In waiting, p.4
In Waiting,
p.4
James shook his head. He didn’t look up from the cards.
* * *
James wanted to change his clothes. “I want jeans,” he said.
Anna really focused on him, and she could manage it for a few minutes, but the jeans kept reverting back to his green chinos.
She hadn’t seen James this frustrated since the day Renee was called in.
* * *
“Is your backstory still changing?” she asked. “You haven’t mentioned it lately.”
“Not really,” he said.
They were lying in her bed. His head was on her chest, below her throat.
“Maybe she’s refining you in ways you don’t notice,” she said.
James didn’t comment.
Anna ran her fingers through his thick red hair. “I’m sure she’s still working on you.”
* * *
The woman—the main character—was still here. James still didn’t want to meet her.
One day, the woman walked right up to the farmhouse; Anna’s parents must have shown her the way. She stood in the yard and looked up at the house. She had long brown hair. The same color as Anna’s. She was wearing glasses and a very cute cardigan.
Anna and James watched from behind her bedroom curtains.
“We should go talk to her,” Anna said.
“No,” James said. His voice was hard.
Peaches walked up to the woman and rubbed against her ankle. She leaned down to pet him.
After a few minutes, she walked away.
* * *
That night, after her parents went to bed, Anna sat on the couch with James. He kissed her urgently. With fewer smiles.
“Anna …” he said. “Can I come to bed with you tonight?”
Her heart leapt in her chest.
She thought of James’s green trousers and the woman wandering around the park. “We shouldn’t.”
“Don’t tell me we shouldn’t,” he said. “Tell me you don’t want to or that you’re not ready. But don’t tell me we shouldn’t.”
He was holding her close. His face was flushed, and his breath was hot. Anna wondered if her own desire was anywhere near that well expressed.
“I do want to,” she said. “I want you.”
James groaned and buried his head in her neck.
She climbed off the couch and led him upstairs to her room. They knocked the stuffed animals off her bed. (They’d all be back again the next day.)
For a moment, Anna worried that James wouldn’t be able to undress. But his clothes fell easily onto her floor and stayed there. He must be made for this, too.
She climbed under the covers, still wearing her sundress.
James took it off and cast it aside.
He kissed her. He was smiling again, but his eyes were a little wild and worried; he was capable of nearly infinite mixed emotions.
Anna had never done this before. She’d barely imagined it. She didn’t worry about getting pregnant—she couldn’t even use the bathroom.
James hunched over her. He lay between her legs. He kissed her face while he was inside of her. “Anna,” he said. “Anna.”
* * *
Neither of them were tired. After. The window was open. There was a breeze. James lay with his head on her chest, below her throat.
“I love you,” he said.
She stroked his hair.
“I don’t want to love anyone but you, Anna.”
She didn’t say anything at first. She didn’t reassure him. What could she say? She couldn’t revise him. And she couldn’t hide him. She couldn’t control anything that mattered.
“I love you, James,” she said eventually. Because she did love him. And it might not change anything, but it was still true.
* * *
James had grown mulish. Stubborn. Maybe he’d always been that way. He frowned more. At the fields. At the stars.
“This is a life,” he told Anna, with his eyebrows furrowed. “Whatever comes next, this is real.”
She didn’t argue.
She held his face in her hands and let him kiss her as urgently as he wanted.
* * *
She wondered if James still felt it pulling at him. His story. He must—he seemed so restless sometimes.
Anna imagined taking the scissors out of the kitchen drawer—there were scissors in the kitchen drawer—and cutting the ties that bound him to his book.
But that might be worse. If she decided not to use him in a story, he might fade away. Anna couldn’t bear to watch James fade away.
* * *
People didn’t fade when they got called in.
It was more like they unraveled. Like they were slowly being taken apart and put back together somewhere else. It was a joyful moment usually. Ecstatic. Anna had watched it happen before. She’d hugged someone as they came apart in her arms.
The day that James unraveled, Anna was standing with him on the porch. They’d just come back from a walk.
