn’t sure what it meant for a while. Was it a connection to her? Was it a pathway through grief? Was it rules to live by? I’m not sure I’ll ever know, and I need to be okay with that. To navigate the world without her guidance, but with her love as a compass. Maybe that’s what the list was all about.