Willa by Heart
Authors: Coleen Murtagh Paratore
Willa by Heart
Also by Coleen Murtagh Paratore
The Wedding Planner's Daughter
The Cupid Chronicles
Mack McGinn's Big Win
26 Big Things Small Hands Do
Catching the Sun
SIMON & SCHUSTER BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2008 by Coleen Paratore
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
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IMON
& S
CHUSTER
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OOKS FOR
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OUNG
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EADERS
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Book design by Daniel Roode
The text for this book is set in Berkeley.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Paratore, Coleen, 1958-
Willa by heart / Coleen Murtagh Paratore.â1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: As her freshman year nears an end, fourteen-year-old Willa finds herself helping plan two weddings, auditioning for
Our Town,
organizing a book drive, fighting jealousy over her boyfriend's beautiful new friend, and preparing to become a big sister.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-4076-0
eISBN-13: 978-1-439-10379-1
ISBN-10: 1-4169-4076-6
[1. WeddingsâFiction. 2. Interpersonal relationsâFiction. 3. Hotels, motels, etc.âFiction. 4. TheaterâFiction. 5. PregnancyâFiction. 6. Cape Cod (Mass.)âFiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P2137Wil 2008
[Fic]âdc22
2007016203
To my beautiful sister, Noreen Mahoney, with my deepest admiration. I love you, Neen.
âCol
“Willa's Pix 3”âRecommended by Willa Havisham
When life throws you a pit, plant a cherry tree.
âWilla Havisham
Lucky Days
We'll begin at dawn.
âThornton Wilder,
Our Town
When I see the sun rise out of the sea, sometimes I think I will burst with thanks for a world so lovely as this. There is such hope in that moment, such possibility.
Before the sun comes, I sit alone on the cliff, staring at the rainbow ribbons out where the water meets the sky, and I wait with the wind and waves, the gulls and fish, the morning star, even the moon sometimes, we're all together waiting, waiting, until, at some silent moment, the horizon hatches before our eyes and a diamond bird of light bursts upward, wet and shining from its sea-mother nest.
Promise me you will watch the sunrise at least once in your life.
It is a miracle. God grand.
If I miss the sunrise but I am still the first to arrive on the beach, those are lucky days too. I sink my foot in the sand like a flag, an explorer claiming new land. I survey the scene before me and smile. Mine, all mine.
This morning I walk out onto the Spit, a narrow peninsula about a mile long, the Atlantic all around. Bay on one side, ocean on the other. I know this place by heart.
Today I start on the bay path, the calmer, peaceful side. The wind blows soft against my cheeks, the waves lap gentle as a lamb. On the other side, on some days, the surf soars and wind roars mighty as a lion. And all that separates the lamb and the lion is this little strip of land.
Just sand, really. Grains of sand. Millions and millions of them.
Alone, each is barely visible. Together they make a beach.
Once upon a time the Spit was so big there were hotels along it. Hurricanes and nor'easters have taken their toll. So has the pounding of countless feet, beachcombers like me. Each year the Spit gets skinnier. It could wash away any time now. One good storm might do it. It's important
that its backbone, the sand dune, stays strong.
The sand dune runs spinelike down the center of the Spit. When I was little, the dune was a mountain, thrilling and forbidden. Up, up, up I would plod, stand panting victoriously proud on top, then run slip-slide-giggling down.
Now the mountain is a hill. I can see across it in spots.
Frosting the dune is a field of sea grass, long, flowing green hair. Small birds, gray-and-white plovers and terns, for some reason choose to nest here. Then, once they do, those silly little birds imagine they are bigger than they are. They fight bravely to fend off heavy-pawed dragon-dogs running free from their owners' leashes and the aerial assaults of seagull monsters searching for breakfast eggs.
Yesterday was warm for April. It is cooler this morning. Feathers of fog flit past me like fairies. I swipe them away and laugh.
When I was little and first came to Cape Cod, summers to visit Nana, fog used to scare me. Fog wasn't weather at all. Fog was a ghost that would swallow me up if I didn't hurry home and hide. Now fog seems ethereal, romantic.
I reach for the silver heart, the locket Joseph Frances Kennelly, JFK, gave me on Valentine's Day. He looked so handsome that night, brown hair skimming the collar of his tuxedo, blue eyes glittering in the firelight. I thought I might faint. I kept telling myself,
Breathe, Willa, breathe.
He knew I was disappointed when I opened the locket and it was empty. Two halves of a heart, no pictures. The dimple on his cheek deepened as he smiled. “The
girl
decides who to put in it. But ⦠I hope you decide it's me.”
“Oh, it's you,” I said, and I kissed him. I kissed him first. Then we danced in the barn, just the two of us, the most perfect night of my life.
When I reach the tip of the Spit and turn, I can almost feel the ocean current shift. I am on the lion side now. Wind fills my ears and whips my hair back. I close my eyes and breathe it in. Everything seems more alive here. Louder, faster, saltier. Two seagulls are trying to out-squawk each other, battling for the same poor scuttling crab. No fishermen this morning, not a single boat. Maybe a storm was forecast.