“Anna,” James said in a strange voice.
She turned to him—his face was shocked, he was staring at her.
“James,” she said, looking down at his shimmering feet.
“Anna.” He rushed toward her. He grabbed her arms. “You’re …” He was staring at her hands. At her fingertips. They were shimmering, too.
“Oh my God,” Anna said. She backed away from him. “No …”
Peaches was at her feet. She picked him up. “No,” she said. She ran to the pillar by the front steps and wrapped an arm around it. “No!”
“Anna …” James was trying to pull her away from the pillar, but his hands were collapsing. “Sweetheart, we’re going together.”
“James—it won’t be like this!”
“I know.” He got his arms around her waist. They slipped through. He put them around her again.
“We might not even know each other, there.”
“Come with me, Anna.”
It wouldn’t be the same, wherever they were going. And they weren’t going anywhere good—Anna knew this was true, because this was her story, and her story was never going to be good. Poor James. His arms slipped through her waist again.
“Anna,” he said, “I love you. Come with me.”
“No!” she screamed, and Peaches fell through her disappearing arms. “It won’t be us!”
James was reaching for her. He didn’t have hands. He didn’t have legs. The sun was still shining in his hair. “I was meant to be with you,” he said, his voice thready. “Wherever it is we’re going.”
Anna imagined him staying, but imagining it didn’t make it so.
So she imagined herself staying. Her feet immediately felt more firmly grounded.
“Anna!” James looked horrified. There wasn’t much left of him, but he could see what she was doing.
She reached out a solid hand, imagining he’d catch it and become more solid.
But he shook his head. He was almost gone. “Come with me.”
He disintegrated.
James was gone, and the story was whipping around Anna, pulling at her ankles.
She imagined herself solid.
She imagined herself staying.
Who was to say what she was meant for? She’d been born too long ago. She’d waited too long with no direction. She’d given most of her memories to herself.
Who was to say where she belonged?
This was life. This was real.
She imagined herself eating lemon cake.
She imagined herself walking along the paths, making her own way.
She imagined herself in her bedroom with James, listening to the rain pitter-patter on the roof.
James.
The story pulled at her.
James was in it. James was there. He’d never come back, and no one else would ever replace him here. No one who’d come before was anything like James.
Anna wondered if the lake was gone …
Was it in the story already?
She wondered if there was another first kiss there waiting for her.
What would Anna end up as? After sitting here unused for so long. Maybe she just wanted to get rid of Anna, throw Anna into a crowd scene. Maybe she just wanted to clear her head.
The chicken coop was gone. The wheat fields were flashing. Peaches … Where was Peaches?
Everything was leaving Anna—but the pull on her skin was fading. She felt almost as solid as ever.
This is a life, she told herself.
But James was a life. And James was gone. And what had he said? “We’ll land where we belong, and we’ll stay there forever.”
“You owe me something good!” she shouted into the circling emptiness.
James was something good.
Was James waiting for her?
There was barely a tug on Anna’s center of gravity.
“I’ve been waiting for so long,” she whispered. “You owe me something good.”
Anna closed her eyes.
She imagined herself letting go. She imagined herself arriving someplace better than the place where she’d always belonged.
Also by Rainbow Rowell
Landline
Fangirl
Eleanor & Park
Attachments
The Simon Snow Trilogy
Any Way the Wind Blows
Wayward Son
Carry On
About the Author
RAINBOW ROWELL lives in Omaha, Nebraska, with her family. She’s the author of Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Attachments, Landline, Pumpkinheads, and the Simon Snow trilogy. You can sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
St. Martin’s Publishing Group ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
In Waiting
Also by Rainbow Rowell
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by Wednesday Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
IN WAITING. Copyright © 2022 by Rainbow Rowell. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10271.
www.wednesdaybooks.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
ISBN 978-1-250-85541-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-89532-5 (ebook)
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First published in the United States by Wednesday Books
First Wednesday Books Edition: 2022
eISBN: 9781250895325
Rainbow Rowell, In Waiting
